Lords Chamber

Wednesday 10th June 2026

(began 3 weeks, 1 day ago)

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None Portrait Oral questions: Best Start Family Hubs: support for families with children and young adults requiring special educational needs and disabilities
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profit Family Hubs Network Limited. Yes. >> My Lords, we are investing over
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None Portrait Business of the House
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>> I. restore. >> The powers and. Justice. >> Board for England and Wales, and

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Board for England and Wales, and move. That this. Bill be now read a.

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First time. The question is that this. Bill be now read a first time. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. First reading of another private member's Bill, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.

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My Lord, sir, I beg to introduce a bill to require manufacturers to a bill to require manufacturers to fit microplastic catching filters to new domestic and commercial washing machines, to make provision washing machines, to make provision about the promotion of the use of microplastic catching filters in washing machines, and raising washing machines, and raising awareness about the consequences of microplastics from washing machines for pollution in rivers and seas and for connected purposes. I beg

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to move that this bill be now read a first time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah yeah. The question. Is. That this bill be now read a

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Is. That this bill be now read a first time. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents

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have it. Steel industry nationalisation bill to which they desired the

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agreement of your Lordships. My Lord. Steel Industry

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nationalisation Bill. My Lords, I beg to move this Bill be now read a first time. Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, yeah. The question is that this bill be now read a first time, as many be now read a first time, as many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it questions on The contents have it questions on an answer to an urgent question asked in the House of Commons yesterday on the violent attack in
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None Portrait Urgent Question Repeat: Reports of a serious violent attack in north Belfast involving a foreign national
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North Belfast.
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Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Conservative)
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Questions on a statement made in >> Questions on a statement made in the House of Commons yesterday on the Middle East. >> My Lords.

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My Lords. Let me firstly thank the Minister for the opportunity to ask questions on this important statement. The situation in the Middle East continues to cause global instability, and families here in the UK are feeling the impact at the petrol pump and in the shops. We all have an interest in securing stability in the region, and we should all hope that ceasefires eventually lead to lasting peace. In recent days, we have seen a significant increase in tensions following the Iranian regime's use of ballistic missiles in an attack on Israel.

I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, for her confirmation that Israel does have the right to defend itself when Israel faces terrorist attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah, when the Iranian regime fires ballistic missiles at Israel, we must all, in my view, be united on Israel's right to self-defence. We must all recognise that Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, both internationally and. Sadly, here in the UK. This House voted three times in the last session to prescribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

The Ministers now tell us that this is something that the government is committed to, and that it will happen as soon as Ministers can. So would the noble Lord. The Minister update the House on the government's planned timescale for prescription. Iran also continues to obstruct shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The regime has murdered its own citizens in droves and refuses to end its nuclear weapons program. So could the noble Lord please take this opportunity to reassure the House that urgent work is ongoing with our US and EU partners to secure the safe passage of shipping through the Strait? And can he say what work is being done to ensure that Iran does, in fact, eventually end its nuclear programme? I think noble Lords across the House, including on the government benches, will agree with me when we say that Iran was never have a nuclear weapon.

Turning to Gaza and the West Bank, my right hon. Friend Dame Priti Patel was right when she said in the other place that we all want to see an end to violence and conflict in the West Bank and in Gaza, and there remain concerns about the delivery of aid which urgently need to be resolved. And we support all efforts to secure peace. But in that context, we know that Hamas must be disarmed and it must have no role in the future government of Gaza or in the West Bank.

However, Hamas is still a threat and it is still powerful in Gaza, so would be grateful if the noble Lord would give the House a sense of the government's reaction to the news yesterday that the United States Agency for International Development has referred 101 current or former UNRWA staff members to the US State Department over their affiliation with Hamas and in some cases, their involvement in the October 7th attacks themselves. We believe that. Of course, it would be preferable for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

So when my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary asked questions in the other place about the support that the government is giving to Lebanon on this point, they went unanswered. So I wonder, can the Minister please say whether the government have plans to go beyond the current support that we are already giving to the Lebanese armed forces and help them to contribute to the disarmament and disbandment of Hezbollah?
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Lord Purvis of Tweed Portrait Lord Purvis of Tweed (Liberal Democrat)
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Lordships we. >> Had an. >> Opportunity of raising Lebanon yesterday. I will focus today on Iran, on Palestine and on Sudan. I agree with the noble Lord that we are feeling the impact of the US Israeli Iranian war here in the UK. 102 days ago, we were called on by the conservative opposition to be all in with the Trump administration. On the Iran war. I warned that would be a mistake as the case had not been made and there was no clear means by which it would be ended.

Now we have ceasefires where the firing has not ceased, and there is not an end to the war, and civilians are still paying the price and the convulsion on global trade and energy markets continue, and seems to offer no immediate or medium term respite for the communities affected by it, especially those on a humanitarian need. I was at a briefing yesterday with the situation in Afghanistan, where we were told in very clear terms that ships with food supplies, vital nutritional supplies for Afghan children, had been held up because they were on a ship waiting to exit the Strait of Hormuz.

Both the United States and Iran have not offered any respite to to allow humanitarian relief through the Strait of Hormuz. So I'd be grateful if the Minister is able to make strong representations that there are humanitarian consequences to the closure of the strait. President Trump seems to, at the same time, have crippled the civilian economy in Iran, actively harming the very people that he said the US was on its way to help and at the same time, given the homicidal regime in Tehran, astonishing strategic advantage, its proxies have noticed.

And it is why people are still under the thumb of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists after all of this violence that we heard yesterday, for some in this House, that there needed to be more violence to solve this situation. But as the former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has said, I quote, for the thousandth time, violence without diplomacy is not sustainable. And I agree with him with regards to the ongoing situation and tragedy within Gaza and Palestine. I wonder if the Minister could confirm what our government's assessment is on the actions of the Board of Peace and any of the technical elements within it that we read reporting that the Board of Peace currently has zero funds, zero funds available to it under an authorised situation, is that the government's assessment, with the stasis and confusion of the Trump administration on its intent for the Board of Peace, that that is something where I remind the House the conservative opposition said we should be part of that, too.

What is the current means by which humanitarian assistance is being provided within Gaza? I agreed with the Foreign Secretary and in the statement that there is a considerable lack of action to deliver levels of humanitarian aid. It is not even anywhere close to where the 20 point plan said it would be. What is the government's assessment of the scale of the assistance that's being provided, and with regards to the continuing violence within the West Bank, it is very regrettable that there is still too high a level of impunity for those that are perpetuating violence within the West Bank.

I agree with the additional sanctions that are being put in place, but there is too much of the impunity for not only settlers, but those who are in outposts. These are outposts which are prohibited under Israeli law, and there is lack of policing with regards to the activity of outposts. So will the government ensure that any of those who are facilitating, either by finance or political support, those that are sanctioned, will be brought within the sanctions regime, and that will apply to those within this country, too.

Finally, with regards to Sudan, because Sudan is a conflict which has far too little scrutiny in this House and Parliament and in the UK, but it is incredibly linked with what is happening within the Middle East. Does the Minister agree with two of the key principles in the 12th of September statement last year by the Quad Countries, that Sudan's future governance should be, through an inclusive and transparent process where civilians are leading and not controlled by any warring party, including those of the Muslim Brotherhood, so that Sudan, as well as other civilians across the region, can have more sustainable peace.

Before I sit down and links with the previous question that we've just heard, community cohesion is now something where we all need to be focusing our minds. There has been repugnant Islamophobic statements from the far right, and there has been repulsive anti-Semitic statements and actions from those, including the far left in this country and groups two. And I reiterate my call for high level cross-party talks to lead to a consensus that anti-Semitism has no place in the streets of our country, is not British, and no single person in this country should be held to account for actions of foreign governments.

It is not in the repulsive.
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Lord Lemos Portrait Lord Lemos (Labour)
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Yes. Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. >> I thank both noble Lords for those comments on the statement those comments on the statement made by my right hon. Friend and I try and do deal with some of the questions they raise. If I don't if I'm not able to, then I'll obviously follow up in writing. We obviously. Let me start with Iran. We're obviously concerned by the recent escalation and rise in tension, and we absolutely encourage the US and Iran to continue with the talks and to focus on de-escalation.

I think everyone in the House would agree with that. And I note the the noble Lord Lord Purvis observation about humanitarian aid not getting through the Straits of Hormuz. I must say I'm very concerned about that. And I promise to to look look into it further. But the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened for trade and indeed for humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and elsewhere. And the. The UK is working with the French on the multinational military mission to keep the Straits of Hormuz open.

But we can't do that at the noble Lord Callanan asked me about this. We can't do that until there is a sustainable ceasefire and we know exactly what is required, but we are at the forefront of bringing together international cooperation to ensure that once the there is a ceasefire and the Straits of Hormuz are reopened, they stay reopened with. With our support. The noble Lord asked me about prescription and so on, and we are following the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC.

He will know that the State Threats Bill has been introduced in in the other place, and we are determined to address strait state threats from proxies. It is absolutely essential for our national security and for the safety of our communities and the. This House had the opportunity to discuss the State Threats Bill very soon with my noble friend Lord Hanson, and we hope, as I think the Home Secretary said yesterday, that that will be brought to the statute books in very shortly, and that will give us the.

Give the government powers, similar to terrorism powers, to act against state threats from proxies. We take that very seriously indeed. I entirely agree, and the entirely the the the government entirely agrees with Lord Callanan that that the that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. We don't think this war is the way to deliver that outcome, but we will continue to work with our allies and partners to focus on that. We. We do not want to see that proliferation under any circumstances.

And the noble Lord Lord Callanan asked me to reaffirm the UK's long standing support for the Lebanese government and indeed the Lebanese Lebanese armed forces, and I'm very happy to do that. And we will look specifically at what more help we can give them. The situation. I don't have time to talk at great length about Lebanon, but the situation in Lebanon is, is, is really terrible. I answered a question from Lord Purvis not so long ago about this, and we do regard Israeli strikes as reckless and disproportionate, and we will the Lebanese government is the legitimate authority in Lebanon, and we will continue to support them and their armed forces.

Hamas has not yet. Sorry, Hezbollah attacks on Israel and Hezbollah must Demilitarise and we are very committed to that. Turning now to Gaza, if I may, I mean, words almost fail me, frankly, to describe how extreme the humanitarian crisis and words really fail me to describe the seriousness of the of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 1.9 million people have displaced. I know noble Lords that know these things, but it is really important for us to understand them. What is going on? There is a water and sanitation crisis.

There is a public health crisis. There are families without shelter and there are children without food. It is I could, I could, but I don't have time to go through a long list of what what is needed. But let me just say this it is essential that food, medicine and fuel gets through to Gaza as soon as possible. The problem is not that aid is not available. We've got food rotting in warehouses. The problem is not that funding is not available. The problem is access.

These crossings must reopen and they must stay open and the aid must get through. Lord Callanan asked me about. About UNRWA. The reality is, I think the noble Lord knows is that there have been a lot of concerns about. I think that the noble Lady Baroness Deech raised them with me in the past. UNRWA now has Christiane Saunders and charts. It has a reform programme. We want to see that taken forward and we want. But. But the reality is, and I'm sorry, I know this is a difficult dilemma.

UNRWA is providing life saving basic services on the ground. And in order to get those services delivered, we have to continue to work with with UNRWA. Can I just say on on Palestinian governance, Hamas decommissioning has not started and we do want that want to see that happen as soon as possible. I'm very happy to say more about the support that we're giving to the Palestinian Authority in in our following our historic recognition of the Palestine state and the two state solution.

But as far as Hamas decommissioning is essential for making progress with Palestinian recognition, the noble law. Lord Purvis asked me about sanctions in relation to settlements on the West Bank. We've just announced a fourth round of sanctions. As my right hon. Friend said the other place, and we have our sanctions regime in on West Bank settlers is stronger than any other country. And he knows I'm not going to give a running commentary on future sanctions, but we will use our sanction powers.

And as he knows, we've used them extensively in relation to the West Bank, including on members of the Israeli Cabinet in a personal capacity. I do want to say one other thing. One other important thing which which has been mentioned about the West Bank, we do not want to see. The government does not want to see UK companies involved in in work in on the West Bank. And we have my my right hon. Friend has tightened the guidance and.

And we shall see. We shall keep that under review. We do not, under any circumstances, want UK companies involved in settlement building in the West Bank, and the Prime Minister has issued a joint statement on the 22nd of May, specifically on E one. We. We do not want UK companies involved in that. I'd say one other thing about that, if I may, we have also been in touch with the Charity Commission about charities that purport to support West Bank settlers and indeed, in relation to my earlier comments, people that are involved with the Iranian regime.

And we do want to see the Charity Commission doing more in relation to those purported charities. And we we are working with them on that. I am, of course, very happy to repeat what my noble friend Lady Chapman, said in relation to Israel's right. To self-defence. Of course we understand that. Of course we support that. We have not forgotten what happened on October the 7th. And we think that attacks. We've made it very clear that attacks from. On Israel, from Hezbollah, Hamas or Iranian Iran or any proxies should stop.

And we are we are friends and allies of Israel, and we will continue to be so. We do not support movements for disinvestment and all the rest of it. On antisemitism, which the noble Lord Lord Purvis mentioned. We are concerned about this. We have provided 80 million community security trust. But I am not complacent and I don't think anyone in the government or indeed in your Lordships' House is complacent about this. We have to do more. We have to bring different bits of government together to work more closely on on anti-Semitism.

We are not where we want to be, and that is partly to do with what's going on in the international arena. But we must address these remarks, address these issues domestically as well. And in that context, I entirely endorse Lord Purvis remarks about community cohesion on Sudan. Just very briefly, because I'm now really nearly out of time, we do indeed endorse the quad process. And as the noble Lord knows, we're part of that process. And we do want to see the kind of government that he recommended and talked about.

My Lord, my.
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Lord Austin of Dudley Portrait Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated)
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Lord, my. >> Lord, my. >> Lord. >> My Lords. >> If I may. My Lords, it's completely naive of the government completely naive of the government to expect the the Lebanese government or armed forces to deal with Hezbollah. They're completely with Hezbollah. They're completely incapable of doing that. And they have been for years. The only people capable of dealing with Hezbollah are the IDF. If Israel does have the right to defend itself, and if we want to see peace, then we should be supporting the Israelis in dealing with with Hezbollah.

On this question of anti-Semitism, singling Israel out, holding it to standards not applied to other countries are clear examples of anti-Semitism under the official IHRA definition. This is, my Lords, the second debate already this week on Israel. The second debate. Over the last few years, Parliament has discussed Israel more than any other issue, not just any international issue, more than any domestic issue, more than the economy, unemployment, crime, the NHS, the public out there look at Parliament and think this is utterly mad, utterly, utterly mad.

Does the government understand? Does Parliament not understand, that singling out the world's only Jewish state, holding it to standards not applied to anywhere else, suggesting that Israel is committing the worst? Falsely accusing Israel of committing these terrible crimes. This is bound to drive hostility towards people who are identified with Israel, which is the vast majority of the Jewish community. And I have to say, this is why I believe Parliament is playing a large role in driving the explosion of anti-Semitism that we've seen on the streets of Britain.
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Lord Lemos Portrait Lord Lemos (Labour)
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I. Let me try and deal with some some of those points that I know my noble friend raises. I wouldn't want, frankly, to single out a particular community as having made more contribution to this country than any other, but I do absolutely recognise the contribution that the Jewish community has made to this nation's life, sometimes in the most difficult circumstances for that community. So I'm absolutely stand foursquare behind my own admiration for the Jewish community in Britain on on Hezbollah and Demilitarising.

Let me be absolutely clear about this. The government does not think that Hezbollah has any place in the future of Lebanon. That's our view. And on decommissioning Hamas. Well, I think our view is that what we want to do is to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian governance. That is why we have taken the steps we have to to support the Palestinian Authority. We've given them £10 million this year. We do want to get some basic services. We're funding 5300 health professionals in Palestine.

We. Michael Barber, my noble friend Lord Barber is working there too. But the thing I really want to stress in relation to, to what my noble friend says is the importance of civil society and the importance. Because when I travel in that region, it. Many, many people in Israel, in the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon and so on, they don't share the views of their governments and the various actors in in the area. So tomorrow, I'm happy to to say that the Foreign Secretary, along with Canada and Australia, will be launching a peace building fund, which seeks to work specifically with civil society in in Israeli and Palestinian communities.

And I greatly welcome that.
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Lord Lemos Portrait Lord Lemos (Labour)
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Area. It should have been made illegal. illegal. >> I. I don't want to take a doom laden view on this, but I think the laden view on this, but I think the Prime Minister and the leaders of other countries have made it very clear. What the consequences of E1 going ahead will be. And that is why we are against it, and that is why we've set our position now, clearly. I don't I wouldn't want to go quite as far as the noble Lord does in saying, well, that ruins all hope.

Hope of the of the two state solution. But it is very serious. On the other point he made, and this point was made extensively in the other place, why don't we ban this altogether? I think the government's view, and I want to be completely straightforward about this, it is that there is legitimate trade with Israel and legitimate activities with Israel and civil society, and we don't want to compromise those. But I would say that we will if if if this advice is insufficient to put it.

If I can put it like that, we will we will review it and keep it under review. We are completely clear, as I've already said, and I'm very happy to reinforce it. We don't want British companies involved in E1 or in any of the other settlements of the West Bank who will do will do what is necessary. Can I just come back very quickly to the noble Lord Lord Pannick? I've got the official answer to your question here, so I'd better read it out for the record, to prevent myself getting into trouble on prisoner payments.

We welcome the important, important commitments made by the Palestinian Authority to reform prisoner payments so that welfare payments are need needs based and delinked from violent actions. So I hope, I hope I've made that clear, and I won't have to correct myself. Lord.
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Baroness Rock Portrait Baroness Rock (Conservative)
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Valsamidis, Abdullah Ahmad Clayton Gurney and Aneela Mahmood for their incredible support. But my Lords, incredible support. But my Lords, most of all, I would like to thank everyone who engaged with our everyone who engaged with our inquiry. We were constantly struck by the very moving and powerful testimonies without. All of those who engaged, our report would just not have been possible. My Lords, the Autism Act 2009 is a landmark law for and about autistic people. The act began as a private members bill and won government support thanks to the tireless efforts of its sponsor, the late right Hon Cheryl Gillan MP, and we pay enormous tribute to her today.

The act requires the government to produce an autism strategy for England, backed up by statutory guidance. Our committee's task was to examine how well the act has been implemented and to inform the development of a new autism strategy ahead of the expiry of the current strategy, which is this July next month. A key priority for us was to carry out our inquiry in partnership with autistic people and support those who and and those who support them. My Lords, we took oral evidence from incredibly nearly 70 witnesses, and we received written evidence from almost 400 individuals and organisations.

Several thousand people also contributed through surveys and consultation exercises. I think that speaks volumes for the engagement and the importance of the of the topic. We also spoke in private to dozens of autistic people and those who support them, including invaluable visits to Care Trades employment scheme at Saint Thomas's Hospital, just over the river, and to Phoenix School in Tower Hamlets. My Lords, when the Autism Act was passed, autistic people were often invisible. The act really helped change that, making government recognise and respond to their needs.

When the act was passed, about 1 in 100 people were estimated to be autistic. Diagnosis rates are now higher than that among younger people, but still far lower among older people. That rise is in part because of our understanding of autism, and it has evolved. But there are also worrying signs that more autistic people are struggling. The inequalities are unacceptable and in many cases, widening. More than 270 000 people are now waiting for an autism assessment. Only about 3 in 10 autistic people are in work.

On average, autistic people live shorter lives. My Lords, the government Autism Strategy for 2021 to 2026 set out laudable ambitions decided in consultation with autistic people and their families. But after the first year, successive governments produced no plans to deliver or fund the strategy. It is now time to change that. Our central recommendation is that the government must deliver a new autism strategy taking effect when the current strategy expires next month. The Minister for care, Stephen Kinnock MP, assured us that the government is absolutely committed to there being a strategy and to there being an implementation plan, he said.

And I quote him, the strategy we will bring forward is being shaped as we speak. The government will be developing the strategy in 2026, and the input from the committee will help us shape that strategy. But and I am sad that I have to say, but the government's response to our report was markedly vaguer, saying we recognise that meaningful engagement will take time, so a balance will need to be struck as to what level of further engagement is required, and the current strategy will remain in force while we do this.

My Lords, this is simply just not good enough. The strategy's expiry date is now weeks away, and we seem closer to delivering for autistic people. Baroness, the Minister tell the House what will happen when the current strategy expires. When will the new strategy come into effect? How is the government ensuring that the new strategy reflects the findings of our report? How the government will meaningfully involve autistic people and those who support them in the development of the new strategy, and, most importantly, how the government will ensure accountability for delivering the change.

Autistic people need to see. Our report examined progress against the ambitions in the 2021 Autism Strategy, and I would like to address these each in turn. First, we considered how to improve public understanding. Awareness of autism has rapidly grown in recent years, but public understanding has not kept pace. My Lords, the 2021 Autism Strategy promised a public understanding and acceptance initiative, but that never materialised. Sadly, many told us that stigma has since increased. We called on the government to run a public understanding campaign and to commission and evaluate mandatory training for public facing staff.

The government told us it would consider this recommendation further. Inaction is inexcusable. So will the Minister clarify what concrete action the government will now take to deliver a public understanding campaign and ensure effective training for public facing staff? Second, we examine systems for identification, assessment and support. Time and time again, we heard from our witnesses how powerful the powerful evidence of how autism diagnosis changes lives. However, the autism assessment system can also be a bottleneck, giving overstretched services a means to ration access to support.

My Lords, the assessment system is now just unfit for purpose. Thousands wait for years for a diagnosis and receive little to no support, even when it comes. So we called for the government to move towards a stepped, lifelong model of support. But many fear moving away from a diagnosis led model will become an excuse to withhold what little support now exists. The government's independent review into mental health, ADHD and autism could offer a real opportunity for a new approach.

So I would welcome the Minister explaining how the government will reform and rebuild our broken systems for autism identification, assessment and support in partnership with autistic people and those who support them. Third, we considered how to reduce health inequalities and the life expectancy gap. My Lords, we were truly honoured to take evidence from Paula McGowan OBE, who campaigned successfully for the introduction of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training for health and care staff after her son's tragic death. We pay tribute to Paula and to Oliver's memory.

We must build on this progress. So will the Minister now commit to setting out a plan to enable autistic people to live healthier, longer lives? Many autistic people still fall into the cracks, being between mental health and social care services. And too often this leads to crisis. We heard truly courageous testimony from many young autistic people who had been detained for years in mental health hospitals. We called for a national framework for low level support to prevent care needs from developing and to build, and for a plan to build strong community services, including appropriate housing for people at risk of in-patient care of inpatient admission.

Apologies. The government's response promised only an annual statement on implementation of the Mental Health Act and, in the longer term, a National Care service. But neither of those is a plan. So will the Minister tell us how the government will stop unnecessary detention in mental health units once and for all? Next, we examined how to secure equal access to education and employment. My Lords, we are setting up a new generation of young autistic people to struggle. Thousands are unhappy at school or out of school altogether.

The Right Honourable Alan Milburn's recent review starkly showed how we are failing the million young people who are not in employment, education or training. A disproportionate number of them are autistic. We recommended that the government build up capability for educating autistic children and young people in all settings, supporting the best special schools to become centres of excellence. The government's planned reforms to the Sen system offer a real opportunity to make schools more inclusive, but we also know how worried many are about changes to their rights to specialist support.

So it is vital that reforms are taken forward in partnership with young autistic people and their families. Young autistic people consistently told us how they face what they describe as a cliff edge in access to support when they become adults and into the world of work. We called on the government to develop integrated services to help them through this critical transition. So can the Minister tell us how the government will ensure every young autistic person has the support that they need to give them the very best start into adult life, including implementing the recommendations of the Keep Britain Working review? Finally, we looked at improving support in the criminal justice system.

Like anyone else, autistic people can come into contact with the criminal justice system as victims, as witnesses or as offenders. But autistic people's needs are often unmet, leaving them at risk of disproportionate disadvantage. I welcome efforts to to deliver the cross-government neurodiversity action plan for adults in the criminal justice system. But the reality is that support does remain patchy. So will the Minister tell us how the government will ensure the criminal justice system treats every autistic person fairly? My Lords, the 2021 Government Autism Strategy set a goal that every autistic person should have the support they need to live to live a full and happy life.

Together, we really can make that a reality. But to do that, we need a new strategy, a credible plan to deliver it, and clear accountability for change. It is time to deliver the change that autistic people in this country need to see. My Lords, I beg to

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move. The question is that this motion be agreed to. My Lords.

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My Lords. Can I begin by declaring an interest? I'm a vice president of the National Autistic Society, an the National Autistic Society, an honour I share with my noble friend Baroness Browning. And more than that, can I thank Baroness Browning for her work in persuading the Liaison Committee to agree to set up this Committee of inquiry in the up this Committee of inquiry in the first place? She and I started out working together on that, but when I was appointed leader of the British delegation to the Council of Europe, Baroness Browning alone did the heavy lifting and I thank
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Lord Touhig Portrait Lord Touhig (Labour)
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her for that. I thank the chair of the committee and the committee who have come forward with a report have come forward with a report that is imaginative and shows us a that is imaginative and shows us a way forward. My Lords, autistic young people can thrive in the young people can thrive in the right environment and collapse in the wrong one. Those were the words of just quoted in his interim of just quoted in his interim report, Young People in Work.

The report revealed that among young people who are not in employment, education or training, 22% cited autism as their main limiting condition. Milburn went on to say the benefits assessments lend themselves to a binary judgement of whether a person is able or unable to work, but this approach does not match the reality of many young peoples life changing conditions. Autism is a life changing condition, my Lords. Just ten, just seven rather out of ten people. Autistic people are in work.

Where I want to be in work, seven out of ten want to be in work. But only three out of ten are actually in work. Now, like many, I want to see the autistic people in a job building a building up their confidence and giving them the opportunity to enjoy the quality of life that we all accept. The recommendations in this report offers us hope of progress, and I certainly hope with a big capital H. Hope to see a more positive response from the government than we've seen so far.

The Autism Act was a critical step forward in the recognition of autistic people. Yet successive governments have failed to deliver the change. And can I say with the greatest respect to my noble friend on the front bench and the greatest respect to the noble Lord will be responding for the opposition. I can tell them that Dame Cheryl Gillan, who took the autism Bill through Parliament and with whom I served on the Council of Europe, where we produced a major report on the problems autistic people are facing across Europe.

Dame Cheryl would certainly have had plenty to say that failures of governments of all parties, if she were with us today and she would be telling Ministers to take this report's recommendations seriously and engage with the charitable and voluntary sector to embrace the reforms it proposes. For me, my most immediate concern is the autism strategy. It's the key to deciding priorities and making sure those priorities are delivered. The Act placed a strict legal duty on the government to prepare and regularly review a national strategy to meet the needs of autistic people by improving local services.

And it is alarming, isn't it? It is alarming to realise that after the first year of the 2126 strategy, there was no plan to deliver or fund it. That's a scandal. This strategy will end soon, and the government says it will remain in place until a new strategy is agreed. Of that new strategy, the government says, meaning engagement will take place. But how long will that take? How long will we have to wait? In response to the report, the government praises the committee for the large amount of evidence it gathered.

So in view of that, can I ask my noble friend to use that evidence, much of it given to the Committee by autism charities and experts in caring and supporting people with autism and their families, use it in working up the new strategy. And I can tell you, it will save countless hours of research by your civil servants. The committee has done the work for you. Use the work that the committee has done. My Lords, the report points the way in which we should all embrace and welcome.

It calls for the new strategy to identify priority outcomes and produce a costed, deliverable plan to achieve those outcomes. The strategy should make clear who is responsible and accountable for delivering. Now, to me, that's common sense. But having said that, I remember when I was growing up, my mother would say to me, son, in life sense is not that common. But despite that, can I plead with my noble friend, please take the common sense approach. Use the findings of this report to build on the new strategy and do it right away.
17:19
Lord Hope of Craighead Portrait Lord Hope of Craighead (Crossbench)
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My Lord. committee under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, lady Rock. It's not only because. >> Of the outstanding.

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Way in which our work was guided by her and supported by our clerk, our policy analyst and our our policy analyst and our specialist adviser, but also because of the extent to which that team brought us into contact with so many autistic people and others with lived experience, which, of course, was what our committee was all about. The initiatives were taken by our team, went far beyond what normally happens in committee work. There is an important point that needs to be made here.

There will be other cases where the lived experience of those whose issues a committee is considering will matter very much. Hence our invitation to the relevant committees to consider ways in which such meaningful involvement can be achieved in the future, if necessary, by making changes to the current rules. It's impossible. In the few minutes I have to go over every issue that is discussed in this report, but as I look back over our work, there are 1 or 2 points to which I would like to draw attention.

The first relates to the importance of diagnosis. The benefits this may bring, and the harm that may be done by a failure to diagnosis before other interventions are resorted to that may be wholly unsuitable. One of our autistic witnesses had spent four years in a mental hospital before diagnosis, which revealed what their condition really was. For obvious reasons, we did not explore the reasons for the mistaken placement in that hospital. Such an unsuitable person for an autistic person to be in.

But the dramatic change that enabled that person to lead as normal a life as possible following release from hospital was deeply moving. The new autism strategy to be developed by the government must ensure that mistakes of that kind do not occur again. The other side of the coin was revealed during a visit to a special school for children and young people. All its pupils have a diagnosis of autism or are waiting for one, and all of them have complex needs and are disadvantaged academically.

We met a group of parents who told us of the effect that early diagnosis had had on them and their children. As one parent put it before the diagnosis, I was just talking to my son after diagnosis. I am talking with him. Lord Rose what had been an unreachable child had become reachable once the reason for the condition was explained and understood. The new autism strategy needs to address the problem that far too often access to diagnosis is not available. Early diagnosis can make all the difference not only to the child, but also to the family.

I turn next to the matter of employment. The government's new autism strategy should make an increase in the employment rate for autistic people a priority objective. Some of our witnesses drew attention to the risks that taking on an autistic person would involve, to fears that they would be unlikely to fit in, and the disadvantages that they face in. The recruitment process. But there is a really positive case to be made here, which should point the way forward. A witness from Babcock International, a major employer speaking as the neurodiversity and social mobility manager, told us that around 20 to 30% of their employees are neurodivergent, a remarkable number.

They include some brilliantly talented people who, as he told us, challenge the stereotypes of autism and have been able to solve problems that no other, no other engineer could. This positive message needs to be broadcast and built upon by the government. With the right support and in the right place. Autistic people have so much good to give to this country. They are valued members of the community and have turned us to mention one other matter which relates to the understanding of autism and the fact that, of course, every autistic person is different.

There is no one size that fits all. This matters very much in education, especially those who are teaching autistic children who are in mainstream schools. These people may struggle if their needs and fears are not appreciated and addressed. As each case is different, the teacher has to be given time to assess the child, to win their confidence and find out what is wrong. The pressures on the curriculum too often mean that the much needed time is certainly not available.

That needs to be changed and the government needs to address that, but in the proper way, so that the teachers can really give these people what they need to develop their education and move forward to employment.
17:24
Lord Wigley Portrait Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru)
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My Lords, I am very grateful for this opportunity to speak in this this opportunity to speak in this short debate as I was to serve on the Select committee, although I did experience certain frustrations. did experience certain frustrations. But I thank the Baroness Rock for her huge commitment to autism and her huge commitment to autism and the balanced way in which she chaired the committee. I also thank the clerk, advisers, researchers and staff who had to cope with a huge volume of evidence and of witnesses who appeared before us.

And I also thank the numerous organisations who gave us such evidence in person and in written form. May I acknowledge also the debt which we had to Baroness Browning, who has campaigned on these issues for several decades and who was instrumental in getting the 2009 act onto the statute book. I mentioned frustration, and this arose from having been involved for several years in Autism Cymru and from being a member of this House who was not domiciled in England.

And in my 27 years in the Commons, I was heavily involved, of course, in disability campaigning and on returning to the chamber in 2011. I look forward to resuming such campaigning work, not least in association with the much loved late Lord Rix at Mencap. But on returning, I found myself in no man's land because many aspects of disability politics had been devolved. As stated in paragraph 31 of the report, the UK government's autism strategy applies to England only. So as noble Lords may appreciate, my role in the committee was at times limited, sometimes a cause of personal frustration.

I have put this on the record as it might be relevant to the authorities of the House when they select members to serve on such England only committees in future. The Committee did invite and did receive evidence from the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which was appreciated, but which could only be tangential to this inquiry. I do regret the very limited consideration given by our Committee to the international practices, which I raised at an early stage because of the huge benefits I personally had experienced as a member of the Brussels based Autism Europe in representing autism on that committee.

I learnt a huge amount relating to good practice in European countries, including many outside the EU. It is my feeling that we could have benefited in considering what lessons we can learn from such European countries. As soon as it was public, I passed a copy of our report to a senior member of Autism Europe, Mrs. Leigh Berzina of Latvia, which stated that there are certain aspects of autism policies in England which rightly get international praise, such as the Autism Act, the ongoing development of a national autism strategy and the Sendai framework of educational, health and care plans.

From her experience, a key dimension is that every school should have an additional learning needs coordinator with support delivered through individual development plans. And just as other countries benefit from studying experience in England, so surely we can at Westminster benefit from considering successful initiatives in other countries too. With regard to the welter of evidence submitted to us, I had three abiding thoughts. Firstly, of all the challenges and experiences we were trying to encapsulate in an integrated approach. There needs to be a flexibility to cope with a huge diversity of challenges and opportunities facing those on the spectrum.

Such policy applications must therefore be local and as it is related to individual needs. My Lords. Secondly, we must always see the abilities and potential of those who experience such challenges. It is quite stimulating to receive evidence from such witnesses, and that underscores our responsibility to secure from government a fitting response. Thirdly, our aspirations cannot be secured without additional resources. The magnitude of the cohort, crudely described as being on the spectrum, has grown hugely as our understanding of individual needs has matured.

And as these individuals get the opportunity to blossom. Such policies in due course bear fruit. If government. If the government merely responds, there is no more available cash. They simply have their priorities wrong. My Lords, despite my doubts about serving on this committee for the reasons outlined, I do support the recommendations and hope that the government give them an urgent and positive response.
17:29
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham Portrait Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Labour)
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My Lords. today I expand it to Neurodivergence. We are speaking about people with their own strengths, challenges, perspectives and ways of experiencing the world. One point that has stayed with me came from a teacher who described the autistic spectrum as being like a unique combination of different balloons carried by each individual person. Some balloons may represent communication, sensory processing, anxiety, social interaction, confidence, and learning styles. The combination is different for every person. The report rightly highlights that many neurodivergent people continue to experience inequalities across healthcare, education, employment and wider society.

Too often, support remains inconsistent and fragmented. We know that with the right support at an early age and throughout education, neurodivergent children and young people can flourish and reach their fullest potential. That means early identification, informed teaching and appropriate support matters, alongside ensuring that their families and carers have access to clear guidance and support. Those with lived experience, together with their families and carers, should help shape the support and services available. Importantly, autism and neurodivergence do not disappear in adulthood.

Too often, support falls away once the young person leaves schools or transition into adult services. Many neurodivergent adults continue to face barriers in employment, healthcare and mental health support. That is why I strongly support the the importance of an all age approach, something that the Committee recognises clearly within its report. As someone from local government, I want to emphasise how critical the role of councils and local partnerships play in delivering meaningful change. Local authorities are often the front door to support for families through schools Sen services, housing, adult social care, public health and community services in Lewisham.

Our all aged autism strategy brings together education, health care, social care, employers and community partners to create a more autism inclusive borough. A central principle of that strategy is nothing about us. Without us ensuring that people with lived experience says families and carers help to shape services and decisions. We should work closely with local authorities across all regions and nations of the United Kingdom to ensure greater consistency in support and opportunity. Local government understands its communities, but councils cannot deliver a transformative change alone.

It requires partnership and shared responsibility across the whole system. The statement people should not depend on where someone happens to live. Autism and neurodivergence should be a golden thread running through government departments, public services, employers and the legislation we bring forward in this House. Greater understanding of autism and neurodivergence within the justice system is also extremely important. Differences in communication, comprehension and body language can sometimes lead neurodivergent people to be misunderstood, and particularly in stressful situations.

That is why training and awareness across the criminal justice system is so important. We also need greater training, awareness and support for employers. NeuroDivergent people have enormous strengths, talents and potential. Yet too many still face unnecessary barriers to employment, supporting the workplace and progression. We must also create workplace cultures where neurodivergent applicants and employees feel safe to disclose their neurodivergence and needs without fear of stigma. My Lords, neurodivergent people should feel understood, respected, supported throughout every stage of life.

Now is the time for joined up action and delivery across all levels of government. In partnership with public services, employers, families, carers and especially those with lived experiences.
17:34
Baroness Browning Portrait Baroness Browning (Conservative)
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My Lords, I declare my interest as a Vice President of the National Autistic Society with my noble friend Lord Touhig, and also I hold friend Lord Touhig, and also I hold lasting power of attorney for autistic adults. When the Right autistic adults. When the Right Honourable Dame Cheryl Gillan MP and I just sorry I so forgotten should have said and our excellent chair of committee. I genuinely think we wouldn't have got here without her. Thank you so much. Thank you.

When the Right Honourable Dame Cheryl Gillan MP chose to introduce the 2009 Autism Act in the House of Commons, she did so because she believed that autism is different and that the transition from childhood to adulthood was a cliff face. And that failure to understand and support autistic adults deserved its own act of Parliament. I can confirm this with certainty. As Cheryl was a friend and I was privileged to serve on the autism Bill Committee with her. The report before us today is titled Time to Deliver the Autism Act 2009 and the New Autism Strategy.

The government's response to the report is described by the autism charitable sector as unacceptable. That's putting it mildly. The new strategy, due next month, has been kicked into the long grass, with no attempt to set out a timetable to plan the new one. No discussion with the autism charities to agree priorities, and a request I made to the Minister to discuss. This was passed many weeks ago to the Commons Minister, and I've heard nothing since. So I turn to the reason for this small but important act of Parliament and the report which identifies why autism is different.

Autism is, of course, a spectrum of degree. Some will travel through life with a minimal need for support and. At the other end the need will be 24 hour specialist support. In the middle will be so many for whom this Act of Parliament and its strategy is the blueprint for a place in society that is safe, meaningful and fulfils each individual potential. Many will be of average or even higher intelligence, but all people born autistic will die autistic.

There is no medication, although there may be additional conditions as well as autism. Nearly 20 years on from the act, we still see autistic people with shorter lifespans. The highest suicide rate of all neurodiverse conditions detained in mental institutions and 60% unemployment, often for life. So I say to the government today, it's really time to deliver. Do not delay the new strategy because other things are going on. If the new proposed send policy is not going to be delivered until 2030, that is no reason to halt work on an act that is already on the statute book.

If services to support changes to mental health to the Mental Health Act already passed won't be in place for some time, that is no reason to delay the strategy. The 2009 act states, the Secretary of State for health must prepare and publish a document setting out a strategy for meeting the needs of adults in England with autistic spectrum conditions by improving the provision of relevant services so such adult to such adults by local authorities and NHS bodies. The committee's report today is a year's work by this House, which, together with discussion with autism charities and those with lived experience, would already provide the government with a new strategy that would make such a difference.

It is, after all, the law of the land already. I expect the government to abide by the law of the land, and when the Minister winds up to explain how they will deliver it, and when you.
17:39
Baroness Antrobus Portrait Baroness Antrobus (Labour)
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My Lords, I wish to commend this report and in particular, its emphasis on the importance of the principle of nothing about us without us. As referenced by my noble friend Baroness Dacres of Lewisham, encouraging the involvement of autistic people as well as those who support them in making decisions that affect them and their daily lives. I want to talk specifically to the part of the report that talks about relationships, sex and health education, or RSA for autistic children, or in fact, the lack of it.

As Doctor Felicity Sedgwick said in her evidence, young autistic people are not typically offered RSA that meets their needs, and she recommended that adapted, accessible RSA should be developed. The report then refers to the need for risk to be tailored to the needs of all children with Send. I agree with this wholeheartedly. In such a comprehensive report, I understand why Rsea was mentioned fairly briefly, and I believe that this important topic deserves ongoing attention. With my noble friend the Minister, agree that RSA for Send children should be reviewed as a matter of urgency.

I come at this not as an expert, unlike so many of my fellow noble Lords, but with a stepdaughter who wrote her M.A. dissertation on the subject. In fact, supervised by the committee's specialist advisor, Professor Laura Train. She's about to embark on a PhD on risk for children. Given that there is so little research in this area. Before enjoying her undergraduate degree, she worked as a teaching assistant in a Sen school and experienced first hand the consequences of a paucity of direction, guidance or policy in this area.

As the government's response to the report said, reforms should be grounded in evidence. This is important to parents, teachers and other caregivers, but most of all important to young autistic people themselves.
17:41
Lord Crisp Portrait Lord Crisp (Crossbench)
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My Lords. >> May I. Start off by congratulating the noble Lady Baroness Rock on on the truly impressive way you chaired. She impressive way you chaired. She shared our committee and got this group of very knowledgeable people down into producing a really tight and very good report. And also add my congratulations to Stuart Stoner and his team and to Professor Laura Crane, and the wonderful opportunity to meet so many witnesses and organisations as part of this. Personally, I have to say I learned a lot during this process.

Now, the central issue is about this new strategy, and we really do have to press government that this time it must have a good implementation plan. It was spelt out in in the recommendation. Detail matters. But having a plan which is about what, who, when, how and the resourcing and better accountability is what we're looking for here. And I have to say, there's nothing in the response that says that. And I'm trying to think of a suitable word for the response to the first recommendation I got as far as bland really didn't really say anything.

As far as I could see any substance. So that implementation plan, that strategy is vital. So I would like to ask the noble Lady, the Minister, will there be an implementation strategy, implementation plan with the strategy and will it address all these features that are in the recommendation from us in from the from the Committee about what, who, when, how and resourcing much has already been said about some of the detail, and I won't repeat that, but I just want to make two big points.

The first one is the human one. I have to say that throughout this I was very struck by the pain and the love, the private anxieties. We heard about the difficulties, trying to understand, trying to navigate the system, search for solutions and the emotional toll on individuals and families. And I very I was very impressed by the visit we made to the under the leadership of the. My noble friend Lord Hope to the Phoenix School, which is a specialist school.

And they're meeting parents there who, suddenly, having come away from a position of bewilderment, we're then seeing possibilities in this safe haven for what their children could be and, and so on. And obviously that's very relevant to the wider debate about specialist schools and the the support for people, for autistic people and their families. But I also just commend from that visit. One thing we noticed, which is that the Phoenix school provided outreach service to other schools and indeed ran classrooms in some other schools.

And I think that model is something that the government should well look at as part of its looking at specialist schools, because it is a looked as if it was working. We obviously didn't see it. But the other thing that came to me out of that, out of that was the importance of communications and the speech therapists whom I have to confess, I hadn't really thought about in quite this detail before, but the speech therapists and the technology. There was one father there who, you know, in a really emotional moment, was talking about how he found out how he could communicate with his child and his child could communicate with him.

And that was, to me, very impressive. So that's one big point. The human bit, which we mustn't lose. The second bit is the system and the culture and frankly, the incoherence of a lot of it. Members of the committee, members of the committee will remember that. One of our witnesses said, too often it's the state fighting the state. One set of policies don't match the other or actually going in opposite directions. And that's really serious issue. But there's also another issue here is that the danger that, you know, we're just going to produce another set of rules which are sent out by the centre that people have to train on, but they're not really owned and they pay lip service to it.

There are other examples that I know of in other areas where people, despite having appropriate adjustments and their notes written up and passports written up and so on, which we just ignored with fatal consequences in the case I'm thinking of, and I know that in Parliament, we can only rely on the tools we have of legislation, regulations, guidance, trying to get people to do what we want, if you like. But that's why accountability is so vital and why accountability runs through this.

A thread here, but I have to say, it's not just accountability. It's we'll know when we've succeeded, when it's not just accountability hanging over people's head, but that they have a feeling of responsibility. It's people feeling responsible to do something about the people in front of them. So my question is an impossible question to the noble Lady, the Minister. How will the government address this incoherence in policy and these cultural issues in taking this forward? Now I'm conscious I've finished my time and danger of widening it out too far.

But let me just leave those points strategy and implementation and making sure it is owned. And both parts of that are vital.
17:46
Baroness Goudie Portrait Baroness Goudie (Labour)
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My Lords, it. >> On the Autism Committee. >> Of Autism Act 2009 Committee. I'm very glad that we were. We have I'm very glad that we were. We have had the opportunity to discuss this report today. I would like in particular to. Thanks to all my particular to. Thanks to all my colleagues across the House, in particular Baroness Browning and Lord Toohey, who gave me great encouragement when I decided to go on the committee and also to the chair Baroness Rock, who was so inclusive to us and also available for all sorts of extras that when we were wanting to do things, and also to clerks and to stoner, for all his support that he gave us throughout this report.

I. Sorry. Worked. And above all, I'd like to think I've thanked everybody and all of those families and carers, as well as professors and organisations who gave evidence to us by Lords, because without that evidence, we would not be here today and we could have not done that report. It was difficult for them to give evidence to us, and it was difficult for us to take the evidence, but it was so rewarding. The autism. The Autism Act was a landmark piece of legislation, and our committee to report on time to deliver is rooted in the same ambition, and the autistic people should not be an afterthought in public policy.

My Lords, it is time to deliver. Acknowledges the progress that has been made and through the evidence presented to us by people living with autism and through or through their experience, or working with them, or being part of their family, or to support the network. My Lords, we know that the system in this country is far too slow, systematically fragmented and difficult, and time investigated intensity to navigate. Its families need support at every moment, from the time they have, perhaps the diagnosis or think there is a diagnosis.

I welcome the government's response to the report, and I know that the Ministers are considering these matters seriously. My Lords, I hope that over the coming months, the government will work on the United Kingdom's next autism strategy to build on what that response to be successful on the next autism strategy must have a clear delivery plan accordingly, measures measurable outcomes and sufficient funding. Autistic people need to be able to feel a difference in their daily lives as a result of any work undertaken.

I would also like to highlight the key findings of the time to deliver my Lords, to reaffirm how important this work is. One of the most pressing issues is where representation and was diagnosed, and we learn that nearly 90% of those waiting for an autistic assessment have been waiting longer than nice recommendation of 13 weeks. And the average facts, my Lords, is 17 months for a child out of school. As this quite often happens, it's every day without education and support is waste for their life and my life's future.

Remember, every person has to work and has the right to work, and we must ensure that everybody is trained and after diagnosis is and during diagnosis it is absolutely central priority that this is followed up and followed up, not left months and months before the next appointment. I also want to speak in particular about women and girls. The committee found that the diagnosis rate for women and girls was 0.82%, less than half the rate for men and boys at 1.84%.

Yet waiting for the date showed much more, even split between males and females waiting for an assessment. These points of what many women and girls have described for years as being missed in and misunderstood or recognised that only after years of making of of masking and distress for girls at school, we know that exasperates mental health conditions, whilst simultaneously meaning that students education needs are not met. As I said earlier, dates out of school, taking truancy, etc. this has cascading effect on late diagnosis, poor mental health difficulties, accessing work and struggling with services that do not understand the varying presentations of autism.

We met somebody who gave evidence, who'd been sent to a mental home because they didn't understand that she was autistic. That was absolutely awful to to. She has, thank goodness, got through that. But it was awful to understand what had happened to her. I hope the government will ensure that the next strategy has a specific focus on autistic women, on autistic women and girls. In 2024 to 2025, one third of all pupils in education, health and care plan had autism recorded as their primary need.

These children deserve. These children deserve a better ambition as well as better support, so they continue with society.
17:52
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell Portrait Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Conservative)
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My Lords, I'd like to begin. >> By also paying tribute to my noble friend Baroness Rock for her superb chairmanship of the Autism superb chairmanship of the Autism Act 2009 Committee, and also to my fellow committee members and the diligent Committee staff and above diligent Committee staff and above all, to the nearly 400 individuals and organisations who submitted written evidence to us. There's a key figure we should all remember 30%. 30% is the employment rate for autistic adults in this country against a general working age employment rate of around 75%.

That 45% gap represents tens of thousands of people's ambitions being unfulfilled. Sir Alan Milburn interim NEETs review showed that autistic young people are disproportionately more likely to have been excluded from school and locked out of the labour market. The government's mission to get Britain working can't succeed if we continue to overlook one of the most significant untapped pools of talent available to the country. Sir Charlie Mayfield rightly made the point to our committee that the business case for inclusive hiring isn't a matter of corporate social responsibility, but a matter of competitive advantage.

Autistic employees frequently bring precisely the kind of focussed, analytical thinking increasingly valued and required in a complex economy. In my role as president of the Jobs Foundation, as declared in the Register, I've seen some of these case studies firsthand. Greene King has a supported internships programme recruiting neurodiverse employees, and finds that with often simple adjustments, autistic employees thrive and bring real value to their company and customers. And it's not just large corporates. Editor cortex, a specialist SME in Guildford, has a recruitment model built around harnessing the skills of neurodivergent workers for data and analytical tasks.

I was glad that our committee's report acknowledged that the right tax incentives are essential to help businesses hire more people facing barriers to employment. My Lords, I'd now like to touch on the issue of public awareness and acceptance of autism and autistic people. It was notable that despite receiving a record number of public responses to our consultation, our final report received almost no media coverage and minimal social media interest. The public appetite to give evidence to the committee was inversely proportional to the media's interest in reporting.

What that evidence produced. This isn't a criticism of any individual journalist, but one of the key planks of the original 2009 autism strategy was raising awareness. 17 years on, this lack of interest illustrates the challenges in achieving that goal. In our evidence session with Ministers, they acknowledged there was no meaningful or regular analysis of public opinion to measure how awareness and public attitudes towards autism are changing. There's good intent, I can see that, but not the kind of kind of structured, ministerially led initiative that our report and the strategy calls for.

One small but telling illustration on World Autism Day last year, there were no social media posts from number ten. Neither were there this year. What message does this send to the 700,000 autistic adults and children in the UK and their

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families? One final point. It's also important that people with autism Who feel comfortable doing so. Open about.

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Open about. Their diagnosis. In May, when I listened to the Moving Maine speech, the noble Lady Baroness Leaman, who the noble Lady Baroness Leaman, who was sitting over there at the time, who is in her place. She touched on her children and their her children and their neurodiversity, and I found myself thinking that perhaps I, too should declared a relevant personal declared a relevant personal interest during my work on this committee. I was formally diagnosed as being autistic in my early 40s, but the signs were there from an early age.

To mention just one aspect. As a child, I needed extensive sessions with a speech therapist who heard over there to coax me into speaking, and a school on bad days out frees entirely when asked to read aloud. I feel like that now, but I'm lucky. The hyperfocus, the pattern recognition, the pursuit of special interests. Without this wiring, I doubt I would have had the drive to push through the setbacks and methodically build seven campaign groups. I'm acutely aware that this isn't everyone's story, and that's precisely why updating the autism strategy matters so much to many.

Autistic adults are not given employment opportunities to. Many autistic children are being failed by our current system, and too many people have to wait far too long for a diagnosis. That might finally explain why the world has always felt slightly harder than it should. I was fortunate in my path. The purpose of this report, and of the strategy, is to make sure that luck has less to do with it.
17:57
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Portrait Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour)
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My Lords, I was delighted to be >> My Lords, I was delighted to be a member of the Autism Committee under the very clear direction of under the very clear direction of our chairperson and Baroness Rock, and I was also very grateful for the direction and guidance from the direction and guidance from Baroness Browning and my noble friend Lord Touhig, who have a particular interest and expertise in this area, and I would also like to pay tribute and to our clerks and our Special Adviser in relation to this topic.

I also thank the government for their response, which I would like to say to my noble friend the Minister I thought could have been stronger and indicated that desire to produce an immediate strategy, as much analysis and evidence is already there, particularly from the report that we published last November. And I would also declare that my cousin's son is autistic, and he displays or exhibits certain characteristics and also special interests in areas to which there is a fixation.

But all in all, he is exceptionally bright child and will do well in spite of that disability. Far reaching legislation, My Lords for autism was enacted in 2009, followed by various strategies. The last strategy was published in 2021 and is due to expire in a month's time, which the government has stated will continue until a new one is placed in place. I would suggest that the new strategy work should be already underway, with publication to take place early in the second half of this year.

Our report called for the government to develop such a strategy, tackling persistent inequalities experienced by autistic people in education, health, work, criminal justice and the community. Since our report was published, I note that the government has commissioned an independent review into mental health conditions. Autism and ADHD launched a call for evidence to inform a mental health strategy and announced a special educational needs reform bill Weiss, welcome this only, I believe essentially, it's the delays in bringing forward the strategy and maybe my noble friend the Minister could suggest why the government is proceeding during this course of action rather than immediately publishing such a strategy.

And will those various elements of the government's suggested course of action contain the elements of such a strategy? I'm not criticising the government. I am, as a member of the committee that published the report, would have expected the publication of a new, updated strategy based on much of the evidence that already exists, and based on the work that has already taken place. Because we have extensive interviews with many, many people who are autistic as well as professionals in the field.

So therefore, I would ask my noble friend the Minister, why was this the case? Why a further review, which involves much work and delay whenever much work has already been undertaken? And why not the publication of immediate strategy or recommendations looked at a launch, a new initiative to improve understanding and acceptance of autism and expand mandatory training on autism for public facing staff. Invest in driving down autism assessment waiting times while also developing and scaling up an effective model for identification, assessment and lifelong support.

Set a clear timeline and roadmap for development of strong community services so that provisions in the Mental Health Act 2025 to end the unnecessary detention of autistic people and provide with a learning disability can be commenced. Now, those are some of our recommendations. There are many more that exist, but I would encourage the hon. Friend, the Minister, to have a look at all those recommendations and ensure that they could be placed in a strategy. And I would also ask my noble friend the Minister, how will the government ensure autistic people and those who support them, are fully involved in any reform of systems for identification, assessment and support, and how will it set and pursue priorities for better health outcomes for autistic people in any future autism strategy.

Therefore, I would thank my noble friend the Minister and do look forward to her response.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Thank you. The opportunity to speak in the gap. I didn't I wasn't a member of gap. I didn't I wasn't a member of the committee, but I did give evidence to the committee, both professionally and as next of kin professionally and as next of kin for two autistic family members. And I want to highlight four points relevant to the debate. The first is that there are too many autistic people still being detained in
18:03
Baroness Hollins Portrait Baroness Hollins (Crossbench)
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mental health settings without a mental disorder. And although the new Mental Health Act intends to prevent admissions of autistic people without concurrent mental illness, this provision will not be enacted until there are sufficient community services in place. The noble Lady, the Minister, knows of my deep concern that without a costed plan, this promise is rather misleading. The trouble is that time and time again, crisis driven care is failing people and costing lives. Quite apart from being financially very costly.

In my government Commission report, My Heart Breaks, published in 2023, I reviewed the care of autistic people and people with learning disabilities who were being detained under the act. In long term segregation, I found no therapeutic benefit at all to this enforced isolation and warned that it causes lasting psychological harm, worsens trauma, damages relationships and can lead to a form of social death. Look, I'm looking forward to the forthcoming annual report from the Care Quality Commission, which now manages the Independent Care Education and Treatment Review Programme, and to learn about their successes in discharging people.

But of course, the difficulty is that as people are discharged, new people are still being admitted. In my committee, we were unable to identify how many people died unexpectedly during admission. But what we do know is that autistic people, and especially autistic women, are at a higher risk of suicide than non-autistic people. Substantial numbers think about suicide during their lifetime, and up to a third actually plan or attempt suicide. Many autistic women end up with inappropriate diagnoses, such as personality disorder, that stay with them and delay or prevent access to much needed care and support.

And we know that people are being failed long before hospital admission, and we need early, trauma informed community support to prevent crisis driven care. So this brings me to my third point. There is no anticipatory care planning required under the Care Act, despite an obvious risk when there is carer breakdown, most notably parental or carer death. And I want to ask, does the noble Lady, the Minister, agree that effective and simple change to the Care Act would be to require an anticipatory care plan for all family carers or autistic people, perhaps carers, over the age of 70.

The noble Lady will be aware of the tragic death of David Lodge beside his elderly father when he died suddenly at home, and ensuring that anticipatory care needs are regularly discussed and reviewed, would prevent many hospital admissions. Inappropriate hospital admissions for autistic people. I want to end my remarks by reflecting on the gap in life expectancy for autistic people, highlighted every year by leader the learning from lives and deaths, people with a learning disability and autistic people with death occurring 6 to 15 years earlier.

Currently, not all of the recommendations made by leader are actually implemented, and I ask the noble Lady, the Minister, to confirm unequivocally whether the Leader programme will be both strengthened and made mandatory in the government's response to time to deliver, it, said I quote. The government remains committed to reviewing every death of a person with a learning disability or an autism person notified to leader, and ensuring that learning from these reviews is shared. Is that commitment still true?
18:07
Lord Sterling of Plaistow Portrait Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Conservative)
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My Lord, thank you for allowing me to speak in a gap. Much me to speak in a gap. Much appreciated. I would also like to thank the opening address by thank the opening address by Baroness Bok. I have two autistic grandchildren, and that is one of the things which has occupied a lot of my life during the time when we've we've had them. They're wonderful and I wanted to thank very much. Lord Touhig and Baroness Browning, who give me so much hope over the time.

Now, Minister, I know that Baroness cares about people. It's a good word, care. It isn't just reason or. You've got a responsibility. Many things happen. But I was very taken with. Your observations are at the very beginning about people. Somebody who's played a very, very major part in what we're about is Professor Vivian Hill, which many of you may know is one of the leading educational psychologists in the country. What I've said many, many times, and it's happening, and the department is doing it is we need hundreds of them to be able to get on top of all the delays you've all been talking about today.

What I did say several times, many years ago, that where send is concerned, every single headmaster must have a full programme of Send, which he has. He makes all the difference if the head, the head, not just the master, the heads of all schools must have that. I also have suggested that everybody who's becoming a teacher, a teacher. It's very important indeed as to how they were actual back also should understand. Otherwise nobody understands what a meltdown is all about.

So just as I know, I haven't got enough time for this. But may. I may say that the people who suffer most that I've seen for myself are the mothers. The mothers suffer hugely without very much help at all. I wanted to say, and finish off by those who've been here. I've been to many schools and everywhere. We must also remember the actual fact if we do do what we said we would do and care to do it and get on to do it, that over the generations, over hundreds of years, it is people who are autistic who've actually been the best for music and science and all other things, which has helped the world for many, many centuries.

Thank you very much.
18:10
Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat)
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Lord Oates. when I'm not sure if I'm going to add anything to it, but I can certainly join in by saying I agree with what's been said in front of with what's been said in front of me and the Baroness Rock who led the committee and I served on, and nothing to disagree with them, summing up of what the committee did, but also I think I should let the House know that I got the best timed rap on the knuckles from the noble Baroness, because I said, well, primarily a communication difficulty, and then with a look that cut to the core of my being, he said, it's more than that.

And I went, yep, you're right. So autism is one of those things. It's one of the neurodiverse conditions that probably has the greatest reach and the greatest divergence. And all of them have divergent. They're all spectrums. And we've also seen indeed level saying down there, you know, I got through. You're either lucky or brilliant. I suggest it's the second category down there, or at least you're good enough and bright enough to cash in on your luck. And we've got and if people are getting through that way, we've actually got a fundamental problem.

Your dependent on having the, you know, Tiger warrior parent. You're dependent on having somebody shoving forward to make sure you get there or you get lucky and somebody says, I think you might be in that category. This is why the strategy we've got in front of us is a good idea, but it cuts across everything because you'll never get everybody at school, even with the best training in the world. And you'll see these traits later on, especially those people who are struggling through have done well, but have got certain, you know, behavioural tics, traits, unusual, usual qualities, something down there.

We've got to have a more wholly embracing system to make sure we do it, and to go to the Baroness Browning, as we so often do when we discuss autism. Well, let's put it, it's the law. So do it. Has anybody suggested we are going to roll back the law? We've got the law, do it. And that means we have about what, 2 or 3 weeks before we can actually say yes. What is the strategy? And go through and suggest that we get something going, but what is there in it for the rest of the rest of the community? Well, we might get a few more people employed and paying taxes.

That's a good thing for a start, isn't it? And I must declare an interest as I'm a I'm chairman of Microlink, who do do support packages for people who are in employment with disability. But I also know from doing that that sometimes those changes are very small. And if people have something which is talked about here, a little bit of understanding with small changes, many people can function perfectly well in many bits of the workplace. That is something we should be taking on board.

So the whole of government has to do it because it's not just education, then it's employment services. It's the act. The fact that somebody else will work function slightly differently in the office. You have an understanding and a duty to say, yes, they will function, they can do it. They will not hold you back. And when you're dealing with autism, the thing is the meltdown, I think it's rather a badly named because it suggests somebody is going to explode, not they'll have a small moment of crisis and then 1 or 2 people talking to people saying, yes, I sometimes just need to go away.

I'm quiet, but somebody just put a hand on my shoulder and I'm fine again. Or it's a child totally melting down the classroom. And then the fact that girls don't do it, as is pointed out in this debate, do do that so they don't get discovered. The more we know about this, the more information you carry out, the easier it will be to implement this. So you've got to get people understanding the condition a little more and not being quite so frightened of it.

We are going to have a special education. Well, we're informed we're going to have a special educational needs bill and a whole new strategy. And I do so hope that identification, diagnosis, some easier way of making sure people know that you have a particular set of problems. Autism will definitely be one of these things, which it will really be helpful, is the thing that you can carry through. And I do so hope that the Minister will be able to say, if you are diagnosed, we will carry in the education system.

It will be carried through into the rest of your life, because, as somebody else has pointed out here, oh, you're at school. No, you're not. And everything changes is actually a disaster in the making for virtually anybody who has a disability, and not just with autism, but all of them. So it will be interesting to see what that information carrying forward is here. It could be in the strategy, it could be somewhere else. But if we've got the strategy to come back to the Baroness Black, why aren't we using it? Also, remember it is good practice we are going through so we can carry on.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister we're going through here. When we deal with the the criminal justice system and everything. And indeed, are we going to make sure that we have a better in-house support for these individuals getting caught up in the system, and will we make sure that they are actually given better protection within the criminal justice system? This is something which, as we go through and you've actually been here in the House almost as long as I have, you have numerous occasions when the police don't understand who they're dealing with and make the situation worse.

Will the government be saying to the police, by the way, this is your job as well? Conflict with neighbours, misunderstanding being led, conflict with the police because you don't quite understand what they're doing. It's something that's going through. Where is the training there? We have a group of people who are used to being trained and going on courses. What are we doing? They're going through. And then when it comes to the health department, because all groups who have problems, I'm I'm risk the wrath of them all.

Baroness Rock again, but going through to say, you know, you have any problems about communication, any group that has that has poor health outcomes. It isn't just autism. Those people who use sign language have the similar problems. What are we going to do in the Health Department of Health to make sure that there is an understanding this will be made much easier with some form of diagnosis, that they must go to new processes to actually get the information out of the out of the patient, because of our health system is still based fundamentally on that doctor's appointment and that exchange of views and information to get the person.

One, what do you think's the matter with you and then how to interact? If we can get a better guidance about what about what we're going to do there, it would once again help us. And if it isn't in this strategy, where is it? Because presumably, once again, we don't want them being ill. I think that's the whole idea, my Lords, really, as we go through this process of looking out an act which we've passed, which we all say we want, why isn't it happening is something that we can refer back to.

If the Minister can tell us it is going to happen, that's great. If we're going to tell, it's going to do something else, well, let's hear it. But at the moment we seem to be saying, yes, it's an awfully good idea. We like it, but it's too difficult and it will inconvenience somebody. If that is the situation, I think the government should actually come up and say that is what we have got and give us something else, because at the moment we have a nice idea that isn't being implemented and we're all waiting on it.
18:19
Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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Yeah. thanking my noble friend lady Rock for opening this debate and for her work as chair of the Autism Act 2009 Committee, and also for her wonderfully concise and coherent summary of the report's findings. It comes as no surprise to me to also hear about her cheering skills in a way that the noble Lady was able to convene people of vastly different views together, and also to put noble Lords such as noble Lord Addington, in order, as it were.

My Lords, I also thank all noble Lords who served on the Committee, and including the noble Lord Lord Wigley, who, despite his understandable frustration, managed to persist and contribute in a meaningful way. I also want to speak to all noble Lords who spoke today, and the individuals and organisations who gave evidence to the Committee as a noble Lady, Baroness Goudie said. Without them there would be no report. My Lords, the Autism Act 2009 was a landmark piece of legislation introduced by the late conservative MP Dame Cheryl Gillan, and passed with cross-party support and other noble Lords have mentioned.

I also pay tribute to her friend and my noble friend Lady Browning, for championing this issue for so many years and indeed, during the mental health Bill, I learned much from her contributions, but also 1 to 1 conversations about autism. Now, the act was the first disability specific act of its kind anywhere in the world, and it established the important principle that people with autism or autistic people should not be overlooked by government or public services, and they should receive the support that they need to live independent and fulfilling lives.

Now, the committee's report provides a stark assessment of what more must be done for that ambition to be realised. And as others have said, why is it not across healthcare, education, employment, housing and the criminal justice system, autistic people continue to face barriers that limit their opportunity and diminish quality of life. And as your Lordships have heard, the committee's central recommendations were straightforward and unambiguous. It urged the government to begin work immediately on a new cross-government autism strategy to come into effect when the current strategy expires in 2026.

Yet the government's response has been commented upon as notably cautious. The noble Lady Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick said it could have been stronger, while Ministers agreed to consider the committee's recommendations, they declined to commit to many of the report's specific proposals. And since then, unfortunately, we've had little clarity about what will replace the current strategy. Indeed, if there will be a new strategy and if so, when it will be published. My Lords, that uncertainty is clearly of concern to noble Lords of all benches and those who work or live with autistic patients or family members.

My Lords, I was grateful to the noble Lady Baroness Dacres of Lewisham for sharing her experience from local government. Sometimes it's important that when we're talking about national strategies, that we often ignore the local elements of that. But the current national strategy published by the last conservative government in 2021, established six priority areas covering understanding, support, employment, health inequality, community support and justice. And while there has been some progress as a noble Lord Touhig said progress has been insufficient by governments of all colours and that means those priorities remain highly relevant today.

And regrettably, the evidence presented to the committee suggests that many of these challenges remain unresolved. One area of particular concern is diagnosis and assessment. As a noble Lord Lord Hope of Craighead pointed out, the number of people seeking autism and ADHD assessments has increased dramatically in recent years, and the government recognises the scale of this challenge, and they did this by commissioning the independent review into autism and ADHD diagnosis. I saw only today that the interim report was actually updated today, dated today, in advance of the final report that is expected this summer.

Now, there are legitimate questions about how services should respond to the growing demand. But whatever conclusions the review reaches, one fact is beyond dispute. Rising demand makes it makes effective planning more important, not less. Now, the committee rightly emphasised that support should not be delayed any longer than necessary, asking the government to outline what steps they are taking to ensure that support is based on genuine need and is sustainable. So, in seeking answers from the government, can I stress the questions asked by my noble friend lady Rock? Does the government expect to publish a new autism strategy before the current one expires? If not, when will it do? When will it publish it? Will it be accompanied by updated statutory guidance under the Autism Act, as recommended by the Committee? And how will the findings of the independent review be incorporated into that work on employment? The previous conservative government took important steps to support disabled people into work, including through the National Disability Strategy and the local Local supported Employment programme.

Yet too many autistic people remain excluded from the labour market despite possessing valuable skills and talents. As my noble friend Lord Elliot pointed out when he very movingly shared his own experience. Indeed, I remember speaking to a transport Minister who shall remain nameless, who told me that when it comes to the timetabling for railway services, quite often the very best people in timetabling are people who are somewhere on the spectrum. And it's and it just shows often that we are not taking advantage of those very specific skills that actually would contribute to, to, to, to actually the economy and the growth that this government wants, wants to see.

And the noble Lady, Baroness Andrew, the importance of relationship and sex education. And I think that's an important point that that the noble Lady was right to emphasise, because that's one of the ways that we are going to raise awareness and actually how we can make people who are autistic or autistic people feel more included in our communities. Now, we welcome the government's stated ambition to reduce economic inactivity and narrow the disability employment gap. But ambitions alone are not enough. The detail and delivery matter as a as my noble friend Lord Stirling says, you know, he spoke very movingly about wanting a better future for his autistic grandchildren.

My Lords, on healthcare and community support, the committee heard compelling evidence about health inequalities and the continuing challenges faced by autistic people in inpatient settings, and during the passage of the Mental Health Act. MPs and peers from all benches repeatedly pressed for robust plans to ensure adequate community support. The lack of sufficient support has been made clear in this report, and I thank and pay tribute to the autism charities and advocacy organisations that have continued to hold governments of all political affiliations to account.

Their message has been consistent that autistic people and their families must be at the heart of policy development. My Lords, the committee has provided the government with a clear roadmap. The challenge now is not in identifying the problems but in delivering the solutions. But those of us who have been in government from all parties now that often good intentions come up against Treasury financial discipline. Now that's no bad thing, since we expect the Treasury to ensure that taxpayers money is spent wisely.

But this is where fine aspirations often meet financial prudence. So can I ask a noble Lady, the Minister, if there's been any assessment of the cost of delivering the strategy? I think it was a noble Lady, Baroness Hollins, who alluded to the cost. And if there is an estimated cost, and if it has met resistance, either from competing priorities in the relevant government departments or from other government departments. As a noble Lord Lord Crisp spoke about the state fight in the state or even from the Treasury.

Can I ask a noble Lady the Minister's Department, whether the noble Lady Minister's Department has looked at which of the recommendations could be delivered by better deploying existing spending? Which recommendations might actually save the government money as the Lord? As noble Lord Lord Addington said, many of these people will become taxpayers and actually save the government money and contribute more positively. And which of the recommendations may have to wait for future spending rounds? Now? I hope the noble Lady, the Minister, will accept that I ask those questions in a spirit of pragmatism and in trying to be constructive.

My Lords, the Autism Act was a pioneering piece of legislation, and the report from my noble friend Lady Rocks Committee. 17 years later, it is clear that autistic people deserve clear leadership and a credible strategy for the future. I look forward to hearing from the noble Minister about the work that is underway and how, when and with whom it will be delivered. I really hope that the noble Lady Minister is able to provide reassurance to noble Lords across the House, who have raised many concerns, but also who want to work constructively with the government to deliver for autistic people.



**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lords, let me start by thanking the noble Lady, Baroness thanking the noble Lady, Baroness Rock, for leading this important debate and as many other noble debate and as many other noble Lords have said, I thank the noble Lady for chairing what I believe Lady for chairing what I believe was a committee that was very thorough. It gathered very powerful evidence, including from autistic people, families, carers and other professionals. And I too, would like to extend my gratitude to all members of the committee.

It is a very strong piece of work, which I believe will take us forward, and I do welcome. We do welcome the final report and the recommendations and have set out our initial response. And straight away, I should say I have heard the various views across the chamber about the quality of the response, and I have also heard very clearly the frustration that very clearly the frustration that there isn't a an immediate strategy to replace this current one.

And I say that in all seriousness, not least because I will be sharing those views with the now Minister responsible for this very important area, who is Preet Gill MP? And to that point, I will apologise to the noble Lady Baroness Browning that she hasn't had a response to a meeting with the appropriate Minister, and I will indeed pursue this as the noble Lord Lord Addington said, we turn to the noble Lady Baroness Browning, as we so often do, and I also often turn to the noble Lady, Baroness Browning, and very wise, I would say we are all.

In doing so. I also want to say that the work of the Committee is indeed helping us to better understand the challenges and the opportunities and the changes that are needed. And yes, I say to my noble friend, Lord Touhig, absolutely. The work of the committee will inform development of of the revised Autism Strategy, as indeed it should. I'm very grateful to noble Lords for bringing their personal experience to this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Eliot, was most open about his personal experience, and we heard from parents, loved ones and indeed grandparents in the form of the noble Lord, Lord Stirling.

This brings the subject about which we are speaking very much to life. But I do agree, my Lords, that too many autistic people face such significant challenges in education, in employment, in health and in wider participation in society. And indeed that has lasting impacts on independence and well-being. And I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hope, who observed early on in the debate that autistic people are individuals. And I again, would very much take that point.

And the response to that is not will not
18:32
Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
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just be rooted in the new strategy, but also is rooted throughout the but also is rooted throughout the ten year health plan. And also in terms of as we will see when it terms of as we will see when it comes to this House, the health bill and in particular, the moves to establish a single patient to establish a single patient record, which will overcome a number of the points that noble number of the points that noble Lords rightly raised. But it is the case that too often people are expected to navigate very complex systems, rather than simply secure the care and support that they need and that would respond to their individual needs.

And I don't think that's so much to ask, and I am sure the committee would agree with that. And that does have to change. And we are moving towards a needs based approach focussed on early intervention and joined up support around individual needs, and that is very central to our wider reforms, including changes to the reforms, including changes to the Send system. The noble Lord Lord Crisp spoke about the model of the Phoenix School. I'd certainly welcome, as would officials, more information about that.

It is good to see good practice in action, and I want to acknowledge the important local work that is underway and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, spoke to this point. And all of this is about building more inclusive communities where autistic people can thrive. And the work that my noble friend Baroness Dacres described in Making Lewisham an autistic, an autism inclusive borough through its all age autism strategy I felt was commendable and I will echo with me nothing about us without us, I think is a good guidance.

So, my Lords, the Autism Act was enacted in 2009 and I paid tribute to all those who went before us to make that happen. And there have been subsequent autism strategies. But the reality is, as has been observed, that progress has been inconsistent and outcomes have not improved as they should have. And we are very aware, aware, and I certainly am more so today of the concerns raised about the importance of an effective national strategy being in place.

And I want to reassure your Lordships House that the current strategy does remain in place until it is replaced, and noble Lords recognised as I do, that the landscape has very much changed significantly since the current strategy was published in 2021. The challenges that face the health system now are much more acute. Services are seeing more patients with more complexity, and demand does continue to outstrip supply. And indeed, as the noble Lady Baroness Rock and other noble Lord said, there are some 270 000 people waiting for an autism assessment and around 90% of those are waiting at least 13 weeks.

That is why it's so important that we focus on earlier intervention and help people to get the support they need, not without necessarily needing a diagnosis, as we expect now. And my noble friend Baroness Gowdy spoke about girls and women facing particular struggles. And data does show that we are seeing an increase in referrals for female diagnosis. There is a suggestion, perhaps there, that increasing awareness of this issue is supporting improvements in this area, and I am very much looking forward in particular, but not exclusively to the recommendations of the Independent review on the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism.

It's expected this summer, chaired by Professor Fonagy, and it will speak to the very point about how we respond to increasing demand more effectively. And we'll look at drivers for that demand, about which we must be honest. There is often not clarity, and I hope that this will greatly assist. Now to the very important point and the points raised in me about the government's plans for a future strategy and the time scales, and that was raised by the noble Lord Lord Kamall, my noble friend Baroness Ritchie, my noble friend Lord Touhig, the noble Lady Baroness Rock and other noble Lords.

As I said, we remain fully committed to publishing a revised and I emphasise cross-government autism strategy cross-government point. Another aspect that I know the Committee was very keen on, but I will disappoint noble Lords somewhat, but I hope I can give reassurance that I'm not going to disappoint them too much. In my view, it is important that the timetable for establishing the strategy does take a proper account of the timelines of relevant cross-government reviews, and I will come back to this very shortly.

But in developing this new strategy, the revised strategy and the noble Lady Baroness Browning pressed this point does have to be grounded in evidence. It does have to be shaped by engagement. And as many noble Lords have asked, and it has to be realistic about the pressures facing the system. So we do have to focus on ensuring that people can access support at the right time. We need to remove unnecessary barriers, and we need to do it in a way to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord hope in a way that reflects individual needs.

So that does mean carefully considering a number of areas, including the recommendations of the committee's time to deliver report, as well as, as I've mentioned, the findings of the Independent Prevalence and Support Review, which hasn't yet published, and also other important cross-government work, again, spoken to in this debate, such as the independent Milburn review into the increase in the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training, and also the insights from the consultation on send reform.

All of these will help shape the government's response and next steps. And unfortunately, well, fortunately, we have these things in train and they are reporting soon. However, not in time for the end of the current strategy. So I am not in favour and would not be, and I don't think any noble Lord would want me to be. I'm not in favour of publishing a revised strategy to meet a timeline that doesn't now reflect the timelines that are more current and more evidence and more consideration.

I want this to be the best strategy we can get. I want it to be a strategy that can deliver. So in that respect, I cannot give a timeline, but I have given an indication of what is being considered and when those matters are being reported on. And we are also, I can assure the noble Lord Lord Addington, my noble friend Baroness Ritchie, and the noble Lord Lord Crisp and other noble Lords, we are absolutely engaging with those with lived experience.

That is key to success, and we will also consider a need for a new system to bring together information from autistic people. I do think again, that is what we do think again, that is what we have to do. To pick up some other points where I recently announced plans for a new cross-government mental health strategy that will also be very relevant to this area, that will be published later this year, and it will explicitly consider the mental health needs of autistic people and indeed, people with ADHD.

So for me, together with the autism strategy, all of these areas of work which are very practically focussed will support a more joined up system for those with neurodevelopmental conditions and those with mental health needs. Because of course, the strategy, the autism strategy does not sit in isolation. And we do work closely with the Department for education on Reforms, ensuring that joined up support is available across education and health and care services. As noble Lords have rightly expressed because it was expressed, it is key that we have the right support available at every stage of the education of children and young people, and my noble friend Baroness Antrobus.

Referred to the RC curriculum, and I can say to my noble friend that the new RC curriculum and guidance is quite clear that schools should ensure that subjects are accessible for pupils with Send. It is ultimately the school's responsibility to ensure that resources and teaching materials and. I heard the point about the need for greater teacher time as well. But it is up to. It is ultimately their responsibility to ensure that these matters are accessible for all pupils and are sensitive to pupils needs.

And I emphasise again, no matter what one's age, we are all individuals. I also, as I mentioned, the consultation on send reform. It's. It's just closed and the feedback is being considered. Before setting out the government's response and next steps. But we're also taking steps now. And on the 5th of June, we did publish guidance for the new Experts at hand offer. And we have also appointed a national panel of experts to develop new national inclusion standards and specialist provision packages.

I would just like to refer to some of the other points that were raised. I'm happy to write to the noble Lady, Baroness Hollins, with further detail on her assertion that a simple change to the Care Act would be. One way to manage that, perhaps, would be to require an anticipatory care plan. So I will be writing to the noble Lady Baroness Rock, my noble friend Baroness Dacre, and the noble Lord Lord Addington, who raised matters relating to the justice system.

The Neurodiversity Action Plan final update was published in February. It does highlight significant progress made across the criminal justice justice system in supporting autistic people, and I should add that to improve prison screening processes and practices, a new additional learning needs tool was introduced in October 2025 as part of the new Prisoner Education service, and the tool does identify adjustments that might support them to the noble Lady Baroness Hollins. Our reforms to the Mental Health Act will limit the scope to detain people with a learning disability and autistic people so they can only be detained for treatment if they have a co-occurring medical health condition that requires hospital treatment.

That's something we spoke about at correctly at some length during the passage of the mental health Bill. The noble Lord Lord Kamall pressed home the need for greater training for employers. We do know all of us in this chamber. I'm sure that employment rights remain significantly lower for autistic people, and that isn't acceptable. So our a billion our billion pound connector work programme will support around 300 000 people. This is alongside reforms to disability confident.

And we continue to work with employers to build more inclusive workplaces. And of course, the work of the former health Secretary Alan Milburn, through his review, will also be very helpful in this regard. The noble Lady, Baroness Hollins, raised that autistic people, especially women, are at higher risk of suicide. I recognise that very much and can say that in the suicide prevention strategy, autistic people, children and young people, pregnant women and new mothers are priority groups for the provision of tailored and for targeted support, and to the matter of training raised by the noble Lady.

Baroness Rock mandatory training on learning disability and autism for health and care staff will support the necessary shift to empowering patients and preventing sickness rather than just treating it. And again, that is absolutely key. And again to the noble Lady, Baroness Hollins, I do agree avoidable deaths are unacceptably high. Excuse me. And we do remain committed to reviewing every death, notified to leader and ensuring that learning from reviews is shared. And I will also say, and also to the point on local services, every integrated care board is expected to have an executive lead on leader and to prioritise leader reviews as well.

So, my Lords, I am most grateful for the questions and for the way in which noble Lords have pressed the importance of the strategy. I accept that, and I also say I want to ensure we get this right. And with the assistance of the committee's report, I know we will.

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My Lord. I want to just say thank you to all the participants in today's all the participants in today's debate. I think the passion, the care, the empathy, the understanding really shone through. And I'm very, very grateful to to And I'm very, very grateful to to all noble members of this House. It is incredibly important that we is incredibly important that we support our autistic community. I also want to pay tribute again. I know many people have thanked, but
18:49
Baroness Rock Portrait Baroness Rock (Conservative)
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I just think it's worth thanking Baroness Browning and Lord Touhig for really bringing this committee for really bringing this committee to life. We wouldn't all be here without the two of them, and I do without the two of them, and I do pay tribute to all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes as well for the committee. I'd also well for the committee. I'd also like to thank one person above all else, and that is actually my son, who is 25 and who is autistic.

He who is 25 and who is autistic. He has taught me so much about the extraordinary way that autistic people can, can, can contribute to, to our wider community. And I think that that was recognised by many members today. We have a unified voice here today, and we heard a lot about what we need to do and what needs to be delivered. We need a new strategy. I'm very I'm very grateful to the Minister for reassuring us that there will be a new strategy, but we didn't hear from the Minister about an implementation plan or accountability, which was the other unified messages that were coming through loud and clear from, from from members today.

And we are weeks away. So it is reassuring that there will be a new strategy. The strategy will continue, but we really do need a sense of urgency. I would ask from from from the government. It is very disappointing and I know that the Minister has used the word disappointing a number of times in her response, but it is very disappointing about the timing. I think that what I would say is that the government and really needs to to to read our report, perhaps, again, because I think we have actually done all the heavy lifting and the hard work.

So, you know, it can be delivered. We don't need to wait for other things that go on. They shouldn't be holding up a new strategy, in my opinion. So I thank the Minister very kindly for her, for her words, for her enthusiasm in making sure that we do get this right. We really do need to get this right, but it's not a surprise that we're meant to be having a new strategy in July. We've known about this for a long time, so I will just sum up by saying, you know, we need a new strategy.

We need a new, we need an implementation plan and we need accountability. It really

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is up to the government now to deliver. I beg to move. The question is that this motion

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The question is that this motion be agreed to. As many as are of the

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the Contrary, not content contents have it. My Lords, if any noble Lords need to leave the chamber now, I would recommend doing so now I would recommend doing so now My Lords, motion for debate. Home-Based Working Committee report Home-Based Working Committee report on working from home. Baroness Scott of Needham Market. I beg to move the motion.
18:53
None Portrait Debate: Report from the Home-Based Working Committee: Is working from home working? Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat)
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Standing in my name on the Order Paper. My Lords, it is now 18 months since the home based Working months since the home based Working Committee was established to conduct a special inquiry into the effects and the future development effects and the future development of home based working in the UK. And at that time, barely a day went by when there wasn't a media story by when there wasn't a media story about working from home. So the time was very definitely right for the sort of evidence based, in-depth inquiry, which this House does so well.

And I'm very grateful to the noble Lady Baroness Watkins, whose idea it was to have this inquiry and who steered it through the Liaison Committee. In November 2025, the committee published its report, titled is Working from Home, Working the government and the office for National Statistics. Both responded in February 2026, so it's a pleasure to be able to debate the report this evening, and I'm pleased to see so many of the committee members here. They were all very committed to the work we were doing.

They were challenging but constructive throughout the inquiry and despite coming at the subject from a range of perspectives, we reached a consensus on the report. I'm also very grateful to the very many people and organisations who gave evidence, both written and in person, and I'd like to put on record my appreciation for the hard work and commitment of our specialist adviser, Doctor Aksoy, our committee staff Don Walsh, Robert Wilson, Mark Gladwell and Laura Orija. It's pretty evident that there's been a rapid growth in remote and hybrid working since 2020, driven, of course, initially by the pandemic, but this has now represented a significant change in the way work is done by many in the UK.

Since that time, the UK workforce appears to have settled into what's been described as a new normal, where a large minority work from home at least some of the time. At the time our report was published, ONS data suggested that 13% of working adults in Great Britain worked from home all the time, and a further 26% work from home some of the time. We also found that the UK has one of the highest rates of home based working globally, and as our report makes clear, these major changes in working practices represent both opportunities and risks for the workforce, for employers and for wider society.

The committee found that regarding remote and hybrid working, both government policy and data collection sit across multiple departments and agencies, and the committee recommended that government should allocate ministerial responsibility for the coordination across departments of data on the prevalence and the impacts of remote and hybrid working. The committee also noted that there are significant limitations with the data collected by the ONS on remote and hybrid working, so we recommend that the ONS should start regularly collecting and publishing additional data on variable levels of hybrid working.

For example, my Lords, when they say that somebody working from home, it could be one day a month, it could be four days a week, and their data doesn't split that up. The government indicated that it would consider routes to improve evidence sharing and data collection. The Department for Business and Trade specifically says that it will engage across government to shape flexible working policy and evaluate its impact. The ONS, in a separate response to our report, said that it was engaging with the department but that any extension to the data collected would require sponsorship from a government department.

So the first of what I suspect will be many questions to the Minister tonight is can the government confirm that it will support the ONS to gather data on these variable levels of hybrid working? And could I ask what steps the government has taken to capture detailed data on how different groups experience home based working? The committee found that home based working has mixed effects on individuals physical and mental health and their wellbeing. There was an overall perception that the impact of home based working is positive, but that is derived mostly from self-reported evidence.

There's no doubt that people with disabilities and carers may have an improved experience of work, or may be able to work where otherwise they could not. However, others may be disadvantaged young people, particularly missing that interpersonal interpersonal connection or people with unsuitable home working environments. The government has acknowledged this evidence gap and has highlighted plans for a Vanguard task force and Workplace workplace Health Intelligence Unit to be established as part of their Keep Britain Working programme. These initiatives will examine how flexible work arrangements can support individuals with long term health conditions to stay in work.

So can the Minister give us a timeline for the establishment of this unit? The committee welcomed findings that the flexibility of home based working can benefit individuals with disabilities, with and with parental and caring responsibilities. The Access to Work Scheme provides important to support to enable people with disabilities to work, including working from home. Yet the committee heard that the scheme is facing administrative and financial difficulties. The government has stated that a consultation to inform the future direction of access to work has concluded, and plans will be set out in due course.

So I wonder whether the Minister is able to update the House any further on that this evening. And can she also confirm that remote and hybrid working arrangements will continue to form part of any new scheme? The committee also heard that groups of people can face challenges in accessing and benefiting from remote and hybrid working, and the committee recommended that government promote equitable access through awareness campaigns targeted at employers, which focus on specific sectors, regions and demographics where prevalence is lower than it could be.

The government has said it will consider how to target communications on flexible working towards worker groups and business that are less likely to work flexibly now. And I ought to just note at this point that the term flexible working can and often does include hybrid and remote working, but it also encompasses a whole range of other practices. And that's an important distinction. When we think about the question of equity across the workforce, for those whose jobs are simply not able to be done from home.

So we welcome the inclusion of flexible working opportunities as a sub criteria in the government's social value model procurement tool. Turning to productivity, the committee was surprised by a lack of data on the impact of remote and hybrid working on productivity. Evidence on personal productivity was self-reported. Many workers tend towards the view that that they are more productive at home. And that's hardly surprising given the reduction in commuting time and the potential autonomy to manage their own time effectively. Employer views, though, were much, much more mixed around.

A third thought their workers were less productive at home. About a third thought they were more productive, and about a third thought it didn't make much difference. So make of that what you will. However, all employers focussed instead on intangible but important issues such as collaboration, creativity, and workplace culture. Pretty much all of them reported improved recruitment and retention. The ONS, in its response, described plans to develop a linked employer employee data infrastructure, which would include productivity measures, and the ONS aims to publish a technical note and a set of exploratory statistics in the second half of this year.

Overall, we concluded that by retaining the flexibility of remote work and the collaborative benefits of in-person work, the hybrid model does have the potential to be the best of both worlds, but only if it's co-ordinated and well managed. We heard that there is little value in employers establishing a hybrid working mandate, unless they take steps to ensure that collaboration actually happens. We hear lots of stories of people commuting into the office to spend the whole day on Zoom calls, so they really do need to work harder to make sure that teams are attending office on the the office on the same day, and that this collaboration is enabled.

It was made very clear to us that strong management skills can alleviate the potential downsides of home based working. Several witnesses, including from professional associations, told the committee that many managers need much more training in how to facilitate effective remote and hybrid working. The committee recommended that government publish guidance on managing employees in these circumstances and incentivise investment in management training, such as by reconsidering the proposed cuts to level seven apprenticeships. In response, the government suggested that existing support for management training is sufficient.

So perhaps I could just gently urge the Minister to have a look at our evidence again, because it strongly suggests otherwise. Employers that the committee spoke to generally agreed that the government should avoid further regulatory and legislative intervention regarding remote and hybrid working, and this was particularly the case with the so-called right to switch off, where there was a widespread sense that a code of conduct is preferable to legislation. Several witnesses suggested that the government should reconvene the Flexible Working Task Force, and the committee asked the government to explain why it had been disbanded.

In response, the government has said it has launched a consultation on flexible working as part of the plan to make work pay. The government will look to establish a more structured and official led stakeholder group. So I wonder if the noble Lady could update the House tonight on what progress is being made. Setting up this stakeholder group, the make work pay consultation on improving access to flexible working closed in April, and I wonder if the Minister can provide an update on the initial findings.

We heard that employees tend to be more supportive of home working than employers. There's a preference gap of about one day, so most employees would rather be in the office two at home three, and employers prefer it the other way. This emphasises the importance of ongoing dialogue between employers and employees, and we spent quite a lot of time discussing the industrial relations aspects of all this. We also spent a lot of time discussing employers back to office mandates, and the evidence we took suggests that while these were becoming more common, what they quite often did was to codify hybrid work rather than mandating full time office attendance.

The Employment Rights Act allows employers to reject a flexible working request if it's if it's deemed reasonable. However, there's a lack of clarity over how reasonable will be defined, and clearly what is reasonable to an employer is unlikely to be reasonable to an employee. The committee recommended that government considers this risk of litigation and its impact on the tribunal system, which is already struggling. If there isn't some more clarity on this definition of reasonable. So I wonder why the government considers that tribunal data from the current system preceding this new reasonable test means that the new test won't significantly increase the tribunal's workload.

The committee found that remote and hybrid working have the potential to support wider government priorities relating to increasing employment levels, especially for people with disabilities and those with caring responsibilities. And the committee recommended that the government explain whether home based working will form part of the thinking behind Get Britain Working and the Connect to Work programme. And the committee also recommended that the government conduct further research into understanding the wider consequences of changing work patterns, and this would encompass regional differences.

Urban rural policy, transport, the retail sector and hospitality sectors. I can tell the House that the committee spent some time looking at these, but we were bedevilled by the same lack of data in this area as we were in a number of others. And it's also true to say that the broader the the scope of the area you're looking at, the harder it is to nail down whether it's the working from home that was causing it, or whether it's other changes in the economy and so on.

Or in the case of the retail sector, things like energy prices and employment costs. So it's quite difficult to to tease that out. The committee found that digital technologies are critical to facilitating access to remote and hybrid working, and we recommended that the government increase long term investment in digital infrastructure, such as by committing to further funding of Project Gigabit. The government should also support the development of digital skills, and I think we were all surprised to hear how many younger people, whilst clearly having certain digital skills, actually don't have the right skills to bring into the workplace, even even digitally.

And I think that came as a surprise to, to all of us. In response, the government said that the proposed statement of strategic priorities has established that business connectivity should be treated as a priority by Ofcom. That's not the same as household connectivity, so perhaps the noble Lady could clarify that. The government also noted that digital access and the development of digital skills are being supported by the Digital Inclusion Plan. The committee found that future developments in remote and hybrid working are difficult to predict.

Some sectors may seem may see remote jobs supplanted by AI, whilst others may find that automation increasingly allows work to be completed at home. The committee has recommended that the government set out its approach to how AI w hybrid working. The committee concluded that the long term social and economic effects of remote and hybrid working are still unclear. There are risks in the long term for collaboration, productivity and skills development. The committee has recommended that further research be conducted on the long term effects of home based working, and that the government should provide funding for academics to complete this work.

Facilitating access to longitudinal data. Our report shed light on the opportunities and challenges that remote and hybrid working pose to individuals, to employers and to society. However, gaps in the available data remain. We still don't have a full understanding of how different groups experience this home based working, and what long term impact of the growth of this will be. My Lords, I beg to move. Yes.
19:07
Lord Monks Portrait Lord Monks (Labour)
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The question is that this motion >> The question is that this motion be agreed to. It's a. It's a be agreed to. It's a. It's a pleasure to follow Baroness Scott, who chaired the proceedings of the who chaired the proceedings of the Committee with considerable skill and good temper with us all. As we were searching for data which doesn't exist and may never exist, I suspect, in terms of the priority list for government. But she. She gave us a, I think, a good lead all the way through.

And with the Secretariat that was available, a good report, a very practical one, has been produced. So very much. Congratulations to our chairman. Well, the sudden expansion of working from home during the recent pandemic, I think, let's be honest, was a huge surprise to all of us. And interestingly, very topically, I know that the BBC are going to cover the World Cup, working from home in Salford, and I look forward to their efforts to make Salford look like San Francisco.

But workplace change is generally very slow. But as the pandemic raged, the expansion of homeworking took place in a great rush and it was very interesting the way the new technology just came along. At the same time as the pandemic struck. If you had a laptop or a smartphone or a. Desktop, you could hold meetings with colleagues and see them anywhere in the world, almost, and it spread like wildfire. Sales of the appliances, some bought by employers for workers, others bought by the workers themselves.

And no longer was the technology digital technology, restricted to people with special skills and a special knowledge of technology. The. This response was necessary to maintain output and economic growth and of course, keep down unemployment during the pandemic and the. The combination of the pandemic and the technology, I think, was remarkable. And we were very lucky in terms of what. It stopped things getting considerably worse than they already were. Now, as Scott said, the impact was not general.

Many jobs, for example, in health, hospitality factories could not be executed remotely, and face to face contact was still essential. But other areas, especially office based work, were highly appropriate for remote working and it spread rapidly in that sector as well as some others. From my perspective, I think the change has been very successful. There's no convincing evidence about productivity, although Baroness Stowell rightly talked about the range of range of opinions, but that seemed to, to me, all the way through the proceedings was the quality of management was absolutely crucial.

Homeworking was well managed then. Companies were rather pleased with it. If it wasn't, they weren't. And I guess the same is true of looking at productivity in a fixed workplace of a traditional kind. But major changes in workplace practices are often controversial, with workers being involved in disputes sometimes, or discussions about working time and questions like overtime, maternity and paternity leave can be contentious in workplaces, but this did not occur generally, as far as we're aware, with what the introduction of working from home in the pandemic.

Some problems, certainly, but not anything very significant. And I think that reflected credit on British employers and workers who kept up output in the teeth of a frightening pandemic. And I think that's important to acknowledge just how well, I think we thought they did. As Baroness Boycott also said, we seem to have settled into a new normal where a large minority of workers now work from home or remotely, at least for some of the time. But that's not the end of the story.

Working from home is a phenomenon, but it may be overshadowed by the arrival of another one artificial intelligence, which in a sense is lurking just around the corner and is likely to be most powerfully felt in those sectors which have introduced working from home the most widely, particularly clerical work and work in offices, it will have a major impact on, I think, the the future of work, and maybe that's a subject for another report by a House of Lords committee.

One question just to finish with. And that is, does the government accept that guidance is needed in respect of the proposed Code of Practice on what constitutes reasonable. As far as employers dealing with requests from workers for flexible working. So it seems to me. Baroness Boycott and colleagues, that we've actually started something here, and this will go on on a bigger scale, particularly when we see the new technology coming along in the form of AI.
19:13
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Portrait Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Conservative)
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Me also most warmly congratulate >> Me also most warmly congratulate the noble Lady on her report thoughtful, practical and admirably thoughtful, practical and admirably free from dogma. I think we're all going to ask her to review the report in a couple of years time, because it's clear we need more evidence. But as well said the pandemic accelerated what the committee calls previously modest and gradual shift. We have a new reality 13% of working adults in Great Britain work from home, 26% in a hybrid way.

We don't want to turn the clock back for carers, for disabled people, for parents, it's been life changing and properly managed. Hybrid working can offer the best of both worlds. I can remember going to work and pretending I had a very important meeting, when actually I was going to see my children's primary school play. We've all been in situations where we were totally rigidly supposed to stay at our desks with no flexibility, might work in the evening, might do anything. But no.

It was the 9 to 5 commitment and the world is very different now. But at the same time, what matters is what works for both parties. And I worry that the pendulum may go too far, that employees owe their employer commitments and obligations, as well as the employer owing them to the employee. Businesses have different requirements. They need people to come in at different times, and many people can't work from home. If you look at the workers out in Belfast last night, the emergency services, they have to go to work.

Look at the noble Lady, Baroness Wilkinson, Tavistock. She will know people in the health service have to go to work. So people talking about working from home can be a little bit precious about their world. The key is it requires management and within management the key person who I'd like to have seen more reference to in the report is the chief People officer, the Chief people officer, whose job is to make sure you get 110% value out of people and not 90%.

And that's all about motivation, engagement, leadership. It's at the heart of productivity. The Cpos role is about culture. It's about engagement. It's about performance management. Performance management, always incredibly difficult, but how much more difficult when people are working from home and workforce planning? Workforce planning is at the heart of deciding how you're going to organise jobs that are work from home. I was talking with someone the other day, a utility. All the call centres are now organised from people working at home, but there is a requirement to come into work on a regular basis, to meet colleagues, to have training, to raise issues so it can be done, but it requires a great deal more thought and analysis.

And of course, for some people, some businesses working from home is pretty essential. The Minister used to work for Standard Chartered Bank. Well, if you've got to be on the telephone to Hong Kong in the morning and to America in the evening, this is very difficult to do without flexible working tech businesses. If they had to be constrained by the talent pool in their local area, that would be extraordinarily limited. So it's a context between the business, the activity, the individuals and the employers.

And I believe we should try to be unprejudiced and objective and above all, evidence based as we look for a way forward. Now, more must be said about young people, because the Milburn report, which I think we have all found harrowing, deeply alarming, that one 1 in 8 people is now not in education, employment or training without action. That 1 in 6, and of all people, in my opinion, who need to go to work, to learn, to listen, to be exposed to the water cooler moment, to have bossy people like me wandering around on walkabout management, seeing when they look miserable or they're out of order.

Young people should be able to go to a work environment whenever possible. That's very easily said. I also believe older people should go to work because they become rather comfortable. They're better off. They live further away, they like their house, they've got their dog and they're in their comfort zone. In fact, they're stuck in a rut and becoming fossilised. They need to go to work to learn about tick tock and and to learn about the next generation. So hybrid working needs good management.

It needs analysis, it needs thought. It's here to stay. We haven't yet got all the answers, but the noble Lady in her committee has helped us understand a few more of the answers. Rather better, yes. The opportunity to contribute to this debate. And thank Baroness Scott for so ably chairing the committee and her excellent, excellent introductory speech covering the
19:19
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Portrait Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (Crossbench)
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findings that most of us will probably repeat in part. I intend to concentrate on health and to concentrate on health and disability issues. I welcome the government's response to the potential health benefits and risks potential health benefits and risks associated with remote and hybrid working. For many, working has significant health benefits, particularly at home, but for others, those who live alone, it others, those who live alone, it can induce loneliness, isolation leading to withdrawal, anxiety and depression. The committee found that some opt to work from home and concurrently manage caring responsibilities at home in the same environment.

Although findings were not definitive, this may disproportionately affect women who work from home, constantly juggling and caring, juggling work and caring roles is difficult and may result in stress. However, it may provide significant cost and time savings in terms of travel, thus reducing employees resulting financial worry. Some companies report monitoring people's activity at home during working hours, which some homeworkers find it an anxiety provoking. The government's response states that the Health and Safety Executive will promote its home working guidance, which should address such concerns and make recommendations for employment best practice to support people working from home while monitoring work output.

And though I know little about cyber security, there are definite risks if people don't stick to the rules of their employer when working from home, which may in turn lead to loss of employment. How many companies actually visit the working environments of home workers and ensure that their employees have the correct equipment in sufficient physical room to work safely all day? Or is this solely to be the responsibility of the worker to decide during Covid? As Lord Mann said, working from home working from home was a huge bonus.

But post pandemic, many found that they had to work from home for at least part of their hours of employment. As so many companies reduced the amount of office space they provided. For some, this is an advantage, and hybrid working has widely been seen as positive from evidence given to the committee in terms of health. However, others continue to work with inadequate desk and chair space and not provided with suitable ergonomically designed equipment, potentially leading to significant musculoskeletal problems.

I acknowledge the Keep Britain Working programme is considering how employers and government will build healthier, more inclusive workplaces and refine best practice, with the aim of reducing sickness and absence and promoting employment for disabled people, workplace adjustments and flexible working may well support those with health conditions to enter and stay in work, and this is welcomed. Conversely, it is possible that employers may encourage disabled employees to only work from home, leading to loneliness and lack of opportunity for promotion.

This may be more cost effective for employers and reduce costs of access to work. Government grant schemes. However, I do not believe that this should lead to a reduction in benefits to fund individual workers transport, to work to support disabled people, to get to work and stay in work. Can the noble Lady, the Minister, assure the House that His Majesty's Government will continue to fund specialist equipment through grants for ergonomic furniture, assisted software and other adaptive equipment for disabled people working on company premises and at home.

Similarly, is it intended to legislate to ensure that everyone working from home should be provided with the right equipment by their employers to conduct their work safely and effectively? We did not take evidence relating to piecework at home, but we did learn about its history. Our further regulations needed to protect home workers to ensure that output numbers expected for piece workers by employees can be produced within the contract hours that they are paid for at home. How will the government ensure all piece workers earn at least the minimum wage for the hours of work they work? Some employers reported unreasonable expectations by employers expecting availability out of contracted hours and associated stress.

As a result, people working from home report less sick leave. Are they working while unwell or are they healthier due to being able to work at home? Many home based workers reported working much longer hours than those contracted, and feel unable to look to log off. Do they feel less able or less reluctant to take sick leave? No one wants home working to lead to the equivalent of sweatshop employment, without boundaries between home and work, and a lack of real human interactions.

Some workers live alone in small homes, others in shared houses with multiple occupants. What are the long term health effects associated with these challenges? It is clear that we need further guidance on home based working and closely monitor to ensure that the advantages in terms of increased productivity or decreased productivity are known. And how can the government ensure that we develop and promote safe, healthy, home based working policies across our community?
19:25
Lord Sharma Portrait Lord Sharma (Conservative)
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Yeah. follow Baroness Watkins in speaking this important debate, I was appointed Business and Energy Secretary on the 13th of February 2020. Just as the enormity of the Covid crisis was beginning to be understood by the government and as a noble Lords know, just over a month later, the UK went into its first national lockdown with really profound impacts on many aspects of our lives, including, of course, the world of work. And my department, together with the Treasury, was, of course, at the centre of the government's economic response to the pandemic, and I provided both written and oral evidence to the Covid inquiry through its various modules.

But I do think, having read this report in detail, that the Select Committee report provides some really thoughtful and complementary analysis to the work that's being undertaken by the Covid inquiry. When we went into the first lockdown in my department, we had a number of key questions, which we asked ourselves about the world of work in what has now become the new normal. Would working from home actually work for both employers and employees? What impact would there be on productivity as a result of home based working? And of course, the impact on the wellbeing of people working at home? Would we actually see a long term hollowing out of city centre businesses, which depended so much on the footfall of people going into work during the week? And what would be the impact on public transport, and would it be financially sustainable with significantly reduced work travel? And this was a very particular concern of mine, was whether we would actually see the emergence of what I would describe as a potentially societally destabilising two tier structure, separating those who were safe and could work at home, and those who had to go into a workplace during a very difficult time.

And I have to say this, this really excellent select committee report. And of course, I commend and congratulate Baroness Boycott and indeed all noble Lords who serve on the Select Committee has sought to answer precisely these questions with the benefit of distance from the time of the pandemic, which, of course, was the catalyst for the big increase in home working. Now, in the limited time that I have available, I just want to pick up on one issue, which is on productivity. A number of noble Lords have talked about this and the impact on productivity resulting from longer term home or hybrid working.

I recall, my Lords, a conversation that I had as we went into the first lockdown with the UK heads of some of the major consulting and accounting firms, and at the time they all expressed real concern about the impact of longer term home working on productivity of their employees. I had a similar conversation a few months later with them, and that suggested that the same firms were pleasantly surprised that productivity had not dropped and in some cases even increased. But then towards the end of 2020, the anecdotal view I was getting was that any gains in productivity were starting to tail off, as the benefits and the synergies of collaborating in person were no longer readily available to employees.

And the conclusion from this select committee report, and I'm I'm forgive me, I'm paraphrasing, is that when it comes to productivity, the jury is still out, particularly because, of course, the limited availability of quantitative data. So I very much welcome the government's agreeing to the select committee report's recommendations to collect data and to monitor the economic consequences of home working and, of course, on the UK's global competitiveness. However, I would suggest that the government needs to go somewhat further in its response than just including some specific questions on home working in its periodic surveys to business.

As the Minister will be aware, the CBI and collaboration with the London School of Economics published a report in March this year on remote work and firm productivity, and I would recommend all noble Lords to actually have a look at the detail of this. And I think there is something to be said for the government working with the major business organisations to periodically produce similar targeted analysis on the impact of continued home and hybrid working on UK's productivity levels.

And of course, this is in the in the context of global competitiveness, to also benchmark productivity levels against what is happening in other jurisdictions around the world. Now, I know the Select Committee has examined productivity in the context of G7 countries. I think that's been incredibly useful. But what I would say is that if the government is willing to undertake this further analysis in collaboration with the the business representative organisations, it should actually look at other economies as well, not just the G7, which have a similar structure of economy to ours.

And I certainly agree with the select committee's conclusion that we don't need any major legislative or regulatory interventions in this area, but having the government using its convening power to help deliver internationally benchmark analysis on home and hybrid working, basically what measures help in different jurisdictions and what hinders productivity. It will make a real difference to both employers and employees as they navigate. What I think we all understand is an increasingly complex world of work, not least as a number of noble Lords have pointed out, with the rise of the use of AI in the

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workplace. My Lords. I too want to thank our committee team and specialist adviser for their excellent work on this report and the noble Baroness Scott of Needham Market for her Scott of Needham Market for her leadership of the Committee and for her introduction to this debate. As we've heard since the pandemic, digital technology has grown quickly. This has helped organisations across the public, private and voluntary sector to private and voluntary sector to find a mix of home and office working that suits employers and employees alike.

It's one of the most profound structural shifts in our labour market in decades. As one witness to our committee put it,
19:31
Baroness Nye Portrait Baroness Nye (Labour)
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the old office is dying and the new one is struggling to be born. There are three closely connected issues are three closely connected issues arising from this report industrial relations, the changing role of management and the implications for productivity. It is clear we are moving away from the cult of presenteeism and morphing towards one that values what people deliver, rather than where they work, and rather than where they work, and expectations have also changed. Many employees now see some flexibility not as an optional perk, but as a normal part of their job.

When that flexibility is properly agreed, it can enhance trust and improve outcomes for both sides. But where it is imposed or withdrawn unilaterally, it risks creating tension, disengagement and conflict. Indeed, a top down return to office mandate can damage morale and retention when they ignore the lived experience of employees. So I did think it was a pity that the committee was unable to hear from businesses adopting a total return to office mandate, despite the Herculean efforts by the committee staff to engage with them.

We did hear consistently that hybrid working succeeds or fails, not because of the policy itself, but because of how it is managed. That success relies less on a reliance on physical supervision, but with much greater clarity about objectives and outputs, as well as a deliberate efforts to sustain team cohesion and culture. This is a fundamental shift in management practice, and many organisations are still adapting. It's a challenge as well as an opportunity, and there is a clear need for investment in management capability.

We heard that hybrid should be designed intelligently so that the time together is meaningful. It should, as one witness said, earn the commute. If done well, hybrid working can give people more control over their work, improve job satisfaction and support more effective use of time. If done badly, it can lead to isolation and loneliness, unclear expectations and actually reduce effectiveness. There are particular risks for younger workers where opportunities to learn informally from colleagues may be diminished. As has been said, the committee discovered a lack of current data on productivity.

But the evidence from professor Nick bloom showed hybrid working has now settled into a new equilibrium, typically 2 or 3 days in the office, and was associated with some productivity gains. These gains appear to come less from direct increases in output, but more from improved retention, reduced turnover and more efficient use of time, particularly through reduced commuting. These benefits are real, but not a silver bullet. They are indirect and contingent, and again, if effectively managed, they can make a positive contribution to the holy grail of economic growth.

Hybrid working can also support labour wider labour participation, particularly for disabled people, those with caring responsibilities and older workers. But these are, as the noble Lady, Lady Watkins said, are uneven. Many workers, especially on the front line, cannot benefit from location flexibility. The committee did hear about some unintended consequences. A parent working from home is physically at home, but psychologically at work, the effects of those blurred boundaries are not yet fully understood. Hybrid working is not just reshaping our workplaces, but is also affecting our wider economy and society.

In areas such as city centres, commuting patterns and transport systems, retail and hospitality, as well as highlighting the importance of good digital access, especially in rural areas. Hybrid working is neither a cure all nor a problem to be reversed. It's a structural change that brings both opportunities and risks. The task for government is threefold. So I now ask my noble friend the Minister, how is the government supporting flexibility with its benefits for individuals and the economy? How is it addressing inequalities, ensuring that those who cannot work from home are not disadvantaged? And how is it supporting improvements in management and organisational practice, particularly in the public sector? Because that is where success or failure will undoubtedly be determined.

How the government answers those questions will affect not just whether hybrid working succeeds today, but whether our labour market is ready for the wider changes to come. Because although it was beyond the scope of our inquiry, the interaction between hybrid working and the growing use of AI will become increasingly important as we seek to build a modern, fair and future.
19:35
Baroness Freeman of Steventon Portrait Baroness Freeman of Steventon (Crossbench)
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Yeah, thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. >> My Lord. It's one of the greatest challenges that the committee faced when writing this report, was the lack of good data report, was the lack of good data on how we work in the UK, and I'd like to expand on some of the points made by our excellent chair, points made by our excellent chair, the noble Lady Baroness Cox, without knowing who works from home on how many days. We can't look for associations between that and various different outcomes and possible effects at the individual level, at the company level, or at national level.

As the noble Lady Baroness Scott has said, the office for National Statistics currently only routinely collects data on answers to the questions. In the past seven days, have you worked from home and in the past days have you travelled to work? That means we can't tell the difference between someone who works at home one day a week, or even less, and someone who works at home most of the time. Without this kind of data, we have to rely on proxy measures, and those suggest that home based working is something important to study.

For example, we've all heard about the dramatic decreases in job opportunities for those early in their careers. They're often touted as a worrying sign of the effects of AI on the workplace. But and this is where I wish I could use graphics because it's so much easier to illustrate data. The decline in adverts for jobs suitable for those just entering the workplace starts almost immediately. Post pandemic in late 2022, in data taken from job adverts across the UK, the US, Canada and Australia simultaneously.

And that's well before we could expect to see any effect on job hirings from AI. In fact, a team at the University of Warwick, LSE and the Ellison Institute have analysed job advert hiring, sorry, analysed data on job adverts and hirings and data on working from home and AI adoption. And it looks as though, although working from home and AI tend to affect the same classes of jobs, it's the working from home which has so far caused the around 5% decline in the share of new jobs going to junior staff.

Why? Well, other research in line with what we heard as a committee, suggests that managers are less likely to want to risk taking on a less experienced person when they're hiring for a job where there won't be so much opportunity for on the job, in-person learning or supervision. Clearly understanding the effects of different working patterns on different groups of people, and how we can best encourage more of the benefits and mitigate the downsides is vital. The government, in its response to our report, agreed and in fact, mentioned a broader evaluation of flexible working policy changes and the effects of the new Employment Rights Act.

Also, that the Department for Business and Trade would be engaging with departments about data that they held and that they needed. Could the noble Lady, the Minister, give an update on this engagement, and what data is being used to perform these policy evaluations? Also, in response to our report, in which we pointed out the need for the ONS to collect more granular data on who is working, how many days at home. The ONS said that any continuation or expansion of hybrid working questions on the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey would require sponsorship from a government department, and that it was talking to the Department for Business and Trade about this data.

Could the noble Lady, the Minister, provide any update on this? One of the other quite dramatic shifts in recent years is the difficulty of getting people to complete surveys like those that the ONS rely on for this kind of data. Less than half of people are asked are completing them, and this increases the risk of bias in the type of person who does complete them, skewing the results. There are obviously big advantages to using data that we already hold about people, administrative data, and also being able to link data, say, about the working patterns of people within an organisation with, say, the organisation's performance or the promotion prospects and earnings of people with different working patterns or productivity.

As a committee, we heard how other countries are able to use their linked employer employee data sets to look at the effects of working from home, not to mention many other vitally important issues to do with employment, wages and productivity. But the UK, despite its world leading national statistics and it's the highest percentage of hybrid workers, doesn't yet have one. In response to our report, the ONS said that it was currently working on beginning this task, having already published a roadmap for its design in mid 2025.

This roadmap suggests that starting with the ONS working with the HMRC to bring their data together with pay data sets, there seem to be lots of proposals and activity in this area from different organisations, and I wonder if the noble Lady, the Minister, could confirm how the government is progressing this. I would finally note that we've not had a national statistician in post since early May 2025. I very much hope that this is a situation that will soon change, and that the noble Lady, the Minister, can reassure us all that data collection and analysis in this really important area is improving.
19:41
Baroness Manzoor Portrait Baroness Manzoor (Conservative)
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Yeah. >> I to pay tribute to Baroness Scott of Needham Market for her excellent chairing of the committee, bringing together members with different experiences and different experiences and perspectives is no small task. Yet she guided our deliberations with patience and good humour throughout. So thank you. I also thank our clerk, Don Walsh, for his team, whose professionalism enabled us to navigate a substantial body of evidence and research, and to those who gave evidence. Having served on the committee, one conclusion stands out the debate about working from home is too often presented as a binary choice success or failure, productivity or inefficiency, office or home.

The evidence we received pointed to a more nuanced reality. The central issue is not where people work, but how work is organised, managed and supported. Remote and hybrid working are no longer temporary responses to an emergency, such as the Covid 19 pandemic. They are now established features of the labour market. The challenge is therefore not whether hybrid working should continue, but how it can operate effectively for employees, employers and the wider economy. One aspect of the evidence that particularly struck me was the unequal distribution of opportunity.

The benefits of hybrid working are most available to professional and highly skilled workers, particularly in larger cities such as London. By contrast, many people employed in the health care, manufacturing, retail and hospitality have little access to such flexibility. We should therefore be cautious about assuming that the experiences of office based workers reflect those of the wider workforce. Much of the evidence available came from employees rather than large employers. Employees frequently reported positive outcomes, including improved work life balance, reduced commuting, greater autonomy and enhanced well-being.

These benefits were especially cited important for disabled people, carers and parents, many of whom found that flexible working enabled them to remain economically active. However, the evidence also highlighted genuine concerns social isolation, weaker workplace relationships and blurred boundaries between professional and personal life. Questions were also raised about career progression and mentoring opportunities, particularly for younger workers who benefit from direct interaction with colleagues and managers. And Microsoft reported. Extensive remote working may weaken collaboration and knowledge sharing networks.

For me, perhaps the most contested issue is productivity. Yet one of the committee's strongest conclusions was that there is no convincing evidence that working from home either universally increases or decreases productivity. But overall, the evidence suggested that productivity depends less on location than on leadership, communication, organisational culture and effective management. As was so ably highlighted by my noble friend Baroness Bottomley. However, several important questions remain unanswered. We found limited evidence on the impact of home work on consumer service outcomes, regional inequalities, equality and inclusion, and whether remote working may conceal issues such as domestic abuse or increased caring burdens on women.

But as we have heard, there are also wider implications for cities, towns, transport systems and hospitality businesses. These gaps demonstrate the need for further research and better data, as articulated by Baroness Freeman and indeed others. Can the Minister therefore say what plans the government have to address these evidence gaps and improve and improve data collection even further? My conclusion is straightforward hybrid working in some form is here to stay, but its success is not inevitable. Employers should retain the flexibility to determine arrangements that suit their organisations and workforce, rather than operate under rigid mandate set out by government.

Any government government should support this transition through investment in digital infrastructure, better data collection and the sharing of best practice. Can the Minister say when the government plans to improve full access to internet connectivity and also to digital skills and digital infrastructure, particularly in rural and deprived areas? Indeed, in the area that I live, there is hardly any connectivity. So conclude my Lords. Further debate should focus not on where people work, but on how we create productive, inclusive and sustainable workplaces, particularly as AI becomes more widespread.

Therefore, can the Minister say what action the government are taking to ensure that flexible and hybrid working do not further entrench inequalities in the workplace?
19:46
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Portrait Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour)
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Yeah. committee for their work and their recommendations. And in particular, I am very grateful to the chairman I am very grateful to the chairman of Baroness Scott of Needham Market for a very comprehensive introduction. I have some form on introduction. I have some form on this. I was rather like Baroness Bottomley. I remember the days back in the 80s and 90s, when we were struggling with employers to introduce flexible working patterns. Government was opposed to changes. They didn't like it, yet we managed to persuade them it was the right way forward, and in turn, it was the way that saved the civil service.

Because we had so many vacancies we couldn't fill that were retained women who were going to leave because they were offered flexible, flexible working hours and were recruited many more women into the civil service because they had the opportunity of working it through. And it spread throughout the public service. And now we look the NHS would not operate without the kind of flexibility that was then introduced there. But we're in big changes now and it's quite interesting. I wasn't on the committee.

Had I been, I would have raised the issue of looking at what we did ourselves here in the House. I find it amazing that we worked so well and we transformed ourselves. And I'd be interested to know whether we're keeping up to date the evidence that we've produced of our working activities, because when we're considering. The need to decant, I wonder whether we've explored the possibility of the alternative of working from home and repeat of what we did following Covid.

It worked extraordinarily well. Indeed. We may have a hybrid variation on that theme, but I'm sure it would save an awful lot of money, which is presently being talked about. That was spent on restoration and renewal there. I was particularly interested in the committees, like others particularly interested in productivity. I think that we have to look at AI there, and I'll be interested to see what work the government is doing on AI, and it's linked with home working.

There are so many areas in which I think we could be using AI to assist with people working from home. There's a whole long list. Let me give them to you. It could have a role as a coach for home workers. It could be used as a costing and output companion to, which is an important change and quite a worrying one. It can record the work completed, objectives achieved, assist in priorities, prioritising prioritisation of objectives and help overcome obstacles that people face.

It can summarise and it can report, and it can identify training needs and monitor wellbeing as well as burnout risks. In short, and this has all come from AI. There's a whole range of activities that could be undertaken there that would assist in a way that management would have been expected to do in the past, and it would not need to be used simply as observing hours worked. We need to find mechanisms whereby we can calculate what the cost of working is in a more up to date fashion than we do at present.

And if you ask AI who is doing this, you'll find that McKinsey and Accenture and the major companies of that ilk are doing this kind of work. They're producing models. They're quite expensive, but they will, in fact, be the way that will operate very much in the future and ask the government whether they're doing work in this area and whether they're starting to run any experimentation and see how we can move it forward.
19:50
Lord Fink Portrait Lord Fink (Conservative)
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My Lords, I begin by congratulating Baroness Scott on securing this debate and on her securing this debate and on her exemplary chairmanship of the committee. I also thank her excellent clerk and staff team, who supported the members of the supported the members of the committee on which I served, and also those who gave evidence to the inquiry. It was a pleasure to be part of the committee and above all, I learned a great deal from the witnesses who gave evidence to us. Those insights helped produce what I believe is a balanced and thoughtful report, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to discuss the issues more widely.

Today, I refer to my register of interests and note that many of the companies I have interest in operate in a variety of styles, from fully office based to hybrid and home working. So I've got no real dog in this fight. To avoid duplication and to save time, I'll focus on just four issues information. I love getting proper stats for things, especially important areas of policy. It continues to amaze and shock me how much money we sometimes spend on areas where we just don't have evidence to make the decisions we make, and the evidence could be available at a relatively modest cost.

While I welcome the government's commitment to improving the evidence base, can the can the noble Baroness, the Minister, say in summing up or in writing how they intend to do so, will the government consider enhancing or sponsoring additional ONS surveys? If hybrid working is here to stay, surely we need 21st century statistics to understand it. At present, our data tells us far too little about how people are actually working, how they're being managed, and what impact this is having on productivity and opportunity.

As the noble Baroness Scott mentioned herself, lack of training. One of the strongest messages we heard during the inquiry was how many organisations moved to home and hybrid, working at extraordinary speed during the pandemic. They did so out of necessity, as Lord Monks pointed out, and with impressive success given the scale of the challenge. But understandably few had the opportunity to retrain managers on or redesign systems of supervising, developing and supporting staff working in different ways. In too many cases, more effort went into procuring video conference facilities than actually training staff, which was ironic.

As a consequence, some of the difficulties that have since been attributed to home working may in fact reflect shortcomings in management practices rather than shortcomings in home working itself. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development told the committee that organisations investing in line management training reported much better productivity outcomes. While many business leaders emphasise the importance of effective mentoring and collaboration, particularly for younger workers, good management has always mattered. But it matters even more when teams are dispersed.

I discovered this myself when in business, and if we're serious about improving productivity and increasing the labour market participation for all the inclusivity reasons mentioned and trying to widen up the workforce as much as possible for home working and hybrid systems to really work, investment in management capability should be seen not as a luxury but as an economic necessity. I therefore hope the government will reconsider whether more can be done to encourage and support organisations in developing these skills to make hybrid working a real success.

I'm not calling for large new spending program. What. Rather, I wonder whether existing schemes such as help to grow with management could place greater emphasis on leading hybrid teams looking at best practice which could be shared, and business organisations could be brought together to develop practical guidance. Such measures need not be expensive, but they could yield significant benefits for productivity, staff retention and economic growth. Could the noble Baroness, the Minister, please consider this? It would take very little cost to do, but just organisation.

Thirdly, I observed that home working was popular with almost all staff and even many people who worked hybrid wished to go fully remote. But this is an example in my view, of being careful what you wish. For many business men I know, business people I know I should say would would say that any job that can be done totally remotely is probably susceptible to being made redundant or more centrally being made redundant, either through outsourcing to a cheaper country or using AI expecting to be employed in an expensive part of Britain and working totally, totally remotely is probably an unrealistic expectation for the long term.

Finally, something which should need to be considered is the impact on young people, school leavers and university leavers who are looking for their first employment role and in many cases, becoming much more difficult for them to integrate into a team where remote working is the norm, both in terms of training, teamworking and work ethic. Indeed, as one of our noble colleagues pointed out, the fact that people are hiring less young employers as a as a guess, a response to them having to work unsupervised is is an indicator that there's a problem here.

Young people learn an amazing amount by mimicry. You only have to go skiing and watch young ski class all waggling and following the instructors to see that. And without help they can't learn like that. Would the noble Baroness, the Minister, provide reassurance that they will reconsider how to assist young people who are being disadvantaged by the reduction in office based working? Thank you.
19:56
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Portrait Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (Crossbench)
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My Lords. I thank Baroness Coffey for her amazing Herculean efforts to pull together such a difficult subject. But I would like difficult subject. But I would like to start by offering a data point that I'm not sure would have surfaced in your research. I started a small karaoke chamber voice. I may have mentioned it to your Lordships before. We have a few venues around London and a very strange thing happened after the resurgence. When we came back after Covid. Suddenly Monday's Sunday night, sorry, which had been dead before, became extremely popular and it became one of our biggest nights in the week.

And so we could only assume it's because people felt as though working at home didn't matter whether they had a terrible hangover. So I'm not sure that contributes positively or negatively to productivity, but I offer that small piece of data to you more seriously. I felt I had to speak in this debate if for no other two other two main reasons. Firstly, as a disabled person clearly working from home and the flexibility that's given me has transformed my working life and gives me the flex and ability To manage my working in a way that I had never thought possible.

And I hope that, as the report so clearly lays out, we allow that for as many disabled people as possible. But secondly, I have a very dear friend, now departed Dame Stephanie Shirley, who I don't think came out in your. But as many people will know, really was the godmother of home working. She built a company in the late 1960s, all women, all working from home and doing things in the most extraordinary way. She showed that with good leadership and good management, as many of you have said here, it is really possible to build an extraordinary business entirely with remote workers.

And the women that were working with her, the software engineers, weren't doing kind of easy peasy software projects. They were building things like the black box for Concorde or the Polaris submarine missiles control panels. And I was lucky enough to know her in her later life. She died two years ago, and she always said the same thing, which is, why have we been so unimaginative in moving this on? How can it have been that the 1960s, late 1960s and early 70s, we had these new models of working that enabled new categories of people to work? And yet we haven't moved it on.

Now, far be it from me to go against my great heroine, but I do find that somewhat challenging because despite being disabled and having had so many improvements in my own life from working, there are two concerns that I would like to raise that are in your report, but I would like to double down on them. The first is the anxiety I have about creating a separate class of working citizen, particularly among disabled population. Well, it is miraculous to be able to be offered the opportunity to work.

We all know that your career paths are formed by taps on the shoulder. Someone seeing you in a meeting, someone actively being your mentor, being able to show you the opportunities that might arise. And we also know that that is just far harder if you are disabled person full stop, let alone if you're a disabled person working from home. But that could be true for many other vulnerable categories. So I really hope that we can track in this new world of data.

We're going to track the impact on disabled people from working from home, particularly to see whether or not there are the same career progressions, promotions, the same actual uplift through the economy as they deserve as everybody secondarily and has been mentioned. But just to make it explicit, again, this is London Tech Week. The reason I'm wearing this ridiculous pink suit is because I've met so many events this week. It's completely manic. And the buzz and the excitement. Of course, the inevitable interest in AI is just extraordinary.

And the Minister was there yesterday doing that on Monday. Sorry. Doing a splendid job at picking up UK tech. However, the world that you describe in the report is looking much more back in the reflections out of Covid and designing the world of home working from Covid. We should be thinking about the world as we approach into the era of AI. I don't have the answers to that, but I do think it's partly what Baroness Manzoor was talking about in terms of connectivity.

But it's also, to me, the biggest shift is going from a world where you have a set of skills in your job to one where you're going to be expected to constantly learn. And if you are not constantly learning, you will be at a disadvantage. How does that look like in a world of flexible work? And how can we encourage companies to continue to help people learn to see the opportunities around them, especially if they're not in the office, that does present a whole new set of challenges.

And that has to be, in my opinion, a rebasing. It cannot just be about where your location is. It has to be about

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where your learning is. My Lord, it's always a pleasure

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My Lord, it's always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-fox. And can I also add my Lane-fox. And can I also add my thanks to Baroness Scott of Needham Market and the members of the Committee for this timely report? Committee for this timely report? It does, as noble Lords have said, come at a very prescient time, not only because of challenges around
20:01
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Portrait Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Conservative)
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only because of challenges around AI, but also because employers around the country are grappling with this fundamental question what is best for their organisations, and also what is best for the people who work for them. Now I come to this debate from three perspectives. Firstly, as an employer, as a manager, I'm chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland, and secondly, I am someone who could not easily get through the week without flexible working balancing as I have to my responsibilities in Glasgow with my duties here in your Lordships House.

And thirdly, as a parent of those grown up children that Alan Milburn has been talking about and the challenges that they are facing finding employment. Now, as the report acknowledges, the world of teams and Zoom has undoubtedly opened up employment opportunities for many disabled people. But I sometimes wonder, my Lords, whether part of that success stems from the fact that in on a teams call we are all simply head and shoulders on a screen and visible differences are less obvious, and perhaps discrimination becomes less likely when somebody's wheelchair is not the first thing that you see.

And Baroness Boycott rightly highlighted the challenges around access to work, not only the stresses and strains that the scheme is under, but actually the whole understanding of those that administer administer the scheme in what is actually needed to support disabled people into and staying into work. Now, my Lords, homeworking can indeed save significant time, money and stress. But as it acknowledges, homeworking is not without its challenges. Not everyone has an ideal home environment. People may be sharing limited space or struggling with unreliable broadband.

For others, a local coffee shop or somewhere might seem, or a co-working space might seem a practical alternative. But that raises questions around confidentiality and data protection. When sensitive information is handled in public spaces. I have experienced, as Baroness Watkins mentioned, the issue as a manager around sick leave, when people say to me, can I work from home today because I'm not feeling too well, I need to know, can you work or are you too sick to work? It's really hard if they're just choosing to work from home.

And I have to say, I struggle with the idea that you can look after small children and work at the same time. The committee rightly highlighted concerns around isolation and the difficulties of mentoring remote workers. These issues apply to all employees, including disabled people. Disabled employees deserve not only just to secure employment but also to be fully integrated members of the team with the same access to mentorship, development and informal learning opportunities as anybody else. Getting the job and proving you can do it is only the beginning.

All people as Baroness Lane-Fox much better than me described benefit from social interaction, workplace creativity, and a sense of belonging regardless whether they're disabled or non-disabled. My own experience is that people can often be more productive at home, particularly when they're undertaking tasks they understand well, work that's routine or clearly defined or familiar. However, when an organisation is seeking to challenge or change its culture, or redesign services, or develop new ways of working, those subtleties are much harder to absorb remotely.

Some things are simply easier to understand when people are together, and Parliament's a wonderful example of that, as many noble Lords have acknowledged, some roles can't be fully home based. Baroness Bottomley referred to the NHS. I just want to give a shout out, actually for NHS Scotland and remote areas in Orkney and Shetland who actually trailblazed hybrid working long before the pandemic forced the rest of the the NHS to catch up with them. But at Cerebral Palsy Scotland, whilst our clinical therapists do deliver virtual sessions in person, hands on multidisciplinary working has a greater clinical impact.

And so, they tell me, provides greater professional satisfaction. And I've also seen situations where some teams can work flexibly, whilst others, particularly in customer facing or manual roles, have no option but to be present every day. And if that disparity is not managed carefully and sensitively, resentment can develop. And I, I believe it's far greater and goes far deeper than just the chief people officer. You know, it can be damaging for morale, wellbeing and organisational culture.

My Lords, the report seeks to articulate what government should do and apart from the call for more data and I. Supporting the. I'd love an answer to what constitutes reasonable. In some of these things I'm with my noble friend Baroness Manzoor. I think the government should do very little employment law regulations. Policies are already substantial and a top down approach is unlikely to succeed. The last thing many businesses need is additional prescription. The report recognises one size does not fit all.

The key is flexibility. I know how much I value having control over my working time, but employers have to be supported to determine what works best for their organisation, while employees have to understand their organisation's goals and agree how best they contribute to achieving them. My Lords, this is a matter for employers and employees. Together. It is not, in my view, something which governments should overly concern itself with. I thank the committee once again for its report and bringing this important debate to the House.
20:07
Lord Hampton Portrait Lord Hampton (Crossbench)
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My Lords, can I join the chorus of congratulations for Baroness of congratulations for Baroness Scott of Needham Market and her Committee for the excellent and very relevant report? Can I also inject a personal note, my Lords, that I'm honoured and excited to be back in your Lordships House this time, hopefully for life. My Lords, I've had several stints in my life working from home. In the 1980s I was a freelance photographer. My office was a desk, electric typewriter and a phone in a bedroom.

There was a slight temptation to sleep in the day. If I wanted to communicate with someone, I picked up the phone or I went and saw them. There was no diversion of the internet, no email. I lived in a shared house and when work was slow, my housemates who had jobs where they went into offices, used to describe me as a puppy because when I. When they returned home, I'd be jumping up and yapping at them. This seems to be the group missing from this report, not part of the gig economy or hybrid working as we now know it, but people like photographers, TV and production people, events organisers, arts restorers, craftspeople and many others who work on projects on location but have an office at home.

These are people for whom renting an office is an unnecessary expense. People who like the flexibility of working from home, and I suspect this is a much larger group of people than we realise, often in the multi-billion pound creative industry, we hear so much about. I also suspect that these people are mainly at the older end of average, and I'd be really interested to hear from the Minister whether this discrete group appears as a sector in any research.

But as the report says for the young, I think we need to be careful. Working from home is often seen by his employers as bunking off. Scott Galloway, the business guru, puts it bluntly, and I quote, it's difficult to get your butt up every morning, put on a tie, blow dry your hair, put on a pantsuit, look reasonable, get on municipal transportation and get to work. And you know what? It's worth it. Especially for young people. Before you collect dogs and kids, get into the office.

As a teacher, lockdown was a reminder of how working from home can be a chore. Zoom lessons are grim. You need the reactions and human interactions to make a lesson work. Jimmy Carr talks about people not just working from home. They're living from home, even ordering their food to home. And there is a danger of young people at home never leaving work. They miss interactions, chats by the kettle face to face meetings are much more efficient.

Plus it allows one to read the temperature and mood of a company. Many relationships start at work. We are a tribal species. I'm also sad that Thursday nights are now the new Friday nights, because everyone works from home on a Friday. And as we heard from Baroness Lane-Fox, Sundays are now fair game as well. But I leave the last quote to Susie McDonald, the CEO of the Healthy Relationships charity tender, and I quote, employers should consider that an offer to all employees to work from home may not mean freedom and flexibility to all.

For those experiencing domestic abuse, working from home may mean increased and unrelenting control. Violence and monitoring by their abusive partner. The workplace can be a vitally important space to seek specialist support and make decisions about the future. For victims of domestic abuse, working from home may be the very antithesis of freedom.
20:12
Baroness Featherstone Portrait Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords. and fellow committee members for what I found to be quite a fascinating inquiry. Obviously, the fascinating inquiry. Obviously, the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic transformed home based working from a relatively niche practice into just a normal part of working life for millions of people. And the question, an apt title for for the committee's report is, is it working? And the answer, I think, is that it can work very well, but only if we pay attention to how it is managed and to who actually benefits from it.

One of the strongest messages I took from the evidence was that home based working has the potential to widen opportunity, and we heard compelling evidence about the benefits, as has been said, for disabled people, for carers and for others whose participation in the labour market may previously had been limited by rigid working patterns. And I think that was an important finding because at a time when policy makers are rightly concerned about economic inactivity and labour shortages, greater flexibility can help people remain in or return to work, and it can open doors that might otherwise remain closed.

It can also help to democratise opportunity geographically, because talent is spread across the country far more evenly than jobs have traditionally been, and if used well, home based working can allow people to access opportunities without having to move to where those opportunities are concentrated. And that has the potential to benefit individuals and families and communities well beyond our major employment centres. But having spent much of my political life concerned with equality, I've learned that the biggest barriers are often the ones nobody intended to create.

And so that's why I found myself asking a different question throughout the inquiry. A bit like the noble Baroness Hollins. If some groups make greater use of home based working than others, what happens to their careers over time? Because if women continue to carry a greater share of caring responsibilities and therefore make greater use of flexible working arrangements, are they promoted at the same rate as those who spend more time at the workplace? Are they likely to move into leadership positions? Are they seen in the same way as men by senior managers? We don't actually know.

And in fact, what surprised me about the whole inquiry was how little we actually know, because again and again during the inquiry, we came up against the same problem, a lack of robust evidence. We have strong opinions. We heard anecdotes, we heard assumptions. But what we didn't have, as many have said, is enough high quality data to understand the long term effects of home based working on career progression pay an opportunity, and that matters, as others have said, because careers are not built solely through a formal appraisal systems, they're built through relationships, sponsorship, informal advocacy.

They're built through being known, being trusted, being remembered when opportunities arise. And many of us will recognise that some of the most important conversations in our careers happen before meetings began, after they ended in the pub, or simply because we happened to be in the room. So if visibility becomes opportunity and opportunity becomes promotion, then we need to understand who benefits and who may be left behind. Because a policy can appear entirely fair on paper and yet produce unequal outcomes in practice.

And the report highlights another crucial issue, which is that of management. Because successful home based working requires much more than laptops and video calls, it requires managers who focus on outcomes rather than attendance, who set clear expectations, who stay connected with their teams, and who build trust through regular communication, support and accountability. And it also requires employers to invest in management programmes and management skills needed to lead effectively in a more flexible working environment. And many witnesses seem to say it was more ad hoc than actual practice.

Good management can make flexible working a success, but poor management will undermine it. For me, one of the most important conclusions of this inquiry is that the debate should no longer be framed as a choice between home and office, because the world has actually moved on now, and the real challenge is to ensure that flexibility expands opportunity rather than narrows it, that it supports participation without creating new barriers to progression, and that it works not just for those fortunate enough to have access to it, but as fairly as possible across our workforce.

Home based working is going to remain a permanent feature of modern life working life for the time being. And our task now is to ensure that it delivers not just flexibility opportunity.
20:17
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour)
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To you. >> To you. >> My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as a partner and practising solicitor with DAC Beachcroft. What an interesting debate this has been. I do congratulate the noble Baroness Scott of Needham Market I have served with her on committees before. She has great skill and this report is a testimony to her success. But it's also a fact that so many of the members of her committee have contributed to the debate, which doesn't often happen.

And I think it's been of great advantage. It's also been marvellous to hear from my noble friend Lord Sharma about how it all started. Around the time that he was in the Cabinet. I think that gave the whole debate a degree of context. So I very much welcome the report and the opportunity it provides to examine us. My noble friend Lord Monks pointed out right at the start of the debate, to examine one of the most important shifts in working practice of the modern era.

And he's quite right to highlight the fact that we're now facing further shifts through AI. And I found his speech very valuable. But what I want to begin with is what I believe should be the foundational principle underpinning our approach. Namely, I feel the government has to take a step back and allow private sector employers to determine the working practices they believe are best for their businesses and their workforce, whether that's full time, fully remote or some hybrid arrangements in between.

And of course, as my noble friend Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone pointed out, the role of the Chief People officer has become so important and it was good to hear a number of views about flexible working, although if I might say to my noble friend Lord Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, I hope that his idea of Parliament working full time from home is not to be taken too seriously. And I also enjoyed Lord Hampton's revelation of some of his practices in the past.

It's been an entertaining and interesting debate, but I just want to try and join other speakers in looking at the whole picture, because across the length and breadth of this country, different approaches work for different sectors, different firms and different communities. Employers have had to adapt, often at pace and at significant cost, particularly since the pandemic turned working life on its head almost overnight. What the report rightly recognises, and what the government should take to heart, is that there is no one size fits all answer.

Employer flexibility is what matters most, and businesses operating in a free market, it should be remembered, have every incentive to create the most productive workforce they possibly can. They don't need the government to tell them how to arrange their own affairs. And I do worry that the government seems to have moved in the opposite direction, because through the Employment Rights Act 2025, Ministers have introduced a strengthened right to flexible working, making it considerably more difficult for employers to introduce that concept.

This provision is expected to come into force in 2027, subject to consultation. Yet the government has confirmed that, as the noble Baroness Baroness Scott of Needham Market pointed out in her introductory speech, the government has confirmed that the legislation does not intend to provide provide a definition of reasonableness. My Lords, one must ask. Ask what precisely is the point? If the threshold test is reasonableness, threshold test is reasonableness, but Parliament decides to decline.

Declines to define what reasonable
20:22
Lord Hunt of Wirral Portrait Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)
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means. All we have done is to transfer the question from the employers boardroom to the employers boardroom to the employment Tribunal. We haven't resolved it. We've simply moved the uncertainty and a considerable cost to businesses and to a tribunal system. Already, as many pointed system. Already, as many pointed out, operating under severe strain. out, operating under severe strain. The report itself warns of the prospect of, I quote, years of litigation if the legislation is not defined clearly and effectively.

This is not a fringe concern raised by business lobby groups. This is raised by the select committee itself. It's worth reminding the chamber what currently exists in the. A code of practice. An employer may reject a flexible working request, but only on one of eight specified grounds. The burden of additional costs, an inability to reorganise work amongst existing staff, an inability to recruit additional staff, a detrimental impact on quality, a detrimental impact on performance, a detrimental effect on the ability to meet customer demand.

Insufficient work available for the periods the employee proposes to work, or planned structural changes to the employer's business. These aren't arbitrary barriers erected to frustrate workers. Far from it. They are carefully calibrated, operationally grounded reasons that reflect the genuine commercial judgements. An employer must be able to make. So I do ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, why is the government seeking to erode that flexibility? What evidence exists that the current framework is insufficient to protect workers who have a legitimate case? And then, as my noble friend Baroness Manzoor, as well as my noble friend Baroness Bottomley, turned to productivity, what must surely be a central priority for any government serious about growth.

That has to be. What effect will any future changes in legislation have on productivity? And now the picture that the report paints is, to put it mildly, inconclusive. Boosting productivity across the labour market is one of the great challenges of our time, but there is insufficient data. As the eminent scientist Baroness Watkins of Tavistock pointed out, where is the data? Why do we not have sufficient grounds to to base our judgements on the ONS already admit that there is insufficient data.

So we do look to the noble Baroness, the government, the Minister, to make sure that we have the necessary data. I think the other element that ran through the debate now speaking. When I had the opportunity of bringing forward employment legislation and it is 42 years ago, so I'm sorry to raise it, but I introduced a scheme called Access to Work, and we have touched on access to work several times in this debate. What we sought to do with that scheme was to make it possible for people with disability, people from various different backgrounds, to have the necessary equipment to enable them to work alongside people who did not have any disability.

And in many ways, the questions which were now asking ourselves and this report highlights is what we are going to do to meet the challenges, not only of flexible working but also of AI, artificial intelligence. How are we going to make sure that young people today will have the opportunities they need? My noble friend Lord Fink just raised the whole question of young people, and I just wonder whether the noble Baroness, the Minister, could also just think through.

The need for solutions to be found by the government, in that. Mr. Milburn will be producing his report later this year. Now, with over a million people not in education, employment or training, there are serious problems ahead. If we are to give opportunities right across the field, in particular to young people. I just hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will do will do more than the government did in this very brief little response to the report, and I hope the noble Baroness, the Minister, will be able to answer and bring us up to date with what the government said in response to this report, namely in paragraph nine.

I quote, the government will take forward a number of priority actions, including strengthening cross-government research and analysis efforts and exploring how best to target information and advice to line managers. Now, what does all that mean? And that's several weeks ago. What has happened since. It does also say that they are going to establish a more structured, official led stakeholder group. Has that group now been established? If so, could the noble Baroness, the Minister, give us a full report on what has been achieved so far? I think this report requires a much more detailed response.

I also do think that if there is a case for this group, this select committee to continue, it has made its case. I'm sorry to say this to all those members present, but I do think this work is so valuable. It needs to continue. But in the meantime, we look forward to hearing from the

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noble Baroness, the Minister, a. My Lords.

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My Lords. I am pleased to respond for the government and I will address the key themes that have emerged key themes that have emerged through this thoughtful debate, and I, too, would like to start by thanking the noble Baroness thanking the noble Baroness Baroness Scott of Needham Market for not only securing this debate, but for her skilful chairing of the
20:29
Baroness Lloyd of Effra Portrait Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Labour)
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but for her skilful chairing of the home based Working Select Committee and its report. I'm also very grateful to the noble Lords on the committee who led the inquiry. As others have said, many of whom are here today. It has made a valuable, timely intervention. It has improved our evidence base on this relatively emerging area, and I agree with every previous speaker that the richness of the debate today has been exemplary. We have heard compelling arguments that flexibility around when or where someone works can open up opportunities for people who may otherwise face difficulties securing a job, staying in work, or progressing through their career.

It can be particularly helpful for people navigating responsibilities in their home lives, whether that's caring for others or managing health conditions. The government recognises the benefits of flexibility that they extend beyond supporting those particular barriers at work. When implemented well, flexible working can support improved well-being, strengthen work life balance, balance and enable people across the labour market to remain productive and engaged in their roles. It is also associated with tangible benefits for employers, including higher levels of staff motivation, stronger loyalty and improved retention.

And that is why the government is changing legislation to improve access to flexibility. The reforms we have introduced through the Employment Rights Act will make it more likely that flexible working requests are considered and are accepted where they are reasonable. As the noble Lord, Lord hunt mentioned, those reasonable tests have been in place for over 20 years. We will ensure that when the flexible working reforms are finalised, that there will be guidance specifically for employers on the reasonable test and that will be subject to a further public consultation before the reforms take effect.

However, it is important also to distinguish between flexibility as a broader concept and the specific question of home working, where the evidence landscape is more nuanced. As many noble Lords have mentioned today. For many, the pandemic necessitated a rapid shift to remote working, and it. We've heard today the various perspectives from the noble Lord Lord Sharma and my noble friend Lord monks, and indeed the consequences put so poetically by the noble Baroness Lane-Fox on the changes that that has made about pre-pandemic.

Around 12% of workers reported working from home some or all of the time, compared to around 39% today. The scale and pace of change has inevitably constrained the depth and consistency of the evidence base, and the longer term impacts are still being understood. The committee's report and many noble Lords today underline the gaps in evidence to. On home based working, we are committed to improving the UK's evidence base on this. On this. The UK's evidence base, in partnership with other government departments and with business.

We agree it is important to monitor the effects, the changing ways working over the years ahead through both research and data collection. The noble Lord Lord Sharma stressed the importance of working with business representative organisations and other economies, and we already take into account where it is comparable, which as we discussed today, there are already issues with comparability. Even within the UK or comparability, but sort of data clarity. That is an important point. And where it is comparable, we will we will look to take that forward.

The many noble Lords and Baroness Baroness Boycott Baroness Freeman and the noble Lord Fink highlighted the importance of closer collaboration with the office for National Statistics. We are engaging with the ONS to strengthen the evidence base, including collaboration on future data collection and research. This includes working through a cross-governmental analytical framework to sorry, an analytical network to to identify evidence gaps and develop more robust and comprehensive data over time. The department has also engaged with academics at the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence who are looking at developing linked employer employee data in the UK, and we will continue to explore opportunities to feed into this and benefit from that work.

As many noble Lords have mentioned, the importance of that link and whilst the ONS is operationally independent of the government, I can share that the work is progressing on the Linked Employee Employer data set, which links workers to their employers using Pay as you earn real time information to track employers and employees over time, the ONS anticipates that a technical note and a set of exploratory statistics will be published later this year. Many Lords have talked about the balance that needs to be struck between making sure there is increased flexibility, including home working arrangements, and that these work for employers as well as employees.

The noble Baroness Baroness Fraser and Baroness Manzoor, and the noble Lord, Lord Lord Hunt of Wirral, have set out why decisions about working arrangements should ultimately sit with employers and employees, and I agree that a one size fits all approach would not be appropriate. That is why the government is focussed on expanding access to flexibility where it is feasible, encouraging dialogue between employees and employers while making sure businesses don't have to accept requests that aren't reasonable or weren't or won't work in practice.

I've also listened carefully to noble Lords who have rightly drawn attention to the potential risks of homeworking. Several noble Lords, including Baroness Manzoor Baroness Boycott and the noble Baroness Baroness Watkins, highlighted the potential impacts of home and hybrid working on productivity, wellbeing and business performance. The evidence on these factors is complex and still evolving. We recognise the evidence on home working and productivity remains mixed and difficult to measure, difficult to measure with impacts varying by role and working arrangements.

As many have underlined today, there is very important nexus with good management, and it is important to support that the government, as the noble Lord Lord Fink, the noble Baroness Baroness Featherstone, have rightly emphasised, the government does have a role. We do provide some support and training already in this area, such as the Help to Grow Management programme, and we will consider whether further support is needed as reforms take effect. The noble Baroness, my noble friends, the Baroness Nye and my noble friend Lord Brook, also noted the importance of public sector practice.

The Line Manager Capability Programme was developed to improve the quality of line management across the civil service, including managing dispersed teams. Some noble Lords highlighted the importance of health and safety. Noble Lords are aware that although that through the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, employers have the same health and safety responsibilities for people working at home as they do for other workplaces and to improve understanding. The HSC recently promoted its home worker guidance through a multi-channel communications campaign, which ran for eight weeks.

These from February to April this year. These efforts saw a doubling in visits to the web pages based on the previous eight weeks. Many noble Lords the noble Baroness Baroness Bottomley, the noble Baroness Lane Fox and the noble Lords Lord Fink and Lord Hampton highlighted the experience of young people. We know that face to face time can be vital for training and career progression. The changes we are making won't stop employers from determining that some work needs to be done in person.

I also want to acknowledge the important contributions that highlight the distinct value and opportunities and challenges of home working for disabled people and those managing health conditions, the noble Baroness, Baroness Scott and others drew attention to the Access to Work scheme. The Access to Work scheme can help disabled people and people with physical or mental health conditions start or stay in work. We have said that it requires some improvements to ensure that it can deliver a timely, efficient and value for money.

Service reform in this area is complex and we are taking the time needed to consult widely, collaborate and gather evidence from disabled people, employers and representative organisations and we are continuing to refine policy options and Ministers will announce next steps when they are fully developed in that area. Many others have also highlighted the importance of the Keep Britain Working Vanguard phase that is currently considering how employers and government can can work together to reduce health and related economic inactivity and build healthier and more inclusive workplaces.

That is phases well underway. We're working with 150 employees and 11 regions, and we have begun our work to get the workplace health and intelligence unit up and running to support the outcomes of that Van Gogh Vanguard scheme. Many noble Lords highlighted the importance of digital connectivity and digital skills and indeed skills in AI. The noble Baroness Baroness Manzoor and the noble Baroness Baroness Boycott, amongst others. The government recognises the importance of access to a fast and reliable broadband connection and is committed to ensuring 99% of premises receive gigabit coverage by 2032.

At the end of 2025, over 1.3 million premises in rural and hard to reach communities have been upgraded to gigabit capable broadband through government funded programs over years and. But now the UK is amongst the fastest one of the fastest builders of gigabit capable broadband networks in Europe. Many noble Lords highlighted the. The uncertain nexus with the development of AI and how the home based and flexible working we've seen develop post-COVID will interact with that.

The noble Baroness Baroness Boycott, my noble friend Lord Monks, the noble Baroness Baroness Freeman, and my noble friend Lord Brooke. These are very important questions, and I will make sure that the AI future of Work unit. I will raise this the point about flexible working and home working with them so that when they continue their research, they can make sure that the committee's report and the points made today are considered in their future deliberations. Noble Lords did highlight the importance of delivery of these reforms.

We are continuing to work across government to make the dispute resolution system more resilient, ensuring that the measures and the Employment Rights Act can be effectively enforced. This includes a mix of measures and longer term reform, so the system is fit for purpose for the current landscape of employment rights and equipped to respond to future changes. A number of important questions have been raised on how the increase in home working is supported in practice, including through workplace support and guidance. In particular, the noble Baroness Baroness Bottomley is right to underline the importance of chief people officers, other HR professionals in their role and and the role of line managers in considering how there is scope for flexible working, given the organisation's way of working and how that is communicated with employees.

And we have listened to calls to engage with external stakeholders as we develop and iterate new guidance about the upcoming flexible working reforms. We have already been working to deliver this with a series of questions in our recent Flexible Working consultation, looking at the types of guidance line managers, employees and employers will need as these changes take effect. And in parallel, officials have held ten roundtable discussions during the consultation to learn more about the guidance and resources that could be most helpful.

We will continue to build on this work, and we will establish a more structured official lead stakeholder group. This will bring together stakeholders and business leaders to advise and support implementation, while helping the government drive culture change and shift narratives around flexible working. So once again, I'd like to thank the noble Baroness for her and her committee for their report. And I'd like to thank noble Lords And I'd like to thank noble Lords for all their contributions today.
20:43
Baroness Scott of Needham Market Portrait Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat)
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Thanking the noble Lady, the Minister, for engaging so comprehensively with the comprehensively with the committee's report and with some very useful updates, I think. So I'm sure the Committee will join me I'm sure the Committee will join me in thanking the noble Lady for that. And I think we've had an excellent debate. And that's not just because debate. And that's not just because you all said nice things about me, although I'm not complaining about that. I think every contribution has been thoughtful and insightful and has added something to the to the work of the committee and the committee, as I think you can all see, did work very hard over a long period of time to produce this Lord Monks started by reminding us of the pandemic and the incredible pivot that the workforce in this country made.

And indeed, you know, it happened in this in this House. And it's just worth reflecting. That was only six years ago. And in the sweep of history and the way that the labour markets changed six years is a very, very short spell of time. And so I think what we were trying to do in this report, in a way, is to provide a very, very comprehensive snapshot. But it's an entire album, isn't it? But it's where we are now, and we think that will be useful to policymakers now.

But also just thinking forward to Lady Lane Fox's point about not just looking backwards, but about thinking forward, but you just to make a cliche, you can't look forward unless you know where you've come from. And I think we've done a good job in saying that. So with that, I would like to thank everyone who's taken part. And

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Begley, I beg to move. The motion. Question is that this motion be agreed to as many as are that agreed to as many as are that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. Motion for debate. Built Environment Committee Report on New Towns. Lord Gascoigne. I beg to.

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Towns. Lord Gascoigne. I beg to. Move that the. This House takes note of the Built Environment Committee's report. New towns Committee's report. New towns laying the foundations. Before I begin, I would just like to say
20:45
Lord Gascoigne Portrait Lord Gascoigne (Conservative)
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some words of thanks. First, I thank the 88 organisations and individuals who submitted written evidence alongside the witnesses evidence alongside the witnesses who appeared before the Committee over 11 sessions. Second, the team over 11 sessions. Second, the team backstage, excellent specialist adviser Kelvin McDonald. The committee staff comprised committee staff comprised comprising of Dervish Mercan, Emily McPherson Smith, Charlie Warner and Nick Bosa all who kept the show on Nick Bosa all who kept the show on the road with exemplary calm and thanks.

Also go to our embassy staff and all those who hosted us in Copenhagen. I do also wish to express my own genuine and personal thanks to the Minister, her team and those in the department who have shown not only me but the committee deep respect, but also helped us on this issue and others as well. And finally, not least, my colleagues on the committee, some of whom are here, and not only for all their invaluable, invaluable support they've given me and the committee, but also the fact that they've, they've, they've they've tolerated me throughout that period, but they have steered us to what I think is a is a brilliant final report.

And I would, if I may, just like to thank Viscounts, Hanworth and younger. Their voices are missed in the Committee and in this debate, and particularly to me, Viscount Younger, who was always incredibly supportive. Hey, this is the committee's first report of three. Everyone would be delighted to know on New Towns Act, given the scale and the ambition required to deliver new towns, we chose to split the inquiry into a series of modules. This has enabled us to take a more targeted and granular look at discrete elements of the overall programme, rather than trying to cram everything into a single tome.

Since this first report was published in October last year, we've published our second report about creating communities. But for today, I shall focus my remarks on the first report. But worry not. At a future date, we will talk about creating thriving communities. It is also worth noting that the committee chose not to look nor comment on specific locations, which the government was already doing. When we had started our inquiry. This report was produced by members who looked carefully at the evidence and arrived at the same broad conclusion that this programme has huge potential, but only if it is
20:48
None Portrait Debate: Report from the the Built Environment Committee New Towns: Laying the Foundations Lord Gascoigne (Conservative)
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done properly. We approach this inquiry as a critical friend of the government's programme. We want it to succeed. Indeed, that is precisely why we think it is our duty to say plainly where it is not duty to say plainly where it is not yet on track. We would be failing in our duty to both the government and our fellow citizens, if we do not hold the government's feet to the fire. This is, after all, not the first time this country has set to build out new communities at to build out new communities at scale.

It is the latest chapter in a story that stretches back more than a century. The post-war new towns were, by any sensible measure, a considerable success. As the noble Baroness, the Minister can testify. They housed millions, opened up opportunity and showed what the government could do when it combined ambition with organisation. But a good many attempts since then have been less glorious. Some never properly got off the drawing board. Some delivered housing but not places. Some lacked warmth and coherence. So this really is an opportunity to get it right this time.

The test of the government on this agenda will be the towns it actually builds, and whether these towns are places in which people can live well, get around easily, find work, raise families and feel they belong. That is why this first report is about the foundations. Foundations are not the most glamorous, but they are crucial. And I would just like to start with the positives, as there are things that the government has done in getting the ball rolling and that do deserve real credit.

First, development corporations. We recommend that they should be the default delivery mechanism for new towns and large scale settlements, and the government has broadly agreed. They matter because they work. They are tried, tested and credible. They can assemble, land at scale and keep a steady hand on the tour. Second, some of the necessary legislative plumbing is now in place. The government has moved beyond aspiration and into action. Crucially, compulsory purchase reform now includes the ability to remove hope value in the right circumstances.

Now, I know that this can be controversial, but it matters because if land values rise steeply on the expectation of future development, it becomes much harder to fund affordable to fund affordable housing, infrastructure and community benefit. Thirdly, the wider devolution framework is moving towards powers for mayors and more more tools to support infrastructure and regeneration. If these new towns are to succeed, they need to be tied into transport, economic strategy and local leadership. New towns simply cannot be dropped from a great.

From the great administrative height of Whitehall and expected to land elegantly. Fourth, there is been the welcome movement on patient capital. The National Housing Bank is a serious development. If this programme is to work, it needs long term money that understands long term returns. Fifth, the government has established a new towns unit. A single front door to government has moved from broad intent to an actual process of consultation, assessment and site development. So let me be clear. This is not a picture of total inertia.

Quite a lot has happened and the government should take credit for it. However, despite that progress, there are still some serious gaps. We are two years on and the clock is ticking. The first area is vision. We said in our report that the government needed to retake control of the narrative. At the moment, I am not persuaded that the government has yet supplied that vision in its own voice. Too much of the story still seems to be borrowed from the task force.

People need to hear clearly and repeatedly what this is for. Is this about giving young families a realistic chance of a home? Is it about healthier places? Is it about drawing up housing growth and infrastructure? Is about building communities that are greener, better connected and more affordable. Is it about creating and supporting tech centres? Whatever the goal, whatever the mission, government should say so plainly, confidently and often. This should and can be a great national endeavour. It should be exciting, positive and upbeat and should be something we are proud of doing and talking about.

The second area is governance, or as I say, grip. This is the gap that worries me the most because until the government gets a grip of the programme and own it, we are not convinced it will ever happen. These are not five year projects. They are not really even ten year projects. They are multi-decade undertakings and we recommend two things a genuinely independent central body to oversee the programme and proper cross-government leadership of sufficient seniority to hold it together over time.

What we have instead is a unit within one department. Now, I'm sure that unit is useful, but a unit is not a commission, and it is certainly not a substitute for Cabinet level leadership. These are 60 year projects. Yet at present they seem to rest heavily on the energy and commitment of a single Minister who has new towns listed as one of his 12 ministerial responsibilities. An admirable though that may be, and even with the support and dedication and passion of our own Minister and others, to me it just doesn't feel enough.

The vast scale of the task at hand means that it needs to be driven day in, day out so that someone can bang the table and ideally the Cabinet table at that. Ultimately, the scheme requires a Treasury to play ball. It needs round the clock grip, not just to handle Whitehall, but engage local authorities, encourage the private sector and investment to help en bloc issues that may arise. And I. Conclusion on this was blunt because the evidence justified that bluntness. That without sustained government management and support, there is a strong likelihood of failure.

Third, there is a question of the government ownership stake. We recommend that the government should retain a small but effective ownership stake in each development corporation, because the evidence suggested that even a modest state stake could improve investor confidence and unlock cheaper, longer term borrowing. And we saw this in Copenhagen. Their model obviously is not transferable in every detail, of course, but the principle was clear enough. A small public stake can create a great deal of confidence. So we appeal again because it seems to be one of those rare policy levers that cost relatively little and achieve a rather lot in return.

Fourth is on skills. We recommend that the abolition of the level seven apprenticeship for those over 21 should be reversed, or at least reversed for the professions in the built and natural environment. It makes no sense for an to announce an ambition, a program like this, not to mention the 1.5 million target. Well, it's quietly narrowing one of the routes into the professions needed to deliver it planners, surveyors, urban designers, environmental specialists, or many others on whom good development depends. You can't just make these magic these people up overnight.

They need training roots in an institutional support. And the professional concern here is serious. Just when everyone agrees the system needs more capacity, we're making it even harder for people to enter some of the very professions on which success depends. And finally, there is money. Our committee asked for clarity on the financing mechanism. The government has pointed to existing programmes and those are welcome as far as they go. But existing programmes are not the same thing as a transparent, dedicated funding model designed around the realities of new towns, high upfront infrastructure costs, long term long term horizons, patient returns, land value capture and proper stewardship.

I'm afraid too much and too many of the answers in the government response amounted to, in effect, to just say, we'll say more in the spring. And the Lords. I think we've past spring, I think. So here's the chance. And there's just one final point I do wish to make, because it goes to legitimacy. We said that the framework for community engagement should be set before the sites renounced. That was not procedural fussiness. It was an acknowledgement of the obvious truth that people are more likely to trust a process if they believe they are part of it, before the broad shape of events has already been settled.

If people feel that consultation begins only once, the machinery is already humming in the background, suspicion will grow. And once suspicion takes root, delivery gets slower, not faster. And I wish to end with four asks for requests of the Minister, if I may. First, is the Minister able to give the House a firm date for the government full response? Now that this consultation is over? Second, will the government commit to leadership with genuine real cross-government authority? Third, will it reconsider reconsider the case for a small government ownership stake in each development corporation? And fourth, will it, even at this stage exempt the built and natural environment provisions from the changes to level seven apprenticeship funding? We remain, my Lords, a critical friend of this programme.

Get the vision right, the governance right, the skills right and the money right. And this generation of new towns could stand in comparison with the great achievements of the post-war era. But get them wrong, and we will not have built a new generation of communities at all, at all. We will have simply just extended along, unless increasingly British tradition, it seems, of promising much, consulting often and delivering less. We can do it. I would like to once again thank the Minister and for all those that are taking part in in this debate, including my fellow committee members.

And I look forward to all contributions that are going to be

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made. And I beg to move. The question is that this motion be agreed to.

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be agreed to. My Lords. This new town agenda is very exciting. This is a chance is very exciting. This is a chance for us to create new, high quality communities for the 21st century, communities for the 21st century, where the quality of people's lives will be boosted by their surroundings. Places where people surroundings. Places where people can live, work and play, and above all, will be inspired. But this agenda needs to be driven. It needs dedication and a degree of government urgency, which seems to
20:58
Lord Cameron of Dillington Portrait Lord Cameron of Dillington (Crossbench)
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be currently lacking. I am now convinced that success in politics is not so much about what you is not so much about what you believe in, but more about whether you're able to get things done. But such is the risk aversion within such is the risk aversion within Whitehall and Westminster that is now only by exceptional enthusiasm and drive that you can achieve and drive that you can achieve anything. So a forward looking agenda such as this new town agenda agenda such as this new town agenda needs inspirational leadership and the will to drive it forward.

It's not a controversial agenda. Who can deny that we need housing? New housing? Who can deny that we need well-built, carbon neutral communities surrounded by a renewed and biodiverse environment? Who can deny we need communities which bring people together, provide a high percentage of affordable housing, and make people proud to live there. Communities with the best health and education services. Communities with sports facilities and places to meet and chat for all ages. So what does the government need to do to make this happen? Well, it has to commit leadership and inspiration to overcome local opposition.

Well, actually, to inspire this opposition to see the very real possibilities for a good life for their children, or even for their own old age. The message is that high quality design and well-built buildings with trees and green spaces might even be better than the farmland that they had before. And I speak as a farmer who loves our countryside. And if some of today's voters don't get it, I should point out that our our committee recently conducted a survey on new towns and 900 children responded.

The highest response rate the engagement team has ever, ever had. And I can report that if today's voters are less than enthusiastic, then tomorrow's voters are hugely enthusiastic and have loads of ideas about creating communities

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fit for tomorrow. Turning to To the economics. I'm afraid even in these stringent times, the even in these stringent times, the government has to commit money either through investment or preferably by loan guarantees. The preferably by loan guarantees. The land value uplift and the initial sale of houses will not provide enough to get these inspirational enough to get these inspirational schemes off the. Although after 20 to 30 years, the Development to 30 years, the Development Corporation should be able to turn a surplus.

So I'm afraid the Treasury has to get involved. And if p p p is the latest answer for translating vision into reality, go for it. It's not like the previous p p hospitals, etc. derided for lumbering future generations with debt because these new town projects will turn a profit. It is just the first 30 to 40 years that are difficult, so everyone benefits eventually. But more than the Treasury, the government needs to get all the departments on board before the first house can be sold.

There has to be good medical services available. That's the Department of Health. Good educational services, schools, maybe even a training college. DfE good local transport that fits into national transport. DfT good police and fire services. That's the Home Office and also commitment from the private sector that they can provide the shops, pubs, cafes and restaurants that will make these places truly vibrant. That's the p p p bit. And all this investment commitment has to be spelt out by our political leaders.

A SAP. It's not complicated. It just needs vision and commitment. There is nothing in our report to frighten the horses, my Lords. In fact, quite the opposite. Everything we say looks forward in a positive way. Yet, in spite of this agenda being a manifesto commitment, two years after the election, the government response to our report was at best lukewarm. However, I am pleased to say that in recent weeks there's been a bit more spark coming out of the department. And so let's hope that this develops into a veritable blaze of enthusiasm and drive.

Thank you, my Lord.

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My Lord, it's a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord Cameron of to follow the noble Lord Cameron of Dillington, and indeed also the my noble friend Lord Gascoyne. And I do pay credit to my noble friend, and indeed noble Lord Cameron, for the work that they did in this Committee are. And continue to do Committee are. And continue to do indeed. And I think it is very helpful, and I share. I think I helpful, and I share. I think I share the view of my noble friend of regarding myself very much as a friend of the New Towns Taskforce
21:03
Lord Lansley Portrait Lord Lansley (Conservative)
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and the New Towns programme, albeit occasionally a critical one, as the occasionally a critical one, as the Minister knows very well. I should just remind noble Lords of my just remind noble Lords of my registered interests in this particular instance, particularly as over the last decade, chair of the Cambridgeshire Development the Cambridgeshire Development Forum and it's with Cambridgeshire that I just want to really focus that I just want to really focus from for a couple of minutes, because in Cambridgeshire, of course, I was member of Parliament there for 18 years in South Cambridgeshire, and in the last decade I've been working in the development forum and continue to live in the area.

But 30 years ago we started building Cambourne on a greenfield site to the west of Cambridge. And just to put it all in context, where we are now in the Cambridge region is we're building out Cambourne, and if Cambourne North is in the Local Plan, which I expect it to be, eventually it will be 25,000 homes. We are building out Northstowe, which will be anticipated to be 10,000 plus homes. We're building out Waterbeach, north of Cambridge, on the A10 between Cambridge and Ely, expected to be 11,000 homes.

And last week the government, in the shape of Homes England and Hill Residential, secured the project for the build out of Cambridge East. What people think of as Cambridge Airfield. Again, more than 10,000 homes. So we have our own new towns programme. None of these are in the new towns programme. Cambridgeshire is planning to deliver 55,000 homes through its own new settlements, without the benefit of the new towns programme in any formal sense. But the government is planning a development corporation, and I look forward to a debate on the Statutory Instrument about that in particular, and we'll discuss that then.

But I think we've learned a few things through these things. Firstly, Campbell, for example, we are 30 years on and only now are we going to get the east west rail with a railway station. Secondly, at Northstowe we learnt the lesson that we needed some of that infrastructure and the county Council, conservative County Council built the guided busway and the conservative government has built the built the A14 rebuild. But that didn't mean that Northstowe happened. When we expect it to.

And to the extent that we thought it would. If I had been standing here in 2007, I would have said in ten years time, Northstowe will be established and have 2500 homes and be planning to go to 10,000. Ten years on. From 2007, there were in fact no homes in Northstowe. Why? Because in October 2008, the market collapsed. And let me just say this it is so important that we understand which I think my my esteemed friend Oliver Letwin said in his review.

We understand the central importance of markets and of ensuring that we respond to markets, not least in where we locate new towns in terms of where there is market demand and viability, the diversity of tenure in those in those towns so that we can actually see these properties go into the market. And it's only those market sales which are fundamentally going to fund the affordable and social housing that we want to be a significant part of it. So we've learnt some of those lessons.

Now they're being incorporated into the new towns programme. But let's not imagine that we're operating with a, you know, look back to 1945 and then imagine what we're going to do in 2025. No, we can see now in Cambridgeshire what the lessons are. And some of them have have been painful ones, but we have nonetheless come through and we're succeeding. And I want the government really, and we'll have this debate another time to recognise that Cambridgeshire is doing the things that the government wants it to do, and doesn't need the new towns programme to make it happen, but we can learn from it in encouraging other places to do so.

Just two final points. Firstly, yes, development corporations, but in some places they should be mayoral development corporations with tax increment financing, as well as loans from Homes England and the government. And secondly, when my noble friend's committee comes on to look at the future and community engagement, remember, it's the young people today, probably teenagers, who will be moving into many of these homes. Let's engage them too, not just the communities that already live there.
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Baroness Young of Old Scone Portrait Baroness Young of Old Scone (Non-affiliated)
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Yeah. Committee report and in particular its emphasis on an infrastructure first approach, on mandatory basic design standards and on capturing design standards and on capturing land values. I also welcome the overall direction set out in the overall direction set out in the government's consultation on the draft new Towns programme and policy, particularly the emphasis on high quality placemaking, on environmental sustainability and the integration of green infrastructure. But I would press the government to be bolder in three key areas.

And can I apologise to the Minister for repeating points that I made during the social housing Bill, but a good story can take repetition. Can I declare my interest as chair of the Forestry Commission? The first area I would like to encourage the government is that the scale of the New Town programme really presents a significant opportunity to embed trees and woods as fundamental components of place. From the outset, trees and woods are just as vital as basic infrastructure, as just as vital basic infrastructure as road and rail and schools and doctors surgeries.

Trees reduce heat effect. They promote nature based solutions to flood risk, both within urban developments and surrounding them. To slow the flow of water, they support biodiversity and measurably promote health and wellbeing, and fulfil a government commitment that there would be an accessible green space within 15 minutes. Walk for urban dwellers. They improve air quality, they sequester carbon and they promote community cohesion. If there weren't trees, you'd have to invent them. Recent research has shown that where green infrastructure is introduced too late in the development process, opportunities are reduced and outcomes are less effective.

The noble Lord Lord Lansley talked about the Cambourne development. It absolutely embraced the concept of having green spaces developed as part of its master plan right from the start. It's slightly unfortunate, however, now that East West Rail is going to go straight through one of the major nature reserves that was created in that process, which also outlines the need for integrated and comprehensive master planning. So the use of trees and woods helping shape the layout and identity of the development absolutely needs to be part of landscape master planning and not retrofitted.

There are already examples of good practice. The Marston Vale Community Forest, for example, has agreed with all its surrounding local authorities supplementary planning documents that all substantial developments will have at least a minimum level of tree canopy cover. And I would encourage government to think of that as something that they might make obligatory. The second issue I want to cover is the. Is to urge the government to use the opportunity of the new towns programme to promote modern construction methods, and particularly the government's timber and construction roadmap.

The benefits of using wood in construction include replacing carbon intensive steel and concrete, locking up carbon for the entire life of the building. In addition to the growth period of the tree, timber is also a natural insulator, but government also needs to ensure long term and reliable signal signals to the timber growing and processing markets to ensure that as much as possible of timber in construction is produced here in the UK, rather than the 80% that's currently imported.

So there's a clear policy need there. Local homes made with local timber and providing local jobs is what we want. So can I also ask the Minister if she will ensure that recent announcements about forest safety for high rise buildings do not inadvertently stifle wood based houses, which do not represent a fire risk if they are below three storeys. 91% of Scotland's houses are timber framed, and I hadn't detected a higher level of house fires in Scotland, despite some of the other habits of the Scots.

I can say that because I am one here in England we only have 9% of England's homes currently being built with timber. One last point, if I may, the select committee called for a national spatial strategy, and it's good that the land use framework has now been published for England, the approach to new town location needs to use the principles and practice of the land use framework and the increasing wealth of of data that underpins it to help guide new town locations away from sensitive areas that are inappropriate and towards those that would be most suited using the whole range of the data environmental, social and economic.

That's what a land use framework is for, and it would be absolutely first class if the new home. If the. New towns planning and policy are used that and act as an exemplar for how a land use framework approach can work. I know that. There will be later comments on particular locations that are in the programme for the new homes, and I hope that that the House will note that the reason for some of the sensitivities about some of the locations is because the land use framework approach has not been used.

I look forward to the minister's response.

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My Lords, in 2004, the Labour government was struggling with a government was struggling with a shortage of homes and rising housing costs. So I offered some housing costs. So I offered some published advice on how, for example, they could initiate the example, they could initiate the construction of a new garden city by the Thames. I provisionally called it Thames Reach. It was in called it Thames Reach. It was in the Ebbsfleet area as an example of how it would be easier to get
21:14
Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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consent to something bold and visionary, which included infrastructure and formed complete communities, than to just keep on adding piecemeal to existing communities who often didn't like the stresses and strains that could create. It didn't appeal to the then Labour government, but the incoming conservative government later on took other advice and decided on Ebbsfleet Garden City, decided on Ebbsfleet Garden City, and that is now well underway with the development corporation to do it. And I'm very pleased they did. And I think it's an example of what can be achieved.

I would like, like others in this debate, to see more passion, enthusiasm, urgency for some development. The government made a mighty promise to our country of 1.5 million houses in five years. The last government was achieving around a million. It hit its targets. The Labour opposition was quite right to say they weren't that stretching, and they came up with this stretching target. But I got news for the Ministers. Two years in. They're miles off the pace. They won't even hit the pace of the outgoing conservative government.

They really do need to make a really big shift in what they're trying to achieve. I'd also like to hear more about how it can be based in some very fine traditions of British development, and the formation of British communities, someone I Revere as one of our great entrepreneur designers, Josiah Wedgwood, in some ways started it with above average housing for skilled workers that he recruited, trained and wished to retain in a village called Etruria. And what a good idea to give them an improvement in living standards as part of the package.

And that was carried on with other great entrepreneurs and rich families. And surely go and visit Bournville, go and visit Port Sunlight. Aren't Ministers proud of this? These were great achievements, wonderful architecture, countryside in the development, people with gardens, sporting facilities. They could use, communal facilities. They could go and enjoy a community that was built around a place of work that they were proud of, that paid them decent wages and looked after them, and then they spread out more widely.

As we've heard from some others in post-war developments, when you had the development of more of the garden cities with Welwyn and and so forth taking off. So there is a tradition there that we can build on, and the government could show more passion and a bit more continuity in British life, drawing on the things we can be proud of, of how normal skilled workers got access to much better housing and started to live in communities, and then went on to become owners, which I think is also extremely important for democratising capital and spreading wealth more widely.

But I think the government should also look at what works to break down resistance, because we have a paradox in public opinion in this country. The public thinks we should build more houses, but most of the public don't think any of the houses should be built anywhere near them. And when I was representing a constituency which always had one of the fastest rates of new house building foisted upon it by successive governments, the constituency of Wokingham, so successful it was that they kept on having to break bits off from my constituency to form new ones, because we had so many people coming into the patch.

I did have to be the chief Nimby. Now you can see I'm not a Nimby. I think we need to build houses. I think construction is a great thing, but I did have to represent the perfectly genuine view that if you took too many of our green fields and green gaps between settlements, you destroyed the community and changed the nature of the fabric of the local area. We were being asked to take too much, too quickly, and I also shared the view that we weren't getting access to the funds and the projects for the infrastructure.

So you're inviting people in. When there wasn't electricity, there wasn't water, there weren't enough pipes to take the dirty water away. There wasn't enough drain land. So the new houses flooded almost as soon as people moved into them. It was just a disgrace that we didn't plan it properly. So I urge the government to put more emphasis on new cities and towns, to accept the conclusions of the report, that you plan them in advance, and above all,

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you put the facilities in first. Lord Redwood well said.

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Lord Redwood well said. My Lords, may I join in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Gascoigne for his report? I recognise the need for new homes, recognise the need for new homes, the role that new settlements can play in that provision. The play in that provision. The question, of course, is where those new settlements should be located and on what scale. And I must declare not only the interest which I have placed in the register, that I'm chairman and have other positions in the Countryside Alliance, but also that I live near
21:19
Lord Herbert of South Downs Portrait Lord Herbert of South Downs (Conservative)
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Newmarket, on the edge of a proposed new development on the East Cambridgeshire West Suffolk East Cambridgeshire West Suffolk border. My views, therefore, may be discounted because I have an obvious interest and concern about obvious interest and concern about them, but I hope to make a case against this proposed settlement on against this proposed settlement on its merits. It's called Forest City. its merits. It's called Forest City. That oxymoron reminiscent of Shakespeare's Sweet Sorrow or Milton's Darkness visible. It's a privately promoted scheme which first emerged to general astonishment last year.

It is not a new town. It is a city which would apparently comprise 400,000 homes across 45,000 acres or. And that scale is, my Lords, extraordinary. It is twice the size of Bristol, about the size of Birmingham's population itself the second largest city in the country, larger than Manchester City, and it would be one of the most significant urban developments in modern British history. It is more than 2 or 3 times the size of the largest new town, Milton Keynes, five times the size of the second largest Telford.

And I'm sure of interest to the Minister ten times bigger than Stevenage, 20 times bigger than Welwyn Garden City, it is located entirely on beautiful countryside in the Stour Valley countryside, which I would argue merits protection in its own right and is in stark contrast to the kind of lower grade countryside, degraded countryside, even areas of green belt which are degraded, which we should not be worried about in terms of protecting beautiful countryside. But also significantly, this is grade two farmland, the government's own land use framework for England says that it aims to reduce trade offs by avoiding land use change on the best agricultural land, and that reflects the National Planning Policy Framework, which directs development away from the best and most versatile agricultural land.

And that includes grade two land. The. The. This proposal sits alongside directly proximate to the development which my noble friend Lord Lansley already described, which is an increase in the size of Cambridge by 5000 homes, doubling the size of Cambridge. So on one side of the A11 in the Oxford-cambridge corridor. So you can see the logic in this, there would be a massive new development. And then on the east side, in entirely open countryside, not on the Oxford-cambridge corridor, there would be another which would completely dwarf it.

And the proposal itself seems confused about whether it is a potentially complementary scheme or one which is an alternative. This area of the country, Cambridgeshire, is water stressed. It's one of the driest areas of the country. Where would the water come from? The scheme's promoters themselves say that there would be a cost in providing that of £4.3 billion. Where would the transport infrastructure be funded from? The scheme's promoters themselves say that roads, railway etc. there is no proper railway connection to this development would be some £16 billion.

The local member of Parliament, Nick Timothy, estimates the infrastructure costs alone as being some £60 billion. The state subsidy required to build this development between 80 and £110 billion. Because there is a proposal that the housing would be all afforded, and there would that the plan would eliminate land value receipts, which are normally fund roads, schools and hospitals. And what that suggests is that this proposal is pie in the sky. And there may be an attractive brochure with pictures of beavers and bison, people swimming in lakes, gobbledegook like symbiotic mobility and synchro modality.

There may be double speak about villages being integrated in the urban fabric of the city, but the truth is that there will be concrete where there was countryside, highways, where there were hedgerows, more housing, where there are hamlets. This is an utopian delusion and it is serious. It is not a serious proposal, but the effect of promoting it is serious on the local community because it creates anxiety and property blight. And of course it has an effect on the existing proposed development.

Nearby in Cambridgeshire, the government has said that it will consider any reasonable alternatives to the recommended locations of its new towns, and I note that in the Financial Times on the 29th of May, the government said that they had received the proposal that I'm referring to and were reviewing it. I would encourage the government to rule out this absurd proposal as soon as possible, so as to eliminate the tremendous uncertainty which is created by to recognise that it is a, a, a, a folly.

And it is it is not a serious or sensible proposal, but it is one that is creating enormous worry to a huge number of local

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residents. It's a very. Welcome debate, and not only

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Welcome debate, and not only because it's the opportunity to debate our first report of the Built Environment Committee, but Built Environment Committee, but also because it's turning into a very interesting debate in all manner of of ways. And I want to manner of of ways. And I want to pay tribute to our excellent chairman Lord Gascoigne, extremely chairman Lord Gascoigne, extremely enthusiastic and focussed and gets the best out of witnesses. And he said, quite rightly, that from the start the committee recognised that we were dealing with a very big
21:26
Baroness Andrews Portrait Baroness Andrews (Labour)
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idea when we address new towns and one that needed big presence and big energy, but it required more big energy, but it required more than a single report and a deep dive. And I want to focus just on a dive. And I want to focus just on a few key issues which illuminate why we've come to the conclusions we have. Because the report was innovative, it was also quite an unusual context. It was modular, yes, but it was also in a very yes, but it was also in a very dynamic context because policy was being made by the task force, why we were doing our own work.

And when the list of sites was revealed last autumn, it was good to see that the committee and the task force shared so many assumptions around the power of placemaking. And the second characteristic was that New Towns Act, sui generis they take decades to deliver. Ministers are very lucky to see spades in the ground, but they depend on the keenest foresight. And whether that's about energy or food or security, nature security or extreme weather, the watchword runs through this stewardship, and therefore development.

Corporations are the right vehicles. Mayoral development corporations would be tremendously useful and great potential, but they have the capacity to be responsive and flexible and far sighted. As the realities change. And finally, good to hear what Lord Redwood said. This is indeed policy embedded in living history, because the reality of the post-war vision is ever before us. People are still living in those settings, and there was a certain wistfulness about our committee that we didn't have the heroic vision and the post-war imperatives of rehousing, which were profoundly necessary but also popular.

But they came with the patient capital investment that paid off. And we make the same case under different conditions, because our housing emergency cannot be encapsulated easily in a single vision, although that is what we call for, because it is it has a dual purpose, it has structural housing shortage. It has to unlock growth. Both are essential. How do they relate to each other? Where's the novelty? Where's the innovation going to come from? And the challenge is even greater because we are in the foothills of our own industrial revolution, more unpredictable than those that have shaped our world.

And the uncertainty is compounded by very different financial conditions. Labour market skill needs, changes in demography and all that affects housing aspiration and provision. The new towns sit alongside massive new investment in social housing. We and are faced with all the familiar problems that frustrate every development in the country. And I have two questions for the Minister. Can she say something this evening on the contribution new towns will make to the overall housing targets? Still a bit of confusion about that.

Can she bring us up to speed with the work of Homes England and the National Housing Bank, because they are so critical to getting things done? And one further change is about national mood. People rightly expect to be involved in decisions about their future. They will not. That in that frame in 1947, it makes a single conversation about new towns and their purpose more difficult and more contentious. Seeing is believing, but the work of the task force has been under the radar, and it means the field is wide open to vocal opposition.

Hence our insistence that there must be a bigger voice and greater visibility to bring the credibility and energy that they demand. And we can do it because there are new tools and new opportunities. Placemaking can bring consciously together landscape, character, sustainability, infrastructure, quality of life, and many of our recommendations audit the unique opportunities new towns present to think creatively. Private and communal space conservation, connectivity, integrated services, community ownership, design codes, innovative fundings. Those factors will create the new models for the future.

In evidence to the committee, the Minister was a formidable advocate for the new towns and every Minister, indeed who came before us was very focussed on the task force is extremely impressive, but our final, substantive conclusion is that something above and beyond is needed if the programme is to achieve momentum and public confidence, and in short, we think there needs to be a bigger, bolder, simpler story told about the new towns. And I am afraid we're going to use the word vision.

It's easy to be sceptical, but we need something that captures desire as well as imagination, and it does nothing less than shine a clear light on the nation's hopes for the next generation. Security and opportunity in housing and jobs. It requires commanding leadership, which is why we suggest a single, powerful voice, a sole Cabinet Minister, with this as their sole priority and not an internal unit, but a cross-government agency with power to advise and pull our heads together and deliver. My Lords, I look forward to the Minister's

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reply. My Lords, it is a pleasure to

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My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Baroness Andrews and so many other noble Lords in this debate, and I to pay Lords in this debate, and I to pay tribute to Lord Gascoigne, the noble Lord Lord Gascoigne, and the Built Environment Committee for Built Environment Committee for making today's debate possible. Their report is essential reading for all of us who want to see the government's promise of a new generation of new towns delivered, because that commitment to housebuilding in general, and new towns in particular, is both urgent and essential.

Now, I want to use my time today to focus on one of the new proposed town locations and that of Tempsford. It is in a part of Bedfordshire I know well, having been born just down the road in
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Lord Doyle Portrait Lord Doyle (Non-affiliated)
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Great Barford, and noble Lords will be forgiven if they might not immediately be able to find immediately be able to find Tempsford on a map. But its role in the Second World War, revealed in the recent opening of the archives, the recent opening of the archives, means it certainly deserves to be better known. Indeed, the noted local historian Bernard O'Connor has described RAF Tempsford as has described RAF Tempsford as Churchill's most secret airfield. Between 1942 and 1945. The Special Operations Executive, along with RAF's one, three, eight and 161 special duties squadrons, operated from Tempsford.

It was the primary departure point for hundreds of secret agents and for supplies for resistance movements across occupied Europe. It is particularly notable how many of those agents were women who, like those at nearby Bletchley Park, were now able to tell their own stories, so we should do so now. Today, Tempsford finds itself at a crucial intersection of future road and rail development to support the Oxford-cambridge corridor, making it the flagship growth corridor site. It would be a town of around 100 000 people, anchored in a new railway station connected to all points of the compass.

As the New Towns Task Force said, it is, quote, a unique opportunity and a standalone new town in Tempsford provides an opportunity for exemplar development that could provide excellent housing and employment opportunities for people in the region. Now, the government has said that it wants to have at least of these three of these new towns underway by the time of the next election meeting. That target has already been said, will require a level of coordination that, frankly, government is not always used to across so many different disciplines rail, flood mitigation, utilities, land assembly and master planning.

My Lords, there is a traditional government approach that seems to insist on doing everything sequentially rather than simultaneously. I'm afraid to say I don't believe we have time for such an approach. To that end, could my noble friend the Minister, please update the House on what progress has been made on land assembly for this project? As mentioned, it's right that the new rail station is the anchor to this new town. It is in a unique position connecting the millions of people who live along the East Coast Main Line to a new, exciting opportunities provided by the East West Rail line.

It is where scientists from Cambridge will train change trains to meet investors in Leeds, or where families travelling from Edinburgh can connect to visit Universal's United Kingdom resort just down the road. Indeed, last week the government just announced very welcome investment for Wixams railway station to support the universal project. Could my noble friend the Minister, update the House and when we might be able to get a similar announcement for Tempsford railway station, because there has been some suggestion that on current plans, work wouldn't start until 2030 for Tempsford and for the other 21st century new towns to be delivered, this government needs to be as bold and as decisive as its post-war 1945 predecessor was.

Now, I have no doubt that Ministers embrace that challenge. I would simply urge the government to hear the clock is ticking, to move at speed and learn the lessons of past government successes and failures. From 2012 to HS2. My Lords, we know what works. Publish a single delivery plan with one named senior responsible owner. Align every workstream on one timetable and confirm the delivery vehicle and early funding. A new town cannot be built by rail planners, flood engineers and landowners, all working to different speeds, different plans and different managers.

New towns like Tempsford need one delivery body, one timetable and one accountable Minister to grip it. In conclusion, my Lords, the committee describes themselves as a critical friend to the New Towns programme and I look forward to following their ongoing work and more debates like this, because we all need this work to succeed. The potential is huge and exciting. Let's get going with this most strategically important site, and in doing so, we can honour the legacy of legendary female secret agents like Vera Lee, Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan.

In the names of the glorious parks and boulevards of this new Tempsford. This project can be so much more than simply new homes Tempsford new town can be at the frontier of an ambitious, better connected future facing Britain. Thank you. My Lords.
21:36
Lord Jamieson Portrait Lord Jamieson (Conservative)
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First of all, I must declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire, which is the location of two of the new towns, both Tempsford and also a large chunk of the extension to Milton Keynes. And following the comments of the noble Baroness Laing of Scone, I must also declare the location of the forest of Marston Vale. Can I also thank Lord Gascoigne and the Committee for an excellent report and very much a Foundation report, and I'm aware that some of the comments made today actually will probably be covered in future reports.

I also have some experience of new towns, not only Milton Keynes, but my father was from Washington, and when I first used to visit it as a child to see my grandmother, it was a small pit village. And now that village and several of the other small pit villages are transformed into a new town of 70,000, which I saw grow up through my childhood. Now the government is proposing several new towns, and I don't intend commenting on the ones in Central Bedfordshire.

Many, though I would describe as urban extensions rather than new towns. But I want to reflect on the principles of good urban planning. As the report makes clear, we need a compelling vision. We need to define a clear purpose, and we need infrastructure first. And that isn't just roads, that is utilities, that is water and that is soft. And that is about getting a whole group of different entities to work together. Now, that's very important, but I want to raise a couple of other things that I think are very important.

New towns should have a heart. They should have a soul. They should have a purpose. In our ancient cities, you can many times think of that as a cathedral. So what is the centre of that town? What gives it its purpose? And that really is, you know, a town centre that works isn't just about shopping, it's about community. It's about where people come together. It gives it its identity. Secondly, they shouldn't just be a commuter urban dormitory. They need to be living places where people can both sleep, but actually where they have the opportunity to work, where they have the opportunity for leisure.

I recognise that there will still be commuting. I do think also these days we talk often about these wonderful towns and Milton Keynes is on my doorstep. We are not going to be able to build new towns with that lower density in the south east, because there physically isn't the space, and we need to think about the density of new towns. That means a different sort of new town, not one based on road, not one based on car, but much more based on public transport, walking, cycling.

And that requires much higher densities. When I go to Europe, I see towns that are successful because the coffee shop has 12 apartments above it, the shop has apartments above it. People don't need to get in the car to go to the town centre. And I do have a curious question, which I keep asking people why is it that it isn't economic to build underground car parks in town centres in the UK, where it seems to work pretty much everywhere else in Europe? And I do make reference to Lord Lansley raised the subject of Campbell, a place where I did a fair amount of door knocking in the recent elections, and I have to say it is a wonderful housing estate, but I wouldn't class it as a town.

It didn't have a proper town centre and something. And it's something that evolved and please forgive me on that, but I do think we need to do better and we can do better. And that also comes and I think several noble Lords have mentioned design. I'd also like to raise the fact that our population is changing when we design new towns in the 40s and 50s and 60s. It was for a much younger, much more family orientated population. We have shifted.

We have a much older population. We will need to deal with much more singles and couples and not large families. And that's a different sort of town. A number of noble Lords mentioned funding. If we're going to deliver infrastructure upfront, we need to do that. But it's not just about cash flow. Realising the land value will not be as simple as it used to in the past, because many of these areas already have embedded value that we need to think about.

We talked about development corporations in the report, and I'm glad that a number of noble Lords have raised the issue of whether we can have mayoral or council led development corporations, because if it is just in one area, that is a potential other avenue that I think we should look at. A number of noble Lords have read raised leadership and speed, and clearly, I think the fear of many of us is. This will spend more time in the planning than it will actually in getting bricks on the ground.

If we're going to do this, we need real leadership and we need to get on with it. Again, I refer to Central Bedfordshire. Wixams station is going to be delivered 20 years after it was originally envisaged. You know, that is not good enough for these new towns. And finally, I'd just like to reflect on the fact we need to consider the wider area. New towns can have a very major impact on the other settlements nearby and could denude them, their town centres and so forth.

We need to reflect on that as well. And with that, I would like to welcome my noble friend Baroness O'Neill of Bexley

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to the frontbench Lord Hanson. Well said. Thank you, my Lords. I'm

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Thank you, my Lords. I'm grateful for this very helpful debate. And also to the Built Environment Committee on their extensive work behind this second report on new towns. I thank my report on new towns. I thank my noble friend Lord Gascoigne in particular for his chairmanship of the committee and for the insights the committee and for the insights he's provided and all the speakers in the debate this evening. His Majesty's loyal opposition, of course, supports the delivery of
21:42
Baroness O'Neill of Bexley Portrait Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Conservative)
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new homes, especially for young people, and we recognise the government's manifesto commitment government's manifesto commitment to build new towns. In 2019, we promised to build 1 million new homes and we did on time and as homes and we did on time and as promised by 2024. And there was a little thing called a pandemic in the middle. However, we want to ensure new homes are built in the right places and that housing delivery is first and foremost driven by a genuine brownfield first approach.

As we've emphasised time and time again in your Lordships House, the second and latest reports both highlight the need for long term, compelling vision from central government, both to inspire the designs and placemaking of these new towns and to manage their operational delivery something that the noble Lord Lord Cameron of Dillington said. What he said was that it was neat that we needed drive, leadership and inspiration. However, vision is not a word that's frequently associated with the current caretaker Prime Minister, let alone long term, and I think know the noble Baroness should perhaps have a word with him.

And you could pass on some of your enthusiasm and energy. Indeed, the government has already cut five of its 12 proposed new towns, with just seven remaining, and with the withdrawal of proposals for Adlington, Cheshire, all the proposed new towns are really urban extensions rather than standalone towns. We cannot think about new towns in the abstract. Our islands have a long history and every corner has its own local identity, heritage and traditions that should not be steamrollered over by Whitehall.

People do not want green washed housing estates concreting over their countryside. As my noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs articulated very clearly earlier on, the second report recommends that these new towns should not repeat past mistakes, and we particularly welcome the recommendation for design standards to be supplemented by local sensitive design standards for each individual new town. We must follow the evidence collected by those such as create streets of what ordinary passers-by and residents like to see, and to empower small and medium builders.

As the government's former Secretary of State for housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, said during the last general election, we're always hearing that people want tree lined streets of townhouses, so that's what we will build. I think the noble Baroness young Stone could give some advice there around the trees. My Lords, what's changed? The previous government started this work to overcome the design disconnect. And yet the Labour government begin began by deleting references to aesthetics and beauty in the National Planning Policy Framework.

Despite the hard work undertaken by the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, we began the work for Greater Cambridge, to which my noble friend Lord Lansley referenced, and I remember some of the early work through Homes England as a potential urban extension and the current conservative mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is committed to growth and tackling long standing infrastructure challenges. Yet Greater Cambridge seems absent from the government's latest plans. My Lords, local planning authorities and developers benefit from certainty and long term consistency from central government.

Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, update the House on what plans the government now has for Greater Cambridgeshire, specifically? The committee's latest report also recommends that the government move beyond short term metrics to measure the cost effectiveness of individual new towns, and the second report makes clear the need for government to bring in private investors from the start. Good design with inclusive infrastructure built in from the start saves money in the long term, and this needs to be measured effectively.

As my hon. Friend Lord Jamieson reminded us, what steps is the government taking to cut the public costs of design and delivery phrases, making the design and delivery more straightforward for planning authorities and developers requires leadership from the government, rather than letting public money be used to pay for external consultants with no clear outcome or action in sight, or for endless public consultations which in relation in reality do not take people's views on design seriously.

As the Social Housing Bill also makes its way through your Lordships House, I'd be interested to hear from the Minister how social housing will form part of its seven remaining new towns. How will new social housing homes be allocated and how will new tenants be prioritised? My Lords, we are seeing the consequences of a government that came to power without a plan. A party which campaigned on the promise of attractive homes, only to backtrack a few weeks in which pledged 1.5 million new homes which may, but which may take more than five and a half more years to deliver, and which promised a new generation, a new towns, only to cut five of the 12 proposed and Tempsford being the only genuinely new town, the government did not and still do not have a long term vision, let alone one backed with through with a through plan for delivery.

I look forward to hearing answers from the noble Baroness to Minister and look forward ahead. If indeed housing delivery does remain a priority for this government, when this House can expect the government's full response to the committee's latest

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report on creating communities. Can I start by welcoming the

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Can I start by welcoming the noble Baroness O'Neill to her place and to her elevation to the front bench? I very much look forward to bench? I very much look forward to working with her, my Lords, and I would also like to start by would also like to start by thanking Lord Gascoigne for securing this important debate and for the Built Environment Committee's extensive work. I think 88 witnesses and overseas visits to make sure you were looking at what was happening overseas was went above and beyond.

So well done. And the inquiry that you carried out looks certainly at the opportunities and challenges of delivering a whole new generation
21:50
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Portrait Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)
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of new towns. And the government is absolutely committed to building that next generation of new towns, using all the powers that government's disposal, to make sure that we hand the keys not just of home ownership, but of new communities to thousands of families. The post War New Towns programme was the most ambitious town building effort ever undertaken in the UK, starting with the first designated new town of Stevenage in 1946. A place very close to my own heart.

As you all know, it transformed the lives of millions of working people by giving them affordable and well-designed homes in well-planned surroundings. And can I take this opportunity as it's probably the only discussion we'll have about new towns before the birthday, to wish my Town a very happy 80th birthday, which falls in November. The 32 communities that the new towns. The. The post-war New Towns programme created are now home to millions of people, including some of the members who have spoken in the debate today.

And the government will continue to invest in this. The regeneration of the existing new towns and learn from them. And, you know, my view, my clear view is that we need to inspire a new generation with the excitement and energy that that previous generation of new town pioneers like my parents had when they came to live in those places. Lord Cameron's words about young people's engagement were very, really very much hit home with me, their music to my ears.

And I do think we've got to inspire young people. And just so we don't forget about the NIMBYs that Lord Redwood clearly spoke about when my town was proposed and a meeting was held at the town hall, and six. It was then a town of 6000 people proposed to grow to 60,000 people, and when the. When the Lord Filkin turned up to talk to Stevenage people about it, they took the name off the station and put silk in their. So distressed were they at the thought of this expansion.

So. Learning the lessons of previous large scale expansions as we embark, embark on. The newest chapter is really important, and government is committed to build on that legacy. We agree with the committee. Excuse me, I'm just going to have a quick drink. Thank you. It's always good to have the whip by your side when you need them. The government agrees with the committee that it's important that new towns are grounded in a clear and ambitious vision, as emphasised by the government's recently published consultation, new towns represent a bold and nationally significant response to address the range of challenges caused by housing constraints, by the need to power up our economy and to tackle the foundations of strong communities, health, education and family formation.

We want to make sure that we're not only building new homes, but building new communities which can support people throughout their lives. Building at scale is central to this strategy. Each new town will deliver at least 10,000 homes, with many expected to exceed this number, including all of the current seven priority areas being assessed, and this scale enables efficient land use support, supply chain growth and innovation, and creates the conditions for integrated infrastructure and high quality placemaking. And it provides the opportunity to deliver affordable housing and social infrastructure in a way that smaller sites cannot, ensuring that new towns provide homes for everyone to live in.

And as emphasised both by the committee and the new Towns Taskforce, success will ultimately depend on strong and coordinated government intervention. The government has been clear that delivery must be infrastructure first and design led, including master planning enabled by effective delivery vehicles such as development corporations. Where appropriate, clear expectations and support will be set to achieve high quality placemaking with long term stewardship to ensure that new towns are built to last. The government recently carried out a public consultation on the proposed New Towns programme, and this consultation built on the findings of the Task Force report in September 25th.

It invited views on how the new town programme will operate, how new towns could be delivered and planned, and the proposed approach to design and planning policy. And I really appreciated the noble Baroness Coussins comments about design. And of course, new towns present that great opportunity to have innovative design, both in town planning but also in housing design. It sought views on the government's offer to locations and includes a strategic environmental assessment, which assesses the impacts of the programme in proposed broad locations, the cumulative effects of new towns development and practical methods of mitigation and monitoring.

And as part of that consultation, we set out our plan to take seven locations forward through the proposed programme and these represent the strongest proposals which are capable of collectively unlocking hundreds of thousands of new homes and improving people's quality of life in communities across the country. This includes Tempsford lead, South Bank Chase Park and Crews Hill in Enfield, Thamesmead, Manchester, Victoria North Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc in South Gloucestershire and Milton Keynes. And these proposals are at different stages of maturity and require different types of intervention and support, including blends of public and private capital, to achieve their potential.

The government therefore intends to tailor its approach to each new town with a view to making as much progress as possible as fast as possible. The government identified a number of locations which were also found to meet the objectives, and are propositions that represent credible development opportunities. However, we have decided to prioritise places initially where a new towns intervention can have the most transformative impact. Nonetheless, there is strong potential to deliver housing in places that have not been included in the proposed programme.

I'll come to Cambridge in a minute, but this is particularly true of Plymouth, which is a unique opportunity to bolster the UK's defence and security sector. Plymouth will require special consideration and its own bespoke financial support package to unlock its potential as a centre of excellence in naval technology. Plymouth Council is already making huge strides in the regeneration of the town centre, and its MPs have worked with government to secure defence spending for British technology, so we must ensure that housing there does not act as a barrier to growth, and the government has pledged to do whatever it takes to get space in the ground.

In at least three of the new towns by the end of this Parliament, but progressing many more if it's possible, as part of our offer to new towns locations, we will ensure we're working across government to deliver this vision, including through the Industrial Strategy, invest millions of pounds in public and private sector funding into excellent local facilities including GP surgeries, schools, libraries and transport and the environment. Work with world class architects, planners and urban designers to plan each town with their own character.

Distinct and distinct unique identity and ensure the state's full planning powers are available to rapidly build new homes and all the necessary supporting infrastructure, including clean energy, digital infrastructure. And I very much agree with Lord Redwood strong statement about infrastructure and housing developed together. New towns are just part of a wider effort from government to get Britain building again, and over the last two years, the government has delivered fundamental reform to the planning system. Last December we saw the culmination of this with the Planning and Infrastructure Act and a definitive overhaul of the National Planning Policy Framework, which will boost housing supply and unlock economic growth in the years ahead.

These strong foundations will facilitate the delivery of high and sustainable rates of housebuilding in the years ahead. And let me be clear, my Lords, we must now get Britain building again to respond to the noble Baroness O'Neill's point £39 billion investment in social and affordable housing is the most that's ever been invested, and our new towns programme will benefit through that as well. We want a huge percentage of that to be social housing, so we will be supporting social housing in our new towns as well.

So we must crack on with this. And our new towns programme will be a step change in the delivery of the new homes our country so desperately needs. If I can turn now to some of the very specific points that were made during the debate, and I will pick up Lord Gascoigne questions. As he was the chair of the committee, I'll pick up Lord Gascoigne questions first, and he asked me about a firm date for the delivery of the government response. The government is carefully considering the responses to the recent consultation.

It's very important we fully understand the range of views on the programme, including its environmental impacts, and will publish a full response to the recommendations later this year once the necessary environmental assessments are completed and final decisions have been made on locations which is still to come. He asked me about leadership with genuine and real cross-government authority, and that was a point echoed by many noble Lords, including Lord Cameron, Baroness Andrews and Lord Doyle, and the Secretary of State and the Minister of State for Housing and Planning are key sponsors of the programme and have the power of Cabinet committee structures behind them to coordinate requirements for new towns across Whitehall.

Delivering the next generation will be a cross-government effort and central to government's agenda, not just in terms of building homes, but to drive economic growth and spread economic opportunity across the country, and we will work closely with other departments and regulators to ensure new towns will be factored into their future spending plans, ensuring they have utilities, transport and social infrastructure needed for those communities to survive. Lord Gascoigne third question was about small government ownership stake in each development corporation, and our ambition is that the new towns model will transform the way that large settlements are delivered, providing long term certainty to attract sustained investment.

We are assessing delivery vehicle models for each place and the proposed government offering. The consultation sets out that, subject to the needs of each location, locations taken forward as new towns will benefit from resource and capital funding, and that could include a mixture of grant and financial instruments, including equity, investment loans and guarantees to develop town wide master plans, comprehensive infrastructure and establish and maintaining governance structures. So I'll make some further points about funding in a moment, but I think it's that's key to where we are.

And the noble Lord Gascoigne also asked me about level seven apprenticeship funding, and I take the point. Absolutely. We recognise that level seven apprenticeships have been valuable route into professions, but we are reforming funding to prioritise young people entering the labour market and support where it has the greatest long term impact. So we're investing £48 million to strengthen planning capacity and expanding alternative routes into planning, through pathways to planning, public practice and the new Planning careers Hub. So that will be valuable in terms of the issues that the noble Lord raised on placemaking, which was raised, I think, probably by almost all noble Lord Dannatt spoke, but particularly Baroness O'Neill or Cameron Lord Redwood, Baroness Andrews and Lord Jamieson.

We've been very clear. We want exemplary development to be the norm, not the exception. The next generation of new towns have got to be well connected, well designed, sustainable, healthy and attractive places where people want to live and have all the infrastructure, amenities and services necessary to sustain thriving communities established from the outset, subject to outcomes of the consultation, we intend to incorporate the proposed placemaking principles in the draft. New towns planning policy and the placemaking principles should be reflected in town wide masterplan and town wide design codes.

And as part of the government offer, we're proposing to establish a new Town Place Review panel, which will provide impartial advice to delivery bodies and planning authorities, as well as practical design and placemaking guidance for new town delivery. A number of noble Lords have mentioned community engagement, and this is a very important part of the work that we've been undertaking. Lord Gascoigne and Lord Cashman particularly mentioned it and as I said, Lord Lansley Lord Cameron both referred to consultation with young people.

They're going to be the people that are going to be living in these towns. So that's vital. And we're very clear that existing communities should be a key part of any new town. Development and effective community engagement is key to creating connections between existing and new residents and helping build successful places. That doesn't avoid all of the the Nimby kind of approach, but it will help engage people in making sure that they have a say in how these places are designed.

The government will continue to engage with communities, local authorities, delivery bodies and investors to make sure that the new towns are planned and delivered to the to the highest standards. And the recent consultation was the first of many opportunities for people to shape the design and creation of this new generation of new towns. On the points that were made around development corporations. And I think these are really important because the governance of how these new developments are taken forward is critical.

Lord Gascoigne raised issues on this Baroness Andrews and Lord Jamieson, and we're assessing delivery vehicle options for each proposed location to make sure they're best placed to drive forward each of those places, and that includes development corporations where appropriate. But our consultation was clear that different propositions will require different types of intervention. Delivery vehicles beyond development corporations could include, for example, legal partnerships that pull land and delivery expertise between public and private bodies. And the points about mayoral development corporations are very well made, and the visionary devolution framework we're delivering now will hopefully deliver the pace that I know noble Lords are keen to see.

And I was grateful for the support when we took the devolution Bill through for mayoral development corporations on issues around funding, wider issues around funding for new towns, the funding required for new towns in this spending review period will vary according to the needs of the locations chosen, and the precise funding offer will be confirmed once final decisions on the programme have been taken, and this will be when the new Towns Draft programme consultation is closed and all strategic environmental assessments are complete, so delivery will be backed by funding across the landmark housing programs like the 39 billion Social and Affordable Housing programme, hundreds of millions of grant from the National Housing Delivery Fund, additional capital funding managed by the National Housing Bank, and will continue to consider the ways in which private finance can support delivery, alongside government funding and intervention.

And we will also be working with other departments and regulators to make sure they are factoring new towns into their spending plans for

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the future, to make sure that that all comes Forward from all departments

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Forward from all departments across government. We have heard much about lessons to be learned much about lessons to be learned from previous generations of new from previous generations of new towns. I think noble Lord Gascoigne raised this Baroness O'Neill, Lord Cameron and others, and in Cameron and others, and in establishing this program, we are inspired by the proud legacy of the 1945 Labour government, who kick started that ambitious programme for building new towns in the years and decades following the Second World War, as well as subsequent waves of new towns.

However, we recognise that we must learn the lessons and I know the noble Lord Gascoigne as he went through his committee meetings on this, was very keen to make sure we do understand the lessons from previous generations. Of these often emphasised, car based commuting didn't always embed long term stewardship, which is vital into their development, and we've seen huge success in places like Milton Keynes, which has demonstrated the potential of well planned developments to create thriving communities and act as a catalyst for economic growth, which is certainly what we want to see.

A long term stewardship model for new towns must be in place from the outset, including clear governance and funding structures, to manage and maintain communal assets over the long term. Just on the issues around Cambridge that were raised by the noble Lord Lansley, and I was very grateful to him when I carried out a visit to. We went to Waterbeach. We went to Cambourne and to Northstowe. It was great to visit that area and see how the lessons have been learned.

And we did publish. The government published a response to the consultation on establishing the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation on the 3rd of June. Cambridge is not part of the New Towns programme. The Development Corporation will form an exemplar for integrated powers and funding, setting the standard for housing development elsewhere in the country, including for the new Towns programme. Unlocking barriers to growth in Greater Cambridge was an immediate priority of this government, and the housing Minister wrote to local leaders in August 24th, setting out the government's earlier approach to working with local partners to support the sustainable growth of Cambridge, and I look forward to working further on this, and I know that the noble Lord will be keeping a very careful eye on what we're doing in Cambridge.

On the point, the question asked by the noble Baron, my noble friend Baroness Andrews on housing targets. Government considers that the delivery of housing in New Town proposals should contribute towards meeting the identified housing need of relevant strategic and local planning authorities in all instances. So we are clear that that is the way we are approaching the housing that will be included in New Town developments. The noble Lord Gascoigne asked a point about land value capture, and I do think we need to.

The lessons we learned from previous new towns suggest the long term increase in the value of land can be successfully captured and reinvested as the town continues to grow, so we'll be taking that into account as we work through the governance and funding structures for our new towns. I just wanted to briefly respond to the noble Lord Herbert on the Forest City. Before I draw my remarks to a close, because we are exploring opportunities for sorry, we are aware of the Forest City proposals.

We will be following, how they progress through the appropriate local consultations and approvals. But this is not part of our new towns programme or proposal, so I'll close there. But our vision is certainly to create the towns of the future with placemaking at their heart, shaped by what worked in the past, informed by what did not work in the past, and inspired by bright future for those that will live, work and visit this new generation of new towns for a new age.

My Lords, I'm grateful for the thoughtful scrutiny and contributions in this debate, and can I assure all those who have participated, the concerns they have raised will be at the forefront of my mind as we continue to progress our work on new towns. Turning the task force vision into

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delivery on the ground. Thank you Minister. And I know the hour is late, so

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And I know the hour is late, so I won't respond to all the points that's been made, but I think it's been fascinating and energising been fascinating and energising discussion, actually, from across the political divide. I'm also grateful to the Minister for some of the additional information that of the additional information that the government's given us. We're not quite there yet, but let's see what later in the year delivers. Delivers. As the Minister knows all
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Lord Gascoigne Portrait Lord Gascoigne (Conservative)
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Delivers. As the Minister knows all too well, I am a fan of hers, I genuinely am, but I do in this debate just feel like we're missing an opportunity. I think it was Baroness Andrews who used the words commanding leadership. And, you know, we all know life is short and political life is even shorter. And my own experience in number ten can testify to that. But yeah, governing isn't easy. And, you know, even the simplest of things, it's, you know, even it should be simple and quick, but are not.

And, you know, I do feel that somehow we're slightly taking the foot off the pedal here. And, you know, for example, I heard we keep hearing and I think the Minister used it again, references to the Cabinet committee, my own experience of Cabinet committees, as great as they are, is that it's slightly reactive and not proactive. And I think that's the slight concern that we have. But look, I think, you know, we've used a critical friend, you know, the language about being a critical friend.

We remain we remain. So. And I think today, just in this debate, we've heard energy, keenness, leadership, passion, urgency, bold and decisive and passion and urgency from Lord Weir a brilliant, a brilliant speech. The point the clock is ticking, you know, and I've said we can do it. And I think the Minister, just to the Minister directly, if I say, if I may, I think you used the words in responding. I don't know who it was. Maybe Baroness Young of Old Scone.

You said it's something was music to your ears. Well, I want to give you an example. This morning I dropped my kids off and it was a bit fraught. We're all running behind. And my wife was at work, you know, and I was thinking, I've got this debate. And I dropped the kids off, jumped in the car and blasting out in the music. Was that well known architect and urban planner Elvis Presley. And it was the song was. And so I quote, and I end with this a little less conversation, a little more action, please.

And with that, I beg to move.

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The question is that this motion be agreed to, as many as are of be agreed to, as many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it.

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have it. My Lords, I beg to move the house. Do now adjourn. house. Do now adjourn.
14:30
None Portrait Oral questions: Publication of the evaluation report of the 56-day move-on period pilot for those granted refugee status
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