Lords Chamber

Wednesday 2nd April 2025

(began 3 weeks, 2 days ago)

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None Portrait Oral questions: Streamlining eligibility for free school meals Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour)
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Second Oral Question. Paper.
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None Portrait Oral questions: Assessment of the government of Mauritius reopening negotiations on the Chagos Islands
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Third Oral Question.
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None Portrait Oral questions: Response to the guidelines recently issued by the Sentencing Council
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Lord Carlile of Ballyholme.
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Lord Timpson Portrait Lord Timpson, The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Labour)
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challenges, for example as to whether pregnant or postnatal are prescribed definitions and I thank prescribed definitions and I thank We believe that the guidelines represent a differential treatment before the law and that is why we oppose them. We asked the Sentencing Council to revise them, so that they Council to revise them, so that they did not. The Lord Chancellor has introduced legislation to reduce introduced legislation to reduce this issue. Councils guidelines were due to come into effect on 1 April, so it is right that we move quickly on this and have introduced legislation to address the matter at hand.

I'm grateful to the Sentencing Council for the constructive conversations they've had with the Lord Chancellor and they have paused at the enforced dates of the guideline until the legislation was introduced yesterday, takes effect. The independent sentencing review that David Gord is sharing is a much wider review of sentencing, that is due to report in the coming months. We look forward to considering the recommendations carefully, when they come out. And in terms of the women's Justice Board, which I proudly chair or spoken with several members about this and I'm grateful to them for sharing their views.

And to be clear, judges will continue to be able to request pretense and sentence reports on cases that they ordinarily would, for example those involving pregnant women, young people or domestic abuse.
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None Portrait Urgent Question Repeat: Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
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Question asked in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund.
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Lord Blunkett Portrait Lord Blunkett (Labour)
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contrary, "Not content". The contents have it. In that clause 25,

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and 30 5A, Lord Blunkett. I stand to move amendments and 35 a and (Consequential Amendments) on a and (Consequential Amendments) on the Order Paper, in my name. Before the Order Paper, in my name. Before I do so I would like to pay tribute to all of those who have been, those to all of those who have been, those organisations, those individuals complaining over a substantial period of time on this critical period of time on this critical issue, long before I became myself engaged with it.

I would like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes for his part and his commitment and dedication, one of the reasons that I signed his original amendment was to ensure that the question was brought to bear on the government. And the government have responded. I would also like to pay tribute to other members of the is who have signed his amendment and those who have campaigned over the passages, Baroness Pidgeon and the late Baroness Grandison who did an enormous amount on this issue -- Baroness Randerson.

A noble friend Baroness Hughes who brought the attention of the House, back in the She spoke, again it focused attention on this critical issue, as have the Select Committee, the transport select committee, in the House of Commons, just a few weeks ago. Could I start by thanking my noble friend, from the frontbench, who has been prepared to listen. And to respond. It is a tribute to him that he has worked digitally to ensure that we could make some progress -- diligently.

I'm appealing to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, with whom I've had considerable negotiations, to not allow us to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Because we are making, on the amendments I've made today, with the support of the government. Genuine and real progress. I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Holmes moved his original amendment. I can't not, because I signed it. Having signed it, wanting to ensure that the government were prepared to move. It is in that spirit that I am moving this Amendment two 35 A and is (Consequential Amendments), this afternoon.

I ought to make it clear that if Lord Holmes were to push his amendments to the vote they were carried, then my Amendment 39 a and 61 a would automatically fall, which are about the consultation arrangements and the immediate consequence on the Royal Assent of the bill. Which I think would be deeply regrettable. Because all of us are aligned in wanting to make genuine and rapid progress, in getting to grips with something that is not only dangerous for people with a range of disabilities, but particularly, I have to say, to those with little or no site.

Which is why I asked my noble friend from the frontbench to make it absolutely clear from the Dispatch Box that those organisations, with four and speaking in behalf of people who are blind or partially sighted, will be front and centre in terms of consultation. It actually affects a cyclist. My attention was drawn, just earlier this week, a cyclist who came across one of these floating bus stops, opposite the British library. With colour coding which was so bad, that although he doesn't have poor or no site, he did not see it and his bike was wrecked, fortunately he was not hurt.

My attention has been drawn again and again to the appalling example of what we're talking about. Just across Westminster Bridge. We need to understand that this is an issue for everyone and not just for those with sight or motor difficulties. And that we need to get it right. It is in that spirit that I'm moving this amendment this afternoon. Amendment two 35 A and I think this is absolutely crucial to the nature of what we do, in terms of voting, talks about how we approach in ensuring the safety of individuals, it talks about the right to travel, on local services, independently and in safety and in reasonable comfort.

On the face of the bill, the commitment to travel in safety requires complete change to these floating bus stops. Emphasis is being put, in a Lord Holmes amendments, on retrofitting, which I'm entirely in favour of. Although the timing of how this can be achieved and the practicalities that need to be put in place should be explored, which is why I would be prepared to compromise, because we need to make sure that we make progress, quickly and effectively, rather than we think we're going to make progress, only to find that there are alternative ways of completely scrapping the floating bus stops, in places where it is possible to ensure safety.

For all concerned. Some years ago, I did a project on the yellow school bus network, in the United States. Donald Trump has not yet decided to do away with it. It has a facility which stops traffic, once the bus itself has pulled in. I believe that a creative and imaginative technology could do that, in circumstances where it is extremely difficult to reconfigure the existing configuration, in relation to how we manage the bus or a light from the bus.

There are ideas. With a little bit of thought and innovation we can make work. In that spirit and I hope with the reassurances of my own frontbench, in terms of not only the nature of consultation, but the speed with which we will operate, in terms of giving the guidance and ensuring that the information is then collated and published and that authorities are therefore held to account. Not least in terms of what I describe, in a 35 A as, if this is passed being actually on the face of an act and therefore applicable and enforceable that we actually can make progress this afternoon.

Again I would like to thank everyone who

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I move this set of amendments, in my name. Amendment proposed, clause 25, page 24, line 37, at end insert the words as printed on the marshalled

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List. It may be useful to remember we

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It may be useful to remember we have a number of sight impaired visitors with this, in the gallery, so for their increased inclusive
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Lord Holmes of Richmond Portrait Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative)
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so for their increased inclusive experience perhaps, if it would be convenient for Lords to identify themselves when they speak. I am a Lord Holmes, conservative. As with all groups of an inclusive nature, everybody benefits. I'm sure there are a number of members that are going are, so that is Lord Holmes! It is a pleasure to follow my noble friend, Lord Blunkett, who has been and continues to be a role model for millions. Not just in the UK, but around the world.

A first class, Secretary of State and a man who has a transport in his bones, right back to the excellent bus subsidy scheme, he introduced when he was running Sheffield. My Lords, I would like to speak to amendment 36 and 38, in my name and could I also thank Baroness Jones of old Scone, Lord Blunkett and Baroness Grey-Thompson for cosigning these amendments. Baroness Grey-Thompson regrets not being with us in these discussions, but was very insistent that I made her support clear and she gave a lot of evidence to me of her personal experience around these floating bust ups.

Can I also thank all of the organisations that have been campaigning on this matter, since the very inception of these floating bus stops. Perhaps it would be to the convenience of your Lordships to give brief description of what floating bus stops. Essentially, you take the bus stop and you move it some way into the carriageway, distant from the pavement, with a cycle lane running behind it. Similarly there are bus stop bypasses, another design and in many ways it is the bus stop bypass title which perhaps gives us the greatest clue as to how these parts of our public road came into being.

For most of us, we are not bypassing the bus stop at all. We are simply being barred from being able to access the bus stop. That is what floating bus stops, bus stop bypasses are described. What are they in reality? Denying people, wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs. In reality, any of us who does not want to take our life in our hands, crossing a life cycle lane. So-called floating bus stops, dangerous, discriminatory, a disaster, for inclusive design.

Dangerous, by design. Discriminatory by design. Disastrous for inclusion, by design. Built to fail, bound to fail, why? Because they are an overly simplistic solution, to a relatively and I say relatively complex issue. They could have never solve the issues at hand, because they weren't predicated on inclusive by design. They ignored the concept of nothing about us, without us. And they say nothing about accessibility. To my amendments, 36 and 38. Or perhaps I should say, firstly, to what these amendments aren't.

They are not anti-cycling. I am pro cycling. Pro anti-cycling. I am pro cycling. Pro cycling, for all those who can. I'm a pro cycling, but I'm no more pro cycling than I am pro pedestrian, Probus passenger, pro-parent with pushchair, in short pro inclusion. And if we have a continuation of these so-called floating bus stops, we will have a continuation of a lack of public transport, in this country. We will have a transport, for some of the people, some of the time.

Much more concerning, we will have a transport for some of the have a transport for some of the My amendments are predicated on key principles that I think are the keys to finding inclusive, sustainable solutions to these issues. Firstly, that it should be possible for the bus to pull up for passengers to alight and egress from the curbside. And for curbside, read edge of the carriageway. On country roads where there are at the bus pulls up to the verge, so be it.

All that principle is saying is that the bus doesn't pull up mid carriageway leaving passengers stranded on an island with the carriageway on one side and a cycle lane on the other, and the safety of the pavement some way beyond that. So the bus to pull up for passengers to alight and egress to the curbside. Second, that no one should have to cross a life-cycle lane to access that bus service. -- A live cycle lane. Further onto the questions of what should happen to potential future floating bus stops sites, because we already have thousands of these laid out across the country, and clearly that needs to be addressed.

But with the government already accepting that there is an issue with these designs, surely it would make sense to have a prohibition on all new proposed and potential and pending so-called floating bus stops. Call it a prohibition, call it a pause, call it a moratorium, whichever you prefer, but it would seem sensible just to take that time to not have any more of these sites laid out before we've come to a conclusion as to how to make them inclusive, accessible and sustainable.

Also, a prohibition on any DfT funding going towards these floating bus stops in the current design. How can it be that taxpayers' money is used to layout infrastructure and overlay which is only accessible, only usable, to part of our communities? It's incredibly difficult to make an inclusive buildings inclusive. Things that were put up decades, centuries before anybody even considered the issues surrounding inclusion, that's difficult. But doable. What perhaps is even more frustrating is where you have sites and public realm such as bust -- bus stops which were for decades accessible, safe, inclusive and able to be used independently, then for want of a planning change, made inaccessible and excluding to such large swathes of our population.

Sir prohibition on new sites and a prohibition on any government funding going to fund such sites. To the question of retrofitting, it's clear that we have an issue with all the thousands of floating bus stop sites currently in existence. They have to be retrofit back to the situation they were before they were turned into floating bus stops, or indeed as Lord Blunkett pointed out, there are potential solutions that are worth exploring. It's desperately disappointing that we have got to this stage with no such exploration and no such interest in those solutions coming from this government, and indeed, previous governments, up to this point.

Prohibition, retrofit, and then to rewrite the LT and 1/20, the note which sets out the cycling infrastructure. And perhaps again we get the key is to why we found ourselves in the situation when we look at LT N LT N1/20, at the beginning of the note that sets out its key principles, the aims. There are around 809 principles of that document governing these pieces of a structure. That's the front page. Not one of those intervals talks about inclusion.

Not one. It's instructive as to how we find ourselves in this situation. My Lords, the government talk about growth. Quite. But how can the government enable economic growth, social inclusion and psychological well-being, when huge swathes of the population aren't even able to get to the shops, restaurant, cafe, the cinema, because they can't get aboard the bus? The government talk about getting more disabled people into work. Quite. But how will that work when we are not even able to board the bus to get to the interview? My Lords, I appreciate all of the discussions that I have had with my friend Lord Blunkett and his efforts in this pursuit.

I will be very interested to listen carefully to what the Minister has to say. Certainly, one of the most important amendments of Lord Blunkett 's 35, A, will stand irrespective of what happens with my amendments, as do the others which is all to the good if that is the case. But what I would say, my Lords, if we want to ensure inclusive by design, accessible by all, and public transport worthy of all, and public transport worthy of its name, its amendments 36, and 38, which enabled that.

That is what those amendments were all about and I prime much look forward to the Minister's response. -- I very much look forward.

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My Lords, I rise to support those two amendments, for the benefit of two amendments, for the benefit of those who cite impairments, my name those who cite impairments, my name is Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb. Green Party, yea. -- Those with
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Portrait Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party)
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Green Party, yea. -- Those with sight impairments. I have been working for decades on that issue of safety on arrows, I don't know if that predates Lord Blunkett's interest but it seems like a long time and a long slog. I've been working with amazing campaigners of all kinds. And I have to admit when I first started walking I was primarily concerned with cyclists because at the time we had a lot of cycling injuries and deaths and relatively few cyclists and I wanted to get more people cycling, get them off their buses, get them off, out of their cars, and make London cleaner, get the air cleaner with fewer cars.

That was my driver at the time. Obviously, as I continued working, preventing deaths and injuries of all kinds, of walkers, cyclists, drivers themselves, became paramount. And when floating bus stops were first mentioned, I thought, what a great idea. A fantastic idea. Getting cyclists away from the heavy vehicles and buses. This seems like a good idea. I was a huge fan. A huge fan. And I have now seen the light. I can tell you, I have examined, particularly the two over on the far side of Westminster Bridge and they are quite interesting because one of them is awful.

Absolutely dreadful. Have almost got mown down a cyclist myself there and I'm fully sighted and fully mobile. But on the other side, it just about works, most of the time and so I can see there is an option for actually making all the floating bus stops we have as actually viable. The one on the side is next to some -- St Thomas's Hospital and for all sorts of reasons is the better layout, and better visibility but also perhaps cyclists who are zooming up the bike lane perhaps realise there are people crossing into St Thomas's who may not be as mobile or as able and so perhaps they take greater care.

The layout is different as well. And so I can see the possibilities. But, and this is a really big but, we have to accept that many are flawed. And it needs a huge look at all of these bust ups to make sure that they are actually viable. -- All of these bus stops. I would say to the government that it is wonderful that noble Lord Lord Hendy has been able to bring these commandments in the name of the noble Lord Lord Blunkett because it is a step forward.

I also thank him for the 32nd chatty gave me in the corridor earlier today. It was very beneficial. But I for the 30 seconds chat. Having lived this for 30 years I really feel have to do something bold and dramatic. There are other ways to actually traffic calm. We can start taxing SUVs, these monstrous vehicles that are extremely dangerous, and they make people inside them feel incredibly say so the drive differently and they are difficult to part. -- Difficult to park.

We need better policing, good planning, that is absolutely paramount. And like the noble Lord Lord Holmes, I am a big fan of inclusion and as I get older I realise I'm more interested in inclusion than I was and I was younger. And you cannot justify limiting one group 's opportunities by giving another group more opportunities. And so I do hope that the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, Lord Holmes, will move this to a vote, and that we can actually show the government just

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how we care about the issue. I rise to support amendments 36

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I rise to support amendments 36 and 38 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. And friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. And its co-sponsors. And I thank them for their powerful speeches, and for for their powerful speeches, and for the benefit of our visitors, I should just explain that I am Lord should just explain that I am Lord Shinkwin and I have a disability. I apologise to your Lordship's House, apologise to your Lordship's House, it's the first time I have spoken on the bill.

I'm speaking on it for a the bill. I'm speaking on it for a particular personal reason. As a disabled person. And it's this that I have run the risk for a close -- a very close risk of being run over at a nearby zebra crossing three times in the last five days. Last Friday evening, this Monday and as recently as yesterday. All in perfect visibility. And all by people cycling at speed. In each case, the cyclist had seen me in my wheelchair
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Lord Shinkwin Portrait Lord Shinkwin (Conservative)
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as I started to cross and chose not to apply the brakes. One interrupted to apply the brakes. One interrupted a phone conversation to shout an apology outside Clarence House as she cycled past. Which is really good of her. In the other case, when good of her. In the other case, when I appeal to a cyclist, they politely I appeal to a cyclist, they politely on an e-bike to stop, look at me on an e-bike to stop, look at me with contempt.

The only thing that saved me and enabled me to be here today, is my site. It's my only form of protection. I can confidently say I would not survive. How much worse must it be for those people who do not have that protection, which we take for granted, if we do not have a visual impairment? And that's why amendments 36 and 38 are so important. And my Lords, although I speak for the first time today, I read very carefully the minister's response to my noble friend's amendments, at committee stage, and I would also make clear that I don't actually question the noble Lord the Minister's sincerity or commitment.

Both of which I welcome. My concern is that notwithstanding the noble Lord's Lord Blunkett's remarks, his department does not realise the clear and present danger that disabled people, including those with both mobility and visual impairments, are facing today. And I just want to put on record that I fear for my life. Because the chances of Mallorca person with visual impairments being killed by an irresponsible cyclist, just yards from your Lordship's House, are extremely high.

-- The chances of a disabled or one with visual impairments. And the impunity spawns a culture of anarchy. So I would just say to the Minister, in -- that the need is now, that is the reality of the situation. That is the reality of the situation that these amendments, 36 and 38, would actually enable your Lordship's House to address. It is an emergency. And I say again, I'm not sure the Department for Transport recognises that.

Indeed, it's indifference to the urgency of the situation, is as much a threat two disabled people as irresponsible cycling. And as my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond explains, the government's laudable goal of getting more disabled people into work, if disabled people cannot travel to work, safely, is actually My Lords, I close with this point, the noble Lord the Minister will know that for some people, some disabled people the Government is not exactly flavour of the month, right now.

I by accepting my noble friend amendments, 56 and 58, would represent a easy way for the government, as well as for disabled people. But if the noble Lord the Minister does not accept my noble friend amendments, I do hope, as the noble Lady, the Baroness, Jones of Moulsecoomb said, I do hope that my noble friend will test the opinion of the House.

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... I rise to support these amendments, I believe them to be reasonable, I believe them to be reasonable, I believe them to be responsible. For the people we have responsible. For the people we have been hearing about today. And in the same way that the noble Baroness James of Moulsecoomb has had an
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Lord Wigley Portrait Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru)
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parties to cover all the legislation, the issues contained in it have been very close to my heart for a long period of time. I thanked Lord Shinkwin for his contribution, he has brought a dimension to our understanding. The reason why I am intervening now and I haven't earlier, was a meeting that was held, within these premises, a week or two ago, when films were shown to us, of the disastrous results, where the situation of facing those trying to get on buses, or those indeed who are cycling, who have to cope with the layout at the stops, in certain areas.

They were really disturbing films, they frightened you, just looking at them. We have got to ensure that this sort of situation can't persist. Someone mentioned ago that these issues, had they been going on for 14 years, they have been going on for longer than 40 years. In 1981, I introduced my own disabled hearses bill, in the House of commons, which became the disabled Persons act. Part of that act was to deal with the safety of those visually impaired and pavements. The potholes, work being undertaken by local authorities, on the pavement etc..

And the question over the safety of disabled people, arose there. It was seen, even back then, in the context of the social definition, of handicap. The handicap is a relationship between a handicapped person and his or her environment. We may not be able to do something about disability, but we can do something about the environment. The responsibility for ensuring that disability does not become a handicap, rest in the hands of those who control the environment.

And this is a classical example of just that. I am very pleased that we have amendments, forward from the noble Lord blanket, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes and I only wish that all of these can be amalgamated into one. That may be a challenge for the government. I hope we can make progress this afternoon in that direction. If we can't and it is only those put forward by Lord Blunkett, that find the way forward, that I'm mentioning. The Government would give a commitment that they will keep this under review and under review, in terms of months, not years, to ensure that the arguments that have been put forward, so forcibly, by Lord Holmes forward, so forcibly, by Lord Holmes are not cast and we make progress on this issue, to make sure that those who have been suffering, in the way that they have, do not have to suffer in future.

suffer in future.

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I rise, from the crossbench. I rise to speak to 36, 38, 39 and 39 rise to speak to 36, 38, 39 and 39 capital A. I'm genuinely conflicted over these amendments. On the one hand I would like to see floating bus stops stopped immediately. On the other I believe that the government will be far more sympathetic to Baroness Pidgeon's and Lord blanket much more gradual and Lord blanket much more gradual approaches. I would be interested to hear what the Minister says. -- Lord hear what the Minister says.

-- Lord Blunkett's. I spoke the floating bus stops are undemocratic for that in fact they are dangerous for everyone. Those with limited site or
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Lord Hampton Portrait Lord Hampton (Crossbench)
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mobility, the bus stops are so dangerous it is at the fact that there are two separate pavements that make them look safe. Where is it is the crossing between the bicycle lane, pavement that is the bicycle lane, pavement that is the problem. No one is designed to look over their shoulder, that is usually where the problem comes one. E-bikes capped 20 miles an hour. I'm not capped 20 miles an hour. I'm not sure what the European... 16! My noble friend has just pointed out.

I'm not sure whether European and Commonwealth speed record for biking a corporate lawyer in Lycra is, I'm sure it is well over 40 miles an hour. You have a bus passengers trying to catch a bus. It might be night, or raining, you are expecting them to cross a cycle path without incident. As Lord Holmes suggests, there is a solution. I catch a bus from London Bridge daily. There is a cycle lane across London Bridge, which ends, to allow buses to pull into the pavement, to pick up passengers and drop them off, from the pavement.

Cyclists know to go around the bus, bus drivers know how to pull in gently, passengers do not have to cross traffic, or a cycle lane. I have seen no incidents, or near misses, in my nearly 3 years of travel from there. Floating bus stops are a laudable attempt to make life cycle is safer. But in fact they put everyone in danger. They are a huge mistake and legislation to remove them must be in the bill.

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I rise and speak as a cyclist,

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I rise and speak as a cyclist, one of the first speakers. I cycle regularly to your Lordships' House regularly to your Lordships' House and many other places. The floating bus stops, that other noble Lords bus stops, that other noble Lords have described, especially around here, I have to agree, some of them
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Lord Berkeley Portrait Lord Berkeley (Labour)
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here, I have to agree, some of them are awful, some of them are quite good. The problem is that the danger for cyclists going around the back of a floating bus stop has to be measured against the danger of overtaking a bus that is trying to pull in in front of you and you don't know how many other cars, or buses, or whatever ago to overtake you on the outside. I haven't gotten D figures as to how many people are killed or injured by overtaking buses, as they pulled into bus stops.

It is significant. I think we need to look at this, in a balanced way, rather than just saying get rid of floating bus stops, by all accounts. The design aside, some of them, on Westminster Bridge, are awful. It doesn't help that the cycle is actually can't go in at the cycle lanes, because there are too many tourists there. We are talking about too many people wanting to use it too much road space. It doesn't always work. Coming back the other way, as I think the noble Baroness Jones mentioned, by St Thomas's is much easier.

I'm afraid, for me, it is not very different crossing from a pavement to a floating bus stop, then hopefully a ramp, as opposed to a step. In terms of crossing any other road, on a cycle lane, I'm finding that the cyclists are not stopping, not obeying the lights, or whatever. My fear is that we have the need, of a proper design that works. Rather than rushing into a series of different ones, that may or may not work. I travel quite often on the continent and I've given before examples of what happens in Berlin, which is the most wonderful place to cycle.

The first thing is there is a pavement, a footpath, then there is a cycle lane, then there is one or two road traffic lanes. And if there is an obstruction, on the cycle lane, a building site, or something. What happens? The traffic lanes are reduced from 2 to one, to allow the cyclists to go and overtake safely. The same for pedestrians. The biggest problem that came up in the question for the noble Baroness, yesterday, was that people do not comply with the law, with the legislation and there is no enforcement.

And whether it is enforcement of cyclists, or scooters, electric or otherwise, or different ones, rushing around. I find the fruit cyclists or cyclist with freight on the back, they have a particular habit of not obeying a particular habit of not obeying red lights. These are freight ones make a habit of going diagonally across and hoping for the best. One of these days people are going to get killed by it. I'm afraid I love the cycle routes in London that have been put in in the last 10 years, most are very good, but you can go on the a 10, I think it is, towards Stratford and you can see the different designs of bus stops, cycle islands and even other types of ways for the bus to pull in, in front of you.

I have to say that each one is as dangerous as the other. You have got to be very careful. I cannot support any of these amendments, as they stand, but I will urge the Minister, when he winds up to agree to commission a proper study of how best to align the needs of pedestrians, disabled, blind, everybody else and tourists, who do not understand what stop means. Cyclists and other road users and combine it with enforcement. Until we get some enforcement, like we have in Germany and Belgium the Netherlands, even in Paris now.

We are going to get more of these debates, which had been very, very interesting, but they are actually not solving the problem. Combining that with the very large increase in the number of cyclists, using the road network now and noble Lords may have seen the cycle route, along the Thames, from here going eastwards. I actually feel quite frightened in that lane in the rush hour, because there are so many of them going along then they are going quite fast.

Whether that is good for cyclists to be frightened of another cyclists. Things will change and we have got to be very careful before we start moving infrastructure, without being quite clear what are the benefits and to each different class of user, to make sure that we get it right and we don't get, as the noble Baroness Jones said, a conflict for safety. Safety is the be all and end all. We must Start there. Safety is the most important thing.
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Lord Burns Portrait Lord Burns (Crossbench)
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I would like to support the intention behind the amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I agree very much with Lord Berkeley's comments, particularly about enforcement. I have cycled many miles on bicycle paths, in central London and indeed I experienced a very serious injury when a runner ran into me on the embankment. The path going from Waterloo Bridge. I accept that floating bus stops are put out to pedestrians, they are extremely frightening to cyclists. As many have commented, one of the far side of Westminster Bridge is particularly awkward.

Cyclists confront people getting on and off buses who have got no knowledge about the complicated consideration of the footpath, bicycle path and pilings. This is particularly the case for visitors who often seem to be completely confused. On the other hand, a decision the cyclists to ride around the bus carries different, but also extra serious I am concerned about the plans to abolish floating bus points without an assessment of whether danger points are and whether they can be adapted to improve safety for everybody, pedestrians and cyclists.

The danger points and potential remedies are not the same at all floating bus stops. It might depend on the number of passengers, sorry, pedestrians, the time of day and the proportion of visitors. Maybe there are potential changes which have been mentioned by speakers already, to ensure that cyclists slowdown. As they approach one when a bus stop is actually, when a bus is actually in place. Surely it would be sensible to engage in a more detailed evaluation of both the problems and the potential solutions before we make a decision on this issue.

I'm attracted by the amendments which propose sensible guidance, following assessment and consultation with the groups of impaired -- with impaired groups of impaired -- with impaired sight. Simply as some of the amendments suggested to say let's abolish them all without proper assessment shall you escalate the

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risks in the long-term both for cyclists and for pedestrians. If I may intervene for a few

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If I may intervene for a few brief moments on this, one group of brief moments on this, one group of people involved in these discussions has not been mentioned so far, and that is the bus drivers themselves. that is the bus drivers themselves. I have no financial interest in these matters but I have worked over these matters but I have worked over the years either as a consultant or director or chairman of three different bus companies and again, when you talked about strivers about their daily problems their views about cycle lanes are well worth
16:48
Lord Snape Portrait Lord Snape (Labour)
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listening to. Many of them say that they don't open the doors sometimes until they have checked the cycle lane in every aside mirror. Because although it's not proper to say so, although it's not proper to say so, and I don't wish to allow my noble friend Lord Berkeley, it is about time somebody acknowledged the fact that any cyclists on our roads quite that any cyclists on our roads quite frankly our maniacs. And... I made frankly our maniacs. And... I made an exception for my noble friend straightaway.

If you stand and watch straightaway. If you stand and watch them, the cycle lanes and traffic lights and a substantial number of them ignore the traffic lights, and set off around Parliament Square. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes for the amendment that we are discussing at the moment. And I do feel that we ought to acknowledge the fact that unless there is some sort of enforcement, as my noble friend suggests, that minority of cyclists who behave in the way that they do,, will continue behaving like that.

Mention has been made of the cycle lanes at the other side of Westminster Bridge. One day last week I happened to be crossing the bridge, and the direction of travel towards the House, on the left-hand side, the cycle lane and the bus stop which is supposedly, may well be, certainly the opinion of early speakers, is the more safe of the two, now, there is a beacon and a zebra crossing by the bus stop, a very small one, that crosses the cycle lane.

As I crossed one day last week I had to dodge a cyclist, in fact there were two of them close together, who ignored the beacons as they were crossing. I said something to the first one as he passed. And the second one was associated with him. He responded, I don't know exact what he said but the Second World War is off. -- The second word I hope my noble friend when he comes to respond will acknowledge the real fears, particularly of those partially sighted or completely blind, that these problems do really exist, are real, and it's long past

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time that we tackled them. My Lords, my name is Baroness Binkley from the Liberal Democrat benches, for those who are listening
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Baroness Pidgeon Portrait Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat)
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benches, for those who are listening to this debate. Accessibility and safety have been strong features of the debate at second reading and committee stage and indeed today. And I'm please the amendments before the House today would help to make progress in the area of floating bus stops. And I was struck by the debate at committee stage and from discussions I have had with the visually impaired, blind, disabled campaigners about the accessibility of the bus network. My Amendment 39 is a new amendment that seeks to ensure that all existing floating bus stops, bus stop by sources, are made safe and accessible within a reasonable time period.

But unlike the previous amendments that Lord Holmes has spoken to, it does not seek to prohibit all floating bus stops but it does seek to ensure an assessment of the current state of these types of bus stops and a program to retrofit stops which do not meet the highest safety and accessibility standards. Floating bus stops tend to be on busy main roads were cycle lanes have been added and they have been assigned to tackle the serious issue of cyclist safety, particularly at the point where buses pull out into the main traffic.

And in this debate I do want us to remember the reason that this design was created, with absolutely the right intentions to help prevent collisions with cyclists and deaths on these busy main roads. But clearly, in some locations, as we have discussed today, they have not been designed in a way that keeps everyone safe. Designs that mean passengers have to report or disembark bus from directly into a cycle lane, are badly designed and not acceptable. But we foreseen good examples of this structure and indeed bad examples.

So this amendment seeks to ensure a more detailed guidance which will ensure that cyclists can be kept safe and also that blind visually impaired and disabled passengers are safe and able to access the services. I would hope that the noble Lord the Minister supports this aim. I have met with representative groups and received correspondence from different sides of this debate but one thing that unites everyone is the need to ensure that these types of bust ups are designed to the highest possible standards of safety for all uses -- these types of bus stops.

This ensures that assessment of current floating bus stops is carried out within six months and retrofit program is carried out within 18 months. I believe this is a sensible forward on this issue and one which I hope the House and support and will ensure progress on this issue which I things what we have heard loudly and clearly today. Lord Blunkett has tabled his own amendments which I welcome and I believe that they would allow progress in a way that my amendment sought and therefore I would like to hear from the noble Lord the Minister if the government is minded to accept Lord Blunkett's amendments.

I would like to know what assurance the noble Lord the Minister can give the House that the guidance for floating bus stops will be reviewed at pace for all local authorities. But local authorities will have to review the existing floating bus stops and that there will be a retrofit program for those that do not meet the guidance, in particular those we have heard about so powerfully, where the island is simply not wide enough and passengers. Into the cycle lane, in order to simply use the bus.

This has been a passionate debate from all sides of the House and I think we will all be listening carefully to the Minister's response.

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My Lords, my name is Lord Moylan and I'm the Conservative frontbench and I'm the Conservative frontbench The noble Lord Lord Blunkett knows that I have the highest personal that I have the highest personal regard for him. As indeed I do for regard for him. As indeed I do for my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. And both of them bring a perspective on this issue which I perspective on this issue which I cannot share. I do not possess.

I do know something, however, from past experience about the design and management of roads. And the
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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essential problem is, as stated by the noble Lord Lord Berkeley, that the noble Lord Lord Berkeley, that there are locations where road space is a scarce resource. And the way in which we choose to deal with this is by a sort of top-down allocation of by a sort of top-down allocation of uses so that we say, this is for the pedestrian, this is for buses, this is for bicycles, this is for general is for bicycles, this is for general traffic. And inevitably, people are traffic.

And inevitably, people are left dissatisfied because these are almost insoluble decisions to make. They are a mixture of managerial and political decisions. And the emphasis and, fundamentally questions of priority and those priorities shift over time. What has certainly been the case is that in recent years, the priority has shifted substantially in favour of the cyclist. And I think the mood in the House today is that perhaps it is time to look again at the priority should be given to pedestrians and in particular to disabled pedestrians.

And for that reason, I will say that while we do not object to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord Lord Blunkett, if my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond chooses to test the opinion of the House, on his amendments 36 and 38, we will support him.

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My Lords, as the Minister I will return to the amendments related to floating bus stops and floating bus stops and accessibility. I thank noble Lords for their contribution on these for their contribution on these important points. I recognise the important points. I recognise the passion and sincerity of all those who have spoken. I would like to see clearly that the government clearly that the government acknowledges the problems loading bus stops can cause. We recognise that this is about equality and the that this is about equality and the ability to make independent journeys confidently -- floating bus stops.

And it is about safety including as the noble Lord Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord turns 30, the safety of
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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cyclists. And it is about, as the noble Lord Moylan just said, about noble Lord Moylan just said, about the allocation of road space which in many English towns and cities is in many English towns and cities is at a premium. We also recognise more needs to be done to make these installations accessible to all which is why the department is working at pace, for the noble working at pace, for the noble Baroness pigeon 's benefit, with active travelling and an Transport for London to provide further guidance and undertake research to fill the gaps in our knowledge.

Since the committee stage we have been exploring ways in which we can strengthen this commitment and we have listened very carefully to noble Lords and other stakeholders concerned. Firstly, in the short- term, we have decided to instigate a pause in the installation of the most problematic floating bus stop designs. These are the ones with shared use bus whether cycle track runs across the front of the bus stop between the stock and or shelter and the curb. Noble Lords have referred to a number of individual stops in this respect and I will refer to bus stop U in Brentford High Street near the piano museum, where bus passengers get on museum, where bus passengers get on and off directly into a cycle lane.

The pause will be voluntary as there are no powers enabling Secretary of State to instruct local authorities on this. It will apply to any installations currently at the design stage with local authorities will be requested not to take forward. This does not require legislation and the Secretary of State will set out expectations on this to local authorities as expeditiously as possible. With regard to future modifications to existing sites, we will highlight local authorities that existing funding is available to them to make changes to these.

Options include consolidated Active Travel Fund in, and highways maintenance funding, and ministers will encourage them to use this. Active travelling and will be making available further funding to local authorities to enable them to retrofit existing sites. -- Active travelling in. Amendment 36 from the Lord Holmes of Richmond submitter Amendment 39 submitter Amendment 30 9A tabled by my noble friend Lord Blunkett, in that it requires the Secretary of State to requires the Secretary of State to receive guidance on this matter stop however my noble friend Lord Blunkett has gone further in this amendment and stated this guidance has to be in place, within three months after Royal assent.

I fully support him on this matter. It is important that guidance is developed quickly to help solve this issue and I know that partially sighted, blind and disabled bus passengers will appreciate action being taken quickly. And this guidance will be better than, because that is no such and it will answer noble Lord Berkeley 's point about a proper study. Amendment 39, A, makes provision for consultation and includes the disabled persons advisory, a statutory consult. I agree this is the right thing to do and I agree that any consultation on this guidance will also include other bodies of all representing blind and partially sighted people and more generally disabled people, older people and those with additional needs.

They are experts as uses of the network and we want to be sure that they have had the opportunity to provide their views. Amendment 61, A, is a technical amendment ensuring this amendment comes into force as soon as possible comes into force as soon as possible Lord Blunkett has tabled three more amendments, and 35 a provides that the guidance and safety and accessibility of stopping places is issued for the purpose of both facilitating travel of disabled people and enabling to travel independently in safety and reasonable comfort.

Amendment 36 a and B applies course 25 to Greater London as it should. -- Clause. And 30 9B empowers the Secretary of State to request that local authorities provide information on how they have complied with the new guidance. It is supported by a duty on local authorities to provide this information, and if the Secretary of State was of the view that local authorities are not compliant with that duty she may publish a statement to that effect. I regard this amendment as important to ensuring local authorities are held accountable.

It will also enable government to understand what progress is being made to ensure that bus stops are designed well and suitable for users. Individuals and organisations are always welcome to write to the Secretary of State when they have concerns about compliance and she may then seek evidence from the local transport authority and therefore we strongly advise authorities to ensure they are fulfilling obligations set out in 35 a. Moving to and 38 tabled by Lord a. Moving to and 38 tabled by Lord Holmes of Richmond seeks to require the Secretary of State to take steps to prohibit the installation of any new fighting -- floating bus stop to prevent funding to be used for the construction and retrofit existing signs within six months.

A moment that sexy night -- 39 does not go as far as this but would require the Secretary of State to caress an assessment of all floating bus stops within six months and implement a retrofit program within 18 months. I thank noble Lords for again highlighting the importance of accessibility. The government is also clear that it wants to see improvements in the design of floating bus stops. The government believes that a full break on moratorium on floating bus stops goes beyond what can be reasonably delivered within the timescales that Lord Holmes of Richmond amendment set out.

But I thank the noble Lord for the amendment he has tabled which is hugely and rightly raised the profile of the subject. I also thank Baroness Pidgeon for her amendment and there is merit to both what the noble Baroness has tabled and particularly what she said in this debate. However I believe that my noble friend Lord Blunkett's amendments go further and set out a requirement for the Secretary of requirement for the Secretary of State to publish guidance on the design of floating bus stops to which local authorities must have regard.

It also gives Secretary of State the power to request information from authorities and to make public any authorities were not complying with the duty to have regard to the guidance. The need for an effective reporting mechanism has been raised by a number of stakeholders key to ensuring that authorities are acting to improve the safety and accessibility on the most dangerous of floating bus stops, Lord Blunkett's amendments delivers that and I also note and will review my noble friend view about the yellow school bus experience he described when he spoke.

I hope noble Lords will support Lord Blunkett's amendments, I make it clear government is fully behind these, we will move at pace in the guidance and press the transport authority for the views -- news that it will stimulate and I hope I've persuaded Lord Holmes in Baroness Pidgeon thus to draw their

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own amendments. I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in this debate
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Lord Blunkett Portrait Lord Blunkett (Labour)
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who has taken part in this debate and appreciate that we are not at loggerheads. We are talking about the way in which we can move as quickly as possible in a practical fashion to achieve a common goal. If you forgive me for one minute I did have a vision of Lord Holmes and I on a tandem, Lord Holmes in the front and I'm clinging on as hard as I can to ensure that we don't and both of us in danger of hitting one of these floating bus stops.

Lord Hampton mentioned Sweden I hope at some point the government will be able to come back to that because it is a disgrace that there is no appropriate and proper speed limit for cyclists. Thank Lord Burns for very clearly spelling out why my set of amendments do go along way in a practical fashion to meeting what the whole of the House wishes to achieve this afternoon. Thank you for the kind words from others, I say to the Lord from the Conservative frontbench, I'm sorry that if we are going to divide on 36 and 38 because he will remember that the night before Rishi Sunak called general election we collectively reach the compromise on the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

With the government. On that occasion. Had we not done so, the changes on IPP that have come in would not have happened and we did so with our eyes if I can use this expression, wide open to the fact we were marginally compromising with Lord Bellamy and with the Secretary of State but we were doing so in order to make progress and it's in that spirit that I moving 35 a and the

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associated amendments this afternoon. The question is amendment 35 a is

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The question is amendment 35 a is agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The

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contrary, "Not content". The "Contents" have it. The moment 36 Lord Holmes of Richmond. I think everybody who has spoken

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I think everybody who has spoken in debate this afternoon, can I thank particularly Lord Sheikh when
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Lord Holmes of Richmond Portrait Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative)
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thank particularly Lord Sheikh when you brought such vivid real lived experience to the debate and all of the noble Lords who took part, particularly the Minister, I thank him for all of his consideration and time he has put in to progress on this. It's a rare positive thing to have a Minister for transport who not only understands transport but loves transport. Surely a candidate for Secretary of State things will improve dramatically! Can I also thank my honourable friend Lord Blunkett for all the work he has done on this matter and progress has been made, very pleased 35 a and other amendments in his name will also pass irrespective of what may or may not happen presently.

The difficulty is that for all that has been said, there are still too much which lies in the voluntary, in guidance and could be far greater. Example the government could do more, particularly not providing finance for such schemes, they could do more with taking a different approach rather than guidance they could have taken a different legislative pathway. Similarly it's worth noting at this point that those local authorities who don't abide by any guidance, the any roots of redress for an individual will be judicial review.

In essence, for the vast majority of us, no route of redress whatsoever. But I am extremely grateful to the Minister and to my honourable friend Lord Blunkett, the issues of making more progress and acting for inclusion by design, accessible by all and public transport worthy of that title, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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Before putting the question amendment 36 must advise the House amendment 36 must advise the House that if it is agree to I will not be able to call amendment 36 a or 61 a,. The question is that amendment a,. The question is that amendment 36 is agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The contrary, "Not content". The question will be decided by the vision, I will advise the House when vision, I will advise the House when
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Question Question is... Question is... The Question is... The question Question is... The question is... Question is... The question is... The question is... That amendment 36 is agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The Contents will go to the right by the throne, the Not-contents to the left

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My My Lord, My Lord, there My Lord, there have My Lord, there have voted

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My Lord, there have voted contents, 214, not content, 216. So

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Amendments Amendments 36, Amendments 36, A, Amendments 36, A, and Amendments 36, A, and 36, Amendments 36, A, and 36, B,

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Amendments 36, A, and 36, B, Lord Blunkett moved formally. The question is that amendments 36, A and B be agreed to en bloc. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The contents have it. amendment 37, not move. Amendments 38, Lord not move. Amendments 38, Lord Holmes. Not moved. Amendment 39,

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Baroness Pidgeon, not moved. The response from the Dispatch

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The response from the Dispatch Box and on that basis I had to leave

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to withdraw my amendment. Technically I should advise her

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Technically I should advise her that if an amendment is spoken to it must be moved. However I think we will waive that on this occasion is it your lordships' pleasure that the amendment be with drawn. Amendments amendment be with drawn. Amendments

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39, A, and 39, B. I'm moving formally but I want to make absolutely clear to the House and beyond that that vote does not defeat the progress that has been agreed by this House in terms of ridding us of the worst of the

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floating bus stops. The question is that amendments 30 9A and 30 9B be agreed to en bloc. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". Amendment 40, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill.

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Hendy of Richmond Hill. This next group amendments relate to clause 27 of the bill, training. About crime and antisocial
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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About crime and antisocial behaviour. On Amendment 40 under my name I would like to thank noble Lords for, who at committee highlighted the need for clarity on how new requirements could impact the safety of drivers and frontline staff. I know we all agree that the safety of everyone on the transport network is important and this includes both passengers and staff. This amendment seeks to make particularly clear the importance of the safety of staff and preventing incidents relating to crime and his social behaviour.

It is important that staff are trained to assess whether it's a them to prevent such instances but to be absolutely clear, staff are not expected to physically intervene in incidents which would be dealt with by enforcement by the police. We are not expecting bus drivers to leave their cabin ordered to prevent instances of crime and antisocial behaviour this is not appropriate and may put drive at risk. However, drivers and other staff should be equipped to intervene in other ways such as through understanding what to say in order to de-escalate the situation, where it is safe to do so.

Therefore this amendment makes it clear that the training required to assist staff in taking preventative steps only works where it will do so, as I've stated before the intention was always to involve relevant stakeholders in a development of guidance which sets out the requirements of training on crime and antisocial behaviour the government remains committed to do so. I hope noble Lords will accept

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this amendment. Amendment proposed, clause 27, page 47, line 31, leave out possible page 47, line 31, leave out possible and insert safety do so. -- Safe to do so.
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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I turn to my noble friend Lord Woodley's amendments 41 and I appreciate the intention of the amendment is to ensure that the views of bus workers are considered when developing the training they are required to take, angry this is important but I'm not convinced that placing requirement on individual public service vehicle operators to consult trade unions before perming training to be undertaken by the employees is the best way to go about this. This place is not due burden on operators and will likely delay the imitation of training and result in inconsistency in both staffing abilities and service provision which is in the interests of neither bus workers nor passengers.

I have already explained what will involve relevant stakeholders development guidance coverage training, this includes ensuring the views of both staff and their representatives are fully considered. We remain committed to this and believe we can set clear and realistic direction about it, about what the training should entail and expected outcomes. The final amendment in this group is amendment 42. I thank Lord Moylan for his amendment, I'm not sure I should thank him so much for regarding mine as brutal but his amendment is very clear.

And I thank noble Lords for that amendments in this group, and I hope they accept the amendment tabled in my name,

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which is intended to clarify the policy intention of clause 27. I beg to move. The question is that amendment 40

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The question is that amendment 40 be agreed to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The contrary, "Not content". The contents have it. Amendment 41, Lord Woodley, not present. Not moved. Amendment 42, Lord Moylan. Not Amendment 42, Lord Moylan. Not moved. Amendment 43, has a ready been debated, Lord Hendy moved been debated, Lord Hendy moved formally? The question is that amendment 43 be agreed to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content".

The contents have it. Amendment 44 and 45, Lord Hendy, already debated. Moved formally? The question is that amendment 44 and 45 be agreed to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The contents have it.

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Amendment 46, Lord Hendy. These amendments cover provisions relating to 0 emission buses, the relating to 0 emission buses, the amendments tabled in my name 46, 47 and 48 and 49 clause 30 which will and 48 and 49 clause 30 which will prevent the use of non-, new non- zero emission buses on local bus zero emission buses on local bus services from a date not before first of January from a date not before first of January 2030 stock I before first of January 2030 stock I would like to tribute this amendment to the late noble Baroness Rennison who worked tirelessly to ensure that who worked tirelessly to ensure that the environmental benefits of bus services are fully realised and continue, quite, and she continued quite rightly to push consecutive governments to do more.

This amendment also addresses issues raised eloquently by the noble Baroness pigeon during the committee stage of the bill. Amendment 47 widens the scope of the current drafting to include all local services run under franchise schemes and local services in London. Therefore all registered and franchised services which includes those that are commercial, tendered or operated by local authority bus companies are captured by the measure. This amendment will enable the carbon saving and air quality benefits afforded by the transition to a zero emission fleet to be fully maximised.

It will ensure all areas of England are included and that the benefits of the transition to a zero emission fleet felt nationwide. Amendments 46, 48 and 49 sits along side amendment 47, and are necessary to satisfy the government's intention. I hope these amendments demonstrate the government's commitment to working constructively with colleagues to improve this bill and that the government listen carefully to concerns raised earlier carefully to concerns raised earlier There is one further amendment to clause 30 tabled in my name, amendment 50 directly addresses recommendation from the Delegated Powers Committee, there is almost also an amendment to one tabled by Lord Goodman of Wycombe.

I'm grateful to the delegated powers and committee which the noble Lord is a member of and for their recommendation to change from the negative resolution procedure to the affirmative procedure for the Statutory Instrument made under its new section 151 a bracket to brackets be which sets the date from which new non-zero-emission buses may not be registered from, to be used for local English bus services. Having considered the committees recommendation the government is tabling an amendment to clause 30 to make that Statutory Instrument subject to the affirmative procedure.

I have written to the committee in response to the report about confirm the government accepts this recommendation. As noble Lords will have noted the specific date will be set out on a future Statutory Instrument that the specific date will not be before 2030. The clause also enables regulations to be made setting out documentation that can be relied upon in deciding whether a new bus zero-emission's. Regulations can also be made setting out any exemptions to the end date the basis of the type of bus or service.

It is important the government has flexibility on these matters. For example, to quickly respond to any change in vehicle registration procedure and to help ensure that there are not adverse consequences from requiring bus services to become zero-emission, I also note that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not recommend that this mechanism was amended for the regulations which might be made under section 151 a three. Furthermore unlike the date from which non-zero-emission buses cannot be registered to be used on in this local bus services, these regulations are more tech go in nature and I do not believe they need the same level of scrutiny.



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I rise to move my amendment 51

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I rise to move my amendment 51 which concerned the matter to which the Minister has just referred and I speak as a member of the Delegated
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Lord Goodman of Wycombe Portrait Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative)
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speak as a member of the Delegated Powers Committee though of course I have no licence to speak for the Committee of the whole House nonetheless the Minister just reported entirely correctly what the committee said. We produced a recommendation in relation to the crucial matter of the date by which the use of new non-zero-emission vehicles would be prohibited. He took the view that this should be considered under the affirmative rather than Negative procedure and I'm delighted to see that as a result of our representations the Minister has decided he's not going to have a fight about it but he's going to agree with our recommendation, although as I say I can't speak on behalf of the whole committee, I'm sure that we are all very grateful to him and I think that other ministers in looking at the advice they get from our committee would do very well to take

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a leaf out of his book. Like to thank the Minister for these important amendments which ensure that you know zero-emission buses will provide bus services right across England. It was an anomaly that Baroness Randerson spotted before Christmas and raise directly with the Minister, therefore I'm pleased to see it's therefore I'm pleased to see it's been addressed here today and the been addressed here today and the Minister's acknowledgement of the path Baroness Randerson played. Zero-emission buses will cut levels Zero-emission buses will cut levels of air pollution and will boost manufacturing while helping to accelerate the decarbonisation 55% of the public have said they are more likely to travel by bus they know it is zero-emission, therefore it is a win-win situation and I

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thank the government for responding so positively to our amendments. I'm sure the whole house will be
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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I'm sure the whole house will be grateful to the Minister and the noble Lord the Minister and noble Lord the Minister and acknowledges decision to accept recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. In relation to this group of amendments I gave notice to the noble Lord the Minister there were two questions I was going to ask him so I could hear what he had to say at the despatch box. Before we decided our attitude to these amendments.

He has dealt with the first one already, I think it's very important that he has stated that the despatch box that the measure is to apply to all local bus services, whether franchised, privately operated or run by a local authority bus company that is directly owned in a subsidiary and there is nothing here that discriminates against or disadvantages private bus companies. I heard what the Minister says and I'm grateful, I'm glad to be to note that. My second is more in the nature of the question.

I think it's very important consideration. We have a bus manufacturing business industry in this country. We make quite a lot of buses and we are quite gutted it and we employ a reasonable number of people in the manufacture of buses. When all buses are going to be zero-emission, what assurances do we have that British industry is going to be in a position to make zero-emission buses in the numbers required, and that the outcome of this measure is not going to be a flooding of Britain with Chinese or other buses made overseas to the detriment of good British jobs and good British businesses? Understanding the departments view on where this path is taking us in relation to manufacturing and employment is something that is increasingly at the four of the mind people considering the net zero journey if I may call it that.

So the views of the Minister and the Department of that are going to be of crucial importance to us.

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Let me put it this way, that the biggest bus manufacturer in the outer kingdom for many years was Leyland buses. Your number will
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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subject and also for her noting to subject and also for her noting to the work of the late noble Baroness Randerson on this matter. This Lord Randerson on this matter. This Lord Moylan asked me about, has asked Moylan asked me about, has asked directly about supporting UK manufacturing. My colleague and the other place Mr light wood recently other place Mr light wood recently chaired inaugural meeting of the bus manufacturing panel on zero-emission buses. The government is focused on delivering on its promise to bring jobs and investment into Britain's industrial heartland boosting bus manufacturing through investment in zero-emission buses whilst also driving up passenger comfort and service reliability.

The scale of this technological ambition combined with the highly skilled manufacturers across the UK will ensure that the economic benefits of net zero are felt by workers across the country, including those building and using buses. It's estimated that over 60% of zero- emission bus regional areas supported buses, the acronym is zebra but I'm blowed if I'm going to use it full stop will be procured from UK-based bus manufacturers, supporting economic growth and jobs across the zero carbon transport industry. We want to see UK-based bus manufacturers build on this foundation and stimulate innovation and skills development to ensure UK-based manufacturers are able to compete with high quality, affordable products.

The U.K.'s continuing membership of the Government Procurement Agreement prevents the Department from requiring grant funding should be used to procure British built zero- emission buses, and of course the UK government has no role in the procuring of buses because that's the responsibility of the bus operators and local transport authorities and local authority bus companies. The Department is not To design their procurement processes in a way that would explicitly favour UK bus manufacturer's, but we are however exploring if there are any relevant factors we can build into this requirement which may help to encourage competitive it's from UK firms without compromising wider commercial outcomes and delivery.

The supply chain for zero-emission buses global with UK bus manufacturing sourcing key components such as vehicle batteries from foreign-based companies. Those companies are therefore expected to continue to play an important role in the supply of zero-emission buses for the UK market through supply and keep components and on occasion, exporting complete vehicles directly to the UK market. We have seen no evidence that foreign bus manufacturer's are undercutting UK bus manufacturers, recent evidence suggests the contrary which is the UK must Man U drivers not being undercut with prices being broadly comparable.

Where zero-emission bus regional area orders have gone to international bus manufacturer's, local transport authorities and bus local transport authorities and bus operators have indicated that those decisions have been based on build quality and timeliness rather than price. The international manufacturer's do win some orders just as UK manufacturers are winning orders abroad from Germany to Hong Kong. A healthy and competitive global market is a positive throwing driving up performance and quality and driving down costs. -- Thing. I hope that puts Lord Moylan's mind at rest about the government intentions in respect of British zero-emission bus manufacturing.

I won't speak further other than to welcome the remarks of Lord Goodman of Wycombe on Amendment 51, I hope your Lordships will welcome my other amendments for zero-emission buses and accept the need for all of my

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amendments. I beg to move. Question is that amendment 46 is agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The contrary, "Not content". The "Contents" have it. The question is amendment 47, 48, 49 and 50 be agree to unblock. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". -- En bloc. The "Contents" have it. Amendment 51 Lord Goodman moved formally? Not Lord Goodman moved formally? Not moved. Amendment 52 Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle for Baroness Jones.



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I should for the benefit of those declare my name is Natalie Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, this is the Bennett of Manor Castle, this is the other green and I'm doing an unusual bit of tag teaming here because I actually did do the second reading actually did do the second reading of this bill when my noble friend was off on medical leave. Interestingly I actually raised my Interestingly I actually raised my session 2nd reading speech the issues covered by member 52 which issues covered by member 52 which talks about the ways in which the National concessionary travel scheme doesn't meet the needs of lots of people who very much need to be able people who very much need to be able to use it.

As I said at second reading, the restrictions mean that
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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it doesn't start until 930 in the morning, many people have medical appointments the requirement to travel before that time, many people are providing childcare often from are providing childcare often from relatives that require them to travel before that time and I described making this the concessionary travel 24-hour event concessionary travel 24-hour event then as a modesty investment that the government could make. What we the government could make. What we have now in a moment 52 is a modest amendment because it doesn't actually require the government to actually do anything, it calls for a actually do anything, it calls for a review of the scheme.

I have told the stories which is based on the experiences of being shared with me, particularly by some very doughty transport campaigners in Sheffield. That is all anecdotal but what this amendment would do is demand there is a review of the scheme to see how it is actually admitting people's needs and would help to uncover what the cost of expanding the scheme This is a very simple amendment, review amendment, it's not the intention to divide the House and this amendment but I really do hope

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the government will take this on board. I beg to move. Amendment proposed after clause 30 insert the new clause is printed 30 insert the new clause is printed

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30 insert the new clause is printed Arrives to speak to amendment 58

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Arrives to speak to amendment 58 standing in the Noble Lord Lord Lee in regarding to the recording and sharing of data about assaults on sharing of data about assaults on buses. For the record, I declare my interest as Chair set out in the register. My involvement with buses as primary collaboration with councils, like Kent County Council to use bus CCTV cameras to identify and capture data on offences such as potholes and cracks to improve overall road maintenance. To avoid
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Lord Moynihan of Chelsea Portrait Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Conservative)
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any conflict, is that Noble Lord the Minister knows, I have restricted my softer speak only on matters that impact transport which are outside any commercial involvement and it any commercial involvement and it was for that reason that I spoke was for that reason that I spoke earlier during that session in support of Baroness Grey-Thompson in her advocacy of long-standing issues which face disabled people on which face disabled people on transport, particularly trends about which I feel very strongly. I am which I feel very strongly.

I am grateful to the Noble Lord the Minister whose knowledge of transport issues is greater than anyone else in this House. Even more anyone else in this House. Even more so than my Noble Friend Lord Moynihan and his advocacy will form from a position of unparalleled professional expertise and makes the transport police in your logic tells the best in Parliament and with that glowing tribute I hope he will support the Noble Lord amendment because, from my experience in another place during the years of presenting the people of Lewisham East, assaults on the vulnerable, particularly women, on buses, and especially at night, was a serious issue, as evidenced in representations made to me in my constituency.

And these Institute incidents range from incidents to physical attacks and to this day such attacks continue to significantly impact women sense of safety and public trans petition as I say especially at night and it is unacceptable that in this day and age the vulnerable, the elderly, and women, still feel vulnerable to harassment on the buses. Yet when incidents happened the levels of reported incidents vary by location and factors such as time of day, route, and bus occupancy. I accept and welcome the fact that many bus operators have implemented measures to increase safety, such as installing surveillance cameras on some buses and in stations.

Employing more visible staff and increased security patrols, although, understandably many drivers are protected and out of sight to many of the passengers, but I also welcome the fact of the promoting wellness campaigns to the reporting of incidents that takes place. But I really do believe and I agree with the Noble Lord more can be done. Few victims know how to report that the bus companies have established hotlines or with our support services exist specifically for this purpose. Ignorance creates fear.

Relevant signage is too often close to non-existent, so the Noble Lord is right to seek to add to the law to protect individuals from harassment and violence in public places. There is too little somewhat sporadic documented evidence of assaults on women in buses in the UK with various studies, reports and statistics seeking to highlight the issue. Over the years I have noticed that the British Transport Police reports take this seriously and some of their statistics include data on incidents of sexual offences.

The Home Office releases some reports on crime in England and Wales, including some statistics on violent crime and sexual assault, without this legislative backing. Groups such as stop street harassment and the everyday sexism Project collect testimony and survey data from women about their experiences with harassment on public transport, providing quantitative evidence on the issue, and of course the media can help and research studies have examined the nature and impact of public transport harassment. The first part of the noble Lords amendment is commendable, because further than anything on the statute to date, if passed, as I believe it should be, bus operators would be required to record Whitelaw and register all data about assaults and violent behaviour on their buses and local transport authorities would consult unions about the data.

And this is a Government that supports the union's own sector and therefore I hope that there will be support across all parties for this amendment and the unions and return could add their voice to help create a legal deterrent against these incidents as set out in the second part of the noble Lords amendment which continued these incidents which continue to damage the confidence of the elderly and all vulnerable groups who travel on the buses, in particular the safety of women.

I really hope the Minister will agree to this small yet important change in the law and in

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I beg to move. Arrives to speak in support of Amendment 58 in the name of the Amendment 58 in the name of the Noble Lord Woodley, and in doing so I apologise that I was not able to speak in second reading. The Government has a very admirable ambition to halve violence against ambition to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. I believe that this amendment will aid the Government in achieving this by ensuring bus operators record and share all data about assaults and violent behaviour that have taken place on their buses.

I focus my place on their buses. I focus my remarks particularly on women, as the West Yorkshire combined the West Yorkshire combined authority conducted a survey that found that only 41% of women feel safe catching the bus at night safe catching the bus at night compared to 68% of men. This field means that women are unfairly forced to pay for taxis in order to gain reassurance for their own safety. Women have even spoken of their experience questioning whether their clothes are suitable so as not to
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Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge Portrait Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative)
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attract unwanted attention when using the bus service. No woman should have to be fearful of her safety on public transport. I believe the noble Lords amendment believe the noble Lords amendment would go some way to encouraging bus operators to tackle the issue of violence and harassment and, importantly, give people the importantly, give people the confidence to come forward and report incidents on the bus. In 2021, TfL launched a campaign that sought to end the normalisation of abuse on its services by encouraging abuse on its services by encouraging people to text the British Transport Police.

They stated they wanted to make it clear that it is never acceptable and that the strong as possible action will always be taken. We cannot continue with a situation where more than half of women under 35, myself included, decide to drive or get a taxi instead of getting the bus or train because the fear crime or harassment. The bus service should be available for all to use safely and free from fear. I fully commend the Noble Lord Woodley on his amendment and I hope the Government will back it.



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I rise to speak to amendment 57 and again return to the topic of safety. I am indebted to the Noble safety. I am indebted to the Noble Lord Monaghan for suggesting that solution at committee stage and to my amendment. At Committee stage my amendment. At Committee stage Noble Lord suggested that buses Noble Lord suggested that buses could adopt a zero accident policy, just like the building industry. It did not occur to me until afterwards that this is exactly what Transport that this is exactly what Transport for London do.

I would like to thank the Minister and his bill team for the extremely collegiate way they worked and the letter that the centre antelope as addressing some of my concerns at Committee stage. I think him for the guidance on the use of the updating of stats 19 the clear safety day data by the DVSA. I fear that the guidance will make this a safer bill. My plans for this amendment, zero program, I was told that it could not be in the bill because it was more of an idea.

It
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Lord Hampton Portrait Lord Hampton (Crossbench)
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was a vision. Now, I consulted and external constitutional expert who external constitutional expert who said that actually it would work very well on the face of the bill because the meaning of the amendment because the meaning of the amendment is clear. The Government says that is clear. The Government says that the implications are vague and it could apply whether it is on the could apply whether it is on the face of the bill. The fact is that the Mayor of London has committed to the Mayor of London has committed to a vision zero action plan for accidents that lists the obligations of safe speed, safe streets, safe vehicles et cetera.

What that entails, I think that the mayor's example, an elaboration of details, demonstrates that the principles can be given concrete application and should be on the face of the bill. The bill could leave the House a considerably safer bill than it arrived. And with these changes could actually save lives. I cannot see any reason why my amendment would not be on the face of the bill and IM here to have significant support for this. I urge the Government to accept this amendment and I intend to test the opinion of the House.



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I would like to add my support briefly to amendment 58 in the name briefly to amendment 58 in the name of Lord Woodley and I am sorry I did not spot it was done in time to add my name to it. The Noble Lord Monaghan, Baroness Owen, has set out the case for this very eloquently. the case for this very eloquently. Particularly setting out the fear of young people, women, older people young people, women, older people that use buses and often when there that use buses and often when there a few passengers but I honestly think this is relevant not just to passengers on buses but also to
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Baroness Morgan of Cotes Portrait Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated)
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members of staff, particularly the drivers, who we know also are high risk, sadly, of verbal, physical risk, sadly, of verbal, physical harassment and deserve to be attended to. I spent quite a lot of attended to. I spent quite a lot of my time in this House talking about violence against women and girls online, but the rules we were online, but the rules we were talking about there should absolutely apply in the physical world as well and one of those requirements is that we should collect data to know exactly what collect data to know exactly what the scale of the problem is.

Without the necessary data, there is, as we know, absolute risk of underreporting with bus companies and also the Department for Transport. Would then be at great risk of seeing actually there is not a problem. Which we all know exists, particularly those that do use the buses on a regular basis. And so actually this straightforward and simple amendment about encouraging the collection of data is something that I hope that the Noble Lord that that I hope that the Noble Lord that Minister will want to accept.

I am reminded just finally of the question that I asked him on 24 February in this House about violence against women and girls on trains. And he gave a typically generous and false answer in which he absolutely agreed that this was both an issue but also something the Government wanted to take very seriously. He talked about regular meetings between the Department for Transport Ministers and the Home Office Ministers must also fulfil the government's stated ambition of cutting violence against women and girls.

Under think that while the House has got the opportunity to take this measure to court to be reflected I hope the Noble Lord and the Government will be able to accept this amendment.
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Baroness Pidgeon Portrait Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat)
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60 which introduces a two pounds bus fare Subject to periodic review. The government's official evaluation of the first 10 months of the two the first 10 months of the two parent Showed a 5% increase in tonnage outside of London out of a 13% total increase in the time period, but the government's own period, but the government's own survey data provides a stronger effect, 40% of people said they took more bus journeys when the cap was more bus journeys when the cap was in place and 90% of those taking in place and 90% of those taking more bus journeys said it was because of the affair.

And in transport focuses research 80% said it help with the cost of living and 40% said their bus journeys were replacing once they would have made by car muscle awareness and support for policy is high. The increase in the bus fare From two pounds to three pounds has created real barriers for passengers, particularly those on low incomes who rely on buses to go about their everyday lives. And do not just take my word for it, the DfT's own bus fare statistics published just last week share rise in the cost of bus fares, rising by 4.1% outside of London between December outside of London between December 2023 and December 2024.

This legislation is about improving bus services, enabling local authorities to have the choice about how local services are provided. But unless there are affordable bus fares, then there is a huge hole in this plan. This amendment allows for a two pounds bus fare seemed to be set up and priority access to funds for those that opt into this scheme. Affordable fares alongside franchising and enhanced partnerships will truly ensure that our bus services serve our local communities properly and the official opposition last week told the House that the Conservative manifesto pledged to keep the two pounds bus fare.

It will be interesting to see this evening whether their words are genuine. And I do hope that members across the House will support our amendment today. I would also like to add support for amendment 57 from Lord Hampton in this group to implement a vision zero program for buses to improve safety in that sector. I look forward to the response from the Minister to the issues raised in

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this group. If I made to the contribution that has just been made by the noble that has just been made by the noble Baroness, who made a similar speech, the same speech, if I may say so, as
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Lord Snape Portrait Lord Snape (Labour)
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the same speech, if I may say so, as Committee stage. It is easy, of course, if you are on the fringes of Government, or you are not in Government, you demand reduction, whether it is bus fares or whatever and the Liberal Democrats of course in my experience have made a virtue of such behaviour over very many years and I look back and I seem to recollect that liberals were not in Government, along with the Conservative party from 2010 to 2015. Yet they introduced a two pounds or even a three pound fare maximum bus fare, no they did not.

In fact the Government statistics indicate that every year between 2010 and 2015 bus fares went by an average of 3.8%. So, under a conservative liberal administration, over five years, bus fares increased in real terms up to 20%. Of course, they are not in Government any more, so it is easy for her to sit there and demand reductions from three I might say she appealed for support from Lord Moylan from the Conservative party, over the term of office of a Conservative government from 2010 to 2024, bus fares increased by over 300% in fact.

I'm As I'm sure he will he will do so with his usual wit and humour, but if I may say so, and I said this to him during the course of the Committee stage, if he supports this particular amendment there will be more than a grain of cynicism behind it.

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I am ever grateful to the noble Lord Lord Snape if only on this occasion for reminding the House that bus fares went down under the that bus fares went down under the Conservative administration ending Conservative administration ending at two pounds as a maximum fair -- their limit and I'm happy for that. their limit and I'm happy for that. I'm sorry Baroness Pidgeon seeks to call our good faith into this I think my concerns about her amendment are not that she wants to continue to promote this excellent conservative policy that we would have incremented had we been elected, my concern with the practicalities of it, it's a pity there is not really a proper opportunity to interrogate it now, but the notion of a voluntary to pound fair -- their limit I find it a very strange thing pairing in a
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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statute especially on an unfunded basis but I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord the Minister has what the noble Lord the Minister has to say about it. I want to speak briefly to my Amendment 59 before turning to certain other amendments. If I may say so I'm not intending, if noble Lords will forgive me partly in the interest of time I'm partly in the interest of time I'm not intending to address every moment in the group. I hope that isn't read of me.

But my amendment isn't read of me. But my amendment number 59 concerns the fact that last year in her very last action I think it was official action before she sank into political oblivion, Louise Haigh, the then Secretary of State for Transport announced bus funding for the country and the Minister has referred to at a number of times since, and three quarters of that funding was given to local transport authorities on the basis of a completely new formula which had never been consulted on and which nobody had been given any advance notice of.

The noble Lord when I protested about this at the time and asked for an explanation or a rationale of the formula because distribution formulae are very important, said the government are entitled to make decisions about how to spend money. That was really the Of course that proposition is true at a broad level, will the government spend more money on defence, less money on aid, moron welfare, less on transport, these are big issues which the government is elected to make decisions about.

But when it comes to the distribution of money to other public authorities, those parts having been decided, the distribution of money to other public authorities, to other considerations need to be taken into account -- two other. The first is, I'm not attributing this to the government, but the pop -- possibility that formulae are manipulated so as to favour certain local authorities over others, the second is a simple obligation of fairness to local authorities that they understand how their funding is being calculated and how they can being rewarded.

What the amendment does is require the government in the future, in the near future to set out in relation to the next round of bus funding formulae, bus funding distribution I'm sorry, not only a formula but also a rationale for it, and also alternatives that they might have considered. I think this would contribute greatly to good government and to transparency. That is simply that amendment, I don't propose to divide the House in the amendment but I hope it would have support because it would be a very good example to many other departments.

I turn if I may to the amendment in the name of Lord Hampton. Buses are dangerous. Somebody told me a statistic 20 years ago, it's one of those statistics that doesn't appear in regular series, it was so astonishing I went and ensured that it was robust, but it is 20 years ago. It was that at least in London 50% of women over 65 presenting at A&E had suffered an injury inside a bus. The reason is fairly straightforward, as if you are inside a bus and with modern breaks, the brakes are applied, I think many of us will have had this experience they not all of us will have necessarily fallen over, one can be thrown about the bus both going to the seat, coming from the seat or simply standing.

As those responsible for health and safety have made breaks sharper and more effective because that would appear to make the bus safer, there isn't always consideration as to what happens to the people inside. Those things need to be looked at. It's also true that buses cause injuries to people outside, they have large mirrors sometimes that stick out, have people thought properly about that? I had some involvement in construction industry, not directly but in a non-executive capacity in but in a non-executive capacity in various roles I have had, and I was struck by the complete transformation it has taken place in the construction industry over the last 20, 25 years will top 25, 30 years ago it was expected that people would lose their lives on building sites, or that they would suffer life changing industry -- injuries.

But a determination on the part of the industry to change that, part of the industry to change that, to have a vision zero, means that nowadays a death or serious injury on a construction site is not only very rare, but something that is shocking and poured over and people try to learn lessons from it for the future. I think that attitude which is what I believe the noble Lord Lord Hampton wishes to bring to the bus industry is a commendable one, and I think it requires a change perhaps in mindset, there are examples in what the noble Lord has drawn attention to the Mayor of London's activities, this should be a national program.

If the noble Lord wishes to divide the House on this amendment the Conservative group is going to support him. Closely related to that is the amendment in the name of Lord amendment in the name of Lord Woodley, number 58. I am very disappointed that the noble Lord for whom I have a high regard is not in his place and hasn't been able to speak to this amendment, but colleagues on my benches have spoken very clearly about the importance of safety, not in the sense of being shaken around in a bus by the brakes or whatever, but the threats particularly to women and girls.

Of violent assault, simply intimidation and public transport, but today we are discussing buses in particular so I will say on buses. The recording of data to support responding to that seems to me something that clearly should be mandatory and should be taken forward in the way that is suggested by the noble Lords amendment. That too is an amendment that if you were here to me that we would in fact have supported. And still would in principle if there was some means by which it could be voted on.

Finally I turn to an amendment not in this group but debated earlier, but which will arise, which will be called very shortly. That is the one in the name number 53, in the name of the noble Baroness Lady Jones of noble Baroness Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. Relating to an auditorium review of bus services to villagers. When I was debated I said very clearly from the despatch box that I'm very happy to say it again, that the Conservative party is the party of villagers.

And if the noble Baroness chose to divide the House on her amendment, there can be no question that on this occasion at least the Conservative party would stand solidly with her and follow her through the lobbies.

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This final set of amendments covers a range of bus policy issues. covers a range of bus policy issues. I will first address amendment 52,
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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I will first address amendment 52, this would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of the English National concessionary travel scheme. The government wants everybody who needs it have access to public transport and is committed to improving the system so it is more inclusive and enables disabled people to travel safely and confidently with dignity full stop in England the English National concessionary travel scheme cost around £700 million annually and any changes to the statutory obligations such as the hours that paths can be used being extended with therefore need to be very carefully considered.

Local authorities in England already have the power to offer concessions in addition to the statutory obligations, example we have seen this in London where individuals aged 60 and over are eligible for the 16+ Oyster card which entitles them to free travel on a number of services. Similar schemes also exist in other parts of the country where local authorities have chosen to provide specific support to their communities through offers that go beyond their statutory obligation. A review into the English National concessionary travel scheme concluded in 2024 which included assessment of the travel time scheme.

We are currently considering the next steps on this. On that basis I would ask the noble 54 would require the Secretary of State to review the impact of making bus travel free for children. The government remains committed to exploring targeted solutions that deliver value for money for taxpayers whilst ensuring affordable bus travel for those need it most, particularly young people. Bus operators can continue, I'm sorry bus operators can choose to offer concessions to children and young people, for example in the year ending March 2025 youth concessions are offered by at least one commercial bus operator 73/85 local authority areas in England outside London.

Local authorities also have powers to introduce concessions or discounts for young people. We want bus fares to be affordable. That's why we are funding a three pound bus fare limit until the end of 2025 and we continue to keep under review the thawed ability of bus travel. On that basis I would ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. Moving to the next amendment, Moving to the next amendment, amendment 55, I thank the noble Lord for raising idea of a national bus forum.

I understand what he is trying to achieve to this amendment however I must have for -- assure him that my department actively engages with all stakeholders and has conducted extensive engagement in developing the proposals before The government recognises the importance of working with stakeholders to ensure bus services across the country serve the passengers and communities that rely on them, and us understand that engagement with the local authorities, bus operators, trade unions, community groups to name but a few groups is imperative to delivering the best outcomes.

I can give my noble friend Lord Woodley the assurance that conversations with these groups will continue before, beyond this bill. This is just one stop on the journey to better buses and the Department will use its convening power to bring stakeholders together in the interests of passengers, local areas and the industry. I therefore don't consider it necessary to establish a statutory body to duplicate work the department is orally undertaking. Lord Woodley, has already tabled amendment 56 which seeks to place a statutory requirement in the Secretary of State to publish a report setting the impact -- assessing the impact of the bills ability on the government to introduce collective bargaining the local bus sector nationwide was I explained this bill doesn't mandate the single bus operating model and it will be for local leaders to decide what model is the right one their areas.

These changes will not happen overnight, I've explained it will be likely to take around five years, up to five years for local transport authorities to franchise or setup local authority bus company. In terms of my noble friend amendment six months is clearly too short period of time to assess the bills impact. But this bill is also about empowering local areas they will be best placed to engage with local stakeholders including trade unions as they work together to provide the best services for their communities in addition as part of the Employment Rights Bill this government is introducing fair play agreements in adult social in England and social care in Wales, we intend to consider introducing sectorial agreements in sectors in due course and it's important we learn from this process and apply learnings when considering any learnings when considering any Turning next to amendment 37 I would like to thank the Noble Lord for this amendment that seeks to look at the provisions zero program for the bus sector as is eloquently described.

This Government is sympathetic to the aims of this amendment and we are deeply concerned about safety incidents in the bus sector and indeed any mode of transport. We share a vision of working together to improve safety. As I said at the first day of the report this covenant is taking steps to improve safety in the bus sector. The DVSA have it shortening that they are prioritising public service reporting for the streamlining of the process enabling timely interventions and making it easier for everyone, including bus staff, to raise concerns and my officials are also working at the standing committee on road injury collisions to ensure there is full visibility over any safety incidents or on buses whenever they occur, including in bus stations that help to identify further areas for potential further action.

Yet there is more to be done, which is why for the first time in well over a decade the Department will publish a road safety strategy and enforcement action can come of course, be taken against those who operate on a local service unreliable or in a dangerous way while driving the vehicle standards agency and the traffic commissions. Vision zero strategies are increasingly being adopted by local areas with Greater Manchester adopting their own approach December last year, joining London, West Yorkshire and the Liverpool city region amongst others.

They provide a means to allow local leaders to determine the most appropriate approach for local circumstances which this bill encourages and supports. While, of course, we seek to eliminate any serious injuries or deaths on the transport networks, do not believe this amendment is the right way to achieve this. It cuts across the forthcoming and actual work on a new road safety strategy on which further details will be announced in due course and for those reasons I hope the Noble Lord will consider withdrawing his amendment.

I turned next to my Noble Friend outwardly is amendment 58 is coded by the Noble Lord Moynahan which seeks to require bus operators to record and share with the local transport authority on violent behaviour and for the local transport authority to consult with trade unions about staff safety issues that will rise from the data. The provisions of this bill that we are discussing include measures to enhance the safety of staff and passengers on bus services, including an ensuring approved safety for women and girls.

The effect of the amendment would be to place an additional burden on public safety vehicle operators and local transport authorities to an increase in their time to collect and share the data as well as on the areas to consult. Many collect such data and it should be up to them to decide what works best for them in their operations and staff rather than Government. Moreover, we need to consider that any such data will need to be treated sensitively and that not all victims may want such data to be recorded and then shared and we do not want to discourage victims in the report.

When people do report incidents under the Home Office reporting laws, all reports were from victims, witnesses or third parties with a crime related or not will, unless immediately recorded as a crime, result in the registration of an audited incident report by the police and this is in line with the vision of all police forces in England and Wales with the best crime reporting system in the world, one that is consistently applied, delivers accurate statistics that are trusted by the public, and puts the needs of victims at its core.

I do not think victims at its core. I do not think it is appropriate that we duplicate that work of the police. Even more importantly for those who choose not to report incidents to the police we need to make sure they are confident in who they choose to report to where they choose to report to without consent. With that in mind I would ask my Noble Friend to withdraw his amendment. And this amendment 59 introduces, proposes an introduction from the Secretary of State published bus funding formula for consultation.

This would risk constraining the department's ability to adapt bus funding allocation methodologies whilst consultation takes place. The Noble Lord well knows that significant local transport authorities share the funding package of 955 million awarded last December was allocated on the basis of population plus mileage and deprivation. That was a mileage and deprivation. That was a fair package and I believe a very reasonable way of allocating that funding. In contrast, the previous government's allocation for local transport funding was entirely selective.

Number of local transport authorities it was applied to and another choice of those authorities was not immediately apparent to either those receiving the money, or importantly, those who did not. Given the current financial constraints facing the Government, it is essential that the Department remains agile and responsive, allowing them to set budgets based on the most up-to-date funding and evolving priorities. Whilst the Department remains committed to engaging stakeholders in enhancing transparency, the requirements outlined in this amendment help its ability to deliver effective funding solutions.

In what is inevitably a financially constrained environment. For these reasons, hope the Noble Lord will withdraw his amendment. And finally amendment 60, I would like to thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward this amendment which will require the Secretary of State to establish a voluntary two pounds fare In bus fares in England to be reviewed every three years. When the previous government's two pounds Ended at the end of 2024, the Government decided to introduce a new cap of three pounds to prevent the cliff edge return to commercial fares, and to protect those who rely on the most affordable bus services whilst also allowing significant savings to the taxpayer.

The Government is providing funding of over £150 million to deliver the three pounds In England outside of London for the duration of 2025. Maintaining the cap at two pounds for the entirety of 2025 would have cost an estimated 444 million, so the three pounds Still needs to represent a significant saving for taxpayers and on the first day of the report stage it is notable the previous Government have failed to provide any further funding for the two pounds CA P and they can also fund their own schemes to keep fares lower than three pounds, as we said in West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and the West of England and the two-part national Is shown to deliver relatively low value for money which would only worsen over time as the cost of only two pounds gross.

And noble Lords already heard from me on the first day of the report stage although the Increased from two pounds to three pounds individual fares only rose by inflation of two pounds and of course most urban bus fares were under two pounds to start with. And on that basis I would ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. I will conclude my remarks by thanking all the noble Lords for their contributions in this bill and it has been possible through productive engagement in the passage that we have identified amendments that would help improve bus services for passengers, help local transport authorities run their networks, deal practically with the issue of floating bus stops and generally ensure bill functions as intended.

As we move towards the third I look forward to discussing any outstanding issues with the noble Lords and I think the noble Lords

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for their contribution. I think the Noble Lord the Minister for his very detailed and Minister for his very detailed and careful response. And thank all the noble Lords who have contributed to what I think has been a rather rich and lively and passionate debate on issues that really matter, whether issues that really matter, whether they're able to access the bus at
18:25
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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they're able to access the bus at They are safe in the environment on the bus. I will not rent you every amendment. I am sure many people will be pleased to hear. It had a want to make a couple of comments responding to what the Noble Lord the Minister said, festival about amendment 52 about the concessionary troubles and I am slightly encouraged by the noble Lords pointing to a review of the Government giving consideration to this, although when the Noble Lord said local authorities have the option of subsidising the general English scheme, of course we know how incredibly cash-strapped authorities are and I would have to declare my position in that association.

And I also take encouragement from the noble Lords response to amendment 54 about a review of the cost and use of bus travel by children. The Noble Lord said the Government remains committed to exploring the issue and I would encourage the Government to explore north of the English border to Scotland where the green introduced free travel for under 22 is has proved extremely popular and successful. I will just mention very briefly that Noble Lord Hamptons I think excellent amendment on mission zero.

And I will declare personally that this is something that matters to me much very personally, for very personal reasons. And I think we should see it everywhere. Undertake the point that the Noble Lord the benefits but visual zero something beyond that. It means knowing that people will do the wrong thing and creating an environment where that is no longer going to leave them feeling seriously injured. That is not just the same thing as safety measures and I think that is really important that is understood.

Just finally I will mention, as was addressed by a number of noble Lords, the issue of reporting of assaults on buses. The Government has a target for reducing by half violence against women and girls. This is a method for doing it and I think as many noble Lords throughout the House of said, this would be an important step and I hope the Government will take this on board for the future, but in the meantime I would be relieved to withdraw

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amendment 52. The amendment is, by leave,

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The amendment is, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment 53, Baroness withdrawn. Amendment 53, Baroness Jones of Wiveliscombe, not moved.

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Not moved. Apologies. Yes, this amendment was debated

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Yes, this amendment was debated earlier. We had expressions of support, so I think I leave to test

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the opinion of the House. The question is that amendment 50 3B agreed to. As many as are of that opinion, say, "Content", Of the contrary, "Not content", the question will be decided by division. I will alert the House
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None Portrait Division
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The question will be decided by division, I will alert the House when voting is open. Voting is now

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Question Question is Question is that Question is that amendment Question is that amendment 58 Question is that amendment 58 is

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Question is that amendment 58 is agree to. No, the question is that a member 57 he agree to. Forgive me. As many are of that opinion say, As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The Contents will go to the right by the throne, the Not-

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The The question The question is The question is that The question is that amendment The question is that amendment 57 They They have They have voted They have voted contents They have voted contents 240, They have voted contents 240, not They have voted contents 240, not -- -- Have -- Have it. -- Have it. This -- Have it. This my -- Have it.

This my Lords, -- Have it. This my Lords, amendment 58, Lord Woodley.

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I want to place on record my thanks to the Minister the noble thanks to the Minister the noble Lords amendment 38 which I moved is Lords amendment 38 which I moved is an important measure to address the sorts of violent behaviour on the sorts of violent behaviour on the masses, especially against women and provides a valuable role for the trade unions, so I seek to test the

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will of the House. The question is that amendment 50 8B agreed to, As many as are of that opinion, say, "Content", Of the contrary, "Not content", the question will be decided by division. I will alert the House when voting is open. Voting is open. My My Lords, My Lords, the My Lords, the question My Lords, the question is My Lords, the question is that amendment 58, it really is 58 this time, be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content, Of the contrary, "Not content", the contents will go to the right by the bar, the not contents to the left by the throne, no, to the right by the throne, not contents to the left by my my Lords, my Lords, the my Lords, the question my Lords, the question is my Lords, the question is that

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There There have

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There have voted. There have voted. Contents, There have voted. Contents, 226. Not contents, 152. The contents have Amendment Amendment 59, Amendment 59, Lord Amendment 59, Lord Moylan, Amendment 59, Lord Moylan, not Amendment 59, Lord Moylan, not

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moved. Amendment 60, Baroness Pidgeon. Having listened carefully to the

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Having listened carefully to the ministers words, I believe £2 bus ministers words, I believe £2 bus fare cap the is essential and I wish fare cap the is essential and I wish to test the opinion of the House. As many are of that opinion will say, "Content". Of the contrary, "not "Content". Of the contrary, "not content". The question will be decided by a division and I will advise the House when voting is Voting Voting is Voting is now Voting is now open, Voting is now open, clear Voting is now open, clear the Voting is now open, clear the bar.

The The question The question is The question is Amendment The question is Amendment 60 The question is Amendment 60 be agreed to. As many are of that opinion will say, "Content". Of the contrary, "not content". The contents will go to the right by the throne, not content to the left by The question The question is The question is Amendment The question is Amendment 60 The question is Amendment 60 be There There have There have voted. There have voted. Contents, There have voted.

Contents, 59. There have voted. Contents, 59. Not contents, 148. The not contents have contents, 148. The not contents have it. Amendment 61, Baroness Brinton.

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For what the Minister said the other day at the despatch box about amendment 61, I was not terribly amendment 61, I was not terribly happy with his response, but I will not test the opinion of the House and I withdraw the amendment.

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and I withdraw the amendment. Not moved. We come to amendment

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Not moved. We come to amendment 61 from the supplementary list which I understand is consequential on I understand is consequential on Amendment 39 A. As many are of that opinion will say, "Content". Of the contrary, "not content". The contents have it. Amendment 62, 63 and 64, moved formally, the question is Amendment 62-60 4B agreed to en bloc. As many are of that opinion will say, "Content". Of the contrary, "not content". The contents have it.

That concludes report stage of bus services number two bill. We will just take a pause Report Report on Report on the Report on the Mental Report on the Mental Health Report on the Mental Health Bill, Baroness Merron.
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield Portrait Baroness Tyler of Enfield (Liberal Democrat)
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After clause 51, Amendment 47, Baroness Tyler of Enfield. My Amendment 47 establishes a

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My Amendment 47 establishes a Mental Health Commissioner for England. The role will fully gap in England. The role will fully gap in the operation of the Mental Health Act and the rights of people with mental health difficulties. I believe this role is essential in ensuring oversight and advocacy for those affected by the Mental Health Act. Unlike existing bodies, the commissioner would have a strategic cross government focus working to promote mental health, tackle inequalities and be a powerful advocate for the rights and well- being of those living with mental health problems who would finally have a voice at the top table.

The have a voice at the top table. The commissioner would play a vital role in the public sphere, tackling stigma antidiscrimination and championing the support of good mental health across society. The commissioner would have the independence to comment on the implantation of the reform Mental Health Act and any subsequent changes on issues that arise. International evidence highlights the impact role can play in I know concerns were raised at committee stage that they would influence their abilities.

I do not believe that is so. The CQC is a statutory responsibility to ensure there are great health and care services to intervening cases of abuse of people's rights, and powers to tackle poor practice in providers. It's work is essential, but its ability to oversee implementation is limited. And it absolutely does not have policy advisory function. I welcome the announcement of the new chief inspector for mental health at CQC that will lead the inspection of mental health providers.

It is long overdue. But like the CQC that new chief inspector would have no role to work across Government to take a view on public health policies recommendation and speak publicly on them, so the rules of the new chief inspector and the Commissioner, in my amendment, are separate and distinct. The Commissioner would complement the CQC as well as the children's adviser does with Ofsted. I was pleased to see they had conducted a meeting with the children's Commissioner, including for children and young people's mental health and I look forward to hearing more about that.

I sure that the Minister understands the distinctive role that the children's Commissioner has in championing the rights of children with mental illness and it is separate to the role of OFSTED. Finally, I know some concerns have been raised about resources, and I emphasise again, as I did committee, that I would envisage the Commissioner would have a very small secretariat, similar perhaps to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner or the victims Commissioner, the latter, I believe, has around 10 staff. And, of course, they would prioritise their work sharply.

So, for a very small Commissioner could transform the way Government and public services support our mental health, bringing a deeper understanding of mental health into the heart of Government, who statutory authority, independence, that would enable them to inform policy, support delivery, and oversee progress. Making movement bring partners together to

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make the best use of resources and advocate for mental health in the public sphere. I beg to move. Amendment proposed after clause

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Amendment proposed after clause 51 insert the following new clause as pitched on the Marshall list. I rise to speak briefly to amendment 47 moved by Baroness amendment 47 moved by Baroness Tyler. As the House will know the establishment of a mental health Commissioner was a recommendation of the joint Scrutiny Committee of the the joint Scrutiny Committee of the bill of which I was a member. The disappointment was not included in the bill. As I have said on a number of occasions, there could be a voice at national level promoting the interest of those who are detained
19:20
Lord Bradley Portrait Lord Bradley (Labour)
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or are likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act. Together with the interests of their families and the interests of their families and carers. There will also be a need for rigorous, robust and consistent oversight in the implementation of oversight in the implementation of the act. And wider mental health the act. And wider mental health policy issues and service develop movement, particularly workforce capacity over the next decade and beyond. The establishment of a beyond. The establishment of a mental health Commissioner would ensure public confidence, transparency, and accountability during this period.

However, since the committee stage, the landscape has shifted somewhat. First, throughout the passage of the bill, as we have heard, the Minister has made the case that the CQC has as regulators already responsibility for the range of activities proposed by the mental health Commissioner. This view was also recognised by the official opposition. I still have considerable doubts about this, but the CQC as we have heard has created a new role as chief inspector mental health because it at last recognises the crucial importance of mental health services in supporting people to lead fuller, healthier lives and the need for specialist expertise in regulating these services.

The imminent Doctor has been appointed and I hope to meet him as soon as possible to absolutely be clear about his role and range of activities that he sees in his role as regulator will undertake and I hope this may go some way to allay my concerns. Secondly, and importantly, the Secretary of State has stated in future he is determined to be directly accountable to Parliament for the promise of that health service of a scheme including for mental health.

And to achieve this he wishes to reduce arm's-length bodies. And has already announced, as we all know, the abolition of NHS England. This will clearly lead to significant uncertainty during the reform process. Though the establishment of the mental health Commissioner, at this time, is very unlikely to land favourably. But it is also clear to me that primary legislation might be required, yet again, to implement the NHS reforms that the Secretary of State has advocated. So, Parliament may have a further opportunity to consider the new architecture of the NHS, and then determine whether to bring forward plans for amongst other things enhanced advocacy and oversight of the implementation of the act and to support policy development that a mental health Commissioner, as we have heard, could to the table.

In the meantime, I will continue to take every opportunity to hold the Government to account as the Secretary of State has assured us he will welcome. And the Secretary of State, particularly, should be looking at the implementation of this act, and the capacity of the service to actually deliver it in a timely way. And I am particularly looking at further development of mental health policy and particularly the interface between the health and criminal justice system in the future.
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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which is at the same time as this bill has been going forward using in the other chamber I have been dealing with the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill and the parallel here is that there was created and Armed Forces ombudsman which, in some ways, has some parallels with the chief inspector of mental health with the CQC. It was found that was not effective or strong enough and now the Government itself is going for the Armed Forces Commissioner. And I think that is also one of the reasons why there needs to be an Armed Forces Commissioner model and is that members of the Armed Forces do not have the same rights, they have certain responsibilities laid on them, they are treated differently to other members of society, and that is why they need to extrapolate.

In the parallel with people who are potentially subject to the Mental Health Bill is a very obvious parallel and in the health space I also have to comment that I was heavily involved over the years with the patient safety Commissioner which was initially resisted by the Government, the Conservative Government of the time, but eventually the fight was one and there seems to be a huge success. I think this is a bubble that we are really seeing working seeming to be necessary and I do not think there is a comparison with the Government expressing a desire to get rid of arm's-length bodies and make decisions themselves.

I do not think this is a parallel to that because those arm's-length bodies are actually the Government devolve decision-making to them. That is not the case for the patient safety Commissioner also it is not a parallel at all, it is a person, and advocate who is there, they're not making sense, so I do not think the Government can shelter under that umbrella.
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Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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Can I thank the Noble Lady Baroness Tyler for that in such an eloquent way in which that is her amendment. I know this topic that noble Lords across the House bill strongly about and do appreciate the arguments in favour of the creation of the Commissioner. Indeed it was a recommendation as other noble Lords have said of the pre-lead Joint committees. Having listened keenly to the Noble Lady has said and having discussed this with the Noble Lady herself and my Noble Friends, I have two say I completely agree with the Noble Lord Bradley when he says the landscape has changed.

And we are now looking at a time when the Government is looking to reduce duplication. And also the bodies. Something I believe the opposition should support and we believe that should support and we believe that we should not be necessary to have separate mental health commissioners and we were going to put this with the ideas about strengthening the CQC, but of course that has been broken and we will talk more to that. When I had some conversations with those that supported the outcome of the mental health Commissioner said we will look at the children's Commissioner, for example.

I looked at the children's Commissioner and it does a job. Temporary staff at 31. An expert of 3 million. But I wonder whether that money could be better invested in strengthening the CQC. And I also wonder about one of the things is that they have more non-vital or non-essential roles, as by other bits of legislation, so I do worry about the cost of duplication functions and Missy I completely understand the argument about those that see the CQC has not been doing its job and those that have criticised it, and that is ill- equipped and that is why I did take that amendment out which will be discussed in the next group about the strength of the CQC functions rather than say that all now and be in the next group, do not wish to take the House any longer but I do believe there should be combines of CQC and proper accountability and I hope that we can achieve that without an independent.
19:29
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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First of all, I thank all noble Lords for their contribution on this, what I would call a fiercely and keenly debated proposal. And amendment 47, in the name of the Noble Lady Baroness Tyler, leads me to say that we do continue to be of the very strong view that the functions of the proposed Commissioner as set out in the amendment would clearly overlap with existing responsibilities of other organisations. Most notably the CQC. And I must respectfully disagree And I must respectfully disagree with the Noble Lady Baroness Tyler, the CQC does have a statutory role in monitoring the mental health act.

They published an annual report which does serve to drive policy improvements in this area. And it is our position and remains to be so that by inserting it another body to an already fragmented and cluttered Asian quality and oversight landscape it is seriously unlikely to provide the strategic leadership or effective voice for mental health patients that the Noble Lady seeks, as we all do. And as my Noble Friends Lord Bradley referred to, and was supported by the Noble Lord Kemal, in the six weeks since we last debated this issue at committee, there have indeed been very key shifts to the wider context in which we are working.

Thusly, as has been acknowledged, the appointment of the first Chief Inspector of mental health, Doctor Inspector of mental health, Doctor I am glad to hear the welcome in the chamber for that establishment boost and appointment that has been made. A significant milestone and it will improve the boys of mental health in patients and help to see that their rights are better upheld. Supporting implementation of the mental help to reforms will be a key priority of the Chief Inspector of Prisons and I'm confident that the wider reforms the CQC are making progress with under the new leadership that is in place will significantly improve their effectiveness as a regulator of mental health services.

As Lord Kamal referred to, I will also speak to when we can consider the amendment in the name of Lord Kamal in the next group.

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Will the new appointed person have statutory right to call for have statutory right to call for papers and witnesses from other departments to actually deal with mental health issues as a commissioner word?

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commissioner word? I cannot draw a comparison and I will be pleased to answer the noble will be pleased to answer the noble Lord in writing. Secondly, as announced by the Secretary of State, announced by the Secretary of State, we are abolishing NHS England as we are abolishing NHS England as part of radical reforms we are making to the national health system to rid it of duplication, inefficiency and waste so that vital resources can be redone at the frontline.

We look forward to the much anticipated report by Dr Penny Dash on the wider patient safety insight landscape. The 10 year plan for the NHS is being codeveloped with staff, patients and the public. These changes only confirmed to me that creating a new Mental Health Commissioner would not only be duplicative, but completely at odds with the important reforms that the government and CQC are making. During the course of the bill, I have heard noble Lords speak passionately about introducing a Mental Health Commissioner role akin to that of the children's commissioner and I have heard the contributions today.

I value the work of the children's commissioner and as I said before I accept it is a valid comparison. More pressing lead, following a constructive meeting that the noble lady Baroness Tyler referred to, a constructive meeting with the children's commissioner, I can report that she is concerned about the establishment of a Mental Health Commissioner. In her view covering all aspects of children and childhood is a critical part of her role, because children see their mental health as indistinguishable from their wider health and experience of childhood and we discussed this at some length.

The children's commissioner view is the proposed establishment of a mental health commissioner does risk taking a silo approach to the barriers and challenges children feel and it is incumbent on us to listen to that view. I also wish to reiterate I'm deeply concerned about the level of resource to take forward this amendment. As required within the amendment as was understood by Lord Kamal. This would be on top of the resources that would be needed to remodel healthcare, equality and retail landscape to risk the waste.

I can honestly say I do not feel that this can be justified in the current climate. The noble Lady Baroness Bennett also made comparisons to the government plans to introduce an Armed Forces Commissioner, which is an a manifesto commitment and it also supports the armed forces communities to improve service life. We are talking entirely different sets of responsibilities aimed at a different set of needs and an entirely different environment stop I do have to say I do not believe it is a useful comparison with respect to amendment 47.

It is for these reasons I asked the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

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I would like to thank the Minister for her response and particularly thank noble Lords who particularly thank noble Lords who contributed and I apologise to Baroness Bennett and I thank her for Baroness Bennett and I thank her for adding her name. The short answer is we disagree. We disagree quite we disagree. We disagree quite fundamentally on this. I don't accept the argument the Minister put accept the argument the Minister put forward. That the comparisons that I forward.

That the comparisons that I draw are not good comparisons. I think they are very good comparisons and I understand that the landscape has changed and I understand that arms length bodies have gone out of fashion and I understand the reason for that. I'm talking about a small body that acts as an advocate and I think it is different. It is not a CQC option. I was interested, I'm pondering about the children's commissioner and I understand that point about children and their mental health being part of the wider experience, but we have to remember a lot of the work of the Mental Health Commissioner would be about adults and adults who are being detained.

Rather than carrying on, we are not going to agree so I suspect the best thing to do is to

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test the opinion of the House. As many are of that opinion will say, "Content". Of the contrary, say, "Content". Of the contrary, "not content". The question will be "not content". The question will be decided by a division and I will advise the House when voting is
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advise the House when voting is open. My Lords, voting is now open. open. My Lords, voting is now open. The The question The question is The question is amendment The question is amendment 47 The question is amendment 47 be agreed to. As many are of that opinion will say, "Content". Of the contrary, "not content". The content will go to the right by the throne,

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The The question

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The question is The question is that The question is that Amendment The question is that Amendment 47

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They They have They have voted They have voted contents, They have voted contents, 49, They have voted contents, 49, not

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They have voted contents, 49, not content, 129, so the not content content, 129, so the not content habit. -- The not contents have it.

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habit. -- The not contents have it. Amendment 48, Baroness Tyler of Enfield. I rise to speak to amendments 48 and 49 in my name and would very much like to thank Baroness Bennett for adding. As debated throughout this bill, the primary driver of the review into the Mental Health Act was the shocking racial injustices in the use of the act, the figures are well known to us. Black people to support and likely to be detained, put on a CD oh and experience an outcome for people with racialised communities are on average worse.

One of the main policy objectives set out in the Bill impact assessment is to reduce racial disparities under the Mental Health Act and promote equality. That's great but given that I have found it surprising from the outset that race and racial disparity was not mentioned anywhere in Explanatory Notes. Instead there has been an expectation that nonlegislative programs and in particular the patient and carer raise quality framework which is a contractual arrangement, and some of contractual arrangement, and some of the bills broader reforms will reduce racial disparities without specific legislative requirements.

I was very grateful to the Minister organising a very helpful recent roundtable on reducing racial disparities and I learned a lot about the operation of the P... And I will return to that shortly. There is currently insufficient collection and reporting of data on experiences and outcomes of people from racialised communities under the act and that in turn hinders the ability to scrutinise progress being made in reducing racial disparities. I know from other liberations on Monday that further thought is being given to this and new research is being commissioned and that is something I very much welcome.

What would my amendments do? Amendment 48 requires the Secretary of State and Welsh ministers to review and report annually on the use of tree and and detentions broken down by detected characteristics. I believe this will enable us to understand whether these reforms are fulfilling the intended purposes of bringing down inequalities and any further action needed. However, I firmly believe this needs to be accompanied by amendment 49 which introduces a new responsible person role at hospital level in Mental Health Units Act to tackle and report on racial and other inequalities, indeed as recommended by the Joint Committee.

I know the Minister has expressed... Such as those under the Equality Act said. ICP don't believe that is said. ICP don't believe that is going to be the case. Because where there are people performing any similar roles they can of course take this on but in many places, local leads don't exist. Where they do, they can take on the Responsible Persons role and that's absolutely fine. And I think this role would actively assist providers in complying with the Equality Act duties.

Also helping to drive implementation of measures in the bill, things like advanced trust documents and out advocacy, which I think these important measures are much more likely to succeed if someone is clearly tasked with ensuring that the mental health implements them. Everyone knows who's in charge and who is accountable. There is a model for the use of Responsible Persons unit level, in the mental health 's act of force act 2018. Under that legislation, the role is accountable for ensuring that the requirements of the act are carried out.

It's a senior role which may be carried out by an existing member of staff such as a medical director of director of nursing. That would be a good model to follow. I.e. Giving an existing senior clinician with the necessary clout the responsibility to make things happen, creating clear accountability and that that would really help to bring down disparities at local level. The scope of the NHS England's Much broader than the mental health act so the Responsible Persons in my amendment would be accountable for ensuring that the voices and interests of detained patients and their carers are properly reflected in it.

Finally I was very grateful to the Minister for our recent correspondence following that helpful roundtable I refer to. I was very struck by the acknowledgement at that event of the big difference that a responsible person could make in enabling the patient and carer raise quality framework to reduce both racism and racial inequalities in the way the legislation operates. As the Minister knows, I have made the hopefully helpful suggestion that some form of pilot of Responsible Persons role could considered at an appropriate time it has bedded down.

The assurances the Minister could provide in her remarks would be much appreciated. I beg to move.
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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It's a pleasure to follow the noble Lady Baroness Tyler and having attached my name particular to her amendment 49, which as the noble Lady said, like amendment 48 addressed what was originally seen as the primary reason for reviewing as the primary reason for reviewing their Mental Health Act in the first place that black people are more than 3.5 times likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than white people, and more than seven times more likely to be placed on a Community Treatment Order.

Experiences and outcomes are worse. All of those are facts there and as the noble Lady Baroness Tyler said, the bill somehow just doesn't really seem to be addressing that. We are taking an overall systemic view to address, not addressing the issues of a particular population and particular group. It's worth particular reason why chose to sign amendment 49, is we are going to come shortly to the noble Lord Lord Stevens amendment looking at the resources being put into the Mental Health Act.

This is another way of putting resources into an absolutely, what everyone agrees is a crucial issue. This is a different way of allocating resources and I think the noble Lady Baroness Tyler has made the case that it is not the same thing, the Care Quality Commission doesn't have the same kind of situation because we are talking about people at a local trust level here, that is where the responsible person would be. As she said, if there is already someone because of local management, fulfilling the role, they can simply adopt this along the way, it doesn't have to be any kind of duplication.

I note that Mind very strongly backs this amendment. And it just delivers were restarted from on this whole -- Where we started from.

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I'm rising to speak to amendment

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I'm rising to speak to amendment 61 which is about the spike and consequences in mental health consequences in mental health disorders and it should deal with the... Treating people with mental the... Treating people with mental disorders. If in our best efforts to
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Baroness Fox of Buckley Portrait Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)
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disorders. If in our best efforts to provide alternative detention for the severely ill, we hope to ensure that adequate care in community settings exists, surely we must look at the phenomenon that threatens to squeeze out those who most need squeeze out those who most need access to such services. Implicit to this endeavour is to ask if inadvertently, some aspects of policy set in train a self fulfilling prophecy. Rebranding any deviation from the norm or troublesome behaviour or anxiety or even according to the government's own curriculum review, GCSE exam stress, under the therapeutic language of mental health has a consequences.

As Tony Blair has noted you have to be careful encouraging people to think they have got some sort of condition rather than simply confronting the challenges of life. Yet the young especially are prone to internalising the narrative of medicalised explanation and adopt an identity of mental fragility and illness which can create a cohort of citizens demanding official diagnosis, NHS intervention and treatment. This week the media has featured the new book by Doctor Alistair Sandhurst, a neuropsychiatrist from Molesey hospital.

In the book, no more normal middle health in the age of overdiagnosis, Doctor Sandhurst argues "it's become crucial to reassess what constitutes mental illness so that we can decide who needs to be treated with limited resources and who can be helped in other ways". He worries the NHS has " buckled under the soon army of referrals and other state services are straining to the point of dysfunction ". -- Buckled under the tsunami. Despite the fact the number of children with education health and care plans has more than doubled in less than 10 years, parents are desperately complaining about waiting for years for autism and other assessments.

Another was, the demand is just galloping. And all this is leading to 18 councils at risk of insolvency according to the Guardian on Monday. Also the present row over peps and the welfare system and greater numbers claiming disability payments for mental disorders, is now a major political issue. And indeed I have been partly inspired to table this amendment by the Health Secretary Wes Streeting's concern about overdiagnosis of working age adults, leading them to be written off, as he said.

And especially tragic that this is happening overwhelmingly amongst young people. My concern at the point of this amendment is that this can skew NHS provision. A poll of 1,000 GPs for the Centre for Social Justice's report reported that four in five, 84% of GPs, themselves believe that the ups and downs of normal life are now wrongly being redefined by society as mental disorders. And 83% of GPs now believe that antidepressants are too easily prescribed to patients, yet they, the GPs, are under so much pressure from patients, demanding treatment, that they prescribe them.

Similarly, in 2013 and 2014, 1,800 adults were prescribed drugs for ADHD, last year 150,000 adults were prescribed with ADHD medication. And waiting lists keep on growing and lots of anger continues. When I last spoke on this topic, in this Mental Health Bill debate, the media picked up on it and I was inundated with emails largely from people furious with me for challenging overdiagnosis, if you want I had a tsunami of hate mail. There was even a formal complaint sent to the Standards Committee of the House.

People said and understood, how can you say there is an issue with overdiagnosis when I can't get a referral for myself, for my child and so on. It is true that a GP cannot formally diagnose ADHD as it requires specialist assessments. So now the average waiting list for ADHD referral on the NHS is three years. This lack of formal diagnosis isn't necessarily stopping service provision becoming overwhelmed and distorted. I think this mood is going to have a very damaging impact on what we want this bill to do.

I want to finish with a tale from the disability report from 2022 to 23. It reveals the University has under pressure from students, agreed to " accept wide-ranging disability evidence as a key to giving 25% more time in exams and the use of computers in exams ". The University estimation is telling, they talk of a wider context of extensive and ever-growing writing times for ADHD and autism diagnostic assessments, and so they say, are aiming to reduce administrative burdens and And now potentially being corrupted by an over demand and with demands for diagnosis, and diagnosis itself is now being conflated with supporting documentation so it is enough for those students to be on a GP waiting list before they are treated as disabled.

Hopefully we can see these trends off-campus. My worry is about the culture of societal, training societies resilience and of a dependent citizenry, but for this Mental Health Bill, it seems sensible the government reviews the confusion about who you'd services are for and what is driving this increase in those demanding mental health and autism services. It seems to me it is not social, it is social rather than medical. Whatever is happening is those most in need could be neglected in the scramble for official labels and treatments, so some reassurance from the Minister the despatch box that this will be looked at rather than overlooked will make me feel that this is not...

This major social phenomenon is not going to be swept under the carpet because I think it will impact negatively the implementation of this bill.

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She has mentioned autism several times in what she says, but the times in what she says, but the whole purpose of the bill in front of us is to remove autism learning disability from mental health. Where disability from mental health. Where previously it was. In fact, I served previously it was. In fact, I served on the Bill Committee as this did others in the chamber when I was others in the chamber when I was really opposed to them adding it to The 1983 Act, it was added and it is The 1983 Act, it was added and it is now being taken out I'm pleased to say.

I hope she will accept piece of legislation on the statute book in 2009 autism act being reviewed by the House at the moment because autism is not a fad, it is not something that people just make up or something that is temporary. It is a lifelong neurological condition the failure to provide the right services for people with autism who are in that part of the spectrum where they need support, and not everybody does, there are people on the spectrum who cope quite well with life knowing they have autism and they do not need that sort of support, but where it is needed and we have discussed it a lot in this particular bill, if you do not provide the support and this is the weakness we are looking at in the current autism act, it does lead to quite serious mental health conditions including suicide, and of all these conditions the noble lady mentioned, the suicide rate amongst the autistic community is the

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highest. I genuinely appreciate that intervention and it is what I think intervention and it is what I think as well. It is precisely the misappropriated, inappropriate use misappropriated, inappropriate use of terms like autism in relation to overdiagnosis that concerns me, because I think it is to glibly used because I think it is to glibly used and that is part of what I'm talking about. I absolutely want those who need the intervention to get it, but if it becomes something that is widely used in the way I did not want to go to in great detail, on university campuses or in society in general, the TikTok phenomenon of people getting diagnosis and that getting used, that is where my concern is that the label and labelling process and the demand for treatment, squeezing out the very people you are talking about, and I have spent many years trying to distinguish between autism and mental illness.

It drives me mad that people do not know the difference. The problem I have got is in the debate about this issue they are all lumped together very often in a way that is medically not clarified, but the demand for a medical label can mean people are not that choosy about which one they get and that is where I have tries -- try to raise issue. I am grateful for the response and I would like to say that autism is different.

That is why it has its own act of

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Parliament. As I said from the previous group, I will speak to the amendment of Earl Howe which advised the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the ability of the CQC to effectively carry out its duties to effectively carry out its duties under the Mental Health Act and the provisions of mental health services. We included subsection 3 that ensures the review functions will include an assessment of will include an assessment of whether they will be able to effectively carry out its duties under the bill before us today.

As the Minister will know, in May 24, this independent review was conducted and the full report published in October found it was significantly failing in the internal work of the CQC which led to a substantial loss of credibility in the health and social care sector, deterioration in the CQC to identify poor performance and improve quality and a direct impact on social care and health care to deliver much-needed improvements in care. In addition, Lord Howe raised the issues arising from his meetings on a number of occasions.

The changes raise serious concerns about the can CQC voluntary activity and the Secretary of State claimed the CQC is not fit for purpose. We know the fundamental issues with how the CQC oversees the mental health system and as we have heard from many noble Lords, we would have the Mental Health Commissioner. We want to call for a review of CQC which focuses on mental health functions to make sure it does its job properly. The review conducted comprehensively assists the CQC ability to regulate and look at community care, but did not focus sufficiently on mental health care regulation.

I help the Minister for the brief meeting we had earlier this week where she indicated she would be able to give greater assurance on this issue and I look forward to what the Minister has to say on this particular issue because it is part of the justification for
20:09
Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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not supporting the Mental Health Commissioner. We do not want to see Commissioner. We do not want to see duplication, but in avoiding duplication or making sure the CQC does the job it is supposed to do does the job it is supposed to do and I hope I can get that from the noble lady when she speaks. If we noble lady when she speaks. If we could move to amendment 61 from Baroness Fox, I have sympathy in Baroness Fox, I have sympathy in line with the comments before by Tony Blair, but also what the secretary of state himself also secretary of state himself also said.

We did think about whether we could find an appropriate amendment to table this, but I have to say we have to be very careful and sensitive about this issue, that we in Parliament or in Whitehall cannot hope to pronounce on the issues faced by individuals in their homes or communities. Let's get the right balance. I know Lord Alderdice spoke about concerns of overdiagnosis, but we cannot over generalise. We have to make sure mental health professionals are doing their job with the right guidance to ensure that we understand the needs of each individual and for that reason I thought it was party difficult and it would be insensitive of me with this topic and I did not want to go there for that reason.

It is an issue that needs discussing, but we must do it in the most appropriate, sensitive and understanding way of those who have to suffer seriously from mental health conditions. Let me speak to the amendments from Baroness Tyler. We have both raised the issue of racial disparity and at Committee I went very strongly, but this is the issue that matters to me personally very much and I raised my experience of racial discrimination and I was as frustrated as everyone else, that we have not resolved this problem to this day, we don't know why disproportionately black men particularly are subject to detentions and Community Treatment Orders.

The question I had at the time, what do we know? What don't we know? What are we doing to fill the knowledge gap? Once we do it, what are we going to do about it? I want to thank the Minister and her officials for the detailed meetings they had with us where they laid out some of the things they are doing. I wonder if she could share some of the discussion from the letter with noble Lords tonight to ensure the government is on top of the issue and we know what we are doing and it will address it.

Let me talk to amendment 49 because I was unsure about how effective it would be. I know it is not fashionable for politicians to say this as we are supposed to have a firm decision, we know and we agree or disagree. I reflect on amendment 49 and I wonder if it is another additional burden on the healthcare professional, and additional cost, and additional bureaucracy. Given that we cannot at this stage say for sure how this will turn out, I must say I support the suggestion of Baroness Tyler to pilot the scheme and address the disparity.

If we can pilot this in some cases, it gives us the data to understand if a responsible person is effective in addressing disparity. More needs to be done. We have had successive governments and we have not solved this problem. Let's be determined as a House to tackle the problem of racial disparity and make sure we do it in the most effective way. I am grateful to what the Minister said on Monday and I hope she will give some consideration to what Baroness Tyler said about piloting it responsibly.

Maybe it won't work, but at least we have the data and evidence and I appreciate if the noble lady could give a more detailed explanation of the research being conducted to fill the gap so we can understand why we have racial disparity and what the government of any political colour will do to address those. address those.
20:13
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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I will thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this important and wide-ranging group of amendments and turning firstly to amendment 48 tabled by Baroness Tyler, we very much recognise there are inequalities in the use of the act between different demographic groups and particularly that there are significant racial disparities which the noble Lord Lord Kamal has rightly expressed some frustration with the fact we all find ourselves where we are today. These points, I would say these inequalities are explored in the impact assessment published with the bill and I would like to reiterate how grateful I am to those who attended the roundtable to examine research findings in ongoing work to address racial asperity under the act and I'm glad to hear Baroness Tyler found it helpful as indeed I did.

I can offer the assurance that NHS England already published the mental health act statistics annual report broken down by ethnocide T and other demographic information including gender, age and index multiple declaration... Deprivation decile. We are looking at the race equality framework and will monitor these inequalities as part of the overall monitoring and evaluation of reforms. Furthermore as I announced on day one of report, I commit to update Parliament annually on our progress with implementation including racial disparity.

I also would like to take further investigation into racial inequality under the act. As far as possible, we want to better understand where disparity is most significant across the patient journey, what drives disparity and most importantly of all where we can most effectively intervene to introduce equality and I look forward to keeping you updated on these findings as Lord Kamal has rightly requested. Turning to amendment 49 also in the name of Baroness Tyler in respect of creating a new role of responsible persons given there is a need to improve organisational leadership, improve data collection and change culture across the mental health system.

This way what the framework is designed to achieve will require a nominated executive lead at board level who is accountable for the delivery and oversight of the framework and implementing culturally appropriate care. This is part of the NHS standard contract and applies, I'm glad to say, to NHS and independent providers of NHS commissioning care. This builds on the duties that supply already under the duties that supply already under These existing duties recover all the key responsibilities of the proposed Responsible Persons role.

The added benefit of having many of these requirements set out in the PCREF is that it can be updated more regularly than primary legislation. This does allow us to take a more agile and iterative approach throughout the implementation of the bill, to ensure we are doing what no Lords wanted the bill and the act to do. That is capturing reporting acting on the right data and information from frontline services. And to refer to the noble Lady Baroness Tyler's point about, I can appreciate her question.

We do believe the points I have just raised actually go further than the suggested pilots and also as the noble Lady will be aware, we also believe that the addition of a responsible person in legislation is duplicative and unnecessary. Turning to amendment 60, tabled by the noble Earl Lord Howell, and the noble Lord Lord Kamall, two independent, major independent reviews into the CQC have reported under this government in the last few months. One by Dr Penny Dash on CQC's operational effectiveness as a regulator of all health and social care providers including mental health.

And the other is by Professor Sir Mike Richards on CQC's single assessment Richards on CQC's single assessment framework. These reviews were indeed prompted by very significant concerns that the CQC was no longer fit to spot poor performance, resulting in quality and safety concerns falling under the radar, which is not acceptable. We are most grateful to Doctor and Professor Mike Richards for the recommendations which the CQC have accepted in full. And as I've already mentioned, physically work on the appointment of Doctor chopper, the CQC prospect first cheapens the mental health.

As I have said, this is a very significant milestone and one which will improve the voice of mental health patients and help to see if their rights Barpeta upheld and to offer further assurance to the noble Lord Lord Kamall, the chieftains mental health will carefully explore how to strengthen focus on the health act compliance and regulatory assessment of providers and how to ensure the CQC do have the capabilities and systems to ensure effective monitoring of providers compliance with all aspects of the Mental Health Act including the reforms.

And on top of this, the CQC is working to strengthen its workforce and improve how they carry out assessment of services. Under the leadership of the new chief executive, Sir Julian Hartley, they are also working to the foundations for good regulation, including looking at the organisation's purpose and value. I can reiterate the point I have already made in previous meetings to the noble Lord, that the Department was not that the Department was not director-general of secretary and integration have been meeting with CQC's Chief Executive and his team every two weeks to monitor progress with regular reports made to the Secretary of State, so that he can keep abreast of filaments.

These changes will see that the CQC is better placed to regulate mental health services. With regard to the CQC's specific role in relation to the Mental Health Act I have listened carefully to the concerns raised by noble Lords and I am pleased to announce that we plan to report on CQC's string functions under the act in the first of the government fourth annual reports on the implantation of the bill stop we will also invite the new chieftains mental health to provide their reflections on the CQC statutory functions and their role as a partner in the delivery of these reforms which will feature in our report.

This will draw on the chieftains's valuable professional background in the field, both in the delivery of frontline clinical psychiatric care and as medical director of the mental welfare commission, commission for Scotland and this report will be laid for both houses in Parliament. Finally, I turned to amendment 61 and I was interested to hear that noble Lady Baroness Fox was inspired by the Secretary of State's comments to bring forward this amendment. Because as the noble Lady rightly said, the Secretary of State has set out previously that he does believe that there is an issue with overdiagnosis of some mental health problems.

And I want to thank the noble Lady Baroness Browning for her very helpful intervention to actually shine more of a light on the discussion that was hard. There is no doubt that too many people in this country are being written off. And not getting the support that they need. That's why the government's shift from sickness to prevention is so important, because what we know is if support can be provided to people much earlier, then the onset of mental illness, and deterioration of mental health, can be prevented.

That is why, as one of a number of measures, we are rolling out mental health support teams to schools in England. I can say to that noble Lady Baroness Fox, this is an important area. And we are keen to take a closer look as ever follow the evidence, we are looking into the best way of getting into these questions and addressing these issues. So I do hope that my words and action in my commitments have given reassurance and also have given...



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Yes, of course. Going back to my management on

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Going back to my management on the CQC, one of the arguments for those who believe in an independent mental health commission that they mental health commission that they would be a voice for the patients. I just wonder, would that strengthen the role of the CQC, where is the the role of the CQC, where is the voice for patients? That was one of the justices of that argument and we the justices of that argument and we have decided not to support the mental health commission because we thought that function should be part of what the CQC does so I wonder whether she could reassure us on

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that. Is I've said previously, the new chieftains will be able to... For me it's not just about giving, somebody speaking for but is actually getting those voices heard. And I hope the noble Lord and in fact all noble Lords have heard my acknowledgement of the importance of that, that those were lived experience do need to be heard backbones with lived -- Those with lived experience need to be heard. And therefore is amplified and properly heard. I have given a number of reassurances to that point.

With that, I hope noble

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Lady will withdraw her amendment. Will noble Lords who have contributed to this group and the contributed to this group and the Minister for her responses. I would also like to thank the noble Lord also like to thank the noble Lord Lord Kamall for taking my suggestion Lord Kamall for taking my suggestion of a pilot. The responsible person. I have noted the noble Lord the I have noted the noble Lord the Minister has said that that's not a pilot isn't really necessary because of what the government is doing goes of what the government is doing goes further.

That's one way of looking at it, have to be honest and say it's not quite how I see it but I do completely take the point, we need to see what happens when the PCREF has bedded down and let's see what it does achieve. But if it's not achieving what I think we all want to see then I think at that point we really do need to think whether a Responsible Persons would actually make the sort of difference that was being talked about at that very helpful roundtable.

I look forward to hearing more about the various actions that the Minister said we will hear, of course I look forward to meeting new chieftains. I will be very interested to see how they actually see their role, and particularly the extent to which they think that they are an advocate providing the voice of people with mental health difficulties. I think that will be very interesting. This does get to the very heart of this act, the very reason we got it in the first place.

It's an incredibly important issue. We could talk about it for a long time, but we can't. The hour is late and I incredibly unfortunate have had such a unfortunate have had such a truncated second day of bait. I truncated second day of bait. I really do. -- Of debate. These things happen but given the importance of the topic extremely importance of the topic extremely unfortunate. But having said that, I beg to leave to withdraw my amendment.
20:26
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Portrait Baroness Tyler of Enfield (Liberal Democrat)
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Is it your lordships' pleasure that this amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is finally withdrawn. Amendment 49, Baroness Tyler, not

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move. Amendment 50, Baroness Tyler. It's funny the way these

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It's funny the way these groupings work. I rise now to speak to amendment 50 in my name and to to amendment 50 in my name and to just say a few comments on Amendment 59 in the name of noble Lord Lord 59 in the name of noble Lord Lord . We have talked a lot throughout . We have talked a lot throughout the passage of this bill and rightly so about the importance of how it's implemented and particularly ensuring there are sufficient resources available to allow the much-needed expansion in community mental health services.

The cost of the plant unless this happens the bill won't be prevented. And to put this into context, those waiting the longest for an active community mental health care, both adults and children, have waited two years. Which is twice as long as those waiting for elected physical healthcare. Parity is still a long way off. I was very grateful to the Minister for sharing the government's implementation plan and for arranging a helpful discussion with herself and officials. My amendment 50 requires integrated care boards to produce a biannual report identifying sausages and preserved four think measures to address challenges in delivering these services.

We all understand that provisions in the bill will take time to enact, and systems will take time to build capacity including training of expanded workforce, particularly given the existing workforce challenges. The committee stage I talked about the workforce impacts of the bill, drawing on research from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I will not repeat those figures now. Safe to say NHS England set a target back in 2016 to have over 1,000 consultant psychiatrists imposed in England by last year, but based on these targets, as of last year, there was still a shortfall of 769 so we have still got a long way to go and of course mental health, the mental health workforce is considerably wider than the consultants.

Turning to amendment 59, in the name of noble Lord Lord Stevens, to which Benches we very strongly support, this amendment is to ensure the mental health funding is not cut as a share of overall health service funding until the act is fully implemented. I think it's right to have given the pressures of public finances including on the overall health system on what the pressures that they pose on mental health spending. Critically, it does not tie the governments hands in whatever decisions they make about the overall level of NHS spending.

And one of the reasons I support this so strongly is because the statement from the Secretary of State on 27th of March, on the amount and the share of spend on mental health was frankly, not reassuring. Mental health spending expected to go down as a proportion of overall NHS spend this year. And a forecast for similar next year. I know it was a small amount but this could be part of a trend. I think it reinforces the point that mental health spending and parity of esteem are not currently sufficiently protected and I believe there is a need for legislative cover.

If the noble Lord Lord Stevens is minded to test the opinion of the House we will certainly be supporting him and I will just conclude by emphasising that legislative backstops and reporting duties are necessary, I think, to ensure the imitation of the bill is timely and effective and that is particularly underlined by the delays in the implementation of both the Mental Health Units Act use of force act 2018 and the liberty protection safeguards introduced in the mental capacity Amendment act 2019 to replace the deprivation of liberty of safeguard systems, neither of which have been taken forward.

And both of which are very relevant to patients affected by the

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Insert the new clause as printed on the Marshall list.
20:30
Lord Stevens of Birmingham Portrait Lord Stevens of Birmingham (Crossbench)
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on the Marshall list. This bill has been years in gestation and we have heard it will gestation and we have heard it will be years in implementation and the government not unreasonably pointed to limiters of that, workforce and funding. We heard that the amendment 50 is responsive to staffing constraints and concerns and Amendment 59 tackles funding questions. I am grateful for the support from Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Scriven as well. As she said, this does not seek to turn the government or the House of Commons under their privilege how much to spend on the NHS, all it says is there should be a limit on the share of the total for a time-limited period while this act is being implemented.

Government would continue to decide the size of the NHS pie for the government if they could decide to grow or shrink it, but the slice of the pie would be protected for a time-limited period, not just at the local level, but nationally. We had a debate on this at some detail and I'm not going to repeat the logic or arguments, but I will update the House on the developments since then. The first is in consultation of the public bill office, this report amendment is more tightly drawn focusing on mental health services during scope of the bill and required for its implementation.

As Baroness Tyler noted, sadly since we debated this point at Committee, new evidence emerged as to why the amendment is needed because previously in good faith Minister's argued the government is committed to protecting mental-health anyway, but the written statement disclose the government looks to shrink the share of NHS funding of mental health services in the year ahead. The statement says that this is because of significant investment in other areas of healthcare. That is not a justification, just a mathematical tautology.

It reveals the preference and testicle to what would be required over the years to get the bill implemented. It may be argued that it is a small percentage reduction even though it is an important precedent that has been set, but a small percentage reduction on a large pan note number itself constitutes a large pound note number and mental health services will miss out on hundreds of millions of pounds more not just in the year ahead, but in the decade it will take to implement the bill if that is not corrected in subsequent years, more than £1 billion of funding has been removed from mental health services as a consequence of the decision.

I think there are real grounds to concern of if the pimento of the act will be properly resourced. If the government wants to argue that this amendment is unnecessary because they are going to do what it says anyway, it is not clear why they would object to its inclusion in the act. If the government argue that they don't support the amendment because they would like the flexibility to cut mental health funding shares, to my mind that points to the necessity of the

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amendment itself. I rise briefly having attached my name to amendment having attached my name to amendment 59 in the name of Lord Stevens and is backed by Baroness Tyler and Lord Scriven. I think we saw at Committee Scriven. I think we saw at Committee stage multiple amendments trying to stage multiple amendments trying to -- address the resource issue. It is an elegant solution as Lord Stevens an elegant solution as Lord Stevens outlined and it is also emanating from crossbenches, a moderate from crossbenches, a moderate solution that it can and will attract support from the House.

As noble Lords have spoken already, parity of esteem has never been achieved and is currently going backwards. I think we have got to focus on the fact the waiting lists for community mental health care for adults and young people and children is twice as long for those of physical healthcare. That is the outcome of inequality of esteem. I note that the rethink mental illness ) right time survey found that most people living with a severe mental illness experience worsening mental health while waiting for treatment with 42% requiring urgent care and 26% needing to be hospitalised.

We
20:36
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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are aiming to shift from hospital, in patient care while forcing things in patient care while forcing things in the other direction because people reach a state of crisis. I people reach a state of crisis. I must preface this with a warning of the horror of what I'm about to say the horror of what I'm about to say is that right treatment right time report found that 25% of people whose mental health deteriorated whose mental health deteriorated while waiting for treatment, they attempted suicide, highlighting how attempted suicide, highlighting how the lack of funding for mental health care impacts on that awful health care impacts on that awful statistic.

This is a step to create a framework to head in the right direction and as Lord Stevens said,

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how could you possibly oppose this? Very briefly, I wanted to

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Very briefly, I wanted to absolutely support this amendment. I absolutely support this amendment. I think it is worth clarifying that what we said earlier about what we said earlier about overdiagnosis, the danger is it can overdiagnosis, the danger is it can be interpreted as at what cost, but what I mean is targeted intervention for the right people rather than saying everyone is mentally ill so let's overwhelm the service. I completely agree with Baroness Tyler completely agree with Baroness Tyler of Enfield that if we do not get the amount of community provision sorted out, then what will be done over the last few weeks is waste time as the bill will not be worth the paper it is printed on.

It is the danger and it is tempting in a period of intense difficulties as it might be intense difficulties as it might be one of the first things to go. It is a dangerous amendment and I remind you of the discussion we had later in the evening on the rights of prisoners. Prison is leaving prison, ex-prisoners, if there is no community resource for them, will deteriorate and they will become very ill in the community and become incarcerated again.

I discussed that incarcerated again. I discussed that in great detail. It is essential if we are serious about saying we don't we are serious about saying we don't want to lock people up, but actually treat them appropriately.
20:38
Lord Scriven Portrait Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)
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I rise quickly to support the amendments of Lord Stevens and put my name to it. A couple of extra things I would like to add to the well argued case of Lord Stevens and as modest as it may be, it is an effective measure. This is why I think it is effective and the House should listen and support the amendment if he decides to push it to a vote. It is not that the Secretary of State announced the percentage will decrease next year.

The percentage decrease happened this financial year and went down from 9% to 8.78%. We are on a trend of the percentage of national health service spend on mental health, and furthermore, I think one has to question the priority of the government and they will look at the national planning guidance and some of the targets that have been dropped from that. We want to target those waiting for mental health and I think it would be slightly disingenuous of the noble lady the Minister in response to talk about the mental health investment scheme because that refers to the ICBs spend.

The uniqueness and cleverness of Lord Stevens amendment talks about all health service spend including what is spent on non-ICBs spend, specialised commissioning and other elements that need to be there. When you think that mental health takes up 20% of illness by the NHS, and we will be spending probably 8.7%, I think because of the trend that is happening, Lord Stevens amendment is vital to ensure not just that the amount percentage is maintained, but also the implementation of the parts of the community facility within this are actually funded and will be able to

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be implemented. I don't propose to speak at

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I don't propose to speak at length, but I would like to begin by expressing my support for the case put forward by Baroness Tyler in put forward by Baroness Tyler in amendment 50. Her concerns around resourcing of the mental-health
20:41
Earl Howe Portrait Earl Howe (Conservative)
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resourcing of the mental-health workforce are well-founded and there is no better source of evidence for those concerns than the CQC and I thank them for briefing me very fully on this subject at the beginning of last month. When we look at the issue of workforce sufficiency, there is a paradox confronting us. The fact is that between 2019 and 2024, the mental- health workforce grew by nearly 40,000 full-time equivalent staff, an increase of 35%. Yet when we sit down to read the CQC recently published Mental Health Act monitoring report for 23-24, we find staff shortages are a pervasive feature throughout the service.

There is a cocktail of reasons for this apparent contradiction. Steeply rising patient demand, very steeply rising, patients being admitted to hospital with a greater acuity of mental illness, a struggle in many places to recruit staff with the right skills, and poor retention of skilled staff with as a consequence a high reliance on agency workers. All of this impacts on the quality of care given to patients, because with hospital staff suffering burnout and temporary staff coming and going, there is often no opportunity to develop the therapeutic relationships that make patients feel psychologically safe and secure.

Of course, not all areas of the country, there are geographical disparities affecting the availability of different skill sets and these disparities result in different kinds of problem, manifesting themselves, for example in one of the three high secure hospitals, they encountered cases where patients were being kept in their rooms during the day. Elsewhere in a number of inpatient wards, patients with autism and learning disability reported that staff lacked the necessary training to look after them properly, in other settings a lack of training is more basic.

Agency staff often don't know how to operate the hospital IT system. What this mixed picture underlines to me is Baroness Tyler's amendment expressed in exactly the right way since it mandates by staff sufficiency reviews not to be done centrally, but by commissioners as a locum and formula is appropriate for another reason, which is depending on where you are in the country, there can be different sorts of barriers to accessing care whether they are for those with ethnic minority groups, children and young people, or simply for people living in areas of high deprivation.

The more people find it difficult to access the care they need, the more seriously they can be at risk, and that particularly applies to children and Baroness Bennett made that point. We have not heard much from the government about workforce planning generally, but it is an area where this exercise just cannot wait. It leads me to amendment 59 in the name of Lord Stevens. It will not be much comfort to him if I say that I am right behind the sentiments of the amendment.

He knows that sadly I cannot ask my colleagues on these benches to vote for it simply because I do not think it is appropriate for primary legislation to tie the hand of government in matters of health spending. Those macro decisions surely must be for ministers. Nevertheless, the flagship principal at the centre of the amendments is that parity of esteem, the principal of course enshrined in statute, and to which I am totally signed up alongside all of your Lordships, however parity of esteem is a broad concept and should in my view be measured in a range of ways, not simply by reference to monetary input, important though that is, and it is important.

The noble Lord is right to focus on the recently published and very troubling announcement on mental health spending. I hope the Minister will be able to deliver at the despatch box some robust assurances on mental health spending as well as parity of esteem more generally which will obviate the need for the noble Lord to press his amendment and will to press his amendment and will
20:46
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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I am grateful for all of the contributions and considerations this evening which I've listened closely to. Let me first turn to amendment 50 in the name of noble Baroness Tyler. Workforce is absolutely a critical factor in enabling these reforms and we have committed to recruiting more mental health staff over the course of this Parliament. The impact assessment to set out our expectations for the additional workforce that are required to deliver this bill. However, there are already various mechanisms in place to monitor and address concerns about the mental health workforce.

And the proposed amendment, we believe, would be duplicative and unnecessary. Avoiders who are registered with CQC, both NHS and independent services, are required to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent and experienced staff as outlined in regulation 18 of the staffing of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, regulated activities regulations, 2014. If CQC find a breach in regulation 18, they can take action. The Mental Health Act code of practice also states that local authorities should ensure that there are sufficient approved mental health professionals and independent mental health advocates.

All of the staff of CQC registered providers must receive appropriate training as is necessary to enable them to carry out their duties under regulation 18 of the Health and Social Care Act regulations 2014. At a national level, CQC reports on workforce sufficiency as part of its monitoring of the Mental Health Act report and we would argue that this is a much better process than requiring integrated care boards to mark themselves on how well they are fulfilling their duties. Furthermore, as I said on Monday, and I wish to reiterate, we are committed to laying annual report on implementation which will set out progress made in the future plans for amplification.

This will include information on expansion of the workforce including sector opinion painted doctors, section 12 doctors and approved clinicians. It will also include details of the key statistics and outcomes under the Mental Health Act including detention rates, community treatment detention rates, community treatment order rates, and other key metrics such as racial disparities and outcomes for children and young people. All of which noble Lords people. All of which noble Lords rightly seek. I hope that this annual commitment will be welcomed by your Lordship's House and hope that this, combined with existing workforce monitoring, that I have referred to, will allow the noble Lady to withdraw her amendment.

Turning now to amendment 59, I also, as did noble Lord Al Howell, understand the intention of the noble Lord Lord Stevens, which is to ensure that we invest in delivering these reforms. So I want to be clear, as I said at Committee. There are already mechanisms in the NHS act to prioritise mental health spend to deliver these reforms. And just to make the point that I have made previously, we believe that this amendment is not the right mechanism to ensure that we do that and I will return to the three main reasons for this.

But I want to first refer to the point the noble Lord Lord Stevens made when he spoke Lord Lord Stevens made when he spoke of, "shrinking mental health spend". Shrinking share of spend, mental health. Spend. I thank noble Lord for that correction from his for that correction from his sedentary position. Perhaps I could provide some clarity which the noble Earl how also asked for. The proportion of spend is almost exactly the same as it was last year, with the difference of just 0.07%.

We'd understand concerns that the share of overall NHS funding for mental health will reduce slightly. However, this does not mean that mental health funding is being cut, and I do not want noble Lords to think this to be the case. To be clear, spending on mental health clear, spending on mental health support will increase relative to 2024/25 and is forecast to amount to £15.6 billion, that is an increase of 680 is forecast to amount to £15.6 billion, that is an increase of 680 million in cash terms and equivalent to 320 million in real terms.

And perhaps it would be helpful for me to return to the point about the three main reasons for not supporting this amendment. Firstly, on the noble Lord Lord Earl Howe helpfully referred to this, is what I would refer to as a point of principle. Primary legislation should not be used to constrain spending in this way. Multi-budgets for government departments will be set by this established Spending Review process which considers spending in the ground and in the context of the government policy priorities, additionally it is Parliament that is responsible for scrutinising government spending and approving spending.

Set by departments for the current financial year as part of the process. Secondly, the amendment only applies to spend under the Mental Health Act. The mental health system, as noble Lords would appreciate, does not structure its accounts based on the legal framework under which the patient is held. A single ward, for example, could contain a mix of patients under the Mental Health Act and informal patients who would not usually be considered to be under the mental health act. Likewise, community will support a mix of people, some community treatment orders and others who are not.

It would be impractical to require services to switch costs based on the ever-changing patient mix within their care. And the third reason for not accepting this amendment and perhaps the most fundamental point, is that the share of spend on the Mental Health Act could reduce over time and that is not undesirable. The genesis of these reforms is that review which was initiated by the noble Lady Baroness May to address the rising rates of detention. We all want to see more people cared for effectively in the community so that the need for the use of the act is reduced.

This would require more investment in preventative community services which surely I would put noble Lords is the preferable model to supporting severe mental illness. In creating a legal requirement for the share of spend to specifically under the Mental Health Act not decrease, this amendment would actually preclude the shift from detention to prevention that I know we all want to see. So while I absolutely do understand the intention, and I can commit that we will invest to deliver these reforms, we cannot support this amendment, which for the reasons I have outlined, we believe is fundamentally flawed.

So for these reasons I do hope the noble Lords

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will withdraw amendments. My Lords, this has been another

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My Lords, this has been another incredibly important group of amendments and again we are very
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Baroness Keeley Portrait Baroness Keeley (Labour)
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same as tabled at committee stage. It aims to ensure that the Human Rights Act 1998 tax individuals and of the NHS, local authorities are the state 's outsourced mental health treatment or after care to private providers. It seeks to secure human rights protection whenever people are deprived of their connection with mental disorders. I'm grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her comments on this amendment when it was debated at committee stage and for all her engagement on the related .

Grateful to Baroness Barker for her support for this amendment and to her and other noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the amendment at committee stage. I'm also very grateful to Doctor Lucy series and professionally claimants who helped with drafting this amendments and provided notes and briefings on the need to close that gap to ensure human rights protection. As we noted, in the debate at committee stage, after the 2007 case versus Birmingham City Council Parliament need to close gaps in human rights protection, section 15 thus Health and Social Care Act more recently, section 73 of the Care Act, and noble Lord Earl of the Care Act, and noble Lord Earl Howe reminded us the committee stage debate that he is Health Minister tabled a government amendment of the care bill in 2014 to close the gap in human rights protection.

However, the recent High Court case showed that mental health patients and many other users of outsourced health and social care services were still not protected. The judge held that the Human Rights Act did not apply because the care was arranged under section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983, not under the Care Act. The 1983, not under the Care Act. The Of the Human Rights Act as a remedy for using outsourced public services such as private care provision on mental health treatment.

This does raise concerns about the human rights protection of thousands of other people who are deprived of their liberty, in private health and social care settings in connection with their mental disorders. Amendment 54 addresses these gaps in human rights protection for three groups of people will stop patients like Mr Salmond receiving after-care from private providers, any patient receiving inpatient health services, where the subject of the Mental Health Act or not, and any one deprived of their liberty by a private provider of health and social care in connection with a mental disorder.

It would ensure better protection for people with mental disorders in private care settings. I do want to add that it would also be possible to expand the scope of the amendment to include non-publicly funded care arrangements, where article 5 the Human Rights Act is engaged. This would mean including people whose care arrangements were paid for privately from their savings or by family members. So amendment 54 could be adapted so that anywhere Article 5 safeguards are engaged a care provider could be treated as a public body.

I'm grateful to my friend the Minister for meeting me, Baroness Barker, before for stage and discussing these issues of the gaps in human rights protection. And There are other measures affected by the ruling, including children social care. I have written to my noble friend about the possibility of incorporating a similar amendment to 54 for adult social care and education, doing that in the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. There's also a gap for other outsourced areas of including NHS continuing healthcare and any care for continuing illnesses commissioned by the NHS.

So if there is to be, and I think it's likely, an NHS bill in this parliament, that could provide a vehicle to close any remaining gaps in adult social care. For now I commend what is a simple

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amendment, I hope it can be supported. Amendment proposed, after clause

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Amendment proposed, after clause 51 insert the new clause printed in the marshalled list.
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Baroness Barker Portrait Baroness Barker (Liberal Democrat)
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the marshalled list. At this late hour I don't intend to speak at great length, but I don't want anyone to misinterpret as diminishing support for Baroness Healy's amendment. I do believe this is very important. It's important for two main reasons. The first is that we all know the Human Rights Act is under attack on many different fronts, draw many different reasons. I happen to be one is fair to say a human rights absolutist, I don't believe you can pick and choose which human rights you support.

They are universal. And you can't yourself a human rights supporter if you are not prepared to stand up for the human rights of people you don't like and don't care for. I would suggest that amongst the people whose human rights are most at risk are those who are stuck away in care homes without anyone paying any attention to them, perhaps without relatives and about whom nobody frequently cares. They are at the mercy of particularly providers, who have commercial interests in maintaining them in the positions where they are rather than seeking to address their care in more fundamental ways.

If for nothing else, I want us to acknowledge that. Secondly, I want us to pay tribute to all those health professionals and people like solicitors who choose to work in this most unglamorous part of the legal system. There's no great reward, no great financial reward inputting yourself out to stand up for these people. But they do. It is their dedication that has brought this back to the attention of people in this House. Baroness Keeley and I to a certain extent were, as we all have been throughout this bill, assuaged by Baroness Merron and her very personable way in which she has listened to all our concerns.

But we were not yet convinced the government, which is uniquely placed to stick for the rights of these people, is doing so to the extent it should. That is why we have taken the time to drop your Lordships. I hope all the provisions of this amendment are taken up by the government.
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti (Labour)
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I declare an interest as a member of that persecuted minority of activist human rights lawyers. But crucially, it's a privilege to follow the noble lady Baroness Barker, and my noble friend Baroness Keeley who have done so much wonderful work on this. I also want to commend the brains trust which is sat behind them, of mental health professionals and lawyers. 24 February, when we had a lengthy discussion of this at committee, was one of the best debates I've ever had the privilege of participating in in your Lordship's House.

And not just because everybody agreed. But they did. I don't remember a single person speaking against my noble friend's amendment. At committee stage. And we disagree well in your Lordship's House, but it said something that not a singer person disagreed. I commend in particular the eloquent speeches that day from the noble and learned lady Baroness Butler-Sloss, and the noble Earl Howe on the opposition frontbench. I have been very excited to hear that my noble friend the Minister has been in such constructive meetings with my noble friend, Baroness Keeley.

Whatever the debates about contracting out services, nobody on this side of the house once people to be treated less decently and with less human rights because the service being provided directly by the state or a decent contractor. With that, I look forward expectantly to my noble friend who is very experienced and very decent, very wily, so I look forward with

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hope in my heart to her response. Having listened to the noble

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Having listened to the noble Baroness lady Keeley, and her clear Baroness lady Keeley, and her clear and concise explanation of the amendment today and in committee, I can do no other than express my full support yet again for all she has support yet again for all she has said. This is indeed an important issue that case law has exposed as
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Baroness Blake of Leeds Portrait Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)
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Gives me enormous pleasure to respond to the amendment in the name of my noble friend, Baroness Keeley. I haven't joined the team during committee stage, so I wasn't present at the meeting. But I have read the Verbatim, and I can only add my express thanks for the sincerity and the careful, thoughtful way the arguments have been put forward by all noble members who took part, and those that have spoken today. Of course, I'm aware of the wider strong support for this issue.

I'm very grateful for the references to the different organisations who have engaged in this. But also very struck by noble Lady Baroness Barker's comments about reference to other professionals. All those unsung heroes who do not get the recognition they deserve. I think we can all join together to express our gratitude. I would also like to express my condolences to the family of Paul Sammut, as we have discussed in the previous case, that has helped bring us to our attention.

We do have concern around unequal coverage and rights of redress under the Human Rights Act, and the court judgement has highlighted the need to clarify the position of private mental health and care providers under the Human Rights Act when providing mental health related care, arranged and cared for by the NHS and local authorities. -- Paid for. What I would like to do tonight is commit that we will return to this issue when the bill goes into the other place.

And there we can have the proper discussion and further consideration of some of the issues that have been raised. I think there are particular interests raised by Baroness Keeley around the wider implications of this. And I am particularly conscious of the references to children's services. It is of course an issue that we have been discussing with the DfE, and they will have their responsibilities to have a look at the ramifications for them. But we need to keep working on this, recognising the gap that my noble friend and others have raised in this place.

But committing to taking it forward as a part of the legislative process going forward. And I know my noble friend the Minister has put a lot of time into this, and really is thankful to the input. And she has very graciously offered to have further meetings on this point as we move forward in the discussions and look forward to the

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outcomes in due course. I'm very pleased to hear Ministers will pick up this issue
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None Portrait Division
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The The questionnaires The questionnaires that The questionnaires that this amendment is agree to. As many are amendment is agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". -- of the contrary, "Not content". -- Question is. Contents go to the right by the throne, Not-contents to

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This There have voted content, 51,

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There have voted content, 51, Not-contents, 106. The Not-contents Amendment Amendment 57 Amendment 57 Baroness Amendment 57 Baroness Hollins Amendment 57 Baroness Hollins not moved? Amendment 58, Earl Howe not Include Include community Include community and Include community and preventive services since they are provisions included within the bell in various respects, in any event now is not the time to further relitigating with your agreement I do beg to move

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amendment 59 and would like to test the opinion of the House. The question is this a Gran -- amendment is agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The of the contrary, "Not content". The question will be decided by division, I will advise the House Voting Voting is Voting is now Voting is now open, Voting is now open, clear Voting is now open, clear the Voting is now open, clear the bar.

The The question The question is The question is that The question is that this The question is that this amendment be agreed to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". Contents will go to the right by the throne,

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They They have They have voted,

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They have voted, content They have voted, content 19, They have voted, content 19, not

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They have voted, content 19, not content 112. The not content habit. content 112. The not content habit. content 112. The not content habit. My Lords, amendment 60, Lord Kamall. Not moved. Amendment 61, Baroness Fox, not moved. 62, Lord Kamall, not moved. 63, Baroness Bennett, not moved. 63 a.

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I'm acutely aware of the our so I
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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will be brief. I speak to amendment 60 3A, which provides a duty for ICBs and local authorities to have a duty to implement preventative policies for mental disorders. I have to join Baroness Tyler in regretting how this debate on this crucial bill has been squeezed. But I a lovely position because the noble Lady the Minister in the group starting with amendment 48 essentially supported my amendment, because the noble Lady said if support can be provided much earlier mental ill-health can be prevented.

And that's essentially what this amendment seeks to do. I'm obviously not going to divide the house at this stage of the evening, but I have to say I have spoken over the years to so many public health professionals, consultants, directors in local authorities, who are over and over again continually expressing frustration that everyone knows preventative healthcare, investment in preventative healthcare is the way to take pressure off the NHS. Understandably, when someone turns up with an acute mental health crisis or with a broken leg, we have to treat that and that's where resources go.

This amendment is an attempt to write into the bill, and I hope it might be revisited in the other place, to put the duty in their two say prevention has to be a duty. This aligns with governments rhetoric and their approach to public health. I beg to move the amendment now, I'm not going to put it to the vote but I hope this can

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be a start of the discussion. Amendment proposed, after clause

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Amendment proposed, after clause 51 insert the new clause printed in the martial bliss.

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Because of the lateness of the hour I will be brief. These benches
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Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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This will probably be the last time I speak at this level of report stage, I'm sure you are grateful for that. Before I make my last remarks I want to put on record my gratitude to the Minister, and her officials and the whips, for the amount of time they have given us to discuss a lot of these amendments. It is truly appreciated by our side, and I know other noble Lords have appreciated the time that the officials and the noble Lady Minister put into our discussions.

Given the hour, I won't take another hour. The sentiment behind this amendment I would say is unquestionable. During my time as a Minister I was repeatedly told and reminded about the need to focus on prevention. And also, as we know and of course I agreed to grant, we know Lord Darcy in his report of the state of the NHS repeated his emphasis on the shift to prevention. Where possible they should be applied to mental health. If we can shift from a situation where we are treating patients and they are repeatedly detaining them in a condition where they are detained for longer, if we can shift to a scenario where we can treat them instead of worsening them, mental health will benefit.

We strongly agree with the intent here, which is also in line with one of the other intentions of the government, the shift from hospital to community. When discussing this with others I have heard one concern which I am reflecting on. ICBs, local health boards and local authorities must implement preventative policies. It's been suggested to me that this might be too prescriptive, or may place a duty on smaller bodies that don't necessarily have resources to implement such policies. Those who suggest this tell me it may appear more reasonable to place that duty on the Secretary of State or the Department for Health and Social Care, who have the capabilities and resources to implement preventative measures.

Such a policy could work if the Department had to work with ICBs and local authorities, as well as local communitystate civil society organisations to move towards preventative care. I am still reflective on this, but I don't wish to detain the house while I make up my mind. I look forward to the response from the noble Lady, the Minister.

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I thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this amendment, contributions on this amendment, amendment 60 3A in the name of the amendment 60 3A in the name of the noble Baroness Lady Bennett. I'm noble Baroness Lady Bennett. I'm grateful for the appreciation of Lord Kamall, and the appreciation that's been shown throughout the that's been shown throughout the report stage for the whole team. report stage for the whole team. Similarly I would reciprocate thanks to all noble Lords, and their offices for their assistance in improving the Mental Health Bill.

Let me start by saying, as the noble Lady observed, we do agree with the
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Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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intention of the amendment that there must be a focus on prevention there must be a focus on prevention and that the commissioning of services must reflect the need of local communities. However, we don't feel it's necessary to place this feel it's necessary to place this requirement in statute. The government is, as the noble Lady government is, as the noble Lady knows, currently co-developing the 10 year health plan with the public 10 year health plan with the public staff and patients. As part of this we are exploring ways to stimulate we are exploring ways to stimulate the shift from sickness to prevention so that we can deliver an NHS fit for the future.

And to the points raised by Lord Scriven, I can respond with a number of points. Firstly, the progress is already being made to transform community mental health services. In the last 12 months more than 400,000 adults have received help through new models of care, which aim to give people with severe mental illness greater choice and control over their care. We are going further by piloting the 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centre model in England, building on learning from international exemplar is such as those to be found in Trieste, which I know Baroness Bennett has taken a great interest in.

Six early implementers are bringing together their community, crisis and inpatient functions into one open access neighbourhood team. Which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This does mean that people with mental health needs can walk in or self refer, as can their loved ones. ICBs are already required to have policies which reflect their communities under the National Health Service act 2006, as amended by the act 2022, section 311 of the NHS act 2006 also specifies the duty of an ICB to commission certain health services, including such other services or facilities for the prevention of illness.

An Integrated Care Board must arrange for the provision of services to such extent as it considers necessary to meet the reasonable requirements for the people for whom it has responsibility. ICBs and their partner NHS trusts and foundation trusts, including the mental health trusts, are also required to prepare a joint forward plan which describes how the ICB will arrange for NHS services to meet their population's physical and mental health needs. Given these duties already exist, given the government's commitment to a shift from sickness to prevention, and given the progress being made on community transformation and expansion of crisis services, we do not consider it is necessary to create any additional duties within the Mental Health Act.

And I hope the noble Lady will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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I thank the noble Lady the Minister for her detailed response, and the positive mention of Trieste. I echoed the comments of Lord Kamall, thanking the noble Lady the Minister for a very genuine engagement in the debate over this bill. I think this final point it's also worth noting there is a very small number of lords who put an enormous amount of work into this bill. And I think it would be nice to perhaps see a wider engagement across the house rather than the way to being carried by a small number On to thank the noble Lord Scriven for his intentions are lethal to I think then make point made by Lord Kamall about whether the duty should rest with the Secretary of State rather than with the local, I guess we come back to some of the debate we had in the earlier group talking about responsible officer of Lane duties down at the level were services are actually delivered and that's why took this approach.

Nonetheless given the our I will stop there. This bill is now going to the other place and I hope we see a real level of attention and focus there as well as has been in your Lordships house. I beg leave to

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withdraw the amendment. With your pleasure this it is withdrawn? Amendment is by leave withdrawn. Baroness Merron, withdrawn. Baroness Merron, amendment 64 through 67 moved formally en bloc? Course the question is that these amendments are agree to. As many are of that opinion say, "Content", and of the contrary, "Not content". The contrary, "Not content". The "Contents" have it. Finally amendment 68 Baroness Hollins not amendment 68 Baroness Hollins not moved. That concludes proceedings on report.

Perhaps a very short pause so those who wish to leave may do
21:48
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative)
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scheme. Can I thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating this Minister for repeating this statement this evening and maintaining our national security is maintaining our national security is one of the first duties of course of government. When we were in office we took robust steps to strengthen we took robust steps to strengthen our national security in the face of an increasingly unstable world, that international trend has continued since this government took office and it is essential the government and it is essential the government build on our work to protect our country from foreign threats.

I was very pleased to hear the Member for Barnsley North in the other place praise our conservative record in passing the national security at 2023, this is an unmarked piece of legislation which has to quote the security minister been transformative. I welcome that constructive tone from ministers in this policy area and I hope the government will take the same approach in other policy areas. In the statement ministers had plenty to say about Iran and Russia in the same constructive tone they have taken we welcome these steps.

Both Iran and Russia pose a threat to our national security and must be robust in response to those threats. Ministers are silent on China. Can the Minister please take this opportunity to explain why the government has not added them to the enhanced tier? We have already set out the shocking evidence that Chinese engagement in foreign espionage in the UK and this has recently voted to prevent Great British Energy's supply chain from including products linked with practices. We did this because of China's oppression of the Uighur people in mind and I pay particular tribute to Lord Alton of Liverpool's tireless campaigning on this issue.

China engages in industrial scale espionage, stealing technology from governments, universities and industry. I have already spoken of repression of the Uighur people, but it is also seeking to repress Chinese citizens here in Britain and the Chinese states approach to Hong Kong and the Hong Kong ease is securely concerning China's setup undeclared and illegal police stations in the UK and last year placed a bounty on the head of three Hong Kong dissidents living in the UK. Why has the Chinese ambassador not been summoned to explain that? We on these benches believe that China should be in the enhanced tier of foes, the government refused to comment on this but whether the Minister is winning to comment or not I hope you will listen.

Ministers have said we will cooperate will be can, compete where we need to and challenge when we must including on issues of national security. So this approach is not strong enough and we will and must continue to press the government to place China on the enhanced tier of

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furs. I can associate myself from these benches with much of what Lord Davidson said especially the last part, I will add to that smallest of questions to the Minister with regards to China in a moment. First I will also recognise the high level
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Lord Purvis of Tweed Portrait Lord Purvis of Tweed (Liberal Democrat)
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I will also recognise the high level of consensus there is that the UK requires a first scheme, the legislation is sound, I'm sure Lord Davies will recall it was this House that was instrumental in bringing about the scheme that we now have rather than had been initially proposed in the House of Commons and it demonstrates the value of when all the Pliskova parties work together for proper scrutiny. The intention was to have -- political parties robust scheme will be both targeted, proportional and effective.

I'm grateful that there is now a clear date of operation when it will go live on 1 July, so I commend all of the work of the officials bringing this together, it will have been a year since the general election and 18 months after the passage of the legislation but the key thing is to have it operable, effective and able to be communicated. I would be grateful if the ministers could say a bit more that was in the statement about how the new scheme will be communicated because what is of course an imperative is that it registers those that we require it to register and not include those that we don't require to be registered and to clog up the much valued time of officials.

I would say that we will scrutinise properly and welcome the regulations which the government has indicated that have been laid and will carry out a proper scrutiny role properly. I'm grateful for the announcement with regards to Russia, I will repeat something that I asked for during the stage, when we considered the national security legislation. These benches asked for the previous government to proactively update on a regular basis about not just the level of activities of those that are seeking to interfere in our political system and inappropriately in our economic system but the type of activities because these are often changing kind of activities, different methods and ways of seeking to interfere.

I hope that the government might consider this to be beneficial because it has been useful in the past that we have had periodic updates with the head of MI5 about the level of potential interference. But that is after the event and given the fact that this interference into -- intended to be people like us in Parliament and as much as we can be informed on a proactive basis the better. To help us inform, to be informed of this I repeat the request that my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire asked previously the Leader of the House.

Which is that we still have the Intelligence and Security Committee Russia report redacted, and I think it is now given the fact that the government has made the decision to put Russia on the enhanced tier there is no justification for the unredacted report to be released so that we are fully aware, I'm sure Lord Beamish who had been a significant member of that committee now chairs it will have its own views shortly on this, but we do need to be informed about what current kind of activities potentially are regard to Russia.

The leader reply to my noble friend that that was an interesting question to be considered so I hope the government has considered it and the Minister will be able to give a considered answer if not today you will be able to write to me with regards to that. That leads on to the second question I wanted to ask with regards to how the scheme will operate, not just within Russia state entities but also those proxies of Russian state entities. The legislation is worded in a fine way in order to capture those that will be acting on behalf of Russia, but I hope the Minister might be able to stress that we will be able to capture all of those who are acting on behalf of Russia.

Moving as Lord Davies did with regards to China, these benches do believe that China should be on the enhanced tier. We also believe that China audit the government has been carried out should be published in full and not just to be a narrative summary. We do believe there should be Human Rights and Democracy Report 2020 links with national security legislation, especially since we know that the Chinese state has been acting in an extraterritorial repressive way with regards to those residents within this country, especially those from Hong Kong and there are some extremely brave people who have been from Hong Kong whose family members at home are under threat because of activities that are carried, unacceptable activities carried out here in the UK, and of course we know that the proposed embassy will have an enormous hub for intelligence gathering and therefore I hope the government will not make a decision on planning before it publishes its full China audit and Human Rights and Democracy Report 2020.

The reason why it is beneficial, I will quote Lord Beamish's work again maybe he might agree with me on this path, is that the excellent report the ISC report on China from July from July 2023, I think still gives us very clear signals of why we should have China recognised within our interference legislation and I want to quote from paragraph K in the summary of conclusions. In terms of interference China oversteps the boundary and crosses the line from exerting influence a legitimate course of action into interference in the pursuit of its interests and values at the expense of those of the UK.

Furthermore in conclusion H to compound the problem it is not just the Chinese intelligence services the Chinese Communist Party Institution company and citizen. This whole of state approach means China can aggressively target the UK yet the scale of the activity makes it more difficult to detect. Both those recommendations I think are perfectly clear evidence of a justification that China should be on the enhanced tier. If the government makes the decision not to then it has to very clearly state why the committee was wrong and that the levels of interference not being carried out because there is no evidence that level of interference which was found to be unacceptable has changed.

In fact it has got worse. worse.

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I'm grateful to noble Lords for their initial comments and contributions and I'm grateful for the broad welcome that noble Lords have given to the government's have given to the government's decision to include Russia in the scheme and the announcement yesterday by the member of yesterday by the member of Parliament for Barnsley North Dan Jarvis. A number of points mentioned Jarvis. A number of points mentioned and I will try and raise those in my response but I think it's important response but I think it's important to say first of all that in addition to the cross-party support those who have been put under the scheme both Iran and Russia, should recognise that there is cross-party support in this House and that national security and the government response to those challenges have the support of the main political parties in this House.

As the security minister set out yesterday, the announcement does three things. It helps with transparency, so it will give for those two nations that are currently on the list transparency of foreign state influence in the United Kingdom, secondly it does give disruption, gives the police and MI5 are critical new disruptive tool, and thirdly it does I believe give deterrence for those two nations as a whole. Russia particularly has been added to this list it's worth putting before the House why Russia has been added.

Because not just the Salisbury nerve agent attack and not just espionage, not just arson, not just cyber-attacks, not just the spearfishing of parliamentarians and attacks on emails, but the illegal war in Ukraine means that Russia remains a serious state threat. And needs to have the provisions of the act which have cross-party support, and the first scheme put into place today. I think it's important also that I take on board again what Lord Purvis of Tweed said particularly about the fact that this is now coming in, we came to government on July 4 last year we wanted to give a three month notice period for the implementation of a notice, we have now worked with officials pay tribute to for their hard, consistent work they have done to bring the scheme to fruition and from July 1 both Iran and Russia will fall under the purview of the scheme and that is a good development which is a government driving forward that particular The three month grace period is important, Lord Purvis mentioned guidance and support.

We will be publishing guidance shortly to clearly explain the guidance of each tier and how to apply. We will produce secondary guidance for academia, media, business, defence and civil society. The implementation program is a really important, -- extremely important, and I believe it's now on track. Two main issues on which the support has been raised, I want to address that if I may. First of all I will deal with the issue Lord Purvis mentioned regarding the Russia report and the ISC publication of an unredacted Russian report.

I find myself in a strange position of being a Minister talking about a report which I authored as part of the membership of the ISC committee back in 2016, 17, 18 and 19. Although I have seen
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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the redacted version, because I participated in its production -- participated in its production -- unredacted version, I have to say as a Minister of the Crown having known and looked at the material that it does provide highly classified material which would damage the operational capabilities of the operational capabilities of the intelligence agencies if published by revealing targets, methods, sources and operational sources and operational capabilities. So the government has no plans to produce an unredacted no plans to produce an unredacted version.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the broad themes of that Russia report, which the committee I sat on highlighted over five years ago, are the reasons why the actions that have been taken by the government today on the FIRS scheme by my right honourable friend, Dan Jarvis, the Minister responsible. It may not satisfy the noble Lord, but I hope it gives some clarity on where the government are today. The issue of China has been mentioned, and it's a legitimate question from both Lord Davies and Lord Purvis.

About what the government's view is on China. As I've set out in the response previously on China, and as my right honourable friend has done today, we will always keep the FIRS scheme under review. But this government has been clear, we are taking a long-term consistent approach to managing UK relations with China. As has been said, we will cooperate when we can on issues of international cooperation, and on trade. We will compete when we need to on a whole range of issues.

And we will challenge where we must, including issues of national security. There are and have been concerns where we have challenged on issues of national security, but at the moment the government's decision, although it's always kept under review, is that Iran and Russia are the two schemes to fall under the initial FIRS scheme. Which will be operational from July 1. There are a range of issues about human rights and security which are raised consistently in parliamentary questions, in comments and statements by members of this House and others, which raised concerns about China.

But we will continue to review them and keep it under review, but as of today Russia and Iran are the two nations that are under the FIRS scheme. I hope noble Lords can accept that explanation. And we will continue to examine at all times any threats from any countries, keep that under review. But I hope the decision a few weeks ago to put Iran under the FIRS scheme, and the decision this week to put Russia under the FIRS scheme, is welcome.

Because it will help protect our country from strategic threats from state actors. I will severe sentence for individuals who do not comply with the legislation that had cross-party support to pass.
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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The FIRS scheme we announced yesterday includes the leadership of Russia are, it includes political party that support the leadership of party that support the leadership of Russia, and it includes a number of other state operators including security services in Russia. We have and we will in due course present to this house, and to the House of Commons, a Statutory Instrument that sets out in detail the detail of the applicability of the FIRS scheme. I hope that my noble friend can wait for that in due course, to see the detail of the specific organisations.

And individuals named under it. Could I in informing him that, pay tribute to him and his work with the intelligence and security committee. It is work that is done behind-the-scenes and only appears when reports such as the Russia report are published. I know from having the 4.5 years on the committee myself that there is a tremendous amount of work under the surface going on all of the time, to both challenge the security services and government Ministers and agencies on their performance on security and to make the sort of recommendations that appeared in the Russia report today.

I'm pleased that my noble friend supports the government's position not to seek the publication of the unredacted report, sorry the redacted report, because this is about national security. It's also about themes, the themes of the Russia report was that the Russian state was seeking to undermine UK democracy, or seeking to be a malevolent actor. And as we've seen in Salisbury, and as we've seen since the Russia report in Ukraine, it is not a player on the international stage that abides by the rules.

But in doing that, and in producing that report, we have to keep some aspects back. And that is welcome that my noble friend supports the governance approach to that issue.

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I am grateful to the Minister for the statement. I broadly welcome it,
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Viscount Stansgate Portrait Viscount Stansgate (Labour)
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the statement. I broadly welcome it, and I think there is a broad cross- party consensus on the national security requirements. When I hear the noble Lord the Minister talk about threats from Iran and Russia, as a member of the joint committee on national-security strategy we looked in great detail at some of these risks, such as ransomware and produce a report on it. The question I wanted to ask relates to the political tier, and I quote from the statement, for the first time members from this House will be able to check if anyone is seeking to influence them and is doing so at the direction of a foreign power.

I wanted to raise the issue of all- party parliamentary group's, because one of the concerns that have been expressed over the years is that all-party parliamentary groups could be a vehicle for unwanted influence. Certainly financial, buying their way in to influence the way in which all-party parliamentary groups operate. I'm a member of the oldest group, Ali hope the Minister can reassure the house that this scheme will enable it to be clear that no all-party parliamentary group that operates in this house or Parliament more generally is in anyway and to the type of foreign influence this statement is designed to prevent.

And Parliament can have confidence that all-party parliamentary group # Be protected by this scheme and the work undertaken and when FIRS goes live we will have this confidence open to view.

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I'm grateful to Viscount Stansgate for his work in this Stansgate for his work in this field, but also for his question. I think where the scheme will be of best benefit is that it will allow best benefit is that it will allow greater transparency over individuals who may be influenced individuals who may be influenced by, either in this case Russia or, as in the previous announcement, as in the previous announcement, Iran. I think that gives confidence to parliamentarians particularly, to parliamentarians particularly, because any individual who is engaged with an all-party parliamentary group, in any shape or form, will have had to make a declaration about foreign influence before they participate in any activity as a whole.

And after July 1 that will be a public matter of
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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It's a very important point, because we don't want to damage business. We don't want to damage trade, we don't want to damage engagement with any nation, both currently under the FIRS scheme or potentially other FIRS schemes. There has been widespread consultation. Currently there is significant difficulty with trade with Russia, because of the issue with Ukraine. And that is rightly so. But Ultra Bentley we have had widespread consultation on this matter, we want to make sure we don't damage business.

It's also important national security is at the forefront of our thinking. And that is the prime move for today, to make sure malevolent actors do not operate in a nontransparent way. And if they do act in a nontransparent way, and are found, they will face the full force of UK law under the cross-party act we supported

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collectively in both parliaments. This statement is about the foreign influence registration scheme, which is trying to ensure transparency and control of the lobbying influence of certain states in the UK. But this is part of a in the UK. But this is part of a much larger issue. The lobbying act of 2014 was passed under the of 2014 was passed under the coalition government, now a decade old. By coincidence I started the day sometime ago, at a roundtable day sometime ago, at a roundtable which was considering a forthcoming report from the Institute of Public relations, titled no rules Britannia, the UK lobbying rules
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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exposed on the global stage. This report is still under embargo, but I report is still under embargo, but I don't think they will mind me sharing a phrase from the four were, which says the UK lobbying laws leave us languishing at the lower leave us languishing at the lower end of global rankings, making it harder to promote our democratic values on the world stage. Can I ask values on the world stage. Can I ask the noble Lord the Minister first of the noble Lord the Minister first of all, when this report is released, if he wants to respond later in if he wants to respond later in writing, if the government is seriously prepared to look at the lobbying act of 10 years ago and see

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what needs to be done to bring us somewhere near global standards. I'm grateful to the noble Lady.

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I'm grateful to the noble Lady. Of course I will look at any report that is produced, I would share that internally within government. We internally within government. We want to see transparency in lobbying, that's why there's a number of measures we are also number of measures we are also taking to ensure members of both houses have transparency in how they houses have transparency in how they operate, what their outside earnings are, what their declarations are, are, what their declarations are, and as part of the government's role in transparency.

With regard to the specific act under review, I will take that away and respond to the noble Baroness in due course. But I say to her that the issue we are dealing with today really does shine a light on transparency of the foreign influence of most Russia and Iran, who have been notified under the current FIRS arrangement scheme. That transparency will give confidence parliamentarians in this House and in the House of Commons about the level of influence that is on us as members from any outside body, and who is behind any influence we have got.

That is a good thing, and we are dealing with malevolent state actors which both nations designated our. I hope that nations designated our. I hope that

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I did want to come back on a
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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question I did ask that the Minister, he is a was characteristically very good Iran asking -- answering questions of the Dispatch Boxes don't mean this as a criticism, the intelligence committee did find that China was not just seeking to influence, but China was interfering in our internal affairs, and the decision of the government not to have China as part of the go live scheme, am I to take it from that that the government has determined that the committee was wrong, and China is not interfering in our political system?

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Apologies if I slightly overlooked part of the noble Lords overlooked part of the noble Lords questioning. Let me say to him that the government is not making a judgement on any ISC comment or any IRC recommendations. It hasn't taken a judgement on that issue but what the covenant is doing is continually the covenant is doing is continually keeping under review every nation in relation to potential F IRS scheme. relation to potential F IRS scheme. We've announced Iran, we've announced yesterday Russia, we've -- all other potential designations are kept under constant review but with regard to China what I said to him in the House before and what I will say again now is that we look where we can cooperate, we do challenge we need to and we do ensure that we retain our national security interests and we will keep that under review but I can't give him today running commentary on potential now or future F IRS designations because that is not a matter for today.

Today is a matter for Russia and to recommit to the F

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IRS declaration. A quick follow-up question, the Minister referred to sector Minister referred to sector guidance. Will he be issuing sector guidance relating to Parliament itself?

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itself? The noble Viscount my noble friend raises an interesting point. friend raises an interesting point. The sector guidance is to ensure that as the Earl of Effingham that as the Earl of Effingham mentions we give guidance to academia or to business or to other particular sectors. The guidance as I have envisaged it for Parliament is that there is transparency in any individual that seeks to influence Parliament that we would have particularly in relation to self- evidently in this case Iran and Russia, by July 1 onwards with that July 1 date we would have the ability of those individuals to have to declare any influence they have from Iran or from Russia.

If they don't declare it and are subsequently found to have influence, then they will face the full force of the law and potential five year jail term. If that guidance to Parliament? Think the guidance to Parliament to simply to say that Parliament can have trust and confidence in all-party groups that they do not have influence from those nations unless the individuals declare that influence or the individuals are hiding that influence in which case it becomes to light, they will be prosecuted.

I think that gives Parliament the confidence it needs, the sector guidance is meant to be for potentially academia, students, business and other issues full stop I hope that reassures my noble friend Viscount Stansgate that that is the general intention of this legislation.

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Beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
This debate has concluded
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