Live Debate: Lords Chamber

Oral questions: Impact on businesses of the recent RMT strikes on London Underground services and plans to mitigate such impact during future strikes

>> My Lords transport in London is devolved to the mayor and transport for London, and any impacts of strike action on London's transport

15:10

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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strike action on London's transport network are for TfL to assess and manage. Nevertheless, the manage. Nevertheless, the government understands this is extremely disappointing for passengers and businesses and encourages all sides to work together to resolve disputes as quickly as possible.

15:10

Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Conservative)

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To the noble lady for the answer. But my Lords, yesterday the RMT general Secretary threatened to general Secretary threatened to maximise strike disruption nationwide. Now this month's tube strikes have already cost small businesses an estimated £760 million. So does the government now regret removing the 50% strike ballot threshold in the Employment Rights Act, thereby guaranteeing strike action across the country at immense cost to small businesses?

15:11

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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Yes. >> Strikes when you have. >> I wonder if the noble Lord has

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I wonder if the noble Lord has forgotten how much money was lost and revenue was lost during strike actions under the previous government. I think we have to remember this. The Secretary of State, when she came in, took swift action to deal with this, and I'm pleased to say the incidences have reduced dramatically. Obviously, there are discussions going on with RMT. It would be completely inappropriate for me to discuss that at the despatch box.

15:11

Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Labour)

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I thank. >> The Minister for her reply to this question. I've spent a lot of time in my working life trying to help resolve disputes, and in my experience there are often faults

15:13

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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on both sides when disputes arise, but I particularly recognise the

15:12

Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Labour)

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impact both for businesses and the public when transport disputes arise. So would the noble lady, the arise. So would the noble lady, the Minister, agree with me that, yes, improving industrial relations improving industrial relations needs to remain a key objective in that sector, but that in particular, that sector, but that in particular, a key challenge in developing Great British Railways will be to establish, with the relevant unions the right new bargaining structures for the future.

15:12

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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Yes. >> Yes. >> Can I, in answering, thank my noble friend for all of the work that he has done in this area, and that he has done in this area, and I think he probably understands more than anyone just how important it is to bring parties together. I think he raises absolutely critical points. We have to bring benefit from collaboration, and I think we've got the the right building blocks in place to make sure that there is the respect that is due between different parties, to make sure that we can move forward positively.

15:13

Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat)

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There's a. >> Question which alludes to the frailty of British high streets. I'm sure in her travels as as a travel minister, she's visiting lots of high streets and she's seeing shuttered restaurants. She's seeing empty shops and boarded up pubs. Now, this kind of hit from strikes is really the final straw for many of these businesses. Now, she may not be able to control the unions, but which of these other policies can she control? The huge rise in employer N? I see the huge rise in business rates, the hike in employment costs, and the most expensive in energy costs in Europe, energy costs in Europe.

So does she recognise that there is work to be done, not just on strikes, but on preserving and saving our high streets and and this government, this government has to act now in order to do that.

15:14

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I did wonder when I saw this question if it would result in in question if it would result in in the question that the noble Lord asks. And as a former local government leader as well, I'm absolutely aware that the problem with high streets is not a recent phenomenon. It goes back years and we have to do everything we can. There are some real innovative schemes coming together to support businesses. But I go back to the point that strikes are not helpful in this scenario, and that is why we are determined to improve forward.

15:14

Lord Londesborough (Crossbench)

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My Lords. >> By the. >> Hospitality and retail sectors as a result of these strikes as a result of these strikes suggests that at least 1 million of the capital 6 million workforce did not travel into work as planned. Most of them had to work from home, which meant that swathes of meetings were cancelled, ranging from large scale events and conferences to a mass of those smaller but critical face to face meetings on on which so much business, particularly SMEs, depend, so does the noble lady, the Minister, agree that if you add this loss of productivity to the actual cost of lost working days, the true cost of these strikes could run into the billions.

15:15

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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So I think with the recent >> So I think with the recent dispute in London, the particularly disappointing aspect was that, in fact, particularly on Thursday, fact, particularly on Thursday, last Thursday, 88% of journeys in London still took place. And I think the problem well, if it's a problem, but because of Covid, many more people are enabled to work from home and they take the decide to take the risk out of their day and they stay at home. But he's absolutely right that the impact can be devastating.

But the positive thing in the dispute this week is that Aslef didn't go out on strike. And I think that holds hope for the future around.

15:16

Lord Moylan (Conservative)

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My Lords, my Lords, my noble friend Lord sharp referred to the friend Lord sharp referred to the threat made yesterday by the RMT to threat made yesterday by the RMT to bring about a total stoppage of the railways nationwide if they didn't receive a pay rise above inflation pay rise with no strings attached. Last week I asked the noble Lord, Lord Henry of Richmond Hill, if the government would insist in future that pay rises on the railways would be linked to productivity improvements, and he managed to avoid answering.

Will the noble lady answer now for the government, that very simple and straightforward question what is the government's policy about achieving productivity improvements on. On the railways, in connection with the with increases in pay?

15:17

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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Yeah. >> Part of the the difficulty when we came into government in 2024 was there was absolutely no agreement on the table around productivity between the private owners, owners of toxins and with staff. But I can assure the noble Lord that work has been done in this area as he would expect. And all talks have productivity ready due to government action. Recognising that the benefits of this will be to both the staff and to passengers.

15:17

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative)

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Hello. the praises of the RMT when I was walking with two prosthetic legs between here and Victoria, and I probably speak for many disabled people who rely on the tube to get to work, but I speak in this place for the all the businesses out in Rochester where I live, the taxes, who even out there recorded less work because people were not at work, either working from home or probably more likely in many cases, having a day off unpaid.

Will she from the despatch box similarly condemn the actions of the RMT? Yeah.

15:18

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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Well. >> Well. >> Well, the it's a very interesting dispute and Aslef are interesting dispute and Aslef are on record as saying that they find on record as saying that they find the dispute bizarre because of the nature of it, in terms of it being a proposing a voluntary scheme, it's not going to be enforced. So hopefully the discussions will get underneath the issues that he mentions. But of course, our sympathies go out to people who have particularly affected, as he mentioned himself, by such such action.

It's why it's so important that we get industrial relations on the right foot in this country, and I'm delighted to say that we are in the process of doing that.

15:19

Baroness Deech (Crossbench)

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The immediate mitigation of a tube strike is that people take the tube strike is that people take the bus or they try to take the bus, but the mayor of London is going to remove all the buses from the most remove all the buses from the most famous high street of all, namely Oxford Street, to the great detriment of shoppers and tourists. And with a knock on effect throughout the London bus network. If it's not too late, can the government call in this decision? And if there's any further attempt to extend it, will the government call it in to stop further pedestrianisation and blocking of Oxford Street in the interests of business and visitors?

15:19

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Labour)

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Yeah. >> Well, if I can relate a small story to the noble lady, when I first became an elected councillor, there were proposals to Pedestrianise the centre of of Leeds, where I'm from, and people were predicting that the sky would fall in and that they'd be queues right back to the M1. It has led to the city thriving, absolutely thriving. People will find other ways of of getting where they need to go. I think it's a very interesting and encouraging step forward, putting pedestrians first.

And I'm sure when it's successfully implemented, the shops will be very grateful that he's taken the initiative.

15:20

Lord Moynihan (Conservative)

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Private notice question on. fuel. Lord Moynihan. >> My Lords, I beg leave to ask a question of which I've given private notice. The question is as private notice. The question is as follows. To ask His Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to activate the National Emergency Plan for fuel.

15:21

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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The UK benefits from a strong and diverse range of energy supplies, and the physical supply supplies, and the physical supply of fuel to the UK is stable. The National Emergency Plan for fuel, which has been in place for over a decade, sets out a number of levers that can be deployed in a fuel emergency, depending on the type of issue being faced, and this is indeed summarised on gov.uk. We would consider intervention with a preference always for the least invasive measures.

First, if it appears that there could be a short of fuel nationally. But to reiterate, we are not in this situation.

15:21

Lord Moynihan (Conservative)

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And my Lords, this morning the CEO of Wizz Air, which carried over 30 million passengers last year, 30 million passengers last year, warned that European airlines risk collapsed by September if jet fuel prices remain at current record levels. We're starting to learn of flight cancellations taking place to save aviation fuel. Our passengers are being compensated so airlines can make savings. Now businesses are saying that government is not prepared, and we've seen the closure of two refineries here in the UK in two years, and the threatened closure of the remaining four due to carbon taxes and electricity prices four times higher than the US, which makes the UK particularly vulnerable.

So, given that President Trump has stated that there is no timeframe for ending the Iran war, when will the government listen to industry level openly with the public, be transparent and heed the words of the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, who has admitted that shortages are coming and now the government should publish a national emergency plan for fuel to show how we can shore up our domestic supply of all forms of fuel and allow the public to make considered decisions.

Yeah.

15:22

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Well, the noble Lord conflates a >> Well, the noble Lord conflates a number of different sources of fuel into one. As far as his question is into one. As far as his question is concerned, it is certainly the case as far as petrol, diesel and other similar fuels are concerned that supplies in the UK are stable. The UK, as a refiner of petrol, actually exports petrol from the UK, so there's no question of supply problems there. Only 1% of the crude oil that goes into petrol refining actually comes from the Middle East.

Only 7% of diesel comes from the Middle East. So the question of UK supply of fuel is generally one of stability and security. The the question of jet fuel is slightly different, inasmuch as a higher percentage of jet fuel comes from the Middle East. But the airlines in the UK are clear that they are not currently seeing a shortage of jet fuel, and indeed, aviation fuel is typically bought in advance, and airports and their suppliers keep stocks of bunker fuel to support their resilience.

15:24

Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat)

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The double blockade of the >> The double blockade of the Straits is still in place and shows no signs of easing. The National Fuel Emergency Plan was last Fuel Emergency Plan was last updated in April 2024. Yet current pressures across aviation, fuel, diesel and fertilisers are unique and complex. So can I ask the Minister what consideration is being given to updating and stress testing the plan? How will the government's balance timely information with avoiding panic, and what steps are being taken to support early economy wide fuel efficiency measures?

15:24

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Noble Lord is absolutely right to point to the complexity of the to point to the complexity of the situation at the moment in not just in terms of particular kinds of fuel supply, but the knock on effects of, for example, a lack of supply in the Middle East as a result of bombing on some refineries and indeed long term supply questions across the world in terms of certain other fuels. The National Emergency Plan for fuel, however, is a plan for shortages of fuels, of which there are none at the moment in the UK.

The wider question, however, is what will happen as far as prices are concerned as this crisis develops and we have no means of determining exactly when this crisis will finish. And that is not an issue for the National Emergency Plan for fuels. But it is an issue for the question of stabilising prices to consumers and making sure that businesses is not at risk from those prices getting out of control. And indeed the government already, as the noble Lord knows, has started taking initiatives in this respect.

For example, the £53 million that has been distributed to cushion the effects of price rises in. Home heating fuel, which are particularly suffered from people who are in an off grid situation.

15:26

Lord Stirrup (Crossbench)

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Confirmed that sufficient consideration is being given to the consideration is being given to the maintenance of adequate stocks of petrol and jet fuel for the military, for their ongoing military operations, and indeed for their essential training. And that consideration is also being given to alleviating any pressures from the price rises. On the already hard pressed defence budget.

15:26

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Well, I can't speak in any detail for the Minister of Defence, but I think he can. The noble Lord can be assured that the question of bunkering and keeping supplies, bunkering and keeping supplies, particularly of jet fuel, is very much directed in conjunction both with civil aviation and with military requirements. So the question, as the the noble Lord implies, is indeed one further of prices. And that is a question for looking at how best particularly targeted intervention can be undertaken in the future to ensure that prices do not undermine various activities in this country.

And the government is keeping a close watch on that at the moment.

15:27

Lord Sikka (Labour)

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My Lord, the National. >> Remains a contingency for crisis. of. >> Human life.

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And alleviation of suffering. Since 2020, energy companies have Since 2020, energy companies have made £125 billion profit and around 120 000 people a year die in fuel poverty. Does the minister agree that there is a crisis and lives can be saved by kerbing profiteering by energy companies?

15:28

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Yes. The noble ask me whether there is a crisis and yes, there is a crisis in place at the moment. And that is, however, a crisis And that is, however, a crisis which we have considerable difficulty in determining exactly the direction and depth of, precisely because we don't know what the position is and is going to be, particularly concerning the Straits of Hormuz for the future. And the the the response to that crisis clearly has to be, as far as government is concerned, to take every measure possible to ensure that the Straits of Hormuz are open and are open without tolls for the passage of fuel across the world.

But we don't know how long that is going to last. And therefore, the plans that we are undertaking, particularly in terms of the the the prices that may be an issue of global fuel scarcity and various people trying to cannibalise everybody else's fuel supply are under our control nationally, and that we can indeed intervene, if necessary, to make sure that those prices remain as stable as possible, and particularly as far as those who are in fuel poverty are concerned, to make sure that more people do not fuel into fuel poverty as a result of those problems.

15:29

Lord Redwood (Conservative)

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Who have our refineries have >> Who have our refineries have shut under this government, and the remaining four are at risk from high costs and very high taxes. high costs and very high taxes. What has emerged from government discussions with our refiners to actually expand our refinery output, because that is the way to national security, not relying on product imports from dangerous parts of the world.

15:30

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Yeah. >> Well, I would not quite recognise the noble Lords description that the four refineries in this country are all under risk. These are very large under risk. These are very large and stable refineries. And as he knows, they continue to refine what is coming into the UK in terms of particular forms of crude and refining them into petrol and and other fuel products. But those refineries are set up to provide a particular kind of output based on the crude oil that is coming into them.

And that is not necessarily a full spectrum of fuel products. And therefore part of a strategy as far as fuel is concerned to the future, is to look at where those refineries can expand and increase their production if possible, but also to make sure that where those refineries are not able easily to refine the things that we do need, then we have secure sources for those for the future.

15:31

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Conservative)

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Military to the civil. >> Authority. >> Or are a standard provision within national resilience. And within national resilience. And there is a task for fuel shortages. Policy, though, is clear that the military should only ever be used in extremis. The challenge is in recent years they have become the default setting for many government departments when, frankly, right now they should be doing other things. So can the minister simply reassure your lordships House that civil contingency is in place and that the military will only ever be used at times of extremists? And I declare my interest as director of the Army Reserve? Yes.

15:31

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Yes, indeed. I can ensure the >> Yes, indeed. I can ensure the noble Lord that that is the situation, and indeed that is what situation, and indeed that is what is set out in the National Emergency Plan for fuel, particularly in terms of the kinds of interventions that can be deployed in a fuel emergency, and particularly ensuring that the least invasive measures are carried out first. But as he will know, there are circumstances in which the military could be involved in making sure that fuel gets to the the right destinations, and that it is carried and delivered securely and reliably.

But that is all in the National Emergency Plan for fuel, as I say, a plan that we are not intending to implement at the moment because the circumstances which are envisaged by that emergency plan are not in place at the moment.

15:32

Lord Spellar (Labour)

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My Lords. >> My Lords. >> Mr. taken.

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taken. To ensure that we have adequate storage for fuel and indeed for gas, because the situation that they inherited was certainly unsatisfactory for gas. And given the unstable international environment, we clearly need much more reserve capacity in order to provide resilience.

15:33

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Well, the. >> Well, the. >> Lord is right to raise the question of storage and resilience. As a result, as far as gas is As a result, as far as gas is concerned, we have reliable supplies from a range of sources, most notably, 43% of our supplies coming from UK fields, a further 20% or so coming from Norwegian fields, some of which can only land their supplies in the UK when they have come from the fields, and only have come from the fields, and only a small percentage comes in from.

LPG and other tankard arrangements. The question of supply, therefore, is supplementing those those secure supplies with a reasonable amount of supply or reserve facility, and those are indeed in place in terms of eight reserve supply arrangements. And, of course, the development of the former rough field in the UK for gas supply purposes.

15:34

Lord Bellingham (Conservative)

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So on that last point you made about resilience and the Norwegian fields, does he personally support fields, does he personally support the early development of Rosebank and Jackdaw? Yeah.

15:34

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Well. those two particular fields have exploration licences, but do not yet have production licences. But the general the general point about those particular fields and indeed new fields, particularly in the UK, was made indeed by the director of the International Energy Agency just recently, who said that those fields and other fields would not change much for the UK's energy security, nor would they change the price of oil and gas. They would not make any significant difference to this crisis.

So if we're talking about this crisis at the moment, the right move in general is to continue to move away from reliance on volatile and volatile and possibly unstable sources of fossil fuel and develop the greater security that comes with renewable and low carbon energy, which is what the government is doing just at the moment.

15:35

Lord Naseby (Conservative)

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Fields produce oil and gas that >> Fields produce oil and gas that is cheaper and of better quality than the comparable materials that we import. And surely that is a sensible way forward.

15:36

Lord Whitehead, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)

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Absolutely. >> Absolutely. >> The noble Lord, perhaps. Refers to the question of the relative to the question of the relative cost of supplies into the UK, which is a fairly complicated matter, and also a question of the carbon content of those supplies, which is also a further complicated matter. So. Those supplies, for example, are lower carbon content than LPG coming in, but nevertheless much higher in carbon content than renewable supplies, which the government is working on at the moment.

So the question of price and value, it seems to me, is a very complicated issue, but one which is not necessarily germane to this crisis at the moment.

15:36

Business of the House Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour)

15:42

Legislation: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill - consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons

Baroness Smith of Malden. >> Message from the Commons that they agree to an amendment made by your lordships which is consequential to an amendment made in lieu of an amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to which they have agreed. They insist on their disagreement to amendments made by your lordships to their amendment in lieu of an amendment made by your lordships to which they have disagreed, and propose further amendments in lieu of amendments made by your lordships to which they desire the agreement of your

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lordships. I do have. All noble Lords have understood exactly what the Lord has just told us. I repeat consideration of Commons amendments on the Children's Wellbeing and

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on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The. Baroness Smith of Malden. My Lords, I beg to move that the

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My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons reasons and amendments be now considered. The question is that the Commons

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The question is that the Commons amendments be now considered. As many as are of that opinion will say content a contrary, not content.

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The contents have it motion a the Baroness Smith of Malvern. My lords, I beg to move. Motion

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My lords, I beg to move. Motion a that this House do not insist on its amendments. 38 V to 38 X to its amendments. 38 V to 38 X to Commons amendment 38 J, to which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement, and do agree with the Commons in their amendments. 38 Z

15:43

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Commons in their amendments. 38 Z one 2 to 38 Z two one. I will also speak to motion A one. My Lords, in this group we will be debating amendments made in this House and in the other place relating to restrictions on social media use for children. Once again, before getting into the detail of the motions and amendments before us. On behalf of my noble friend, Lady Lloyd of Saffron, myself, I would like to thank all noble Lords who've engaged so constructively, not just throughout the bill's passage, but on these issues in particular.

And I am pleased to say that thanks to the collaborative engagement of noble Lords across the House, I believe we have now reached a landing point that reflects our shared aims and should command support on all sides. I want to begin by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Nash. His commitment to the cause of children's safety and well-being is profound. He has spoken passionately in the interests of children, parents and carers across this country, and I am grateful for his willingness to engage constructively with the government on this critical issue.

And I also want to acknowledge the many noble lords across the House who have shared their expertise and passion throughout this debate. The sincerity with which noble Lords have advanced their argument has been evident throughout, and it is materially shaped the government's approach as we look ahead of the consultation. My Lords, good legislation is very often the product of exactly this kind of dialogue. The government's power now reflects the commitments we have made repeatedly in this House, that it is a question of how we act, not if we act on this issue.

The Secretary of State must now use this power. Following the consultation rather than may. So to reiterate what my hon. Friend Mr. Bailey said in the other place yesterday, the status quo cannot continue. We are consulting on the mechanism and that is the right thing to do. But we are clear that under any outcome we will impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16. And I can also confirm that consideration of restrictions such as curfews will be in addition, not instead of this, as the Technology Secretary has said, we are focussed on addictive features, harmful, algorithmically driven content and features such as stranger pairing that we know can be most damaging to children's safety and privacy, and recognising our shared determination for the quickest possible action, the government has further tightened the time frame for its delivery.

A three month progress report, followed by a 12 month timeline for making regulations with the possibility of a single six month extension only to be used in exceptional circumstances and in recognition of the concerns about harmful and addictive design. We have further specified that the Secretary of State must have due regard to such features when making future regulations. My Lords, this is a serious and responsible approach. It preserves the integrity of the consultation, which has now received over 55,000 responses from parents, children and those with direct experience of these harms.

And it also responds rightly to the concern that has animated much of the debate in this House that children cannot wait, and that government must be held to a clear and demanding timetable. I hope the House will recognise this for what it is a collective effort from Parliament and Government on one of the most important issues facing children today. The House has pressed rightly for urgency and the government has maintained, rightly, that we must do so in a way that allows decisions to be informed by the consultation.

Turning to motion one tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones, which would amend the government's regulation making power by requiring the Secretary of State to have further due regard to Ofcom's codes of practice and the Information Commissioner's Children's Code, as well as specific risk factors such as contact from strangers and loss of privacy, and would also require due regard where representations from the general public are received in relation to a child facing imminent danger arising from contact from an internet service.

And the motion also proposes the review of Ofcom's enforcement powers are brought forward and tightens the timelines further. Specifically, that regulations must be made only six months following the three month progress report, as well as shortening the potential extension period from six months to three months. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones, for his continued commitment to child safety and rights. The government shares his determination in ensuring the robust and urgent protection of children online. The noble Lord highlights many areas which the government has sought views on through its consultation, and whilst we recognise that these factors are important, prescribing an extensive list of specific due regard requirements as this amendment does, is unnecessary and risks creating too much rigidity, reducing the flexibility the Secretary of State needs to respond to harms.

The consultation also makes clear that the Online Safety Act will remain the foundation of our work on online safety. It forms a strong baseline from which this government can build, but I can reassure the noble Lord that the Online Safety Act statutory review will be considering the effectiveness of Ofcom's enforcement powers. Powers that are currently being manifest through 100 enforcement investigations that are currently under way. Introducing a review before all the duties have come into effect would risk being incomplete and ineffective in terms of the timeline for action that we have discussed in this House over recent days, this government has already gone a long way in ensuring regulations are brought forward as quickly as possible following the consultation, and as I have said throughout, we will act as quickly as possible, and the Secretary of State has set out an ambition to regulations by the end of the year.

Given all of this, I therefore urge the noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones, to not press his amendment. My Lords, this government has made clear its intention to act, and I know many across both houses will be following the outcomes of the consultation with great interest. It's in all of our interests to agree the government's motion today so that we can actually start the important work of preparing to act on the consultation and to keep children safe online. I beg to move.

15:51

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)

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The question is. The question is. That motion A be agreed to? Motion A one the Lord Clement Jones. >> I rise to move. >> Motion A1.

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Motion A1. As an amendment to motion A at the end. To insert the words as the end. To insert the words as printed on the marshalled list. My Lords, as we reach these final stages of ping pong on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, I want to first express our profound regret and disappointment of these Liberal Democrat benches at the posture now being adopted by the conservative Opposition. I have immense respect for the noble Lord Nash and the tireless campaign he has waged to protect children from online harms.

Yet last night in the Commons, the conservative frontbench effectively laid down their arms, deciding that it is now, and I quote, reasonable to give the government some time by caving in at the 11th hour. The conservatives have chosen to accept a compromise that leaves our children waiting far too long for meaningful protection. My Lords, we on these benches acknowledge that the government has moved its position, and I do thank the noble Lords, the ministers, for their engagement throughout.

We welcome the change to a must duty and the introduction of a timeline in the Bill. However, when we look at the reality of the government's latest proposals passed in the Commons yesterday, the fatal flaw remains that timeline. The Minister in the Commons outlined a timeline that consists of a progress report in three months, 12 months to lay regulations and a further six month buffer for so-called exceptional circumstances. Just as the noble Baroness Smith of Malvern has outlined today.

As my hon. Friend Munira Wilson pointed out in the Commons last night, this adds up to 21 months before we might see any real action. Let's be absolutely clear giving platforms nearly two years to comply is simply unacceptable and unsellable to the parents whose children are suffering at this moment because the conservative opposition has backed down, this is our last opportunity to stand for the robust measures that so many parents, experts and civil society groups have been crying out for.

Therefore, we've tabled these short, very clear amendments to do a few vital things. First, our amendments 38 Z 24 and 38 Z 25 slash the government's bloated timetable down to a strict three plus six plus three month framework. They demand a progress report in three months, give the government just six months to lay regulations and allow only a tight three month extension, if absolutely necessary. Second, our amendments 38 Z 22 and 38 Z 23 incorporate the principles championed so expertly throughout this bill by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron.

We must regulate the product, not the user, not just the user. Amendment 38 Z 22 mandates strict compliance with Ofcom's codes of practice and the ICO's Children's Code, which of course was enabled on to the statute book by the noble Baroness. It explicitly demands that regulations protect children from the risk of serious harm, manipulation, sycophancy, exploitation and unsolicited contact from strangers. Crucially, amendment 38 Z 23 ensures that the government cannot ignore the voices of parents. It forces the Secretary of State to have regard to representations made by the public regarding children in imminent danger arising from their content contact with internet services.

Furthermore, it demands a strict six month review of Ofcom's enforcement powers, forcing the government to formally consider whether the regulator needs stronger teeth, specifically, evaluating the need for business disruption measures, injunctive relief and individual redress. My Lords, we cannot allow the tech giants to use this 21 month window to continue business as usual. We must act decisively, and my Lords, we cannot let this moment pass without making the strongest, strongest possible point that our children's safety cannot wait.

We must send a message, clear message to the public that there are still those in this House who will not compromise on a tight, workable timeline to dismantle the addictive architecture of Big Tech. Because the timeline is the critical issue, and because we believe this House must hold the government's feet to the fire, we give notice at this point that at the conclusion of this debate, it is very likely that

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we will wish to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move. The original question was that

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The original question was that motion A be agreed to, since when motion A one has been moved as an motion A one has been moved as an amendment to motion A at the end to insert the words as printed on the marshalled list. The question, marshalled list. The question, therefore, is the motion a one be agreed to?

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My Lord, I want to start by thanking the noble Lord Nash. For his openness, his campaigning, and

15:57

Baroness Kidron (Crossbench)

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his extraordinary ability to bring different views together. And this morning he and I agreed that whatever the outcome of this particular conversation was, we particular conversation was, we would be working continuously and would be working continuously and ferociously for child safety in the future. Yeah, my Lords, I support amendment A1 in the name of the amendment A1 in the name of the noble Lord Clement-jones in its entirety. However, I want to just draw attention to two particular matters.

The first is clause 38, Z 23, subsection 8AB, which states that when making regulations, the Secretary of State must give consideration to representations. I quote by members of the public in relation to children in imminent danger arising from their contact with an internet service. My Lords, for well over a decade, I have responded to requests for help from families of children at risk of serious harm, or in far too many cases, when it's already too late. It is an enormous privilege, but it is also a tragic one, and it is a sad indictment of our current regime that those parents feel compelled to turn to me rather than to government, regulator or the police.

Yesterday, the noble Baroness, the minister, said, I quote, when potential criminal activity is being threatened and there are imminent risks, that is also a matter for the police. My Lords, my heart sank when I heard that. I have repeatedly warned both on this Bill and the Crime and Policing Bill, that the police will not accept complaints where a child is being manipulated, groomed or threatened by a chat bot because there is no human perpetrator. Equally, in cases of self-harm or threats that do not meet the threshold of a criminal offence, Ofcom has no role.

The government has resisted every attempt to provide a route for parents in crisis. They have on several occasions, whipped heavily to prevent the creation of an individual reporting mechanism, a route to the courts or an offence to which the police could respond. Subsection eight effectively requires de cit to establish a mechanism through which the public can inform the department directly about children in imminent danger. Of course, I would far prefer a comprehensive regime, but perhaps if cases of individual imminent danger come regularly to the department's attentions, ministers may yet come to a different conclusion about the need for an individual complaints mechanism.

The second issue is enforcement powers. Yesterday the noble lady, the minister, said we did not need a review because the Online Safety Act already provides for one. Indeed, in her opening remarks, she repeated that. But section 1782 of the act says, I quote, the review must not be carried out before the end of a period two years, beginning with the day on which the last of the provisions of part three come into force. My Lords, as the matter stands today, the clock is not even ticking, because not all of the provisions of part three have yet been decided, nor come into force.

Therefore, there will be no review for at least two years and quite possibly far, far longer. And when the review eventually confirms what many of us already know, that the Act's enforcement mechanisms are insufficient, we will then face yet further delay before any actual changes are made. We could and should have placed enforcement at the forefront from the beginning. Instead, the government have repeatedly blocked attempts to even discuss the issue. This amendment would introduce a clearer requirement for a review of Ofcom's enforcement powers relevant to this bill within six months.

My Lords, the parliamentary arithmetic is against the noble Lord Clement-jones. But I do say this to government. It is within your gift to create a portal for desperate parents, and it is within your gift to bring forward a timely review of Ofcom's enforcement powers. The continued refusal to do so whilst persisting with headline grabbing announcements about new duties, does not change the lived experience of children. Only an hour ago, I spoke to a tech insider who described this as safety theatre, a term used in Silicon Valley for announcements that generate headlines but fail to deliver on the necessary change.

My Lords, our children deserve better. They deserve swifter, they deserve more effective, and they deserve more principled leadership.

16:02

Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated)

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My Lords. >> That I was walking into a kind of kumbaya peace breaking out. But having heard the noble Lord Clement-jones and Baroness Kidron, Clement-jones and Baroness Kidron, perhaps I got that wrong. I actually was going to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I profoundly disagree with for having achieved something of a victory and. And the noble lady, Baroness Barran, as well, and also the noble lady, Baroness Smith, that some kind of compromise had been reached. And at this point in ping pong maybe we might be all relieved about that, but I actually want.

I actually don't understand the government's position, so I wanted to just ask a genuine, in good faith question to the noble lady, the minister, what if those consulted that we've heard a lot about that this could not be implemented because we had to wait until the consultation was over. So my question is, what if those consulted on the government's plans about an under 16 social media ban, those experts, NGOs, parents, what if they don't agree that the age, functionality, functionality restrictions for under 16 seconds are the best approach to keeping teens safe? Or what if they raise worries about over 16 adults and anonymity and privacy, and the fear of digital ID? I'd.

And certainly some of the 55000 people who've responded I know have raised the problem of a censorship mission creep. The reason I'm asking that is because. Isn't this pre-empting the outcome of a consultation which the noble lady, the Minister, assured us the government couldn't do? Is there, therefore, a danger of undermining evidence based policy in general to be so pragmatic, might it imply that public consultations are just going through the motions and that politicians aren't really listening to the public at all? And what do those of us who have concerns about this under 16 ban do? If some of our warnings are ignored before it's even happened, never mind afterwards, when I'm sure that we'll see that some of our fears are actually true.

And if, by the way, this was only about keeping children safe, or I thought was the best way to keep children safe, fine. But not everybody thinks it is.

16:05

Lord Nash (Conservative)

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Good. >> Good. >> I would like to thank. >> The noble lady. >> For her kind words and for the statement. And thank the government statement. And thank the government for their active engagement in the matter of social media, albeit matter of social media, albeit rather last minute, and for making a binding commitment to impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16 and to be focussed on addictive features, harmful algorithmic driven content and features such as stranger paying that we know can be most damaging to children's safety and privacy.

And we now have led to so much harm and a number of deaths. This is very welcome to the millions of parents, voters, teachers, health professionals and others who have been asking for it. And it is exactly what my amendment would have achieved. I would just ask the government that they would get these lines to all ministers so that when they were on the airwaves, they stick to them. Rather than giving long and rather confusing answers, because it is to this statement that will be, we will be holding the government to account, to deliver on as soon as possible.

I'd like to thank all noble peers from across the House who supported my amendment, particularly Baroness burger, Benjamin and Cass, who put their names to it originally. I'd also very much like to thank my team, Ben and Molly Kingsley of safe screens, Bella Skinner and Becky Foljambe of Health Professionals for safer screens, Simon Bailey and editor Oldfield. I'd also like to thank Annabelle Eyre and Henry Mitcheson, who have advised me on the process, having taken five acts through your lordships House as a minister, I have discovered how different the gamekeeper turned poacher poacher process is.

I'd also like to thank Susanna Street and Connie Walsh in the Public Bill's office for being so available to help me navigate the intricacies of the amendment process. But above all, I want to thank the 27 bereaved parents who have campaigned so tirelessly alongside me, particularly Ellen Room. They didn't have to do this. They did it so that no other family would have to live through what they have lived through, and they have ensured that as a result, every child in the country will be safer because of their work.

And I thank them for it. And I do hope that the Prime Minister will meet with them, as they have requested very soon. Turning to the noble Lord, Lord Jones. Amendment, I share the noble Lords concern about timescale, and I see no reason why the government can't act faster than the long stock. They've allowed them for. And I understand, and I've heard their statement that they intend to do so. I also share the noble Lord and the noble lady, Baroness Jones concern about Ofcom, having met recently with Ofcom and heard the long winded and convoluted process they have to go through before they can stick anything on the social media companies.

I was confirmed if I needed any confirmation, in my view, that we have to put the onus on the companies to get their houses in order by restricting access for children to harmful features, rather than hoping we can regulate our way out of this problem. However, we do need to improve substantially the Online Safety Act and to strengthen Ofcom's ability and if I might say so, their capacity and boldness. It is disappointing that the rumour is that there will be nothing in the King's speech which would enable us to do this.

I hope we can live together to fight this battle another time, but so far as this bill is concerned, I feel the moment has passed. My Lords.

16:09

Baroness Benjamin (Liberal Democrat)

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I would like to thank the government for listening. >> Voices of concern, including those of the bereaved parents, and for our children's safety to be at the forefront of all our minds. My Lords, as we move forward to the next steps and I kind of not sure if this is a bit late in the day to make this suggestion. One idea I'd like to throw into the mix, which may sound radical, is for the tech companies and IT platforms to require a licence from Ofcom to operate in this country.

It may sound like a crazy idea, but radio and TV companies need a licence, so why not? Tech companies and social media platforms? If they do not comply, then the licence will be taken away from them or they will be fined huge sums. This is one way to get them to be focussed. Are we bold or intrepid enough to do this? It could be the answer to keep them focussed to keeping our children safe. My Lord, age assurance is the key which they need to operate in keeping our children safe.

So I hope as we move forward, everyone will be taking their responsibility to doing just that in every way possible. And Ofcom is vital to all of this. I look forward to working with the government on this important issue, and for us to keep in the focus of our minds, our children's safety, happiness and contentment for the future.

16:11

Lord Russell of Liverpool (Crossbench)

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Yeah. >> Here we are again. It does feel a bit like a doom scrolling when we I.

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I. Would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and all those who have supported him for pushing have supported him for pushing water uphill, successfully defying gravity. I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones, for in a sense, appropriating with her permission, the. The motion yesterday, moved by my noble friend Baroness Kidron, and I would like to thank the Minister for having moved. But. But I would take issue with her description of where we are today as being a landing point, my Lords, rather than us being at a landing point.

What I hope we would all feel is we're actually at a launching point rather than landing point, because we have a great deal further that we need to go. One of the things I think that one has learned throughout this process is that there is a body of knowledge amongst some people in both houses of Parliament, which is quite considerable on this issue. There is a very high level of knowledge of some of the the issues, some of the potential solutions and the faults with some of those potential solutions.

There is no perfect answer. What I think many of us who have been quite closely involved with both the genesis of the Online Safety Act and what has happened thereafter, is the apparent lack of interest and engagement by some in the current government and the departments involved to actually cooperate and collaborate with those members of both houses who do have extensive knowledge, and to actually tap into that knowledge, because, my Lords, I think all of us involved in this, we there is a loose collection of us called the Tech Team, a nice tautology.

And the members of the tech team are really want to help the government and be behind the government or alongside the government. We do not wish to be in the position of constantly trying to sort of harry the government and try and encourage it to do more. Yesterday, my Lords, I was wearing a tie which had some acrobatic leaping elephants because I required. I thought it required a sort of a level of noise and drumbeats to get the government's attention. Today I'm wearing a tie which has a series of sheep jumping over a hurdle because I think, my Lords, those of us on the tech team need to summon our inner sheepdogs to try and help manoeuvre and move the government in the right direction.

What is in amendment A one is not about, as the noble lady, the minister said, creating restraint on the government. What it is actually about is creating focus. What is contained in amendment A one is a very clear description of what can and should be done at speed, without restraint, in order to get the ball rolling. I do not think anything that will come out of the consultation will tell us anything that we didn't know. If anything, it may get slightly more confusing because I suspect it will be quite unfocused.

But I do appeal to the government to listen to those involved in this who perhaps have the most history, the most knowledge, the most bruises, the most insight, the most knowledge about what is going on internationally, not just in this country, and to work together for the benefit of children. I will support the noble Lord, Lord Devil Jones, if he does decide to test the opinion of the House more in hope than in expectation of a of a great victory. But I do appeal to the government to listen and to work with us, not as it occasionally does feel against us.

16:15

Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Conservative)

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Lords. >> If I may just very briefly add my thanks and congratulations to my noble friend Lord Nash, for what is a really quite substantial a really quite substantial achievement. And my thanks to the noble lady, the Minister, and the government for having heard the strong voices in this House. But I'd also just like to double click, if you forgive the tech jargon on what the noble lady, Baroness Kidron, has said, I've spent now 15 years working on child internet safety, and I fear that that entire 15 year period has actually been safety theatre.

And I do worry that today is another one of those days that while we congratulate ourselves on having made some progress, the reality is we've not really achieved anything at all unless we're able to actually get change in the products that our children are using every single hour of every single day. So I would just ask the noble lady, the minister and the government to really consider how, in this period of time, while the consultation is ongoing, how they can actually look at greater enforcement, because I really do fear that despite all the best intentions from everyone on all sides of this House and in the other place, the reality is the tech lords are smiling.

16:16

Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lords, I'd like to start by >> My Lords, I'd like to start by first paying tribute to the the work of Lord Nash, but also the tireless campaigning of my tireless campaigning of my colleague and friend Baroness Benjamin, as well as Baroness Castle. Do not see in her place at the moment. This has been an issue that's long in the waiting. We've heard for many years about the issue, the impact that social media has had on our young people, and I feel a bit sad today that, having taken us so far, that the rug has been pulled from under the feet of Lord Nash, not by colleagues here, but colleagues down the corridor in the sense that we're almost there.

But there are issues still to be resolved. And as we said earlier, what we heard from Baroness Kidron that there may well be industry insiders who may well be smiling, thinking we've dodged it for the time being. And talking to time. I listened very carefully to the minister when you talked about it's not about whether we take action, it's what sort, but also how quickly. And I just have genuine concerns. And I hope when the minister gets up to speak about those timelines and what will happen if in the consultation, the public say, we want this government to act quicker, you know, will they be able to go back to our.

Suggested by my old friend Lord Clement-jones, about the three, six, three timescale of, you know, being able to do things quicker because that's what the public want. Because if things slip and we go to 21 months, that'll be almost in the general election period. I really hope the minister reflects on that. I'd also like her to actually answer the question that my good friend Baroness Benjamin said about Ofcom licensing these tech platforms, just as they do for radio, TV.

And there you can also would say that if we all get involved. Ofcom or that we also need to look at giving it more, giving them more teeth because at the moment I've come will not be able to govern as what we expect him to. But clearly I support my noble friend Lord Clement-jones attempts to test the opinion of the House, and I really hope that noble lords and baronesses across the chamber will support Lord Clement-jones, because we are almost there, but not quite.

And I don't want for us to get so close to achieving what we all desire, and then to kind of pull away. So thank you.

16:19

Baroness Barran (Conservative)

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Yeah. >> Yeah. >> My Lords, I'd like to start with the noble Baroness. The minister started by acknowledging the work started by acknowledging the work of my noble friend Lord Nash, who has led an incredibly effective campaign which has not been driven by any political motives but has been driven by three things. Firstly, wanting to do right by all children. Secondly, having listened to the pain and the passion, as many of us have of those parents who've lost their children, those parents who are worrying about their children, those parents whose children have been deeply harmed by social media, and thirdly, by the weight of evidence, not just from those parents, but from health professionals, from police and law enforcement, and from teachers and parents around the country are celebrating the government's decision to commit to act with the focus, as my noble friend said, on harmful and addictive features and algorithms and the ability to meet strangers online.

And it is my noble friend and his team and his co-signatories who are behind that change, and we are all really grateful to them for that. But of course, as we've heard this afternoon, the work to get this right is only just beginning. And I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-jones, with his amendment A1, wants to get things a bit more right this afternoon. But these issues were debated yesterday, and now is not the time to revisit them.

But the government will benefit whether it wants to or not, from the expertise in this House. As we've heard from my noble friends, drive and focus from the experience and insight of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-jones, and sadly, not much longer from the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, who will be much missed on these issues. I would also like really to acknowledge the courage of those Labour peers who have supported my noble friend's campaign, in particular the noble Baroness Lady Barger, but also the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness Lady Kennedy of the Shaws, who have all spoken out.

And we all know in this House how difficult that is to do. And when we think about the impact that this change, if well implemented, will have on our children in future, we are all reminded of the extraordinary privilege that we hold to sit here and to be part of shaping that change. My Lords, this has been a long bill. I think there are around 700 amendments at committee stage and many more thereafter, and I couldn't have played my part in that without the wonderful campaigners, including, of course, the bereaved parents and especially Ellen Room, who's been extraordinarily generous with her time.

The experts and all of the charities who've supported me with everything from children deprived of their liberty, to children who are not in school, to free school policies and, of course, social media and smartphones. I can't thank all of them enough. They brought to life the reality of the policy choices that the government is making. I would like to pause a moment and just remind the noble Lord, Lord Clement-jones, when he talks about the conservatives bailing out at the last minute, that it was the Liberal Democrats who bailed out all of 24 hours ago at the very last minute, on a situation which would have clarified today the position of smartphones in schools and those schools which have not seen, not heard policies.

And ironically, we're going to have to wait roughly 21 months as a result of their decision to move from supporting and signing an amendment, my Lords, to, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, yesterday preparing to vote against us on it, I would ask the noble Lord, perhaps to reflect on that. But the government has made a commitment in relation to smartphones that children should have no access. And when I met with the minister and the other place yesterday, she reassured me that the head teacher who spoke on the radio just after our debate last week, who said that putting this guidance on a statutory footing would make no difference in her school because they'd had a ban since 2023 and children had phones switched off in their pockets and in their bags.

The minister and the other place said she thought that that school would think again and would understand that was no longer appropriate. And I think, given the evidence from many people at the Education Select Committee this morning, I would press the minister to confirm that she agrees with her colleague in the other place, that that school will no longer think that policy is acceptable. The government has committed to addressing this no later than September 2027, for which I'm genuinely grateful.

But my guess is we'll need to address it sooner than that. In closing, I'd just like to say I'm grateful to the steadfast support of my of the Co-signatories, to my very many amendments across the bill, including my noble friends Baroness O'Neill, Baroness Spielman, Lord Agnew, and of course, Lord Nash. I would particularly like to call out the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who has been the most stalwart of stalwarts and has supported with his own charm, expertise and insight through from start to finish, which is quite a marathon.

I've had fantastic and skilled and long suffering support from the public bill office and an amazing team of special advisers and researchers in Annabelle Air, Henry Mitts and Dan Cohen. And for part of the bill, Beatrice Hughes. I'd like to wish the noble Baroness, the minister, and the noble Lord, the Lord Muhammad, a well-earned rest at the end of the bill. I have some sense of how many hours and how many plates they have respectively been spinning. For my part, I'm going to be stepping down from the front bench now that the bill is completing its passage.

Anyone would think I was sad to go, but I genuinely look forward to working across the house on the special educational needs and disabilities legislation when it comes, and more. Our role is making sure that legislation works in practice. I've tried to do this in future.

16:27

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Hey. >> Hey. >> My Lords, I'm grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to noble Lords who have contributed to this debate today. As with the whole of the passage of this bill. On the specifics, first of all, as I as I set out earlier, the government hopes that today we are able to reach an agreement on the government's motion. It represents an effective compromise that recognises the shared desire across the government and both houses, that we must act quickly to protect our children's online wellbeing.

And just on that point, can I, and perhaps taking up the challenge of the noble lady, Baroness Fox. Just to reiterate, as my honourable friend said yesterday in the Commons, and in fact, as we've said throughout the discussions on these issues, we've been clear that the status quo cannot continue. We've been clear, as the government was when it launched its consultation, that this was not about whether we take action, but rather what we do. We're consulting on the mechanism and that's the right thing to do.

But we are clear, and this has been, I think, the result of some of the very important engagement that has gone on, that under any outcome, we will impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16. And as I said earlier, I can confirm that consideration of restrictions such as curfews will be in addition, not instead of this, I think this is a reasonable approach for this House.

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In fact, both Houses to take to recognise the importance of the consultation, but also to recognise the strength of feeling as represented in these two houses, about the need to take houses, about the need to take action. I also hear some of the other comments around the need for enforcement. I think some of the debate I'm sure, will continue and debate I'm sure, will continue and is probably for other days, and possibly even other bits of legislation.

But just to reiterate, as the as both Secretaries of State for technology have been very clear, Ofcom has absolutely got the backing of this government for enforcement. It is already undertaking 100 investigations and, of course, the Online Safety Act itself, as some noble Lords have alluded to, set out a timetable for the review of enforcement measures. It does seem appropriate that that should happen at the point at which the evidence is there about the use of the duties, and I think I presume I wasn't here, but I presume that was the reason why that was the timetable set out by this House.

And the other place on that. But the government amendment, just to reiterate, does reflect our commitment to act. It recognises the importance of having regard to harmful and potentially addictive design when exercising the power, and contains a legally binding timeline to ensure this action is urgent, a timeline that has been tightened due to the engagement. As this bill has gone through, and one to be clear, where regulations now must be made within 15 months of Royal assent and to reiterate what colleagues both inside and outside this House have made clear as we've set off on this process of consultation, this is a period of time that operates as a cap.

It is not a target, and the Secretary of State, the Technology Secretary, has been clear that she wants to take action quicker than this. But what this House and the other place have now been able to do is to set in place a timeline that will ensure that that action happens. For all of these reasons, I. I hope and urge the House to join with the government and support our amendment so that we actually can now move on from these discussions.

Important, though, that they have been to start taking actions. My Lord, it was one year ago this week that we had the second reading of this bill in this House, and I want to close by expressing my gratitude to your lordships House for the constructive and valuable scrutiny on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. I'd like to thank all noble Lords that I have engaged with during its passage. In particular, I'd like to thank the opposition frontbench and particularly given her announcements today, I would have thanked her anyway, but particularly given her announcement today.

Can I say about the noble Baroness, Lady Barron, that from the point when I arrived in this House and she kindly agreed to have a coffee with me, to talk about her experiences and to help me to to, I hope, settle into my role here. She has been evidently both enormously concerned about the effectiveness of our schools, the safety and wellbeing of our children. She's been a doughty opponent, always clear about the detail, always willing to engage outside this House in order to bring that experience here to improve our our considerations.

And I'm slightly fearful that she'll be even more difficult to deal with on the backbenches than she has been on the opposition front bench. But I know both in terms of her opposition service and her service as a minister, that there are many people that have enormous respect for her and the contribution that she has made here. I'd also like to thank the Liberal Democrat frontbench, the Noble Lords, Lord storey and Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, for their engagement during the course of this legislation.

And I'd also like to thank my noble friend, Lady Blake, for taking this bill through this House alongside me. Your support, knowledge and commitment to children's social care and education have been evident at every stage, and I'm thankful also to my noble friends Lady Anderson, Lady Twycross, Lord Collins of Highbury and Lady Lloyd of Effra, for supporting during the passage, and particularly for stepping in at the point that I decided I was going to take an extended duvet day and in particular, can I also thank the efforts of officials in the DfE and the Bill team for all of their enormously hard work, both in designing the policy and also in the considerable scrutiny that this Bill has received as it has gone through both houses.

It has been a huge privilege to argue for the transformative, transformational measures in the legislation during that time, but I, I very much hope that this is the last time that I will need to do so, not because I don't think these are enormously important issues, but because it's now time to put the work of this legislation into action. It's time for free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England. It's time to cut the cost of school uniforms to ensure that phones do not disrupt a single second of the school day, and to keep our children safe online.

It's time to ensure that there are excellent teachers in excellent schools to stop children falling through the cracks between local services, to transform child safeguarding arrangements and to support children in care. And it is time to lift 100,000 children out of poverty. With our record expansion of free school meals, this bill ensures safety and opportunity for every child in this country so that every child has the best start in life. Its measures are desperately needed. We cannot afford to wait a moment longer, and I beg to move here.

16:36

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)

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My notes. Lords who have spoken in this debate on motion a one. Can I thank, in particular, the noble Lord Nash and the noble Baroness Kidron, who've done so much to contribute to the way this debate has moved forward? Can I thank the ministers as well for their engagement? The noble Baroness Barron, who I know will be missed from the opposition front bench. Always gracious even under fire. My Lords, can I thank and pay tribute to all the bereaved families without whom we would not have had the representations that we've had and all their supporting charities.

But, my Lords, at the end of the day, despite all the thanks and tributes to all those who've taken part, and I heard the noble Lord, Lord Russell, of Liverpool's exhortation to have our exercise, our inner sheepdog. My Lords, all I can display is my inner Doberman, my lords, and I wish to test the opinion of the house. I beg to move.

16:37

Division

16:50

Statement: Middle East - economic update

16:50

Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative)

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My Lords. in its latest World Economic Outlook, has warned that the energy stock shock stemming from the Iran war will hit the United Kingdom harder than any other advanced economy. Notably in terms of growth and inflation, it is also the case that UK borrowing costs are higher than those in other comparable OECD countries. In short, the prospects are depressing in the extreme. What, we ask ourselves are the government proposing to do about it? We read one apparent answer in today's newspapers.

Freeze rents. In other words, adopt a policy which has always failed everywhere that it has been tried. Can the minister tell us when will we. We will be told. The details of this latest whiz idea, or will he be willing to rule out the ridiculous idea definitively and from the dispatch box? Given the adverse effect on the share prices of some property companies today. But I turn to an to a much more serious subject defence. The world situation is becoming more worrying by the day, which makes the much delayed Defence investment plan even more important, and the funding shortfall of £28 billion.

Ever more disturbing. A responsible government would act with vigour to progress matters. Experts are unanimous in the view that our capabilities are woefully short of what is necessary. What has the government done about this unhappy situation? The answer is very little. Unless delay constitutes action, can the noble Lord, the minister, now tell us when the Defence Investment Plan will finally be published? I turn to North Sea oil and gas, where there are possibilities that would help our economic situation by increasing output and increasing well-paid jobs and improving our balance of payments.

But the Jackdaw and Rosebank decisions do not seem to have moved from the desk of the Secretary of State. His ideological prejudices are well known, though difficult to understand in the circumstances that now face us. When we last debated the Middle East, the noble Lord the minister seemed warmer to North Sea exploitation than I had expected. But in short, we are still seeing more delay. My Lords, we know the government face very difficult circumstances, many of which are exogenous, and they can do very little about it.

But what action have they taken has tended to make matters worse. And what they have left undone is very significant. For the noble Lord urge his ministerial colleagues to get serious, to avoid economically damaging ideas like freezing rents, and take those decisions which need to be taken as a matter of urgency. My Lords, the truth is that the government's position on energy is woeful. As we have already heard during today's PMQs. Now take the jackdaw gas field. It is ready.

The infrastructure is in place. The operators are prepared. It could supply enough gas to heat 1.4 million homes by the autumn, and to do so more cleanly than much of the gas we currently import. It would strengthen our energy resilience by 6%. So why, in the face of rising global instability, with energy security more critical than ever, is the government not bringing the jackdaw field online? Equally important, why are the industry so fearful that the government will not approve the Rosebank field? Are they right? From an energy perspective, Britain could scarcely be entering this crisis in a weaker position.

We face the highest industrial energy costs in the developed world, crippling our manufacturing industries and making life very difficult for our SMEs. And consumer prices are not far behind. This is a dangerous position to be in. And I would gently say to the noble Lord, the Minister, that the public will not thank the government for ideological gestures. They will expect and they deserve practical action to secure our energy future. My Lords, what unites each of these issues is the absence of domestic resilience.

The war in the Middle East has exposed that weakness, but it did not create it. So the question before the government is a simple one. Will they now act to strengthen the resilience of this country, restore credibility to their economic and energy strategy, and provide the certainty that our armed forces, our businesses and our households all need? Or will they continue to rely on hope where what is required is action? My Lords, the time for hope has passed. The time for decision is now.

16:55

Baroness Kramer (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lord. >> My Lord. >> The impact of the Iraq War has made previous economic forecasts pretty much redundant. We talked pretty much redundant. We talked last week about warnings from the IMF and the OECD, repeated today by Baroness Neville-rolfe, essentially assess that the UK would suffer more than any other G7 economy. And it's a conclusion that's been reinforced by recent inflation and unemployment numbers. The government has been very limited and very much a wait and see.

And can I say uncertainty is a reason for resilient action, not a reason for inaction. And it's action that we need to see now from the government each day as an ironic consequence of the war. The Treasury has taken in some £20 million more in taxes, including VAT and the electricity generation levy. So why is the government not using this money proactively to help people with spiralling living costs? That money could be reducing petrol prices at the pump through a temporary cut in fuel duty.

It could be used to cut rail and bus fares. It could be used to reduce the price of home EV charging. Families need help now. They also need early reassurance on the energy price cap after June, and a cancellation of the five key duty rise due in September. Now, we strongly support reform of the energy pricing system. Our manifesto made a clear commitment to break the link between gas prices and electricity prices. I think I was the only manifesto that actually had that in black and white.

So we are very glad that the government has taken up that approach and as well, that it's moving to contracts for difference model. But we are still very concerned about energy costs for both individual households to small businesses, including hospitality, and to the food and agricultural sector, which has such an impact on the cost of living. So is the government now going to work with the banks to introduce a scheme of low interest loans for householders who want to adopt energy savings measures, but need a way to finance the upfront cost? Will the government press Ofgem to investigate the broken energy market that is in effect, blocking small businesses and hospitality from accessing good energy deals? My colleague in the other place, David Cooper Daisy Cooper, met last week with Ofgem, and it's absolutely clear that there is a case for the energy retail market to answer here in dealing with small businesses and specifically the hospitality.

Will the government recognise the particular need to act on costs in the food and agribusiness sector that are being so impacted by this war? Because that impacts very clearly and directly on the cost of living of ordinary people.

16:59

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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My Lords, I'm very grateful to the questions and comments from both noble ladies, Baroness Never both noble ladies, Baroness Never Wolf and Baroness Kramer. The noble lady, Baroness Noble Wolf, started her comments by focusing on the IMF's revised forecasts that were published. I believe last week. We discussed it briefly in this House last week, as both noble ladies know, the IMF reduced their expectations for GDP growth in the UK and increase their expectations for inflation. Both of these things build on their judgement that the UK is more exposed to energy price shocks than our counterparts, a problem that the previous government, as I've pointed out before, failed to address over 14 years.

And it builds on the IMF's observation following the last energy crisis, that the UK had higher inflation than other countries. In the aftermath of Liz Truss's disastrous mini budget and the previous government's untargeted unfunded support package, which contributed to a more persistent rise in inflation and interest rates in this country. Than elsewhere. What I did notice, though, was that both noble ladies didn't mention the positive economic news that came out last week. The fact that the latest GDP figures show the economy grew faster than expected in the three months to February, and that growth for the three months to January was upgraded.

Last week's data releases also showed unemployment coming down, real wages continuing to rise and borrowing in the year to February falling by £20 billion compared compared to last year. No, neither noble lady mentioned any of those figures in their comments. The noble lady bonus Cramer said that previous forecasts were now redundant and the noble lady, Baroness Cramer, said that we had no resilience. Well, I think that the reason why previous forecasts aren't redundant is because it showed that going into this crisis, Britain was well placed to weather this conflict.

At the time of the spring forecast, inflation was at 3% and set to fall to target. That compares to 11% when we when at the start of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. So we were in a much stronger position in terms of inflation at the outset of this crisis than we were then. The swing forecast also showed that borrowing was set to fall more over this Parliament than in any other G7 economy. GDP per capita was forecast to rise by 5.6% over this parliament, and that compares to a fall of 0.2% in the previous Parliament.

And we had increased headroom to over £23 billion. So making the right decisions to make sure that we had the fiscal buffers necessary, as I say, to weather this conflict. And I think as a result, we are well placed. And as I say, some of the figures that came out last week that neither noble lady mentioned show that that plan, economic plan was indeed working. But of course, absolutely. I don't think anyone denies we must do more on economic security so that the UK does not continue to be more exposed to energy price shocks than our counterparts.

Since the election, we have invested in clean home grown energy, in renewables and in nuclear. And last week the Chancellor announced steps to go further, harnessing our domestic supply of oil and gas production in the North Sea, which the noble lady, Baroness Neville-rolfe, mentioned, further removing barriers to new renewables investment and reforming our energy system by further weakening the link between high gas and electricity prices. And I was grateful to the noble lady, Baroness Kramer, for her support for that measure.

As I say, I do believe our economic plan was the right one before the war started, and it's even more essential now in a world that is even more uncertain. The noble lady, Baroness Neville-rolfe, spoke about defence spending. We are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War. The Chancellor has approved access for the Ministry of Defence to use the Special Reserve to deploy additional capabilities in the Middle East, meaning that net additional costs of these operations will be funded by the Treasury.

We're investing £270 billion over this Parliament. After years of our armed forces being neglected under the previous government, will increase defence spending to 2.6% of GDP from 2027, and we're increasing spending on defence by £5 billion in this year alone. In answer specifically to the question, the noble lady asked, the Defence Investment Plan will be published in due course. The noble lady mentioned oil and gas in the North Sea and she. As she knows, I agree with much of what she said on that point.

Oil and gas production from the North Sea is an important and valuable resource, and its workforce is a vital asset for this country. That's why we're harnessing our domestic supply by managing existing fields for their entire lifetime, including by allowing tiebacks for those fields to ensure they remain viable. Last week, in advance of legislation, we published further details on Tiebacks, which external analysis has predicted could result in tens of millions more barrels of oil being available for UK supply. Last week's announcement also gives industry greater clarity to support investment in these projects, and maximise supply of our existing sites to support our energy security, and the government will legislate in due course to introduce these changes.

The noble lady asked specifically about Jackdaw and Rosebank development. Proposals are a matter for the North Sea Transition Authority and the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning. I'm not able to comment on the specifics of any individual project or the regulatory process is underway, or on the investment decisions of individual operators, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero will be making a decision regarding the environmental impact assessments of these projects in the coming months. The noble lady, Baroness Kramer.

Asked about action to tackle energy bills. As she knows, we do not yet know the full impact of what the full impact of this conflict will be. So we must be agile in responding appropriately at each moment. It remains the case that the best way to protect families and businesses is rapid de-escalation of this conflict. She knows that we have taken action already. In the previous budget, we reduced energy bills by £150. We did freeze rail and bus fares as she asked.

We froze prescription charges. So we have done many of the things that she is calling for, and she knows, too, that the price cap is giving household certainty on their bills until July, ahead of the winter months, when people use 78% of their gas. But I think it's important to point out, as we respond to this crisis, we must learn from the mistakes of the past. The previous government pushed up borrowing, interest rates, inflation and mortgage costs with an unfunded, untargeted package of support under Liz Truss, both noble ladies mentioned the importance of inflation, and we must absolutely learn the lessons of the past.

We are planning for every eventuality so that we can keep costs down for everyone and provide support for those who need it most, acting within our fiscal rules to keep inflation and interest rates as low as possible.

17:06

Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Conservative)

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One of the big problems the government faced when it was an unsustainable level of public debt unsustainable level of public debt and a totally unsustainable level of debt interest being paid by taxpayers each year on that debt, the government obviously saw clearly at the time that one of the things it had to do was to stop the welfare budget exploding, as it is an increasing so rapidly, and it introduced some modest measures, which it then dropped as soon as it faced discontent from left wing backbenchers in the House of Commons.

Does the government intend to allow the welfare Bill to increase by the hundreds of billions of pounds it's forecast to do at the moment? And does it intend to do nothing to alter the financial incentives which it's made better for large families not to seek work if they've established a good claim to benefit? These are major national problems which really ought to be tackled in the face of this worrying economic position. And the government, almost two years into office, seems to be slipping into inaction, a complete lack of leadership and allowing backbenchers in the House of Commons to leave the problem to fester.

17:07

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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I'm grateful to the noble lady, noble Lord, sorry for for his question. We are repairing the public finances. At the time of the spring forecast, borrowing was set to fall, as I've said, more than more over this Parliament than any other G7 economy. I think we're now borrowing below the G7 average, something that wasn't achieved in any of the 14 years of the previous government. And just last week we saw borrowing in the year to February falling by £20 billion compared to the previous year.

He's absolutely right, of course, that the welfare system requires reforming. In the last five years of the previous government, spending on welfare increased by £88 billion. So clearly reform is necessary and no one, I think I think there would be consensus. There might not be consensus on what to do about it, but no one, I think, would believe that the system we inherited is working. It abandoned too many people to a life on benefits. It wrote off too many people as too sick to work, and it condemned too many children to be too poor to eat.

That is not a system that does not require reform and reforming it. We are. We're increasing the proportion of face to face assessments for Pip from 6% in 2024 to 30% of all assessments to tackle fraud and error saving £4.6 billion. We're rebalancing Universal Credit to incentivise people to work rather than encourage inactivity. We're redeploying a thousand work coaches to support sick and disabled people who were previously left without contact. We're also supporting people to move into work. £3 billion investment into the Pathways to Work employment support and £1.5 billion investment in the Youth Guarantee and Growth and skills levy.

17:09

Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat)

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The the. Returning to defence >> The the. Returning to defence spending, the Minister referred to the biggest sustained increase in defence spending, which of course, defence spending, which of course, if it happens, we will welcome. But it doesn't happen until the Defence Investment Plan is published, and I note the slight smile on his face when he talked in due course. But in due course, if that money is not forthcoming, the GCap project will not have its next stage payment. If it does not.

If it is not forthcoming, there will be SMEs across the country who are waiting for contracts to go that will not be able to fulfil them because they will be out of business. My Lords, the noble Lord Dodds and I last week heard the Estonian Defence Minister specifically call out the United Kingdom as being slow to come up with the money. So when will the Treasury release the Defence Investment Plan? Because if they don't, there are consequences.

17:10

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Of course there are consequences. I agree completely with the with I agree completely with the with the noble Lord. He talks of a hypothetical of the defence investment plan not happening. The defence investment plan will happen. And as I've said already, it will be published in due course.

17:10

Lord Bridges of Headley (Conservative)

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The noble, noble Lord, the minister, in response to my noble friend Lord carts question, spoke of the cuts that the government is planning to make to the welfare budget. Is he saying that those cuts are sufficient and that is all that the government will be doing?

17:10

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Well, I don't have a crystal ball and I can't look ahead to everything the government will be everything the government will be doing. But I can tell him, as I've said to the noble Lord, is what the government is doing, and we are reforming the welfare system.

17:10

Lord Redwood (Conservative)

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In Washington. The. The Chancellor pledged to avoid unnecessary trade restrictions. So can we look forward to the government cancelling the bad idea of introducing a large carbon border tax or tariff, which would be a penalty on British consumers, and be a further boost to costs, making British industry less competitive?

17:11

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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No, and I disagree with the >> No, and I disagree with the noble orders. I'm sure I do on on many issues he talks about trade restrictions. He obviously championed a Brexit which put up championed a Brexit which put up massive trade restrictions with our nearest trading partners, costing us at the time, as at the time estimated to be some 4% and subsequently estimated to be some 8% of GDP. So he has put up massive tariff barriers with our biggest partner, and that is not something I think that is in favour of free trade.

He talks about tariff free, but he knows that the trade barriers in place are equivalent to some 20% in terms of tariff.

17:11

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Conservative)

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Yeah. >> Yeah. >> My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee, Relations and Defence Committee, and I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, does he agree with the assessment made by the chair of the committee, the noble Lord Robertson, about complacency in the government and bearing in mind the theme of this statement about the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz, we've seen the Prime Minister, together with President Macron, announce UK leadership as.

And when this conflict ends, and we hope it will be soon. In actually marshalling and providing support for the Strait of Hormuz. With the Defence Investment Plan due. And I quote the minister in due course. Do you think that's a sufficient response, bearing in mind the urgency of providing our allies, particularly those in the Gulf, with the support that is required?

17:12

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Well, I have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Robertson, but I disagree with him. Robertson, but I disagree with him. If you look at the decisions the Prime Minister and Chancellor have taken, we are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, as I've said already, and I'm sure we'll continue to say the Defence Investment Plan will be published in due course. The noble Lord spoke of the international action that the Prime Minister has led. He knows that Prime Minister has led global action by convening a summit of nations with the President of France to work together to support freedom of navigation through the Strait.

He'll know that the UK will continue to play its part, including engagement with the many industries, including the insurance industry, to support shipping when the conditions allow.

17:13

Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court (Crossbench)

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Girlfriend. Crossbench, crossbench. crossbench. >> My Lords, does. >> The Financial Secretary agree

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The Financial Secretary agree that rather than increasing revenues, an oil price of over $100 revenues, an oil price of over $100 a barrel is far more likely to reduce revenues because of the wider effect on the economy? And so does he agree that at a time like this, when revenues are likely to be hard to come by, that the government should be very cautious about agreeing to increase spending proposals of the sort we've been listening to today.

17:13

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Yes, I do agree with the noble Lord on that point. He's far more expert in these matters than me and expert in these matters than me and has been in the Treasury through many crises, many more than than I have been. So he has great experience in this matter. He's absolutely right that the IMF showed last week that the impact on the size of our economy, on our GDP could be significant. No one quite knows yet what the full impact of this conflict will be, and that will depend on its duration and its severity.

But we must be agile in responding appropriately at each moment. But the noble Lord is absolutely right that as we respond to this crisis, we should learn from the mistakes of the past. The previous government, as I've said, already pushed up borrowing, pushed up interest rates, pushed up inflation and mortgage costs with an unfunded untargeted package of support. Under Liz Truss, that package gave the most support to the wealthiest households between 2022 and 2024. Under the last government, households in the top income decile received an average of £1,350 of direct energy bill support.

That left us with high levels of national debt. A check written then for a bill that is still being paid today. The party opposite talks about the importance of inflation, but we will not tackle inflation through an unfunded, untargeted package of support like we saw in the past.

17:15

Lord Howell of Guildford (Conservative)

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The minister. declare an interest as a co-author of the original 1979 plan for sharing oil reserves in the event of a crisis. The crisis then was, of course, far bigger, not smaller, as the IEA say, but far bigger than anything we're facing now. Could offer him one piece of advice on the response to a government. I know it's part of a much bigger jigsaw, and that is that the the the short term impact of an oil shock, small or large in any region, may be to push prices up, but they always come down very quickly.

And the oil price is nearly always lower after these kind of upsets than it is before. There's a plenty of oil on the high seas, and plenty of oil can be added into the world supplies. And I gather anyway, that if you have a big enough yacht and you know the right people, you can get through the Straits of Hormuz without much difficulty. Anyway, what I what I'd just suggest to him that the greatest danger now. Of using the oil price situation as an excuse for a lot more controls and capping on prices and so on, is that it will cause more danger and suffering, I think, than any possible shortage or any possible temporary disruption in oil, refined or imported or exported.

So please tell his colleagues to go very carefully in that area. There are, of course, all sorts of other bigger issues. But the oil price, the oil crisis now is small beer compared with what we've had in the past, and I think the economy can handle it pretty well without too much direction and involvement of a complicated kind, which could make things much worse and increase the suffering.

17:17

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Well, I'm grateful to the noble >> Well, I'm grateful to the noble Lord in particular for his optimism. I think that is much needed at times, and let's hope he turns out times, and let's hope he turns out to be correct. As I've said already, the the the long term consequences of this is hard to predict at this point, and it will depend on the severity and the duration of the conflict. But I think one of the I think what he's saying is that our response needs to make sure that it's temporary and doesn't have long lasting impacts.

And absolutely, one of the Chancellor's principles that she set out for our response is that it should be temporary.

17:17

Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)

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One of the implications of >> One of the implications of what's happened in the Middle East is that the United Arab Emirates has announced that it's withdrawing from OPEC, and that will have an impact on global oil market volatility. So could I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, in light of that, in this new scenario, is the government planning to take extra steps to shield energy intensive industries from potential very large swinging oil prices? Well, the noble Lord.

17:18

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Absolutely is is correct to say >> Absolutely is is correct to say how important that is to do. It's why we have taken further action to why we have taken further action to weaken the link. Last week, the Chancellor announced weaken the link between high gas and electricity prices and prevent spikes in energy prices, driving up inflation and costs for households. So I think that's why the delinking steps that we've taken are so important. The Chancellor also announced the extension of the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme, which was a commitment in the industrial strategy that will reduce electricity costs by around 25% for electricity intensive manufacturing, frontier sectors in the industrial strategy and foundational sectors that are in their supply chains from April 2027.

And the Chancellor announced last week, over ten 000 businesses are now expected to benefit from the scheme rather than the previous 7000 has previously been planned, and eligible businesses will also benefit from a one off backdated payment in 2027, covering the support firms would have received if the scheme had been in place from now, i.e. April 2026, and the consultation on scheme, design and Eligibility was published last week.

17:19

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Labour)

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My Lord. >> My Lord. >> My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that conflict in the Minister agree that conflict in the Middle East underlines the case for ever stronger relationships with the EU, including on trade and secondly, on industrial strategy, that a priority must be protecting plants and jobs. And to what extent can we use our considerable procurement power to ensure that we protect the jobs and skills in this country?

17:19

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Amen. >> I do agree with what my noble friend says. I think already even before this crisis, it was apparent before this crisis, it was apparent the damage that Brexit was doing to our economy. As I say, at the time of Brexit, it was estimated it would cost about 4% a percentage points of GDP. That's now risen to between 6 and 8 percentage points of GDP. Obviously, cutting ourselves off from our closest trading partner was never going to be good for the economy.

And that's been seen absolutely to be the case. It's why this this this government has put in place the reset with our European friends. And we are deepening our trade relationships. The Chancellor set out her intention to deepen further our economic relationship with the European Union in her recent Mais lecture, and I hope we will see more action on that in the near future. In terms of the industrial strategy, yes, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. We must absolutely. It's why, for example, as I was just saying, the British Industrial Industrial Competitiveness Scheme is so important in terms of helping electricity, electricity intensive manufacturing, frontier sectors.

That was a commitment given in the industrial strategy and one that has now been put in place. What my noble friend says about procurement is absolutely right. I think the noble lady, Baroness Neville-rolfe, will know how hard it is to change procurement rules in government. But absolutely, I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend, sir.

17:21

Lord Swire (Conservative)

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He rehearsed his list of >> He rehearsed his list of government initiatives and investments. He left one thing out, which is the issue of gas storage. which is the issue of gas storage. Can you tell the House this afternoon how many days gas of gas we have in storage in the UK at the moment available to us, and what the government is proposing to do to expand that capacity?

17:21

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Well, I don't actually have with >> Well, I don't actually have with me the figure of the number of days of gas storage. I apologise if I should have that figure with me. I'm more than happy to find it and to write to the noble Lord, my Lords.

17:21

Lord Londesborough (Crossbench)

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As a fair minded crossbencher. I will acknowledge that there have been some encouraging signs in the first quarter, particularly GDP growth and employment in February February. But I also recall that we had a brief fireworks display in Q1 last year, followed by a flat lining of the economy throughout H2. And now, as we know, as a result of the war in Iran, both the IMF and the OECD have marked down the UK's employment forecast by more than any other G7 economy.

So I hope the government will be true to its pledge. If you remember that growth mission pledge to be the fastest growing economy in the G7 by doing all it can to to prove those forecasts wrong, and none more so than for our SMEs. As we've heard, particularly our start ups and scale ups, which are swimming against the tide of rising taxes and increasing costs. So can I ask what meaningful encouragement is the government offering our SMEs specifically to stimulate growth, activity, investment and output? If we are to believe in this growth mission?

17:23

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Well, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I have much experience of his fair minded crossbencher activities, and I'm always grateful to him for his comments. He's absolutely right that the there was encouraging economic news last week. As I've said, the latest GDP figures do show the economy grew faster than expected in the three months to February, and that growth for the three months to January was upgraded. He's obviously also right to say that Iran now presents serious challenges for our economy, and it presents challenges for.

For all global. Enemies. And he's absolutely right to say that it's important that we beat the forecasts. We did beat the forecasts before we beat them last year, and I'm confident that we'll be able to do so again. We must continue to bear down on inflation. We've discussed that already and we must continue to build our energy security. And I think we've discussed that already. And of course, we must continue with our growth plan. We must continue investing in growth enhancing capital, in transport and housing, for example, and record investment in R&D.

We must continue reforming the planning system to get Britain building. We must continue deepening our economic relationship with the European Union. We must make sure we have the fastest adoption of AI in the G7, which we set as an objective, and we must deliver an effective regional growth strategy so that growth and the increase in living standards is felt throughout our country.

17:24

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour)

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The the. >> The Treasury gets criticised for being too short. Termism these days. And I'm wondering whether, in fact the Treasury undertakes market the Treasury undertakes market research amongst the public about the extent to which there may be an opportunity to get greater investment coming from the public. If we were ambitious enough to try 1 or 2 tactics, such as, for example, reviewing post-war credits which produced money for the government when they needed it and paid a return, and people invested very widely after the last war a long time ago.

And now I'm looking backwards, but looking forward and looking at the front bench of the Tories as well, they're very much in support of public private partnerships. When are we going to get that moving there? I believe that if we did market research, we will find there is, in fact, a view amongst the public that there would be willing to invest, and this would provide a new revenue coming in for them.

17:25

Lord Livermore, The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Labour)

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Absolutely consistent in his support for public private partnerships. He knows that. I partnerships. He knows that. I agree with him on that. He's also a consistent champion of greater levels of retail investment. He will know that we have launched a new model of public private partnerships, and we have said, for example, that they could be suitable for projects such as the Lower Thames Crossing, and we will look at additional projects where where that model can additional

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investment into our economy. Questions on a statement made in

17:26

Statement: Progress update on the Government's ongoing work to respond to the Humble address motion

>> Questions on a statement made in the House of Commons yesterday on the government's response to the

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humble address. My Lords. Baroness. The.

17:26

Baroness Finn (Conservative)

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>> Minister, for agreeing to the repeated questions on of yesterday's statement. The yesterday's statement. The Falklands War was won in less than 12 weeks. This government, however, cannot piece together a paper audit in that time. We are today simply given a holding statement that more documents will be forthcoming. We remain no more enlightened than we were a month ago. No information has been forthcoming on the quantity of documents within scope of the humble address passed in the other place, how many documents have been reviewed by whom? Whether the Cabinet Office has sought redactions, or whether the Intelligence and Security Committee have agreed to those redactions? Can the noble Baroness, the minister, give the House a hard deadline by which the second tranche of documents will be published? In light of press coverage in the Guardian, suggesting that the Cabinet Office considered withholding certain documents from the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, give us a categorical assurance that no documents within scope of the humble address will be withheld from that committee? In the other place? My right hon. Friend the member for Brentwood and Ongar asked the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister a number of specific questions that went unanswered. The Chief Secretary's silence on questions relating to Peter Mandelson's declaration of interests form was deafening. Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, please confirm that the document exists and that it will not be withheld or redacted without the consent of the Intelligence and Security Committee? Serious questions are being asked about Peter Mandelson's links to business interests, and how his activities as an ambassador may have been linked to those interests.

My Lords, we are also told that the security mitigations that were put in place for Peter Mandelson were not in response to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Can the noble Baroness, the minister, give the House more clarity on that? Can she say whether the detail of those concerns will be made public if the ISC judges, that they may be published on a day when the Labour Party is whipping its MPs to prevent the privileges Committee, making an independent assessment of the PM's conduct of the Prime Minister's conduct, can we be reassured that His Majesty's Government will not stand in the way of other committees doing their work? My Lords, the government's excuses for delay are wearing a little thin.

We have heard all about the urgency that the government is bringing to the matter. I hesitate to use the famous words working at pace. Yesterday we heard from the minister in the other place. Documents should be published in a chronological order, and he went on to say that otherwise I suspect there would be questions about what documents were missing, subject to the conclusion of the committee's work. If it is the government's intention to avoid questions about what documents are missing, why is the government still refusing to publish a list or overview of all the documents, and whether they have been published? That overall document would help us greatly, and surely the titles or descriptions of the documents cannot be seen to prejudice any matter which is currently subject to say.

Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, say what progress is being made towards the publication of such a document? We have asked about this many times before, and we still await a clear response.

17:30

Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lords, at the heart of this issue is the bravery of the women and girls who spoke up to reveal the truth about Jeffrey Epstein and following his evil and criminal behaviour. There have been multiple failures of our political systems failures that are now rightly seeing various political careers ended. But the events also raised questions for how we fix our broken systems so that we can deal better, much better, with whatever future crises or scandals occur. And so I very much welcome the positive noises now being made about new legislation, for example, to allow peerages to be revoked.

In the case of scandal. However, I think it's fair to say the track record of reform in this place is a somewhat slow track record. So I hope the noble lady, the Minister, can confirm both that such legislation is imminent and that it will be given priority in the legislative queue. So there is an opportunity for Parliament to debate and, if it so decides, pass such legislation promptly in the new session. It's also very welcome to have heard of the plans for the review by Adrian Fulford, related to the vetting processes, particularly because I think it's fair to say the more we hear the details of what happened with the vetting, the more questions those details throw up.

Let me give you just two examples. One is the sequence of make an appointment, announce the appointment, and then carry out the vetting after the announcement. Now, leaving aside the questions of how well established that process and sequencing is and who knew about it, it's clearly a sequence of events that is inviting. Disaster vetting should surely come before an announcement, not after an announcement, because that's the way to minimise any pressure to come up with a politically convenient answer.

And it's the way to be fair to everyone involved, including if somebody does fail the vetting process. But also inviting disaster is the daisy chain of oral briefings that we now know took place without key decision makers seeing the relevant summary vetting verdict paperwork. As we now know, the official who did see the paperwork then orally briefed the Fcdo official, Ian Collard, who didn't see the paperwork himself, but he then in turn orally briefed Olly Robbins, who also didn't see the paperwork, who then in turn had oral discussions with the prime Minister, who again didn't see the paperwork and was in fact having therefore matters described to him third hand.

In other words, the more senior the person, the more crucial their personal decision making in the process, the more removed they were from seeing the core paperwork involved. Now, there's obviously a political question in this about why did the Prime Minister proceed with such a process. But there's also obviously a crucial issue for the future, because such a daisy chain of decision making with one person speaking to another person who then speaks to another person who then speaks to another person without the authoritative written verdict of the vetting system.

Being in front of everyone is a process inviting disaster. So I hope the noble lady, the minister, can, as well as addressing my question about legislation to remove peerages, also confirm that these issues relating to vetting processes are within the scope of the Fulford review, that the review will be published soon, maybe even at pace, and that we will have an opportunity in this House to discuss that review promptly.

17:33

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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My Lords. Thank you. I'd like to thank both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their contribution. As I have said before, and I will say it again, Jeffrey Epstein was a despicable individual and his victims must be our first priority. We should never forget that every time we discuss Epstein's horrendous behaviour, his victims are reliving awful experiences and these survivors must be front and centre when we debate all issues to Jeffrey Epstein, his network and their impact, I am very aware every day of what they must be experiencing as this is living and breathing in the media.

In terms of an update of where we are, I think it would be helpful to clarify some of the points made yesterday. In the other place, as Noble Lords will be aware, we published the first tranche of material in response to the Humble Address motion on the 11th of March, just over a month following the humble address motion. That first tranche of material primarily relates to the aspects of the motion regarding Peter Mandelson's appointment and his subsequent dismissal as ambassador, in addition to the details of his severance payment provided to him by the Foreign Office following the publication of the first tranche of material, Cabinet Office officials have been working tirelessly.

I removed at pace. I've been working tirelessly to prepare a second publication. My Lords will recognise, given the breadth of the motion, that a very significant number of documents are in scope and are taking time to process accordingly, and that is why we prioritise the material relating to Peter Mountain's appointment in the first tranche, so that Parliament could see these key documents first, where the government deems material to be prejudicial to our national security or international relations. It is being referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee for consideration.

As noble Lords would appreciate, this process requires detailed consideration. The government is very grateful to the Ice for their constructive engagement in this process, which we recognise as constitutionally constituted additional requests on top of their already important work, and I am personally very grateful to my noble friend Lord Beamish, for his work as chair of the committee. I can confirm that as of yesterday evening, the Cabinet Office has passed the ISC all material it has processed as part of the humble address and judged to be prejudicial to national security or international relations.

This amounts to over 300 documents. This includes a number that were relevant to the process of Peter Mandelson security vetting. As the government has set out, no redactions will be made on the basis of national security or international relations without referral to the ISC. As we have made clear in the first publication, there are several other public interest principles. The names of junior officials, email addresses, personal data and legally privileged information which the government has applied following the clear precedent set by previous administrations, and to confirm, as set out in the first publication, no redactions were applied to the Prime Minister's box.

Note I can also confirm that the next publication will include electronic communications, including those sent on non corporate communication channels between Peter Mandelson and government ministers, senior officials and special advisers as the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has said on multiple occasions, the government is fully committed to complying with the scope of this motion. The material that has been commissioned, it has been provided and subject, of course, to the processes I have explained. It will be published. The government has also been clear throughout that it will not prejudice the ongoing police investigation, and noble Lords will understand that.

This means I cannot confirm what documents are being withheld in response to the Met Police's request. But to reassure your lordships House as agreed in the other place, the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee kindly agreed to look at documents given to the Met Police in relation to the police investigation so that we had a way, albeit a closed way, of showing due process and transparency to the House in relation to the humble address, and those processes have continued for noble Lords who know Mr.

Simon Hoare MP, I'm sure they will agree with me that if he thought we were not being compliant, we would all have heard by now on some of the specific points raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked about when these documents will be published. I want to reassure noble Lords that we will be publishing these documents as soon as possible following state opening, and I preferred further updates to your lordships. In due course we will be discussing, I am sure, the detail of those papers in your lordships House at that point, but we will be doing it as soon as we can.

With regards to state opening. Noble Baroness also touched on other committees investigations. Obviously there is a current and live debate in the other chamber in the other place at this as we discuss this issue. But there is also, as we have seen this morning, a live investigation by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. We are fully cooperating and would expect, and I don't I think noble Lords would expect no less with regards to moving on to the noble Lord, Lord Pac and his questions, I welcome him to his place.

I think this is his first outing from the frontbench during a statement. Congratulations. I look forward to many of these such conversations. He asked very specific questions in terms of the legislation on removal of peerages. Obviously, it is not for me to pre-empt the King's speech, but noble lords will will be aware. We have discussed it many times from this despatch box, and I would expect to see such legislation forthcoming. I look forward as the Policy Minister, to be discussing them in great detail with noble Lord, when we get to that point and they will raise a very, very important point about vetting before an appointment, that process has now been explicitly changed, both for political appointees and for political appointees in the diplomatic space.

Vetting would need to be done before an appointment, before an announcement, security vetting process. My Lord, I think there are many members of your lordships House who have actively participated in the in the in the vetting process, either as ministers or as civil servants. Noble lords will be aware that there is a line here. We need people to be to actively participate in this process, to make sure that we are getting the full information, we need to make sure that that information is then protected in terms of the detail of it and who sees what.

When is has to be managed by UK security vetting, and I thank them for their work. I know that they are very nervous about some of the conversations we're having, not because of the process that they undertake, but because they don't want people to be as to be less forthcoming than they need to be in the process. But I do appreciate what the noble Lord said about Daisy. Chain of conversations. Noble Lord will be aware that ministers were not aware of that daisy chain at various points.

But we have a we have our Adrian Fulford and I'm very grateful that he is undertaking the review. We have confirmed also. I've done that. We have confirmed that this should be part of those conversations, and I will come back if there's any clarification I need to issue. The noble Lord also kindly highlighted the fact that the government has undertaken several steps in this space. My very appointment is one of them. We are seeking to to strengthen the foundations in the standard space, and I look forward to discussing those issues with noble Lords, both through the prism of the release of the Humble address, but also because I think it's in all of our interests, regardless of our political party or our personal politics, to ensure that people can have faith in the politicians and faith in the integrity of this, of this building, this chamber and next door.

17:41

Lord Beamish (Labour)

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My Lords. >> I rise to. >> Bring news from the front to a lordships House. After another five hour meeting today, the Intelligence Security Committee I chair has now completed reviewing all the documents being referred to it. Can I say and stress to the House that this has been a long process? I understand Baroness Finn's frustration, but is meant that members of the Intelligence Security Committee have had to read individually all these documents in our secure premises, then have a full meeting to consider the redactions which has taken time.

It also has not been helped by the refusal in the early stages of the Foreign Office to release certain documents. We asked at the beginning of this process that the documents relating to Peter Mandelson's appointment should be prioritised, that that wasn't able to do in terms of vetting document, because the Foreign Office at the time, under Mr. Olly Robbins, refused to give that to the Cabinet Office. We have now seen all the documents which we need to look at, apart from the ones that are part of the criminal investigation and also the vetting interview file.

We've seen the vetting documents, but not the vetting interview file, which the government haven't shared with us. And I understand they will have to go to Parliament if they wish to refuse to give us that document. But can I assure the House that we are now in a position to return our considerations of vetting documents back to the government and could my noble friend just give a commitment to me now, now that that those documents have been returned or will have later today, that we've now set two deadlines for the government to come back to the committee to ask which of those redactions or redactions which we have not agreed to, they wish to contest.

It is important that we get that contents redactions hearing done speedily after the King's speech, so that these documents can be released, because it is then that the the Committee will have to meet again to decide our response to them and remind the House that the final decision on what is and is not redacted is not the government's, but will be the Iscs.

17:44

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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Again, I'd like to put on record >> Again, I'd like to put on record my thanks to the noble Lord for the many hours, my noble friend, for the many hours that he has spent the many hours that he has spent looking at documents, changing the way in which his committee is working in terms of the number of meetings they're having and all of the work that has been done in this space. In terms of setting a deadline for the challenge meeting, I think that's the best in terms of for that for that conversation, I will speak to officials as soon as I have finished the next statement and make sure that that date is in the diary before the House rises for prorogation.

17:45

Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)

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We learned of an UN minuted meeting where senior advisers of the Prime Minister bypassed civil servants civil service oversight to green light, a known high risk appointment. Can the noble lady, the minister, tell the House how this meeting was within the normal due process, and who gave the order to exclude the propriety and ethics team from such critical discussions?

17:45

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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I think I'm going to thank the noble Lord for the question. I maybe, maybe I shouldn't thank the maybe, maybe I shouldn't thank the noble Lord for his question. The noble Lord will have to bear with me because he, like I, would have watched those. Some of the hearings together as they were happening. I'll write to the noble Lord with the detail about who, what, when and where.

17:45

Viscount Stansgate (Labour)

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My Lords, I'm grateful to my noble friend for reassuring the House that the next tranche of documents will be provided to documents will be provided to Parliament as soon as practicable after the state opening. In addition to the 300 documents which have already been released to the Intelligence and Security Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Beamish, can I ask my noble friend the minister, whether there has been any divergence of view between the government and the Metropolitan Police as to which documents should not be released, because they would prejudice the ongoing investigation?

17:46

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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I thank my noble sorry. I thank >> I thank my noble sorry. I thank my noble friend. Obviously, all of these are live matters, and some of those conversations are things I just can't simply can't discuss. In just can't simply can't discuss. In your lordships House. We are we have a very constructive relationship with the Metropolitan Metropolitan Police and and want to make sure that they have everything they need as part of their investigations if they are seeking to make any future prosecutions.

17:46

Lord Lansley (Conservative)

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My Lords. In addition. >> To the. >> Redactions which the Minister. >> Referred to in her statement on National security, International National security, International relations, names of junior officials, email addresses, legal privilege. Are there any other reasons for redaction? There was a report, I think, in the press about some redactions for reasons of commercial confidentiality. Can she confirm that isn't the case? And when in the statement, the minister said that the second tranche of documents would be released after the state opening? Does does second tranche mean final tranche, or is there a third tranche?

17:47

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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I wouldn't want to mislead the >> I wouldn't want to mislead the House. I'm going to write to the noble Lords about the commercial redactions that I had not been told that there would be any commercial redactions, but I will write to you to make sure that I am of record, and I'll place the answer in the library. And in terms of the next tranche, with the exception of those materials that are being withheld by the Met Police, that will be published at a point after when the.

That is deemed to be appropriate, I expect the next tranche to be, I can't say the final tranche because we know there's a third tranche, but that is the substantive tranche. That will be. All the material that is available to us. That's what I expect in the next tranche.

17:48

Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Conservative)

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My Lord. >> My Lord. >> In discussing the vetting of Lord Mandelson, seriously, is that nobody outside the government has nobody outside the government has the first idea what the grounds were for. The recommendation that he's vetting should be refused. Now, I accept and completely agree with the with the process that the Minister described, whereby the actual answers and the conduct of the vetting are totally confidential. I never revealed in any circumstances, but I can't see the threat to national security.

In answering the question, can the minister say whether or not the grounds upon which the recommendation was made were not anything to do with his friendship with Epstein? So can I ask you yes or no? Were the grounds nothing to do with his friendship with Epstein and something quite different? Or is it the friendship that lay behind it?

17:49

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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My Lord, I wish I could give the Lord the answer that he seeks, but I can't give the noble Lords I can't give the noble Lords because I haven't seen the material of which we are discussing for very good reasons. So in terms of either the reasons why I believe the phrase is now borderline case, but also what mitigations were put in place. I don't I don't know the detail of of that.

17:49

Baroness Finn (Conservative)

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Questions on a statement made in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the 22nd of April on pension schemes. >> My Lords, I declare my interest as a former special Adviser and as a former special Adviser and future recipient in the hopefully long distant future of a civil service pension. At the heart of this issue are former public servants who are entitled to expect that the Civil Service Pension Scheme would be administered with competence, care and basic humanity. Instead, many have faced delay, uncertainty and financial anxiety.

The government has acknowledged Capita's performance was unacceptable and we acknowledge that this contract was awarded under the previous government. However, the appalling performance has been sustained under this government. Warning signs were not acted upon sooner and contingency arrangements were not in place before the handover on the 1st of December last month. Last month, officials from the minister's department confirmed that the Cabinet Office had access to data showing that the backlog of CSPs cases was increasing exponentially. During the final months of my tenure, this was known before the transfer, yet ministers failed to put in place to put in place robust contingency plans.

They did not require additional resources from capita ahead of the handover and they proceeded regardless, despite being aware that the incoming provider faced a far greater operational challenge than originally originally anticipated. My Lords, the National Audit Office had already found that capita had failed to meet key transition milestones. The Public Accounts Committee had warned of a clear risk that capita would not be ready to take over the administration of the scheme, and specifically called on the Cabinet Office to fully develop contingency plans before making a final decision.

Why, then, did the government not anticipate this situation as they should have done? The Nao report highlights a serious issue with the handling handling of the process by which staff transfer to the new contractor. This. That is. This is meant to ensure continuity by moving experienced staff across with the work. But the NAR notes that the formal TTP process only began in May 2025, very late in the transition. The consequence is obvious staff face prolonged uncertainty about their future, increasing the risk that they would leave before the handover.

In a service that depends heavily on experienced personnel, that loss of expertise directly undermines performance. So the question to the noble Baroness, the Minister, is this why was this process started so late, and what assessment was made of the risks posed to service delivery? The Nao also found that financial penalties were rarely applied under the previous contract, and could be waived on the basis of so-called extenuating circumstances. The new contract is supposed to strengthen those provisions. So can the noble Baroness, the minister, tell the House how many penalties have actually been applied to capita since go live, and whether any penalties have been waived, on what grounds they were waived and who authorised the decisions? My Lords, the Minister was was also asked in the other place about standardised mitigation letters for lenders.

Members affected by pension delays need clear documentation that they can provide to banks, mortgage providers, landlords and creditors, explaining that their financial difficulty has been caused by administrative failure in the Civil Service Pension scheme. Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, now confirm whether those standardised letters have been issued? If they have not, why not and when exactly will affected members receive them? I also ask the Minister about contingency planning. The statement refers to commercial levers, withheld milestone payments and possible legal remedies.

It also refers to explicit personal assurances from capitals capitals chief executive. But those assurances were plainly not met. Can the can the minister say to whom those assurances were made? On what date? What due diligence underpinned them, who accepted them, and whether they were set out in writing? Finally, I am concerned that the department apparently began plans to begin a review only in late summer. Why is that timetable considered acceptable? The failures are happening now. There needs to be a credible contingency plan and realistic consideration of future options.

My Lords, Capita's failings are unacceptable, but ministerial accountability does not end with condemning the contractor. The contracting authority needs to be relentlessly on the case. This is an issue I have raised ceaselessly many times previously. Can the noble Baroness, the minister, tell the House what concrete steps the civil Service has taken to improve the quality of its contract management? No well run business would tolerate a contractor performing in such a way. So why should the government tolerate such behaviour? I appreciate that I've asked a number of detailed questions and I appreciate that the noble Baroness, the Minister, might want to reply in writing to some of them, but I hope she can shed some light on the concerns raised.

17:55

Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)

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I should perhaps first say to that noble lady, the Minister, that she may be glad to know. I have a slightly smaller number of questions to ask, but, you know, running basic services reliably is at the heart of the government's responsibility to us all. And the grand promises, fancy manifestos, clever policies, visionary plans about AI all mean very little. If the basic plumbing of the state is falling apart all around us. And here we have, unfortunately, another failure of that basic plumbing, one with very serious consequences for people's wellbeing.

And it's certainly welcome that, faced with another pension scheme going horribly wrong at the hands of capita, the government has bitten the bullet and terminated its contract. But coming after the civil service pension contract problems. That does, though, raise two key questions about the government's own decision making. There is certainly a lot of blame to allocate to capita into my CSP, but there are also, as I said, those two questions that are fully within the government's area of responsibility. One, as I pointed out when we discussed this issue in questions on the 5th of February, and as Baroness Finn has just touched on, is the Cabinet Office told the Public Accounts Committee that it was aware of very significant problems with capitals preparations to take over the contract on 1st December, and that the Cabinet Office had a contingency plan ready to use if necessary.

So why, therefore, did the Cabinet Office decide to go ahead with the 1st of December transfer to capita rather than invoke its contingency plan? The fact that another capita pension scheme, the Royal Mail one, has gone so badly wrong now as well, I think it's fair to say we doubled the doubts about why that 1st of December transfer was greenlighted by the government. But in addition to that, in the light of Capita's failing on these two pension contracts, there is also the problem that the government has just signed another contract with capita, a £370 million contract which involves, to quote capita press release from just a few weeks ago, tech enabled back office services for public servants across four major UK government departments Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Department for environmental for environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Capital will deliver a suite of services including HR, payroll, recruitment, finance, procurement and service desk support. That sounds remarkably similar to the very sorts of things capita has just got so badly wrong. Twice warned last year the capital was getting it wrong. The Cabinet Office pressed ahead with capita on that 1st of December deadline. With Royal Mail two, capita has been getting exactly the same sort of work badly wrong. So I hope the noble lady, the Minister, could explain why those two failures would are not were not enough for the government to say for this new contract.

Hang on. We've seen your track record, we've learned from our mistakes, and now we're not going to hand over more money and give you more responsibility for financial IT systems. So could the noble, the minister, please tell us what consideration was given to those two other failures by capita in deciding to award it this new contract? And why were those two failures not considered serious enough for the government to spend its 370 million, or rather, I should say, our the public's £370 million elsewhere.

17:58

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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My Lord, I've listened with care to the points raised by the noble Baroness and noble Lords, and I will have to revert in writing on some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn. But first of all, I want to put on record my thanks to the fantastic public servants who have been failed, and that we are seeking to support the security and dignity of those who have dedicated their careers to our public. Services are not negotiable.

They deserve a pension scheme that is reliable, efficient and secure. When the standards they deserve are not upheld, the government will not hesitate to act decisively to protect their interests. The termination of the new Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme contract with capita followed a failure to meet critical transition milestones and a total lack of confidence in their ability to implement the new operating model in a timely fashion. Had an 18 month planning window, yet failed to deliver numerous milestones, including required IT automation.

Of the ten transitional milestones due to date, only four have been delivered and all of those were late, which is why we have terminated the contract regarding the Civil Service Pension Scheme. The delivery of the service since the transfer on the 1st of December has fallen far, far short of the required standard. The transition from the previous provider, my CSP, was not satisfactory and investigations are ongoing into the respective liabilities for those failures to protect taxpayer interests. The stories of membership of members falling into hardship are distressing and entirely unacceptable, which is why a specialist pensions Recovery Taskforce was established to take strategic oversight of the scheme's management to ensure no one faces financial anxiety alone.

Over £8.2 million in interest free transitional support loans have already been issued to over 1500 members. Most affected by these delays, there is confidence in the surge of about 140 officials into capita, and this intervention has made a significant difference. The government's surge team was essential to bolster operational capacity, successfully clearing 15,000 inherited unread emails and initially bringing telephony wait times down to an average of under two minutes. While wait times have recently spiked to an average of 44 minutes, this was a direct result of 120% surge in volumes driven by the end of the tax year and the annual benefit statement portal suspension.

Following the data breach on the 30th of March, there is no intention to withdraw the team if that would result in a deterioration of service now, judgement will be made carefully against the June 2026 deadline for the restoration of proper service. Moving on to the Nao and Public Account Committee reports, which were referenced by both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. Noble lady is absolutely right to highlight the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports regarding Mr. Transition milestones, as was the noble Lord will pay significant milestone payments are currently being withheld.

Where transitional delivery, where transition deliverables have not been met to drive performance and every right is reserved to take full, further formal action. The. Now, the government have accepted the Nao recommendations and we did implement a number of additional controls after their report in or part of this contract. Despite these challenges, transitioning to capital was assessed as commercially and operationally lower risk path to avoid a total collapse of the service. As my CSP had become operational and commercially unviable, capita has been placed now under a firm mandate to clear all inherited arrears by the end of April and restore service levels to standard, contractually required levels by the end of June.

Standardised mitigation letters are available on request via the Pensions Helpline to ensure that they can communicate effectively, ensure that members can communicate effectively with mortgage providers and other creditors regarding service delays. Regarding the wider commercial position, there has been an offer from capita to cover the costs of the surge team from the 10th of April, which will be considered in the broad accounting of all commercial issues in respect of this contract. But there were several questions that were asked of me that relate to this.

First of all, as I said, there was an Indian sorry. As I said previously, there was an independent assurance review undertaken last year. I'm going to write to the noble Lord, Lord pack with the dates of all the meetings that were had and the promises that were made by capita, to whom and when. There were a range of promises made. And then we had the independent assurance review where we were. Therefore, we were as confident as we could be to move forward with regards to some of the other points.

Now, Baroness Lady Finn asked about the raised the issue here about my CSP and their historical performance and the liability, the transition process from the previous provider. My CSP was not satisfactory and we're investigating the respective liabilities for those failures between both parties. We have withheld all monies due to my CSP until transition failures are rectified and will pursue a parent company guarantee with Equiniti if necessary. Transitioning was necessary as CSP had become commercially unviable, with backlogs increasing from 47,000 to over 60007000 cases by October.

I've answered the question about mitigation measures in terms of a commercial accountability and withheld payments. We've taken direct action on all commercial leavers, including withholding significant milestone payments where deliverables have not been met. Capita is under a firm mandate to clear all inherited arrears by the end of April and restore full service standards by the end of June. We will consider Capita's offer, as I have said. But, my Lords, the noble lady, Baroness Noble, Baroness Lady Fin raised a really important point about why the review is in late summer.

Our focus and priority has to be to get the system working, to make sure that people can access both their historic statements, as well as future statements that people can access the information they need, as well as access the finances that are theirs. Remind noble Lords that pensions are deferred salaries. These are entitlements. They have earned them. We need to make sure they can get the money. So on that basis, while I appreciate and I and this is not about putting review into the long grass, this is that's not where we are.

What we want to do is fix what is broken, to make sure the people that need access to it can get access. And then we will undertake a review, including a commercial review with capita to move forward. Noble Lord, Lord PAC raised a really important point about capita and then receiving an additional contract, the Synergy Award by DWP in February followed a rigorous and transparent public procurement process. Conduct conducted under existing public contract regulations. Each contract is managed on its own merits, and the Secretary of State for DWP sought and received specific personal assurances from capita regarding delivery.

I do want to remind the noble Lords, though, that while we are talking about two specific contracts in terms of this, this statement, both of those contracts are the only capital contracts with the Cabinet Office across the wider government portfolio. In public sector portfolio, capita has over 80 contracts, and performance remains high, with approximately 87% of KPIs currently rated as good. We have seen a very clear failure of the Civil Service Pension scheme and access to it. We desperately need to fix it.

Then look at what went wrong and move forward with our commercial levers. But each contract needs to be assessed on its individual merits to make sure that it works, and to make sure that the government is compliant, as well as those people that we work with.

18:07

Lord Davies of Brixton (Labour)

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Right. Thanks. >> I thank I thank my noble friend for the statement, for repeating the statement from the Commons that the statement from the Commons that I welcome the statement. Does my noble friend recognise that the problem here, and I think we can take the comments from the opposition with a pinch of salt problem comes to a large extent from the system of outsourcing, which is why we welcome the bit in the Labour manifesto last election to introduce a large degree of insourcing, and we hope that programme will will proceed at pace.

Can my noble friend confirm or clarify why capita retain the Civil Service contract? Members of the scheme are suffering both those in retirement and claiming death benefits. They find it incredible that the contract can't be taken away. Is the problem that however bad capita perform the chaos that would ensue if the contract were taken away abruptly would cause even more problems? Is it an issue with the way in which these outsourcing contracts work? And finally, a factual question.

The statement states that there's a large number. I forget the exact number of people who are waiting for quotations, having spoken to the unions and many of the members involved about this, how many people have received quotations but haven't yet actually received their benefits?

18:09

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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My questions for the my noble >> My questions for the my noble friend, for the series of questions that he has made on. Let me start with the factual question, because with the factual question, because I have that data to hand. There are currently 2696 retirement cases where quotation has been issued, but the pension is not yet in payment. These cases are the remaining subset of the 6482 retirement cases that have already received a quote, and therefore no longer have an open case type related to quotations.

All remaining open retirement quote cases where a quote has been issued are on track to be processed and full payment by the end of May. By the end of next month. Noble Lord, that my noble friend asked a series of questions, some of which are slightly more straightforward to answer than others. In terms of in-sourcing, an assessment will be conducted to identify the optimal delivery model for these pension services, specifically evaluating both Insource and outsource options. This process will involve a thorough analysis of costs, risks and benefits in line with the sourcing playbook, ensuring we learn from the delivery failures identified in the current contracts.

Although previous assessments in 2021 favoured outsourcing to realise benefits with the least risk, we remain committed to whichever model is proven to provide the best value for money for the taxpayer in terms of capita and why the contract hasn't been removed. As I have said, we were, we are engaged with capita every day on this contract as part of the recovery model, and Noble Lords will appreciate. I have talked not only about capita and their responsibility as part of fixing what is clearly broken, but also the legacy of what's been left by my CSP.

So until we have undertaken the review, after we have fixed what is broken, being clear about who, there are clearly failures across the piece, but being clear about who was responsible for which part. We will know better then, and we will take additional steps, as we have with the Royal Mail Pension Scheme if required.

18:11

Lord Reid of Cardowan (Labour)

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My Lords, I thank the Minister. >> My Lords, I thank the Minister. She has pointed out some signal failures in this case and are now failures in this case and are now pretty widely known. I think what puzzles people, including those who are very sympathetic to the government, is why, when there is a such a failure of one particular company. And of course, it isn't just capita. There have been failures by others. Why is it then that this is consecutively followed by a grant to the same company of another contract which bears some relationship in description to the one in which they have so patently failed in another department? Can the Minister tell us if there is any cross-departmental process for evaluating failures of this nature in order to alert other departments to the very serious consequences on which they might be embarking? And I confess, finally, that this puzzled me when I was in government as well as now.

18:12

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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I thank my noble friend. And there I was about to say, the noble there I was about to say, the noble Lord knows better than I do. Given his time in government about the awarding of these contracts, and given his extensive ministerial service across many, many departments, my Lord, there is a serious point here, some of which is that the heart of these conversations is that every contract is managed on its own merits and contains robust, specific protections to ensure delivery.

The award followed a and the the contract we're talking about followed a rigorous and transparent process under the Public Contracts Regulations, the Secretary of State sought and received specific assurances from capita regarding delivery after it had become clear about what had happened to the Civil Service Pension Scheme. The DWP were alerted and obviously there were. There are members of staff at the DWP who would also have been affected by this. So I think it's fair to say that I have never had so many discussions with my colleagues as I have with civil servants across the piece, who wanted me to make sure we fix this and fix this.

Well, given my exposure to them, and I would say that I am that I am very grateful that my that my noble friend Baroness Sherlock has come to be supportive. There are always effective cross-government communications when required, and I'm pleased you're sitting next to me for this one.

18:13

Lord Gove (Conservative)

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Lord. >> The noble Lord. Lord Reid makes a very valid point. Capita is the organisation in charge of army recruitment. It is such a bad job recruitment. It is such a bad job that even the Mod decided to dispense with its services. The Ministry of Defence had long experience with capita. Capita was the principal delivery organisation for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, the most dysfunctional arm of that dysfunctional department. It is not as though government has not been warned, and, as my noble friend Baroness Finn pointed out, government hasn't learned what a truly dreadful organisation capita has been.

But now capita is the preferred bidder for the Department of Work and Pensions Civil Service payroll contract, and indeed, only last month capita was selected for a ten year contract valued at £370 million to run HR and finance systems for four UK government departments. When will ministers and civil servants learn that capita is no friend of efficiency or accountability?

18:15

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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I think the noble Lord is very aware that I have been a fan for a for many years and would listen to him with interest for every position he holds. I do, however, find it a little rich given the positions that he previously held to be lectured though about. Contract that was signed by the previous government after many contracts, not least the ones he talked about within defence that were signed by the previous government. I've already talked about how we will we seek to move forward with insourcing.

I should put on record the fact that I am an honorary captain in the Royal Navy and a former member of the Defence Select Committee. When some of these issues were being discussed about the capita recruitment and the impact it had on recruiting, on recruitment into our armed forces, I believe, however, that capita that I and I hope that Serco is going to benefit from some of the changes that we as a government undertook with capita on the defence recruitment contract.

That is that move to Serco last month. But the note at the heart of this, and I think all of us are very are very aware of our responsibilities about taxpayers money and making sure that they are spent well and that whenever we do choose to outsource, it is because we need to bring in different expertise that is not typically appropriate for us to hold centrally, but we do need to make sure that this works and this works for us, and I hope that we will see that going forward.

But there are capita is a supplier in over 80 government contracts.

18:16

Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)

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Agnostic about insourcing or outsourcing. What I want is good service for the pensioners who are served. And just to give an example of how insourcing might not always go right, and I appreciate the noble lady. The minister will probably have to write to me this, because I'm going slightly tangential. It's to do with the National Health Service Business Services Authority, which is an insourcing organisation for pensioners in the NHS. And so I could I ask the noble lady, the Minister, about this particular failure that we have at the moment in that scheme is what steps could the government take to ensure that the significant delays at NHS pensions in applying the annual inflation up crease to pensioners who have been flagged for manual reconciliation due to their lifetime allowance, can be dealt with and solved so that those pensioners who are waiting for their annual increase this year and from previous years do get that annual increase, which they're entitled to under the 1971 act.

18:17

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)

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As I said before, I am very clear that pensions are deferred income and they are entitled to that. And in a previous iteration, I was a trade union officer who negotiated part of the agenda for change agreement. So in terms of the access and the impact that he is having is very key. Noble will not be surprised. I don't have the detail of that pension scheme in in front of me, but I will write to the labour law with an update.

18:18

Statement: Research institution protocol

My Lords questions. of Commons on Thursday, the 23rd of April on the Research Institution Protocol.

18:18

Lord Markham (Conservative)

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My Lords, I thank the noble Lord >> My Lords, I thank the noble Lord Minister for their statement. This is clearly a serious incident that goes to the heart of Public goes to the heart of Public Transport Trust in one of our most important research assets. I pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of volunteers whose data underpins the success of UK Biobank and the breakthrough it has enabled. My Lords, it is right that swift action is taken, has been taken to remove the listings and suspend access.

It's also right to involve the Information Commissioner's Office. However, the central issue before us is not just what has happened but what it reveals about our capacity to defend ourselves against cyber attacks. First, on the issue of enforcement and accountability, we are told that the institutions involved have been banned. That is, of course, welcome. But is it sufficient where contractual terms breached in relation to the date of this sensitivity, there must be clarity about deterrence and whether further sanctions, legal or financial are available and will be pursued.

Without that, I fear we risk sending the wrong signal. My Lords, this incident also seems to highlight deeper weaknesses in our wider infrastructure. We continue to have a system that relies heavily on trust and contractual compliance, but without robust technical safeguards to prevent misuse, it is not enough to simply to tell users not to download data. We must design systems so that they cannot do so inappropriately. This is a design issue as much as a behavioural one. From my time as Health Minister, I'm aware that the NHS data banks do not allow the downloading of data onto third party servers.

The data remains on

**** Possible New Speaker ****

our servers in a sectioned off area To allow the customers to analyse and manipulate the data, but not download it. So these types but not download it. So these types of breaches cannot take place. There's a strong case for a clear There's a strong case for a clear step by step plan from UK Biobank, setting out exactly how data access will be reformed, including the will be reformed, including the technical controls that will be put in place, and binding commitments to ensure that this cannot happen to ensure that this cannot happen again.

And the stopping of the ability to download the data directly. In addition, there's a strong case for reviewing the data storage and retention policies of all our health bodies during the cyber attack on the on the London Blood Testing Organisation in 2024. I was amazed that the names of the people being tested was given to the companies for them to and along with the samples, for them to perform the test results. Of course, they didn't need to have those names at all.

All they needed to have was a unique reference number so that their their data didn't need to be ever out there in the first place. What surprised me even further is to find out that this same company had data for individuals going back five, ten, 15 years and didn't seem to have any sort of deletion policies in place to make sure that the data wasn't even there to be hacked in the first place. As the minister responsible at the time, I proposed such a review of the data storage and retention policies of all the NHS bodies and the associated contractual parties with them.

But this was just before the election. And so I'm not aware of whether this review really did take place in the end. I would be grateful, therefore, if the noble Lord, the minister, can update us on whether this did in fact happen. My Lords, I now turn to the point raised on in Committee on the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, currently going through the other place, the conservatives put forward an amendment which would have required the Secretary of State to maintain a register of hostile actors targeting critical sectors, including health.

That amendment was regrettably not accepted. In light of this, this incident, I ask the noble Lord, the minister, whether the government will now revisit that decision. If not, will he at least consider how we strengthen our understanding and monitoring of potential threats in this space? My Lords, while we must not lose sight of the immense value of UK Biobank, maintaining public confidence will be essential. That confidence depends not only on the integrity of the data, but on the strength of the safeguards around it.

As the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill comes to our House, we must make sure we learn the lessons from this deeply regrettable breach. Indeed, a good test we must apply to the Bill is, if it had already been enacted, would the breach have happened in this case? This is a moment not just for a response, but for reform. I look forward to the minister's reply.

18:23

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lords, can I thank the Minister for coming forward in relation to this statement and join in acknowledging unreservedly the profound scientific value of UK Biobank and the extraordinary generosity of the half a million volunteers whose participation has driven life saving discoveries in heart disease, cancer, dementia, Parkinson's and Covid immunity. And, my Lords, I want to emphasise that nothing I say today diminishes that contribution or our commitment to seeing UK Biobank continue to thrive at the heart of the UK's sovereign health data strategy.

But, my Lords, we owe those volunteers honesty and the honest description of what has happened here. As my hon. Friend Victoria Collins said in the Commons last week, is a profound betrayal of the people who trusted this institution with some of the most intimate details of their lives, their sleep patterns, their mental health, their genetic data, their medical history. And we welcome the swift removal of the three listings. The cooperation of the Chinese authorities, the Self-referral to the ICO, the board led review, and the development of what UK Biobank describes as the world's first automated checking system.

My Lords, these are the right steps, but they are steps taken after the fact, and this House is entitled to ask how we arrived here. UK Biobank has apologised for the concern caused. That is not sufficient. We join my Commons Liberal Democrat colleagues in calling for a full and unequivocal apology to participants not for causing concern, but for the breach of trust itself. We also cannot accept the framing that this was simply a matter of a few bad apples breaking their agreements.

The platform allowed data to be downloaded, as the minister himself confirmed in the Commons, this was not a cyber attack. It was a legitimate download by a legitimately accredited organisation, and that is precisely the problem. Contractual promises are not an adequate safeguard for data of this sensitivity. There must be hard technical barriers, and we are glad that a solution is now being implemented. The question is why is not in place from the outset. And my Lords, I have a series of questions for the Minister.

First, on the scale of exposure. An associate professor from the Oxford Internet Institute has stated publicly that this is the 198th known exposure of UK Biobank data since last summer, and that UK Biobank data remains available online for anyone to download. Today, my Lords, will the Minister confirm how many data breaches at or by UK Biobank have been notified to the government since the original ministerial statement? And does the Minister have any reason to believe it will not become public? That Biobank data has already been used to re-identify specific participants? Secondly.

Secondly, on leadership and accountability, given the series of decisions or failures of decision that have brought us to this point, including the dismissal of earlier warnings, does the Minister have LED review is welcome, but its credibility will depend on its independence and transparency. Third on Re-identification risk, UK Biobank itself acknowledges it cannot guarantee absolute, absolute confidentiality. Modern AI and social media make Re-identification far more feasible than was the case when this data was first collected.

Crucially, does the government have contingency plans for large scale re-identification re-identification of Biobank participants? Given that is, the Oxford Internet Institute confirms the data has. Has leaked on nearly 200 occasions. As I mentioned earlier, and remains accessible online. Fourth, on the broader lesson for data and AI policy, this incident demonstrates something important. There is no panacea in simply handing patient data to AI systems and trusting that good intentions will follow. So much NHS and Biobank data has already been used in ways that violate the rules under which it was shared.

As the Minister acknowledged in the Commons, this was a legitimate download. The rules failed to prevent it. If tearing up data governance rules, governance rules produced easy wins, we would have seen the evidence by now. Instead, we see repeated failures and the government must reflect on on that when designing the new guidance on research data controls it has promised. Finally, my Lords, on system wide lessons, can the Minister confirm that other Ukri and MRC cohort studies will be required to learn from this incident, and that their governance will be reviewed, and will the Secretary of State require UK Biobank to publish a full step by step plan for reforming its data privacy? Not guidance, not reassurances, but binding commitments.

The volunteers who built UK Biobank did so in a spirit of trust and public service, and they deserve nothing less than ironclad protections, genuine accountability and the knowledge that their generosity will never again be treated as a governance afterthought.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lord, I am grateful to the noble Lords Malcolm and Clement Jones for those responses and questions. The government agrees questions. The government agrees that this is unacceptable. It's an abuse of biobanks data and something that we take extremely seriously, and it needs a robust solution and technical solutions. solution and technical solutions. Let me start, though, with agreeing with both the noble Lord Malcolm

18:29

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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with both the noble Lord Malcolm and Lord Clement-jones that I want to thank the Biobank participants. The Biobank data set is and remains critical in supporting scientific discoveries. It's quite an extraordinary resource that improves health for many of the ways that have been described. Predicting dementia early warning signs for cancer. Finding genetic markers for stroke. This is a resource which is probably the most powerful in the world to do that, and none of that would have been possible without the generosity, support and trust of participants.

And that's why it's so important that this needs a complete and robust response. I know that Biobank has apologised to its participants for what has happened, but let me put on record the government's thanks to all the participants for their support and my assurance that we will get to the bottom of this and have a robust answer. And I extend my thanks also to the researchers who are working on these discoveries. And we do want to make sure that we can get this to be usable again so that this work can continue.

But we must protect the data. We must protect the participants as noble lords. The noble Lord Clement-jones has said. I hope that the House can recognise that the government has acted quickly and seriously. We were made aware of this issue on Monday, the 20th of April, and took very immediate action within hours of this being raised. We'd worked with the government, the embassy in Beijing, the Chinese government and Alibaba to have the relevant listings removed. And we've put in place measures or they put in place measures to prevent listings being put up again in the same way, and to automatically identify and remove relevant adverts.

Second, we asked Biobank to immediately revoke access for the research institutions that were identified as the source of the information. And third, we asked Biobank to stop access to its platform until a solution can be found and to the point raised by the noble Lord Markham. That has to be a technical solution. There are there are ways to do this. There are secure data platforms that stop people being able to download data. One of the things that's worth reflecting is that Biobank started in 2003.

Its data became available in 2012, and it was at the very forefront of protecting data when it started, and had very robust mechanisms as to who could access the data. What has happened is, as it's become a very, very large data set, it's not kept up with the changing requirements for this, and that's what needs to be put in place now. We also the fourth action we took was asked that participants should be informed immediately in terms of the point of what's going to happen.

And is this a robust approach from Biobank itself? Members of this House will, of course, be very familiar with the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, and he is the chair of UK Biobank. He has assembled a team, including cyber experts, to undertake an urgent, in-depth review of what happened and why, and will provide its findings to the board and indeed to us, on or before May the 10th. Furthermore, as has been asked, the government will issue new guidance on control of data from research studies.

This was in train anyway, and I hope that this will be out within the next few weeks and will apply to all of the resources in the UK which are used in this way, most of them, and we think probably all of them, apart from Biobank, do in fact use a secure data platform which does have the controls. The Biobank resource is important, and people volunteered to be part of it because of the benefits it brings for others and for future generations.

We need to work with Biobank to ensure that researchers who have a legitimate need to use the data sets can resume their research, but we must put the participants first and foremost. And I agree with Lord noble Lord Markham, that this has to be stopped. I mean, this has to be a system that can stop this, not just a process. In the meantime, Biobank are continuing to monitor whether new listings have emerged because data was downloaded in the past, up until 2024, it was possible to download data.

And that was the system that was used. And there was a trust system which was backed up by legal contract. But of course, this has, we know, been shared. So new listings will emerge and there have been additional listings posted since the government was made aware of this issue last week. And we continue to work with the Chinese government to remove them quickly. Whilst it's now not possible for new downloads of Biobank data, there remains a risk that new listings will emerge from data downloads that happened in the past.

And we will keep the participants and this House updated. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones question about the number of breaches. It's a high number of breaches that have occurred, most of them not very significant, but some significant. And all of them are unacceptable. And that is what needs to happen. I do want to be clear, though, that. The need to get these data sets used by researchers around the world does pull in the opposite direction to the need to keep it 100% safe, and therefore there has to be a system.

And that's where the secure data environments are so important. In answer to questions from both of the noble Lords about identification, the UK Biobank advises that information such as name addresses, exact date of birth and NHS number are removed from all the data before it's made available, so we do not think any of that was available and we're not aware that any any participant has been identified. We also don't believe that actually there were any purchases of the three listings before we managed to get them taken down.

However, we do welcome the in-depth board level review being undertaken, which we think needs to be comprehensive and cover technical, cultural and process issues. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-jones, it is increasingly possible to triangulate in large data sets and get close to identification, and that remains a very real risk. Turning more broadly to other points, the institutions from where the data originated have had their access revoked. And while Biobank worked to secure their platforms, as I said, all access and downloads have been paused globally.

I will note, though, that the Chinese government has been very supportive in getting these listings removed. The government is indeed reviewing the way in which we share biodata, and it's a commitment of the biological security strategy of 2023, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Malcolm, referred to, to reduce the risk of sensitive data being exploited for harmful purposes whilst maintaining legitimate research collaboration. This will include seeking to harmonise the security policies of the major holders of all genomic data in the UK.

We expect to conclude this work over the next few weeks. The point about the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill is, of course, an important one. And raised by the noble Lord Markham. The bill grants the Secretary of State new powers to issue national security directions to regulated entities or regulators, where the compromise or the threat of a compromise to their network and information system poses a national security risk. The use of these powers will always be underpinned by robust intelligence from Gchq, including, where relevant information about state actors involved in cyber threats.

Minister Narayan explained in the other place that therefore a register of foreign actors is unnecessary. In this particular context. We are committed to transparency and the government is already able to communicate with Parliament and the public about such cyber security risks, where it's appropriate to do so. So I will end this response by saying again, how important UK Biobank is, how unique it is worldwide in terms of its breadth and its depth of coverage, and how appalling it is that this leak occurred.

And we must make absolutely sure that this can be eliminated going forward by making sure that they secure data. Environment is put in place. And I will say that in 2024, a requirement was put in place for UK Biobank to put the air lock in place and to put the requirements that we're now talking about in place. And in 26 of January, we asked UK Biobank to put an air lock on this research programme research access platform that they've been using since 2024.

So pre 24, it was all downloads post 24. It's a research access platform, but unfortunately that was still downloadable. That's the bit that needs to be stopped now my Lord, can I.

18:38

Lord Reid of Cardowan (Labour)

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First of all declare an interest, particularly in the area of particularly in the area of cybersecurity? Firstly, I think we should congratulate the government, despite the seriousness of this, despite the seriousness of this, for the swift response. Admittedly, it was after the event, but but I think the the government acted on this occasion swiftly and very effectively. Secondly, although this was not, of course, a cyber attack. Nevertheless, the behavioural aspects which led to this leak won't be sufficient.

As the Minister and various others have said, it will require a range of cultural, behavioural and technical effects in order to try and minimise the chances of this happening. And in that context, I think both opposition spokesman made worthy recommendations and suggestions which the minister will no doubt look at. And finally, given the importance of the UK Biobank and the crucial role it plays in scientific research to the benefit of all our health. Can the Minister assure us that although it is an independent charity, that this will not undermine the government's support for it in the future, given its importance to the health of the nation?

18:40

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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Global affairs questions and I echo his points about the front echo his points about the front bench spokesman. On the other side, I think it's been very clear that everyone has the same intent here, everyone has the same intent here, which is to try and get this sorted out, and I welcome those inputs. I agree this is cultural as well as technical, and those things need to be looked at. They will be looked at as part of the review and. I can absolutely say there's an unwavering commitment to UK Biobank.

It is an extraordinarily important resource for the future health of the country and for ensuring that new discoveries are made. So we will continue to support UK Biobank across. Two conflicts of interest. First of all, I was a participant in the UK Biobank, having been recruited in Oxford in 2007. I have to say that my wife is also a participant. It's been far more assiduous, for example, undergoing

18:41

whole body imaging about two years ago, which took a whole day. And we

18:41

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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ago, which took a whole day. And we are both very glad to be participants. And I personally don't think that the risk of

18:41

don't think that the risk of re-identification is all that high. It's non-zero, but it is very low probability. And that's why I'm happy to declare that conflict of happy to declare that conflict of interest. The second conflict of interest is the fact that I have interest is the fact that I have been a UK Biobank principal investigator. In a study carried out about ten years ago, developing AI algorithms for the automated identification of atrial fibrillation in about 100,000 participants who undertook an exercise bike test as part of the UK Biobank data set acquisition.

Now, in those days, pre 2024, as

18:42

Lord Tarassenko (Crossbench)

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the noble Lord Minister said, the data was actually transferred to our servers under a material our servers under a material transfer agreement and we held it securely on our servers. When the paper was eventually published in paper was eventually published in 2020, we deleted all data on our servers and indeed, that's what all principal investigators are meant principal investigators are meant to be doing. And as we've already heard, UK Biobank shifted its heard, UK Biobank shifted its policy to a cloud first model to enhance security so that what happened in the study I was involved in no longer takes place.

But my question is about the legacy data. Pre 2024. Those UK Biobank have any sort of estimate, even a semi accurate estimate of non-compliant pre 2024 principal investigators. And would a noble Lord, the Minister, agree with me that UK Biobank should work with data privacy researchers, for example, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-jones from the Oxford Internet Institute, to be much more proactive and as part of its investigations, to be proactive in identifying non-compliance through working with those data privacy researchers.

Well, first of all, let me thank the noble Lord, Lord Tarasenko and his wife for participating Biobank, because the whole thing depends on that. So thank you very much. The noble's quite right that pre 24 the data was downloaded and people did their research on downloaded data. So I've had this discussion with the

18:43

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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chair of Biobank, and they're going through a process at the moment to through a process at the moment to recontact all of the institutions, because this is an institutional because this is an institutional agreement to confirm that the data that they downloaded has been that they downloaded has been deleted, and that no further access will be granted until they prove that they have deleted the data. So that is a process that they're going to go through now, which I think is important, because that is the residual downloaded data, which is, I think, most vulnerable.

My

**** Possible New Speaker ****

friend. For coming to the House about this very serious incident, and I welcome what the government is welcome what the government is doing to try to prevent it from happening again. And, of course, I echo what has been said about the echo what has been said about the vital importance of Biobank. And nevertheless, I do have two quick questions for my noble friend. The statement says that Biobank have

18:44

Viscount Stansgate (Labour)

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revoked access to the research institutions that were identified as the source of the leak. Can my noble friend tell the House what those research institutions are? And secondly, in regard to the self-reference by Biobank, to the Information Commissioner's Office, what exactly is it that my noble friend hopes will result from that self reference to ensure that this doesn't happen again?

18:45

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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I think, my noble friend, for >> I think, my noble friend, for the question, it is the case that UK Biobank has identified the sites UK Biobank has identified the sites that were responsible for the leak. There were three institutions. The There were three institutions. The second Xinjiang Hospital, China-Japan Union Hospital in Beijing, Chaoyang Hospital and those institutions have been contacted to be dealt with as as discussed. Sorry, I've forgotten your second point.

18:45

Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat)

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About information. >> The information the ICO, yes, Biobank referred itself to the ICO. I think that's entirely appropriate thing to do in the matters in the ICO's hands. Now.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

ICO's hands. Now. Question to the noble Lord. The minister sort of follows on, which is how will we know that the is how will we know that the necessary Cultural Revolution among stewards of medical data will have taken place? I mean, it is frankly astonishing what's happened. That Biobank allowed the download of the data. I must admit, I've been worried about this sector since I was first involved in the drafting of the GDPR as an MEP nearly 15 years ago.

And I've also felt that the UK authorities were a little casual in the information given to patients. But going back to. I don't know if anyone remembers Care.data and, you know, the obfuscation about opt ins and opt outs and moving the goalposts and so on. And we've got Biobank, the chief executive said. The usual sort of statement. We take the protection of participants data extremely seriously and do not tolerate any form of data misuse. Whereas other, more realistic commentators have used adjectives such as supremely careless, irresponsible and cavalier.

So how do we get across? How does the Information commissioner really get proactive in this area? Because it's a betrayal of trust of patients. Of course we want research. I've been tangentially involved on research for a cure for diabetes, because my late husband was type one and was involved in in in this area. But the fact is that this was really identifiable data. Some press referred to it as anonymized. It was not anonymized. It was anonymized. It would not be personal data.

It's capable of being re-identified if you are able, if you if you know some things which are in the database about someone as Sam Smith of, of, of med confidential said that if I knew that someone had a kidney removed on a particular week in June 2021 as, as Wes Streeting did, I would know everything else about it. I don't know if that's true, but but the these guys do know what they're talking about. So how do we make sure that there really is, as I said, a cultural revolution? Because otherwise we're not going to have patients trust in this essential area.

18:48

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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Yeah. have to have trust because if we don't get trust, then we lose the ability to do what is an extraordinary resource. So that has to be part of what's looked at here. It's absolutely part of what the Board and Biobank are doing in their review. And it does need, I think, a very clear look. Now, I do want to just say that I think UK Biobank, when it started, was actually at the forefront of protection. It really did have very robust mechanisms to scrutinise researchers, scrutinise institutions, make sure that this was properly looked after.

I think what's happened is that things have overtaken them and that hasn't kept up, whereas others have put in a secure data platform to try and deal with these issues. So I think there is a question there. And part of that's because of the sheer size of the database, but it's not excusable. This needs to be sorted out. I do think to go to back to the noble Lord, Lord Tarasenko point, it is theoretically possible to re-identify people. It's not at all easy and I think it's a low probability, but it's not zero probability.

So I agree with the point that this is a real wake up call for researchers. We need to make sure that we build the right trust in. We are putting together the Health Data Research Service with this at the very heart of what it's going to do to make sure that there is trusted access to this type of data. I declare an interest as a participant in the UK Biobank. I'm not. The first time I said that.

18:49

Lord Lansley (Conservative)

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I think when I was Secretary of State, I said that in the context of encouraging people to support UK Biobank, can I can I would the Minister agree with me that, notwithstanding this lamentable abuse of the data, the. Those of us abuse of the data, the. Those of us who are participants see such such value emerging from UK Biobank that value emerging from UK Biobank that we should just happily continue to volunteer our data and our services whenever we're asked for.

Can I ask the Minister, though it does seem to me that as somebody who has received emails from UK Biobank since this was in the press, I've received nothing from them, although they say they're going to contact all participants and the statement says so I'm surprised that we've gone eight days and nothing has emerged. The website of UK Biobank says, and noble Lord, Lord Clement Jones referred to it, that they intend to have what they describe as an automated data checking scheme in place by the end of the year.

Can the can the Minister very kindly tell us a bit more why is. What would that add and why is it important? It seems to me that what we're looking for in this age of AI systems is something which is not only preventing unauthorised access, but is capable of identifying every subsequent use of that data, wherever that data may have been provided under the licence. Well, again, let me thank another participant of Biobank. One of the features I found whenever I've met Biobank participants or visitors is actually how incredibly altruistic everybody is and wants to do it for the common good.

And that's a very common theme. I'm sure that's going to be the response. Now, in terms of contact, we asked Biobank to

18:51

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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contact all participants immediately. I understand that for about half of the participants, they don't have an email address. they don't have an email address. So they've written, and I believe all the ones that have email addresses for they have sent emails to. That's what I understand in to. That's what I understand in terms of what happens next. I agree, technological changes are so fast that this has to be something that keeps up with that. The first step, I think, is to put a very clear 1 or 2 airlocks before you get to the data that stops you being able to export the data.

I think that is the immediate concern. Then there are, I think, ways in which it's possible to see where data has gone, and there will be things that looked at as part of the review that's going on. Extremely interesting. What the minister has said about leaks and and Biobank

18:52

Lord Robathan (Conservative)

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with these undoubted knowledge of these things, could he go back to whether or not there is any whether or not there is any possibility that Covid came, came from activity in China, as has been from activity in China, as has been suggested by an author who's here. And secondly, does he think that anybody that was responsible for anybody that was responsible for getting us to close down in that disastrous lockdown should be held disastrous lockdown should be held responsible in any way? This is somewhat off topic in terms of China.

I think it's very clear that there are three possibilities for where Covid came from. One is it was a natural infection that spilled over from bats, with billions of chances for that to happen. The second is it was an infection that was taken into a lab, and there was a lab leak at some point. And the third is that it was designed in some way. I think the last of those is very, very unlikely indeed. And that's what most people think. And you can't really distinguish between the first two by any other way than by the security services.

Back on topic after the noble Lord has asked his question.

18:53

Lord Patel (Crossbench)

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My Lord, I thank the honourable >> My Lord, I thank the honourable Minister, noble Lord, the Minister, for his reply. And I also commend the government for taking immediate action. When this data breach was known last Tuesday, the Science and Technology Committee took evidence from the chief executive of Biobank, and some of the issues brought out today were brought out then about data security. Two days later, we got the news about the Chinese data breach. The lessons are here about the public confidence, particularly in other research in the noble law.

The minister referred to the Health Data Research Service that we soon will be established, and the Genomics England data. Can you assure that the public confidence can be confirmed that those data sharing, those two organisations sharing their data would be secure, and the government will issue new guidance to every organisation that will use health data for research purposes.

18:54

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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I can absolutely assure the >> I can absolutely assure the noble Lord that the government will issue guidance. That guidance was guidance was in development anyway, guidance was in development anyway, and I expect it to come out within the next next few weeks. I can also assure him that other platforms use secure data platforms where the downloading of data is, is not possible. So there was there was a rather unusual situation with Biobank where the data was downloadable, which is not true for many others.

And we absolutely need to use this to build confidence that these data are properly looked after and used for the purposes for which they were given.

18:55

Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative)

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Well, can I ask the Minister a >> Well, can I ask the Minister a couple of questions? I could I just say, first of all, the this has had a silver lining, this breach, which is to remind us that the UK Biobank is a remarkable project and an act of British soft power and indeed altruism, which has been used by 22,000 researchers in 60 countries and produced 18,000 research papers. It really is remarkable when we kind of beat ourselves up in this country, it's useful to be reminded about the remarkable things we are capable of doing.

Could I ask him two questions? I described it as an act of altruism. But is there a what is the cost of remedying, as it were, the procedures that led to the breach and will. That is the cost of the UK Biobank shared by the institutions that use this remarkable resource all around the world? Or is it. Does it entirely fall on the British taxpayer? And could I also ask him to comment on the role of the Chinese government? It seems to me that we were quick to reach a conclusion when this story initially broke, that somehow the Chinese government was involved.

But as he mentioned in his statement, this was simply a theft that took place in China and did not in any way involve bad faith by the Chinese government.

18:56

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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Biobank, for all the reasons stated, is expensive to run, and stated, is expensive to run, and it's run with a mix of funding from government, from charities and indeed from industry as well. The major funders being UK government and the Wellcome Trust. Over many years, the. Whole principle of it has been to give access to people, and therefore there's not a big cost put on users of that. In terms of our approach. We knew the leak was in China and we immediately, therefore, asked the embassy in China to link to the government there to see if they could help us get these taken off the website.

We didn't make any conclusion about where they'd come from. We just thought that was probably going to be the fastest way to get these removed.

18:57

Lord Tarassenko (Crossbench)

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May I ask my Lords, may I ask the Minister follow up question to the one I was asking? I think he's absolutely right that UK Biobank absolutely right that UK Biobank should get in touch with the institutions where the principal investigators are based, but in fact a lot of inadvertent leak, if you will, of the data occurs from the researchers themselves. So the principal investigators who, believe it or not, will put the data on GitHub, and they may actually leave the institution and go and work somewhere else whilst the data remains on their GitHub.

And that's why I was asking whether UK Biobank board could be a little bit more proactive in terms of asking. Researchers from the Institute, for example, who are very capable in looking at those type of issues, to actually look at individual GitHub and other sites where the data may still be, even though the institutions from which those principal investigators were at would not be aware of it.

18:58

Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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Yes, we're very, very aware of the possibility that the things on the possibility that the things on GitHub, there has been a GitHub issue related to this, which was identified earlier this year, and identified earlier this year, and that will be part of what Biobank looks at and going forward. Of course, that will not be possible because of the inability to download.

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My Lord, sir, we are due to consider the pension bill due from the other place, and until such the other place, and until such time, my Lords are back to move that the House adjourn during

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pleasure to a point shown on the Annunciator. Question is that the House adjourned during pleasure until a adjourned during pleasure until a time to be announced on the Annunciator, as many of that opinion will say, content to the opinion will say, content to the contrary, not content. The contents

19:03

House Adjourned During Pleasure

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On On their

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On their disagreement On their disagreement with certain amendments made by your lordships to the Pension Schemes lordships to the Pension Schemes Bill, insist on certain of their amendments to which your Lordships have disagreed, but do not insist on certain other amendments and propose further amendments to which they desire the agreement of your

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lordships. Consideration of Commons

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amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill by Mr. Sherlock. My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now

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considered forthwith. The question is that the Commons Amendments be now considered forthwith as many as that of, say, forthwith as many as that of, say, content contrary, not content. The contents have it. Motion a banner. Sherlock.

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Sherlock. My lords, I beg to move motion a. That this House do not insist on That this House do not insist on its amendments 15 to 24, 27, 30 to 34, 36, 38 to 42, 83, and 88. And do agree with the Commons and their amendments. 88C88E to 88P88R88S88W and 88 y to 88 z eight to the words restored to the Bill by the Commons disagreement to Lords Amendment 15

20:31

Legislation: Pensions Schemes Bill - consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons (if required) Baroness Sherlock, The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Labour)

to 24, 27, 30 to 34, 36, 38 to 42, 83 and 88. My Lords, I'm noble. Lords will be aware that we have one outstanding issue on this Bill still in play. Unsurprisingly, it is the reserve power on asset allocation. My Lords, as this is the fourth time the House has been asked to consider the question, I will spare the Lords a detailed exposition of the merits of this policy. Let me simply say that the government's underlying position has not changed, reflecting our policy intent to ensure that savers best interests are secured by bigger and better pension schemes.

Investing in a wide range of assets. Today, the government returns to its previous amendments, all of which the elected House endorsed. These spell out the intended purpose of the reserve power to underpin the industry's own commitments in the mansion House accord and rule out other uses, such as a focus on any specific asset or asset class. Today, we are also bringing forward a final set of changes that aim to respond to points made in this House and the other place, while retaining the policy intent I've set out.

These have three elements. First, a new requirement on regulators, in this case the TPR and FCA, to make an assessment of the extent to which there is evidence for the collective action problem that we have discussed in debates on this bill. There will be a requirement for this assessment to be incorporated into the production of the ex-ante report, which the Bill requires to be published before any use of the reserve power. Our amendments today would also place a duty on the government to have regard to this regulatory assessment before any use of the power.

My Lords, it was always the government's intent to evaluate progress against the mansion House accord commitments in terms of the broad direction of travel over a substantial period of time, rather than shorter term movements in private asset exposure. To reinforce this, we also propose to add to the face of the bill that the power cannot be exercised any earlier than 2028. Our second set of changes builds on the Savers Interest Test to reinforce the central role of trustees and providers. Our amendment in lieu would change the bar required to engage the savers interest test, rather than having to demonstrate that meeting the asset allocation requirements would be likely to cause material financial detriment, a scheme would instead have to show that meeting the requirement is likely not to be in the best interests of members.

This reflects language regularly used when considering trustee duties. In addition, we have more tightly specified the regulator's role, confining it to ensuring the trustee or providers own assessment of what is in the best interests of members is reasonable, rather than replacing that assessment with their own. Thirdly, our amendments address worries about differential treatment of particular investment vehicles by allowing for consideration of direct or indirect holdings in the asset classes named in the mansion House Accord Lords. This bill has its roots in much work that's been underway for some time in government, but also in Labour's commitment to ensure workplace pension schemes take advantage of scale and invest in a wider range of productive assets.

That was why one of the first things the government did on taking office was to launch a comprehensive review of pensions investment. That review found clear evidence that the DC pensions market is operating with an excessively narrow focus on cost, to the detriment of saver outcomes. That's where the reserve power comes from. It exists because the review found, and the industry

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itself has told us publicly and Privately, the competitive pressure focussed on cost minimisation is the single biggest barrier to diversifying in savers barrier to diversifying in savers long term interests. But of course, things can change over time, and there are a range of other factors there are a range of other factors which may come into play. The changes we proposed today address that worry and others. They require that worry and others. They require regulators to assess whether these pressures remain a material barrier to more diverse private asset to more diverse private asset investment before any use of the power, and they put trustee or providers own assessments of savers interests, centre savers, best interests, centre stage.

But also I'm grateful for engagement across the House with this bill and of engagement with the opposition parties, particularly in recent times. This House has done its job in revising this bill and I commend the government amendments to the House. I beg to move. Thank you.

20:35

Viscount Thurso (Liberal Democrat)

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The question is that motion A be agreed to? >> The Lords are. >> I rise, I think probably for the last time in your lordships House, last time in your lordships House, to congratulate the Minister and to thank her for all of the hard work she's done, and to say how much that I have appreciated my interaction with her. I think we have arrived at a perfect compromise, in that none of us are entirely satisfied, which has always been the definition of a great compromise.

And we are in a place where I think the major concerns that many of us had on the Mandation part of this bill, if not removed, have at least been modified to the point at which they are liveable with. And as the noble Baroness, the minister said, this is this House at its best. When I came into this House in 1995, if you'd said to me the last time you speak will be on the fourth ping pong of a pension schemes bill, I would have said on your bike, not a chance.

But I have enjoyed and the work of being part of this bill, and I think both the government and the opposition have done their job well. And I hope, therefore, when this goes on to the statute book, it will deliver for pensioners.

20:37

Baroness Altmann (Non-affiliated)

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My Lord. >> It is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount Thurso, and I pay tribute to him, and he will be much tribute to him, and he will be much missed by this House. His work on this Bill and many other areas has been most welcome and helpful, and his demeanour and the manner in which he has cooperated with with us and with ministers, I think has been appreciated by everybody. I also need to declare my interest in this House as far as pensions are concerned, I am an adviser to a master trust and a non-executive director of a pensions administration company.

But most particularly, and I won't delay the House too long. I wanted to welcome the changes made and thank the noble lady, the Minister, for her patience, her engagement and for listening and working with this House in the way that that we have now achieved what is going to be, I believe, much safer and better outcomes for members of pension schemes, and it will allow trustees and managers to look after the best interests of members so that they will not feel forced to invest in ways that they might not have chosen to, or are against their best judgement, and there will not be an exclusion of listed investment companies.

Again, I thank the noble lady, the Minister and the government for listening to the serious concerns expressed by this House, and I also welcome the changes that we have made along the way to the Bill. I think it is a much better bill. I would like to thank all colleagues across the House who have cooperated so well. And of course, I must pay tribute to the noble lady, Baroness Bowles, for all the work that she has put in, and to the frontbench on this side as well, who have worked so hard to make this bill a better bill.

So, my Lords, I wish this bill well, and I do think that hopefully a lot of pension scheme members will enjoy better retirements in the future. I certainly hope so. As a result of what we are doing now. My Lords, I'm very.

20:40

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat)

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Pleased to have reached this. >> Pleased to have reached this. >> Stage where we are now all back on the same side.

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on the same side. We've had some exchanges when we've said once upon a time we were all pointing in the same direction, all pointing in the same direction, and then we've had a little bit of slippage away from that, and now we are back together. I'm still no fan of Mandation, but I think we have got it now suitably under control, if I can put it that way. And I think that there are reasonable guardrails to make sure that that it it doesn't go wrong and that we can hopefully never use it.

And, and that, you know, we, we do get the additional investments that we are all in, in principle, agree are needed. I'd like also to thank all noble Lords who have worked on the bill, because the work and the meetings and so forth have have been harmonious. There has been a lot of late night working as well, and something early this morning that that that has resulted in, in, in the solutions that we that we now have.

So like, like others, I thank everyone and hope that we can see the rewards that come from the passage of this bill. Here.

20:41

Viscount Younger of Leckie (Conservative)

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My Lords, the amendments brought forward by the government today in forward by the government today in view of those proposed by the noble Baroness Lady Bowles, go some way towards addressing our more fundamental concerns about the Mandation power, in particular the shift in the test from acquiring schemes to show that compliance would be likely to cause material financial detriment, to demonstrating that it is likely to be in the best interests of members, represent. Not to be in the best interests of members represents a significant and welcome change from the government's original position.

By placing members best interests at the heart of the policy. This reform helps to mitigate the risk that Mandation could cut across trustees fiduciary duties. It was never acceptable that schemes should have to show a risk of material detriment before securing an exemption, as the government had proposed in earlier stages. The government's recognition of that point is therefore very welcome, albeit somewhat overdue. My Lords, I also welcome the government's commitment to require the regulators to undertake an independent assessment of the purported collective action problem and the extent to which it is inhibiting investment in UK assets.

The government have consistently argued that Mendation is necessary to address a collective action problem. They will now need to substantiate that claim with robust, independent evidence and for the Secretary of State to have regard to this assessment before they make regulations. That, too, is a welcome step forward, as is the government's commitment to remove discrimination in the clause between investment vehicles. Their decision to bring forward the sunset period from 2035 to 2032 is also very sensible. My Lords, these changes are a direct result of sustained and determined pressure from across this House to address the question of mandation in the Bill.

They were Lords and all sides recognised early on the fundamental flaws in the government's original approach, concerns that were not only shared here but held strongly across industry. I do pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, who has led that effort with clarity and persistence. She has kept the House focussed on what is, without question, the central issue in our consideration of this Bill, and I am very glad that this has borne fruit in what is a substantial move from the government's original position, which was untenable.

My Lords, I shan't detain the House any further than just to say that we on these benches are content to accept the amendments that the government have introduced. And I do thank the noble Baroness, the Minister, for her earlier remarks. The situation is far from perfect, but we remain of the view that the Mandation part is wrong in principle. But this settlement, which we might now call Mandation light, is far better than that in the bill as originally drafted, and that is a direct result of the work done in your lordships House to stand up for businesses and savers in our countries.

Finally, my Lords, as this is my very last contribution from the front bench and in this House, I do wish the whole House and all noble Lords the very best of luck for the future. It has been a genuine, huge privilege to serve on the front bench almost continuously for 15 years. And of course I will miss it dreadfully. But I do know that there is a life outside this great

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House of Lords. My Lords, I'm very grateful to the noble Lords for their remarks, the noble Lords for their remarks, and I won't. I won't attend the House for long at all. I just want I want to say just a couple of I want to say just a couple of things. One is that this bill is about so much more than this simple than this, this reserve power. So than this, this reserve power. So just to take a moment to think what we have done, we've done some really significant work which will help to reshape the pensions help to reshape the pensions landscape to help get a better, better returns for savers.

As the noble Baroness Lady Altmann, said, we've addressed questions of value for money, of scale, of lost parts of guided retirement, a Superfund regime, an uprating for PPF members. My Lords, there's a huge amount that has gone into this and more besides, and I'm so grateful to the House for the detailed scrutiny. But bills like this are ones which show the value of this House when we get the time to crawl all over this. And I rather like the noble Viscount Thurso, I think his characterisation will outlive him, that when we're all a bit unhappy, we may well have landed in a place which we can live with.

But can I just say thank you again to all the noble Lords? I won't name them all, because there were too many. But obviously the noble Baroness Lady Bowles and Baroness Lady Stedman-scott and Lady Altmann for their work in this and for the engagement in recent times. I thank the noble Viscount Thurso both for his kind words about me, but also I hope he took from the warmth of the all the years of public service. And finally the Viscount Younger again. I think on behalf of the House.

15 years on the frontbench. My Lords, he deserves a break. There is a life outside this, said once more with feeling as someone who's not far off that. But I just want to thank him for all those years of public service, for his years as a minister, for his years on the frontbench, for his courtesy and his kindness and his engagement for all the work that he's done. And we wish him a very, very happy time outside this house when he discovers the joys to be found beyond here, he may write back and

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tell us, and we'll just be very jealous. But, my Lords, in the meantime, thanks to everybody. I beg to move. Lords, the question is that

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Lords, the question is that motion A be agreed to? As many as are of that opinion will say, content to the contrary, not content to the contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, as we have only just Lords, as we have only just received the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill back from the Commons, we will have to from the Commons, we will have to adjourn to a point that will be doing pleasure, to a point that's going to be announced on the Annunciator to commence recommence on that bill.

Thank you very much. The question is that the House to adjourn during. Pleasure until the time to be announced on the Annunciator. Any that opinion will say content contrary, not content.

20:49

Baroness Sherlock, The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Labour)

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20:49

Viscount Younger of Leckie (Conservative)

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20:49

Baroness Sherlock, The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Labour)

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20:49

House Adjourned During Pleasure

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The The Commons The Commons that

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The Commons that they The Commons that they insist The Commons that they insist on their disagreement with certain amendments made by your lordships amendments made by your lordships to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, but have made an amendment in lieu have made an amendment in lieu thereof. They insist on their disagreement with certain amendments, insist on their amendments to the words restored to amendments to the words restored to the Bill by that disagreement, and propose a further amendment to the words so restored to the Bill, and they insist on their amendments in lieu thereof, and propose further amendments in lieu to which they desire the agreement of your lordships.

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Consideration of. Commons amendments on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Baroness Taylor Empowerment Bill. Baroness Taylor of Stevenage. My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendments be move that the Commons amendments be now considered forthwith. The question is that the Commons Amendments be now considered forthwith. As many as of that opinion will say content. The contrary not content. The contents contrary not content. The contents have it motion. A Baroness Taylor, of Stevenage. My Lords, I beg to move motion a.

That this House do not insist on its amendments. 89 B and 89 C, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement, and do agree with the Commons in Amendment 89 g in lieu I will also speak to motions B and C. My Lords, what a privilege it is at the end of this session of Parliament to bring back the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to the House of Lords to consider amendments and reasons from the other place.

This landmark devolution Bill will deliver the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster to England's regions and communities for a century, sparking growth across our regions. New powers for communities will give local people

22:02

Legislation: English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill - consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons (if required) Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)