Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, when discussing such matters we should always start with remembering and honouring the bravery of the women and girls who came forward to tell the truth, revealing the grim reality of the behaviour they and others had been subject to. Their commitment to truth stands in stark contrast, sadly, with Peter Mandelson’s decision to withhold key information from the papers we are discussing today.

However, turning to what we do have, and starting on a positive note, the Government’s new guidance on direct ministerial appointments published alongside the humble Address now says—and it is very welcome:

“Where security vetting procedures are necessary, these should be undertaken and completed before an appointment is confirmed and announced”.


I have raised before the rather bizarre, back-to-front nature of appointing somebody first and only then checking whether they are suitable, so that is a very welcome change and should be acknowledged as such.

On a possibly less positive note, I see that the terms of reference for the vetting review have also been published alongside this tranche of documents. I have previously expressed concerns about how the results of Peter Mandelson’s vetting were reported to others through a daisy chain of verbal briefings, such that in the end the Prime Minister was hearing the outcome of the vetting process third hand, without sight of the relevant outcome documents. Whatever we think about the judgments made in that process, that is clearly a very brittle process, prone to error and lack of accountability. Can the Minister therefore confirm that the vetting review will include not just how vetting is done, which is clearly within scope, but how its results are reported to others, including looking at the merits of replacing that culture of verbal briefings with a clear, documented paper trail?

Moving on to what is definitely not, I am afraid, a positive note, the messages that we now can see from inside government show a clear and widespread embedding of the culture of government by WhatsApp. I have previously asked about the promised review of the Cabinet Office’s guidance on the use of WhatsApp, which still, at the bottom of the page on GOV.UK, states:

“This guidance will be reviewed on or before 31 December 2025”.


Last month, when I queried when the review will be completed, the Minister told me:

“I expect it to be before your Lordships’ House imminently for us to discuss the detail”.—[Official Report, 19/5/26; cols. 280-81.]


However, yesterday, in the House of Commons, the Minister, Darren Jones, told the House simply that the terms of reference for the review will be published “very shortly”. So we have gone from a promised review before 31 December 2025, to an expectation last month that details were imminent, to a hope yesterday that the terms of the review will be published very shortly. It seems that each time, as time passes, we are getting further away from the completion of the review. What assurances can the Minister give us about the Government’s commitment to sorting this issue out and ensuring that this review is fully completed —and promptly?

Turning to the papers themselves, I have four questions. Running through much of the correspondence is the idea from officials that membership of the House of Lords exempts you from vetting requirements in many circumstances. It is a repeatedly expressed belief. Given the limited nature of the checks made on those of us who have the privilege of joining this House, and given that those checks have in many cases been carried out several decades previously, can the Minister confirm the Government’s position? On what occasions, and for which posts, would someone who otherwise has to be vetted be exempted from vetting by virtue of being a Member of this House?

Secondly, there is the email from a civil servant to Peter Mandelson on 21 January last year—volume 1, page 77—regarding the vetting team’s request for the names of his foreign contacts. The email said:

“I suggest you send over the handful of names you mentioned, even though you don’t consider them ‘close contacts’. That will reassure the vetting team that you’ve been comprehensive, even if it’s all quite artificial”.


That apparent coaching on how to mislead the vetting team with extraneous information is clearly concerning. Can the Minister tell us when the Government became aware of such exchanges, and what action has been taken to ensure that similar such coaching or advice is not proffered in future?

Thirdly, there is the curious email from Ailsa Terry to Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney on 13 February last year—volume 1, page 386. It says:

“Olly has been clear about the need to delete all traffic on this”.


Why would a senior civil servant be telling those two people to delete all the records of something?

Finally, I turn to a matter of detail—it would be a useful one to clear up—regarding volume 3, page 128. It appears to show the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, arranging a meeting with a paid lobbyist, yet the Treasury’s list of declared such meetings does not have any matching entry. Did that meeting take place? If so, who attended it, and what is the reason for that meeting not appearing in the register?

I appreciate that, obviously, the Minister may not be able to give detailed answers to all those points now, but I hope she will be able to commit at least to writing to me, because clarity and transparency are crucial as part of not just the Government’s but the whole political system’s reaction to the scandal we have been facing.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and the noble Lord, Lord Pack, for their contributions. As ever, I will endeavour to answer all their questions, but I will reflect on Hansard and write on any issues I have missed.

Before I do so, it is important for all of us to reflect on the impact this debate will yet again have on the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Noble Lords across your Lordships’ House will be aware of the truly horrific crimes he committed against countless women and girls. As we discuss these issues again today, it is the victims of a horrendous sexual predator whom we must remember.

Moving on to the substance and process of the Government’s compliance with the ISC, for clarity and accountability, as noble Lords will have seen, the publication includes a summary of the methodology explaining how government officials undertook the disclosure process. To clarify, because doing so will be helpful for Members of your Lordships’ House, on redactions, in line with the Motion, more than 300 individual documents were referred under a process agreed between the Government and the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Government are grateful to the committee for its engagement in this process, and I am of course especially grateful to my noble friend Lord Beamish for his stewardship of the ISC and his management of this significant additional workload.

Further limited redactions have been made outside the ISC process in respect of information that relates to junior officials’ names, contact details, the personal or commercially sensitive data of third parties not relevant to the Motion and, where relevant, legal professional privilege. The Cabinet Office humble Address team, which has taken the decisions on non-ISC redactions, has taken advice from an independent KC—including reviewing the methodological approach—and officials, acting on that to inform its work. These additional targeted redactions made outside the ISC process have been made in line with precedent, built on the conventions of the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministerial Code and resolutions on ministerial accountability passed by both Houses in 1997, as my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister stated yesterday.

On the ISC’s recommendation—we thank it for such a constructive suggestion—the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Mr Simon Hoare MP, has reviewed our approach to third-party redactions and confirmed that we have applied the methodology set out in the document and that the redactions are sensible, reasonable and proportionate. As noble Lords will be aware, the Metropolitan Police Service has asked us to withhold some material in scope of the Motion which it considers could be prejudicial to its ongoing criminal investigation or any subsequent prosecution.

To ensure parliamentary oversight, the Government also shared this information with the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to provide additional accountability of the Government’s actions. The Government are very grateful to Mr Hoare for his participation in that exercise. Our goal is to ensure that we neither prejudice nor undermine any police investigations, as all Members of your Lordships’ House would expect. Such information will be published at the conclusion of the investigation, or at a point when it would no longer be prejudicial to the police investigation to do so. Therefore, I am limited in what I can and will say.

I will also touch briefly on the material relating to Peter Mandelson’s national security vetting process. The UK security vetting process summary and recommendation that was put to the Foreign Office has been shared with the ISC to agree reactions so that it can be published when we are able to do so. What has not been shared is the highly sensitive personal data that formed the basis of the vetting process. If those participating in the vetting process cannot trust that the information they feed into the process is confidential, it will harm the integrity of the whole system, undermining the very basis of our national security vetting system and, in turn, our national security. We cannot and will not do that. I note that the chair of the ISC, my noble friend Lord Beamish, confirmed last night that he agrees with the Government that the larger vetting detail should not be released to the committee even though it is covered by the humble Address. I am grateful to my noble friend for saying so.

Moving to the specific points that have been raised, the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, touched on compliance with the Ministerial Code. Noble Lords will understand that I am not the judge of the Ministerial Code—that is the role of the Prime Minister, taking advice from his independent adviser as needed. As set out in the code, Ministers are personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct themselves in light of the code, and for justifying their actions to Parliament and the public. The noble Baroness also touched on the future duty of candour law and raised the scandals that have led to us requiring a law. We have discussed in your Lordships’ House many times—be it the horrors of the infected blood scandal, of Horizon, of Windrush, of Hillsborough, or of the Manchester Arena—that there is a reason why we need to change the law. If we cannot convince people to be candid, then in order to change the culture we will need to change the law. I reassure the noble Baroness that, as I understand it, Peter Mandelson did not participate in the Shanghai speaking engagement she referenced.

On the direct ministerial guidance and change in vetting, the noble Lord, Lord Pack, raised a very important point, as he did last time, about how this is communicated. I will have to go back to officials to see if it can be included in the terms of reference, because the process is well under way. The noble Lord is aware that my colleague, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, was called up on the fact that it has been slightly delayed, although it is slightly ambitious timing, so it depends on your view. However, I will see what I can do about verbal briefings and write to the noble Lord.

On the issue of the NCCCs review, I expect very shortly—imminently—to be back in front of your Lordships’ House with both the terms of reference and who is undertaking that review. We are not not doing it; we absolutely are, as my honourable friend in the other place said. But I will have to come back to him.

With regard to the fit and proper person test, the noble Lord would have read with interest, as I did, about what we are allowed to know as Members of your Lordships’ House and what we are not allowed to know. Noble Lords will be aware that there are a small number of exemptions from standard vetting requirements in place. Sir Adrian Fulford is considering the relevant policies as part of his review into national security vetting. His high-level recommendations will be published shortly, and we will act swiftly on his recommendations.

There is a general exemption from national security vetting for parliamentarians. This has been a general rule for many years, and many Members of your Lordships’ House would have experienced briefings because of it. That includes in this instance and in others those briefings that can also be made on Privy Council terms, hence the discussion. I would suggest that noble Lords actually look at the time stamps for how that discussion was done, because that was a one-day discussion—several messages but a one-day discussion—and then a decision was made.

The noble Lord, Lord Pack, also asked me about my noble friend Lord Livermore and the transparency declaration. I understand this was a personal meeting that took place away from government property. The only participants were my noble friend Lord Livermore and Peter Mandelson; no one else from Global Counsel joined in the end. As this was a meeting in a personal capacity, it was not recorded as an official meeting.

The documents before your Lordships amount to one of the largest government publications ever laid before the House. Officials work tirelessly to ensure our compliance with the wishes of the other place and over £1 million has been spent. The scale is not dissimilar to the requirements of a public inquiry, and I want to thank my officials for their extraordinary effort since the beginning of February. However, the last word should not be about process or political intrigue, but to remember who has been failed. Our thoughts must remain with the victims of Epstein today and every day.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we now have up to 20 minutes of questions from Back-Bench Members. The first question will be from the Conservative Benches.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, one figure emerges from these papers with his already high reputation enhanced. I refer of course to Sir Olly Robbins, the former Permanent Secretary at the FCDO, and I am sure the noble Baroness, who is an excellent Minister, will agree with me that the memo that he authored towards Lord Mandelson, which was published, reinforces that he is a public servant of the highest standards of honour and integrity. Would she also agree with me that he should be reinstated now rather than have the taxpayer pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for his unfair dismissal?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, Olly Robbins was dismissed because the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary lost confidence in him, as has been set out publicly before. As has always been the case, we do not comment on individual employment cases.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, the ISC has spent many hours and days doing the task which Parliament set it. I put on record my thanks, on behalf of the committee, to the staff who have worked behind the scenes on this. I also thank the committee members, including two Members of our own House, my noble friend Admiral Lord West, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, who have worked very hard on this long task.

I wrote last week to the Prime Minister raising four points: the use of WhatsApp in government; the use of low-side systems for transmitting confidential and secretive information; the lack of record-keeping, particularly within the Foreign Office, of audit trails; and the way in which security advice was handled by officials and Ministers. They are nothing new. The committee raised them with the last Government, including the Foreign Office, which had a very bad reputation for keeping records or WhatsApp messages. I understand that the Government have now committed to a review of this, but I say to my noble friend that there is an urgency in this. This needs to be done very quickly, because this is not something new. It was raised with the last Government, it was ignored by the last Government, and it now needs to be put right as a matter of urgency.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the work he has done, as well as my other noble friend and other colleagues in your Lordships’ House and the other place. This has been an extraordinary volume of work for many people, not least members of the committee and their officials, and we are very grateful to them for it.

I will take the four points he raised in turn. He is absolutely right; there has to be a positive in everything that happens, and one of the positives is that we will now review each of these areas to fix what is not working, the first of which is the use of WhatsApp. There will be a review on the use of non-corporate communication channels—we really need a better phrase for them than NCCCs, but I am sure we will come up with one. On record-keeping, I assure your Lordships’ House that the Cabinet Secretary has this week written to all the heads of departments—in other words, to every other Permanent Secretary—to remind them of their responsibilities, and we are reviewing the guidance that is issued to private offices going forward. My noble friend is absolutely right about low-level platforms and security information, and those two will be taken in train. I realise, as I reference that, that one of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Pack, was about why some material should be deleted. I am not sure of the detail, because I have not seen some of the security elements behind it, but I would suggest that it may be because that information should not have been on that level of platform.

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

My Lords, I say to the Minister that I greatly welcome the fact that the Government are going to resist any misplaced pressure to reveal full security vetting, as indeed the ISC rightly says. We all know that, in references for jobs nowadays, the candidates are perfect and have a million and one qualities. I know that security vetting is very detailed— I have been subjected to it many times myself. It goes to your school, education, employers and friends, and people speak frankly. If for one moment they felt it was going to be published, security vetting designed to protect the most secret information would be of little value. Whatever else we do, we must hold on to that. However tempting it would be, for whatever reason, to know the full contents, they must not be revealed. I am talking not about this case but about a general principle. I very much welcome the Minister’s assurance on that.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I could not agree more with the noble Baroness. This is clear, and there is already some concern about the chilling effect that even discussions of vetting in this way may be having on people’s responsibilities to be candid during the process, because they are concerned that it could end up that very private details of their personal life could be released in a way that most people do not know about. It is absolutely clear that this Government will not release the vetting files, in order to protect our national security.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

The Minister has been making a very good meal of this, and I pay tribute to her. I am going to America next week; does she share my deep embarrassment that this country, renowned for its integrity, appointed this shocking man as ambassador?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I wish the noble Lord safe travels, and I hope he has a very enjoyable visit. With regard to the appointment, I think we have all been clear that this was a mistake and should not have happened, and the Prime Minister has taken personal responsibility for it.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the last, albeit inadvertent, public service that Peter Mandelson delivered was to enable to be laid bare for public scrutiny the extraordinary vacuum at the centre of this Government—that there is a lack of leadership and a lack of direction, and that this has consequences? Does she agree that, when the Financial Secretary stood at that Dispatch Box yesterday and told the House that the inevitable consequence of the Government’s so-called EU reset was that Britain would rejoin the European Union, that has consequences? Does she agree that that lack of discipline and of collective responsibility has to come to an end and can only do so with a change of Prime Minister?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, because he has given me an opportunity to highlight exactly how effective my Government and that of Keir Starmer have been since we came into office. More than 50% of asylum hotels are closed and knife crime has gone down by 10% in the last 12 months. The IMF has just raised our growth forecast. We have approved 110,000 grants to help people buy new electric vehicles, and we have increased the number of secondary school, special school and further education teachers by 4,000. Over 1,300 schools have joined the free breakfast club programme. The NHS waiting list is at its lowest level for three and a half years. Some 11 million renters have stronger rights and 56,000 illegal immigrants have been returned to their countries. We have brought in 30 hours of free childcare per week for parents and the minimum wage has gone up. I will take that every day of the week.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the way in which she is addressing this Statement. Seeing her pile of papers and the number of Post-it notes attached, it is clearly an impressive task for any Minister to deal with.

Much has been made of the use of WhatsApp. I suspect I am not alone in your Lordships’ House in confessing that I use WhatsApp. I also have a number of conversations in which disappearing messages are used. There has already been criticism of the use of disappearing messages in WhatsApp, not just in the discussions that have been revealed as part of this but right through the previous Government, particularly during the Covid period. Perhaps my noble friend can confirm that.

Secondly, while I deplore the use of WhatsApp for any formal decision-making, disappearing messages are an entirely sensible proposition where WhatsApp is being used. I checked my mobile phone this morning, and the largest use of memory on it is by WhatsApp—so, in fact, for colleagues in the other place, colleagues here and colleagues on the other side of this Chamber to use disappearing messages is entirely rational. Does my noble friend agree?

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[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend and would like to reassure him that I have read every page of the humble Address. I apparently do not need to sleep any more.

The point that he made about WhatsApp and disappearing messages is absolutely right. The guidance issued to every Minister is clear:

“‘Disappearing message’ functions have a role in limiting the build up of messages on devices. You must ensure that any such use does not impact on your recordkeeping or transparency responsibilities”.


Anyone who had deleted messages was not breaking the rules. The issue is in making sure that all record-keeping of decisions and how they were made is kept in government, which is why we are reminding every government department of its responsibilities in this space.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Finn said, the Prime Minister has staked his moral authority on the Hillsborough law and the duty of candour. That is admirable but, when candour is required of this Government, we get redacted documents, nil responses and stolen mobile phones, which we are told were not backed up in the cloud. We learned today that even the Prime Minister has disappearing messages on WhatsApp switched on—so much for the state never hiding from the people it serves.

My question for the Minister is: where is the candour from this Government? Spare us the usual list of the previous Government’s sins; after all the Prime Minister’s moral grandstanding on this issue, the argument that “We’re no worse than you lot” does not really cut it.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I wish the noble Lord had listened to the answer I gave to my noble friend because, if he had, he would not have needed to read his question. With regard to the issues that the noble Lord raised, I do not think he will find that I have attacked the previous Government from this Dispatch Box, although there is plenty to attack them for.

On candour, as I just stated to my noble friend, the use of WhatsApp messages and deleting messages is explicitly allowed for within the guidance that is issued within government. On the use of candour, I think everyone benefits from a little light.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, it is interesting that my noble friend does not talk about the previous Government, but they were the Government who tried to prorogue Parliament and found that they should not have done it. I find it difficult to take lessons from them.

My noble friend and other Ministers have acknowledged many times that there were serious shortcomings in the due diligence and vetting process, and they have already made some changes—for example, to ensure that vetting takes place before an announcement. I welcome that. My noble friend alluded to various changes under way, but I wonder whether she could let us know what other workstreams will make sure that we improve the whole situation with vetting and approvals.

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[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. I agree with her that there is a little bit of chutzpah in being lectured at by colleagues opposite.

With regard to the changes that are being undertaken, obviously we have asked specialists in the field to make their recommendations to us. Noble Lords who operate in the security field will be aware that there is always an ongoing review of how vetting is undertaken to make sure that it complies with the world as the world shifts and changes and as our threat levels change. I look forward to seeing Sir Adrian Fulford’s recommendations for next steps. My noble friend is absolutely right that we are not standing still. We have reminded all government departments of their responsibilities. We are looking at the existing guidance for private offices to make sure that ministerial guidance is in place. One of the things that I am looking at is the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, about how we can ensure that Ministers have the right support in place, as well as the right training and mentoring, both in this space and more broadly.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, Ministers have brilliant private offices that help them with record-keeping, so the Minister is right to suggest that using WhatsApp is perfectly acceptable. I want to understand further, though. It is unfortunate that the chief of staff’s mobile phone was stolen. Has the Cabinet Office investigated asking network carriers, and indeed the WhatsApp organisation, for the metadata? That records whatever calls were made, whatever texts were sent and which messages were deleted. It would be useful, in this level of candour, to make those requests and to inform Parliament if the network carriers, and indeed WhatsApp, refuse to provide them.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I have to agree with the noble Baroness about brilliant private offices; mine is fabulous. Obviously, it has a really easy job of making sure that I operate well. On the specifics about the metadata, I will have to write to the noble Baroness. This was a process led by Cabinet Office officials. I am not sure of the detail in that space on what additional information they sought.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, it is clear that Members opposite were hoping that there would be a silver bullet in all these humble Address papers that would kill the Prime Minister. When they have to resort to quoting Peter Mandelson’s view of the Prime Minister, it shows how desperate they are becoming. Then we got the scattergun approach from the noble Baroness, Lady Finn. She had to resort to picking here, there and everywhere and getting nowhere.

My question relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Pack, said about vetting Members of this House. As the Minister said, that does not happen at the moment. Yet we have a Member of this House who was appointed against the views of the intelligence community: the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev. Surely the Minister must agree that we may need to rethink it in view of that.

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[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, as always, for his thoughtful contribution. With regard to the specifics, there is a genuine issue. Obviously, many Members of your Lordships’ House on a day-to-day basis need to be briefed on specific pieces of government legislation or to have early access to certain documents, as was offered to some Members of your Lordships’ House yesterday, on Privy Council terms or as fit and proper people. There is a balance here about how we operate our day-to-day world so that noble Lords can appropriately scrutinise the actions of the Government versus general access to information. While I will not comment on individual Members of your Lordships’ House, I can understand some concerns, which is why Sir Adrian Fulford has been asked to consider that as part of his review.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, it appears from the second tranche of emails that the former ambassador to America was sent on a mission to support, and ensure that the American Administration supported, the appalling Chagos deal. It also appears that there was more to it than that in relation to his involvement with the Chagos deal, not just making sure that the American Administration went along with the UK Government. Will the Minister please inform the House whether there is an investigation to give us further information as to the precise role that the former ambassador to America had in relation to the Chagos deal?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I find the question itself a tad surreal, given the nature of what we are talking about. The noble Baroness is referencing the actions and engagement that the Government’s ambassador had with another nation. Some of that material will be redacted for international relations and national security reasons. With regard to where we currently stand, the base on Diego Garcia is vital to our national security. Our agreement with Mauritius is the best way to secure it, ensuring that it can continue to operate effectively and play a crucial role in our national security.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agreed with me that we should not take lessons from the Opposition, who had a Prime Minister who misled Parliament on a number of occasions and none of them said anything about it?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord was referring to any Member of your Lordships’ House in those comments; I say this to reassure the Privy Council Bench on the opposite side.

Noble Lords will appreciate that the previous Government had some challenges at various points during their period in office. As for what that means for us, we have republished the Ministerial Code, adding in the Nolan principles. We have created the Ethics and Integrity Commission. We have made sure that we are bringing forward consideration on lobbying reform. This is a Government who are seeking to rebuild trust in public life, and we will continue to do so.

Supreme Court Dillon Judgment

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for dealing with questions following last Thursday’s Statement from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The judgment is undoubtedly a complex one, but we believe it firmly vindicates the many concerns that were raised during the passage of the previous Conservative Government’s Bill in your Lordships’ House, as well as elsewhere, about the immunity provisions contained in the 2023 Act.

From these Benches, we consistently opposed the unacceptable equivalence that the immunity provisions made between terrorists and those who had served the Crown in Northern Ireland. It was this position of equivalence that led to all political parties in Northern Ireland—we should not forget—victims and survivors’ groups, as well as many veterans in Northern Ireland, opposing it. Although those provisions never came into force and were not before the Supreme Court in this case, I know that the Minister is all too aware that there remain many concerns about both the remedial order and the Troubles Bill among veterans’ organisations. The Supreme Court’s ruling makes getting those protections right more urgent, not less.

The court confirmed that the ICRIR’s design is not fatally flawed in principle, but only by deferring key questions to be resolved case by case. That approach creates precisely the uncertainty that veterans fear most of all, particularly given the inherent evidential disadvantage they face. Dillon has not resolved these questions; it has simply postponed them. We believe that that makes it even more important that the protections built into the Troubles Bill are robust and clearly defined from the outset.

Last week, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that protections for veterans

“will be published in advance of Committee”—[Official Report, Commons, 14/5/26; col. 146.]

in the House of Commons. Can the Minister confirm that these provisions to protect our veterans will also be shared with noble Lords, and that our views and concerns will also be taken into consideration? Can the Minister also confirm that these will be real and substantial protections that recognise that there is not, and never should be, equivalence between those who serve our country and those who have committed terrorist atrocities? The judgment clearly has consequences beyond this case alone. Can the Minister say what she believes the wider implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling on article 2 of the Windsor Framework will be for both Northern Ireland and the Government’s ability to legislate going forward?

Finally, does the Minister agree that, in all the heat and fury surrounding these issues, it is vital not to forget the families, victims and survivors, who simply want to know the truth of what happened to their loved ones and to have some prospect of justice? I had the privilege of visiting the Wave Trauma Centre in Belfast recently. Speaking to a small group of victims and survivors was deeply moving. They just want to have hope that, after all these years of waiting, they might have answers and some sense of closure. Does the Minister also agree that it is equally important that this process does not lose sight of the objective of long-term reconciliation, including measures to promote genuine cross-country understanding, such as measures to advance integrated education?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank both the noble Lord, Lord Caine, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, for their contributions. I will attempt to address their questions and concerns, considering both the time available to us and the complex nature of this judgment, which I am sure that both noble and noble and learned Lords will be taking time to digest. I will also reflect on Hansard and, if I have missed any of the specific questions raised, I will write.

I start with the final comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, about the victims. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, advised me when I took on this role that, every time I speak at the Dispatch Box, I should check the anniversary dates. That should remind all of us of the actual consequences of what we are dealing with and why we are doing this work. On 17 May 1973, five British soldiers were killed by the Provisional IRA in Omagh. On 17 May 1974, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings by the UVF occurred, and 33 people were killed. On 15 May 1977, Captain Robert Nairac, known to Members of your Lordships’ House, was disappeared. On 19 May 1981, five British soldiers were killed at Bessbrook by the Provisional IRA. On 18 May 1984, three soldiers were murdered at Enniskillen and two soldiers were murdered at Camlough by the Provisional IRA. On 20 May 1985, four members of the RUC were murdered near Killeen by the IRA. This is within a week in the history of the Troubles.

However, there is always hope: on 22 May 1998, we had the referendum on the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, in which 71.2% of the residents of Northern Ireland voted for peace to take us forward. Everything we do has to be within the spirit of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and of the Stormont House agreement to take us from where we were to where we are. There are Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House who lived and breathed the reality of the Troubles and, for every murder I have just referenced, dozens of people were hurt and still live with the consequences today. So, as we talk about these issues, people are still grieving every single day and do not have answers. I have been privileged in my role to meet many of the families, victims and veterans’ groups who served and are still dealing with the consequences.

I turn to some of the specific questions. I commend, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland did, the families who brought the case against the legacy Act. They were utterly opposed to the Act and, most notably, to the provision it made for a conditional immunity scheme, which would have offered immunity to terrorists who perpetuated horrific acts of violence against our service personnel, as well as our service personnel—an immunity that has never been put into law. The action they took resulted in the conditional immunity scheme and several other provisions of the legacy Act being found by the High Court, and then again by the Court of Appeal, to be incompatible with our obligations under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This Government have and are opposed to the immunity scheme. It was wrong in principle and had no support in Northern Ireland, which is why we dropped the appeal on immunity.

On the specific points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Caine, although I am not as noble and learned as my mother had always wished I might be, there was one key paragraph in the finding:

“In our view it cannot be said that the Strasbourg court has established a principle in its case law that there is a reconciliation exception to the general ban on amnesties for grave breaches of fundamental rights or that the question has not come before that court. Absent such a ruling, there is nothing to which the mirror principle can be applied by the United Kingdom courts through incremental development to the circumstances in Northern Ireland”.


As I said, I am definitely not learned, unfortunately, but my understanding, and my briefing, is that that is clear, in legal language, that amnesty would not be found to be legal.

I turn to the remedial order. This point is particularly important to note. I know that some in this House have shared the view that the Government did not have the grounds on which to bring forward the remedial order, which would finally strike the immunity provisions from the statute book. As noble Lords will be well aware, the conditions for laying an RO under the Human Rights Act are that

“an appeal brought within that time has been determined or abandoned”.

The Supreme Court recognised this, and therefore immunity was not an issue before it. However, it stated very clearly that no exemptions in case law exist to justify the granting of immunity for breaches of Articles 2 or 3 of the ECHR. As such, the Government will move forward with the remedial order as soon as parliamentary time allows, and I look forward to discussing the detail of the remedial order with Members of your Lordships’ House at that point, in what I am sure will be an interesting discussion.

I turn to Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. The Supreme Court has provided important clarity on how this should be interpreted and applied in future. It has confirmed the Government’s long-standing position that the rights protected by Article 2 of the Windsor Framework are those concerned with the cessation of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, and that specifically. While reaffirming the Government’s position on this, the Supreme Court found that the relevant provisions of the legacy Act should not have been disapplied by Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. For absolute clarity, this does not equate to endorsement of the immunity scheme, as has been suggested by some.

I turn to the Troubles Bill that is before the other place. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland set out, the Troubles Bill is now the only viable way to generate confidence across communities, enable information sharing by the Irish authorities and put in place the necessary safeguards for our future service personnel. We have been listening to victims, families and our brave veterans and service personnel in developing this legislation. I have met numerous victims and veterans’ groups and have heard first hand of the violence—the Troubles continue to impact their lives today. It is for them we are seeking to act. This is why the Government are committed to progressing this legislation as soon as possible, while balancing that against the need to get this right.

The Government will be tabling a series of amendments to the Bill in due course, which we hope will give all communities confidence in legacy processes and ensure that our veterans are treated fairly and with the respect and dignity they deserve. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, yes, absolutely, I am more than happy to share them with Members of your Lordships’ House. As and when the legislation gets to our end of the building, however, I am convinced that we will be discussing specifically those parts of the legislation for many hours.

One of the other issues, and why we need the legislation to come forward, is tackling interim custody orders. That was not referenced by either the noble Lord or the noble Baroness, but we do need to deal with this issue, and we will do so within the legislation as it comes forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Caine, also touched on immigration. He is absolutely right that there are impacts of this judgment across Whitehall as well as across Northern Ireland departments. It is a very complicated judgment, so we are reflecting on what it means in the round, but the Government were successful in our appeal, so we look forward to moving forward.

On the other issues, I put on record my support for WAVE. It is an extraordinary organisation, and it is not the only one. We work closely with many others across the piece, whether they are smaller groups such as MAPS or SEFF—which is not a small group at all—or WAVE. Noble Lords who have been touched by this issue will be aware that veterans in Northern Ireland require different types of support than other members of the community do. It would it be impossible for a member of the unionist community to access certain services if they did not know who would be there too, and vice versa, so making sure that there is a range of organisations is key, and it is my privilege to get to work with them.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we now move on to up to 20 minutes of Back-Bench questions. To get in as many questions as possible from all sides of the House, we need questions, not speeches. The first question will come from the Conservative Benches and we will then go to the Cross Benches.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I commend to the Minister the Amnesty Act 1924, which she will know was passed by the Irish Government at the conclusion of the civil war. It was a very useful precedent, and I commend it to the House as a very sensible way forward.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Viscount makes an important and interesting intervention, but there are so many people who are still in such pain and who made huge compromises and sacrifices in order to deliver the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. While I appreciate that the concept of amnesty could be appealing, and there are other mechanisms that could be as appealing, there are those, including me, who want to see as many paramilitaries prosecuted as we can.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in thanking the Minister for the way she introduced her response to the Statement this afternoon, I link that with thanks to the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn MP, for the way they both engaged with the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the remedial order and the Troubles Bill. Given that scrutiny on those things continues, can she promise us, given that the remedial order was agreed by the committee on the basis of urgency, that it will be expedited and brought forward without any further delay, and that the new amendments, a tranche of which she alluded to in her remarks, will also be brought to the committee to see before it publishes its report on the Bill? Lastly, in the light of Peter May’s recent report raising concerns about the corporate effectiveness and cultural health of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, will the Government use the forthcoming Bill to address any of the issues identified in the report, enabling the commission to deliver high-quality Article 2-compliant resolutions?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his contribution and for his work and interest in this area, both personally and through his committee. On the timing of when the RO comes, the noble Lord will appreciate that that might be above my pay grade. The Chief Whip has now left the Chamber, so I could get myself in a bit of trouble—and I would prefer not to. On amendments, the noble Lord makes a reasonable request; let me speak to the department and the Secretary of State to see what I can facilitate. On the Peter May report, the noble Lord is absolutely right that we have just had an internal review of the workings of ICRIR. The findings of that review were stark and suggest that we absolutely need to bring forward the legislation to strengthen the governance arrangements, so that every community can have confidence in the process and so that the workforce can also have confidence in how the legacy commission operates.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement. One of the families that was part of the Dillon judgment submission was a former constituent of mine, John McEvoy, who was sitting in a pub in Kilcoo, County Down, when his friend was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in November 1992. Provisions within the EU withdrawal agreement of 2020 give statutory authority to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission to act as a dedicated mechanism for the protection of rights under Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. Therefore, will my noble friend the Minister, working with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, ensure that this statutory authority given to both commissions is not diluted and is protected and that they have sufficient resources to continue their work in a non-restricted manner?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend raises yet another heartbreaking case related to the Troubles; every Member of your Lordships’ House who has been touched by the Troubles has their own story and their own heartbreak. On my noble friend’s substantive point, the Government remain fully and unequivocally committed to the protection of human rights and safeguards in Northern Ireland, including our statutory obligations under Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission play a vital role in the dedicated mechanism to monitor, advise on and report on these commitments.

While the funding of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland is a devolved matter, the Northern Ireland Office maintains regular active dialogue with executive colleagues on a wide range of issues impacting rights and governance across Northern Ireland. The UK Government also provided ring- fenced funding of £1.1 million in 2025-26 to enable the ECNI to deliver its dedicated mechanism commitments, with similar levels of annual ring-fenced funding committed to until the end of the current spending review period. I have a much more extensive answer than that for my noble friend, but I will write to her with the details.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that the Supreme Court judgment has not affected the intended role of Article 2 of the Windsor Framework as the lodestar of human rights considerations in Northern Ireland? Does she agree that its provisions will still be relevant to the exercise of discretion, for example in the public interest test in decisions concerning prosecutions, alongside considered provisions for veterans? Will she be kind enough to welcome the forthcoming consideration of Article 2 by the House’s Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee, which contains many very distinguished Northern Ireland politicians and which I have the privilege to chair?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, that is the easiest question of the day: of course I welcome the noble Lord’s report. I thoroughly enjoy our conversations about the work of his committee, which I argue is one of the more important committees at the moment—but then I would say that. The Government remain committed to Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. The Supreme Court’s judgment has not affected this commitment and has provided important clarity on how Article 2 should be interpreted and applied in future. It has confirmed the Government’s long-standing position that the rights protected by Article 2 of the Windsor Framework are those concerned with the cessation of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. However, given the length and complexity of the judgment, the Government and stakeholders will need the requisite time to digest its content, and I will need many briefings by KCs to understand it. We are happy to continue that conversation with the committee in due course.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the way in which the Minister introduced her remarks by referencing the sacrifices made by members of the security forces, who suffered grievous losses to protect everybody in Northern Ireland. That is often forgotten in the perverted twisting of history that is now going on relentlessly in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. I welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court in seeking to restrict the application of EU law as far as human rights in Northern Ireland are concerned, but she will be aware that the quangos that were mentioned earlier have spent a large amount of money seeking to expand the application of Article 2 in ways that are erroneous and wrong. That has undermined public confidence in those quangos in both communities. That must be central to the Belfast agreement and its application, something that the Government need to be very aware of. Can the Minister confirm that Article 2 still has a direct effect in terms of the application of the law in certain circumstances? Will she elaborate on what those may be?

Finally, if she looks at the legacy legislation, can she confirm what representations her Government have made to the Irish Government—who have had a de facto amnesty for decades against IRA and other terrorists who used their country as a safe haven during the Troubles, and also in relation to refusing to co-operate with the ICRIR—about their continuing case in the international courts against the United Kingdom? The Irish Government refuse to co-operate with the commission; the noble Lord, Lord Caine, has outlined and spoken of this and talked about the need for more resources. The Irish Government refuse to co-operate. Has that been called out by the Government?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend—I do not think I am meant to say “my noble friend”, but I am going to anyway. His advice and support while we are undertaking this is key, and while we may not be able to agree on every point in the legislation as it comes forward, I am very grateful for the time that he gives me.

The noble Lord asked specific questions about Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. We have always been firmly committed to Article 2 and to the rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity it protects, as set out in the Good Friday agreement. On the specifics that he is asking for, I hope he will indulge me and let me write to him about the detail, but he raised a very important point about the Irish Government. The Government have done a joint framework agreement, which includes unprecedented commitments by the Irish Government. I am aware of the scepticism from certain parties about what the next steps will be. Although the interstate case is a matter for the Irish Government, the Secretary of State will raise it directly with the Minister for Foreign Affairs this week to discuss how it should be going.

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, noble Lords will forgive me as we start again down this road of dealing with the past in Northern Ireland. I feel again the trauma of the bomb which took my unborn baby’s life, and I find it very difficult. We have to think very carefully here. I would like to say that I accept and value the contribution made by the military and all the other security forces in Northern Ireland. My own family served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. But given the fact that 25,000 to 30,000 paramilitaries were convicted, as opposed to three members of the military who were convicted during the Troubles, and given the fact that one person from the military has been convicted in the 28 years since the Good Friday agreement, is it perhaps time to refocus?

I hear constantly about the veterans, and I know how important it is, but is it not important not to make the victims the afterthought—the last reference in every case? Is it also not important that we look at the things that will enable them to have confidence in the new legacy commission? The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to the findings of the May report, which referred to the very significant structural weaknesses as a consequence of the Troubles Act 2023. I hope that the Minister will ensure that those structural weaknesses are removed in the new Troubles Bill. Although she told one noble Lord that the remedial order will be introduced but she cannot say when, can she write to us and tell us when it will happen, and can she tell us when the Troubles Bill will come back to the Commons? These things need to be dealt with.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness demonstrates, as she has previously, the heartbreak and the personal cost that too many Members of your Lordships’ House have faced, and that there is a face behind every one of the statistics and the stories that we read out. There is nothing I can do to fix some of that hurt; I wish there was, but this is our final attempt to do what we can, so that people can access the information and the answers they have waited for, in some cases for over 50 years.

On the specifics that the noble Baroness asked for, she raises an important point. Noble Lords will be aware that I am an honorary captain in the Royal Navy. I consider myself part of the military family—although on the periphery, unlike some of my noble friends, who are at the heart of it—and I also have the privilege of being allowed to wear a uniform, so the veterans’ provisions are incredibly important to me personally. But there is an issue here about the victims; we need to make sure that we are moving forward for them and that they are able to access what we put in as protections—as many protections as we can reasonably do for veterans.

The noble Baroness raised a very interesting point about the number of prosecutions and the number of people previously charged. As regards the current prosecutions that are under way, there are currently 10 live proceedings, six of which are about republican and paramilitary activity, two about loyalist paramilitary activity, one RUC and one military. When you look at those numbers, it is still quite clear that, although some of the narrative is elsewhere, the focus is still on the actions of the paramilitaries, as it should be. That does not mean we should not put the protections in place.

In terms of the specifics, I am not a business manager of this place or the other place, but noble Lords will have heard that the gracious Speech, which we are still discussing, referenced the Troubles Bill, and we will be discussing that in your Lordships’ House in due course.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

For clarification, can the Minister tell the House what the current status is of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains: whether it remains funded, whether it is dormant and needs to be provoked into action if there is new information, whether it is properly staffed, and whether it still enjoys the support of the Government in Dublin?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an incredibly important point. I myself visited one of the sites earlier this year, where they were looking for one of the disappeared. I have never had that kind of experience before, while I stood on the side of a bog while people were looking for a body. We will continue to fund the commission and we will do everything we can to make sure that the structures exist for the families of the disappeared, including the family of Robert Nairac but also others, until we get answers for all of them.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the work she has done on this hugely important issue, including in the previous Parliament, when we considered the legacy Bill, as it then was. It was very well-meaning but ultimately was not successful because it did not have sufficient all-party support in Northern Ireland. Can she assure me that, before the Bill comes up the Corridor to this House, she will have talked to all the political parties in Northern Ireland, represented here and in Belfast, and that she can get consensus on that? Unless we get consensus, that will not work either.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend has just used the word “consensus” in relation to Northern Ireland politicians. With the best of efforts—looking at the noble Lord, Lord Caine—while I consider myself not to be a bad politician, I am not sure that I have those diplomatic skills that will deliver for everybody. I say that as someone who just called the noble Lord “my noble friend”.

Having said that, we are working cross-party with all key parties. The noble Lord is absolutely right. There is one part of our politics that genuinely should not be party-political in a GB sense: the politics of Northern Ireland and making sure that peace is sustainable in Northern Ireland and that we are doing what we can collectively and taking the responsibility of being the main political parties in the United Kingdom to deliver for the people of NI as we do for every other corner of the country. Noble Lords will appreciate that there are always challenges in this space, but I will try to be as charming as possible to deliver what I can in getting a level of support, as my honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State, is doing too.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

The Minister referred to the interim custody orders, and how the Bill is going to put beyond doubt the validity of interim custody orders, and the reappraisal and reconfirmation of the Carltona principle. This is a reference to how the first-instance judgment in Dillon was going to allow Gerry Adams and a number of other people to sue for the alleged unlawful detention by the Government. The previous Government was appealing the first-instance decision, but this Government abandoned the appeal. Can the noble Baroness explain why they abandoned the appeal? Does she accept that, had they not abandoned the appeal, they would not now need to legislate to at last put right the status of the interim custody orders?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord lived and breathed this during the last piece of legislation: the legacy Act that we are discussing. The appeal was not continued—I have said this from the Dispatch Box before—because it was made very clear to us by the courts that we would not win. Therefore, we needed to come up with an alternative solution. That is what we are seeking to do in the new Bill.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a simple sailor. Recently, I have spoken to a number of simple soldiers, who may be even simpler. When we joined the military, we felt that there was an agreement that, as long as we acted in good faith, the country would support us.

I understand that this is a highly complex subject. I served in Northern Ireland. I do not know where we have got to in the answers, but can I ask my noble friend the Minister to make absolutely certain that we do honour that contract, because already it is having an impact on recruiting, particularly in the Special Forces? We must look after those people who went out every day to try to look after the safety of people in Northern Ireland—they might have got it wrong occasionally—rather than those who went out every day to damage and injure the people in Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend and look forward to discussing the detail of our future amendments and having further conversations in this space with him as the legislation progresses. Like many other Members of your Lordships’ House, I am personally grateful to those people who put on a uniform, today, tomorrow or, in this case, yesterday. They ran towards the Troubles to protect the rest of us and we should be forever grateful to them. That is not to say, as the noble Lord will appreciate, that putting on a uniform protects you if you did do ill.

I would like to put something on the record. One issue that has been raised repeatedly in this space is how the conversations we are having about the Troubles are having an impact on recruitment and retention. Recruitment into our Armed Forces is up by 13% and outflow is down by 8%. I appreciate that people’s concerns are real, but we need to be careful with our language to make sure that we are not talking people out of joining our military at a time when, as all noble Lords will appreciate, we need people to sign up.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat an Answer to an Urgent Question that was given earlier in the other place:

“As I have set out to this House on previous occasions, the Government are working to comply with the Motion passed in February. I can reassure the House that this remains the case and can provide the following update.

The Government confirmed before Prorogation that they had referred over 300 documents to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which at the time represented all the documents in scope of the Motion where the Government believed that publication would be prejudicial to UK national security or international relations. The Government have repeatedly assessed all the documents they have collected to make sure that all those that need to be referred to the ISC are referred to the committee. As part of this quality control process, the Government identified a small number of further documents that they felt should be reviewed by the ISC, and immediately submitted these documents to the committee. As Friday’s statement from the committee set out, it has now considered all these documents.

As I have previously said to the House, the Government will be publishing a second tranche of material. This is currently being finalised and will be one of the largest government publications ever laid in this House. This is reflective of the breadth of the Motion and also the Government’s commitment to transparency in responding to it. It constitutes a very significant disclosure exercise, involving sensitive material from across government. The Government have taken seriously our obligations to comply with the humble Address in full, while also upholding other public interest issues such as our duty of care to junior staff. The Government have carried out this work according to a robust process, with assurance from an independent KC.

Given that the House is due to rise on Thursday, and given the length of the publication, the second tranche will now be published after the Whitsun Recess, to give the House sufficient time to review the material and to be able to ask me, and the Government, questions. It could have been published this Thursday, but I felt that the House would deem that to be inappropriate given that it will be such a significant publication. I refer back to my previous comments. This will be the largest publication, other than, I think, the Chilcot inquiry report, ever published to the House.

When the Government publish the second tranche of documents, we will also publish a methodology confirming the process we have followed, and it will be clear from the published information the basis on which any content has been redacted. The targeted redactions made to the material beyond those made relevant to national security or international relations have been made in line with clear precedent set by previous Administrations in responding to humble Addresses.

As I set out to the House on 23 February, and again when we published the first tranche of material on 11 March, we have taken the normal approach to redacting junior officials’ names, contact details such as telephone numbers and email addresses, the personal data of third parties where this is not in scope of the Motion and, where relevant, legal professional privilege.

This has been done using the principles set out in the Freedom of Information Act, and in line with the Ministerial Code and the resolutions on ministerial accountability passed by both Houses in 1997, which state:

‘Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with relevant statute’.


I am sure Members across the House will recognise that there is no public interest in the Government publishing the names and contact details of junior officials or their telephone numbers”.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, what the ISC has said today is profoundly troubling. Materials must not be redacted and withheld from Parliament in contravention of the humble Address. The ISC has a specific role in this process and the humble Address does not allow for redaction of documents sent to the ISC. Indeed, there is no exemption for personal data and, to the extent that the Government are withholding on that basis, they are in clear breach of the humble Address.

If there are legitimate reasons for the redaction of documents, the Government must come to Parliament to amend the humble Address. This is not just a matter of process; it is a matter of parliamentary sovereignty, which must be respected. We have consistently called for a list or overview of all the documents and whether they have been published. Can the Minister confirm that any documents that are currently being withheld but which are not relevant to the police investigation will be released in the next tranche? And will the Government commit to briefing opposition Members, on Privy Council terms, about the documents that are being withheld?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness knows I have huge respect for her, but I find it extraordinary, given her previous roles working at No. 10 when previous humble Addresses were released that followed exactly the same precedent as we are doing now and redacted the personal information of junior officials. The noble Baroness was part of that process, so I find it extraordinary that she would challenge us for following the precedent that her Administration set. In terms of next steps, we are complying with both the letter and spirit, following the precedent of protecting the issues of the humble Address we need to protect. The full tranche of materials will be published after the Whitsun Recess.

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, in his comments on the controversy over the release of the documents, the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, also rightly raised concerns about the heavy reliance on WhatsApp for conversations between senior officials and Ministers, and the resultant risks to the audit trail as it is not always clear who decided what and when. The Cabinet Office’s guidance on the use of WhatsApp states at the bottom:

“This guidance will be reviewed on or before 31 December 2025”.


When I have raised this missed deadline before, the Government have neither given an explanation for missing it nor committed to a new date for the review. In light of the renewed controversy over the use of WhatsApp, I wonder whether the Minister could both give us an explanation of why that deadline was missed and give us a new deadline for when this review will finally be completed.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises genuinely important points about how we make decisions and how we talk to each other, and I share some of his concerns. The Government plan to review the way that non-corporate communication channels are used in government and to update the accompanying guidance to reflect the changes in how we use the technology. I expect it to be before your Lordships’ House imminently for us to discuss the detail.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, the ISC was given a clear task to look at documents that were going to be released on the humble Address for national security and international relations harm. We have done that. We spent many hours doing it. I pay credit to the committee members for their hard work and thank in particular my noble friends Lord West and Lady Brown of Cambridge for their diligence in that task. The point of our statement is very clear: the Government need to justify why they are going to redact things other than on the grounds which we have decided.

The other situation is the fact that there is documentation—including the full background files of the vetting of Lord Mandelson—which we have not seen as it has been withheld. We understand why, because to release that would lead to difficulties for the future vetting system. But it does fall within the humble Address, and the Government need to come to Parliament to argue that point—one that the ISC would agree with in that situation.

Can I finally just raise WhatsApp? We are concerned about the use of WhatsApp, the use of low-side systems for information, the lack of audit trail, particularly in the Foreign Office, of decision-making, and the overriding of security concerns raised by the agencies whose job it is to do it. These are all issues that the last committee raised with both the Johnson and Sunak Governments. That culture is continuing; it cannot be allowed to continue. I urge my noble friend, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that proper systems are put in place and that this can is not just kicked down the road.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

First, I thank my noble friend for the work that he and his committee are undertaking that is not normally in the scope of the ISC. We as a Parliament have asked it to undertake a huge amount of work and we are grateful for the work it is doing. As I have set out, the Government will return to Parliament when they publish the second tranche of material. We will set out the methodology that has been followed and the reasons for it. More generally, there are obvious reasons why the Government treat vetting material with exceptional sensitivity. Many Members of your Lordships’ House have held roles where they have been exposed to the importance of vetting and know how the process works and that the number of people who have access to this material remains tightly controlled for a reason. We will be publishing a full methodology alongside the materials.

With regard to the other points raised by the noble Lord and his committee in their correspondence of recent days, I have already answered the point on the inappropriate use of NCCCs. On their other points, including the lack of proper records and inappropriate use of lower-level IT systems, I have more than some sympathy with the comments made by the noble Lord and his committee. We will be taking every measure to make sure both that the culture changes and that appropriate record-keeping is done.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, can I press the Minister a little on the timing point and the need for scrutiny? Presumably, the Government are planning on a Minister, in both the other place and this place, making a Statement when this information is published: I see that the noble Baroness is nodding. She was careful to say that this would be a big release of information. Can we have a gap between the publication of that information and the Statement that Ministers make, to give Members of the other House and this House sufficient time to scrutinise what she says is a significant volume of information and to be able to ask pertinent and relevant questions? Dumping a huge number of documents and having a Statement immediately afterwards will not enable proper scrutiny.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an important point, but he will also know that, in government, some of those decisions are outside my control. By convention in our House, Statements are not typically repeated on the same day, so I hope that noble Lords will have the opportunity to discuss. I will make myself available as well at any point to any Member of your Lordships’ House who, once they have seen it, has further questions—both in here and outside—to answer about the release of the documentation.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, with no disrespect to my noble friend Lord Beamish, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, when this is raised by the Opposition as an Urgent Question, it makes it into an aggressive party- political issue? Is this not better left to the all-party, independent ISC?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As ever, my noble friend is exceptionally wise, but I understand why Members across your Lordships’ House have questions about what comes next and about the material. There is, as I have said, a significant volume of it to be released. We want to do this well and effectively, so that we do not return time after time with additional materials, by making sure that reviews are done effectively and internally. That is one of the reasons why additional materials were passed to the ISC after we thought all the materials had been. We need to do this in a cross-party way. I am aware that Members of your Lordships’ House have questions. I am sure that, when the next tranche of materials is released, we will be discussing their content in great detail.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

Why has there has such a long delay in the publication of basic materials, such as Lord Mandelson’s application and his declaration of interests, which are of great interest to everyone but surely cannot pose any difficulties?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, as I just said, we are looking to publish only two key tranches. The first has already been done; the second will follow shortly. The third and final tranche will be after police investigations. Those are the materials that are being withheld because the Met is using them for its work. Rather than repeatedly coming back to your Lordships’ House, we want to do this effectively in a way that works for this House.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

In view of the practical issues that my noble friend has raised, would it be possible to give this House and the other House 24 or 48 hours’ notice of when the release is going to be? It will not be any good coming back after the Recess on the Monday and all of a sudden being told on that day, “The Statement’s this afternoon”. There ought to be a bit more warning about when it is going to happen.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend raises an interesting point and I will have to speak to colleagues.

El Niño: Impact

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I draw attention to my registered interest as the chair of the National Preparedness Commission.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, El Niño is just one of a number of climatic drivers that can influence UK weather patterns. Any potential impacts will depend on how these drivers combine; this will be assessed in more detail later on in the year as forecasts evolve. The Government continue to take action to strengthen the UK’s resilience against severe weather events. The national risk register details the wide-ranging impacts of severe weather to ensure that comprehensive contingency plans are in place.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. Some 46 months ago today, the UK suffered its highest recorded temperature—40 degrees in London —which led to nearly 300 premature deaths in London alone and possibly 3,000 deaths across the country. It also led to the fire brigade in London being called out because of the associated wildfires; that marked its busiest time since the Blitz in the Second World War, and, if you look nationally, there has been a pattern of an increasing number of wildfires. Can my noble friend the Minister say what steps are being taken, if not in preparation for an El Niño-related heat event then in preparation for any other heat event, to ensure both that the fire service has the necessary resources and that hospitals and the public are aware of the implications of that sort of event?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: 2022 was the UK’s hottest year on record and saw over 20,000 hectares of land in England burned, the destruction of over 70 properties across the UK and at least 14 fire and rescue services declaring major incidents in their areas, as well as 2,985 excess deaths. We have to learn from each event as it happens and make sure that the lessons learned are reflected in our resilience plans going forward, which is why we now have a severe weather resilience network, which is led by COBRA but includes MHCLG and the Department of Health as key aspects of it. We need to make sure that the most vulnerable are protected and that those who need resources, whether at a local or national level, have what they need to keep us all safe.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, some local authorities have in the past identified places such as churches, which may provide cool shelter during very high temperature periods. Are the Government doing any work with local authorities to make information available for those kinds of preventative action as and when it might be needed?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We saw during Covid and see during every crisis moment that communities come together, and the church and faith communities tend to be at the heart of a response. Details about how communities can respond are available on gov.uk/prepare, which outlines not just what is available and what individuals can do but what communities can do to prepare for any extreme event, whether related to a pandemic or to severe weather. We thank everyone who steps up at times of national emergency, especially those within our faith communities who take local leadership roles.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, returning to the debate we had about adaptation to climate change, would the Minister agree with me that, as well as having the plans in place for how we respond to an immediate emergency, we have to look at the longer term? This has happened already, and it will happen more. Does she agree that we need to design and adapt buildings so that they are comfortable and safe for people during hot weather episodes?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right: for hot weather and any form of extreme weather, we need to reflect that in design but also in how we look after each other. The national security strategy references climate change 12 times. This is a core part of who we are. As my noble friend referenced, we are seeing an increase in number of wildfires year on year as our climate changes. In preparation for this Question, there was a meeting with the Met Office to talk about the extremes and how we analyse them. It is also about the new modelling that we can do: how we will use AI in addition to traditional modelling so that we can better assess long-term patterns too is important, so that we can make sure that, as a Government, we are working across all sectors, whether building in design or working with our schools and hospitals to make sure they have the right resilience plans in place as and when needed.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this Question. The coolest years are now warmer than the warmest years used to be, and all the signs are that we have a record weather event coming up over the next two summers. Can I also return to wildfires? I think they are really important. I know the Government are developing their strategy and action plan. Noble Lords have mentioned 2022 already, but can the Minister reassure me that the lessons from that particular incident are being learned? She may need to write to me, but can I ask what actual fixed and rotary wing aircraft we have available for fighting wildfires, and what consideration is being given to increasing that resource?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Earl is absolutely right: I will have to write him with the detail of the number of planes available for use at that point, because, at a time of national crisis, we obviously also divert resources from other parts of the country if required. On learning steps, I think we absolutely have learned. We have to learn from each new event, because there are unique parts that come through. There is now a national resilience wildfire adviser in post to make sure that we are doing co-ordinated work. I had a very reassuring conversation with my noble friend Lord Roe yesterday about the lessons that have been learned from the fire service and how we operate in the round in this space.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the emergency alerts that one can sign up for via the Prepare website are available in English and Welsh only? If there is going to be an El Niño event later this year, will she commit to taking urgent action to make sure that emergency alerts are available in other languages, apart from English and Welsh, so that everybody can have the information and protection that they need?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point that I was not aware of. I will speak to officials and come back to her.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, the weather is, of course, borderless. What contingent planning have His Majesty’s Government undertaken to mitigate the combined impact of potential shortages of essential supplies—including fertiliser, which is so important to British farmers—that might arise from the conflict in the Gulf and from a possible super El Niño event in 2026?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that each crisis moment is different and that we need to ensure that we have strong foundations, which I believe we do as a country in our resilience planning. COBRA is a very effective co-ordinating tool to make sure that we know that we are on top of all those challenges and that we can make assessments as and when required in this space.

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

My noble friend the Minister is clearly aware of the urgency of this situation and the demands across government that we must respond to it. The sector is now increasingly asking government to adopt a whole-of-government approach to develop a more resilient society. What thinking is taking place in government to ensure that we prioritise national resilience in the face of these weather systems? Is there a need for a more centralised approach to give more leadership to develop that resilient society?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend is right, which is why the severe weather resilience network exists. It is led by COBRA and includes Defra, MHCLG, the Department of Health, DCMS, the Department for Education, DESNZ, DSIT, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, UKHSA and the devolved Governments, who meet and co-ordinate a response to any and all severe weather events. As the noble Baroness from the Opposition Benches stated, there are no borders in this space, especially with regards to weather, so making sure that the devolved Governments and the devolved space also have a co-ordinated response is key. I am really hoping someone asks me about the weather for the weekend because I can tell the House.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I am not going to ask the Minister about the weather for the weekend. I am going to ask her about a debate around how we tackle wildfires. There is a view that in order to tackle wildfires we have to remove scrub, but at the same time people believe that that reduces biodiversity. There is clearly a tension in wanting to reduce wildfires while keeping biodiversity. What is the Government’s perspective on that balance and how do we make sure that we land in the right place?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that there are challenges here, as there are in all issues, about how we balance protection and environmental developments to make sure that the answers work for each community. There will be different answers in different parts of the country depending on their land and the local environment. Some of this is a very localised response, which is why we have local resilience forums to make sure that that is working. If the noble Lord has something specific, I am more than happy to come back to him. I would like to reassure noble Lords that this weekend it will be warm with the chance of thundery showers at times with the highest temperatures reaching into the mid to high 20s in the south-east of England.

King’s Speech

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour for me to open our five-day debate on the gracious Speech. These moments allow us to reflect on how much we have achieved after many constructive hours of debate, lots of votes and the occasional—or maybe not so occasional—late night. Noble Lords know quite how ambitious we have been in our legislative agenda. Over 60 Bills were passed in our first Session of Parliament, and yesterday His Majesty set out our ambitions for the forthcoming Session.

Those ambitions have one central mission: to build a more resilient country that spreads opportunity for all. The country in which we live is one in which talent is everywhere but opportunity is not, and the world in which we live has never felt more dangerous and volatile. Even in the last few months, global uncertainty has only increased, and the impact on our neighbours is real. They are struggling with the cost of living and worrying about the impact on their futures and their children’s futures of events outside their control. Our discussions today and in the rest of this Session must be real and tangible for them—they must be felt by people in their daily lives. Delivering on our promises are not just words but our contract with the nation.

That is why the gracious Speech set out new legislation focusing on outcomes, not outputs. It does not just address the problems of today but seeks to strengthen our national foundations, so that we can build a stronger and fairer economy that works for all of us in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, bringing prosperity to every corner of the United Kingdom, building on our place in the world and strengthening our relations with key allies.

The Government’s economic plan is based on three pillars: to create a strong foundation for businesses to plan and invest, to deliver growth-driving infrastructure and to crowd in private investment, and to systematically remove the barriers to growth across the economy.

This year’s Spring Statement showed that our economic plan is the right one but, as we have set out, the war in Iran will come at a cost. That is why the measures set out in the gracious Speech will help build growth that is both secure and resilient in order to raise living standards for working people.

At the heart of this, as noble Lords will be aware, we are continuing our work to secure a closer and more stable relationship with our largest trading partner, the EU, valued at £860 billion last year. This is vital, because since Brexit too many businesses are burdened by unnecessary bureaucracy that dominates everyday imports and exports with the EU, compounding the costs that are passed on to British families, pushing up prices and increasing the cost of living. The common understanding agreed last May will remove those barriers, underpinned by sensible legislation that upholds British standards while cutting red tape.

This is a core part of a wider plan. The UK is taking a strategic and clear-eyed approach to major partners, deepening trade where it supports growth while balancing security and economic resilience. That includes securing a landmark deal with India, expected to boost UK GDP by £4.8 billion a year; making the most of our accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, expected to increase UK GDP by £2 billion a year; and a stronger focus on the UK’s global strengths, particularly in services exports.

To achieve growth in the current global economic environment, businesses need as much certainty as we can offer. They need support to take advantage of new trade opportunities, and of course they need assistance and guidance in light of new technological innovations. That is why we have published three landmark strategies setting out our collective vision for growth, seeking to make the UK the best place in the world to do business and the best-connected economy, and delivering targeted support for businesses as they seek to grow.

None of the issues we are discussing today can be considered separately from our national security and our place in the world. The ongoing war in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of European co-operation on security and defence. In an ever more uncertain world, it is right and necessary that we seek to deepen our strategic partnerships, including with our neighbours with whom we have common interests, face common threats and must build common solutions.

Your Lordships’ House will be aware that we have already taken concrete steps towards these objectives. Last year’s historic UK-EU summit announced a series of deals that are good for household bills, borders and jobs. We have also recently announced a significant agreement with France to reduce illegal channel crossings, and deeper co-operation has opened further opportunities for learners, educators and young people through our agreement with the EU on the UK’s association to Erasmus+ next year.

This is a sensible, measured approach that crucially also preserves our ability to strike deals with other countries. In this space we have had notable successes, including signing a trade agreement with India and concluding a deal with the Republic of Korea. We are also currently in the process of negotiating trade agreements with the United States, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Switzerland, Turkey and Greenland. The UK exported around £275 billion to these countries in 2025, and securing FTAs will strengthen our trading relationships.

As part of our mission to kick-start economic growth, we published three key strategies last year. The industrial strategy sets out the vision for the sectors that will help achieve the most growth for the UK, boosting long-term investment; the small business strategy outlines how we will support businesses in the UK to scale up; and the trade strategy details how DBT will make full use of a range of trade tools, from free trade agreements to agile or sector-specific mini deals that allow government to respond rapidly to the changing geopolitical context, maximising opportunities for UK businesses both at home and abroad.

Through the steel strategy, which we published in March, the Government set out our long-term plan to fight to revitalise the UK steel sector, restore domestic production to sustainable levels and secure the industry’s role in supporting sovereign critical sectors. We are now introducing primary legislation that will provide a route for government to nationalise steel companies or their operations, provided a public interest test is met.

Bringing British Steel Ltd under national ownership will allow government to explore future opportunities, including a transition to decarbonised steel-making, and to provide reassurance for its workers, suppliers and customers. This Government recognise that securing the long-term future relies on both public and private investment for modernisation.

We are also helping businesses to navigate Windsor Framework trading arrangements between GB and NI. We have announced £16.6 million for an enhanced “one-stop shop” regulatory support service designed to navigate the knowledge gap facing small and medium-sized enterprises. So too have we supported the work of InterTrade UK with over £2 million in funding. It is ably led by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, to promote the economic bonds and strengths of all parts of the United Kingdom, and we will continue to back the east-west council in developing ties across it.

However, there is more to do. As set out in the gracious Speech, we will take action to further unlock the benefits of a deeper relationship with our closest neighbours. We are prioritising the conclusion of landmark deals on food and drink, emissions trading and youth experience announced at last year’s UK-EU summit—deals that we seek to conclude this year. As the Prime Minister said in his speech earlier this week, we must put Britain back at the heart of Europe. This year’s summit will provide an opportunity to build on our strategic partnership, including implementing joint commitments and making progress on where further co-operation can drive economic and security benefits for both sides.

Our collective goal is and must be to deliver real, tangible benefits for people and businesses in the UK. The food and drink deal will fulfil the manifesto commitment to deliver a veterinary agreement with the EU. Once in place, it will lower costs for UK business exports to the EU by removing certificate and route inspection requirements, in turn reducing the pressure on food prices. The deal will help support trade within the UK internal market, strengthening our union by further simplifying the movements of agri-foods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. By aligning Great Britain with standards already established in Northern Ireland, we are further protecting the internal market. For the vast majority of agri-foods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, traders will no longer need regulatory certificates, checks or paperwork, thereby reducing costs for businesses. The Windsor Framework will work alongside the SPS agreement, continuing to address Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances by upholding the Good Friday agreement and providing Northern Ireland’s unique dual market access to both the UK internal market and the EU single market.

Association to Erasmus+ will open up world-class opportunities for learners, educators, young people, youth workers, sport-sector professionals and communities of all ages across the UK. We will further strengthen our people-to-people ties with Europe by establishing an ambitious youth experience scheme with the EU. This scheme will create opportunities for young people to travel, to take up short-term work or to study, and to take part in valuable cultural exchange. As agreed at the UK-EU leaders’ summit in May last year, the overall number of participants in the scheme must be acceptable to both sides, and participation will be subject to a visa requirement and time-limited. We are negotiating the details of that scheme now, with an aim to agree it at the next UK-EU summit this year. Either through Erasmus+ or our new youth experience scheme, the EU is at the heart of our offer to young people.

The emissions trading agreement, which will link the UK and EU emissions trading schemes, will establish a larger and more stable carbon market. This will support industry confidence to invest in new technologies, leading to new jobs and enabling businesses to decarbonise more quickly and efficiently where possible. It will also create the conditions for mutual exemptions from our respective carbon border adjustment mechanisms, saving £7 billion of UK exports a year from being charged. Combined, the food and drink deal and the emissions trading agreement alone could deliver up to £9 billion to the UK economy a year by 2040, as well as easing pressure on consumer food price inflation. At the same time, they will reduce friction within the union.

We also look forward to starting formal negotiations on an electricity agreement with the EU. This agreement will make electricity trade with our European partners more efficient, driving down energy costs and protecting consumers against volatile fossil fuel markets. Delivering efficient electricity trading means that we can harness the clean energy potential of the North Sea, supporting clean energy jobs and resilient supply chains, and providing secure, affordable energy on the path to net zero. This will also remove trading frictions between GB and NI, and support energy security for the whole UK. Collectively, these actions will deliver for communities across our nations and regions for decades to come.

The European partnership Bill is the means by which we will facilitate the implementation of those deals agreed with the EU, now and in the future. The Bill will enable the Government to deliver their treaty obligations with the EU. On any future alignment, we are making a sovereign choice to align with EU law in specific areas, enabling us to cut red tape, to drive down costs and to boost growth. The cost of non-alignment is added bureaucracy and onerous paperwork for UK businesses. As set out in last year’s common understanding, this will come with an appropriate decision-shaping role for the UK. The Bill has been designed to ensure that Parliament will have its say on new EU legislation before it is applied in the UK. I look forward to discussing the detail with Members of your Lordships’ House in the coming months—for many hours, I suspect—as the Bill progresses.

The European partnership Bill demonstrates the strength of what this Government are seeking to achieve: a new relationship that looks forwards, not backwards, and reflects the realities of our economic and security interests in an uncertain world. Through this Bill, we will unlock tangible benefits for the people of our United Kingdom and provide a strong platform for future growth and co-operation. Putting the industrial, small business, trade and steel strategies into action is a priority, and pushing for more ambitious outcomes on global trade remains a crucial part of our agenda.

Finally, the gracious Speech reminds us that our security and prosperity are not guaranteed; they must be earned and delivered through our collective efforts and determination. The European partnership Bill is pivotal to that effort—a statement that we are moving beyond the politics of division and towards a more productive partnership with our European allies. I beg to move.

Pension Schemes

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

The Minister may be glad to know that I have a slightly smaller number of questions to ask. Running basic services reliably is at the heart of the Government’s responsibility to us all. Grand promises, fancy manifestos, clever policies or visionary plans about AI mean very little if the basic plumbing of the state is falling apart all around us. Here we have, unfortunately, another failure of that basic plumbing, one with very serious direct consequences for people’s well-being. It is certainly welcome that, faced with another pension scheme going horribly wrong at the hands of Capita, the Government have bitten the bullet and terminated its contract, but that coming after the Civil Service pension contract problems raises two key questions about the Government’s decision-making.

There is certainly a lot of blame to allocate to Capita and MyCSP, but there are also two questions that are fully within the Government’s area of responsibility. One, as I pointed out when we discussed this issue in Questions on 5 February, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, has just touched on, is that the Cabinet Office told the Public Accounts Committee that it was aware of very significant problems with Capita’s preparations to take over the contract on 1 December and that it had a contingency plan ready to use if necessary. Why, therefore, did the Cabinet Office decide to go ahead with the 1 December transfer to Capita rather than invoke its contingency plan? I think it is fair to say that the fact that another Capita pension scheme, the Royal Mail one, has now gone so badly wrong as well redoubles the doubts about why that 1 December transfer was greenlit by the Government.

In addition, in the light of Capita’s failing on these two pension contracts, there is also the problem that the Government have just signed another contract with Capita—a £370 million contract that involves, to quote Capita’s press release from just a few weeks ago,

“tech-enabled back-office services for public servants across four major UK government departments: the Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Justice, Home Office, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Capita will deliver a suite of services including HR, payroll, recruitment, finance, procurement, and service desk support”.

That sounds remarkably similar to the very things that Capita has just got so badly wrong twice.

Warned last year that Capita was getting it wrong, the Cabinet Office pressed ahead with Capita on that 1 December deadline. With Royal Mail, Capita has been getting exactly the same sort of work badly wrong. I hope the Minister will explain why those two failures were not enough for the Government to say for this new contract, “Hang on. We’ve seen your track record, we’ve learned from our mistakes, and no, we’re not going to hand over more money and give you more responsibility for financial IT systems”. Will the Minister tell us what consideration was given to those two other failures by Capita when deciding to award it this new contract? Why were those two failures not considered serious enough for the Government to spend their £370 million—or, I should, say the public’s £370 million—elsewhere?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, I listened with care to the points raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, and I will have to revert in writing on some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn.

First, I put on record my thanks to the fantastic public servants who have been failed and who we are seeking to support. The security and dignity of those who have dedicated their careers to our public services are not negotiable. They deserve a pension scheme that is reliable, efficient and secure. When the standards they deserve are not upheld, the Government will not hesitate to act decisively to protect their interests.

The termination of the new Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme contract with Capita followed a failure to meet critical transition milestones and a total lack of confidence in its ability to implement the new operating model in a timely fashion. Capita had an 18-month planning window yet failed to deliver numerous milestones, including required IT automation. Of the 10 transitional milestones due to date, only four have been delivered and all those were late, which is why we have terminated the contract.

Regarding the Civil Service Pension Scheme, the delivery of the service since the transfer on 1 December has fallen far short of the required standard. The transition from the previous provider, MyCSP, was not satisfactory, and investigations are ongoing into the respective liabilities for those failures to protect taxpayer interests.

The stories of members falling into hardship are distressing and entirely unacceptable, which is why a specialist pensions recovery taskforce was established to take strategic oversight of the scheme’s management. To ensure no one faces financial anxiety alone, over £8.2 million in interest-free transitional support loans has already been issued to over 1,500 members most affected by these delays.

There is confidence in the surge of about 140 officials into Capita and this intervention has made a significant difference. The government surge team was essential to bolster operational capacity, successfully clearing 15,000 inherited unread emails and initially bringing telephony wait times down to an average of under two minutes. While wait times have recently spiked to an average of 44 minutes, this was a direct result of a 120% surge in volumes driven by the end of the tax year and the annual benefits statement portal suspension following the data breach on 30 March. There is no intention to withdraw the team if that would result in a deterioration of service. That judgment will be made carefully against the June 2026 deadline for the restoration of proper service.

On the NAO and Public Accounts Committee reports, the noble Baroness is absolutely right to highlight these reports regarding missed transition milestones, as was the noble Lord, Lord Pack. Significant milestone payments are currently being withheld where transition deliverables have not been met to drive performance, and every right is reserved to take further formal action. The Government have accepted the NAO’s recommendations, and after its report, we implemented a number of additional controls as part of this contract. Despite these challenges, transitioning to Capita to avoid a total collapse of the service was assessed as the lower-risk path, as MyCSP had become operationally and commercially unviable.

Capita has been placed now under a firm mandate to clear all inherited arrears by the end of April and restore service levels to standard, contractually required levels by the end of June. Standardised mitigation letters are available on request via the pensions helpline to ensure that members can communicate effectively with mortgage providers and other creditors regarding service delays. Regarding the wider commercial position, there has been an offer from Capita to cover the costs of the surge team from 10 April, which will be considered in the broad accounting of all commercial issues in respect of this contract.

There were several questions asked that relate to this. As I said previously, there was an independent assurance review undertaken last year. I am going to write to the noble Lord, Lord Pack, with the dates of all the meetings that were had, the promises that were made by Capita and to whom they were made and when—there was a range of promises made. We had the independent assurance review, and we were therefore as confident as we could be in moving forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, raised the issue of MyCSP’s historical performance and the liability. The transition process from the previous provider, MyCSP, was not satisfactory and we are investigating respective liabilities for those failures between both parties. We have withheld all money due to MyCSP until transition failures are rectified and will pursue a parent company guarantee with Equiniti if necessary. Transitioning was necessary as MyCSP had become commercially unviable with backlogs increasing from 47,000 cases to over 60,000 cases by October.

I have answered the question about mitigation measures. In terms of the commercial accountability and withheld payments, we have taken direct action on all commercial levers, including withholding significant milestone payments where deliverables have not been met. Capita is under a firm mandate to clear all inherited arrears by the end of April and restore full service standards by the end of June. We will consider Capita’s offer, as I have said.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, raised an important point about why the review is in late summer. Our focus and priority have to be getting the system working, to make sure that people can access both their historic statements and their future statements, and that people can access the information they need as well as access finances that are theirs. I remind noble Lords that pensions are deferred salaries. These are entitlements: they have earned them, and we need to make sure that they can get the money. This is not about pushing review into the long grass—that is not where we are. We want to fix what is broken to make sure that the people who need access can get access, and then we will undertake a review, including a commercial review, with Capita to move forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Pack, raised a really important point about Capita receiving an additional contract. The Synergy award by DWP in February followed a rigorous and transparent public procurement process conducted under existing public contract regulations. Each contract is managed on its own merits, and the Secretary of State for DWP sought and received specific personal assurances from Capita regarding delivery.

However, I remind noble Lords that, while we are talking about two specific contracts in this Statement, both are the only Capita contracts with the Cabinet Office. Across the wider government and public sector portfolio, Capita has over 80 contracts, and performance remains high, with approximately 87% of KPIs currently rated as good. We have seen a clear failure of the Civil Service Pension Scheme and access to it. We desperately need to fix it and then look at what went wrong before moving forward with our commercial levers. But each contract needs to be assessed on its individual merits to make sure that it works and that the Government are compliant, as well as the people we work with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that series of questions. Let me start with the factual question, because I have that data to hand. There are currently 2,696 retirement cases where a quotation has been issued but the pension is not yet in payment. These cases are the remaining subset of the 6,482 retirement cases that have already received a quote and therefore no longer have an open case type related to quotations. All remaining open retirement cases where a quote has been issued are on track to be processed, with full payment by the end of May—next month.

My noble friend asked a series of questions, some of which are slightly more straightforward to answer than others. On insourcing, an assessment will be conducted to identify the optimal delivery model for these pension services, specifically evaluating both insourcing and outsourcing options. This process will involve a thorough analysis of costs, risks and benefits in line with the sourcing playbook, ensuring that we learn from the delivery failures identified in the current contracts. Although previous assessments in 2021 favoured outsourcing to realise benefits with the least risk, we remain committed to whichever model is proven to provide the best value for money for the taxpayer.

On Capita and why that contract has not been removed, as I have said, we engage with Capita on this contract every day as part of the recovery model. As noble Lords will appreciate, I have talked not only about Capita and its responsibility as part of fixing what is clearly broken, but about the legacy of what was left by MyCSP. When we have undertaken the review after fixing what is broken—there have been failures across the piece, clearly, but we must be clear on who was responsible for which part—we will know better and we will take additional steps, as we have with the Royal Mail pension scheme, if required.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. There was I, about to say that, given his time in government and his extensive ministerial service across many departments, my noble friend knows better than I do about the awarding of these contracts.

There is a serious point here: at the heart of these conversations is the fact that every contract is managed on its own merits and contains robust, specific protections to ensure delivery. The award of the contract we are talking about followed a rigorous and transparent process under the public contracts regulations. The Secretary of State sought and received specific assurances from Capita regarding delivery after it had become clear what had happened to the Civil Service Pension Scheme. The DWP was alerted; obviously, there are members of staff at the DWP who will also have been affected by this.

It is fair to say, I think, that I have never had so many discussions with my colleagues as I have had with civil servants across the piece who wanted me to make sure that we fix this and fix it well, given my exposure to them. I am very grateful that my noble friend Lady Sherlock has come to be supportive; there are always effective cross-government communications when required, and I am pleased that my noble friend is sitting next to me for this one.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Reid, made a very valid point. Capita was the organisation in charge of Army recruitment. It did such a bad job that even the MoD decided to dispense with its services. The Ministry of Defence has long experience with Capita. Capita was the principal delivery organisation for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, which was the most dysfunctional arm of that dysfunctional department.

It is not as though the Government have not been warned. As my noble friend Lady Finn pointed out, the Government have not learned what a truly dreadful organisation Capita has been. Yet now Capita is the preferred bidder for the Department for Work and Pensions’ Civil Service payroll contract. Indeed, only last month, Capita was selected for a 10-year contract, valued at £370 million, to run HR and finance systems for four UK government departments. When will Ministers and civil servants learn that Capita is no friend of efficiency or accountability?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord is aware that I have been a fan for many years and would listen to him with interest on every position he takes. I do, however, find it a little rich, given the positions that he previously held, to be lectured by him about a contract that was signed by the previous Government, following many contracts, not least the ones he talked about in defence, that were signed by the previous Government. I have already talked about how we will seek to move forward with insourcing.

I should put on record the fact that I am an honorary captain in the Royal Navy and was a member of the Defence Select Committee when some of these issues were being discussed about the Capita contract and the impact it had on recruitment into our Armed Forces. I believe and hope, however, that Serco is going to benefit from some of the changes that we as a Government undertook with Capita on the defence recruitment contract, which moved to Serco last month.

At the heart of this are—as I think we are all aware—our responsibilities towards taxpayers’ money and making sure that it is spent well, and that, whenever we choose to outsource, it is because we need to bring in different expertise that is not typically appropriate for us to hold centrally. But we need to make sure that this works and works for us, and I hope we will see that going forwards. But Capita is a supplier in more than 80 government contracts.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I am agnostic about insourcing or outsourcing. What I want is good service for the pensioners. Just to give an example of how insourcing might not always go right—and I appreciate that the Minister will probably have to write to me on this, because I am going slightly tangentially—the NHS Business Services Authority is an insourcing organisation for NHS pensioners. Given the failure that we have at the moment in that scheme, I ask the Minister: what steps could the Government take to ensure that the significant delays that NHS Pensions, in applying the annual inflation increase to pensioners who have been flagged for manual reconciliation due to their lifetime allowance, can be dealt with and solved, so that those pensioners who are waiting for their annual increase this year and from previous years get that annual increase, which they are entitled to under the 1971 Act?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

As I said, I am very clear that pensions are deferred income and pensioners are entitled to them. In a previous iteration, I was a trade union officer who negotiated part of the Agenda for Change agreement. In terms of access and impact, it is key. The noble Lord will not be surprised that I do not have the detail of that pension scheme in front of me, but I will write to him with an update.

Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, at the heart of this issue is the bravery of the women and girls who spoke up to reveal the truth about Jeffrey Epstein. Following his evil and criminal behaviour, there have been multiple failures of our political systems—failures that are now rightly seeing the end of various political careers. The events also raise questions about how we fix our broken systems so that we can deal much better with whatever future crises or scandals occur.

So I very much welcome the positive noises now being made about new legislation—for example, to allow peerages to be revoked in the case of scandal. However, it is fair to say that the track record of reform in this place is somewhat slow, so I hope that the Minister can confirm both that such legislation is imminent and that it will be given priority in the legislative queue, so that there is an opportunity for Parliament to debate and, if it so decides, pass such legislation promptly in the new Session.

It is also very welcome to have heard of the plans for the review into the vetting processes by Adrian Fulford, particularly because the more we hear details of what happened with the vetting, the more questions are thrown up. I will give just two examples. One is the sequence: make an appointment, announce the appointment, then carry out vetting after the announcement. Leaving aside questions of how well established that process and sequencing is and who knew about it, it is clearly a sequence of events that invites disaster. Vetting should surely come before an announcement, not after, because that is the way to minimise any pressure to come up with a politically convenient answer and to be fair to everyone involved, including somebody who fails the vetting process.

Also inviting disaster is the daisy chain of oral briefings that we now know took place without key decision-makers seeing the relevant summary of the vetting verdict paperwork. As we now know, the official who saw the paperwork orally briefed the FCDO official, Ian Collard, who did not see the paperwork himself. He, in turn, orally briefed Olly Robbins, who also did not see the paperwork. He, in turn, had oral discussions with the Prime Minister, who again did not see the paperwork so was, in fact, having matters described to him third hand. In other words, the more senior the person and the more crucial their personal decision-making in the process, the more removed they were from seeing the core paperwork involved.

There is obviously a political question in this about why the Prime Minister proceeded with such a process, but there is also a crucial issue for the future. Such a daisy chain of decision-making—with one person speaking to another person, who then speaks to another person, who then speaks to another person, without the authoritative written verdict of the vetting system being in front of everyone—is a process that invites disaster.

I hope the Minister can, as well as addressing my question about legislation to remove peerages, also confirm that these issues relating to vetting processes are within the scope of the Fulford review, that the review will be published soon—maybe even at pace—and that this House will have an opportunity to discuss that review promptly.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

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

In updating the House, it would be helpful to clarify some of the points made in the other place yesterday. As noble Lords will be aware, we published the first tranche of material in response to the humble Address Motion on 11 March, just over a month following that Motion. That first tranche of material relates primarily to the aspects of the Motion regarding Peter Mandelson’s appointment and his subsequent dismissal as ambassador, in addition to details of the severance payment provided to him by the Foreign Office.

Following the publication of the first tranche of material, Cabinet Office officials have been working tirelessly—I removed “at pace” from my briefing note—to prepare a second publication. Noble Lords will recognise that, given the breadth of the Motion, a significant number of documents are in scope and are taking time to process accordingly. We prioritised the material relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment in the first tranche so that Parliament could see those key documents first.

Where the Government deem material to be prejudicial to our national security or international relations, it is being referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee for consideration. As noble Lords will appreciate, this process requires detailed consideration. The Government are very grateful to the ISC for its constructive engagement in this process, which we recognise has constituted additional requests on top of its already important work. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Beamish for his work as chair of the committee.

I can confirm that, as of yesterday evening, the Cabinet Office has passed to the ISC all material that it has processed as part of the humble Address and judged to be prejudicial to national security or international relations. This amounts to over 300 documents. This includes a number that were relevant to the process of Peter Mandelson’s security vetting. As the Government have set out, no redactions will be made on the basis of national security or international relations without referral to the ISC. As we have made clear in the first publication, there are several other public interest principles—in respect, for example, of the names of junior officials, email addresses, personal data and legally privileged information—which the Government have applied following a clear precedent set by previous Administrations. To confirm, as set out in the first publication, no redactions were applied to the Prime Minister’s box note.

I can also confirm that the next publication will include electronic communications, including those sent on non-corporate communication channels, between Peter Mandelson and Ministers, senior officials and special advisers. As the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has said on multiple occasions, the Government are fully committed to complying with the scope of this Motion. The material that has been commissioned has been provided and, subject to the processes that I have explained, will be published.

The Government have also been clear throughout that they will not prejudice the ongoing police investigation. Noble Lords will understand that this means that I cannot confirm what documents are being withheld in response to the Metropolitan Police’s request but, to reassure your Lordships’ House, as agreed in the other place, the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee kindly agreed to look at documents given to the Metropolitan Police in relation to the police investigation so that we had a way, albeit a closed way, of showing due process and transparency to the House in relation to the humble Address. Those processes have continued. Noble Lords who know Simon Hoare MP will I am sure agree that if he thought that we were not being compliant, we would have heard by now.

On some of the specific points raised, the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked when these documents will be published. I reassure noble Lords that we will publish them as soon as possible following State Opening of Parliament. I will provide further updates to your Lordships in due course. We will be discussing, I am sure, the detail of those papers in your Lordships’ House at that point. The noble Baroness also touched on other committees’ investigations. Obviously, there is a live debate in the other Chamber as we discuss this issue. There is also, as we have seen this morning, a live investigation by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. We are fully co-operating and I think noble Lords would expect no less.

I welcome to his place the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and congratulate him on what I think is his first outing on the Front Bench during a Statement—I look forward to many such conversations. He asked very specific questions. In terms of the legislation on removal of peerages, obviously, it is not for me to pre-empt the King’s Speech, but noble Lords will be aware that we have discussed this many times from this Dispatch Box and I expect to see such legislation forthcoming. I look forward, as the policy Minister, to discussing it in great detail with the noble Lord when we get to that point.

The noble Lord raised a very important point about vetting before an appointment. That process has now been explicitly changed, both for political appointees and for political appointees in the diplomatic space: vetting would need to be done before an announcement.

On the security vetting process, I think there are many Members of your Lordships’ House who have actively participated in the deep vetting process, either as Ministers or as civil servants. Noble Lords will be aware that there is a line here: we need people to actively participate in this process to make sure that we are getting the full information; we need to make sure that the detail of that information is then protected; and who sees what, when has to be managed by UK Security Vetting, which I thank for its work. I know that it is very nervous about some of the conversations we are having, not because of the process it undertakes but because it does not want people to be less forthcoming than they need to be in the process. However, I appreciate what the noble Lord said about a daisy chain of conversations. He will be aware that Ministers were not aware of that daisy chain at various points, but we have asked Sir Adrian Fulford to undertake a review, and I am very grateful to him. We have confirmed that this should be part of those conversations, and I will come back if I need to issue any clarification.

The noble Lord also kindly highlighted the fact that the Government have undertaken several steps in this space—my appointment is one of them. We are seeking to strengthen the foundations in the standards space and I look forward to discussing those issues with noble Lords, both through the prism of the release of the Humble Address but also because it is in all our interests, regardless of our political party or our personal politics, to ensure that people can have faith in politicians and faith in the integrity of this Building, both this Chamber and next door.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to bring news from the front to your Lordships’ House. After another five-hour meeting today, the Intelligence and Security Committee, which I chair, has now completed reviewing all the documents that have been referred to it. I stress to the House that this has been a long process. I understand the frustration of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, but the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee have had to read all these documents individually, in our secure premises, and then have a full meeting to consider the redactions, which has taken time. It has not been helped by the refusal by the Foreign Office in the early stages to release certain documents.

We asked at the beginning of this process that the documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment be prioritised. That was not possible for the vetting document because the Foreign Office at the time, under Mr Olly Robbins, refused to give it to the Cabinet Office. We have now seen all the documents we need to look at, apart from those that are part of the criminal investigation, and the vetting interview file. We have seen the vetting documents but not the vetting interview file, which the Government have not shared with us. I understand that they will have to go to Parliament if they wish to refuse to give us that document, but I can assure the House that we are now a position to return our considerations of those vetting documents back to the Government. Will my noble friend give me a commitment, now that those documents have been returned, or will have been later today? We have now set two deadlines for the Government to come back to the committee to say which of the redactions we have not agreed to that they wish to contest. It is important that we get the contested redactions hearing done speedily after the King’s Speech, so that these documents can be released, because the committee will then have to meet again to decide our response. I remind the House that the final decision on what is and is not redacted is not the Government’s but the ISC’s.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

Again, I put on record my thanks to my noble friend for the many hours he has spent looking at documents, for changing the way his committee is working in terms of the number of meetings, and for all the work that has been done in this space. On setting a deadline for the challenge meeting, I will speak to officials as soon as I have finished the next Statement and make sure that that date is in the diary before the House prorogues.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, today, we learned of an un-minuted meeting at which senior advisers to the Prime Minister bypassed Civil Service oversight to green-light a known high-risk appointment. Can the Minister tell the House how this meeting was within the normal due process and who gave the order to exclude the propriety and ethics team from such critical discussions?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I am going to thank the noble Lord for the question; maybe I should not. He will have to bear with me, because he, like I, will have watched some of the hearings as they were happening. I will write to him with the detail about who, what, when and where.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. Obviously, these are all live matters, and some of those conversations I simply cannot discuss in your Lordships’ House. We have a very constructive relationship with the Metropolitan Police and want to make sure that it has everything it needs as part of its investigations if it is seeking to make any future prosecutions.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, in addition to the redactions the Minister referred to in her Statement for reasons of national security, international relations, names of junior officials, email addresses and legal privilege, are there any other reasons for redaction? There was a report in the press about some redactions for reasons of commercial confidentiality. Can she confirm that that is not the case? When, in the Statement, the Minister said that the second tranche of documents would be released after the State Opening, does that mean the final tranche, or is there a third?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I would not want to mislead the House; I am going to write to the noble Lord about the commercial redactions. I had not been told that there would be any commercial redactions, but I will write to him to make sure that I am on the record, and I will place the answer in the Library. With the exception of those materials being withheld by the Met Police, which will be published at a point deemed to be appropriate, I expect the next tranche to be—I cannot say the final tranche, because we know there is a third—the substantive tranche, which will be all the material available to us. That is what I expect in the next tranche.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, one of the difficulties in discussing the vetting of Lord Mandelson seriously is that nobody outside the Government has the first idea what the grounds were for the recommendation that his vetting should be refused. I accept and completely agree with the process the Minister described whereby the answers and the conduct of the vetting are totally confidential and are never revealed in any circumstances. However, I cannot see the threat to national security in answering this question: can the Minister say whether the grounds upon which the recommendation was made were not anything to do with his friendship with Epstein? Can I ask for a yes or no? Were the grounds nothing to do with it and something quite different, or is it the friendship that lay behind it?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish I could give the noble Lord the answer he seeks, but I cannot, because I have not seen the material we are discussing, for very good reason. On the reasons why it was a borderline case—I believe that is the phrase now—and what mitigations were put in place, I do not know the detail.

Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 (Amendment) Order 2026

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 5 March be approved.

Relevant documents: 55th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and 53rd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments (special attention drawn to the instrument)

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, this order is a necessary measure to address the historical misapplication of the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, which sets ministerial and other officeholders’ pay. The other officeholders are the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses, the Speakers in both Houses, the Opposition Chief Whips in both Houses and two Opposition Assistant Whips in the House of Commons.

In 1997, a formula was introduced to link pay increases for Ministers and certain officeholders to senior Civil Service pay bands. The formula set out that ministerial salaries should be increased by the average annual change in the midpoint of the senior Civil Service pay bands. During the financial year 2023-24, the Cabinet Office identified that the formula had been misapplied. Since the introduction of the formula in 1997, the salaries of Permanent Secretaries had often been excluded from the calculation, despite the legislation not permitting such an exclusion. This technical misapplication of the law has happened under successive Administrations, over several decades. The formula was originally proposed by the Senior Salaries Review Body, which recommended that Permanent Secretary pay should not be included in the calculation for ministerial pay. The Government believe the policy that has been often applied since 1997, in line with the Senior Salaries Review Body recommendation, is the correct approach and are introducing this Order in Council to ensure the law aligns with long-standing policy.

The order performs two primary functions. First, it resets the statutory salary levels for all Ministers and specified officeholders. Given the misapplication has been applied for several decades, resetting the salaries in law provides legal clarity and a baseline for any future uplifts. These reset figures were calculated based on the average annual change in the midpoint of the senior Civil Service pay bands including the Permanent Secretary pay band for each financial year since the misapplication was identified, in line with the formula set out in the legislation.

Secondly, the order amends the formula to exclude the Permanent Secretary pay band from future calculations. This change simply formalises the policy approach that has been applied in practice, by all Administrations, for over two decades. For the initial year beginning 1 April 2026, the order sets out a transitional measure where the higher of the old or new formula will be applied to ensure that no individual is disadvantaged by the order’s retrospective effect. The impact of this order is minimal; it affects only ministerial office holders and a small number of other office holders in Westminster. Due to incomplete records, it has not been possible to determine the exact financial impact of this misapplication. Analysis shows that no individual has gained or lost a substantial amount.

I want to be clear that for Ministers, this order will result in no change to actual take-home pay. The Prime Minister has maintained the policy of freezing ministerial salaries, and Ministers will continue to waive their statutory entitlement. In fact, ministerial salaries for Members of the House of Commons have not increased since 2008. Ministerial salaries were actually cut in law, via an Order in Council, in 2011. Lords ministerial salaries have not risen since 2008 and were cut in 2011, but in 2019-20, they began to claim their full salary entitlement. They were again frozen in 2020-21 and remain so today. The other officeholders make a personal decision on whether to take the salary they are entitled to in law or to waive part of the salary in line with the ministerial salary freeze. The order therefore does affect the salaries paid to these individuals who choose to take their entitled salaries. The Government have been unable to calculate their annual pay increases while work on this order was ongoing, so we will provide back payments covering annual pay increases owed to current and former officeholders in these roles dating back to 1 April 2023.

The legislation is also linked to the salaries of the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means in the other place, whose salaries increase through the same formula but are paid by Parliament. They will also receive back payments dating back to 1 April 2023. The total cost of back payments to the Government is just over £15,000. This is for the roles paid by the Government: the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses, the Speaker in the House of Commons, the Opposition Chief Whips in both Houses and two Opposition Assistant Whips in the House of Commons. The total cost of back payments to Parliament is between £7,000 and £19,000. This is for the roles paid by Parliament: the Chairman and Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means in the other place and the Lord Speaker.

It is important to note that the majority of the back payments represent money that would have been paid if the misapplication had not been identified. I am grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for their consideration of this Order in Council and for their respective reports. I shall briefly address the issues they have raised.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that it has taken three years for the Cabinet Office to resolve this issue. Although a small issue, it is a complex and technical one; it is right that the Government took the time to ensure that the misapplication was addressed correctly, and I am sure that noble Lords will support this order which addresses this long-standing misapplication of the law.

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instrument has reported that this Order in Council appears to have retrospective effect without the express authority of the parent legislation. The Cabinet Office considers that the Act provides power for limited retrospection, and that the retrospective effect of this order is justified and fair. This is because backdating of salary increases is normal practice given that, for senior civil servants, salary increases are usually not known until the summer but pay increases take effect from the 1 April. In addition, as I have set out, the impact of this order is minimal, affecting Ministers and a small number of other officeholders.

In summary, the Government are bringing forward this Order in Council to address a historical misapplication of the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, which sets ministerial and certain officeholders’ pay. This is a necessary measure to address a technical misapplication of the law and will ensure that the law aligns with long-standing policy. I beg to move.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for the technical explanation of a complex matter, but could she also answer a couple of relevant questions? First, what is the progress on having more Lords Ministers in receipt of salaries, after our recent discussions and legislation on extending the number of paid posts? What progress is there on helping Ministers rather more by clearer definitions of their aims and their targets, with suitable mentoring and support and, if necessary, performance reporting, so that we can all see that these well-justified salaries are indeed well justified and are resulting in better government?

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, the order resets the underlying salary baseline from April 2026. It would be helpful to understand how that revised baseline is intended to operate in the years ahead, particularly in the context of any future decisions on pay restraint. Despite this being a technical measure, the issues it raises go to questions of consistency, fairness and public confidence, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. Like magic, I have just received the answer to one of the noble Baroness’s questions. I will address the questions as they came and start with the noble Lord, Lord Redwood.

The Bill we discussed last week is currently awaiting Royal Assent and is not yet an Act, but, on a personal level, I am awfully grateful to your Lordships’ House for passing that legislation. As the Minister for Standards in the Cabinet Office, I was here, as the noble Lord will be aware, when we discussed it. As the Minister for Standards and Conduct across government, the subject of mentoring and support in the area for which I have responsibility and more widely has been the subject of conversations I have had. I look forward to being able to bring forward recommendations when I have been in post slightly longer looking at this in the round. I reassure the noble Lord that this is under active consideration.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, pensions have been based on claimed salary, not entitled salary, since 2015. On the issue of forfeiture—a nice segue, if I may congratulate the noble Baroness— I will write to her with the detail but there are currently no active considerations in this space, so we will not be bringing forward an amendment to the Pension Schemes Bill, which I am sure noble Lords will be grateful of at this stage of ping-pong. Having said that, the noble Baroness raises a very important point about wider standards issues and how everything operates in the round. She and I are jointly committed to upholding the highest standards in public life, and I will write to her with all the details on her specific questions.

I thank noble Lords for their consideration of this order. Though technical in nature, the measure is essential for maintaining the integrity of our statutory framework and ensuring that the law accurately reflects decades of established policy. As I have outlined, this order is fundamentally about regularisation; we are addressing a historical discrepancy that has spanned multiple Administrations and several decades. By formalising the exclusion of Permanent Secretaries’ pay from the ministerial salary formula, we are not creating new policy. I thank all noble Lords for the points they raised in today’s debate and I commend the order to the House.

Motion agreed.

Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Government for this Statement, and the technical expert group—TEG—at IBCA for its detailed report, which sits behind the proposed changes to the scheme outlined in the Statement. There are many victims who will be reassured by most, though perhaps not all, of the changes.

It is good news to hear that over 3,000 people have now received an offer of compensation, and I note that the Statement says payments have been made to all eligible groups. Can the Minister say how many of that number are from the affected group? While accepting that the Government’s priority has been to secure compensation for infected victims first, it is still true to say that a number of the affected victims are themselves frail and elderly, or, worse, very ill. Does IBCA have a date by which the scheme will be up and running for all affected victims, and will those I have outlined be prioritised as an urgent group?

It is very good news that the Government are removing the 25% deduction applied to past care compensation, which is exactly what Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry recommended, but why has it taken well over a year for this decision to be made? Since the spring of 2024, one of the issues that I and others have repeatedly raised with the last Government, as well as with this one, is that the state should not claw back any past benefits, including care costs, from these families who have had to turn to benefits and care support because of a fundamental failure of the state. In so doing, they—both infected and affected—lost jobs, their careers and sometimes their homes, and, much worse, had to live on the breadline for many years. To penalise them at the compensation stage was cruel, so it is good that the deduction is stopping.

However, the bigger point stands, and I know the Minister will recognise this, as she and I often talk about the bigger picture of other schemes as well. This governmental approach is seen in other schemes, and too often the change comes after extended delays. Further, trust with the victims has been lost. Will the Government please rethink this approach in future schemes before decisions are made?

A further point on the care award is that it is not clear whether affected victims who were carers are yet recognised in their own right, or whether the entirety of the care award, including the carer’s element, will remain solely with the estate of the infected person. I wonder if the Minister can update the House.

The changes outlined in the TEG report follow on from the complications of a number of different schemes over many years in the past, using different matrices, and indeed through devolution. Many, especially the ones relating to psychological damage, are welcome. Before Christmas, the TEG published details of how to handle historic suicide in the compensation scheme. The wording of that paragraph in the report has caused real consternation and distress among victims, both the infected and the affected, especially those who have already lost loved ones who were infected to suicide.

The commentary paragraph in the TEG report outlines the complexity of suicide and recognises that it is retraumatising for a family member to have to raise it with IBCA. However, it then goes on to say:

“Even with the best explanation, we believe that linking more compensation to evidence of suicide creates a risk that the Scheme is misinterpreted, and places vulnerable people at risk if they feel pressured to harm themselves to help their families get more compensation”.


Anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide for whatever reason knows that suicide is not a rational act; it is an act of desperation. To suggest that victims might resort to it solely for financial benefit as a small part of a grant of total compensation is just staggering. It has caused real distress and a further loss of trust, again. I hope that this issue can be reviewed.

Finally, it is very good news that compensation is to be given to victims treated unethically, especially the children at Lord Mayor Treloar’s School. I want to ask the Minister two questions in relation to the unethical behaviour by doctors who used infected blood in research projects without informing the victims or, if they were still children, their parents. First, are the police looking at what evidence remains? I know the NHS has said that many documents have been destroyed, but if IBCA has enough evidence to know that they were infected—and in many cases it knows when—then surely any surviving doctor should be questioned. Secondly, will IBCA ensure that there was no other unethical treatment given to people in later decades, not just those infected through the early research projects 50 years ago?

As ever, I am aware that I have asked a number of technical questions to the Minister; if the replies are not to hand, please will she write to me with them?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, as ever, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses for their thoughtful and productive points. This is a collaborative effort and we all share one goal: to get this right. I hope your Lordships can appreciate that this announcement marks a significant step towards delivering a compensation scheme that not only works better for the infected blood community but explicitly reflects the feedback and views that the community provided to the Government.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who responded, particularly those from the infected blood community. I know many of these responses included testimony of people’s personal experiences, and I want to assure those who were brave enough to share their stories that we are grateful and that we appreciate the additional burden this places on them. I hope our changes to the scheme announced in the House of Commons last week reflect their experiences, their bravery and their loss.

The consultation was not unanimous on every point, nor would I expect it to be. The experiences of those infected and affected are unique and variable, and I am sure that there are issues where some may still feel that their personal experience is not adequately reflected by the compensation scheme. However, I firmly believe that the changes we are making bring us as close as possible to a scheme which truly reflects the range of impacts on a person’s life, while still being deliverable within the scheme’s tariff-based approach.

For infected people, the changes will increase the amount of core compensation available and increase the options available for supplementary compensation awards. For affected people, additional compensation will be available to those eligible. I encourage noble Lords to read the full response, but, in the interest of today’s debate, I want to set out for Members of your Lordships’ House who do not follow this in necessarily the same detail as the many of those who are living through it do some of the key changes we are making.

First, I know the special category mechanism is a key issue of interest across your Lordships’ House. We are introducing a new supplementary award to give additional compensation to people who have been assessed as eligible for SCM and who can now demonstrate to IBCA that they meet the criteria. After considering the community’s views, we will now ensure that every eligible person has this award backdated to 2017, which is when the SCM was first introduced. We will increase the core injury award for several groups of affected people, including bereaved parents whose child sadly died before they turned 18, bereaved partners, and siblings affected under the age of 18. These changes give more compensation to affected people whose experience of the scandal was egregious beyond my comprehension. These awards will require no additional evidence from applicants.

The matter of unethical research, which was rightly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is of particular concern. Anyone who has engaged with the inquiry’s findings will know that it is one of the most shocking aspects of this scandal. We heard that the existing approach may not have compensated everyone who suffered this wrongdoing. We have therefore changed the scope of the award so that anyone treated in the UK for a bleeding disorder in 1985 or earlier will receive further compensation. It is clear from the consultation responses that the award amount offered does not reflect the harm done. We are increasing the unethical research awards. These include increasing our proposed award of £25,000 to those who attended Treloar’s to £60,000, as well as introducing a new unethical research award for those treated elsewhere for a bleeding disorder during childhood at a rate of £45,000. We are also tripling the award for those treated for a bleeding disorder in adulthood to £30,000.

The consultation also invited respondents to raise any other concerns they have with the design of the scheme. One of the most compelling things we heard was that the scheme does not sufficiently recognise the profound impact of infection during childhood. We have heard the community clearly on this matter and we will make a further change to the compensation scheme to address the feedback. We will introduce a 50% increase to the core autonomy award for people who were infected at the age of 18 or under.

Although I have set out only a few of the changes we are making, they reflect the questions asked by the noble Baronesses, and I hope they go some way to show our commitment to listening to the community and to making decisions with those impacted at the very forefront of our minds. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, in order to make these substantial changes to the compensation scheme, we will bring forward further legislation in this calendar year—although whether it will be included in the King’s Speech is slightly above my pay grade.

I turn to some of the other points raised. With regard to IBCA and the extension of the cohorts, noble Lords will appreciate, because we have discussed this in your Lordships’ House on several occasions, that there is an issue of test and learn here. IBCA was a brand new organisation established to distribute £11.8 billion-worth of compensation. That is taxpayers’ money rightly going into compensation to those people who have been affected by this heartbreaking scandal, but it is vital that we get it right. So, to make sure that we do not have to keep going back to cohorts and so that we can make this right, each new cohort is taken through a test-and-learn experience. Given the experience of IBCA up until this point—we have seen that work with the infected community—I have therefore confidence in it to take the next steps. However, nothing is fast enough, and I hope to get as much out of the door as quickly as possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, was absolutely right also to raise consistent decision-making. Training is at the heart of everything that is happening at IBCA, including how the claims managers operate and making sure that there is consistent application.

On the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I reassure her about our prioritisation in terms of all cohorts, where we are now prioritising the elderly and those who are nearing end of life; although everyone deserves their compensation, we are doing that so that we can get it to them as quickly as possible so that they personally have some benefit from it. I look forward to discussing future schemes with the noble Baroness in great detail, and I am sure many Members of your Lordships’ House will want to look at any future schemes to see what lessons have been learned from this scheme and from others.

The noble Baroness raised a very important point about suicide. I will write to her on that, but I have heard what she has said about the paperwork. I will say only that with regard to severe psychological harm, which is the closest space which I can move to in terms of suicide, infected people who can show that their circumstances require more financial loss and care compensation for psychological harm can apply to the new award for SCM. This applies to those whose circumstances require more compensation than the core route provides but who do not meet the eligibility criteria of the existing severe health condition for severe psychiatric disorders.

I was also asked about issues pertaining to carers. If someone who provided care to an infected person is not otherwise eligible for compensation in relation to that person—for example, as an effective sibling or parent—then they may be eligible for compensation as an affected carer and will be eligible to receive an injury award and a social impact award. Otherwise, infected people can continue to give all or some of their care compensation to affected people who provide that care. In the package of changes the Government have announced, we have increased the levels of compensation available to several groups of eligible affected people, but no specific changes are being made to the compensation available to carers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also asked me about police investigations. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has engaged senior investigators to conduct a review of all available evidence. That work is ongoing and has proven to be much greater in volume than originally anticipated, and I look forward to hearing their findings. One of the most heartbreaking things—if you can rank heartbreak when we are talking about these issues—or perhaps challenging issues here is the fact that there are still people who should be being held accountable for their actions.

We can all agree that getting this compensation scheme right is of the utmost importance. The Government are committed to ensuring that the scheme reflects the lived experiences of those infected and affected in a way that allows for the swift delivery of compensation by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority. These things, hand in hand, go some way to delivering not only justice but, I hope, a sense of peace for the community, if that is even possible.

The reality is that no amount of money is going to fix what was so badly broken here, but, at the very least, the compensation can go some way to supporting the families affected. The community and their stories must always be put first. Sir Brian Langstaff and his team always took this approach. Following the inquiry’s closure in March, I personally thank them for the sensitivity and care with which they carried out their important work. It is with this dedication to the community’s cause over nine years that we have reached this point today, and I know noble Lords across the House echo my gratitude.

The decades of tireless campaigning and the continued determination of the community is a story of strength which will resonate for generations to come. The changes to the scheme we have discussed today will provide uplifted compensation to many infected and affected people in a way that better reflects the unique experiences of so many. Beyond the compensation scheme, I hope they also feel that this consultation has given them a voice and shown that the Government remain committed to doing everything they can to work together to truly get this right. That is, after all, the least we can do.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister, because she is sincere and has done a lot to convince us that real change is happening. As ever, sadly, I have to declare an interest, as one of my sister’s twin boys was a haemophiliac who was infected with hepatitis C. He died aged 35, leaving a 10 month-old baby girl. Sadly, his mother—my sister—who campaigned for justice on the contaminated blood scandal for over 40 years died a few weeks ago so, sadly, will never see justice done.

A lot of other elderly and frail people, whom I believe the Minister raised in her response, are dying off. I want to know whether the Minister is aware that there is a great deal of concern about affected people who are not estate beneficiaries, because the Government insist that all infected claims must be processed before their affected loved ones can be considered. People are, effectively, being left to die without justice. Although the Minister raised the issue, I would like to know exactly what steps the Government are taking to prioritise estate claims of the elderly and frail beneficiaries, such as parents, ex-wives and siblings, who are not estate beneficiaries but have suffered terribly and are left waiting in prolonged anguish for the estate claim to be processed.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

May your sister’s memory always be a blessing. Your tireless activism will continue in her name—sorry, it was not meant to be me who got tearful. The noble Baroness has fought tirelessly with her sister. It is important that her name, Della Ryness-Hirsch, is on the record.

On the specifics that the noble Baroness raised, I will make sure that she receives a very detailed briefing and she can have whatever meeting she likes to discuss this in very great detail, as I have said to her. But let me be clear: the Government are prioritising those people who are reaching the end of life. All cohorts have now been opened by IBCA; that includes those affected. The noble Baroness may have specific concerns on behalf of her family, but I know that she also now carries a greater weight of fighting for the memories of all those people in this cohort and to make sure that justice is not just done but seen to be done and delivered. We will work together to make sure this happens.

[Lord Bichard (CB)]

My Lords, there is much to welcome in this Statement and I do welcome it, although some of it is belated. But we should never forget that this scandal, tragedy, or whatever term you want to use, happened because many public servants, I am sad to say, behaved despicably.

Although I can welcome the Statement about how the inquiry and its findings are to be implemented and compensation is to be paid, I do not see much evidence across government of addressing the problems that we clearly have with standards of behaviour in public service, which I think many people do not want to acknowledge—let alone do anything about. I do not think the answer is more efficient inquiries or even duties of candour. It is quite clear that the current arrangements, codes and advice that we have are not working. The greatest testimony to the courage of the people who have been affected—I have met many of them—would be if we used this as a way of addressing failures of public service in this country.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Lord will be delighted that I was appointed, seven weeks ago, to be the Minister responsible for standards in government. I am very much exploring all the issues that pertain to both the current standards regime and any changes that will need to be explored going forward. I look forward to discussing it all in detail with Members of your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lord is absolutely right that, on matters pertaining to the infected blood scandal and others, there was a failure of public servants. That is one of the reasons why the noble Lord may not think that the forthcoming duty of candour legislation will help to fix it. I truly believe it will. A great deal of this is about cultural change and about how, 31 years after their introduction, we embed the Nolan principles in all aspects of public life and make very clear the responsibilities that people have. I think people in some areas, both then and now, have forgotten their responsibilities. It is important that we ensure they are reminded of them.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I too welcome the unethical research awards, but I want to raise something that has been raised with some of us here by the infected and affected. I recognise the uplift, but there are concerns about how those final figures were arrived at. One of the concerns is that this sets a legal precedent; God forbid that there are any future victims of unethical testing. I know that people would welcome a little more detail, perhaps not today but in writing, about how those figures were arrived at. There is concern for others, not just for the people affected this time.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point. While I pray to God that there is not another example of quite the horror of this, the reality is that this is not the only compensation scheme running; there have been other moments in our history. I will write to the noble Baroness with the detail of how we got to this point with the calculations, and to make sure about any precedents that have been set. I appreciate the concern. However, it is incredibly important that we recognise what happened at Treloar’s as well as the ongoing memorialisation that will be happening for the victims of Treloar’s.

Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, there are many parts of the Windsor Framework, and every time I have a conversation or a briefing about it, there is always something new, and a new part of that world. However, puffins was not where I believed today’s debate was going to go. I hate to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Empey, but I have been in post for three weeks and the power part may still yet be lacking—but I will see what I can do for him, because I would never seek to disappoint.

We have had a truly substantive and insightful debate this afternoon. I begin by thanking my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for securing this debate and for his stewardship of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee. I also take this opportunity to wish my noble friend Lady Ritchie a very happy birthday.

The report we are considering today is very important, not just because of the detailed work clearly undertaken but because the engagement of businesses and civic society with Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements is important at both a constitutional and economic level. Similar themes were also developed by the very thoughtful review of the Windsor Framework conducted by my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and I am grateful to hear his further reflections today. There is something so special and addictive about Northern Ireland that means that those of us exposed to it become completely addicted and can never walk away from it. I think that is reflected by the fact that we have two former Secretaries of State participating today.

I have listened with great care to the contributions made from all sides of the House and I want to thank the noble Lords, Lord Dodds and Lord Caine, for reminding us of the stakes at play in Northern Ireland, both economic and cultural. Although noble Lords have different views across the diverse range of issues discussed today, a common thread has been our collective pledge to Northern Ireland’s prosperity, security and economic success, and a shared agreement that businesses, civic society, organisations and public authorities alike should have their voice heard in the very trading arrangements that necessarily underpin that success. Many specific points were raised today, and I will reflect on Hansard to see if I have missed any, but I shall endeavour to answer all the points raised.

I think it will be helpful if we place today’s discussion in context. I should first like to set out the Government’s ongoing commitment to the Windsor Framework and protecting the UK internal market—I assure the noble Lord, Lord Caine, that my speech has not been doctored—while appreciating that there can always be room for improvement. As we have heard today, not least from the noble Lord, those commitments were set out in our manifesto, and we consider them vitally important. They guide our reset with the EU, and they are our guiding approach to securing a vital new agreement with the EU that will smooth trade flows of agri-food goods. Those twin commitments are also important as they reflect the importance of trading arrangements that respect Northern Ireland’s place in the union, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, and which work on an agreed basis with the EU.

It is only through this approach that we can give certainty to businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland on the rules that apply, as they trade uniquely across two markets. That is why it contains important mechanisms to enable participation and facilitate that voice; the ability of the Northern Ireland Assembly to scrutinise EU rules; structures for businesses and civic society to engage with the UK and EU on the framework’s implementation; arrangements for the Government and Northern Ireland Executive to work together and ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is heard; and a periodic vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly on continuing these arrangements. The first such vote, as we heard, triggered a review of the framework that was carefully and thoughtfully conducted by my noble friend Lord Murphy with a wide range of stakeholders. The Government are now taking action on all the recommendations set out in that review.

That brings me to the real topic of today’s debate: the one-stop shop. Noble Lords are very aware, it seems, of the announced £16.6 million for an enhanced one-stop shop regulatory support service, designed to navigate the knowledge gap facing small and medium-sized enterprises. This will be operational in the next financial year, which I gently remind noble Lords begins next week. We are working to make sure that this can work. I assure your Lordships’ Committee that the one-stop shop will support GB businesses as much as it will support businesses operating in Northern Ireland. I will come on to some of the other points that were raised in relation to that shortly.

Progress has also been made on veterinary medicine—something I will again touch on, in terms of the detail raised today. The UK Government worked extensively with industry in the run-up to the end of the grace period. I am pleased to say that the transition has been without significant disruption—I am not saying there has not been any—and there have been no significant supply issues or other impacts, although we continue to monitor this closely.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that the Government have also allocated £2.25 million in funding to InterTrade UK over the next three years, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster—funding that will allow it to continue its vital work in advising on and promoting trade within the UK. I am sure that the work of InterTrade will assist in continuing to boost the economy of Northern Ireland, as outlined by my noble friend Lady Goudie. I remind noble Lords that Northern Ireland is the fastest-growing part of the United Kingdom. I place on record my personal thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, for her work at InterTrade UK.

My noble friend Lady Ritchie raised an important point about the role of InterTrade UK and the one-stop shop. I hope and would expect that the one-stop shop will work with InterTrade UK and other stakeholders to support trade and that this will be something that works together.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for addressing that issue, but what about InterTradeIreland, which already has a hub and could provide some beneficial information?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

Given the nature of InterTradeIreland, that is a matter for InterTradeIreland and is not something I can comment on from the Dispatch Box.

With regard to the specifics of the report, in short, a lot has been done, but there remains more to do, as this report by the committee highlights. Indeed, the Government’s response to the committee’s report following the independent review shows as much. This leads me to our next steps. We are ensuring that the stakeholder engagement landscape captures a broad spectrum of businesses in a new Northern Ireland business stakeholder group—just to add to the wonderful flowchart that we saw earlier today. We are also looking at how the Government and devolved departments can conduct engagement and capture the views of industry, so that this is joined-up and gets the right outcomes earlier on.

The Northern Ireland Executive participate in all structures under the Windsor Framework, yet we acknowledge that there is more to be done between the Government and the Executive to ensure that public authorities link up and address issues with changes to regulatory proposals earlier in the process. We are therefore implementing new processes to address that and facilitate better engagement at all levels, beyond the Cabinet Office executive office working group.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

Can the Minister say whether the United Kingdom will be tabling proposed improvements to the Windsor Framework as part of the reset negotiations?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord, who has been a Member of the other place and only recently of your Lordships’ House, will be aware better than me that I am not in a position to give any detail of ongoing negotiations while they are currently ongoing. The noble Lord will be aware that the impact on Northern Ireland is key to some of the negotiations, which is why we are focusing so much effort on the SPS deal.

We will continue to welcome contributions from the Executive, including at the Joint Committee—the governing body for the Windsor Framework and the withdrawal agreement as a whole. More broadly, looking at the committee’s report, we are taking forward a new phase of the Trader Support Service, which provides vital support to businesses with goods movements. Those issues were covered in the committee’s report and, in December 2025, we set out more information on the consortium to deliver it. We are working to give greater discretion to the Democratic Scrutiny Committee; it will be allowed greater discretion over how it conducts its scrutiny and the timelines for it. We are backing this up in Brussels, increasing resourcing, as requested by the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels, so that it can provide vital perspective to the institutions there as proposals are developed and considered.

I move on to transparency and awareness. Our approach seeks to ensure that the broadest range of voices from across Northern Ireland is heard, including from business and civic society. It also ensures that there is the right space for technical engagement between government departments and their counterparts in Northern Ireland and the EU institutions. It seeks to ensure that devolved departments are equipped with the right information about regulatory proposals to consider their impacts and advise the Assembly further on Northern Ireland’s interests.

Where issues are identified, we have already shown our capacity to take action, whether domestically, where we have announced consultation activity on toy safety and chemicals labelling and ensured that the UK internal market is protected in response to concerns from industry; or bilaterally, such as on dental amalgam or the arrangements to protect the supply of pharmaceuticals. On all these issues, we have listened to stakeholders, whether they are business organisations, civic organisations or the vital work of the Democratic Scrutiny Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Just as we will continue to support the scrutiny of the Windsor Framework arrangements and the rules that apply in the Assembly, and by the Independent Monitoring Panel, so too will we support the work of InterTrade UK on promoting the economic bonds and strengths of all parts of the UK, and the east-west council in developing the ties across it.

I move on to some of the specific questions in the order that they were asked and not necessarily grouped by issue. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, touched on EUR-Lex. Although the EU’s EUR-Lex tool can be used to read and consider detailed legal terms, we recognise the need for businesses to have clear and accessible guidance. The enhanced one-stop shop we are delivering will do that, providing businesses with tailored advice to navigate those issues. We believe that this is the best way that we can support businesses with explaining the rules that apply.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister. Is she saying that something better than EUR-Lex will be part of the one-stop shop, and that legal problems will therefore be solvable through that structure?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I am. Noble Lords heard it here first. Perhaps I do have a little power, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said—or rather, the people behind me do.

My noble friend Lord Murphy touched on the SPS agreement and how important it is. We are currently negotiating with the EU on an SPS agreement to make agri-food trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier, cutting costs and removing barriers to trade for producers and retailers across the whole of the UK. The agreement will benefit Northern Ireland through the interplay with the Windsor Framework, by making a more consistent approach to agri-food and plants. We will smooth the flows of trade still further. On 9 March, the Government provided an update on the changes this would entail for businesses. This includes a call for information from businesses so that the Government can understand exactly what they need.

My noble friends Lord Murphy and Lord Hain asked about the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels and the investment provided. The Government have agreed to provide funding to this office to cover up to three additional posts to ensure that Northern Ireland’s interests are accounted for in Brussels and that EU policy-making is accounted for in Belfast.

Parity of esteem was raised by my noble friend Lord Murphy. This seems particularly apt given how close we are to the anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We are committed to the agreement in all respects, which of course includes parity of esteem for the identities and aspirations of both communities. The application of the Windsor Framework does not shake that commitment.

Gently, I want to touch on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. He raised many issues related to how we got to this point and the question of what is temporary. I was given a slight history lesson earlier today about how many pieces of legislation have the word “temporary” in them, and that has not exactly been an unusual part of our legislative framework historically. I gently suggest that the agreements we have been discussing today were signed by his party when in government, and my party is trying to make the Windsor Framework work for the people of Northern Ireland, which is why we are also currently in the process of resetting the relationship.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

They were, of course, signed by the past Government, but they were described by the EU as temporary. That was the sole justification the EU gave for including trade with Northern Ireland in the withdrawal agreement. She cannot make a party-political point about it. She is either going to ignore the EU or believe it.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I believe my party is quite clear on our position on the EU, not least because I believe in international law and complying with our agreements.

One of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, was on veterinary medicines and the prices going up. She raised a specific case. I should very much like to hear the detail of it because to date, we do not have any evidence of prices going up.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

I have written to the Secretary of State about the issue.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent]

I have not had sight of that question and, apparently, neither has the person who gave me the answer. But online retailers continue to operate in Northern Ireland. As in the rest of the UK, prices between online retailers may vary. We recommend pet owners and others do their research to see which retailer best meets their supply.

The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and my noble friend Lady Ritchie, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Caine, rightly raised the issue of haulage, logistics and the trusted haulier scheme. We have accepted the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Murphy, in this area and are looking at all possibilities to reduce frictions for logistics and haulage businesses on an ongoing basis. In parallel, we will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the available facilitations. The Government have also established a new Northern Ireland business stakeholders’ group as a formal means of engagement between the Government and Northern Ireland business organisations. This group includes representations from key sectors, including the Road Haulage Association, and provides a direct channel for input into technical UK-EU fora.

The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, raised the issue of animal and livestock movement. He will also be aware that I have met the Ulster Farmers’ Union and some young farmers, and this issue has been raised. The noble Lord will be aware that the best way in which to manage this will be through an SPS agreement and that is why we are seeking to move quickly to deliver on this issue, but I have heard both him and the representations made by others.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, who previously chaired the committee, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and noble Lord, Lord Rogan, touched, as did other Lords, on the record of regulatory divergence. The Government’s priority is to deliver the enhanced regulatory one-stop shop to advise and support businesses in trading across the whole UK market. We believe that this one-stop shop is far better placed to support small businesses that face challenges. We will seek for this one-stop shop to provide regulatory alerts to businesses on changes to the rules, which we would expect to be accessible to them. The Windsor Framework and a set of online tools provided by the EU can already be used to find regulations of relevance to Northern Ireland. It is for these reasons that our response to the independent review of the Windsor Framework set out that a one-stop shop would be our focus going forward.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister again. I am a bit like a dog with a bone on this question of a database, because I am still not entirely clear that a one-stop shop answering specific queries is the same thing as a comprehensive database of all applicable laws being kept up to date, which is not static but dynamic. They are two different things, and I am not reassured by the Minister. I am sure that she responds in good faith, but I tried to suggest in my remarks that the two were conflated. I am not sure that her earlier answer to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, fully removes my doubts on the subject.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The Government have made a decision that we will focus on helping people work with it, rather than keeping a list, so that we can make sure that people have the support they need as they try to navigate the impact on their businesses and on their trade.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I apologise for intervening again, but will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss a way in which EUR-Lex change can be incorporated in the one-stop shop, possibly including some very simple ways of using existing techniques to simplify complex legal issues?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

How could I ever turn down an invitation from the noble Lord? Of course, I am more than happy to meet him to go over the debate. More importantly, officials can be there to make sure that what he wants is reflected so that we can actually make this work. We are taking a pragmatic approach to try to make this work and make it as easy as possible, while at the same time hoping to negotiate an SPS deal that takes away a great many of the issues we are talking about.

No one could doubt for a second the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, to the people of Northern Ireland and to trying to make these issues work. He touched on the issues of Safeguarding the Union and his PQs—obviously, I sign off every one. I realise that I am now over time, but I am more than happy to have a meeting with the noble Lord to discuss Safeguarding the Union, if that is acceptable to him.

I want to reassure noble Lords on some points, starting with noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, whom I assure that the interface will be user-friendly—or else—and will be focused UK-wide. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, asked about hauliers, and I hope I have responded to her in full. If I have not, I will look at what she said and come back to her.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, asked me about parliamentary committees in the other place. She will be aware that how it chooses to engage is a matter for the other place, and for Parliament as a whole, but I am delighted that noble Lords had the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee doing this very important work. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness that we have accepted all the noble Lord’s recommendations and are seeking to implement them—one of the questions touched on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Caine, asked me about future legislation. I reassure him that we will talk about this—I would suggest in this Room, but possibly on the Floor of the House—in the next Session, subject to me now getting told off by the Chief Whip.

In conclusion, the message from this debate is clear: we must continue to listen to and act on the voices of businesses and civic society in delivering Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements. I give the Committee the continued commitment of the Government today that we will always take practical actions on concerns to protect the UK internal market and flow of goods, be that east-west or north-south. As we do so, our focus will remain on the prize of delivering real prosperity, where Northern Ireland remains one of the fastest-growing economies of the UK, in part thanks to its unique trading position and businesses having certainty about the facilitations available to move their goods under the Windsor Framework.

However, I am aware of the ongoing complexities of how this is operating on the ground and, on that basis, I will visit Northern Ireland very soon. Noble Lords, especially those in Northern Ireland, will be aware that I am not allowed to say exactly when, but I will be in Northern Ireland imminently to see how the Windsor Framework is operating on the ground. I will meet key stakeholders who are delivering this, as well as businesses, to see what next steps the Government should consider.

The Government will support only those trading arrangements for Northern Ireland that protect its place in the UK and its internal market, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and can be agreed. While there is more to be done to ensure that Northern Ireland’s voice is heard in London, Belfast and Brussels, the Windsor Framework really does provide the best basis for that, and we are committed to working alongside our partners in the Northern Ireland Executive and the EU institutions as we take it forward, alongside new agreements with the EU, so that we may build an even brighter and more prosperous future for people in Northern Ireland and across the whole United Kingdom.

I again thank the committee for its report and I look forward to continuing to work with it in the coming months—I really hope that I did not disappoint my noble friend Lord Carlile. On that final note, I wish all members of the committee a happy Easter and chag Pesach sameach.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I ask for clarification on one point, and if she does not have it right now, perhaps she could write and put it in the Library. There are two parallel processes here. There is the EU reset and there are the specific conditions in the trade and co-operation agreement, where it is specified that there will be a review in 2026. I have asked the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and others a number of times whether the Government were preparing for those. We have two separate processes, one a treaty obligation and one a set of political negotiations. We need to know what we are doing, otherwise we are going to get confused. If the noble Baroness does not have the minutiae of it at hand, I would be more than happy if she would write to me.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I will write to the noble Lord.