House of Commons
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Mr Speaker
I will now announce the results of last Wednesday’s deferred Divisions. On the draft Housing (Tenancy Deposit Schemes) Order 2026, the Ayes were 310 and the Noes were 114, so the Ayes have it.
On the draft Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026, the Ayes were 316 and the Noes were 149, so the Ayes have it.
[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
Education, skills and work are central to rehabilitation. We are modernising prison education and creating a joined-up system that supports prisoners in progressing from basic literacy to skills training and work experience. We are also tackling the root causes of offending through offender behaviour programmes and substance misuse treatment.
Helen Maguire
Many ex-prisoners experience challenges after prison, particularly when trying to reintegrate into society, which is really difficult to do. We know that 40% of prisoners reoffend within one year, and that reoffending costs £22.7 billion per year; at the same time, 97% of prison capacity is taken. Will the Secretary of State ensure that ex-prisoners are properly supported, so that they can positively integrate into society, and reoffending can be reduced?
Alex Norris
That is an important point. It is great to start Question Time on a note of unanimity, and I am sure that one view that we all hold in common in this place is that when people leave prison, we do not want them to return and reoffend. The key to that is a multi-agency approach locally, starting before individuals leave prison. We are working closely with local government partners to ensure more effective pre-release planning work.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
The public are safer when people leave prisons with the skills to find work and stay out of crime. Despite the Coates review calling for education to be put
“at the heart of the prison regime”,
a decade later, cuts have halved the number of education hours in some of our prisons. Today, Ofsted and the chief inspector of prisons have both published a letter calling on Ministers to act on the review’s recommendations, and to tackle poor performance on purposeful activity in prisons. What is being done to ensure that prisoners receive the education that they need to find work and stay out of prison?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that question from the Chair of the Justice Committee, because that too is a crucial point. We are in a self-defeating cycle: the capacity problems in our prisons, which have been talked about in this Chamber for months, impair governors’ ability to move individuals around and get them to the right place, be it to substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, educational classes or work training. That is why the steps that we have taken are so important. However, I recognise the vigour with which the Chair and the Committee make their comments, and I certainly intend to work closely with them to deliver on this.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Lefarydd. Tackling reoffending requires rehabilitation, but the Wales Governance Centre’s latest report shows that that is not happening well enough in Wales. Recall numbers are up 27%; rough sleeping on release is becoming the norm; and the rate of death by drug poisoning while under community supervision is considerably higher than in England. Addressing those issues requires a holistic approach, which is impossible when Westminster controls the levers when it comes to justice. Following the Secretary of State’s meeting with Welsh Government Ministers yesterday, does he agree that devolving justice is key to making justice work in Wales?
Alex Norris
As the right hon. Lady says, I was in Wales yesterday, meeting the Welsh Government and talking about exactly these issues. As I said in my answer to the original question, we have to use all organisations—yes, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, but also others, including local authorities, local health services and charities—effectively at a place-based level. That is what we said in the conversations that we had yesterday, and I very much look forward to building on them.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I welcome the Government focusing prisons on rehabilitation, and on better education, training and support to help people turn their life around. I am particularly concerned about pregnant women leaving prison, many of whom have no secure accommodation, are vulnerable to being targeted by drug dealers and could even feel safer in prison than on the outside. How can we provide better support for pregnant women leaving prison?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend touches on an important question for his community and the country more generally. For anybody—particularly pregnant women—to leave prison with security, they must have access to housing; that is the anchor. We are taking incredible steps forward in this place to ensure that everybody is offered somewhere to be from night one, and through our emergency accommodation, we can offer up to 84 days of support. There is much to do, particularly with pregnant women, to make sure that the other support systems then wrap around them, to give them the best possible chance of staying out of prison.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
I thank my hon. Friend for asking that very important question. I want to reassure her, the House and anyone else who is listening that the Government take sexual offending extremely seriously, no matter who the perpetrator may be—a physician, a celebrity, or anyone else—and it must be dealt with appropriately by the criminal justice system. In our strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, we have committed to preventing these awful crimes, pursuing perpetrators and supporting the victims. We have signed up to this commitment across Government, and that includes the Health Secretary.
Dr Sullivan
My constituent Sarah Johnson showed remarkable courage in helping to convict a physiotherapist who sexually assaulted her and other women in his care. Her case raised serious questions about how a practitioner who was subject to regulatory restrictions and was later suspended from practice was able to remain employed by the NHS and in contact with patients. Will the Minister work with the Department of Health and Social Care to strengthen the regulations, so that those who are under investigation for sexual offences cannot continue to have contact with patients, and will she meet the survivors and me to discuss the matter further?
Alex Davies-Jones
I will gladly meet my hon. Friend and the survivors, and let me put on record my thanks to Sarah for her remarkable courage in coming forward to describe her horrific experience. We will of course continue to engage with colleagues across Government, particularly those in the Department of Health and Social Care, to ensure that anyone who abuses his or her position of trust and influence is held to account, and I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and Sarah.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
An issue that crops up regularly in Northern Ireland is the searching of the £400 million digital patient record system by healthcare staff, some 30 of whom have been able to gain access to information and data through the system. What discussions has the Minister had, or will she have, with the Northern Ireland Assembly—and, in particular, with the relevant Minister—to ensure that appropriate penalties are in place to deter healthcare staff from accessing confidential patient records without authorisation?
Alex Davies-Jones
This issue is of grave concern to the Government, in England and Wales but more broadly across the United Kingdom. Anyone accessing records without the appropriate permission and level of security should be held accountable. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Public Office (Accountability) Bill is in the other place, and although the new offence of misconduct in public office does not apply to frontline NHS workers, I have had conversations with the Health Secretary about how we can apply nuance in the case of people accessing records without permission. It causes immense distress to victims and bereaved families, and I will be sure to raise the matter with my counterparts across the United Kingdom.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
The Government are reforming the family justice system to support families and children better. We are rolling out the child-focused model nationally and legislating for new child safety measures to ensure that child welfare continues to be prioritised, and in due course we will publish a cross-system family justice strategy.
Ben Maguire
The ex-partner of one of my constituents is subject to a non-molestation order and has been charged with stalking. He repeatedly withdraws consent from school and medical decisions made about their child, forcing my constituent to pay a solicitor to apply to court each time; he will then back down shortly before the hearing. My constituent just misses out on legal aid, owing to her earnings, most of which now go on legal fees. How are the Government reforming the family law courts to prevent such abuse?
Jake Richards
We are introducing new types of order, which will come with legal aid, to allow constituents like the hon. Gentleman’s to be represented without having to venture into their own personal finances. However, we must also make the family court system work much more efficiently, because part of the problem is the number of delays and the countless hearings that victims have to go through simply to protect their families and their children. We will have rolled out the child-focused model across the country by 2029, and in due course we will produce a family justice strategy that will go further on ensuring a more productive and efficient family court system.
Ian Sollom
The Ministry’s own figures show that care cases are again slowing down in the family courts; just over a third hit the 26-week statutory limit for completion. The Minister has said that the family justice strategy will be a priority for the Government, and will be produced before the end of the year. Will it include a timetable for reversing this decline relating to care cases, and will he report back to Parliament?
Jake Richards
Of course I will report back to Parliament on progress, as and when appropriate. We want to drive down the time that it takes for public family proceedings to conclude. The 26-week statutory target is currently being missed, and that is not good enough. We have introduced measures; the Minister with responsibility for children and families, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), is reforming some of the child social care arrangements. We believe that that will help to shorten and hopefully reduce the need for proceedings, and that will help us to deal with the demand, but the hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue, and we are on it.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for meeting one of my constituents recently to hear at first hand about the devastating impact that family court failings have had on her family, but the heartbreaking truth is that I could have chosen from many. All too often, inappropriate, failing processes and long delays cause real trauma. They drive up the risks to which young people are exposed, and exacerbate the already high legal costs for all parties involved. If we drive forward crucial family court reforms, can we make sure that our courts finally serve the young people and families who rely on them?
Jake Richards
My hon. Friend has raised this issue on a number of occasions, and it was really important to meet him, his constituent and her children to discuss that horrific case and the effect that it has had on them. Ultimately, there were two real problems facing his constituents. One was a court system that was struggling with demand, and that made administrative errors that had a real impact on the family. Secondly, the system simply was not working with them, or appreciating the harm that they were suffering. We have to look at the quality but also at the nature of the court process for victims, and we continue to do that.
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
I would like to ask about my constituent Ranem. When a family court told her that her son could not be taken out of the country, she believed it was safe for Ibrahim to be with his father, but it was not safe. Four years ago this week, he was abducted by his father and taken to Saudi Arabia, and Ranem has not seen him since. How can we ensure a better system, in which, when the courts make an order, ports know about it and enforce it, so that mothers do not have to go through what Ranem is going through?
Jake Richards
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this horrific case; I will meet him outside the Chamber to discuss it in more detail and see what we can do. This is all about sharing information between the family courts, the Home Office, border security and the Foreign Office. My hon. Friend the Victims Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), is responsible for the mutual recognition of orders across borders. This will be difficult in some types of countries, but we have to make progress on ensuring that protective orders carry weight across borders, because these cases often cross jurisdictions. I will meet my hon. Friend to discuss the specifics of this case, and I hope to assist in any way that I can.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
It is too early to draw conclusions about recall patterns associated with the progression model. However, we are closely monitoring recall trends and outcomes as further data becomes available, and we regularly publish data on releases and recalls in “Offender management statistics quarterly”, an accredited official statistics publication, on gov.uk.
Bradley Thomas
Offender management statistics show that, so far this year in England, there have been more licence recalls than prisoner releases. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge and admit that releasing criminals in order to recall them does nothing to address overcrowding or public safety?
Alex Norris
First of all, I would defend the principle that individuals who do not follow their licence conditions should be recalled to prison; that seems perfectly reasonable to me. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight today that one in seven prisoners has been recalled. That is a sign that when our estate runs hot, we do not rehabilitate properly, and also a sign that significant licensing conditions have an impact.
Sir Julian Lewis
Does the Secretary of State accept that the recall figures would be even higher if it were not for the fact that, as reported in The Daily Telegraph today, it is taking the police an average of 39 days to arrest anyone who breaches his tagging conditions? Will he consider writing to us with his estimate of how many people who are released early will be recalled—during the next three months, for example?
Alex Norris
The right hon. Gentleman will know that, through the National Police Chiefs’ Council, we work closely with police forces to make sure that we share the right information, and have a two-way flow of information on who is leaving and what is happening when the police seek to enforce a recall. The statistics are available in the quarterly release, and they will be published in the usual cycle, when the data comes in.
David Reed
Devon and Cornwall police cover one of the largest force areas anywhere in the country. When someone released early breaks their licence in a rural part of my region, officers have to go and find them and bring them back. I am sure that the Secretary of State can understand the constraints, given the large geographical area and their limited resources. What assessment has he made of the cost to local policing of recalls under the early release scheme?
Alex Norris
First, I pay tribute to the work that Devon and Cornwall police do to keep the hon. Member’s constituents and everyone across Devon and Cornwall safe. We work very closely with chief constables on the support that they need, in the light of their experiences. He will know about, and I am sure will have welcomed, the support given by the Home Office during the preparation for the progression model. With that record investment for our policing, we will make sure that officers—rather than being behind desks, as they used to be during the previous Parliament—are out in the community, keeping his constituents safe.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Today, the Government will let another 650 criminals out of prison early, on top of 1,350 last month and tens of thousands under their original early release scheme. When the Justice Secretary launched this scheme, he promised that there would be a presumption that every released criminal would be tagged, but that is not happening. I have asked Ministers about this many times, in letters, written questions, oral questions and urgent questions, but to no avail. He talks about waiting for the release of data in January, but waiting for January is his choice, so I ask again: how many released criminals have been tagged, and if he will not tell us, will the public not conclude that he is just hiding his broken promise?
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman cannot have this both ways. I have heard him say, and I am sure the whole House tuned in to listen to him in recent podcasts, that he accepts—he never accepts it in the Chamber, but is more willing to do so in public—that we are in these circumstances because the Conservatives did not build enough prison places, and he also refused to rule out an emergency release scheme. I put this to him gently, because I like him: perhaps he is not quite walking the walk, though he is talking the talk.
On the presumption of tagging, we will in due course have the full data; that has been the position of successive Governments, including ones in which the hon. Gentleman had important roles. However, I made a commitment about the presumption of tagging, and I also made a commitment that this would be the biggest expansion of tagging in history, and I look forward to having a conversation about the data when it is available.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The Sentencing Act 2026 had a very clear aim, which was to stabilise the prison capacity crisis and to prevent victims from having to go through the ordeal of finding out that their perpetrator was being released not because they had served their time, but because there was a capacity crisis. However, the Government’s own capacity projections depend on both building capacity and keeping current cells operational. In the Budget, the MOJ’s capital for maintenance was reduced from £2.3 billion to £1.9 billion for 2029-30, but the cost of the maintenance backlog sits at £2.8 billion and cells are regularly being taking out of use. Can the Lord Chancellor confidently and categorically rule out, at the Dispatch Box, any more early release schemes before the end of this Parliament?
Alex Norris
I have been very clear that the point of the Sentencing Act was to move us on from having to have early release schemes, and I am more than confident that it will deliver that. The hon. Member makes a very important point about maintenance. She will know the success we collectively had with the Treasury over the summer in bringing forward investment to ensure that we can access places more quickly. However, she is right that, while we talk a lot about new places, we need to work really hard, through our investment programmes, to make sure that existing places stay online. As I say, I am confident in the work that we have done with the Treasury to ensure that.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
The Crown court backlog stands at nearly 81,000 cases, with victims facing intolerable delays for justice. The Government are gripping this crisis in three ways: through record investment, which is lifting the financial limit on sitting days; through modernisation, including through the use of technology in our courts, for example, for virtual remand hearings; and, of course, through our Courts and Tribunals Bill, which will ease pressure on the Crown courts by ensuring proportionate allocation of resource, and redressing the balance between victims and defendants in our criminal justice system.
Luke Myer
The number of cases at the Teesside combined court centre has more than doubled over the last decade, and organisations supporting victims of violence against women and girls tell me that they are concerned about the length of time it takes to get justice. What steps will the Government take to address that, and will they ensure that the rape and sexual abuse support fund remains ringfenced for organisations that provide legal support to those victims and survivors?
Sarah Sackman
I thank my hon. Friend for his important question, which is a reminder that behind those 81,000 cases are real victims waiting for justice. That is why our investment of over half a billion pounds in victim support services is so important. There are also changes in procedures, such as ending the practice of floating trials for rape victims, so that they have certainty about when their trial will go ahead.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Does the Minister recognise the devastating impact of delays in serious sexual abuse cases? One such case, which was brought to my attention, took so long to reach trial that the defendant’s health deteriorated and they were ultimately found not fit to stand trial, denying the victim the opportunity to see justice done. Will the Minister consider prioritising cases where there is a risk that delays can prevent a trial from ever taking place?
Sarah Sackman
The hon. Lady eloquently describes the devastating human impact of those delays. Our judiciary looks to prioritise cases where there are circumstances such as the one she describes. That is exactly why we need to bring forward the reforms in the Courts and Tribunals Bill to end these unacceptable and intolerable delays.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Can the Minister reassure my constituents, who are in their 90s and are the victims of an alleged large fraud, that the lengthy delays they have experienced so far are being addressed urgently so that they can finally see justice done, particularly in view of their age?
Sarah Sackman
Once again, my hon. Friend makes the case through the particularly compelling example of elderly victims of crime awaiting justice. When we say that justice delayed is justice denied, that is exactly what we mean. It is why we must pull every lever in investment, legal aid and sitting days, modernisation through the adoption of technology, and, of course, the reforms in the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
In 2011, there were 230 firms and 781 accredited legal representatives undertaking mental health legal aid work. There are now only 148 firms and 383 representatives. The rate of pay for mental health lawyers has, accounting for inflation, gone down by 47% since 2008. Our criminal courts are full of people with mental health disorders, so a functioning mental health system must be part of the mission to tackle the courts backlog. Does the Minister agree that legal aid fees for mental health law work must increase to ensure that patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 have access to competent, publicly funded legal representation?
Sarah Sackman
I was very pleased to meet the hon. Lady and the heads of the Mental Health Lawyers Association, when we were able to discuss these issues. It is why, as a matter of priority when the Government came in, we invested in increases in fees for legal aid, criminal solicitors, prison lawyers and a forthcoming increase in fees for criminal barristers. But I accept that there is more work to do on the civil side, including in mental health. There are changes we can make through the transformation of the legal aid system and we are making that investment too, so that those providers are working within improved systems and not on the old legacy systems that have so hampered the delivery of access to justice.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Employment tribunal backlogs have reached record levels, with more than 70,000 open single claims and some hearings outside of London delayed until 2029. The Employment Lawyers Association estimates that the phased introduction of the Employment Rights Act 2025 over the course of the next year will increase the tribunal caseload by up to a third. Does the Minister accept the concerns of the legal sector that extending employment rights without the ability to enforce, due to court backlogs, is meaningless and making access to justice in these life-changing disputes a postcode lottery?
Sarah Sackman
I am proud of the work the Labour Government have done in introducing a once-in-a-generation piece of legislation increasing workers’ rights, but we must ensure that those rights are capable of enforcement. The backlogs in the employment tribunal are ones that I recognise, which is why reform will be necessary and why we are increasing capacity with additional judicial recruitment. We are also seeing additional challenges through the pressures that AI is bringing. Our response needs to be up to the task by ensuring that we introduce our own uses of responsible AI to meet that challenge.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending (Catherine McKinnell)
Protecting the public and victims is our top priority and probation staff now have access to the toughest range of measures ever to manage offenders, backed by over £700 million-worth of investment. To manage the most dangerous offenders convicted of sexual offences, we have introduced a strengthened supervision package, and probation officers can make use of restriction zones and GPS monitoring systems to keep the public safe.
Tom Hayes
I thank the Minister for agreeing to meet with some of my constituents, who I saw again yesterday morning. Will the Government’s inclusion of smart glasses and wearable recording technology in probation licence conditions apply to suspended sentences and community orders?
Catherine McKinnell
I share my hon. Friend’s concerns about the proliferation of smart glasses and other technology. He will be reassured to know that probation services can already prohibit offenders on licence from possessing and using such items, including smart glasses. I would be happy to meet with him, and I look forward to discussing further how we can ensure that the measure is truly effective and keeps the public safe.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
During the course of the Sentencing Act 2026, I asked the former Lord Chancellor to reassure me about the Probation Service and the use of tagging, following an incident where a constituent had been traumatised by her former partner’s being released under licence and pursuing her because the tags failed. If the Minister cannot reassure me now about the Probation Service vacancy rate and number of tag failures over the last 12 months, will she write to me providing that information?
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and would be happy to look further into the issues that he raises. As he knows, we are working incredibly hard to ensure we have the probation team and workforce that we need to keep the public safe. We have successfully onboarded 1,389 trainee probation officers. We are up on our targets and the data is going in the right direction, but we appreciate that we need to do more and are working hard to ensure we keep the public safe when offenders are released into the community.
Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)
The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending (Catherine McKinnell)
As my hon. Friend knows, we inherited a crumbling prison estate that was close to breaking point, with only 100 places remaining. The previous Government were just days away from reaching capacity, which is why we are working at pace to deliver an additional 14,000 prison places by 2031; we have already delivered 3,300. That stands in marked contrast to the 500 net places that the Conservative Government managed to add during 14 years in office.
Mike Tapp
I thank the Minister for the fantastic progress made. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that foreign national offenders are held in prison until they are deported, not released back into our society where they can reoffend or abscond?
Catherine McKinnell
There are currently thousands of foreign criminals in our prisons, at vast expense to the taxpayer, and that cannot be right when we need every space in our prisons. Within our first two years, the Government have increased foreign national offender returns by 41% compared with the last two years of the previous Government. I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that capacity in the immigration removals estate is within the remit of the Home Office, and we continue to work closely with the Department to ensure we increase the number of foreign national offenders being removed and keep the public safe.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
I will push back gently on the Minister’s assertion of 3,300 new prison places, knowing full well that they were all approved under the previous Conservative Government. Across the adult male prison population, there are 3,669 places out of service due to everything from lack of fire safety measures to infestations of bedbugs and rodents. What are the Government doing to expedite the renewal of those prison places, some of which are out of service until as far out as 2034, given that prisoners are being released, including some today?
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Gentleman is brave to highlight the record that his Government left, which is a backlog of repairs and a shortage of places. That is why we are working on delivering the largest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era. We are bringing forward £110 million of existing budgets so that we can deliver additional places faster. We are working to repair the perilous state in which the previous Government left some of our prison estate, and ensuring that we manage offenders in the community through an increased Probation Service, which the Conservatives also decimated.
Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending (Catherine McKinnell)
Reducing offending is vital for cutting crime and improving public safety, which is why we are working with partners across Government to improve outcomes through better access to treatment, education, employment and accommodation. We are also investing in probation and expanding intensive supervision courts for prolific offenders.
Yuan Yang
This week is the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers’ annual Respect Week to raise awareness of the impacts of retail crime. From working with Thames Valley police in my patch, I know that a significant proportion of shoplifting is done by a small number of shoplifters who are repeat offenders and is often linked to substance abuse. Local Reading charities like Change Grow Live do great work to combat that. What more can the Department do to support that work and tackle the cycle of reoffending?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises an important point: around 60% of crimes are committed by 9% of offenders. Prolific offending is clearly a challenge that we need to address. That is why we are expanding intensive supervision courts, which combine intensive rehabilitative sentences with close judicial oversight to reduce repeated offending and ensure punishment that works, as well as investing in rehabilitation. Reducing reoffending and relieving our prison capacity challenge is a key focus for us.
Luke Taylor
The outgoing chief inspector of prisons said last week that organised gangs are using drones to smuggle up to 10 kg of drugs into prison at a time, and claimed that up to a quarter of prisoners admit to having developed a habit in prison because drugs are so rife. The Independent newspaper reported Charlie Taylor saying that many prisoners are leaving custody “doomed to come back” because they are not being rehabilitated. He claimed that the
“public are not being protected properly”
when prisoners are freed because their risk has not been reduced. In the year to March ’26, drugs were discovered in UK prisons 26,630 times—up by nearly a third from five years ago. Does the Minister agree that those in prison, and particularly those in for drug-related offences, stand little chance of turning their lives around and reducing their chances of reoffending on release if they are still routinely exposed to the evils of drugs?
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and a very clear case for why we have to deal with the prison system we inherited. The system has very deep and complex pressures, some of which he has highlighted: drones, security on the estate, drugs, and ensuring that we can invest in rehabilitation. All those things are made more challenging while our prison system is running at capacity, due to the system we inherited. However, they also make us more determined to achieve the outcomes for which he quite rightly advocates.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
The Ministry of Justice has made significant progress on the responsible utilisation of AI in innovation within the legal services sector. I will offer two examples: first, our launch of the legal services advisory AI growth lab, which brings together Government, regulators and innovators to accelerate responsible AI adoption in legal services; secondly, our commitment to continue to fund LawtechUK, so that we can accelerate the adoption of AI usage across the country. That is what we mean by growth in every postcode.
Steve Yemm
I thank the Minister for her answer. The Labour Government inherited record backlogs in the Crown court system, with victims waiting years and years to access justice. What more could the Government be doing to utilise AI and technological solutions to get the courts moving quicker to improve access to justice and, crucially, to deliver justice for victims?
Sarah Sackman
I thank my hon. Friend for an excellent question. I am passionate about using technology and AI responsibly to address the problem of delays in our criminal courts. We are using AI transcription to improve open justice; we are using AI case readiness tools to help our judges to ensure that cases are ready to be heard on time; and we are using AI responsibly in the scheduling of cases. All those things will ensure greater efficiency over time in our courts.
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
The Government are taking end-to-end action to transform the justice system’s response to violence against women and girls in a truly cross-Government effort. Our strategy sets out how we will achieve this by preventing these crimes, pursuing perpetrators and supporting victims.
Rachel Blake
I thank the Minister for setting out comprehensively the Government’s end-to-end approach. The Minister will know all too well the evidence around how difficult it is for women to bring forward sexual assault and sexual violence cases. Can the Minister explain how the Government will make courts safe for victims and survivors so that they are not subject to unfair treatment in court?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important and timely question. I want to be clear that rape myths and stereotypes have no place in our courts and that victims should never ever feel as though they are the ones on trial. Through our Courts and Tribunals Bill, which is in the other place, we are taking action to stop rape myths from being weaponised in court by ensuring that any previous allegations of rape made by a victim or the fact that they have claimed compensation cannot be unfairly used as evidence in favour of the accused. We are also introducing independent legal advisers for all adult victims of rape and are advancing with our plans for specialist rape and sexual abuse courts for victims.
Kirsteen Sullivan
Eighteen months ago a woman in my constituency was assaulted at a local train station, but with limited CCTV footage no charges were brought forward. This trauma was compounded by a lack of victim-centred support from British Transport police, with my constituent left feeling belittled and ignored. As we approach this year’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, what discussion is the Minister having with the Department for Transport to ensure that the voices of women and girls are heard and not dismissed?
Alex Davies-Jones
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Victims should be listened to, believed and supported, and the Government are committed to ensuring that every single victim of sexual offending feels heard, supported and able to access the information and specialist support services that they need. As part of our flagship strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, we are committed to preventing these awful crimes, as I have said, and this is a commitment that we are signed up to across Government, including with the Department for Transport. I regularly meet with my counterparts in that Department and others to ensure that the Departments are joined up in our approach to tackle these crimes wherever they exist.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
This Government’s early release scheme has put 80,000 criminals back on our streets. They have gone on to commit crimes again and again. Last year, more serious violent and sexual crimes were committed by ex-offenders than in any previous year on record, and around 40 prisoners a day now leave prison homeless. If the Government will continue to release unrehabilitated criminals on to our streets, why have they allowed 11 probation hostels—the very places meant to supervise them—to close under their watch?
Alex Davies-Jones
I will take no lectures from the Conservative party, who left us in this position in the first place, with the result that we have had to make these difficult decisions to keep all our citizens safe. The Government remain steadfast in our commitment to halve violence against women and girls, and the safety of victims and the communities we represent remains central to release decisions. Any offender released from prison will be controlled under strict licensing conditions in the community. We are contacting every affected victim where possible and investing £18.9 million in additional support, including a new national helpline, which I had the privilege of visiting in person last week.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
Domestic violence campaigners and charities, including Kaleidoscopic UK, have warned that post-separation abuse is too often missed by the justice system. How many more victims must be failed before the Government take action to ensure that post-separation abuse is properly recognised across policing, prosecution and the courts?
Alex Davies-Jones
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of post-separation abuse. I hope he will have heard the answer from my hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sentencing and family courts about our strategy to tackle this issue. Domestic abuse protection orders are a flagship policy of this Government, which we are rolling out nationally later this month. They are our strongest ever protective order, and I will happily work with him, stakeholders and victims and survivors to see what more we can do to strengthen support for those experiencing post-separation abuse.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Russell Brand verdict surprised nobody, and all those who allowed his behaviour to go unchecked should reflect on their own culpability. The truth is emerging also about Mohamed al-Fayed; David Walliams remained anonymous for years thanks to an injunction; and there are many similar cases. Following the attack by Brand’s barrister on journalists who reported similar allegations concerning different victims before the case began, what will the Government do to prevent these abuses of process, and stop the abusive injunctions and super-injunctions, which stop scrutiny, accountability and the work of the free press?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for raising these important issues. All the perpetrators he named are individuals whom the Government have concerns about, and we are working with many of the victims and survivors directly. Just yesterday, I met yet another victim of Fayed who had come forward to me with serious allegations and concerns that the processes have not been appropriately followed.
I reassure the shadow Secretary of State that the Government are determined to do all we can to ensure that anyone who is a perpetrator of these crimes is held to the full force of the law. That includes looking at what we can do regarding injunctions. He will know that applications to the courts for privacy injunctions are considered independently, and it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment; however, we are concerned about their use. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Courts and Legal Services is looking at what more we can do on strategic lawsuits against public participation injunctions—we have already taken action on non-disclosure agreements for sexual abuse cases, as the hon. Member will know—and to prevent abuse of process throughout the judicial system.
Nick Timothy
I thank the Minister for that answer. Sarah Steele was strangled and allegedly sexually assaulted by a US fighter pilot based at RAF Lakenheath. Like in several other cases, some involving child abuse, jurisdiction was wrongly handed to the Americans, with defendants facing a jury of US service personnel. The NATO treaty and the law say that in such cases, our police, prosecutors and courts should be in charge. Victims report charged suspects being free to travel without restriction, dubious acquittals, lighter punishments, and perpetrators potentially avoiding the sex offenders register. I have written to the Justice Secretary about this several times, and so far the replies have been quite general. Will the Government legislate so that any decision to surrender jurisdiction must be approved by an individual Minister?
Alex Davies-Jones
The case at RAF Lakenheath, and others that have subsequently come to light, are extremely concerning. As the Minister responsible for international justice and the rule of law, I take the issue extremely seriously. Decisions on jurisdiction are made by the relevant police force in response to the claim by a visiting police force, and should be taken in accordance with the Visiting Forces Act 1952. However, following that case, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council has written to all forces to remind them of their responsibilities under that Act. We must ensure that such cases are heard in the correct jurisdiction. I reassure the shadow Secretary of State that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence are also engaging with the United States on the matter. I will happily work across party lines and across Government Departments to see what more we can do to protect victims.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
It is rare that we can achieve cross-party consensus in this place, but I think we have consensus that no party here would want to see rich and powerful men abusing our justice system to silence the voices of victims of violence against women and girls. Eleanor de Freitas took her own life in 2014 after being privately prosecuted for allegedly making a false rape accusation. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women found that the UK violated Eleanor’s rights. Will the Minister please consider Eleanor’s law to ensure that prosecutions concerning allegedly false reports of rape and sexual violence can be brought only by public prosecuting authorities?
Alex Davies-Jones
I will certainly look into the case of Eleanor’s law and do all I can to prevent such a situation from happening again.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
My hon. Friend is right to recognise what more we can do to support victims of violence against women and girls. We are investing £550 million in support services over the next three years. Victims seeking support can find local service information through our victim and witness information website. Under the victims code, all victims are entitled to a referral to victim support services to aid their recovery.
Jonathan Davies
Victims of coercion, abuse and assault have been very much in the news recently, but there are many such victims whose stories will never reach the headlines, including a constituent who came to see me. Her case went to court and the defendant was found not guilty, as is the case in many such prosecutions. She would like to get the transcript from that prosecution to help her process what happened and to access support services, but she has been quoted many thousands of pounds to access that transcript. Will the Government look to make these transcripts cheaper—or, even better, free—so that people in such circumstances can get the help they need?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important point. It is vital that victims and survivors get closure from their cases. Victims of rape and other sexual offences, and bereaved families of homicide, can access their free sentencing remarks transcripts. Our ambition is that, from spring 2027, we will extend this free provision to all victims in Crown court cases, and we are exploring how AI can provide transcripts more quickly and cost-effectively while representing a true and accurate reflection of the case.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
My constituent, Mackenzie, who is a pupil at Peter Symonds sixth-form college in Winchester and is here in the Gallery today, has been campaigning really hard on the issue of catcalling and the intimidation and abuse of women in public spaces. Would the Minister mind laying out what support we are giving, and what we are doing to address the intimidation of women in public spaces?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman’s constituent and welcome her to this place. I applaud her campaigning on this really important issue. The Government are determined to tackle misogyny wherever it exists, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware that, in the Budget, the Chancellor announced £15 million of support for the Minister for Women and Equalities’ misogyny taskforce to tackle these issues head-on. Earlier today, I had the privilege of attending the first cross-departmental ministerial taskforce on this issue, looking at how best we can tackle misogyny wherever it occurs, because we know that misogyny is the issue that radicalises and causes extremism in the issue of violence against women and girls.
Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
Since the last Justice orals, I have sworn my oath as Lord Chancellor to uphold the independence of the judiciary and mark the opening of the legal year. We continue to clear up the mess left by the previous Conservative Government as we build a modern justice system, delivering the fast and fair justice that victims deserve. Our landmark Courts and Tribunals Bill has had its Third Reading in this place and is progressing in the other place, and we continue our action for victims by rolling out specialist rape and sexual offence courts to improve their experience of the justice process.
We are launching Respond, the latest phase of our Enough campaign, and we have announced legislation that will help thousands of young adults who lack mental capacity to benefit from their child trust fund savings. I had the honour of representing the UK at the United Nations General Assembly, reaffirming our commitment to the international rule of law. Let me also take this opportunity to congratulate the UK’s candidate for the International Court of Justice, Professor Dapo Akande, who has been elected to the Court; the UK is back on the world stage and I wish him well in his new role.
Mr Foster
Despite the Planning Inspectorate recommending refusal, a third prison is under construction at Ulnes Walton in my South Ribble constituency. Unfortunately, the local community has been hugely impacted by issues around access, highway safety and vehicle movements—the very reasons refusal was originally recommended. Will the Minister please meet me as a matter of urgency to discuss how we can develop solutions for the benefit of the Ulnes Walton community?
Alex Norris
The importance of new prison places in this country has been well rehearsed over the last 45 minutes. Nevertheless, I believe strongly that we must be good neighbours, both in the operation of prisons and in their construction, and I also feel very strongly about our liability through our contractors. I believe that I am already planning to meet my hon. Friend on another important matter, and I will ensure that we talk about this point too, because I want to make sure that we are good neighbours with his constituents.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The ability of powerful men to exert control over and exploit women is again at the forefront of our minds. But it is not just rich and powerful men: we recently debated in this place a petition by Paris Shears, who campaigns against coercive and controlling behaviour. During the debate, the Minister refused to give Paris the common courtesy of explaining whether those convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour are eligible for Labour’s early release programme. Can the Justice Secretary show proper respect to Paris and other victims and at least answer that question now?
Alex Norris
I am slightly surprised that the hon. Member has taken this tack. He will know that, alongside the announcements we made in the summer, we published precisely which offences were in scope and not in scope for the progression model, so all I can suggest is that he refers to that, as he could have done for the last six weeks.
Dr Mullan
It is obvious that the Minister does not want to put on record and own up to the fact that those convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour are, according to our understanding, eligible for early release. [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that I should read; I will pass it on to Paris that he feels she should have just read. The public want clarity from Ministers on these complex matters, and it is right for me to ask this question. How can the Minister justify releasing those convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour early when we know that perpetrators who go on to commit offences like rape often start out with lower offences, like common assault, coercive and controlling behaviour and grooming. We know the patterns that emerge over time. Surely we should tackle this at the first instance and not let these people out early.
Alex Norris
I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman thinks that making a commencement order for legislation in this place is not putting something on the record. I find that hard to understand. He asks how we got into this situation. I gently point him towards the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Minister for policy development, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), all of whom admitted that they did not build enough places. He talks about exemptions, but I note that their early release schemes have no exemptions.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending (Catherine McKinnell)
We are making good progress. Around 3,300 places out of our target of 14,000 have been delivered since we took office, including a 170-place refurbished wing at HMP Norwich, which opened in June this year, bringing these places into the 21st century. We are also bringing forward £110 million from existing budgets to deliver additional prison places even faster. We are determined to clean up the mess that the previous Government left us and to build a criminal justice system that is fit for today.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
Alex Norris
The hon. Lady will have heard me say two things in this session: first, that there is for the first time a presumption on tagging and, secondly, that we will release full data so that Parliament can scrutinise it in the normal way. I suggest that she waits for that release.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
Catherine McKinnell
As my hon. Friend will know, the contract with Serco was entered into by the previous Government. Serco’s KPI measures include whether installation visits take place within contractual timescales, but being recorded without a tag does not necessarily indicate failure; it may be that the individual has returned to prison, or they may still remain within the installation window. That is why we regularly publish the statistics to ensure that they accurately reflect the situation. I will take her other points on board.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Mr Speaker
Order. The last question was very long. This is topicals. I have to get all colleagues in, and I am struggling. To help me get through, the questions have to be short, as do the responses from Front Benchers.
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
The Government recognise the profound financial and psychological impact that SLAPPs have on individuals, and their corrosive effect on our democracy and public discourse. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we commenced the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, and we remain committed to introducing legislation. I recently met the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), and am grateful to him for the constructive discussions that we are having. I will set out the Government’s position on Second Reading of his private Member’s Bill on 27 November.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
Sarah Sackman
I would be glad to meet my hon. Friend to discuss Sophie’s tragic case. The Government agree that the law and procedure on unfitness to plead require updating. We are actively considering how best to take forward the Law Commission’s proposed changes, including modernising the legal test for unfitness to plead and the issue of whether courts should have a broader, more flexible range of disposals when dealing with such cases.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that when any decision is taken across Government, it is done in the round and we have those conversations with our colleagues in other Departments. Giving local leaders the power to make that decision, if they want it, is important and, of course, if people do not follow it, there ought to be sanctions.
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
These applications and surrogacy issues raise complex issues around ethics, law and medicine. We have not had those concerns raised by HMCTS, but I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and campaigners to discuss it in more detail.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Last week the Justice Committee heard harrowing testimony about the tragic deaths of 14-year-old Ruth Szymankiewicz, 15-year-old Gabriel Santer and 23-year-old Matthew Caseby from their parents. These are all utterly tragic cases, but only one of them led to a prevention of future deaths case, and even then there is no enforcement of them. Will the Minister commit to reviewing the situation so that when the words “lessons learned” are said, families actually believe them?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
I welcome this question and the important point raised by the hon. Lady. I welcome the work that the Justice Committee is doing in this space to look at the prevention of future deaths reports to see what more we can do to ensure they are enforceable, responded to and acted upon. The Government are determined to ensure accountability at all levels on prevention of future deaths reports, and I look forward to laying out my position to the Committee soon.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Catherine McKinnell
I pay tribute to our hard-working and dedicated probation staff, including those who bravely intervened yesterday at Manchester magistrates court to tackle an individual with a knife. Probation staff perform vital work in our communities, we owe them a debt of gratitude, and we need more to come and join the team. While we continue to exceed our recruitment targets with almost 1,400 recruited last year and a target of 1,300 in 2026-27, my message is, “Come and join this important service to protect the public and keep communities safe.”
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
After the sexual predator Russell Brand was convicted last week, the newspapers reported on an injunction brought by him and Jemima Goldsmith against Miss Berki, aimed at stopping antisemitic harassment by Miss Berki. It included a clause, however, that suppressed free speech. Jemima Goldsmith tried to relax that in December, and Brand stopped her. He is still stopping her from doing that. She is a victim of his violence. Can the Secretary of State look at how a convicted criminal can suppress free speech and continue to embarrass his victims?
Alex Davies-Jones
I want to place on the record my thanks to all the victims of Russell Brand for speaking out so bravely, some of them at huge personal cost as well—that is important for this House to recognise. The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of super-injunctions, injunctions and SLAPPs, as we have previously heard, being used by powerful perpetrators to hide their abuse in plain sight. I am keen to work with him and anyone else in this House to ensure that these are not abused or taken for granted. He will know, however, that some of these injunctions are independently assessed; it is not for the Government to comment on them. However, I am clear that any action we can take to prevent violence against women and girls should be taken.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
Sarah Sackman
I understand that my hon. Friend is due to meet the Secretary of State to discuss this very issue. It is vital that we support domestic abuse victims with legal aid through the court process. We have already taken steps to extend the equity disregard in the legal aid means test, which means that £100,000-worth of the value of a victim’s home is not considered as part of that eligibility test. It is also the case that the Legal Aid Agency can discount the value of capital that cannot realistically be accessed because of that very abuse. I look forward to discussing this matter with him further.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
There is a close association between domestic violence and animal cruelty. My constituent Annette Bramley’s daughter Holly was murdered by a wicked husband. The Government are working on this, but may I ask them to meet me, Annette and others to look at what further steps can be taken to establish that link and do something about it?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this. Along with my good friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones), I have been looking at what more we can do here. He is right that there is a correlation between animal abuse and domestic abuse, and abuse of individuals in general, and I would happily meet him to see what more we can do to tackle this.
Henry Tufnell (Mid and South Pembrokeshire) (Lab)
Probation services play a vital role in protecting the public, reducing reoffending and supporting rehabilitation. As the UK and Welsh Governments review probation governance in Wales, can the Lord Chancellor update the House on how he is working with the Welsh Government to better integrate probation with devolved services, to strengthen public safety in communities such as mine in Pembrokeshire?
Alex Norris
I met with the Welsh Government yesterday, and we discussed probation. My strong view is that if we are to get the best outcomes for individuals when they leave prison, we need those local services. That might be probation services in this case, but it is also about local authority services, health services and education, to get the best outcomes in exactly the spirit my hon. Friend talks about.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
Birmingham and Solihull coroner’s service is still not meeting the expectations of its residents. Will the Minister meet me to see how we could improve the service, which is impacting so many communities?
Alex Davies-Jones
I am aware of issues with coronial services across England and Wales. I regularly meet the chief coroner to discuss this and what more we can do to reduce the backlog. Our coroners perform vital services in their communities, and I want to reassure the hon. Member that the Government are committed to reducing this backlog and giving coroners the support and guidance they need to carry out their vital work.
Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)
My constituent Tom Hughes, the owner of Red Dragon’s Vault in Wrexham, has repeatedly had his shop targeted by antisocial behaviour, with objects thrown at the window and customers being subjected to abuse. Rather than responding with anger, he is responding with hope, working with local youth organisations to support young people and provide them with more activities and opportunities. Does the Minister agree that while we must be tough on those committing antisocial behaviour, we must also be tough on its causes, such as the lack of youth opportunity?
Jake Richards
I am old enough, just, to remember a former Labour Prime Minister talk about being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. That informs our approach to youth justice. We set it out in the White Paper published earlier this year, and we will be making progress on that issue in due course.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
Mr Speaker, ask any legal practitioner and they will tell you about the parlous state of our court estate. Can the Minister set out the estimated number of sitting days that have been lost since the last election as a result of emergency repairs across the HMCTS estate?
Sarah Sackman
As the hon. Member will know, we have uncapped the number of sitting days, and it is very rare for sitting days to be lost due to disrepair. But he is absolutely right: the crumbling courts that we inherited were a symbol of a justice system very much degraded by the Conservatives. I am glad that we are reinvesting £287 million in the capital budget, with brand new courts in Blackpool, London and Reading, and we are starting to see our justice system restored to health.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
It is not right that children who were once in foster care, children’s homes or semi-independent living accommodation find themselves at the hands of the criminal justice system. In fact, over 50% of children in prison were once being cared for by the local authority. What are the Government doing to identify care leavers and care-experienced people in prison, and how are they working to reduce their reoffending and offending in the first place?
Jake Richards
My hon. Friend has raised this issue consistently and has done some really important work on it, both from the Back Benches and in government. In the next few weeks we will publish a protocol on exactly this issue. Before we do so, I should meet her to discuss it in more detail, and I will do so.
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
Last year the British Horse Society recorded nearly 3,000 road incidents involving horses. However, because horses are classed as property, judges and courts cannot reflect the emotional distress that horse riders have when they lose their animal. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can change the law to better reflect the needs of victims?
Alex Norris
The hon. Member raises a really important issue. I have taken part in the Dead Slow campaign with the British Horse Society on two occasions. We are a nation of animal lovers, and I do not think that people would see things quite in the spirit that the law always does, so I am interested in having a conversation with him and the BHS to see what might be done.
Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I strongly welcome the steps that this Government are taking to help young people who lack the capacity to access their child trust funds. Can the Minister outline how many people he thinks that will benefit? What value will that have to families?
Jake Richards
We simply would not have got to this point without the almost constant championing of this cause by my hon. Friend, so I am very grateful to her. We estimate that up to 120,000 families will benefit from the changes that we are bringing about with my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. The average amount is £2,600, which will have a transformative effect for many families—I know that for one family in my constituency it means that they can go on holiday for the first time in three years. This is a really important step that this Labour Government are taking.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Victims of crime have asked the Lord Chancellor to publish criminal conviction data by nationality. Will he do so?
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman knows that that has been a point of discussion in this place on multiple occasions. We are looking very closely at the data to ensure that we are getting it right. In conjunction with the Home Office, we want the fullest amount of data to be available so that we can have a proper political conversation about what it tells us.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
When 73% of those released from prison with no home to go to go on to reoffend, the system is clearly setting people up to fail. It is vital that we attack the social and economic causes of reoffending and help people to rebuild their lives. What cross-departmental discussions have Ministers had about improving access to social housing, mental health support and drug and alcohol dependency support?
Catherine McKinnell
Many discussions are ongoing. Ending rough sleeping and tackling homelessness is a key priority for the Prime Minister, as he has said. Those who are homeless on release from custody have reoffending rates that are nearly double those of people released into accommodation. We are already working on the national plan to end homelessness, but we are working at pace on a cross-Government basis to ensure that we can legislate for a duty to collaborate and that we tackle the scourge that is homelessness both for those leaving prison and re-entering the community and across the board.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
Will the Minister meet me to discuss the possible addition of assault in cases of grievous bodily harm to schedule 5 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003? That seems to be the only pathway to justice for a constituent of mine who, despite being the victim of a brutal attack, saw the case against their alleged assailant withdrawn just days before trial because of the erroneous decision of the Crown Prosecution Service not to offer any evidence in support of prosecution.
Alex Davies-Jones
I am so sorry to hear of the situation that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent finds themselves in. I would be delighted to meet him to discuss this issue and to see what more we can do to support victims in that situation.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I recently visited Central Jamia mosque in Southall Green, where I heard about delays in the coroners courts system. In particular, the lack of post-mortem scanning machines locally means that people need to drive to Oxford, causing further delays. What work is the Minister doing with the Muslim community and other faiths to allow them to bury family members according to their religion?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important issue. I know that this matter concerns Members across the House and outside this place. I have met representatives from the Muslim and Jewish communities to see what more we can do to help them to bury their loved ones in a timely manner while working with coroners to expedite inquests, and I am happy to work across parties and across faiths to see what more we can do to make that a reality.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
The sentencing of Russell Brand yesterday for his terrible violence against women has had people reflecting on a book he wrote several years ago, in which he said that he repeatedly lured his dog upstairs and kicked it down the stairs again. That is just the latest high-profile example of violence against animals being an indicator of someone who will go on to commit violence against women and children. I know that the Minister cares very much about this issue, so will she meet me and relevant stakeholders and researchers to discuss it?
Alex Davies-Jones
I happily extend to the hon. Gentleman the invitation I gave previously to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), and the commitment I made to look at what more we can do regarding the correlation between animal abuse and physical abuse.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Over 60% of people in prison have speech, language or communication needs. Effective rehabilitation must be holistic. To prevent reoffending and provide support, it is paramount that we address not only the offending behaviour, but the underlying communication, health, education and social needs. What steps is my hon. Friend the Minister taking to ensure that access to speech and language therapists and other allied health professionals is available in prison?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend is an avid campaigner, and with her health background, she is well placed to understand the value of the allied health professionals right across our society. That applies to prison in the same way. Obviously, there is a commitment that any person in prison will have the same access to treatment as they would if they were on the outside, which is vital if we are going to achieve the outcomes we want: reducing reoffending by giving people purposeful activity, education opportunities and the ability to gain skills, so that they can lead a more fulfilling life on the outside. I will certainly take away my hon. Friend’s suggestion about what more we can do.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
Earlier today, I heard from the head of the Prisoners’ Education Trust about the chaos and cuts caused by new education contracts. In Scotland, scandalously, all prison education is delivered by a private company owned by a US-based venture capitalist. Surely it is time that we take that service in-house for prisons across the United Kingdom and prioritise rehabilitation, not private sector profits.
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend is right that education in prison is vital to rehabilitation; it provides hope for an alternative future, and engagement with education is proven to reduce reoffending by up to nine percentage points. We are determined to modernise the prison education, skills and work system. We want a joined-up system that maximises opportunities to support prisoners to progress. We recognise that there have been challenges with rising costs, and we are working at pace to ensure we deliver an education system that works for all.
China: Breach of UK Parliamentarians’ Data
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on reports that the phone records and financial information of parliamentarians sanctioned by the Chinese Communist party were obtained by individuals commissioned by representatives of the People’s Republic of China.
The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
Before I begin, let me say that my thoughts and condolences—and, I am sure, those of the whole House—are with those who were injured and killed in the horrific attack in Poland on Saturday.
I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for his question, and for the opportunity to respond to it today. While I appreciate that there has understandably been significant personal interest in Daily Mail reporting about alleged activity that took place between 2018 and 2023, hon. Members will recognise that I am rightly limited in what I can say in relation to intelligence matters. I can say that there is an ongoing FBI investigation, as well as a live Interpol arrest warrant, but it would not be appropriate for me or any member of this Government to comment on the specific allegations that have been made. We must not risk prejudicing a live national security investigation.
What I can also say is that this Government, and I personally, take the safety and security of Members of both Houses extremely seriously, and I understand the concerns that have been raised. For that reason, I have ensured that my officials are available to meet any right hon. or hon. Member affected by this issue. Earlier this year, alongside the director general of MI5, I held a cross-party meeting with representatives of political parties to highlight the threat of political interference and the guidance and support that is available. This includes advice provided by the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Protective Security Authority setting out a range of measures that Members of both Houses and their offices can take to protect themselves, their data and their devices from a range of different threats, including espionage. Transnational repression, espionage and political interference will never be tolerated, and anyone responsible for conducting it will face the full force of the law.
This Government have brought forward robust measures to defend our country and our democracy from state-backed threats, including from China. That includes launching the political interference and espionage action plan, running training for frontline police officers to better spot, understand and respond to state threat activity, and investing an extra £600 million in our intelligence services to increase their ability to detect and disrupt state threats. We do all of that, and much more besides, because national security is our first duty and because we will never tolerate attempts to undermine the security of our nation or of those who serve, whether in this place or in any other part of our democracy.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
While I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman, I must say that he did not really answer the question. It is not about state security, but individual Members of Parliament who are being attacked and from whom information is being taken so that they can be attacked in future. That is the question we are asking. I understand that Mr Miller, who was originally arrested in an FBI operation for trying to sell arms via a source through to China, revealed that an ex-detective of Scotland Yard, Keith Hunter, had been asked to compile information on the financials and personal telephone calls of certain Members of Parliament, all of whom it appears were sanctioned already by the Chinese Communist party. The bit that it is vital that the Minister answers is that when Mr Hunter was about to do this, or was doing it, Mr Miller told him that China already had the information.
My question, therefore, is what do the Government know about what China has on us, and how much more is China trying to gather? It is important that these questions are answered, because it is not just us who are sanctioned, but our family members too. It is about their security—one of mine lives abroad—and it worries me. What did the Government really know about this? Why have they not spoken to each of us as individuals to explain what was happening? They could have done it under guidance with security, but none the less, they have not done it. Since Sunday, not one single security individual has attempted to contact any of us about the story in the Daily Mail, which is now being read by the British population. Will the Minister answer the question? As sanctioned individuals, with the freedom of speech that we exercise in this House, and under the protection of Mr Speaker, I simply say that this is not good enough. Why are we not being talked to? Why were we not taken to one side and informed?
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. Gentleman has been consistent in raising concerns about these and associated matters for many years, and we have had numerous exchanges to that end across this Dispatch Box. I have huge respect for the consistency with which he brings forward these issues. He is, though, a very experienced Member of this House, and he is inviting me to provide a level of operational detail that he will understand, and that right hon. and hon. Members and Mr Speaker will understand, I am not able to provide. To do so, or to speculate about the actions of individuals under investigation, runs a very significant risk of prejudicing ongoing investigations or subsequent proceedings. It would be recklessly irresponsible for any Security Minister to come to this House and run that risk. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will understand that, even if he does not like the response.
I reiterate to the right hon. Gentleman what I have said to him previously and what I said in my earlier remarks: my door is always open to any parliamentarian who wants to take the opportunity to discuss these matters privately and in an appropriate forum that will enable a discreet exchange of views. I know that you yourself, Mr Speaker, take these matters incredibly seriously.
The Government have been absolutely consistent in their stated aim to ensure that no malign actor or actors can successfully interfere with our democratic processes. I pay tribute to the last Government and the then Security Minister, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), for their important work in setting up the Defending Democracy Taskforce, but this Government have built on that work and invested in those procedures. The taskforce is the fulcrum that brings together the different parts of the national security machinery to ensure that our response is robust and proportionate. This Government will make sure that we have a proportionate response to the threats that we face, and that democratically elected parliamentarians here and those in the other place can go about their business without fear or favour.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
I appreciate that the Minister cannot talk about security matters, so I shall try to broaden the question, and will hopefully receive a clearer response.
It is obvious that agents of the Chinese Government, and the Chinese Government themselves, are targeting pro-democracy campaigners, whether they sit in Parliament, are citizens of Britain or are in Hong Kong. Just this week we saw that Joshua Wong had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for standing up for democracy in Hong Kong, and we have seen the transnational repression of British national overseas passport holders and UK citizens here on our streets. Will the Government summon the Chinese ambassador to talk about the case reported in the Daily Mail and the transnational repression, as well as calling for Joshua Wong’s release, which they did for Jimmy Lai? Will they sanction those responsible for the national security law prosecutions, as the United States has? Will the Minister be able to tell Parliament what further consequences will follow if the Chinese Government do not start to behave differently towards the UK and will not release Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those points. The Government share the concerns about Mr Wong and Jimmy Lai, and I know that she will have noted recent Foreign Office statements about those particular cases. Let me make it absolutely clear to my hon. Friend and the House that the Government take matters involving transnational repression extremely seriously. Any attempt to intimidate China’s critics overseas, including residents here in the UK, is completely unacceptable.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
May I first send our condolences to those who were killed in Poland?
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing the urgent question, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for all your support and protection for Members. It is, however, extremely disappointing that the Government did not come forward with their own statement. Members of this House and the other place—including Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani)—have again been targeted by the Chinese Communist party. Money channelled through Ministry of State Security front companies was used to secure kompromat to be weaponised by the Chinese state. This is an attack on our democracy, yet it was not significant enough for a Minister to come here of his or her own accord. Most shockingly, those targeted found out from the press. The Government did not brief them—and it is unfair to say that they could not be briefed, because the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), and I were briefed 10 days before the arrest of Christopher Cash, so people absolutely can be briefed in advance.
The FBI arrested two individuals in Serbia in April 2025. They were indicted and fled to China, where they remain under Chinese Communist party protection. When did the Government first know? Has the relationship with the Five Eyes become so degraded that intelligence normally shared by the United States was withheld for over a year, or were they told and did they then decide that Members just did not deserve to know?
This is a damning indictment of the Government’s approach to the Chinese Communist party. In June, the Five Eyes warned of economic honeytraps. In July, Chinese Communist party staff threatened Tibetan protesters with illegal tasers, and there have still been no repercussions. In September, MI5 warned that more than 100 university staff had been contributing to projects run by Chinese intelligence fronts. In October, the United States designated Confucius Institutes a national security threat, yet this Government have refused to implement protections that I secured in law which would enable them to be closed. This month, United Front networks reopened the overseas police stations that the shadow Foreign Secretary shut down in 2023.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong remain imprisoned in Hong Kong for speaking out for democracy. There are still zero registrations on the foreign influence registration scheme for anyone working for China, and the annual report is 133 days late under this Government. These are not incidents to be dismissed. This is an onslaught against our Parliament and our country, and the Government sit here pretending otherwise.
Mandelson’s China reset has failed. It was dreamed up in conjunction with the National Security Adviser, whose vetting process was opaque at best and who remains missing in action from Parliament. This Government’s one token achievement was lifting sanctions. [Interruption.] Mr Speaker, to quote something you said recently, you were far more lenient with the others. What does the Chinese Communist party have to do for the Government to act? They should put it in the enhanced tier of FIRS and protect our country.
Mr Speaker
Order. When you said that you needed 10 seconds, you did not tell me that you meant half a minute.
Dan Jarvis
The hon. Lady is entitled to make her points in the way that she has done, but I am sorry that she has chosen to do so. She will be furious when she finds out who was in government between 2018 and 2023. I regret the way that she has sought to politicise these issues, which should actually bring the House together in standing to defend our democracy and the rights of Members of this House to do their duty without fear or favour. It is a sad indictment of her position that she has chosen to play the political card in the way that she has done. It is particularly regretful because she was in the House and will remember the bipartisan approach that underpinned the passing of the National Security Act 2023. That has been the approach of this Government, not least when she has had issues that have required our support. That is the endeavour in which we should proceed in order to protect our national security. That is the way in which the public expect us to behave, rather than seeking to score cheap political points.
The hon. Lady made a number of points, some of which are worthy of response, but let me focus on one in particular. She spoke about FIRS and the annual report. FIRS is a very useful tool that will disrupt operational activity by our adversaries. FIRS is an instrument that was included in the National Security Act 2023, which, as I say, was an important piece of legislation that was passed on a bipartisan basis. It is this Government who worked incredibly hard to introduce FIRS on time and on budget, and it is this Government who are developing FIRS as an operational capability in our armoury.
The hon. Lady asked me specifically about the timing of the publication of the annual report. I understand why she would want to do that, and I am sure that I would do the same if I were in her place. We are committed to publishing the first annual report in full, and we will do so as soon as possible, but I reiterate the point that we worked on a cross-party basis with the previous Government to legislate for FIRS. This Government are getting on with implementing that important capability, and we will bring forward the report as soon as possible.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
The threat that this country faces from hostile state actors is of grave concern to Members and parties on both sides of the House, and the security of parliamentarians as they go about their roles is central to democracy. A key component of countering political interference in our democracy is the foreign influence registration scheme. I welcome the Minister’s comments, but can he say more about the funding that is going into tackling hostile state threats? Will he confirm that the foreign influence registration scheme is being operationalised, and will he commit to not politicising the security of parliamentarians, unlike, I am afraid to say, the Opposition?
Dan Jarvis
I can give my hon. Friend the commitments that he seeks, and I am sure that that is what Mr Speaker and the public would expect. They would expect us to behave in a way that seeks to bring together Members on both sides of the House, so that we can stand against the threats that we face and work to achieve common solutions to address them.
My hon. Friend makes an important point about FIRS, which is an important operational tool that is still in its infancy. This Government introduced it on 1 July 2025. We are still working out how we can make sure that it delivers the maximum operational effect, and still working to ensure that it is an effective capability. It is doing good work on behalf of the nation, and we should all get behind it.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Mr Speaker, I know you take the safety of Members of this House very seriously. These revelations are deeply alarming and reflect yet another attack on our liberal democracy. As MPs, we know that our parliamentary staff receive regular reminders to be vigilant against the CCP and its efforts to gain sensitive information. We receive those as MPs, yet we are told that the Home Office has not taken proactive steps to inform the Members concerned in this case.
I do not think the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who asked the urgent question, got the response he possibly deserves, so I will try again. When were Ministers first aware and when were officials first aware of the information that was reported in the Daily Mail this weekend? Will the Minister commit today to reviewing the process, so that Members are told promptly whenever the Government learn that their personal information is compromised, particularly when it is done by a hostile foreign power?
Recent reports have revealed what the Financial Times has described as a
“chronic shortage of China expertise”
in the British state, both in the FCDO and in MI6. Meanwhile, the US has built a dedicated China office. Will the Minister set out a plan to rebuild our China expertise urgently, and will he consider adding China to the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights has recommended?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. Member, as I always am, although I am slightly perplexed that he has sought to get me to do things that he knows I am not able to do from this Dispatch Box. I always listen very carefully to what he has to say, not least because of the constituency he represents and the extraordinarily important work that his constituents do on behalf of the nation. It is because I value their work, their contribution and their important commitment to our national security that I am not going to take any risks in relation to prejudicing activities that are under way. His constituents will understand that, and I hope that he does as well.
I thought the hon. Member made an important point about ensuring that we do everything we possibly can to protect our democratic processes. I give him an assurance—and I hope you would agree with this assertion, Mr Speaker—that the Government work very closely with Mr Speaker and the parliamentary authorities, the police and intelligence partners to ensure that Members of both Houses receive relevant briefings where that is necessary and appropriate.
I completely understand the demand and clamour among Members to know more information earlier than we are able to present it to them. I fully understand the desire for that information, but I hope he will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to get into a commentary, particularly on the Floor of the House, on issues that may lead to the prejudicing of ongoing investigations, not least given the nature of the allegations that have been made. That simply would not be appropriate and I am not going to do it, but I hope Members do understand how seriously the Government and I personally take these issues, and we will work around the clock to make sure that protections are in place so that Members can do their job.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Members across this place know personally about espionage risks to our democracy, and I know that that is true of the shadow Security Minister. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we must all be vigilant as we go about our work in this place?
Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend makes a really helpful and important point. She is right that Members across this House have had personal experiences in this regard. I only hope that, rather than seeking to score political points as a consequence of those experiences, we come together and ensure that our response is appropriate and proportionate. That is the approach I will take and the approach this Government will take.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The evidence that China poses a threat to our national security and democracy is clearly overwhelming. We have spent a lot of time discussing this matter in the House, including the threats to parliamentarians and the overall security threat. The Minister has spoken in glowing terms about the foreign influence registration scheme, which the Government introduced, and said that it is working. Can he give an explanation to this House as to why China is not on the enhanced tier of FIRS?
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. Lady is a very experienced Member of this House and has served in very senior roles in government, which is why I hope she understands that the Government sometimes have to make quite nuanced, balanced judgments when it comes to national security policy and our relationship with other countries. There will be those in this place—I am not saying that she falls into this category—who seek to categorise our relationship with China in a single word. She knows from her experience in government that it is much more nuanced than that. As successive Governments have maintained, our relationship with China cannot be reduced to a single word. However, we recognise—it is important to be absolutely up front about this, as I have been from this Dispatch Box on many occasions—that China poses a series of threats to UK national security, from cyber-attacks to foreign interference and espionage, as well as transnational repression. We will challenge all those threats robustly and we will make sure that we have the appropriate toolkit to do so.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The Minister must now recognise the scale and sophistication of the Chinese Communist party’s efforts to undermine our country, this House and the security of Hongkongers who settled here to flee persecution. Despite that, last week the Home Secretary rather flippantly referred to Hongkongers needing to prove their lack of criminality to achieve settlement. It is, of course, vital that no one who is a criminal enters our country, but as we saw in the case of Wu Chi-wai earlier this year, the Home Office has treated a criminal record incurred under the anti-democratic national security law as grounds for refusal. Does the Minister accept that the Home Secretary’s remarks were clumsy and commit to working across Government to ensure that instructions are issued to immigration officials to fix that practice and ensure that Hongkongers fleeing CCP persecution are protected?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point. I am certain that the Home Secretary intended no offence by the remarks she made, but he raises some important points. If he were to write to me with them, I would be very happy to consider them further.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
Our colleague, the Chairman of Ways and Means—I notified her that I was going to mention her—is sanctioned by China. She was sanctioned because she constantly raised the horrific human rights abuses against the Uyghurs. The Minister is pointing out all the reasons why he cannot answer questions and cannot say anything, but one thing he could do is to say to the new Prime Minister and the new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero that, having said there would be an ethical procurement policy, there should be a pause on processed renewables materials that come from China, because there appears to be plenty of evidence that human rights abuses of the Uyghurs are taking place to produce them. Will he commit to doing that?
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. Gentleman is a seasoned commentator on these matters and I always listen very carefully to what he has to say. Let me restate what I have said from this Dispatch Box on many occasions: it is totally unacceptable that any Member of this House has been sanctioned by China, or by any other nation for that matter. He will know that there are a range of processes in place across government to guide Secretaries of State in their decisions, whether in respect of investment or procurement. Sometimes there have to be difficult trade-offs, but in the end the first priority of this Government—and, I would hope, any Government—is our national security. We will make sure that our policies reflect that.
Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)
While it is unacceptable that Members of this Parliament are under constant hostile threat from foreign states, it is also unacceptable that this Government are unwilling to offer protection by taking appropriate action against China. Despite the CCP sanctioning, spying on and now accessing the phone and financial records of parliamentarians, the Government still refuse to publish the China audit in full or to publish any strategy on how to deal with this threat. Why, given all the evidence, have the Government not finally added China to the enhanced tier of FIRS? I draw attention to the fact that the Minister has dodged that question up to now. Given that the revelations we are talking about today happened in 2021, can he confirm whether a full UK investigation, alongside the FBI investigation, is now taking place?
Dan Jarvis
I simply do not accept the premise of the question that the hon. Gentleman has asked, or the way that he asked it. This Government prioritise national security, and we will ensure that—[Interruption.] I find it unfortunate that Opposition Members are questioning this Government’s commitment to national security. There was a time, which will be well remembered, when matters of national security were not thrown across Dispatch Boxes in the way that we have seen done today. It is beyond disappointing that some Members are choosing to behave in that way, and I am afraid that it reflects very poorly on them.
The hon. Member for Dundee Central (Chris Law) has heard what I have said about FIRS. He will understand that decisions about FIRS will be brought forward in the normal way, but I assure him that this Government will ensure that we have the appropriate legislative framework and the right operational toolkit to guard against the threats that we face.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Every Member of this House should be concerned about this affront to democracy, because the threat from China is incredibly well documented. Current and former heads of the security services have talked prominently about the threat from China and foreign Governments. We have industrial espionage and Chinese activity aimed at infiltrating our energy systems. We could not be clearer-eyed than we are, so what more has to happen before the Government put China on the enhanced tier of FIRS? Week after week, we get reports of industrial espionage, hacking and threats to democracy. What has to happen before the Government finally acknowledge that China should be on the enhanced tier?
Dan Jarvis
I accept the important point about the nature of the threat that we face internationally, and specifically from China; I have just referenced that. FIRS is an important operational tool. As I said to the shadow Minister, we will publish the annual report as soon as we are able to. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to speculate about future registrations made using that operational tool. That is not how this has worked previously, and it is not how it will work today.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The targeted harvesting of phone and financial records appears to be part of a co-ordinated campaign of transnational repression against critics of Beijing. Given this escalatory behaviour, will the Minister review the powers available to our intelligence services to disrupt the commercial proxies, and state plainly what consequences the People’s Republic of China will face for executing operations against sitting British parliamentarians, bearing in mind that the website of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, which I chair, was hacked, and articles were replaced with pro-China propaganda? Quite clearly, that is something that we would never have agreed to.
Dan Jarvis
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. It is worth reiterating that the activity that we are debating is alleged to have occurred between 2018 and 2023. The Government are clear-eyed about the nature of the threat that we face from China and a range of other adversaries when it comes to defending our national security. I pay tribute to the extraordinary men and women who serve in our intelligence services. I am proud that this Government are investing record amounts in supporting the incredible work that they do. We owe them a debt of gratitude; they are heroes of our nation.
Alicia Kearns
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are well aware that a number of Members were briefed 10 days in advance of the arrest of Chris Cash, because the last Government deemed that Members deserved to know if they were being spied on. The current Government clearly do not agree. Given your responsibility for Members’ security, and how hard you work to keep them safe, were you at least briefed a year ago, when these reports were shared with the Government?
Mr Speaker
The answer is no; I have not been briefed, even as of today.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would not normally raise this, but I will, given your role in protecting Members of Parliament, who have been under attack by the Chinese Government. I applied for this urgent question so that the Government would have an opportunity to explain, at the Dispatch Box, what they knew, and what actions they may take or have taken. Bear in mind that these cases were brought up in 2021; this did not happen yesterday, or on Sunday. Are the Government categorically telling us that they know absolutely nothing about this, and have done nothing about it? They have done nothing to inform any of us—or you, Mr Speaker—about it, which is an absolute disgrace. It is treating this House with utter contempt.
Mr Speaker
We are not going to continue the debate. I granted the urgent question because I thought it was important. I am sure that this will be pursued through other avenues. Let us leave it at that for today.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Mr Speaker
We now come to the statement on the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. I was going to call the Prime Minister, but it is not him. I call the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Chris Elmore)
I have no ambition in that direction, Mr Speaker, but thank you all the same. With permission, I will make a statement on the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting held in Antigua and Barbuda from 1 to 4 November. The Prime Minister led the United Kingdom delegation, accompanied by the Foreign Secretary and me. We joined Heads of Government and more than 30 Foreign Ministers from member states across the organisation. His Majesty the King, as head of the Commonwealth, and Her Majesty the Queen also attended.
This was an important summit for the Commonwealth. At a time when the world is divided and uncertain, CHOGM reminded us of the value of the Commonwealth and what this enduring partnership of nations can achieve. It connects 56 countries and a third of the world’s people to address shared challenges and work together for practical solutions. This meeting also gave the United Kingdom an invaluable opportunity to strengthen important bilateral relationships and build coalitions around shared priorities.
The Prime Minister described CHOGM as the “most successful” Commonwealth meeting of recent times. We took forward important discussions on economic growth, democratic resilience, climate and ocean action, and the needs of small and vulnerable states. Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the Commonwealth charter and supported a Commonwealth that is more focused, effective and capable of delivering practical results.
I pay particular tribute to the Government and people of Antigua and Barbuda, which is the smallest country ever to host CHOGM. Organising a summit of this scale was a mammoth task, but our hosts delivered it with warmth, energy and ambition. There could be no better summary than His Majesty’s words at the opening ceremony: “Small island, big vibes.”
The Caribbean setting brought into sharp focus the priorities of many Commonwealth members, particularly on growth, investment, climate resilience, debt and access to finance. This CHOGM placed greater emphasis than previous summits on trade and investment, which is in line with the UK’s approach. Governments, businesses and investors came together for the Commonwealth business forum, and for a dedicated investment summit to consider how the Commonwealth can become a modern economic partnership that mobilises private capital, removes barriers to trade and creates opportunities across all its members. The United Kingdom supported that ambition with a substantial package of practical measures. We announced a new partnership between British International Investment and the Inter-American Development Bank to unlock private investment across the Caribbean. We increased our support for the Commonwealth investment network, to help Commonwealth small island states attract climate-positive investment.
We announced a new resilient infrastructure programme worth up to £40 million, building on the UK Caribbean infrastructure fund. The new programme will support renewable energy and infrastructure that can withstand the growing effects of climate change. We announced initiatives worth up to £8.7 million through the global clean power alliance finance mission. Working with the World Bank, these measures will support cleaner and more resilient energy systems across the Caribbean.
We also signed a four-year partnership to support Jamaica’s National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority post Hurricane Melissa. This Government-to-Government partnership will support Jamaica in unlocking up to $6 billion of capital investment for resilient infrastructure, delivered with the expertise of world-leading UK firms, and could become a model for UK-supported reconstruction in the region and beyond. These initiatives will make a practical difference to our partners and their people. They can also create new opportunities for British investors, banks, insurers and professional services.
CHOGM was not a stand-alone diplomatic event; it formed part of the United Kingdom’s wider multilateral approach, and built momentum ahead of COP31 and our G20 presidency next year. The Commonwealth allows us to hear directly from countries that often struggle to have their voices heard. At CHOGM, we worked with partners on climate resilience, debt, development finance and reform of the international financial system. We were pleased that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined those discussions in Antigua, and we will carry those conversations forward into the major international meetings ahead.
Our aim is clear: a more representative international system that delivers growth, stability and opportunity, including for small and climate-vulnerable states. Democracy, good governance and the rule of law remain central to the Commonwealth. At CHOGM, we announced a partnership with Australia to protect parliamentarians from online abuse and support democratic participation. This will bring together technology, expertise and practical solutions, with a particular focus on the abuse faced by women in public life.
Formal leaders’ and ministerial meetings were only one part of CHOGM. The Foreign Secretary addressed a United Kingdom-supported event on blue finance and innovation, alongside the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, highlighting the need for ambitious action on green shipping, stronger ocean governance and protection, and scaling up blue finance.
I spoke at the Commonwealth women’s forum about our shared responsibility to combat violence against women and girls. I joined a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association panel on safeguarding democracy, alongside colleagues from Malta, the Commonwealth Secretariat and accredited organisations, and I was delighted to see a number of hon. Friends and colleagues in the audience. UK Ministers participated in discussions on small states, civil society, investment, climate finance and ocean protection. UK youth delegates participated in the Commonwealth youth forum, recognising that the Commonwealth’s future rests with young people. These events ensured that the summit gave voice to business, civil society, women and young people, as well as Governments.
We are clear on the value we place on strong relationships with Commonwealth partners, on facing down shared challenges together, on seizing opportunities together, and on sharing our values to build a safer world for all of us, but as the Prime Minister set out ahead of CHOGM, if we are to meet these challenges of the future, we need to be ready to face up to the past. For years, those members of the Commonwealth affected by the transatlantic slave trade have wanted an honest conversation about the legacies of slavery. Before the summit, the Prime Minister set out how this Government intend to respond to those calls. He expressed sorrow and regret for the pain and suffering caused, and offered a new, structured dialogue with Caribbean and African partners. This dialogue needs to be co-designed with partners affected, and will involve listening with respect. It will be time-bound and inclusive. It will consider remembrance, education, culture and calls for a formal apology, to which the Government are open. It will also look to the future and support practical co-operation on the challenges faced by affected partners today, though our position on financial reparations has not changed.
This approach was warmly received by partners. It helped create a positive and forward-looking discussion at the summit. It was welcomed in the CHOGM communiqué. Our focus now is on turning that solemn and sincere commitment into meaningful action.
This CHOGM gave the Commonwealth renewed energy. It showed that this diverse family of nations can work together on the issues that matter most to its people: jobs, investment, climate resilience, democracy and opportunity. It also demonstrated the kind of partner the United Kingdom wants to be: outward-looking, reliable and respectful. We listened to the Commonwealth members, strengthened relationships across the global south and backed our words with practical commitments. We will now work with our partners to deliver on those commitments, carry their priorities into international moments ahead, and ensure that the Commonwealth fulfils its potential as a modern network for practical co-operation. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Speaker
Can I just say that, while I thank the Minister for coming, I would have thought that it would be the Foreign Secretary making a statement on such an important conference as CHOGM? But I thank the Minister for coming, and for being so open and honest. I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
Like you, Mr Speaker, I expected the Foreign Secretary. The Minister has been a friend these many years, and nobody is happier to see him than me, but it does somewhat surprise me—no doubt it surprises him, too—that the head of our delegation at the Heads of Government meeting has decided that it is not worth his effort to come and brief this House. Clearly he has better things to do than answer to the British people, whom I thought he was sent to represent.
Anyway, we shall move on, because the understudy’s understudy is in their place. This statement, much like the meeting, will not answer the questions that we need answered if we are to shape a future for us all. It has instead, sadly, been overshadowed. Let me set out why. First, our Government, by failing to be clear right at the beginning—before CHOGM began, in fact—about their position on reparations, allowed the discussion to be diverted from the future and towards the past. I will not rehearse the arguments; Members will already know my position on the tragedy of slavery, and the endurance of this abhorrent crime against humanity—in Mauritania, for instance, where it continued until 1981, which is two years before the Minister was born, and in the Arabian peninsula, where slavery existed right up until the 1960s. Nor will I rehearse the slave raids from Algiers on to the Cornish coast or the courage of those sailors and soldiers who fought the evil slave trading kingdoms of Dahomey, which King Ghezo referred to as the glory of his people. Of course, Britain’s part in the slave empires was shameful; the past of the whole of humanity in slavery was shameful. The pride of Britain is that the Royal Navy, the West Africa Squadron and our people fought it when others were still defending it.
Today, we can share the blame or we can look at the future. Instead of looking at the past, why are we not focused on the truth of modern slavery: the Uyghur detention facilities in Xinjiang; and the human trafficking enabled by Moscow that sees so many die in the Sahara and the Mediterranean? Let us not go over that; instead, let us focus on where we should be with the Commonwealth. Half of the Commonwealth is India. What lessons has the Minister—perhaps even the Foreign Secretary—drawn from the non-attendance of the Indian Prime Minister at this CHOGM and indeed past CHOGMs?
What has the hon. Member learned about the importance of African nations in the Commonwealth membership? Countries like Nigeria demonstrate such vibrancy and such energy and could benefit from the capital of London. What has he learned from the green energy projects of Kenya about future opportunities in shared data networks and opportunities for growth? Indeed, given that the Prime Minister met the leaders of both Kenya and Nigeria, why have we heard nothing more about that? What is going on with an Africa strategy that would tie us together and give Britain an opportunity to develop the depth of relationship that is, sadly, being taken by China?
Furthermore, where is the consistency in our dealings? What lessons have been learned about the Prime Minister’s swapping sides again and again on Chagos? First, he agreed with the Mauritian Prime Minister; then he agreed with the US President; and now, in echoes of what I can only describe as the Blairite 2000s, there is a consultation and a pledge waiting for resolution at the end of the year. Perhaps the Prime Minister will honour us by outlining what he has made a promise to do this time; perhaps he will have the grace to tell Parliament instead of hiding again.
Given that the importance of the Caribbean to Britain is one subject on which I think we can all agree, what conversations has the hon. Member had on reversing the Chinese infiltration of those islands in the Americas so that we see islanders treated with the dignity they deserve—not, sadly, like the islanders Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong?
It is always a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Bridgend. I hope that he enjoyed his trip in the sun. Sadly, he has returned without even a tan and with little else to show for his troubles. At least we have all learned one thing: while our Government waffle and waver, the King commands respect for his clarity and leadership. Thank God, at least, for that.
Chris Elmore
It is always a pleasure to see the shadow Foreign Secretary in his place. It is nice that he checked Wikipedia to see when I was born. The statement is about CHOGM, so while it was nice that he took a canter through the various continents of the world, may I take him back to the substantive point?
I set out in quite significant detail the success of the CHOGM summit. The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the importance of the impact on China—that is the whole point of the structured dialogue. Part of the challenge is about the influence of China around these continents and in these countries. To have constructive dialogue, we need to accept our past, work through it and look forward to the future. I think he would almost agree with me on that very point. [Interruption.] He had his chance and he did not ask that question. If we are to look for improved influence and at better infrastructure investment to allow British industry to influence and develop across the Caribbean and Africa, that piece of work will be crucial in the months and years ahead.
It is always nice to debate with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am sure we will do so again in the months and years ahead. As I have huge respect for the House, I will explain one further point: the Foreign Secretary is at G7 meetings in France; I am delighted that I have the confidence of the Prime Minister to address the House on one of my areas of responsibility, which include the Commonwealth.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for his statement. Alongside CHOGM, the first ever global summit on eye health was held, bringing together world leaders to address the global challenge of avoidable sight loss. With more than 2 billion people worldwide living with sight loss, the challenge is clear: we must ensure that everyone has access to good-quality eye healthcare. Already, 41 countries have made this commitment, with pledges exceeding $1 billion. Now we need the UK, as a world leader in eye healthcare, also to make this commitment. Will my hon. Friend the Minister agree to meet me to discuss this?
Chris Elmore
I was delighted to be at the eye health summit with my hon. Friend, and I want to put on record my congratulations to her on her dedication in leading this work on tackling global eye health. I know how truly committed she is to this process. I am more than happy to meet her and to sit down and engage on this subject, not just because it is important to her but because it matters across the Commonwealth and across nations beyond the Commonwealth. I am very happy to do that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
It remains crucial that the Government engage wholeheartedly with our friends and partners in the Commonwealth, especially now, in an insecure world, when other partnerships may be fraught. While I am pleased to see CHOGM emphasising the challenge of food insecurity, protecting our oceans and tackling climate change, it added up to warm words but sharp cuts in UK aid to Commonwealth nations. The aid budget to the Commonwealth has been slashed from £546 million in 2024-25 to £131 million in 2028-29, with over half of that going to Nigeria alone. All this is happening while humanitarian crises are continually underfunded and El Niño is already causing havoc around the world and is likely to force many millions more people into acute food insecurity over the next year. The King attended the launch of the Commonwealth nature initiative, but the UK Government failed to make a contribution. These cuts to official development assistance are hurting our partnerships in the Commonwealth, our international understanding and our influence.
The Prime Minister has talked about Labour values driving his agenda and not making the mistake of wearing too many Tory clothes. Does the Minister agree that presiding over the deepest aid cuts this century—deeper than Donald Trump’s in America—looks like trying on the last Conservative Government’s clothes, and that Labour values would involve a return to the 0.7% aid target, which has been legislated for by this House? Will the Minister lay out a timeline to do this? I applaud the Foreign Secretary’s desire to take action on development finance and tackle unsustainable debt, but with the G20 fast approaching, will the Minister make a statement on how he will do this, alongside taking action on illicit financial flows and multilateral development bank reform, and with COP31 in Antalya this week, will he reassure the House that the UK will uphold its commitments to tackling the climate crisis?
Chris Elmore
I thank the hon. Lady for her various questions. I agree with her on food security and I hope she knows the importance that the Government, and particularly the development Minister, place on that. She is right to challenge me on ODA funding. We do not agree, however. We have made difficult decisions in relation to defence spending and ensuring that the defence of this country is a first and clear priority. We have 0.3%, and we have set out on multiple occasions that the ambition is to return to 0.7%. I am not going to set out a timeframe for that from the Dispatch Box. I talked in my statement about the priorities around the G20, and I said that CHOGM was the first in a series of events, including COP, that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister will be in attendance for as we build towards the G20. I can confirm to the hon. Lady that we have allocated additional support in relation to pressures around El Niño. She is right to mention this, and the UK Government will always be supportive of tackling the climate crisis, however we are able to.
Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement. He may not know that I am a former chief executive of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, which is responsible for the business forum. I hear that that was a great success this year, and I want to put on record my congratulations to Sam Cohen, its chief exec, and her team. If the Minister is keen to do a teach-in for the shadow Foreign Secretary on his learnings from India and Nigeria and our relationships with the Commonwealth, I would be very happy to join. Does the Minister agree that trade should be at the heart of our Commonwealth relationships, and that with such a trusted network of 56 countries with shared values, we should be supercharging trade around the Commonwealth and improving the lives and jobs of the nearly 3 billion people who are Commonwealth citizens?
Chris Elmore
My hon. Friend is right that the benefit of the Commonwealth is a significant part of our work and that trade should be at the front and centre of that. I am confident that the shadow Foreign Secretary is always keen for some educational improvement, so I am sure, between the two of us, we could give him some lessons on the work of the Commonwealth.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Shamefully, some 12.5 million slaves were sent across the Atlantic during the slave trade, and it is reckoned that 90% of them were captured and traded in horrific circumstances by African kings. Does the Minister agree that it would be ridiculous to hold the descendants of those African kings responsible for the sins of their fathers? Should we not learn from the King, our chief diplomat, by expressing sorrow from the depth of our soul, but not getting involved in apologies, let alone reparations?
Chris Elmore
I reassure the Father of the House that, as I said in my statement, there is no plan for, and our position has not changed on, reparations. I will not comment on any other countries’ part in the slave trade or any other type of offence, whatever the grievance, but this constructive dialogue is a clear way forward to engaging with Commonwealth nations, including African countries. It is about working and moving forward in the best way possible, and in a way that is honest and straightforward. I would argue strongly that those are British values. This is about a hope that this country can look forward, move forward and ensure that the Commonwealth is fit for the future, and does not simply focus on the past.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his statement. If he casts his mind back, he will remember the many conversations we had about Hurricane Melissa. I thank the Minister for the strengthening of partnerships among the 56 Commonwealth countries, but what steps are the Government taking to bolster the climate resilience of Commonwealth partners, particularly those on the frontline of climate change?
Chris Elmore
My hon. Friend is right about the many conversations that we had on behalf of her constituents during Hurricane Melissa and about the response of the UK Government. A succession of Administrations have worked to deliver climate resilient infrastructure that can withstand the impact of multiple hurricanes; I saw that myself when I was the first international Minister to visit Black River following the hurricane in December last year. We will continue that focus on climate resilience investment, and in some cases we can use procurement to offer British firms that work in individual countries. That will always remain a priority, and it is something that we take extremely seriously.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I gently remind right hon. and hon. Members that “Erskine May” is very clear, in paragraph 22.20, that the King’s name should not be used to try to influence debate.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
What was noticeable about the Minister’s statement was that there was no reference to discussions that the Prime Minister had with the Prime Ministers of Nigeria or Mauritius. Did he raise the issue of the more than 4,000 Christians killed in Nigeria this year? Did he raise the fact that my constituents, and the vast majority of the millions of people in this country, do not want to surrender the Chagos islands?
Chris Elmore
It is a matter of record that Ministers, including me—I am the ministerial lead on freedom of religion or belief—frequently raise with other countries the abuses of people of Christian and other faiths. I cannot comment on the individual conversations the Prime Minister has had, but I assure the House that these issues, including on all the various human rights abuses that take place internationally, are raised at the highest levels.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his statement. Like everyone across the House, I find it deplorable that any person can think they have the right to own another person and treat them like property, whether that is a historical or current injustice. What conversations has the Minister had with our Commonwealth allies about defence and security, which my Harlow constituents take very seriously? As I visited the BBC World Service recently, may I emphasise its importance to our soft power and influence?
Chris Elmore
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise the importance of defence and national security, particularly in relation to the Caribbean and other parts of the Commonwealth. He is also right—as the Minister within the Foreign Office responsible for the World Service, I wholeheartedly agree with him—about tackling disinformation. The investment we were able to secure during the spending review round to tackle Russian and other state interference, as well as misinformation, is absolutely crucial to the wider work of the Commonwealth and beyond.
Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I mean no disrespect to the Minister when I say that this statement should have been made by the Prime Minister. The Government have rightly championed the value of Commonwealth partnerships, but is the Minister aware that the Global Health Partnerships scheme set up by the coalition Government at a time of economic austerity—that has been enormously valuable to Commonwealth countries, as well as enhancing Britain’s national interest and our health services—now faces being defunded thanks to the savage cuts to the international development budget made by the last Government? Will he personally look at whether this great scheme can be saved?
Chris Elmore
I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for the work he has done across the international development space for many years. I take no offence from his requirement for the Prime Minister, but I am afraid he will have to put up with me. I am more than happy to review the matter. He will know of the difficult decisions we have taken in relation to ODA funding and the challenges it faces, as I said in answer to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding). These decisions are not easy. However, we take them extremely seriously and will keep them under review, particularly if at some point in the future we are able to move back towards higher ODA allocations.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
We are told that one of the core areas of discussion at last week’s meeting was climate resilience. Given that building climate resilience is now absolutely critical, particularly for small countries in the global south, could the Minister tell the House how he explained to them his Government’s decision to cut overseas aid by more than £1 billion last year? Could he share with the House what impact he was told that cut has had on many of our Commonwealth partners, many of which are having to live with and mitigate the worst effects of climate change, despite having contributed virtually nothing to creating the problem in the first place?
Chris Elmore
We are still investing in critical infrastructure and climate resilience developments right across the Caribbean and further afield. That work is not changing; it is still a focus of the Government. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), I have seen this work up close. One of the ways in which we are mitigating some of the ODA funding cuts—I think he is aware of this—is by channelling our influence with philanthropic donations to ensure that we can work in this space and offer additional support. I know that it does not please him, but our support for Caribbean nations on climate resilience funding is warmly welcomed across the Caribbean, and that did not change in CHOGM.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
Nobody disputes the evil of slavery, but I would caution the Government that they are being somewhat naive about going down the path towards an apology, because I fear that it will be seized on, as other pronouncements have been, by left-wing dominated international institutions and courts for which the ideology of decolonisation and the hostility to Israel is axiomatic. Before we know it, we will find ourselves going down a path whereby a Minister will stand at the Dispatch Box in a few years’ time and say, “I’m terribly sorry—we have no choice but to offer reparations.” We will find ourselves in exactly the same absurd position that the Church of England finds itself in; it is paying £100 million in reparations when its buildings are falling down. Can I urge the Minister not to go down this path? It is a very risky path indeed, as I know from Chagos and other negotiations.
Chris Elmore
I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman—he is a former Deputy Prime Minister of this country. I do not, however, agree with him on the path that he has somehow managed to weave in this Chamber by focusing on what may or may not happen. This constructive dialogue is time limited with a clear purpose, working with international partners. It is about trying to learn from our history but, crucially, to move forward into the future. As I said in my statement, our position on reparations has not changed.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Minister think that an apology for the slave trade issued by a Government who have absolutely no responsibility for it having happened, on behalf of a country in which there is no one alive who has any responsibility for what happened 300 and more years ago, will make the people who are seeking reparations more likely or less likely to intensify their demands?
Chris Elmore
I can say to the right hon. Gentleman that the response of international partners has been nothing but positive, and progress has been made on the constructive dialogue. We will not agree on this, I am sure, but the adult approach—the UK approach—is to respect and understand our past and move forward.
Chris Elmore
I am afraid it is indeed our past; the right hon. Gentleman might want to read a history book if he does not think it is the United Kingdom’s past. We will do this with an open mind and work towards a constructive solution over the coming year or so.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Overseas aid is critical to improving our security not just at home but around the world. It improves resilience, strengthens institutions and enables our Commonwealth brothers and sisters to thrive. The Minister references defence and national security spending decisions. I am sure he recognises how ODA investment makes our interests at home and overseas more secure. I am particularly concerned to see the cuts to funding for countries with existing programmes from £546 million to £131 million. Can the Minister explain in more detail how those cuts have been assessed and what impact they may have on programmes that are already in progress and on our security at home and overseas?
Chris Elmore
I am more than happy to explore in more detail with the hon. Gentleman individual country profiles and work, although this is published in the usual way in terms of the impact of decisions on countries. I will make a wider point, and he touched on it in his question: these are difficult decisions—I am not shying away from that—but I believe they are the right ones.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Today the Prime Minister has not come to the House to answer questions on his trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Not answering questions is becoming a pattern. The Prime Minister broke with convention by not allowing journalists with him on the trip to ask questions on this matter. Is it because he is running scared and only likes to answer soft-soap questions on social media, or is it because he is partway through changing his mind on giving reparations to these countries, just like he changed his mind on Brexit and let down the country and his Makerfield constituents?
Chris Elmore
It is interesting that the right hon. Lady says there were no journalists there, because I am pretty sure the political editor of the BBC was there, along with a number of other journalists, but maybe she and I have different views on what we class as a journalist. I hasten to add that the last CHOGM statement was given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), not the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister, and that in 2022, which is the last time the statement was made when the Conservative party was in government—I hope it is the last for some considerable time—it was delivered by a Member of the House of Lords. Frankly, we have seen more leadership from my Prime Minister than the several dozen we went through in the 14 years when the Conservatives wrecked this country and left us the mess we have inherited.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
First, I thank the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for the opportunity to attend CHOGM as a Member of this House, along with the hon. Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) and for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd). I know the Minister is here in place of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, but I want to congratulate him on how he handled himself in the panels that he spoke on, which were about some very challenging topics for this Government. As we all agree on the value of the Commonwealth, what steps will the Government take to enhance the resilience of supply chains across the Commonwealth, to ensure that every part can benefit equally?
Chris Elmore
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments about my panel performance; I do not do them often, so it is nice to know that when I do, there is at least one person in the audience who is glad of it. He is quite right to talk about the importance of supply chains. Part of our focus is ensuring that all Commonwealth nations, no matter how small or large—but crucially, the smaller states—have these tangible and meaningful benefits of being a member of the Commonwealth family.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
The Minister played a significant role in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK branch and internationally prior to his appointment. Were there any discussions at CHOGM about the role that Parliaments and parliamentarians across the Commonwealth can play in the future shape of the Commonwealth?
Chris Elmore
The right hon. Gentleman is my successor as the Opposition ranking member in CPA UK, and it is nice to know that he probably does a better job than I ever did. [Hon. Members: “Aw!”] I have got the sympathy vote, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I was very glad to meet the secretary-general of CPA International to take part in a panel on democracy and the need for improved scrutiny, as well as support for Clerks, Speakers and Deputy Speakers, and I pay tribute to the work that Mr Speaker and his deputies do in this space. We see it as an absolute focus of how we can improve future CHOGMs, and of how—between CHOGMs—we can work internationally with Commonwealth Parliaments right across the globe. It is a crucial part of our work and the work of CPA UK and CPA International.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)
The only thing that is exceptional about Britain’s record on slavery is that we were the first country in the world to abolish it. We are the country of William Wilberforce. We are the country of the West Africa Squadron. Why are we entertaining this performative far-left nonsense? Why does the Prime Minister not just focus on what the British people actually want, which is to cut the cost of living and do something that helps our own constituents? [Interruption.] Government Members can groan as much as they want, but I wager this: what I am saying is more in tune with the people of this country than anything that we have heard from them today.
Chris Elmore
If the right hon. Gentleman is looking for performative nonsense, he should engage a mirror. In relation to this work, I know it is difficult for him to comprehend, but two things can be true at the same time. I am extremely proud of the work that the Royal Navy, the Government and William Wilberforce did—I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the history lesson—but we can also say that there is an important piece of work to do around acknowledging our past and moving forward. As I say, I know that is difficult for him, but nevertheless that is really what is going to happen.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
I draw the Minister’s attention to the comments that he made about the conversations with world leaders at CHOGM and not being able to engage. Half of the Government’s written statement on CHOGM was about conversations with Navin Ramgoolam around Mauritius and the Chagos deal. The Government are prepared to discuss a shared handover plan before Christmas with regard to Chagos. Last year, they also cited the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea as the main and most proximate threat to our ownership of the Chagos islands. Yet today and tomorrow, the Attorney General and six King’s counsel are in Hamburg at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea discussing British sovereignty claims. Why are the Government prepared to defend against ITLOS with regard to the Falkland Islands, but are prepared to give the Chagos islands away due to the potential threat of ITLOS?
Chris Elmore
I understand the connection that the hon. Gentleman makes, but I am going to disappoint him and not bite. The reality is that if he wishes to engage in this matter, he should engage with the Attorney General directly and, more importantly, with the Minister for the Overseas Territories, who I am sure would be happy to speak to him.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Your Party)
I thank the Minister for his statement, and I am pleased that he put on record his thanks to the Government of Antigua and Barbuda for hosting the conference. The issue of slavery obviously came up. Many in this House do not want to discuss it, but the reality is that the slave trade and slavery made a lot of wealthy people in this country even wealthier, the compensation paid was massive, and many big British companies still benefit from the profits of it. That leads to the issue of the systemic debt that many former colonies have, the imbalance of trade, the inequality and the poverty. The issue of reparations will not go away just because the Minister wishes it to go away; it is live, strong and will be debated for as long as it takes to get some kind of global justice.
Chris Elmore
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of debt relief. That is part of the work that happened at this CHOGM, and the whole point of the constructive dialogue is to look at some of the Caribbean Community asks and wider pieces of work on culture, heritage and education. However, to be clear, our position on reparations has not changed. I refer him to the fact that various Governments around the Caribbean, and indeed in west Africa, have warmly welcomed this dialogue from the Prime Minister and accept that there are parts of this work on which Britain will have clear positions. That does not mean that we cannot set up a constructive dialogue jointly and work on the priorities together, but our position on reparations is not going to change.
Mobile Phones in Schools
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on education technology and mobile phones in schools.
Today’s children are growing up in a world shaped by smartphones, social media and artificial intelligence. Technology can bring enormous opportunities, but schools remain—and must remain—a place where children can focus, learn and connect with one another. Technology’s role in education should be to support learning, not to get in its way.
Earlier this year, with support from across the House, the Government strengthened guidance on mobile phones in schools to back teachers and parents in making schools mobile phone-free. Since that updated ban started in September, many schools have taken great steps to tackle the disruption that mobile phones can cause, and I am grateful to school leaders and teachers who have worked hard to create calm, focused classrooms. However, many teachers and pupils tell us that phones are still being used under desks, in the toilets and in the playground. Department for Education data published today tells a similar story: only 16% of secondary pupils say that their school’s mobile phone rules are followed all of the time. That means that teachers are spending valuable time spotting phone use; that school leaders are having difficult conversations about enforcement; and, most importantly, that digital distraction continues to crowd out learning.
How schools choose to implement the existing policy really does matter. Leaders need to feel more empowered by Government to make schools genuinely mobile phone-free environments. In schools where pupils are allowed to keep their phone in their bag or blazer—those with so-called “not seen, not heard” policies—only 20% of school leaders report that the rules are followed all of the time. By contrast, in schools with mandatory collection policies, 74% of leaders report that the rules are followed.
That is why I am today announcing that we will update statutory guidance to make it clear that schools should have policies that ensure children cannot have unsecured mobile phones in their blazer or bag throughout the school day. This backs teachers and leaders by giving them the clarity they are asking for. It still gives schools the choice as to whether phones are collected at the start of the day, kept in secure lockers or stored in a lockable pouch, or any other strategy that ensures phones are not within reach of children. We—parents, teachers and Government—need to work together to change children’s expectations about what the school day looks like. It should be a time to get lost in learning and make friendships that last a lifetime, not to be stuck doomscrolling in the corner of the playground.
The revised guidance will come into effect from September 2027, although we encourage schools to move towards implementation sooner if they can. Schools will continue to be able to make reasonable adjustments and exemptions where appropriate, including for pupils with medical needs and those with special educational needs and disabilities. We will work closely with school leaders as the guidance is developed. We want to learn from schools that have already led the way on this issue, ensuring that the approach is practical, proportionate, and able to meet the needs of children and teachers in different settings.
The second plank of this change is a new approach to deploying technology in schools. Today, we are launching a public consultation on establishing independent safety certification of education technology, or edtech, in schools, colleges and early years settings in England. Well designed and purposeful use of technology can support teaching, learning and the smooth running of settings. We also have a duty to support children and young people to learn to use technology confidently and safely. However, technology should never get in the way of learning. It should enhance, rather than shortcut, cognitive development, and without question it must be safe. Children’s safety and their educational outcomes, human interaction and teacher-led direct instruction must remain at the heart of our education system.
The Department for Education already sets standards for the safe use of technology, but settings are often still left to make sense of whether technology products meet those standards. These can be complex and technical issues about data protection or content safety, for example. That is why we are launching today’s consultation, which will invite views on whether certification for specific categories of technology should be introduced. It will explore which types of technology pose the greatest risks, including through exposure to harmful content, the use of children’s personal data and the impacts on cognitive development or social and emotional wellbeing. The consultation will ask about the standards and criteria that should underpin any scheme. The aim is to reduce the risk of harm to children, remain proportionate for suppliers of all sizes, be robust over time and be useful for educational settings. Findings from the consultation will inform the design of any future certification scheme, including the appropriate timescales for its introduction.
The proposed change to mobile phone guidance and the consultation on edtech safety certification meet the Government’s wider vision for childhood and education. International evidence, including the latest results from the programme for international student assessment, shows the strength of England’s education system. We are determined to go further to improve reading, writing, oracy and numeracy; to strengthen engagement; and to make schools unmissable for children. We want to go further on the depth and rigour of reading, so that we can inspire a love of reading for all children.
PISA highlights the risks when technology begins to replace the challenge, rigour and human interaction that define great teaching and learning. Technology has a place in our classrooms, but it should always be in support of learning, not become a substitute for it. To quote directly from PISA’s recent report:
“Technology can be a powerful amplifier of learning, but only if students are equipped with the cognitive and metacognitive tools to use it wisely. That means protecting time for reading in the school day. It means designing digital learning platforms that reward reflection, not just reaction.”
This Government are determined to get ahead of these challenges by shaping the role that technology plays in children’s lives, rather than leaving children to be shaped by it. I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I am delighted to come to the House today to welcome a proper phone ban in place for schools. The Government have finally done the right thing, but they have been on what I would euphemistically describe as a journey. We should remember that the former Prime Minister told us that a legislative phone ban was “completely unnecessary”. The previous Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), stood opposite me here and, in her warm and friendly manner, dismissed it as “a headline-grabbing gimmick”. When I raised this topic at Education questions, a then Education Minister told me to think of something better to go on—not condescending at all. When I asked the Government in this House to rule out a “not seen, not heard” policy, they refused. The stats that the Minister is citing today are correct, but they are essentially the same as the stats we quoted a year ago in this House, and the Government refused to act on them.
Let me remind Labour Members how many times they voted against a legislative phone ban in schools: not once, not twice, but seven times. Even the Minister, who I am sure has agreed with me all along, was forced through the voting Lobbies time and again, and the new Education Secretary, who also voted against it, has clearly had a change of heart.
The Conservatives and, to be fair, the Liberal Democrats, who also supported the ban, were told by Ministers that the majority of schools had a phone ban in place and that the existing guidance was working. It was therefore quite something this morning to have facts that I was repeatedly told in this House were incorrect being used by the Education Secretary, in the media, to justify the new guidance. We must also remember that the guidance was put on a statutory footing only a month ago. One month, and already the Government have to come back and toughen it up. We could have saved a lot of time and confusion for schools if the Government had just listened to us in the first place.
The Minister has confirmed that the guidance will only come in next September. That is a self-inflicted whole extra year of lost learning time while schools have a previous set of guidance, issued only a month ago, that the Education Secretary admitted this morning is not working—all because the Government refused to listen to the evidence. That is at best frustrating and at worst chaotic.
We have got there in the end, however, and this is a significant moment. I pay tribute to the many campaigners who have fought for this, the many parents who have spoken out and the many pupils who have bravely spoken about their own experiences. Smartphones in schools are a disaster for learning, a disaster for safeguarding and a disaster for happiness. This is an important step forward in giving children their childhood back.
I welcome the news that the Government are consulting on an independent safety certification for edtech. Will the Minister clarify whether the review will look at all edtech products currently being used in schools or just new edtech products entering the market? Will he also confirm that the review will look at education outcomes as well as safeguarding? Does he have a timeframe for the consultation? How is the review consistent with rolling out unevidenced AI tutors for the most disadvantaged? Those are the very pupils who need evidence-led, teacher-led support. Will the Government commit to not rolling out the programme until they can guarantee the safety and efficacy of AI tutors?
I welcome the Government finally getting to the right place. A full phone ban in schools is the right thing for behaviour and attainment in our classrooms. It will keep schools as places of learning and will turn the tide on the pervasive screen creep that is destroying childhood. We must never accept that just because something is new, it is progress; just because it involves technology, it is automatically better; and we must never again allow anything into our classrooms that has not been proven to be safe for children.
Josh MacAlister
In the spirit of problem solving, I welcome much of what has been shared by the right hon. Lady in response to the statement, and I too thank all the campaigners outside this House and all the Members, both Government and Opposition, who have been pushing for progress on this issue for so long.
This is an issue that we, as politicians, will have to keep coming back to in future. If we look back at what happened with legislation to respond to the rise of the use of motor vehicles, we had to pass Bill after Bill in this House to make sure that seat belts and car safety were brought up to the mark. It was genuine iteration. Government and Parliament took action and the industry responded. In truth, we will have to stick at this for years to come. Hopefully, it is a point of reassurance that this Government are committed to getting ahead of these issues and to iterating time and again to get ahead of the problem.
A lot has changed in the last year on the strengthened guidance that we introduced. The proportion of schools with full bans has doubled since September, which is extremely welcome. I also draw the House’s attention to the fact that this was an issue that the Conservatives did a lot of speaking about when they were in government. I have here a list of all the occasions on which the 10 Conservative Education Secretaries had a chance to do something about this. They were raising the point as far back as 2018. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says that I said they were right. I felt a lot of sympathy with those views when they were shared originally; the difference—and it is a big difference—is that we have done something about it. In a way, the best reflection of a party’s priorities is how that party chooses to use the precious time that is available to legislate, whether we choose botching Brexit, making a mess of a Budget, pushing a phoney war with trade unions—as the Conservatives were doing in their final few months in government—or prioritising children and legislating for children. We have done the latter, and I am delighted that we have done it. We were only able to do it because we had a Bill, and we prioritised it in this House.
Josh MacAlister
Well, we put it on a statutory footing because we had a piece of legislation.
The question that is worth a moment of response was about the educational outcomes being within the scope of the certification process. AI tutors are a real concern, but there is an opportunity there. The Government are funding some of the leading companies around the world to develop products. They will then go into a separate programme for which we have funding, led by the Education Endowment Foundation, to establish the impact on educational outcomes and attainment. It is entirely right to suggest that there should be no widespread deployment of this technology before we know its full effects on cognitive development. Of course, there are also safety issues.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Education Committee.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement, and welcome the announcement of strengthened guidance on mobile phones in schools. It constitutes agreement with the Select Committee, which called for a policy whereby children have no access to their phones during the school day rather than a “not seen or heard” policy. The Committee also said that schools should be given the resources, where needed, to implement such a policy in full. For secondary schools, the cost of buying pouches can be as much as £20,000. How will the Government ensure that schools have the resources to implement the policy effectively?
The Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry on AI and edtech. We have received a vast amount of evidence about the complexity of this landscape and the challenges that schools face in respect of procurement and the deployment of technology, and understanding the pedagogical basis that underpins it. Standards should be set, and I welcome the Government’s consultation, but they should be set in relation to a clear sense of the educational purpose of the technology, a deep understanding of pedagogy, and an understanding of the technology itself. What work has been undertaken on those aspects to underpin the Government’s thinking in this area?
Josh MacAlister
I thank the hon. Lady for her long-standing campaigning and support for these issues, including the work that she has done in her role as the Chair of the Education Committee. The source of the Government’s confidence in recommending this as the approach that all schools should take from September next year is that 39% of secondary schools are already, from within their existing budgets, able to implement a full ban, which means that young people are not taking phones around the school in the middle of the day. They have found a number of means of doing that, which include pouches. We will work closely with school leaders very closely to ensure that this is implemented effectively next September.
The hon. Lady asked about the role of the certification process, and the deployment of AI tools and the need to ensure that they are effective. I completely agree with her description of the complicated landscape that headteachers and subject leads face when deciding what to use: that is exactly why we want the certification process to go alongside the trials and the evaluation work that we want to do, specifically on the use of AI tools in the classroom. We need to do that as quickly as we can, but, as the hon. Lady will know, the quality of these trials needs to be robust enough to provide schools with really clear guidance.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I very much welcome this change of heart from the Government. There is no place for phones during the school day, and stronger guidance for schools on mobile phone use is a very welcome step, as is the edtech review. Classrooms should be places of focus and learning, free from the addictive and demanding world of social media that, sadly, so often leads to bullying, but schools need the right equipment and procedures in place.
We Liberal Democrats are very clear that it should be up to headteachers to decide how they keep phones out of reach of pupils, but I reiterate the Chair of the Education Committee’s comments that this will come at a cost and that school budgets are already stretched to breaking point. Some schools will ask parents to buy the pouches, but parents are already facing the ever-rising costs of sending children to school. Can the Minister assure me that school leaders across the country will have the necessary funding to implement the guidance effectively?
For schools that want to ban smartphones completely—some are going down that route already—one barrier is that some bus companies require bus fares to be paid on an app on a smartphone, and they are not willing to change their ways. Is the Minister looking at these sorts of barriers for schools that want to go a step further?
I welcome the clear assurance from the Minister that, for pupils with medical or special educational needs and disabilities, appropriate exemptions and adjustments will be made by schools. This must not be onerous or discriminatory towards individual children. Will he confirm that young carers will be included in such exemptions?
Finally, with an increasing number of schools giving children digital devices to do schoolwork on throughout the school day, and then homework at home, can the Minister confirm whether the edtech review will also look at the amount of screen time that children in schools are being exposed to?
Josh MacAlister
I know that the hon. Member has been a keen campaigner on these issues over a number of years. On resources for implementation, as I shared in response to the question from the Chair of the Education Committee, we know that 40% of secondary schools have already implemented, from within their existing budgets, some version of a complete ban during the school day. With the range of options that are available, we are confident that schools will be able to implement this change, but we will engage closely with school leaders over the coming months to ensure that we have a version of this that is effective and can be implemented with the resources that are available.
I turn to buses. Payments are an issue in my own constituency, where Stagecoach requires young people to have an app much of the time. It is something we need to look at, and the hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight it. Setting out the changes now, with the lead-in that we have, means that we can get to work on tackling some of those issues. There are lots of other options for how bus companies can get young people to use their services without insisting on payment through a smartphone.
The hon. Lady’s important point on young carers is well made, and I would be very happy to look at that further.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
Parents across Bracknell Forest will welcome the strengthened guidance on mobile phones in schools and the fact that the Government are having a look at edtech. I agree with the Minister that we need to make sure that the guidance is implemented in an intentional way, guided by pedagogy. May I ask him to touch on data concerns? One of my concerns about AI being utilised in the classroom without clear guidance is that we need to make sure that the data is kept safe and secure. It should not be the case that foreign tech companies are profiting from sensitive data from our young people.
Josh MacAlister
I thank my hon. Friend for flagging this issue. The edtech certification process that is out for consultation today asks questions about this, and the intention is for the design of the scheme to go beyond classroom edtech and apply to edtech that may enable the smooth running of a school. That includes complex technical questions about things such as data privacy and collection.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I presume it is too much to expect a Government Minister to admit that the shadow Education Secretary was right to propose this measure previously and that the Government were wrong to vote against it, so let me ask him something easier to answer. What does he think the measures will be in the evolutionary process that he describes when schoolchildren start returning to the classroom with long essays that have clearly been the result of the application of AI? It will put teachers in an extremely difficult position, and it would be good if we could be ahead of that particular curve.
Josh MacAlister
The right hon. Member asks excellent questions in this House, and I am very happy to answer the specific one about homework and AI. He is right to highlight that this is an issue to which we will need to return in years to come. In fact, in many ways homework has already been highly disrupted by the use of generative AI tools. The issue for school leaders and teachers is ensuring there are methods of assessment and pushing learning that have grit and friction. Often that will need to be in the classroom, where we can be confident that AI tools are not being used to do the cognitive offloading, meaning children miss out on the opportunity to grow and develop, which is what our schools should be all about.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Speaking as a former teacher and, indeed, as a parent, I warmly welcome this announcement from the Minister. Our schools should be phone-free environments focused on learning. Furthermore, as a parent, when my daughter Alice leaves the front door in the morning to go to her brilliant Hartlepool school, and when she leaves the school gate at the end of the school day, I do want to be able to contact her and to know where she is. Does the Minister agree with me that schools banning pupils even being able to arrive at school with a phone are going too far, and that lots of parents would have serious concerns about that?
Josh MacAlister
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the challenges in some of these debates, but I think headteachers are in an incredibly good position to make these judgment calls for their school community. They do not do that lightly; they often do it in deep collaboration with parents and the wider school community. I have been to schools that have completely banned mobile phones, including on the way to and from the school. In some places, there will be reasons why that is not appropriate—we have heard from some Members about public transport options—but I do think it is down to headteachers to make those decisions. They of course have the best interests of children at heart, and they can see the impact some of these measures have on children in their school.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
I am proud to say that we are ahead of the game in Tunbridge Wells. When the Government failed to pass the legislation originally, its secondary schools got together, agreed a shared policy and implemented it. The policy was to have no smartphones on the school grounds, which therefore means pupils will not be taking smartphones on buses either. Dumbphones can be carried for the purposes of safety if necessary, but they have to be switched off during the school day. That was rolled out this September, the feedback is good and it seems very successful. Have the Government considered this as an option?
Josh MacAlister
We are aware of that option being available to schools, and I know of some schools that have taken that approach. Part of the reason why we are making this announcement this week, with sufficient time ahead of implementation of updated guidance for September next year, is to extract the best learning from existing practice in the school system, including the school referenced by the hon. Member. We want to make sure that the way in which this is described allows for the best existing practice that has been developed, including the use of what are sometimes called dumbphones.
Dr Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the announcement of this updated guidance. I still remember not long ago the look of embarrassment on the faces behind the shadow Secretary of State when she opposed the Government’s efforts to get to grips with Grok and nudification apps. Of course, the most harmful behaviour on phones happens outside school, so would the Minister update us on the Government’s progress in keeping children safe from the features of their phones that can cause real damage?
Josh MacAlister
Yes, there is a wider set of issues to do with children and technology. The Government have taken action on a full social media ban, which will come into effect next year. Action has been taken against AI chatbots and nudification images, and there is of course the action we are taking today, which builds on action we took earlier this year. All of that taken together is this House and the Government trying to wrestle with the best way to move on this issue and get ahead of it. As I said earlier, I believe we will have to come back to this issue time and again to be ahead of the curve.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
On the conversation about exclusions, may I make the case for young carers not to be excluded from the freedom to learn because of the distraction of what might be going on at home? That is why I have been calling—in conjunction with MYTIME Young Carers, a wonderful local charity—for a young carers champion in every school. I have written to the Minister to ask for a meeting to discuss that. Will he now agree to meet me to see how we can protect young carers not just in having a single point of contact, but in everything we do for them in our schools?
Josh MacAlister
I apologise for the lack of response to the hon. Lady. As I am not the Minister responsible for young carers, I would be the wrong person to speak to, but I am sure my colleague would be happy to meet her. As a former teacher, I recognise and agree wholly with what she said about the need for children to be freed up, especially if they have that burden and responsibility in their home life. Most of us in this House are, I think, of an age where we did go to school without smartphones in our pockets. There were ways of speaking to the head of year, going to the school reception and contacting home, and there is no reason why that cannot work in the future.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his statement. I stopped being a teacher in 2020. I am pretty certain that kids had smartphones in 2020, yet I heard nothing from the then Government about banning them, so it is a bit rich of the Opposition to suggest that we have done nothing about it.
On young carers, the Minister will know that I am a big advocate of supporting them and have often raised the issue of young carer leads in every school. Will he add to what he has said about ensuring that young carers are not disadvantaged, taking into account what he said to the previous speaker?
Josh MacAlister
My hon. Friend mentions young carers about as much as he mentions Harlow! [Interruption.] Yes, very disappointing!
To repeat the point, it is important that young carers at school have the freedom to get on and learn. There are ways of ensuring they have the ability to contact home. I know there are thousands of heads of year and pastoral leads in schools who have a very good understanding of the children in their school and will help to facilitate that connection so that they are not isolated or disconnected.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
I welcome the steps the Minister outlined to ensure phones will no longer be a distraction in the classroom, but for many children they can be a lifeline if they have chronic conditions such as type 1 diabetes. I am pleased to see an acknowledgement about an exemption for medical or disability purposes. My concern is that if there is a supply teacher, or if children are moving year group or moving school and transitioning, how will the information be passed on to ensure we do not end up in a situation where a child needs to use a medical device or app on their phone to monitor their health condition and they end up being denied it?
Josh MacAlister
I thank the hon. Member for making that important point. Schools already have systems in place for ensuring that there are handovers between teachers. I cannot stand at the Dispatch Box and guarantee him that in every single case across the entire country, 22,000 schools will always get it exactly right, but it is important that schools have those systems in place. The Government support them to do that. He is right that having that exemption and clarity for those who need to use a device that assists them with medical needs will still be important in future.
Mary Creagh (Coventry East) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the staff, students and governors at Stoke Park secondary school, who have a “Never used, seen or heard” mobile phone policy? They were in this place yesterday at the Education Centre with a bunch of year 9 students, and we debated the ban on social media for young people. Does he agree that that is an essential next step in giving our children their childhoods back and protecting them from extreme anorexia, the manosphere, pornography and self-harming websites?
Josh MacAlister
I agree with my hon. Friend’s statement and thank the leaders at Stoke Park secondary school for being ahead of the curve and taking action on the use of smartphones in schools. This measure is part of our action to ensure that those below 16 are unable to access social media, so that they get their childhoods back. My hon. Friend will know that I have supported that from a number of different positions in Government, as well as with a private Member’s Bill that set out exactly that, along with some of the changes that we have now brought in for schools.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
I have had over 500 emails from constituents calling for a smartphone-free childhood, so I welcome today’s announcement. However, while restricting access to smartphones, schools are increasingly issuing laptops and tablets that pupils can take home and use beyond the school day. As some independent schools are re-examining the role of screens in education, technology use is expanding across the state school sector. Will the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that one form of screen dependency is not simply being replaced by another? What consideration has been given to the amount of time that children spend using school-issued devices both in and outside the classroom?
Josh MacAlister
The hon. Member has hit the nail on the head: that is the issue that schools need to navigate at the moment, and we need to help them. The edtech certification, on which we are starting the consultation, is designed to tackle exactly that issue and help school leaders navigate some of those choices, as are the trials and evaluations that we will put in place on AI chatbots. That is linked to the warnings from PISA about school systems elsewhere in the world, where technology has been left to let rip in the education system and has displaced books, reading, writing and some of the more tactile things that we know children need in school to have the right cognitive development.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement. On Friday, I visited Lancaster high school in my constituency; under the leadership of Colin Malone, it has seen its best-ever GCSE results. During my visit, I did not see or hear a mobile phone. It is an example of a mobile-phone ban ensuring that children’s educational outcomes are improved. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Colin Malone on his leadership? My question to the Minister is about changing technology. While we are talking about mobile phones, I am aware that technology is moving on, with AI glasses and smartwatches also in the mix. Does he have any thoughts on that?
Josh MacAlister
Yes, certainly. First, congratulations to the students and staff at Lancaster high school on their GCSE results. It is encouraging to hear that part of that success is the leadership of the school driving down the use of smartphones altogether. I share my hon. Friend’s concerns about some of the advances in technology, and I am determined and prepared to further clarify guidance, particularly in relation to smart glasses, so that it is absolutely clear—it is clear already—that they should not be anywhere near our schools.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement and the way that he has addressed other issues around edtech, which are also very important. Could he say more about the work that will be taken forward with parents in the next few months, so that there can be further discussion about this important issue to help parents understand how the Government are taking policy forward?
Josh MacAlister
Absolutely. I have not had a chance to share with the House that we will be issuing guidance for parents of older children at the start of next year on healthy screentime use, which is linked to the action we are taking for education settings as well as the wider social media ban that will come into effect next year. It will build on guidance that is already in place for very young children, where there has been concern about excessive screen use for those in early years settings.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
Will the Minister congratulate King Edward VI high school in my constituency, which has rolled out a phone-free school programme this year that the young people have welcomed? However, other headteachers across my constituency—at Sir Graham Balfour, Stafford Manor and Blessed William Howard schools—have said that the resources needed to administer a phone-free school are a challenge. Will the Minister say more about the support we can provide to schools that are putting the measures in place?
Josh MacAlister
I thank the teachers and the headteacher at King Edward VI high school. I will also share a reflection that many Members of the House will have had from school visits, which is that children who may have gone into the process thinking that they would miss accessing their smartphones in break time—or sometimes in lessons, when they should not be on them—often described the freedom that comes from focusing that big chunk of the day on in-person interaction and learning. As I have said, just under 40%—39%—of secondary schools already have a full effective ban in place in line with what we are proposing. We will, of course, engage with school leaders in the coming months to ensure that our proposal is designed in such a way that it will be implemented effectively.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
It was great to see local schools like the Priory and Hitchin Boys’ and Girls’ lead the way on keeping phones out of the classroom. Having campaigned with parents and teachers to make this a norm, I am delighted that the Government are leading on this issue. As others have alluded to, the growth of generative AI is threatening to tread on children’s learning in the same way that smartphones did; just as we did with smartphones, we should not treat that as inevitable or unavoidable. How does the Minister intend to support our schools to ensure that generative AI can be used as an effective tool to support learning, but kept out of the spaces where it can be harmful to learning?
Josh MacAlister
My hon. Friend is right to highlight this matter. He has been a massive campaigner on these issues in his constituency and in this House, as have others. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) has also been a big advocate for these issues. Earlier this year I was in Estonia, which has a high-performing school system and is adept at making good use of technology. While I was there, I saw the care and thought that went into the development of generative AI models that could be Socratic with pupils—they could coach and teach back and forth. Anything like that would need to go through rigorous testing to ensure that educational outcomes would be improved, but that shows the care and thought that needs to go into the deployment of such technologies.
Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement on smart glasses, which I profoundly believe should be banned from all public buildings as a matter of urgency. In the Information Commissioner’s findings about edtech, it already has concerns about the data that those companies admit they are farming on children. My concern is about the totality of the information that can be gleaned about children from across both the technology they use at home—such as their smartphones, including their location, and from apps that they might have, such as menstrual trackers, where children might not understand the importance of the personal data that they are sharing—and edtech. I am concerned that by the time AI recruitment decisions are being made, when the current generation are 25, 30 or 40 years old, the totality of information that could be known about them online will be staggering. Will the Minister take an approach that involves high levels of scrutiny of the totality of information that could be held about children, both from the edtech sector and outside of it?
Josh MacAlister
My hon. Friend has done a very good job of describing the complicated nature of some of the risks and concerns that will affect this generation of children, the first to grow up online to this extent. It is because of the issues my hon. Friend raises that we are proposing an edtech certification scheme. As I have stressed in response to other hon. Members, it is about not just edtech in the classroom, but any use of technology in education settings, including colleges and early years settings and schools, that captures data in order to improve the running of the school or homework or other services. We want to ensure that that certification scheme covers all those services.
Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)
I welcome the thought that has gone into this new guidance for schools on phones, but young people have told me that their worst relationship with their devices is when they are at home, not when they are at school. I really welcome the independent safety certification approach, but we need to close the loopholes on safety for digital devices across the board so that they meet the same standards as technology everywhere. Does the Minister agree that we have more work to do to implement digital product safety so that technology is safe for everybody, everywhere, all the time?
Josh MacAlister
I wholly agree with my hon. Friend that we have much more work to do. The magic of the social media ban, which comes alongside a series of other Government actions to reclaim childhood, is that if we get it right, it will give hours of time back to children. The time that is being used for doomscrolling at the moment is taking away time for children to do real-life things that are hard and rewarding and that give them genuine joy. When I have spoken to young people and asked, “If you got an hour back from your screen, what would you do?”, there is such a variety of answers, and that gives us a real sense that those things are what children should be doing. It just goes to underscore the importance of the ban.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
I have been inundated with hundreds of messages from parents and my local Smartphone Free Childhood group, who are deeply concerned about the impact of their children’s smartphone use. Many have felt that the missing piece has been a decisive intervention—the hard stop that a complete ban in schools can provide. Does the Minister agree that this clearer, stronger guidance can provide parents with the confidence that they need that a phone-free school is just that?
Josh MacAlister
Absolutely. The action that we are taking today, building on action that the Government have announced in recent months, is all about trying to make this a common effort across parents, schools, Government and society. We do want to draw a line and recognise that it has gone too far and that we did not get ahead of this issue as a society. We want to get children their childhood back. [Interruption.] Members on the Conservative Benches who are heckling me on this point will know that we are only able to do that because we have prioritised legislative time to focus on children—not something that could be said of the Conservatives in their final few years in government.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement, which answers the call from many school leaders in my constituency for the Government to lead on this issue and provide a consistent approach that all schools can follow. Will he join me in praising Winsford academy in my constituency, which took bold action in early 2024 to introduce phone pouches after more than 350 incidents over a five-week period. The school reported immediate improvements in concentration and social interaction, and they were sustained over time. Does he agree that this is exactly the sort of outcome we want replicated across all schools?
Josh MacAlister
Absolutely. Winsford academy, like many schools, has got ahead of this issue. I imagine that the teachers there saw the big impact on learning and teaching that uncontrolled smartphone use had in the school. It is because of the work of those schools—40% of secondary schools have gone ahead of the existing statutory guidance and are making sure that children do not have access to phones in their blazers or bags—that we are confident that we can do this for the whole of England. We are drawing the line in the sand a bit further and saying that when children are in schools, they should not have any of the distractions that come with a smartphone or any phone at all.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
The Stanway school in Colchester gained national attention through a Channel 4 documentary called “Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones”, in which phone-free experiments saw pupils who took part reporting lower anxiety, improved concentration and an extra hour of sleep each night. Does the Minister agree that the experience of students in Colchester demonstrates the benefits of smartphone-free schools? What support will be in place to help more schools adopt those policies?
Josh MacAlister
I went to the screening of “Swiped” when it came out and met some of the staff who were involved in the project and some of the researchers. The project showed the impact on children over a period of weeks when they had that time freed back up. If I remember rightly, part of the experiment involved children putting their phones in a perspex box on the way into school, and it was left there for a number of weeks. I do wonder what the impact on this House would be if we were to do the same as an experiment.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for today’s announcement. As a former teacher, he knows better than most that the best kind of learning happens away from the screen. We are joined in the Gallery by my mum, who is a wonderful grandma to my boys, baby Louis and Robin. Does the Minister agree with me and my mum that those early screen habits are very important and that the Government should set clear guidance for parents, grandparents and carers about the importance of screentime habits at home?
Josh MacAlister
Quite. What a what a lovely answer to be able to give: I agree with my hon. Friend and his mum about this issue. Of course, this is an intergenerational issue as lots of young people grow up with the care, love and support of aunts, uncles and grandparents. It will be essential to ensure that everyone is on board with these changes so that we can set that new norm.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his strong and consistent leadership on this issue over the last two years. I totally agree that the expectation should be for school leaders, parents and the Government to work together. I really welcome what he said about further guidance being on the way for parents.
Some constituents have contacted me with concerns about how some schools have been proactively sending out guidance from the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign whereas others have said that that is perhaps a partisan campaign, which seems to me to be overly cautious. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign and expand on whether he thinks that some of its campaigns, such as the parent pact, are useful tools for parents?
Josh MacAlister
I thank my hon. Friend for his campaigning and leadership on this issue in his constituency. I know that he has an active Smartphone Free Childhood campaign group and that he has been a big advocate with Joe and Daisy, the leaders of the movement. Many hon. Members across the House will be familiar with the campaign; I would not describe it as partisan at all. The campaigners have built a remarkable community behind the change, and the attention that they have brought to this issue has been part of what has shifted politics on it in recent years.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
I welcome these measures. Parents and teachers have called for them. This is the right thing to do.
The Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams said that Meta would target teenage girls who deleted selfies with advertising for beauty products, skincare and even cosmetic procedures, monetising their insecurity. Tech giants have repeatedly shown that they will not regulate themselves. Is the Minister having conversations with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that algorithms are regulated to protect our kids?
Josh MacAlister
I thank my hon. Friend for the question. I am familiar with Sarah Wynn-Williams’s book and the claims made in it, which are extremely serious. The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is concerned about the need for the public square, which we find now to be largely online, to reflect the British values we have in everyday life. She is personally passionate about that, and that approach is shaping her attitude towards the forthcoming social media ban.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
In Cheshire, we are leading the way on Esther Ghey’s phone-free education campaign, with 92% of state high schools in the county using lockable phone pouches this school year. That was made possible in no small part thanks to funding and leadership from our Labour police and crime commissioner, Dan Price. Will the Minister visit Cheshire to see the difference that that is making to safeguarding and educational outcomes in our local schools?
Josh MacAlister
I join my hon. Friend in recognising the heroic leadership and commitment of Esther Ghey following the shocking, appalling circumstances her family have faced in recent years. She has been able to turn that into such positive, hopeful campaigning, which is proving to be very effective. I saw Esther a couple of weeks ago, when she raised issues to do with this very guidance with me. It is a tribute to her.
I also recognise the leadership of Dan Price, whom I know. He has spoken to me about the work he has done with schools as police and crime commissioner for Cheshire. He caught on to the link between what children and young people are doing on smartphones and social media and incidents and concerns in the community. He has been ahead of the curve on that.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
In 1943, Churchill reportedly said:
“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”—[Official Report, 28 October 1943; Vol. 393, c. 403.]
Later, the academic John Culkin said,
“We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will ensure that that trap is not fallen into as regards edtech and other forms of digital technology relating to our children?
Josh MacAlister
My hon. Friend has asked a really great question to finish the statement on. In line with the quotes he shared, either we as a country will have young people who are disrupted by this technology, or we will need to choose to disrupt it so that it benefits children, young people and the whole country. We do have agency and control over these issues; when we believe that we do not, we end up in a dangerous place. The action that we are taking on education follows a series of other actions that the Government are taking to get ahead of the issue.
I look forward to working with hon. Members across the House on further action in the future as the technology develops. We will need to ensure that we shape it so that it benefits our children, rather than having the disruption that it can cause impacting children’s outcomes.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
May I thank the Minister for his statement and, indeed, for his comments on mobile phone usage in the Chamber?
English Ethnic Identity (Census Particulars)
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the inclusion of English ethnic identity within census particulars in England; and for connected purposes.
Madam Deputy Speaker, do you have to be white to be English? This St George’s Bill says, “No, you do not.” I am a proud Englishman. I have proud Nigerian heritage, but my parents and I were born in England. We grew up in England. Our home is in England. Yet some voices attempt to reduce Englishness to a skin colour and to a bloodline.
If we are to go down that path, my mum’s side of the family has been English for as far back as we have traced, yet since I announced the Bill, some of those voices have said:
“You’re not English and never will be.”
“Your family is foreign and will always be foreign, it doesn’t matter if you’re born here.”
“Go home while you have the legs and breath to carry you. Your days are counting down.”
“No deport, only kill”—
death threats for daring to say that you do not have to be white to be English.
If those people want to gatekeep Englishness on the basis of ancestry, let us talk about ancestry, because there is one thing their argument cannot withstand: English history. English ethnicity is real, but it is a matter of historical fact that it has never been one bloodline. The very word “English” comes from the Angles who sailed here from what is now Germany. Then came the Danes. Then came the Normans, the Flemish weavers, the Huguenots who fled France, the Windrush generation who helped to build our NHS, and the Ugandan Asian shopkeepers who lifted our high streets. Even our royal family has German roots: it was the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until 1917. Is the King not English either, I ask?
The layered, multifaceted Englishness that I am talking about is not a new thing. In fact, it is the subject of Daniel Defoe’s best-selling piece, “The True-Born Englishman” in 1701. He said:
“A true-born Englishman’s a contradiction,
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction”.
Of our descent from the Angles, the Romans, the Danes and more, he said:
“Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
What e’er they were they’re true-born English now.”
He was saying that the English have never been one pure group—that the people some now call the original English were once the newcomers. This is not a dilution of the English people. This is the unique story of the English people.
But ethnicity is about far more than descent. As per the Oxford English Dictionary, its definition is having
“a common cultural or national tradition”.
It is about having a shared life, a shared soul. It is the things we cheer for together and the things we grieve together. There are few places we feel that shared life and soul more than when we watch England play, but I remember the final of the men’s Euros in July 2021, when three black men stepped up to take penalties for their country. They missed, and within minutes were drowned in racist abuse. The message from those dark corners was brutal and it was clear: you are English when you win, according to some, but you are something else when you lose. Well, I refuse to accept that Englishness can be whittled down to the colour of one’s skin, and so do the public. According to More in Common, 74% of people in this country say you can be English, whatever the colour of your skin, and British Future’s findings are similar. The question is whether the state will now catch up.
In the ethnicity question in the census, the only box that says “English” sits under the “White” category. If you are black, the form offers you “Black British”, and if you are Asian, it offers you “Asian British”—but not “English”. The same question in the Welsh census offers a “Black Welsh” category, and in Scotland the census offers “Scottish Asian”, for example. Yet the best that England offers in our census is a miscellaneous write-in box that may as well be the margin. Is the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), a former Prime Minister, only marginal to our country? Is the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), a former Deputy Prime Minister and co-sponsor of this Bill, only marginal to our country? What about Ian Wright, Lewis Hamilton and Cynthia Erivo? The list goes on. Are they just marginal, too? Of course not, and the census should say so.
This St George’s Bill fixes that. It provides for the addition of categories such as “Black English” and “Asian English” to the census. The Bill takes nothing away from anyone. “White English” stays exactly where it is, and so do “Black British”, “Asian, British” and the rest. The Bill simply adds choices that reflect how people already see themselves, because it is not for politicians to decide who is English. That is for people to say themselves.
To those who feel uneasy about all this, let me say something directly. To those who feel it sincerely: you are right to be proud of England, its traditions, its quirks and its eccentricities, as I am, but every institution we honour survives only because new people join it and come to care. This includes our churches, our communities and our families. History tells us that Englishness is no different. History tells us that Englishness is not a pie that gets smaller with every slice taken from it; Englishness is a chorus that grows louder with every voice. Nationalism says, “This country is mine, not yours”, but patriotism says, “This country is all of ours.” In this House, we must be patriots.
While this St George’s Bill may add just a few words to a form, we all know that words tell people that they count—that they belong—so let us move people out of the margin and on to the page. “White English”, “Black English”, “Asian English”, “Mixed English”—all are English. Let the next generation never have to ask whether they are allowed to be English. Let the next generation never have to wonder if the St George’s flag represents them. Let them simply know it. Do you have to be white to be English? No, no, no. I commend this St George’s Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Josh Babarinde, David Lammy, Sir James Cleverly, Adam Jogee, Ben Obese-Jecty, Victoria Collins, Munira Wilson, Layla Moran and Mark Pritchard present the Bill.
Josh Babarinde accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 April 2027, and to be printed (Bill 178).
Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords]
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (John Healey)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Two weeks ago at this Dispatch Box, I set out a Budget to provide breathing space now and fresh hope for the future. It was a Budget to steer Britain through the global economic storms and a Budget built on fiscal discipline, which now more than ever underwrites every promise that this Government make to the British people. But as I said then, the only way for British families and for Britain’s finances to be secure in the long term is to have an economy that is growing more strongly. That means we must raise investment, back wealth creation, support innovation and help to create good jobs in all parts of the UK.
I welcome the constructive spirit in which the Opposition in the other place have approached this Bill, and let me also pay tribute to our Treasury Minister, Lord Pitt-Watson, for the way in which he led the Bill in the upper House and for the expertise he brought to the debates. It was during those debates that the Opposition Front Bench declared that this Bill was
“moving in the right direction”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 July 2026; Vol. 858, c. GC122.]
I hope we can continue in this House in a similar spirit of cross-party support.
Let us take the example of child trust funds. Back in 2003, I was with the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, when he promised that the funds would
“enable all young people to have more of the choices that were once available only to some.”—[Official Report, 9 April 2003; Vol. 403, c. 286.]
Around 6.3 million of these accounts were then opened, but then, regrettably, they were closed in 2011 when the child trust fund was abolished under the Conservative-led coalition. For some families, accessing that money since has not been straightforward. Where a young person lacks the mental capacity to manage their own financial affairs, their parents or carers generally have to obtain formal legal authority through the Court of Protection before they can access a matured child trust fund on their behalf. That can be lengthy and confusing, and up to 126,000 young people have struggled to get and benefit from the money that was set aside for them. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne)—who I had expected to see in this place, but he is not—and others for their work on highlighting this issue. The Government have listened, and we will amend this Bill in Committee to deal with this frustration and unfairness.
There is also strong cross-party recognition that the financial services sector is a growth powerhouse for Britain, not only in London but across the rest of the UK, where nearly two thirds of the jobs in this sector are based: in Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham, for example. In Scotland, 94,000 people work in financial services, alongside 36,000 in Wales and 20,000 in Northern Ireland. This one sector generates 8% of the UK’s entire economic output, exports to all corners of the globe, and every year backs thousands of British firms to start and succeed here in Britain.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In relation to Belfast, the Chancellor mentions those 20,000 jobs. The sector gives young people in Northern Ireland an opportunity to gain an exceptional job with good remuneration, and to travel, should the opportunity arise, within their companies. What has he done to increase the number of jobs and give more such opportunities to young people in Northern Ireland in the future?
John Healey
The short answer is more investment—encouraged by the UK Government, but decided, often, by the financial services sector itself. My right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary was in Belfast recently to mark the opening of new Bank of America offices—a sign to the hon. Gentleman, I hope, of a flourishing financial services sector in Northern Ireland, and one with a good, strong future.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Has the Chancellor made an assessment of the investment and wider economic benefits that would arise from these deregulatory measures? If so, can he share it now? If not now, will he publish it and share it with the House?
John Healey
We have indeed. As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, an economic impact assessment, which he may see in the Vote Office, has been published alongside the Bill. In rough terms—this is probably a conservative estimate—we think that the benefit of the measures in the Bill as it stands will have a value of about £1.6 billion over the next 10 years.
The UK is home not only to some of the deepest and most liquid capital markets in the world, but to some of the largest global banks, the world’s premier insurance market—Lloyd’s of London—and huge digital success stories such as Revolut and Wise. That is why I will always talk up the immense contribution that the sector makes to our economy and to the services that underpin everyday life: funding for the small firm looking to expand, mortgage finance for the first-time buyer and investment for the saver planning for the future. That comes not only from our world-leading banks, insurers and asset managers, but from our mutuals, building societies and credit unions, which are all essential parts of the UK financial system. Just last week, I was pleased to appoint my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) as the first ever co-operatives and mutuals champion in Government. He will help to fulfil our aim of doubling the size of the co-operative and mutual sector.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I was remiss not to mention my Harlow constituency earlier, so I will make up for that now. Will the Chancellor join me in paying tribute to Harlowsave, a brilliant credit union in my constituency of Harlow—I think that is three times—which supports residents in Harlow to save over the long and medium term?
John Healey
I had not come across the Harlowsave Credit Union, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will be encouraged by the provisions in the Bill, and will tell the members and trustees of the credit union about them. Its provisions, as well as those we will introduce in Committee, are designed to reinforce the strength of credit unions, their ability to extend membership and the common bond that binds them.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend rightly mentions our commitment to double the size of the co-op and mutual sector. One key measure that is needed to achieve that aim is allowing financial co-operatives and mutuals to have better access to our capital markets. I understand that the Law Commission has completed the work to prepare the legislation to enable that to happen, but those proposals are yet to emerge into the sunlight. Does he have any indication of when those proposals might be made public?
John Healey
I cannot tell my hon. Friend exactly when our response will be brought into the sunlight and made public, as he puts it, but I can reassure him that we have followed closely the Law Commission’s work. My right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary has the commission’s report, and we are giving it due consideration, as my hon. Friend would hope and expect.
Britain is in the midst of global economic storms and uncertainties. The conflict in Iran is driving up energy costs, inflation and the cost of borrowing. At the Budget, I rejected broad-based tax rises—keeping the promises made in our manifesto—and crude cuts to public services, but there were difficult decisions to meet our fiscal discipline, to fully fund the new policies I set out, and to provide some breathing space for families. Those included asking banks, through the bank surcharge, to help to pay for the energy help for households this winter. This is time limited and will end in March 2028. The time limitation is set out in the Finance Bill.
The ask that we made of banks at the Budget goes hand in hand with support. On my second full day as Chancellor, I convened a roundtable discussion with leading executives in the City, because I wanted to confirm my fullest commitment to the Government’s financial services and growth strategy and to this Bill.
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
I welcome the commitment to make changes to the financial sector, but I have deepening concerns over security and cyber-attacks. The banks’ rush to go digital and pull out of our high streets has left a huge vulnerability for people, particularly in rural areas. What work is being done to ensure that cash services and face-to-face services remain in our towns and high streets, given that such attacks may occur in future?
John Healey
As a very active member of the Defence Committee, my hon. Friend probably knows better than many about the threats to our computer and cyber-systems from cyber-attacks. She will be aware that Richard Lloyd has recently completed a report on access to banking, which the Government have just received. In Committee, we will look to reinsert a provision that will allow us to respond to the recommendations of Richard Lloyd’s report. I aim to publish that report and the Government’s response shortly.
The Bill does four key things. First, it streamlines regulation and reduces administrative burdens on business while maintaining high standards.
Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Restore Britain)
Why does the Chancellor not go the whole hog by, rather than reforming regulation, scrapping the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, which since 2000 have held back London as a risk-taking centre? That would allow people to return to the concept of caveat emptor, which is what our success was built on, and release the UK economy from the manacles that are holding it back.
John Healey
I think that most would regard the total removal of consumer protection or regulation as a reckless move. I hope the hon. Gentleman accepts that the Bill will reduce and remove unnecessary and duplicative regulation. I also hope that, where he has constructive, practical suggestions to offer, he will offer them as part of the House’s scrutiny of the Bill.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am grateful to the Chancellor for talking about consumer protection, but one group of consumers is missing from the Bill: people who have been victims of economic abuse. They are trapped with financial products through no market failure or fault of their own, even if they want to move to something that is cheaper and therefore a smaller risk to their joint borrower. The Bill does not do anything for those people. Will the Chancellor consider some amendments to help them?
John Healey
If the hon. Lady wishes to table amendments for debate and consideration, she should please do so. If she looks at the detail of the financial inclusion strategy that we have published, with some of the measures now being put in place, she will see a recognition of concern for that group of people and some of the measures that may help in the future.
I will return to the four headline purposes and definitions of the content of the Bill, the first of which is the streamlining of regulation, and the second is allowing credit unions to expand, enabling more people to benefit from membership. Thirdly, the Bill modernises consumer protections and access to redress. Fourthly, it supports business lending and investment here in Britain. I am grateful that the Bill has received support from across the sector. UK Finance has confirmed that the Bill supports
“growth and competitiveness while strengthening consumer outcomes”.
TheCityUK has reasonably and rightly said, “Get on with it” and that the priority now needs to be on fully delivering these reforms. Before I move on, I want to pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury for all her work in developing the policy in the Bill and on the issues ranging from financial inclusion to the digitisation of markets.
Let me take those four major sections briefly in turn. First, on regulation, good growth demands an active state that is willing to deliver better regulation and quicker decisions. The Bill does that by updating the regulatory framework to support innovation, speed up decision making and streamline processes that at the moment add little value. It does so in five ways. First, it reduces the number of regulators that firms need to engage with by abolishing the Payment Systems Regulator and consolidating its functions within the Financial Conduct Authority. Secondly, it speeds up regulators’ decision making with ambitious new deadlines, including when deciding to authorise a new firm. The Bill also creates a new provisional licence regime to support innovative new firms while they apply for full authorisation. Thirdly, it strengthens oversight of the regulators. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority will now be required to publish long-term strategies, so that regulated firms and consumers can better understand their priorities, and Government and Parliament can better hold them to account against delivery.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
The Chancellor mentioned the importance of widening access to lending, which I value very much. On the topic he is talking about, does he agree that it would be great to see in some of the new strategies brought forward by the regulators a greater focus on access to credit for people who are perhaps disadvantaged, who have thin credit files or who have had adverse experiences, such as domestic abuse, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) mentioned, such that we can get them back on to the credit ladder?
John Healey
One of the things I like about my hon. Friend is that he is a regular attendee of a range of different debates in this Chamber, and I welcome him here tonight. He may not have had a chance to study it, so after this debate I will send him our financial inclusion strategy, in which he, like the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), will see set out some of the points of concern he raises. If not, then either I or my right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary would be happy to discuss it with him further.
Kirsty Blackman
The financial inclusion strategy does indeed highlight the problems and areas where improvements could be made. However, the actual strategies for doing that, and the things that actually need to be put in place to ensure better access to credit across the board, for example, are not quite solid enough. Could the Chancellor commit to looking again at how to improve fair access to credit for everybody?
John Healey
As my right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary has just said to me, the strategy and action plan are relatively new. In many ways—the hon. Lady will know this from her own nationalist Government in Scotland—government is always, in some ways, a work in progress, and where there are improvements and strengthening measures that we can take, we are certainly willing to consider those.
The fourth measure on deregulation is that the Bill will give the Bank of England a new secondary innovation objective when regulating systemic payment systems and digital settlement asset service providers. This will ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of innovation in payments and digital finance. Fifthly, it reforms the senior managers and certification regime, retaining its core guardrails while saving firms an estimated £240 million a year.
Turning to the second part of the Bill, credit unions expand access to affordable credit, encourage saving and strengthen financial resilience in communities right across Britain. At the heart of a credit union is its common bond—the connection that brings together its members, be that place, employer or sometimes occupation. Yet in too many areas, the rules that govern how credit unions operate have simply not kept pace with the way people live and work today. In many cases, moving home, retiring or studying somewhere can stand in the way of someone benefiting from credit union membership. The Bill therefore ensures that credit unions will be able to admit a wider range of relatives, to deal with retirement and to accommodate students, even when they do not live or work in the same place as they study.
I turn to the third part of the Bill: consumer protections and redress. The Consumer Credit Act 1974 was designed and passed over 50 years ago. Research from the debt charity StepChange shows that parts of the Act can be harmful, resulting in many consumers feeling scared, depressed and overwhelmed by what they face. In part, that is because currently much of the information sent to consumers about their credit product is tightly specified by this 50-year-old Act—down in some cases to specific words and even which letters must be capitalised in the advice given. It requires the reading age of an undergraduate, when at least one in seven adults have the literacy skills expected of a nine to 11-year-old. The Bill repeals many of the prescriptive provisions in the 1974 Act, enabling the FCA to develop new rules around the information that consumers will receive, allowing this to be more flexible and tailored to the particular needs of different consumers.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I have raised previously in this Chamber the situation of my constituent Pam Beevers, who had a cheque cashed in and misread, which meant she lost out on £125,000—down to a bank error. We are talking about punctuation being the real killer. What is in this Bill to help constituents such as Pam to find redress when a bank admits an error and the ombudsman says there is a problem, but they fail to properly compensate people?
John Healey
If the hon. Member would write to me or the Economic Secretary, she would be willing to take another look at that. I was not quite certain whether he was saying that Ms Beevers’s cheque was misread by a human or a machine, but it sounds in any case like there is an established error and that some form of redress and recognition is required. If he writes to us with the details, we will certainly take a look at it.
Alongside these measures, we are reforming the legal framework governing the Financial Ombudsman Service to improve the consistency and predictability of its decision making. Currently, decisions made by the ombudsman are not required to align with FCA rules. That has the potential to cause, and indeed has caused, delays in redress for consumers. It has caused uncertainty among firms on what standards they should apply. The Bill takes measures to ensure that all decisions taken by the ombudsman apply FCA rules, including the FCA consumer duty. That should deliver a more consistent set of standards across the board, both for firms and for consumers.
Dr Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The FCA failed to protect many people—mostly pensioners—who invested in legal investment scams. Does the Chancellor feel that the FCA’s current mandate and remit is broad enough to protect people from scams such as London Capital & Finance in future?
John Healey
The straight answer to my hon. Friend is, yes, I do regard it as sufficient. If he has a stronger case to make to the contrary, I encourage him to make it. To answer his question directly, as things stand, I do regard it as sufficiently robust and strong.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Financial Ombudsman Service is much loved by consumers because it provides an impartial fairness test. The Chancellor can correct me if I am misunderstanding this, but under the new proposed rules there is a presumption that the firm is right, and the consumer therefore has to go through more hoops to raise a concern. Is that really fair on consumers?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is so expert and well read in this area. In fact, her assertion about an assumption that the firm is always right is incorrect. At the heart of what is proposed in the Bill is the consumer duty of the FCA, with a single, clear set of standards that firms must meet and that consumers who feel their service has fallen short are able to use as reference for challenge, redress and appeal to the ombudsman. Instead of the ombudsman having its own set of standards and criteria and the FCA having its own, which has led to confusion and inconsistency, we will have a single set of standards that are clear and consistent for both the consumer and firms.
Turning to the fourth and final area, we must do more to increase lending and encourage firms to start and succeed here in Britain, as I did with measures in the Budget.
John Healey
The right hon. Gentleman has had one go. Quite a few Members wish to speak, and it is beginning to get into the evening, so I am going to make a bit more progress and let others come in. But if he wants to sit on the Bill Committee, he would be welcome— I am sure the Whips on his Front Bench will have noticed his keen interest in the debate. If that does not put him off, I don’t know what will!
The ringfencing regime requires major banks to separate their UK retail banking services from riskier investment banking activities. This regime has strengthened the resilience of UK retail banking since the financial crisis, but the independent Skeoch review identified areas where the ringfencing regime and the resolution regime could be better aligned. That is why we are introducing a series of reforms, such as the new growth allowance, to give ringfenced banks greater flexibility to provide growing businesses with the support they need as they grow. The measures in the Bill go a stage further, including allowing the Prudential Regulation Authority to remove unnecessary duplication in its rules, and we are introducing new powers to expand the commercial credit data-sharing scheme.
Graham Stuart
In lieu of other people seeking to intervene, would the Chancellor allow me to?
Graham Stuart
I am grateful to the Chancellor, who is being typically generous. On the subject of lending, he will be aware that the doubling of the bank tax, which was red meat for his Back Benchers, will raise £1.5 billion in just 15 months. The regulatory rules suggest that that could reduce the lending pot by a maximum of perhaps £25 billion. Is it not fair to say that that dwarfs any of the benefits of this Bill? My final question is, can he commit that it will be 15 months and 15 months only before this credit-reducing measure is brought back again?
John Healey
Two questions in one intervention—that really will be the last time I give way to the right hon. Gentleman. The answer to his first question is that, as I have said already, this is time limited. It will end in March 2028. If he looks at clause 7 of the Finance Bill, he will see that set out.
On the question of hitting investment, I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that none of the discussions I have had with banking and financial sector leaders before or subsequent to the Budget suggests they want to do anything other than raise their levels of investment into British firms. I understand the reaction to and view of the temporary 3% additional surcharge that I put on banks to help pay for household energy help this winter. I certainly would not describe it as welcomed by the banks. I do believe it is manageable. I do not believe, and I have seen no evidence, that it is going to hit the levels of investment or the commitment they make to this country. As I said earlier, I will miss no opportunity to talk up the importance of the financial services sector to the UK.
John Healey
Given that the right hon. Gentleman has served with such distinction in the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, I will give way one last time.
John Glen
I am extremely grateful. Of course, one way of mitigating the anxieties of the banking sector is to ensure that the capital requirements directed by the PRA are significantly reformed. I understand from what the Chancellor has said that there is provision for that possibility, but what instinct does he have about the space that exists for the PRA to move decisively to signal to the banks that there is room for more capital to be lent by British banks in London, as a way of countering the concerns about the tax?
John Healey
I think I can do better than answer about my instinct on the scope for that. I would point the right hon. Gentleman to the measures in the Bill. I would also point him to my exchange of letters with the Governor of the Bank of England about capital requirements and the expectation to see material change, bearing in mind the importance of the internationally competitive position of UK banks. He will know that the Bank is undertaking its own review of this area at the moment, and I hope we will get the results and any consequent changes before too long.
Finally, I have spoken about the importance of maintaining the UK’s pre-eminent position as a global financial centre. That requires maintaining the very highest standards in tackling illicit finance. We have in the UK a strong set of anti-money laundering rules, but the supervision of compliance with those rules is currently fragmented and inconsistent. Last year, the Government announced that the Financial Conduct Authority will take on responsibility for the anti-money laundering supervision of legal and accounting service providers, as well as trust and company service providers.
The Bill enables the FCA to take on those new responsibilities, meaning that we can reduce the number of bodies that have a role in anti-money laundering supervision from 25 to three. Additionally, as financial crime increasingly involves cryptoassets held outside the UK, the Bill will enable the Government to update existing cryptoasset recovery powers through secondary legislation. [Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, you are encouraging me to conclude, so I will, but I hope you appreciate that I have taken a large number of interventions.
I believe there is a shared determination in this House to ensure that the UK remains the global location of choice for financial services firms to invest, innovate and grow. This Bill is a necessary step to strengthen that leading UK position on financial services: streamlining regulation and reducing the burden on businesses, supporting financial resilience through our credit unions, reforming consumer protection so that it is fit for this digital age, and raising levels of investment in our high-growth firms, all while maintaining our high standards of regulation and oversight. It is a Bill to generate good growth in every postcode and provide fresh hope for the future. I commend this Bill to the House.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I thank the Chancellor for his speech’s very positive tone. As he so rightly said, there was a lot of collaboration in the House of Lords as our colleagues were taking through this Bill, and I certainly intend to enter the conversation in a similar spirit of collaboration over the coming weeks and months.
As the Chancellor has said, the financial services sector is incredibly important to this country. It is the engine room that powers our economy. As the Chancellor has also said, it generates 8% of our national economic output, contributes £12 in every £100 of tax paid and makes up 3% of all jobs in the UK. As the Chancellor so rightly said, two thirds of those jobs are outside London.
The sector truly is a jewel in our economic crown, but it is important to remember that financial services underpin our everyday lives—for example, they support my constituents in opening and running businesses. They support all our constituents across this great country to get on to the housing ladder. They support people across the UK in ways that are not truly understood, including financial support for their employer; ensuring that their homes and other assets are insured; providing liquidity to buy expensive items such as a car; and helping to provide for our retirement. What happens just a mile or so up the road and across the country helps every one of us in pretty much every aspect of our lives.
Despite that, we must be careful. The UK’s financial services and related professional services sector are at a crossroads. TheCityUK published earlier this year its “No Time to Lose” report in conjunction with PwC, which I will quote directly. It said that
“the hard truth is that overall industry growth has stalled over the last decade and the UK is falling behind other financial centres.”
Our international competitiveness should be our priority, because the UK market is so internationally focused. As we know, London is the second-biggest financial services centre on the planet, second only to New York. However, while New York’s financial services market is 80% led by its domestic economy, here in the UK London is 80% international. At the most basic level, our international competitiveness is four times as valuable to us here as it is to the Americans across the Atlantic.
The Chancellor rightly mentioned the Budget, during which he said to the banks that
“I celebrate, and am grateful for, the role that you play.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 307],
But then he increased the bank levy by 3%. To be fair to him, bank stocks did go up on the day, because they were expecting a 5% permanent levy. None the less, we have to bear in mind that that takes the marginal tax rate on banks to 49.5%. That is not competitive on the international stage. We need to be mindful of that, because we need to attract international banks to come to our shores, and it is very important that we get this right. We understand that that generates a little more tax, but we want more people to invest in this country, and that is why we were against that measure. It sends the wrong signal.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
Will the hon. Member join me in congratulating J.P. Morgan? It is in its 40th year of operation in Bournemouth, and this year it is investing £350 million into Bournemouth and the wider UK economy. It is doing that because it sees the overriding talent in Bournemouth and across the UK. The Bournemouth site is the second-most important site across 38 in Europe, the middle east and Africa for the world’s largest bank and seventh-largest technologist. Is that not a vote of confidence in the UK economy?
Mark Garnier
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is incredibly important to remember that banks such as J.P. Morgan invest in the wider community, but Jamie Dimon has said that he is worried about uncertainty around the tax regime on banks in the UK. He has warned that if we are uncertain and increase the level of tax on banks, they will not invest another £300 million or so into Canary Wharf. That is the point: we have to be mindful of international competitiveness. It does not take much, when we are taxing close to 50% on banks, for them to change their mind and go to another financial services centre. However, the hon. Gentleman’s point is absolutely right: the value of international investment by banks in communities such as his is really important.
Graham Stuart
Following that last intervention on the tremendous importance of banks to this country, does my hon. Friend share my concern? Notwithstanding what it says on the face of the Finance Bill, I rather fear that a Labour Chancellor with this particular set of Back Benchers will not turn up after 15 months and say, “I have a great idea, comrades: let us get rid of the doubling of the bank tax.” I fear that there will be some other new financial pressure—there are always financial pressures—that will mean that this socialist Government further reduce the credit available to this country and make us all poorer as a result of satisfying Government Back Benchers, who understand nothing about economics.
Mark Garnier
My right hon. Friend makes a very reasonable point. It is certainly easier to tax banks than it is to cut benefits, for example, but we have to be careful about this. He raises a very good point; if we reduce the amount of cash available to banks, we reduce the amount of money getting into the wider economy. I will come to that a bit later in my speech. We have identified certain areas where we can make it easier for banks to lend more money in the economy, but, as I say, I will come to that in a minute.
This Bill is an important opportunity to change the signal that we are sending to the wider world. We believe that, in general terms, this Bill takes steps in the right direction, so the Chancellor and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will be glad to hear that we will not vote against it tonight. There is a one-line Whip, and it is fantastic that so many people have turned up on the Government Benches for this debate. However, while the Bill takes a positive step, it should be taking a positive leap. Just like the Budget, it feels like a missed opportunity to take the bold action needed. As I have said, we intend to work constructively with the Government, but we want them to be braver and go further.
Let me be clear: when it comes to this Bill, we should be talking about the level of risk that we are willing to accept, not how we can pursue perfection. This is about how we can keep talent in the UK, not about how we can make it jump through more hoops. This is about how we can empower the financial services sector, not about how we can bind it in further red tape. This is about the bold action that we should take to cement the future of the sector, not about how we can tinker at the edges. I hope that colleagues will follow that advice as the Bill progresses.
First, though, we should celebrate our past, because we have so much to be proud of in this country. The financial services ecosystem started in the UK in the 12th century, when the Knights Templar first issued receipts to pilgrims and crusaders for valuable assets such as gold. Those could be exchanged in the Holy Land for funds, creating what we recognise as the first iteration of bank notes. In the 17th century, Jonathan’s Coffee House was the first to advertise share prices. From there, the London stock exchange grew, setting up the model for equity ownership the world over. Similarly, Lloyd’s Coffee House created the insurance market that we see today. From that, the UK has continued to be a world leader in innovation, and we have built a reputation as a major financial centre.
The statistics do not lie. We are the largest net exporter of financial services in the world, at £119 billion last year. The London market alone is larger than its five closest international competitors combined. We have the most unicorns in Europe, the second largest asset management sector globally, the third largest insurance market globally and the fifth largest domestic banking sector globally. The point is that we start in a good position, and we have a great deal to be proud of. However, if we are to continue to succeed today and in the future, we must be bold, and we must be aware that others seek to steal our advantage. We must respond to that challenge and restore our economic powerhouse.
Where do we want the Government to go further? The first area is ringfencing. As the Chancellor alluded to earlier, the Bill talks about ringfencing, which, as we know, is the structural separation of certain retail banking activities from the activities conducted by international wholesale and investment banks. It was proposed by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards back in 2013—following the Wright review, if I remember rightly—which was created in response to the global financial crisis.
Let me be clear that ringfencing was well intentioned— I know that well, because I sat on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and was part of the process that recommended it. However, 13 years later, I can see that the implementation of the ringfencing regime has not gone in the way that was intended. It costs our banking sector about £1.5 billion a year to implement. To go back to the competitiveness point, no other jurisdiction ended up bringing in ringfencing at all, and it has been superseded by more recent regulatory developments, such as the resolution regime. That last point is especially important. To quote the 2022 independent review of ringfencing and proprietary trading:
“The reduction in the implicit government guarantee and progress in ending too-big-to-fail was not found to be attributable to ring-fencing. The last point is instead attributable to the development of the UK resolution regime”.
As I say, that is from an independent review of ringfencing.
The Government are making changes in the Bill that will make ringfencing more flexible. That includes amending the PRA’s duty to make ringfencing rules, helping it to avoid duplicating protections that are already provided by the bank resolution regime. Along with other measures in the Bill, that measure takes a positive step forward, but we feel that the Government could have been bolder.
At times of change, we need to remove rules that no longer serve their intended purposes. Some of these rules have been superseded by subsequent legislation—last year’s Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Act 2025 is a case in point, together with bail-in bonds and the minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities regime. We believe that ringfencing is the clearest example, so we will push the Government to go further and not just reform ringfencing, but remove it altogether.
Dame Meg Hillier
I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful comments and the research he is quoting, but he is now talking about removing ringfencing completely. Can he explain to the House how that would mitigate the risk posed by the bad players who led to some of the problems in 2008? As a result, some of us were in this place voting to nationalise banks, at a cost to the British taxpayer. How can the hon. Gentleman be confident that that could never happen again? We do not legislate for today; we legislate for the worst possible scenario—the mad, the bad and the dangerous—not the good people who I am sure he is talking about.
Mark Garnier
The point of ringfencing at the time was to separate the retail banks from the wholesale and investment banks. If the hon. Lady remembers, the Liikanen reforms sought to cage the tigers and ringfence the investment banks into units, whereas our reforms looked to put a fence around the deer park to look after the retail banks. The problem is that this creates a cliff edge as customers get past a certain turnover—I think they go from being in the retail bank to being in the wholesale bank when they get to £5 million of turnover. The only bank that has changed that is Barclays; it has set that limit at £100 million, which makes the retail bank much more open, and arguably could make it slightly more vulnerable.
Of course we do not want the big banks to fail—although, having said that, we have to have an element of risk within the banking system. It is important that we keep that. However, we have a number of systems that have come in later and that other countries have looked at, such as the bail-in bonds and the MREL regime. Returning to the competitiveness point, we now find ourselves with a ringfencing regime that creates extra costs and administrative burdens for banks that other countries do not have. We also have a system that can protect consumers, the bail-in bonds, whereby we have regulatory capital that can potentially be converted from bonds into equity to solve that problem.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I am sure that many Members of this House would entertain the idea of taking a targeted look at the way in which ringfencing regulation is implemented and agree that, where it is helpful, there should be much more of a free flow of information and discussions with clients across universal banks. However, can the hon. Gentleman categorically rule out the complete abolition of ringfencing that he has suggested, if only for the sake of consumers who do not want to see their retail money swirling around in an investment bank?
Mark Garnier
The hon. Gentleman raises a number of points. We are getting deep into the debate, but the very quick answer to his question is no, I cannot rule out getting rid of the ringfencing regime. It has already been made public that the policy of a future Conservative Government will be to do so. That is the debate we will be having in Committee, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to join us in Committee, where we can get into the debate in depth. It is great to see so many Members across the House putting themselves forward with their enthusiasm to get involved in the debate—my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) will have found a friend.
My second point—of a number of points, although I am conscious that I am taking up a lot of time—is that we would like the Government to go further on bank capital requirements. UK banks, building societies and PRA-designated investment firms are required to maintain minimum levels of capital in proportion to their risk-weighted assets. That is to help ensure that firms remain resilient and to reduce the impact of failure. Clearly, no responsible Government would abolish capital requirements, but we need to question whether banks should be required to hold capital beyond what is genuinely needed for resilience. This is an important point.
We should acknowledge that the Bank of England has eased bank capital requirements in recent years, specifically at the end of 2025, when it revised down the benchmark for tier 1 capital from 14% of risk-weighted assets to 13%. However, it is worth remembering that the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards recommended 11%, so that benchmark is higher than we originally asked for. We believe that the current level is still too high. The most recent stress test carried out by the Bank of England found that
“all banks remained above their set capital minima at the low-point of the scenario. No individual bank was required to strengthen its capital position as a result of the test.”
From memory, it was a one-in-250-year event that the banks were being stress tested on. The system has to allow an element of risk—when I was on the banking commission, we made it very clear how important that was. We made it clear that it was okay for a bank to fail, but it was not okay for banks to bring down the entire system.
The important point is that there has to be an element of risk in the system, but that is not what has been delivered, meaning that the potential lending and financing capacity of our banking sector is significantly reduced—to the tune of about £450 billion each year, we reckon. That is an awful lot of money that is not going into the economy. UK Finance has advised me that each percentage point of the tier 1 capital stack potentially represents about £600 billion in liquidity, so 2% above the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards represents about £1.2 trillion. Leverage that up under the banks and we are potentially talking about £12 trillion that is not in circulation because of over-interpretation of the rules. But we do not want to get ahead of ourselves; we reckon that £450 billion is not in circulation because of that over-enthusiasm on the tier 1 stack. That is money that could be used more productively. It could be invested in our communities or in businesses, but it remains stuck on banks’ balance sheets.
While the Bill does not contain any specific measures dealing with bank capital requirements, we believe that it is a perfect opportunity to make the necessary changes—specifically, to reform the parameters within which the Financial Policy Committee and the PRA operate. As such, we will be putting forward changes in areas where we believe the Government may be encouraged to take some advice from the Opposition.
As we have heard, the Financial Ombudsman Service plays an incredibly important role in the UK financial services sector. It provides redress for consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises against FCA and PRA-regulated firms outside of the court system, and crucially, it provides a service that is low-cost and accessible for consumers. However, over the years, the FOS has gone beyond being a dispute resolution mechanism and has become a quasi-regulator. This is creating significant costs for firms, with research from TheCityUK suggesting that the cost of regulatory compliance across the financial sector now exceeds £34 billion. Importantly, firms are also being retrospectively penalised, despite having followed the law on the day of an occurrence that was subsequently deemed to be problematic.
The Bill makes some positive changes in this area, which we welcome. It narrows the fair and reasonable test so that there is no longer a presumption of guilt, and creates a 10-year complaint deadline. Those positive changes will help prevent the FOS from acting beyond its remit. However, again, we do not believe that they go far enough, and there are a number of issues that we will raise during our debates in Committee.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased that this brings me to my final point.
Mark Garnier
We are getting there. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the UK is a major financial centre with a rich history of innovation. We cannot afford to lose that reputation, so we must also be looking to the future. Digital assets will be a key part of that, as will the technologies that underpin them. We have been told time and again that the UK has no clear direction on digital assets, meaning that companies in the UK are being restricted from innovating, so we need to create a strategy that sends a clear signal to that industry. That is why the digital assets strategy in clause 50, which was introduced in the other place, is so important.
We tabled that amendment in the Lords for a few reasons. First, we want to send a clear message about where the UK is going; it is incredibly important that we define what the UK’s ambition is. Secondly, going back to the competitiveness point, other jurisdictions have these strategies. Thirdly, the significance of digital assets has not been identified in any recent Government strategy. Finally, the digital assets sector is incredibly diverse, beyond where the Government are currently looking—it is very innovative. For all of those reasons, we believe that the digital assets strategy and clause 50 are necessary, and that removing that clause from the Bill—if that is the Government intend to do—would send the wrong message to the sector.
Do not take our word for it; take the word of the organisations that support clause 50: the UK Cryptoasset Business Council, TheCityUK, Innovate Finance, the Payments Association, techUK, Global Digital Finance, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the International Digital Assets Counsel Association, CryptoUK and the Digital Money Association. All of those organisations know that
“Other jurisdictions are moving rapidly to attract digital-asset businesses, investment and talent.”
A clear strategy will help the UK to keep up with those other jurisdictions and demonstrate that we are embracing these new technologies. I know that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury feels passionately about this area of her brief, so I hope she will use her closing remarks—we will all be waiting in the Chamber until 10 o’clock to hear them—to reassure the industry and commit to retaining the digital assets strategy in the Bill.
To conclude, financial services and the related professional services are incredibly important to the UK. When they succeed, they help to empower our communities and unlock growth. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury understands that. She has a very good reputation in the City of London as being somebody who gets it, so I look forward to working with her over the next few weeks and months. I am sure we will have our disagreements, but where we do, it will be about the detail, not the overall direction of this Bill. I know we can remain focused on empowering the sector.
The financial services sector is also important to me personally. I spent the bulk of my working life—27 years—working in the City, and I know the amazing things it can do. Being the shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury, I have seen at first hand that we still have so much potential across this great country of ours. If we get this Bill right, we can unlock even more. While the financial services sector may be at a crossroads, it is now time for us to get behind the sector, to shift into gear, to accelerate our efforts and to focus on the exciting journey ahead.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I agree with both the Chancellor and the shadow Economic Secretary, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) that the financial services sector has an important part to play in our economy. As the shadow Economic Secretary said, the sector represents 3% of jobs in the UK, and it is important for growth and investment. It is therefore important that we understand its role and that we get things right. This Bill, in the Government’s terms,
“will modernise how the sector is regulated, and enable it to grow and lend more to businesses. It will also make consumer protections fit for the digital age”.
I do not think any of us would disagree with those intentions.
The Government have also set out clearly that they want to maintain high standards of regulation and oversight at the same time. There is a balance to be struck in leaning in to support a sector, while also protecting the many consumers—millions of our constituents—who are borrowing, investing and using the services of financial institutions. Having a strong and competitive financial services sector is important for driving growth, but the protection of consumers is important, too. The Treasury Committee has looked at that balance between the growth objective that the previous Chancellor set the Financial Conduct Authority and its role in regulation.
As a side point, I mention remit letters. The new Chancellor has not had a chance to write too many yet, but the number of remit letters that go to our regulators runs into quite high numbers. Those bodies then have to consider the “have regard to” comments in those letters in their work, and it makes for a very long list of things to do, some of which just cannot all be done at the same time. The Treasury could look to prune some of these requirements, or to decide what the key areas are at any point, so that those organisations know what they should be focusing on.
This Bill could be seen as moving the pendulum more towards the financial services sector and further from regulation to support consumers, and we should be careful about that. The Committee has made some comments on it, but for me, consumers should be front and centre. My question to the Government—the Economic Secretary may expand on this in her closing remarks—is: how far should that pendulum swing? How far is too far? Who is the arbiter of what level of protection constituents and consumers should expect? We have a number of bodies, and I will speak about the Financial Ombudsman Service a little later.
It is not just me or the Treasury Committee who have been raising these issues. Nikhil Rathi, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, said to us in July that the FCA needs a clear indication of the Government’s risk tolerance when it comes to markets. He is up for the challenge, but he needs to know as a regulator where to draw the line between promoting growth and consumer protection. We know that even a small increase in the percentage of customers harmed is a lot of people. One of the pleasures of our role as MPs is that we get to see people face to face at our surgeries. We see people in the raw. Whitehall is a long way from that direct contact, and it is us who will be picking up the problems if they arise. As this Bill proceeds through Committee, we need to be cautious and make sure that we are stress-testing that point about consumer protection at each stage.
The Government are encouraging more investment. In fact, the Economic Secretary, during her previous time as Economic Secretary, made a number of public statements encouraging people to invest more. I can understand the Government’s position. People can make a lot more money from savings if they invest them carefully and well, but it is about changing the language. There has been concern about investment, particularly since the financial crash of 2008—it is a bit like the “Smoking kills” signs on cigarette packets—so the Government are changing the language, but I need to ask what level of risk they are willing to take. As they change the language and encourage people to take not risky, but less safe approaches to managing their money, where will the Government draw the line?
My main concern is the changes to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which has been a vital consumer protection. It is popular with consumers, and the source of much complaint from the City. The shadow Economic Secretary highlighted some of those concerns, as did the Chancellor. We know that the Financial Ombudsman Service is not perfect. It has had a bit of a rocky ride in the past few years, but it is already undergoing some changes without the need for legislation. It is having to adapt to the modern world, and AI is no doubt causing it even more challenges, but it was dealing with a high volume and not always reacting quickly enough.
I have a couple of particular concerns to raise. One is the time limit on complaints. While 10 years sounds like a long time, some of the financial products that our constituents take out have a very long life, with pensions being the obvious example. When something goes wrong in that area, it can have a long reach back into the past. I understand the challenges for banks, such as we have seen with the motor finance issues. When the issue was payment protection insurance, I spoke to one bank that employed 10 people just to go through the complaints coming in from people who were not even customers of the bank. There is a lot to be done in that area. This partly relates to those online promising the earth to people if they take up a complaint, even if they do not have legitimate grounds. I do not believe setting the time limit at 10 years is the answer. The Economic Secretary might not be able to discuss it now, but perhaps she will meet the Committee or me—whoever—to talk about how the Government will protect people taking out long-term financial products, including pensions.
The Treasury Committee has heard evidence on the Financial Ombudsman Service from the Citizens Advice, which noted that although it believes that consumer protection and growth do not have to be competing objectives—I agree with that—this Bill reduces protections and access to redress for consumers. Which? wrote to the Committee and noted that the proposed referral mechanism in clause 6 risks making redress slower and more complex, creating additional barriers to redress for consumers. I know that the Chancellor answered that point to a degree in response to my question earlier.
Clause 7 constrains the fair and reasonable test that the FOS has worked under for such a long time, which will make it harder for consumers to receive redress, even when they have been treated unfairly. I can see clearly what the Chancellor and the Government are trying to do here. We have heard the noise from the financial institutions, saying, “We adhere to the rules of the FCA. We take into account the consumer duty, as the FCA requires us to do. Then something goes to the ombudsman and suddenly it seems to be judged by a whole different set of rules.” Most financial institutions do a reasonably good job most of the time and treat their customers fairly, and the consumer duty weighs heavily on them. When something goes to the ombudsman and is not considered to meet the fair and reasonable test, it should be something that is egregiously outside that consumer duty. It is important to have that backstop for our constituents. The Financial Ombudsman Service is already, as I said, undergoing non-legislative reforms. We should focus first on improving the system, rather than adding more layers of legal reform. Perhaps giving it that chance to reform itself would be the best first step.
In March this year, the Committee wrote to the Government outlining the importance of the Financial Ombudsman Service’s independence. The perception of that independence is vital. I propose—I would like to talk to the Economic Secretary further about this—that we introduce a statutory lock for the Treasury Committee on the appointment and dismissal of the chair of the Financial Ombudsman Service. There is precedent; the Chancellor of the Exchequer may not know it, but he cannot appoint or sack a chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility without the agreement of the Treasury Committee. That is a lock on a mad, bad or dangerous Chancellor taking away the independence of that important body. We think that there should also be a lock on a mad, bad or dangerous Chancellor doing the same for the chair of the FOS.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Friern Barnet) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend, who chairs the Treasury Committee, agree that in other jurisdictions it is quite common to have more parliamentary oversight of these sorts of appointments?
Dame Meg Hillier
I agree with my hon. Friend, who is also a member of the Treasury Committee and a constituency neighbour of mine in London. We are not suggesting for a moment that the Treasury Committee starts rolling up its sleeves, conducting job interviews or getting in CVs. That is not our role. Our role is to be a check and a balance on the Government.
As I said to the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, we are not legislating for the people here in this Chamber, who I believe are good and honourable Members with all good intent. We have to legislate for the worst possible set of legislators and the worst possible Government, and we need to make sure that we have that commitment to the independence of the Financial Ombudsman Service. This would be one small step that would take nothing away from the rest of the Bill. It would not damage any of the Government’s set-out intentions. I know that the Chancellor is a strong advocate for a strong Parliament, and he should be praised and recognised for that, so I hope he will consider this option. I am happy to share my thoughts with the Economic Secretary on how an amendment could be tabled; it may be that it can come up in Committee—I would hope that it would not have to wait until a later stage, on Report.
It is essential that the Chair of the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is a key public role, has the necessary independence and professional skills to maintain the balance between consumers and the financial services industry. The Treasury Committee has a number of pre-appointment hearings—more than a number of Committees do—and our measure is professional competence and independence. I would hope—and so far, Members will be glad to know, this has proved to be the case—that when the Treasury goes through a proper recruitment process, it recruits people with professional competence. We measure against that. Again, if there were a mad, bad or dangerous Government in future, that might not always be the case, but so far it has been. The independence point is important too, and that is what is often tested in the room when we have someone before us for a pre-appointment hearing. We do not have a power to sack, but in this case, we think we should have an extra power of a lock on that appointment.
The Financial Ombudsman Service is accountable to Parliament. The Treasury Committee was compelled, due to the actions of a previous chair of the Financial Ombudsman Service, to underline that point in our ninth report of the session 2024-25, which was entitled— I say this for Hansard’s purposes and I am sure that colleagues will avidly look this up in a moment—“Financial Ombudsman Service: Accountability to the House of Commons”. Providing the Treasury Committee with a statutory lock on the appointment of the FOS chair would help to guard against a repeat of that incident. I was saddened at the time to receive a letter from a public appointee to say that they did not have to appear in front of the Treasury Committee because they were a Member of the other place. That is another issue that I will take up in due course. The Second Reading debate is obviously about arguments in principle, but I am happy to have a further conversation with the Economic Secretary on the detail.
I want to raise a couple of other quick points while I have the floor. On financial inclusion, I know the Economic Secretary has played her part—I think four Economic Secretaries have dealt with the financial inclusion strategy. Now that it has been published, the Committee will keep an eye on how it is going. We published a report on the matter, and the Government told the Committee that the Bill would include a reserve power on access to face-to-face banking services, recognising the limitations of voluntary action. The power was removed in the other place following concerns about its breadth. In their response to our report, the Government said they intended to restore that power during the passage of the Bill in the Commons, and that they would use evidence from the access to banking services review to do so. I would be interested, if the Economic Secretary could cover that in her closing remarks.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I entirely agree with the point my hon. Friend is making. In my constituency of Ealing Southall, Santander and NatWest have recently closed down, although Barclays is still there and is being refurbished. There is a very large north Indian population in the constituency and many of them are first generation, with English as another language. Does my hon. Friend agree that face-to-face banking is particularly important for those people and for older communities?
Dame Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend raises an important point, because there are many excluded groups. There is an important challenge here, too. I am proud to be the Member of Parliament for Hackney South and Shoreditch, representing a very high percentage of fintech companies. Of course, those companies never had branches on the street, so it is not unreasonable for the larger banks, which have had a network of high street banks, to say that the playing field is not level. Some tech innovation has been amazing, making banking very accessible to some people, but there are still points in life—for instance, death, or maturity to 18 when products have to be turned from junior to adult—when we need to have conversations face to face.
Even if it is not very often, there will be times when even the most digitally-savvy will need to have face-to-face contact. I recognise this is a difficult challenge for the Government to wrestle with, and there is no easy, simple answer, but it is important if there is to be financial inclusion. The danger is that if there is no proper ability to have contact with trusted banks, people get advice from elsewhere—a friend or a relative—that is not good advice; I have seen that in my own constituency. There is a danger that people get driven to the wrong place if we do not have a lock on some sort of provision, though I recognise that particular challenge for the Government.
Gareth Thomas
One of the encouraging things in the financial inclusion strategy was a proposal to build a coalition of employers willing to offer a payroll deduction service to their employees to join and save with a credit union. Does my hon. Friend think that one of the ways to give that coalition new life and new energy would be if more parts of Whitehall—perhaps even the Treasury itself—were willing to make that commitment?
Dame Meg Hillier
There we go: a stretch target for the Chancellor to sign up every civil servant in his Department to a credit union. I am sure that he is listening closely to that suggestion.
I do not want to segue too much from the subject, but many years ago I tried to establish a mutual in Government and there was a limited understanding of what that meant. I am proud that we now have a co-operatives champion in my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes)—a Labour and Co-operative MP—who has access to all areas and can go in and challenge, shake up and educate parts of Whitehall about the benefits of mutuals.
To finish on financial inclusion, the financial inclusion strategy is a good first step, but we said that the Government cannot rely solely on voluntary action from financial services to drive financial inclusion. We have made our comments clear in our report, and I hope that we will continue that dialogue with the Government to ensure that financial inclusion is a real thing.
There has been some talk about access to capital markets in the banking sector, but there is a particular issue for building societies too. It is interesting how very few failures and repossessions there are with some building societies. I was talking recently to the chief executive of Skipton Building Society, whose default rate is very low—in fact, a number of those are people who have voluntarily given up their mortgage. That means the building society’s repossession rate is even lower, yet it has to capitalise to a very high degree to ensure that it is covering any potential losses. I think there is a real opportunity there.
As was raised earlier, changes to credit unions are necessary and overdue. We have seen some of the measures for co-ops and mutuals in government get stuck, whether with the Law Commission or somewhere in the depths of Whitehall. We now have an agenda in government to double the size of the co-operative sector. We are seeing a strong building society sector and a mutual sector in finance. We have an opportunity to get credit unions on a stable footing. This is the opportunity to ensure that we get those things in place so that they are embedded and we make sure that the sector works and delivers.
If it is about growth in every postcode, those are the organisations that reach every postcode, that are from the grassroots up and that can make this Financial Services and Markets Bill much more relevant to the people on the ground. It is not that the City of London is not relevant to me in my constituency and to a number of us who neighbour it, but for people in other parts of the country, Whitehall and the City seem like a long way away. Having co-ops and mutuals written in is important. I hope that the Economic Secretary will respond to some of those points when she sums up.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The UK financial services industry is vital to our economy. It enables us all to buy houses and cars, to save and invest safely and to insure against bad outcomes; it provides millions of jobs, not only in London but right across the UK; and it contributes hundreds of billions of pounds to GDP. It is one of the UK’s only world-leading industries. We have 160 foreign banks in the City and twice as many US dollars are traded on the UK foreign exchange in the UK than in the US. We have the largest source of pension funds in Europe—and if I mention Europe, as a Liberal Democrat I must also mention Brexit.
It is true that the UK financial services industry has remained strong after Brexit. Of course it has: it is a world-leading industry that has many advantages beyond its access to European markets. We have, for instance, the advantages of location, language and law, and there is enormous talent here in the capital. However, we should not mistake that resilience for evidence that Brexit did not harm financial services. Exports of financial services have declined by 5.9%, and, according to TheCityUK, that is at least partly due to Brexit frictions. The loss of passporting rights, for example, makes it harder to acquire clients across the continent. Compliance and administrative costs have risen, and we are now less attractive in relation to becoming a pan-European headquarters. Whatever the dispute may be when it comes to the precise numerical impact of Brexit on financial services, this negative track has to be acknowledged.
Bobby Dean
Uncertainty is always unwelcome in the financial services industry, but Governments must make decisions for the very long run, and I think that in the very long run it would be in our best interests to be part of the single market again.
The industry has remained resilient, not only in the face of Brexit but in the face of other challenges, but that should not be taken for granted. It is due, at least in part, to hard work and the reforms that were introduced after the 2008 financial crash. Prior to that, a reckless, deregulatory and ignorantly optimistic environment led to a complete and utter disaster, and not only for the industry but for society as a whole. The debts that stacked up in response to that crash are still squeezing the present Government’s potential to deliver better public services or lower taxes to this day, and the reputation of the industry among the public still suffers because of that event.
However, it is worth stressing that the reforms made in the aftermath have broadly worked. The sector has remained financially stable. Repossessions are low, pension funds are healthy and stable, and bank failure is rarely speculated about—and if it were to happen, I trust that it would happen in an orderly way. This has remained the case despite some serious stress tests in recent years, not least the global pandemic and the global energy shocks, and it shows that measures such as the bank capital requirements, the liquidity rules and the ringfencing have created a system that can hold. I think that the Government should be mindful of that as they set out on a path to—in their own words—deregulate again. They should resist the Conservative party’s calls to abolish ringfencing entirely. I think that savers across the country will be shocked to hear that there is a party advocating for that money once again to become available to the investment banking industry. In a wider context, the Government should tread cautiously. They should not fall for the same old cycle of deregulation, crisis, and then regulation again. Instead, they should try to plot a more stable path through this moment.
Nevertheless, there of course remains a case for reform. We are decades on from the financial crisis, and there will be plenty to do to modernise, to move with the times, to learn lessons, to tidy, to simplify, to clarify and to adjust, to make our financial services system work for the 21st-century economy. There is much to be supported in the Bill. I support, for instance, the move to make the Payment Systems Regulator part of the Financial Conduct Authority, and I hope that will mean we can continue some of the good work on open finance. I broadly support what I think is the intention in relation to improvements in access to banking, although we have yet to see some of the detail because we are waiting for the review to be published. I support the move to expand credit unions, and of course I support the intention to table amendments on child trust funds, for which I credit my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey).
More broadly, the Liberal Democrats support the thrust of the Bill, but there are some key areas where we want to work with the Government to get this rare opportunity for reform right. In particular, on consumer protection I fear that the Bill is in danger of overcorrecting. It starts from a false premise, which is that consumer rights and economic growth are somehow in contention. They are not; they are two sides of the same coin. There can be no booming economy without consumer confidence, and poorer protection and more difficult redress are in the interests of neither consumers nor firms.
I am struck by the volume of lobbying material that I receive from industry, and by how little I receive from the voice of the consumer. It is because of that inequality of arms that we in this place should be so mindful of the decisions we make in respect of this legislation. Some of it looks like a shopping list of demands from industry, and that should give the Government pause for thought. We should remember that the same inequality of arms in the lobby industry is repeated when it comes to legal disputes, and indeed at the point of purchase of financial products. Information asymmetry is a known economics concept, and in the development of financial products there is a huge information asymmetry. Experts are developing complex products that are inherently difficult for consumers to understand, and we should legislate accordingly with that in mind.
I therefore ask the Government to listen carefully to the 15 organisations—including Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert, Citizens Advice and Which?—that have got together and warned that the reforms of the Financial Ombudsman Service could lock consumers out of independent redress, removing that vital safety net of free dispute resolution. Indeed, the former Member of Parliament for Makerfield, Yvonne Fovargue, has concerns that these reforms do not meet the Prime Minister’s “Makerfield test”. That should be a strong warning to the Chancellor.
The Financial Ombudsman Service stands accused of being a quasi-regulator, making precedent-setting decisions that firms cannot anticipate. I admit that there has been dysfunction in the service in recent years and that there is a case for better co-ordination and clarity, but the reforms, as they stand, will tip the balance too far in favour of firms, and I think we are in danger of making the FCA a quasi-ombudsman. The rules set by the FCA are necessarily high-level, especially if they are principle-based, and they cannot account for every situation in detail. The ombudsman must retain the power to make a judgment on what is fair and reasonable in the round, or we will descend into a dispute over strict legal compliance that will always favour firms in the way that I have described.
The chief executive of the FCA has repeatedly expressed concerns to the Treasury Committee about the possibility that the referral mechanism may create a back-door appeals mechanism for firms, gum up the system, and lead to the regulator doing the job that the ombudsman should rightly be doing. We will go into all the details in Committee, but I urge the Government to find a way through this that suits consumers too.
There are further issues that we will want to pursue in Committee. The Consumer Credit Act protections that are being rolled into the FCA are important provisions that need to remain in primary legislation. I recognise the need for regulatory power to respond to developments dynamically, but we must also ensure that such important provisions are protected in law, and I do not think that the FCA’s strategies will afford sufficient protection. Other Members have mentioned access to affordable credit, and this is a huge opportunity for us to take meaningful action in that regard, looking at some of the provisions proposed for the fair banking Act, and ensuring that when the washing machine breaks down or the car fails, people can access the credit they need to get through those crisis moments.
I have some simple asks in relation to the Bill, involving transparency and the current status of the access to affordable credit that banks are providing, and their links with credit unions and other community organisations to improve that access. I note that we now have a Co-operative Prime Minister. The Co-operative party backs such amendments, so I look forward to seeing whether they make it into the Bill. We would also like to see tougher action on the big tech companies in relation to fraud and scams. At present, the UK financial industry is on the hook for scams that nearly always originate on big tech platforms. Just last week I heard in the Chamber that Ofcom’s regulations would probably be sufficient, but we now have an opportunity to write into legislation liability for those tech firms, and I do not think we should miss it.
There is more that I could talk about, but in the interests of time I will move on. I support the Conservatives’ point about the digital asset strategy, and I think it would be a missed opportunity not to include something about that in the Bill. I would also like to speak up on the injustice facing mortgage prisoners, and I will say more about that in Committee.
Let me end by saying that we welcome the thrust of the Bill. It reinforces the position of the financial services sector as a great contributor to the UK economy, and its status as a global leader and a beacon of stability. However, there is a real danger of overcorrection and damage to consumer rights, as well as the potential to miss some big opportunities for long-running problems to be solved. I look forward to working with the Government in Committee to further the Bill’s progress.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, welcome this legislation and its goal of modernising consumer protection arrangements and making them fit for the digital age. I congratulate the Chancellor and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury on their work, and on their ongoing engagement with Members from across the House as the reforms proceed.
I am very pleased to see measures that enable credit unions to expand by widening access to membership. I have seen the challenges experienced over the years as a Labour and Co-op MP, and I have worked to increase access to credit unions for local people in Feltham and Heston. It has been a challenge, and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) on these reforms and on making sure that they become a reality for our constituents. It is clear that if anything can focus our mind’s eye on how important this is, it is seeing the importance of household resilience and being able to plan financially, given the challenges that the cost of living crisis has brought.
It is important for us to think ahead and make sure that we do all we can to improve household resilience, and these reforms will help more than 200 credit unions across Great Britain to reach new communities, with millions of people having more access to affordable and community-based financial services. Credit unions are known and trusted by local communities, and trust is really important for giving people confidence about where to save, how to save and whom to trust. It is also vital that we take steps to protect access to in-person banking services for the future, and we look forward with anticipation to the publication of the access to banking review and the Government’s response.
I want to raise three matters that I believe need to be further addressed in the Bill, some of which have already been referred to: the proposed 10-year time limit on complaints, the referrals process, and the fair and reasonable test. Finally, I will mention mortgage prisoners, as discussed by the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean)
First, on the 10-year time limit, the Government are putting forward a wide range of reforms to the Financial Ombudsman Service, but I am concerned that they are not being clear about the impacts on the public. The proposed 10-year time limit on Financial Ombudsman Service complaints risks locking thousands of consumers out of compensation. It can take years for people to realise that they have been ripped off, and firms often do everything they can to conceal misconduct.
Dame Meg Hillier
On that point, one of the issues is document retention. Firms do not necessarily keep information, so the process can rely on the consumer keeping it. Even if they can get redress from a firm, they may not have the documentation.
Seema Malhotra
I think we all agree with my hon. Friend’s important point.
I am concerned that the Government’s assessment appears to underestimate the true cost by assuming that historical cases are worth little more than average complaints, and by ignoring many complaints that firms will simply reject, without considering their merits, due to the application of the new time limit. I am very happy to share with the Minister more of my analysis of the implications and of what is in the impact assessment.
Secondly, the process of referral to the FCA could create a bureaucratic logjam, with firms incentivised to seek FCA rulings whenever a case looks likely to go against them, adding delay and administrative costs while allowing binding interpretations of the rules to be made without proper consultation. The referrals process should be reformed so that it is a rare occurrence, rather than the 1,000 to 3,000 referrals a year that the FCA expects will happen, which will cause delays as well as administrative costs and all the pain that that will entail. Proper consultation needs to be built in, so that the FCA gets full input from consumer groups before making binding decisions on what the new rules mean.
Thirdly, there are important questions about changes to the ombudsman’s fair and reasonable test, which could narrow the ability of the FOS to take account of industry codes and good practice, including protections that victims of economic and financial abuse rely on. If we want economic growth, we need consumers to save for retirement, take out insurance and engage confidently with long-term financial products. We need small businesses, like many of those across Feltham and Heston, to borrow and invest, and undermining trust in dispute resolution mechanisms risks undermining that confidence. Martin Lewis has warned that
“Restricting consumers’ access to free and fair redress is not a recipe for economic growth. Once consumers are warned about the erosion of their rights, it’s possible it will lead to disengagement from the financial services industry and diminishing trust.”
That is why we must look very closely at the proposals in order that we are confident that consumers will retain the necessary confidence in financial services.
Finally, in the last Parliament, the all-party parliamentary group on mortgage prisoners, which I co-chaired for a number of years following the experience of mortgage prisoners in Feltham and Heston, raised concerns that poor decision making at the FOS was leading to detriment for mortgage prisoners. In all honesty, no real progress was made. The situation is ongoing, as thousands of mortgage prisoners remain stuck and are suffering significant detriment. Many are still trapped on expensive variable rates with inactive lenders and are unable to switch to cheaper deals, so they are paying hundreds or thousands of pounds more each year and facing a far greater risk of losing their homes.
In 2024, the previous Prime Minister promised to get everyone around the table and ensure that this issue was properly addressed, but that has not yet happened. Mortgage prisoners remain trapped, and are paying higher interest rates to inactive lenders and vulture funds. They are told that they cannot pass affordability tests in order to pay less for their mortgage, and as the Bank of England increases interest rates following six cuts, there is nothing that vulnerable mortgage prisoners can do to gain any certainty on their payments. Many are former Northern Rock customers who are still experiencing severe harm because their loans were sold to inactive lenders by the previous Conservative Government. The London School of Economics report, funded by Martin Lewis, put forward solutions including improved access to financial advice, targeted equity loan schemes, and a Government-backed guarantee mechanism to help borrowers move back into the active market. I would be grateful to hear when the Government plan to respond in full to the proposals in the LSE report, and I would also be grateful for a meeting to discuss what more the Government can do to help mortgage prisoners.
I very much look forward to the Minister’s response and to working with colleagues from across the House on these reforms to make sure that, together, we can ensure the leadership and the fairness of our financial services sector, which is so renowned across the world.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. After John Glen, I will introduce an immediate eight-minute time limit.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my ministerial experience as the Economic Secretary between January 2018 and July 2022. Listening to the opening speeches gave me pause to reflect on some of my decisions. I hope that I am the sort of politician who is ready to concede where I did not go far enough or where mistakes were made, but after I have gone through some of the measures in this Bill, I want to offer some broader observations about the interaction between the Treasury, this place and our regulators, because it goes to the heart of how we move forward effectively as a country.
as the shadow Economic Secretary said, the Bill contains some very welcome measures. Although the detail will be worked through in Committee, I think we can be positive about the reforms to credit unions. I made some changes to expand the common bond, and I wish the Government well with their extension of it. I ask the Economic Secretary to examine the issue of the interaction of credit unions and Help to Save. For many of the people who use credit unions, the opportunity, on an automated basis, to sign up to Help to Save—it gives everyone on universal credit the opportunity to save up to £600 a year, and after two years receive a 50% bonus from the Government—in these times would be very welcome. I am not sure exactly how that would be achieved, and I realise it is complicated, but it just stands to reason that it should be more readily accessible.
I also welcome the reform of consumer credit. These matters were discussed in my office four or five years ago, and I welcome the Government bringing it forward. I certainly did not seek to slow it down, but it is an incredibly complicated piece of work to update our consumer credit framework and how we protect consumers in a world where financial products and the interactions of consumers when taking out products have transformed considerably over the last 52 years. However, as we look at the changes—I note the comments of the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), on the Financial Ombudsman Service changes—we have got ourselves into a bit of a mess in this country.
In the Treasury Committee, I found myself talking about motor finance, and reflecting on being told that harms have been done to me when, from my perspective, I had made a decision about the amount of the deposit and the monthly payment in a financial agreement. However, I fully accept that the consumer credit legislation as it is at the moment means there was an obligation of proactive disclosure on behalf of whoever provided me with that product, rather than some reasonable test of what I should reasonably ask of the person providing the product. To me, that goes to the heart of the dilemma we face in financial services: to what extent can we in this place legislate against risk or put some reasonable responsibility on an individual consumer to take ownership of the decisions they make?
Bobby Dean
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman was anticipating my intervention, as we have had this conversation in the Select Committee. I made a point earlier about information asymmetry. Does he not accept that when financial products can be so complex, if providers are not utterly up front about the conditions, it is quite impossible for the consumer to take the responsibility he implies they should take?
John Glen
I absolutely take on the challenge, but I think we need to level with the British public about this and have a better conversation about it, rather than say there is an ultimate backstop provision apparently for absolutely everything. We have to reset that dynamic.
I have mixed feelings about the proposed reforms of the Financial Ombudsman Service. I feel it has become an unreliable pathway to resolution, but I am also concerned that by wrapping it into the FCA, as with the decision to apparently streamline regulations by putting the Payment Systems Regulator into the FCA, we will just create a bigger FCA, with different functions under one banner.
Dame Meg Hillier
It is worth noting that, in the end, there were two redundancies as a result of the merger, all the backroom costs were the same and the only thing that will change, when the legislation finally goes through, is that the board will go, which is a saving of about £100,000.
John Glen
I am very grateful for the hon. Lady’s characteristic grasp of the detail of this subject, and she absolutely makes the point. Just removing a banner from a front office does not streamline, so I urge the Economic Secretary to retain a forensic view, as I know she will, of what processes faced by businesses and consumers are actually streamlined.
I note the streamlining of the senior managers and certification regime by abolishing mandatory annual employee certification below senior manager level. I note the comment of the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), who is no longer in his place, on that regime, which was, “Abolish everything.” I understand the frustration that leads to many people saying that, but I think we have some new challenges, which have not been properly addressed, when it comes to AI in financial services.
The Chair of the Select Committee mentioned this in passing, but AI, in automating the evaluation of which products would suit individuals, is transforming most consumers’ interactions with financial services. Following the Mills review, there does seem to be a bit of a gap in what will happen with appropriate regulation. It seems that the essence of the position of the FCA is that it does not want to slow down the pace of innovation and growth in financial services, so it will be very reticent to put in any regulation. That is not an unreasonable sentiment, but we must discuss where we as a society feel responsibility should lie. If a financial services firm essentially allows an AI regime to produce offers of products that are sold, somebody has to be responsible for the terms and the basis for such a product going to market.
I welcome the changes to the PRA to streamline the bank rules on ringfencing, but I was the Minister who commissioned the Keith Skeoch review, which essentially came to the conclusion that it was not really necessary, but because of the legacy of the global financial crisis, we had better keep it in place. I urge the Economic Secretary to ask this question: what does that ringfencing actually give us? Many senior people at the PRA told me that we do not really need it, and we have a resolution regime that would actually satisfy all our requirements. However, it has a totemic significance, because it is associated with that season of under-regulation that led to the global financial crisis. We must have an honest conversation, not one based on received wisdom about what happened 18 years ago. We should not be reckless, but we do not need to carry unnecessary burdens when they do not really add anything.
Time goes quickly in this place, and I respect the need for everyone to speak, but I would like to make two or three broader points. One is about the imbalance of power and expertise. When I became the Economic Secretary, I hardly slept for the first few weeks because it was just so complicated, after I had been the arts, heritage and tourism Minister. From museums to MiFID in one step was a big move, but I did my best to master it. Every six weeks or so, I met the head of the FCA and the head of the PRA. These are some of the most brilliant people in public service, who have at their disposal some of the most intelligent, numerate individuals who are aware of all the nuances of different conditions, the capital requirements of banks of different sizes and the different mitigations for them. I was trying to mediate all the representations I had had from TheCityUK, UK Finance, the Association of British Insurers, the London Market Group and all the consumer organisations, essentially to try to challenge them on the right way of liberalising the regime or having a strong and simple regime to, for example, make it easier for smaller banks.
I probably got that right sometimes and on other occasions did not press hard enough, while at times there was a reasonable expectation that I would be moved on. Indeed, since July 2022 there have been eight Economic Secretaries—I am glad the sixth one is now back again as the eighth one. I just do not feel that that is a grown-up way to deal with our financial services Minister—the person responsible for this industry that we have all said is so important in terms of the jobs it creates and the GDP it accounts for. There is well-meaning intent, when we come to this place, to mediate consumer groups’ concerns and the concerns of our constituents, but we need to think about how we can do this better. Perhaps there should be a joint committee of the Commons and the Lords, properly staffed with the sort of expertise and advice that would really allow us to take on our friends at the PRA and the FCA, but it is something that does need scrutiny.
The legacy of the global financial crisis is important. It obviously had an enormous impact on our country and our public finances. “Too big to fail” must never happen again, but we must recognise that financial services in this country compete on an international basis. Too often, when legislation is passed in this place, there is another “have regard to”. I have been in Select Committees where colleagues have asked about some piece of legislation—some provision or “have regard to” that I probably allowed to pass through the House of Lords because I wanted to be collegiate—that led the regulator to make assessments that were not going to go anywhere, but added significant compliance costs to our financial services industry with no material outcome. I urge the Minister to really think about what is a necessary legacy of the global financial crisis and what is a sort of received wisdom of defensiveness that does not serve us well any more.
My final point, which I alluded to earlier, is about the consumer reset. The Chair of the Select Committee rightly pointed to Nikhil Rathi’s challenge to us at the Select Committee that we, as politicians, need to be clear about what level of risk we are prepared to tolerate. That is a difficult question for us as Members of Parliament. We are never going to want to say to our constituents, “We are happy to allow lots of risk,” but we have to put it in context. The measures we put in place on risk mitigation, the mandate and responsibilities we give the FCA and the PRA, make quite a big difference to the way the industry functions and how competitive it is.
I welcome what the Government have done on financial education. The Economic Secretary and I were at the launch of a report by UK Finance this morning. I welcome the progress that has been made and needs to be made in that area, but we must get to a better place in terms of enabling people, when so much more information is available, to own the choices that they make. Of course the responsibility to look after consumer interest exists, but let us calibrate that appropriately for the age we live in.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With an eight-minute time limit, I call Lauren Edwards.
Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for her work in bringing the Bill to Parliament, and the other place for its scrutiny to date. I should begin by making it clear that before being elected, I worked in supervision at both the Prudential Regulation Authority and the financial market infrastructure directorate at the Bank of England. I associate myself with some of the comments others have made about the importance of the financial services industry not just to London, but to the whole of the UK.
I would like to begin by welcoming the Government’s retention of the proportionality requirements, following debate in the House of Lords. Although I worked on the larger financial companies when I was a frontline supervisor, the proportionality lens was very important in day-to-day decision making, alongside a robust risk framework, not least because as the person who had to deliver a message to a firm, I needed to make sure that I could justify it. In line with that risk-based and proportionate approach to supervision, which I believe is the right one, I wonder if the Bill could make more of the opportunity to stimulate growth in the commercial and specialty insurance markets.
The London insurance market is a world leader, with annual income larger than its five closest competitors combined. It insures everything from planes to nuclear power stations, and has an important role to play in helping the Government to tackle climate change, protect against cyber-threats and unlock investment across the UK. As others have said, it competes internationally against markets in places such as New York, Singapore and Hong Kong. Its market is for sophisticated corporate clients, professional investors, insurance firms, banks and pension funds, rather than the individual purchasing travel insurance ahead of a holiday or pet insurance for the family dog, but currently the supervisory approach is rather similar for those very different types of customers.
Will the Minister and the Government consider whether more could be done in the Bill to differentiate the way we supervise wholesale insurance markets that have professional clients versus retail markets, where the focus, quite rightly, is on protecting the individual consumer? An obvious example to follow would be Australia, the country of my birth, which makes that distinction between wholesale and retail insurance through the Australian Corporations Act 2001, and tailors its supervision accordingly. There is scope in the Bill to consider what a UK version of that approach could look like to ensure that regulation is proportionate while maintaining strong protections where they are most needed.
I support the Government reintroducing the power to be able to act quickly after the access to banking services review reports, but hope that when it is reintroduced it will be narrower in scope to address the concerns raised in the other place that saw the original provision removed from the Bill. It is also important that any action that follows from that review is properly consulted on.
In my constituency, my initial efforts to get a banking hub were frustrated by the focus on access to cash under the current rules, when it is really access to face-to-face banking, advice and services that my constituents want to have, particularly on the Strood side of the River Medway and in the more rural populations on the Hoo peninsula. Digital inclusion is very important for people of all ages, but we know that the over-65s in particular place a lot of value on face-to-face banking services and it is important that they do not lose out. Age UK statistics from September suggest that 1.4 million over-65s are fully digitally excluded. Banking hubs can be part of the digital inclusion plan if we follow the example of places such as Singapore, which I know from a recent visit with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has very high levels of digital take-up and success using hubs to assist older citizens with building their confidence in using digital services for banking and public services.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point, and I have a similar need in my constituency. Does she agree that the benefits of banking hubs extend to many disabled people, as well as to older residents?
Lauren Edwards
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that they should be part of our efforts to ensure that our services are as inclusive as possible.
Moving on to the Government’s aim to halve the burden of the senior managers and certification regime for firms, the cost saving is expected to be material. The Bank of England quotes an estimated £2 billion over a decade. It is important that those who present the biggest systemic risk to financial stability remain on the hook if things go wrong. There were very good reasons why the SMCR was introduced after the 2008 global financial crisis and there is scope for streamlining and shorter processes, but we must remember, as we do that, how few people were accountable for the risks that were run in the lead-up to the crisis and how the taxpayer was left to pick up the bill. Once again, it is a question of balance in proportionality and risk. We must always ensure that we maintain high standards of conduct and accountability.
Finally, on authorised push payment fraud, I believe that during debates in the other place the Minister said that there were other vehicles, such as the Government’s online safety legislation and fraud strategy, to address APP fraud and so provision was not needed in the Bill. However, we should consider whether the tech giants have been required to sufficiently take on their share of the responsibility for tackling this pervasive harm. The economic cost of APP fraud is significant. It was estimated at £450 million from UK businesses and individuals in 2024, although thankfully the Payment Systems Regulator reports that reductions have been achieved since then, thanks to the APP reimbursement policy. Call me cynical, but I think the only way that online tech giants will care about tackling APP fraud is if they also have some responsibility for reimbursement, rather than it all falling to the retail banks. They should also be held to higher standards for preventative measures, such as user identity verification and enhanced fraud monitoring.
To conclude, I welcome the Government’s approach and the progress being made through this legislation, but hope that Ministers will remain open to further refinement. Working in partnership with industry, regulators and Parliament, we have an opportunity to strengthen the UK’s position as a world-leading financial services centre, while maintaining the high standards and consumer protections for which our system is rightly respected.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
We on the Liberal Democrat Benches broadly support the Bill. Modernising a framework that has grown complex over decades is sensible and there is much here to welcome, from wider credit union membership to protecting in-person banking and tougher defences against financial crime.
I want to use my brief time to talk about a missed opportunity, and I hope the Government will take me up on it. It relates to the Chancellor’s former job. The Government rightly want to rebuild our defence industry, and small firms are one of the bedrocks of that goal. With the way that warfare is accelerating, the cutting, bleeding edge is with small tech firms innovating in things such as AI and autonomy. The Ministry of Defence works with around 12,000 small and medium-sized enterprises through its supply chains, and spends about £5 billion a year with them. It is further set out in the defence investment plan and the strategic defence review that the MOD wants to spend a further £2.5 billion with SMEs by the summer of 2028. That is where defence is moving—if we want to win wars in the modern age, we have to have a robust defence SME sector,
Every small business, no matter what sector it is in, knows how hard it can be to raise finance, but many defence firms face an extra barrier. They are often refused bank accounts, loans or insurance simply because they work in the defence sector. SC Group—formerly Supacat—has won MOD contracts worth tens of millions of pounds, yet it has struggled to get investment or loans because it is not seen as acceptable. Another example is 4GD, which uses AI and robotics to run training simulators for British soldiers; the company stopped attending investment meetings and was actually turned away from one once the host found out it was a defence firm.
A couple of years ago, 15 SME defence firms formally raised the issue with their trade body, ADS, as they had actually had accounts closed by UK financial institutions. Obviously, those were just the firms that were willing to speak up; there are plenty that will have suffered adverse reactions when seeking credit but have chosen not to speak out—because what firm wants to advertise that they are unable to get capital or credit? The crucial point is that this is not because of regulation. In March 2025, the FCA stated very plainly that:
“There is nothing in our rules, including those related to sustainability, that prevents investment or finance for defence companies.”
The problem is that many investment and financial services firms have environmental, social and governance policies that explicitly name defence firms as being unacceptable for investment. The Government know that, because in the MOD’s SME action plan, which was published in July, they commit to working with everyone, from venture capital to high street banks, to make it easier for the financial sector to back defence SMEs. But there is a difference between knowing about a problem and setting out a robust way of fixing it, and that is what I want to focus on.
The Bill started in the House of Lords, where my noble Friend Baroness Kramer tabled amendment 67, which proposed a practical step that might go some way towards solving the problem. The amendment essentially required the Financial Conduct Authority to review how easily SMEs in sectors critical to our national security can get finance. More specifically, that review would examine the availability and cost of finance for defence firms, whether the FCA’s rules create barriers, whether lenders’ ESG policies, sector exclusions or risk assessments are shutting defence firms out, and whether defence SMEs find it materially harder to get finance than firms in other industries. Crucially, the review would finish with the changes that should be made to improve access to finance for defence SMEs—it should speak to the problems identified in the review.
When my noble Friend Baroness Kramer presented the amendment, among a package of others, the Government declined, saying that the framework was already proportionate to SMEs. I think something has been lost in translation there. Proportionality is not the issue; the FCA has told us that its rules are not the barrier. The question is about what regulated investment firms are actually doing. At the moment, nobody is monitoring that, but amendment 67 sought to do so, by mandating the FCA to carry out a review on a regular basis—once every two or three years.
I urge the Government and the Economic Secretary to use the Bill to honour the commitment made by other parts of Government to support SMEs—including defence SMEs—to have access to finance on a level playing field with other sectors. This is not a party political issue: in March 2025, more than 100 Labour MPs and peers wrote to banks and investors about exactly this problem, and it has also been raised on the Conservative Benches. On Report, pursuant to any conversations that the Minister might like to have with me, I intend to re-table the same amendment and seek cross-party support. I am pretty sure there will be robust support across the House. I would welcome the chance to meet with the Minister to discuss the issue, because I think we have an opportunity to strengthen the Bill as it goes forward.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab/Co-op)
This is my first speech in this House since being appointed as the Government’s co-operatives and mutuals champion, a role that speaks to my purpose in public life and gives me the responsibility of championing the co-operative and mutuals sector across Parliament and Government. It is a pleasure to contribute to a debate with my right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary sat on the Front Bench; I know she is a champion for the sector in a diverse and resilient financial market. In the spirit of cross-party consensus that we have had this evening, I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who I know secretly carries a co-operative dividend card in his wallet and is a champion of the sector as well.
I am proud that this Government have an ambitious plan to double the size of the co-operative and mutual economy, and this Bill will contribute to that ambition. I am proud to take on the role that I have been given, because mutuals, building societies and credit unions embody a simple but powerful idea: that financial services should work in the interests of the people who use them. They are owned by their members, rooted in their communities and focused on long-term value rather than simply short-term shareholder returns.
On taking the role last week, my first meeting was with the boards and executives of building societies from across the country, and this morning I met with Royal London. I put on record my thanks to the boards of all our building societies and credit unions, and the staff who work for them and support them in their endeavours, providing growth in every postcode already. We see people like this working in our building societies and mutuals across the country.
We have seen this movement in Peterborough, just like in many other cities. In 1954, the Co-operative Permanent Building Society opened its office in our city. More than 70 years later, now as Nationwide, it continues to serve and help people to save, buy a home and access trusted financial advice. That long-term commitment to communities is exactly why building societies and the wider mutual movement remain such an important part of our economy and financial services. It brings somewhere to save, somewhere fair to borrow and somewhere that understands the communities that the institutions serve.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
I am a director of Slemish ń tha Braid Credit Union. Will the new champion meet me, the Irish League of Credit Unions and the Ulster Federation of Credit Unions to ensure that the support he is talking about covers the whole United Kingdom and all the savers who use those services?
Andrew Pakes
One of the delights of my role will be juggling my diary to meet all the brilliant different mutual movements and community banks and assets across everywhere represented in Parliament—I will be delighted to do so.
In particular, I welcome reforms to the credit union common bond. By increasing the membership limit, we can help credit unions to reach more communities, widen access to affordable credit, and help more people to build savings and financial resilience. At a time when many families are still feeling pressure on household budgets, access to fair and affordable lending matters more than ever. Credit unions provide a trusted alternative to high-cost lenders and, as other Members have said, they play an important role in tackling financial exclusion.
The Bill also gives us an opportunity to recognise the contribution that building societies make to banking access. Across the country, many banks have reduced their physical presence, yet building societies have continued to invest in local services and maintain branches. Evidence cited by the Building Societies Association shows that building societies now account for around a third of UK banking branches, operating more than 1,400 branches nationwide. That commitment should be recognised and encouraged, but any future banking access requirements must also be fair—building societies cannot be expected to become the catch-all provider for responsibilities abandoned by others.
We need a framework that reflects local need, supports innovation and ensures that mutuals are not penalised for continuing to serve the communities that others have left behind. I echo comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) and the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), that the rules governing capital and mutuals need to be looked at as well, so that we do not leave the mutual movement behind as we modernise and reflect on financial services as a whole.
More broadly, regulation should reflect the distinct nature of mutual organisations. We can maintain strong consumer protections while ensuring that the rules are proportionate and support growth, competition and innovation. Mutuals are not asking for special treatment—they are asking for a level playing field of access and role.
The test for this legislation is straightforward: will it help people to save, borrow and own a home? Will it support access to financial services in every community? Will it enable mutuals, building societies and credit unions to grow and serve more people? Mutuals, building societies and credit unions are a vital part of the future of our diverse, resilient and community-focused financial services sector, and I hope the Minister will ensure that the legislation helps them to grow, to serve more people and to continue making a difference in communities such as mine in Peterborough and those of the hon. Members we have heard from this evening.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
I want to pick up on the Chancellor’s comments in opening the debate, when he said that he wanted to continue moving the Bill in “the right direction” with a collegiate approach across the House. I intend to table an amendment to the Bill on one specific issue, which builds on the work of Baroness Hoey of Lylehill and the British Insurance Brokers’ Association. It relates to an ongoing campaign of mine to tackle the rising and disproportionate cause of car insurance costs across Northern Ireland.
The amendment will seek to include claims management companies in Northern Ireland under the FCA regulations. As it stands, Northern Ireland remains the only part of the United Kingdom where claims management companies are not regulated by the FCA, due to the fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly was not sitting when the legislation was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales. With no room to legislate under the current timetable and an Assembly election coming in May—who knows what happens after May—I believe that the Bill provides the perfect vehicle for bringing forward the solution to what is a technicality on the support of claims management companies and car insurance users in Northern Ireland.
Motorists across Northern Ireland continue to face disproportionately high premiums, placing severe financial pressure on our households and particularly on young drivers. Unregulated claims management companies actively pursue customers after collisions and can take anywhere between 15% and 30% of compensation payouts, which significantly inflates overall claims expenses. Those excessive costs then act as a major driver pushing up the cost of car cover for our drivers.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)
I know that the hon. Member has been working extensively on this matter. He rightly highlights Northern Ireland’s higher premiums; there are also fewer providers, as well as the matter of the unregulated claims management companies. He will know that public transport and cycle infrastructure is failing as well, driving more people into their cars. Does he agree that it is a symptom of Stormont’s failure that another collapse meant that this gap was not plugged, and does he share my concern about the sluggish response of Stormont on providing data and agreeing to co-operate on this matter, and the belief of many drivers that nobody is really at the wheel?
Robin Swann
The hon. Lady is correct in some of her assertions on this matter, because correcting this legislative anomaly has not been on the Executive’s agenda. I do not think it will be on their agenda even after the election coming in May.
This vehicle—this piece of legislation—does provide the solution for those who need affordable car insurance in Northern Ireland more so than in other parts of the United Kingdom. Extending the FCA’s regulatory remit to Northern Ireland is a vital, practical step to properly govern those firms. It will prevent exploitative practices and bring much-needed fairness to our local insurance market.
While various factors contribute to higher insurance costs in Northern Ireland, closing that regulatory gap, which the Bill will be able to do, will actually make a tangible difference. As the Economic Secretary will see, there is support for such a measure across the Northern Ireland parties. It has also been brought in the other House, too. I hope she will listen, and meet me to explore this anomaly and bring about the solution.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate and to follow the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann). Members on all three Front Benches have rightly set out the importance of financial services to the UK economy. It is indeed one of the UK’s most international sectors, and one that holds great significance for the prospects of UK industry, businesses and households across the United Kingdom, including in my constituency.
I am very pleased to support the Bill this evening, as it retains the UK’s hybrid combination of strong institutions, high-quality regulators and, ultimately, clear rules that are critical not only to maintaining investor confidence—a currency more valuable than ever before in an incredibly volatile world—to put their money here, but to people and businesses across the UK who use financial services in their everyday lives.
Given the limited time I have, I will restrict my comments to a few areas. First, I will mention credit unions and clause 2. My hon. Friends the Members for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) and for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), whom I congratulate on his appointment as co-operative and mutuals champion—a very wise choice by the Chancellor and the Economic Secretary—have made incredibly powerful points on credit unions. They are absolutely right to say that the current common bond rules date from another era, when society organised itself very differently. I am pleased that the Bill fixes those matters by ensuring that relatives can join in if they live in different households, that retirees can stay in and join after they stop work, and that students can qualify under the new locality bond. I also welcome raising the membership cap from 3 million to 10 million, as it enables credit unions across the UK to once again have a fair go at expanding and scaling.
I want to make a few comments about the regulators. Clauses 15 to 25 reshape how the FCA and the PRA do their jobs, and I welcome the broad direction of travel that the Government have set. Clause 16 makes regulators more considerately and thoughtfully weigh the experience of small and medium-sized firms by having greater regard for proportionality, which is important both in terms of the size of firms that are required to comply with rules and regulations and the cost and benefit of any rule that is made. Having worked supporting smaller quoted companies and then large institutions at the London Stock Exchange Group before I entered this place, it is to me pretty much intuitive common sense that a small firm cannot staff a compliance department or answer every consultation that is issued by Government or a regulator with the same vigour as larger counterparts.
It is therefore incumbent on all our regulators—in this case the FCA and PRA, but I would similarly make the comment with regard to regulators operating across our economy—to properly and proactively account for this if they want to be a genuinely constructive partner in supporting economic growth and cultivating meaningfully competitive domestic markets. I also understand that the Government will retain the Lords amendment to keep proportionality as an explicit test in the day-to-day work of both regulators. If that is the case, I very much welcome that.
Under clause 19, the FCA and the PRA will be required to report at least once a year on how they are advancing the competitiveness and growth secondary objectives. These reports will feed in the Treasury’s twice-yearly performance reviews with the regulators’ respective chief executives. I think that is a highly appropriate measure, given that almost all the financial institutions—be they large or small, market infrastructure, bank or insurer—were incredibly keen for the previous Government to ensure that regulators adopted such an objective. Given that it has probably been four or five years now since that obligation was placed on our regulators, it is right that those regulators who have such a large impact on our economy explain their record to Parliament, in particular the Commons Treasury Committee and the Lords Economic Affairs Committee.
In the three minutes or so that I have remaining, I want to close on the Bill’s most forward-facing clauses: those relating to cryptoassets and digital assets more broadly. FCA analysis has found that as many as 7 million Britons own or have owned cryptoassets, and just a few more—9.3 million—hold a stocks and shares ISA. I will spare the Economic Secretary one of my sermons on the virtues of retail investing, but I just mention that statistic because it demonstrates how the consumer landscape is quickly shifting and, with it, the risk that consumers are increasingly exposed to.
It has never been more important for the UK— Government and regulators—to ensure that we are keeping up with developments in cryptoassets and delivering appropriate consumer protections, as my hon. Friend the Chair of the Treasury Committee explained earlier. But we must also do that without restraining the inevitable opportunities that digitising our financial markets offers us and risking letting Britain fall behind.
On digital assets themselves, the Government are making welcome strides forward, particularly in supporting Chris Woolard’s first report as the UK’s wholesale digital markets champion. The main challenge facing the UK is how we maintain momentum in the years ahead, given that other jurisdictions such as the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore are pursuing these agendas with great pace. I hope that the Government will use their regular engagement with the Bank of England to ensure that it moves with as much vigour on stablecoins as the Government are on digital gilt. With the geopolitical volatility that I mentioned earlier, Britain can offer something quite rare: a consistent, predictable environment for innovation in stablecoin and across asset classes, be they fixed income or equities.
Turning to clause 50, while the digital assets strategy, which has been proposed by the Opposition, is an interesting addition to the Bill, I am not instinctively sure whether legally mandating the Government to produce a strategy is necessarily appropriate. But I am sure that the Minister will explain the Government’s position in her wind-up speech.
I am very pleased to support this Bill. A competitive financial services sector provides so much more value than just itself and is a massive asset to all the companies and people in our constituencies.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
This is quite a wide-ranging Bill, as we can tell from the variety of speeches that we have heard. It focuses not only on financial markets and financial services, but on consumer protection. In some ways, those are opposite ends of the spectrum, and we can talk about anything within that spectrum.
I will talk about a few measures in the Bill, but first I want to raise a concern that I have raised before, which is that any piece of legislation that originates in the House of Lords does not take oral evidence. It is immensely frustrating that no oral evidence will be taken regarding this Bill, despite the fact that it is immensely technical and we would really benefit from that. I have been on many Bill Committees, so I know that oral evidence sessions are invaluable for providing information that we can take forward. I urge the Government to have a rethink about whether oral evidence can be taken on House of Lords Bills when they come to the Commons, because it is not fair that we miss out on that evidence.
Turning to specific measures in the Bill, part 1 on credit unions is really important, and I agree with widening the membership. I think that the “Fair Banking for All” movement is really positive, and I would be keen to support it, including with access to credit. A number of Members have said things like, “We all rely on banking services”, but some people do not, because they cannot access those banking services because they are so financially excluded. Ensuring that those people who have suffered from economic abuse, for example, have access to those services is really important.
I am glad that credit unions will have their common bond widened, but I do wonder about the timeline for the statutory instrument that is coming through to widen the limit of people from 3 million to 10 million. It would be really helpful if the Minister could let us know what is happening with that statutory instrument and when it will progress, because it is happening in parallel to this Bill rather than being included in it.
On complaints and consumer redress, I agree with the majority of what the Chair of the Treasury Committee said. I have concerns about the absolute limit of 10 years. I do not think that that is appropriate, and consumer organisations also believe that.
I also have concerns about the general principle that consumers should take responsibility for their decisions. As a general principle, that makes sense, but when it comes to specific issues it does not necessarily always work. Consumers can take responsibility in situations where they had the full information and the capacity to understand the information that they were given, but in some cases they will not have been given the full information or had the ability to understand it. They should be able to take responsibility for informed decisions but not have to take responsibility for those in which they were not properly informed. I would appreciate it if the Minister could clarify that before we come to Report stage—it relates to clause 7, which proposes amendments to section 228 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
On payment systems regulation, I absolutely agree that changes that can be made. I feel strongly that it is really important to future-proof the regulation of cryptoassets particularly and the transfer of those cryptoassets in relation to payment systems regulation and fees that are regulated by the FCA. Charities have seen a massive increase from a significant number of banking institutions in the payments that they make. For example, charities that have only a small amount of money and might be taking out a float to run a small event will now be seeing massive fees that they were not seeing before because of changes to charitable banking systems. I am not sure whether that exactly falls within payment systems regulation, but I do not think it is fair that they have to do that. Those changes disproportionately harm smaller charities and those who deal with small amounts of cash.
I have a specific question on anti-money laundering supervision. I understand the move away from professional body supervisors so that we can have fewer than 25 organisations doing that supervision, but I am worried about specialisation. For example, if we put the work of the organisation that supervises lawyers and solicitors in Scotland into the FCA as a regulator that supervises lawyers, that may not be appropriate for the legal system in Scotland, and we may end up with only one person—the one who understands Scottish law—having the knowledge and doing that supervision. There, again, we would have a single point of failure, and that is really concerning in a place supervising people who are doing anti-money laundering. Will the Minister confirm that there will be appropriate specialism and understanding of all the different organisations currently supervised by professional bodies as that work is moved into one organisation? I am concerned about potential failure points.
In relation to Scottish-specific things, those looking to get a child trust fund unlocked for someone in Scotland who has become an adult and does not have the capacity to manage their own finances has to go to the Office of the Public Guardian. Will the Minister please ensure that any changes in regulation made here do not make the system worse in Scotland? I understand that it is currently better than the system in England—there is no requirement to go through a court process—so will she talk to the people who understand the system in Scotland to ensure that our people will not be disadvantaged? I would love the system in Scotland to be made better, but at the very least it should not be made worse as we move forward here.
I believe strongly that we need access to in-person banking services, as have been mentioned. A huge many banks have closed in my constituency—a city constituency—and some people are required to go on public transport for an hour to get to banking facilities.
When banks close, they regularly say, “It’s fine, because there’s a post office.” That is not fine, because post offices are run by postmasters and postmistresses, who may get ill and have to step down at short notice, and post offices do not have to consult before they close to ensure that provision will always be there. Therefore, in terms of access to in-person banking services, if a post office is to be relied on as a backstop, that service needs to be better and better regulated, and we need to ensure that that backstop service will continue to be there.
On data sharing for consumer credit and ensuring that people have credit agreements, I am concerned that if the data sharing system is to be more flexible than currently, it may be more at risk given the number of hacks we are seeing. I urge the Government to ensure that the National Crime Agency, for example, has looked into that so that people’s data is as safe as possible.
I have one very last thing. On Henry VIII powers and the creation of things here, banking services should never have been a delegated authority; that should have been in the Bill. We should also have done the consultation before the legislation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I call Gareth Thomas, after whom the speaking limit will drop down to six minutes.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Bill and commend both the Chancellor and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary for their commitment to modernising financial services. Like the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and other Government Members, I welcome in particular the proposed changes to credit union rules as well as recently announced measures to increase funding for community development finance institutions through the British Business Bank. But I want to focus my remarks specifically on what more the Bill could do to ensure that our financial system works for everyone, particularly by improving access to affordable credit for people and businesses in every region.
The Prime Minister has rightly said that ours must be a “cost of living Government” putting money back into people’s pockets and giving families breathing space. That must surely include tackling the extra costs that people face simply because they are on a low income. Research published this summer by Fair By Design found that 95% of low-income households pay a poverty premium, of an average of £380 a year extra, for essentials such as energy, insurance, food and, crucially, credit.
That research suggests that some 98% of households in poverty in my constituency pay a poverty premium that includes £178 a year on credit. That is not by any definition a small amount for a family already struggling to make ends meet. A household with savings can, for example, replace a broken fridge outright, but almost 40% of UK adults have less than £1,000 in savings and one in four people in financially vulnerable circumstances have no savings at all. A household without savings in that situation might have to borrow at eye-watering rates, paying far more for exactly the same appliance. The people with the least paying the highest price during a cost of living crisis is particularly unjust, and sometimes the consequences are far more serious than higher interest payments.
The Centre for Social Justice estimated earlier this year that close to 2 million people in England are borrowing from illegal money lenders. These loan sharks can trap people in escalating debts, using intimidation, threats and sometimes violence to extract repayments. The number of people using them has risen and sadly will continue to rise unless people have safe, affordable alternatives. Credit unions and community development finance institutions already provide those alternatives, but they need support to be able to scale up and meet demand. Public funding, while important and welcome, cannot do the job alone.
Some 850,000 SMEs already view access to finance as a major obstacle to growth, fewer than half of SME loan applications to traditional banks are successful, and in surveys, 40% of SMEs cite the high cost of the loans on offer as a problem for their business. Women business leaders, businesses led by disabled people, ethnic minority business leaders and businesses in the poorest areas of our country all face higher barriers to accessing the finance they need to unlock their expansion plans.
Concern has grown that a number of high-cost lenders are exploiting this situation, targeting small businesses with slick, online marketing offering very rapid access to cash. As with the payday lending scandal of a decade ago, these lenders do not have to display or explain the total cost of borrowing or accurate representative rates. The often quite aggressive use of personal guarantees, loan stacking and the behaviour of some brokers are also significant concerns. Court judgments, ombudsman complaints and wider efforts to refinance these loans all underline the need for tighter regulation of the rules on high-cost credit and for bolder measures to improve access to affordable credit.
Research for the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade published in January this year by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research underlined how much our increasingly centralised banking services had driven up the cost of lending for businesses, compared with other European countries with much larger regional and mutual banking sectors. The OECD’s most recent analysis of SMEs’ and entrepreneurs’ financing suggests that the UK had higher average SME interest rates in 2024 compared with the US, France and Germany.
I am therefore pleased that Ministers are backing with enthusiasm the CDFI taskforce that I initiated in government, and I welcome the progress on the Government’s financial inclusion strategy, but lasting change surely means looking beyond voluntary measures to ensure that people in the most vulnerable parts of the market are not excluded from essential financial services, including credit—a point members of the Treasury Committee made in their recent report. The Bill is the opportunity to bridge this gap and enact that change.
There is no consistent, transparent framework for assessing how well major banks serve the people and places excluded from affordable credit. There is no systematic way to compare their contribution or assess how they encourage partnerships with credit unions and CDFIs that can make a real difference. We should surely require the Financial Conduct Authority to assess and publish banks’ performance in meeting affordable credit needs, including their support for responsible community lenders. Assessments should be transparent, comparable and, of course, proportionate, with action expected where performance falls short. A similar thing is about to happen with pension schemes.
This is not about forcing banks to lend to people who cannot afford to repay. It is about ensuring that those who can repay are not excluded and that banks fulfil their part of the social contract. Banks have had huge success in the last decade—a decade when, according to Which?, almost 7,000 bank branches have closed, shutting down opportunities for basic advice, making access to financial services more difficult and leaving small businesses on our high streets facing yet another challenge.
Kirsty Blackman
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a lot of this data is collected already, and that it would not place a significant additional regulatory burden on banks to have to gather it? It is just not being published.
Gareth Thomas
Indeed, the FCA said something similar to me at a roundtable with some charities. What is clearly needed is the will to publish that data and to sort out the remaining gaps in the data.
The banks’ success has come through being particularly selective in who they lend and offer detailed financial advice to. Their contributions to helping build the capacity of those financial institutions that do lend to everybody have been much more limited—in some cases, non-existent. It is the responsibility of Government to lead on tackling market failures, but as in other countries, banks in the UK have a responsibility to help, and not enough of them are helping to build the capacity of community banks, credit unions and CDFIs to do so. Just as it was right to ask banks to pay a bit more tax to support people with their energy bills, so we should ask them to work with us to create a more diverse, resilient and, crucially, inclusive financial system that will serve every community in the decades ahead.
Everyone in this House surely supports easing the cost of living and delivering good growth in every postcode. Fair access to credit is critical to both those ambitions. I hope that Ministers can be persuaded to back further steps on affordable credit as the Bill progresses. A financial system that works for everyone is fundamental to tackling the cost of living crisis.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I am proud of our world-leading financial services sector and the many constituents I represent who work in it. I put on record my thanks to the Chancellor for announcing measures in the Budget that will continue to help Britain attract global talent to work in those services.
Our reputation for strong financial services that respect the rule of law depends on our ability to keep dirty money out of the City and out of our country. The Bill will make huge strides on that through clause 13, on which I will focus. No one should turn a blind eye to the source of funds for an investment, whether into a company, a property, art or even some of our national institutions. The former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), was right to say that this Government’s ambition should be to change our reputation from the dirty money capital of the world to
“the anti-corruption capital of the world”.
One of the historical weaknesses has been the regulation of legal, accountancy and company service providers, which are sometimes referred to as enablers or potential enablers of money laundering. It should not be a badge of honour that dirty money in our country has spawned an entire genre of excellent books: “Kleptopia”, “Treasure Islands”, “Butler to the World”, “London Falling”—hon. Members can read my review in “The House” magazine—and many more.
In my Kensington and Bayswater constituency, we similarly do not celebrate the fact that we are home to numerous sanctioned luxury properties and thousands more whose ownership is unknown or opaque. I invite the Minister to join my next “Kensington Against Dirty Money” walking tour, which will show her the impact of dirty money entering our country—often through the vehicles of anonymous trusts registered in the British Virgin Islands and other overseas territories and Crown dependencies. That distorts our property market, hollows out our local communities and, in the worst cases, leaves properties frozen in limbo. That is not sustainable investment. It does not promote economic growth or shine a good light on our professional services.
I am therefore delighted that the Bill will significantly strengthen anti-money laundering measures. The Financial Conduct Authority will take on an expanded supervising role, rather than the more than 20 different professional bodies that currently oversee lawyers’ and accountants’ compliance with money laundering rules. The capacity of those bodies simply does not align with the complexity of modern anti-money laundering efforts, and the incentive for private professional bodies to compete for membership does not align with the most rigorous oversight. For a long time, anti-corruption campaigners have called for this consolidation. I pay tribute to those organisations. As the Bill progresses, the transition will need to be managed. There is a clear risk that, as responsibilities shift to the FCA in cohorts, some firms will be left behind. It would be helpful for the Government to provide a reform road map that makes it clear that existing anti-money laundering duties will apply.
Funding is obviously key—other Members will speak to the benefits of an economic crime-fighting fund, which the Minister already knows my views on well—but enforcement also means ensuring that the FCA has the right powers to inspect legally privileged material when that is necessary for anti-money laundering supervision. The Minister will no doubt be aware of the action taken by Carter-Ruck against the Solicitors Regulation Authority to challenge its statutory power to compel disclosure, which the SRA has now appealed to the Supreme Court. There is a risk that the FCA will therefore inherit a legally flawed responsibility for anti-money laundering. It is crucial to get that right, and I hope this Bill is the place to do it.
On property investment, I know that the Government are committed to looking at the issue of abuse of trust, and the anti-corruption champion’s report into asset ownership in Britain will be published soon. In my constituency, over 40% of the foreign-owned properties are registered in trust. My concern with our registry of overseas entities and the exemption given to trusts is that we might create a perverse incentive to use more opaque corporate structures to shield the true ownership. Indeed, those opaque structures are likely to be the product of conversations with the very professional services to which the Bill aims to bring more consistent money laundering supervision. I hope that in the spirit of joined-up government, the Minister will work with colleagues across Government to look at this abuse of trust. That would be another significant step forward.
The measures in the Bill support our leadership on the global stage. We have the financial action taskforce review next year, which I am sure will welcome the steps in the Bill, as well as the G20 presidency and our flagship illicit finance summit, which I am glad the Government have committed to host next year. I hope the Minister will see the illicit finance summit as an opportunity to work with like-minded countries on consistent international anti-money laundering supervision of professional services.
Finally, it is well past time for action on the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. The uncomfortable truth is that while some of the most notorious and brazen enablers of illicit finance and money laundering operate as part of the UK family, we will not be able to claim the leadership role that the Bill has the potential to support. Despite years of commitments and communiqués, the overseas territories are still one of the main global destinations for dirty money, and it is high time for that to change. The harms are severe, from sanctions evasion to serious organised crime, and they damage our financial services here and support kleptocrats and criminals who take advantage of them. With the Joint Ministerial Council happening this month, I hope we can continue to take action on that front. I hope that the Bill can help end that reputation as the butler to the world and instead create the modern, secure financial services regulation that we need.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
I have spoken before about the issue of hidden credit liabilities and the role of the Financial Conduct Authority, and the Bill touches on some of the concerns I have raised.
My constituents James and Becky Glanville built a successful family-run nursing home business, but it was destroyed by undisclosed risks embedded in complex financial products sold by NatWest, part of RBS. They were never told that interest rate swaps carried significant liabilities that would be treated as secured debt, erode their borrowing capacity and trigger covenant breaches as interest rates fell.
Despite clear regulatory requirements for transparency and informed consent, those risks were never disclosed. The regulatory framework then let my constituents down, too. The FSA and FCA’s redress scheme excluded the hidden credit lines from its review, denying fair compensation to victims like the Glanvilles. The regulator effectively colluded with the banks to suppress this fraud and reduce compensation costs, and by 2019 the Glanvilles were owed £6.3 million, but to date they have received absolutely nothing.
The Glanvilles’ case is not isolated. It reflects a wider systemic failure and underscores the urgent need for a full independent investigation and a fair, comprehensive redress scheme. I would be interested to hear the Economic Secretary’s views on the issue and whether the Bill would have protected the Glanvilles had it been in place at the time.
After a decade and a half of austerity, an estimated 4.4 million people have taken out £13 billion-worth of credit to pay for essentials. According to the Centre for Responsible Credit, over a million households have potentially been lent to irresponsibly in the last two and a half years. We know that when the rules are vague, it is borrowers who ultimately pay the price. When the cost of living crisis has already pushed household budgets to breaking point, the Government must not undermine the vital safety net that underpins consumer trust in the entire financial system.
The FOS is a vital safety net for consumers when something goes wrong, but clause 7 introduces a vastly more complex system for how the FOS determines complaints. The shift from a level playing field with an impartial fairness test to one that initially presumes the firm was in the right means that consumers could now face a harder uphill battle to receive redress and could even be denied the redress they would have received under the old test.
The Bill’s stated aim is to introduce deregulation to stimulate growth, but there are serious questions to be asked. Who determines the rights of consumers? Who determines the obligations of firms? Who determines the balance between commercial freedom and public protection, and ultimately, who answers when that balance proves inadequate?
We know that the more authority Parliament delegates to the FCA, the more essential it becomes to preserve democratic accountability. That matters when the rights of ordinary citizens are at stake, and particularly when there is good reason to question the FCA’s judgment and priorities. We cannot simply place all the responsibility on to borrowers. I hope that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will be able to provide some much-needed reassurance on these genuine concerns.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
Having worked for more years than I like to remember in financial services, I recognise the importance of regulation, but I also recognise that at times, regulation can be restrictive to economic growth, and given the size and contribution of the financial and insurance services industry, it is rightly an area of focus for reforms. Consumer protection is vital, but I am pleased that the Bill looks to simplify regulation while maintaining high protections and regulatory standards.
I want to focus on two areas of particular interest to me. The first is the abolition of the Payment Systems Regulator and the transfer of responsibilities to the FCA. When I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on open finance and payments—the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) has now taken over—this was a matter of regular discussion and interest for many members. Currently, four bodies are responsible for regulating different parts of the payments system: the Bank of England, the Payment Systems Regulator, the FCA and the PRA. Absorbing the PSR’s responsibilities into the FCA is a sensible reform, and it sits alongside the Government’s plans set out in the “National Payments Vision” in 2024.
The payments sector has spent untold resources trying to satisfy two distinct bureaucratic masters on identical operational metrics, submitting duplicate data on financial crime and systemic resilience. By integrating those systems under a single FCA handbook framework, we can strip out this waste and allow our scaling payments and open banking firms to reinvest that capital back into technical development and national and international growth.
The core message from the industry is that the absorption of the Payment Systems Regulator must be strictly managed to protect the open banking and payments sector from transitional friction, accelerate open banking rails and ensure that a single regulatory structure does not slow down the competitive dynamism of the UK’s payments sector. The Payments Association has warned that without precise detail of the merger, it risks being a “reshuffle” rather than a reform, and we must avoid that.
Another area of particular interest to me is the plan to widen access to credit unions through the expansion of their common bond in clause 2. When I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fair banking, I was often lobbied by organisations such as Fair4All Finance, which made passionate calls for the expansion of credit unions and CDFIs. In 2025, there were around 1.53 million credit union members in Great Britain, but that is equivalent to only 2% of our population, compared with around 40% in Northern Ireland and 64% in the Republic of Ireland. Credit unions are much closer to their communities and their members, and therefore much better set up to take objective, local lending decisions, made by a human, based on the circumstances laid out in front of them, as opposed to a “computer says no” approach.
Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a really important argument about the financial inclusion reforms. Does he agree that equally important is the Minister’s commitment to finally tackle in this Bill the age-old problem that the parents of disabled children are unable to access their child trust funds by bringing forward reforms that will take away the bureaucratic Court of Protection process?
David Burton-Sampson
My hon. Friend must have been reading my speech, because I am about to talk about financial inclusion, and I agree with her. Having worked in banking when child trust funds came out, I know that they were a fantastic initiative by the former Labour Government, but we now need to close the gap to ensure that those adults—they are no longer children—can get access to the funds, whoever they are.
In the drive for greater financial inclusion, the credit union model can be incredibly effective, so increasing the common bond limit from 3 million members to 10 million members is a positive move forward. While that measure is not in the Bill, I am pleased to hear that it will be implemented via secondary legislation. Relaxing common bond rules on who can be a member—for example, to relatives of an existing member, people who live in the same household as a member, retirees from a firm in the local area, and students who study but do not live in the area—is an excellent feature of the Bill. Those moves are all welcomed by the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd, Fair4All Finance and the Building Societies Association.
Credit unions are invaluable assets in ensuring that people are not financially excluded when they need support the most. An unexpected expense does not disappear because someone cannot access mainstream credit. Expanding access to safe and affordable alternatives to high-cost and illegal lending should remain an important part of the Government’s wider financial inclusion agenda. We should also recognise the key role that credit unions play in encouraging members to save on a regular basis.
I want to see more credit unions opening and expanding across the country. For example, in my constituency, we have access to only one credit union, which is in north London. However, if I search by my childhood home in Liverpool, I see that I would have had access to five different credit unions. In fact, Fair4All Finance carried out research involving 1,000 members across those five credit unions and found that they offered increased access to essential affordable credit, supporting people’s financial resilience. Nearly half of the members’ most recent loans were below £1,000—a market that is not typically served by mainstream lenders, but vital for households managing small ups and downs. The credit unions encouraged the development of saving habits, with nine in 10 members reporting that they saved regularly, and half of the members making regular deposits of £20 or more—that is not much, but it is better than nothing—including those on low incomes. Around eight in 10 respondents reported a positive impact on their wellbeing, mental and physical health and family life as a result of their membership.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point, and he is right to identify credit unions as a brilliant opportunity. In America, some 145 million people use credit unions, compared with a very small amount of the British population. How can we catch up with our transatlantic cousins?
David Burton-Sampson
I agree with my hon. Friend; I was just about to conclude by saying that the continued growth of credit unions and the CDFI market is essential. I encourage the Minister and her team to continue to remain open to further options for expanding reach, including to SMEs, so that we can truly drive forward good growth in every postcode.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
As a former banking employee, let me be clear that a strong financial regulatory system and strong economic growth are not competing objectives. If Britain is to remain one of the world’s leading financial centres, we must ensure that it is not also one of the world’s preferred destinations for dirty money.
As the chair of the APPG on anti-corruption and responsible tax, I have consistently worked with colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), to strengthen the UK’s response to economic crime. After a number of meetings with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and her predecessors, I am pleased to see that she has taken up the cudgel of anti-money laundering supervisory consolidation—that is a bit of a mouthful. That matters, because those who wish to subvert our financial and professional services sectors, launder their ill-gotten gains and drag down the UK’s reputation as a clean place to do business will always seek to exploit the weakest point in our regulatory and supervisory armour. To that end, I am proud to support the Bill, which will modernise the way in which the legal and accountancy sectors, and trust and company services providers, are supervised for money laundering risk, with those responsibilities consolidated within the Financial Conduct Authority.
Working in the industry, it always baffled me that anti-money laundering oversight is currently divided among 22 professional body supervisors, many of which are also membership organisations. That creates an inherent conflict of interest—it leads to inconsistent supervision, variable enforcement, fragmented intelligence sharing and uneven suspicious activity reporting. The Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision’s March 2026 progress report perfectly sums up the situation, stating that professional body supervisors
“still report common breaches…and no or inadequate firm-wide risk assessment by their supervised population.”
The FCA itself is not immune to this; it only took seven formal actions in the period 2024-25, down from a pre-pandemic high of 60 in 2018-19. The total number of on-site visits conducted by all 22 professional body supervisors has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Economic crime is not victimless—it fuels corruption, organised crime, fraud and kleptocracy. It distorts markets, undermines competition and damages Britain’s international reputation. That is why clause 13, which deals with supervisory consolidation, is so important. By ending the fragmented system of 22 separate professional body supervisors and moving towards a single supervisory model for those sectors under the remit of the FCA, this Government are taking a significant step forward. There are three important opportunities to further enhance the Bill that I would be grateful if the Economic Secretary to the Treasury would consider.
First, we need a sustainable solution to the chronic underfunding of economic crime enforcement. The anti-corruption APPG has long called for the creation of an economic crime fighting fund. The principle is straightforward: a proportion of receipts from economic crime enforcement, including confiscated assets, penalties and deferred prosecution agreement receipts, should be reinvested into the very agencies responsible for tackling those crimes. Rather than allowing enforcement proceeds simply to disappear into the consolidated fund, we should create a virtuous circle in which successful enforcement generates additional capability for future enforcement.
The Government’s 2025 anti-corruption strategy promised to explore the funding landscape for strengthening economic crime enforcement, and I think something could be done within the framework of this Bill. The FCA has secured more than £1 billion in regulatory and criminal fines over the past decade, yet enforcement receipts are largely either returned to the industry through rebates or transferred to the Treasury. I understand that the banks are paying their way via the economic crime levy, so I do not begrudge the principle of rebates, but as the Government are now legislating for the FCA to take on growing responsibilities in the face of increasingly sophisticated criminal threats, I encourage the Treasury to consider allowing the FCA to offset the costs of AML enforcement with the fines it imposes for breaches. The Competition and Markets Authority, Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office already possess comparable powers. Giving the FCA similar flexibility would allow it to invest in specialist expertise, advanced technology and enforcement capability, thereby ensuring that it has the cutting-edge capabilities it needs to effectively police the regulated perimeter.
Secondly, the Government must ensure that the current supervisors do not take their eye off the ball during the transition period.
Finally, I urge the Government to ensure that legal sector regulation works effectively under the new regime. At present, there remains a significant problem concerning access to legally privileged material. When the Bill was in the Lords, Ministers confirmed that the FCA will not have powers to compel disclosure of privileged material, yet recent litigation involving the Solicitors Regulation Authority has exposed serious uncertainty regarding regulators’ ability to access such information when investigating misconduct. That litigation should prompt a rethink. If the FCA inherits the same limitations, there is a real risk that serious wrongdoing by solicitors involved in money laundering or abusive litigation practices will remain beyond effective scrutiny. The Bill should therefore clarify that the regulator can access legally privileged material where necessary for the purposes of anti-money laundering supervision, while continuing to protect clients’ rights and confidentiality.
I support the Government, and I trust that my right hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will reflect on my constructive proposals as the Bill progresses through this place.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
I welcome the Bill, and the opportunity to follow so many excellent contributions this evening, particularly those of the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and other colleagues from the Treasury Committee.
One of the key items on our agenda in the Treasury Committee over the past year or so has been the Government’s financial inclusion strategy. We made an important recommendation for Ministers to consider whether the Bill should include further targeted powers to intervene if voluntary action fails to secure reasonable access to essential financial services. I am glad that the Government is doing that; the measures in the Bill will give them more powers to protect access to banking services. So many Members have said this tonight, but I suspect we all have constituents who have seen their access to banking services dramatically reduce in recent years. It is right that the Government are giving themselves powers to address that.
We want our financial services industry to contribute as much as it can to economic growth, and I endorse the changes to the operation of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, both of which are regular attenders at our Select Committee and play important roles in our economy. It seems eminently sensible that both should produce long-term strategies that balance their responsibilities as regulators with the Government’s growth objectives, and I know that many across the sector will welcome efforts to streamline their reporting requirements.
My children were of the generation who received child trust fund contributions under the last Labour Government. We promised to create that programme in our 2001 manifesto, and we set it up in 2002. It has assisted many young people with getting started in life. Many invested in ISAs to build up a fund to bring home ownership closer, or funded driving lessons or a first vehicle. It was a tremendous shame that the Government post 2010 scrapped that programme. Inclusion regarding how those child trust funds are managed is critical, and the Bill takes steps to facilitate access to those funds for parents and carers who manage them in situations where the young people concerned are unable to do so themselves. That is long overdue and I, like many others present, have received correspondence from constituents about the issue. I welcome the change.
Sarah Smith
It will come as no surprise that I also welcome what my hon. Friend is talking about. Does he share my relief that hundreds of his constituents will finally get access to their £2,600—as will mine in Hyndburn—just the same as those young adults who do not have that problem of lacking capacity?
Jim Dickson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The funds should be accessible to those young people, and hitherto they have not been. When the money is available, it can help that young person with a start in life and give them the financial means to better themselves at a crucial time. That is a critical measure in the Bill.
Credit unions are also critical to inclusion and to this Bill. The legislation contains some important reforms to help us modernise the sector. I was pleased to visit Wave Community Bank over the summer. Along with Greenwich and Bexley Credit Union, it plays a vital role in supporting residents in Dartford to access affordable credit in times of acute financial stress. Awareness of credit unions remains far too low, and these changes are welcome to ensure that more Dartford residents can join them. We know that 37,000 people across my constituency—almost half the adult population—are in financially vulnerable circumstances. Many people have limited savings and a life event, such as a job loss or a break-up, will leave them in a particularly dire situation. That is where credit unions, as we know, can play a vital role.
Earlier this year, the Government published the outcome of their call for evidence on reform of the common bond, which included proposals welcomed by the Association of British Credit Unions and Fair4All Finance to widen access to membership. Some of the measures announced in the Bill, including steps to allow students studying locally to join or those retired to maintain their access, are incredibly welcome. I understand that the measures to increase the potential membership cap of the common bond will come a bit later through secondary legislation, but I welcome indications from the Government that the cap is likely to be raised to cover a population of as much as 10 million, from the current 3 million. Taken alongside the very welcome credit union transformation fund, which is there to build operational resilience in the sector, I hope the measures will see a long-term, sizeable increase in membership of credit unions across the country and particularly in my constituency, and see the Government deliver an important part of their financial inclusion strategy.
Finally, I join others in expressing concern that the changes to the operation of the Financial Ombudsman Service in clause 6—and in particular the need to refer significant volumes of cases to the FCA—will “gum up the system”, in the words of senior figures in that organisation. This means that consumers may wait longer for less favourable outcomes, which is surely something that Members should not welcome. I am also concerned, alongside others, about the changes to, or indeed the weakening of, the fair and reasonable test in clause 7, as applied to future complaints. Again, this may well reduce the rights of consumers through the process. I hope that when the Minister responds, she will deal with the points made by myself and others about concerns that are clearly important to us all in an otherwise hugely welcome Bill.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on investment fraud and fairer financial services. It was admirably chaired by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for a number of years, and I took over 18 months ago. The all-party group grew organically: a number of Members were coming to Parliament with concerns about individual instances of fraud, and as a result, people came together and set up the all-party group. We work on the principle that we all support the idea that we need an effective and vibrant finance sector, but that the foundation of that sector is trust. “My word is my bond”—that is exactly what the whole element of trust is about.
There is a real concern at the moment that there is a lack of trust. If we look at the FCA’s polling, 36% of people said they did not feel that they had been treated fairly or honestly by a financial firm, and I can understand why. Let me run through just a few examples from my experience here: payment protection insurance; endowment mortgages; pension transfer mis-selling; London Capital, which I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dr Rushworth) mentioned; Connaught; Woodford; and hidden credit lines. I warn the House that the issue of micro-bonds is coming down the track as well, and that will be enormous.
We can see why people have lost confidence to a certain extent and why, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) mentioned, we should listen to the 16 organisations that represent consumers, which have come to explain to us their concerns about the Bill. Concerns have also been set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson). On clause 7, the concern is the interference with the fair and reasonable test. Way back in the year 2000, when that Financial Services and Markets Bill was going through the House, there was a long discussion that came to a fair proposal to establish the fair and reasonable test in the legislation. If I remember rightly, it was agreed on a cross-party basis. To now introduce conditionality, in terms of compliance with FCA rules, does not necessarily result in a fair outcome; certainly, in many instances, we have found that compliance with FCA rules is just not good enough to secure justice for people.
To reassure us, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, “Don’t worry—the consumer duty will still apply.” It is not in the Bill, as far as I can see. I think that is a real issue. If we are to reassure people out there, we need to ensure that elements of that reassurance are in the legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford also said, on clause 6, the issue of having to refer ambiguities from the FOS to the FCA draws the FCA into an adjudication role. I have to say that a number of the cases that we have dealt with have concerned omissions and failures on the part of the FCA. Again, there is an element of conflict of interests there. I know that an element of discretion can be involved, but it is a question of the elements of discretion to which the FCA is subject. The Bill states that the ombudsman must take into account
significant implications in relation to the functioning of relevant markets”.
I think that the FCA will be under pressure to ignore some of those elements if they fly in the face of issues relating to market success.
Clauses 42 and 43 undermine the ringfence between investment and retail banking. I was here in 2008. Others claim it, but it was I who first raised the subject of Northern Rock in this Chamber. We are seeing the same cycle: there is a financial crisis, regulation is introduced, memories fade, there is pressure to reduce that regulation, and we go into another crisis. That is what was happening from the 1980s onwards. Curiously, there were two books that people reached for when the crisis happened in 2008. One was J. K. Galbraith’s analysis of the 1929 crash. The other, funnily enough, was Marx’s “Capital”, but that is another discussion. J. K. Galbraith said that the best protection against another crash was memory. What is happening now is exactly what Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has described: memories are beginning to fade, which is why people become so susceptible to the pressure for deregulation.
I want to make a couple of points before I quieten down. A number of issues have not been addressed in the Bill, and I should like them to be addressed. The first is the FCA’s treatment of whistleblowers. One of our advisers, Simon Andriesz, recently committed suicide. He was a whistleblower, and it was, I believe, as a result of the lack of support from the FCA that he took his own life. We have referred it to the FCA, and what has it done? It has launched an investigation, but it is not an independent investigation; it is an investigation by an incoming member of the FCA’s own board. That is unacceptable. We need to ensure that we protect whistleblowers.
The other issue is the Hillsborough legislation that we are introducing. I would like to see that legislation applied to the FCA, because I think that a duty of candour for the FCA would give reassurance to consumers outside.
Finally, this is not a choice between regulation and growth; both are essential for a successful finance sector.
Dr Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Bill contains many good things that other Members have spoken to. The Chancellor pitched it as a Bill that will unlock investment for growth. If we want people to invest, we need them to have confidence. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and I did not collaborate on our speeches, but, as he pointed out, 36% of people surveyed by the FCA believe that financial firms are not honest. When the Bank of England asked people to sum up the finance industry in a word, the word that the British people picked was “corrupt”. The Financial Services Ombudsman is receiving 216,000 complaints a year, and it is easy to see why: £1 billion is now being lost every year in investment scams. The most notable example is London Capital & Finance, but there are others, including Blackmore Bond, Basset & Gold, Astute Capital and Godwin Capital.
The Bill addresses complex issues in which I claim no expertise, but I take a strong interest in them because they are of interest to the people I represent. I want to share the experience of ordinary people who have lost their savings to unregulated investment products. I myself lost a few thousand pounds to a scam. I set up a Facebook group years ago, and the first person who contacted me was a man from Manchester. He had worked as a binman throughout his career, getting up early in the morning, working in all weathers and saving for his pension. He took the lump sum of his pension and invested it in Astute Capital. He lost all of it.
I want to talk about what that looks like as a process. It begins with an ordinary person searching to compare high-interest savings accounts with banks. They put their contact details on the internet, and then they get unsolicited calls from people with posh accents offering them investment advice and suggesting that they put their money in an ISA. They have probably heard of ISAs, and they know it is a Government-approved and tax-incentivised way to save. The person will admit to them that they are not FCA-regulated, but they probably have not heard of the FCA and may not know what that means. They may also be told that their capital is at risk, but then that nice person with a posh voice explains to them, “I have to tell you that—it’s the legal bit—but let me explain to you why you’re actually okay. Everything you’re investing is fully asset-backed up to several times its value, and we spread the risk across multiple portfolios.”
The individual trusts, they invest and they wait three years. They look forward to getting their money back with the interest they were promised, but when that time comes—this happened to customers of Astute Capital—they get told, “We’re sorry; we can’t pay you. But if you just stick with us for another six months, it’s better than causing someone to whom we’ve lent your money to default.” So they wait another six months. Six months later, their bonds are forcibly converted into shares and they are told, “Don’t worry; soon enough you’ll be able to sell those shares, and your shares are worth more than what you invested”—except they are not, and eventually the company goes into administration.
And then what happens? The person loses everything. When they investigate it, they find that a director of Astute Capital was simultaneously a director of the firm to which their money was lent. As a director of both firms, he took away the security on the debt. An ordinary person would expect that, in such a situation, there is some sort of recompense. They would think it is illegal, but it is not. People are told that they are at fault because they should have known that they were investing in an unregulated company. I had a man say to me on the phone, “I can’t look my wife in the eye. I’ve lost everything that we’ve saved over all these years.”
What happens to the directors? What happened to Timothy John Smith, who was the director of two companies? According to Companies House, he is now at Axecap Ltd, another unregulated offshore broker with many warnings against its name not to invest. For me, the most troubling part of this is that these unregulated investment schemes are entirely legal or, if there has been illegal activity, there has been no investigation and nobody has ever been held accountable. That is why the public are in disbelief, because they expect the Government and laws to protect them. They do not think this unregulated space should be allowed.
When I was elected, I raised this issue with the Financial Conduct Authority. It told me that it needs a bigger mandate to regulate this space, which it has not been given. In my last 30 seconds, I ask that the Bill be amended to give a mandate to the FCA to have oversight of unregulated activity, to make directors personally liable, to require directors of unregulated investment companies to demonstrate that they have acted responsibly, to automatically bring unregulated mini-bonds within FCA supervision, and to create a general compensation scheme for the victims of unregulated investments.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Noah Law to make the final Back-Bench contribution. Those who contributed earlier should make their way back to the Chamber.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Bill and its goal of creating a more transparent financial services sector that can continue to play a key role in creating growth and prosperity for the whole of the UK. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Having spent a decade in investment banking and financial advisory work, I have some understanding of both the potential of our financial services and the reforms that they need. The proposed reforms to credit unions are extremely positive. By virtue of being owned by their members, credit unions are uniquely incentivised to put surplus profits into providing better services, rates and returns for their members—something that, as a Co-operative Member, I am delighted to support. I am delighted to support the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) in this space too.
The Bill will make it easier for credit unions to accept new members. It removes unnecessary administrative blocks and provides greater support, allowing more people to join credit unions, which are rooted in their communities and committed to delivering for them. Expanding access to credit unions also means access to more affordable lending, which gives those in the most dire financial circumstances access to credit at reasonable rates, instead of leaving them at the mercy of predatory lenders. Credit unions encourage saving, responsible borrowing, and investment in our communities and local economies. The reforms in this Bill will make accessing them easier than ever. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) pointed out, we eagerly await the response to the review of fair access to banking and capital markets.
More widely, I am glad to see the industry support the aims of this Bill and the support for the better regulatory strategy, accountability, deadlines and the proposed improvements to the senior managers and certification regime. By requiring the FCA and the PRA to report annually on their efforts towards competitiveness and growth, we ensure that the Government, regulators and the industry pull together in one direction for the financial sustainability of our country.
Additionally, by improving the way in which regulators make decisions, we can improve the confidence of investors in our financial services. The reduction in the statutory period of authorisations and variations of permission from six to four months, and the period for incomplete applications being reduced from 12 to 10 months, ensures a smoother system for firms and leaves a lot less up in the air. Delays in regulatory decisions can be hugely costly for firms, and can even mean postponing fund launches and major investment decisions, and affect firms’ ability to grow, innovate and compete internationally. A simple regulatory system provides greater clarity for firms, better transparency for the public and the Treasury, and benefits us all. I welcome the Bill’s allowing the Treasury to introduce secondary legislation to amend specified determination periods, once again demonstrating the Government’s willingness to work closely with Britain’s most valuable and prosperous of industries.
I am very grateful to the Chancellor for his acknowledgment that we have asked the sector to do its bit to contribute to sound and prudent public finances— I would argue that that prudence, to quote the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who is no longer in this place, “dwarfs” short-term fiscal interventions—and it directly contributes to sound and prudent finances in an otherwise globally turbulent macroeconomic environment, after the public did their bit to safeguard the sector through its most challenging of times. Consequently, we in this House must also give due care and attention to this incredibly valuable sector. I do believe that the Chancellor has shown that, even when those difficult decisions have to be made, this need not be a zero-sum game.
I would like to think this Bill can be just one of many stepping stones as part of an ongoing effort throughout this Parliament to ensure a healthy level of risk taking in this most expert of financial markets that we have in the UK. In that regard, I welcome the targeted reviews of ringfencing requirements alongside the Bank of England’s own review of capital requirements to promote thriving banking and capital markets—public, private and, of course, mutual.
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the official Opposition, and to follow on from my very good friend, the shadow Economic Secretary—my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—who has done excellent work both in this Chamber and behind the scenes to engage extensively with the industry. Indeed, I am sure there is not a lunch table in the City of London that has not been graced by my hon. Friend—all, of course, in the service of his great country.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly my long career in asset management, my active involvement in the industry going back many years, and my current chairmanship of the APPG for blockchain, which is relevant to this Bill.
It has been a privilege to be joined by many Members from across the House who clearly have extensive industry experience. I firmly believe, as I have for a long time, that we need more people in Parliament who have worked specifically in this sector, and who understand its importance and its power to help and influence our economy and our communities.
I thank all Members from across the House for their contributions to the debate, but I will name a few in particular. The Chairman of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) who is not currently in her place, provided a typically detailed and very thoughtful contribution. She expressed concerns about whether the pendulum is swinging away from consumer protection, as well as outlining her concerns about the reforms to the FOS. I do not agree necessarily with everything she said, but the House is better for the scrutiny that she and her Committee provide.
Let me pay tribute to our country’s longest-serving Economic Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who moved with grace from museums to MiFID back in the day. He spoke about his mixed views of the FOS. He acknowledged that it is—in his words—an unreliable path to resolution, and helpfully warned us that we need to consider the challenges posed by AI to the financial services sector.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) on his appointment as the Government’s co-operatives and mutuals champion. I have to say it is an appointment that passed me by, but I very much welcome it. One person who has always been a champion of co-operatives and mutuals is, of course, the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), who spoke of the high cost and burden of credit, especially for those in poverty.
We on the Conservative side of the House want sensible deregulation. We want less bureaucracy in our system. We want lower burdens and more growth. Where the Bill does that, we will welcome it and we will help make it happen. The Chancellor was right in his opening remarks when he said that it is important to recognise the cross-party work that has gone on already with the Bill. He rightly echoed the views of those us on the Conservative Benches when it was said in the other place that the Bill moves us all in the right direction. Having said that—I am loath to depart from the happy and collegiate atmosphere of the debate so far—I am reminded of what Disraeli once said:
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.”
So, if Members will forgive me, I have a job to do tonight. In certain areas, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest set out, we believe the Bill does not go far enough. I would like to highlight two areas in particular.
First, on digital assets, the United States has legislated for stablecoin. South Korea and even the European Union have their own regimes. Our competitors globally are moving ahead. That matters because stablecoins could revolutionise the way we pay for goods and services. Blockchain technologies could transform the way we interact with companies and the state. The Bill was our chance to set out a more advanced vision and policy agenda in those areas, but the Government chose not to.
Secondly, ringfencing forces our largest banks to separate retail banking from the rest of their business. That was right after the financial crisis, but the world has now moved on and our resolution regime has moved on with it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury pointed out. If we look at our competitors from New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris, not one imposes ringfencing like ours—not one. We believe that we should not either. The Bill gives a little and takes a little, but there is a simpler option. If true deregulation is the aim, we believe the Government should adopt the Conservatives’ plan to scrap ringfencing altogether.
No matter how well intentioned the measures in the Bill are—and I believe they are very well intended— I am afraid that I must point out that they are being brought in alongside a barrage of anti-growth taxation and regulatory burdens imposed on our financial services sector and British business more widely. This afternoon, the Chancellor praised Britain’s financial services sector, and I welcome his words; 13 days ago, he spoke similar words but then doubled the bank surcharge—a £1.5 billion hit to the very companies and people he says he supports.
It is all about choice. The Chancellor could have chosen to cut welfare, which is spiralling above £400 billion, but he chose the easier route for a Labour Chancellor, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) said, and decided to tax one of our country’s most-important sectors. Be in no doubt that this will have an impact, and specifically, I fear it will lead to more bank branch closures on our high streets, which none of us in this House wants.
I have no doubt that the Economic Secretary will shortly reference banking hubs in her wind-up, speaking with pride about how the Government are rolling out more. She is right to welcome them—I welcome them too—but she should also be clear about who pays for them. Banking hubs are funded by the banks—every one of them. Cash Access UK is funded by the banks. The mobile libraries and the pop-ups in our communities are funded by the banks. We cannot celebrate banking hubs on a Tuesday and then the next day tax the companies that pay for them. I am in favour of banking hubs, but I would much rather the branches not be closed in the first place.
To her credit, the Economic Secretary understands the sector. She is respected in the City and she understands the importance of banks to our high streets, which makes it all the more disappointing for the sector that she did not act to prevent the latest tax raid. The high street bank tax is just one example, but we also have the hike to national insurance and higher taxes on carried interest. That all results in more jobs put at risk, more high street banks closing and investment and innovation heading elsewhere rather than contributing to growth here in Britain.
For the most part, the Conservatives of course welcome the Bill, and we have been clear about that. Sadly, however, it will do little to overcome the barriers and burdens that this Government have inflicted on the financial services sector over the past two years. Warm words cannot undo cold taxes. The world’s capital has a choice about where it goes, and the Government have not acted in our favour. The Chancellor has a choice: he can back the sector or tax it until it becomes uncompetitive, but he simply cannot do both.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Rigby)
It is a pleasure to close this debate on the Financial Services and Markets Bill. I am grateful to hon. Members from across the House for their contributions, including those on the Conservative Benches who have joined us on a one-line Whip. I am grateful, as has been highlighted, for the spirit of collaboration in the other place, and for the constructive criticism—I think—that has been offered here. I know that Madam Deputy Speaker is being strict in the time limits applied to the wind-ups, so I will do my level best to cover as much as I can and spend most of my time addressing the reform of the regulatory landscape, which is where hon. Members have put most focus. To the extent that I cannot cover things, I will follow up in writing. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), I think the breadth of today’s debate reflects the importance of these reforms and, indeed, the importance of financial services to this country.
I will start by going back a step, if I might, because this party came into office with a really clear purpose: to bring stability back to the British economy, give working people greater security and get Britain back on the path to prosperity. At Budget, the Chancellor took the responsible decisions needed to protect the public finances and provide breathing space for firms and families across the country. However, stability and fiscal responsibility are the foundations, not the destination. If we want to see more good jobs, opportunities for our young people and people feeling more secure in their finances, we know that we need a thriving, dynamic economy that delivers for the British people.
Few sectors are more important to that task than financial services. From providing SMEs with finance to expand, innovate and hire to helping a family to buy their first home, getting capital to some of our most exciting start-ups and supporting people saving for retirement, financial services provide the ecosystem that underpins our economy and each of our daily lives. In Leeds, Bristol, Bournemouth, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff, financial services right across the United Kingdom provide the services we rely on every day, supporting more than a million good, highly skilled jobs and the ambitions and the aspirations of the country.
As hon. Members have pointed out, we are recognised as a world leader in financial services—something that all of us in this place should be very, very proud of, and something we must protect as a critical strategic asset. Members have also pointed out that global competition for capital is intensifying, and it is therefore vital that we strengthen the sector’s ability to deliver for the country, which is exactly what this Bill does.
Members have spoken to the key reforms in this Bill. Let me start with child trust funds, an issue raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith), for Southend West and Leigh (David Burton-Sampson) and for Dartford (Jim Dickson), where we are righting injustice that has existed for far too long. Child trust funds were a product of the previous Labour Government, and they were based on a simple promise: every single child in this country, no matter their background, would start adult life with a financial asset of their own.
However, for far too many families of children with disabilities, that reality has been very different. Parents have been forced to go to court in a lengthy and complex process to access their children’s funds on their behalf. That is why we announced last week that we will use this Bill to make it simpler, easier and fairer for parents and carers to access child trust funds on behalf of young people who lack mental capacity. That means that up to 126,000 young people will be able to more easily access funds currently worth an average of £2,600. This money was always theirs, and with this Bill, it will reach them.
Many hon. Members—far too many to mention—have rightly highlighted the vital role that mutuals, co-ops and credit unions play in our financial services ecosystem. Member-led and rooted in their communities, mutuals and co-ops are central to this Government’s commitment to seeing good growth in every corner of the country, which is why we are committed to ensuring that the mutuals economy can flourish.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) highlighted the importance of CDFIs, which, as he knows, we have backed in the Budget. I know that he wants us to go further, and I am more than happy to meet him to talk about exactly how we can do that. I can confirm that we intend to further extend the reforms to the common bond in Committee, bringing forward an amendment to enable credit union members who do not themselves directly meet the common bond to introduce family or household members on the same basis as other members. We have a lot more to do when it comes to the scale of our ambition on mutuals and co-ops, and I look forward to working with hon. Members across the House, and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) as the first ever co-operatives and mutuals champion in Government.
In addition to allowing our mutual and co-op sector to expand and best support growth, the Bill backs greater investment across our economy as a whole. It will give banks greater flexibility within the ringfencing regime to provide more capital to businesses, encouraging and supporting growth. The right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has urged us to be thoughtful when considering these reforms, and I can reassure him that we will be.
The shadow Economic Secretary, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), spoke about capital requirements, as did the right hon. Member for Salisbury. The Chancellor and I acknowledge the importance of the Bank’s review of capital requirements. As the Chancellor said, that is made clear in his remit letter. I acknowledge the shadow Economic Secretary’s intention to table amendments in this regard, and I look forward to discussing those with him.
At the heart of the Bill is the protection of our global reputation for financial regulation. As has been said today, we have a reputation for sophisticated regulators, high standards and regulatory stability. We are very clear that we will protect each of those things. We are equally clear that where regulation can be made better, more up to date with the modern world, more effective in achieving its aims and more proportionate, we will do that.
The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) raised an important point about how regulation affects defence SMEs. We are very clear that no legitimate company should be denied access to financial services solely because they are involved in the defence sector. The forthcoming defence finance and investment strategy will review how we can ensure that barriers to investment of the kind that he described are removed.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson) for his supportive comments on the regulatory aspects of the Bill. I know that he has tremendous experience in this area.
As I expected, plenty of hon. Members raised access to banking, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier). I am happy to confirm, as did the Chancellor, that we are going to insert back into the Bill our ability to act on the conclusion of Richard Lloyd’s access to banking review. We will publish the review and our response very soon.
The Chancellor noted earlier that the Consumer Credit Act was enacted more than 50 years ago. That was before the iPhone and the laptop, and probably before the shadow Economic Secretary was even born—[Interruption.] I know that it was. It was the same year that this nation was introduced both to Ceefax and, I found out, to Bagpuss. The Act needs to be updated to ensure that the regulator can develop new rules around the information that consumers will receive, including via digital means, based on rigorous consumer testing.
Let me come to the FOS. It is clearly critical that when things go wrong, redress is accessible, consistent and predictable. Some hon. Members have questioned the respective roles of the FCA and the FOS. Under the proposed reforms, it will be the FCA as the independent regulator that sets the standards that firms must meet, including in relation to the consumer duty, and it will be the financial ombudsman that applies them.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch for her input on this matter, including in today’s debate. She raises really important considerations about protections. Even if I cannot fully endorse her likening of risk warnings on retail investment to those on smoking, I can say that we will consider her input further in Committee. She raised concerns about the referral mechanism, as did other hon. Members. We have had constructive engagement with the FCA and interested groups on the referral mechanism and intend to bring forward a number of amendments at Committee stage to ensure that the mechanism functions well.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I fear that you are running out of patience with me, so I will do my best to conclude. I want to acknowledge the 10-year rule, as that was raised by hon. Members including my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra). It is entirely right that some products will not be suitable for the operation of the 10-year rule, and the FCA will set out exactly which products those are.
I will skip over my comments on anti-money laundering and fraud, although that is an important part of the Bill. I will skip over my comments on digital assets, save to say please do not doubt the ambition of the Government. We will carefully consider the Lords reforms in that regard.
Financial services, as hon. Members across the Chamber have said, touch every part of our lives, from the mortgage that turns a family into homeowners to the small loan that turns a good idea into a growing business, and indeed the savings that turn a lifetime of hard work into security. The Bill backs the sector and it backs our economy to succeed.
John McDonnell
May I put on record again my concern that, as we may be facing a significant global crisis as a result of AI debt problems, now is not the time to undermine the protections we brought forward after 2008 and, in particular, the separation between retail and investment banking?
Lucy Rigby
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. We are approaching our reforms of the ringfence very carefully. A detailed review has been conducted. We have to ensure that where regulation exists, it is fit for purpose and fit for the circumstances of the modern age. I am more than happy to meet him and talk about the new growth allowance, for example, which will ensure that we can get more capital into the real economy, more homeowners on the ladder and more investment to businesses.
The Bill will deliver a stronger economy to deliver opportunity, hope and prosperity in every corner of the country. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords] (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords]:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 15 December 2026.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Consideration and Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Gregor Poynton.)
Question agreed to.
Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords] (Money)
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Treasury, and
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Gregor Poynton.)
Question agreed to.
Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords] (Ways and Means)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Financial Services and Markets Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the charging of fees and charges under or by virtue of the Act.—(Gregor Poynton.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legisation
Stepping Hill Hospital
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)
Stepping Hill hospital sits in my constituency. It is one of the busiest hospitals in the region, with over 91,000 patient admissions each year. It serves Stockport, parts of Greater Manchester and parts of Derbyshire. I have raised the issues faced by the staff and patients there many times in the House and been told repeatedly that the Government are working with Stockport NHS foundation trust and the integrated care board to solve them, but time and again we are let down by the lack of real action.
On Friday I visited the hospital with my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), and we met senior teams, clinicians, nurses and operational staff.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
On the point about nurses at Stepping Hill hospital, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) knows, my mother did her nurse training at Stepping Hill back in the 1970s. Since it is my mother’s birthday tomorrow, will the hon. Gentleman join me in wishing my mum a very happy birthday and acknowledging the hard work and commitment of the nurses at Stepping Hill hospital?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Mr Jogee, I am sure we would all like to wish your mother a happy birthday, but we are discussing the future of Stepping Hill hospital.
Mr Morrison
I absolutely respect that intervention, and I do wish the hon. Gentleman’s mother a happy birthday. If it were possible, we would all do a rendition of “Happy Birthday”, but we will leave that for another time.
This was not my first visit to the hospital—I have been there several times, both as an elected representative and as a patient—but it was the angriest and most emotional I have ever been while visiting it. On our visit, I saw staff and patients’ dignity taken away from them, I saw a building completely and utterly unfit for purpose, and I saw a health system that was left to rot, quite literally, over the years of Conservative neglect now being given only plasters by the current Government.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the visit was harrowing. To see staff and patients suffer in buildings that leaked, surrounded by walls that were rotting and floors that were sinking, was truly awful. It painted a stark and terrible picture of the way our health service is being treated by decision makers in Whitehall, with £120 million being spent each year just on mitigating the damage being caused by the hospital’s crumbling estate. This is an incredibly expensive sticking plaster that does not solve the underlying problems, but instead makes things worse. A comprehensive repair of Stepping Hill’s estate would cost just over £134 million, and the Government must commit to providing that amount to get the hospital back on its feet. It would save money in the long term and mitigate the huge risks the estate poses.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: what we saw on our visit was harrowing. He talks about value for money and how over £100 million is going on just maintaining the buildings as they currently stand. That is literally plugging holes in the wall. I am sure he agrees that a better use of the money would be to spend capital on building a new additional site in Stockport town centre. That would free up space on the site that is no longer fit for purpose and would be a much more sensible, value-for-money way to spend the money.
Mr Morrison
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that idea forward. Yes, absolutely; I will talk later about how a new site in Stockport could alleviate the stress on Stepping Hill and save the Government a lot of money.
Stockport NHS foundation trust is clear that the £134 million would be over and above any Government funding already allocated. The trust simply cannot make the efficiency savings being asked of it when it is firefighting each day. I want to tell the House what this looks like and how this firefighting impacts the day-to-day lives of the staff and the patients they look after.
On our visit, nurses told me of the huge issues they face regarding infection control. There are genuine concerns that the outdated and inefficient building makes infection control even harder. Beds are too close to each other and people are unable to move around within a safe distance of each other. Parts of the site predate the NHS and, as such, the corridors are so small that two wheelchairs or trolleys cannot go past each other. Shockingly, the hospital has only around 20% of the side rooms it needs to isolate infectious patients, and in the electrocardiography zone there are no handwashing facilities. The nurses told me that during covid, they had to create massive one-way systems through the wards, making care and movement even more complex. That was a logistical challenge at a time when the NHS was already being tested to breaking point.
The building itself is also dangerous. On the visit, I was shown the relentless water damage and leaks across the estate. When it rains, staff race around the hospital putting out buckets to catch the water dripping through the ceiling, sometimes on to vital equipment.
Ward and shower rooms have become completely unusable because of leaks, which have further reduced capacity. I have seen wards where sewage comes up through the drains, meaning that nurses have to clean up rather than look after the patients they should be tending to. The glass windows in the cardiology unit are at a huge risk of falling out, posing a serious safety risk.
Clay pipework from 1905 is still in use and leaking, meaning that escaping steam is rotting the floors beneath. Some floors are now physically sinking. As I entered the building, I saw that the hospital’s café was closed for that very reason—I could actually see where the floor was beginning to slope down. Scaffolding is literally holding up the glass ceiling in the main entrance— a worrying welcome for patients entering the building.
Mr Morrison
Many of the hospital’s wards are Nightingale wards, which cannot support contemporary care. As I have already mentioned, these wards do not have enough side rooms. That poses a massive risk in terms of infection control, but it also poses challenges when providing patients with the privacy and dignity they need. When patients are receiving end-of-life care, the hospital cannot always provide a separate room, and instead beds are curtained off to give families the privacy they need. To ensure that people are aware, staff place a candle on the ward entrance to tell others that someone is having their last moments with their friends and family. That was the hardest thing to see on our visit. It makes me so angry and ashamed that families in my constituency are saying goodbye to their loved ones in this way.
It is not just the physical infrastructure that needs addressing. Some staff talked me through how outdated computer software and internet connections mean that they have to use memory sticks to take images from one computer to another. Some of the images are for time-critical operations, in which every second counts, yet clinicians, doctors and nurses had no option but to walk memory sticks from one computer to another, wasting precious time.
Finally, let me talk about the conditions the staff work in. The ward designs in the older buildings make staffing a serious challenge. Staff-to-patient ratios mean that nurses must look after no more than eight patients, but some wards have 14 beds, meaning that two nurses are required, despite one of those nurses being underutilised. The staff rooms are also completely inadequate; I saw one room that could fit only two people comfortably, despite there being 12 people on that ward, while the staff room on the cardiology unit, which serves 30 people, has only one toilet.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, on securing this debate on an important issue for the three MPs who represent the local authority of Stockport. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding my trade union membership and being chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer.
All of us in this House would agree that our constituents deserve high-quality, first-class, reliable care in hospitals and from our GPs, and that the staff also deserve high-quality services. I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion for a new location for a new hospital—I think there should be a wider discussion, but I do not wish to take up too much time in dissecting the Stockport local plan. However, I do agree that Stepping Hill hospital is simply not adequate for patients or staff. Does he agree that in the past two years this Government have allocated £2.5 million for targeted safety works, £26 million for the construction of a new pathology building and £75 million for the Stockport NHS foundation trust over the next four years? That is a stark contrast with the previous 14 years—the coalition Government, of which his party was part, and the Conservative Government that followed.
Mr Morrison
I respect the hon. Gentleman a lot; we all work well together as Stockport MPs. Although we should never say no to money coming into the hospital, even the NHS trust is saying that this money does not touch the sides, as I have said. We need more investment, and the £134 million repair bill needs to be sorted. We can discuss the need for a different site another time; I am fully behind Stockport needing a new hospital site.
I was talking about the staff room for the cardiology unit, which serves 30 people but has only one toilet. That is not to mention the fact that the toilet windows are not frosted over, so there is a massive privacy issue for the staff. I was also told about one member of staff who works in reception in one unit and who uses an electric wheelchair. Horrifyingly, their work environment is completely inadequate, not only because the doors to the unit are not suitable for wheelchairs to go through, but because they cannot access an accessible toilet and so are forced to leave the building in which they work to go to another a few minutes away. Often they have to go out in the rain just to use a facility that they should have the right to use. That is simply a disgrace, and I cannot believe it is happening in 2026.
I asked why that person still felt the need to work there even with such basic accessibility requirements not being met. I was told that it was because they cared so much about the hospital, about Stepping Hill and about the job they do that they would not leave. That was a running theme through our visit. Despite all the issues and problems I have laid out, the staff across Stepping Hill maintain excellent standards in conditions that are working against them. They continue to provide an unbelievably caring and wonderful service. They are a credit to the NHS and to Stockport. They never complain or down tools because of the conditions; instead, they get on with the job.
My partner Lou and I sadly needed to spend time at Stepping Hill recently. Despite the awful reasons we were there, we felt protected, supported and cared for. I want to take this moment to say thank you to the staff for everything they did for us, for keeping us safe and for looking out for us. I promise here that I will always have their back and will never stop campaigning to get them the hospital they deserve.
So what is the solution? The Government announce bits of support every now and then, and they often announce the same pots of money time and again in the hope that it looks like support is there, but that does not help. We need a fully funded strategy for how Stepping Hill will be saved. There were plans for a new hospital in Stockport that were originally rejected by the previous Conservative Government. The plans would have enabled some relief for Stepping Hill and helped free up much-needed space on the estate. The plans also had backing from the trust and the council, which partnered to develop them, and the integrated care board. They pushed as much as they could. Sadly, it does not appear that the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) supported them, but we will talk about that another time.
Whatever the solution, the fact is that action is now desperately needed. We cannot go on with more debates, more questions to Ministers and the Prime Minister, more letters to the Department of Health and Social Care and more meetings with officials—the Government have to act now. For over a decade the Conservative Government left Stepping Hill hospital to rot. This Government cannot do the same, and the Minister should not allow that to happen.
I want to end with a number of questions for the Minister. First, it is clear what help is needed and required, so why have the Government failed to act so far? Secondly, is it appropriate for 30 NHS staff members to share one toilet and that an NHS worker who uses a wheelchair has to go out in the rain to access the nearest accessible toilet? Thirdly, is it fair that patients at the end of their life cannot share their final moments with friends and family in privacy and with dignity? Finally, will the Minister come to Stepping Hill hospital along with the Prime Minister, who often talks about Stockport and the work he did there, so that they can see at first hand what happens when those in Westminster and Whitehall take our hospitals for granted?
The Minister for Social Care and Mental Health (Alison McGovern)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) on securing this very important debate. Throughout it, he and other Members have paid tribute to the work that happens at Stepping Hill hospital, despite what are clearly often very difficult situations, and it is important that that is on the record.
Unfortunately, the Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who is the Minister with responsibility for this, could not be here this evening. I am sorry to be a poor replacement for her, but let me reassure the hon. Member for Cheadle and the House that I will report this discussion to her directly. I know that she is aware of this debate, and I am sure that she will follow up in the appropriate way with the Members concerned.
As I said, Members have rightly paid tribute to all the staff at Stepping Hill hospital. The hospital is extremely important to the communities it serves, and its patients and staff deserve facilities that are safe, resilient and fit to deliver high-quality care. I am going to make a few remarks about the overall position with capital investment and how we have got to this point, but none of that is to say anything other than that all patients and staff deserve good-quality facilities.
For too long, capital investment in the NHS was insufficient and short term, and the challenges at Stepping Hill reflect a much wider problem across the NHS estate. Capital budgets were repeatedly raided to meet day-to-day pressures, and the result is an estate carrying the consequences of years of under-investment, as has been made clear. There are no quick fixes, but we can change the way the NHS invests in its buildings, moving away from short-term fixes towards sustained investment and proper long-term planning. That is why our 10-year capital plan for health and social care is based on three core principles: more investment; greater certainty, so that investment can be planned over the long term; and greater autonomy for local leaders to decide how capital is best used.
First, we are investing more. After years of under-investment, we are providing the largest capital budget in NHS history, with annual spending rising to £15 billion by the end of this spending review period. Within this, the estates safety fund will provide £6.75 billion over the next nine years to tackle the poorest-quality parts of the NHS estate and ensure safe environments for patients and staff. We have already confirmed £1.5 billion of investment in projects through the fund, including £1.3 billion for maintenance, safety and resilience projects across the NHS estate and more than £200 million for major hospital projects. This means that more than 950 schemes are being delivered across the country.
That sits alongside around £21 billion in operational capital over this spending review period, empowering local health organisations to invest in their priorities, including their estates. We are also investing around £5 billion over the spending review period to expand and modernise diagnostic, elective, mental health and emergency services, helping to increase capacity, cut waiting times and improve urgent and emergency care performance.
Secondly, we are providing greater certainty over that investment. We have provided NHS organisations with multi-year capital allocations to 2030 and a further five years of certainty beyond that for estates maintenance funding to 2035. This stability is designed to provide the confidence needed for long-term investment decisions and responds directly to one of the key NHS capital planning challenges cited by stakeholders. Instead of planning from one year to the next, local NHS leaders can now look ahead, prioritise the most serious risks, plan investment over the longer term and secure better value for the taxpayer. That is particularly important for ageing estates like Stepping Hill, where we need to move away from repeatedly patching up ageing buildings and towards properly planned strategic interventions.
The hon. Member for Cheadle asked me about what Stepping Hill needs to put it on a different path. Local NHS leaders are best placed to understand their estates’ investment requirements and prioritise capital accordingly. The estates safety fund is designed to give regions flexibility and target that funding in this way, rather than decisions being taken centrally. That decision-making capacity is enabled by the long-term funding certainty that the Government have given them. However, the hon. Member has put very clearly on the record what is happening at Stepping Hill hospital. I will report back to the Department what I have heard tonight, and I feel sure that local NHS leaders in his region—which is also my region—will take what he has said very seriously and be in touch with him directly.
We are devolving more control to the frontline and streamlining capital approvals, giving NHS organisations more freedom to invest accordingly and respond to local need, as I have said. That approach should help projects to move forward more quickly, and it is already supporting some investment at Stepping Hill. Some £763 million of funding over the next nine years has been allocated to the north-west region through the estates safety fund, and local leaders have the flexibility to prioritise it as they wish. Stepping Hill hospital will benefit from that funding.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) said, the hospital has been allocated £26 million for a new pathology building through the estates safety fund, protecting the vital testing services that doctors rely on. It is one of 10 major hospital schemes backed by more than £200 million nationally. Alongside that, Stockport NHS foundation trust will receive £17 million to support 11 critical repair projects at Stepping Hill, forming part of the £1.3 billion that we have committed to maintenance, safety and resilience projects over the NHS estate over the next four years.
Lisa Smart
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) said, any money coming to Stepping Hill hospital is to be welcomed, and the Government should be thanked when they get things right. The briefing we have had from NHS leaders in Stockport says that the total planned maintenance costs over five years are £134 million. That is only basic maintenance—it does not account for any new building projects and does not bring the buildings up to the current standard that we would expect of any new building. I am sure that the Minister agrees that all the money needs to be spent for good value for money. Will she and colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care agree to look specifically at the project we are talking about for Stockport: a new building? The revenue cost of maintaining that building would be so much lower than continually plugging the holes—literally—with capital spend.
Alison McGovern
I understand entirely the case that the hon. Lady makes. There will be further opportunities for the region to fund projects at Stepping Hill hospital through its estates safety fund allocation. As I mentioned in response to the hon. Member for Cheadle, I urge the trust to keep working closely and effectively with the ICB and the region, particularly as other funding streams are available. The trust has been allocated another £75 million in operational capital over the next four years.
Before I get too close to the end of my remarks, let me respond directly to the other questions asked by the hon. Member for Cheadle. He mentioned issues with toilets, which sound extremely worrying; from the Floor of the House, I urge local leaders to respond. I will make sure that he and Stockport Members receive a written response to those issues and to those related to end-of-life care. Members will understand the importance of end-of-life care and what a priority it is over the coming months and years for us all, so I will look into those issues.
Navendu Mishra
Although Stepping Hill hospital is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), it serves people from Hazel Grove, Cheadle and Stockport. May I reiterate the invitation from the hon. Member—I would go as far as calling him my good friend, even though we are in different parties—to the Health Secretary and any Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care to visit Stockport and speak to volunteers, staff and patients there? Will the Minister pass on that message?
Alison McGovern
I will certainly pass that message on. As the hon. Member for Cheadle mentioned, the current Prime Minister is no stranger to Stockport, so I am sure that I do not even need to let him know what is happening there.
We are already seeing some capital investment translate into better facilities for patients at Stepping Hill. The new urgent treatment centre is now open, with five additional consulting rooms increasing capacity, improving patient flow and helping to reduce avoidable pressure on the emergency department. That builds on the hospital’s emergency and urgent care campus, which fully opened in May 2025; that is part of the £639 million of planned capital investment to support NHS performance in the north-west.
Given what we have heard this evening, I cannot pretend that what has been done resolves every infrastructure challenge at Stepping Hill—it clearly does not. The pressures facing the hospital have built up over many years and will take time to address, but we are putting the local NHS on a much stronger footing to tackle them. The reforms set out in our capital plan mean that local leaders can look beyond immediate pressures, plan investment over multiple years and target funding towards the areas of greatest need and importance, and that really matters for Stepping Hill.
Members from the borough of Stockport have raised very important issues this evening—they are absolutely right to advocate for patients and staff, and I ask them to pass on my thanks to those staff. We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge, but we are delivering vital investment to address the most pressing risks at Stepping Hill while giving local NHS organisations greater certainty and flexibility to plan properly for the hospital’s long-term future. Without doubt, there is much more to do, but this is how we move away from short-term fixes and towards a safer, more resilient Stepping Hill hospital that can continue to serve the people of Stockport for many years to come.
Question put and agreed to.
Deferred Divisions
That the draft Housing (Tenancy Deposit Schemes) Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 8 September, be approved.
The House divided: - Ayes: 310 / Noes: 114 - Question accordingly agreed to.
That the draft Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 9 September, be approved.
The House divided: - Ayes: 316 / Noes: 149 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Financial Assistance to Industry
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
I beg to move,
That this House authorises the Secretary of State to undertake to pay, and to pay, by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, a grant or grants exceeding £30 million to UDX Development Company Ltd in support of capital expenditure on an entertainment resort complex and theme park in Kempston Hardwick, Bedfordshire, up to a total of £450 million.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. The motion relates to the truly historic inward investment into the UK in respect of the Universal United Kingdom resort in Bedfordshire. In June this year, the Government announced that we had reached an agreement with Comcast NBCUniversal and its subsidiary, UDX Development Company Ltd, to unlock over £6 billion in direct capital investment to construct and operate a world-class theme park and entertainment resort complex. The Committee is being asked to approve a grant of up to £450 million, under the Industrial Development Act 1982, to ensure that Universal can go ahead with its ambitious plans.
I was really pleased to visit the site in June on behalf of the Government, and to meet the 100 new staff Universal had already employed. Those 100 new employees, leading on a range of skills that include design, operations and construction management, are the first of an expected 8,500 employees who will work on site when it opens in 2031. Universal is committed to supporting opportunities for local residents and workers, and it intends to source 80% of its jobs from Bedford and the surrounding area.
Over the construction period, between now and the expected completion date of 2031, over 20,000 jobs in construction are expected to be created, with up to 5,000 on site at peak time. Again, this is a fantastic opportunity for people at all stages of their construction careers, and it is one of the single biggest investments in the visitor economy.
Universal is looking to engage people at all stages of their careers to work in the park. Empowering local authorities will also be key to making the most of this investment, by aligning local ambitions with Government priorities to unlock economic growth and to ensure that the benefits are felt locally through new jobs, skills and homes, as well as better transport.
I want to discuss the grant and where it sits in the agreement that the Government have signed with Universal. To make this highly mobile international investment come to the UK, the Government negotiated hard on a targeted support package that gave confidence to investors and the best possible value for taxpayers. There are three elements to the package: the grant of up to £450 million that we are discussing; the Department for Transport’s investment of £474 million in critical transport; and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s separate grant of £438 million under section 50 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 for community infrastructure and site-wide resilience.
Members may query why we are asking for approval to spend £450 million, when the Government announced in June that the grant would be for £400 million. The difference is a result of how we have structured the agreement to benefit the taxpayer. To protect the taxpayer, the grant will be paid in arrears, no earlier than 1 April 2031, and only after the formal grand opening. To account for inflation until then, we have applied indexation of 2% a year to the £400 million, which was informed by independent forecasts, in line with standard Government practice. The calculation results in the limit of £450 million that the Committee is being invited to consider this evening. In this way, public funds will be released only once the economic benefits during the construction period have been realised.
The Government have secured robust legal protections, including a parent company guarantee from NBCUniversal, primary legal charges over the site, and a list of binding policy commitments, with clawback terms lasting 15 years. Those conditions will ensure that Universal does what it has said it will do within the park, and that it delivers benefits for the wider area. They cover matters such as providing jobs, skills and training; prioritising recruitment in the local area and from priority groups such as care leavers and veterans; working with partners such as VisitBritain on the wider tourism strategy; and participating in projects to support the creative industries.
If the Committee agrees to the motion, the Secretary of State will be able to make a decision on whether to make the grant under the section 8 powers of the 1982 Act, delivered through the exceptional regional growth fund. The grant will be a subsidy, and Members have raised questions about whether the Government consider that appropriate. To answer the question of why a subsidy is necessary, if we had not given it, Universal would not have proceeded with its investment. This Government believe in unlocking growth and delivering for the British taxpayer.
Secondly, why do we need to make the subsidy now and how does it provide value for money? As I have outlined, no money is leaving the public purse now, and spending will be made only by 2031 at the earliest, when the park is being constructed. We are confident that the benefits will have been realised before then. As for value for money, up to £450 million in subsidy unlocks over £6 billion in investment.
Thirdly, we have considered in depth the subsidy control principles in the Subsidy Control Act 2022, and the Government’s assessment has been reviewed and revised in response to feedback from the Competition and Markets Authority’s Subsidy Advice Unit. We have responded in our assessment to the areas where the SAU suggests more information could be required.
I have taken the decision today to delay approval of the motion to allow fellow Members an opportunity to review a summary of the subsidy control assessment on which the Subsidy Advice Unit has based its recommendations. Securing parliamentary approval for this motion is a vital step in confirming the UK’s commitment to this transformative project, unlocking growth and confirming that the UK remains open to investment. I commend the motion to the Committee.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister has set out the purpose of the motion: to approve the payment of up to £450 million to UDX Development Company to support the NBCUniversal theme park and resort in Bedford. This project would be a major investment for what could become the biggest visitor attraction in the country. The initial discussions and agreement took place under the last Conservative Government, including assisting with land acquisition. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) has been a strong advocate for the project, as has my hon. Friend the Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller).
As the Minister said, Universal has committed to spending £6 billion on this project, delivering an estimated economic benefit of £50 billion, with thousands of jobs. These are clearly substantial benefits, but then so is the proposed funding that the motion seeks to provide through the exceptional regional growth fund, which comes on top of the £438 million for investment in public infrastructure and the £474 million to upgrade the road and rail network. In total, the Government are looking to spend £1.3 billion on this project.
Given the amount of taxpayer money involved in this project and the proposed motion, it is essential that we properly scrutinise the rationale, impact and conditions related to it. I will deal first with the amount. The motion seeks authorisation to pay up to £450 million on the opening of the park, not before 2031. As the amount is over £30 million, the approval of this House is required and the Government referred this to the Subsidy Advice Unit, which is part of the CMA, to consider DCMS’s assessment of compliance.
It is important to be clear what the subsidy report is and what it is not. It is advisory, and it does not directly assess compliance with the subsidy control requirements. Significantly, the subsidy report identified several shortcomings in DCMS’s analysis around proportionality, competition impacts and the interaction between the direct subsidy and the other forms of Government support. However, the Department’s assessment, which is the basis of the subsidy report, has not been made available to the Committee. I asked DCMS to provide it ahead of this sitting, and I was told that it could not be provided because it is commercially sensitive. All we have been provided with up to this point is just over two pages of an explanatory memorandum and a briefing with officials earlier today.
Clearly, it is completely unsatisfactory for the Committee to be in the position of considering this motion without that information. I welcome that the Minister has acknowledged the disappointing approach through her commitment to provide a summary and other information, but we have not seen that today. I and other Committee members will therefore expect the Minister to respond fully to the points that we make—as she normally would—notwithstanding her commitment to delay notification of the motion until we have seen that information.
This would be Universal’s first park in Europe, and clearly there is significant competition for internationally mobile capital. The subsidy report refers to DCMS’s position, reiterated by the Minister, that without taxpayer support, private funding would not be forthcoming. Universal has said the same to me. The question is: how hard have the Government tested that in the interests of taxpayers? The report states that DCMS should explain more clearly, in line with the statutory guidance, how “uncertainty constitutes imperfect information” that may hinder investment rather than “normal commercial risk” for a project of this scale. The Government have not responded to that request for further information in a way that this Committee has seen. Will the Minister confirm that that will be covered in the summary she will make available to us?
That brings us to the overall amount and the requirement to keep the subsidy as low as possible. One of the largest recent grants from taxpayers was the £75 million to BMW for production of the electric Mini. The report sets out that the £450 million in this case was agreed through negotiation, and it refers to “materially different starting points.” Could the Minister indicate to the Committee how much Universal was seeking at the beginning of the negotiations? The amount is also predicated on projections and the rate of return that Universal would expect to achieve in funding a project, as well as on subsidies provided to theme parks by Governments in other countries. It is of course possible that if this becomes the largest visitor attraction in the UK, those projections could be exceeded. Again, the DCMS assessment, which we have not seen, apparently referred to Universal’s projections as “systematically conservative”.
The Committee is being asked to approve the motion without visibility of the relationship agreement between the Government and Universal—even a redacted one. It is therefore incumbent on the Government, as the subsidy report highlights, to be clearer about how alternative subsidy amounts could affect viability and any overcompensation. Can the Minister explain more about how the clawback mechanism would work? At what level would a clawback of funds be triggered if the project overperforms financially? Would that be 5% or 10% over the expected return? I think the Committee deserves an indication of that, because it is important to minimise any taxpayer contribution. How will funds be recovered if the agreed outcomes the Minister referred to are not met?
To continue that theme, there is also a lack of detailed information on the grant, what it will be used for and what eligible spending is. The subsidy report refers to
“expenditure associated with the construction, infrastructure, systems and other development works”.
That is all rather broad brush. Can the Minister give some tangible examples of the type of spending that might qualify? Does it cover funfair rides, for example?
The purpose of the subsidy regime is to consider the impact on competition, and DCMS’s assessment identifies Merlin Entertainments as the competitor in the UK most likely to be affected, as well as Disneyland Paris internationally. It is worth noting that any company that considers this an unfair subsidy can challenge it at the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Does the Minister accept the analysis in the subsidy report that there should be further consideration of displacement effects and the impact on investment and competition? If so, will she make sure that that is made available to the Committee?
Finally, the funding is due to be paid no earlier than April 2031. Can the Minister confirm whether the funding has been allocated to the capital budget of the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, and whether there is a funding line in its budget to pay for this? If not, will it be secured at the spending review, or is this essentially an IOU for a future Government to pay?
The opportunities that investment in a world-class visitor destination could bring are considerable. Equally, this is an exceptional funding proposal, and it is right that there is proper scrutiny of its basis, which has been the focus of my questions and contribution. The Minister needs to respond to these detailed points today and provide much greater transparency around the terms of the subsidy in order to protect taxpayers’ interests. I call on her to agree to share with hon. Members, in suitably redacted form, the relationship agreement and the assessment of compliance. I look forward to her responses.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
The investment by Universal is to be welcomed and it is fantastic to see that there could be employment for 8,000 people. This will create jobs and be a lively part of the local visitor economy, but it will have a huge impact on the local area—not just in Bedfordshire, but in my county of Hertfordshire.
The motion relates to one of the three grants that the Government have been looking at. I have a number of questions relating to the other grants, not least because this is one of the only opportunities we have had to put questions to the Minister about this. If she does not have the answers to some of these questions, because they do relate to some other Departments, will she write to me after today’s debate?
First, the Government are, in a separate grant, investing in transport. That is welcome and needed, but they confirmed in June 2026 that none of the money that is allocated for transport will be for improvements on the Bedford to Brighton Thameslink line, which serves my St Albans constituency. We know that the Bedford to Brighton line will exceed capacity in five years. The key bottleneck is the Croydon area to the south.
It is quite short-sighted that the Government have not sought to use any of this funding to sort out that problem. With millions of visitors expected to this destination—it will have 8.5 million visitors in the first year and up to 12.5 million in a few years, and 6 million will be domestic—the Thameslink line between Bedford and Brighton will be used by millions more people. This is short-sighted, so I ask the Minister to explain either today or in writing why none of the funding has been allocated to that.
Secondly, Bedford borough council has welcomed this investment, but as I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—negotiations for an investment zone to be created have stalled. This Universal theme park, when it gets off the ground, will generate a huge amount in business rates, and Bedford borough council is keen to ensure that it can receive its fair share of them. When does the Minister expect the discussions to reopen and restart? Can she confirm that they will be concluded by 2031 so that the local borough can benefit before Universal opens?
On this specific SI and subsidy, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk referred to the Subsidy Advice Unit, which identified Merlin Entertainments as the domestic
“competitor most likely to be affected by the Project”.
The SAU would go as far as saying only that the negative consequence
“may be partly offset by additional domestic and international visitors attracted by the Project.”
The SAU also asked the Government to
“consider the potential longer-term effects of the Subsidy on competition and investment”,
not just for Merlin Entertainments, but, more broadly, for the current set of competitors and any future potential competitor, and particularly how it might impact investment. Can the Minister update us on whether any additional work has been done to look at the longer-term effects and impacts of this arrangement?
We know from a briefing earlier today that, effectively, this amount of money can be used for any kind of capital expenditure. It is not remotely clear to me whether it will be used for toilets, car parks or rollercoasters. Given that the Government have put in place a number of conditions and clawbacks linked to employment, it strikes me as rather odd that no conditions have been put in place relating to what the capex can be spent on. Can the Minister explain why that is the case?
The Minister said the approval of this motion would be delayed so that Opposition parties could have sight of further details. I highlight to her that it is not clear why this amount of £400 million has been deemed proportionate. We have not seen the assessment of what would be disproportionate. Would disproportionate be twice that? Would it be £50 million more? That is not remotely clear, so it is very difficult for Opposition parties to scrutinise this.
Finally, to repeat an earlier point, given my conversations with Universal—I have had a number of conversations relating to London Luton airport and transport infrastructure in the region—I found it quite surprising that the Minister indicated that Universal predicated its investment on this subsidy. It was never raised with me. That does not mean that it has not been raised with Ministers, but in my conversations, there seemed to be only one condition: the approval of London Luton airport expansion. I wonder whether the Minister can share any more with us about when that argument was put forward. Was it always the case that the subsidy was required, or was the argument introduced in the latter stages of the negotiation?
Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Mrs Barker—I am sure you will keep us under control if we stray from the chosen path.
Let me first make a broad argument. This an important Committee. We are making a decision that begins to change the direction in which the country has been governed for so long, over my lifetime—a direction characterised as basically market-led. In 1950, when I was born, there were 8 million people in manufacturing, but now there are 2.5 million; there were 700,000 coalminers, but now there are none left; and there were 600,000 people in agriculture. We are seeing the most dramatic changes in the way our labour market works, and, unless the state and the Government take an active, interventionist role in creating and restructuring our economy, I fear for our future. That is not simply nostalgia, or an old man looking back to the happy times in the past—although they were happy—but somebody saying, “This is the nature of our society now.”
I represent 23 coalmining villages, and I know that the Minister’s constituency shares many attributes with mine. This is an important investment, and, in Bedfordshire, where it will take place, there is significant deprivation in pockets, but it is not everywhere. I am not going to quote the figures, but I looked at central Bedfordshire and compared it to Wakefield, where my seat is. Poverty and deprivation are much more deeply entrenched and wages are lower in the Yorkshire coalfield than in Bedfordshire. Why is a major investment taking place in Bedfordshire rather than anywhere else? I was struck by the penultimate paragraph in the explanatory note, which says:
“The territorial extent of this programme is the United Kingdom, and the territorial application of this motion is the United Kingdom.”
My area is less than 200 miles from Bedfordshire, but it takes people who live there four and a half hours to get there by public transport. There are over 20,000 households without a car in my constituency. People in my area will not go to Bedfordshire.
This investment is important; it is a signal that the Government intend to change the direction in which this country has been governed for too long, and that is welcome. I am sure that I do not need to press the Minister very hard, because she represents a coalmining seat in Yorkshire, but when we consider trying to attract investment, let us think about the regional impact, not only in Wales and Scotland, but in the Yorkshire coalfield, which I speak for. I welcome the report we have in front of us today, because without that, it would be difficult for me to go back to the coalfield and say, “Well, I voted for half a billion pounds to be spent in Bedfordshire while representing an area of deep chronic poverty.” I make that point quite strongly.
I also received lobbying from a company that is a competitor. The hon. Members for North West Norfolk and the hon. Member for St Albans mentioned competitors, and I think the Minister will reflect on what has been said, so I do not need to add to that. I want to come to the question of state aid rules and whether this whole investment complies with the various regimes of state aid. First, we are part of the World Trade Organisation, and we are bound not to take action on state aid that is illegal under WTO rules. I assume the Minister’s advisers have looked at that, and I raised it with her yesterday to be sure. There are then the UK’s home-grown regulations in the Subsidy Control Act 2022, which also controls the way in which the Government can intervene in the economy when considering reconstructing. That is a very important part of this proposal. It looks to me as though competitors may feel that they have a legal case to challenge this decision under the existing state aid rules. Can the Minister confirm that that has been carefully considered by the civil service and her advisers?
Let me say this to the people talking about rejoining the European Union: if that were to take place before 2031 and the money had not yet gone—by the sound of it, it will not go until 2031 or 2033—would we be in breach of the much more stringent state aid rules that apply within the European Union? Let me be clear: I do not think we should join the European Union. I am against it, and always have been, partly on the grounds of state aid, which controls the capacity of a Government to begin to rebuild their economy in the way I have just described.
I just want to know this: supposing some foolish person was to say, “Let’s rejoin the European Union”, and succeed, if the money had not been released, would we be in conflict with the state aid rules in Europe when we give this money to the Bedfordshire development? I gave the Minister advance warning of this and I am sure she will have thought about it; perhaps she will write to us all if she has not.
Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
The Committee is discussing and deciding on a significant and unique grant of taxpayers’ money today. In my opinion, it is inappropriate for a decision of this size to be taken in a Delegated Legislation Committee with such scant information as this. This matter should be given real, proper and timely consideration.
We all want to see the Universal project happen in this country and it is right that it has had cross-party and Government support, but let us be clear about what the Committee is being asked to approve today. There are three funding pots through which the Government have proposed to support the project. There is the DCMS grant for community infrastructure and the DFT funding pot, both of which I can understand. It is right and proper that the Government are supporting the project with wider enabling infrastructure that will support the community and enable significant direct foreign investment. But the third funding pot, which we are talking about today, is £400 million through the exceptional regional growth fund direct to Comcast NBCUniversal.
Often in life, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck, so let us call this what it is: a phenomenal bung from taxpayers to a massive, profitable US corporation. When operated for inflation, this is around £450 million—almost half a billion pounds—in taxpayer subsidy. It is highly inappropriate and, I believe, unprecedented to make that kind of award in a quiet room like this without proper scrutiny.
I must declare an interest—not only as a taxpayer, but as the Member of Parliament for Windsor, where we are proud to have Legoland Windsor resort. I back that fantastic resort. Like the Universal United Kingdom resort will, I hope, one day become, it is a hugely successful theme park that attracts visitors from across the country and beyond and brings in investment, not to mention wider benefits for the local economy, in hotels, restaurants and other local businesses. Consider this from Legoland’s point of view. In a fiercely competitive market, it will now have to contend with £450 million handed to a competitor just up the road in Bedfordshire. Fair enough if Universal comes in on its own merits and wins custom from Legoland—it is for Legoland’s team to respond and innovate to attract new visitors—but this is putting much more than a finger on the scales in aid of Universal.
If, like me, one has free market convictions, which are perhaps broadly shared on the Opposition Benches, one could see this as a distorting bung in a competitive marketplace. However, one does not have to be a free market ideologue to see that this is unfair and distortionary and amounts to picking a winner. It is simply not fair. I appeal to more progressive ears in the room today. Is this how they think working people’s hard-earned money should be spent—on Comcast NBCUniversal? What could they spend half a billion pounds on in their constituencies? This is essentially a huge payout to one of the most successful entertainment conglomerates in the world.
We should ask ourselves what the purpose of the grant is. This growth fund is reserved for
“strategically important internationally mobile investment or to address significant economic shocks.”
Perhaps we are undergoing a significant economic shock on account of the Labour Government’s fiscal approach, but are we really classifying a theme park as some sort of national interest project? No doubt it would be hugely beneficial to the economy, and I want to see Universal bring its billions here, but under fair auspices.
I asked at the House of Commons Library to look at every such motion since 2010. Every time this House has been asked to approve more than £30 million under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act, there is a clear pattern: support for energy-intensive industries and steel, which face high energy costs; emergency support for airports during covid; investment in electrical vehicle manufacturing and the life sciences; strategic industries; or support at a time of national crisis. Half a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money in the interests of a theme park, however, is a completely novel example.
I welcome the Minister stating that this was “international mobile investment”. She is right about that, but she did not include the preamble “strategically important”. We should ask the question: does Universal really need the deal to be sweetened in that way? When the then Housing Secretary granted planning permission for the scheme, he concluded that Universal did not need to demonstrate need, describing it as:
“a commercial judgement by the Promoter in the context of its analysis of the existing competition in the UK and the potential future market.”
Universal made a commercial judgment. As any good company should, it is investing because it believes that it will make a return on that investment. A Universal resort within a train ride of London—I have every reason to believe that it will be a success, and good for Universal, but for the Government to sign over £450 million of taxpayers’ money to sweeten the deal is wrong.
There is also an evidence issue here. I would not expect many members of this Committee to have looked at the Subsidy Advice Unit’s advice and the decision making behind it. That is part of why such a significant decision as this should not be taken in a Delegated Legislation Committee. The explanatory note we were provided with states that the grant has been reviewed by the unit, part of the Competition and Markets Authority,
“to ensure compliance with the Subsidy Control Act 2022.”
Members could be forgiven for reading that and concluding that the matter has been signed off. That is not what it means. The Subsidy Advice Unit does not rule on whether a subsidy is lawful; its job is to review the Department’s own assessment and to give advice on it. In this case, its advice found real shortcomings. It expressed concerns about proportionality, which is whether the £450 million is more than is needed; about the impact on competition, which is exactly the issue for businesses such as Legoland; and about how this grant interacts with the rest of the £1.3 billion package of public support for the same project.
Those are not minor points, and yet, as far as I know, the Department has not published its original assessment and it has not set out how it responded to any of the unit’s recommendations. This Committee is being asked to authorise up to £450 million without seeing the Department’s case or its answer to the independent advice that it received. We are being asked to approve first and see the evidence later. I do not think any of us should accept that for this scale of taxpayers’ money.
The Minister has committed to publishing the Department’s assessment and the response of the Subsidy Advice Unit—if I understand her remarks at the beginning correctly—before the money is paid. I thank her for that, but this Committee should not approve this motion until it has seen those. I must stress my concerns about this motion: it is not the right way to approve half a billion pounds in public spending, let alone spending that is so obviously anti-competitive and a boon to a global conglomerate. Frankly, even the Government’s own evidence base, on which the decision rests, is shaky. I hope that Members will reject this motion, so that it at least receives some further scrutiny in the House.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
I absolutely welcome the international investment in the UK and I recognise the immense potential that a Universal resort would bring to Bedfordshire, but we must not let our enthusiasm and excitement blind us to the economic realities. We are being asked to approve a massive direct cash transfer to a multinational corporation, at a time when the global theme park industry is navigating a deeply uneven patch. In Comcast’s latest financial reporting, its theme park division, Universal Destinations & Experiences, posted a 4.4% drop in revenue and a 17.1% drop in adjusted EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. Across the wider sector, per capita spending remains high, but overall visitor attendance is softening, due to the cost of living and the reduction in travel post pandemic.
The public deserve to know that the Department has stress-tested Comcast’s ambitious projections against those market realities, and that we are acting as rigorous custodians of the public purse, not simply rubber-stamping a deal based on best-case scenarios. I must therefore pose some questions to the Minister, and I look forward to her responses on the record.
What verified independent evidence can the Department provide to prove that Comcast, a company with a market cap exceeding $150 billion, would not have invested in the UK without this £400 million—now £450 million—taxpayer bonus? Does the project delivery hinge on this money, or is it simply boosting corporate profit margins? How has the Department adjusted its long-term economic models to account for the current downturn in global theme park attendance and Universal’s own tightening profit margins? If those economic conditions persist closer to the 2031 opening date, what happens to the viability of this deal?
The Department has cited a cumulative £50 billion economic boost, but what precise percentage of that figure represents brand-new growth for the UK versus displacement? In a tight economy, a British family spending hundreds of pounds to visit Universal in Bedford is a family not spending money at Alton Towers, Blackpool pleasure beach, Legoland in Windsor or our wonderful theatres in London. Have the Government independently calculated the net negative impact that this project will have on our existing domestic tourism assets?
The Minister mentioned the Subsidy Advice Unit, but can she confirm that it has fully cleared this specific allocation under the Subsidy Control Act? If a legal challenge is brought against this non-competitive grant, who would carry the financial and legal liability—the Government or Universal? Although I note that the money will be transferred only after the park opens, what specific long-term protections do we have? What are the clawback clauses tied to the sustained delivery of the promised 8,000 jobs, or is the payout simply triggered by the opening of the gates, regardless of subsequent economic underperformance or redundancies?
At a time when public services and local authorities across our regions are facing unprecedented budgetary crises, how does the Minister justify allocating nearly half a billion pounds in a single non-competitive grant to a private entertainment empire? We must ensure that this deal delivers genuine value for money, absolute legal compliance and a net benefit to the entire UK economy.
Stephanie Peacock
I am incredibly grateful for Members’ interest and for their questions. I will first respond to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk, and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Albans, and I will then pick up some of the broader points.
A number of Members asked specifically about the SAU assessment and how we have responded. We have better evidenced how the indirect benefits of the project, such as visitor spend and the skills benefiting the wider economy, would not be achieved by private operators without Government intervention. We have added an explanation of how this is a unique investment, the likes of which the UK has not seen before, and so Universal bears a risk that goes beyond the normal commercial risk, meaning that HMG must provide support for the investment to be made.
We have strengthened our evidence showing why, without the subsidy or alternative subsidy amounts, UDX’s parent company would be unlikely to approve the investment. We have detailed how we will ensure that the subsidy can be clawed back by the Government, if Universal’s profits exceed a specified rate of return. We have also better explained how the subsidy has been designed to prevent market distortion, and we have included an additional assessment of the longer-term effects on the market and its competitors.
Officials met with Merlin and wrote to me last night, and I have replied to them. There is precedent for the Government making a series of subsidies in this way, with similar explanatory notes. However, as I have committed to the Committee—and to the shadow Minister when I spoke to him about an hour ago—we will delay the Committee’s decision until there is a redacted version or summary. A lot of it is commercially sensitive, which is why we cannot publish it. Any Government would take that approach, as I am sure the Committee will understand. I will make that available to members of the Committee, and the House will have an opportunity to object, if it so wishes.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson raised a number of very valid points about transport. She will appreciate that I cannot speak to them myself, but I will reflect them to my opposite number. I have visited Bedford three times in the last six months, and I have corresponded with the borough on her specific point about tourism. Of course, as Tourism Minister, I will continue that conversation. She also made a point about this being capital spend—of course, it is a multibillion pound investment—but there are 43 criteria that Universal needs to meet. Over a 15-year period after 2031, those criteria will allow for money to be clawed back, if we see fit.
I really appreciate the points made by my neighbouring MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth. I am a coalfield MP myself, so I totally appreciate his point about investment and the importance of it benefiting the whole United Kingdom. This development absolutely is a one-off opportunity for this particular area. I convened a meeting of local Members of Parliament, local mayors and local authorities in August to talk about how those areas will really benefit from the skills, jobs and investment. It is such a tangible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
As a Yorkshire MP—indeed, we have Members present from across the country—I know how important this is for the United Kingdom. For example, in September I welcomed 400 businesses to kick off an event in Bedford that Universal organised, where it talked through its plans for procurement and its commitment to work with British business. This will extend the length and breadth of the country. Universal held a second event in Manchester later that week, and almost 9,000 businesses from across the UK have registered interests in becoming part of Universal’s supply chain.
We really believe that this development will be a powerful catalyst for growth across the UK’s creative industries, creating hundreds of skilled, creative jobs. It will attract further investment and it will showcase British creativity and intellectual property. It will stimulate long-term growth across the UK’s creative sector, and it will bring an estimated 8.5 million visitors to the area, including 1 million visitors to the UK who would not have otherwise come. We believe that this will be the most-visited tourism attraction in the UK, and Universal’s first theme park resort in continental Europe. That is absolutely massive. This Government are on the side of growth and investment, and I commend the motion to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House authorises the Secretary of State to undertake to pay, and to pay, by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, a grant or grants exceeding £30 million to UDX Development Company Ltd in support of capital expenditure on an entertainment resort complex and theme park in Kempston Hardwick, Bedfordshire, up to a total of £450 million.
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Antisocial Behaviour
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of anti-social behaviour.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank colleagues from across the House who have helped to make this debate possible, especially the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on antisocial behaviour. I thank colleagues at Resolve, who work with victims, housing providers, councils and the police to help to address this issue. I also thank the French students from OMNES who have attended this debate to see how democracy works.
I was driven to secure this debate primarily by the people I represent—the residents of Birmingham Perry Barr—who are all proud to call our area home. However, for all its charms, the area also suffers from issues that successive Governments have failed to address. Among the worst of those issues is antisocial behaviour such as street drinking, begging, threatening behaviour, fly-tipping, criminal damage, noise nuisance and vandalism. For many, those are part of everyday life. Only a small minority of people commit such acts, but everyone feels their effects.
The facts back that up. Resolve estimates that more than 5 million incidents of antisocial behaviour occur in this country every year. Even worse, that figure is only an estimate, as the overwhelming majority of people who experience an incident do not even report it. According to Home Office statistics, up to 93% of incidents go unreported.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that the reason incidents go unreported is that the public do not have faith that they will be dealt with?
Ayoub Khan
I will come on to the hon. Member’s point, but that is part and parcel of exactly why the problem occurs. People feel desensitised towards reporting matters, because little is ever done.
The problem is only getting worse. In a survey conducted by Resolve this year, 63% of respondents who had encountered antisocial behaviour in the previous three years had never reported it to anybody. Last year, that figure stood at 56%. Even worse, of those who experienced the behaviour at first hand, 28% said that it made them feel unsafe locally, 15% had considered moving because of it and 6% actually had moved.
Antisocial behaviour is happening in broad daylight, and too many people have so little confidence in the system that they no longer see the point in asking for help. Some would rather move out and start afresh than rely on local authorities and agencies helping them out. That is where we are failing. Victims are being asked to place their faith in a broken system where agencies dodge responsibility, access to justice is slow and the quality of support for victims is, unfortunately, a postcode lottery.
I welcome the introduction of stronger powers to tackle persistent offending. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduced respect orders, tougher penalties for breaches of certain notices and wider powers to tackle reoccurring disorder. However, new powers on paper do not make our streets safer; local agencies need the resources to enforce them and to give victims confidence that reporting will lead to action. Luckily, solutions exist, and frontline professionals across the country are already delivering results in challenging circumstances—for example, Resolve, which comprises many such expert voices, has made six recommendations, which this Government must take seriously.
We must start by putting victims at the heart of our response. They deserve consistent support and reassurance that somebody is taking responsibility for their case. Too often, police forces, councils and housing providers hold different pieces of information about the same individual or incident, but struggle to co-ordinate their responses. A single national agreement would enable those agencies to work together more effectively, identify patterns of behaviour and intervene earlier. We must also address the unacceptable delays in our civil justice system. The victims of persistent nuisance and intimidation are often left waiting months, sometimes years, for civil proceedings to conclude. The creation of a dedicated housing court would streamline such cases, reduce delays and ensure that justice is delivered before further harm is done.
However, none of those measures will succeed unless we make it easier for people to report what they see on their streets. That means creating a simple, standardised reporting system, and allowing victims to report anonymously and access help with cases. Also, we cannot afford to simply wait for disruptive behaviour to emerge before taking action. That is why we need greater investment in early-intervention measures aimed at supporting vulnerable individuals, engaging young people and addressing the underlying causes of antisocial behaviour. We need to direct sustained funding to community safety partnerships. Those organisations understand the challenges facing their neighbourhoods, and bring together the agencies best placed to resolve them, but they cannot deliver long-term solutions without proper support.
Those practical reforms would make an enormous difference, but alongside them we must look at the bigger picture and put an end to the austerity that causes people to lose pride in the places that they call home. Youth clubs, sports facilities, community spaces and mental health services must be protected and seen as the essential services that they are, rather than as optional extras.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that, as well as shrinkage in youth facilities and clubs, the absence of police officers on the beat in our communities means that antisocial behaviour has increased, particularly with vehicles—loud music, speeding—including the e-scooters and bikes being ridden around our towns, on our pavements and perhaps even up one-way streets? That has never been addressed because there have been no officers on the streets.
Ayoub Khan
We certainly need extra policing in the west midlands region and the city of Birmingham—I will come to that. In my constituency, ever since Labour brought our city into bankruptcy, the absence of those services has been felt every day. We must work to restore what has been lost.
As I said, our police forces have also been deprived of the resources to tackle the issue. For that, the Government must take their share of the blame. West Midlands police have 540 fewer police officers and 500 fewer police community support officers than in 2010. Accounting for population growth, however, we are 1,200 police officers short of the number projected 20 years ago. Unfortunately, at a time when the need for safer streets is only rising, Labour has left our police force £43 million short every year.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman has proposed a lot of positive solutions, and he rightly raises the issue of police funding. Dorset police is one of the worst funded police forces in the UK, and certainly the worst funded for PCSOs. Dorset police are trying to police 1,000 square miles. Does he agree that, until we address the central Government funding formula and give local forces the funds they need to provide the services that local communities require, we will never have an effective deterrent against antisocial behaviour?
Ayoub Khan
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member. By way of example, 70% of the police forces up and down this country are operating with numbers equivalent to what they were in 2010. Some areas, such as the west midlands and his constituency, are not getting their fair share. We need to bring those numbers up enough to make a tangible impact. Labour has left the West Midlands police force short by £43 million every year, meaning that we could now lose another 80 officers unless we reverse that trend. Our police forces will be forced to prioritise more serious crime, leaving antisocial behaviour as an afterthought.
Causes of antisocial behaviour that are unique to each area also need rooting out. In Birmingham, one such cause is obvious: supported exempt accommodation. Birmingham houses 33,000 vulnerable people from across the country, with a fifth of the city’s units situated in my constituency. Although we must not stigmatise those who need care—we must offer them a place to rebuild their lives—residents in my constituency have repeatedly raised concerns about antisocial behaviour associated with poorly managed exempt accommodation, including even violence and property damage. When providers fail to properly support and supervise their residents, the problems play out in surrounding streets and leave neighbourhoods to suffer the consequences. The character of our streets is being actively degraded by poorly run exempt accommodation, yet the Government have done nothing to tackle the root cause. Labour councillors can blame the city council all they like, but they did nothing when they were in charge six months ago, because they know it is on the Government to end the crisis. The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 promised us the powers to finally control the numbers of exempt properties in our city, but for over two years this Labour Government have done nothing but delay them, and now they are saying that we will not even get the powers until autumn next year.
We also need the resources to crack down on rogue providers and to support tenants. That is why we had the SEA pilot scheme, a unit that recovered millions in overpaid housing benefit and completed thousands of antisocial behaviour investigations. The scheme made a real, tangible difference, and yet the Government cut off its funding six months ago. Without urgent assistance, supported exempt accommodation will continue to drive antisocial behaviour in our streets. The Government know that, yet they continue to turn a blind eye—it is absurd. Instead of supporting the SEA pilot scheme, I understand that the Government are seeking a public inquiry into supported accommodation, which is likely to cost millions of pounds. It is absurd because everyone knows what the problem is. We do not need a public inquiry to understand the issue; we need the Government to implement the legislation that has already been passed. However, we all know what will happen: they will to use the inquiry as an excuse to delay when they already know what the solution is.
With colleagues, I will launch today a petition for the residents of Birmingham demanding that this Government implement the legislation rather than leaving it on a shelf to gather dust. I hope the Minister might be able to tell us today that that petition will not be necessary.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
It is indeed an absurdity that we know what is happening in towns in my constituency, such as Holbeach, Long Sutton and Sutton Bridge, but the police are often tied down by bureaucracy in dealing with it. They need to be able to act quickly and decisively. Thugs and yobs are terrorising the community and what is seen as low-level crime can cause unbelievable distress to law-abiding people, so let us inject some common sense into the system, act quickly and decisively, and punish the guilty.
Ayoub Khan
I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. He is eloquent and persuasive, as always, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. The police are forced to prioritise more serious crime because of the lack of resources. Ultimately, if we do not resource the agencies properly with a proper strategic plan, matters will get worse.
I hope the Minister can tell us today that the petition will not be necessary, that the legislation that has already been passed will be enacted, and that city councils up and down this country will be given the powers they need, but I fear that that is unlikely.
To conclude, perhaps most of all we need to change the way we treat antisocial behaviour, and appreciate that it is not low-level crime. It is destructive not in the same way as a violent or serious crime, but in the way it makes people and places feel unsafe. In many cases, it does not count as a criminal offence, but let there be no doubt: these are crimes against the community that drain the morale of our residents. I sincerely ask the Minister to commit to delivering Resolve’s six recommendations, and perhaps to meeting Resolve and me so that we can discuss how to properly address the scourge of antisocial behaviour once and for all and ensure that victims’ voices can be heard. People deserve the right to feel safe in the places they call home. It is the Government’s responsibility to make that happen.
Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
Given the number of Members who wish to speak, I will impose a two-minute time limit. I call Brian Leishman.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this debate. Across Alloa and Grangemouth, there is an understandable frustration with antisocial behaviour that negatively impacts communal spaces, neighbourhood communities and public transport. Many of my constituents rightly feel a sense of injustice about the fact that the perpetrators have been allowed to act in the manner they have with few to no consequences.
My constituents have been let down, but let me be clear: the fault does not lie with our overstretched police officers. Police Scotland has been savagely cut following years of sustained SNP Government underfunding, which naturally leads to increases in issues like antisocial behaviour. Giving evidence to Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee, the Scottish Police Authority admitted that policing is “under severe strain” and that public trust and confidence in the service is “decreasing”. The authority said it would continue to make the case to the SNP Government for “strategic investment” and to aim to show the
“devastating consequences of flat cash.”
Let us be under no illusion: if the force’s settlement remains unchanged in cash terms, jobs will be lost.
Even though the SNP promised that officer figures would remain above 17,234, the quarterly figures show that there were 16,322 full-time equivalent officers on 30 June 2026. Officer numbers in Scotland are at their lowest level since June 2024. These SNP cuts are hollowing out Police Scotland, drastically reducing community policing across the country. Visible local police are essential in stopping crime, reducing antisocial behaviour and improving overall community safety. In two decades in government, the SNP has relentlessly cut vital public services, whether it be healthcare, education, local councils, our fire service or Police Scotland, leaving our communities far, far from safety.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to serve with you and under you, Ms Butler; I welcome you to your role. As we have only two minutes, I will make one point: antisocial behaviour is arguably the most serious crime the public see. Most of the time, they do not see all the details of murders and things like that because those are not on their streets. The thing that is on their streets is the behaviour of others that wrecks their quality of life.
Shoplifting, for example, has to be taken far more seriously by police because it disrupts and destroys the lives of pretty much all those who want to go on to the streets. It destroys the likelihood of us keeping high streets and being able to give a proper service to the public. We had a problem with shoplifting in Chingford and Woodford Green, but there are things that can be done. We all blame the police for not being there, the troubles they have and the bigger policies, but I want to centre on what happens locally. In my constituency, we focused on the main high street, Station Road, which has been torn apart by shoplifters. These individuals are not turning up ad hoc because they are short of a bit of cash; many of these incidents are gang related—they are organised crime. Boots, for example, gets raided endlessly because shoplifters can get thousands of pounds-worth of goods off the shelves and walk out with nobody interrupting them.
We called together all the bigger stores that bring people on to the high street and discovered that they were not reporting the crime to the police, who said they did not know it was going on, so we forced the stores to do just that. We then said that the deal was that the police must be on the street and arrest people immediately they commit this crime. Crime began to fall on the high street because we played a part by getting cameras up and doing facial recognition. I say to all Members here today that there is more we can do to put pressure on the police, the shops and others to do more about antisocial behaviour. It is a terrible crime that destroys lives and people’s hopes. We must put pressure on Government to rectify that.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this debate. Since being elected to represent Ealing Southall, I have spent much of my time campaigning for two things: more police on our streets and more powers for those police to take action against antisocial behaviour. I am delighted that the Government are investing in neighbourhood policing, with an additional £262 million for London.
There is no point, however, in having more police on the streets if they do not have the powers they need to act. In Ealing Southall, we have seen officers arrest people who are then out again the next day. All too often, the police are just moving people from west Ealing to Southall. That is why I have long championed Labour’s new respect orders, which give the police the power to take action against persistent offenders, with those who breach an order facing up to two years in prison or unlimited fines. It is a significant change; instead of moving persistent offenders from one end of the town centre to the other, the police can take action against them. I was delighted to welcome the Minister to Southall just a few weeks ago to launch those new powers, and I will be checking with the police over the next few weeks who they have put on a respect order.
However, there is more to do. I am campaigning for a dedicated town centre policing team for Southall; other town centres have one, but we do not because of an anomaly in how crime and antisocial behaviour data are dealt with, so I have asked the Met police to look at that issue again. I am also campaigning to get the shutters pulled up on Southall police station; they have been pulled down for 10 years, which does not send the right message locally. Finally, we need to look again at how we support recovering drug users. We put them on the methadone programme, but that means they have to come in and out of town centres almost every day to collect prescriptions, do urine tests and go to pharmacies. There is a new drug called Buvidal, and although it costs more money, we should look at its impact on town centres, as people will not need to go in and out as often.
Tackling antisocial behaviour is not just about moving people from one end of the town centre to the other. We need to bring in the new respect orders that the Government have championed. That is what people in Ealing Southall deserve, and that is what I will continue campaigning for.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. In his closing remarks, the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) said that antisocial behaviour is not low-level crime, as it makes people feel unsafe and drains confidence from the community. That is certainly true in Mid Sussex, where we have our issues with car cruising and with e-bikes and e-scooters right across the constituency.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
On car cruising, which is being fuelled by TikTok and other social media platforms, we have cars running fast up and down main roads in my constituency, creating noise nuisance and huge danger for residents. The police are on to this issue, but they say they need preventive measures. I have asked Kent county council whether it will introduce speed cameras, but it has said no. Does the hon. Lady agree that councils need to step up?
Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
Order. Interventions need to be short and snappy.
Alison Bennett
I agree with the hon. Gentleman.
I want to focus my remarks on town centres, and the need to have civic pride and facilities that people want to visit and enjoy being in. The story of the Martlets shopping centre redevelopment in Burgess Hill is too long to cover in the next minute and a half. However, despite the best endeavours of successive councils over many years, there are derelict buildings there. On Saturday afternoon, when I walked across the town centre with one of my children, she pointed out that there were smashed windows. Then, when we walked back, she told me that one of the smashed windows was open. We looked up and could see masked youths in the shuttered building, which used to contain a little supermarket. That level of neglect for facilities is bad for communities, and it is bad for the people of Burgess Hill.
Burgess Hill has done everything it can to try to get its town centre redeveloped. However, the levelling-up bids failed under the last Government, and the town is not eligible for Pride in Place funding, as far as we can tell, so that money has not been forthcoming. We are hopeful that a joint venture bringing together public and private sector money may actually get the town centre redevelopment off the ground but, as it stands, the morale of people who live in Burgess Hill is low.
The town council has done what it can by bringing the Park Centre back into use, providing youth facilities. The Burgess Hill Creative Community has taken up an empty unit in the Martlets shopping centre, where people can come together and do a variety of good, creative projects. People want the town centre to be one that works. Obviously, the policing presence is really important, but if we do not get the skeleton right—the civic pride and buildings that work and that people love and want to go to—we will attract the wrong kind of people: a handful of people who want to make life a misery for the vast majority of law-abiding citizens, who are there for their town and to support their community.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for bringing forward this important debate.
I begin by commending the work of Action on ASB!, a community campaign set up in Brixton to push for action on crime and antisocial behaviour, and made up of residents who simply want their neighbourhood to feel safer. As with other Members, antisocial behaviour—on high streets and tubes and at train stations right across our neighbourhood—keeps coming up in my casework and correspondence. Residents on Nursery Road describe public urination, defecation and aggression. On Bernay’s Grove, people have found human waste on their doorsteps. On Electric Avenue, constituents tell me about drug use and soliciting at the Brixon high street end. On St Rule Street, residents report parties, drug taking and intimidating behaviour. On the Roupell Park estate, people tell me about bullying and disrespect towards older residents.
Antisocial behaviour is also a huge hindrance to businesses and those who work really hard to keep them going. My constituents raise these issues year after year, but they have given up on reporting, because the process is too long and feels like it does not yield results.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
Just this morning, one of my Horsham constituents contacted me about the risk of a “Why bother?” attitude—why bother to report anything if nothing ever gets done? But in Kilnwood Vale, residents and local councillors Hannah Butler and Sam Raby refused to accept that reckless street racing is just something to put up with, and we now have a CCTV camera. Does the hon. Member agree that we have to prove to local residents that we are listening and that it is worth bothering?
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
Why have you got an intervention written down?
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is absolutely right: we do have to show them that these interventions are working, not least because it adds to the data on how much policing is needed in the area. If people do not report these things, and do not feel like there are results, nothing can really move forward.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to neighbourhood policing. The Government say they met their first target in January this year, but my constituents are not seeing or feeling that police presence on their streets in a meaningful way. For example, when the corner shop next door to my constituency office was robbed at knifepoint, our officers were probably being deployed to arrest pensioners holding up signs in central London. I would like my constituents to feel the effect of the proper community policing pledged by this Government, with the delivery of real neighbourhood policing officers sped up in places like Brixton, where the problems are long standing and well documented.
I would also like to see my local council, Lambeth, properly funded to tackle the addiction and homelessness crisis we face. We must get the root of the matter. We need to see a holistic approach to antisocial behaviour, because we simply cannot police our way out of this problem. I also truly believe that a difference can be made with a standing multi-agency group that brings together the police, the council, health services, housing and outreach teams, so that people are talking to each other and not working in silos—an issue I see time and again, with different bodies trying to tackle this problem, but no one talking to each other. That is not working, and is only exacerbating my constituents’ concerns about not being properly listened to and being made to feel that they are going round the same roundabouts.
Clapham and Brixton Hill should be a place where everyone feels safe. My constituents are asking to be listened to and to see change and, as someone who has called the area my home for my entire life, so am I.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
My inbox is flooded with correspondence from concerned constituents about a string of issues related to antisocial behaviour across Keighley and Ilkley: masked people in balaclavas riding e-bikes on pavements; quad bikes doing doughnuts in public spaces; deliberately loud cars racing through the centre of Keighley and along the bypass; a group of teenagers that has made Keighley bus station somewhere people now want to avoid; laughing gas cannisters, nitrous oxide, being used illegally by those driving under its influence and then thrown out of the window. People are seeing this every single day, and it is having a negative consequence on our area. It should not continue.
In areas like Dalton Mills, justice is not prevailing. In 2022, 100 firefighters attended an arson attack. Some £50 million of damage was caused, with £130,000 of impact to local businesses and lives put at risk, yet the perpetrator got a suspended prison sentence—a slap on the wrist. That only gives the green light for further attacks to take place; there is no deterrent at all. One of my constituents said to me:
“I rarely, if ever, see any…form of authority addressing these issues.”
That brings me to the Government’s narrative of increasing neighbourhood police numbers to 13,000. Police officers have put to me that new recruits are not coming into their force; there is simply a reshuffling of the deckchairs, where officers who are already doing a good job elsewhere within their local force are reallocated to neighbourhood police work.
Can the Minister tell me how many additional new recruits have joined our neighbourhood police teams, and specifically how many have been added in West Yorkshire? Where police officers have been reallocated from their teams, what analysis are the Government doing of whether there has been a negative impact elsewhere?
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. Antisocial behaviour is a recurring concern for residents in my constituency. I raised this issue in June last year and since then, I have continued to hear from constituents about the effect it is having in our town centres and public places.
A crime that is not reported, investigated or followed up can quickly become a crime that is repeated. The response to antisocial behaviour should be measured not just by the number incidents recorded, but by whether people feel confident in reporting it and whether they see action.
Two young men from Hednesford spoke to me about groups gathering in town centres and parks and how intimidating that can feel. When I welcomed pupils from Kingsmead school to Parliament, they raised concerns about phone thefts involving e-scooters. Cannock Chase district council has used public spaces protection orders to address persistent problems, including the rising antisocial use of vehicles and e-scooters, as well as street drinking.
The Linkway retail park in Cannock offers a positive example. Staffordshire police identified it as a hotspot for car meets, racing and excessive noise. Officers issued warning letters to drivers identified through CCTV and held targeted patrols at peak times. Police community support officers also removed stickers that were advertising the meets. That led to a significant reduction in complaints. However, there had to be a nuanced response because for years before those issues arose, there had been respectful and well-managed car meets—a reminder that, as we target antisocial behaviour, appropriate use of public spaces should be supported.
Partnership working does not remove the need for visible neighbourhood policing. I welcome Staffordshire police’s announcement of 53 additional officers, but the force also change PCSO shift patterns in June so half of them now finish at 7 pm and half of them at 9 pm. That has led to concerns among my constituents over whether PCSOs will be available when antisocial behaviour is happening. The neighbourhood policing guarantee should be judged not only by the number of officers recruited, but by whether communities see a consistent and effective police presence.
I hope the Minister can speak about whether the Home Office will look at the impact of changing shift patterns on neighbourhood policing, particularly how we can ensure that the guarantee delivers visible, accessible policing in town centres and residential areas during the hours when antisocial behaviour is most likely to occur.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
It is indeed a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this debate, and I thank his students for coming to witness it. I suspect that if they come back in 10 years’ time, we will still be debating antisocial behaviour because nothing ever gets done in this place.
Antisocial behaviour destroys families, communities and, ultimately, the country. About four years ago, I went to Singapore with the Home Affairs Committee—I am sure the Minister was on a similar flight. I noticed that there was no graffiti, antisocial behaviour or crime. I also did not see a police car or officer all week. Does anybody know why? It is because the consequences of antisocial behaviour in Singapore are a little bit more severe than in this country.
My town centre, Sutton-in-Ashfield, is full of yobs, drunkards and people on drugs. The police do turn up, but they do absolutely nothing because they think it is a waste of time. They move the people on, and then they come back the following day. One of my solutions for the Minister is this: if those yobs who keep returning are living on state benefits, we should stop the benefits. It is the same with social housing. People in some of my council estates are creating all sorts of problems for their neighbours. If they are living in social housing and living a life on benefits, and causing problems in my community, why do we not just kick them out of their social housing, stop the benefits and create some real repercussions? A lot of my residents think it is a waste of time to report antisocial behaviour to the police and the council, especially when my Ashfield district council—people have probably seen it in the news recently—is being run by criminals like Councillor Tom Hollis, who has a string of convictions, including lots of antisocial behaviour, under his belt.
The solutions are simple. Stop the benefits for these people who are causing problems in our town centre. If they live in social housing, kick them out of the houses. Minister, this is really simple stuff—simple.
Dr Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this important debate.
One difficulty we face when discussing antisocial behaviour is that too often we underestimate how serious it is. A group of young people gathering outside a shop, shouting in the street late at night or repeatedly causing disturbances in a neighbourhood might seem like a minor incident and perhaps be dismissed as young people simply being young people. But in my constituency we have seen how serious these situations can become. The former Moreton Hall prep school in Bury St Edmunds, which has stood empty since 2020, is the site of vandalism and fires. Last July, an arson attack on that building resulted in about 100 people being evacuated from neighbouring houses. What might begin as young people gathering around an abandoned building can become something far more dangerous, for those involved and for the wider community. For residents living nearby, that is not a minor matter.
Persistent antisocial behaviour erodes the very sense of security that makes a community feel like home. I serve on the Home Affairs Committee and have seen just how important the renewed focus on neighbourhood policing is. This is a real opportunity to change how we approach antisocial behaviour. Neighbourhood policing is about rebuilding relationships between the police and the communities that they serve. It is about having officers who know their neighbourhoods, recognise the warning signs and intervene before relatively minor incidents become something far more serious. That gives residents confidence that when they report antisocial behaviour, somebody listens.
Let us move away from the idea that antisocial behaviour is somehow inevitable. It is not inevitable and certainly is not something that communities should simply have to put up with. I am sure that, with effective neighbourhood policing and a willingness to take this concern seriously, we can make a real difference.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. A big thank you to the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for coming forward with this debate.
The police record more than 1 million incidents of antisocial behaviour every year across the United Kingdom. Antisocial behaviour plagues many of our communities. The consequences are not just financial, although costly damage is caused to both public and private property. This behaviour is also causing people to feel intimidated and unable to enjoy their own neighbourhoods.
To be fair to the Minister and the Labour Government, they are doing some good things. They have renewed their commitment to tackling antisocial behaviour by introducing tougher restrictions and dedicated operations to target town centres, for example.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
People in my constituency are concerned about town-centre antisocial behaviour and rightly expect action. To give credit where it is due, Devon and Cornwall police saw a 10% reduction in antisocial behaviour in the year to May, helped by targeted Home Office-funded hotspot patrols. Does the hon. Member agree that although there is more to do, that represents welcome progress?
Jim Shannon
I certainly do. Street drinking and e-scooter misuse are also being addressed. The newly introduced respect orders provide further powers for both police and local councils to take action against persistent offenders. I encourage and welcome that.
Enforcement is essential, but we must also work to understand what causes antisocial behaviour, because that is the real issue. For adults involved in antisocial behaviour, mental health problems and drug misuse are cited as the key drivers. In relation to children and young people, who tend to be the main source of antisocial behaviour, it has been found that unstable home environments, lack of education and peer pressure are significant contributors. Uniquely, in Northern Ireland we must recognise that there remains a continuing threat posed by paramilitary groups, which can exploit vulnerable young people and accelerate antisocial behaviours. We must do more to support parents in their responsibilities, ensuring that they know where their children are, particularly during the evenings, and are able to encourage their children to take responsibility for their actions.
I commend the churches in Strangford for what they do. They have youth groups and clubs and encourage young people to come in. They try to keep them off the streets if at all possible. May I also make a plea on behalf of street pastors? They are very active right through my constituency. They do great work to reach out and help young people, and no one can ignore their impact.
Newtownards in my constituency experienced antisocial behaviour over the summer. These incidents have a lasting impact on the wider community. Residents report feeling less confident about going out, fearing intimidation or harassment. Parents with young children are increasingly reluctant to use local parks, while others avoid walking in the evening because they do not feel safe.
The public should not have to live in fear because of the behaviour of a minority. When it comes to increasing enforcement powers, given the success of some of the powers in England in Wales, I ask the Minister—who is always responsive, and I thank her for that—to engage with the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Minister for Policing and Justice and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. We can defeat antisocial behaviour if we do it together.
Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. Antisocial behaviour is not a minor nuisance; left unchecked, it frays the fabric of our communities and leaves people feeling unsafe in the places that they live. In my constituency it covers a lot of ground, but for the purpose of today’s debate, I want to focus on e-scooters and e-bikes being used in a harmful way. The bikes I am talking about are not the legal e-bikes most people might picture; many have been modified well beyond that. Some are capable of doing more than 70 mph, and they are being ridden along pavements and in and out of people who are doing their shopping.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
At a recent roundtable I held with police, they talked about how illegal e-scooters and e-bikes were facilitating crime and antisocial behaviour. When I was canvassing in my constituency, the issue of young people in balaclavas zooming around on e-scooters and intimidating families and children also came up. Does the hon. Member agree that the Department for Transport’s current consultation on the hired e-bike scheme should be extended to include all illegal e-scooters and e-bikes, to address their role in antisocial behaviour?
Naushabah Khan
I do agree. The law is fairly clear: a private e-scooter or an overpowered e-bike cannot be ridden on a public road. The difficulty is how easily they can be bought. Couple that with the reality of an individual riding at speed, a police officer on foot and the risk to the rider themselves in a high-speed pursuit, the challenge in tackling this issue becomes glaringly obvious.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is touching on the issue of illegal e-bikes. Members will be aware that I presented a ten-minute rule Bill earlier this year that would have brought in a ban on their sale. Does she agree that the single biggest thing we could do to help our police is to ensure that these bikes never touch our streets in the first place, by restricting their sale?
Naushabah Khan
I agree that we need to look at the sale of these bikes much more closely. Conversion kits that can turn an ordinary peddle bike into something more powerful can be ordered online for less than £300. Complete machines are sold on the basis that they are for use on private land, when everyone knows where they actually end up. Young people are able to buy them with little standing in their way.
I welcome the steps that the Government have already taken to strengthen legislation in this area; however, I ask the Minister to consider two things. The former Department for Business and Trade committed to responding to its product safety consultation within 12 weeks of it closing in June. That deadline has now passed by some two months. Will the Minister press colleagues to publish the response without further delay and make the case from the Home Office that restricting the sale of conversion kits would ease the burden on our police?
The second thing is enforcement. At the moment, there is no consistent national approach, and results vary a great deal from one force to the next. Where an approach has worked, it has been well planned and properly resourced. In London, the Met has targeted hotspots using intelligence, tested bikes at the roadside with rolling roads and put officers on e-bikes of their own. It has seized more than 2,500 illegal bikes this year, and phone theft in the west end has nearly halved. I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether the Government will look at a national framework for enforcement, based on best practice evidence, and push for it to be properly funded, so that my Gillingham and Rainham constituents can see the same results on their high streets.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler.
Tackling antisocial behaviour is vital to restoring pride in our communities, but for too many people in Scarborough, pride in where they live has been replaced by anxiety, frustration and fear. Increasingly, antisocial behaviour is concentrated around a small number of premises in the town centre that provide emergency temporary accommodation.
The impact on nearby residents and businesses has been profound. One constituent, Brian Witty, told me,
“It’s making my life a complete misery—my cameras are going off all night with people mooching about drinking, taking drugs, alcohol and fighting…I can’t have my grandchildren over because of the foul language and cannabis use.”
Another constituent, Rachel, said:
“Incidents are taking place every single day on the streets surrounding these properties, not just sporadically. We can’t use our garden anymore. We can’t even leave our windows open on hot days because of the noise and the smell.”
Guests of another accommodation provider requested refunds after experiencing sustained disruption during their stay.
Since raising those concerns with site operators, including a company called Homemore, I am pleased to say that meaningful improvements, such as 24-hour on-site security, have been made. Although the challenges remain, those measures have begun to make a positive difference.
To be clear, I do not oppose emergency accommodation being located in Scarborough, but we are seeing an over-concentration in one town out of a large county: 103 people were recently placed in emergency accommodation across North Yorkshire, and 58 were in Scarborough. We do not mind taking our share, but does the Minister agree that, although vulnerable people deserve safe accommodation, the communities that host them deserve fairness too?
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
For years, the story of bonfire night in Niddrie and Craigmillar has been one of disorder. In 2023, 62 officers were injured when fireworks were fired at the police. Heartbreakingly, fireworks also caused the death from stress of a baby red panda at Edinburgh zoo.
After that, local people and the police decided that families should not have to be afraid on 5 November, and they launched an incredible operation. Thankfully, last Thursday, Niddrie was quiet. First and foremost, I thank the police—local PS Graeme Carolan and the local team, and the police officers who came up from England to help on patrol. That shows the value of cross-UK solidarity for our communities. I also want to thank Jeannie Robertson-Frazier and Donna Ruth from Sandy’s community centre, Kirsty Haigh from Edinburgh Food Social, and Cheryl Neill and Suzanne Douglas from Places for People’s Hays community hub.
The good news in Niddrie is remarkable, because it is unusual. Policing in Musselburgh is a disgrace. I get almost daily emails from constituents reporting intimidation, harassment, supermarket theft and smashed-up restaurants. I have launched petitions, hosted coffee mornings, worked with the police and written countless letters to Scottish Ministers, yet precious little has been done. Our police do amazing work, but they are let down by the SNP. Although Edinburgh is Scotland’s capital, the E division that covers it has only 20 officers per 10,000 people—a third below the Scottish average.
The SNP loves to make comparisons to England and Wales when it suits it, but the English average is 24 officers per 10,000 people; in Musselburgh it is only 16. It is inexplicable to me that the Scottish Government have had an extra £18 billion from this Labour Government, yet none of it has made its way to frontline policing. My constituents are paying the price. Solving antisocial behaviour is not rocket science: we just need more police.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Butler.
There were 3,707 reported cases of antisocial behaviour in York over the last year, out of 14,500 reported offences—shoplifting comes in at about 1,700. It is a serious issue in my constituency, as my community organising over the summer has shown. It includes young people using e-bikes, shoplifting, and groups of young people just gathering with nothing to do.
We need to talk about not just addressing the issue but preventing it. That is where I want to focus Ministers’ attention. Our youth services were decimated in 2011, and we are paying a heavy price for that. Cash-strapped local authorities struggle to meet their statutory responsibilities, let alone provide those essential services on top.
If we invest early, we can see incredible results. York youth partnership is working in a multi-agency way to address the issues that young people face. We are getting youth hubs from the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Government are putting money into bringing people into a different space after offending, but I want prevention to be at the heart of our approach. When I talk to the police, they say it is a job for the local authority; when I talk to people in the local authority, they say it is somebody else’s work. We need to put the investment in. I want to see our local authority working with the police on reformulating all these services.
Whether they are covered by the DWP, falling out of education or causing antisocial behaviour on our streets, these young people are the same young people. We need a formulation that will bring all of them into a productive space, giving them opportunities for the future.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this debate.
Antisocial behaviour is one of the most significant issues in my inbox. One of the areas impacted in my constituency is Spon End, Sherbourne. That is truly heartbreaking, because there is so much to look forward to in Sherbourne. The area is going through significant regeneration: the City Centre South development, which has regenerated 250 affordable homes; Naul’s Mill underpark; and the opening up of the River Sherbourne, which showcases the heritage and beauty of the area. It is also home to Langar Aid, a charity that, last year, provided more than 1 million meals to the most vulnerable people across our country.
Sadly, all that is overshadowed by antisocial behaviour. Recently, I held a coffee afternoon with residents in the area, and I visited one of the local schools. What I heard was truly shocking: drug dealers targeting vulnerable people near schools, people passing out and defecating on the streets, and e-scooters and e-bikes being driven recklessly. There was one incident where a man under the influence walked into a local primary school during pick-up time, and all the kids could see it. Following that incident, I held a roundtable with Langar Aid, Change Grow Live, Coventry city council, West Midlands police and Coventry and Warwickshire integrated care board to address it. I understand that two arrests have been made by the police, but there is so much left for us to do.
I want to ask the Minister three clear questions. First, what support is being provided to schools to ensure that they have an allocated police contact for incidents like this? Secondly, is the Minister considering expanding respect orders outside of high streets and city centres to more hidden areas such as Spon End in my constituency? Finally, when will my constituents start to feel the impact of investment in local policing on their streets?
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
When I was elected, it was on the back of three pledges, one of which was to work to revitalise our towns. A key aspect of that is tackling antisocial behaviour in St Austell. Although Cornwall has a lower crime rate than the national average, around 405 incidents of ASB have been recorded in St Austell in the last year, which makes it the second most common category of recorded crime, underlying why tackling it remains such a priority for residents. St Austell ranks fifth among the nine towns in the area for recorded crime, but the town centre faces a challenge of the perception, as well as the reality, of those ASB incidents, which so often relate to drugs and alcohol.
I commend the work of Safer Cornwall, Cornwall council’s ASB and rough sleeping teams, and St Austell police. The summer blitz that took place last year delivered 1,500 hours of police foot patrols across the focus areas, including St Austell, with 590 arrests for retail crime and 79 for street crime. In August, police and partners also served full closure orders on two addresses in the area. But there is much more to do: throughout my community conversations in the last few months, it was clear that we need to tackle the upstream causes of antisocial behaviour.
On youth services, enforcement alone cannot give young people something to do and somewhere to go. The Government have published the first national youth strategy in more than a decade, backed by more than £500 million of investment. Cornwall has secured £1.5 million for two Young Futures hubs. Ramping up funding to tackle drug and alcohol abuse is vital; it was slashed under previous Governments by more than half in real terms.
I want to be candid: although we need to take a humanitarian approach, we must also take a firm approach. That is why we must be sensible and strategic about the provision of supported accommodation, and have tough conversations with Cornwall council. I was pleased that it has been reviewing its approach in recent years. Will the Minister come back to St Austell in her current role, bringing to bear the full might of Government behind my pledge for St Austell?
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I hear regularly about antisocial behaviour from my residents across Portsmouth North. For many, it seriously affects their quality of life and their ability to feel safe in their own home. I will give one example.
Residents on one road contacted me after enduring months and months of appalling behaviour: motorbikes racing up and down, car wing mirrors being smashed, doorbells being rung late at night, properties being damaged, shouting in the street and, unbelievably, human faeces being dumped on the road—just imagine being woken in the middle of night, wondering what damage you might find in the morning and feeling anxious about simply opening your door. Those residents simply wanted to live peacefully in their own homes. They were angry and exhausted, and above all, they felt that no one was listening. No one should have to live like that.
What made matters worse was that, initially, no one seemed to take responsibility. Residents were passed from one service to another, including by our elected councillors—it was someone else’s problem. They and I found that incredibly frustrating. People should not have to navigate a maze of agencies just to feel safe.
Lee Anderson
Does the hon. Member agree that one reason we have seen an increase in antisocial behaviour in our country is the amount of illegal migrants who are being dumped in hotels and HMOs?
Amanda Martin
No.
I brought the residents, the council, the police and other services together in a meeting at my office. We agreed a plan of action. The perpetrators were dealt with and, importantly, the problem has not returned—but why did it take so much effort? Why should residents have to reach the end of their tether before agencies sit down together and sort things out?
This is not an isolated problem. Across Portsmouth, concerns are growing about the antisocial use of electric bikes and e-scooters, as others have noted. Residents are worried about vehicles being ridden, the speeds they are ridden at and their use in criminality, putting pedestrians and other road users at risk. I warmly welcome the Government’s action on named neighbourhood police officers and on strengthening powers to seize and crush, without a warning first, such vehicles being used antisocially. We need those powers to be used consistently, however, and we need a public campaign on the legal and illegal use of e-bikes and scooters, and to stop their purchase in the first place.
That brings me to respect orders. I welcome their introduction. They give the police, councils and social landlords additional tools to tackle persistent local offenders, including restricting access to particular areas and being able to require individuals to change their behaviour, but such powers are useful only if they are used. The Minister previously told the House that police in Hemel Hempstead had identified 30 potential cases ready for the introduction of respect orders, and we have now seen the first orders granted in Gloucestershire. That is action—but can the Minister tell me how many applications have been made by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight constabulary, and how many of those have been granted? What practical support is being given to ensure that our local police and councils make full use of their powers?
Ultimately, this is about people being able to sleep peacefully, feel safe when walking down the street and have confidence that when they report antisocial behaviour, someone will do something about it. It should not be the case that our residents have to shout louder than the perpetrators before someone listens. New powers must mean action—and safer streets and communities—not simply strong words.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this debate.
Recently, I held one of my regular coffee mornings in Silkmore in Stafford, and residents raised a wide range of issues, but a common theme emerged from the discussion: people want to see more visible policing in their communities. They want to know that their concerns will be taken seriously, and that officers understand the area that they serve.
The same theme came out during the independent business roundtable in Stafford town centre. Business owners spoke passionately about the contribution they make to the high street, but they also talked about the negative effect that antisocial behaviour is having in our town centre. Favourites such as Webb, Lucas & Stubbs optometrists now have an automatic lock fitted on the door to ensure that staff are safe, and Salter Street Toys and Models is reconsidering how to run its business, telling me that the thing that often makes the most difference is a visible police presence, with PCSOs around regularly.
Neighbourhood policing has faced considerable cuts over many years. Communities have felt the loss of that local presence, and that is why I welcome the renewed focus on neighbourhood policing under this Labour Government. One thing that struck me from my conversation with residents, however, is that they are not simply asking for more police or tougher enforcement; they want us to address the underlying causes of the problems.
This summer in Stafford, we sadly had an issue of antisocial behaviour involving young people in the town centre. I am a former youth worker, so I am aware that people often reach for young people when it is ASB, and I do not like the two always being conflated—but with this issue, that was true. In Stafford, we had the third worst cuts to youth services in the country. Those were decisions made by Conservative Administrations prior to our involvement. My residents know that to turn things around in the long term we must consider how we create opportunities and strengthen the communities that young people are growing up in. That is why I am campaigning for a youth centre in Stafford like the one that my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) has coming to his constituency.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler.
I will start by reflecting on the comments of the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), who suggested that we should make more people homeless in order to tackle antisocial behaviour. I suggest to him that homeless people may be more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour and annoy his constituents.
Max Wilkinson
I will. The hon. Member also expressed his admiration for Singapore, where smoking in public is regarded as antisocial behaviour—I wonder whether his party leader might have views on that. Given the hon. Member’s own past conduct in Parliament—the behaviour that he engaged in with House of Commons staff—he might reflect that he might be out of pocket to the tune of several thousands of pounds if Singapore-style laws were introduced in the UK. I will now give way.
Lee Anderson
I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I am not worried about losing my job here; I have a GB News job that pays very handsomely. On his point about me trying to make people homeless, if there is a feral family living next door to me, my friends, my relatives or my constituents, I have absolutely no problem at all with kicking them out and letting other residents have a peaceful life.
Max Wilkinson
It is instructive that the hon. Member is boasting about his second job in this debate.
As Sir Mark Rowley told us last week, we have fewer police officers per head than France, Germany, Italy or Spain—in fact, fewer than most of Europe. In that context it is little wonder that people the length and breadth of the country repeatedly tell us their concerns about antisocial behaviour. Higher police visibility, facilitated by higher numbers, will clearly help us to fight antisocial behaviour.
The Office for National Statistics tells us that an estimated 41% of people experienced or witnessed antisocial behaviour in the year ending June 2026, up from 36% the previous year. All too often antisocial behaviour sucks the life out of our towns and city centres. In residential areas, too, it makes going about daily life a misery.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
In Torbay the town centres tend to be a focus for antisocial behaviour, often involving the drugs and alcohol challenges of street-attached people. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to take a strong enforcement approach and, equally, to ensure that there is wraparound support for those who want to exit that world?
Max Wilkinson
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The answer is, of course, more community policing. After years of Conservative-led cuts to police numbers, people want visible, trusted local police officers who know their area and have the time and presence to prevent crime, not just to respond to it. For that to be effective, the police must be visible in the communities they serve.
Thanks to the decimation of proper community policing, we have seen a drastic decline in frontline police counters. In Bedfordshire the number of counters has reduced by 78%, in Surrey by 60%, in the west midlands by 58%, in West Yorkshire by 53% and in Greater London by 52%. That decline must be reversed by the installation of a police counter in every community across the country, as the Liberal Democrats have called for. They could be in community hubs such as libraries, shopping centres and town halls—convenient, accessible locations. That is how we will start to rebuild trust and improve police visibility in response to crime.
Monica Harding
I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend that we need more community policing and more visible policing. I have already made the point in the House that we need warranted officers on streets rather than at their desks or in call centres. Does he agree that the more the public report incidents of antisocial behaviour that they do not report at the moment, the more action we will get on it? Perhaps the Minister might think about how we can encourage the public to report the incidents they see.
Max Wilkinson
I commend my hon. Friend’s comments to the Minister.
Confusing legal frameworks make many instances of antisocial behaviour difficult to police. E-bikes, which have already been mentioned, are a common complaint in towns and city centres up and down the country, including in my constituency. Public concern is growing over the dangerous misuse of illegally modified high-speed e-bikes on pavements and in pedestrianised areas such as the High Street and the Promenade in Cheltenham. This is a particular concern to older people and parents with young children, but it can certainly alarm anyone—I speak from personal experience. It is antisocial behaviour in itself, but the suspicion is that these e-bikes are regularly used by drugs gangs and in county lines.
The legal framework for e-bikes is confusing, outdated and rarely enforced. As the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) mentioned, high-power conversion kits and illegal bikes are readily available online with almost no regulatory oversight. That would be a good starting point for Ministers wanting to introduce measures to tackle antisocial behaviour. We must tackle illegal e-bikes, including by giving police forces updated training to spot, intercept and confiscate them. Will Ministers look at how these proposals might tackle antisocial behaviour?
We must also recognise that a huge quantity of serious crime has moved online, as Sir Mark warned last week. The latest strategic assessment from the National Crime Agency warned that rapid technological change is the primary driver in serious organised crime, with the threat set to increase. That change is diverting resources away from frontline policing, producing poorer outcomes for victims of other crimes, including antisocial behaviour. A dedicated online crime agency would ensure that online crime was treated with the seriousness that it merits and would free up officers’ time to focus on neighbourhood crime, including antisocial behaviour.
That online crime agency would be funded by a new online crime levy on the big tech and artificial intelligence companies whose platforms enable the most serious crimes that Sir Mark warned about last week: child sexual abuse, fraud and money laundering. It would stop neighbourhood police being dragged off their streets to deal with those forms of online crime, which in many cases they are not trained to deal with. Just last week, Sir Mark warned that the police risk heading for failure if reforms do not empower officers to keep up with modern criminals operating online. Will Ministers consider that proposal, which the Lib Dems have set out before, to establish an online crime agency in order to improve community response on our streets?
The Government have made positive steps on some of these issues through their neighbourhood policing guarantee, but the proof will be in its delivery, especially given the upcoming police reform legislation. They must get those reforms right, with a proper focus on community policing, or they risk placing communities at greater risk and harming public confidence in the system. If the merging of forces means that officers become more distant from the communities they serve and less able to respond to local crimes, the Government will be making a serious mistake. Worryingly, the agenda being set by the Home Office seems to run counter to the devolution direction being set by the Prime Minister, particularly in respect of the number of boundaries that will be set and accountability to regional mayors. When will we find out how police reform fits in with the Prime Minister’s flagship agenda?
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on securing this important debate, and I thank all 17 right hon. and hon. Members from all parts of the United Kingdom who have taken part in it.
We all recognise the descriptions and anecdotes we have heard today. Antisocial behaviour is a widespread issue that we all face: the noise from fireworks, the glance over the shoulder on the walk home, the quiet bus journey spent trying not to attract attention—for victims and witnesses alike, it inspires nothing but stress and fear. It stops pensioners walking to the shops, bus drivers feeling safe in their cabs and families feeling secure in their own homes. As the dark nights creep in, it erodes people’s confidence in their communities and in this Government’s ability to protect them.
The latest crime survey for England and Wales estimates that 41.4% of people experienced or witnessed antisocial behaviour last year, up from 36.7% the year before. Behind those figures are real people who need to see real change, not simply another promise. I am sure that the Government will point to the Crime and Policing Act, much of which we supported, and to the respect orders introduced last month—a number of Members have mentioned those—but legislation is only the starting point. The test is whether people will notice any reduction in the chaos on their streets. I am not confident that that change will be felt.
We all want reassurances that the Government have this problem in hand, but reported cases of antisocial behaviour continue to rise, and with police officer numbers falling, people rightly question how the Government will use the Act’s new antisocial behaviour data powers to help forces target their already stretched resources more effectively. How will the Government effect change without the officers to enforce it?
Police numbers have been in decline since the Government took office. At the same time, the Government have facilitated the early release of prisoners. The Conservative party has committed to providing 10,000 more police officers and 200,000 additional hotspot patrols, because we recognise that respect orders alone can mean something only if there are officers trained and ready to use them.
Sir John Hayes
My hon. Friend is making a strong point about police resources and how they are allocated to trouble spots. There is also the issue of police morale. When the police are burdened by bureaucracy and cannot act decisively and quickly, they feel inhibited in taking the action the public expect them to. Does he agree that we need to look at a new protocol for this kind of policing, driven by Government and implemented locally, that would mean that criminals are caught and punished and that the public feel safer?
John Lamont
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I think the police do an amazing job—certainly in my constituency, they work as hard as they possibly can to keep communities and residents as safe as they possibly can—but, as he highlights, morale is a big concern. The police are far too stretched. They are dealing with very stressful situations and worry about doing the best they can. In rural communities like mine and his, they cover a huge area, which compounds the stress. We need universality of standards and support to ensure that police officers are able to do the job we expect. We need new officers, because without them, antisocial behaviour will continue to escalate.
One form of antisocial behaviour that we have not heard much about today but concerns many people is cannabis smoking. In England and Wales, drug use and dealing are among the most commonly experienced or witnessed forms of antisocial behaviour. It is often shrugged off as harmless, yet a King’s College London review of 63 studies involving more than 265,000 people found that cannabis users were more likely both to commit violence and to fall victim to it. Users were around twice as likely to have committed a violent act. That is why the Conservative party has called for police intervention—a formal caution or immediate justice intervention for a first offence, and prosecution before a magistrate for a second offence—when someone is seen smoking cannabis in public. Public drug use cannot be tolerated.
Jim Shannon
Some of the figures in the press in the last week or 10 days indicate that there has been a massive rise in the number of over-50s taking cannabis and cocaine; it is not always young people. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that those in that age group are participating more than ever and that there has to be a focus on them, too?
John Lamont
The hon. Member makes an excellent point: it is much more prevalent. I am certainly much more aware of it when I walk down the street, and I am getting more and more complaints from constituents who are experiencing it in the home setting because they are smelling it from neighbouring flats or houses. I will come to that.
We have heard from a number of fellow Scots about the problems that we are facing in Scotland, but it is disappointing that there are no SNP MPs in the Chamber to talk about the antisocial behaviour that I am sure many of their constituents are experiencing. Policing and prosecution are devolved, but my constituents in the Scottish Borders feel the problem of antisocial behaviour, too.
A 2024 World Health Organisation study of 44 countries found that the rate of cannabis use among 15-year-old boys was highest in Scotland. That should shame us all. Since 2016, police in Scotland have been able to issue a recorded police warning for cannabis possession instead of reporting it to the procurator fiscal. In 2021, that was extended to all drugs, including those in class A.
The Crown insists that that is not decriminalisation, but that is not how it smells to any of my constituents sitting in their living rooms or playing with their children in their gardens. Hardly a week goes by without residents—families with young children, older people, those recovering from illness at home—contacting me about their neighbours’ cannabis smoke filling their homes. They report to it the police and the housing association, but they have come to expect that nothing will be done, because they know that the Crown Office is unlikely to prosecute. Whatever the legal technicalities, for those residents, that feels like effective decriminalisation. A law not enforced is not a law at all. People are losing faith that anyone will stand up for them.
With a new Lord Advocate in post since June, now is the time to review that approach so that police and housing associations have the backing they need to act. Yet as we heard from the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), under the SNP, Police Scotland now has fewer officers than when it was created in 2013. In a rural area such as mine, officers are often expected to travel miles to deal with incidents. Will the Minister join me and the other Scottish Members who have spoken in pressing the Scottish Government to take a stronger approach to drug use in residential areas and ensure that rural communities have the police officers they need?
Antisocial behaviour in train and bus stations was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore). This week, Borders Buses wrote to me about antisocial behaviour in the Galashiels transport interchange, which is the gateway to the Borders railway. It gives a very useful worked example of what is happening in many bus and train stations across the country. Border Buses operates across all of Scotland, including in Glasgow, yet some of the worst antisocial behaviour it faces is in the Scottish Borders. Timetable leaflets have been set on fire, the customer service hub has had to be closed, and the customer service adviser had to be moved to another floor of the building for their own safety.
As the nights draw in, Border Buses is asking for a visible security presence and warns that, if things do not improve, they may have to consider withdrawing from the transport interchange altogether. For the many people in the Borders who do not drive, that would be a devastating loss. That is the true cost of antisocial behaviour: it robs communities of the services that people depend on. Border Buses staff at the interchange are crucial to local transport links, yet the Scottish Government’s new measures to tackle antisocial behaviour on buses do not include incidents at the train station itself.
It is also important to recognise that many of the incidents of antisocial behaviour involve older people with mental health difficulties who have fallen through the gaps in social care, rather than young people, which is a point that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made. Will the Minister join me in thanking Border Buses’ drivers and staff for their dedication and support, as well as in asking for stronger support and protection for those working in bus and train stations, such as those working in the Galashiels transport interchange?
There is no simple solution to antisocial behaviour, but without enforcement, we risk it simply becoming accepted. Our constituents are not asking for much. They want to feel safe in their homes and on their streets. They want to know that when they report an incident, something will happen. The Government are not delivering that yet and it is our job to make sure that they do.
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this debate. The number of Members who are here reflects how important this issue is to all of our constituents.
In an ever more dangerous world, with many things for our constituents to worry about, antisocial behaviour sits at the core of what makes them feel unsafe; it therefore has to be at the core of any Government’s response. I was the shadow Policing Minister when we were in opposition. I embarked on an antisocial behaviour tour to understand why the then Government called it low-level when its effects were so pernicious across so many of our neighbourhoods.
We committed to act in opposition, and we have done so in government. I am proud of the changes that we have introduced. Like everyone else here, I have constituents who will say that we have not gone far enough—that we have not seen the results and need to go further, faster and do more. I wholeheartedly agree, but we have introduced some good changes that are starting to bear fruit.
First, we have the deliberate policy to shift police from behind desks into neighbourhoods. We think that more police should be on our streets, so as well as providing funding for new officers to fill neighbourhood roles, we are encouraging the 12,000 officers who currently sit behind desks to think about whether they can be deployed in more front-facing roles. We believe it is right to do that, and we have changed the funding structures so that police chiefs can make those decisions. It will take time, but that policy is starting to bear fruit, with nearly 4,000 more police in our neighbourhoods. In 2010, when the previous Labour Government left office—before the coalition Government came in, introduced austerity and made policing cuts—the public were more satisfied with policing than they had ever been. In large part, that was due to people seeing neighbourhood policing.
Sarah Jones
I will give way to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
Jim Shannon
The Minister is giving comprehensive answers on the Labour Government’s plans. I suggested that we recognise, as I know the Minister will, the good work done by street pastors and churches, through the youth clubs and groups that they organise, across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Could the Government do more to engage with the street pastors, churches and faith groups that have a plan to help our young people?
Sarah Jones
I will come on to talk about prevention, in which our faith leaders absolutely have a powerful role.
Many Members talked about respect orders. Those came into force on 26 October, and I am delighted that some are already in place—that is good to hear. Although I do not have all the numbers for all the forces, the first respect orders have been issued. For Members who are not aware, respect orders can be put on anybody, anywhere, not just in our town centres. They apply to persistent antisocial behaviour offenders. A previous conviction is not required for someone to be a persistent offender. Housing associations, councils, transport companies and the police can apply for an order.
The order can put on an individual whatever conditions are considered appropriate, such as requiring that they do not come on to a certain street. They may require a person to have treatment for drug or alcohol addiction, as well as other more positive interventions. If those conditions are breached, that is a criminal offence.
Sir John Hayes
As the Minister has heard from Members across the Chamber, social media often plays a part in this problem. I mentioned Holbeach in my constituency, which has suffered from antisocial behaviour. Sometimes, the offenders are very young people indeed, who are communicating on the internet and boasting about what they are doing. Can she apply what she just described to that social media activity, so that the authorities can take action early, before the community suffers the consequences of what is being boasted about?
Sarah Jones
The online space is a work in progress. Criminality online goes across all kinds of different crimes. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that some young people talk about what they are going to do before putting it into practice, and of course, we have to change our processes to make sure that the police can see that and intervene.
Respect orders are beginning to be used. Other changes were also introduced under the Crime and Policing Act 2026; for example, in areas subject to a public spaces protection order, fines can now be £500 instead of £100. Those changes may appear small, but they are significant and will make a difference. Every area has to have an antisocial behaviour lead. On the need for agencies to work together, which was talked about, every area also has to have an antisocial behaviour strategy that has been made in collaboration with the different agencies. We have extended the dispersal period for which someone can be directed to leave an area from 48 hours to 72 hours.
Amanda Martin
Of the changes that the Minister has listed, one that has worked brilliantly in my city is the removal of face coverings at protests. Would she encourage other forces to do the same? Everyone should have a fair right to protest, but they should not come with a balaclava and bring thuggish behaviour to other people’s cities.
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend will know that Lord Ken Macdonald has done a review for the Home Secretary on protests more widely. The issue of intimidation at protests is very pertinent to that review, and we will soon publish our response. It is also the case that some police forces have PSPOs that ban face coverings and balaclavas in an area. That is another approach that some areas are taking, and it is one that I welcome.
I will not list them all, but we have introduced a raft of other changes through the 2026 Act that are explicitly designed to target antisocial behaviour. We will also gather more data, because one of the issues with antisocial behaviour is that we do not quite understand the data. Some of it is reported to local authorities and some to the police, so we do not quite understand the nature of the problems. We are gathering that data together.
Lots of Members talked about the trouble we are having across so many communities with e-bikes and e-scooters, which is a debate that we have had numerous times. We have changed the law so that the police can seize them without having to give notice, which is important, but we are looking at what else we can do with this problem—and I recognise that it is a problem. I am going to have a series of roundtables, and I am talking to MPs about both the challenges and the solutions. Some solutions will sit within other Departments—whether that is what was formerly called the Department for Business and Trade, or the Department for Transport—and some will sit within the Home Office, so we are looking at how we can have a collective approach to that challenge.
Some Members talked about persistent shoplifting offenders. It is the case that about 8% of the offenders are responsible for about 50% of the crime, and we will soon be able to announce some work on those prolific offenders in particular. Many Members talked about the underlying problems associated with some of this antisocial behaviour. When we look at prolific offenders, we often find drug addiction, homelessness and other challenges that we need to face collectively. We are considering how we target and support that cohort in a similar way to our rough sleeping cohort that the Prime Minister is so keen to champion. We need to think not just about housing but about the other support that those people need, and we are also trying to take that approach here.
Prevention was mentioned by many people, and I think it is really important. It plays a part in our respect orders and in our prolific offenders work, as well as the wider Government action on youth work and other support, including mental health support. All of these are core things. A lot of antisocial behaviour comes from people who are not getting the support that they might have received 10 or 15 years ago, so it is incredibly important that we look at that side of things.
Sarah Jones
I do not think I should, because I need to give the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr the opportunity to respond.
I will conclude by saying that antisocial behaviour is not a low-level problem. It is awful. I see it in my community, and we are absolutely committed to tackling it. We have introduced a raft of measures, but we need to go further and I will carry on this conversation to see what else we can do. All Members present today know that it is a top priority for our constituents, and we should act appropriately.
Ayoub Khan
I thank every right hon. and hon. Member who contributed to this important debate. The theme seems to be that antisocial behaviour is not a low-level crime, and that it comes in many different forms—from e-scooters to intoxication, abandoned buildings on the high street and the like. It is also obvious that police presence is an important factor, and people recognise the importance of deterrence. Having the right police numbers will certainly assist with deterrence, so the Government need to look at how they can improve our police numbers. That work must also go with the early intervention programme. We have to take a holistic approach, as these silo-type approaches do not really offer benefit. I hope the Minister will meet me to discuss and resolve some of these matters.
I finish with the comment made by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) when he addressed the students here. I promise them that they will see a difference in 10 years, because the vast majority of Members believe in hope over division. I am confident that, working together, we will be able to resolve many of the challenges that we face.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
National Highways: M5 Traffic Management
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
I will call Sir Ashley Fox to move the motion; I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered National Highways’ traffic management policies on the M5 in Somerset.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue that sits at the heart of daily life for my constituents in Bridgwater and communities across Somerset.
The M5 is Somerset’s principal north-south highway. It connects communities, supports local businesses, facilitates tourism and enables the flow of goods throughout the south-west. It is indispensable. Although the M5 operates smoothly most of the time, it is suffering increased disruption. It is now closed more frequently, and those closures are for greater lengths of time. In the two and a half years in which I have represented Bridgwater, the repeated closures of the M5 have become one of the most common issues that constituents raise with me.
Somerset has a unique geography that presents challenges not found in many other places. The Somerset levels contain a network of rivers and watercourses that constrain opportunities for new strategic road infrastructure. Unlike other motorway corridors, the M5 has few realistic alternatives when it becomes blocked. A closure that might be manageable somewhere else can have profound consequences. That is particularly evident between junctions 22 and 24, where, if the M5 is closed, north-south traffic is diverted to the A38, which goes from Highbridge in the north through Bridgwater to North Petherton in the south of my constituency. The A38 was never designed to accommodate motorway volumes of traffic. What begins as an instance affecting one stretch of motorway rapidly escalates into a problem affecting entire towns and villages. Traffic backs up every minor road, causing gridlock. Residents of Highbridge, Bridgwater, North Petherton and the surrounding villages know only too well what that looks like.
Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that this is a recurring and worsening problem. Analysis of motorway performance shows that the northbound section of the M5 between junctions 23 and 24 recorded at least one hour of traffic moving at below 30 mph on 42 days in 2023. That rose to 45 days in 2024 and 47 days in 2025. That means that, by 2025, serious congestion was occurring on one day in every eight.
Equally concerning is the frequency of the closures. Data from January 2025 to August 2026 records 24 full closures of the M5 between junctions 20 and 25. In June this year alone, there were four such closures. A road of such strategic importance simply cannot sustain repeated disruption on that scale without significant economic and social consequences.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward the debate. He is right to refer to the strategic importance of the M5 in Somerset. My Strangford constituents and I have similar issues with the Ballynahinch bypass. Does he feel that it is time for the Minister and the Government to look at these strategic issues by constituency? That would enable him to take forward his project and solve the problems that he clearly has in his constituency.
Sir Ashley Fox
I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that point. Later in my speech, I will come on to the point about taking a more nuanced approach across the network.
Delays and diversions affect workers attempting to reach their employment, parents collecting children, businesses dependent on deliveries, patients travelling to urgent medical appointments and emergency services attempting to move across the county. I want to share a letter from my constituent Ms Halliday, who has given me permission to share her personal and distressing experience of these delays. She writes:
“The last time the motorway was shut, I was stuck for 3 hours in the car. This may sound trivial but I am disabled & have health issues, including having to be close by toilets. I also have a disabled son, who is non-verbal autistic & who cannot comprehend why we are stuck in the car for long periods, and a few times he has wet himself. My daughter has also had countless late days at college over the last year or so, which is very stressful. Altogether, this has had a major effect on my stress levels & mental health over the last 2 years.
As I write this email, once again the M5 is shut, causing horrendous traffic through town. My son rides the special education bus from school, and the driver has just phoned to say she has no idea when she will make it to school to collect my son. He is now stuck in school for the time being, as it would be pointless to go and collect him as I would be stuck in the same traffic & wouldn’t make it any sooner.
Update, my son returned home over 2 hours late tonight.”
It is because of emails such as these that I asked for this debate. Is the Minister confident that National Highways is doing everything possible to minimise disruption on the M5? Are scheduled closures being planned in the best way? Are policies in place to minimise the number of accidents? Have the Government considered variable speed limits, such as those on the M5 around Bristol? Many of my constituents have commented on the poor driving skills of some motorway users. Has the Minister any plans to monitor and improve the situation?
When an accident does occur, we need to consider the harm caused to the communities affected by motorway closures. Over recent years, central reservations on many motorways have been replaced with continuous concrete safety barriers. The barriers have important safety benefits, and I am not advocating reversing that decision. However, those barriers have reduced the flexibility available to operators responding to major incidents. Traditional contraflow arrangements are often more difficult to implement than they once were. Will the Minister consider whether a more locally tailored approach is required for Somerset?
One option that my constituents have asked be considered is the installation of strategically located crossover points within central reservations, with gates that can be opened by the emergency services as routine maintenance and upgrade programmes are undertaken. These crossing points would allow controlled contraflow operations during major incidents, enabling traffic to bypass closures and remain on the strategic road network rather than being diverted on to local roads. I am not pretending that such a proposal would eliminate the effects of serious incidents, nor would it remove the need to prioritise personal safety, but it would provide the highway authorities and emergency services with an additional operating tool, helping to maintain traffic flow while reducing the pressure on communities such as those in Bridgwater and North Petherton.
More broadly, I urge the Government to examine whether the current traffic management policies adequately reflect local circumstances. I underline that neither I nor my constituents underestimate the challenges facing the emergency services, National Highways or those responsible for managing serious incidents. Public safety must always come first. Where collisions occur, where lives are at risk or where vulnerable individuals require assistance, every appropriate resource should be deployed. Those who work to ensure the safety of all who use our infrastructure should be commended for their work, but recognising those realities does not prevent us from asking whether the current system is striking the right balance between safety and the interests of communities that depend on the motorway.
When the effects of motorway closure are so keenly felt by the community at large, there needs to be a more proportionate approach to managing people in crisis. Emergency services should balance their duties to those in crisis and to those who suffer when the motorway is closed, and their primary duty should be to reopen the motorway as soon as possible. To facilitate that, a wider review of guidance and protocol as to how the emergency services conduct intervention is necessary.
My constituents are suffering gridlock caused by the increasing number of closures of the M5. I ask the Minister, on behalf of my constituents, to look carefully at the problems that we face in Somerset. Will he work with National Highways and the emergency services to minimise motorway closures and the harm that they cause to our community?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Justin Madders)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Butler.
I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) on securing this debate on a topic that, as he clearly explained, is a matter of particular interest to his constituents. Of course, motorway closures are a concern across the country, because we all hate it when our journeys on the motorway network are disrupted for whatever reason it might be. For most motorway users, there is nothing worse than an unexpected closure or long delays resulting from roadworks. In my constituency, I can tell within 30 seconds of leaving the house whether the motorway has been closed, or whether there has been an accident, just by the volume of traffic on our local network.
Whether they are caused by an accident or roadworks, delays cause frustration and inconvenience. Whether it is speed restrictions that need to be in place for safety reasons or road closures that mean lengthy diversions, any unplanned incident can cause major delays and disruption on the network. I therefore have every sympathy with regular users of the M5 in Somerset, and indeed with those in the surrounding area, who have also been inconvenienced by a series of planned roadworks and the serious incidents to which the hon. Member referred. The experience of his constituent, Ms Halliday, brings out the human consequences of these delays. I have sympathy with her and everyone who has been affected.
However, as the hon. Member said, there is a trade-off here. As our motorway network starts to show signs of age—as we all do—more work is required to make sure it remains in a good and, importantly, safe condition. That is why the road investment strategy, published in March, included an unprecedented £8.4 billion of investment in renewing many of the assets on our motorways and trunk roads over the next five years. Those assets include many bridges and tunnels, some of which are approaching the end of their design life, and features such as drainage systems and safety barriers, which play an important role in keeping the network as safe as possible.
Our investment also sees a huge amount of resurfacing for smoother and safer journeys on the network, including by replacing large stretches of concrete road surfaces. That work needs to be done to ensure that we have a network fit for the future. The challenge, of course, as the hon. Member articulated, is to do it in a way that causes the least disruption for road users. He asked whether we are doing everything we can to ensure that disruption to his constituents, and indeed to all road users, is minimised. He will be interested to know that we have set targets for National Highways in the road investment strategy to reduce delays on the network, including from roadworks, and to produce an action plan setting out the steps it will take to deliver improvements.
The key target we have set is for National Highways to demonstrate that it has done all it reasonably can to reduce delays on the strategic road network, as we would all hope it is doing. We would also hope that average delay performance is no worse at the end of the five-year period than it is at the start. Although that might not seem particularly ambitious, it is quite a stretching target in the context of the resurfacing and renewal projects being delivered over the next five years.
We have also set a target to ensure that 97.5% of the network is free from traffic restrictions owing to roadworks, and that at least 88% of motorway incidents are cleared within one hour. We have also instructed National Highways to publish a customer and delay action plan and to deliver the actions it sets out, and to report on progress annually. We expect that to be published before the end of March next year. The Office of Rail and Road, the regulator, will hold National Highways to account for its performance in meeting those targets.
In the hon. Member’s constituency, a programme of work has been under way for some time to upgrade the drainage systems and replace the safety barriers in the central reservations between junctions 22 and 24 of the M5. He mentioned the question of more flexibility on the barriers, on which I will write to him, if that is okay. I understand the point he makes, but there are other safety considerations that we have to take into account. However, I will endeavour to get him a proper response.
National Highways has attempted to reduce the disruption caused by this particular programme of work by using overnight closures and lane restrictions, for example, rather than full-day motorway closures, which, as the hon. Member explained, would cause huge disruption to his constituents. There is a need for proper engagement with local stakeholders when roadworks will lead to delays and diversions. My ministerial colleagues and I have regularly raised this topic with National Highways in recent months.
National Highways has learned lessons from its handling of the major Lune Gorge renewal scheme in Cumbria, where some local stakeholders feel that not enough was done to involve them in discussions about the likely impacts on them and the options to mitigate those impacts. I am determined to ensure that when National Highways undertakes major renewal programmes in future, it works with local stakeholders and agrees a plan of action. It must do all it can to ensure that the most affected have a clear understanding of when closures or restrictions will be in place. We cannot remove disruption and delay entirely, but we all want to be clear and confident that National Highways has done absolutely everything it can to minimise that.
In respect of the M5, I understand that National Highways has regular dialogue with those likely to be affected by the planned roadworks. I know the hon. Member has met National Highways, which has discussed with Somerset council how best to ensure that diversions, including on the A38, are carefully planned and well signposted.
There will also be works in the not-too-distant future on junction 22A, where a new gigafactory will be put in place. The hon. Member will be acutely aware that introducing a new junction to the road network at junction 22A will be quite a disruption. Work has not yet started on the new access road, but I will ask National Highways to ensure that any further disruption to users of the M5 is minimised. I am sure the hon. Member will welcome that investment in his constituency and the long-term benefits that will arise from the new junction.
Decisions on when to close and safely reopen a motorway following an incident—such as attempts to take one’s own life, which I understand have been among the incidents affecting the M5—are for the emergency services to determine. That is usually the police, although it can occasionally be the fire and rescue service. The hon. Member asked whether anything can be done in terms of the protocol for those decisions. Clearly, that is outside my Department’s remit, but I commit to writing to ask the Home Office to talk to the relevant services about whether there is anything different they can do. It is important to say that when someone has been killed or seriously injured, or when responding to someone in crisis, it is really important that the police take the lead on making decisions about reopening the network.
As the hon. Member would expect, when such incidents arise, National Highways works closely with the police, identifies any damage to assets and ensures that trained personnel, equipment and materials are available to undertake repairs as soon as the scene is released. National Highways regularly meets the senior roads policing officers from Avon and Somerset police to review incidents and adjust its operational approach. I understand that more meetings are planned between the police and National Highways to look at whether more can be done to reduce the impact of closures.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for securing this debate. I agree that roadworks and other activities and incidents on our motorways and trunk roads need to be managed in a way that causes as little disruption as possible to road users. I encourage the hon. Member to continue to engage with National Highways on the local impacts of the closure of the M5 in Somerset. Officials from National Highways will have heard his comments today. I will reflect on what he has said this afternoon and endeavour to come back to him on some of the points he raised.
Question put and agreed to.
Fishing and Seafood Sector Strategy
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Before I call Daniel Zeichner to move the motion, it may be convenient for everybody to know that we appear to have, in addition to the mover, seven Back-Bench contributors and a couple of Members who I know wish to intervene. I am not going to impose a time limit at this stage. It rather depends on how long Mr Zeichner chooses to speak for, but I think we are probably looking at around a maximum of seven minutes per person. On that basis, we ought to be able to get everybody in. If that changes, I will let Members know.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of a fishing and seafood sector strategy.
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. It is also a pleasure to lead a debate on this important question.
Before I begin, I should declare that I served as the independent chair of the process that produced “An Action Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable UK Fishing Industry”, a weighty tome recently published by the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, which is the stimulus for this debate. I pay tribute to the group’s co-chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), for their leadership on that piece of work. I also thank the many fishermen and women and other stakeholders from across the UK who gave evidence to the all-party group’s process. I also pay particular tribute to Mike Cohen and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations for having pursued me on this policy idea for many years, and to Lia ní Aodha and her team, who did so much of the basic research, organising and drafting.
I note that it is almost exactly five years ago to the day—somewhat to my overnight surprise—that I found myself in this very Chamber as the shadow Fisheries Minister speaking for the Opposition, a job I hugely enjoyed both in opposition and as a Minister, not least because I met and got to know so many very special people and enjoyed many debates with many familiar friends who are in this Chamber today. I am delighted to see the very wide range of geographical and political representation in the Chamber today.
As an island nation, no part of the United Kingdom is more than 70 miles from the sea, yet we sometimes display a rather curious lack of awareness of the sea and, at times, a tendency to undervalue the waters around us and the people and communities who depend upon them. Fishing and seafood are a case in point. They are a comparatively modest line in the national accounts, it is true, but it is a sector whose value is woven into the identity of places such as Brixham, Grimsby, Kilkeel, Milford Haven, Peterhead and Shetland, and whose true value must be measured in the good jobs and vibrant communities it sustains around our coasts and islands, the regional economies that it supports, the nutritious, low-carbon food it puts on plates at home and around the world, and its contribution to national resilience—something we have heard much about in recent times.
Since leaving the common fisheries policy, the UK has built an impressive domestic management framework centred on the Fisheries Act 2020, the joint fisheries statement and a suite of fisheries management plans. As an independent coastal state, we have regulatory autonomy and the resources for a thriving industry, including fishing knowledge, productive waters off our coast and a still vibrant and diverse fishing sector. However, during my time as Minister, I was struck by the fact that we do not have a strategy that brings those together and connects fisheries management with the wider decisions on energy, marine space, skills, trade and food that will shape the sector’s future. That gap is felt by those who fish every day as they face rising operating and fuel costs, stocks shifting under climate change, growing competition for space at sea from offshore energy development, the expansion of marine protected areas, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining skilled crews. Many of those pressures are also felt downstream by processes around our coasts.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Following the closure of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, most fishing vessels on the east coast— right the length of Scotland—are having to go to Immingham, which is much further south. I believe that will have a knock-on effect on the costs to fisheries and indeed on those communities. I do not ask for an instant solution to that, but does the hon. Member agree that it could be a problem and that we should probably look at it?
Daniel Zeichner
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, not least because it raises the question of fuel, which is a serious issue for the industry at the moment, although today’s debate is about longer-term issues. He also makes an important point about the knock-on effects of something that is possibly the responsibility of other Government Departments. It will be part of my case that we need to see those issues as a whole.
During the all-party group’s inquiry, we heard all the pressures I have just described reflected back to us by industries in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Some call it death by a thousand cuts. The consequence of a fragmented policy landscape and the absence of a strategic view for the sector—those challenges will be familiar to anyone who has spoken to people on the ground in coastal and island communities. I am convinced that, as the all-party group concluded, addressing those challenges requires a coherent, joined-up response from the Government. That is why the action plan centres on a foundational recommendation that asks the Government to set out a long-term strategy for UK fishing and the wider seafood sector within the next 12 months, as part of the sustainable ocean plan that they have committed to delivering next year.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
As co-author of the report, the fact that I agree with the hon. Member might possibly qualify as the least surprising news of today—the need for that strategy is becoming more urgent. However, there are other things that could be done much more quickly though. One is to include food and drink in the industrial strategy, which of course is not the Minister’s responsibility—it relates to another Department. If food and drink had been in that industrial strategy, the energy spike that is currently hitting processors would be dealt with by assistance from the Government. Does he agree that a lot of the answers lie with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but not all of them?
Daniel Zeichner
As ever, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and always asks insightful questions. I can assure him there was quite a debate about whether to include food in the industrial strategy. Of course, there are wider consequences and costs to including it. I am no longer in a position to comment on the Government’s perspective, but I am sure the Minister has heard the right hon. Gentleman’s point.
To shape the strategy, the report proposes four pillars: sustainable management and access to space and quota; fleet modernisation, infrastructure and technology; workforce and labour; and supply chains and domestic consumption, underpinned by measures relating to governance, science, funding and the sector’s social licence. The strategy is set out across 38 separate recommendations. You will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to go through them, Sir Roger, but I will make some brief observations on the merits of that strategy through the lens of food.
As we are all repeating these days, food security is national security, and on an island that surely must be as true at sea as it is on land. After all, fishing is fundamentally about food production. I will take three aspects of this in turn: food security, health and climate. First, on food security, I do not represent a fishing constituency, but like all constituents, mine eat fish—although probably not as much as they should. What struck me throughout the process, and during my time as Minister and shadow Minister, was how disconnected the fish on our plates has become from the boats that catch it. According to the most recent figures, 461,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish were landed into UK ports in 2025. At the same time, we imported more than 1.1 million tonnes of seafood, while UK consumers purchased more than 411,000 tonnes of seafood in retail outlets.
It is true that we export much of what we catch and import much of what we eat. There is nothing inherently wrong with that; it is part of the reality of a rather remarkable food system. We heard in our inquiry that both are key to the UK’s diverse seafood economy, and in normal times that serves us well. From the pandemic to the war in Ukraine and instability in the middle east, we have recently learned just how fragile supply chains can be. We also know that supply chains will be strained further by climate change and biodiversity loss.
In those moments, a diverse domestic fleet and onshore processing capacity are strategic assets—a source of food that can be redirected to our own tables when supply chains are under pressure. However, in the UK, fishing and seafood all too often remain on the periphery of how we think about food security and resilience. Too often, they are absent from the discussion. We have no headline measure of how self-sufficient we are in seafood, and we continue to fail to connect the role of sustainable fisheries to our resilience planning. It is so frustrating to see an indigenous food-producing industry remain on the edges of those conversations.
That is why the action plan recommends that seafood should be fully represented in food security assessments, so that we understand how domestic fisheries can help the food system absorb shocks now and in the future. Alongside that, it recommends measurable targets for seafood supply, consumption and the sector’s contribution to food security. I am very grateful to Dr Sarah Coulthard from Newcastle University for her work on small-scale fisheries, the inshore fleet and their contribution to our food security.
Secondly, on health—for food is also about health—sustainable seafood has a lot to offer towards a healthier nation. The NHS recommends at least two portions of fish a week, one of them oily. However, the average person in the UK eats around half that. The gap is widest among children and lower-income households—the very people who stand to benefit most from seafood nutrition. A strategy for fishing and seafood should set out practical steps to address that, including a sustained two-a-week campaign run with the NHS, better food environments and public procurement—a lever that the Government control directly. After all, a healthier population is ultimately a lower burden on the health service.
Thirdly, on climate, well-managed, wild-caught seafood offers a relatively low-carbon form of animal protein. It needs no feed, no fertiliser and no land. Emissions from fuel use across the entire UK fishing fleet account for around 0.12% of the UK’s territorial emissions, and about 1.1% of those from agriculture. If fishing is to play its full part in climate action, however, we have to be honest about the current state of play.
Parts of the fleet are ageing; some boats are around 60 years old. Many want to modernise, but few can afford to. Vessel construction and operating costs have risen sharply, and smaller operators struggle to access affordable finance. There are no off-the-shelf net zero solutions for fishing vessels. That is why the action plan calls for a programme of demonstrator vessels and research into alternative fuels to build evidence and de-risk investment, and for a national assessment of harbour and shoreside infrastructure needs, including readiness for decarbonisation.
The industry is working hard to meet its sustainability obligations, but if we expect it to succeed, including on decarbonisation, we must help it to meet the costs of getting there. Investment via the fishing and coastal growth fund is welcome, and the strategy could help to guide where that money goes so that it can effectively support the industry and the wider sector.
As I have already suggested, none of this sits neatly in one Department. Food security sits with DEFRA; health with the Department of Health and Social Care; energy and net zero with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; procurement right across Government; crew visas with the Home Office; trade with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade; and fisheries management itself spans three devolved Governments, and so on.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
My hon. Friend mentioned the devolved Governments. Does he recognise the potential role that the single foundation strategic authority of Cornwall can play, together with our local Cornish Fish Producers’ Organisation, in deploying that funding in a much more targeted and localised way?
Daniel Zeichner
The work of the CFPO is truly inspirational for much of the sector. My hon. Friend’s point about the possibilities of devolving decision making feeds into the wider discussion around devolution at the moment. I think we may need to revisit regional levels of intervention, because that might be the right level at which to do it.
To go back to the Government Departments—I wish the Minister luck with this—each decision made across those spaces may be sensible on its own terms, but when they fail to join up, the sector feels the consequences cumulatively, however unintentional they may be. That is precisely why the sector needs a strategy.
There is more to be said, but I suspect that many hon. Members will raise the issues facing their own constituencies. I hope that the Minister will take from my contribution a sense of the value of fishing and seafood to the nation, and of the need for a strategic view to secure the sector’s national benefit. I was very grateful that he attended the launch of the action plan a few weeks ago and engaged and responded with such grace. I know full well the constraints that he faces, but I will ask him for some assurances.
First, will the Government commit to publishing a long-term strategy for fishing in the wider seafood sector when resources and time allow? Secondly, will that strategy form part of the sustainable ocean plan that the Government have committed to developing next year? Thirdly, how will the Government work with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the strategy is backed across all four nations and delivered on the ground? Fourthly, will the Minister provide a written response to the APPG’s 38 recommendations and meet the APPG to discuss them in depth?
In conclusion, I thank everyone involved in the production of the report, and am grateful for the good will shown by people across the industry and beyond. On a personal note, I thank the brilliant officials I had the good fortune of working with at DEFRA, particularly the highly knowledgeable Anne Freeman. I also thank my friend Terri Portmann from Plymouth, who has helped me throughout these five fascinating years. This industry inspires great passion and commitment, and rightly so. It deserves the strategy that it seeks.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. Before we proceed, I should say that Mr Shannon has courteously informed me that, owing to a change in business in the House, he is required in a Committee elsewhere and is double-booked, as is so often the case. I am going to call Mr Shannon and then allow him to leave, on the strict understanding that he returns as swiftly as possible and, in any event, is back for the winding-up speeches.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
You are most kind, Sir Roger—thank you very much. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for raising this vital issue.
The Northern Ireland fisheries industry, which is critical to the wellbeing of our coastal communities, contributed to the groundbreaking road map that the hon. Member for Cambridge referred to, and it welcomed the opportunity to do so. The hon. Gentleman had the good fortune to come to my Strangford constituency and visit Portavogie, where he was well received. How good was his visit? Well, the people of the fishing sector in Portavogie still say what a pleasure it was to have him there. They often reminisce and tell me how good it was to see him. I am sure that when the Minister comes over, he will be more than welcome, and maybe he will get the same accolades after his visit.
I have said on several occasions that the Northern Ireland fishing sector has been facing a perfect storm of crewing issues, fuel prices, spatial squeeze and restrictions on access to Isle of Man waters, to name a few of the major and existential challenges they face. It is a real pleasure to see the Minister in his place, and I wish him well in his role. I have also highlighted, on behalf of the sector, the fragmented governance and a legislative framework that—I say this with great respect—is increasingly out of step with the operational reality of fishing businesses, creating further challenges.
The action plan recognises the issues and refers to fleet modernisation, to infrastructure and technology, to workforce and labour, and to supply chains and domestic consumption, as the hon. Gentleman clearly laid out. It has been a huge task to set out a road map that addresses the complexity of UK fisheries while navigating the realities of a devolved fisheries landscape. It is crucial for the survival of the industry that the action plan is turned into meaningful delivery.
Of particular interest to the Northern Irish industry are a number of recommendations that speak to the multiple threats it currently faces. The hon. Gentleman referred recommendation 12 of the report, on sustainable management and access to space, which goes to the heart of the issues in respect of marine spatial squeeze. The report calls for the value of food production from fishing to be weighed equally against other uses of marine space, with cumulative displacement effects assessed properly and a formal statutory route established for the industry.
I often say—and I stand by this—that fishermen are the original stakeholders in our seas. They feel increasingly that their rights are being ignored and eroded, so we are here to speak up for our fishing sector. As well as Portavogie in my constituency, I speak for Ardglass and for Kilkeel—the hon. Member for that constituency does not come here to speak for them, so I am happy to speak up for them in his absence.
On fleet modernisation, recommendation 16 calls for a
“more enabling, outcome-focused approach to gear trials”.
Where have we been in Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland industry has been leading the way on gear trials over many years, and needs support to turn innovation into reality. The Minister will find a sector in Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel in Northern Ireland very willing to work alongside him to do so.
Recommendation 17 calls for a
“dedicated, purpose-built immigration route”.
This is my big ask, and I know it is an ask of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) as well. The recommendation demands that a “short-term bridging solution” be implemented before the current skilled worker visa eligibility for fishing roles disappears at the end of 2026. Time is of the essence; we put that on the record, ask for the Minister’s intervention and hope for his support. The immigration salary list, the mechanism that currently keeps fishing crew roles accessible under the skilled worker route, is due to be abolished. As the report says, the deadline is not abstract: the fishing industry is facing an imminent recruitment cliff edge. That is my biggest ask of all the recommendations.
Mr Carmichael
We all know that the use of migrant labour should be a short to medium-term measure until we are able to grow the workforce in our own ports. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that truth reinforces the importance of the strategy that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) has spoken about, because in order to grow that workforce, signals have to be sent to the industry that the Government have a clear vision of what is expected of them? Unless and until we do that, we will not persuade the next generation to go to sea.
Jim Shannon
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the knowledge he brings to the debate. The Minister is listening intently, and hopefully he will respond to that in a positive way.
The Minister should be aware, if he is not already, that we are looking for visas for seasonal workers for nine months. In other words, the people who get them go back home again—they are not staying here. The Department has in place a system, through the seasonal worker programme, for other sectors; that is an issue we could probably look into.
The funding and investment section of the road map calls on the Government to treat the current acute cost pressures facing the sector as a matter of immediate urgency. It calls on them to allow the industry to access the same energy cost support that is already available to other sectors of the economy. Northern Ireland fishing boats are being forced to tie up due to the ongoing high costs of fuel, which have persisted since March 2026. What annoys us is that Republic of Ireland and EU companies are already getting fuel support from their countries, creating an unfair competitive advantage over those in other jurisdictions.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) hinted that fuel is not really something that matters in the longer term, as though it is a short-term problem that will be fixed, but if it is not fixed in the short term, the fishing industry has no long term. Boats are tied up right now. They are losing money now. In my area, Dumfries and Galloway, fishing is largely off-quota or non-quota fishing, and the No. 1 problem right now is the astronomical cost of fuel.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Member; I am conscious of the time, so I will bring my comments to a conclusion.
The fishing sector has long called for a national fishing strategy and is ready to work with the Government to achieve this, as it has demonstrated through the development of the action plan, which is a good blueprint for the way forward. Nothing in the plan requires new powers or legislation, but it needs support from across Westminster—a range of Government Departments have a stake in fishing, including the Home Office in respect of crewing, which we are very interested in, and the Department for Transport in respect of safety—and the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as industry across the UK.
If we work together, the action plan could create the opportunity that secures the future of UK fishing. I will be backing our fishing industry in Northern Ireland and throughout the UK by supporting the plan and calling for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland fishing and seafood strategy to be a key part of that.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Sir Roger.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing the debate. As a former Fisheries Minister and independent chair of the APPG, he knows that a fishing and seafood strategy is much needed given the critical state of the UK’s fish stock. If fish stocks deplete further, the implications for small, sustainable UK fisheries, and for our supply chains, will be significant. These are concerns that the APPG for the ocean, which I chair, has heard for years.
I want to highlight two themes. First—this might seem like an obvious point, but it is often missing from the discussion—we cannot have a thriving fishing industry without abundant fish stocks. There have been many debates in this place that frame the UK’s food security as a purely terrestrial issue, but in an uncertain global context marked by supply chain disruption, rising food prices and geopolitical instability, strengthening our domestic food security will be essential to the UK’s long-term resilience. As an island nation, that needs to include fisheries.
We face fish shortages that are a huge threat to the security of our fishing industry. A recent Blue Marine Foundation report found that 62% of the 55 fish stocks assessed declined between 2016 and 2025, with 38% falling below the minimum level required by law. Some declines have been extraordinary: Celtic sea cod declined by 98%, while Irish sea plaice declined by 88%.
The Government have repeatedly missed deadlines to achieve good environmental status in our seas. Only two of 15 key indicators of healthy seas have been met in UK waters, and over half of assessed fish stocks are not meeting their current recovery targets. Oceana UK found that 25% of UK commercial fishing populations are being over-exploited. Fewer fish will ultimately mean fewer opportunities for our fishers, less resilient coastal economies and a less secure domestic food supply.
I welcome the Government’s announcement yesterday that remote electronic monitoring will be legally required on all large pelagic fishing vessels, as the APPG for the ocean called for. That will give us a better idea of what fishing activity is happening, but it will not prevent fishing from exceeding the advice provided by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Its scientific recommendations should be treated as a ceiling, not a target, with additional safeguards for depleted stocks.
Fish stock recovery must be at the heart of our approach to food security and fisheries policy. If we want the fishing sector to endure for future generations, we must ensure that there are fish left to catch and follow the science to make that happen. The Government are currently negotiating with the EU, Norway and other coastal states to determine jointly managed fish stocks for 2027. Yet in 2026, 58% of assessed UK catch limits were set above scientific advice. The UK must enter negotiations with a clear commitment to science-based limits. Alongside 44 other parliamentarians, I have written to the Minister to express that position, and I look forward to receiving his response.
Secondly, a fisheries and seafood sector strategy is just one piece of the puzzle in the more joined-up approach that we need to see for ocean governance. The restoration of fish stocks cannot be achieved through fisheries policy alone; it requires a systematic approach to how we manage our seas. The most recent report of the APPG for the ocean called for a cross-departmental ocean strategy to address the fragmentation of ocean governance. Currently, the responsibility for our seas sits among multiple Ministers and Departments, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge highlighted. We have heard the Government say that the UK is back in the oceans business. I sincerely welcome that, but it needs to be backed up by a clear ocean strategy that incorporates expertise from coastal communities, academia, the environmental sector and, of course, the fishing and seafood sectors.
I will conclude with an observation. It sometimes feels as though fisheries and ocean conservation are pitted against each other, as if we might choose between protecting our marine environment and supporting the UK’s sustainable fisheries industry. That is not true, and we must move beyond that false dichotomy.
Earlier this year, the APPG for the ocean heard from Clive Mills, a local Sussex fisherman, and his daughter, who came to Westminster to warn that there may be less than 10 years left in the profession because there are simply not enough fish. His warnings are for all the families who have fished in those waters for generations, and who may no longer be able to pass on their livelihoods to the next generation.
I urge the Minister to go and see the truly inspirational work being done. Fish populations can recover if the Government support the conditions that give them the opportunity. In the North sea, haddock, whiting and plaice stocks are now more than twice the minimum level required to support sustainable fisheries, demonstrating that when well-managed stocks have the chance, they will rebound.
There are clear steps that the Government can take now to support a fair transition towards sustainable and low-impact fishing, including the transparent allocation of fishing opportunities that rewards vessels that deliver environmental, social and local economic benefits, and the tackling of destructive practices such as bottom trawling. It has been over a year since the closure of the consultation on banning bottom trawling in marine protected areas, so I am keen to hear from the Minister when we will get the Government’s response.
Our oceans and all who depend on them are running out of time. We cannot afford to be delaying the important decisions if we want healthy seas and to leave a sustainable fishing industry for the next generation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. Mr Carmichael, I understand the pressures on time, but you are the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. If you wish to speak briefly and then leave, I am quite willing to accommodate you.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Thank you for the unexpected pleasure and opportunity, Sir Roger. I will say just a few words on the subject, because there are a number of matters that concern me.
I want to pick up on a few of the points made by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). She spoke about the quality of scientific advice, and ICES is the absolute benchmark in these matters. However, she may wish to consider the fact that, last year, the mackerel stock recommendation was for a total closure—in fact, from memory, I think we agreed a 40% cut. This year, on the basis of new advice, it is apparent that the mackerel stock is back at a safe biological level, so there are these occasions when it becomes apparent that the fisheries advice from ICES has to be put into its proper context.
On the many occasions when I am told that it is necessary to have a total allowable catch of zero, it is often in answer to the question: what will it take to restore the stock to a safe level within 12 months? The only answer to that question can be a zero TAC, but that then begs another question that nobody ever asks: if we have a zero TAC, will it restore the stock to that safe level? The answer is no, because it will take several years before stocks of white fish, such as cod—we all know the pressures on North sea cod at the moment—can recover.
The hon. Member for Rotherham also referenced the healthy level of haddock stock at the moment. For those who are responsible for fisheries management, that highlights the difficulty and complexity of this issue. To put it in its crudest form, haddock swim with cod. If we set a zero or very low TAC for cod, as has been suggested for the northern shelf this year—notwithstanding the fact that we think that there are at least three subspecies of cod in the North sea—there is a danger that it will serve only to present cod as a choke species. That then prevents the white fish industry from targeting the haddock that, as we know, is in a healthy state.
I say to the House, and to all those who follow our proceedings, that in this industry there is an infinitely complex scenario, and it really is necessary for everybody to approach this issue with a measure of humility. We must understand that for those communities where fishing matters—the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) referred to them in his speech—it matters a great deal. I am concerned when I see the plethora of environmental non-governmental organisations that now enter this debate with a very simplistic analysis. Taken to its logical conclusion, it would deny commercial fishing opportunities to those communities that rely on them most. That is why the hon. Member’s work and that of the APPG, of which I have been a member for 25 years, to bring people together to achieve an in-depth understanding of what is involved for the different stocks and the different communities, is absolutely critical.
It feels like there is always some species under pressure in some part of our waters, and I fear that that will always be the case. A few years ago, the different pelagic species were under serious pressure. We understand that pelagic species, such as mackerel and herring, will migrate through British waters into Faroese waters and up into Icelandic waters. That is why the idea that somehow or another one country can take responsibility for fisheries management is simply for the birds—biology defies that sort of simplistic approach.
At the end of the day, the people who have the biggest stake in ensuring that there are healthy fish stocks are the people who work in the industry and who will want some day to pass the businesses that they have built up over several generations on to the next generation. These are the people and these are the communities who suffer most when we get it wrong here.
Sarah Champion
I am listening intently to everything that the right hon. Gentleman is saying, and I completely agree that it is UK communities that are suffering the most at the expense of the internationals. Does he agree that we need to listen to those people and include them at the heart of any fishing decisions we make? At the moment, they do not have a seat at the table on every occasion.
Mr Carmichael
I have preached that sermon in this House for the last 25 years. We should also remember that the ICES advice we spoke about earlier is two years out of date—the data is two years from the acquisition to the implementation. Hearing from fishermen and understanding the expertise they employ when they take their nets out to sea must be at the heart of this debate. Respect for people who have, for generations, made a living from this industry—from the seas—must be the starting point. Stick to that and everything else will surely fall into place.
I am very grateful to you, Sir Roger, for allowing me the opportunity to speak.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing this debate and bringing this action plan to our attention. I only regret that we are not having these exchanges in the main Chamber, which would give fishing and fishing communities their proper place in our national life.
I cannot begin my remarks today without expressing the continuing sorrow in my Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency over the loss of the Kilda fishing boat and all three souls aboard it off the coast of Lewis on 13 October. Only one body has been recovered, which is that of Douglas Craigie. The other men—Norman Murray, or Tam as he was known, and Murdo Morrison, the 23-year-old mate—remain unaccounted for. It is a testament to the power of the ocean that a life raft from the Kilda was found on Shetland’s shorelines last week, although coastal searches there have been in vain. We all know, of course, that the bounty and the sorrow of the sea are intertwined with my constituency and with all other coastal communities across Britain, and our condolences go to the families affected.
The fishing industry in the Western Isles has shrunken considerably since its 19th-century heyday as one of the biggest herring ports in Europe. However, it still makes a major contribution to the local economy, despite attempts by the previous SNP-Green Government in Scotland effectively to shut down the Western Isles fishing fleet with the imposition of the hated highly protected marine areas. Stark opposition from island fishing communities and other communities around the coast have won that battle for now.
As the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has pointed out, the crisis of conservation is very real and must be tackled. However, the experience of the HPMA debacle has left a scar on the fishing fleet and on the conservation agenda. The consequential danger of imposing this top-down approach is that no environmental measure is now acceptable to fishing communities, unless they are taken along, listened to and involved. That includes the draconian new restrictions that the Scottish Government are seeking to impose—HPMA2, as they are dubbed—which are currently being consulted on. I am glad that the action plan brought forward has involved fishing and fishing communities, as all movements on the fishing industry should.
There is powerful evidence from my constituency that self-imposed controls introduced by the Western Isles fishermen have proved effective, while increasing the value of the landings. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, those fishers are committed to sustainability, because where they fish is where they are from. They want to pass this on to the next generation and to maintain their communities in that industry.
That is happening in the Western Isles. Data for 2024 shows that the value of landings increased on the previous year by 4% to £16 million, because of restrictions fishermen took in themselves. The only species that decreased in price is brown crab, which has been in decline for the last 20 years, mainly because of the increased effort from nomadic fishing fleets that come and scour them out. Those statistics demonstrate that a top-down approach to conservation, when conservation efforts of the fishermen’s own making are paying dividends, simply will not work.
Island fishers still face massive challenges with crewing, fuel prices—as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, pointed out—and the escalating cost of going to sea and of going to market. That is why it is good news that the Prime Minister intends to secure a new deal with the EU to simplify our food exports. That would be welcomed in the Western Isles.
Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for his speech. Might he allow me to put on record my thanks for the important work of the Troon lifeboat crew, whom I met on Remembrance Sunday? Seafood is an important sector to the Ayrshire economy. It is exported at the port of Troon in my constituency and at Prestwick airport, which, in the first six months of this year, exported 1,780 tonnes—1.78 million kg—of salmon. Does my hon. Friend agree that any seafood sector strategy must look at growing sustainable exporting of that brilliant Scottish product?
Torcuil Crichton
I agree with everything my hon. Friend says. It is only by sustaining the industry and communities that we will keep fishing going. The £360 million fisheries and coastal growth fund announced by the UK Government should be distributed fairly by sector, by sustainability and by geography to constituencies such as his. When the Government announced the fund in 2025, it was to be allocated according to the Barnett formula. That means that Scotland receives 8%— £28 million—of the fund, despite having more than half of the UK’s entire catch of fish.
It is a matter of considerable regret that the Scottish Government demanded their share of the coastal and fishing fund without agreeing a mechanism outside the Barnett formula that would see a fair share coming to Scotland. I hope that there will be a rebalancing of the fund over its decade-long existence, and that the Minister listens to representations. It is essential that the fund is used to expand and revive coastal communities with a long association of sustainable fishing, which have, over decades, been fished out by nomad fleets and supertrawlers from other areas.
We should tackle ownership of the seas and of the quotas. I am disappointed with the way that the action plan approached—or rather, did not approach—quota. The APPG report noted that
“debate continues over the extent to which the benefits derived from UK quota are distributed across coastal communities and the inshore fleet.”
Well, that is an understatement, certainly when it comes to Scotland. In Scotland, ownership of fishing quota is concentrated in the hands of just five families who feature in The Sunday Times rich list, who control more than a third of the Scottish quota and whose shares and companies wholly or partly own half of all the Scottish quota.
England fares no better. Almost half of the fishing quota in England is owned by Dutch, Icelandic and Spanish companies, and more than half of England’s fishing quota is in the hands of just three companies. Those statistics themselves make the argument that the fishing quota needs to be urgently reviewed.
We need a system that is fair, and that considers the economic linkage between quotas and the coastal communities that are adjacent to quotas. I am glad that the action plan referred to the community quota being tried in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. Ownership and support concentrated in the hands of a few will not give new opportunities to our coastal communities. The system has to be rethought with guaranteed access for inshore fleets, and, as I said, it should be linked and distributed to local authorities on the model we have seen in my area and other areas.
These are bold and ambitious demands, but from small beginnings come a new and revived pelagic fleet, new processing, as has been mentioned, and a new and promising future. A fishing strategy worthy of its name has to tackle the elephant in the room—there are perhaps two elephants: one of conservation and one of control of quota. It also must recognise that, if fishing has a sustainable future, it has to be in the hands of fishers themselves, who have a practical and sustainable view of what is to come.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. We are looking at five minutes a head now, please.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I say a special thanks to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing this debate. His excellent speech reflects the contribution he made as a Minister and in leading, with others, the development of the action plan.
As a vice-chair of the APPG on fisheries, I welcome this debate. I support the proposed action plan, while acknowledging that many of these matters are largely devolved to the Scottish Government. That said, it is incumbent on me to highlight once again the importance of the Scottish fishing industry in the context of the UK. Scottish fisheries represent 60% of the UK fishing industry, contribute 60% of the UK’s seafood exports and land 75% of all quota species. That may not be big in UK terms, but it is certainly big in Scottish terms, and it is very big in my constituency, as the Minister knows, with ports such as Buckie, Fraserburgh and Peterhead.
The Minister has previously signalled his willingness—nay, desire—to work in partnership with the Scottish Government on a strategy that involves all four nations. I encourage him in that regard. Might he be willing to revisit the UK Government approach to the fishing and coastal growth fund, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) mentioned? The fund was brought in to ameliorate the damaging outcome of EU negotiations under a former Prime Minister, and the unprecedented 12-year access to our waters.
On the upside, the Scottish Government have dedicated £16.6 million in their marine fund Scotland, recognising the importance of the sector to our economy and our coastal communities. Since 2021, it has awarded £86 million to support 499 projects. This year’s funding allocation is revealing: £14.5 million, topped up with only £2.1 million from the fishing and coastal growth fund. Our freedom of information requests have shown that it was indeed a political decision to Barnettise the devolved fund. Scottish fisheries deserve far better than being used to score political points in this way.
In the notes the House of Commons Library provided for this debate, it is highlighted how a report from the Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy group showed that sector strategies that support economic growth do best if policies are tailored to the needs of different industries, based on detailed evidence, and developed in consultation with the industry.
That brings me to the matter of skills shortages, which has already been referred to. The processing sector has made great strides forward in encouraging a domestic workforce with work incentives, but gaps in the labour market remain, and those gaps are holding back production and economic growth. That is where a bespoke Scottish visa for international workers would make such a difference to companies in the north-east that can neither grow nor innovate with the staff they have in place. It has been done before, in 2003, under none other than Jack McConnell, the former Scottish Labour leader and the last Labour First Minister of Scotland—or, as he is known these days, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale.
Alan Gemmell
I am pleased to say I was a civil servant who partly made the Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland scheme. I am pleased that we were able to do that, but what more have the Scottish Government done to attract migrants and to skill people in Scotland for those jobs, rather than relying on an old scheme?
Seamus Logan
I am glad the hon. Member asked that question. The problem does not lie in Scotland; it lies here in Westminster. That is what I have been trying to highlight.
On the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, it is no secret that I and my party think that Brexit was a catastrophic disaster. The cold hard estimate for the seafood industry revealed that Brexit led to a 30% increase in the cost of transporting products and a 50%9 increase in the cost of packaging.
Douglas Lumsden (Aberdeen South) (Con)
Can the hon. Member confirm that the SNP’s policy would be to take us back into Europe, almost like the Labour party, and back into the dreaded common fisheries policy?
Seamus Logan
I thank the hon. Member for intervening on that point because I am very happy to put on record that, despite what he says, neither I nor my party wish to go back into the common fisheries policy. I remind the hon. Member that it was his Prime Minister and the previous Government who negotiated the Brexit deal that led us to this position.
Seamus Logan
No, I have taken enough interventions; I am running out of time.
As we head towards the UK-EU summit on 20 November, I understand that the Scottish White Fish Producers Association is concerned that the worst elements of the common fisheries policy could reappear when the SPS is agreed. I hope that the SPS agreement will instead deliver faster, more streamlined export processes, because without that, the benefits will not be felt by fishermen, processors or coastal communities that rely on trade with the European Union.
Scotland needs a seat at the negotiating and decision-making table to ensure that the voice of our fishing and coastal communities is represented, heard and taken on board. Otherwise, a strategy made in Westminster, far from the reality of my constituency in the north-east, will be in danger of failing in its core mission, as the Minister knows.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for calling this debate and the Minister for his prioritisation of a visit to Newlyn in Cornwall so early in his tenure, where I am sure he gained a strong sense of our priorities. Fishing remains central to communities like mine in mid-Cornwall. As we have heard from colleagues on all sides of the Chamber, it is vital that we continue to put our fishermen and women at the heart of shaping and delivering the future of the sector.
More topically, I welcome the continued freeze on red diesel duties announced in the Budget, but we must recognise that EU vessels continue to benefit from access to the crisis mechanisms of the European maritime, fisheries and aquaculture fund and the middle east crisis temporary state aid framework. That is putting our fleets at a significant competitive disadvantage and all too often rendering it uneconomical to leave port. Will the Minister consider how the Government can address that competitive disadvantage?
Turning to the bigger picture, the fleets in our sector, sector 7, remain under significant pressure, including from foreign vessels, which account for approximately two thirds of landings. Although quota distribution has increased marginally in favour of UK vessels in recent years, not all fisheries are quota-bound and, broadly speaking, catch ratios in the sector continue to reflect historically established entitlements, with the highest concentration of effort per job in the sector remaining among the industrial-scale foreign vessels we have heard quite a bit about today.
Torcuil Crichton
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that one of the only opportunities of Brexit was the opportunity to look at the UK quota again and redistribute it to communities and inshore fleets such as his?
Noah Law
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the need for a democratisation of many of the quotas. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about that.
As we all know, not all fishing effort has an equivalent ecological impact. Larger, industrialised and—in my sector, at least—foreign vessels are likely to have a disproportionate impact on stocks, while the smaller vessels of our domestic, largely inshore fleets tend to employ more selective, low-impact fishing methods. Ultimately, the smaller vessels that make up our fleet in Cornwall and across the wider sector act as the bedrock of both employment and environmental stewardship. Those twin priorities should be core Labour priorities. Fishermen tell us about the pressures, which really are mounting in the six to 12 nautical mile zone. Will the Minister consider the efficacy in our sector of potential measures in the six to 12 nautical mile zone, and whether a 221 kW engine-size restriction could meet the employment and environmental challenges? Similar measures have been employed effectively and selectively on a sectoral basis, as in the case of fly seining and beam trawling recently in area 7 and coastal waters, respectively, as well as longer-dated precedent in continental waters, with measures for the North sea plaice box.
Finally, in the light of forthcoming responses to our fisheries management plan consultations, I would welcome the introduction not just of some of the proposed technical measures on engine size, but of an integrated approach to biodiversity targets, a climate-sensitive approach to stock rebuilding—that has been alluded to but not spelled out explicitly—that recognises the reality of mixed fisheries, and recognition of the spatial challenges that we have heard about and the need for integrated marine spatial planning, as so masterfully highlighted in the action plan of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Finally and briefly from the Back Benches, I call Mr Myer.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this debate and on his report.
In my region, our identity is shaped by our coastline. From the old fishing villages of Staithes and Skinningrove through to the port at the Tees, the sea has shaped our economy, our identity and the character of our communities, so I welcome this debate and the call for a national fishing and seafood strategy. I will illustrate some of the points made in the debate by adding two experiences from my constituency.
The first concerns a fishermen from Easington, who came to see me at my surgery earlier this year. He operates commercially out of Whitby, and for three years he had been trying unsuccessfully to obtain a licence to catch bluefin tuna. I have to confess that before coming to this place, I did not think a great deal about the geographical distribution of licences for bluefin tuna fishing, but I soon discovered that it was a source of considerable frustration for fishermen in the north-east, who felt that opportunities were disproportionately concentrated on the south coast. Here was a hard-working local businessman who wanted to diversify his trade and invest in his future, but who had spent three years trying to secure the necessary permission.
I wrote to DEFRA and to the Northumberland Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, to express this man’s concerns. In July, I was pleased to hear from him that he had finally secured his licence, which he understood to be the only one awarded locally that year. That was a good outcome, but it left me wondering why it took three years, the intervention of an MP and correspondence with different public authorities just for a fisherman to get the opportunity to do what he does best. I hope that any national strategy will look seriously at such barriers, so that we can encourage small fishing businesses to diversify and grow, and not make their lives unnecessarily difficult.
Torcuil Crichton
I sympathise with the plight of my hon. Friend’s constituent, because one of my constituents faced the same problem with planning for a tuna fishery, having a licence granted one year, but not getting it granted another.
Luke Myer
I will discuss my second issue briefly. It was a national story. For those unfamiliar with what happened, in 2021 an enormous number of dead crustaceans were washed up on our beaches, followed by a collapse in catches of as much as 80%, by some fishermen’s estimates.. That was devastating for the local industry; boats were sold and businesses closed. The most troubling thing is that, five years later, we still do not have a definitive explanation of what happened. That battle for truth has been documented in a new film, “All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea”, and we will hold a screening of it in Parliament for parliamentarians shortly. I encourage all Members to attend.
I pay tribute to the local authorities who came together to establish a working group to look into the issue. I pay particular tribute to Councillor Philip Thomson and former Councillor Rachel Creevy for working across parties to drive forward that agenda. Will the Minister look into the findings published by that working group to see whether lessons can be learned by Government? I echo the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge for science funding to be a pillar of the strategy. Ultimately, if we want to restore confidence among those in the industry, we must demonstrate that our fishermen’s knowledge is valued, and that when issues arise, they will be thoroughly investigated and those directly affected can shape and direct what happens next.
Our fishing communities do not lack ambition; what they need is a Government who are prepared to work alongside them to remove unnecessary obstacles and safeguard their environment, and to give them a greater say in the decisions that shape their future. I hope that that is the ambition that guides this strategy, which we hope to see in the near future.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. Mr MacDonald, you have about eight minutes.
Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)
Thank you, Sir Roger—I will take about half of that, I hope. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing the debate. I also welcome the early visits the Minister made to Scotland and his willingness to engage with the industry, which is so important to my part of Britain.
The first point I want to make is that the UK Government are leading the negotiations on fishing opportunities with the EU, and the decisions made over the coming weeks and months will be extremely significant for all our constituents. The economic viability of many remote west highland communities depends on the fishing industry, and particularly fish farming—an issue that has not been discussed so far. The industry supports employment, businesses and entire communities along our coastline. In many of the more remote parts of my constituency, fishing and seafood processing are among the few industries capable of providing skilled, well-paid and relatively secure, all-year-round employment.
The fish farming industry is incredibly important to the west highlands and islands. It employs about 2,500 people in a sparsely populated area, with a substantial number more in related services such as processing and transport. The industry is well aware of the need to constantly improve its environmental credentials, and it must. However, the bottom line is that there are fewer and fewer wild fish, so the need for a sustainable fish farming industry will only grow in importance. Should the hugely well-funded, mainly American, anti-fish farming pressure groups succeed in their aim of closing down fish farming, they will also succeed in sounding the death knell of our already struggling coastal communities.
That matters enormously when we consider the demographic challenges facing the highlands and islands. We have a serious problem with depopulation, with young people leaving because they cannot find the employment or opportunities they need to build a future in their own communities. We cannot expect those communities to survive if we allow the industries that sustain them to disappear. The fishing industry is therefore not simply an economic asset for the highlands; it is essential to the long-term viability of our coastal communities. It is also worth noting that if the Scottish fish farming industry has its legs taken away from underneath it, that will boost the fish farming industries in Norway, the Faroes, Canada, Chile and so on, which would be only too happy to step in.
The second point I want to make is that we face a significant challenge as fish stocks move northwards into cooler waters. For the first nine months of this year, the value of the catch in Scotland was 17% down on the same period last year. That is having a continued impact on our fishing communities and the opportunities available to the fleet. Crab, langoustine and lobster fishing is important in my constituency but, with far reduced catches, it offers a hard and much less lucrative livelihood than a decade ago.
One of my many sons is a recreational diver, and he tells me of the destruction caused to the seabed by scallop dredging. Those who hand dive for scallops in our community have the support of the more environmentally aware locals. Will the Minister please update us on his view on the sustainability and environmental impact of scallop dredging?
Only 54% of the food we eat is produced in the UK. We can and must do better. Our fishing industry has an important role to play in feeding the nation, but we must maintain high environmental standards and protect our fish stocks. As we have heard, Scotland accounts for 60% to 70% of the UK’s fishing industry, and we have a substantial processing sector and a network of businesses around the coast. However, none of that can survive without a viable fleet bringing fish ashore and securing the best possible opportunities for 2027, particularly for key stocks such as cod. A collapse in remote Scotland’s school rolls and visa restrictions threaten the future workforce that we need so badly. I hope that the Minister will take a pragmatic approach to both.
We have good fisheries management in Scotland, but we must strike a balance between protecting the marine environment and sustaining the very fragile coastal communities that depend on it. The fishing industry is vital to the future of the highlands and to the food security and economic prosperity not just of the highlands and Scotland but of the whole of the United Kingdom. I hope that the Government will recognise that and ensure that our fishing communities have the opportunities and support that they need to thrive.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this important debate.
For centuries, fishing has fed this island nation. It has built our harbour towns and sent generation after generation to sea in all waters. In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, almost three in every 100 jobs still depend on the seafood industry. That is exactly why—not just in Cornwall but across the country—the official Opposition support the creation of the UK’s first comprehensive cross-Government departmental national fishing strategy. I thank all Members who were involved in “An Action Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable UK Fishing Industry” and the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries for the work that it did to pull together that comprehensive piece of work.
However, let us be honest about where the industry stands today. Full-time jobs are down by about 15% since 2024, and landings fell by 10% by weight in a single year between 2024 and 2025. The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), has said previously in this House that DEFRA is
“held in exceptionally poor regard”
by fishers. A strategy is welcome, but it will mean something only if the Government are prepared to change course, as has been said.
The Government constantly give out the right narrative that food security is national security, but in the Budget a fortnight ago, neither food nor fishing were mentioned. The APPG’s fisheries action plan makes 38 recommendations, and the industry has been clear about which recommendations matter the most. Fishing and seafood must be fully represented in the UK’s food security planning. Fishing grounds must be recognised in marine planning as what they are: vital places that provide food.
The Government must give full effect to the Fisheries Act 2020, which was passed by the previous Conservative Government and balances the social, economic and environmental sides of fishing instead of just putting an emphasis on one of them. Will the Minister commit to a cross-Government departmental national fishing strategy that gives reassurance to the fishing sector, and will he lay out a timetable for it? Will fishing and seafood be fully represented in the UK’s food security assessments?
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) rightly outlined that we must focus on dealing with the short-term issues and pressures that face our fishing sector. Since the Iran war began, fuel costs for fishermen have roughly doubled. Successful businesses have exhausted their reserves and are going bust. Fishermen are leaving the industry. After months of campaigning, Ministers can still point only to diesel relief, marine voyage relief and the growth fund, all of which existed before the crisis began. The Budget offered some help for electricity-intensive businesses, but nothing for fuel-intensive ones such as fishing.
Douglas Lumsden
My hon. Friend mentioned the energy-intensive industry scheme. In the summer, I met Jimmy Buchan, the CEO of the Scottish Seafood Association. His biggest ask was for fish processors to be included in that scheme. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should consider including fish processors in that scheme?
Robbie Moore
I absolutely agree. The Government must look beyond fishermen and at the wider sector, including the food processing sector. That is a key ask as part of this debate. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that in his wind-up speech.
The challenge on fuel means that countries on the continent—France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Ireland—have spent tens of millions supporting their fishermen, so much so that in some of our waters the only boats that can afford to fish are the European ones. That is frankly absurd and prompts the question: what are the Government doing about it? Does the Minister think it fair that British fishermen are competing in their own British waters with a European fleet propped up by their Governments? Will the Minister bring forward a tailored plan to provide fuel support to fishermen, as the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has requested?
One aim of Brexit was to put British fishermen first in British waters. The previous Conservative Government took the UK out of the common fisheries policy and negotiated 750,000 tonnes of fishing opportunities for 2024. What was that for? That opportunity was squandered by the Labour Government when they handed EU vessels full access to our waters until 2038—12 years of fishing rights signed away at a cost that the NFFO estimates reaches £6 billion easily.
What did our fishermen get in return? Absolutely nothing. Under the deal the Conservative Government negotiated, access would have been agreed year-by-year, giving us the same leverage that Norway uses to secure a fair deal. That leverage has now gone, thanks to the complete disregard of the Labour Government for the livelihoods of fishermen up and down the country. For this Government, fishermen are just another pawn they can sacrifice for a closer relationship with the EU, whatever the cost.
Robbie Moore
The one-year rolling access was in the pipeline to continue, as it was with the negotiations with Europe. It was this Labour Government that signed away our fishing rights for 12 years.
I must turn to the hon. Member for Cambridge, for whom I have a great deal of respect. When the deal was signed in May last year, he was the Minister responsible for fisheries at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He did not oppose it; he defended it. In a written answer he said:
“That deal secures a continuation of the current access arrangements.”
That is 12 more years of the status quo for a fleet that was promised so much more. That was the deal that he stood behind. I welcome his support today for the fishing strategy, but fishermen in every harbour town will be entitled to ask why he did not fight for them when he was in a position to act.
We have a new Prime Minister who talks a great deal about supporting our food sector and our fishermen. We are about to enter an EU summit on 20 November and the widely circulated joint draft statement says that the Prime Minister welcomes
“decisions on full reciprocal access to waters to fish, until 30 June 2038…and the extension of energy co-operation on a continuing basis.”
There we have it. Our fishermen have been sold down the line yet again by this Labour Government. I will give the Minister the opportunity to intervene if he is able to say why this is such a good deal for our fishermen. He does not wish to intervene. Will he confirm that nothing in the SPS agreement will affect UK fisheries management? Will he instruct negotiators not to concede technical measures or any other backdoor measures to the EU in the forthcoming negotiations?
There is also the challenge of spatial squeeze at sea, which was picked up by many Members. Fishermen are being squeezed out of their own waters. Offshore wind takes their grounds, with compulsory marine protected areas taking yet more in a double displacement. The NFFO warns that the third round of marine conservation zones could, in effect, ban fishing in an area the size of Wales, limiting the scope of fishing in this country and once again damaging the livelihoods of our fishermen. On that point, will the Government review the compensatory marine protected areas for offshore wind? What are the Government doing to make the case for fishing to the Crown Estate?
That brings me to the fishing and coastal growth fund. The industry welcomed the fund, but let me be clear about its scale: £360 million over 12 years is around £30 million a year. However, the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations estimates that the EU access deal will cost the sector £6 billion. What side of the sector are this Government on? Energy upgrades funded through the fund will take months to deliver, and any fuel savings will be eclipsed by today’s diesel prices. When the EFRA Committee asked the Government to frontload the fund, Ministers said no. Without help, investment and skills are already leaving right now. There may therefore not be much of the sector left for the fund to support. With landings down 10% by weight in a single year, does the Minister seriously believe that £360 million spread over 12 years is enough? I put the question again: will he look to frontload the fund to support our sector now?
To conclude, the fishing industry’s asks are clear and reasonable: tailored fuel support and an SPS deal that protects our hard-won controls in our waters, rather than negotiating them away, as this Government have with the 12 years they signed away and are due to put in concrete, so to speak, at the EU summit on 20 November. Negotiations that concede nothing through the back door are an absolute request of the fishing sector, as are an end to double displacement and the first ever UK fishing strategy. Our fishermen feel forgotten. They deserve a Government who are truly on their side. Over the past two years, this Labour Government have shown a blatant disregard for fishermen’s way of life and for the importance of their work to UK food security. This debate is a chance for the Minister to show that he gets it and that he cares. I look forward to his response to the specific questions that have been asked.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Stephen Morgan)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing this debate on issues of which he, as my ministerial predecessor, has huge knowledge and expertise. Coming from a coastal community and living in a city that looks to the sea for its livelihood, I am proud to represent the hard-working coastal communities that contribute so much to our nation’s prosperity.
Since my appointment, I have met many representatives of the fishing and seafood industry, from whom I have learned a huge amount. In Newlyn, Weymouth, Grimsby, Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Selsey, I have seen their pride and skill and heard about their work to put our wonderful seafood on our plates. From them I heard loud and clear that fishing is so much more than just another industry. We are an island nation and fishing has shaped the rhythms, ways of life and character of our coastal communities for generations. Traditions, knowledge and skills have been handed down through families. The best tribute I can pay to fishing’s rich heritage is to do my best to secure its future.
While I talk of fishing’s rich heritage, I must, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge eloquently did, convey the deep gratitude and respect I have for all those who work or have worked as fishermen. That includes the many who have sadly lost their lives bringing back our harvest of seafood. My sympathies also go to the families of the crew of the Kilda, who were rightly mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton).
The fishing community contends with tough and dangerous working conditions. I commend all efforts by the industry to improve safety, including by working with Seafish and with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, among other organisations. Last week, I visited the RNLI lifeboat station in Selsey and met the Fishermen’s Mission to hear about their work to save lives and to support the welfare of fishermen. I was struck by the deep connections between the fishing industry and both those organisations. That includes volunteer lifeboat crew, who are drawn from the community and are often fishermen themselves. I place on record my gratitude to all those who devote themselves to improving safety and to saving lives at sea.
I know my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge has taken a leading role in the development of the APPG on fisheries action plan for a thriving and sustainable UK fishing industry. As I said at the action plan’s recent launch, I very much welcome its publication and I have heard its call for a stronger strategic view of the fishing and seafood sector. I will soon be meeting representatives of the APPG, including my hon. Friend, to discuss its recommendations in greater detail.
Any future work to develop a strategy would, of course, need to recognise devolution, the diversity of the sector and the strong frameworks that are already in place. I will also be considering our long-term vision for the fishing and seafood industry further with the sector. As I said at the launch event, many of the APPG’s objectives align very closely with my own. Like the APPG, I want to see a thriving fishing industry that delivers thriving coastal communities, good jobs and better job security. To achieve that, we need environmentally sustainable stocks, a modern fleet, infrastructure and supply chains and above all, a motivated, skilled workforce.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for his helpful and positive responses to the questions we have asked. I am sure he will come on to this, but I gently remind him that, in Northern Ireland and Scotland, one of the problems for many of us is the crews and the workforce, as we raised in submissions to the former Minister. Can the Minister give me some assurance in relation to that?
Stephen Morgan
I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue. I look forward to seeing him next week to discuss the issues facing colleagues in Northern Ireland, alongside the processing organisation. Perhaps we could pick up that conversation then.
Taking action to deliver for the fishing and seafood industry is a priority for this Government. It involves acting to deliver and consider a number of action plan recommendations. To highlight just a few, they include delivering multi-annual funding. We are already doing that through the fisheries and seafood scheme, which also supports training towards accredited qualifications. We are also considering how the action plan’s four pillars can help us to guide policy, recognising that fishing is a vital food-producing sector that aligns well with existing work in DEFRA to build national food security. We could consider how to address capacity gaps in inshore fisheries management as well.
I can also point to a number of other achievements, including significant progress on the fisheries management plans and the recovery of bluefin tuna and bass. The benefits that those successes bring are evident to coastal communities and demonstrate that good fisheries management works. We have allocated unused authorisations with a focus on supporting young and new fishermen entering the industry, and we have produced our UK seafood careers road map. Since we opened the fisheries and seafood scheme, we have received over 600 applications worth £25 million. Some of that is being specifically targeted at small-scale coastal fleets, and we have made funding available for new engines and gearboxes, which will help improve fuel efficiency. Meanwhile, the £1.5 million annual seafood export package is helping seafood businesses reach new markets.
As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald), said, our current focus is on this autumn’s negotiations for fishing opportunities for 2027, from which I will do my best to secure the best deal possible for UK fishermen. Many of those negotiations are challenging and full of trade-offs that need to be made.
Douglas Lumsden
In just 10 days’ time, the UK-EU summit is happening in Brussels. Can the Minister assure us that our fishing industry will not be sold down the river in those talks?
Stephen Morgan
I am coming on to the points that the hon. Member made, but my interest in the negotiations and the summit is to protect UK interests. That is the absolute priority of this Government.
I have spoken to the fishing industry to hear its priorities, and I have taken them into account when setting out our approach to the negotiations. From previous exchanges in the House and with Members, I am aware of concerns about the level of fishing in UK waters by Norwegian trawlers. That is reciprocal, and I know there are UK vessels that appreciate the arrangement’s flexibility. I heard about that when I met the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation in Fraserburgh in August, and stakeholders raised it again ahead of the negotiations with Norway. The negotiations began in October, and I will seek to get the best possible deal. There are also difficult discussions and decisions on balancing the long-term sustainability of northern shelf cod with providing for the needs of our coastal communities in 2027. Addressing that is a priority of mine in trilateral negotiations with the EU and Norway, and I have spoken about it with UK stakeholders in recent weeks. We will continue to engage closely with the fishing industry to identify the best ways forward.
Of course, to support healthy fish stocks, we must prioritise a healthy and productive marine environment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) rightly raised, and I am working to balance the decisions on that with ensuring that the fishing industry remains sustainable. That includes marine protection, and I am mindful of the commitment to put in place stage 3 byelaws before the end of this year. Those byelaws would be substantial and could close 13% of English waters to bottom trawling. I do not want to place any unnecessary restrictions on industry, so given the potential impacts for the fishing industry, it is important that we take time to get this right.
We are also working at pace to finalise arrangements for a new SPS deal, which will make it easier and cheaper to export seafood to the EU. More details on that will follow shortly, as part of the EU-UK summit later this month. Work is continuing to deliver funding. Currently, that is through the fisheries and seafood scheme, but we are also shaping, with the industry and others, the longer-term delivery of the fishing and coastal growth fund.
On cost pressures and similar issues raised by Members, I recognise the genuine hardship that high, volatile fuel prices are causing, as well as the concerns about competition from EU vessels that may have benefited from temporary fuel-related support. There is support via the existing tax system, and we have recently announced funding for new, more efficient engines and gearboxes. I am listening to fishing communities to understand the pressures that they face, and I am looking at all options.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) made a number of helpful points. I recognise that access to the UK’s six to 12 nautical mile zone is an important issue for the inshore fleet, particularly where there are concerns about pressure from larger vessels due to EU activity. I heard that message loud and clear during my time in Penzance and Newlyn. My hon. Friend is right to raise those concerns, and I assure him that I will continue to have those discussions. Any new management measures would need to respect the UK’s international obligations and be evidence-based. I am very happy to meet him on those points.
Stephen Morgan
I thank my hon. Friend for his work on these important matters. I can go one better: I am very happy to meet him to discuss the issues in further detail.
On labour and workforce challenges, Members will recognise that immigration policy is for the Home Office to comment on. However, I can assure them that my Department and I are in regular conversation with our Home Office counterparts about the concerns of industry, and I will continue to raise those matters across Government.
On engaging with the fishing and seafood industry, my officials and I already engage extensively through hugely varied forums. We have a strong framework of engagement, as I set out in July in the Government’s response to the EFRA Committee’s April report. We can always do more, so I look forward to continuing to improve how the Department engages with stakeholders, including the fishing and seafood industry. I am currently looking to build on the visits I have undertaken in my first few months in post, to listen more to what fishermen have to say. I have a date in the diary to visit Shetland, and I am considering a number of other invitations to ports around the country.
I have heard the calls for a stronger strategic view of the fishing and seafood sector, and I will consider the case for a national strategy. I welcome the APPG’s action plan and its recommendations, some of which are already being delivered. I will also consider its wider findings and recommendations. In the meantime, my focus is on delivery for the fishing and seafood industry. I want the industry to thrive and to turn delivery into thriving communities, good jobs, better food security and a healthier marine environment. As I said at the start, the best tribute I can pay to the sector’s rich heritage is to do my very best to secure its future. I thank all Members for their contributions, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge for securing the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the potential merits of a fishing and seafood sector strategy.
School Buildings: Rushcliffe
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the condition of school buildings in Rushcliffe constituency.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the Minister for hot-footing it down from the main Chamber in just five or 10 minutes— I congratulate him on that. I also apologise to him for securing today’s debate; we recently bumped into each other in a non-educational context, and he specifically thanked me for not mentioning a Rushcliffe school to him at that moment. I therefore suspect that he was neither surprised nor particularly pleased to see that I had secured a whole debate on the subject, but hopefully it also means that he is ahead of the game and in a position to give me some of the answers that I am looking for today.
There has been some genuine progress in education settings in Rushcliffe over the past two years, so I want to start by recognising that: more than £120 million of new education investment has either been spent or is now planned for this Parliament. That includes £3.8 million for Nottingham college—including the campus in Ruddington—to modernise facilities, and £1.2 million for the centre for sustainable construction technology to tackle regional skills shortages. More than £30 million of basic need funding has been used for a 450-place block at Rushcliffe Spencer academy in West Bridgford. Almost £40 million of works are under way at South Wolds academy in Keyworth to replace a single-storey classroom building with a new three-storey block.
Some £8 million has been spent on a state-of-the-art primary school in Sutton Bonington, and £1.2 million has been allocated for building upgrades at Willow Brook primary school in Keyworth. We have seen the completion of cladding, insulation, safety and lighting works at Keyworth primary and nursery school. Some £230,000 has been allocated for building upgrades at Willoughby primary school in Willoughby-on-the-Wolds, and £200,000 has been spent on energy infrastructure at Pierrepont Gamston primary school. A new heating system has been installed at Langar Church of England primary school to reduce running costs. And, of course, £35.8 million of Nottinghamshire county council’s special educational needs and disabilities deficit has been offset and absorbed by this Government.
Improvements are taking place in our schools across Rushcliffe, and I wholeheartedly welcome that level of investment, but my local schools are also facing some significant challenges. Today, I want to highlight six issues that I believe illustrate wider problems in the way we plan, fund and maintain our school estate.
First, St Peter’s C of E junior school in Ruddington unexpectedly became one of the flagship issues in my constituency last Christmas. St Peter’s was built in 1956 using the Derwent system. Last December, surveyors discovered severe structural deterioration, including decay in the timber columns supporting the floors and roof. On 9 December, the building was closed and around 360 children suddenly found themselves without a school building, just three weeks before Christmas.
The response from the community was extraordinary: staff, governors, parents, neighbouring schools and academy trusts pulled together to keep teaching going. A temporary learning village was subsequently constructed by Nottinghamshire county council, at considerable cost, and is now in use. I put on record my sincere thanks to everyone involved. I also thank the Minister for his personal intervention, which helped secure St Peter’s place on the school rebuilding programme earlier this year.
That was such a positive outcome for Ruddington. The challenge now is delivery. Understandably, residents want to know when St Peter’s children will have a permanent school again. The county council would like reassurances about the financial implications of the project, including the cost of the temporary village. St Peter’s itself needs clarity about the proposed design, especially for SEND provision. Its existing provision includes dedicated spaces for therapy, nurture, one-to-one support and targeted interventions. However, the initial plans for the replacement building appear to reduce that provision significantly. I welcome the Department’s recent indication that additional SEND space will be considered through the business case process.
I would welcome three reassurances from the Minister today. First, when can the community expect a clear timetable for the rebuild? Secondly, will the Department ensure that the new school retains the specialist places needed to deliver its existing SEND provision? Thirdly, will the Department work with Nottinghamshire county council to provide clarity about the costs and funding responsibilities, so that financial uncertainty does not delay progress? We have secured the right decision in principle for the parents, pupils and staff of St Peter’s. We now need to get the delivery right and move at pace.
Secondly, St Peter’s points to a much wider issue facing my home county of Nottinghamshire, which has an unusually high concentration of buildings built in the CLASP—consortium of local authorities special programme—and Derwent styles. The county council tells me that more than 750 of the approximately 3,500 CLASP buildings across the UK are in Nottinghamshire—more than one fifth of the national total. These buildings were constructed in the mid-to-late 20th century, using systems that offered quick and economical solutions to the demands of their time. Many are now well beyond their intended working lives. They present significant challenges involving structural deterioration, asbestos, accessibility, insulation, heating and maintenance. This is not only an education issue. I have also campaigned extensively about the condition of East Leake health centre, where the legacy of an ageing CLASP building has become a major obstacle to local healthcare provision. There is therefore a broader question about the concentration of ageing public infrastructure in Nottinghamshire, and whether national capital programmes sufficiently recognise that particular legacy.
When St Peter’s was condemned, Nottinghamshire county council wrote to the Department requesting emergency capital funding and a wider investment plan. Specifically, it wants all two-storey CLASP and Derwent school buildings included in the school rebuilding programme, and existing projects accelerated. I would welcome the Minister’s response to this request. I am concerned that without a specific approach, we could face a major problem in the coming years, like at St Peter’s, potentially comparable in scale to the crisis of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. We should not wait for buildings to fail before acting. Will the Department undertake a strategic assessment of the risks associated with these particular construction types, and work with Nottinghamshire to develop a properly prioritised programme of intervention?
Thirdly, I want to address the growing problem of temporary school accommodation effectively becoming permanent. Two particularly troubling examples in my constituency are Edwalton primary school and Lady Bay primary school. At Edwalton, approximately 120 children are taught in temporary modular classrooms that are more than 20 years old and more than five years beyond their intended lifespan. The headteacher has shown me evidence of a roof with a hole the size of a football, water dripping down walls and timber deteriorating. The school has already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds patching up the buildings over recent years, and they will soon need replacing entirely. That is a classic example of good money chasing bad.
I was grateful to meet the Minister about Edwalton. I warmly welcome the Government’s renewal and retrofit programme worth more than £700 million, which will increase the focus on life-expired temporary buildings. Edwalton’s overall condition rating often combines the permanent building with severely deteriorated temporary classrooms. The danger is obvious. The best buildings on a site could conceal the very worst. Will the Minister confirm that individual temporary buildings can be assessed separately, that local evidence will be considered, and that schools such as Edwalton will have a meaningful route to make their case? When in 2027 should schools expect the renewal and retrofit programme to open, and when are decisions and investment likely to be made? The five classrooms at Edwalton need patching up today, but the headteacher would understandably prefer to reserve funds for a genuinely long-term solution.
Lady Bay primary school has similar problems, with a double mobile classroom first installed in 2007 to accommodate extra children. Those classrooms are still being used today. The school has been waiting for investment to address both accommodation pressures and buildings reaching the end of their useful life. Yet the investment was postponed earlier this year by Nottinghamshire county council due to funding constraints. I raised that with the Department over the summer and was told that funding has been allocated to meet forecast demand for places across the wider planning area. However, as the Minister knows, that has been contested by Nottinghamshire county council, which has pointed to a wider gap between the cost of school places and the funding available. Parents and schools should not have to navigate competing explanations for delay from different public bodies. I would therefore welcome the Minister’s help today in establishing precisely where responsibility lies in ensuring that projects like the one at Lady Bay primary school do not remain in limbo indefinitely.
Fourthly, there is a related problem in Rushcliffe of schools expanding their pupil numbers without receiving the infrastructure investment that they were promised. Rushcliffe is a fantastic place to live and work, and our schools are understandably popular. That popularity creates pressure, particularly where schools have agreed to accommodate additional pupils. At West Bridgford school the published admission number is 222, but the school has been admitting approximately 270 pupils annually. The county council had planned building works to support a permanent increase to 270. Those works have now been postponed, despite the school having accommodated higher numbers for several years.
In another case in south Rushcliffe, East Leake academy has been pursuing an expansion of its dining facilities because the existing space is too small for its population. I welcome the more positive recent engagement with the county council, which has indicated that the project can progress following the end of the current private finance initiative contract in July 2027. But in both cases, investment did not happen when it was promised. These cases are causing genuine frustration among parents, pupils and teachers. Will the Minister explain what safeguards exist to ensure that the promised capacity-related investment is delivered? How does the Department hold local authorities to account on these commitments? Can the Department intervene when agreed projects are subsequently postponed?
Fifthly, I want to briefly raise the future of Ash Lea special school in Cotgrave. Ash Lea serves children with some of the most complex needs in my constituency and beyond. In line with what I described earlier about class buildings across Nottinghamshire, the condition of its building is poor, and the county council, school and academy trust agree that a replacement is needed. I believe an application for the school rebuilding programme was submitted earlier this year, but there are concerns that local government reorganisation could complicate decisions about potential investment and/or finding alternative sites.
I hope the Minister agrees that the future of a special school should not be held hostage to uncertainty about local authority boundaries. Can he confirm the status of Ash Lea’s application, say when a decision can be expected and set out how the Department is working with Nottinghamshire county council to secure a viable long-term solution? Children with complex needs, their families and their teachers deserve certainty, and I hope we can provide it soon.
Sixthly and finally, I want to raise the future of small rural primary schools. Nationally, birth rates have fallen to an all-time low, and many rural schools face the prospect of declining pupil numbers. For small schools, even relatively modest changes in admissions can have a disproportionate effect on staffing budgets and long-term viability. Normanton-on-Soar primary school illustrates that. I am never 100% sure which data to refer to, but I believe that the total school capacity is 83 and the expected number on roll for this year is only 59. Parents, understandably, have raised questions about subsequent staffing reductions, the availability of teaching assistant support and the implications for children with SEND. The parish council has also written to Equals Trust, emphasising the school’s importance to village identity, stability and community cohesion. Indeed, we must recognise that rural schools are not simply units of educational provision; they are vital community institutions.
As chair of the Labour Rural Research Group, I have been arguing for a more sophisticated approach to rural education funding, including proper recognition of sparsity, small school costs and the opportunities created by surplus space. Specific recommendations from the LRRG include, first, using surplus rural school capacity to boost SEND provision by starting new SEND expansion in these areas and, secondly, amending funding formulas for rural schools and rural SEND provision to reflect the impending crisis. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on these points. More fundamentally, what work is the Department undertaking to understand the cumulative impact of declining birth rates on small rural schools, and when can rural communities expect a clearer national strategy for the future of their schools?
I have raised six issues today, but they share a common theme. Whether it is a structurally failing building, a temporary classroom that has outlived its usefulness, a promised extension that has not materialised or a village school facing falling numbers, the underlying problem is uncertainty: uncertainty about funding, about responsibility, about priorities and about timescales.
I am grateful to the Minister for the leadership that he has already shown, particularly at St Peter’s. That experience shows me that rapid progress is possible when local concerns receive proper attention. I hope that today’s debate can secure the same clarity and the same momentum for the other schools that I have mentioned. As the Minister knows, children only get one chance at their education, so they—and we—cannot afford to have their education compromised by inadequate buildings or a lack of local or national willingness to address these long-standing problems. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on securing this debate and on his formidable advocacy for schools across his constituency.
As a former teacher who has spent years standing in front of young people in classrooms in Oldham and Stockport, I know at first hand that although the space around learning is not the entire story, it can make a difference to the whole learning process. Now, as a Minister in the Department for Education, I am proud that we have set out a 10-year plan to renew our schools and colleges so that children and staff have the high-quality classrooms that they deserve.
This Government are doing things differently to fix the failures of the past. Across Government, we are maintaining public investment at the highest sustained level in four decades, supported by an increase in capital spending over this Parliament of more than £120 billion on previous plans. We are increasing and prioritising investment where it is needed most, through maintenance, renewal and rebuilding programmes. For that reason, we are providing unprecedented long-term funding and have increased overall capital investment in education to about £38 billion through to 2029-30—the highest amount since 2010.
With over 22,000 schools and colleges in England, the education estate supports the outcomes, health and wellbeing of 10 million children and young people. The benefits are clear, but the challenges are real. For too long, schools have had to patch and mend buildings that have already deteriorated, instead of getting the rebuilds they need and arguably should have had a long time ago.
We are already turning the page on years of decline in the school estates. Our education estates strategy set out a 10-year plan to deliver a decade of renewal in the estate, backed by unprecedented long-term funding. We are investing almost £3 billion per year by 2034-35 in capital maintenance to improve the condition of the estate and are investing almost £20 billion through to 2034-35 in the school rebuilding programme. There are more than 500 schools already in the SRP, with over 80% in delivery already; 68 schools have been rebuilt, with 56 completed under this Government.
There are two schools in the programme in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Rushcliffe. The rebuild of Sutton Bonington primary school was completed last year. Earlier this year, I was delighted to confirm that St Peter’s junior school is joining the school rebuilding programme, following my hon. Friend’s representations about the conditions at the school; it was his leadership that made the difference in getting that school rebuild confirmed. The Department is working closely with Nottinghamshire county council to rebuild the school, with high-quality buildings for pupils and staff ensuring that the new space supports inclusion now and into the future. The delivery timeline is shaped by the feasibility and design work for the rebuild; this is being developed at the moment in discussions with Nottinghamshire county council and the school.
We will select a further 250 schools to join the school rebuilding programme by early 2027. Places will be prioritised for schools in the worst condition and in the local areas where places are needed now. Earlier this year, responsible bodies were asked to nominate schools using published guidance and criteria. I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s support for Ash Lea academy, which is nominated for the school rebuilding programme. The Department is carefully assessing all the nominations. There is not much more that I can say at this stage, given that it is an ongoing process.
I was grateful to meet my hon. Friend in September to discuss Edwalton primary school. Flying High Trust has a school condition allocation of £1.6 million for 2026-27 to decide how to invest in its schools, including Edwalton. Nottinghamshire county council also has a school condition allocation of almost £5.9 million for this financial year to invest across its maintained schools, including Lady Bay primary school. Those are the main ways in which we allocate resources in the system to ensure maintenance.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
Like Rushcliffe, my area has received some condition improvement funding for a few schools: Hayfield secondary, South Axholme secondary and two primary schools, Green Top and Auckley. I have visited nearly all the schools in my constituency. How can they make representations, through me and the Minister, to get some funding for their own improvements?
Josh MacAlister
I would be very happy to exchange letters or discussions with my hon. Friend to help to resolve any issues. We have a specific route for funding very small multi-academy or single-academy trust schools through the funding formula, where they are not in larger responsible body groups. That is why some schools get funding through the condition improvement fund and others get it through the wider allocation process.
In addition to maintenance funding and the school rebuilding programme, my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe mentioned that we have launched the renewal and retrofit programme. The programme is backed by more than £700 million to improve the condition of schools and colleges and increase their resilience to, among other things, the changing climate. It started this year in three regions: Yorkshire and the Humber, the east midlands and the south-east. The current phase is targeting the worst 50 schools—in the sense that their condition is the worst, not their performance; many of them are fantastic schools—with potential projects identified for 2026-27 based on the condition of individual temporary buildings.
The temporary buildings at Edwalton primary school have not been shortlisted for phase 1 based on the available condition data, but following my hon. Friend’s representations I have asked my officials to visit the school and see the building at first hand. From next year, the renewal and retrofit programme is being expanded to all regions in England. Detailed delivery plans, including how schools and colleges will be selected, will be confirmed in due course. I will be happy to keep my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) updated on that expansion.
High-quality school and college buildings are essential to delivering-world class education and creating the conditions for all children and young people to achieve and thrive. Children, families and communities are at the heart of the 10-year plan for a decade of renewal in our school and college buildings. This is about more than just buildings. It is about showing children that their education matters, that their futures matter and that the Government are determined to give them the best possible start in life.
Question put and agreed to.
Submarine Service 125th Anniversary
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the 125th anniversary of the submarine service.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.
Where were we on 12 April this year? It was a Sunday, so perhaps we were spending time with our families, out in the open air or at church. It was a long time ago—seven months. Remarkably, there are around 140 people aboard HMS Vengeance, one of our Vanguard-class SSBN nuclear missile submarines, who know exactly where they were on that date. They were leaving Faslane on the Clyde for who knows where and, incredibly, they are still out there somewhere, setting the record for the longest patrol ever undertaken by a Royal Navy submarine. They are the silent service: the men and, increasingly, women who wear the dolphins of the submarine branch of the Royal Navy. They are a breed apart, affectionately known as the “Fish Heads”, for it takes something special to live and be ready to fight in a tiny metal tube deep beneath the waves.
I have a particular admiration for them as, despite my father enjoying a long and illustrious career in the deep sea as a marine engineer, I get seasick in a bath. Lacking a keel, submarines—boats, as the Navy infuriatingly insists on calling them—are not the best on the surface in choppy waters, and I have gone green just watching them rolling like pigs, coming and going from Faslane on a blowy day in the Clyde. It came as a delight the day that I went aboard HMS Vengeance at HM Naval Base Clyde to find that the boat was out of the water and up on bricks, so to speak, for maintenance.
It is 125 years since the Navy operated HMS Holland 1, our first submarine, which was named for builder John Philip Holland and was laid down, as our submarines are today, in Barrow-in-Furness. So much has changed in that time. Our modern boats are nuclear-powered and, in the case of the Vanguard class that provides today’s continuous at-sea deterrent, nuclear-armed. It was the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated speaking softly while carrying a big stick. Truly, Trident is our big stick—a missile with a range in excess of 2,000 miles when nothing on the planet is more than 2,000 miles from the sea.
In many ways, however, little has changed. Submarine design is such that the ship’s complement must fit in around her essential machinery. There is little enough room for basics and none for luxury. When it comes to attack submarines, nothing has changed: 125 years ago, we had just one submarine, and how many do we have today? Well, just the one Astute class at sea: HMS Agamemnon. She is on the Clyde for sea trial, still months off being ready to patrol, while the remainder of the class is tied up alongside for reasons unknown. Perhaps the Minister, mindful as ever of national security, might be able to shed some light on why that is.
Talking of light, we must remember that the submariners’ world is a windowless, skyless one, where time and date mean little. The menu is on a strict daily rotation. That is the only means by which the sailors can tell what day it is. A roast means it is Sunday, curry means Wednesday, Friday is fish and Saturday is steak. Food is of huge importance not just for sustenance but for morale. Indeed, given that the boats make their own oxygen and fresh water, and have effectively a limitless nuclear fuel supply, food storage is the limit on patrol duration. That means that the boat’s freezers must be packed with exquisite care. Woe betide anyone who buries the entire supply of “snorkers”, or sausages, behind all the “babies’ heads”, as steak and kidney pudding is known—the shiny pastry is said to resemble a newborn’s pate. “Nutty”—chocolate and sweets in the parlance—is pivotal too, and it is said that aboard interminable Vanguard patrols it is all that keeps body and soul together.
Contact with the outside world is, unsurprisingly, limited, and only two people aboard—the commander and the navigator—will know where the boat actually is. Modern insulation design means that the old trick of holding a hand against the pressure hull—warm meant you were in the Med, cold in the Arctic—is now an old wives’ tale.
Let us think about that massive patrol for a second: months under fake light, breathing artificial air, drinking tea made with ersatz Millac milk and water distilled from seawater. In these days of a hyperconnected youth well used to the internet, submariners get a 120-word-maximum message via the Familygram system once a week: word comes in and nothing goes out, and family are warned not to send bad news. They deal with all that while sitting still somewhere in the depths of the ocean as the Russians listen out for them, and while being at readiness to fire. How long it takes to come to readiness is classified, but we know that a boat will be asked multiple times on patrol to come to readiness to unleash Armageddon.
We ask a great deal of our submariners now, and we have always done. We should take a moment to reflect on all those still on eternal patrol in the ocean’s depths, for submariner casualties are grim. In the second world war alone, we lost more than 3,160 submariners aboard 74 boats.
I will highlight just one: Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Wanklyn, one of our most successful submariners, who had strong connections with the exquisite Knockinaam Lodge hotel outside Portpatrick in my Dumfries and Galloway constituency. He and his crew aboard HMS Upholder sank 16 enemy vessels, taking 128,350 tonnes of enemy shipping to the bottom. Highly unusually, they sank three Italian submarines. But it was in action off Sicily in 1941 that he made his name. With its Asdic system—the world’s first working sonar—inoperable, Upholder slipped through heavy rings of Regia Marina defences to torpedo the transatlantic cruise liner Conte Rosso, which was ironically Clyde-built but used as an axis troop ship. It earned Wanklyn the Victoria Cross, our highest gallantry award. However, the following year, Upholder and its 30-year-old skipper went missing somewhere off Tripoli. The wreck has never been found; her fate is still shrouded in mystery.
My constituency defers to no one in terms of how many German U-boats we sank. Operation Deadlight in 1945 saw many of the 156 surrendered U-boats towed from Loch Ryan, off my home town of Stranraer, and scuttled or sunk in gunnery training in the North channel. We are also the final resting place of UB-85, a German submarine of the great war, sunk as it sat on the surface off Galloway in 1918. The captured skipper later said that he could not submerge because of damage inflicted by a strange sea creature that had attacked and was driven off only by small arms fire. Fact or fiction, it is a stark reminder that worse things do happen at sea, and that those who today willingly put themselves in harm’s way in the depths of the ocean are worthy of our gratitude and respect.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentioned HMS Vengeance. I am sure that, like all of us, he has seen the report in The Sun newspaper of two days ago that says that HMS Vengeance has now been at sea for 210 days, which marks the longest deterrent patrol in western naval history. Does he agree that that is a supremely impressive feat of naval achievement, in that those people have been at sea for so long to keep this nation safe?
John Cooper
My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. It is quite incredible—absolutely jaw-dropping—that those people are out there in incredibly difficult circumstances for so long, beyond what could reasonably be expected. Again, I hope that the Minister can touch on this: it seems that something has gone wrong. The length of patrols is increasing, and this one has reached a record level. It is remarkable.
I mentioned the sea creature, but today’s oceanic terrors are slightly different: ultra-quiet Russian submarines, autonomous uncrewed robot submersibles, and mines triggered by nothing more than the unique sound signature of our boats. Whether operating under the Arctic ice, in the shallow waters of the Med, east of Suez, in the old battlegrounds of the western approaches, in the bitter waters off the Kola peninsula or in the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, today’s submariners still play high-stakes cat and mouse with Crazy Ivan, a worthy opponent. Are we supporting them fully when the infamously aggressive all-or-nothing Perisher course for submarine commanders, run in the narrow waters of the Kilbrannan sound in Scotland, has ground to a standstill for a lack of Astute boats? A century and a quarter of silent service must not be torpedoed by defence spending cutbacks. The men and women who earned their dolphins fear no enemy bar the accountants of Whitehall.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank, in all sincerity, the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) for securing this really important debate. It is a pleasure and an honour to speak in it and to celebrate with everyone here the 125th anniversary of our submarine service.
I will let you into a secret, Sir Roger. When I was at school, we were tasked in our French lessons to say what we wanted to be when we were older. I remember exactly what I said but I cannot promise that the French is correct. I said: “Je voudrais être un capitaine de sous-marin.” I hope that there is nobody here who actually speaks French, because they will probably tell me that is completely incorrect. Then I looked more into what being the captain of a submarine would entail and I had second thoughts. I genuinely want to echo some of what was said earlier about the huge sacrifice and commitment that our submariners make to keep this country safe. I will add that I, too, get seasick.
Many hon. and right hon. Members will be asking what the Harlow connection is to our submarine service. I am honoured that the UK headquarters of Raytheon and its technology centre of excellence are in my constituency. Many hon. Members will be aware that Raytheon is involved in the development and production of both weapons systems and navigation systems for our submarine fleet. It is also responsible for the Barracuda mine-neutralisation system—and development of the software behind it—which helps to keep UK and allied waters safe. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all those who work in that vital area and keep us safe.
If you will allow me, Sir Roger, I also want to pay tribute to Harlow Sea Cadets. I was incredibly proud to see them alongside our Air Cadets and Army Cadets at our remembrance service on Sunday. They are a credit to our town, and I thank the volunteers who give up their time to ensure that that vital cadet service runs.
I wanted to find a story about a submarine from our past, because I think that telling stories about the brave endeavours of our submariners is important in a debate such as this. I looked through a few examples, and I came across that of HMS Triumph, which Members may be aware struck a mine on Boxing day in 1939. The explosion was so powerful that it temporarily blinded the men who were on the bridge of the submarine. The mine caused catastrophic damage: an 18-foot section of the submarine’s bow was blown off and a 12-foot split was opened in the hull.
HMS Triumph was in German-patrolled waters and was so badly damaged that it could no longer dive. It was leaking heavily, with its pumps working continuously to keep it afloat. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander John Wentworth McCoy, decided to bring the submarine home and embarked on a 300-mile journey back to the Firth of Forth in Scotland. On occasions, the submarine travelled at speeds as low as 2.5 knots, making it vulnerable to German attack throughout the journey.
As the submarine approached the Scottish coast, a German bomber spotted it and prepared to attack. Fortunately, before the bomber could strike, British fighter aircraft intervened and it was driven away. Thanks to the incredible leadership of Lieutenant Commander John Wentworth McCoy and his incredibly brave crew, HMS Triumph made it safely back to port despite being close to breaking apart. I think we can recognise the heroic nature of that crew, who faced several additional dangers: a crumpled bulkhead, a damaged torpedo, and steering gear that was severely damaged and barely functioning.
Of course, we are talking about the 125 years of our submarine service, and there will be many stories of incredible bravery and commitment, but I wanted to take the opportunity today to share just one of them. I put on record my thanks to all our submariners, past and present, for everything they do to keep our country safe.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It was an inspired idea of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) to mark the 125th anniversary of the founding of the submarine service today, the eve of the anniversary of Armistice Day. In preparation I spent time happily reminiscing about my schooldays in the 1960s, when I devoured a large range of books about the history of the Royal Navy in general and of submarines in particular. In those days there were still people alive who had participated in the battles of the first and the second world wars, and many of them were writing books. I will begin with a quotation from one of those books:
“When submarines first became units of the fighting fleets of the world in the early years of the twentieth century, they were unimpressive, unseaworthy craft equipped with an unreliable, low performance weapon. Those who manned them were, like the early aviators, looked on as harmless cranks. When the First World War broke out, they had not entirely lived down this reputation. Sea-power was still believed by the orthodox sailor to lie with the squadrons of stately battleships.
But before that war was over Britain, at that time the world’s greatest naval power, had been brought to within sight of total defeat by the submarine in the hands of her enemies. At the same time British submarines, with fewer opportunities to show their potentialities, had dominated the Baltic Sea and held German sea-power at bay on behalf of Britain’s Russian ally.
Submariners had thus joined the front rank of fighting seamen, though they still formed a group apart. In doing so they had revolutionized naval warfare.”
The author of that preface to his book “Fighting Under the Sea” was Captain Donald Macintyre DSO and two bars, DSC. Together with Captain Johnnie Walker, he was one of the two most successful U-boat hunters of the second world war. In the 1960s, such people were writing up the lessons they had learned. It was a great opportunity for those of us studying such subjects to be in touch with them. Indeed, I have a letter from Captain Macintyre regretting the fact that I had been unable to obtain a copy of his first book “U-Boat Killer”, which describes his role in the battle of the Atlantic, and that he was unable to supply me with a copy because he himself had managed to pick up one only when the Boots library sold off stock. Today, with the computer revolution, a copy of “U-Boat Killer” can be obtained with a few taps of the keyboard. I commend it to those who are interested in the story of the other side of the submarine equation.
The other matter to which I would like to draw attention in the limited time available is the question of submarine escape. Hazardous as the profession was, a great deal of inventiveness and ingenuity was put into the idea of how it might be possible to survive if something went terribly wrong. Captain W. O. Shelford was the Navy specialist in submarine escape during the second world war and the 1950s. He wrote a book called “Subsunk” that I also commend because it tells of the tragedies and the successes in trying to save life when something goes wrong.
Let us remember that something terrible did go wrong shortly before the second world war. In 1939 in Liverpool bay the submarine HMS Thetis, on its maiden voyage with 103 people onboard because many of the people from the builders were taking part in what was supposed to be the first of its sea trials, sank due to a concatenation of circumstances that are almost unbelievable until read in the account of the disaster given in “The Admiralty Regrets” by Jim Warren and James Benson. Both those people, like Captain Macintyre, knew that of which they spoke. One had been a human charioteer in the second world war; the other had served in midget submarines. In that case, 103 people were trapped in a submarine. They managed to raise its stern above the surface of the water, yet only four people were able to escape. Subsequently, the submarine was raised and recommissioned as HMS Thunderbolt. It had a distinguished wartime career until, sadly, it was lost with all hands in the Mediterranean.
On the credit side, in terms of looking at the price that had to be paid, were some of the achievements that the submarine service wrote into history. One of the most famous was the midget submarine attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in the Norwegian fjord, where it was hiding in 1943. On that occasion, three midget submarines penetrated and at least two of them managed to lay their charges beneath the hull of the battleship. When they were captured—some of the crew survived; some sadly did not—and taken aboard, they said nothing about the mighty explosion they knew was about to happen underneath them. That explosion disabled the battleship for a considerable length of time.
One has to remember that they were very young men, but some of them went on to have distinguished careers. Two of the midget submarine commanders, Godfrey Place and Donald Cameron, were awarded the Victoria Cross. The third, Lieutenant Henty-Creer, was sadly not awarded the VC because his submarine was destroyed and it is not known whether they successfully laid their charges and were on the way out, or whether they were still trying to get in to lay them. I always feel there is an unfairness that the crew of the X5 did not get the same recognition as the commanders of the X6 and X7, who were awarded VCs. As I think Churchill once said, every medal “casts a shadow”. Lieutenant Godfrey Place went on to become a rear-admiral in charge of reserves. I am not allowed to display accessories while making a speech, but if anyone wants to see it, I still have the autograph of Rear-Admiral Place, as he then was, from when he visited Swansea to meet the reserves back in the 1960s.
I hope hon. Members can see from my enthusiasm, if not the rather unstructured way in which I have made my remarks, that 60 years later, some of us are still inspired by the memory of what it was like to read about the extreme peril that very young men put themselves into—usually, if not always, as volunteers. So many of them did not live to tell the tale, but my goodness, what a glorious page in British naval history they wrote.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) for securing this debate celebrating an institute so deeply connected to my city of Portsmouth.
Portsmouth has a proud history with the Royal Navy submarine service. Just across the water, HMS Dolphin served as its home and headquarters from 1904 to 1999, training generations of submariners. I encourage all Members to visit the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, where they can see Holland 1, the Navy’s first submarine, and walk through HMS Alliance to experience the extraordinary conditions in which submariners served during the second world war. The real gem is the moving and brilliant 15 oral life histories from submariners and their families, including words from Victor Crosby, a Pompey submariner who survived the sinking of HMS Saracen off of Corsica in August 1943. Sadly, Victor was captured by the Italians, but he escaped during the chaos following Italy’s surrender. He was hiding out with an Italian family, hoping to reached allied lines, but was tragically betrayed and shot by German military police. His grave remained unnamed for 75 years until historians established his identity. It is a remarkable story of sacrifice and a Portsmouth family loss.
The submarine service is not simply a part of history; it remains vital to our security today. For 125 years, the men and women of the silent service have protected our nation, often unseen, unrecognised and unthanked. From disrupting enemy shipping in two world wars and gathering intelligence in the cold war to delivering our continuous at-sea deterrent today, submariners have played an extraordinary role in keeping Britain safe. Every day beneath the waves they undertake demanding and often dangerous missions, spending long periods away from their families and children—some of whom I have taught in my city of Portsmouth—while knowing that much of their service will never be publicly recognised.
We should also recognise the fantastic work of charities and organisations such as the Submarine Family and We Remember Submariners, alongside wider Navy charity networks such as Aggie Weston’s and the Naval Children’s Charity. They provide vital practical, emotional and financial support to serving and former submariners and their families, including those facing hardship, bereavement and mental health challenges. Our responsibility to submariners does not end when they leave the submarine or hang up their uniform; we must stand by them and their families throughout their lives. I look forward to Portsmouth’s Op Valour centre playing its part in continuing that support. We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.
The service’s contribution extends far beyond those at sea. Submarine construction and maintenance supports thousands of highly skilled jobs, sustains communities and protects vital sovereign industrial capabilities. I particularly welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to a new apprenticeship scheme for the Dreadnought programme. It is an important investment in Britain’s future skills and defence industry, but we should remember that Portsmouth was once a proud centre of submarine construction. A generation of skilled workers helped to build the fleet that protected our nation. That shipbuilding capability was lost, and Portsmouth’s historic role in naval shipbuilding was further diminished under the Conservative Government. For a city whose identity is so closely bound to the Royal Navy, that loss is still felt very deeply. As we invest in the next generation of submariners, I want to see Portsmouth’s naval heritage recognised and opportunities created for our city to play a greater role in Britain’s future defence industry.
Behind every submarine’s capability is people. We must ensure that this country looks after those who put their lives on the line to protect it. I welcome the Government’s over 14% pay raise for the armed forces, and I welcome investment in service accommodation and practical improvements to service life. However, there is more to do. The Minister will know that I have long campaigned for better paternity leave for our serving fathers. I want to see longer, better paid leave, alongside reform of how parental and compassionate leave are administered.
I have heard from service fathers that access to leave can vary considerably, with some reluctant to ask for support that they are entitled to because decisions rest with their commanding officer and they fear the consequences for their career. Operational requirements must of course come first, but I believe that an independent human resources body could help to make these decisions more consistently and fairly while protecting our operational effectiveness. I am pleased that the Minister for Veterans and People has agreed to meet me to discuss these issues, and I look forward to working with him to make progress.
As we mark 125 years of the Royal Navy submarine service, we should celebrate not just the vessels, the technology and the operations, but above all the people: the submariners, past and present, and the families who support them. The silent service may operate beneath the waves and away from public view, but its contribution to our country speaks volumes. For more than a century, submariners have served in the shadows so that the rest of us can live in safety and freedom. To every submariner, past and present, I offer my deepest gratitude, and to those currently out on deployment, I say, “Fair winds and following seas.”
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Mr Shannon, you have not a second more than five minutes.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) for setting the scene incredibly well, to mark a truly monumental milestone in our nation’s history: the 125th anniversary of the Royal Navy submarine service.
The silent service has been the invisible shield safeguarding the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. From the gruelling unsung deployments of the cold war right through to today’s continuous at-sea deterrent, our submariners have stood fast in the deep. They have operated in the most hostile, claustrophobic and demanding environments known to mankind. Winston Churchill said of them:
“Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariner.”
I want to use my time today to put on record the immense, proud and historic contribution that Northern Ireland has made to the 125-year legacy. Our province’s history is inextricably linked to the survival and success of the submarine fleet. During the battle of the Atlantic it was the port of Londonderry’s HMS Ferret that served as the UK’s most westerly naval base. It was from our waters that the horrendous fight against enemy U-boats was co-ordinated, keeping our nation’s vital supply lines alive. It was also on the shores of Lisahally in Northern Ireland in May 1945 that the mass surrender of the German U-boat fleet took place—a moment of triumph etched forever into our local history.
Furthermore, during the darkest days of the troubles, our maritime borders were kept safe by the brave deployments of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. We remember operations such as Op Granada where vessels such as HMS Cachalot—a traditional diesel-electric patrol submarine—carried out elite Special Boat Service kayak insertions along the rugged coast from Torr Head to Garron to intercept the IRA’s illegal arms smuggling and protect innocent lives on land.
Northern Ireland’s connection to the silent service is not just a relic of the past; it is an active and living relationship. Right now, Northern Ireland businesses and engineering firms are the ones providing the high-tech muscle and keeping our modern fleet moving. Just recently, Magherafelt-based construction firm Henry Brothers secured millions of pounds in infrastructure contracts at HMNB Clyde, delivering the critical facility upgrades to sustain the current Vanguard class and pave the way for next-generation Dreadnought nuclear deterrent submarines. Our local workers are literally building the secure facilities that allow our submariners to deploy. Let us also not forget the engineering heritage of Harland and Wolff, whose Belfast workforce has historically stood ready to repair and refit the vessels that keep our seas secure.
When a submarine slips under the waves, it disappears from public view, but it never disappears from our minds. The isolation and sacrifice of missing births, deaths and family milestones along with the heavy burden of absolute secrecy is a weight carried not just by the crew but also by the families waiting anxiously back home in Strangford and across the UK. As we mark 125 years, we remember the nearly 6,000 submariners who have gone on eternal patrol and never returned home. We owe them a debt that we can never fully repay.
What has never changed is the courage of the people. The courage, technical excellence and sheer grit of the British submariner remains exactly the same. Northern Ireland is very proud of its role in this history, proud of its industry supporting the fleet today and proud to stand with the silent service for the next 125 years.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) on securing this debate.
The first debate I led in Westminster Hall on 15 January 2025 was also on the UK submarine service. It is an important issue which we should always keep coming back to periodically—perhaps some of our colleagues from other parts of the United Kingdom will take turns next time round.
I want to talk about the naval base and dockyard at Rosyth in my constituency. Just last week I had a ten-minute rule Bill on submarine recycling—a programme which I will come back to later. Rosyth was a critical part of the submarine service during world war one, from where squadrons of submarines left for the battle of Jutland. In the second world war it was particularly a base for Polish submarines. If anyone has the time, including perhaps the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who is sitting opposite, to read up on the history of the Polish submarine Orzeł, they will find that it is a fantastic story about not only the boat itself while it was based at Rosyth, but the antics—shall we say—of some of the crew, which are famous around Fife. I am delighted that there is a memorial to the crew of the Orzeł and other Polish members of the community who served with the Royal Navy in world war two being constructed very close to Rosyth. It is a reminder that when the UK fights wars, we tend to fight them with our allies and that we will continue to do so in the future.
Rosyth is also a very key part of current submarine activity. We currently have missile tubes for Dreadnought-class submarines being constructed at Rosyth with fantastic hard work and high-end manufacturing being done there. Indeed, the manufacturing standards are so high that they are also building the same equipment for the US Columbia-class submarines. Anyone who has dealt with anything about defence will know that for the Americans to give up that level of investment in one of their key pieces of technology shows exactly how important that workforce is. Indeed, they are also building parts of the next Virginia-class submarines as well. Again, that is a testament to the fantastic workforce at Rosyth.
Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)
Just across the river from South East Cornwall is HMNB Devonport, which has been at the heart of our naval history for more than 300 years. As my hon. Friend makes clear, the interoperability and the support of the defence supply chain across the country, from Cornwall to Scotland, are crucial. Just yesterday, I had the absolute privilege of visiting the naval base and HMS Anson to see at first hand how the base and the incredible servicemen and women are on the frontline of our defence. We are talking about 300 years of history and a huge future for our Navy. Does he agree that the UK Government are demonstrating our commitment by investing more than £7 billion in Devonport’s facilities and that that will be a great opportunity for the servicemen and women I met yesterday going forward?
Graeme Downie
I agree entirely. I was about to move on to talk about submarine recycling, something that is of course shared between Devonport and Rosyth. I have never been on a submarine while it has been in service, as my hon. Friend has. However, I was privileged to go on to HMS Swiftsure, which is currently being recycled at Rosyth dockyard. More than 60% has already been completed—more than 90% of it will be recycled and reused in other submarines and for other defence uses, including in Dreadnought, guaranteeing jobs across the UK as a vital part of the submarine supply chain.
Something that I will repeat in this House over and over again is the need to take advantage of the highly skilled workforce we have at Rosyth, who are currently undertaking submarine recycling. Swiftsure having almost been finished, there are six further submarines currently sitting at Rosyth: Resolution, Churchill, Revenge, Renown, Repulse and HMS Dreadnought. It is quite something to think that we are about to have going into service a new HMS Dreadnought when the previous HMS Dreadnought is still sitting in Rosyth, waiting for something to be done to it. The skilled workforce there are ready to do that. If my hon. Friend the Minister is able to give me any update—I always ask for an update on the next stages of the submarine recycling programme— I would be very grateful, because there is a huge opportunity not only for UK submarines, but for that facility to become a centre of excellence for the world. This is something that has never been done before, but is now being done by the incredibly skilled team at Rosyth.
I will finish by echoing the words of colleagues from across the House and saying that we must always remember the critical and unique role that submariners play in our defence. That has been echoed by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway and others. They have spoken about the silent service and the pressures of not being in contact that both submariners and their families must endure. We should always be grateful not only to the submariners themselves, but to their families for allowing them to protect our country.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) for initiating this debate on the 125th anniversary of the submarine service.
The Liberal Democrats pay tribute to the courage and discipline of all those Royal Navy submariners who serve far beneath the waves. The UK has a proud maritime heritage, and for more than a century our subsea fleet has given our island home a critical strategic advantage. Royal Navy submarine crews operate undetected for months at a time, in cramped conditions, at a classified depth, hundreds of metres below sea level. At that depth, the water pressure is five times the fatal limit for a human being. Every person who serves in our armed forces deserves our respect, but we should acknowledge that this kind of service takes a special kind of bravery.
In the first few decades after 1901, early submarines were both experimental and dangerous. In my constituency of North Devon, a memorial in the coastal town of Ilfracombe bears the names of two local men: Leading Seaman George David Cook and Engine Room Artificer David Bennington. Sadly, both were killed in the sinking of HMS Affray in the channel in 1951. That was the last Royal Navy submarine to be lost at sea. They were just two of the brave souls who served somewhere most of us cannot imagine going.
Thankfully, modern submarines are much safer and more advanced, but looking back, we can see that the submarine service and the advent of the submarine era “torpedoed” all the accepted wisdom of naval strategy. At the time, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson famously condemned early submarines as
“underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English”.
He is often said to have described submariners as little better than pirates, even as the Royal Navy began exploring the technology’s true potential. It is just as well that we learnt quickly.
In the past 125 years, the UK has twice seen off the terrible danger of the U-boat threat, during two world wars, while our subsea fleet has become one of the most lethal capabilities of the Royal Navy, first with conventional and now with nuclear-powered submarines, providing everything from cruise missile launch to covert naval deployment of special forces and the UK’s round-the-clock nuclear deterrent. NATO now maintains the submarine rescue system—the NSRS—which is led by the UK, France and Norway.
However, despite all the advances of the last 125 years, we know that rescuing a stranded submarine crew is difficult, and that the duty that crews volunteer for is unique. Far beneath the waves, the submarine service developed its own culture and identity—its own slang and traditions. Having served in the armed forces myself, I know just how much comes back to personnel, grit and character. Faced with isolation, stressful deployments and patrols of six months or longer at sea, it is training and teamwork that sets a submarine crew apart. That would have been just as familiar to Drake or Nelson as it is to the Royal Navy today. Last November, the Defence Committee had the chance to visit Faslane to see the work and dedication of those personnel for ourselves.
Senior figures in the Navy have expressed concerns about the difficulty of recruiting and retraining personnel for this highly specialised service several times. Changing that means making it clear that we hold the submarine service in great admiration. The silent service are a breed apart. They are usually unseen, but their duties are immense, and on this anniversary, we pay tribute to their heroism.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) on securing this important debate on the 125th anniversary of the Royal Navy’s submarine service, and for introducing it so ably.
I declare two interests: first, my late father, Stoker First Class Reginald Francois, served in the Royal Navy during the second world war, although he was a minesweeper man, not a submariner; and secondly, I am, by virtue of my father’s service, a long-standing honorary member of the Rayleigh branch of the Royal Naval Association. Members of the Rayleigh RNA were out in force on Remembrance Sunday, led by their chairman Mike Sandbrook, who is a former submariner. I am wearing my RNA tie this evening.
Despite Admiral Wilson’s strictures, which we heard about from the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), the Royal Navy’s first operational submarine, the Holland 1, entered service in 1901. It was built in Barrow-in Furness, which is where BAE Systems builds our nuclear submarines today. The submarine service began the first world war with some 60 submarines. Those gave good service to the King, as evidenced by the fact that five of the 14 Victoria Crosses awarded to the Royal Navy during the great war went to submariners. The Royal Navy began world war two with a similar number of submarines, although by 1945, that number had more than trebled. RN submarines operated in the Atlantic and Pacific, but perhaps most famously in the Mediterranean—my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway has already mentioned the exploits of HMS Upholder.
During the cold war, the Royal Navy transitioned to primarily nuclear propulsion, and our first nuclear attack submarine, HMS Dreadnought, was commissioned in 1960. RN submarines played an important role in the Falklands war of 1982. That includes the HMS Conqueror famously torpedoing the Argentinian cruiser, the General Belgrano, and returning to port flying a Jolly Roger. Later classes of attack submarine—the Swiftsures and Trafalgars—continued the noble tradition of protecting the seas, as is now performed by the latest Astute class.
In 1968, the Royal Navy assumed the role of providing our nuclear deterrent from the Royal Air Force, and the Resolution class of ballistic missile submarines entered service. From then onwards, at least one Royal Navy nuclear deterrent submarine has always remained at sea, in the ocean depths, providing the ultimate guarantee of our national security. That mission, known as the continuous at-sea deterrent, or Op Relentless, has been successfully performed for more than 57 years. That is an amazing tribute to the professionalism and endurance of Royal Navy submariners.
The Royal Navy also has an extremely proud tradition of utilising its nuclear attack submarines to monitor potential adversaries, particularly the Russian navy as it seeks to operate in the High North and the north Atlantic. Nevertheless, as we have already heard, there are also concerns about the availability of our attack submarine fleet.
It is an oft-forgotten fact that Vladimir Putin’s father was a submariner and Putin has continued to invest heavily in his submarine fleet and increase the monitoring by Russian submarines of undersea cables around the British Isles that are absolutely fundamental to our commercial life.
In the light of that, it is deeply worrying that, for a period of several months earlier this year, not a single one of our attack submarines was at sea, as is well known to the Chinese and the Russians. Perhaps when the Minister responds to this debate, he can explain why that was the case and, even more importantly, what is being done to fix that situation. It is simply unacceptable that the Astutes, which cost £1.5 billion each, are tied up alongside for long periods when the Russians are roving at will in the north Atlantic. The wall of silence about the chronic unavailability of the Astute class cannot go on; I would like the Minister to address that issue when he responds.
In summary, the Royal Navy’s silent service, whose motto is “We Come Unseen”, has an extremely proud tradition of service to this nation. It takes a quite extraordinary individual to be prepared to serve at sea, often for months at a time, especially on deterrent patrols that take them away from friends and family, and without access to so much as a mobile phone. The nation rightly remains proud of those who wear dolphins and will no doubt continue to give valiant and resolute service to the people of these islands, just as successfully as they have done for the past 125 years.
The Minister for Veterans and People (Mr Calvin Bailey)
It is a pleasure, Sir Roger, to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in my role.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) on securing this debate and giving us this opportunity to recognise 125 years of the Royal Navy submarine service. This anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the service’s extraordinary history, to recognise generations of submariners and the families who supported them, and to remember those who gave their lives serving our country. The work of submariners often depends on remaining unseen, but today we can ensure that their contribution is properly recognised.
On 2 October 1901, the launch of Holland 1 marked the beginning of the Royal Navy’s submarine story, as we have already heard. During both world wars, submariners distinguished themselves in conditions that demanded exceptional courage, skill and endurance, engaging in everything from reconnaissance to disrupting enemy supply lines.
The introduction of nuclear propulsion brought another profound change. In 1963, HMS Dreadnought entered service as Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine. Six years later, the Resolution class of submarines began our continuous at-sea deterrent. Successive generations of submariners have maintained that deterrent without interruption. That unbroken mission depends on a crew at sea, on those preparing to take their place and on everyone ashore whose work makes each patrol possible.
Alongside providing deterrence, our submariners gather intelligence, hunt hostile submarines, protect maritime forces and offer the ability to strike targets at sea and on land. Their ability to operate undetected gives the UK options that few other capabilities can provide, and much of their work cannot be discussed publicly. Operational security rightly limits what we can say about individual deployments and the readiness or availability of particular submarines.
Mr Francois
Before the Minister chides me for discussing submarine movements in Parliament, I am not doing so; I am discussing the absence of submarine movements. So, either now or before he ends his speech, will he tell the House why not a single one of our nuclear attack class submarines—the Astute class—was at sea for months?
Mr Bailey
I thank the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford for setting himself up, because I will take great pleasure in explaining to him why we are in that position.
However, I will first explain that a central part of democracy is the ability to report responsibly on submarine operations. Crews cannot reply to speculation, and their families cannot be told where their loved ones are. Unfounded guesses about the activities of a boat, particularly a submarine on a deterrent patrol, leave a husband, a mother or a child at home worrying about when they will next see the brave sailors who crew our submarines. For that reason, I urge responsibility in discussions about these matters.
The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway asked me to shed light on why we are here. The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford has so passionately set himself up to hear why. It is quite clear that the cuts made in the 2010 strategic defence and security review did the damage that we are trying to recover from now. Let us be clear: it was the Opposition who deferred the replacement of Vanguard by four years, and it was the Opposition who slowed the Astute build.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. If the Minister wishes to give way, he will. He does not have to.
Mr Bailey
Thank you, Sir Roger. It was an 8% cut in real terms that did lasting damage, taking us from 2.6% of GDP down to 2.1%. This Government have taken us from 2.3% when we entered office to 2.7%, and we will go on towards 3% in 2030. We have had to put £26 billion into our bases to recover from the damage that the Opposition did—£15.1 billion in Clyde, including the purchase of three new floating docks and shoreside maintenance facilities to fix the underinvestment, and, as we have heard, an investment of £7.1 billion at Devonport.
I urge some humility at a moment when we are trying to talk about the submarine service. Scrutiny strengthens our armed forces, but careless disclosure and discussion—and using our service people as a political football—do not support our armed forces; they damage the people and families who are out there serving and putting their lives at risk for us.
Chris Vince
I want to make this point because I heard other hon. Members mention it, and I know my wife would not forgive me if I did not. We have spoken very passionately about submariners and the sacrifice that they make, but the Minister is absolutely right to identify the huge sacrifice that their families make, particularly in relation to the nuclear deterrent. Those families cannot know where their loved ones are—that is a huge sacrifice. Does he agree?
Mr Bailey
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, who spoke so passionately about the contribution of Raytheon, about and the wonderful Sea Cadets in his constituency and about HMS Triumph. He has just made the point that I was trying to make earlier: we need to be responsible in our reporting and discussions. We need discussions that challenge but are respectful of those who cannot respond when they are used as a political football.
I wear this tie of the submarine service today because, from 2017 to 2020, I worked in the Ministry of Defence alongside some incredible submariners. Every Monday, I had to go up to see some of the colleagues I now work opposite and explain to them why our systems and services were in such a mess. Every Monday, we had to explain the damage that had been done to the submarine service and to the Royal Air Force.
I welcome the comments from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who gave an excellent account of the U-boats. I have a reading list from him about the U-boat killers and the importance of the aircraft that support our submarines. Again, I point to the aircraft that were deleted in the 2010 SDSR. We should all remember the loss of the XV230, the Nimrod from 120 Squadron under the captainship of Flight Lieutenant Squires, which was lost 20 years ago this year, and the 14-person crew—12 RAF, one Royal Marine and one Parachute Regiment—who lost their lives. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for recognising the contribution of those airmen as part of the undersea mission. I also felt great pride during his discussion of “Subsunk”. I was held at readiness to deliver that mission.
I want to acknowledge those who support the service ashore: our engineers, dockyard workers, designers, civil servants and industrial partners who build and sustain the submarines on which it depends.
Graeme Downie
I thank the Minister for setting out how the Government are putting in place the infrastructure necessary for the future of the submarine service. On a very specific point, will he raise with his officials the need to upgrade the contingent docking facility at Rosyth? That would allow it to host HMS Dreadnought as part of ensuring the continuous at-sea deterrent for decades to come.
Mr Bailey
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion not only for our servicepeople and the submarine service, but for his constituency. In response to his question about Rosyth, HMS Swiftsure is a demonstrator of the necessary recycling capabilities. Again, I have to point to the fact that although an abundance of submarines and boats in my hon. Friend’s constituency require fixing, the party of the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford chose not to address that. I welcome my hon. Friend’s championing of that point; I was pleased to see his appointment to the Select Committee on Defence.
Jim Shannon
In my contribution, I referred to the critical role that Northern Ireland played during the second world war. I also paid tribute to what the submariners and the Royal Marines did in the conflict in Northern Ireland by stopping illegal weapons coming from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland. Does the Minister agree—I know he will—that we are not often told about that critical role for our security?
Mr Bailey
I agree with the hon. Member about the centrality of Northern Ireland, which I think is symbolically represented in the capturing of the German U-boat fleet during the second world war. That is why, very early on in my role, I made two visits to Northern Ireland to recognise its contribution to our services and defence industry.
This anniversary is also a moment for us to remember and honour—we are on the eve of Armistice Day, so this is particularly fitting—those submariners who did not return and the families whose lives were changed forever by their loss. We remember the nearly 6,000 submariners and 150-plus submarines that never returned. Behind those figures are lives, friendships and families. They must never become simply numbers on a page or used as political footballs. The submarine community speaks of them as being on eternal patrol—an expression of remembrance and of a bond that does not end with death.
Doing justice to that history also means looking ahead. The Dreadnought programme will provide the next generation of CASD. Advanced attack submarines from AUKUS will carry forward the service’s tradition of technological innovation. But our gratitude must be more than that.
I will stray from my script. As I was sitting next to two incredible submarine captains in the Ministry of Defence, they encouraged me to wear the tie of their service today. I will never walk past the dolphins— I understand their importance. I hope that everything I do is reflective of their service.
John Cooper
I will be as brief as I can. As a former journalist, I have to say that it is right that we scrutinise the military; it is not a political football. We have not really heard what is wrong with Astute-class submarines. To paraphrase Admiral Beatty at the battle of Jutland, something appears to be wrong with our bloody ships.
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. It has been a tremendous opportunity to pay tribute to the stoicism and bravery of submariners throughout the ages, which has sadly and too often been tinged with tragedy, as we have heard. We can all go home tonight and sleep safely in our beds knowing that they are out there somewhere, watching over us.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the 125th anniversary of the submarine service.
Written Corrections
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Ministerial Corrections
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Women and Equalities
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Satvir Kaur
We want to ensure that all employers are supporting their employees’ health and wellbeing, because that will benefit the employees and their organisation. That is why the Government are getting large employers to publish action plans, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate mentioned, setting out how they will make meaningful changes to tackle the barriers women face throughout their working lives, including the steps being taken to improve support for menopause and endometriosis and to address the gender pay gap.
[Official Report, 3 November 2026; Vol. 792, c. 385WH.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Southampton Test (Satvir Kaur):
Satvir Kaur
We want to ensure that all employers are supporting their employees’ health and wellbeing, because that will benefit the employees and their organisation. That is why the Government are getting large employers to publish action plans, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate mentioned, setting out how they will make meaningful changes to tackle the barriers women face throughout their working lives, including the steps being taken to improve support for menopause and to address the gender pay gap.
Work and Pensions
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Mark Pritchard
The Secretary of State talks about jobs hubs. May I gently say to him that the best jobs hub of all is a business that is expanding and that the best youth hub of all is a business taking on apprentices? He mentions a wide range of schemes to try to get young people back into work. In The Wrekin, youth unemployment has risen by 27.8% in the last 12 months alone. A lot of the schemes are in urban areas. What is he going to do for my young constituents who live in rural and semi-rural counties such as Shropshire?
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise the importance of jobs. That is why he will be pleased to know that there are 243,000 more people in work than at this time last year. He will also be pleased to know that the employment rate in the UK is higher today than in all but one of the 14 years when his party was in power.
[Official Report, 12 October 2026; Vol. 791, c. 11.]
Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Pat McFadden):
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise the importance of jobs. That is why he will be pleased to know that there are 243,000 more people in work than at this time last year. He will also be pleased to know that the employment rate in the UK is today higher than, or as high as, it was in all but two of the 14 years when his party was in power.
Helen Whately
… Young people tell me they want real jobs. That is why we will halve national insurance for 21 to 24-year-olds, so it is cheaper for businesses to hire them. Under the Conservatives, there will be thousands more jobs for young people. Will the Secretary of State get the Chancellor to use his Budget to do the same?
Pat McFadden
…The employment rate in the UK today is higher than in every year but one of the Conservatives’ 14 years in power.
[Official Report, 12 October 2026; Vol. 791, c. 11.]
Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions:
Pat McFadden
… The employment rate in the UK today is higher than, or as high as, it was in every year but two of the Conservatives’ 14 years in power.
Written Statements
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Notification of Contingent Liability
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (John Healey)
The independent Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England decided at its meeting ending on 3 February 2022 to reduce the stocks of UK Government bonds and sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bonds held in the asset purchase facility by ceasing to reinvest maturing securities. The Bank ceased reinvestment of assets in this portfolio in February 2022 and commenced sales of corporate bonds on 28 September 2022, and sales of gilts acquired for monetary policy purposes on 1 November 2022. The sales of corporate bonds ceased on 6 June 2023, with a small number of outstanding corporate bonds reaching maturity on 5 April 2024. Therefore, the APF is now comprised solely of gilts. On 17 September 2026 the MPC announced it will unwind the APF through an annual sales pace of £20 billion in purchase proceeds terms until gilts held for monetary policy purposes are fully unwound by the end of 2034. Taking the maturity profile into account, this is equivalent to an average annual stock reduction of £46 billion. In addition, £120 billion of the longest dated gilts in purchase proceeds terms will be held to maturity by the Bank for the purposes of indirectly backing current and future banknote issuance.
The Chancellor at the time agreed a joint approach with the Governor of the Bank of England in an exchange of letters on 3 February 2022 to reduce the maximum authorised size of the APF for asset purchases every six months, as the size of APF holdings reduces.
Since 5 May 2026 when the maximum authorised size of the APF was last reduced, the total stock of assets held by the APF has fallen further from £524.9 billion to £482.4 billion. In line with the approach agreed with the Governor, the authorised maximum total size of the APF has therefore been reduced to £482.4 billion, comprising entirely of gilts, of which £362.4 billion is authorised to be held for monetary policy purposes and £120 billion is authorised to be held for the purposes of indirectly backing current future banknote issuance.
The risk control framework previously agreed with the Bank will remain in place, and HM Treasury will continue to monitor risks to public funds from the APF through regular risk oversight meetings and enhanced information sharing with the Bank.
There will continue to be an opportunity for HM Treasury to provide views to the MPC on the design of the schemes within the APF, as they affect the Government’s broader economic objectives and may pose risks to the Exchequer.
The Government will continue to indemnify the Bank, the APF and its directors from any losses arising out of, or in connection with, the facility. Provision for any payment due under the liability will continue to be sought through the normal supply procedure.
A full departmental minute has been laid before Parliament providing more detail on this contingent liability.
[HCWS462]
Single Living Accommodation: Independent Review
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The Minister for Veterans and People (Mr Calvin Bailey)
The Government recognise that for too long, military accommodation has fallen short of the standards our service people expect and deserve. This Government are committed to making this right, and last year, we published the Defence housing strategy to deliver a generational renewal to fix family housing.
We also recognised the need to fundamentally reform accommodation for single and unaccompanied personnel. That is why, in January, the Government commissioned an independent review into single living accommodation, led by Natalie Elphicke Ross OBE. I am pleased to announce that, today, Natalie has published the SLA review report. The Government welcome the review and its recommendations.
The Government will consider all 19 recommendations in more detail before setting out a full response in the coming months. Given the scale of change being proposed, it is essential that we take the time to get this right and put in place the foundations needed to deliver meaningful change for our people.
This is a substantial piece of work that has examined the full spectrum of SLA provision, from how it is managed and maintained to how it is funded and delivered. The review highlights the vital role that military accommodation plays in the lived experience of our armed forces personnel, and the contribution it makes to recruitment, retention, wellbeing and operational effectiveness. It also identifies the systemic issues that have contributed to poor living standards, including shortcomings in the Department’s governance and oversight of accommodation. I am extremely grateful to Natalie, the review team, and the many service personnel and stakeholders who contributed their time, expertise and lived experience to this important work.
The report makes 19 recommendations, including to establish a new decent SLA standard; strengthen maintenance through a more preventative and proactive approach; improve personal safety, privacy and digital connectivity; modernise communal facilities; enhance the quality of accommodation data; and strengthen the accountability and oversight of accommodation reform across Defence. Taken together, these recommendations propose a fundamental reset of the Department’s approach to managing and delivering single living accommodation.
We are already taking steps to drive this work forward. Air Marshal Sir Paul Lloyd, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, has agreed to oversee this important work and will be supported by teams from across Defence. One of their immediate priorities will be to assess the changes we can make to deliver a standard that better meets the needs of our people in single living accommodation.
I would like to reiterate my thanks to the review team for producing such a thorough report. We are determined to do right by our people and look forward to presenting our full response to Parliament in due course.
[HCWS458]
Flood Action Week: Correction to Written Statement HCWS370/HLWS378
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
On 13 October 2026 I made a written statement at the start of Flood Action Week. There were small errors in the section of the statement related to the targets for the flood and coastal erosion risk management investment programme.
The statement said:
Through this investment, we expect to:
better protect 200,000 properties;
increase the proportion of flood risk management assets at or above their required condition to 93.5%;
generate more than £27 billion of avoided economic damage, delivering almost £7 of benefit for every £1 invested;
create or enhance 2,500 hectares of habitat and improve 750 kilometres of river.
It should have said:
Through this investment, we expect to:
benefit 200,000 properties;
increase the proportion of flood risk management assets at or above their required condition to 93.5%;
generate more than £27 billion of avoided economic damage, delivering almost £7 of benefit for every £1 invested;
create or enhance 2,400 hectares of habitat and improve 750 kilometres of river.
[HCWS457]
Bovine TB Control Strategy for England: Government Response
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dame Angela Eagle)
I wish to update the House regarding the Government’s response to the co-designed bovine TB control strategy for England, which was published on 5 November 2026.
For too many farmers and their families, bovine TB has brought uncertainty, stress and financial hardship. I have enormous admiration for the resilience shown by those affected.
This Government believe that no farming family should have to accept this disease as an unavoidable fact of life and livelihood. This marks an important step towards making that vision a reality.
The co-designed strategy published in June this year sets out a long-term vision for England to achieve officially bovine TB-free status by 2038, and the actions needed to get there. Since its publication, officials have been considering its recommendations in detail. Taken together, these recommendations respond directly to the challenge set by Professor Sir Charles Godfray and his expert review panel to bring a step change in the urgency and focus of efforts to tackle bovine TB.
Realising this vision is about much more than reducing disease. It is about giving farmers greater confidence to invest, innovate and plan for the future.
Therefore, we have formally adopted the co-designed strategy in full and are endorsing its overall direction of travel as our long-term plan to tackle bovine TB in England.
Work is already under way to deliver several of the strategy’s recommendations.
This includes:
continued development of a deployable cattle vaccine and the companion “DIVA” skin test to detect infected amongst vaccinated animals. The final phase of DIVA field trials is complete, and a contract has been awarded to manufacture DIVA test reagents to good manufacturing practice standards. We will continue to progress these necessary steps to achieve domestic licensing requirements and international recognition. This progress is underpinned by the strategy’s ambition to deploy cattle vaccination by 2030;
a pilot to explore the use of privately funded ancillary TB blood testing to identify infection earlier and support risk-based disease management;
expansion of Government-funded mandatory interferon-gamma blood testing, helping to detect infection sooner, reduce breakdown duration and minimise consequential costs for farmers;
roll-out of badger vaccination in priority areas through the newly contracted badger vaccination field force, with three new vaccination areas already established and more to follow in 2027 and 2028; and
the introduction later this month of a new Government-funded scheme to collect and test found-dead badgers.
In our published response, we set out how we would welcome the co-design steering group using its first delivery plan to explore how compensation paid for the compulsory slaughter of cattle could better support shared responsibility and effective disease-risk reduction while maintaining confidence in the system.
Affected farmers already face significant financial and emotional impacts beyond those covered by compensation. At the same time, compensation represents a significant cost to taxpayers. We owe it to all to consider whether these arrangements remain appropriate, affordable and sustainable.
The co-designed strategy is built on a clear principle: lasting solutions are most effective when they are developed with those most directly affected.
That principle must remain at the heart of the next phase of bovine TB control.
That is why we will also take forward the recommendation to establish a new joint industry-Government board to replace the existing Bovine TB Partnership for England, launching a public appointments process for board members before Christmas, and establishing the board at the earliest opportunity in 2027.
We know that bovine TB will not wait for these new arrangements, so to maintain momentum, we have asked the existing co-design steering group to continue its work and develop the first delivery plan. That plan, to be published in late spring 2027, will be considered and endorsed by the new industry-Government board and set out the priority actions for delivery, including which recommendations will be taken forward first, how, and by whom they will be delivered.
The publication of the co-designed strategy in June was an important milestone. By formally adopting it as the Government’s official strategy, we carry through the momentum created by all those who contributed their time, expertise and experience to this work.
[HCWS456]
Regional Water Councils
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
I welcome the opportunity to update the House on a critical step in the Government’s reform of England’s water system, one that demonstrates our commitment to strengthen local leadership, empower communities and ensure that essential services are accountable to the people and places they serve.
The Prime Minister has set a clear vision: a future where the services on which people depend every day are affordable, accountable and, crucially, shaped by strong local leadership. These reforms are part of this Government’s drive to move power out of Westminster and give communities greater control over the services and investment that shape their lives. My priority is ensuring that the water sector serves the public, not private interests, to ensure that the basic essentials of clean water and a healthy environment are protected for us all to enjoy.
Regional Water Councils
That is why the Secretary of State has asked strategic authority mayors—and council leaders where mayors are not yet in place—across England to work together to establish eight regional water councils, one in each river basin district.
These councils will bring together people with a stake in their local water system, including local leaders, businesses, environmental organisations, farmers, infrastructure providers, community and democratic representatives such as MPs and others. Together, they will identify the priorities, challenges and opportunities in their local water system and shape the planning processes currently under way in the water sector and more widely.
The valuable knowledge, relationships and local understanding of catchment partnerships across England will be critical to the success of regional water councils. They will help connect local and catchment-level expertise with wider regional conversations, ensuring that regional priorities are rooted in the realities of local communities and environments.
Strategic devolution
The House will recognise that many of the challenges identified do not operate at a national scale. Nor do they stop at local authority boundaries. Water resources, flood risk, environmental improvement and economic growth are often shared across whole river catchments and regions, but the specific challenges faced, and appropriate responses, are unique to local people and place. Involving local leaders from an early stage will ensure that local priorities are properly reflected within water planning.
Under the new model, mayors or council leaders will have a leading role in ensuring that outcomes reflect the unique context and interests of the region. A stronger regional approach, underpinned by local representation, will help organisations plan more effectively around common priorities, identify opportunities for collaboration and support investment that delivers benefits for communities, the economy and the environment. Ultimately, this new model will support a future where services are shaped to local needs and accountabilities lie with local leaders.
Early rollout
The strengthened Water Bill, which will be introduced next year, will set out further details on the future framework for regional water planning. However, major planning and investment decisions are already being developed. Waiting for legislation would mean missing an important opportunity for regions to contribute to decisions being made now. I believe it is imperative that regional perspectives inform those discussions and that local leaders are able to provide their input on the development of the new system from the outset.
Work will therefore begin immediately. The Environment Secretary wrote to mayors, MPs, council leaders and other regional stakeholders on 5 November, inviting proposals to establish eight regional water councils. Regions will be asked to work together with pace and ambition to bring partners around the table and help shape the next phase of reform.
Demonstrating their commitment to supporting this work from the outset, the Government will provide £1 million to the councils to support technical expertise, partnership co-ordination and engagement activity this year.
Conclusion
People across the country are crying out for a fresh approach to the way we manage our water system. They want cleaner rivers and coastlines. Businesses want confidence that future infrastructure can support growth and investment. Environmental organisations want a more joined-up approach to improving water quality and restoring nature. Local leaders want stronger mechanisms for bringing partners together around shared priorities.
The launch of regional water councils represents an important step towards achieving a water system that works for people, nature and the economy.
[HCWS460]
Ebola: Medical Evacuation from DRC of a British Citizen
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Yvette Cooper)
I wish to update the House on a British citizen who is receiving treatment for Ebola at the Royal Free hospital in London. The thoughts of the whole Government are with the patient, their family and colleagues at this difficult time.
The patient is a British national and medical doctor who was working at an Ebola treatment centre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when they contracted the disease. The individual’s employer arranged for their medical evacuation in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, and the Department of Health and Social Care and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office supported international and commercial partners to effect their safe transfer to the UK. The journey followed established infection prevention and control procedures, which also apply to everyone involved in the individual’s care.
The UK Health Security Agency, NHS England, the Royal Free hospital, the London ambulance service, other emergency services and local resilience partners worked together to ensure the patient’s onward journey to hospital, ensuring that this was undertaken in accordance with specialist HCID—high consequence infectious disease—infection prevention and control procedures.
The UK has robust and well-rehearsed systems for managing patients with diseases such as Ebola. These include dedicated treatment facilities and specialist clinical expertise through the HCID network. The patient was returned safely to the UK on 5 November and is receiving expert care at the Royal Free hospital, where strict infection prevention and control measures remain in place.
The UKHSA judges that the risk to the general public remains low. Ebola is not spread through the air in the way that flu or covid-19 can be. An infected person can only transmit the virus once symptoms have developed, and transmission requires direct contact with the bodily fluids of a symptomatic infected person, or with contaminated materials. The UK also has established surveillance and public health systems to identify and manage suspected cases, including specialist assessment, testing and contact tracing where required.
The ongoing outbreak in the DRC and surrounding areas is very serious. The Government continue to monitor the situation closely and to take appropriate steps to protect public health. The UK has advised against all travel to certain parts of the DRC. To safeguard those supporting healthcare and humanitarian efforts, UKHSA is operating the returning workers scheme to support and monitor people returning to the UK from affected areas. Information boards are in place at relevant UK ports of entry, providing information about the current outbreak and advising people who have returned from an affected area and feel unwell on how to seek help.
Internationally, the UK is using finance, technical expertise and diplomatic engagement to support locally led efforts and to strengthen health systems. The UK has allocated £78.7 million to support the country-led Ebola response in the DRC, to strengthen disease surveillance, support frontline health workers, improve infection prevention and control, expand access to treatment, strengthen community engagement and support safe burials. The UK is working in partnership with the WHO, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and humanitarian organisations to support the country-led Ebola response.
The UK is also supporting regional preparedness initiatives in countries including South Sudan, Zambia and Burundi, helping to build more resilient health systems and strengthen health security across the region. We are working with the WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to accelerate the development of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics to support the response to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone involved, including our partners in the DRC, who helped bring the patient home safely, and to the NHS staff who are now providing their care.
[HCWS464]
GP Winter Proactive Care Programme
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The Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety (Dame Diana Johnson)
On 9 November, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that £40 million of funding will be reinvested in general practice to help GPs proactively identify and support up to 300,000 vulnerable patients this winter. This ringfenced funding will help keep people well at home, prevent serious illness and reduce avoidable hospital admissions as we strengthen preparations for extra pressure on the NHS over winter.
Selected patients with conditions including heart disease, frailty or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will receive additional support from their GP tailored to their health needs, such as medication reviews, health checks and falls prevention support. This will help general practice play an even greater role in preparing the NHS for winter by keeping vulnerable patients well and helping prevent avoidable hospital admissions.
This programme comes alongside greater flexibility for practices to increase GP capacity as pressures rise. Since 1 October, practices can use GP reimbursement funding to bring in locum GPs, giving them greater freedom to respond to local demand and increase capacity during winter.
There are currently more than 2,800 additional GPs compared with July 2024, with more than 30,500 fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs working in general practice—the highest number in over a decade. Over 400 million appointments have been delivered over the past year, around 24 million more than in the equivalent period to July 2024. Almost half of patients now contact their GP digitally, helping make it easier to seek care throughout the day rather than facing the 8 am scramble.
We know this winter will present particular challenges for the NHS after the record levels of demand faced this summer. Preparations began in July, with a focus on strengthening urgent care and promoting vaccination.
Alongside the GP winter proactive care programme, we are investing £190 million announced at the Budget to help the NHS manage winter pressures and £140 million in new urgent care schemes. We are also working to boost flu vaccine uptake by expanding the number of pharmacies offering the vaccination and rolling out simpler digital booking tools.
There is more to do, but more GPs, more appointments and earlier support for vulnerable patients will help more people stay well at home while reducing avoidable pressure on the NHS this winter.
[HCWS463]
Railways Bill
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
My noble Friend the Minister of State for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) made the following ministerial statement on 9 November 2026.
I am pleased to inform the House that today the Government have laid an amendment to the Railways Bill to ensure that discounts for veterans and service personnel are protected in law. Veterans and service personnel currently benefit from railcards that provide one third off most rail fares, but until today have had no statutory protection for this discount. It is vital that those who give so much for our country have their service and sacrifice recognised, and that is exactly what we are doing by safeguarding these discounts in legislation.
Not only does this give reassurance to the armed forces community and their families that the provision of these discounts will continue, it also underlines our commitment to place passengers firmly back at heart of our railways through the establishment of Great British Railways (GBR).
This Government have been clear that for too long our railways have been run in the interests of profit not passengers. That is why we are setting up GBR to be a new organisation, with a new culture and mindset from the very beginning. GBR will place a relentless focus on the passenger experience by delivering the reliable, affordable and high-quality services that passengers want and deserve. No community will be left out of GBR’s railway—there are already statutory protections for discounts for young, elderly, and disabled people, and today we are ensuring that both those serving and those who have served our country are also prioritised for this protection.
By placing these discounts on a statutory footing, we are ensuring that future generations of veterans and service personnel can continue to access these benefits with confidence and certainty. It also builds on our recent expansion of free rail travel for a bereaved military family member attending Remembrance events, ensuring that travel costs are not a barrier to paying tribute to loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Taken together, these measures demonstrate our determination to recognise the contribution of the armed forces community through meaningful action. Ultimately, this amendment ensures that veterans and service personnel cannot be forgotten and that their service to this country will continue to be recognised across our railways for years to come.
[HCWS461]
Publishing Pay Information in Job Adverts
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The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)
I have announced the Government’s intention to introduce a new statutory requirement for employers to publish pay information in job advertisements when parliamentary time allows. In the absence of a job advert, the employer must give the candidate this information in writing before the job interview.
This announcement follows our consultation on equal pay and pay discrimination, which ran from 14 July to 27 October. Early findings show overwhelming backing, with 94% overall support and 93% of surveyed employers in favour. This measure builds on that momentum, turning existing good practice into standard practice nationwide.
Publishing pay information is a small change that removes an everyday frustration felt by jobseekers and is part of the Government’s broader plans to tackle pay discrimination and help get more young people into work. Far too often, jobseekers are forced to enter an already competitive recruitment market “salary blind”, expending time and effort on applications without knowing whether a role will cover essential living costs. Pay transparency ensures recruitment is fair from the outset. It provides women with a stronger footing to negotiate starting salaries fairly, reducing the likelihood of lowball offers and helping tackle the gender pay gap, while delivering practical benefits to employers by saving recruitment time, attracting better-suited candidates, and fostering healthier competition for talent.
This announcement sits alongside our equal pay commitments, including:
Make the right to equal pay effective for ethnic minority and disabled people;
establish an equal pay regulation and enforcement unit with the involvement of trade unions;
ensure that outsourcing of services can no longer be used by employers to avoid paying equal pay.
More detail on the wider package will be shared in due course.
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