Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am not giving way.

The Leader of the Opposition says that his is now the party of the yimbys. We all want housing for our own children and grandchildren—I am a mother of four; my second grandchild, Henry, was born just last night—so this Government stand squarely behind the aspiration of families across the country to buy a home of their own and get on the housing ladder. But what have we seen from Labour? At least 19 members of the shadow Cabinet have conspired to block houses being built in their own constituencies, including the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne and the Leader of the Opposition himself, who just two years ago voted to protect the right of communities to object to individual planning applications. That is what he voted for in this place, yet he now says that local communities will be completely ignored. Presumably what he means is that what is okay for him is not okay for anyone else. He wants to rip up the protections for precious green spaces, not just on the green belt but on the brownfield sites. Of course these are a vital aspect of our brownfield-first planning policies, but they often also form a vital green lung in heavily urbanised areas—[Interruption.] There is an awful lot of chuntering from Labour Front Benchers. They do not like what I am saying, but I will not be shouted down in standing up for house building across the country.

I would like to refer to a quote:

“Green space is vital in our communities to give children a safe place to play and to enhance community well-being.”

Not my words but the words of the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, who went on to say:

“I wanted residents to know they have my support in their bid to stop contractors entering the site to start building.”

I hope that the Leader of the Opposition has explained his position clearly to the residents of Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, who I am sure will be interested to know exactly which sites on their green belt, urban brownfield and rural farmland the Labour party would like to determine, at the stroke of a north London lawyer’s pen, should be built over with zero regard to local communities.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not give way.

There is no credibility at all on the Labour Front Bench. You do not have to take my word for it; just look at housing delivery in London and in Wales, where Labour has been in government, with all the powers, funding and levers, for many years. It has an atrocious record on house building, housing delivery and affordable house building. It is hardly surprising, when house building fell to the lowest level since the 1920s the last time Labour was in government. That, along with everything else, is something that the Conservatives had to sort out when we took office.

We are on track to deliver our manifesto pledge to build 1 million homes during this Parliament, with housing delivery at near-record 30-year highs. We are not complacent, and we need to deliver more of the right homes in the right places. That is why the Prime Minister and the Housing Secretary set out our long-term plan for housing in July—a plan based on the principles of building beautiful, with homes built alongside GP surgeries, schools and transport links, where communities are listened to and where we enhance the natural environment and protect our green spaces. It is a plan where we will build beautiful neighbourhoods modelled on the streets of Maida Vale, the crescents of Bath or the rural and suburban vernacular of Poundbury, not on soulless dormitory towns.

Now I shall turn to the Liberal Democrats. Even by their own standards, we have seen the most extraordinary fiasco unfolding within their party. I have to hand it to them: their balancing act is pretty impressive. They are taking the high-rise tightrope walk art of holding two entirely different positions at the same time to newly dizzying heights. Historically, the Lib Dems have been the BANANA party—build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone—but amid incredible scenes, their youth wing has thrown out the yellow bendy fruit and forced on the party a top-down Whitehall-driven target of 380,000 houses a year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

The anecdotal feedback is very much that this has been a successful enterprise. We will have our report come November, and the Electoral Commission’s interim report in June and full report in September. We are prepared to learn lessons, but our evaluation from anecdotal feedback is that it has been a successful roll-out.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to increase the provision of social rented housing.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

The Government are committed to increasing affordable housing of all kinds, which is why we are investing £11.5 billion, through the affordable homes programme, to deliver tens of thousands of homes for rent and sale right across the country.

[Karin Smyth]

The availability of social rented and affordable housing is the No. 1 issue that my constituents contact me about. Although Bristol’s Labour council is building more social homes for the future, the Government’s decision to scrap targets means that neighbouring authorities are not rising to the challenge. What analysis has been conducted by the Department on the impact on local housing supply of the Government’s decision to water down its housing targets?

[Rachel Maclean]

I would like to gently correct the assertion that the hon. Lady made about watering down housing targets. The Government are committed to building 300,000 houses across the country. We are building them in the right places, with community support. We understand the importance of social rented housing, and that is why we made a commitment in our levelling-up White Paper to ensure that more are built with the £11.5 billion of Government funding that her Labour-run council is no doubt benefiting from.

Social Housing Standards

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman and I have disagreed on many things in this House, but I have to say that I agree with every single word he just said.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Our thoughts are absolutely with the family. May I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to social housing providers? In my constituency, one has raised concerns about the 14% rise in maintenance costs in the last year, a cost that has not been recognised in the Government’s consultation on rent caps. I think he might have alluded to some future compromise, but could he give us some assurance that the Government will consider the rise in maintenance costs at this time when they are looking at future rents?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. We have a number of very different things that are operating in tension and that we need to review. First, we need to ensure, at a time of rising prices everywhere, that tenants in social housing are not faced with increases in rents that further add to the difficulties they face. At the same time, however, registered social landlords and housing associations need money to provide new stock, to pay for repairs when materials are costing more, and to undertake some of the work on insulation and energy efficiency alluded to earlier, as well as, in some cases, the building safety work required in the wake of Grenfell. I appreciate the pressures under which they are operating and my commitment is to work with them constructively to try to ensure we can support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that there are occasions when a local authority may need to apply for permission to build on council-owned land—for example, a new school—but he is right that there needs to be a robust set of safeguards in place, because these applications do generate a great deal of interest and an appearance, on occasion, of unfairness. The applications must be transparently publicised, consulted on and determined in a way that is fair and open.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I have listened to the words this afternoon, but my constituents living in leasehold properties in Bedminster and elsewhere are rightly furious now with the Government for betraying the promises that they would not be responsible for the financial cost of rectifying building safety defects, and the delays in announcing the Government loan scheme have just added insult to injury. So can we have a bit more detail? When does the Secretary of State think he will be providing full details regarding eligibility and timescales for implementation to help these people?

Capital Infrastructure Projects: Bristol

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ghani, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on securing the debate. We love our city, and we are proud to represent it. As well as generating wealth and opportunity for our constituents, Bristol is the driver of the economy of the wider west of England and, indeed, that of the south-west of England. The debate has a far-reaching effect for the Government. For too long, however, parts of Bristol have been overlooked in wealth distribution and infrastructure development, meaning that the inequalities across the city continue to blight many communities, including some of mine in Bristol South. Today, I draw the Minister’s attention to some of the shovel-ready projects that will go some way towards levelling up opportunities for my constituents.

The first amongst those is Hengrove Park, Bristol’s largest housing development site set to deliver around 1,400 homes. It is a 25-hectare public park with a potential for around 6,000 new jobs. Long envisaged as a critical part of rebalancing the city’s economy, key parts of the plan are already in place: South Bristol Community Hospital, funded by the last Labour Government after 60 years of local campaigning; South Bristol Skills Academy, the only college in Bristol South; and the site of a soon-to-be-completed advanced construction centre. We will have a ready-made source of cutting-edge skills to help rebuild our economy and retrain people for the future, while offering quality apprenticeships to local people. But we need the final part of the jigsaw: the houses and supporting infrastructure to breathe new life into the project. Will the Minister support the council’s request for £35 million investment for the enabling infrastructure, and demonstrate to the people of Bristol South that they are included when the Government talk about levelling up opportunities across the country?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said, transport is key to the city’s economic recovery. In a city historically hampered by poor transport links and a somewhat ageing road network, it is right that our city leaders are seeking to scope out an ambitious vision to deliver an innovative and low-carbon transport system for the city region. In the immediate term, I draw the Minister’s attention to the long-awaited and much-delayed reopening of the Portishead line, which runs through my Bristol South constituency and will massively ease congestion and support development around the Ashton Gate area. The project has been in incubation for long decades. North Somerset Council completed a submission of the development consent order that was accepted by the planning inspectorate to proceed to examination last December. At such a critical time, this is low-hanging infrastructure fruit for the Minister. It will create jobs and opportunities, and if there is a rationale to wait another year then perhaps he will write to let us know why. Otherwise, I implore him to talk to his colleagues and hurry up. We are desperate for that to happen.

I echo my hon. Friend’s comments in support of the city’s largest infrastructure project at Temple quarter. Located partly in my constituency, it is of vital importance to the city’s economic recovery and will offer significant jobs and training opportunities locally, as well as helping improve the city’s connectivity. I draw the Minister’s attention alongside that to the electrification of the railway from Bristol Temple Meads to Weston-super-Mare. It has been agreed by the Department, but has been paused. Bizarrely, any train running along that line is currently forced to switch off its electricity when it hits Bristol and to turn to diesel, because the electric line ends there. That means that my constituents in Totterdown are forced to suffer the pollution of diesel fumes as the train chugs down to Weston-super-Mare and beyond. This is another freebie for the Government wanting shovel-ready projects that will offer jobs while reducing carbon emissions. I look forward to the Minister’s thoughts and, of course, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, to welcoming him to Bristol South so that he can see the opportunities for himself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the MetroBus system is already up and running, and there are plans to extend it further. As for his specific question, we work closely with other Departments on supra-regional issues—let us call them that. We also have the single housing infrastructure fund, which is an ambitious fund to ensure that we can provide the infrastructure required to unlock the housing that is needed by his community and others—I will say a little more about that in a moment. It is essential that we have the right infrastructure—the roads, schools and GP surgeries—and it is right that that is put in place before people move in. That is one objective of our new planning proposals and of the infrastructure levy that we will put in place alongside the single housing infrastructure fund to ensure that the right infrastructure is put in place at the right time.

In the short time remaining, I will say a few words about green recovery. Tackling climate change is also a priority for the Government. Last year, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to put into law the ambition to wipe out our contribution to climate change by 2050. I am glad to hear from colleagues —either directly or outside the Chambers—that there are projects for sustainable energy infrastructure in and around Bristol, and I will keep my eye on them.

Investment is only part of the picture, however. If we are to secure a rapid recovery from the pandemic, as well as deliver on our levelling-up agenda, we will need a comprehensive place-based strategy with central Government and local government working in lockstep with businesses to target the specific challenges and opportunities that our communities face. The devolution and local recovery White Paper will be published by the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, who represents Thornbury and Yate and who will set out plans with cities such as Bristol, and their surrounding areas, at the heart of that vision.

I also want to mention the United Kingdom shared prosperity fund. I appreciate that local leaders want to be on a secure financial footing so that they can continue to drive innovation and invest in local infrastructure, and that includes the certainty of replacement of EU structural funds. The 2019 manifesto committed to creating a shared prosperity fund, which binds the whole United Kingdom, to tackle inequality and deprivation in each of our four nations. The Government will create a fund that is easier for local areas to access and will further support places to recover from the effects of covid-19.

We recognise the key role of local partners in EU structural funds, and we will continue to work closely with interested parties across the United Kingdom on the design of the new fund, taking into consideration what has worked in the past and how we can best deliver on domestic priorities. Final decisions about the fund will take place after the spending review. I look forward to further opportunities in this Chamber, or near to it, to further update the House and colleagues.

[Karin Smyth]

I appreciate the opportunity of yet another fund, but I gently say to the Minister that we have been talking today about projects that are ready and have been in the pipeline for a long time. We have gone through lots and lots of processes. We are all of one mind, and we would like the Government to talk across Departments, do a bit of joined-up thinking and focus, recognising how ready and willing we are to just get on with it.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful for that prompt from the hon. Lady. I recognise the value engendered in the Temple quarter regeneration programme. All propositions that are put forward have to be considered carefully on their merits. There are some tight business case requirements to meet. If they are not met—as with the last housing infrastructure fund bid, unfortunately for the proponents—I would encourage people not to lose heart, but to redouble their efforts and submit again. Our ambitious fund is designed to help communities that need support, and we are determined to give that to them.

I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East for leading the debate, and I congratulate all Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood on his contribution in support of the Temple quarter. I look forward to looking closely at the propositions that have been made, and to debating them robustly, if necessary, across the Chamber in due course.

Question put and agreed to.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

The hon. Gentleman is failing to answer my point, which is that there is nothing in the Bill to protect against the very thing that the Prime Minister told us we needed an insurance policy to guard against.

When the Prime Minister was challenged—or, should I say, humiliated—by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North on this point, the Prime Minister shrank into his seat. They then said that they would bring forward changes in the Finance Bill to protect against these imaginary blockades by EU warships in the Irish sea, but there is no Finance Bill now, is there? So what is their plan for dealing with this? Maybe the Minister could tell us.

In their final flourish to push the Bill through, the Government say it gives back powers to the nations, but the devolved Administrations strongly disagree. The Labour Welsh Counsel General has called the Bill

“an attack on democracy and an affront to the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

A Conservative Senedd Member, the former shadow Counsel General, resigned because he shared those concerns. As we have argued, if the Westminster Government decided to lower standards, there could be no voice for the devolved nations, because the Government have decided not to legislate for common frameworks, but are legislating for their own veto.

The Government must respect the devolution settlement and work collaboratively in good faith with the devolved Administrations to build a strong and thriving internal market. Our new clause 2 would facilitate just that. Not doing so would threaten our precious Union by putting rocket boosters under the campaign for independence in Scotland and elsewhere.

The Government have also said that this Bill will ensure more money for the nations and regions, as we heard again today, yet we still have no detail on how the shared prosperity fund will operate. They say they want to level up and invest in the regions and nations. “Trust us,” they say on this point, “because we have the right motives.” Yet last week, the mask slipped, didn’t it, with the breath-taking admission from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that his Government were going to funnel this cash into the new Conservative seats—pork barrel politics at its worst.

Our new clause 3 would ensure that Ministers had a duty to report to Parliament and ensure oversight of the progress of this and other measures in the Bill.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, particularly about the English regions. I am from the south-west as she well knows, and the south-west has consistently returned Conservative MPs and received a great deal of money from Europe, and is frankly getting little in return. Could not the Government elucidate on how they are going to meet their promises across the regions in England and across the various nations in the United Kingdom, and on how they will make sure that places such as Cornwall do not lose out further?

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I am afraid that, as we heard last week, her constituency is unlikely to get more money because it is not one of the new Conservative seats that we heard were going to be prioritised for this reallocation of money.

The truth is that the Government have been making it up as they go along. The UK’s reputation and territorial integrity are collateral damage to a No. 10 fixated on public relations and posturing more than on making sure that its policy works and is in the national interest. We have had an unprecedented number of amendments from Ministers to their own Bill during its passage. We have further new clauses today, which, as we have heard, further undermine the rule of law. They are making it up as they go along—change after change underlying the haphazard incompetence of this Government.

We want a successful internal market. This Bill does not deliver that. We want a strong Union built on mutual respect. This Bill could fatally undermine it. We want the UK to play a global role for good. This Bill actively damages that. The Prime Minister says that measures in the Bill are just an “insurance policy”, but you cannot get insurance for a house you have already torched.

I hope Conservative Members who still have reservations about the Bill will support our new clauses and join us in the Lobby.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I support the Government’s amendments to the legislation for the reasons outlined admirably by the Minister—it did need a little strengthening and this is a welcome clarification—but I rise mainly to oppose new clause 1.

I am disappointed with the official Opposition, because I was delighted after the clear decision of the people in the last general election that the Opposition said that they now fully accepted the result of the referendum, although it took place years ago—the previous Parliament blocked its timely implementation. We had a rerun in the general election and the Opposition fully accepted the verdict of that general election, yet here we are again today, with new clause 1 deliberately trying to undermine the British Government’s sensible negotiating position in the European Union.

Whenever there is a disagreement in interpretation of that original withdrawal agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union, the Opposition and most of the other opposition parties rush to accept the EU’s—very political—interpretation of the situation and rush to say that anything the UK Government wish to assert in this Parliament, or in a court of law if it came to that, is clearly illegal.

It is preposterous that we have so many MPs who so dislike the people of this country that they are still trying to thwart the very clear wish to have a Brexit that makes sense.

[Karin Smyth]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Redwood]

I must not take up too much time. I wish to develop my argument quickly.

We have to recognise what we are dealing with here. The EU withdrawal agreement was pretty unsatisfactory and one-sided because the previous Parliament stopped the Government putting a strong British case and getting the support of this Parliament in the way the British people wanted. The Prime Minister wisely went to Europe and did his best to amend the withdrawal agreement but it was quite clear from the agreed text that a lot was outstanding and rested to be resolved in the negotiations to be designed around the future relationship, because we used to say that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that the withdrawal terms had to run alongside the future relationship.

The EU won that one thanks to the dreadful last Parliament undermining our position all the time. This Prime Minister is trying to remedy that and the only reason I was able to vote for the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018—much of it was an agreement that I knew had lots of problems with it—was that we put in clause 38, a clear assertion of British sovereignty against the possibility that the EU did not mean what it said in its promises to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and did not offer that free trade agreement, which was going to be at the core of the new relationship. We therefore needed that protection, so I am pleased that the Government put it in.

That made me able to vote for the measure to progress it to the next stage, but I was always clear that the EU then needed to get rid of all its posturing and accept what it had said and signed up to—that the core of our new relationship was going to be a free trade agreement. We were going to be a third country, we were not going to be under its laws and we were not going to be in its single market and customs union, but it has systematically blocked that free trade agreement. The UK has tabled a perfectly good one based on the agreements the EU has offered to other countries that it did not have such a close relationship with, but it has not been prepared to accept it. Well, why does it not table its own? Why does it not show us what it meant when it signed up to having a free trade agreement at the core of our relationship? If it will not, we will leave without a deal and that will be a perfectly good result for the British people, as I said before the referendum and have always said subsequently.

Of course, it would be better if we could resolve those matters through that free trade agreement. As colleagues will know, many of the problems with the Northern Ireland protocol fall away if we have that free trade agreement, and we are only in this position because the EU is blocking it.

Why is the EU blocking the agreement? It says that it wants to grab our fish. I have news for it: they are not on offer. They are going to be returned to the British people, I trust. I am always being told by Ministers that they are strong on that. The EU wishes to control our law making and decide what state aid is in the United Kingdom. No, it will not. We voted to decide that within the framework of the World Trade Organisation and the international rules that govern state aid—rules, incidentally, that the EU regularly breaks. It has often been found guilty of breaking international state aid rules and has been fined quite substantially as a result.

I support the Government’s amendments, and I support this piece of legislation. We need every bit of pressure we can to try to get the free trade agreement and the third-country relationship with the EU that we were promised by it and by the Government in the general election. We can then take the massive opportunities of Brexit. It is crucial that new clause 1 is not agreed to, because it would send a clear message to the European Union that this Parliament still wants to give in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gary Sambrook]

This is one of the most important Bills that we will vote on in this Parliament, because it will create the foundation and fabric for our United Kingdom to prosper for many years to come—hopefully for at least another 300 years, to pick a random number. It is so important for all four of our nations to benefit from the Bill and prosper together.

The provisions in the Bill, especially on subsidy controls, are exactly what the spirit of Brexit was all about. It was about people knowing that they were sending billions of pounds to the EU, and feeling left behind here in the UK. I was shocked and appalled earlier to hear the shadow Minister talk about the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster saying that money should be taken to the places it needs to be. The seats she was talking about used to be held by the Labour party, but are now held by Conservatives across the country, and it is because Labour forgot about those seats that so many of us Conservative Members are here today.

One such example, in my own seat, is the demise of MG Rover, which many people will remember. The factory closed down 15 years ago, but there is still 150 acres of land going completely unused. It is a daily reminder to the people who drive past it of that feeling of being left behind—of the billions of pounds going to the European Union, and the lost opportunities for jobs and skills across the constituency of Birmingham, Northfield. Through the subsidy controls provided in the Bill, we will be able to use Brexit to deliver on those jobs and opportunities. I very much look forward to this legislation being used for a bright, positive future across Northfield and Longbridge, when the empty space at MG Rover is used once again.

The clauses and compromises on parliamentary sovereignty are absolutely right and sound. A couple of Members on the Opposition Benches spoke about the nature of negotiations. Most Opposition Members are a second-hand car salesman’s dream. Half of them would leave the showroom without any windows, doors or tyres left on their car because every time someone said no to them, they would just roll over and accept it. If the European Union says, “No, sorry, we can’t do that”, Opposition Members think we should just say, “That’s alright; we’ll do whatever you like.”

We have heard about devolution, especially from Scottish National party Members. I am not too sure what definition of devolution they are working to. We talk about taking powers from Brussels to the UK and giving them to the devolved Administrations—but, no, their definition of devolution is to send them right back over to Brussels and have no control over them whatever. That is because the European Union is supposedly some kind of beacon and fount of progressive politics against a domineering United Kingdom. Well, they should tell that to the political independence campaigners in Catalonia, many of whom are political prisoners now, and one of whom was barred from public office yesterday, at the will of the European Union.

I have 10 seconds left, so I will finish by saying that I wholeheartedly support the Bill and its provisions to deliver our levelling-up agenda for constituencies across the country.

[Karin Smyth]

The last time I bought a second-hand car, the first thing I did was make sure it was roadworthy, legal and in line with the legislative provisions of this country.

I have followed this debate very closely, speaking both on Second Reading and in Committee, and I say yet again that we have had more heat than light. We started off—let us not forget that it was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and nobody else, who started off—by saying that the Bill would breach international law. It was not the Labour party that said we would accept everything the EU says; it was from the Dispatch Box that he said the sentence that in fact has put this entire Bill under a cloud.

The Government have got themselves in a terrible mess on devolution. A key pillar of devolution is setting priorities in key areas, but, as the explanatory notes to the Bill say, clauses 46 and 47, which aim to provide financial assistance, fall

“within wholly or partly devolved areas”.

That is clearly an area of disagreement.

In parallel with the Bill, we are waiting for Lord Dunlop to report on the UK Government’s Union capability. At the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee a few weeks ago, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said that that would come before this Bill hits the statute book. It is clearly, again, putting the cart before the horse.

We have to admit and understand the asymmetry across the Union given the size of England. It is not hard for us to try to do that. I am somebody who thinks that, despite our Union being forged in conflict, with a very difficult history, it is actually precious. It is an exemplar of what is good about politics, democracy, how we can come together with the hard graft of compromise and the ability of us as politicians to evolve our positions and reflect change over time. However, that has to be based on respect.

It is clear that the heavy-handed way in which the Government have introduced this Bill—and, I have to say, many of the speeches given to Conservative Members to read—has not appreciated such respect or the fragility of the Union. We could have had minimum standards included in this Bill, and we could have had the frameworks put on a statutory footing. It could have been done very differently, and that is a source of great regret.

This is not just an economic Bill, as we were sold it in the first place; it is a deadly serious constitutional Bill, and it is deeply problematic. I would like to speak more about Northern Ireland, but I cannot given the time. Again, it was deeply irresponsible of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to herald the Bill in the way he did. We know the situation is fragile and we know that Brexit creates difficult problems on the island of Ireland, and it behoves all of us to dial down the rhetoric and recognise that we are now in for a very long haul on the processes to make this work.

Whether in the Joint Committee, the specialised committee, the joint working group, strands 2 and 3 of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, the British-Irish Council or the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, of which I am proud to be a vice-chair, we are not able to meet at the moment as parliamentarians. That is a real problem because we are not able to talk with people with whom we disagree fervently, but with whom we need to make peace across these islands.

With our demise in the EU, the fact that the 25-odd meetings a day we had as British and Irish parliamentarians —we do have many more common interests than with the rest of the EU—are lost and that those relationships are about to fall away is something the Government need to take much more seriously. In 1990, we started forging these agreements as parliamentarians across these islands, and that was when we started to develop the peace that came some eight years later.

The Government must treat not only the regions and parts of the United Kingdom with much more respect, but they must now take much more seriously the implementation of strands 2 and 3 and the relationship with the Irish Government. We know that there are more things to come with tariffs, and so on, and the Government need to take much more heed of that.

[Andrew Bowie]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on this vital Bill, as it was when I spoke on Second Reading and in Committee.

Contrary to popular belief, I have a lot of respect for my colleagues on the Scottish National party Benches. Their view about the future of Scotland is very different from mine, but I respect their view. I respect the fact that they come down here to improve the lives of Scots in their particular way, as I hope they respect the fact that, from my perspective, I believe I am doing the same, although with a Conservative bent. That is especially the case with the spokesperson for the SNP today, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), which is maybe why I was so disappointed by the tone he struck in his speech. He did not take very much instruction from my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) about the overuse of hyperbole.

Maybe that is also why I am a little perturbed by SNP Members’ opposition to what is a very good Bill—a Bill that is pro-business, pro-consumer and ultimately pro-Scotland. I know they will not take my word for that—I understand that—but maybe they will take the word of the CBI, which said that protecting the UK internal market is “essential”, and that:

“Preserving the integrity of the internal single market—the economic glue binding our four nations—is essential to guard against any additional costs or barriers to doing business between different parts of the UK.”

Or maybe they will take the words of the Scottish Retail Consortium, which said:

“Scottish consumers and our economy as a whole benefit enormously from the UK’s largely unfettered internal single market.”

And I have already quoted Andrew McCornick, the president of the National Farmers Union Scotland, who said:

“NFU Scotland’s fundamental priority, in the clear interest of Scottish agriculture as well as the food and drinks sector it underpins, is to ensure the UK Internal Market effectively operates as it does now.”

That is what this Bill does: it underpins and cements in statute the existence of our most important market—the internal market of our United Kingdom.

Assisted Dying Law

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I will turn to the part of my speech that deals with some concerning developments from other jurisdictions that have legalised assisted suicide, as I prefer to call it. In Oregon physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill was legalised 10 years ago. The annual Government report of 2018 stated that more than half of those applying now cite

“fear of being a burden”

as their major end-of-life concern. Far fewer cite pain concerns. Disability groups are extremely concerned about what has happened, for example, in Canada since 2016. In just four years, under the law that has allowed terminally ill people to request assisted suicide and euthanasia, safeguards have been ignored, removed and extended to non-terminally ill people such as those with depression. In July a depressed but otherwise healthy man was killed by lethal injection, despite not being terminally ill. Another man who suffers from a neurological disease actually recorded hospital staff offering him a medically assisted death, despite repeated statements that he did not want to die. Only this week, on Tuesday, there was an article in The Times about three Belgian doctors on trial in relation to the euthanasia of someone reported to have a personality disorder and autism. The family believes that she was depressed but that she did not, as required by Belgian law, have a serious and incurable disorder.

The point to note is that, regardless of the wording of eligibility criteria in legislation, in practice safeguards are often discarded, and vulnerable and depressed people are assisted to end their lives. That applies in all jurisdictions that have legalised assisted suicide or euthanasia. In Canada, where medical aid in dying was legalised in 2016, the superior court of Quebec ruled last September that it was unconstitutional to limit access to medical assistance in dying to people nearing the end of life. That is particularly concerning because, while the ruling applies only to Quebec, the Canadian Government have now committed to changing the MAID law for the whole country, so it will no longer be, as was originally intended, limited to those nearing the end of life.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; I realise that time is short. I do not have time to rebut all those arguments, and I will not do so in my speech, but will she address why more and more jurisdictions across the United States, Canada and Australia are changing the law and extending provision, if they think it is not safe?

--- Later in debate ---

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate. I do so not only as the Member for Bristol South, but as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for choice at the end of life.

I want to pick up the discussion where we left it at the end of the last Parliament. We were hoping for a call for evidence and to have some discussion with the Government on that. The Government said that they would continue the debate but were not currently persuaded. We can indeed debate, but ultimately only the Government can make a call for evidence; only the Government have the power to gather evidence. Only this Government can show their own compassion and demonstrate to the people of this country that compassion is not a crime.

I was privileged last year to welcome Geoffrey and Ann Whaley to the House to talk about their experiences. I do not have time today to repeat their stories, but people like Ann Whaley and Adam and Kate Wellesley are still being investigated by the police. They dreaded that knock on the door, which did come. Police officers are required to intrude on a family in the last days and weeks before the loss of their loved ones. I therefore welcome the debate that is now happening within policing. It was surfaced by Ron Hogg, a police and crime commissioner, and many police and crime commissioners are now also asking for a review of the evidence. Ron sadly died in December, but that was a powerful call about how the law is currently impacting on policing.

The current law does not offer protection. Assisted deaths are very rarely investigated. Illegal and unregulated voluntary euthanasia happens now. Current end-of-life practice is, if anything, less safeguarded than assisted dying and it is just as ethically challenging. Who decides whether someone should be sedated until death? How do doctors check that someone is not being coerced into refusing treatment? Is it right to support someone to starve and dehydrate themselves to death? I do not think so. If assisted dying laws are not proven to work, why are more and more being introduced rather than the existing ones being overturned?

My own interest in this area came from my time working in the NHS with clinicians talking to people about how to live and die. I found that it is often no one’s job to talk to people about dying, and it is very lonely for those people. Despite the care from the NHS and our brilliant hospices, 17 people a day—

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; I appreciate that time is short. It is interesting that we are in a place that deals with finalities—death and taxes—yet we never have a wider debate about what death is. As a GP, I speak to people all the time, and it is very difficult to raise the subject of death. Fundamentally, as a society, we need to be talking about what death actually is, because it is inevitable. That inevitability means that we have to answer some of these questions. Does the hon. Lady agree with me that that may well be the best place to start to move the discussion on?

[Karin Smyth]

I wholeheartedly agree and am grateful for that intervention from a clinical perspective, because what the hon. Gentleman describes is also my experience. Around the world, the current law does not protect the doctor-patient relationship and people are not having those honest conversations. The law does not allow the doctor to really talk to people about end-of-life choices, because people are frightened that their intention to perhaps go to Switzerland will result in someone being fearful of breaking the law.

I am not sure what the Government’s response will be today. I hope that the Minister can respond with compassion for people who are desperate for some recognition of the way the current law is not working. We cannot keep ignoring that. Asking families to retell their stories only perpetuates the trauma that they are going through. Families will keep coming forward, and their experiences are shocking—heartbreaking. For me, representing the constituency of Bristol South, the fact that only people who have between £10,000 and £15,000 spare can access safe care—in Switzerland—is equally shocking.

Is the law working now? No, it is not. Are people safer now? No, they are not. I am disappointed not to have more time to go into why that is the case. That is why, beyond the debate today, we need a review of the current law and how it is working. People need to have time to review the law. It is not working for families at the moment, and I hope that the Government will meet me and others who would like to discuss how a review might work in practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is, of course, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for securing this very important debate. Although I may not personally agree with her conclusion, as many of us across the House do not, I must credit her with having set out a passionate and robust case, both this afternoon and in her recent article.

I thank other hon. Members for attending—certainly, for a Thursday afternoon, this is probably one of the largest attendances I have seen in this Chamber—and for their own moving and thought-provoking contributions. We have heard many moving and personal accounts. Many of our thoughts and beliefs, and much of what drives our opinions, on this important topic come from our own personal experiences and stories. In this debate and the debate last year, hon. Members spoke powerfully of friends and family members at the end of their lives, or of constituents at the end of theirs. Bound together with our mortality and the fact that some day each of us here will pass on, hoping to do so as peacefully as possible, those experiences are what make this such a personal and hard-hitting issue.

Across the Opposition, across the Chamber and indeed across the country, as we have heard, we are split on the issue of assisted dying, with clear arguments advocated on either side of the divide. For those advocating a change in the law on assisted dying, important and pertinent points have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Time does not permit me to go through contributions from each hon. Member, but one of the first arguments put forward is that of personal liberty—that relaxing the law would grant an individual control over their own death when it would otherwise be cruelly taken away from them by a terminal illness; and that it would allow them to end what is often incredible suffering, which leaves them with little to no quality of life and forces others to watch helplessly, witnessing the decline of their friend or relative right in front of them. We have heard some very personal experiences of that here today.

The argument that to legalise assisted dying would also spare loved ones the fear of conviction for their compassion, as we have seen with a number of cases such as those of Zoë Marley and Mavis Eccleston, has also been put forward. It will continue to be, for I doubt whether anyone here, regardless of what our views may be, really wants to see an elderly grandmother or others prosecuted for honest acts of compassion. That is joined by an argument that adequate safeguards could be applied to prevent abuses of the process and protect vulnerable people, with several examples of countries and states that have legalised assisted dying put forward as a model for the UK to copy.

However, for every argument made in favour of relaxing the law on assisted dying, a counter-argument is advanced, as it has been by hon. Members in this and previous debates. Those who oppose change point out that legalising assisted dying could lead to an abuse of the system and to pressure being applied, even unintentionally, to those suffering from terminal illness. They may feel that they are, or will become, a burden on their friends, family and carers, leaving them, in their eyes, with no real choice but to end their own life in a selfless act to spare others. That point was made by a number of hon. Members.

Hon. Members also raised the point that to relax the law on assisted dying now would slowly allow an escalation in what is allowed, creating a slippery slope whereby the eventual outcomes are far beyond the reality originally imagined by those who advocate for change. They argued that assisted dying would put immense pressure and stress on doctors and families, and even on individuals themselves.

[Karin Smyth]

Some of the phrases that my hon. Friend has used are used across the world, although there is no evidence for many of those things—for example, that there is a “slippery slope”. Does that not reinforce the idea that, whatever people think, if we can persuade the Government to look at the call for evidence, we can air these issues publicly and get the real evidence in a process that the public, and all who participate in such care, can recognise as rigorous? That call for evidence is the real thing we should be focusing on.

[Imran Hussain]

I thank my hon. Friend for being a strong and passionate advocate in this area. I think the whole House will acknowledge her work on this subject. A call for further evidence or an independent inquiry can only be of assistance to the broader debate. We cannot forget that the ethical and practical issues, and the threat of a slippery slope, have left even medical professionals reluctant to back any changes to the existing legislation on assisted dying.

Despite the clearly differing views in the House and in society, we are united on the principle that everyone should be able to pass on in peace, surrounded by family, friends and fond memories. That brings me to palliative and end-of-life care for those with terminal conditions, for at the heart of this debate is the matter of dignity. Indeed, much of the argument in favour of assisted dying is about the real fear faced by those approaching the end of their lives that they will lose control, that they will have their dignity taken away from them and that they will suffer in pain in their final days, weeks and months.

Sadly, for too many, that fear becomes a reality as insufficient palliative and end-of-life care, too much variation in practice and poor management of symptoms leave those who are at the end of their lives, and their friends and families, suffering unnecessarily. As I pointed out last year, the Institute for Public Policy Research found that there was considerable scope to improve the way that care is designed and delivered for those reaching the end of their lives, and that the experience faced by such people can still be poor, with medical and care staff sometimes failing to recognise that people are dying and failing to respond to their needs appropriately.

The IPPR also found that too few people were offered the opportunity to end their lives in the comfort of their own home, surrounded by their friends and family, and not in a hospital, surrounded by strangers fighting for every last breath. While talking about the pros and cons of relaxing the law on assisted dying—the arguments for and against—we must talk more about how palliative and end-of-life care is not nearly as good as it should be, and how that drives so many people to consider taking their own lives.

Time not permitting, I will sum up. I firmly agree—this is probably not a statement I will make often—with the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who stated in response to questions in a previous debate on this issue that this is a matter of conscience and must be decided by Parliament. Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) indicated, for a matter to be considered properly, we must be properly informed and have as much information as possible.

I outlined my personal view at the beginning of this speech, and I believe that this is a matter of conscience that must be decided by the whole of Parliament. However, I hope that we can address some of the real issues at the heart of the debate—insufficient palliative and end-of-life care, and allowing those who are reaching the end of their lives to die peacefully and painlessly.

Local Government Funding Settlement

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks), has been highlighting the additional £400,000 for Suffolk in the rural services delivery grant. We are providing £81 million to the most sparsely populated areas in 2019-20, recognising the pressures that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) has highlighted and just how important that is.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is the season of goodwill, and I indicated to the diligent Parliamentary Private Secretary that I would like a copy of the hand-out questions, but I have had to make up my own.

Last week, I met the nursery heads and children’s centre leaders in south Bristol. We know that these centres are the greatest, most efficient driver of social mobility in the country. May I therefore invite the Secretary of State to south Bristol to meet those nursery school heads and children’s centre leaders to explain how, if they are not part of his assessment on sustainability for local authorities, they fit into the Government’s policies on social mobility and increasing skills for our country?

[James Brokenshire]

I was in Bristol just a few short weeks ago looking at the issue of homelessness, but I recognise the hon. Lady’s bid for me to look at some of the other important services and the work going on that is affecting her community. Yes, there are pressures on children’s social care—I recognise that, and it has been recognised in today’s announcement. I will continue to work with my colleagues at the Department for Education as we look at the spending review and ensure that we have a sustainable system knowing the pressures that are there.