Ministerial Code/Register of Ministers’ Interests

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will make a statement on enforcement of the ministerial code and the publication of the register of Ministers’ interests.

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

May I start by congratulating the right hon. Lady on her multiple new roles? I apologise for the fact that she has to put up with me for her debut. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is unable to be here, but I know that he is looking forward to working with her.

On 28 April, the Prime Minister appointed the right hon. Lord Geidt, former private secretary to Her Majesty the Queen, to the position of independent adviser on Ministers’ interests. In taking up the appointment, he agreed revised terms of reference for the role, which strengthen its independence. One of his core tasks is to oversee the preparation of the list of Ministers’ interests. In giving evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee last Thursday, he confirmed that it was his intention to publish the updated list on Ministers’ interests by the end of this month.

[Angela Rayner]

The ministerial code is clear: there must be no misuse of taxpayers’ money, nor actual or perceived conflicts of interest, but time and again Ministers act like the rules are for other people—none more so than the Prime Minister himself. Last year, he declared £15,000 from a Tory donor for his sleazy jet trip to a private island. This weekend, we read that the real cost was double that, and paid by someone else entirely.

People might ask, “Why is this important?” It is important because it goes to the very heart of our democracy. Who do our Government answer to: the public, or private interests? We learned only from the media that the Prime Minister has blocked the publication of the independent commissioner’s report. Can the Minister tell us why the delay? Does she accept that the rules apply to everyone, even the Prime Minister, and will he accept—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

The right hon. Lady raises issues about the ministerial code, the arbiter of which is the Prime Minister; the work of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which is a matter for that Committee; and the role of the independent adviser. She also touches on various reviews that are taking place and matters for the House authorities. As you pointed out, Mr Speaker, these are not things it would be appropriate for me to pontificate on, but I will try to answer the general thrust of the accusations the right hon. Lady makes today, and I shall speak frankly, because I know she appreciates that.

The charge the right hon. Lady makes is that the people she names are somehow on the take. That is the charge she is making here today on the Floor of the House: that they have not been focused over the past 16 months on working their socks off to save lives, to get a vaccination programme up and running and to do the things that the public need us to do, but that they have, unbelievably, entered into politics, made sacrifices and overcome the obstacles that she will be aware of to get into this place not to serve in public life but to do a mate—more accurately, a Tory mate—or someone they vaguely know, or met in a lift once, or perhaps do not know at all, a favour. That is the accusation that she is making today. I am afraid that that is why the Labour line of attack is not getting traction, well rehearsed though it is. It is not getting traction with the public because it is not plausible. It is based not on fact but on speculation, innuendo and smear.

Perceived conflicts of interest are not those that the right hon. Lady has made up. The public care about scrutiny—they do. They care about accountability, transparency and standards in public life. What they see through though is the performance she has given today, which is designed to smear decent colleagues and denigrate British business. I would direct the right hon. Lady to the National Audit Office report, which refutes the accusations she has made about MPs, civil servants, business and members of the public—but I am sure she already knows that. I would suggest to her that an Essex MP is perfectly entitled to forward an offer from the Essex chamber of commerce to help in a pandemic. MPs do it all the time—it is part of our job—but the right hon. Lady already knows this, too, and so does everyone else. The urgent question today has more to do with Labour’s internal politics and divisions than the conduct of Members of this House and enterprises that have been working to help the NHS and to save lives.

The right hon. Lady has made particular accusations today about colleagues, and I want to make a final point, Mr Speaker. If you were to take every single MP she has made an allegation about this afternoon, if you were to look at all the political donations they have received since the pandemic started, since January 2020, and if you were to add them all up and then double them—no, quadruple them—you would just about match what the right hon. Lady herself has received in the same time period. She should thank her lucky stars that we do not play the same games that she does.

The right hon. Lady is in a new position shadowing the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who now looks after some of the most pressing issues facing this nation: the Union of the United Kingdom, devolution, the recovery from this crisis, national security, community resilience and the British brand around the world. That is what we are focused on. I hope that, after her debut today, she will be too, and I wish her well.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

The role of the independent adviser is an important one, and I personally was impressed by Lord Geidt’s evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee last week. Ostensibly, the delay in the publication of the Register of Ministers’ Interests was due to the vacancy in that important position that arose after the resignation of Sir Alex Allan. What does my right hon. Friend suggest be done should such a vacancy arise again, so that the register is not delayed in the future?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend makes some very good points. He knows, because I have appeared before his Committee regarding this and other matters, that there have been delays to certain things, in part because of what the Government have had to deal with over the past 16 months, but those appointments are in train now. As he also knows from the evidence his Committee took, the register is due to be published very soon. I am sure that things will be on a much more stable footing as, hopefully, we come out of the pandemic.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

Annex B of the ministerial code says it is

“important that when a former Minister takes up a particular appointment or employment, there should be no cause for any suspicion of impropriety.”

Given that David Cameron worked as an adviser for Greensill Capital and is reported to have share options worth tens of millions of pounds, do the 57 messages to senior officials that we are aware of regarding Greensill Capital give any cause for suspicion of impropriety? Will that be investigated by the independent adviser? One of those messages to a senior civil servant said the decision

“seems bonkers. Am now calling CX,”—

the Chancellor of the Exchequer—

“Gove, everyone.”

Is that acceptable? Does that give cause for concern about impropriety and will that be investigated? When the Minister is on her feet, can she tell us what action, when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster got the call, did he take on behalf of his old boss?

[Penny Mordaunt]

As I said in my opening response to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), these issues are being looked at—there are reviews in train—and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on those until they have reported. However, I think all Members of this House will want things looked at. They will want to ensure that we get to the bottom of these issues, and I hope, too, that we will look at the wider issues around the Gupta Family Group and the role of the SNP in those matters.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I welcome the appointment of Lord Geidt and also the modest increase in the terms of reference to increase his independence. Do my right hon. Friends accept that it is possible still for us to go a little further to increase the degree of independence of Lord Geidt and his successors, and that it is not too late to add the extra levels of independence that have been suggested by Lord Evans and, among others, me to make sure that the role has extra credibility, without necessarily giving way to some of the extraordinary allegations that seem to prejudge some of the important work being done by independent or cross-party reviews already under way in this important area?

[Penny Mordaunt]

May I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for the work he has done on these and related matters? It is very helpful when colleagues make positive suggestions. My understanding is that a response has been sent to Lord Evans, but we are keeping all things under review. We clearly want to ensure that we arrive at a situation where we can have the greatest possible transparency and ensure that we retain the trust of the public.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Accepting everything that the Minister says about the probity of her colleagues, does she not think that it would be in their interests for their names and their reputations to be cleared by a system that is wholly independent of the Prime Minister? Complaints against Ministers could be investigated, those investigations would be instigated by someone independent of Government, and thereafter their conclusions would be published. Surely that would be good for her colleagues.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I think I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is in those colleagues’ interests that there is credibility and weight to any investigations. The difficulty is that we have this peculiar and unique relationship between Ministers and the Prime Minister—they are not employees; they are in a particular category—and therefore we have a situation where the Prime Minister is the arbiter and is responsible for the ministerial code. What we are doing in all of these processes is trying to arrive at the condition that the right hon. Gentleman describes, but still stay within the boundaries of what is legal and what is correct.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Thanks to the efforts of this Government at the beginning of the pandemic, at no point did Blackpool Victoria Hospital or other local organisations such as Blackpool Council run out of PPE, despite the obvious global shortages. The public would rightly expect Ministers to do everything within their power to source PPE to keep people safe, so does my right hon. Friend agree with me that the actions taken by this Government were both proportionate and necessary, given the circumstances?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do, and as well as thanking Members of this House who forwarded information to try to help address the PPE shortages, I should put on record our thanks for the incredible work of the procurement teams in the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care. One criticism the National Audit Office did make was that paperwork was not done on time, but I always remember one of the people who had done an incredible job during that period saying, “I would rather be criticised for late paperwork than a nurse not having gloves.” That is what enabled us to get equipment to the frontline during an incredibly difficult time for supply chains all around the world.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am not going to comment on any of the individual issues, as that would be wholly inappropriate; I want to ask the Minister why such a long time has passed since the last register of ministerial interests was published. It is not even now an accurate list of Ministers, because so many Ministers have changed. Would it not make far more sense and be more in the interests of the public if the register were published every month, and if all the details that related to an individual Member of this House were also published in our register, so that a member of the public could simply see everything that is relevant to that individual Member?

[Penny Mordaunt]

We have seen all sorts of innovations over the last year given what technology now enables, and the hon. Gentleman makes a very sensible suggestion. It is for Lord Geidt to take these matters forward, and I am sure he will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said today.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Given that the NAO has found “no evidence” that Ministers were involved in any decisions around emergency PPE procurement, does my right hon. Friend agree that throwing unsubstantiated mud like this for party political advantage damages not just the Government but our political processes and is deeply irresponsible?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend—and it also damages business. Without the efforts of the private sector, whether it be pharma companies or production lines changing to produce what the country needs, we would have been in a really sorry state. Let us be frank, part of this agenda is to discredit the private sector.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

If the Prime Minister does not respect the ministerial code how can he be expected to judge the behaviour of other Ministers who may have breached it?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Prime Minister does respect the ministerial code and he is the arbiter of it.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

MPs make mistakes from time to time and when that is drawn to their attention they apologise and we are severely admonished for them, but it is extraordinary that the new register of ministerial interests has not been published yet, and when Ministers start to double down and reports are not published, people start to wonder what the Government have to hide. Is the Minister saying to us today that no one has breached the ministerial code of conduct and that this is all just a misunderstanding that will be sorted out when various reports are published?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman’s question again betrays what is actually taking place this afternoon. I do not know; I do not have a crystal ball to see into the future. I am in the same position as everyone else, but what I do know is that to make unsubstantiated allegations about people is quite wrong.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Members right across the House received offers of support from businesses right around the country to make a huge contribution during a time of national crisis. Is it not the case that every Member has a responsibility to forward these offers of help and that all these offers were then judged on the same basis independently by the civil service, and to undermine this national effort is actually pretty damaging for the entire country?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. If there is one message I want to get across this afternoon, it is that if we are ever again in the situation that we found ourselves in last year, I would urge British business to step up as it did before. The public do not think the things that the Opposition say. They know that businesses in their communities did an incredible job, and we will stand up for them and thank them for their achievements last year to keep this nation safe.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]]

I do not think anyone is criticising business, but it is quite clear that we need an inquiry into lobbying, procurement, and ministerial and civil service conflicts during the covid crisis. However, experience shows that such inquiries are not effective if requests for information are ignored, so does the Minister agree that what we really need is a judge-led inquiry with the power to order production of evidence and to take evidence on oath, and with the threat of appropriate sanctions for non-compliance and for perjury or equivocation?

[Penny Mordaunt]

In preparing for this urgent question, I had in my pack a list of the inquiries that are going on into one aspect or another, and it ran to something like one and a half pages. My personal view is that I do not think we need any more reviews. We have the Committee on Standards, we have the House authorities, we have the Boardman review; we have all these pieces of work looking at all the issues that hon. Members have raised this afternoon. What I would like to do is focus on the matters of substance that are facing this country and ensure that we take the trust of the public with us in that respect. I would also say to the hon. and learned Lady that I am afraid that part of the agenda is to question business. That is what is going on this afternoon.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

The National Audit Office found no evidence that Ministers were involved in any decisions around emergency PPE procurement—or in the procurement of ear pods at £250. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Labour party had spent more time helping us fight the virus rather than banging on about wallpaper and the procurement of PPE, it could have gained back some trust from the British public?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. It is perfectly legitimate for any Member of this House to raise issues around how we hold people to account and how we scrutinise things, but he has characterised how this is being presented, and he will know from his constituents that the public take a dim view of it.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Paragraph 1.3.c of the ministerial code states:

“Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister”.

Does that rule still apply, and does it also apply to the Prime Minister?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Of course it still stands; it is the ministerial code. I am sorry to say that this is another question that does not make any substantial allegations or provide any facts or evidence; it is smear and innuendo, and it is not the way to behave.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

The National Audit Office found no issues with the PPE contracts. The Labour-led Public Accounts Committee, on which I sit, commended the Government’s vaccine programme as world-leading. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this attempt from the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) has more to do with her bid for votes from the Labour membership than with any concern about public procurement?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne will reflect on what she has done this afternoon, and if she does have ambitions in the leadership department, I would ask her to reflect on whether what she has done today is the hallmark of a leader.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

The ministerial code states that the register of interests must be published twice a year. The latest one is five months late, so it has been 10 or 11 months since the last one was published. At the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee last week, Lord Geidt told us that he was determined that a full list of Ministers’ interests would be published

“as quickly as possible…by the end of this month.”

Can the Minister confirm that all Cabinet Ministers have resubmitted their interests and give a more precise date for when the new list will be published, given that the end of the month is during parliamentary recess?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sure that the right hon. Lord Geidt will publish the register before the end of this month. That is what he has said; I am sure that he will wish to do it in a way that is helpful to the House and that he will have heard what the hon. Lady has said. I do not know which Cabinet Minister has filled out which form; all I can tell the hon. Lady is that as a Minister of the Crown, I have certainly filled out mine, and I am sure that my colleagues have done so as well.

[Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and her colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care for their efforts to ensure that the Cumbria local resilience forum and our North Cumbria health trust were kept stocked with PPE at the height of the pandemic, enabling them to keep my constituents in Workington safe. I remember the pressure that Ministers were under at the time and will forever be grateful for the often late-night correspondence dealing with potential issues. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right that Government Ministers did everything that they could to get their skates on, as they were urged to by the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), and pass on all offers from businesses to help to secure vital PPE at a time of national crisis?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for putting on record the tremendous job that was done in his local patch. He is saying that credit is due to Ministers, but actually credit is due to colleagues across the House. For many months, I took a call every morning at 10 am, sometimes from hundreds of colleagues across the House. People from every single political party put forward offers of help for PPE and all sorts of things that the health service needed. That is part of our job, and people made a huge difference to the effort by doing it.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I wrote on 25 March to the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, about the No. 10 refurbishment. I asked 24 questions on potential breaches of the ministerial code. Two months on, I have still not received an answer. Is this an admin error or do the Government have something to hide? People in Luton North and across the country deserve answers, especially when they are struggling to keep a roof over their head, never mind defending a luxury refurb. Will the Paymaster General please ask her colleague the Cabinet Secretary to respond to those questions?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sure that the Cabinet Secretary will respond to the hon. Lady. He takes his responsibilities very seriously. The problem is that the matter is now the subject of a review—it is a subject for someone else to look at. I think, in all honesty, that there is nothing I or the Prime Minister could say at the Dispatch Box that will satisfy people until someone independent says it. I have to say, again, that this is a sideshow. I very much encourage the hon. Lady to return to the matters of substance, which I am sure are the issues that her constituents care about.

[Mr Speaker]

I will just say for the record that I expect MPs’ letters to be answered. MPs on all sides have a job to do, and they can only be helped by early answers to their correspondence.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]]

Over the past few weeks, I knocked on hundreds and hundreds of doors in my constituency during the local elections, and not a single constituent mentioned the wallpaper of the Prime Minister or his holidays. What they were concerned about was welcoming the implementation of Brexit, how the Government were handling covid and the success of the vaccination programme. Does the Paymaster General agree that unless the Labour party gets its act together and starts listening to the people and their concerns, it will remain the Opposition party?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree; I had a similar experience on the doorstep during the recent campaign. That is not to say that the public do not care about standards in public life and accountability. They do care about those things; they just recognise this for what it is, which is a load of flannel.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP) [V]]

The first part of this urgent question is about enforcement of the ministerial code. I have heard a great deal about reviews and recommendations, codified guidelines and inquiries—maybe too many inquiries or the wrong inquiries. I am not besmirching anybody here and I am not alleging anything, but if somebody in the Cabinet Office has broken the ministerial code, what is there to enforce their taking the right action and resigning from their position?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Ultimately, that is one of the responsibilities of the Prime Minister. It is because of the unique status of a Minister—that they are not an employee—that that exists. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

My constituents care about scrutiny, transparency and standards in public life. Will the Minister reassure the people of Anglesey that all offers to supply PPE were assessed by independent civil servants using a rigorous eight-stage process to ensure that any contracts awarded delivered not only high-quality supplies, but value for taxpayers’ money?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. There is, I think, a perception that if a business flagged their offer to a Member of Parliament or a Minister they somehow bypassed the system. They did not. They still went through those eight rigorous checks and the National Audit Office has confirmed that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

I have a high regard for the Minister, but I am afraid I struggle with her explanation on this issue. On 22 February, inadvertently or not, the Prime Minister made a misleading statement to the House regarding PPE contracts. He stated that they were all published. They were not. That is based on a High Court ruling and is irrefutable. His lack of apology and correction of the record is clearly a breach of the ministerial code. That this happens with seeming impunity—

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

We all know that Government procurement is a long, clunky and expensive process. It was therefore of clear national importance for the Government to fast-track some procurement decisions, particularly in relation to PPE, to protect people and keep people safe. Does the Minister agree that the recent elections in Teesside, where we gained a new Member of Parliament and a landslide for the Tees Valley Mayor, show that the public support our decisive decision making over the Labour party’s political point scoring?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The British public want us to focus on the issues that matter to them. They want us to recover quickly, both economically and in dealing with the backlog of issues we have in education and healthcare. They want us to get on and deliver. What they do not want is this Punch and Judy politics. They are tired of that. They want some delivery. They want some competence. That is why they are electing Conservatives across the country.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Government face a slew of allegations over contracts for mates, lobbying, conflicts of interest and influence. Does the Minister think now is the time to exempt a new Government agency, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, with £800 million of public money from existing procurement and freedom of information rules? When faced with sleaze, surely the response is to stop the sleaze, not the scrutiny?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Sadly, again more smear. It seems that anyone who was awarded a contract for PPE or anything else is a Tory mate, even when they turn out to be a Labour party donor.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I welcome the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) to her place—or to one of her many places, I should say—but I cannot really welcome the tone of her questions. I am surprised that she is continuing with these unsubstantiated allegations. Perhaps in all the excitement of the reshuffle and the announcement of her shadow Cabinet, she has forgotten that the elections have already taken place—or perhaps she has another election on her mind. Is not the truth of the matter that since 2010 this Government have strengthened the ministerial code, strengthened the requirements around the publication of Minister’s interests, and introduced the requirement to publish all Government contracts over £25,000? The record of the Governments in the past decade has been to massively increase public scrutiny and transparency.

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is absolutely correct, and I could add to the list the things that we have also done to increase transparency and accountability at a local government level, which we know was an area that needed to be looked at.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP) [V]]

The Minister has been deflecting from the fact that whether she likes it or not, there have been breaches of the ministerial code. Does she believe that simply trying to deny it or attacking anyone who tries to raise the issue is a satisfactory response to her earlier assertion that the public care about transparency and scrutiny?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I have said several times this afternoon that the public do care about that and they are right to do so. We should be here to answer questions about those issues. What I am not going to put up with is decent colleagues, decent businesses and members of the public being smeared by innuendo. I think that I have made my views very clear on that, and I hope that Opposition Members, including the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner)—and I do wish her well—reflect on that.

[Mr Speaker]

I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.

Emergency Alerts Service

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Written Statements

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

The Government will introduce a new emergency alerts service across the UK later this summer as part of the Government’s continued work to improve our resilience in the event of emergencies. Emergency alerts would inform people of serious emergencies, either nationally or in their local area, which could affect them by broadcasting information directly to their mobile phones.

Emergency alerts would only be used to warn and inform the public in emergency situations when lives are at risk. It is anticipated that this could include public health emergencies, severe floods, fires, industrial incidents and terror attacks.

Messages will always include details of the impacted area, situation, actions for people to take and a link to further information not transmittable in the alert message such as maps and images. This capability is already used around the world in countries such as the United States, New Zealand and Canada, and has been shown to help save lives.

Ahead of introduction, the Government are working in partnership with the devolved Administrations to ensure that all relevant emergency responders across the United Kingdom have access to the capability.

The Government are also working with the charity and voluntary sector to ensure that the needs of the elderly, vulnerable, young people and those with disabilities are fully considered as the new service is delivered.

The new service will be secure. Alerts can only be sent by authorised governmental and emergency services users. Emergency alerts cause the phone to vibrate and emit a unique noise making them difficult to ignore and to mimic or spoof. Emergency alerts are broadcast from cell towers in the vicinity of an emergency, meaning that no personal data is collected and the service will never be used for commercial purposes. As part of its development, there will be a series of public trials of the system where we will send out live test alerts to the phones of people in Suffolk (25 May 2021) and Reading (15 June 2021).

Should the public trials prove successful, the Government will send out a national welcome message to the whole of the UK later this year.

During the pandemic, the Government communicated direct to the public via text message when we asked people to stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives. This new alert builds on that capability, but by broadcasting from cell towers, the new emergency alerts messages would be quicker and delivered instantaneously to all recipients.

Public testing will allow us to check the effectiveness of the system and ensure that members of the public are familiar with the new system and know what to do should they receive an alert in future. There will be localised public information campaigns ahead of each test to inform people about the look and feel of the alert and what they should do when they receive it. There will also be a nationwide public information campaign ahead of the full national launch of this new capability.

To ensure that as many people as possible receive emergency alerts in future, we would encourage people to make sure that their phones have the latest manufacturer’s software updates downloaded.

[HCWS33]

Covid-19: Government Transparency and Accountability

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

I shall certainly do my best to answer as many hon. Members’ questions as I can. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for their interest in the critical issue of how data has helped to shape our response to the pandemic. I put on record my thanks to PACAC for its work, its report and its very helpful recommendations. The report makes it clear that the Government have

“overseen a remarkable effort pulling together data on Covid 19”,

with

“much of this data and analysis available to the public”.

It repeatedly refers to the Government’s openness with data, noting:

“The Government has responded to requests for new data and improved access to evidence.”

I also put on record my thanks to the civil servants, scientists and partner organisations that have done incredible work over the past 12 months—I think that the authors of the report and all Members of this House would agree with that. They have had to bring together very complex datasets from very different types of science and fuse them together in a way that enables us to be informed and enables Ministers to make decisions. That has been incredibly difficult and they have done it very well.

[Bob Seely]

I know that the Minister does her best to listen. Does she accept that a lot was presented without context? This was very complicated, but, looking back, I think it could have been done in a way that gave much greater context and greater openness to the debate.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Certainly. I shall acknowledge some of the things that hon. Members have raised; I do think we need to learn from the past 12 months and look at how in future we can do this better, although God forbid we are ever in this particular situation again. As a Minister—I know my colleagues feel the same—I am always looking to continually improve and build on what we know works.

I also put on record my thanks to the House of Commons. When I was preparing to come before the Committee, I looked at what the House had done with the data that the Government produce; it has done a fantastic job in trying to inform colleagues about what is going on through the hub on our intranet, so I thank the staff of the House.

The Chair of PACAC, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), raised several points. I will not relive my evidence session with the Committee, but in defence of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whose attendance several colleagues raised, he has a huge in-tray to deal with—this week he has been overseas as part of his responsibilities with regard to passports. I am developing a complex because every time I come before a Committee or appear in the Chamber, people are always keen to tell me that they are very disappointed to see me. I know that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is very alive to the issues that have been raised; I think he is coming before the Committee soon and has had considerable correspondence with it.

[Mr Harper]

On ministerial accountability, I accept that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is incredibly busy, but it is the central responsibility of Ministers, however busy they are, to be accountable to this House; that includes the Prime Minister, who spends hours in front of the Liaison Committee. Nothing is more important than Ministers’ accountability to the House and Members’ responsibility on behalf on the public. Since the Paymaster General mentions the Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster’s trip to Israel, where no doubt he is discussing vaccine passports, could she answer my question about the Government’s proposal on the decision that it will put to this House, so that we can rule out any of the shenanigans that we have read about in the newspapers?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am fairly confident that I can flatten any suggestion of shenanigans in that regard. These are not only very distinct issues, but conditional on very distinct things. What we do on international travel, over and above our own border controls, is clearly contingent on work with international partners. The World Health Organisation will be developing and thinking about schemes that it might put in place for a covid equivalent of the yellow fever card. Those are clearly very different from the domestic issues that my right hon. Friend refers to; I know that people would not want to conflate them and that it would be unhelpful to do so. I think that I can confidently say that.

Many Members touched on the complex balance between fighting the virus and trying to mitigate its impact on people’s livelihoods, mental and physical health, and freedoms. That is why this is obviously such a complex situation.

The hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) raised many issues, but two in particular. On preparedness, she will know that I published the latest iteration of the national risk register on 18 December last year. External bodies welcomed that and said it was an improvement on its predecessors. On local information, she will remember from my evidence to the Committee that I was very robust in agreeing with her that people who have been in the frontline of this response are the local resilience forums, the local authorities, and our local health and care services. Giving them the data they need to make decisions is absolutely critical. As the crisis has gone on, we have got better and better about giving them information and sharing information, because this is obviously a two-way process.

It is also vital that members of the public can go on the public health website and look up in their area, right down to ward level, the number of positive cases, virus tests conducted, hospitalisations, death rates, and admission figures for both ordinary bed occupancy and mechanical ventilator bed occupancy. They can see all that data. That is not just good for transparency’s sake; it is a hugely motivating factor in getting people to follow the advice of the chief medical officer. Our actions are not just helping the nation; they are helping their neighbours and the nurses who are looking after people in their local hospital. They are helping their friends and neighbours.

[Karin Smyth]

I am really grateful for the Minister’s comments, but may I write to her on the issue I raised with regard to public health clinicians in local authorities being able to access to NHS data? Will she liaise with her colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care on that important issue? If she can give me an assurance that she will look at that if I write to her, I would be grateful.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Certainly. I hope that some of the questions I have already raised with colleagues may pre-empt that. I know there are requests from local authorities on issues such as encouraging people to take up the vaccine, when they want to ensure they are able to get good data and are able to work together to encourage people who have yet to come forward to do that. These issues are very important, and I will be very happy to take up the hon. Lady’s suggestions.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely)—I thank him for his kind words—raised issues about quality control and how we present data, which I agree with. I think people have learnt all sorts of things about how to present data and slides in a way that is suitable for television, and a whole raft of other issues. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West reminds us that our audience is sophisticated—they can accept that there will be gaps and that we will learn things as we go through the pandemic—and that we should bear that in mind as well.

A couple of hon. Members raised the issue of lagging data. There will be pieces of information that, by their very nature, have a lag, for example between people being infected and being admitted to hospital. Again, we have to set the context and ensure that we explain what particular information is demonstrating, that we make the best judgments on that, and that Ministers are informed when they are given data.

My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight framed an argument about covid being a cause of death versus other causes of death. I am very conscious of that. Before this debate I was reading an incredibly sad story of a double suicide. A young woman without access to the post-natal care she needed took her own life. Her mother then took her own life. We are all aware of the incredibly sad stories and the devastating things that have happened to families during this time. Also, the actions we have taken to control the virus are about keeping health services going, as well as covid being a cause of death; I think sometimes we lose sight of that.

I want to turn to some of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) raised. The impact on businesses is absolutely at the forefront of our mind, and as well as the data we are looking at what more we can do to help businesses to keep going. Just this week, I have been asked to support Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the issue of the wedding sector as we go into this critical period, in order to keep that sector strong and ensure that it has a good summer season. This is not just about the guidance and the rules that we put together; it is also about the lead-in times that people need to make their decisions. Those issues are not lost on us.

[Steve Brine]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Can I just make a little progress?

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock also spoke about care homes. Since 12 April, people in care homes have been able to have two visitors, but she is right to say that this has been a really difficult time for those in palliative care and for people with a learning disability or behavioural disabilities. We are in happier times now with regard to care, but the restrictions on care services have been very difficult for many people. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) rightly raised issues around presentation, which I agree with. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) made points about SAGE spokesmen, and I will certainly feed that back.

[Steve Brine]

My point was around helping to support the hospitality sector and the weddings industry. At the end of the day, the best way we can help them is to let them trade. They have not been able to trade because of the pandemic. Either we believe in the vaccine or we do not. After 21 June, we will have freedom from the regulations, but the Boomtown festival in my constituency has had to be cancelled this summer. It was due to take place in August, and there is no reason whatsoever why it should not go ahead, but the messages it is getting are mixed and no one is sure whether Ministers actually believe in the vaccine. Does the Minister?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I certainly believe in the vaccine. I am a volunteer on the vaccine programme. There has been a huge effort by science, by manufacturers, by our healthcare services and by the army of volunteers who are not just helping to put the vaccine into people’s arms but directing traffic and doing a whole raft of other things. The vaccine is critical to our having the confidence to unlock, and I encourage everyone to come forward to get it. My hon. Friend is right to say that this is not just about the ability of people to trade; it is also about the chilling factor, particularly in sectors such as the wedding sector, where we need not just to get people back trading but to give people confidence that they will be able to have those events. I can reassure him that that is very much our focus, and we hope to be able to say more on that as we progress through the road map.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will take just one more intervention, because I know we are short of time.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

There is a very specific reason why many of these outside events will not take place this summer. It is because they cannot get commercial insurance. The insurers simply do not believe that they can take the Government’s word on trust. There has to be sharing of risk, but the Government have dragged their feet for weeks and unless they make a decision now, we will lose July. If they do not make a decision before May, we will lose August, and so on. This has to happen now, because these events are worth at least £2 billion a month.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am glad I took my right hon. Friend’s intervention. If the Government have a role in this, it is to create a situation where it becomes possible for the insurance sector to provide products.

[Bob Seely]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am not going to take any more interventions; I am sorry.

I am very aware of the issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and I am certainly helping with regard to weddings. I can reassure him that this issue is well understood, and I hope that I will be able to come forward and say a bit more about the wedding sector. I will feed back to my colleagues on the wider insurance point, which I know many colleagues have raised before.

I am going to end there, Madam Deputy Speaker. Forgive me, but I wanted to respond to all the points that I could. I thank colleagues for their interest in this area and the sensible recommendations that have been made. We have acted already on some of them, and we will be bringing forward a response to the full report.

Prosperity Fund: Change of Ministerial Accountability

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Written Statements

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

The cross-Government prosperity fund arrangement will end on 31 March and prosperity programming will move to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as part of a machinery of Government transfer. The transfer will help drive strategic coherence across overseas development assistance (ODA) programmes. This will allow the Foreign Secretary to make decisions on aid to implement the UK Government’s integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy.

The machinery of Government change will take effect on 1 April 2021.

[HCWS889]

Infected Blood: Victim Support

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Written Statements

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

Today I am providing an update on parity of financial support, the commitment to considering a compensation framework, and enhancements to the psychological support for the victims of the infected blood tragedy.

Parity

In July 2019, a UK-wide agreement was reached in principle to resolve disparities in levels of support for people infected and affected. In January 2020 at a meeting with campaigners, the UK Government committed to resolving the disparities in financial support in Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland as well as addressing broader issues of disparity, including support for bereaved partners.



I am pleased to confirm that the following changes are planned to the four separate schemes to bring them into broader parity. Increases in annual payments will be backdated to April 2019. Where lump sum payments are being increased, this will apply to all current scheme members. We will work with the four schemes to communicate the changes to beneficiaries. Beneficiaries will continue to receive their current payments until the changes can be made. We hope that the schemes will be able to make additional payments where required by the end of the calendar year, and sooner if possible.

The key elements of change for the England infected blood support scheme are:

annual payments for bereaved partners will be increased to an automatic 100% of their partners annual payment in year 1, and 75% in year 2 and subsequent years, in line with the position in Scotland;

the lump sum bereavement payment will move from a discretionary £10,000 to an automatic £10,000, in line with the position in Wales;

the lump sum payment paid to a beneficiary in the scheme with hepatitis C stage 1 will increase by £30,000 from £20,000 to £50,000, in line with the position in Scotland; and

the lump sum payment paid to a beneficiary in the scheme with HIV will increase from up to £80.5k maximum in England, to an automatic £80.5k.

In addition, the schemes managed by the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be similarly adapted so that across the UK there is broad parity of payments to infected and affected people. These adaptations are in line with the UK-wide agreement reached in July 2019.

In Scotland, the changes are to increase annual payments for infected beneficiaries and bereaved partners, and to introduce £10,000 lump sum bereavement payments for the families of those beneficiaries who have died since the scheme began.

In Wales, the changes are to increase annual payments for infected beneficiaries, increase both the payments and length of payments for the bereaved partners, in line with the position in Scotland, and changes to the lump sums for hepatitis C and HIV.

In Northern Ireland, the changes are to annual payments for non-infected bereaved spouses/partners, lump sum bereavement payments, and a commitment to introduce enhanced financial support for hepatitis C (stage 1), at the same payment levels as in England, as soon as a system can be put into operation.

We have agreed with Health Ministers that any future changes to national schemes would be subject to consultation between the UK Government and devolved Administrations.

Compensation framework

To meet the Government’s commitment to consider a framework for compensation, we can confirm our intention to appoint an independent reviewer to carry out a study, looking at options for a framework for compensation, and to report back to the Paymaster General with recommendations, before the inquiry reports.

The terms of reference of this study will be finalised in consultation between the independent reviewer and those infected and affected. The study will include consideration of the scope and levels of such compensation, and the relationship between a compensation framework and the existing financial support schemes in place.

The study is entirely separate from the public inquiry, which continues to have this Government’s full support; it will not duplicate the work of the inquiry, or cut across the inquiry’s findings. The study shall provide the Paymaster General with advice on potential compensation framework design and solutions which can be ready to implement upon the conclusion of the inquiry, should the inquiry’s findings and recommendations require it.

The name of the independent reviewer will be announced shortly.

Psychological support

Since May 2020, there have been important improvements to how beneficiaries of the England infected blood support scheme can access psychological support. Beneficiaries are now able to receive funding for counselling directly from the scheme without GP approval or the need to access waiting lists. This change has been communicated to beneficiaries.

The Department of Health and Social Care will continue to work with EIBSS and NHS England and Improvement to review if further improvements are necessary to the psychological support which is available for beneficiaries.

Finally I would like to place on record my thanks to the inquiry chair, Sir Brian Langstaff, and his team for the way the inquiry has managed to continue its work throughout the last 12 months despite the challenges presented by covid-19, and for consistently putting the interests of the infected and affected victims at the heart of their decision-making when dealing with significant logistical and planning challenges.

[HCWS895]

Leaving the EU: Impact on the UK

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and add

“welcomes the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and recognises the enormous opportunities for Scotland’s economy.”.

Forty-eight years ago, the UK joined the European Economic Community, a concept built by giants. Its founding vision was based on peace and economic prosperity and much good came of it—economic, social and political—but over the years it evolved into something altogether different. Those who campaigned for Brexit did not do so because they objected to the benefits of being in the EU—the free flow of goods, shared security co-operation, ease of travel or reciprocal benefits. What they objected to was the price of those things.

Some objected that the situation prevented developing deeper co-operation with other nations, or that it supported protectionism that held developing nations back, or that it facilitated misery and suffering for refugees and economics, or that it undermined NATO, or frustrated our service economy. Some resented our inability to control our own laws, our own immigration policies or further border controls. Some were concerned about being tied to the eurozone in any way or to the European Court, others about the immense costs of membership and the lack of accountability, political and fiscal. Some wanted us to have our own fishing, agriculture and environment policy, and to realise our ambitions to promote trade for a prosperous and peaceful world.

The negotiations that preceded us leaving the EU and in the run-up to the transition period ending were complex, but our aims can be summarised in three sentences. We wanted to keep the good bits. We wanted to lose the bad bits. We wanted to maximise the possible opportunities for every part of the UK. The post-negotiation scorecard shows that we did well. Under the deal reached with the EU, people in Scotland, as well as all UK nationals, will be able to benefit from a wide range of social security rights when travelling, working and living in the EU, including access to an uprated state pension and to reciprocal healthcare arrangements.

[Alan Brown]

Has the right hon. Lady asked the fishermen and the seafood industry how they would mark the scorecard? Also, does she think it is acceptable that the Fisheries Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), said she did not read the details of the deal because she was involved in a nativity play at her local school? Surely as Fisheries Minister she should have known exactly what was in that deal?

[Penny Mordaunt]

If we are talking about scorecards, a policy of handing back coastal waters to Scottish fishermen will win every time over handing back their new quotas to the EU. I am very happy to be judged on that basis.

The trade and co-operation agreement allows the UK to take full advantage of the opportunities available to us as an independent trading nation and strike trade deals with other partners around the world. We have started to use those new-found freedoms. We now have a points-based immigration system, which is open to the whole world and the talent that is out there, and can be tailored to our needs. Following the comments from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), I hope she will be supporting the Home Secretary’s initiative to establish safe routes for refugees fleeing conflict areas, rather than them having to rely on people traffickers.

The Agriculture Act 2020, which replaces the EU’s bureaucratic common agricultural policy, transforms how we support farmers. The Fisheries Act 2020 enables us to control who fishes in our waters. We have launched our new global human rights sanctions regime. There is the UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement, and we are replacing overly bureaucratic EU structural funds with the new UK shared prosperity fund.

Brexit was an event, but now there is a process. From outside the EU, we can develop, refine and build our relationship with the EU and its member states for the benefit of all our citizens. The noble Lord Frost and I, and all members of the Government, will be working day and night to address the remaining and future issues for businesses, and to listen to their needs and ambitions. We take those issues incredibly seriously. We will resolve the problems, some of which the hon. Lady touched on.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Was the Minister as amazed as I was by a complete absence from the rhetoric of the Scottish National party? It has been calling for the same special arrangements for Scotland that Northern Ireland has, but now that we have seen what the protocol actually means, no one actually wants it. May I encourage the Minister and Lord Frost to continue to push back on the protocol and repair the damage that has been done by it?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman has my assurances that we will continue discussions within the framework of the joint agreement. He knows that there is tremendous concern about and focus on those issues. But no, I was not surprised by some of the things that were missing from the Scottish National party’s opening remarks. I was not surprised that there was no offer to help the efforts to resolve these issues for business. Businesses in Scotland want their representatives to do that. They do not want political grandstanding about another referendum. They want the Scottish Government to focus on improving the situation and not to be distracted by scandal.

[Alison Thewliss]

The right hon. Member is talking about asking the Scottish Government to help out in some way. The Scottish Government have put forward their proposals on many occasions, including “Scotland’s Place in Europe” and proposals on many other aspects of Brexit, but they have been roundly ignored on every single occasion. It is for the UK Government to take on the Scottish Government’s offers of help and assistance, rather than to shut the door in our face on every single occasion.

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is not the case. We have done a huge amount. I have been part of that engagement with Scottish Government Ministers and officials. It would be nice if Scottish National party Members would start talking up the opportunities for their businesses, goods and services, because there are many—from financial services to manufacturing to world-renowned Scottish products—that will remain protected in the EU through geographical indicators, as they were before the end of the transition period. The trade and co-operation agreement is only one of many agreements as the UK enters the global stage as a sovereign trading nation. We have already struck deals with countries including Canada, Japan and Singapore, with many more to come, and we will grow our GDP and increase our trade with the rest of the world, creating new opportunities for exporters, and delivering better choice and value for money for our consumers.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

I thank the Minister, who is my county neighbour, for giving way. While she is extolling the virtues of the deal that is being delivered by this Government, does she agree there is a seeming inconsistency from SNP Members—that is, having voted against the deal at every stage during its the passage in this place, they would have ensured a no-deal exit from the European Union, which would have made more disruption for Scottish people?

[Penny Mordaunt]

That goes to the heart of it. I do not think that Scottish National party Members are interested in practical benefits for the people they represent. What they are interested in is causing division and chaos.

Let me turn briefly to the fishing sector. I have already spoken about securing the uplift in quota for Scotland. We also recognise the critical role that the Scottish fleet plays. It is for that reason that we have secured £14 million in the spending review to support Scotland’s domestic fishery priorities; that is in addition to the £100 million, and goes way beyond our manifesto commitment to maintain funding. This investment will modernise and rejuvenate the industry, and strengthen the long-term sustainability of the catching and processing sectors.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central also mentioned Erasmus. We changed our negotiating position at the start to incorporate the asks of the devolved Administrations regarding Erasmus, and we fought very hard to get a good deal from the EU, but that was not on offer. Instead, we have developed the Turing scheme, which will benefit more students and students from a wider variety of backgrounds than previously enjoyed the Erasmus programme.

An SNP Opposition day debate does not happen every day, so the topic chosen and the content of the speeches tell us much about the focus of a particular political party. There is a clear theme to both debates today, and, alas, it has been a predictable one: to unpick democratic votes, and to ignore and undermine referendums. Nothing about business results; everything about overturning results. I look forward to seeing whether SNP speakers this afternoon offer one practical suggestion to any of the unresolved issues affecting businesses, or offer any help to persuade the EU of initiatives that will benefit all parties. The SNP, through its fanaticism and now its emerging conduct, is losing the fragments of credibility that it once may have held. Today, we have again seen its Members’ contempt for democracy.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I think the Minister is doing the SNP a disservice. Do the Government not owe it a debt of gratitude for enabling the premature election that resulted in their 80-seat majority and Brexit happening in the first place?

[Penny Mordaunt]

There was, I am sure, an electoral dividend, as the citizens of the United Kingdom were fed up and wanted to get Brexit done, but I wish we had not had to go through quite the gymnastics that we have over the last few years.

The SNP’s relentless mission to stir up hatred, division and mistrust—

[Alison Thewliss]

That’s outrageous!

[Penny Mordaunt]

I refer the hon. Lady to her opening remarks. I think the Scottish people deserve better than that. The real political heroes of the last few turbulent years, to which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) referred, were not those who won referendums; they were those who lost referendums and adhered to the results. They were those who voted for an independent Scotland and accepted the result of that once-in-a-generation vote, and those who voted to remain in the EU but accepted the mandate to leave.

That faith in democracy, that respect for their fellow citizens, is the ultimate expression of mutuality—equality— in which we all share. It can be found in our NHS, in the vaccine programme, in our welfare safety nets, in every charity and voluntary organisation across the land, and in every gesture of good will and kindness towards a neighbour, including neighbours across borders. These deeply felt connections, responsibilities and care we have towards each other are at the heart of the Scottish nation, and they are at the heart of every nation—the four nations—of this United Kingdom. They are what makes those nations and our country great, and the SNP’s selfish, self-absorbed separatist rhetoric will never destroy that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before I call Ian Murray, I will just point out that we will start with Back-Bench contributions of four minutes. I have no doubt whatsoever that that will move down to three minutes later in the debate so that more Members can get in. If you are participating remotely, please keep an eye on the clock that should be on the bottom right-hand side of the device that you are using. Please do not exceed the time limit, because you will be stopped by the Chair. For those participating in the Chamber, the time limit will be shown in the usual fashion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

The SNP has allocated £600,000 to hold a referendum and campaign for one this year. The hon. Lady’s leader in this place, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), has said that the referendum should be in 2021. In the earlier debate, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) said it will happen in the next 12 months—whether it is in December or January of next year, it will be within a year. While we are still struggling to fight this pandemic, while we are still seeing lives lost and livelihoods on the line, the SNP priority is, as always, separation. That is their mandate and all they are interested in.

We also have had no comment from the SNP today, in a debate about Brexit and the EU, on the EU’s roll-out of the vaccination programme and how we in Scotland have benefited from decisions taken by the UK Government, led by the Prime Minister, to procure and develop vaccines right at the start of the pandemic. These vaccines are protecting people in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. How does our vaccine roll-out in this country compare with that in the rest of the EU, which the hon. Lady would like to take us straight back into?

The hon. Lady also spoke about all the great infrastructure that has been built and developed in Scotland during the SNP terms in office. I tried to intervene on that point, because I would be interested to know what she thinks of the actions of one of her party colleagues, an SNP Cabinet Minister in the Scottish Government, Fergus Ewing, writing to his own Government asking their Transport Secretary to give his constituency some good news ahead of purdah—ahead of the period in which the Scottish Government are not allowed to make any further announcements. SNP MPs know that their 14 years are coming back to haunt them: their inability to get ferries into the water and to get hospitals open to take patients. It has been a litany of failure over the past 14 years and it has come to the extent that SNP Ministers have to ask their own Government to try to sneak out some more information because they have let down so many communities.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would just like to update the House by saying that the success of the vaccine programme in Scotland has meant that a third of the eligible population have been vaccinated, whereas the figure in France is just under 8%.

[Douglas Ross]

The Minister outlines the figures excellently. I know that my own parents have benefited—they have been vaccinated in the Fiona Elcock centre in Elgin. People across Moray and across Scotland have benefited because of the vaccine roll-out in the UK and in Scotland. I want to reiterate that the two debates from the SNP today have been all about division and arguments about the past, with no positive vision for the future. The Scottish Conservatives are determined over the next seven weeks that we focus on Scotland’s recovery and on building back better than before this pandemic struck. We will be supporting jobs and livelihoods and communities right across Scotland. The SNP just want more division and I think that people across Scotland are beginning to realise that after 14 years of failure we can do so much better than that.

Vaccine Passports

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate all Members who spoke in the debate and who helped to secure it, particularly the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill). I also congratulate the petitioner and everyone who signed the petition that has led to the debate, which is timely for a number of reasons. First, it is a pre-emptive strike, because the covid status certification review has yet to commence—indeed, as was alluded to, its terms of reference and the detail of what it will consider were published today; that information can be looked at on the Government website. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will lead on this and will primarily look at the domestic-facing issues that many Members referred to. The review goes wider than vaccinations, taking in testing and an array of other issues. To be helpful to hon. Members, let me say that, in parallel, a cross-Government group chaired by the Secretary of State for Transport is working on the international-facing and travel issues that Members have spoken about. That feeds into the work of the covid team in the Cabinet Office, and CDL has ultimate responsibility for that.

The review will report in advance of step 4 on the road map, which, as hon. Members will know, will be reached no earlier than 21 June. The review has come about in part because in spring, the Government committed in their covid-19 response to reviewing the potential role of certification in our handling of covid-19 from summer onwards. The review will assess whether certification could play a role in opening up the economy and society, reducing restrictions on social contact and improving safety. I reassure hon. Members that we very much want to return to our normal way of life, which means not just lifting restrictions, but having all the other things that we previously enjoyed and have missed over the last 12 months.

The review will consider the extent to which certification would be effective in reducing risk and helping to open up parts of the economy. It will look at the ethical, privacy, legal and operational aspects of certification and their implications for those who are unwilling or unable to be vaccinated, the equalities implications, to which hon. Members have referred, and the impact of certification on groups who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

[Mr Steve Baker]

There are many questions that I would love to ask, but I will ask one in particular. Can the Minister confirm that, if people choose not to get vaccinated, they will bear their own responsibility and the rest of us will not be held back because some people have made a personal choice not to have the vaccine? If they do not want the vaccine, that is fine, but they should not hold the rest of us back.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I cannot give my hon. Friend many answers today, as the review has just started, but what I would say to him is that, in all of this, we have to remember that the reason why we are charting our way out of this situation is, yes, in part due to fantastic science and the success of the vaccine programme, but also that members of the public have taken care of and taken responsibility for themselves and other people. We have not legislated for that to happen; it has happened because people feel motivated to take responsibility. We have to remember in all of this that, even though we are very used to passing laws talking about enforcement and all those other things, ultimately this has been about the British public taking responsibility for themselves, their families and their communities.

I thank the hon. Member for Hartlepool for setting out at the start of the debate why this is not a call from anti-vaxxers or covid sceptics. It is not. Legitimate questions are being raised about our freedoms and the practicalities and the implications of this for people who are disproportionately affected by covid. The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of the degree of control we have over decisions that may be taken in international forums. As I understand it, any international agreement would be years off; an initiative spearheaded, for example, by the World Health Organisation, would be many years down the line. We are in control of what we decide about our own borders and our own systems, but clearly my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and others are talking to international counterparts to get something that makes sense and also to learn from good practice.

The hon. Gentleman also spoke about those who are not able to have the vaccine. People have spoken about physical health conditions, but there are also mental health conditions. I have been speaking to people who have a severe phobia of needles and could not in any way be injected. I know that vaccine companies are looking at alternatives, but at the moment we do not have those alternatives.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) spoke very powerfully, as he always does, about our freedoms. As an aside, I will say that I looked up the powerful Patrick McGoohan quote that he gave from “The Prisoner”. I have to say that my hon. Friend did not say the preceding two lines, which were:

“I will not make any deals with you”,

and,

“I’ve resigned”,

although he has used those in other debates. But he does make a very powerful case about the practicalities. Would this actually have a practical effect if we were to bring it in? He raised very important points about equality. I can confirm that those are in the terms of reference for the review. Also, I hope he will take some comfort from what Ministers have said in the past about papers for having a pint. I think that that is the approach that people want to take, but it is right that we look at these issues and look at them in a transparent way. Again, this debate will help to inform and steer the review.

[John Spellar]

Is not one of the fundamental rights the ability to work? Huge numbers of our citizens are not able to work. Many have been made unemployed. Many are teetering on the edge because their businesses are on the edge. Surely the vaccine taskforce has shown us how we can move prudently and at pace, and perhaps we need to be getting a bit of urgency into this.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those comments and, indeed, for his contribution in the debate. He is right. I think that everyone in the House, no matter which side of the argument they are on, wants people to be able to get back to those freedoms that we had perhaps taken for granted—the freedoms not just to be with our loved ones and to have a social life, but to earn a living. The cost of the last 12 months to individuals in not being able to do that has been devastating. We all understand that. That is why we want to look at all the practical measures we can to give people as much certainty as possible in future. We need to ensure that the review looks at the practicalities: what would be the upside if this were to come to pass?

The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) spoke about the importance of evidence, particularly of the effect of the vaccine on transmission rates. Like other hon. Members, she also discussed pregnant women. In a week when we have been looking at how women are short-changed in a variety of ways and while many women going to job interviews still complain about questions about whether they are pregnant or planning a family, anything that put further weight on someone’s having to demonstrate why they did not have a certificate would be very disappointing indeed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) focused on the importance of trust and the fact that, ultimately, trust is how we are going to get through this—we have to rely on that, rather than having so much focus on Government action. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke eloquently about the absolute issues of civil liberties and certain individuals who may be missing out—particularly those who will be vaccinated later in the programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) emphasised that we have to listen to others’ experiences and ideas. The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) raised the issue of international travel, which I have addressed, and the fact that people are more likely to be open to data being shared if there is a benefit to them from doing so. That is what we need to come back to in this review: what is the benefit to our citizens of doing this?

My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), Chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, asked about employees. Again, the matter would be for individual employees. My understanding is that contracts would have to be rewritten if vaccination were to be made compulsory. On the back of his comments, I pay tribute to all healthcare professionals who are doing an incredible job in phoning up individuals who have concerns about taking the vaccine to reassure them. That is the way to do this, and a huge effort is being made to give people confidence that they can take it.

The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) raised the issues of evidence and transmission and of those who are highly marginalised. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) also spoke about those issues, and he and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) both spoke about the dangers of creep: if such things happen, where will it all stop? Those points have been well made and will have been heard by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) spoke about the dangers of people being coerced into taking the vaccine; I point him to the very clear statements that the Prime Minister has made on that subject—that no one should be coerced or forced to take the vaccine; it is a personal choice. Enormous numbers of people are taking it, of course, including the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whom I congratulate on getting his. I hope it was a positive experience. He will, I am sure, have been very moved by the work that not just healthcare professionals but volunteers are doing. Good luck with the second jab!

The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), the spokesman for the SNP, rightly said that the main effort needs to be the vaccine roll-out. I agree and hope that we can take a four-nation approach on these other matters. We want simplicity and consistency for all our citizens.

The hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) raised a number of questions, some of which I think are answered by the terms of reference and the publication put out today. She is right that we want to have all efforts behind the vaccine programme. People are taking the vaccine because it is good for them and it is good for other people. We need to remember that that is why we are winning this battle against covid: it is personal action by our citizens, doing the right thing. I assure her that we will not let up on our public health campaigns either.

The vaccine programme continues to be successful, and I thank all who are contributing to it. We look forward to the economy’s unlocking and to getting back to what we remember as normal—whether that is being able to see loved ones, to attend a protest if we wish to, or simply to enjoy a pint in a beer garden with roses in bloom—but if we are to get back to that, we must also focus on the practical things that must happen. Hon. Members have touched on those practical and ethical issues, but I think they have also summed up the public mood: people want to get back to normal and they do not want to be told what to do. If we are going to do anything in this space, it must be of practical benefit and it must be something that the public would wish to be done.

I thank all hon. Members for contributing to the debate, which I am sure will help to shape the review. It will not be long before my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will be back to report on the findings.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 2 to15.

[Penny Mordaunt]

My noble Friend Lord True said on Second Reading in the House of Lords that, although “specific and limited” in its aims, this Bill is a significant reforming measure for women and points the way to wider reform. It will make an important and long overdue change to existing law by enabling Ministers and Opposition spokesmen for the first time to take paid maternity leave from their job for an extended period. It ends the unacceptable situation where a Minister would have to resign from Cabinet or their post to recover from childbirth and to care for their newborn child. Members in the House of Lords have exercised their role as the reviewing House and have decided to return the Bill to this House with amendments and the Government are content to accept those amendments in the House today.

The Lords amendments make a number of changes to the drafting in clauses 1 to 3 of the Bill, substituting the word “person” with the words “mother” or “expectant mother” where appropriate. These amendments tabled by my noble Friend Lord Lucas were supported by the Government in the House of Lords in recognition of the strength of feeling on this issue displayed in both Houses. The Bill, as originally drafted, was in line with the long-standing convention to use gender-neutral drafting where doing so is necessary to achieve the full policy intent. The use of the word “person” in this Bill as originally drafted achieved both those aims.

The amendments that the Government are accepting today to substitute “mother” or “expectant mother” where appropriate for “persons” in clauses 1 to 3, although grammatically challenging in places, do not affect the operation of the Bill and achieve the twin aims of being legally accurate and delivering on the policy intention. Moreover, the use of the word “mother” or “expectant mother” where appropriate is in line with recent case law of the Court of Appeal, as was noted by Lord Pannick in the House of Lords. These amendments are legally acceptable and the intention and meaning of the Bill would be unaffected by such a change. As discussed previously, the word “woman” or the word “Minister” would have run into legal difficulties, and I hope the words “mother” and “expectant mother” will be acceptable to hon. Members. During the passage of the Bill through the Commons, we also amended the explanatory notes.

I know that there will be some who are concerned by these amendments and by the Government’s accepting them, and I hope to give them some reassurance today. Many of their lordships who spoke in favour of these amendments also spoke about their understanding of and commitment to LGBT rights. Many hon. Members in this place who I think would support the revision were, when discussing the Bill with me, also focused on ensuring that if we ever had a trans male colleague in future who needed to make use of the provisions, that would be the case. We also hope to bring forward work in future on shared parental leave and adoption leave. If legislation is needed, and we expect that it may well be, we would add new sections to the Bill, and we anticipate not having to return to amend the wording back to “person”.

I thank all those who have taken part in debates in both Houses and made interventions. The Bill before the House today makes an important and long-overdue change to existing law. It will enable all Ministers, for the first time, to take paid maternity leave from their job for an extended period. Women who aspire to and hold high office will no longer be disadvantaged. It is in recognition of these amendments that the Government wish to proceed on that basis.

We also recognise that there is much more to be done, and, as we have said, this Bill is the first step. Throughout the Bill’s passage, the Government have made commitments to Parliament both on the wider reports on issues that could no longer be accommodated in the Bill and in relation to a review of language used in drafting legislation, with a genuine willingness to work with parliamentarians. We are thankful to Members of both Houses for their willingness to work with the Government on this issue.

I once again thank the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and her colleagues for their engagement on this Bill, and all hon. Members who have contributed to and spoken with passion in these debates. The Government are keen—some members of the Government in particular, I might add—to ensure that this Bill receives Royal Assent as soon as possible. I ask the House to accept the amendments and send the Bill for Royal Assent.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Having covered many of the key arguments on this Bill in previous Commons stages, I will keep my comments brief. Labour has agreed to support the Bill for the specific purpose of ensuring that the Attorney General can take maternity leave as a matter of urgency. It is shocking that we are currently in a position where women Ministers face resignation or demotion when choosing to have children.

While Labour supports the Bill as a small step forward for pregnant Ministers, there is no doubt that far too many gaps remain in it to make it fit for the 21st century. This is an important opportunity to reflect on the desperately unequal reality faced by so many women across our country today. As Centenary Action Group highlighted,

“The legislation must not be seen in a vacuum but instead as the opportunity for a…call to action to protect parents in the workplace during these difficult times.”

I am shocked that the Government have failed to respond to the discrimination faced by pregnant women trying to access the Chancellor’s self-employment support scheme during the pandemic. Indeed, the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed highlights that nearly 70,000 women were unlawfully put on statutory sick pay, thereby negatively affecting their maternity pay and other entitlements. I hope the Minister will address these broader concerns in her closing remarks.

Members across the House have expressed the widespread disappointment that the Bill lacks the ambition that it should have or any attempt to broaden it out in terms of other forms of parental leave. I welcome what the Minister has said about aspirations for Government to include paternity and shared parental leave in future legislation. I urge her to also consider the need for adoption leave and leave for parents of premature and sick babies. Indeed, the debate over the wording in this legislation and the consequence of the Lords amendments reflects the extremely limited nature of the Bill. We would not be having this discussion if the Government had made adequate provision for all parental leave.

Let us be clear: every single person, no matter their gender, deserves to have parental leave when they become a parent, but the Government’s last-minute rushing through of this Bill has stifled any wider progress on this issue. I point out that the speed at which the Government are acting to ensure that the Attorney General can rightly take maternity leave is in stark contrast to their failure to support pregnant women facing discrimination and hardship throughout the pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) [V]]

I would like to say a few brief words and thank all other right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. This is all about making sure that Ministers’ maternity allowances are in place, so the amendments are very simple, as has been suggested, and I believe that there should be no difficulty in accepting them.

I can well remember that when someone close to me had a miscarriage, she was told on Mother’s Day by a lovely lady who had given her flowers in her church with all the other mothers. “You do not have your baby, but you’re still a mummy.” Whether a mother holds her baby in her arms or only in her heart, the creation of life gives her that title and I believe that it is right and proper that we respect that in law. I support the amendments, which simply clarify that position.

I echo the comments of others who have suggested to the Minister in a very nice way that this should be the first stage in delivering for elected representatives in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, and for councillors and those who hold positions in local government. It is time to get it right. In her conclusion, perhaps the Minister can reassure us that those in the devolved Administrations and at council level will find the same liberties, equalities and opportunities.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. In closing this debate, I will respond to a few of the points made. The Government have been clear throughout the debate in both this House and the House of Lords that the Bill is an important step forward that at last makes provision for Ministers to take paid maternity leave. I repeat my thanks to the Opposition Front Benchers for their constructive support—not only on this, but on the future work we are planning to bring forward. I am pleased that the Bill will be able to make similar maternity provisions for Opposition office holders as well.

I turn to the comments of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). In earlier consideration of the Bill, I spoke about the context in which we are bringing it forward. I am very conscious that even if we took into account future ministerial post-holders, this is still a tiny group of individuals compared with the general population.

There is work that we want to bring forward, not least the work that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been leading on, to help make progress on a number of related areas. This Bill has afforded me the opportunity to check in with those Ministers and to encourage them. It is understandable that the effort of that Department has been focused on the pandemic, but if we are to recover from that, we have to ensure that women are economically empowered and are supported, and many of the things that BEIS has been looking at will help do that.

The hon. Lady asks whether we have considered premature and sick babies. We have, and I think the provisions in the Bill will certainly help anyone in that situation. We originally drafted this Bill to incorporate adoption leave and shared parental leave, but it was too difficult because of some of the issues around the royal prerogative, Ministers, caps on payroll and so forth, which is why we need a little bit more time to do this additional piece of work before we bring back, I think, future legislation to address those issues.

That will also dock into work that hon. Members will want to do in this place with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. We recognise its independence, but clearly we are talking about the same individuals. Indeed, the Attorney General may have got her ministerial situation sorted—I hope, if this Bill gets Royal Assent—but she will still face the difficulties that other Members have spoken about as a Member of Parliament.

Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), I first thank him and the all-party group for the incredible work they have done not only on domestic issues, but internationally. When we in this place look back at footage of our predecessors and see some of the remarks made decades ago about LGBT people and the homophobia that was exhibited, I am sure that all of us cringe. I think we should ask ourselves whether, were we in the Commons at that time, we would have called it out. Would we have gone out of our way to send our support, empathy and understanding to gay people at the time?

The challenge for us today is exactly the same with trans people, and I hope that all Members of this House—I know that many Members do—take that responsibility extremely seriously, none more so than my hon. Friend. The amendments we are accepting today are legitimate and understandable, and critically they are also legally sound, but let me say in supporting them from this Dispatch Box that trans men are men and trans women are women, and great care has been taken in the drafting and accepting of these amendments to ensure that that message has got across.

So often these issues are presented as an intractable row between two incompatible positions. They are not; they are about all people being able to go about their lives and to be supported in doing so. I know that many hon. Members in this place and their lordships in the other place feel that very strongly and feel a huge responsibility. As a woman, I agree with many of the comments made today. I want the rights of all women to be taken care of and all men to be safeguarded, too.

The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) made some very good points. I have to inform her again, sadly, that Ministers have no rights because of the royal prerogative—I am sorry to say that—and, therefore, the Prime Minister is the arbiter of this, but I cannot imagine a situation where any Prime Minister would not allow someone to take maternity leave. If anyone has any idea how to get around that as a Minister, I am quite keen to have some rights. We will obviously keep that under review, but that is the current situation.

Ministerial and other Maternal Allowances Bill

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

The haste with which the Bill has been brought forward is perhaps reflected in some of the amendments that we see on the amendment paper. I would like to address the amendments tabled by the SNP. I think they have been tabled with the best of intentions, but if, instead of giving women the option of taking maternity leave, we make it a requirement, we would remove the element of choice, which is incredibly important for women when it comes to if and when we have children, how many we have, and how we balance work and motherhood. Similarly, the amendments that would increase the requirement from six months to 12 months would make us lose some of that flexibility, which is incredibly important.

The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) have been addressed by the Minister already. Indeed, the language is already in the legislation, in the sense that it talks about the offices held, rather than the women who are pregnant. That is why the legislation is written as it is, and in that regard I am very much satisfied.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) has tabled a couple of amendments. She made a point about the equality impact assessment. Perhaps less haste would have led to better legislation that included fathers, adoption, paternity leave and flexibility around premature babies. That would lead to an improvement in representation in public life.

I will keep my remarks short. In conclusion, the Opposition support the Bill unamended. The Bill is the right thing to do for pregnant women, and it is imperative that it makes progress with haste, for fairly obvious reasons. It is not perfect, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and it is, of course, the next baby step in progress towards true equality.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Before I turn to the nitty-gritty of the amendments, I will address wider points that Members have made. I thank all Members for their contributions and their thoughtful remarks in this important Committee stage.

In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for coming to the Chamber today, and for her interventions. Her experience is incredibly valuable. One of the key points that she reminds us about is the different status that a single person may have for different aspects of the jobs that they do here. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) spoke about the peculiar employment status of a Member of Parliament, which is distinct and different from that of a Member of Parliament who is also a Minister. A Minister is also an employee, and there are slight differences there. That is one of several reasons why this is a highly complex issue, but that does not mean it cannot be tackled.

In addition to the issues that have been raised regarding Members of Parliament and the challenges they face, there are still outstanding issues for Ministers in relation to shared parental leave, an examination of paternity leave—although, as I have outlined, there is provision there at the moment—and adoption leave. Sickness and bereavement is a grey area. We also have an additional issue for our colleagues in the other place who may be unpaid Ministers. That needs to be resolved, but it obviously plays back into the issue of maternity leave. These are very complex matters, and I reiterate again my gratitude to Her Majesty’s Opposition for their engagement on this.

Let me turn to IPSA. Clearly, it is an independent body, and in the work that follows today we will have to respect that independence, but the Government are none the less absolutely determined to bring forward proposals collectively.

[Stella Creasy]

Over the past two years of seeking progress on this matter, and trying to ensure that Members have the options and the support that we are giving to Ministers, one of the things that I have been told is that IPSA has asked Parliament to offer a view. Indeed, this rather anarchic approach to what our employment status is has had an effect. Will the Paymaster General therefore commit to our having parliamentary time for a debate on this? It does not need to be a Government-led debate, but we do need parliamentary time for it, and that is in the gift of Parliament. That way, if IPSA, on a very short timetable, asks the House to take a view, we will get that view, so that we can resolve the matter.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Although time on the Floor of this House is not in my personal gift, I hope that what I am about to set out will demonstrate to the hon. Lady that we are not just doing this as an exercise. These issues must be resolved. Yes, this is a matter that immediately affects Members in this place, but resolving this is also vital if we are to meet our ambition of ensuring that everyone who wants to sit on these Benches and is elected to do so has the working practices that they need to thrive, live their life and raise a family. That is very well understood.

We respect the independence of IPSA, and while we have to work with it—the Government have committed to supporting it—and the House authorities, all Members of the House will want to contribute to this important analysis. We want to look at custom and procedure. We also want to examine what legislative change may be required, particularly with regard to Ministers, which is the most complex issue. Recommendations by and to IPSA will be made through the usual channels. There has been quite a large amount of discussion about this already, with the help of the Opposition. As I have said, the Government will support IPSA on any of that work, and on any of the issues that we are all seeking to address. Its independence will be respected in line with its statutory footing.

Many colleagues who spoke on Second Reading are concerned about the impact assessment. We have undertaken to carry one out, but I add this caution: if Members want an impact assessment of this piece of legislation, that is very easily done, and will be really great for a very small number of people, but of no use whatsoever in advancing anyone else’s rights or opportunities. We want—we have set this out in a note that we have shared, I think with the office of the hon. Member for Walthamstow, and certainly with the Opposition; I would be happy to share it with other colleagues around the House—to undertake an impact assessment that looks at current legislation on the issues we have discussed this afternoon in relation to Members of Parliament. We will also take into account work already done, or in progress, by the relevant Select Committees, particularly the Procedure Committee and the Women and Equalities Committee. As I have said, I would be very happy to share that note with hon. Members. Perhaps the best place for it is in the Library.

There are a couple of other issues that I want to address before turning to amendments.

[Stella Creasy]

It is incredibly welcome that the Minister is talking about doing a much wider impact assessment. For clarity—this issue has been raised today—looking at the wording of it, can she confirm that it will look at the impact on not just Members of Parliament, but their staff? We are drawing this distinction between parliamentary staff and people who work in Parliament. We need to look at everyone, so that we can be confident that every single woman and potential partner of a woman in this place will get the support they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point, and I think Members would feel very uncomfortable looking at their terms and conditions but not those of their staff. Again, that is a matter for this House and for IPSA, but the Government’s view is that we need to look at this in the round. If we are to make changes, let’s do it properly and ensure that all Members of this House and the Committees can contribute.

I thank the hon. Lady for what she said about how we can help mitigate the abuse that Members of this House have faced, and I hope will not face in future, when going on maternity leave. It is appalling what hon. Members on both sides of the House have been through, and I commend her for calling out that abuse when it is taking place in her own party; when others call out abuse from within their own parties, that is quite right, too. We need to support colleagues as they take maternity leave.

I turn to the amendments, and I apologise for the dry nature of what follows. It is the necessary part of putting a Bill through Parliament, and those tuning in at home might wish to put the kettle on at this point.

Clause 1 provides the basis on which a Minister can take paid maternity leave by setting out how and under what conditions a person can be appointed to the position of a Minister on leave. The concept of a Minister on leave is a very important one. As the Bill makes clear, the role of a Minister on leave is outside the restrictions in place at any one time, as set out in the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, and outside the upper limit on the number of Members of the House of Commons who can serve as a Government Minister at any one time, as set out in the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. It is through this mechanism that the Government can ensure that the twin aims of this part of the Bill are met—namely, that Ministers are able to take paid maternity leave, and can remain part of the Government, without needing to resign from office.

Clause 1 makes it clear that it is within the Prime Minister’s discretion to designate a person a Minister on leave, subject to a number of conditions. Those conditions are set out in detail in subsections (2) and (3), which make it clear that a person can be designated a Minister on leave only if they are pregnant or have recently given birth, if they are already a Minister holding ministerial office, and if they cease to hold that ministerial office at the point of designation as a Minister on leave. Subsection (5) provides clarity about the ministerial offices that fall within the scope of this Act by reference to the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975.

[Meg Hillier]

I agree with the right hon. Lady that the clause uses a dry way of saying something that I think is actually really important, which is that in all of this discussion we need to remember that prime ministerial patronage is limited by that Act for good reason. While that should not be the enemy of improvements for women who are going on maternity leave, I do think that it needs to be considered. If we think of recent Parliaments, in which majorities have been very small, it is quite an increase, percentage-wise, to the payroll if more people are added to it. I am grateful to the drafters of the Bill for having thought this through, and I hope that in any future work she does, that is seriously considered as part of the mix, so that the House at least debates any decision to change that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for putting that much more succinctly than the clauses do, and she is absolutely right. That is part of the reason why this is so complicated. We tried to put this and other issues in the Bill, but that has not been possible.

[Mr Holden]

Has there been any consideration of unpaid Ministers in the House of Lords? They get a daily allowance normally, but they do not receive a salary. Has that been taken into consideration at this stage of this legislation?

[Penny Mordaunt]

It is not part of the scope of this Bill, but the Prime Minister has said in his written ministerial statement that it is one of the issues he wants this future piece of work to look at. I think it is fantastic that we have more women in the House of Lords, and we want those women to be able to hold ministerial office. If they need to take maternity leave, they should be able to do so.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Prime Minister believes that it is quite wrong for Ministers to have to resign in order to leave work after giving birth to care for a newborn child. The Bill before the House today will make an important and long-overdue change to the existing law. It will enable all Ministers for the first time to take paid maternity leave from their job for an extended period. Thanks to changes made in the ministerial code by the Prime Minister in 2019, there are now codified arrangements by which Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and Ministers of State can take maternity leave. Their roles will be covered by a redistribution of their responsibilities among remaining Ministers. Secretaries of State or other holders of individual offices such as Law Officers or the Lord Chancellor, owing to their constitutional role and the sheer volume and complexity of their workloads, have not been able to make use of this provision.

There has been a similar failing in the situation for Opposition office holders, where the statutory limit on the number of salaries that can be paid means that there is not the flexibility for them to take leave and for their cover to be paid. The Bill provides that it is possible for Members in those posts to take extended leave. It would apply to post holders of the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Whips in both Houses, and up to two assistant Whips in the Commons.

I am very grateful to Her Majesty’s Opposition for their constructive engagement in the preparation of the Bill and welcome their support for this landmark measure.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Penny Mordaunt]

If I may, I will make a little progress.

I particularly thank the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) for her engagement and her commitment to the work that we wish to undertake following the Bill to address the other issues that need dragging into the 21st century.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Secretary of State for what she is saying. This has been a particularly difficult time for new parents, new mothers and new babies. During this lockdown period, I have been blessed with two grandchildren, so I have an idea of what it means. It has been a difficult time. The term is a “lockdown baby”. Will the Minister confirm whether there is an extended time for maternity pay? Are there incentives for companies to extend maternity pay? We really need quality maternity leave because of the circumstances of the past year.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but it is slightly beyond the scope of this particular Bill. In fact, the beneficiaries of this Bill are indeed very narrow and I shall comment on that further in a moment. I know that my colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and elsewhere in Government are clearly looking at a whole raft of long-overdue issues. I am sorry that the pandemic has delayed responses to consultation for very understandable reasons, but his points are well made. I am sure that, throughout the course of this debate and Committee stage, hon. Members will want to touch on the situation facing people other than the handful of individuals that we are concerned with this afternoon. On moving this Bill today, I do so with humility in recognition of that.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I warmly support the Bill, but can Her Majesty’s Government confirm that only a biological woman can have a baby? Will the Minister therefore explain to me why the Bill refers to “a person” and not to “a woman”? If we are going to adopt extreme gender ideology, why are the Government doing it by stealth and why can we not have a transparent debate on the matter? This insults the dignity of many women.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I hope to be able to go into detail about this later in the debate. I know that many Members will want to speak to this issue, and I will want to hear what they say, but I want to reassure hon. Members across the House that there is absolutely no intention of doing that. This is not a policy decision around language, and the Government will still use the word “women” in all documents, as is our policy. The issue is a particular drafting issue, and I can come on to the detail later, in Committee. I hope to be able to give all Members some comfort today about the language that we will be using. I hope that my right hon. Friend will allow me to leave it there for the moment, but his point is well made and very well understood by myself and the rest of Government. I hope that, by the end of today, people will be reassured on that front.

Although they are outside the immediate scope of this Bill, I know that there are considerable and long-standing concerns about the provision of support for hon. Members in this place who wish to take maternity leave. This has been highlighted by many colleagues across the House. There have been some improvements in this area in recent years, and I commend Mr Speaker and his colleagues and the House authorities for their continuing support for reform in this area, but clearly more is needed, and I hope that the cross-party work that follows this Bill may afford us some opportunities to address those outstanding matters.

Returning to the Bill, it would be reasonable to ask why the Government do not in such circumstances simply take on another Minister as maternity cover. The situation is that there are no fewer than three Acts of Parliament governing the issue of ministerial numbers and pay and, more pertinently, the relevant restrictions on them. Until now, the limits on the number of salaries that can be paid overall, and for individual officers, have left the Government with limited flexibility to appoint cover should a Minister want to go on maternity leave. In a nutshell, for someone to be appointed to cover, and for that individual to be paid, the temporarily outgoing Minister would have to resign. This Bill puts an end to that wholly unacceptable situation. Instead, it will enable a Minister to take up to six months’ paid maternity leave to care for their newborn child, subject to certain conditions and at the discretion of the Prime Minister, while remaining a member of the Government.

This provision will be similar to that available to members of the armed forces and the civil service and, significantly, it responds directly to a recommendation made in 2014 by the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament. The Bill does not try to confer equal terms or provide absolute parity with maternity leave provisions for all employees and workers. Both adoption leave and shared parental leave are important provisions, but they are not included in this piece of legislation. They are complex issues that require further consideration in the wider constitutional context, but they are not impossible, and I will return to those issues shortly.

On paternity leave, the current statutory entitlement for all new fathers is two weeks. I am pleased to say that this absence can be accommodated within existing practices, should a Minister wish to take paternity leave. The Government recognise that new fathers may want even more flexibility to support their partner following the birth of a child, and I am glad to confirm that we will consider this as part of our further work. The House will also be aware that the Government recently consulted on parental leave and pay for employees, and we are due to respond to that consultation in the near future. This work will provide us with a valuable perspective on how the existing provisions function, and any future proposals for Ministers will be developed with these conclusions in mind.

Some Members hoped for this Bill to address other issues of parental leave. I mentioned earlier the significant improvements that have been made to make this House more family-friendly, and the provisions that are still needed. The Government agree that both Parliament and the Government should seek to lead from the front on working practices, providing as much flexibility as possible to office holders to aid the effective discharge of their duties. I am very conscious that this Bill relates to a subset of ministerial and Opposition office holders—a payroll of just 115 people. It is also solely concerned with maternity leave. I shall not go into the technical detail of why the other matters are not in the Bill, but let me be clear from the outset that we will bring forward proposals to address those outstanding issues. We looked at putting many of those issues in this Bill. That has not been possible, but we do want to address them swiftly and have been discussing with colleagues across the House how we might do so.

I also know that Opposition post holders—in fact, Members from both side of the House—have for a long time expressed concerns about provision for maternity leave under the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority scheme. IPSA is independent, and for good reason. In this particular respect, I am grateful for the engagement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. I know that many Members will want to address these other issues, and I will reserve the bulk of my remarks on them until my concluding speech on Second Reading. In the meantime, I draw colleagues’ attention to the Prime Minister’s written ministerial statement committing the Government to present a report to Parliament setting out considerations and proposals on these issues.

The issues with the Bill also touch on the fact that a number of Lords ministerial posts are unpaid. The Prime Minister has undertaken that the Government should look at the use by successive Administrations of unpaid ministerial posts. Clearly the Bill does not relate to anyone outside the ministerial pipeline or anyone outside Parliament. In bringing this Bill to the House, which I hope will gather wide support, I do very much recognise the context. The terms for those in the armed forces and civil service are the terms on which this Bill is pegged. They are far more generous than the public sector average, and many people will be in receipt of far less than that average.

I am sure that some Members will want to focus this afternoon on other issues that people are facing, as I have already set out. I just want to outline some of the detail of the Bill, but I will be very brief in doing so and will go into further detail later. Clauses 1 to 3 deal with the designation of a Minister on leave, setting out the mechanism that allows Ministers to take up to six months’ paid maternity leave. Clauses 4 to 6 set out the arrangements relating to six months’ paid maternity leave for certain office holders in Her Majesty’s official Opposition. Clause 7 contains the usual final provisions.

The second part of the Bill makes provision for certain Opposition office holders—namely, those listed in the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975—to take up to six months’ paid maternity leave. In contrast to the arrangements for Ministers, Opposition office holders who are to take maternity leave would stay in post. The Bill authorises a payment to a nominated individual, who, at the discretion of the Leader of the Opposition in the relevant House, is to cover the office holder’s role on similar terms as those for Ministers that I have already outlined.

The difference in approach reflects the fact that Opposition office holders are not appointed by the Prime Minister and do not have statutory functions in the way that a Secretary of State or a Law Officer does. It is therefore more straightforward for an individual to provide the necessary maternity leave cover while the original office holder remains in post. The arrangements may last for up to six months, and the eligibility criteria are the same for those in relation to Ministers. The Bill leaves it to the discretion of the Opposition leader in each House to appoint individuals to these temporary covering roles. Only one person can be appointed to cover an office holder’s post at any point during the period of leave. However, should the Leader of the Opposition wish to change the appointment, they have the discretion to do so.

Clause 5 builds on these provisions and outlines how the allowance payable should be calculated, how payments are administered and when payments should end. As with the provisions for Ministers, the person appointed to cover an office holder’s role should receive a monthly allowance that is equivalent to the office holder’s monthly salary. This financial arrangement should continue for as long as the individual is fulfilling the responsibilities of the role, but for no longer than six months. This allowance, as is the case with Opposition office holders’ salaries, is to be paid from the Consolidated Fund.

The final provisions relating to Opposition office holders are set out in clause 6, which establishes the relationship between the appointed individual covering an Opposition office holder and existing legislation. As is the case with a Minister on leave, where the Opposition office holder is a Member of the House of Lords, she is not eligible to claim the so-called Lords office holder allowance provided under the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 while on maternity leave. However, the individual appointed as maternity cover by virtue of these provisions is entitled to claim that allowance for the duration of the appointment. That is because the allowance is to reflect the work undertaken in the House, such as late-night sittings.

The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 makes provision for both Members’ and Ministers’ pension schemes. Both Ministers and Opposition office holders are entitled to pensions under the Ministers’ pension scheme. Given that there is no material change to their position, there has been no need to make provisions in the Bill to ensure that their salary remains pensionable during their maternity leave. However, the individual appointed to cover the post is entitled to the Ministers’ pension scheme for the duration of their appointment, in relation to the allowance paid to them for the role.

Finally, clause 7 makes the usual provisions necessary for the Bill to operate in law, including defining its territorial extent, setting out its commencement arrangements and providing the Bill’s short title. The Bill comes into force on Royal Assent and will thus be of immediate benefit to those wishing to take maternity leave, should there be anyone who is in those circumstances. As I said, I am very aware of the issues that the Bill has brought to light with regard to language. I know that there are time pressures on the debate, but I will address those issues in more detail in the course of the afternoon.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out in his written statement on this topic last week, the Government have undertaken to look at considerations and proposals for Ministers and Opposition office holders in the other areas not covered by the Bill. We are committed to building more widely on the progress that the Bill represents and will present a report to Parliament setting out those considerations. For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that all Members of the House will support the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I start by offering my congratulations to the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) on their announcements today. I am sure the whole House sends all our good wishes to them. I am also sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would want me, on the record, to thank all Members for their kind remarks about her and her—hopefully—impending maternity leave. I thank hon. Members for their kindness today and their contributions to this Second Reading debate.

The Bill before the House today is specific and limited in its aims. It will make an important and long overdue change to the law, enabling Ministers for the first time to take paid maternity leave from their job for an extended period. We have heard Members from all parts of the House welcome the measure.

[Meg Hillier]

I have listened to as much of the debate as I could this afternoon. Ministers have had maternity leave. We took it and said that it was something that women should have. We led on that. I was lucky enough to have as Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who championed proper maternity cover. It is absolutely right that we pass this Bill and put the provision on a proper footing, especially for people such as the Attorney General, but I think it is worth putting it on the record that it is not completely unprecedented.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am glad I took that intervention. This afternoon, we have heard from the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—for whose support for the Bill I am grateful—as well as the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) about the trailblazers who have gone before us. We have heard about the battles and trials that colleagues past and present have gone through in order to get maternity leave and to improve the situation for their colleagues in the future. We all appreciated the speech from the hon. Member for Leeds West in which she cited many colleagues who have made a substantial contribution. As well as those Members past and present who have battled to improve arrangements, we should remember that what we are doing today, although it is narrow in immediately affecting only a few individuals, will also benefit those who come after us. That is important.

The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) referred to the wider context. It is of course vital that we get this right for everyone in the country, and I know that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking into these issues. It is not only a matter of fairness and justice but a matter of economic empowerment. If we are to get the country back on its feet after the year we have had, we have to support women and enable them to do that.

I also thank Her Majesty’s Opposition and other parties in the House for the cross-party support and commitment that we have for the other work that we know needs to be done. I know that this is a very narrow Bill. The technical consultee is the Leader of the Opposition, but he will clearly wish to delegate to other Front Benchers and, potentially, to Back Benchers as well. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will contribute to the work that will follow. It is vital that we get those other issues addressed and, although I cannot give a timetable on legislation because we do not know what legislation would be required, I think we should be bringing this back to the House before the summer recess in order to address those other issues.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for the powerful report that her Committee has produced and for her support. I hope that her Committee will be able to play a role in the future work that looks at the wider issues, not just for Front Benchers but for all Members, particularly those who sit on the Back Benches.

The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) clearly referred to the Prime Minister’s power to enable people to benefit from the new provision that we are introducing today. Unfortunately, the power still has to sit with the Prime Minister. I know that the optics of that are not ideal, but I am afraid that this is hinged on the royal prerogative and that must be the case. Hon. Members mentioned various other amendments that have been tabled, and I will address those in Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) focused on how maternity leave is a vital time. The Government very much recognise that, which is why we have the piece of work that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) is undertaking on early years. The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, who has been such a stalwart in campaigning on these issues, outlined why, as well as the main issues that the Bill focuses on, it is vital that we get this right for women outside the House too.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for the helpful amendment that she has tabled. Again, I will explain in Committee why it has not been possible to use that language in the Bill with regard to Ministers—we have been able to use language to describe Opposition office holders—but I understand how offensive the word “person” or “persons” can be in this context. I hope that we can make some changes, if not to the legislation then to the explanatory notes, that will address some of her issues. I will come on to the detail of that in Committee.

Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow. I am sorry that she framed this measure as a perk. Just to clarify, this is not about rights purely for Cabinet Ministers—well, they are not rights; it is a provision. The article in The Guardian today also misrepresented that. This is a provision not just for Cabinet Ministers but for all Ministers and those Opposition posts. Only Cabinet Ministers are prevented at the moment from taking maternity leave, so that is what the Bill tries to address.

I hope that I can give the hon. Lady some assurances on the work that we want to take forward with regard to the Women and Equalities Committee and IPSA. Although, clearly, there will be other consultees involved, as well as the Government, with regard to IPSA she is absolutely right that we have to address the remaining issues both for Ministers and for all Members of the House. She has certainly set us a timetable today to try to get that resolved, and I hope to give some clarity on that later. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. It is vital that we get these issues right. I also want to give some assurances on the issues that have been raised about fathers. This is absolutely vital. I was brought up by my father in my teenage years. Fathers are critical. We will bring that forward in our future work. We will look at paternity leave, shared parental leave, adoption leave and a raft of other issues to ensure that all Members of this House, at whatever stage of their career and whatever Bench they sit on—Front Bench or Back Bench—can have the flexibility they need to thrive in their careers, and have and raise a family. I look forward to the future debates on that subject.