Lords Chamber

Thursday 12th February 2026

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11:08
None Portrait Introduction(s): Lord Dixon of Jericho
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Charles Charles III, Charles III, by Charles III, by the Charles III, by the Grace Charles III, by the Grace of Charles III, by the Grace of God Charles III, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of our other realms and territories. King, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the Faith to all Lords, spiritual and temporal, and all other our subjects. Whatsoever to whom these presents shall come. Greeting. Know ye that we of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, in pursuance of the Life Peerages Act 1958, and of all other powers, in that behalf us enabling do by these presents advance, create, and prefer our trusty and well-beloved Michael Henry Dixon to the state degree, style, dignity, title and honour of Baron Dixon of Jericho, of Jericho in our city of Oxford, and for us, our heirs and successors do appoint, give, and grant unto him the said name, state, degree, style, dignity, title and honour of Baron Dixon of Jericho, to have and to hold unto him for his life willing and by these presents granting for us our heirs and successors, that he may have, hold, and possess a seat, place, and voice in the parliaments and public assemblies and councils of us, our heirs and successors within our United Kingdom, amongst the Barons, and also that he may enjoy and use all the rights, privileges, Preeminences, immunities and advantages to the degree of a Baron duly and of right belonging, which Barons of our United Kingdom have heretofore used and enjoyed, or, as they do at present, use and enjoy.

In witness whereof we have caused these our

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sign-manual. I. Michael Lord Dixon of Jericho,

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I. Michael Lord Dixon of Jericho, do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his

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So.

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My My Lords, My Lords, I My Lords, I have My Lords, I have to My Lords, I have to notify My Lords, I have to notify the House in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that His Majesty the King has signified his Royal Assent to the following acts. That. Licensing, licensing hours, Extensions Act secure 16 to 19 academies. Act. Biodiversity beyond
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None Portrait Royal Assent: Licensing Hours Extensions Act 2026;Secure 16 to 19 Academies Act 2026; Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Act 2026
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National Jurisdiction Act first Oral Question Baroness Hayter of.
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Lord Stockwood Portrait Lord Stockwood, Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Labour)
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I share and acknowledge the noble Lords passion for the subject. What I would say is that accountability for Fujitsu will be rooted in evidence and due process. So when William's inquiry is the proper mechanism for establishing what went wrong, who is responsible and ultimately for the the financial commitment, what I would say Fujitsu have acknowledged a moral responsibility to contribute to the costs of that redress. And Minister McDougall met the European CEO in December of last year.

And in the recent select committee, the CEO confirmed their commitment to follow that moral responsibility with financial responsibility to the secondary question about government contracts, Fujitsu rightly said that they will not be applying for new government contracts unless the government asks to where those services are necessary. In the research for this particular question, I imagine this would come up. The government does have 68 live contracts with Fujitsu in some really critical services. These include HMRC self-assessment tool and the Home Office border control systems.

Walking away from these contracts instantly would do serious damage to important public services, so this is not a viable option. However, they have committed to the new software for the for the Post Office being being completed in the middle of next year. If we were to stop that software service today, or postmasters would have to close. So that is not pragmatic, unfortunately. will.
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock Portrait Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)
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Well, the noble is absolutely >> Well, the noble is absolutely right. You know, Flood Re has been very successful regarding residential properties. There's residential properties. There's always been an issue around the fact that it doesn't extend to businesses, and it doesn't extend to multiple occupancy dwellings over a certain number. I have spent some time in the past working with insurance representatives around what can be done to better support businesses, because it's rather it's it's complex to extend Flood Re to businesses, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

I mean, someone who lives in Cockermouth where we regularly have problems like this. I am very aware that we need to do more to consider how best to support businesses through flooding. I don't think Flood Re is

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the answer, but we need to explore what else is out there. That can. That concludes Oral

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That can. That concludes Oral Questions. Could those wishing to leave the chamber do so now,

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My My Lords, My Lords, we My Lords, we now My Lords, we now come My Lords, we now come to My Lords, we now come to two

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My Lords, we now come to two instruments previously debated in Grand Committee Cheshire and Grand Committee Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority Order 2026 and one other motion Baroness Taylor of Stevenage.

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Taylor of Stevenage. My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move the motion. Paper.
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11:58
Lord Foster of Bath Portrait Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, is the chair of the >> My Lords, is the chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. It's a pleasure to lead off this debate, and I look forward to the five maiden speeches from new members, and I welcome them all. And I'm absolutely delighted they've chosen the committee's report on prisons Better prisons, less crime for their first outings. And I thank all members of the committee for their contributions to the report, and I'm pleased to see so many of them here.

We were splendidly supported by our specialist adviser, Alex South, the former prison officer and author, and by our office team clerk, David Shields, policy analyst Rhoda Earl Attlee, and Oleg Pereira, media officer Anila mahmood and operations officer Amanda McGrath. Now during our inquiry, we visited two prisons, Belmarsh and Isis, and I pay tribute to the work of the dedicated prison staff and those in the third sectors who work in incredibly difficult circumstances during difficult, life changing work.

And I'm delighted that the government plans to act on our recommendation for a Prison Service medal for exceptional service, and I'm grateful to all who contributed evidence, especially the many prisoners who sent us handwritten letters sharing their invaluable experiences and insights. But sadly, most witnesses painted a depressing picture. The prison system is operating either in or at the verge of crisis. Most of the time it's disheartening and saddening, and it's just worrying to the extreme. All flavour of what we heard during the inquiry.

Now, I know that the noble Lord, the Minister, is working tirelessly to improve the state of our prisons and I applaud him for it. But six months on from our report, the publication, the publication of our report, The situation facing prisoners remains grim. And for the prison staff who work there as well, most worryingly, is the very high level of reoffending by those who leave prison. 40% of ex-prisoners re-offend within a year. For those in prisons for less than a year, it's over 65%.

And shockingly, in the year to June 2025, a staggering 40,000 former prisoners were recalled to prison, a 32% rise on the previous year. So we concluded that the purpose of prison should be much clearer, and we recommended that the minister's own words should be used. That is, the purpose of prison should be to punish people, to protect the public and to reduce reoffending. But at present, our prisons are failing to reduce reoffending and so failing to protect the public.

We argued, therefore, that the punishment for a prisoner is the loss of liberty, and that the main focus of the work in prisons should be to reduce re-offending through what is sometimes called rehabilitation or purposeful activity, of which currently there is far too little. His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons uses purposeful activity as one of its four healthy establishment tests, and yet it continues to be the worst performing metric. The Chief Inspector found. Almost three quarters of prisons inspected were poor or not sufficiently good at providing purposeful activity, and some of our other findings gave pointers as to why that is.

In addition to overcrowding and lack of clarity about the purpose of prisons, our report found limited autonomy for prison governors who were stifled by bureaucracy, a wholly inadequate staff recruitment and vetting procedure, and subsequent inadequate prison officer assessment and training arrangements. A huge backlog of much needed repair and renovation, and a sense of complacency within the MoJ and HMPPS, and inadequate accountability arrangements. So no wonder there is little focus on purposeful activity. After all, measures such as education and skills training or measures to help prisoners with mental health or drug, alcohol or gambling addictions are hard to provide in overcrowded, understaffed, dilapidated and under-resourced prisons where governors have inadequate freedom to govern.

Too often, prisoners can spend up to 23 hours a day in cramped cells with little to help them lead constructive, crime free lives when they leave. And it's these conditions which also lead to boredom, self-harm, frustration and increased violence in our prisons. And all of this is costing the taxpayer £54,000 per year per prisoner, with seemingly little benefit. So we considered each of the barriers and made recommendations to reduce them on overcrowding. We largely welcome the Gauke review and the measures that flowed into it, into the Sentencing Act.

From it, some measures will place increased strain, however, on an already overstretched probation service, and we remain sceptical about whether the planned £700 million over four years for the probation service will be sufficient. And last week's PAC report would suggest they agree. They said of the service it was under significant strain, seriously impeding its ability to protect the public and reduce reoffending. Nevertheless, we especially welcome plans to introduce community sentences instead of most prison sentences of under 12 months.

We made just this proposal in one of our earlier reports, where we pointed out that well run, probation led community sentences have lower levels of reoffending and cost significantly less. Under the structure of HMPPS, the Prison service and probation services are linked, and if with increased resources and staffing, the probation service can successfully keep more people out of prison. The Prison Service can then more easily improve purposeful activity for those still sent to prison. But my Lords, the Sentencing Act measures alone are insufficient because its estimated over time they will reduce the prison population demand by 7500.

And the new prison building programme will deliver 14,000 new places by 2031. But despite all of that, it is still estimated that by 2029, the prison population will have increased by 2000. And that's why some of our other recommendations are so important, and why the committee was so disappointed by the government's rather complacent response to it. Now, the government accepted or partially accepted 34 of our 35 recommendations, and this might seem like a job well done, but alas, that's far from the truth.

The government claims that many of the recommendations are already work in progress. Yet in the majority of these cases, we fail to see either the work or the progress. For example, the government accepted our recommendation to implement women's leadership groups and support for female staff, but then, bizarrely implying nothing further was actually needed, went on to say HMPPS have reviewed our policies and are content that they are sufficient to address the needs of women. Our recommendations regarding prisons governors also illustrates the point.

My Lords, just as a good headteacher with the right support can transform a school, so too can a prison governor with the right support transform a prison. But prison governors need the freedom to act. And so we call for increased governor autonomy, so that those running prisons who best understand the needs of their staff, prisoners and community can implement desperately needed changes. In this case, the work in progress was a report on previous efforts that hadn't gone anywhere near what the committee or many governors were calling for, and to ensure that the governor's vision can be clearly communicated to staff, we argued for measures that would enable greater visibility of governors around the prison.

The government agreed, but offered nothing concrete. And surely, my Lords, the move to build mega prisons such as the 1700 HMP Well and Oaks will serve only to exacerbate the problem. So I hope when the Minister winds up, he'll assure us that the committee's pessimism is misplaced. But our pessimism is not just that of a discontented suitor who's been rejected. Others also share it. In the other place, the Justice Committee, referencing the government's response to our report, noted it is promising to hear that the government recognises the value of governor autonomy, but it is unclear what specific actions it will be taking to improve it.

My Lords, Benjamin Franklin once said, well done is better than well said. So when he winds up, can the noble Lord, the Minister, say what actions in relation to governor autonomy we can look out for? The responses to other recommendations have been equally disappointing. Clearly having sufficient numbers of well trained, motivated and supported staff working in our prisons is vital. But with the prison population rising, it is extremely concerning. Frankly, not surprising that so many prison officers are actually leaving, some after less than a year in service, and that there has been a significant fall in the number of people actually joining.

For example, in the past year, there has been a loss of 1003 to 5 band prison officers. They're the ones who are walking the wings and interacting with prisoners every day. In short, my Lord, there are more prisoners, but fewer staff and the remaining staff are often disillusioned and demoralised, as evidenced by the very high levels of absence through sickness. An average of two and a half weeks is lost in sickness, often mental health issues per officer each year.

That is simply unsustainable. Now at least, the MoJ has resurrected an earlier recruitment campaign promoting a career in the Prison service. An extraordinary job done by somebody like you, it says. But the reality is that a career in the prison Service isn't for everyone, and the recruitment process should reflect that. After all, our report was clear that the current role of prison officers is demand is defined by firefighting and crisis management, asking them to do more with less.

So no wonder, for example, the number of prisoners released in error has skyrocketed by 128% this year, from 115 to 262. And I hope the Minister will tell us what progress is being made to introduce a digital solution to the problem. The more significantly we call for a drastic overhaul of officer recruitment and vetting. We were horrified to discover there are no face to face interviews. It's all done online. Very few of those being interviewed had ever been inside a prison, and prison leaders have almost no say in who works in their prison.

Despite the high dropout rate and all the other evidence pointing to its failings, we were nevertheless told by HMPPS that the process is, and I quote, robust. Now, some noble Lords may have seen reports of a 17 year old child who, despite being underage, got through the recruitment and vetting procedures and then was given the task of looking after murderers and terrorists in H.M. Erlestoke. That's hardly evidence of a robust system. I wonder if the Minister thinks it's robust, and can he tell us what's being done to ensure staff are properly vetted, are aware of the unique challenges of life on the wings, and are ready to work? We also made recommendations about training and support for prison officers.

It surely can't be right, for example, that almost all formal assessment of prison officers work has been abandoned. Again, my Lords, the government response was and I'll say this politely muted can the noble Lord, the Minister, be more positive and tell us what changes in training and support are being planned? And one final concern the response to our several recommendations about activities to reduce reoffending. Given the noble Lord, the Minister's previous work in this area, there was an enthusiastic response in words.

But unfortunately actions contradicted them. No sooner was the ink dry on the government's response, than we started to hear about cutbacks in the education provision in many prisons, provision which has been shown to significantly help reduce reoffending. Writing about the new prison education contracts in October last year, the chief inspector reported that he'd been told that because of inflationary increases and some of the funds being used for a new IT system, there would be effective average cuts of 25%.

And in fact, some prison leaders had told him that cuts in their prison had reached 60%. And we now know that around 300 prison education staff have been made redundant. My Lords, it's one thing to ignore a committee's recommendation, but it seems perverse that the government is ignoring its own research showing how important education is to reducing reoffending and yet ploughing ahead with cuts to it. My Lords, it's not the only failing in providing appropriate, purposeful activities. Support for inmates with mental health or addiction problems is woeful and skills training is patchy, doing little to prepare inmates for employment.

Outside, it is prisoners and the public who will suffer the consequences. We need more purposeful activity, not less, and I hope the Minister can give us some good news about the future situation. We have waited far too long for it. Since its founding in 1982, the inspectorate has been highly critical of the lack of purpose or activity in prison. In the first ever inspector's report, the Chief Inspector, James Hennessy, wrote we believe there are powerful reasons why Prison Department must ensure that an inmate does not spend day after day in blank inactivity.

He should be kept occupied for a normal working day at work, in education or some other constructive activity. My Lords, it wasn't happening 43 years ago. Sadly, it's still not. And it shows why inspectors report should be acted upon more often. My Lords, the evidence we receive points to a system beset with problems, piecemeal and gradual change will not suffice to fix them. HMPPS needs to go further and faster, but the government's response to our report was disappointing, and it illustrated our concern that the MoJ and HMPPS are far too complacent about what is happening in our prison estate.

Now, this is in marked contrast to the Minister, and I welcome his zeal and practicality in addressing the many issues in our prisons. I just hope that in time, his department starts to have the same approach and put their energies into ensuring the wide scale provision of measures to reduce reoffending. Only then, my Lords, can we truly have better prisons and less crime. I beg to move.
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Baroness Bi Portrait Baroness Bi (Labour)
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The question is that this motion be agreed to. >> My Lords. >> I feel deeply honoured to be making my maiden speech today. I thank noble Lords on all sides of the House, as well as Black Rod and his team, the Doorkeepers, police officers and all the other amazing staff for their warm welcome, not least in being so patient with me as I try and find my way around. As a former chair of the Barbican Centre Trust, I have been wondering whether we need yellow lines on the floor to help those of us who lack a sense of direction.

I thank my noble friend Baroness Smith of Basildon for her support and my noble friend Lord McNicol, and my noble and learned friend Lord Hermer, who introduced me to the house three weeks ago today. I look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of my fellow new peers. I welcome the report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and the government's acceptance of many of its recommendations. The report reflects a compassionate approach to balancing the needs of the public, prisoners and staff, which is a welcome change to the rhetoric of ever longer sentences and harsher conditions that has resulted in us having the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe.

We seem to have forgotten Portia's advice in The Merchant of Venice. Disease and justice with mercy. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Timpson, the Minister, for meeting with me, to discuss his department's response to this important report. I would also like to thank him for his and his family's long standing leadership in providing employment to former prisoners, which is so important to reducing reoffending. I decided to become a lawyer at the age of 14 because I cared passionately about human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law, as I still do.

However, when I finished university, I knew I couldn't support myself as a human rights lawyer without borrowing what seemed to me at the time to be an unimaginably large sum. I discovered that city law firms paid to train their lawyers, and so that is the route I took. I specialised in international debt capital markets and had a wonderful career working with clients and colleagues across the world, which has given me a valuable insight into the needs of investors and our position in an increasingly competitive world.

I also advise on ethical finance, including green and social bonds, which are a growing segment of the market, and combine my focus on finance with making a difference. I note in the context of this debate that the world's first social bond was issued to reduce re-offending rates at HMP Peterborough. The last time I felt almost as proud as I do today was in 2018, when I was first elected by my partners to be the chair of our law firm, Norton Rose Fulbright.

As the first woman and ethnic minority person to hold that role since the firm was established in 1794, my election reflected the huge changes that have taken place in the city since I first arrived in 1990, when there were very few people who looked like me or came from my background. It has been a privilege to be a part of the city for over 35 years, and I am keen to ensure that the city remains competitive and retains its position as the leading international financial centre which provides a home for talented people of all kinds.

That requires us to be an outward looking, confident society which abides by the rule of law. I grew up in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, and had assumed that we had moved past the racism and bigotry that I experienced then. In recent years, I have seen with increasing concern, the cynical manipulation of legitimate concerns about declining living standards, inadequate infrastructure, and poorly funded public services into a targeting of minority groups who are blamed for wider societal failings.

Those of us who believe in equal rights are globally connected world, and the rules based order have to accept that the argument is not one, and we must fight harder and better for our values. Yet there are so many things for us all to be proud of. I have the privilege of being vice chair of the Disasters Emergency Committee, and I am humbled by the generosity and compassion of the British public, who in the last four years have donated over £700 million to its appeal, and that in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

Until very recently, I was chair of the Patchwork Foundation, which supports young people interested in civic society. Each year, as a new cohort of patchwork has arrived, I am deeply encouraged by the passion and principles of our young people who are determined to make the world a better place. I hope that by working with noble Lords across the House, I can play my part in helping the patchwork to achieve that better world, and along the way, satisfy the spirit of the 14 year old, who wanted to be a lawyer so that she could help people.

They fantastic. Well done.
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Lord Moraes Portrait Lord Moraes (Labour)
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My Lords, it's a pleasure to follow the excellent maiden speech follow the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Baroness Bi. We are being joined in this house by a gifted lawyer from the private gifted lawyer from the private sector, with a strong sense of public service, someone who is knowledgeable and passionate about many of the difficult issues we will have to deal with in the floor of this House. As you have just seen in relation to this morning's debate. My noble friend mentioned that she is chair of Norton Rose Fulbright, one of the five so-called magic circle law firms.

I think, anyway, it's definitely a definitely a firm I wouldn't have gone into, but I mentioned that later. And the first UK women to chair global law firm. And she said 1794 My Lords, after Cambridge University she worked in a range of major law firms. She's internationally qualified and made a stellar career. Last year, the FTE listed her as one of the 50 most influential lawyers in the UK. I'm not going to embarrass her with any more plaudits, but I think you get the you get the message.

My Lords, I should mention that when you follow a maiden speech, you kind of look for things that you have in common, and we have some things in common. We both came to this country as children. We're a same, similar generation. And then I saw that, yes, we had both done law degrees, but my first thought was my law degree. My parents would have wished her career for the following of my law degree, rather than what I actually did with it.

So that was my abiding thought. And anyway, it worked out. In the end, it was fine. My noble friend has combined her legal career, of course, with a strong public service ethic, extensive pro bono work as she said, vice chair of the Disasters Emergency Committee, chairing the Patchwork Foundation, which helps with integration of vulnerable communities, are just some examples that speak to her values and who she is. My Lord, we all know that the real strength in this House is when members who have hugely significant experience in their chosen fields use it here to really good effect, to positive effect.

I am sure that my noble friend is firmly in that category. I look forward to her contributions in the months and years ahead, and I'm sure the whole house will welcome her to her place.

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Yay! My Lord, if I could just turn briefly to two of the critical briefly to two of the critical issues in the Select Committee report, I should mention at the outset that along with Lord outset that along with Lord Hogan-Howe, I only joined the committee in January, so I was not involved with my colleagues in the involved with my colleagues in the interviews and the hard work that went on last year to produce the report that Lord foster has so eloquently described.

But as a member of the committee, I felt this was such an important issue that I should at least raise a couple of issues. Critical issues from the report. And I should also mention that I very briefly last year worked for the Minister and for the Moj. I only mentioned that because it gave me a little bit of an insight into the work that he and the department and the team are doing, and what I learned is that this is, you know, an acutely difficult issue.

I think Lord Frost really spelled that out. It is it's acute, but it also consists of much deeper systemic problems. And I think, again, the report and my colleagues who put the report together have adequately explained that. So I want to pick up on on two issues. First is the issue of the prison population and capacity. And the other one is the critical issue of the number of prison officers, the level of experience, the persistent recruitment and retention challenges, and the consequent effect on the morale of the service and some of the the deeper issues that are consequent on that which are which are chair mentioned.

Now, the report talks about how deeply rooted the recruitment, retention and experience problems are and how they peaked as this government took office. That is where we get the idea of crisis, and that crisis is still being dealt with. As I learned last year on prison officer training, I know the Minister was well placed and it's been said to take on this challenge. Before he took office, he conducted a review of prison officer training, and I would be interested to know and ask him how he feels that that review is informing the work that the department is doing.

Now. Are we making progress on many of the serious issues that Lord foster raised? This obviously speaks to the experience of officers and the challenges identified in the report, and obviously also what the Moj is trying to do. And I would genuinely be interested to know where we're going on that. On staffing generally, can he update the House on the current status and any improvements or recovery he has seen in the staffing levels and retention of officers? We are now in 2026.

We have had Royal Assent. On the other aspect of dealing with this crisis sentencing, creating more capacity. And it really is interesting to me and to the committee as to how that is all working. Maybe a bit too soon to understand how sentencing and the Gauke report is now affecting capacity. The critical issue of capacity and prison places. But it would be interesting to hear from, from from the Minister what his hopes are for that and, and and how the report and in my opinion, how the report was really built around not just criticising what is happening, but genuinely looking for solutions to this crisis and to the deeper systemic issues.

I think that the Gauke report was an honest way of trying to manage prison population, but if it is too early to to look at what the effects of that are, I would also be interested to know what other new routes that the Minister feels would be taken to address some of the critical acute problems, and also systemic problems. My Lords, I'll leave my remarks to that knowing that many of my colleagues were involved last year in the hard work of putting the report together, and I'll leave my comments there.
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Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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Thank you, thank you. >> Thank you, thank you. >> My Lords. I'm very conscious. >> Of the enormous privilege to be able to speak from these benches in able to speak from these benches in this magnificent room in a palace which represents the history and traditions of our great nation. And so I am suitably humbled, and I am very grateful to all those staff who have helped me already to acclimatise to the different mood and traditions of this noble house.

And I pay a special tribute and thanks to my two noble friends, one present in front of me today, who introduced me kindly as long ago as Tuesday. I'd like to reassure all assembled here today that I speak in a debate on prisons, not from any personal experience. I do manage to survive 37 years in elected politics, when allegations of lawbreaking became all too common, surrounding all too many MPs. But here I am, free of all such charges, but interested in the question of the quality, productivity and efficiency of public services.

And it was my good fortune to be offered a platform last night at the centre for Policy Studies to be given rather more time to expand on research I have been doing into those very issues of why has productivity failed us so badly in the public services over the last 25 years under many different governments? Why is quality not all it should be? And I welcome the report we are debating today and I welcome its aims and themes.

Better prisons. Who could possibly disagree with that? Less crime? That is exactly what we want. And there are good comments in the report and good remarks from from the noble Baron who introduced the committee's findings. But what we need to get back to is what is a prison service for? And how can Ministers and the executive leaders of that service do a better job in future? The first vital task is to ensure that those who committed crimes of violence, those who could go on to damage individuals and societies further are locked away to protect the rest of us.

We, the law abiding public, are the prime customers of the of the prison service, and we expect that manifestation to be top of their priorities, that they can protect us from those who would harm us. And there have been too many cases under the recent government and under the current government of the Prison Service, even letting out well before time and due date those who could harm us. And it must surely be an urgent priority which Ministers are addressing, that we can at least hit that target of not letting out people we shouldn't be letting out.

But the second important thing is to create safe spaces in those prisons, throughout those prisons, both for the security of the staff to make it a bit pleasanter working environment. And for all those many prisoners who can be persuaded to return to a legal life and to get a job and to make a proper contribution to society when they have completed their term in prison. But we read in prison reports of all too many cases where prisons are schools to scandal their colleges for crime, they are places where there are thriving entrepreneurial businesses.

But all of the wrong things supplying drugs. Surely it must be a priority to get all prisoners off drugs. And for those who need drugs, they need treatment programs to get them off drugs. And they must be managed. They mustn't be fuelled and fed by illegitimate businesses within the prison framework. And the third thing we want, which is touched on at rather greater length in the report, is that the more people who leave prison should not want to go back there and should be given support and help so that they had been given training, they find it easier to get a job.

They should be able to get a bank account and to re-establish themselves in normal life, because we don't want to see them again in the prison service. On my wider work on public sector quality and productivity, I do believe that quality and efficiency are two sides of the same coin. Get it right first time and you don't need a complaints department. Get it right first time and you don't waste as much money. In my experiences as an executive councillor, in my youth, as a Minister, as a participant in Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet debates, as a backbench MP, very attentive to the public services in my area, I saw all too many examples of poor management and of mistakes and error.

Time does not permit to go through my toolkit for mending quality and productivity issues. I look forward to further debates because this surely is a vital national cause across party that we should manage better and achieve better results.

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Yeah. My Lords. It gives me great pleasure to

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It gives me great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Redwood. follow my noble friend Lord Redwood. I welcome him to your Lordships House and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech.

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excellent maiden speech. I. May I say his pithy maiden speech, my noble friend brings a speech, my noble friend brings a wealth of in depth and current political and business experience, coupled with a record of long and lasting commitment to his constituents and his country. He is renowned for his razor sharp mind and the ability to cut to the quick. Together with standing up for his beliefs and being resolutely unafraid to speak to truth, his arrival with us is timely,
12:33
Baroness Buscombe Portrait Baroness Buscombe (Conservative)
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particularly given his economic and business expertise. And we've business expertise. And we've already heard with regard to his in-depth knowledge of how we might in-depth knowledge of how we might achieve effective productivity because of our need to focus on economic growth, we look forward to economic growth, we look forward to his many contributions. My Lords, I also look forward to listening to all the other maiden speeches today. As a member of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, I support all that we stated in our report.

So to avoid repetition with the speech by our excellent chairman, Lord Foster of Bath, I decided to check our report against a speech I once made in your Lordships House on Education and Health in prisons. As the Shadow Education Minister and previously Shadow Home Office Minister, and as a barrister, to see if there had been any progress over 20 years. Let me begin with some extracts from that speech. The primary roles of prisons in the criminal justice system are punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation and the protection of the public.

But this must incorporate the development of learning and skills, and we must not underestimate the role that good prison education can provide to prevent re-offending. I recently visited Brixton Prison and saw first hand the excellent work being carried out by the governor and the Head of Learning and Skills. There is real commitment among the staff I spoke to. They want to get results and see the system enhance progress, not hinder it. In addition, my Lords, I stated there is a high turnover of staff across the prison system.

Governors are moved from prison to prison. This is massively disruptive. So I then asked, Will the government seriously consider developing a solid career structure, allowing progression within the prison service and impose a fixed minimum term for a prison governor to remain? In each post? Heads of learning and skills must be integrated into the system. They must be given the opportunity to plan for the long term and not meet the latest Whitehall target. We must focus on outcomes rather than outputs if we are to see less reoffending.

The layers of bureaucracy that exist are seriously hindering innovative development in our offender education. And just a couple more relevant extracts. My Lords, even providing an individual with qualifications alone is not enough. In the fight to reduce reoffending. This must be coupled with structured learning so that prisoners can develop their ability to communicate and interact. Like governors, prisoners are moved from prison to prison, so there is a severe knock on effect from their disruptive approach for the prisoners and the community.

Support and provision must be provided in the community. Forging links with local employers is difficult, but essential offenders need to be equipped with skilled trades in which they can make an honest living, with a salary that stands a chance of rivalling an income from drug crime. And finally, my Lords, prison education must start at the beginning. It must deal with the emotional and social problems facing offenders, and then move on to qualifications and employable skills.

My Lords, I made that speech in December 2005, eight years into a Labour government. The most damning fact exposed in a reply to a written question that same week, when I had asked Her Majesty's Government how many civil servants from the Home Office, broken down by grade, had visited prisons in the last eight years? The answer was none. Since then, the challenges have grown with violence in our prisons and religious extremism. Young men and I know some told to convert to Islam for an easier life behind bars.

And how can prison staff be recruited online? My Lords, this is insanity writ large. In addition, I have now written answers confirming that some foreign criminals who are to be deported at the end of their prison term are being released from HMP Huntercombe in Oxfordshire because the Home Office paperwork doesn't keep up with the prisoner release system. My Lords, one of the most revealing evidence sessions during our inquiry was with two former members of the Other place, Charles Clarke, former Home Secretary, and Michael.

Now my noble friend Lord Gove, former justice secretary, I was struck. Indeed, I think the whole committee was struck by the degree to which they were in tune with their collective parts and desire to achieve lasting and demonstrably better outcomes for prisoners and prisons to reduce re-offending. Both efforts cut short, as usual, by our frankly broken political system. Shuffling the cards, my Lords, rereading the speech I made all those years ago. Extract from it have been for me quite depressing, and I often think of the noble and late Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

He would be making the same speech today. I fear that he made time and again years and years ago. However, I look to the Minister who I know will understand more than most that the key solutions are in principle quite simple. As he set out to teach shoe repairing following a visit to HMP Thorncroft in Warrington in 2002, the Minister must be, as I am, an optimist as he is determined to find and implement solutions to give a real and practical lifeline to prisoners to reduce reoffending.

We recognise this in our committee and as some of us have been Ministers, we are very aware of just how incredibly difficult it is to get things done within our current civil service system. It's uphill in treacle and the pressures are relentless and immense. What we need now is a government that has the courage to change that system,

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root out, obfuscate. Can I ask the noble Lady to draw her remarks to a close, close?

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her remarks to a close, close? Root out obfuscation and denial. Fear of making decisions, Fear of making decisions, preferment to work from home and understand just how vital it is to understand just how vital it is to make the Home Office and the Department of Justice fit for purpose, so that better prisons

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purpose, so that better prisons really will lead to less crime. Well.
12:41
Baroness Prashar Portrait Baroness Prashar (Crossbench)
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My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord foster, for introducing this Lord foster, for introducing this debate so admirably and highly commended his chairmanship of the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, of which I was a member, until the end of January. Lord Foster steered the Select Committee with deep commitment and skill, and it was a pleasure to work with him and other members of the Select Committee. I also want to thank the clerk of the committee, his team and the special advisers for this support.

And I also congratulate two maiden speech speeches, and I look forward to three more. My Lords, as we heard, our prisons are in a state of crisis and there is urgent need for a strategic and focussed reform of the system. If we want to reduce re-offending and protect the public. The government is attempting to address some of the most urgent problems. Some steps have been taken to reduce overcrowding in prisons, bolster the probation service and reform in the sentencing regime, all of which I welcome.

And as I've said before, the appointment of the noble Lord Lord Timpson as the Minister for prisons, probation and reducing re-offending was an inspired choice and it is reassuring to have a Minister who understands what is required, if I may say so, within the constraints of the current system. And I know he's working tirelessly to make a difference. My Lords, reducing the prison population is essential in order to ensure well-functioning and effective service, systemic change and culture shifts require require time, but urgent and meaningful action can be taken.

Now if we are to avert the crisis facing our prisons. These actions are not just about resources and capacity. Our report focussed on practical changes which can be adopted now to make a difference, and highlighted the inadequacy of some of the changes. Given the scale of the problem. Regrettably, as we heard from Lord foster, the government's response to our report does not appear to grasp the essence of our recommendations. The response, if I may say so, is rather too official, and I think it was spelt out by Lord foster.

The impact of these cuts have been graphically. I think the assurances that are given in the response sound hollow. When education provision provision, the education provision in prisons will be cut by 50%. And the impact of these cuts have been graphically described by the Prison Education Trust. My Lords, our report focussed on leadership, governance, management and staffing of prisons. But my Lords leadership qualities, style of leadership, governance arrangements, management levels and types of staffing, training and recruitment will become self-evident.

If there was clarity about the purpose of prisons and if and if that purpose was backed by policies and practices and effective communication, which are aligned to that purpose. The purpose of prisons is not clear. There is confusion within government and the HMPPS about the purpose of prisons, because policy and practice are fundamentally misaligned. Prison sentences. Incarceration, loss of liberty is the punishment, and the purpose of prisons is to prepare those in custody for life after prison in order to reduce reoffending and help them to integrate back into the community and ultimately protect the public.

The first priority, therefore, in my view, is to have an absolute clarity and understanding of the purpose of prisons and if that is properly understood, it would clarify what qualities, skills and experience are needed for those running prisons. May there be prison governors or prison officers, what level of autonomy should be given to prisons? And what should be the balance of responsibility between the centre and local prisons? And what is the relationship should be between prison service and the probation service, and also the third sector and the employers relationship between prison service and the probation service needs to be clarified and understood.

Over the years, very poorly thought through reforms over several years have demoralised the probation service and confused its identity. There is, in my view, a shared purpose between the Prison and Probation Service, which is reducing reoffending and preparing people for life outside criminal justice system. This now needs to be reinforced and it is encouraging that that that the noble law, the Minister is giving support to the probation service. But although I think the investment needed to bring the service up to speed is not adequate.

Secondly, my Lords, there is a need to clear the need for a clear and effective communication to explain to the public the purpose of prisons. Government has a duty to ensure that public discourse about crime and punishment is based on understanding of the role of prisons, and appreciation that those in custody eventually have to be integrated into the community. I know I'm running over time, but I

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have to tell you, this is advisory minutes. No, I'm sorry, that won't be

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No, I'm sorry, that won't be fair to all the other speakers. It's an advisory time, but we really. I must invite the Noble and

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really. I must invite the Noble and learned minute. It is advisory. The government has a duty to ensure that public discourse about crime and punishment is based on understanding of the role of prisons, and appreciation of those prisons, and appreciation of those in custody eventually have to be integrated into the community. Because, my Lords, we cannot defend what is not understood. My third point, my Lords, is about much more focussed and tailored opportunities for purposeful activity, that is, educational opportunities to learn skills which equip prisoners to lead a purposeful life.

When released. I will make two points here. One is about the fact that Open University provides a very good digital learning which needs to be extended. And the other point about education is the question of the the. Some joined up thinking of making sure that that employers

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actually work with, with prisons to make sure that proper. And sorry to get to my feet

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And sorry to get to my feet again, but I think the house is on my side, and I think the noble Lady

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my side, and I think the noble Lady should now conclude her remarks. My Lords.

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My Lords. As Anglican Bishop for prisons, I wholeheartedly welcome this debate and this excellent report. I also want to say it's a privilege to be following two excellent
12:48
Lord Bishop of Gloucester Portrait The Lord Bishop of Gloucester (Bishops)
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maiden speeches. I submitted evidence to the committee, and I evidence to the committee, and I will continue to bang the drum for reform. Better prisons will play a vital role, but they are not the vital role, but they are not the end point or the complete answer to reduce reoffending. I agree with reduce reoffending. I agree with the reframing of this from rehabilitation. As rehabilitation implies, people were once at an acceptable place in life to which they can be rehabilitated. Where, as for the majority of people in prison, this was never true.

In the first place. The noble Lord, the Minister, has my support in measures being taken in the sentencing bill. But it is not enough. What we need is an honest realignment of how to address crime and punishment in a vision for a society in which all people can flourish. Victims, ex-offenders, families and communities. This leads me to congratulate the report and indeed the noble Lord, Lord foster, in pushing for a definition of the purpose of prison. As others have said in the recent sentencing Bill debate, I was heartened by the breadth of support for my amendment on the purpose of prisons, which emerged from some work with a number of people across the criminal justice sector as part of a round table, which I've been convening in Westminster, and we submitted our work to the Gauke review.

I regret the government's reluctance to identify this as a crucial step. If we truly want clarity across HMPPS, the wider criminal justice system, and indeed the public, about exactly what it is we are seeking to do and be, we need this legislative definition. Definition. And as a follow up, I wonder if the noble Lord, the Minister, might agree to meet with me to discuss introducing a legislative definition of the purpose of imprisonment. In the past year, I've taken time to listen to young people across Gloucestershire, both through an online survey and in in-person events.

It's important we include the voices of young people in policy making. Most students thought the most important use for prisons is to keep the public safe. The next most popular answer was to rehabilitate offenders. Fewer students thought that prisons most important use is to punish. Instead of building prisons or making sentences longer. Young people thought that reducing crime requires addressing some of the upstream issues that lead to that repeat reoffending, not least tackling drug and alcohol addiction. They also spoke repeatedly about the need for employment opportunities.

On a slightly different note, the committee's report articulates well the challenges faced by prison governors in recruiting and developing staff. As I noted in my submission to the inquiry, based on my own visits to prisons, whilst good governors are invaluable, culture cannot be created by one person alone and relies on the buy in to a set of values that are understood, shared and lived by all prison staff. End of quote I continue to be astounded that prison governors are unable to appoint their own staff.

This is out of sync with most of the public sector. Absurdly, the first time governors meet newly recruited staff is on the day they start work. It's not a surprise, then, that governors express frustration to me, and not least with the protracted HR processes to dismiss staff who do not meet their expectations and would not have been recruited by them in the first place, and much more still needs to be done to invest in staff and value the prison sector, both in terms of training and development.

As we've heard, the public are shocked when they discover that training for prison staff is a matter of weeks. Might I also add that in most of our prisons, Chaplaincies are doing an outstanding job and a good chaplaincy team feeds into a good culture, and chaplaincy teams could be used much more to affect the development of staff, not least in that relationship at the heart of a good culture system. Can I just make a brief point about the recent policing white Paper indicating that a crime prevention unit would be established in the Home Office? Shockingly, in 103 pages, the White Paper does not mention prison once.

Where is the joined up thinking with the noble Lord, the Minister reassure the House that this new crime prevention unit will look at the place of prison. Finally, that leads me back to culture. Good leadership within a prison builds culture and hope. If we want safer communities, we must create safer, more humane prisons. The culture inside the prison will translate to the culture outside the prison.

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I hope it's a pleasure. To follow the. Bishop of Gloucester, and I

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Bishop of Gloucester, and I commend the work of the chaplaincy commend the work of the chaplaincy service in prisons. I also very service in prisons. I also very much welcome this debate, inspired by the report of the Justice and
12:54
Lord McNally Portrait Lord McNally (Liberal Democrat)
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by the report of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. I think Lord Timpson must have been feeling a little battered about two thirds the way through the speech of my noble friend Lord foster. He he probably had a note from his office saying that Lord foster was a liberal Democrat, and in sympathetic to the to his aims, etc. but that has made Lord foster such a formidable politician. He doesn't pull his punches, but he doesn't mean any harm.

It also know if that came out wrong. I'm. It also reminded me when you referred to the government response to the white paper of my old friend Fred Peart. Fred was Leader of the House a long time ago, but Fred had an absolute fail safe way of answering to question, however hostile he would stand up when on request for action and repeat the the request and then say, I've got to tell the noble Lord, not next week.

Well, I thought the government's response was, as Lord foster delicately implied, was not next week. Reply. It was so many times that it adopts the suggestion, but doesn't give any practical advance. And that, of course, is really one of the problems. When I was when the government was elected some 18 months ago, one of the most welcome appointments was that of Roy Thompson as Minister for prisons, Probation and Reducing Re-offending, I served at the Ministry of Justice from 2010 to 2013 as Minister of State under the noble Lord Lord Clarke of Nottingham, and then from 2014 to 17 as chair of the Youth Justice Board.

My delight at Lord Timpson appointment was because during those seven years as a Minister and YB chair, I'd worked closely with Lord Thompson, his brother and their late father in their pioneering work that the Thompson family has done in helping and assisting the rehabilitation of offenders. I was further encouraged by the fact that he would be joined in the battle for for prison reform by my successor as Wicb chair, Charlie Taylor, who is since 2020 been a Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons.

My only fear is that the sheer scale and multifaceted nature of the crisis in our prisons, Brett would break their spirits by the magnitude of the task they face. My Lords, just to raise a couple of points for the Minister who may want to comment. I am genuinely worried about the retreat on education. It. I know the the problems budgetary problems face, and I commend the work that David Gauke did on the Sentencing Review. But as has been said by a number of speakers, it is the education of prisoners that is one of the key ways to rehabilitation.

The other point I would raise is the the problem of drugs, which Baroness Buscombe raised the general public just do not understand why drugs should be so effectively and proficiently available in our prisons. And you know, it really is. To the man in the street it says, well, how do they get in there? How is it such a factor in prison? I see that the I shall get a smile

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from the by sitting down. Good luck. You hear?

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You hear? My Lords, I am grateful to be able to speak in this important debate which goes to the heart of who we are as a society as it is my first time addressing your first time addressing your Lordships House. Let me start by thanking the wonderful, wonderful
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Lord Babudu Portrait Lord Babudu (Labour)
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thanking the wonderful, wonderful staff throughout this place. The doorkeepers, the caterers, the cleaners, the security staff. My mother worked as a cleaner and my dad as a security guard. So there's a special magic for me. Every time I get to greet anybody in this house doing such work. You are the unsung heroes of our story. Thank you to my supporters, my noble friends, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon and Lord Boateng, two giants of black British history who have inspired me from my childhood through to this very day.

Thank you also to Black Rod, to Garter, to the Clerk of Parliaments, and to everybody else who, amongst all the demands on them, has so dutifully learnt to pronounce the surname Baboszewo. Your efforts make me feel incredibly welcome. But where is booty from, I hear you ask? From Ghana, where my parents were born, raised and where they left in search of a better life for their as yet unborn children. They came to Peckham via Elephant and Castle. I was born here and for some 49 years we lived under the watch of the force of nature.

That is the noble Lady Baroness Harman, who was until recently our Member of Parliament, Peckham. My little corner of South London is a magical place. I grew up there. My wife grew up there. We are raising our five children in the area, and I had the honour of representing Rye Lane and Peckham as a local councillor. But magic has Peckham is. It is not always the easiest on its residents. Growing up in Peckham, I saw how normal it was for children to carry knives.

I was 11 the first time somebody pulled a weapon on me. I was 14 when I first lost a friend to knife crime. Were it not for the warm embrace my parents held over me and my siblings lives, I'm under no illusion that I could have been the subject of. Rather than taking part in this debate on our prisons. My Lords, we are living in history. Democracy is under strain, society is fracturing, and technology is racing forward. In such times, I am especially glad to find myself in your Lordships House, where working with each other to find common cause is seen as a badge of honour, not a lapse in party discipline.

Whilst I am younger than many of your Lordships, some think my children simply do not believe. I do bring some understanding, I hope, of issues relevant to this place. I've spent most of the last two decades helping charities and funders use better use evidence, and working with young people to help get their voices heard by decision makers. And time after time, young people show an incredible ability to bring unique and valuable perspectives. One initiative I'm especially proud to have been a part of is the Peer Action Collective, which has so far seen nearly 300 young people conduct research and social action involving over 12,000 young people across England and Wales, changing how communities understand the role of violence in young people's lives and how to tackle it.

I hope to continue to use my voice to amplify young people's views. I also bring some wider experience. I started off as a corporate solicitor. I've led and grown social enterprises. I've been a local councillor and led successful initiatives on issues as diverse as tackling school exclusions and getting finance into start ups, particularly those led by women and people from minoritized backgrounds. The guiding purpose, which has steered me through all those roles and to this place, will guide me in it.

That purpose is to help bring about a healthier society, one where whatever your background, your race, your sex, your socioeconomic status, you have a genuine opportunity of living in good health. I'm currently executive director of Impact and Urban Health, part of Guy's and St Thomas's Foundation. Whether they're here or elsewhere, I will always spend my time championing solutions that impact the two true drivers of good health where you live, where you work, the air you breathe, and the food that you eat.

And we know a lot about how we can turn back the tides of ill health that are rising all around us. And with that purpose in mind, this debate is a perfect opportunity to say that health will be advanced by appropriately investing in people, especially those that are furthest from good health. That does not mean an indefinitely large and growing prisons or welfare bill. It means giving people an opportunity, an honest chance to find their feet when they're trying to overcome challenges that have been part of their lives for a long time.

In preparing for this debate, I spoke to a friend who had two spells in prison before dedicating himself to ensuring young people don't make the same mistakes he did. He shared his worry that prisons, as they stand, cement people's identity as a criminal and do not prepare them for the outside world. I believe that is a big part of why we have a persistent reoffending crisis. We also face a health crisis in our prisons. The Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, said late last year that on average, people in prison and on probation start from poorer physical and mental health than the general population, and the prison environment can exacerbate this.

My Lords, prisons should be places that people leave healthier, more ready for work, less likely to reoffend, and more able to contribute to society. They.
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Lord Dubs Portrait Lord Dubs (Labour)
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My Lords, it is a great pleasure >> My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be able to follow my noble friend and to congratulate him on his excellent speech. He certainly has a lot of experience. It's not going to be when you speak to us in the future. It won't be the theory the future. It won't be the theory of what it's all about, but it will be from practical experience on the day to day life that you've led and you're so well qualified, ideally to speak in this debate, ideally one day to become chair of the same committee.

And, and, and more and more besides. But I'm genuinely impressed by the things you've said. Your children are amazed that you're one of the youngest here. I was one of the youngest here. But that was a long time. That was so long, so long ago. But what I would say is, what took you so long to get here? You should have been here long. And anyway, you will have. You're going to have a great, a great make a great contribution to this House, to our work.

Great maiden speech. And I wish you well in your future endeavours. And we're going to be friends for a long time. Yes, my Lords, I'm delighted to have been a member of this committee and I congratulate the noble Lord foster for leading us so ably through many, many interesting projects, including this one, this one on prisons. And I'm I'm convinced, my Lords, that the prison Minister is my noble friend is certainly committed to getting action on sorting out the problems of the prison service.

He inherited a very difficult, difficult task when he became Minister, and I wish him well in that. I remember, my Lords when I was in the Commons and I was interested in penal reform. And the prison population then in the 1980s reached 44,000, at which point we thought the world was coming to an end was going to be an absolute disaster. We're now double that figure. It's just an impossible, an impossible predicament. We just can't go on like this.

And I hope that our recommendations will help the Minister. A lot of it is work in progress. I don't I don't denigrate that phrase. I think I'll give the Minister the benefit of the doubt by saying work in progress means he's going to do it, and we're going to get going to get on with it. After all, one of the recommendations and I quote from the select committee report, says, we believe that the current prisons Minister understands the need for change and what needs to be done.

He should be strongly backed by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for justice. And that sums up what our what our Select Committee report is about. I was thinking in preparing for this debate, and I seem to visit a large number of prisons. I won't go through them all, but as part of this select committee work, we visited Belmarsh and Isis, both characterised by excellent first class women prison governors. We were really impressed by them, and we sat around a table with a group of prisoners in Belmarsh and their plea was, please, could we have the sort of training to help us get jobs when we get out? It was a heartfelt plea, and we were then told there were difficulties about this, because they weren't always going to be there long enough.

And and there were difficulties in liaising with local education authorities and so on. I think that's something that could certainly be certainly be overcome, I should add, and list of prisons. I was for a time in my constituency at Wandsworth Prison and I've, interestingly enough, visited prisons in Chicago, Bangkok and Tokyo. But this is not meant to be a tour around prisons of the world. I think one of our big challenges is public opinion. Public opinion is being whipped up by some of the press to demand longer and longer sentences.

And one of the reasons the prison population has gone up is because the sentences are much longer and it's not a satisfactory position. I think we've got to tackle this culture in public opinion that demanding ever longer sentences is just simply not going to solve the problem, and it's not going to make us safer in the end. And it's interesting that we learnt in our evidence that prisoners would like the idea of seeing prison governors more visible in walking around the prison, and that's something we do.

We do recommend, I know that a lot of prison governors, but it is important. We felt that governors should oversee the recruitment process of staff, that there should be longer in post before each rotation, that they should have more say in budgets and they should. There should be training for for governors. I just talk about an experience I had not as a member of committee, but before that in Coldingley prison, where the Howard League for Penal Reform had initiated a business in prison, a business where prisoners actually did design work and so on, competing in the marketplace with the outside world.

It was enlightening. And one of the prisoners who was there for a long time was in prison for a long time, said to me, this is the best thing that's ever happened to him. There was an excitement about it, but what happened? It was closed down. Why was it closed down? Well, they were earning money. And the Home Office, which was then the Home Office, said, well, if you're earning money, you're going to be taxed. And there's a problem about employment rights and we can't have that competing with, with, with, with the authority of the governor.

So it was all stopped, a really brilliant initiative. And it just, it just it just came to it just came to an end. So I think there needs to be more support, not just for governors but for prison staff. And there needs to be far more help with education and vocational training. It's an indictment of the system that about half the prisoners are functionally illiterate. I hope that the Minister will deal with these problems. He's got a lot on his plate, and I hope he gets the full support of other Ministers in the government so he can bring about the changes which we all wish to see happen.
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Lord Farmer Portrait Lord Farmer (Conservative)
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Yeah. >> It's always a privilege. >> To follow the noble Lord Dobbs and also to be part of a debate where we have five maiden speeches, where we have five maiden speeches, three of which have taken place in a very impressive and may I add, my a very impressive and may I add, my welcome to the five new noble Lords. I look forward to the remaining two speeches. My Lords, I welcome this report, which focuses on what happens in prison. It's statistic that re-offending accounts for 80% of the costs of offending is shocking, because it strongly suggests prison is not working to rehabilitate people.

Preventing re-offending requires prison to tackle Criminogenic needs. The changeable factors in a prisoner's life that directly influence their risk of reoffending. Lack of healthy, pro-social relationships is female prisoners greatest criminogenic need and men's second highest, exceeded only by the closely related lifestyle and associates need. We will never see the much needed step change in rehabilitation unless we harness the power of good relationships throughout the system. Better prisons does mention this ten times and emphasises the difference.

Good staff to staff as well as staff to prisoner relationships can make better prisons. Mentions HMP Woodhill and I attended the inspection where it was given an urgent notification. One response to this has been staff better supporting staff. The Minister and I and other noble Lords visited HMP Belmarsh recently and talked to the exceptional governor there about her successful buddy system, where more experienced officers come alongside new recruits, which is helping greatly with retention. Better prisons gives education over 100 mentions and employment over 30.

Yet my first report to government on the importance of strengthening family and other relational ties to prevent re-offending and intergenerational crime, said supportive relationships with family members and significant others give meaning and all important motivation to other strands of rehabilitation and resettlement activity, ensuring prisoners have good relationships should top the hierarchy of goals. The government's own starting point for commissioning my two reviews was those who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not, making this the most successful rehabilitation pathway.

I've had much pushback on this, especially criticism that this focus is being soft on crime. My response to this is that if we lower re-offending by helping prisoners cultivate good relationships with all that this entails lower court costs, less crime, fewer victims, more children growing up with reformed parents in work, we are actually being hard on crime. Can the Minister advise how prisons are emphasising the need for good relationships? I still work with HMPPS and MoJ on this agenda, and I would just say this policy area has some very vocational civil servants dedicated to bringing about system and culture change.

My reviews implementation treats relationships as the golden thread running through all processes in prison and probation, influencing how staff from governors to newly recruited officers treat prisoners, support each other and engage with wider community. An extrovert prison purposefully builds relationships with the outside world. Some prisons now run community days for the 50% or so of prisoners who do not receive social visits. People come in from local organisations as living reminders of what life is like outside.

They help prepare prisoners ahead of release, pointing them away from criminal associates by providing alternatives. Some are prison experienced themselves and are a powerful encouragement that change is possible. Focus has now widened onto the role good peer to peer support plays in rehabilitation. Prison prisons lack in many areas, but what they do have in abundance is prisoners and prisoners can be an asset. I sat in a peer support project in HMP Bullingdon alongside the area executive director, who said one of the mentors had formed as the major troublemaker in other local prisons.

That mentor testified to how much his role had changed him for years. I would respond to all authority with violence and where did it get me? I tell mentees. I was just as angry and frustrated as them. But sharing that built good relationships, good friendships that helped us both change and stay out of trouble. This project has support from the very top and has senior and highly skilled supervisor who could identify prisoners likely to be good mentors. Every wing in every prison needs these programs.

Before HMP Dartmoor shut down a similar program, Peaceful Solutions significantly changed it into a calmer prison, one result being that officer recruitment became much easier despite the remote location. So may I finish by asking the Minister can he outline how approaches with the potential to change prison culture by harnessing the power of pro-social prisoner to

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prisoner relationships are progressing? Am I having just arrived on the Justice and Home Affairs Committee? Justice and Home Affairs Committee? I support this report and particularly commend Lord foster for his way of introducing it. I for his way of introducing it. I thought it was direct, unsparing and fair, and I'm sure that this Minister will in particular will Minister will in particular will take it central message, which is it's all about implementation. And the clock is ticking and it's been ticking for many years.

So I think
13:17
Lord Hogan-Howe Portrait Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench)
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ticking for many years. So I think that is a very fair comment. And secondly, just to say in context, I think all political parties represented in this chamber need to understand the context that Lord dubs described, which is not one of them, have gone into the general election promising lower sentences or more remission. This government has done something about remission. But those two facts have driven the prison population to an unsustainable level, and the context in which this report is delivered.

And I think we have to acknowledge that. I wish to talk about two subjects around this report. First, about the complex and difficult problem of staff corruption and then about the tagging of prisoners on release from prison. The vast majority of prison staff serve in a difficult role with integrity. However, there are issues of corruption with some staff which appear to have increased over the last few years. This report identifies some of the challenges with the recruitment process. For example, it is difficult to estimate the scale of the problem.

However, there are two significant symptoms of it one the wide availability of mobile phones in the prison estate. This is really important. We're getting murders arranged from prison, drug supply continued, firearms discovered. It's vitally important that this is controlled. The second piece of evidence is the fact that drugs are available in prison, leading to more people leaving with a drug habit than entered. This rises from around 40% on entry to 60% on leaving on average during their time in prison.

Now, of course, both contraband. Both forms of contraband can be delivered by drones or visitors, but the potential penetration been achieved in phones and drugs indicates significant elements of collusion. The problem is increasing because there is an ineffective system for investigating the intelligence that is being gathered, and I blame no one for this problem because for me, it is caused by a basic flaw in the system. The Prison service do not have an investigative arm with the necessary powers, including overt and covert surveillance mechanisms within the community.

Outside prisons, the police do have the powers, but require a high degree of certainty before they start to resource intensive investigation. But because the Prison Service do not have the investigative arm, they struggle to get the evidence to persuade the police to investigate this serious crime. This problem is aggravated in rural areas where many prisons are located, which are located in the areas covered by small police forces who don't have the resources generally to investigate the more serious crimes already.

And it means that there is an even increased high bar to commence an investigation. In rural areas, the local prisons in urban areas face a different problem, which is that the prison staff often share schools, licensed premises, etc. with the families and associates of prisoners, which add further pressure on discipline and staff integrity. In my view, this overall problem could be eased by providing a national squad of police officers, supported by prison staff, to investigate intelligence in the prison and in the community, combining prison and police intelligence powers and skills.

At the moment there is no such unit and everybody is deprioritizing what is a vitally important area and if we want to continue prison staff professionalism, that this report argues for the foundation of integrity and basic security in the system is vital. And I am afraid at the moment for the reasons I hope I've described. It's very, very seriously challenged. I want to move now briefly onto the issue of tagging, which the Minister and I have discussed before, and we agree is a vital, great opportunity for the future when prisoners are released, because it starts to control some of the causal factors which cause prisoners to continue to reoffend.

We now have geo location, which can exclude prisoners from certain areas or maintain them within an area. There is sobriety tagging, which manages whether or not somebody is taking drugs or more often, alcohol as a precursor to their offending pattern. But the Minister will know as well that, of course, there have been problems in fitting these devices on leaving prison. The commercial company involved have not always been able to do it. Not always their fault, but it's not always happened. But probably more importantly for me is that the the data produced by the tags does not produce, is not shared live time with the local police who could do something about the breaches, particularly if a crime has just been committed.

But in any case, it's vitally important that this is looked at. So for me, those two areas are vitally important. First of all, prison corruption, to blame no one and certainly not to blame the prison staff. And secondly, the tagging. I just wonder if the Minister could update us on both debate.
13:22
Baroness Hughes of Stretford Portrait Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Labour)
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Yeah. >> I want to congratulate first my noble friends and Lords on the excellent motion speeches. Look forward to those to come and forward to those to come and welcome them to the House. I want to thank the chair and the witnesses and contributors who witnesses and contributors who helped to produce this excellent, detailed report. And I'll say at the outset that I share the disappointment that's already been expressed in the Ministry of Justice response to our report. It was complacent, generalised and lacked the urgency that this topic demands.

Notwithstanding, as has already been said, our confidence in the Minister, my Lord, prison imposes the most severe power of the state, the deprivation of liberty. And that's for three reasons to punish offenders, to protect the public and to reduce reoffending through rehabilitation. But because prison is failing to reduce reoffending, prison is also failing fully to protect the public. The prison system is now in a parlous state after years of neglect. They are overcrowded, understaffed, ineffective and very costly, not only financially, but in terms of the damage inflicted on communities.

Nearly half of all prisoners on average are reconvicted within a year. The Sentencing Act may help, but it doesn't obviate the need for radical reform in the prison system. I'll focus on just a few key priorities from the report. First is leadership. The head of an institution is usually the most important factor in determining its culture, its effectiveness and its efficiency, and can be held to account if that leader has the autonomy to do what's required in the prison service. This isn't the case.

The top down control by HMPPS stifles innovation and weakens governance. Governors ability to manage effectively. Findings mirrored by the reports, both from the Other place and by the Chief Inspector. Governors are accountable but not empowered. The government response claims that governors do have some flexibility, but that does not reflect what many governors themselves told us that lack of autonomy was one of their main areas of frustration and needs transformational change. In what other spheres of public or indeed private services is.

It thought that rigid, centralised control is the best way to achieve effectiveness and efficiency? Not in education, not in police or health, not even in private prisons? So does my noble friend the Minister agree there needs to be a step change in governor autonomy. And how does he propose to increase operational and strategic freedoms for governors? Secondly, workforce. And this includes a myriad of issues. Most prisoners, officers and support staff, I agree, are doing their best in difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, there is a daunting list of workforce challenges that must be addressed, including recruitment, performance management, training, appraisal, line management, sickness absence and so on.

It is astounding that prison officers are recruited via an online process, as we've heard, and governors do not meet those new recruits before they turn up for work. Would that be regarded as acceptable for a teacher, a social worker or a police officer? I think not. There is, at best, also a patchy system of training. Virtually no system of appraisal, little supervision, with line managers expected to manage 20 to 30 officers. We heard almost we hear almost daily about workforce problems, including corruption, as we've just heard hundreds of prisoners released in error.

Allegations of staff misconduct, including with children in secure units, and yet were given very little detail as a committee, nor received any sense of real urgency from the Ministry of Justice. This is work in progress. Can my noble friend the Minister, set out how he is approaching this fundamental programme of change and what his priorities are, and then thirdly, reducing reoffending through purposeful activity. This could be said to be the raison d'etre of the prison system, and yet it repeatedly fails to deliver education and remedial programmes.

So prison becomes a very expensive waste of money by failing to reduce the likelihood of offending reoffending on release. There's both limited availability of and access to provision. Attendance is not prioritised against the demands of prison routines or staffing problems, and falls by the wayside. Could my noble friend, the Minister, give further details about how work is going on to improve this situation? I want to just finally, briefly to mention women in prison, very high levels of need and vulnerability, 71% reoffending, high levels of trauma, substance abuse, and so on.

This discrete and very vulnerable subset of the prison population is in particularly urgent need of the recommendations in our report, will the Minister consider accelerating those recommendations in the women's estate? And then just finally, these are just a few issues alone. They are incredibly challenging. Set aside all the others. I say to my noble friend, genuinely, I do not doubt his ability and commitment to the changes necessary. But I have to say to him, and I do so with great respect, that his tasks will be even more difficult unless he can build a more capable, flexible and innovative HMPPS.
13:28
Baroness Davies of Devonport Portrait Baroness Davies of Devonport (Conservative)
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I rise. >> In this debate and to follow the noble Baroness. I thank the noble Lords and all parts of the House for their warm welcome. I pay for their warm welcome. I pay tribute to my sponsors, the noble friends Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Young of Acton, and thank the Lord Young of Acton, and thank the officers of the House and all the Palace of Westminster staff for their kindness and their time. I can't honestly tell you how wonderful everybody has been and how patient you've all been, as we've got lost around these red and green carpets.

I'd also like to thank Lord Moynihan here, who's been my mentor. I think he wanted to check my speech to make sure I didn't tell you stories about what happened way back in 1980, when we were on the same Olympic team together. But without his guidance, I would have been seriously lost. So thank you very much. My introduction day I will always cherish. It was a privilege to be able to share it with my family and friends, including my 90 year old father. My dad was my coach and is still coaching today, but was ostracised for speaking out against the East German state for cheating during the Iron Curtain era.

As the coach of the only individual female medallist of the whole great Moscow team, which was me, he was still left off the coaching staff for daring to ask for a level playing field for women. On the day of my introduction, he was wearing purple to remember my mum who lost her life because of the contaminated blood scandal. Without the incredible family support, I would not have made it as an international athlete. A career spanning 13 Olympics so far as either a swimmer or a poolside reporter.

That passion for sport, I hope, will be put to good use in your Lordships House as we consider ways to promote the health, well-being and wider social benefits which come from taking part in physical activity. My international life in sport began at 11 and lasted 20 years five hours a day of training, six days a week, juggling school work with the pool. In those days, there was no lottery funding and my choice after state education was retirement or a sponsored degree in America, which I took.

I've been training hard for ten years, with the longest holiday being a week, including training on Christmas Day, which was down to Mr. Daley Thompson. And for three months I trained with two broken arms. But to maintain my scholarship I had to swim full time. So I came back to the UK, took part in a television programme called Give Us a Clue, which many of you are too young to remember, and I was promptly banned for receiving £40 expenses. Even though UK Athletics had trust funds and athletes were able to be full time.

I had to wait another nine years until trust funds were introduced into swimming before I could make a comeback to finish my sporting degree at the Barcelona Olympics. If you don't count gladiators, and if only I had trademarked that word Amazon. Those challenges have taught me to be resilient, to understand no one can keep you down unless you consent to it. Those same challenges have made me resolve to hold up the principles of equality and fairness. I am passionate about the physical and mental health of our children, and how to motivate them to be the very best they can be.

I feel privileged that I grew up at a time when stereotypes were being pulled down, and most importantly, we had no smartphones and we had free speech. Never before have our children been bombarded with so much grown up material as they are today here in the house. I also hope to extend my interest in women's rights. So in that context, I turn to this debate. My Lords, the Better prisons, less crime report. However, I wanted to highlight the unique challenges women incarcerated face.

Of the 88,000 prisoners in England and Wales, only 8000 are women. The default setting for management is therefore male. It's imperative that we look at how we treat women in prisons in a way relevant to their biological needs. The average day is only 42 days, just long enough for you to lose your home. Your children ruin your life, but not long enough to make any major improvements in your poor mental health, your drug or alcohol abuse, or to prevent which is more prevalent in the female estate.

Shockingly, 82% of women in prison report mental health illnesses. There are no female prisons in Wales, and if you live in Cornwall, you'll be put on remand in Gloucester. A round trip of over £100 for every family member who wants to visit all too often. More than the whole week's food budget, women need a connection with their children. Many are single parents. One obvious solution is the expansion of the third spaces community based care centres that offer much closer to home facilities.

The vast majority of these women have, at some point in their lives, been victims themselves of crime or violence. Self-harm figures have rocketed in the last ten years and are almost nine times higher than they are in the men's estate. After talking with Zoe Long, governor of Eastwood Park prison that covers the whole of the South West and Wales, it was obvious that mentoring programs helped to build the confidence of female inmates, who often lack and could be hugely advantageous, making these women feel like they matter.

There was such a successful programme in recent years, but it was limited to men and football. I hope the government may consider expanding the mentoring programme, but I hope to discuss further that I might be able to encourage other successful sportswomen to take up the opportunity of motivational visits, including looking at encouraging more physical activity than I know directly correlates to more physical self-confidence. In closing, my noble Lords, I know there are some truly amazing people here doing incredible work on this subject in the house, and I thank the noble Lords for introducing the debate and bringing the extensive professional experience to bear on policy formula across all party lines here.
13:34
Baroness Bertin Portrait Baroness Bertin (Conservative)
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Wow. real, real. >> Honour to follow my noble friend Baroness Davies of Devonport and I Baroness Davies of Devonport and I would like to congratulate her on a very, very thoughtful and brilliant first speech. A story of such determination and also of resilience. She was a total hero of mine growing up. I'm trying not to be too starstruck and a huge inspiration to me and so many young girls at a time when mentors in the sporting world were in pretty short supply, and she was someone that we could all relate to.

And you also came across as incredibly kind and encouraging. She was and remains a remarkable sportswoman. I mean, let's just have a moment. She swam for Britain aged 11. I barely got myself to school on my own at that age. I mean, it is and a huge testament also to the support you had from your family. And I really heard the tribute you gave there to your mother and father. And at 14 she won two European bronze medals, and at age 15 she won two Commonwealth gold medals.

Her astonishing form continued and she went on to win silver in the Moscow Olympics. It should have been gold, though, and we know that she became an even bigger household name as she burst onto our TV screens and as a dedicated TV addict. In those days, I basically spent the first 18 years of my life watching on TV. You were either brilliantly commentating commentary, commentating on key sporting events. You're appearing on Question of Sport, presenting Big Brother, or absolutely nailing your opponents as a gladiator.

And she was a staple in my life. You are a mother, a grandmother, a committed campaigner for so many charities, a skilled equestrian. I could go on, but all you need to know is that she is superhuman. But perhaps most importantly, you are brave and you campaign courageously for women's rights in sport at considerable personal cost and risk to yourself. She spoke out at a time when few people were brave enough to make the common sense case that it was unfair on women to have to compete against transgender women in sport.

I know many young women in elite sport, and more generally, are incredibly grateful to you for this brave, determined, hard working, and full of integrity. We need more of this in our politics. So I and so many others are delighted that you join us in this chamber, and I look forward to working with you and maybe even working out with you. But I'm not sure I am actually brave enough to do that, to be perfectly honest. But I know she will make a very, very powerful contributions and has shown real leadership already.

I also want to welcome the other five new peers to this House, and some amazing speeches we've heard already, and I also look forward to working with you. We are at our best when we're cross-party, so yes, lots of conversations to be had I'm sure over the years. I also want to thank Lord foster, amazing leadership and also the team, particularly Alex South on the committee, who I think this report, you know, been on committees, have produced many reports, but I think this has been a particularly powerful one.

And speaking of bravery, I also want to begin this speech by making a point about recognising the courage of our prison staff across this country. They rarely do get that acknowledgement, and I think the Prison Service Medal is the least we can do, and they are on the front line. But I think the point that has been made about recruitment that that Lord foster, Lord Hogan-Howe and Baroness Coussins made so powerfully as well, it is absolutely absurd that we are recruiting in this way.

It is such an important and difficult job. You cannot possibly be recruited to be a prison officer, potentially having never stepped into a prison before. I mean, I think Baroness Buscombe said. It's sort of insanity writ large. And it is. I remember the first time I went to a prison and admittedly, I was eight months pregnant. Don't ask what I was doing in Wormwood Scrubs, heaving myself around at eight months pregnant. But it was, you know, you can either do it or you can't.

And it is a sort of pretty shocking experience. Once those doors close and you see the reality of being inside a prison, and I think it's no good for the staff, it's no good for the the people inside the prison either, because when it becomes clear that someone is not right for the job, people start to worry a great deal about their safety and and rightly so, and the whole thing starts to fall apart potentially quite quickly. The committee is absolutely unequivocal that our prisons are in a state of crisis.

They remain overcrowded, under-resourced and unable to provide the conditions necessary for rehabilitation that so many of us have spoken about already. And I think this this overcrowding obviously has many, many problems that that noble peers have spoken very eloquently about. But, you know, the low level offenders are frequently housed in close proximity to more serious criminals. So when we went to Belmarsh, which which other peers have spoken about, other colleagues have spoken about a great deal. Talking to one inmate, he said, look, you know, I came in because I robbed Tesco's, but I'm leaving knowing how to rob a bank.

I mean, he was half joking, but, you know, that is the reality. And the committee noted, obviously, that this overcrowding, poor conditions and a lack of purposeful activity creates circumstances in which criminals become far more hardened rather than helped. And when the cells are full, the staff are stretched and gangs operate with impunity. It really struck me that, and on several occasions when I've been into prisons, that the classrooms and a lot of the workshops are completely empty, because either there has been a big security problem and they just the logistics of moving these guys around are it's it's incredibly challenging, especially if there are, you know, obviously gangs being placed in the same prison.

It's just an impossibility. So with the greatest will in the world, there may well be provisions to provide education, but quite often you can't get them out of the cells to get into the places to actually do the learning. And that is a massive, massive problem. Can I also come to employment? Actually, the reason why I was in Wormwood Scrubs when I was eight months pregnant, because at the time I worked for BT and we were trying to recruit and and obviously my noble friend Lord Timpson knows a great deal about this.

And I also want to praise his his work in this. But it wasn't it wasn't and it isn't straightforward. And I do think that the programs that help prisoners gain real work experience, there needs to be far more work done on this, making sure that there is a real connection with local employers, a real, meaningful connection with local employers that also helps drive what they want from people leaving prison so they can actually give them meaningful employment. And there is a real sense that this could potentially lead to something rather than a sort of just for the sake of it activity that doesn't really take them anywhere.

And I, you know, I really do think that is a very important thing to get right. My Lords, many others have also mentioned the, the, the attention for the urgent need of clarity of purpose within the prison system. It calls on the Ministry of Justice to enshrine reducing reoffending as the statutory aim of prisons and rehabilitation is not an alternative to justice. It is essential to do it. Being in prison is the punishment which follows must be about equipping individuals to return to society as stable, contributing citizens.

But can I also just make one final point that Lord Hogan-Howe raised is that tagging. I was incredibly struck by how, you know, if electronic monitoring and tagging is going to be an answer to early release it. There are some big problems in the back office and the organisation of this. If it's going to be rolled out in any great scale effectively. And could I just make one very small, urgent plea on that, that when there is a lack of. Faith in that system, you know, you have.

Survivors of domestic abuse, were absolutely terrified when they knew their perpetrators were coming out of jail. It is absolutely vital that they get the electronic tagging system. If that is going to be an approach you're going to take under proper control. So I will leave it there because I can see the time is going. Thank you.
13:42
Baroness Wheatcroft Portrait Baroness Wheatcroft (Crossbench)
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Home Affairs Committee deserve >> Home Affairs Committee deserve congratulations on producing such an excellent and thorough report. an excellent and thorough report. And congratulations are also due to those who have delivered their maiden speeches today. All of excellent quality and I'm sure there's one more to come. But the only thing in which our prison system excels is the number of people that it crams into it, and that is the root of all the problems that we're addressing today. Too many people who can't be given enough work to do, who can't be given the education, who can't be given the experience they need, and many of whom shouldn't be there in the first place.

And my Lords, I'm sure many of us, like me, were delighted when the noble Lord Lord Timpson was appointed to his his post, because we knew that he wanted to do the best possible thing for the country and for the prisoners and those who offend, many of whom are not really bad people, they just find themselves in a bad position. But I have every sympathy with him in trying to align his principles and his aims with the system he finds himself confronting, and in particular with the media that the noble Lord Dubs referred to, which is out for blood all the time, rather than rehabilitation.

And it is a very difficult equation to balance. It can't be done overnight, and I wish him all the best still. But it's not to underestimate the problems that he faces. My Lords, many of us will have dealt with timpsons, the family business that has done so much to encourage employment of of prisoners. And one of the things that's most notable about it is that the staff in Timpsons appear to feel empowered, empowered to do what they believe is right for the customer, empowered to use their initiative.

They're not bound in by stupid bureaucratic rules. But my Lord, it's appalling to read how little autonomy that the governors in our prisons have. If a member of staff at Timpsons appears to have more autonomy than a prison governor, there's something radically wrong in the system. And we're seeing the results of that in the way that the staffing levels in prisons and the budgets are allocated, they're not fit for purpose. And so, as the committee said, governments need to give more autonomy to governors.

And I'd be very interested to hear more from the noble Lord about how he's going to address that. Many people have talked about the drugs issue. It's absolutely crazy that we should have the House of Commons Justice Committee saying quite lively, that it's now at endemic levels. The noble Lord Lord Hogan-Howe talked about how it manages to flourish. There is a prevailing culture of acceptance of drugs in our prisons. This cannot be right. 136 drug related deaths in the two years to December 24th.

In our prisons. My Lords, if anyone in this chamber tried to run a drugs racket, our doorkeepers would be on it in seconds. How is it that it's allowed to flourish in our prisons? Well, we know it's the corruption that the noble Lord Lord Hogan-Howe referred to. There are organised criminal gangs running rife in our prisons, and that in part must be because we don't have the right prison officers. The vetting system has to change. There have to be face to face interviews and as in many public services, there has to be life long vetting of those who are in these positions.

These are positions of power, and we can't afford for them to be in the wrong hands. I'd also like to refer to the plight of women prisoners, many of whom, if any, should probably not be there. Female prisoners suffer not only the cost to themselves, the cost of their families is huge. Women re-offenders, if they've been on a short sentence, can be up to 58% and beyond. But if they have a job on leaving, that makes all the difference.

So training is all important for women prisoners and there is a charity Working Chance, which does great work in putting women prisoners into work when they leave. But we need that for all our prisoners. We need more education. It utterly crazy as Charlie Taylor HMIP has already said that at £45,000 a year, we can't educate prisoners to read. So we need to learn more from the noble Lord, the Minister, about what he's going to do about that. And also, I'd like to bring up the issue of mentees and mentors that others have raised.

All important. They don't need to be sportspeople. They don't need to be necessarily other prisoners. But they're all important in building

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relationships. I'd like to congratulate. The noble Lords on their maiden

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The noble Lords on their maiden speeches. Truly excellent contributions, and I look forward to the further one that is yet to to the further one that is yet to come in this debate. And I'm delighted that you've all chosen to speak and make this your maiden speak and make this your maiden speech ground about prisons, a topic very close to my heart. And I'm delighted already that we've
13:48
Baroness Hyde of Bemerton Portrait Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Labour)
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I'm delighted already that we've heard a lot about the particular plight of women in prison. So I've chosen this debate for my first speech. After my maiden speech, the kind of difficult second album genre of speeches. Having lived and worked in prisons. Sorry, having studied, I should say, and worked in prisons for many years, I will restrict my comments to three particular areas. The purpose of prison, which has been very well covered already. I'll keep that brief. The use of release on temporary licence to enable people to work, and supporting the prison staff.

My Lords, if we want to reduce crime and ensure less victims, we have to sort out prisons. I mean, I cannot state it more plainly than that. I welcome the report and my noble friend the Minister's response to it. I thought there was a surprising omission, and that was the critical role of experts by experience in helping policy makers to get this right. That is, both people with lived experience of the justice system and those that work in it. We've already heard that the context is truly, truly grim.

I won't repeat all the things we've heard, but I would just like to make my Lordships house aware that the current rate of self-harm in our prisons is 859 incidents per 1000 prisoners. I'll now turn to that second recommendation in the report, which states that the Ministry of Justice does need to set out that clear, consistent purpose for prisons. As others have eloquently stated, if we want people, the public, to understand the decisions being made about prisons, they have to understand what prisons are for.

What is the primary purpose. It's an urgent, practical question. It's not an esoteric academic ponderance because the answer to that question then dictates a load of answers to what actually happens in our prisons day in and day out. And I raise this particularly because most people in our prisons now will be released back into wider society. There's about 14,000 people released every three months, and what each prisoner experiences in prison then shapes how they go on to live.

After release. We must communicate that purpose and ensure the visibility of evidence for what reduces re-offending, restores communities and restores lives. Which takes me to my second theme the increased use of release on temporary licence to unlock employment opportunities. Now I know my noble friend, the Minister is as passionate as I am about the role of employment in preventing re-offending. Indeed, I first encountered him when I worked for Working Chance. We've already heard about supporting women with criminal convictions into work whilst he was becoming a household name, through his pioneering employment schemes in prisons and after.

We know that work can provide dignity, purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning and it gives you new skills and the use of release on temporary licence that is often limited to day release people going into the community to work or volunteer, then returning to the prison at night can help build confidence and get people ready for release. It is a scheme, of course, only available to some prisoners appropriately vetted near the end of their sentence. But government data shows that in 2024, 99.8% of those released on temporary licence that was completed successfully and safely, and that those prisoners given release on temporary licence have lower rates of re-offending on release.

Now, when I worked a working chance, I had a colleague about a month in who had been on release on temporary licence every day to come in to work with us, being finally released from prison. Let's call her Katie. On the day she was released from prison, her whole world shifted. She was struggling, you know, navigating new relationships. Where am I going to live? How will this go? But in the midst of that, she continued to come to the job that she had done for several months, from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, sit at the same desk, drink her tea from the same mug with familiar colleagues.

She continued that role for several years and then got a better job in a large public sector body. The re-offending rate at working chance. When I worked there was 3%. My Lords, now witnessing Katie's transition from prison on on that day release programme, gave me that very front row experience of what the data already showed us. It showed somebody able to successfully transition into normal life and make a contribution. Most people in prison today are going to be released, so let's crack on with that.

I've left myself with no time to talk about the importance of staff. They do a very tough job and I'd ask that my noble friend, the Minister, would consider meeting with me to discuss how we help staff expose those traumatic events. And I really welcome the recommendations around sickness levels. So we all agree it would be better for staff to work in less violent, less understaffed, less traumatising environments. So let's get a clear purpose for prisons, increase use of rotl and greater support for our prison staff.

Because most people in prison today

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are going to be released. My Lords, I feel.

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Acutely the responsibility to use this privilege for good and represent the vital role of civil represent the vital role of civil society in addressing the troubling challenges our country faces. My challenges our country faces. My father often said, really often you're not special. You're just lucky. It sounds harsh, but not lucky. It sounds harsh, but not when you think of the many people who are very special and not at all lucky. I've met many of them in my career.

I know full well that great good fortune has brought me to this place. I thank Lord McConnell, the crossbench, Convenors staff, Black Rod office and the Doorkeepers who showed such amazing kindness to my family on my introduction. I'm grateful to Baroness Hunt of
13:54
Baroness Neate Portrait Baroness Neate (Crossbench)
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Bethnal Green and Baroness Casey of Blackstock for supporting me and to Baroness Deech and the Appointments Baroness Deech and the Appointments Commission. I applied to join this house because for decades in house because for decades in frontline charities, I saw families beset by crisis after crisis. While beset by crisis after crisis. While policy changes weren't helping charities working in communities charities working in communities know how housing, housing, domestic abuse, child protection and criminal justice collide in real lives, I believed I could bring that experience into legislative debates that too often treat these issues in silos.

Prison is where many of our most pressing social problems collide. I will explain in a minute, through the story of a young woman who I will never forget. I began my charity career at action for children Supporting Families in Crisis. I was stunned by the scale of domestic abuse at the heart of that damage. UNrecognised or minimised as a volatile relationship rather than systematic control and victimisation. That led me to become chief executive of Women's Aid. There I helped achieve the criminalisation of coercive and controlling behaviour, more funding for refuges and changes in the family courts.

At Women's Aid, we heard daily from women who were staying in terror because they feared homelessness and losing their children. I came to see that insecure private renting and the shortage of social homes trapped survivors. Between life threatening abuse and unliveable temporary accommodation. That is why I became the CEO of shelter. So to return to prisons, action for children ran the mother and baby unit at Style Prison. There I met a 20 year old woman and her six month old daughter born in prison.

It still chills me that she said she herself had been born in style two decades before her mother had offended in a coercive, controlling relationship. She grew up in and out of care, later homeless, convicted of shoplifting and pregnant. When sentenced, she was likely to be homeless. After release, she was parenting with confidence and love, but I knew she might well lose her baby. You see how policies intersect to create those we label complex needs or hard to reach, but it's systems that are complex and help that is hard to reach.

We blame people for the spiral of trauma and harmful or dangerous behaviour, but with comfort, resilience and support. When problems first arose, things would be different. We often talk about charities changing lives, but people's own courage and tenacity are what changed their lives. Given the chance, charities can help achieve the resilience many of us have from childhood, which for others has been eroded. What I've learned is that policy silos don't help us find answers before changing policy. We must understand how lives are unravelled by the systems we create.

Unintended consequences are avoidable, but it takes engagement with front line expertise and experience. I am not a politician. I'm proud of what I've achieved in respectful partnerships with senior politicians of all parties, who trusted that my priority is people facing the hardest circumstances. I am honoured to serve both you, my Lords, and them.

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Who. Thank you. My Lords. It is a source of pleasure and pride to follow the pleasure and pride to follow the maiden speech of my noble friend, the Baroness Neate, and to welcome her to this house. We have truly just heard a speech of clarity, authority and lived experience, and authority and lived experience, and many of us will feel that her presence strengthens the best tradition of this House, bringing tradition of this House, bringing front line public service insight into national policy and legislation.

Polly comes here after decades at the sharpest edge of social policy. As chief executive shelter, she has made the case that housing is not a side issue but the foundation of stability in people's lives. Before that, at Women's Aid, she helped shift our understanding of domestic abuse from private tragedy to systemic coercion, requiring a systemic response. Earlier, still at action for children, she worked with children and families in acute crisis, seeing how poverty, violence, housing insecurity and state systems collide in young lives.

I worked with Polly when I was vice chair of shelter. She combines policy precision with an instinctive focus on what it feels like to live inside our systems. She will be a powerful voice here for those shaped by housing
14:00
Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green Portrait Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green (Crossbench)
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insecurity, abuse and contact with the care and justice system, and I very much look forward to her future contributions and working with her. I'd also like to take a with her. I'd also like to take a moment to note the wonderful contributions from all five of those who've made their maiden those who've made their maiden speeches today. It is truly indicative of the strength of this House, the breadth of experience House, the breadth of experience we've heard just from those five, the different perspectives, different experiences, and different ways of seeing that makes this place truly remarkable.

And it is of great regret to me that the wider community and population don't understand the richness that

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this place offers to our country. Yeah. Turning to prisons, the

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Turning to prisons, the committee's report shows a system under strain where leadership, staffing and clarity of purpose will determine whether we reduce reoffending or simply manage crisis reoffending or simply manage crisis at huge human and financial cost. I want to focus on the people who sit want to focus on the people who sit at the heart of that question. Prison staff, prison officers like social workers, nurses and firefighters do work that is complex, emotionally demanding and essential.

Yet we persistently treat these roles as low status, modestly paid and peripheral to public life. The report highlights the recruitment and retention crisis, low morale and the reality of violence and trauma facing staff. We ask them not only to keep order, but to help change lives. And then we underinvest in the very people expected to deliver that change. If we genuinely see prison staff as central to public protection and reducing reoffending, should that not be reflected not just in pay and training, but in how their role is understood and valued across society? I would be grateful if the Minister could say more about what the department is doing, and what further steps it might take to raise public awareness of the importance of prison staff and the contribution they make to public life.

Because, my Lords, I'm acutely aware that at the same time, we face a profound labour market shift. We tell young people that the future, their future, lies in learning how to use AI. Yet many white collared pathways that shapes the aspirations of the next generation of workers are likely to contract. Indeed, we are already seeing and experiencing that contraction. Large numbers of young people will face a more precarious landscape than we are ready to admit. Here is the paradox, my Lords.

Sectors like prisons, care, health and community safety urgently need capable people. Work. AI will not replace. Regardless of what Foucault may have fantasised about. Yet we signal that success lies elsewhere. If we are serious about safer communities, about reducing reoffending, we should be making careers in the prison service and allied public service roles. High status, well-paid, properly supported professions with clear pathways and recognition. This is not fallback work. This is nation building work. This points to a seismic shift that we are facing, not just in the prison sector, but indeed across the public sector.

We need to start revaluing human relational work to align education and workforce policy with social need, and to see affordable housing as part of the infrastructure of prevention. If our public service staff do not live where they work, how can they connect with the communities they are trying to serve? I feel this is consistent with the report's central argument. The system must be organised around reducing reoffending and protecting the public, not managing failure at scale.
14:04
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Portrait Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Labour)
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Thank goodness. >> My Lords, I rise with some deference to speak after the wealth of contributions that have been made thus far. But I do want to made thus far. But I do want to begin by congratulating. Well, I want to call him my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath. We worked on a committee together not so long ago for this redoubtable, detailed report which has fed the debate, and the biggest commendation we could make for it would be that we don't now file it away so that it can gather dust, but that it can continue to be in in a dialectic relationship with government, as it has already been, as we find our best way forward to the next steps that we have to take.

The noble Lady, Lady Buscombe was bold enough to quote from speeches she'd made 20 years ago. And emboldened by that, I wish to refer to actions of my own that were 30 years ago. I know I don't look old enough to have that age gap, but but take my word for it. It's absolutely true. But why? When I was working 30 years ago as the president of the Methodist Church in Britain, did I choose prisons to be one of my key subjects? Homelessness was the other, but that will wait for another day.

There were several reasons I had been responsible for reasons I had been responsible for a Home Office endorsed. Hostel for remand prisoners, an alternative to prison where about 30 people who would otherwise be in a prison cell had structured time with a criminologist I remember from Cambridge University and various things like that to help to take the weight off the prison and perhaps to help some of the people inside to be seen in a better perspective. In addition to that, I had halfway houses for young people who'd been in trouble with the law.

And again, we saw to it that there was a discipline warden controlled, but at the same time, giving young people the freedom young people will have whatever you do. So with those responsibilities resting on my shoulder and 1 or 2 other factors to my schoolmate was Home secretary at the time, Michael Howard, I was firmly against his slogan, prison works. He knew that it wasn't the only thing we disagreed about, but friendship survived. And the fact that today I take a different stance from his yet again, I hope will not threaten our ongoing relationship.

It's a fine man and I'm proud to know him personally. But in in addition to all of that at Wesley's Chapel, when I was the Minister at the time, I interviewed David Ramsbotham, who was also mentioned by the noble Lady, Lady Buscombe not, alas, in her place, and he just swept me off my feet. I read his first I have it here, his first report as the Director of Prisons. Inspector of prisons. I beg his pardon. And and he told me that he writes every word of it himself.

And for the six years he held that office, this was his pellucid thinking about the experiences he'd had and the conclusions he'd been driven to. He was a remarkable man. I remember him sitting over there in the corner, the noble and gallant Lord by then, and continuing to regale us with his wisdom, strength of character and his goodness of heart. All of that led me to be interested in prisons, and in the course of my presidential year, I visited Lincoln Leyhill Blakenhurst, Walton Garth, Doncaster.

Probation Officers in Leeds, a detention centre in Rochester. As I tried to understand from alongside those incarcerated, how it was affecting them and shaping the direction of their lives. Never forgotten it. I've been in many prisons since, but that was a concentrated introduction to the whole dimension of British social life. Well, what can I say other than that, if this speech of David Ramsbotham had been substituted at the last minute by an act of terrorism for the report that we're looking at, it could have done the trick because it's the same stuff for staff, for governors, for conditions within prison, pay, pensions.

It's all in there is first report. And here we are 30 years later, debating the self-same issues. I hope if I live another 30 years, my wife dares to shrink from the possibility that I may be back and just see if we've made any progress then. My Lords, I congratulate our five maiden speakers. They are the future of
14:09
Lord Lucas Portrait Lord Lucas (Conservative)
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this House, and the future of this House is clearly effective. And I House is clearly effective. And I congratulate to the Committee on this well researched and hard hitting report. And I absolutely hitting report. And I absolutely join in the welcome that this House gives to the noble Lord Lord Timpson. He enjoys support all the Timpson. He enjoys support all the way around this house. I very much hope that he never qualifies for hope that he never qualifies for early release.

So I so I was rather disappointed by the lack of urgency, commitment and humanity in in in the government's response to the committee's report. I rather suspect the Minister didn't write it himself. My connection with prisons comes from my wife, Antonia Rubinstein, who co-founded and ran the charity Safe Ground for 17 years. We were lucky. Prisons were reasonably well funded in those days, and we had a fine succession of Labour prisons Ministers. I remember with particular admiration Lord Williams and Lord Austin Lord Boateng and Hilary Benn.

They all, as I remember them, exercised their distinctive voices. That allowance for Ministers to speak in their own voice seems to have been suppressed over the last 25 years, and I very much hope that the noble Lord Lord Timpson will reverse it. And in the same vein, as the report asks, that the Minister will swiftly restore the discretion and responsibility to prison governors who should also stay in post for a sensible time. A lot of my working life has been with the Good Schools Guide.

I would reckon that seven years is about right for a headmaster. It's long enough to do big things and not too long to get stale. I think that same period ought to apply to prison. Governors and governors would, given discretion, given longevity, be much more effective in running prisons and instilling a strong ethos into the staff, and that they would collectively become a strong self-improving community of capability, expertise and experience available to the Minister. As the president of the Prison Governors Association said at their 2024 conference, recalling what it was like 20 years ago.

My team were mined to deploy them into whatever role I chose for them. The senior management team could be as large or small as I liked, provided changes were properly consulted upon. I didn't have to choose from a restricted list of job descriptions. Teams were resilient and the senior management team were small, decisive and executive. The staff group was well established, experienced, confident, capable, and occasionally grumpy and intransigent. Where change was required, the prison was reasonably required, the prison was reasonably safe for both staff and prisoners.

My Lords, what has happened is that responsibility and trust has gone and has been replaced by a central bureaucracy. We thought in doing that, and this was largely under conservative government, we thought we were buying safety. But look at our prisons now. Compared to 25 years ago, what we've achieved is the opposite. And if we all through public life, we can see that this pursuit of imaginary safety has hugely increased expenditure from £100 million bat tunnels to our own £10 million front door and our nice but utterly pointless traffic marshals.

We need to get back to a culture of trust and responsibility. We would free up a large amount of money, which could then be applied in our prisons, without troubling the Treasury, as chapter four of the report describes, and the noble Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green said, our staff, the staff in prisons need to be much better supported. I will only say that I very much agree with what was said about the Belmarsh buddy system and other advocates of mentoring.

My wife was talking to a couple of Timpson employees the other day, always an enjoyable thing to do, and asked them what they would do to improve the lives of the staff. Had looked after them when they were in prison and they both said mentoring. So I very much hope that's a theme that the government will take up, and I will end with one other suggestion. In 1997, the Prison Service commissioned Safe Ground to produce a programme for prison staff to deliver family relationships education to prisoners called Family Man.

It was a hugely successful. It helped prisoners build a network of family relationships to support them post-release, and it made the prisons safer places because of the effect on the most devotions and attitudes of prisoners. This is a prison service course. They own the

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copyright of it. It should be revived. My Lord. Sir.

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Sir. I think I should first declare my interest. As a.

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As a. Vice President. Of the Local. Government Association. And co-president of London

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And co-president of London Councils, which is the body that represents all the London boroughs and the City of London. And I and the City of London. And I thought, do I really need to declare that interest as relevant to this debate? And then I realised, my Lords, of course, that local government and its many services and the people that work there, the councillors that are elected there, it's hugely relevant, more relevant, I think, than many of them may realise to the prison service.

And I will say just a little bit about that later on. Something else I need to say to people present, especially in view of the difficulty, I think nearly well, nearly everyone has had in trying to deal with such a wide ranging and important subject as this. In only five minutes, and I did sympathise. I didn't know that I was going to be replying to this debate until I arrived here and got the speaker's list this morning. The good news for members present is that, of course, like everyone else, I prepared for a five minute debate and when I checked with the table here, I've got 20 minutes.

I'll leave you to think about the consequences of that over the next 18 minutes, my Lords. In fact, I will of course be keeping much closer to the original four minutes 50s that I had planned. And I think I expected. And now I know that we hear very much about the difficulties and shortcomings of the Prison Service, and the Committee has made a lot of recommendations. I'm pleased that 19 of those recommendations were accepted by the government.

15 more were partially accepted, and the only one that was not accepted at all was about the rank of the prisons Minister, which we felt should be always be a Minister of state. And for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, the Prime
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Lord Tope Portrait Lord Tope (Liberal Democrat)
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Minister is not yet ready to agree to that for all times. My Lords, the recommendations are good and sound and reference has been made to them. And I think it's fair to say there has been general support for, as far as I am aware, all the for, as far as I am aware, all the recommendations. My Lords, that's the easy bit. The government has the easy bit. The government has accepted nearly all of them. That's the easy bit. What we want to know in a few minutes from the Minister is what is actually going to happen now, and when is it going to happen to implement those recommendations? My Lords, also today there has been much praise for the Minister so far.

Much, certainly much welcome to his appointment for his well known interest, in well known interest of his family's business in the whole issue here. And I welcome that too. And that brings me to I think it's the first recommendation of the committee which flowed from our consideration of what is the purpose of the committee. And it struck me at the time that actually, most of us probably don't this, this, this meeting may be exceptional, but generally most people and certainly most of the public don't actually ever think about what is the purpose of the prison.

I mean, it will be they will be surprised to be asked, perhaps, what is the purpose of the prison? They would say, well, it's to lock people up. Obvious. And so on. My Lords, the committee took the view and we were urged by quite a number of former prisoners who gave evidence to us that that is not the purpose of the prison, the purpose of the the locking people up is the punishment. The deprivation of liberty is the punishment. The purpose of the prison.

And something I think we were unanimous on the purpose. The purpose of prison is to reduce reoffending. And again, I will congratulate the Minister for insisting, I believe, that that should be added to his job title and it is added to his job title. And I believe he and we especially should make more of that and emphasise that the purpose for of prison and of putting people in prison is not to punish them. They're punished by their deprivation of liberty, but rather to reduce re-offending.

And my Lords, we say in the report, and it's sadly a well known figure, that 80% of the of offending is committed by people re-offending. I think that statistic is still shocking, but is getting sadly better known. I was more surprised and shocked indeed to learn in reading. I think a report that Lord noble Lord Lord Farmer had made a few years ago that actually it's 63% of prisoners sons become offenders themselves. That's the continuation.

63% of sons of offenders themselves become become offenders. My Lords, from my original five minutes, I was going to say that I've lived most of my life in the London Borough of Sutton. It's a mile or so a mile, sorry, a mile or so outside of our borough boundary. And from where I live is Highview Prison. Also, incidentally, Downview Women's Prison, one of the relatively few in the country. Both were built in the last 30 years at a time when it had happened.

I was leader of the council. During our inquiry, I went to visit Highdown to refresh my experience and my knowledge of it, and to talk with some of the staff, and particularly with the governor and what I wanted to do. What I'd chosen to do today was to talk about one particular experience from that visit, and I've decided I still want to do this, even if I am supposed to be replying to the debate. We were invited. My wife and I were invited to join something they called the dads group.

It's a group for prisoners. It's entirely voluntary, whether they come to take part or not. Several of the prisoners told us they have been reluctant to come to the to the dads group, probably because they feared being lectured or what their fellow inmates would would think about it. But they all said that having come to the course, it had changed the way they viewed their lives. It had been life changing to them. What the experience they were having now was that there was a waiting list for coming along, because they had been recommended to do so in the best way possible by their fellow prisoners.

Many of them told us, all of them, I think, told us of their individual experiences. I won't repeat them, but one that won't repeat them, but one that struck particularly was a man telling me about, and how he simply did not know how to talk with his son until this course had given him that wherewithal. That was something we heard repeated by several others in various ways. The changed that voluntary course was making to those men's lives was enormous.

They were all desperate to get out, not to re-offend, but actually to start again with their families and with their children. My Lords, I hope that affects reoffending. It must surely bring down that 63% of offenders sons who apparently are reoffending. The men talked about how much the course had helped them and how much they couldn't wait to get out and put it into practice. They didn't entirely have to wait to get out to put it into practice, because as a corollary to that, the visitors area in the prison had been completely revamped and restyled to make it very much more family present, present family, whatever the word is comfortable so that families actually could speak together, as families could talk to each other in a more intimate way.

In other words, it was a proper corollary made to what the the dads group had been doing. My Lords, that was only one example. I was going to use it because time I thought, was going to be short. If I'd had time, I was going to just mention that I was actually shown round high down prison by a man, an officer there with the title Community Engagement manager. I don't know. I'm not as familiar as many of yourselves will be with the Prison Service is community engagement manager a usual term in a prison? I'm not aware that it is.

And I think it should be, because actually there is a very important role for engaging with the community, not just the prison community, but the area in which the prison is located. I referred to the fact that I've lived. I live within a mile or so of the prison. It's in a green belt area. It's surrounded by trees and bushes. It gives it a bit of a problem with drones now, but that's the negative side. I suspect that most of the nearly a quarter million people that live in the London Borough of Sutton, as I do, have no idea that within a mile or two of them are actually two prisons because they are tucked away out of sight and part of the community engagement manager's role is to have more engagement with the wider local community.

One of the ways that he does that, as it happens, is, is because before he became community engagement manager, he was actually a manager of the local employment agency. So he knows well and works still with many of the local businesses. He knows what they do and how they do it. That is able. I see the witness standing up. I'm afraid he's about to tell me that I don't really have 20 minutes. I will be brief. It is. It is part of the role to engage with the local community.

And I think that is very much part of the job that the Prison Service needs to have and the Minister needs to have, and I think does have to make to demystify prisons. Most people, thankfully, have no personal experience, and what they know and think of prisons is usually what they see on television or hear on the media. And the reality is not always the same. So I think what can be done to connect prisons and the public must be all to the good.

My Lords, as I said earlier, the report states a lot of what could be done and what should be done. We all wish the Minister every success in trying to implement that, but I do hope that this excellent report is not simply going to gather dust on the shelves, and that we come back in 20 years time and say, if only we had done that. Yeah.
14:28
Lord Sandhurst Portrait Lord Sandhurst (Conservative)
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My Lords. This has been an illuminating debate. >> On a most important report. I'll come to report shortly. But first, come to report shortly. But first, may I address the five compelling and varied maiden speeches that we've heard? First, Baroness B, she comes off with an exceptional career in the law behind her and no doubt still ahead. But she will, I'm sure, from what I've heard and read, give voice not just to the important interests of the City of London, but also to the interests of the vulnerable and of the arts.

Next Lord Redwood. He is an eminent parliamentarian of 36 years. He was astute to identify that failures in productivity in public service are essential issue today, as they have been for many years, not just in the fields of prison, but across our society as a whole. He was right to stress the importance of quality and efficiency. We will all benefit from his experience and insight. Next Lord Babudu. He is the Executive Director of Impact on Urban Health.

This works to develop the potential for cities to be healthier. His experience in that, and more particularly perhaps at the sharp end of knife crime, of which he told us a little, will give the House valuable insights, and we should listen to him. Fourthly, we had Baroness Davis of Devonport. She is a remarkable athlete or was an Olympian of great distinction. She has built on that platform to campaign importantly and based on her own experience, to highlight the misuse and the dangers, in particular of hormonal drugs, both in sport and for teenage health.

Further, she understands the importance of a level playing field in all respects and the need to provide decent facilities for women prisoners. We will surely benefit from her experience and wisdom. Last but not least, we have Baroness Neate. She is the newest of our crossbench people's peers. She will be a valuable addition, not least because she's the past or she may still be the chief. I'm not quite certain. Chief Executive officer of shelter, a charity of which I'm a long standing supporter.

Her expertise in the important field of delivering legal services in the field of social welfare will be valuable to this House. So too will her work with Women's Aid. Can I turn now to the report itself? I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion and to acknowledge the hard work of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in producing this report. Better prisons, less crime. I should begin by declaring that I was myself a member of this committee until December 2024, and I took part in the first stages of its evidence gathering.

So I'm and I congratulate the chair Lord Foster of Bath, not only for his compelling speech today, and it was truly compelling, but for his work as chair of that committee when I served on it. The report, which I shall not attempt to address in every facet you'll be glad to hear, provides a stark account of a system under acute pressure, engaged too often in far fighting. I'm grateful to the Committee for laying out their recommendations and doing so.

So clearly the consequences of doing nothing are real for us all. Offenders, staff and the public. Something must be done. Our prisons are now at a critical point. We all know that we hear it too often, but they are strained to the point with our core missions. Public protection and rehabilitation are compromised. Those conclusions mirror what has been reported by the Prisons Inspectorate. At times, they go further. Overcrowding and violence are persistent realities. Too many prisons are quite unable to provide regimes capable of reducing reoffending, and apart from locking people up to keep them away from us and keep us safe, prevention of reoffending is what they should be about.

As my noble friend Baroness Buscombe, in her elegant speech, showed by reference to what she had said over 20 years ago in 2005, the political class in this country has failed to address the issues which this report brings to light. Can I turn to the issue? A new issue, one of Islamic extremism in prisons. My Lords, last year, the Conservative Party raised concerns about the threat posed by Islamist extremist inmates. We were not the only ones to do so, but it is an important issue.

This followed violent attacks on staff by high profile extremist offenders and evidence of organised radicalisation within the estate. Indeed, I asked a question myself in this house. Islamist gangs inside prisons have held makeshift Sharia style trials and groomed vulnerable inmates. Some prisoners apparently seized power in certain wings. My Lords, that problem sits alongside other well-recognised safety problems. These have to be tackled robustly. The Government and Her Majesty's Prison Service and the Probation Service must work better together as a united team.

They must ensure that effective specialist counter-extremism units exist, and that staff must be trained to identify and to respond to radicalisation threats before they metastasise into actual violence. The attack in April 2025 at a separation centre where extremist inmates used hot oil in improvised weapons against officers, was horrifying and underlines the urgency of this issue. Re-offending and purposeful activity the committee's analysis of these issues, and we've heard other speeches from noble Lords on this, cannot be faulted.

As for purposeful activity, the report is spot on. It rightly identifies and links lack of work, education and training with higher levels of self-harm, unrest and most importantly for all of us, re-offending. The government appears to recognise this in its manifesto. For the last election it pledged to, and, I quote, work with prisons to improve offenders access to purposeful activity, such as learning, and to ensure they create pre-release plans for those leaving custody. Full stop.

Much has to be done. There is a worrying new dimension. The Chief Inspector of Prisons recently notified that in Manchester, in Manchester, 35% of prisoners were locked up all day. That is absolutely staggering and terrible. Education. I was disappointed to read that independent watchdogs and monitoring boards to whom we should listen have described seismic cuts to prison education provision, 300 education staff were recently made redundant. Redundant education staff. That is not the way forward.

Reports indicate reductions in core classroom education of 25% across the country. In some prisons, the drop is as much as 60%. Governors have had to make teaching roles redundant and to slash the number of courses available. Yet this government has acknowledged that education is one of the most effective tools to break the cycle of offending. So something must be done. This must be put right. Lord Farmer was right to stress this and to draw on his own experience and expertise in this field.

We want to stop reoffending. We all do. My Lords, the cuts here undermine the principles which we all support. Prisons should not be a revolving door into further criminality. As noble Lords have explained, reduced education opportunities reinforce boredom and frustration, and they don't put people on the road to improvement. Too many people in prison have low or non-existent literacy and numeracy that has to be addressed. It should be a core aim in prisons.

It makes prison. It also, of course, we all know, makes violence more likely. People who cannot articulate in words turn to physical means. Cuts have left offenders without the skills to reintegrate into society. If our aim is to is to reduce re-offending, then cutting education is at odds with that aim. The noble Lord Lord Timpson himself told the committee that he had walked past too many classrooms and workshops, with no one sitting in them, turning to staffing, the Justice Select Committee has underlined its alarm at reductions.

It has warned that they could jeopardise rehabilitation efforts and make reoffending levels harder to change. My noble friend Baroness Bertin was absolutely right to stress the importance of recruitment and getting it right, recruiting enough the right people in the right way and then keeping them, my Lords, on staffing. The evidence is unambiguous. Morale is low, experience is thin in key areas. Officers spend their shifts just trying to maintain order with no time for purposeful engagement with prisoners.

And purposeful engagement is what we all want. Training reform must be accompanied by retention and career progression improvements that recognise the professionalism of the job. And here I should mention the observations of my noble friend Lord Lucas, who made a valuable contribution highlighting the importance of having the right governors there in the right place for long enough, but not for over long. And to stress from his experience in education, the value of mentoring. We welcome here.

And this really follows in this area of staffing, the proposal for a Prison Service Medal. I urge the government to give serious consideration to this. Finally, accountability. The current independent inspection frameworks lack effective enforcement powers when standards slip. Too many good recommendations from the Inspectorate of Prisons and independent and independent monitoring boards are acknowledged but not then implemented. They lie in the shadows. The committee's call for enhanced powers for inspectors and formalised collaboration between inspectorates must be taken seriously.

My Lords, what matters now is the implementation of reforms that work. We must prioritise education and training programmes. We must not cut them. We must support prison staff, not see them leave for better resourced jobs. We must bolster the security and rehabilitation frameworks to deal with extremist threat concretely and consistently and effectively. We want a system that protects the public and gives those who can be reformed a genuine chance to go on to live a crime free life.

This Experience Committee's report contains many wise recommendations. I could only touch on a few core points. It's now for the government to act on them. It is accepted the recommendations. We want action. I hope myself and I urge that members of the committee will check on delivery and in a year's time will be asking questions in the House. If not, thank you.

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My Lords. It is a. Privilege to close this debate on a on a topic that's very close to my heart, and that's very close to my heart, and I was thrilled to see so many new noble Lords choosing this occasion to make their maiden speeches. And to make their maiden speeches. And it was also heartening to hear the references to the late noble Lord Ramsbotham, who many of us have so Ramsbotham, who many of us have so many fond memories of. We clearly have a super talented bunch of new noble Lords.

My noble friend noble Lords. My noble friend Baroness be a champion for the active participation of disadvantaged communities into public life. Baroness Neate, who has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of homelessness and on behalf of domestic abuse survivors and their children. Baroness Davies of Davenport, who has been a determined campaigner on behalf of Disabled Sports England and sports Aids. The noble Lady is no stranger to navigating choppy waters, so I am sure she will fit right in here.
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Lord Timpson Portrait Lord Timpson, The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Labour)
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My noble friend Lord Babudu, who has brought about lasting change to the lives of countless young people. the lives of countless young people. As a former chair of the trust and the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, who brings a wealth of experience after brings a wealth of experience after almost 40 years in the other place, it's a privilege to welcome the noble Lords to your Lordships House noble Lords to your Lordships House and the expertise they bring. I must also thank the noble Lord, Lord foster, for his opening Lord foster, for his opening remarks, and for and for securing this important debate and the whole Justice and Home Affairs Committee and their officials for their report, as well as everyone who has contributed to the inquiry, including our recognised trade unions.

My Lords, the strength of feeling in this report is clear and justified. This government does not shy away from the fact that our prison system is in crisis. Years of underinvestment and mismanagement meant we inherited a system on the verge of collapse. At one point, we had fewer than 100 places left in the adult male estate. That's one bad weekend, one surge in remand away from a total breakdown of law and order. The previous government could have tackled these problems, but they were more concerned with looking tough on crime, blindly slashing budgets and engaging in disastrous and costly ideological reforms.

As a result, this government was forced to take urgent action and through the Sentencing Act and an historic expansion of the prison estate, we're putting the system onto a sustainable footing. But that is not job done. My Lords. I didn't accept this role just to prevent disaster. I took the role because I want to make our prisons and Probation service a world class organisation. And I mean the whole organisation, prisons and probation, working together as two sides of the same coin, because the public deserve better.

They deserve a system that punishes offenders and protects the public, but also rehabilitates and reduces reoffending. But we are a long way from that. Reoffending rates are still far too high, creating more victims and costing billions to the British taxpayer. We need serious reform and we are doing serious reform. We need to tackle the underlying causes of crime and help offenders find a new path out of crime. We need to make sure our hard working prison staff and leaders have the time and resources to make a real difference.

That's what they joined the service to do. And most importantly, we need to put victims first to make sure they're protected and can see justice is done, but also to make sure others don't suffer as they did. There's a long road ahead, so I'm grateful for the committee's report and this opportunity to take stock. I recognise the problems they identified. I am in the business of finding solutions and championing the green shoots. We are beginning to see. My Lords, we accepted or partially accepted all but one of the committee's recommendations, and today I will address each of the report's key themes.

The report, which many noble Lords have raised today, rightly stresses the importance of clearly articulating the purpose of prisons and the importance of reducing reoffending. I completely agree. It's why I insisted on adding reducing reoffending to my job title when we released someone. We should be confident we've done all we can to make sure they don't end up back inside again. That means treating addiction and mental health issues, ensuring they can learn new skills and prepare for work, and make sure they have somewhere to live upon release.

But for far too many, we're failing to meet these basic needs, leading many back to the revolving doors of crime. And that means we're failing victims. But this is not always straightforward to communicate, so we must do more to communicate the purpose of prisons and the work our amazing staff do. That's why the Extraordinary Jobs campaign highlights the vital work our staff do to change lives. It's why our communications focus on proven approaches to cut crime and reducing reoffending. And it's why our Sentencing Act incentivises rehabilitation and prioritises punishment that works.

And it's why we're investing up to £700 million more in probation by the end of this spending review period. My Lords. The committee also highlighted the need for more collaboration between public and private prisons. I agree that there is a lot more room for improvement and we have made progress. We are developing a digital platform for sharing information and good practice across the public and private estate, and we will build on events like the HMPPS Insights Festival, where over 8000 staff from the public, private and voluntary sectors registered.

My Lords, it will take time and commitment and I am determined to get it right. The Committee is absolutely correct that all that our staff deserve to be supported by strong leadership. But it is also vital to say that prison governors have uniquely challenging jobs. Every time I visit a prison, something I do most weeks, I'm reminded of the stark reality of the job. It's difficult enough in the best of times, but when you're constantly struggling for spare beds, when your buildings are crumbling, when you can't hire or keep staff, then even the best can't lead.

They can only cope. So we're bringing stability and increasing capacity. This space enables governors to drive performance, to set their culture and to lead. I also recognise that we need to trust and empower governors to do what works for them, their prison and their staff. That's how I ran the Timpson business, and I thank the noble Baroness Wheatcroft for her kind words. And if I ever went back to the business and had an advertising department, I would like, I would like to consult you on how I should approach things.

Take Mick, the governor of HMP Hatfield. He's often out and about all day meeting employers, working with local partners and seeing how employment benefits offenders out on licence and 86% of his prisoners are employment six months after release, makes doing it his way and it's clearly working, so we'll prioritise autonomy through the HMPPS free flex and fixed framework and we will give leaders more flexibility with their budgets, including introducing a new self service procurement process for low value items, allowing governors to source routine goods and services more quickly.

The committee also emphasised the importance of governance and development and succession planning through our enabled programme. An induction programme is now in place for first time governors and those moving to new posts, and we're producing a development scheme for governors ready to take on the toughest challenges. We're also tackling what I call the Euro millions problem. If a dozen governors want to morrow night, that would be a serious loss of leadership. We need more future leaders lining up ready to lead.

That's why the first cohort of our Future Prison Leaders programme have started, and our National Talent Committee is identifying high potential individuals, as well as prisons where succession risk is most acute. My Lords, let me now turn to prison staff. They are some of our finest public servants, but they too need the space to succeed. They need opportunities to build real relationships with the prisoners they manage so they can make a real difference. But they too are often just trying to get through the day.

So as my noble friend Lord Moraes and other noble Lords pointed out, we need to boost recruitment, fix vetting and bring down sickness rates. We have secured a temporary exemption to the visa rules for foreign nationals working as prison officers to prevent an urgent staffing crisis, but that isn't a long term solution, so we will improve training and make sure staff get the recognition they deserve. Of course, that is easier with consistency of leadership and I hope I'm doing my bit.

My goal is to be the longest serving prisons Minister, and I agree with noble Lord Lucas. I'm hoping I don't get offered an early release. We're also helping potential officers to understand the realities of prison work. This includes supporting governors to offer familiarisation visits to applicants. Informed by my own independent review. We are improving training through the enabled programme, and we're rewriting initial prison officer training so that it goes well beyond the current ten weeks. It will instead become part of a year long induction.

This means that officers will get the best possible start. We also know that despite brilliant work, prison staff can often go unnoticed, so I will continue to champion their work in public life, which is why our proposal for a Prison Service Medal to recognise excellence in the Prison Service is going to the honours committee this month. And my Lords, we are seeing continued progress in retention. In the latest published data, the resignation rate for band 3 to 5 officers was 7%, the lowest in four years.

These green shoots are very welcome, my Lords. Next, let's let me turn to the power of purposeful activity. Noble Lords will be aware of the importance I place on prisoner skills and employment. I saw first hand to the workshops I opened and the prisons I recruited in the Timpson business. How? How employment helps and the data is clear. Access to imprisoned education and employment upon release can both reduce reoffending by up to nine percentage points. But once again, we also need to tackle the broader issues.

Prisons cannot run consistent and meaningful programmes if they are at full capacity, or if their facilities are falling down, so we must bring stability and sustainability to the system. But I know that is not the only challenge. The education budget has not kept pace with rising costs despite contracts that improve quality. Overall. We can buy fewer hours, so we're making sure as many prisoners as possible can access the training on offer. We're increasing the potential of digital systems to help more prisoners learn, and we're expanding literacy initiatives.

And I'm delighted that Lee child is our first ever prison reading laureate, and we will continue to support governors to commission vocational courses and link up with employers, charities and local partners. That includes our new regional employment councils, which are furthering the work of prison employment advisory boards. It's also important that prisoners maintain positive relationships with their family and the outside world. As the noble Lord Lord Farmer continuously champions. That is why I negotiated a 20% reduction in phone call costs for prisoners, because maintaining these links helps to turn lives around.

My Lords, the committee's final theme was accountability and oversight. I greatly value the independent scrutiny of our Chief Inspectors, Charlie Taylor, Martin Jones and Martin Oliver. I meet them regularly, but I agree that there is room for more collaboration. We are reviewing the role of the independent monitoring boards alongside other oversight bodies, and I will update your Lordships House on our conclusions in due course. Parliamentary accountability is also vital, and the Deputy Prime Minister and I regularly appear before select committees, and I hope noble Lords know I am always keen to discuss any proposals to reduce reoffending and help people turn their lives around.

I do think it's important to note that we're seeing an uptick in HMIP scores, but there is still a very long way to go. I don't want to just settle for good enough. I'm really competitive. I want to run world class prisons, but we're starting to see things move and that deserves recognition. My Lords, let me finish by saying what is clear is we inherited a system in crisis and we're putting in the hard work to fix it. But we are also being incredibly ambitious with our target to halve the number of prisoners released with nowhere to live.

This is an agreed cross-government commitment with our once in a generation reforms of our courts and of sentencing, and with innovation such as the intensive supervision courts. Transformation will take several years. But if we get this right, reoffending will fall, the public will be safer and we will have fewer victims. So thank you again for the opportunity to respond to this important debate to the noble Lord, Lord foster, for securing it and the members of the Committee for the work that has gone on into this report, I can confirm that I will provide them with an update in March.

And thank you also to noble Lords who have contributed today, and I'm very happy to meet the right reverend Prelate as well. In due course, I've tried to respond to as many of the points raised as possible today, but due to the fantastically high number of noble Lords taking part and the limitations on time, I regret I can't cover everything. And I will specifically update the noble Lords Hogan-Howe, noble Lord Farmer and Baroness Hyde on the points that they raised. And of course, my continued thanks to the dedication of our prison and probation staff who keep the system running day in, day out.

And I'm proud to have them as colleagues here.
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Lord Foster of Bath Portrait Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, can I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, not least Lords who have spoken, not least those who gave us five excellent and thought provoking maiden speeches, and all I'm sure are going to make valuable contributions to the work of your Lordships House. I have to say, on their behalf, I was somewhat concerned by the opening remarks of the noble Lady. Late Baroness Hyde of Bemerton, because instead of just sort of praising the maiden speeches and leaving it at that, she then went on and put fear into their hearts by telling them that they've now got to go away and come up with their difficult second album.

Now, I have to say, My Lords, based on their performances today, I'm confident they're up to the task and we look forward to hearing them now. It's often said that a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members prisoners, despite having committed acts deserving of opprobrium, often represent some of the most vulnerable. As Baroness Wheatcroft pointed out. And frankly, at present we are failing them. We're failing the staff working in our prisons, and we're failing the public, not least because we're failing to help prisoners prepare for life outside prison, failing to provide adequate measures to reduce reoffending.

As I pointed out, it was happening 43 years ago. We've already heard it was happening 20 years ago. Sadly, it's happening today. But my Lords, I am actually despite the gloomy picture I and our report paints of the situation. Now I have genuine optimism about the future, and one of the reasons I have that optimism is because of the noble Lord, the Minister. He clearly gets it. He clearly gets it. All the people who spoke in the House today clearly get it.

The task now is to to swear, persuade the rest of the government to get it and to ensure that the noble Lord, the Minister and his team are provided with the support to take forward all of the recommendations in our report, which I hope won't stay on a dusty shelf. I'm sure they're not going to, because, as the noble Lord Griffiths of Bury Port pointed out, I'm going to have a dialectical relationship with the Minister to ensure that they're not kept on a dusty shelf.

My Lords, I am optimistic. I hope the Minister is around for a very long time. I thank him for what he'd done. I thank him for his energy and his enthusiasm. I thank all noble Lords

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have spoken and what's been an excellent debate. I beg to know. The question is this motion be agreed to? As many of that opinion agreed to? As many of that opinion say, content the contrary, not content. The contents have it. My content. The contents have it. My Lords, may I suggest a short pause before we move on to the next
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Portrait Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)
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Mr. speaker, last week the House made a Humble Address to His Majesty for the government to disclose material surrounding the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States of America. On Monday, my right hon. Friend, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, updated the House on further action that the government is taking. He confirmed that the government will bring forward legislation to ensure that peerages can be removed from disgraced peers, and that Peter Mandelson will be removed from the list of Privy Counsellors.

He also explained how we have changed the process for the relevant ministerial appointments, including politically appointed diplomatic roles, and my right hon. Friend also set out other areas in which we recognise the need to go further, including around tightening, transparency and lobbying. In that statement, my right hon. Friend also set out how the government was responding to the Humble Address motion, and I am pleased to provide further updates to the House today. Today, Mr. speaker, the government will comply fully and publish documents as soon as possible.

As I said in this House last week, we welcome both the principle and the content of that motion, and we will deliver on it as soon as we can. As such, government departments have been instructed to retain any material which may be relevant, and work is underway to identify documents which fall within the scope of the motion. We will also we will do so as soon as possible when the House returns from recess. In line with the motion passed by. This House, where the government considers documents may be prejudicial to UK national security or international relations, the Cabinet Office will refer this material to the Independent Intelligence and Security Committee.

The Prime Minister has written to the ISC, and senior officials have met with the committee to discuss what the ISC requires in order to fulfil this role. Full resources, as I said in the House last week, will be made available to ensure that process happens and we will work with the committee to explain the Cabinet Office's process for providing material relating to national security or international relations. The government is very grateful to the ISC for their work, and commits to full engagement with them to ensure a timely and effective release.

The House will also be aware of the statement from the Met Metropolitan Police regarding the ongoing investigation. Now, that statement made clear, quite rightly, Mr Speaker and I quote, that the process to decide which documents should be published ultimately remains a matter for Parliament. That is absolutely right. We agree. But as you would expect, the government rightly does not wish to release anything that may undermine an ongoing police investigation. And as such, we are working with the police as they conduct their inquiries to manage this.

Mr. speaker, I think that is the right way forward, and I hope the House and you will agree. Mr. speaker, in conclusion, the government continues to take this matter incredibly seriously. Given the nature of the issues at stake and the scope of material in play, we will comply fully and deliver this as quickly and transparently as possible. The government will keep the House updated as it does so, and my right hon. Friend, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister will publish a written ministerial statement later today.

My Lords, I thank.
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15:15
Lord Patel Portrait Lord Patel (Crossbench)
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My Lords, I rise to speak to my amendment one. My name is also amendment one. My name is also attached to amendment three, six, seven, eight, 12, 13 and 14, which are in fact consequential amendments, so I will not speak to them. This might be the briefest of introduction to any amendment. My amendment tries to prioritise, which is the main theme of this bill. UK medical graduates for training. Training for in UK programmes. The Bill itself it is long title says make provision about the prioritisation of graduates from medical schools in the United Kingdom and certain other persons for places on medical training programmes and in clause one.

This therefore also includes person in the priority group and clause two. It includes person not only in the priority group, but also person in the subsection two, which are British citizen, Commonwealth citizen with the right of abode in United Kingdom. Irish citizen who do not require leave to enter the United Kingdom. A person with indefinite leave to remain person who has lived to enter or remain in United Kingdom, and so on. Similarly, in clause three and in clause four, it describes priority group not only UK medical school graduates, but many others, including those countries with with which UK has made a trade deal.

So all these priority groups will be able to apply for the same jobs as the UK medical graduates. Add to that the several amendments that are coming later that universities, UK universities that have overseas campuses and their graduates will also be included in the priority group. And they're not all in the amendments today. If that of these amendments are accepted, there are other universities not listed who have overseas campuses, such as the two I know, like Dundee, for instance, which is not I did not put an amendment for that.

So my amendment is to say, because of the enormous number of emails that we've had, both from UK graduates who cannot find jobs, and also from overseas graduates who are cannot find jobs, I know there are subsequent amendments coming later about those international graduates who are now stuck in a bottleneck for this year, and that's a separate issue. My amendment does not refer to that. It refers to UK medical graduates. We heard a story on BBC about Emma was 1 in 1000, one of the thousand graduates who cannot quit and foundation year two slot, so she cannot progress at all.

She cannot find a locum job because they are all full. We heard of people cannot enter the specialist training programme at year one and two, because the competition for specialist training programme is for applications for one job. We have 50,000 international medical graduates applying for jobs for 2025 for 10,000 slots. Now, if we cannot get UK graduates to find jobs in training programmes, then it's scandalous. Either we cut the number of medical students, but on the other hand, we're going to increase the number of medical students and that will compound the issue for future applications for training.

I'm not, by the way, my Lord, saying that other in a priority group in these clauses do not are not to be considered for job. All I'm saying is that UK medical graduates should be prioritised. By the way, the definition says UK medical graduate. But there are international students who go to our medical schools and therefore they are UK medical school graduates. But we include that there are about 7% of the total in medical graduates of UK universities.

So my amendment is only to prioritise that UK medical graduates should be considered first, not that the others will not be considered, not that the others may not get jobs or whatever reasons they come to to including the amendments that come subsequently about overseas campuses with other universities. And I hope that the opposition benches may agree that UK medical graduates ought to be the priority one. Number one first priority. If the noble Baroness, the Minister, and I doubt that she's going to accept my amendment, but because she the government wants this bill through, it's an emergency bill and not wanting to be held up, because otherwise we'll run out of time.

But I hope at Dispatch Box she might agree that while not accepting the amendment, she recognises that UK medical graduates have to have a priority above others for training slots. My Lords, I beg to move.

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Amendment proposed in clause one, page one. Line four after must

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insert First. Amendment two. I did some

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Amendment two. I did some wording and the clerk suggested to change it to what is now there. And in essence, it's a probing in essence, it's a probing amendment similar in line to the noble Lord Lord Patel, because it noble Lord Lord Patel, because it could be applied to clause the other clauses as well. But it's about the principle, and my strong view is that we have opened up medical schools, we've made more placements, we've done it because we want to make sure that we have ongoing workforce.

I know I'm delighted to see the noble Lord Lord Darzi here, here in the debate,
15:21
Baroness Coffey Portrait Baroness Coffey (Conservative)
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and he will have done work not only recently for the Health secretary, Wes Streeting, but previous work in Wes Streeting, but previous work in order to make sure that we can make sure we've got a strong workforce pipeline. So one of the things that pipeline. So one of the things that I'm conscious about is that many medical schools, by way of survival, medical schools, by way of survival, by way of diversity, has opened up a number of places. Admittedly, it's still quite small compared to it's still quite small compared to the number of UK citizens going to medical school.

But as the noble Lord Lord Patel was starting to refer to, we have a curious definition in this legislation that a UK medical graduate is simply somebody who went to a UK medical school. I don't think that's what the public would think this was about, and certainly from a lot of the emails, I don't think necessarily that's what a lot of the current doctors appreciate either, although I appreciate that is the position of the BMA who don't want to differentiate in that regard, but it is absolutely vital, in my view, as we have young people not only taking on debt initially by investing in their own education, but of course, as has been pointed out, several billions of pounds put in by the UK government by the UK taxpayer in order to have this pipeline.

So it is vital, in my view, and what I've tried to push with my amendment, that we do have a very set prioritisation being given in this legislation, not, as the Minister said the other day, just one group and then no more kind of prioritisation. I think it's absolutely vital that UK citizens are given first priority now. My Lords, I think it's important to look at some of the analysis. It is not the case that all posts, all training posts could in any way be filled by UK citizens who have trained to be doctors.

Far from it. Looking at analysis, we would not have GPS coming through, only about half of the GPS going on the I think street one I think it is or CT are in the 2024 analysis. I think it is only half were from UK medical schools. There's a whole series of such issues where we're seeing that in different elements, including psychiatry, paediatrics, very few. It seems UK medical students want to do paediatrics and I could go on with a series and but I think the point is clear this isn't about excluding people from the rest of the world coming to work in this country, or coming to work to fill key roles in the NHS.

But it is making sure that our investment is prioritised on UK citizens. There's a certain peculiarity which will come up in other groups about what then happens about Republic of Ireland and similar. I'm not seeking to get into that. We'll get into that debate perhaps a bit later, but I do want to get a sense from the Minister. Also, one of the things that's clear in the statistics is that actually I think the Department of Health, the Minister, should be seeking to understand more why it is that actually on quite a wide range of of of the training courses, UK students are turning down the opportunity once they've been offered placements.

So the percentages, I think it's about 57% for general practice only only 57% are accepting once they are there. And I'm conscious that people might get posted around the country, but I. I think that needs some careful scrutiny as well. But with that, I'm conscious that I don't wish to in any way suggest, as I say, that we're not welcoming people from different parts of the world, but it should go back to trying to make sure that we addressing particular gaps in our NHS now and NHS future workforce, not making sure that we squeeze out, recognising the work that has been done to increase the potential number of home grown talent.

I think a lot of the emails we've received in the last week, I think, are those of us who did a Second Reading speech have shared in this amount of coming in, and I completely understand there are different stories. And for a brief time when I was Health Secretary, a by-line suggested that I think everybody should disappear to Australia. Far from it. We can't stop people leaving this country to go to Australia or other elsewhere in the world, but what we should be doing is making sure that the reason that they're choosing, perhaps, to go elsewhere in the world is, is not because they can't get a training place here when they've been deemed appointable and ideally offered a role.

So that's something we can fix with this legislation, and I hope that the government will rethink its approach to this right now, during the passage of this bill, and I apologise to the committee. I won't be able to be here to move my amendment later on, but I know that the front bench will be doing so. But the time is pressing to get this right. I have not realised quite how soon the variety of decisions need to be made needs to be made, I believe before Easter or certainly within within a few days of Easter.

So it's critical that the government thinks again and I'm sure with the encouragement from the committee and very distinguished medical practitioners at the current and past, that they will do so. That's why I support my amendments.
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Lord Jackson of Peterborough Portrait Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative)
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My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity of supporting my noble friend in her excellent amendment. And can I begin by saying that I do think, broadly speaking, this is a very welcome Bill, and I congratulate the government on bringing it forward to address what is becoming a very acute issue. But I think it could be better. I think my remarks really fall into two separate parts. One is the philosophical issue and one is the practical, evidence based matters which I will elucidate on in the course of my remarks.

First of all, I don't I do think it has to be said that British taxpayers fund medical education through universities in the NHS, and we should be thinking much more in terms of the value for money that those taxpayers receive. Prioritising British citizens ensures the investment benefits the domestic healthcare system and reduces, I think, the risk of brain drain where trained doctors emigrate after completing training and training costs are substantial, estimated at 200 to £500,000 per doctor. And citizens are, I think British citizens are more likely to remain and practice in the UK long term.

And I do think that there's a case that they they perhaps provide better value for public investment in medical education. There's also a wider philosophical issue, which has been alluded to by the Nuffield Trust about the fact that in recruiting international medical graduates, the NHS does have a negative impact on the domestic healthcare sector and staffing shortages for many countries abroad, particularly in Africa and Asia and poorer countries generally. And I do think that's a point that's been made over many years.

And there are issues to about cultural familiarity, language proficiency, better understanding of local healthcare practices and patient expectations, and easier integration into multidisciplinary medical teams. My Lord's speciality training, competition ratios and bottlenecks have reached breaking point. Preliminary information for the 2025 speciality training application cycle is very concerning. This year there are over 33,000 applicants for just under 13,000 training posts. This means that there will be up to 20,000 doctors left out of speciality training this August.

Even if you are not directly affected, I think that that is a public health and public policy issue. Competition ratios have particularly worsened since 2019. Prior to 2019. My Lords, the UK utilised a round one, round two system for applications. Round one was open to those from the UK and the EU, as well as those who settled with settled status in the UK, and round two was open to those who did not meet these requirements. As we know, the previous government removed medicine from the shortage occupation list in 2019.

Within the previous resident labour market test rules, this meant that employers could sponsor visas without having to prove that no suitable settled worker was available for the role. As a result, the round one, round two system was effectively abolished. This meant that doctors from anywhere in the world could now apply directly to speciality training in the UK, without ever having worked in the UK. The abolition of our MMT and its replacement with a flat global entry to speciality training has led to an exponential increase in competition ratios and will, if left unchecked, directly drive unemployment of UK medical.

I thought the lady was intervening. I beg your pardon? Of UK medical school graduates unable to emigrate from the UK. And in fact, if you look at the figures, the number of Imgs international medical graduates has risen who are applying for in the in the application cycles in these years 2023, it was 10,402 this year, sorry. Last year it was 20,803. UK graduates have not gone up by the same amount. They've gone up from 9.273 to 12,305.

The comparison being a 16% increase increase in UK graduates compared to a 40% increase for international medical graduates. UK graduates have remained relatively stable over the past decade, whilst there has been an increase in UK graduates as a result of increased medical school places over the past two years, this has been outstripped by exponential growth in the number of Imgs joining the workforce. Since medicine was added to the shortage occupation list in 2019. My Lords, so the government is right to address this issue, but I'm not sure that they're doing enough, frankly, at the moment.

This year there were approximately two IMG applicants for every Ukg applicant, and this includes Imgs who are applying from abroad, having never worked in the UK. And according to current projections in 2026, we may well see over 40,000 applications for fewer than 13,000 posts. My Lords, almost every other country in the world has some form of prioritisation for local graduates. This includes comparable OECD countries such as Australia, Canada and France. All of the above marks a disaster for workforce planning and unless acted upon now, there will be knock on effects to the consultant and GP workforces in years to come.

Even if training posts were to be doubled tomorrow, there would not be enough training posts for the number of applicants this year unless addressed immediately. Here in primary legislation, there is likely to be mass unemployment of those unsuccessful training applications this year, and this could be up to 20,000, as I previously said, and these are some of the most driven, well qualified, well educated people in our country whose talents will possibly be wasted and dissipated over time. This leaves UK graduates, my Lords, in a unique position globally due to having no recruitment program that will prioritise them.

UK graduates worst affected if action is not taken will be those who are limited in their ability to emigrate, those with young families, disabilities, caring responsibilities or low heritage family wealth. We cannot sustain a policy of uncontrolled and exponential growth of speciality training applicants every year. And that's why, my Lords, I'm pleased to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend.
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Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Portrait Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)
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I just want to rise briefly to talk to. Lord Patel and Baroness Coffey, in particular, the point that Lord Patel raised around the fact that 7% of undergraduates that undertake medical degrees here in the United Kingdom, in the UK are from overseas. And I did briefly mention last week, in my conversations with Head of admissions to a Russell Group University medical school, and one of the points that was quite important that I didn't have time to raise, but I thought it was appropriate to raise it at this point, is the significant amount of money that those overseas, that 7% actually contribute not only to that medical school, but also to local trust in terms of additional payments that are made.

And I just want to make your Lordships' House aware of it. But I also want the Minister in response, when she does rise to actually talk about the consequences of that in the sense of if we did go with Baroness Coffey amendment, that we just have British citizens as opposed to British graduates that Lord Patel talked about, what impact would it be? Because we've held our tuition fees in this country for a while, static, where those overseas graduates have been paying a phenomenal amount.

And I'm just worried that we might throw the baby out with the bathwater. The unintended consequences of making some of those courses unviable, my Lords, is a real serious concern, and I think it's appropriate at

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this point to raise it. Yeah, yeah. My Lords, I to.

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A little bit concerned about unintended consequences. And it is a real pleasure to see my noble a real pleasure to see my noble friend Lord Darzi in his place, because I hope he'll have comments because I hope he'll have comments on this issue. I trained as a clinical academic, and indeed we know that clinical academics have know that clinical academics have had a unique value to the health service. They work part time in the health service and they work part time with a reduced salary doing research at the same time.

And I'm very concerned that many of the clinical academics, for example, we've had at Imperial College, have been, in fact, from overseas in different places. So they were they were medically qualified elsewhere,
15:37
Lord Winston Portrait Lord Winston (Labour)
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but they had not yet got been in Britain. But they're still junior doctors in the sense of, of junior doctors in the sense of, of junior doctors. So what I'm really concerned about here is that there are many such people who then come to Britain to do a post-doctoral degree, such as a PhD, and of degree, such as a PhD, and of course, in the meantime are keeping their medical skills flowing as I their medical skills flowing as I did myself.

I was seven years in this situation with the Wellcome Trust, so I remember this very well being overseas, but at least knowing that I could come back to Britain. But I was a British subject that was easy. So one of the, for example, just one, just one example or so many of these people. Professor Ambrose was at Warwick University is really undoubtedly one of the key people who've really contributed massively to human female health, in particular in implantation of the and also in his magnificent work on endometriosis.

He came as a junior doctor from Belgium, from Leuven University, and he came then to what was then Hammersmith Hospital. Now, of course, Imperial College and now, of course, is a very distinguished professor at Warwick University with a very large team. His recruitment made a very big difference to the whole field that he did. And it concerns me that he's not an isolated example. There are many people I can think of, so I hope the noble Lady can suggest some ways we can deal with this problem where we do have unusually good graduates from elsewhere who may not be British citizens, and perhaps in the current priorities, but really, who would be deserving of serious consideration for certain speciality jobs? I think not to do that actually would be a great loss to the health service.
15:38
Lord Darzi of Denham Portrait Lord Darzi of Denham (Non-affiliated)
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My Lords, many of you will know >> My Lords, many of you will know that I did my medical training in Ireland and in actual fact, I've Ireland and in actual fact, I've also exercised some of my skills in this chamber. Back in 2007. Irish medical education is excellent, and many of its graduates have gone on to distinguished careers in the NHS. I rise today to ensure we strike the right balance between this bill, specifically by securing fair treatment for doctors who hold Irish Medical Council approved degrees as currently drafted.

The bill would exclude graduates of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in its medical campus in Bahrain. As an example, a campus which was established over 20 years ago. Let me be clear about what this institution delivers. The same curriculum, the same examination and the same quality assurance as in Dublin, leading to a single National University of Ireland degree. Its program and clinical training sites are also accredited under the Irish regulatory oversight by the Irish Medical Council.

At Report stage, I would urge that the wording to be introduced to bring graduates of this institution within the priority group. Such a clarification would sit squarely alongside the amendments from Baroness Gerada, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Mendelsohn, which seek to ensure that medical graduates of UK university holding a GMC approved degree following the same curriculum and assessment but studying outside the British Isles, are included in the priority group. Also to be consistent with similar amendments tabled by Lord Forbes, Baroness Finlay and Lord Shipley and Baroness Hollins.

I'll also draw to your Lordship attention a further anomaly. The unnamed bill would place graduates again of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland's campus in Penang, Malaysia. A joint programme with the University College Dublin. With this priority group, these students studying Irish Medical Council accredited GMC recognised degree, completing half of their education in Ireland and half in Malaysia. Yet Baroness Finlay's well intentioned clarifying amendment, requiring at least 60% of the time to be spent in Ireland, I think would inadvertently exclude them.

I know it's.
15:41
Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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Many years since I last spoke in a health debate. The sense of deja vu, seeing the noble Earl Howe on the opposition front bench, my Lords. But it's an absolute pleasure to hear from the noble Lord Darzi as well, my Lords, and to hear the arguments that he's made, which are very consistent with those which we will be making later in the group of amendments from the noble Baroness Gerada. My Lords, I'm rising to speak specifically on the amendments in this group, but particularly on amendment two, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffee, and, of course, the amendments tabled by the noble Lord Patel regarding amendment two.

While I do understand the noble Baroness intent to protect the domestic workforce, we cannot on these benches support the introduction of citizenship as a primary filter for medical training. Priority to do so would undermine the central logic of this bill, which is to protect the taxpayers investment in training, not to police the passport of the trainee. If a non-UK citizen comes to this country, trains in our medical school for five years, often paying significant international fees. And my noble friend made an extremely good point about the value of that to our universities.

They cross-subsidise our universities and then they commit to the NHS. And there are UK medical graduates in every sense that matters to workforce planning. Their training is identical, their clinical exposure is identical to deprioritise them based purely on nationality. Would I believe we believe on these benches, my Lords would send a disastrous signal to the global talent pool that our NHS has always relied upon. It would also contradict the argument that we will make later, my Lords, regarding the noble Baroness Gerada amendments which relate to Queen Mary's University of London Malta campus, that it is the content and quality of the qualification that matters, not the geography or the nationality.

My Lords, regarding the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I sympathise with his desire to ensure UK graduates are prioritised. That is, after all, the Bill's purpose, my Lords, and we can argue about the definition of what a UK graduate is, my Lords. But we must be careful not to make the legislation so rigid that it removes any flexibility for the Secretary of State to address shortages in specific specialities, specialities or where international talent is essential.

My Lords, we all and several noble Lords and mentioned this. We have all received correspondence from doctors in hard to fill areas who warn that absolute exclusion could leave rotas empty. My Lords prioritisation must not constitute a blockade.
15:45
Earl Howe Portrait Earl Howe (Conservative)
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Here, here. >> My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, deserves our thanks for opening our committee debates in opening our committee debates in the cogent and powerful way that he has. He is absolutely right. In this country, we train some of the very best doctors in the world at great expense to them and to the taxpayer. But too many are choosing to leave the training process because in the now expanded competitive scrum, they can't access the training places they require each year.

Many remain unemployed and that is a serious policy challenge and Ministers are right to seek to address it. We need a long term and fair solution. The noble Lord Lord Patel, is seeking to ensure that UK medical graduates are prioritised for training places first, because before those in the priority group are offered places, there would then be a third tier of prioritisation for any other eligible applicants and this would put medical graduates as defined by clause four of the bill, ahead in the queue for training places.

I have to say that I don't think we can fault the noble Lord for his logic. If we believe there is currently a massive and disproportionate injustice being meted out to UK medical graduates, we owe them the best chance we can give them to enter further training pathways in this country. However, I do have two questions for the Minister. The explanatory notes confirm that those who have trained in Ireland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway have been included in the priority group because existing agreements require us to recognise their qualifications and offer parity in access to the profession.

Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, please confirm whether the reordering of prioritisation as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, would cut across the existing agreements which the UK government is bound by? Secondly, I think many of us agree that emergency legislation should be avoided as far as possible, but where it is necessary, it should be simple and straightforward. On the face of it, Lord Patel's amendments make the bill a bit more complicated by adding a further tier of prioritisation.

If that is so, I'm sure he would argue that the extra complexity is well worth it. It would be helpful, though, if the Minister could tell us whether such an additional tier of prioritisation would make the process more complex to manage. Turning to amendment two, in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey, this would prioritise UK medical graduates who are British citizens first, then those persons in the priority group, and then UK medical graduates who are not British citizens.

The category of other eligible applicants is not included at all. Perhaps an inadvertent omission, I don't know. Again, this creates a three tier prioritisation process where the government is currently proposing two tiers, with the added dimension of drawing a distinction between different categories of UK medical graduates which, like the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones, I have to say I'm uncomfortable with, as a matter of policy. On the face of it, the amendment presents a more complex set of arrangements than than that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Patel.

So it would be helpful to hear from the Minister how the government views my noble friends suggestions, including their their ready workability.
15:49
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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My Lords, I am most grateful to >> My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords for the contributions on this debate, which contributions on this debate, which I have found helpful. I'd like to first of all turn to amendments one, three, six, seven, eight, 12, 13 and 14 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. These amendments seek to create tiered categories of prioritisation for the UK Foundation Programme and speciality programs. Taken together, they would require places to be allocated to UK medical graduates in the first instance and then to applicants in the other prioritised categories specified in the Bill.

My Lords, I would suggest that the Bill sets clear priority groups, as noble Lords have observed, but without ranking within these groups. And that is what we are looking at. If I could also welcome my noble friend, the Lord Darzi, not least of all because the review that he undertook for the government in 2024 did recommend that we should have medical training prioritisation for all the reasons that noble Lords who are in support are also saying.

But if I could pick up on the point that the noble Lord Lord Darzi made, and I will return to this whole area in a later group when we have that debate, but alongside UK graduates, and perhaps it's also helpful to the noble Lord Earl Howe we do prioritise in this Bill graduates from Ireland and also the Efta countries. And yes, this does reflect the special nature of our relationship with Ireland and to be specific, we have reciprocal rights for movement and employment and our obligation under international trade agreements with the Efta countries.

As the noble Lord Earl Howe referred to, which would require consistent treatment of these graduates in access to medical training. The amendment that we are looking at would mean we are not honouring these agreements and that, by its nature and definition, would create huge difficulties for speciality training. The amendment would also mean that we are not effectively delivering our policy intention to prioritise applicants with significant NHS experience, who understand how the health service works, and how to meet the needs of the UK population.

It might be helpful if I summarise this by saying that the Bill sets out what I would regard a binary system, a binary system where applicants are prioritised or they are not prioritised. Clearly, once that prioritisation has happened, then the normal processes apply to establish who the Appointable applicants are to fill the posts and so on and so forth. If I could turn now to amendment two, which is tabled by the noble Lady Baroness Coffey, which seeks to create tiered categories of prioritisation for the UK Foundation Programme, this amendment seeks to prioritise UK medical graduates who are British citizens, above all other applicants.

And perhaps I could say, my Lords. The Bill, as drafted, does prioritise all UK medical graduates who meet the criteria, regardless of their citizen status and to the noble Lord Lord Mohammed and the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones. Also perhaps helpful that I restate that what matters is where a doctor is trained, not where they are born. UK trained medical graduates have undertaken curricula, clinical placements and assessment standards aligned to the NHS and are therefore best prepared to move directly into NHS practice.

So the government is committed to prioritising those doctors who have already spent a significant part of their education within the NHS, and who understand how the health service works, and how to meet the needs of the UK population, not least my Lords, because an issue we've discussed many times, these doctors are more likely to remain in the NHS for longer, which supports the sustainable medical workforce for the future that we are all looking at. As I set out in relation to the previous set of amendments tabled by the noble Lord Lord Patel, this amendment would also mean we would not be honouring the special nature of our relationship with Ireland and obligations under trade agreements with Efta countries.

But I really would like to emphasise again in the chamber today, prioritisation does not mean exclusion. All eligible applicants will still be able to apply and will be offered places if vacancies remain after prioritised. Applicants have received offers which we expect to be the case, particularly in certain areas, and my noble friend Lord Winston raised a question about the bill in respect of those who are highly overseas, highly skilled, forgive me, overseas doctors and particularly referenced clinical academics.

As I've said, there are it is not exclusion to apply. It is prioritising causation and it may be helpful more broadly that I just emphasise there are likely to be opportunities in specialities such as general practice, course psychiatry and internal medicine, because they historically attract fewer applicants from the groups we are prioritising for 2026. So I understand the point my noble friend is making, but I what we have to focus on is the core purpose, of course, of the bill.

So I hope that noble Lords with that

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amendments. No doubt, can I? Obviously she's not accepting my amendment, but she not accepting my amendment, but she does make the point that all the priority groups will be would be priority groups will be would be treated in the same way. Whatever the definition is of people in the the definition is of people in the priority group, they'll all be grouped together as a priority. And grouped together as a priority. And that would include UK medical graduates. So what assessment has the government made about the effect that it will have on the UK graduates? UK medical school graduates of including all the others in the priority group? What disadvantage will that put the UK medical graduates to? This will be minimal, it will be medium or is it

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a lot? We don't anticipate that's going

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We don't anticipate that's going to cause a problem. And the noble Lord didn't specifically refer to the Efta countries, but I'd like to. the Efta countries, but I'd like to. Some of them will not produce any suitable people who are likely to suitable people who are likely to be included. So in our modelling, we don't anticipate there will be a we don't anticipate there will be a problem. What matters, of course, as I've said, is about patient care. It's about getting people with the right training who understand what the NHS is about, who understand the culture of the NHS and can provide as best as they can.

And

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that's what the whole bill is directed at doing and prioritising. The noble Lady. The Minister

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The noble Lady. The Minister sits down and again, I accept that she's not predisposed to accept the she's not predisposed to accept the amendment of my noble friend, and she's made a clear case for that. she's made a clear case for that. But is she in a position to reassure the House that the issues raised by my noble friend and raised by my noble friend and others about the relative take up of speciality training places in less popular disciplines such as anaesthetics or paediatrics, will be looked at by the department.

Because that was I didn't get the opportunity to make the point, but one of the points was in in prioritising, not excluding others but prioritising British students and medical students that those particularly are hard to fill disciplines, that there would be a positive impact on that. Is the department taking that into account generally in its workforce planning?

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Yes we are. Before the lady sits down, could I just ask, sorry, can I just ask the question in terms of talking about applications from overseas? I about applications from overseas? I know in in terms of the paperwork that's being shared online, it's that's being shared online, it's grouped everybody together as the rest of the world. You know, in terms of the applications we've had terms of the applications we've had for this time and last year, it might be really helpful if we could actually share the data of, like, the breakdown by each of the countries, rather than just lumping it all together in the rest of the world, because then we can see whether there have been any how many applications they are from these nations that we've got these

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international agreement with. Yeah, yeah. And I'll be very pleased to do that.

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that. My Lord, I thank all the noble Lords who spoke today, no matter which amendment they spoke to. And I'm very grateful to the noble Earl Howe for his strong support to my amendment. But more importantly is
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16:01
Earl Howe Portrait Earl Howe (Conservative)
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making clear that this is very much a probing amendment, for reasons which I will explain across all the many representations I have received on the provisions of this bill from UK medical graduates, UK citizens studying medicine abroad, non-UK citizens studying abroad, some in the middle of their degree course, some who have finished their degrees, some who have commenced but not completed a UK Foundation programme. There is one issue that rises to the surface, and it's an issue that is most easily encapsulated in the phrase legitimate expectations, quite justifiably.

In my view, individuals who have embarked on the long and costly journey that is required of them in order to gain a GMC approved medical qualification, and who have found themselves suddenly deprioritized by one or other provision within this bill, have questioned the fairness of the dividing lines that the government have chosen to draw in such summary fashion. Medical graduates, who have demonstrated both commitment and excellence, many of them British citizens and who have adhered in good faith to every step of the process laid down under existing rules, are now being told that their trust in the system counts for nothing, and that all of a sudden their legitimate expectations have been overridden.

Noble Lords will note that my amendment relates specifically to the 2026 UK Foundation Programme, and suggests that a graduate who has already received a written offer of a place on a foundation programme should be able to rely on the validity of that offer. Now, in reality, I understand that, with very few exceptions, if any applicants to the 2026 UK Foundation Programme have not yet received formal written offers of employment. However, the formal process began last summer.

Eligibility applications were completed last July and Foundation Programme applications in September. Since then, there have been mandatory UK related deadlines, including Plab one in December and the National Clinical Assessment NCA in November. In other words, the process is active, sequential and consequential. Notwithstanding. As yet the absence of formal written offers. So I ask the Minister, taking the case of a medical graduate in February 2026, who finds themselves prospectively deprioritized in the way that I've described.

At what point in that graduate's journey, in the government's view, does the principle of legitimate expectations kick in? How fair is it to say to a talented and high achieving graduate that despite their passing through all the existing procedural hoops, they now need to lower their expectations quite dramatically and accept that they are no longer in that part of the queue for a medical qualification, which, in good faith, they previously worked to join. In summary, my Lords, my amendment is intended to pose a somewhat broader question than its literal wording would suggest.

What have the government got to say to that cohort of soon to be De-prioritised graduates who have committed time, effort and money to pursuing their goal? Is there any room for movement? I beg to move.
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Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Portrait Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)
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Amendment proposed in clause one, page one, line seven. At end, insert the words as printed in the Marshalled List. >> I rise to speak to amendments in

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I rise to speak to amendments in this group in my name, amendment five and ten, but also in relation five and ten, but also in relation to amendments nine, 11, 24, and 25 that I have co-signed in the name of Lord Stevens of Birmingham. And I just want to follow up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Howe Earl Howe, was talking about in terms of the fairness around those people that actually went into the application process last summer.

My Lords, it was last summer when they started this process with expectation of getting a confirmation any time now, soon for them to be able to prepare. And that's why my amendment number five is proposing to postpone this year's intake. The implementation of this speciality training prioritisation, to actually let those people that are applying for 27 know that we're changing the rules, not telling those people that applied last summer, my Lords, to say we've changed the rules. And let's be clear from the outset, this amendment doesn't seek to undermine the principle of this objectives of this bill in terms of medical training.

Rather, it seeks to ensure that these objectives are implemented fairly, coherently and without unintended harm at the at the very trainees upon which our healthcare system is so dependent on. The central issue here is for us has always been timing. As the bill currently stands, these changes would be introduced during active application cycle. This raises serious concerns about procedural fairness and legitimate expectations. Applicants have made life altering decisions academic, financial and personal based on a set of rules that exist in My Lords last summer when they applied to change these rules.

Mid-cycle, in my opinion, is not merely inconvenient. It's fundamentally unjust. And I've been contacted by affected medical students, like many others who who articulated their concerns around the criteria, they noted that they had complied fully with all the requirements in force at the time of application, only to find themselves potentially excluded by the change that's now been imposed. With that transitional protections, my Lords, the bill would teach applicants who acted in good faith, followed the guidance provided and had every reasonable expectation that the rules would not be rewritten halfway through the process.

My Lords, this is not about isolated grievance. It reflects the systematic risk inherent in rushed implementation. Medicine is a profession that demands long term planning. My Lords, years of study, examination, placement and significant personal sacrifice when Parliament alters the conditions of progression without adequate notice or transition, it destabilises the planning and erodes trust in the system. So my amendment therefore offers a modest but proportionate and sensible solution a one year delay allowing for clarity and communications, and a proper and a proper preparation.

It gives institutions time to adjust their process, regulators time to issue clear guidance, and applicants time to make informed decisions. So people that will be applying this summer will know what the criteria is. Crucially, also aligns with the principles of this House has long upheld fairness, legal certainty and an avoidance of disadvantage. We should be especially mindful of these principles when legislating in areas that directly affect access to professional training and career progression. There's also the practical consideration of the current application cycle is creating gaps, appeals and bottlenecks that could ultimately harm workforce planning in the NHS at a time when staffing pressures are already acute.

My Lords, we should really be wary of reforms that may have unintended consequences and might deter capable candidates. Well, Lords, this my amendment does not delay the reforms indefinitely. It simply ensures that reforms are done properly. By supporting this amendment, we need a clear message that while we are committed to improving medical training pathways. We are equally committed to treating applicants fairly and honouring the rules under which they apply. And I now briefly move on to my other amendment, amendment ten, which talks about we've heard about the immigration status mentioned earlier and the criteria that's based on.

And I would like to raise with the Minister the alternative option rather than indefinite leave, to remain in particular, given that the government is also seeking to change the rules around that, that my understanding is that actually there's a better option. The NHS does have its own recruitment platform, the Oriel system, which is able to demonstrate commitment to the NHS in terms of professional commitment. And in doing so, it shifts the focus from legal resident status to actual service contributions, my Lords, and engagement with our health system.

So my Lords NHS does not run, as we heard earlier on immigration categories. It runs on people who turn up to shifts, who train within its system, who understand its pressures and who are committed themselves to caring for patients day in, day out. The registration is not just a symbolic act as a gateway through which NHS recruitment, training and workforce planning operates, it is clear, objective indicator that individual is already participating in or seeking to participate in NHS.

Similarly, the concept of professional commitment to the NHS allows for a broader and fairer assessment of contributions. It recognises work undertaken in NHS trust, clinical placements, financial foundation training, research, teaching and other forms of service that directly benefit patients and institutions. This approach reflects reality far more accurately than a single immigration milestone, which may have little bearing on an individual's clinical engagement or future commitment or intentions. There's also a serious risk of equality issues at stake. Many doctors who have trained the UK worked in NHS hospitals, paid taxes and served served our communities for years, do not yet hold indefinite leave to remain my Lords due to the structures and lengths of immigration pathways to these such individuals, despite their proven service risks, sending a deeply damaging message that contribution is secondary to paperwork.

At a time when NHS remains heavily reliant on international medical students, we should be careful not to erect barriers that discourage retention, undermine morale. These clinicians are not temporary stopgaps. They are integral members of our workforce. Many intend to build long term careers here that many already have. My Lords, from a practical standpoint, this amendment also improves administrative clarity. The assessing registration and documenting NHS experiences straightforward, verifiable and directly relevant to workforce needs. By contrast, time prioritisation to immigration status, risk, complexity, inconsistency and intended exclusion.

My Lords, if the aim of this bill is to strengthen the medical training and support to NHS workforce, then our criteria must align with that goal. This amendment ensures that prioritisation is based on what truly matters, demonstrated commitment to the NHS and work to exist to do so. Therefore, urge amendments.
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Lord Stevens of Birmingham Portrait Lord Stevens of Birmingham (Crossbench)
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Yeah, yeah. interest from. >> Second Reading. As chair of King's College London and Chair of Cancer Research UK, and as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of General Practitioners. And I'm going to speak to my amendments nine, 11, 24 and 25. And I'm most grateful to my Co-signatories the noble Lord Earl Howe Lord Mohammed of Tinsley and Lord Patel. The government, in my opinion, rightly wants to prioritise for speciality training doctors who, amongst other things, have got significant prior experience working in the NHS and they propose in the Bill that that would be an explicit criteria that would be taken into account from 2027 onwards.

So the principle, I think, is clear. The practice for 2026, however, is said in the impact assessment to be such that they can't use that criterion for the current cycle. And so instead a series of proxies are proposed, which, in the words of the impact assessment, would quote Capture applicants who we believe are most likely to have NHS experience close quote. So this set of very simple amendments, which should be an easy pill for the government to swallow, simply would give the government the ability to apply in 2026 the same criterion relative to work experience in the NHS that they propose from 2027 onwards, and recognising that there may still be some discussion, as we've just heard from Lord Mohammed of Tinsley about the suitability of that criterion using the Oriel system or other mechanisms.

These amendments don't require that the government bring forward their 2027 approach. They simply permit the government to do so. If, in the weeks between now and March the 5th, for example, if that is when the deadline for Royal Assent is required, it becomes clear to them that the very modest enabling work, estimated at £100,000 on the computer software, can indeed be put in place if that were needed, this amendment would still enable the differentiation of international medical graduate applicants for speciality training who are applying from outside of the UK, versus those who are already here and working in the NHS, and so would be consistent with reducing the competition ratios quite substantially.

So in a nutshell, the government have said they want to do what this amendment proposes. We're simply proposing that they should have the ability to get on with it sooner. If they find that in practice they can do so. Can I also just speak in support of amendment four, as set out so clearly by the noble Lord Earl Howe. And this is again tied up with the transition problem and the fairness question and the legitimate expectation points that have been raised.

It would be very helpful to hear from the noble Lady, the Minister, when she responds, how many individuals does she think might be caught up in the scenario that Earl Howe described? And I'm sure she would accept that there is a degree of frustration that it was intended. It was announced by the government back in July last year that this was the approach they were going to take, and so it's really no fault of applicants in the system that it has taken seven months to get to a position where we're now having to do emergency legislation with all of the complexity, potentially even chaos, that that is causing.

It's also the case that in a sense, the pressures would be ameliorated to the extent that the availability, the pipeline of speciality training posts is expanded sooner rather than later. And I would just like to press her on what the 2026 incremental expansion is going to be. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said on the 10th of December that it was possible to see an expansion of 1000 speciality training places for the 2026 round as part of a 4000 increase over the next several years.

I'm sure that was a number grounded in an empirical assessment of what the NHS needs and if it was felt on December the 10th, that the NHS would need 1000 more speciality training places for 2026, can she confirm that we're actually going to get them, and can she also confirm that they will be deployed in areas where they are most needed, and that arbitrary bans on recruiting to some of those posts will be removed? I just conclude by referencing the fact that after we had had our Second Reading debate last week on Friday, the Royal College of Radiologists produced a report which was reported in The Guardian saying that half of the UK's specialist cancer treatment centres had a freeze on recruiting clinical ecologists imposed on them during the past year, and more than a third of radiology departments were also subject to a ban on hiring clinical radiologists.

Given what needs to happen to improve cancer in line with the new cancer plan, we clearly want an end to the restrictions that have been placed on hiring for these crucial specialists.
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Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lord. >> I rise to offer our strong support for amendments nine and ten and 11, 24 and 25, standing in the and 11, 24 and 25, standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, and to support amendments five and ten. In the name of my noble friend Lord Mohammed. I'd also like to thank the noble Lord Earl Howe for his amendment four, because that does set the theme essentially of this group, which is the whole question of the dashing of legitimate interests, my Lords.

And for this year, 2026, which has been explored by a number of noble Lords before addressing the specific mechanics of these amendments. My Lords, I think we need to thank Lord Stevens and other noble Lords who highlighted during Second Reading the whole question of the protracted failure in long term workforce planning. For years, we've seen a disconnect between the number of medical school places and the number of speciality training posts. We've created a bottleneck of our own making 12 applications for one post is a disaster.

My Lords and my late wife trained in the 1970s and became a registrar at Barts. My Lord, I, I have no recollection of it being anything like on this scale, my Lords, and we do risk dashing the expectations of many of those currently in training. As the noble Lord Stevens noted at Second Reading, this bill does not widen the bottleneck. It simply reshuffles the queue. And while we on these benches accept the principle that UK graduates should not face unemployment after taxpayer investment, we must ensure that in correcting one failure, we do not commit a second failure of fairness against those who have served our NHS in good faith.

And these amendments address one of the greatest injustices in this bill. The decision to implement major changes mid-cycle for 2026, using the blunt instrument of indefinite leave to remain ILR as a proxy for experience. The government claims that assessing actual NHS experience is not operationally feasible for the 2026 rounds. My Lord, since Second Reading we've received compelling evidence to the contrary and as my noble friend says, we've heard from doctors currently using the system who confirm that all the oral recruitment platform already captures data on months of NHS experience.

The question is, is there the data exists? The claim that this cannot be done is a choice, not an administrative necessity. By refusing to use this data, clause two creates a perverse experience gap. It excludes doctors who've served on our NHS front lines for 2 or 3 years, but have not yet reached the five year threshold for settlement we've reached. We've received hundreds of emails, my Lords, detailing the human cost of this decision. We have heard from a mother who lived apart from her one year old child for seven months to study the Msra exam, only to find the rules changing days after she started.

We heard from a neurosurgery s.h.o with two years of NHS service, who notes that this mid-cycle change renders his sunk costs unrecoverable. And we've heard from a British citizen whose wife, a doctor on a spousal visa, is de-prioritised despite being a permanent resident. My Lords amendments nine and 11 offer the government a lifeline. They are permissive. My noble's friends amendments mandate that the government. But my Lords, the bottom line is the Secretary of State should use the data we know Oriel possesses to prioritise those with significant NHS experience in 2026, just as they intend to do in 2027.

To reject this is to choose administrative convenience over natural justice. My Lords, I see at the moment these amendments at this stage as a probing opportunity. We need the Minister to explain in specific technical detail why the existing Oriel data fields regarding employment history cannot be used to filter applicants for this cycle. If the Minister cannot provide a satisfactory technical explanation today, and if the government resists this flexible approach, my Lords, we will be forced to conclude that this is a choice, not a necessity.

And in that event, we may well need to return at Report stage. My Lords.

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Hear, hear!

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Hear, hear! Of course, the noble Lord is, as

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Of course, the noble Lord is, as ever, absolutely correct. And, my Lords, this group of amendments Lords, this group of amendments relates to the implementation of prioritisation of post starting in 2026. So I would like to thank all noble Lords for their consideration
16:27
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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of this. It is a very important area, as noble Lords have said, and area, as noble Lords have said, and I've listened closely as ever to the points made, beginning with prioritisation for the UK Foundation Programme with regard to Foundation Programme with regard to amendment four, tabled by the noble Lord Earl. How this seeks to Lord Earl. How this seeks to prevent prioritisation from applying to offers for the Foundation programme that were confirmed before the 13th of January.

To clarify, My Lords, the Bill will only impact offers of places made after the Bill is passed and becomes law. The bill, therefore, will not have any impact on offers to the Foundation programme made before the Bill becomes law and in our view, the amendment therefore is not necessary. In any event, no such offers exist other than for a very small and specific group. Looking at those who have already been allocated. And I know that the noble Lord Lord Stevens also asked about this area, but looking at those who have already been allocated Foundation programme places for 2026, they are only those who have deferred from last year for statutory reasons such as maternity leave or sickness absence.

These individuals have already been assigned to posts and this year's allocation process does not affect them in any way. On a more general point, as I referred to in the earlier group as noble Lords will recall the ten year plan, which was published in July 2025, did confirm it was the intention of the government to come forward with the bill that we are speaking of today. The noble Lord Lord Stevens asked about the time it has taken since about the time it has taken since that date in July 2025.

I can only say to the noble Lord that this is linked with our very careful listening, which he will be aware of to resident doctors and the understanding of the pressures that they are facing. So this bill is action now. It is about acting decisively and it is about introducing legislation for 2026, because we do, as noble Lords have kindly acknowledged, we do need to start reshaping the workforce pipeline and show our commitment to easing the bottlenecks that are the case in training places.

My Lords, if I can go back to the amendment of the noble Lord Earl Howe and just again confirm no applicant other than the statutory deferral cohort that I referred to, does hold a confirmed place. And I'm conscious that in the last group, noble Lords gently suggested. I don't think they suggested they weren't clear. I wasn't accepting an amendment, but for clarity, it is for those reasons that we will we must resist the amendment of the noble Lord Earl Howe.

So, turning to offers made in respect of speciality programs in 2026, amendment five, tabled by the noble Lord Lord Mohammed, seeks to postpone the implementation of the medical speciality training prioritisation requirements by one year, moving the effective date from 2026 to 2027. My Lords, this is an amendment we can't accept because a key aim of this bill is to address the severe bottlenecks in medical training that have built up over recent years, as we have discussed, not just today, but on other occasions.

I think noble Lords understand that these pressures are having real consequences, perhaps evidence most starkly through the recent industrial action, where concerns about stalled career progression and training opportunities are featured heavily, do feature heavily and to my mind, another year of inaction and that was acknowledged earlier in the previous group, would only deepen the frustration felt by UK trained doctors and further destabilised the workforce. And it is worth acknowledging that a number of people have written to noble Lords, including myself, very much in support of this bill and have urged us also in our considerations to look at passing this in an amended form.

And I think it's important to

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acknowledge their voices, too. Of course. Noble Baroness, the Minister

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Noble Baroness, the Minister could say what she thought the proportion of those who wrote with disappointment at the bill were

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disappointment at the bill were versus those who wrote supporting it. I can't give an exact proportion,

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I can't give an exact proportion, as the noble Lord is aware, but what I can say is that I've noticed what I can say is that I've noticed the proportion has changed as the bill has progressed, and as we've approached Committee stage, I have certainly seen more email traffic urging an amended bill than an amended bill. And I'm sure I would imagine that's reflected in other. It is not OK. I can see differing responses, but certainly that's been my impression.

My Lords, to apply prioritisation to the 2026 intake is necessary and it is justified if, as I refer to earlier, we waited until 2027, competition ratios are projected to rise even further, meaning that more UK graduates would be unable to progress their careers on time, with a greater risk to long term sustainability of the workforce. For for these reasons, another year's delay is not an option. And I have to say to the noble Lord, we cannot accept the amendment.

Amendment ten, also tabled by Lord Mohammed, also seeks to change categories of people who would be prioritised for speciality training places starting in 2026, by virtue of having significant NHS experience, or by reference to their immigration status. My Lords, this amendment also we cannot accept on the basis that the effect would be to prioritise every individual who applied for speciality training places in 2026, because all applicants are by necessity already registered an oriole, this amendment would in practice nullify prioritisation for 2026 and render the legislation ineffective.

It would not address the severe and growing bottlenecks in speciality training that this bill is designed, and aims to tackle the proposal to prioritise those who have demonstrated a professional commitment to the NHS also presents workability problems as there is no clear or objective definition of what such a commitment looks like, nor any reliable way to assess it for tens of thousands of applicants at this stage, attempting to do so would be unmanageable in a practical sense, and would introduce inconsistency, delay and uncertainty for

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applicants. Thank you very much for the noble barrister giving away one noble barrister giving away one objective proposition that has been suggested is two years of NHS suggested is two years of NHS experience, which it is said would be readily trackable on oriole. Can be readily trackable on oriole. Can she confirm whether that would indeed be possible?

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indeed be possible? Whilst I can't be specific about what is technically possible, what I can say is, as the noble Lord is aware, the arrangements for 2026 within the bill can change for 2027, and that that will be the subject of consultation with a wide range of stakeholders to get the best definitions that we can. What we know is that currently, because of the time pressure we're going to have to use, and it was I think the noble Lord used the word correctly in my view, proxy.

And so that is

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where we are. Yes. I'm sorry to interrupt the

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I'm sorry to interrupt the Minister again. She's criticised amendment ten for my noble friend amendment ten for my noble friend on the basis that that in a sense, on the basis that that in a sense, it's technically not doing what it attempts to do. But, my Lords, what attempts to do. But, my Lords, what she's not really done is address the key argument. At the core of this is that the oriole system is capable of assessing precisely the kinds of two year experience that so many of these deprioritized doctors will have.

My Lords, is the Minister saying that it is absolutely not possible to use the oriole system for that purpose in

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this context? Well, my recollection from my discussion with officials about discussion with officials about this very point is no criticism of the oriole system, but what we're the oriole system, but what we're trying to do now and what we have available to us, that that it would available to us, that that it would require. I'm looking for the right words, but it would require not words, but it would require not just using that system, but would require manual attention to thousands of applications.

I'm very happy to write to the noble Lord with further technical advice on the matter, but that is the situation to which I have been advised. So the whole point about the way the bill is designed is it is to make it workable to change it. We know we cannot manage to deliver wish.

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Thank you. Mr. Minister. I hope that despite the recess, there will be despite the recess, there will be time to get all the information we need mean there is a real, real need mean there is a real, real problem here in terms of, I think, credibility of what the government's position is. And there government's position is. And there are many of us who hope that it will be possible to do something different, particularly since, in a different, particularly since, in a way, the boots on the other foot, my Lords, the government has had since last July, as he keeps telling us to actually get the oriole system fit for purpose in order to supply the information for 2026.



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Well, the noble Lord is clearly.

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Well, the noble Lord is clearly. On workability beyond what I could honestly confirm is possible, and I would think that noble Lords wouldn't wish me to stand at the wouldn't wish me to stand at the despatch box and suggest that having looked at all the things we could do, the reason the situation could do, the reason the situation is anything other than we have concluded that this bill is a workable option. But I certainly can assure the noble Lord, as is always the case, that all noble Lords do get the information that they are promised in a timely fashion.

I also hope that the All Peers letter was helpful to noble Lords, and the letters that I have subsequently sent in respect of various areas of concern. But of course, I will ensure that anything further is there. My Lords. I think I need to. Perhaps tie in what I was going on to say because of where I stopped, but. As I say. The the issue with amendment ten is also that there isn't that clear, objective and definition of what a commitment looks like.

It makes a reference to it that doesn't explain it, but by contrast, I would say that the bill does use a set of carefully chosen, specified immigration statuses as a practical and proportionate proxy for identifying applicants who are most likely to have an established professional commitment to the NHS, which I believe is what all noble Lords are looking for. And after careful consideration, as I mentioned just now, we have concluded that for the 2026 recruitment round, that is the best approach because, in summary, the amendment would remove any practical effect of prioritisation, which is of course at the heart of the bill.

Turning to amendments nine, 11, 24 and 25 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, these amendments seek to create a regulation making power to define additional persons with significant NHS experience to be prioritised for speciality training in 2026. My Lords, these amendments are not ones that we are able to accept. As already stated, the Bill does set out the most suitable criteria for prioritisation for speciality training places in this year under the existing clause two, subsection two for speciality training places starting in 2026, immigration status will be, as I've already referred to, used as a practical proxy for NHS experience to allow prioritisation to begin swiftly.

This proxy is being used because applications for post starting in 2026 have already been made, so we do need to prioritise based on the information that is already captured and then can be assessed to build further on what I was referring to in the exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-jones. Whilst NHS experience is indeed captured on in the recruitment system, and I know this is of interest to the noble Lady Baroness Finlay to using it as an assessment criteria for the 2026 allocation round, as I referred to earlier, would require a manual review.

Those were the words I was looking for a manual review of tens of thousands of applications, and that is just not operationally feasible. Again, as I mentioned earlier, there is no current agreed threshold for what constitutes a meaningful level of NHS experience. Stakeholders do offer very different views on this, and that is why we've committed to a proper engagement process, subject to the bill's passage, to ensure that any future definition is fair, evidence based and deliverable. The Bill does, my Lords, already give us flexibility to ensure that we take the best approach to prioritising those with NHS experience for speciality training posts in subsequent years, for posts starting in 27 onwards, the immigration status category will not apply automatically.

Instead, as I've referred to, we will be able to make regulations to specify any additional groups who will be prioritised by reference to criteria indicating significant experience as a doctor in the health service, or by reference to immigration status. For the reasons that I have outlined, I would ask noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.
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16:45
16:45
Earl Howe Portrait Earl Howe (Conservative)
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disappointment. I say that not only because of the arguments I tried to articulate about legitimate expectations, but also because of the point well made by the noble the point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Findlay, about the damage that this bill will cause to damage that this bill will cause to the UK's reputation for fairness around around the world. I would also seek to pray in aid the amendment spoken to so ably by the noble Lord Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, the noble Lord argue in favour of delaying the implementation of the medical speciality training prioritisation requirements by one year, and in doing so, he's very much echoed my thinking in this whole area.

My initial reaction to this amendment is that it would have a positive impact on applicant confidence, as well as trust in the system. Picking up again Lady Findlay's point by allowing an extra year to transition to the new prioritisation process. I also note that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, in his role as chairman of the Constitution Committee, has written to the noble Baroness, the Minister raising the committee's concerns about the impact of the new prioritisation regime on applicants for the 2026 cohort who would fall outside the prioritised groups.

And it seems to me that Ministers really should consider this proposal carefully. The noble Lord Lord Mohammed's amendment number ten, removes the requirement that those who are prioritised for speciality training programs must have indefinite leave to remain, or leave to enter or remain in the UK, replacing those subsections with the requirement that persons merely need to have been registered on the NHS Oriel recruitment platform, or demonstrated a professional commitment to the National Health Service. I thought he argued his case very well, of course.

It is material in this context as to what the numbers of applicants would be who do not currently have leave to remain or enter into the UK, who would, under the noble Lords amendment, be able to to come here. I am, however, quite surprised to hear from the Minister that it would require a manual search of tens of thousands of records to find the answer to that, and that there aren't ways of conducting a search that automatically or electronically, that could reveal the information that is needed.

So again, my Lords, I was disappointed by the minister's reply for the reasons largely cited by the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones. Finally, I just like to comment briefly on the amendments tabled by the noble Lord Lord Stevens of Birmingham, to which I added my name. His amendments don't seem to me to be onerous on the government in any, any, any way. They merely grant the Secretary of State the power to permit the appropriate authority to make regulations specifying further groups of people who are included.

I feel that the bill is particularly unfair to doctors with significant NHS experience. Seeking a speciality training post in 2026, and the mechanism proposed in the noble Lords amendments could be used to address that unfairness. It's a pity that the Minister felt compelled to sound a negative note on Lord Stevens proposals. However, having listened to the Minister's reply and to all the to to all the amendments in this group, I think a period of reflection is warranted, hopefully by the government as well as noble Lords around the House.

So with that, my Lords, I beg leave to

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withdraw. Amendment number four. Mr. Pleasure that this amendment be

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Pleasure that this amendment be withdrawn. Amendment is by leave withdrawn. Amendment number five. Lord Mohammed of Tinsley not moved. Lord Mohammed of Tinsley not moved. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Apologies. Question is that clause one stand Question is that clause one stand part of the bill. It was many of that content contrary not content. The contents have it. Amendment The contents have it. Amendment five Lord Mohammed of Tinsley not moved. Amendment six, seven and eight Lord Patel not not moved. Amendment nine Lord Stevens of Birmingham not moved.

Amendment ten Lord Sedwill Lord Mohammed not moved. Lord amendment 11 Lord Stevens of Birmingham not moved. Question is that clause two stands out in the bill, as many of that opinion shall say, content contrary, not content. The contents have it in clause three, amendments 12, 13 and 14 Lord Patel not moved. Question is that clause three stand part of the bill, as many of that opinion shall say. Content. Content to the contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, we now come to the group of amendments beginning with amendment 15, in clause four, amendment 15, Baroness Gerada.
16:50
Baroness Gerada Portrait Baroness Gerada (Crossbench)
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I'm going to speak to amendments 15. >> I first want to disclose a conflict of interest that I didn't have at the Second Reading. I'm now co-chair of the Malta APPG, and I remain of Maltese Heritage. So first, my Lords, to amendment 19, in my name and that of Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Mendelsohn. This seeks to add Malta to the list of countries in clause four, little four bracket for this amendment is precise and proportionate, and it corrects a narrow but serious unintended consequence in the Bill.

As I will explain. I do, of course, acknowledge the need to prioritise UK graduates for training. But as the Minister of Health and Ageing of Malta put it to a letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, he said and to quote, this bill risks undermining two centuries of proud tradition and the dissolution of a strong bilateral relationship in healthcare, care and the training and specialisation of Maltese graduates. At Second Reading, I spoke about the unique medical training partnership between the UK and Malta, which date back to centuries.

For example, Maltese surgeons have held licenses from our own royal colleges since the 1830s. This is not a recent convenience, therefore, but a deep historic alignment. It is a relationship that has shaped both systems and for generations, creating an instinctive alliance in training, practice, standards and expectations. Maltese education system is modelled on the UK system and aligned to the British Clinical and Ethical standards. Training is delivered in English, and the Maltese healthcare system closely mirrors the NHS. This is why my father was able to come to this country in 1963 and devote his working life to serving patients in the East of England, and why others from Malta have done the same, performing well above their weight in serving patients in this country.

Furthermore, postgraduate membership and fellowship remain aligned with the British Royal Colleges, reflecting a deep and enduring professional loyalty. Indeed, many of these doctors have become trainers, educators and examiners, helping to uphold the quality of UK postgraduate education. Some have had daughters who became Presidents of Royal Colleges. Malta and the UK are therefore historically, culturally and educationally linked. My Lords, I now want to turn to the comparison of the Malta Foundation Programme, an affiliated programme to the UK Foundation Programme, and also reflect on the free trade agreements the UK holds with the countries in clause four.

Government documentation for the UK's Free Trade agreement with these countries requires regulators, and, I quote, to recognise qualifications or relevant experience of a professional who applies for recognition and possesses comparable professional qualification. My Lord. The language in this documentation, which recognises reciprocal arrangement, strongly aligns to the UK Malta Affiliate program and on that basis should be treated no less favourably than these other nations. Since 2009, the Foundation Programme of Malta have been formally aligned. They shape, they share the same curriculum and the same e-portfolio, and this alignment was renewed in 2024, confirming that the Malta Programme met the same standards and outcomes as the UK Foundation Programme.

To the best of my knowledge, no other country anywhere in the world has this level of mutual recognition. And at the centre of this is Queen Mary University of London's campus in Malta, a UK public university delivering an identical UK GMC approved MBBS degree so that it delivers exactly the same to its East London campus in Tower Hamlets. The students follow the same curriculum, complete the same statutory mandatory training, the same UK national qualification exams and graduate with the same UK primary medical qualification.

They are registered by the GMC as graduates of Queen Mary University of London. During the Second Reading, the Minister, Baroness Merron addressed Malta as a distinct case and indeed it is. QM. UL Training Programme is a UK programme delivered overseas under a UK government recognised UK government supported framework. More than half the students are UK citizens. The equivalence of training between the UK and Malta is complete, not approximate, not close. It is identical. Even the patient profile is the same.

Malta's population diversity, its healthcare system and disease patterns share extraordinary similarities with the UK, comparable perhaps particularly compared with any other international training environments. Moreover, most students undertake NHS attachments during their training. These graduates enter the UK workforce fully prepared for UK Foundation training. Trained at no cost to the UK taxpayer, and the impact of the medical school goes beyond the students. Shmuel has made not an insubstantial professional and financial investment in the campus. The Government of Malta has invested in the school's construction, and this aligns with the UK government's wider objective of developing international UK university campuses, as outlined in the recent strategy document from the Department of Education.

This bill, if not amended, puts this at risk. The numbers are small, our Lord's as the foundation years as capped at between 50 to 70 graduates. This is less than 0.6% of the UK Foundation programme places. This is simply no workforce threat, no substitution effect or planning distortion. There is, however, in the bill as it stands, a real risk of unfairness. These students have legitimate expectation, grounded on 15 years of consistent government practice and the experience of all preceding qmul medical graduates, that they should be treated comparably with other holders of UK primary medical qualification.

The bill is drafted, removes that status and place these graduates behind Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Jurisdictions whose graduates do not hold a UK primary medical qualification do not sit the medical, licensing or prescribing exams and are not trained on NHS aligned curriculum. This is difficult to explain, let alone to justify. This amendment simply corrects this anomaly. It protects a uniquely successful partnership anchored in history. Quality and equivalent. Just going beyond foundation years. A few Maltese doctors come every year to the NHS to fill gaps in their own medical training, so-called finishing school.

These are in non-numbered posts. Malta provides 70% of their pay, and these doctors are contractually required to return to Malta. This is not a pipeline of overseas doctors displacing domestic graduates. It is a small group, maybe 30 or 40, who meet our standards, all of whom have been examined and trained specifically in UK practice. Finally, and briefly, I'll turn to amendment 15 and 16 again in my name and the names of Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Mendelsohn, and this suggests a carefully defined exception.

Clause four for UK universities operating overseas campuses that deliver an identical UK approved medical degree as in the British Islands. These are exceptionally narrow amendments, confined to the best of my knowledge, to only two programmes in the world. Queen Mary University of London's campus in Malta and Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia. In Second Reading, the Minister referred to around 300 applicants from overseas campuses and noted that the government needs to control this number, not opening floodgates, so to speak.

I would stress, as I've already said, that the number of QM qmul graduates applied for UK jobs is capped by the University of Malta between 50 and 70, with around 120 from Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia, bringing the total to 190. These caps would enable the government to control the number of overseas applicants. I also want to make clear my support of the amendment in the name of noble Lord Lord Forbes, which provides a similar solution. Only institutions operating overseas campuses that meet the criteria set out in the amendments and are in operation at the time the act is passed should be included.

I beg to move.
16:59
Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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Amendment proposed. Clause four, page three. Line two. Insert the words as in on the list. >> I rise to speak and strongly

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I rise to speak and strongly support amendments 15, 16 and 19 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, and which I've signed and Gerada, and which I've signed and which she so convincingly spoke to. We also on these benches, support amendment 17 in the name of the noble Lord Lord Forbes, and signed by my noble friend Lord Shipley and amendment 20 in the naval, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Howe. And now, my Lords, I. As I said at Second Reading, I'm the former chair of the Council of Queen Mary, University of London, and are now an honorary professor for my sins.

Amendments 15, 16 and 19 seek to correct a category error in the bill. The classification of students holding a UK primary medical qualification from a UK public university as international solely because their classroom is in Malta. As the noble Lord Forbes, I'm sure, will say in respect of Malaysia, the Minister has argued that these students lack clinical familiarity with the NHS. My Lords, this does not withstand scrutiny. These students follow the exact same curriculum as their peers in London.

As the noble Baroness said My Lords, the Bill prioritises e nations because it seems that our trade deal requires us to recognise comparable qualifications. My Lords, it's legally incoherent to accept a comparable qualification from Liechtenstein while rejecting an identical affiliated qualification from Malta. We're treating a formal UK affiliate worse than a trade partner. These students sit the UK medical Licensing Assessment. They're taught by UK trained consultants. It's manifest. It's a manifest absurdity. As I said on Second Reading, that under this bill, a graduate from Liechtenstein with no UK degree and no UK training is prioritised over a Queen Mary student who holds a UK degree and is specifically prepared for our health service.

My Lords, I strongly endorse the noble Baroness Gerada point regarding our free trade agreements. We're in an absurd position where a treaty obligation force us to prioritise these comparable qualifications. This is not workforce planning, my Lords. It's a diplomatic and regulatory own goal. As the noble Baroness has explained, amendment 19 offers a simple solution, adding Malta to the priority list. This honours the mutual recognition agreement held between the UK and Malta since 2009, an agreement the Department of Health explicitly renewed in 2020 for amendments 15 and 16, offer a broader solution based on the qualification, as does amendment 17.

If a student holds a UK degree from a UK registered institution and passes identical UK assessments, they should be treated as a UK graduate. My Lords, the Minister fails displacement of domestic talent. Yet the majority of these Maltese trainees are contractually obliged to return to Malta after their training. They are what can be described as a circulatory workforce that supports the NHS during their training years, without permanently blocking the consultant pipeline. They are the ideal workforce partner, my Lords, as the noble Baroness Gerada says, Maltese surgeons have been licensed by our royal colleges since the 1830s.

This is not a new or risky pipeline. It's a two century year old bond that this bill carelessly severs. Furthermore, my Lords, we support amendment 20, in the name of the noble Lord Earl Howe regarding people qualifying in the British islands but who have trained abroad. We are all on the same page, my Lords, in advocating for these well qualified students who should be eligible to have the same priority in obtaining training jobs as those currently set out in the bill.

And we received heartbreaking correspondence from British nationals studying in Eastern Europe, often because of the cap on places here who intend to return to the NHS. One correspondent highlighted that we allow British dentists to return without these barriers. My Lords, why do we treat our future doctors differently?
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Lord Mendelsohn Portrait Lord Mendelsohn (Labour)
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I rise. >> To support amendments. >> 15, 16 and 19, proposed in the name of Baroness Gerada and name of Baroness Gerada and supported by the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones. It's my first opportunity in this House to speak in the presence of Baroness Gerada, and I have to say that she is one of the more extraordinary and fantastic additions to this House in recent years. She is a she has made a massive contribution to our country in medical expertise and her her case that she made over over these amendments was, I thought, utterly compelling.

I hope the noble Baroness, the Minister, has felt the same inspiration as I did for her words, and I also wish to commend the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones, who I realised I've now known for 29 years, for another great, great speech, which again, I think added to the strength of these points because, my Lords, I think this is an important this is an important omission which has underlying it a couple of concerning issues, but I think it is one where the case for why we should continue with this relationship is compelling.

You know, we seek to add Malta to the list of jurisdictions whose primary medical qualifications are recognised for prioritisation. As stated, Malta's medical education system is not merely comparable to that of the United Kingdom. It is formally and historically integrated through decades of regulatory alignment, shared training structures and sustained institutional partnership, including the Queen Mary University of London Malta campus. A substantial proportion of the graduates from this campus are United Kingdom nationals, and many others hold UK domicile or indefinite leave to remain.

This is a cohort that can be planned for faculty within the normal operation of the system, whilst making a real and practical contribution to the NHS. And as the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones said, they provide a valuable workforce capability that does not undermine the consultant pipeline, which again is something we have to manage very well. Excluding this cohort of medical students disrupts an established pipeline. It separates training from deployment and leaves capacity unused within a system under constant pressures.

That is not disciplined workforce policy. It's a misalignment between regulation and operational need. My Lord, I do concern. My medical education is one of the United Kingdom's most significant strategic assets and a central pillar of our global impact in healthcare, and I think it is very important that we maintain alignment and partnerships where they exist. Undermining them does nothing to enhance our reputation as a stable partner for any form of business, let alone the important thing of building relationships and medical research.

And I really do hope the government reflect very carefully on this, that a category error has led to a position where, even as recently as 2024, we undertook another solemn commitment, as you do in contracting, and we have now backed away from it. That is a terrible that is a terrible place to be. And I do think that the historic connections that we have with countries where we align these things over years and people invest in confidence, must not be undermined, especially when we use a free trade agreement essentially as a mechanism to undermine it.

This is the wrong way round. This is not strategic planning. This is dodging and weaving between different and and vacillating policies. We cannot be subject to this. So I do hope the Minister will have encourage the government to reflect very carefully on this one. And I do hope that there will be some positive news about how we can make sure that those countries who will be aligned with most closely, who we have a formal UK affiliation, can indeed be brought in to this arrangement, and some form of these amendments can be accepted.

My Lords, I.

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Must begin my contribution. To this debate this. Afternoon with. Two formalities. The first.

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The first. Is to declare that I am a an honorary member of the Court of honorary member of the Court of Newcastle University, and in fact am a recent recipient of an honorary doctorate from Newcastle University. Although I must stress University. Although I must stress that I in no way compare an honorary doctorate in civil law
17:09
Lord Forbes of Newcastle Portrait Lord Forbes of Newcastle (Labour)
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with the range of national and international medical expertise in the chamber this afternoon, and I also, my Lords, would like to apologise to the House for tabling this probing amendment in my name without speaking. At the Second Reading of this bill. I hope your Lordships will excuse my inexperience in the procedures of the House here, and be assured that there was no intended discourtesy on my part to the House by this inadvertent breach of procedure. Although previous contributions to the debate have perhaps demonstrated that I may have got off somewhat lightly in terms of email traffic by not speaking in the Second Reading, and I have no doubt that there will be more email traffic on this subject to come.

Can I congratulate the government on bringing this bill forward? And I would like to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Bill's core purpose. Prioritising doctors trained in the United Kingdom for foundation and speciality training is a necessary, reasonable and understandable aim, particularly given the sustained workforce pressures that there are in certain parts of the NHS. And I would like to explain to your Lordships House that I was motivated to table this amendment by a number of representations that I had from students concerned who had been studying at the Numed campus in Malaysia, a campus, by the way, your Lords.

My Lords, that I had the great privilege of visiting about ten years ago, shortly after it opened. And I know that many graduates of that Malaysian campus. The Numed campus have gone on to serve with great distinction in the NHS and as the noble Lady, noble Baroness, Lady Gerada said the numbers are very small but their impact is very great on our National Health Service and that sense of pride in the Numed campus is one which is felt deeply by Newcastle University, which of course is how I know about this issue and how I've been contacted about this issue.

And but the. There is, I have to say, in a number of the representations that I've received a mistaken interpretation of the intent of this legislation, that it is to exclude rather than to prioritise. And it is these points, my Lords, that I wish to comment on, as in this discussion about these amendments. I was very surprised to see figures demonstrating that competition ratios for speciality training have now exceeded 20 applicants per post in some specialities, which means, my Lords, of course, that the urgency of this bill is becoming ever more apparent, and I have listened very carefully to the debate this afternoon and have been greatly reassured by my noble friend.

The Minister's assurances, particularly around the prioritisation of UK students rather than the exclusion of overseas students, especially around the intention of this bill to smooth out bottlenecks in medical training, focusing on home grown talent as a priority. And this does not mean denying the NHS appropriate international talent when it is appropriate to deploy that. And also, my Lords, I am also very reassured by my noble friend the Minister's reassurances about the concerns about unintended consequences being addressed by subsequent regulation and review.

My Lords, the government has expressed a clear intent to continue to engage with relevant UK universities with international campuses. To further explain the intention of this bill and the way that it will operate in practice, and also to support them as they adjust to what I see as the very legitimate and important requirements of this bill as it progresses towards enactment.
17:13
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Portrait Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench)
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It is with great pleasure that I >> It is with great pleasure that I added my name to the amendment so nobly introduced by the noble Lord nobly introduced by the noble Lord Lord Forbes of Newcastle, and I'm most appreciative to my noble friend Baroness Gerada for the way that she introduced this whole group, because she flagged up very clearly that Malta and Newcastle are different to other places. May I also reassure the noble Lord Lord Darzi that my probing amendment was simply to probe, because I was worried about the wording in the bill that could inadvertently have left it, that UK based universities could not develop other outreach campuses, but that Irish medical school training places, universities could, and that those graduates could then be included in the future.

And I wanted to make sure we had a level playing field. But I do accept the wording is clumsy and doesn't work. And I think the key word in the amendment that the noble Lord Lord Forbes of Newcastle tabled is that the medical school is extant on the day on which this act is passed. That would allow those schools currently in place, particularly Malta, Newcastle. And if the government is so minded, the Rcsi in Bahrain to be able to be included, because those degrees are to talk to the same curriculum, examined to the same level, undertake the medical licensing exam and also the prescribing exam, which I know is changing, but it's still going to be really important that there is a completely level playing field, and it would stop a kind of mushrooming that could occur from from other universities.

So I think that word extant is really important, and I hope the Minister will be able to take it on board, and I hope that it is completely compatible with the very compelling case made by my noble friend, Lady Gerada. Hear, hear.
17:15
Lord Stevens of Birmingham Portrait Lord Stevens of Birmingham (Crossbench)
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My Lords, I would like to speak in support of the thrust of the in support of the thrust of the amendments in this group, but start by acknowledging the concern that I by acknowledging the concern that I think is animating the government on this point, which is that they don't want to see a thin end of a wedge that opens up substantially with a lot of newly created international programs that then end up further displacing UK trained graduates and undermining the ability to effectively plan the medical workforce of the future.

Fortunately, however, none of these amendments actually constitute the thin end of a wedge. There is no wedge, as we have just heard these amendments. Grandfather. The current very modest arrangements. Shmuel Malta and Newcastle University, which are so numerically small, a couple of hundred students, as we've heard, relative to 12,800 speciality training programs. So these are not the programs that have caused the problem that this bill is seeking to address. And nor should they therefore be collateral damage. As the bill progresses, we, as discussed at Second Reading, particularly in respect of Malta, have a long standing relationship with Malta.

We currently have a series of diplomatic and other ties of bilateral agreement that the British government and the Maltese, within the last 12 months have renewed of considerable significance continuing significance to us, including on defence and security and other aspects as well. So the government would be well advised not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and take seriously the concerns that these amendments represent.
17:17
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Portrait Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)
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I also want to rise to speak in >> I also want to rise to speak in terms of the amendments 15, 16 and 19, to add my support to Baroness Gerada amendments around the issue Gerada amendments around the issue of Malta, but also actually Lord Forbes amendment 17, as well as Forbes amendment 17, as well as well supporting Earl Howe amendment 20. Given that we've had a substantial discussion on Malta, particularly from Baroness Gerada and Lord Clement-Jones, I'll speak more towards Newcastle forging the Northern Alliance that we may have, and more importantly, also that my mentor Lord Shipley, who can't be here but has made a particular point of visiting my office to say you are going to be speaking on Newcastle, aren't you, on Thursday? So hey, here we go.

So in terms of this amendment from Lord Forbes, which is to ensure that graduates from overseas campuses, United Kingdom medical schools in particular are treated fairly and consistently, I think the amendment is both precise and proportionate. I think it, you know, applies three conditions. First, that the primary medical qualification is awarded by the United Kingdom Medical School, in this case Newcastle. But there will be others. The secondly, that the qualification is obtained through study at an overseas campus that existed at the point of this act being passed.

And it deals with this issue of and I think the noble Lady, the Baroness, did talk about potential creep when we discussed this last week in terms of other institutions being able to take advantage and open that back door. So with this very timely amendment from Lord Forbes, it's very clear

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what. Is it his understanding that, of course, actually there would be the opportunity for creep as currently opportunity for creep as currently set out in the bill in that, for example, if Queen Mary University of London wished to establish a of London wished to establish a medical school in Liechtenstein, which currently lacks one, it would be able to do so with an unlimited be able to do so with an unlimited number of places. And all of those new students would then be

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passported into the NHS. Lord Stevens is giving people ideas. Possibly, yes. And thirdly, both courses and the study of qualifications are approved by the GMC as so the UK primary medical qualification. My Lords, this is not like I say, it's not about lowering standards or creating a new route through the back door. In contrary, it actually recognises the standards that already exist and already regulated by the GMC. And if GMC is determined that these courses are equivalent to and content assessment and outcomes, it is difficult to justify why we're trying to exclude them.

And particularly given the numbers that we've heard earlier, universities such as Newcastle, there may be others as well. They've relied heavily upon this partnership. And this program, you know, has not just been just overnight. It's been there and in existence for some time. And to be honest with you, my Lords, the they are governed by UK institutions allowing UK curricula assessed identically to UK standards and subjects. So graduates receive UK awarded degrees. My Lords, not foreign substitutes. Contributions of such programs to the NHS.

We've heard from Newcastle University only yesterday that, yeah, you know, they've had up to 150 students in their Malaysian campus and some of those students have come back to United Kingdom. In particular. They've served as GPS when we've had an acute shortage for many years. And I think we really need to take heed of that in terms of that contribution, but also the the long standing relationships that do exist both in Newcastle and Queen Mary. And I think that we're only asking for a very small change.

We're not asking for tens of thousands of students coming here. We're asking for a small number of long established partnerships that have existed, stood the test of time. And what we're really asking for. The Minister here is for some flexibility in terms of you're hearing it from different sides of the house. Your Lordships' House. And I all I'll say is we're about to go on a holiday. I really hope that the Minister takes that time to reflect on the debate that we've had, and hopefully come back at Report stage with government amendments that all of us can actually support.

And I really look forward to that debate that we're going to have in less than a fortnight's time.

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Yeah, yeah. You. My Lords, I should like to speak

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My Lords, I should like to speak to my amendments 20 and 21 and at the same time to support the other the same time to support the other amendments in this group. My amendments are intended to work amendments are intended to work together and to return us to one of the salient themes of our debates at Second Reading, a theme which at Second Reading, a theme which has been persuasively developed today by the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, and the noble Lord Lord Forbes, and indeed other speakers.

The question that lies at the heart of their concerns is about why the government have chosen to adopt a definition that threatens to undermine high quality workforce capacity in the NHS that jeopardises the sustainability of medical education delivered overseas by UK institutions, and a definition that runs completely counter to the government's stated ambitions on promoting British standards of education internationally. The bill prioritises graduates based on
17:23
Earl Howe Portrait Earl Howe (Conservative)
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strict geographic criteria rather than on the provenance of their than on the provenance of their qualifications. UK academic institutions such as Queen Mary University of London and University University of London and University of Newcastle have campuses respectively on Malta and in respectively on Malta and in Malaysia, which train doctors to GMC approved standards using the same curriculum and the same same curriculum and the same assessments as those employed on their campuses in the UK. The noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, has eloquently made the case for Maltese trained students and I can add little to that and.

The noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Lord Lord Mendelsohn, and indeed noble Lord Lord Forbes have also spoken very powerfully on the same theme the noble Baroness. Lady Gerrard's amendment speak of the two qualifications, in other words, that gained in Malta and that gained in London as being identical in character. The noble Lord Lord Forbes amendment uses the word equivalent. My Lords, I would go further by saying that the degree issued by the Queen Mary University of London, Malta campus is not merely equivalent to a UK degree, it is a UK degree.

Not only that, Queen Mary's are able to state that cohorts of their students trained in Malta frequently outperform their contemporaries who've studied and trained on the London campus, and the noble Lord, Lord Winston's intervention has confirmed that that is not an isolated claim. The same claim can be made of many graduates of Newcastle University's campus in Malaysia. These are excellent doctors, so there is not an issue here of quality, nor should there be an issue around numbers. In total, as we've heard, the numbers, the number of these overseas trained graduates is modest in comparison to the overall NHS training intake in a given year.

The numbers really ought to be treated as de minimis. We've heard from Ministers that if they were to flex the rules in the way that I and others are proposing, there'd be no way for them in the future to control the total numbers of eligible applicants from these sources. My question here is why it would seem perfectly possible to grant Ministers a power to cap total numbers at a figure corresponding to recent experience. It would then be up to the relevant universities concerned to collaborate year by year to ensure that the cap was not exceeded.

And that is what my amendment 21 is intended to do. Finally, my Lords, we return to the issue of legitimate expectations for all the reasons I've given students trained on overseas campuses of UK institutions have never dreamt of questioning whether the status of their qualifications would differ in the very slightest from the status of the qualification gained by their student colleagues in London. They are, in consequence, I think, not to put too fine a point on it, appalled that through this bill they are suddenly to be regarded as less deserving of a medical career in the NHS.

I do ask

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the Minister to think again. Lord Howell. Hey!

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Lord Howell. Hey! My Lords, I'm I'm grateful for this debate as I've been grateful for the time that noble Lords have given to discussing their concerns about various aspects of the Bill in advance of today. And I can certainly say to both the noble Lord Earl Howe and the noble Lord Lord Mohammed, that I always reflect on what they say, not just and other noble Lords. I should say I forgive me not just every noble Lord.

Tis true. I may listen to some more than others, but that would be telling. But in any case, I'm genuinely grateful. And it really does assist, in my view, the passage of legislation and I take it very seriously. So I will, of course, be reflecting, as I have done before, not just what's said in the chamber, what we have discussed outside. But I really do have to emphasise the point because the noble Lord Earl Howe said previously that people will be watching this debate, they will be reading this debate and I absolutely agree and I'm glad they do that.

This is not about excluding people from their applications. It is about prioritising. And the reason we are in this position is following the removal of the resident labour market test in 2020, which changed the whole landscape. In 2019, there were 12,000 applicants. Now there are nearly 40,000 applicants and that means for resident doctors for every specialist training post. So I think noble Lords understand. I do believe noble Lords understand the scale. I also wanted to say that internationally trained doctors absolutely make a huge contribution.

They will continue to do so. We are aiming to bring forward those internationally trained doctors who have significant NHS experience for training posts in the future, and I think that is absolutely right. So let me turn to the amendments, particular amendments in this group. So starting with amendments 15 and 16, tabled by the noble Lady Baroness Gerada, amendment 17, tabled by my noble friend Lord Forbes, and amendments 20 and 21, tabled by the noble Lord Earl Howe. Each of these amendments seek to ensure that graduates of overseas campuses of UK medical schools are prioritised for foundation and speciality training, and I do understand why this is being raised and it's quite right to probe this whole area.

In my view. So what I do have to say though, is whilst I absolutely appreciate the intention and the manner in which these amendments have come through, the government is unable to accept them and I will seek, in my words, to address the various points and very legitimate points that have been raised. My Lords, graduates of international overseas campuses of UK medical schools. And this is the fundamental challenge that I have discussed with noble Lords, do not form part of the UK's workforce planning.

We can control the number of medical school places in the UK and we can set a number according to NHS needs, but we don't have control over student recruitment at overseas campuses that are operated by UK medical schools. And the reality is, prioritising these graduates would undermine what is a key aim of the bill, which is to keep Foundation training aligned with the NHS workforce. We are planning for, and also to reflect taxpayer investment. Again, something of importance to noble Lords and to manage the bottlenecks in speciality training.

I understand amendments 15 and 16 aim to restrict future eligibility by prioritising only those medical schools approved before the 1st of January 2026. However, these amendments could create a loophole whereby overseas campuses could expand their intakes further, thus undermining UK workforce planning. There would be increased pressure on training capacity, which would add to the bottlenecks that we are seeking to manage through this legislation. Similarly, amendment 17 aims to restrict future eligibility by prioritising only overseas campuses of medical schools that are extant on the day the act is passed.

My Lords, this could also, of course.
17:32
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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I thank the noble Lady Minister very much for giving way, just on this point about whether or not the UK government would lack the ability to control the expansion of international places in the grandfathered campuses, isn't it the case that, in fact, however, the UK government does have such a tool at its disposal, which is through the office for students, the office has to agree the number of undergraduate medical places that a university can operate here in the UK can cap those, and could therefore introduce an offsetting mechanism so that any additional place created outside of the UK would see a reduction in the UK authorisation, which would be incentive enough, I suspect, to ensure that universities did not

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behave in the way that she is concerned about. Well, I am grateful to the noble Lords who kindly raised this with me before, and I did test this out, and I'm grateful that he's given and I'm grateful that he's given thought to this, because it is it is an important point, but I am advised that unfortunately, the advised that unfortunately, the manner, the solution that the noble Lord has come up with isn't one that will deal with all of the concerns that we have and will still, unfortunately, give us difficulty.

The noble Lord talked about wedge wedges and thin ends of said wedges, and I fear that we're still in the same place. I'm very happy to write to the noble Lord and of course make that available to explain further detail. But I am grateful that he made that consideration as a solution to what is undoubtedly an issue. Forgive me.

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Mr. Noble. Lady sits down understanding the comments that understanding the comments that she's made in relation to my noble friend, Lord Stevens. Would she friend, Lord Stevens. Would she consider a wording in the primary legislation that expands on the legislation that expands on the fact that the campus must be extant, and would also include that the number of students studying medicine for the UK degree must also be that same number as when the bill passes, because that would provide rigid guidelines in primary legislation and wouldn't be relying on another body where a quota could

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possibly be negotiated. I do understand again, the noble Lady is coming forward with the Lady is coming forward with the solution. I appreciate her thoughts on it, my initial reaction to that on it, my initial reaction to that point, and of course I was. As I said, I always reflect on what is said, I always reflect on what is said, but my initial reflection is that actually doesn't deal with the fact that we've already got a fact that we've already got a number of people.

And I did ask this very question about continuing to prioritise them. It is significant even currently, and that is part of the problem. So I do understand what the noble Lady is suggesting. I will take one more intervention, but could I just say it might be helpful to hear all. It

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might be helpful to hear all that I've got to say. Sure, it will be helpful, my

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Sure, it will be helpful, my Lords, but I just wanted to follow up her pledge on delivering a up her pledge on delivering a letter to us. In that letter, she will set out precisely what her concerns are and the time timing of that letter will be early next week. that letter will be early next week. So that time to table amendments for report that can meet some of

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those concerns, my Lords. Yes. As I always do, I seek to engage in sufficient time before Report in sufficient time before Report stage. So I'm not going to promise the beginning of next week. But I the beginning of next week. But I do know, as we all know, what the deadlines are, that all noble Lords and I'm very respectful working to and I'm very respectful working to excuse me, and I am very respectful of that. So my Lords, in respect of of that.

So my Lords, in respect of amendment 17, it could also create the same loophole I've already referred to and risk existing international overseas campuses expanding their intakes further. And I'm grateful that noble Lords acknowledge the concern and are seeking to consider how to deal with this and that, that that would, of course, be outside of any UK workforce planning amendment 21 would provide a regulation making power to limit the number of applicants that could be prioritised from these overseas campuses.

It isn't clear which relates back to my earlier comments about how such a requirement would be implemented effectively and fairly in practice, but in any event, it wouldn't provide an appropriate safeguard for UK workforce planning. My Lords, the Bill rightly prioritises those whose education and placements the UK taxpayer has supported, who are most likely, and I want to emphasise this, most likely to work in the NHS in the long term and are better equipped to deliver health care tailored to the UK's population because they understand population because they understand the UK's epidemiology.

I. Can say again, graduates from international overseas campuses and I hope that my noble friend Lord Forbes and the noble Lord Lord Mohammed will take this back to the university. The graduates from international overseas campuses are not excluded. They will continue to be able to apply to the Foundation programme and speciality training. Turning now to amendment 18, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Findlay, which relates to the prioritisation of medical graduates from institutions in Ireland. My Lords, the government will not be able to accept this amendment and I did hear the noble Ladies own assessment, which I thought was most honest and therefore helpful of her amendment.

Throughout the development of this bill, we have been clear that graduates from the Republic of Ireland are prioritised on the same basis as UK medical graduates. This does reflect the long standing and unique relationship between our countries, including the arrangements under the Common Travel Area, which supports reciprocal rights of movement and employment. It also ensures coherence in workforce planning across jurisdictions where medical education and training pathways have been closely aligned for many years, introducing different criteria for graduates from the Republic of Ireland, as this amendment proposes, would risk disrupting those shared arrangements.

It could also create an uncertainty in the provision of postgraduate training in Ireland. Turning to amendment 19, tabled by the noble Lady Baroness Gerada, which seeks to add mortar to the list of the prioritised countries set out in clause four. This would require that those who hold a primary medical qualification from an institution in Malta, irrespective of their nationality or from any institution in Malta, are prioritised for foundation and speciality training. My Lords and I have to particularly address this to my noble friend Lord Mendelson, to whom I listened closely as I did to the noble Lady Baroness Gerada.

But we will not be able to accept this amendment. I'd like to refer particularly to the European Free Trade Association countries, as they have been referred to a number of times, including by my noble friend Lord Mendelson, and also the noble Lord Clement, noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones, and other noble Lords. But those countries listed in clause four are those with whom the UK has signed up to agreements with include offering parity of access to the workforce.

I have looked back at when those agreements were made. The Efta countries Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. The agreement was made in July 2021 and Switzerland in 2019. I make these points because they certainly precede this government in practice. My Lords, I do have to say, as I think I've said before, not all of these countries will have eligible applicants in any case, the 1975 UK Malta Reciprocal Healthcare Convention will continue and is not affected by this Bill.

And I would again emphasise that that agreement is wholly related to reciprocal access to healthcare, not access to training or employment related to medical training. It is helpful to say, I hope that the bill does include a power to amend the list of countries in clause four to reflect any future international agreements that the UK may enter into. As I've also stated previously, My Lords, the government does set UK medical school places based on future health system needs.

Students from international institutions, including from Malta, and I must emphasise, there is no disrespect intended here. We very much value the long standing partnership with Malta on healthcare and that is valued and will continue. But prioritising international graduates would undermine our ability to keep Foundation training numbers aligned with the NHS workforce that we are planning for, and to manage those bottlenecks in speciality training, about which there is concern across the house, because this is about focusing on patient care and ensuring that those whose education and experience best prepares them to practice safely and effectively in the NHS, that they are the ones who prioritise for speciality training.

Prioritising these individuals would not support our aim to prioritise doctors with significant NHS experience and who understand how the NHS works, and how to meet the needs of the UK population. I can reassure the House that this Bill will not affect existing fellowship arrangements with Malta and the affiliation of the UK Foundation Programme and the Malta Foundation Programme, which I believe the noble Lady referred to, will still stands. Senior officials in my department have met with the High Commissioner of Malta to the United Kingdom to assure him of this.

Last week, I also received a positive letter of acknowledgement from the Health Minister in Malta. To be absolutely clear, individuals with a primary medical qualification from Malta will still be able to apply for foundation and speciality training places and they will be considered for any places that are left after prioritisation. But it would still be the case that it would be odds with the aim of the bill for them to be prioritised for these places. For the reasons that I have set out, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendments before.



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Before. Before noble Lady sits down, my friend, sit down. You know, the NHS friend, sit down. You know, the NHS is a very complex organisation which is going to be rapidly changing with increasing issues changing with increasing issues with regard to its employees. And also all sorts of new technologies are going to be developing in a way are going to be developing in a way that we've never seen before. Does the noble Lady think, in view of that, that there might be some reason for the government to consider, to look at this situation, say in five years time to see what the effect of what we have done with this bill is actually having on the health service.



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Well, my noble friend is right about the pace of change and many of the changes we can't even of the changes we can't even imagine. As we discussed this today, we do keep the impact of we do keep the impact of legislation under review, and this bill will be no different to any other bill in that regard.

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other bill in that regard. I don't want to put the noble Lady, the Minister, too much on the spot now. So I wonder if in her spot now. So I wonder if in her letter she could clarify whether clause 43B means that the Bahrain campus is within the allocation for a prioritised places, whether any other Irish campuses are and how the limit would be held on other campuses developed from Ireland. Given that the response that we've had seems to exclude Malta and

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Newcastle. I'm happy to course to set it

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I'm happy to course to set it out, but I can say immediately that graduates of the Royal College of graduates of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Bahrain campus are not necessarily prioritised just because part of their just because part of their programme takes place in Ireland. The Bill is clear that prioritisation applies to graduates prioritisation applies to graduates of Irish medical schools who complete the majority of their

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medical education in Ireland, but I'm happy to add to that in my letter. Thank you very much. I'm

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Thank you very much. I'm grateful to the Minister for the caring that she's addressed my amendments, and I'll be very brief. amendments, and I'll be very brief. I must say I'm disappointed. And just a few points that address Malta first. These are not international medical graduates. These are UK trained doctors training in a UK university, albeit training in a UK university, albeit overseas. And I did say that the NHS, these are trained for the NHS. And I'd also like just to pick up one issue that we talked you mentioned several times.

This is not exclusion, it's prioritisation. I've already had emails from two doctors, one of whom is being excluded from applying for post-graduate examination until the UK cohort have applied. In other words, they will be. I won't say the speciality, it might, it might identify them, but it means the tiny island of Malta will not have this particular speciality because this doctor cannot finish his training until he does that and they're already being excluded from long standing fellowship posts that have been long standing over over decades.

And that is of last week. Given that the fact that the bill is being taken through the House at such pace, as well as a letter which I understand we're going to get in our post next week, I wonder if the Minister would be willing to meet with myself, and several of the peers have already raised some amendments, so we can explore in more detail and work constructively towards a solution. I'm sure these issues will be considered further Report stage, but in the light of your reply today, I beg to withdraw the amendment.
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17:49
None Portrait Amendment:22 Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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year. I also work as Honorary fellow at the centre for the Public Understanding of Economics and Entrepreneurship at the University of Buckingham, which also has a medical school, but with which I have no direct connection. My Lords, I have tabled amendment 22 to facilitate a wider debate on the level of provision of medical training places and the impact of that provision level of provision on the outcomes for doctors and by extension, patients, but also the need for regular review. We all agree that NHS and other health providers need highly qualified staff if they are to deliver the quality care that people expect of them, but that means policy makers should seek to establish an education system that encourages young people to see the benefits of medicine as a career path to support those who are going through medical training every step of the way, and to remove barriers to those who want to be doctors.

As my noble friend Earl Howe said earlier, currently, too many young doctors reached a point at which they need to secure a medical speciality training place but find themselves disappointed, either because they are unable to access a training place or because the training place they are able to secure does not meet their needs. A 2023 study by Thomas Ferreira on the career intentions of intentions of medical students found that many medical students finishing their foundation programme do not intend to take up medical speciality training places.

And the report says, and I quote, we report an increase in intention to not take up speciality posts immediately after the foundation programme, with an increase from 6.75% of first year students to 35.98% of final year students. A contributing factor to this scenario could be a significant increase in competition ratios for speciality training posts, partly due to increasing medical student places and no corresponding increase in the number of training posts available. My Lords, that is a challenge. The government and we all face the lack of speciality training places to retain those medical students within the NHS, something I concede we realised perhaps too late when we were in government.

So if this issue is not tackled, we will continue to see talented young doctors who might otherwise prefer to stay in the UK and work within the NHS and maybe other health providers, leaving the UK to complete their training elsewhere. The government has announced an offer to the BMA to expand speciality training posts by 4000, with 1000 of them brought forward this year. Now that expansion in training places is welcome and necessary. But can I ask the Minister to confirm whether there will be any delay in their delivery and whether they will be delivered this year? In May last year, I also tabled a series of written questions on resident doctor medical training places, and the responses showed that in some regions there are very small numbers of training places available.

For example, in 2024, just one medical Oncology specialist training stage three post was offered in the whole of the North East region. The figure for the Wessex region was two places for the earliest specialist training. Stage one posts in gynaecology. The Wessex region had just 11 places in 2024, while the whole of the South West region had just 16 of those places. So can the Minister say whether those numbers are meeting the needs of those regions and whether there is a gap? And also, what are the key factors that restrict the number of training places that can be offered in those regions? My Lords, the overall number of training places is probably the most important challenge young doctors face.

But there are also other considerations that affect talent retention. The geographical distribution of training places is also something that we all know needs attention. And last month, the government announced that it would introduce new training places targeted at trusts with the biggest workforce gaps, prioritising rural and coastal areas where patients currently struggle the most. My Lords, we welcome that. That is good news. But in designing this policy, can I ask the Minister what assessment the government has made of the number of medical students who want to who want to train in medical, actually want to train in these rural areas? And whether that is a factor in some UK medical graduates choosing to go abroad, or whether it is irrelevant now, in response to concerns from the BMA about the challenge of doctors having to cover the upfront costs of their training, the government has offered cost related measures in their in their offer to the BMA, including reimbursement of exam fees.

So could I ask the Minister for a little transparency and to give the House a little more detail on how reimbursement would work if the BMA were to accept that offer? My Lords, I do hope the Minister is able to answer these questions either today or later in writing. And let me assure the Minister that we do look forward to working constructively with the government as it faces up to these workforce challenges. I beg to move.
17:54
Lord Stevens of Birmingham Portrait Lord Stevens of Birmingham (Crossbench)
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Proposed articles five. Insert the new clause as printed on the Marshalled List. >> My Lords, to help the committee

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My Lords, to help the committee assess the need for this further report that Lord Grade has just set out. It will be very helpful if we out. It will be very helpful if we could hear from the noble Lady, the Minister, when the government will actually be producing its replacement long term workforce plan for the 2023 edition, which itself was deemed to be long term but ended up having a half life of less than two years. So how imminent is that, and will it deal with the sorts of points that Lord Carmel rightly brings to our attention? And when will we see the follow on to the excellent medical training review diagnostic phase one, authored by the Chief Medical Officer and the previous National Medical Director for NHS England, published in October, which sets out these issues extremely well.

But the clues in the title, it's the diagnosis. When do we get the prescription? When does the treatment actually begin? Because in a sense, the problem that we're dealing with through this bill, again, as a Lord Cromwell has just set out for us, kind of owes its antecedents into the disconnect between the provision of NHS services and the ability to make smart, long term workforce decisions. Unfortunately, for the period 2012 to 2022, those decisions were on medical training, were out with the NHS and in effect were being controlled by the Treasury, which was constantly saying no to health Ministers at the time, trying to bring forward a constructive solutions.

And indeed it was only when a former Secretary of State for health became Chancellor that the situation was unblocked and we got the medical school expansion. And perhaps that's an inspiring example for the current health secretary. I don't know, perhaps he aspires higher, but the fact is we need that whole government engagement on these kinds of questions in order to bring coherence and deal with these problems at root. So in responding to Lord Carmel, any light that she can shed on, when precisely we will have line of sight to these sorts of questions would be, I think, of great benefit to the Committee.
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Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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Sir, I rise to support amendment >> Sir, I rise to support amendment 22, standing in the name of the noble Lord Carmel. He absolutely made the case, my Lords. But having made the case, my Lords. But having heard what the Minister had to say in the previous group, I have a terrible certainty about what her response is going to be, my Lords. But I do assure the Minister that many of us do want to find solutions, my Lords, in the way that the noble Lord Stevens mentions, the principles of this bill are supported across the House.

My Lords, it's some of the detail which is in contention, and we must be honest that this bill deals with the symptom competition ratios, not the cure, which is the bottleneck of insufficient speciality training places. And I go back to the phrase that the noble Lord Stevenson Stevens used at Second Reading. We're simply reshuffling the queue, my Lords, and this amendment places a necessary duty on the Secretary of State to review the adequacy of training places. I mean, my Lords, we've received warnings from doctors in shortage speciality specialities like psychiatry and general practice.

Who who really fear this bill is going to drive away the international talent we rely on. And we do need to know if this legislation succeeds in retaining UK graduates, or if it inadvertently exacerbates shortages by signalling to the global medical community that the NHS is closed for business. My Lords, we cannot for business. My Lords, we cannot manage what we do not measure. manage what we do not measure.
17:58
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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My Lords, I welcome the debate that we've just had and I appreciate the support for what we are seeking to do, and particularly from both front benches. As we heard in the other place. So I'm most grateful for that. But turning to this particular amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carmel, it seeks to require the Secretary of State to review the impact of this act within six months of Royal Assent, and to require that this review is published and laid in Parliament.

I understand the intent behind it, but, my Lords, we don't feel there's a need to accept this amendment because the government has already set out its impact monitoring and evaluation plans within the published impact statement on the 14th of January, and the noble Lords Amendment also specifies requirements that are not compatible with how recruitment cycles operate. And I know the noble Lord understands that. I only want to be reporting to your Lordships House, where it's on the basis of proper information, as I know the noble Lord would expect, but data would not be available, as the amendment specifies, to allow us to meet those requirements.

Nor would it allow sufficient time and flexibility for the investigation of impacts. But I can give the assurance that should the bill be passed, the government will ensure that appropriate data is collected and investigated to facilitate the already proposed impact evaluation. I hope that will be helpful. I can refer to some of the questions that the noble Lord Lord Kamall answered, and any that I don't manage to answer, of course I will. Right? I'll be pleased to. But alongside the prioritisation that we're talking about, the noble Lord asked about additional training places, we are creating more speciality training places.

The ten year health plan committed to create 1000 new speciality training posts over the next three years, with a focus, I'm glad to say, on specialities where there's the greatest need. The bill won't delay this and we will set out steps to how we're going to do this as soon as we can. In. And I will write on all of the other issues that the noble Lord referred to. The noble Lord Lord Stevens asked about the workforce plan we have committed to publishing in spring of this year in order to set out action to create the workforce that I know the noble Lords very interested, quite rightly, and that will deliver what is a transformed service which we set out in the ten year plan.

With regard to his questions on the follow up on the CMO review, I will need to look into that to ensure I give him an accurate answer. So with that, I do hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
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None Portrait Amendment:23 Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)
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essential. Doctors and medical students plan years, sometimes decades, in advance. They make decades, in advance. They make decisions about education, location, finances, and family life based on finances, and family life based on the rules Parliament sets. If those rules can be altered by secondary legislation without a positive vote legislation without a positive vote in both houses, we risk creating uncertainty and undermining confidence in the system. The affirmative resolution procedure provides a necessary safeguards by Lords, ensures transparency and accountability.

It allows Parliament to examine whether proposed changes to our proportionate, evidence based and aligned with original intent of the act. It also gives affected stakeholders medical students, trainees, regulators and NHS workforce assurance that changes will not be made without democratic consent and accountability. This House has repeatedly expressed concerns about the expansion of executive powers through delegated legislation, particularly in areas with significant policy impacts, delegated powers and Regulatory Reform. Committee has on numerous occasions warned against the inappropriate use of negative or minimal scrutiny procedures where primary legislation confers wider discretion.

My amendment, my Lords, responds directly to those concerns. There is also a practical benefit requiring affirmative approvals encourages better policy making. My Lords, Ministers can explain, justify and defend their proposals in open debate. That process often improves the quality of regulations, identified unintended consequences, and builds broader support for necessary reforms. My Lords, this amendment does not prevent future governments from adapt adapting the medical training system. It simply ensures that when they do so, they do it with Parliament, not without it, and not go around it.

It preserves flexibility while embedding accountability at a time when trust in politics and political institutions is fragile, my Lords, Parliament must demonstrate that significant changes to professional regulations are made openly and responsibly. Requiring a positive resolution of both houses is a modest but a more important step in that direction. Therefore, I commend this amendment to your Lordships House.
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Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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Yes. for this brief debate, but also the efforts of noble Lords to expedite this legislation. And I, I absolutely acknowledge the short time frame, not as short as in the other place, but nevertheless noble Lords have been most cooperative, and I do value that. So turning to amendment 23, which is tabled by the noble Lord Lord Mohammed, it seeks to require that all regulations made under the act are subject to the affirmative procedure.

My Lords, this is an amendment we're not able to accept. To reiterate our intention, the Bill does set out on its on the face of the bill, the groups of people who are to be prioritised for speciality training from 2027 onwards. And I can reassure the noble Lord that the delegated power is limited to adding to this list by reference to significant experience working as a doctor in the health service or immigration status. Similarly, we have set out on the face of the bill speciality training programmes excluded from the prioritisation scheme.

The delegated power is limited to amend this list and gives necessary operational flexibility to respond to future changes in recruitment, training and workforce needs. Something that I know that noble Lords are very attuned to the need for. I am sympathetic to the desire for parliamentary scrutiny, and I always try to ensure that that is provided. But we do believe that because of the limited scope of these powers, that the negative procedure is appropriate. As the noble Lord Earl Howe just referred to, the bill was has been assessed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and no suggestion has been made that the negative procedure was inappropriate for this regulation I have already spoken in a previous group to why we are dealing with emergency legislation.

I hear what's said about the downsides, but we have to balance that with the scale of the problem, with the urgency it demands. And that is why we decided to introduce emergency legislation. The noble Lord Earl Howe spoke about the constitutional Committee letter, and we will be responding formally to the committee to address their concerns. So with that, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
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None Portrait Amendment:26 Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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>> All right. In the absence of my noble friend who thought another place lady coffee. I rise to move place lady coffee. I rise to move amendment 26. And hopefully that's acceptable. And to speak to amendment 27. Both amendments seek to bring forward commencement of the bill, rather than leaving bill provisions to be implemented by regulations. Now, the government regulations. Now, the government says it needs this bill to pass as soon as possible, but then refuses to commit to a date for commencement.

Now, given that there is no date for implementation, noble Lords will rightly ask, what is the hurry with this bill? There is a fundamental constitutional point here. Emergency legislation should be avoided as far as possible and where it is necessary, it should be delivered urgently. So in this case, we've been asked to fast track the bill without there being any apparent urgency to actually implement it. Now, the noble Lady, the Minister, did seek to partly address this concern at Second Reading. So noble Lady Minister, please explain exactly what why would the train allocation system be unable to cope with the change prioritisation arrangements introduced by the Bill if the BMA continue with their strike action during the coming months, and what factors would frustrate the rollout? Would it be systems? Would it be the availability of officials? Would it be the would it be the ability of trust and institutions to engage with the Department of Health and Social Care in a timely way, or are there other reasons that they should be aware of? And I hope I can give noble Lady, the Minister, the opportunity to explain some of those reasons.

My Lords, why we agree with the principle of giving UK graduates priority. And many noble Lords across the House have said this. We should take the time actually, to have a proper debate on whether any other students should also be prioritised and in what order, and we should really have a proper debate to to consider and debate questions such as. While qualifications may be similar, whether graduates from overseas branches of UK universities really do have similar experience to those who studied in the UK and worked in the NHS, or whether the country in which they studied has a patient profile similar to the UK, and whether in fact any of these distinctions are actually important, and other possible questions we should be looking at is whether historical prioritisation is still valid for today's world, and whether it's worthwhile or too much effort to revisit some international agreements.

But my Lords, instead of this much more considered debate, the government tells us that it needs to get this bill on the statute book as soon as possible, but is not forthcoming, perhaps not transparent when it comes to implementation. And so, given this lack of clarity, I have to say that there is a suspicion that the timing of the bill and the rush by the government to get it onto the statute book may appear to be not entirely unconnected with negotiations with the BMA resident doctors.

My Lords, whatever our politics and whichever bench we sit on, legislation should be about making the lives of British people better. And while this bill has the potential to help British citizens who are graduates of UK British medical schools, the lack of transparency on implementation gives the impression that this legislation is more about giving the Secretary of State and negotiating Chip in discussions with the BMA. My Lords, I would gently suggest that this is not a good enough reason for rushing such legislation, which is why my noble friend and I tabled these amendments, and I look forward to hearing the noble Lady, the
18:15
None Portrait Deputy Chair of Committees. Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)
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Minister's response.
18:15
Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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Clause eight, page six, line 23 leave out from force to the end of leave out from force to the end of line 24 and insert one month after the date on which it is passed. >> My Lord.

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My Lord. I rise to speak to amendments 26 and 27 proposed by the noble Lord and 27 proposed by the noble Lord Carmel regarding commencement. And I confess, my Lords, we are conflicted on these. It brings us back to the tension really at the heart of this bill, we have UK graduates urging immediate implementation to resolve their uncertainty. Conversely, we have international medical graduates asking for delay or transition because the rules are changing mid cycle.

If the government accepts the amendments in group two, eventually providing a fair transitional arrangement for those with NHS experience, then immediate commencement becomes less punitive. However, if the government persists with the blunt ILR proxy for 2026, then rushing to commencement simply accelerates an injustice. So I do urge the Minister to clarify if this bill passes, when precisely, will the regulations for the 2026 cycle be laid, and will they include the transitional protections we've argued for? Well, my Lords, I am somewhat pessimistic at the moment on that certainty is needed, but it must not come at the expense of fairness.

And my Lords, in that context, I think at the end of Committee stage, I must ask the Minister to confirm that she is going to meet with the cross-party group of those who have spoken not only at Second Reading, but on committee. My Lords, before Report stage takes place. I've kept my diary free for the Monday before Report stage, my Lords, and I know that the noble Baroness Gerada mentioned that earlier, and I think we'd all welcome a face to face meeting with the Minister.

The Minister talked about us being cooperative, my Lords, and we all realise the government's desire for speed, particularly in the context of the industrial dispute, my Lords. But quite frankly, it takes two to tango.
18:17
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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I'm grateful to the noble Lords advice in his last comment. I thank noble Lords for their contributions on this, this point, and I do understand the noble Lord Lord Kamall, who. Spoke about the I'm going to call it the tension between emergency legislation and a commencement clause to that point. I'll start there. I hope the noble Lord is aware that we our intent is, of course, to commence the Bill as soon as we possibly can, subject to its passage through Parliament.

And that's why I'm so grateful to noble Lords, but also to Parliament more broadly, both houses who've agreed to expedite the progress of this bill. And I will come back on to this later in a bit more detail. But as I've already stated, there is a genuine question about operational feasibility if strikes are ongoing due to the strain that they put on system. And I'm sure everybody in your Lordships' House would understand that. But if I let me now refer to the amendments and I've got some other points to to answer some of the questions raised, but amendments 23 and 26, tabled by the noble Lady Baroness Coffey spoken to the noble Lord Lord Kamall.

That's in respect of 26. And then amendment 23 tabled by the noble Lord Lord Mohammed spoken to by the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones relate to the date upon which the act comes into force, and both would remove the provision that allows the Secretary of State to appoint the commencement date, appoint the commencement date. My Lords, these amendments are ones that we can't accept as they remove an important element of if I could emphasise operational flexibility and I'm going to add, should it be needed, the commencement provision within the Bill, my Lords, is not a mechanism for delay.

It is, we believe, a necessary safeguard to ensure that systems planning and operational capacity are in place before the act is brought into force. Noble Lords will also appreciate there is a material question, as the noble Lord Lord Cromwell referred to, about how possible it is to proceed if industrial action continues. Given the strain that strikes put on the system, it is our intention to commence the bill as soon as we are able. But it is essential that the Secretary of State is and it's, I think, honest to say this, it is important that an essential that the Secretary of State is able to take all of the circumstances, including operational readiness, into account when deciding when the act should come into force.

Amendment 26 also seeks to require the act come into force one month after it is passed. Speciality training offers must be made from March, actually, and I would make this point, delaying commencement by even one month would leave insufficient time to implement prioritisation for this year's application round. In short, my Lords, fixing a commencement commencement date one month after Royal Assent, as this amendment 26 suggests, would create a situation where the bill comes into force too late to tackle the bottleneck problem that we seek to resolve.

In other words, the one it's designed to remedy for the 26 year while also removing our ability to commence the act only when systems commence the act only when systems are ready to deliver it effectively. To the noble Lord. Lord Commons comments about industrial action. I do want to reconfirm that the government has been in intensive and constructive discussions with the BMA Resident Doctors Committee since the start of the new year, to try and bring an end to the damaging cycle of strikes and to avoid what is undoubtedly further disruption, which is unnecessary for patients and NHS staff.

We hope we continue to hope that those talks result in an agreement that works for everyone, so that there will be no more strike action by resident doctors in 2026. With regard to the noble Lords request for more detail on operational readiness. Readiness. I know the noble Lord understands that introducing forms on to such a large scale recruitment process is a big undertaking. We don't want the risk of creating errors that could lead to further uncertainty for organisations, for educators and most importantly, for our trainees and effective commencement demands.

Clear processes for delivery across the health system. And the reality is that industrial action will put this at risk, because it's a diversion, as it always is, of resources. Noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones asked about further engagement. I had already had engagement with a number of noble Lords, including both front benches. I will be writing again if it is possible to do so before reports. Stage time is extremely short. I'm always glad to do so. But if the noble Lord will allow me to look at that in a practical sense, I'll be very pleased to.

And with that, I hope that noble Lords will withdraw their amendments.
18:24
Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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Well, can I thank the noble Lady for that considered response to the discussions, but also thank all noble Lords who spoke in this debate, not only to the group of amendment, this group amendments, but today, and also thank the staff for for being here to look after us while we stayed to to this hour. I should, perhaps for the noble Lord Clement-Jones clarify that when I laid the amendment, it was in fact with the amendment from my my noble friend Earl Howe in mind that if we could, if we could address some of the perceived injustices or unfairness in the system, then we should implement as soon as possible.

And so I wasn't seeking to create a tension there as as it were. I am also very grateful for noble Lady Minister for explaining that there are operational issues. I think it would help the government and in fact help this bill to go forward. If the noble Lady Minister were able to explain in a letter to noble Lords some of those operational issues, because sometimes it may well be that we think it is. It is quite easy. I know this having been in government, but actually there are a number of there are a number of issues and I can see the noble noble Lady Ministers looking forward to spending her recess formulating that letter with with her officials.

I think the noble Lord Mohammed earlier talked about holiday. I don't think Ministers ever get a holiday, so I'm sure they aren't given noble Lady Minister a challenge during during during recess to actually explain some of the challenges, the operational challenges which mean which which lead to the government not being able to accept this amendment to implement as soon as possible. But with that, I think I should once again thank the Minister for her response. Thank all noble Lords who spoke today and beg leave to to withdraw the amendment standing in my name.

I'm not sure whether I can withdraw the amendment in the name of my noble friend, but I know I certainly can't move it.
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