Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government
Pat McFadden Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement about the next phase of the Government’s programme.
In July we set out our legislative programme, in October we set out our financial plan, and today we are setting out our plan for change. When we were elected, we said that we would have five long-term missions for the country: to grow the economy, to build an NHS fit for the future, to break down the barriers to opportunity, to take back our streets, and to make the UK a clean energy superpower. These missions mark an important and fundamental break from the record of chaos that we saw under the previous Administration—the constant changes in policy that prevented the then Government from facing up to long-term problems, held people back and, worst of all, helped to spread the belief that politics and government could no longer deliver for people. In fact, by the end they had given up even trying.
We will never submit to the fatalism that says government cannot deliver change for people. We do not believe that living standards have to stagnate as they did in the last Parliament. We do not accept the lowest levels of satisfaction with the NHS ever recorded, which is what we inherited when we came to power. We do not believe that a tawdry surrender to Tory Back Benchers should be allowed to cut off the dream of home ownership for the next generation. We will not sit back and accept a situation in which young children are falling behind their peers even before they start school, damaging their opportunities for the rest of their lives.
A break with all that is more than a political choice. It is a national necessity, so today we turn the page on that record. We reject the hopelessness that it fostered, and we have set out milestones for each of our missions and the foundations that underpin them. We have already stabilised the public finances. We have announced £22 billion more for the NHS, and we are increasing the schools budget by more than £2 billion. We have rejected the plans that we inherited from the Conservatives to cut back on capital investment and on the country’s future; instead, we want to build the schools, build the hospitals, build the houses and build the transport infrastructure that the country needs—investments that the Conservatives now say they support, although they reject every means of raising the revenue to pay for them. That proves only one thing: they have given up any pretence of being the party of sound money, and given up on being a serious political party at all.
Our plan for change sets out key milestones for the country. The first is to raise living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so that working people have more money in their pockets no matter where in the country they live. The second is to build 1.5 million homes and to fast-track planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects; that is more than in the last 14 years combined. The third is to tackle the hospital backlogs by meeting the NHS standard of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment in England. The fourth is to provide a named police officer for every neighbourhood, and 13,000 additional officers, police community support officers and special constables in neighbourhood teams in England and Wales. The fifth is to secure home-grown energy while also protecting bill payers: we want to be on track for clean power by 2030. The sixth is to give children the best start in life by ensuring that a record percentage of five-year-olds in England are ready to learn when they start school.
Underpinning those milestones are the strong foundations that the country needs. Economic stability is the foundation for growth, following a Budget that restored stability to the public finances and put in place investment to move the country forward. We will reduce net migration from the record high level that we inherited from the previous Government, clear the asylum backlog and increase returns of people who do not have the right to be here —work that has already begun. We will also fulfil the Government’s first duty of protecting our people through strong national security. Those are the milestones in our “Plan for Change”. None of them is easy, but worthwhile change seldom is. To deliver them will require relentless focus and facing up to the trade-offs involved.
Governing is not just about what we want to do, but about how we want to do it, so we have to reform the state itself to deliver our goals. That is why we want value for money, and are cracking down on fraud and waste through the new covid corruption commissioner. That is why we will raise £6 billion by going after tax avoiders—unlike the Conservative party, we are putting in the money to make it happen. That is why the Chancellor demanded efficiency and productivity savings of 2% from each Government Department next year. That is why we want to get more people off welfare and into work. That is why we will tackle the delays and blocks in our planning system to make it faster to get things built.
The old debate was just about Government budgets. The new debate has to be about how those budgets are used, and about how people can be equipped with the right technology and the right systems to deliver, so we will ask the following questions each time. Is power being devolved enough? Is technology being used enough? Are we learning enough from those on the frontline? We will have more to say about reform of the state soon.
I know there may be scepticism from those who first accused us of being far too cautious and now accuse us of being far too ambitious, but stop and think about what would happen if we did not set such goals. Politics needs a change when people have lost faith in its capacity to deliver, and the Government system itself needs a change to focus on the goals that we have set.
If we had just carried on in the same old pattern, we would have too many children who are not ready to start school, with opportunity cut off within the first few years of their lives. We would carry on with huge NHS waiting lists, which hurt both our people and our economy. We would have more and more young people cut off from having a home of their own and asking what all their effort and hard work will ever lead to. We would continue with too many of our town centres being no-go zones for people after dark. We would still be at the mercy of dictators when it comes to energy prices. Perhaps most of all, we would have an economy like the one the Conservatives ran, in which living standards continue to stagnate, just as they did in the last Parliament. If we did that, the loss of faith would simply carry on.
It is not a matter of whether we should do this. We have to do this to stop the country falling behind, and to meet the challenges that we face. If we meet these goals, we will have a country where living standards are rising, more children are ready for school, fewer people are waiting in pain for NHS treatment, more people have the chance to have a home of their home, and our streets are safer because we have the community police we need. That is change worth having and change worth fighting for, and I commend this statement to the House.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for advance sight of his statement. It was very nice to receive it only 12 hours after The Times, although I must say that I received the policy document itself only at 11.05 am, unlike Labour MPs at Pinewood studios who, according to social media, had the document some time before. While the Prime Minister is at Pinewood, I hope he will hear its owner’s concerns about the very substantial increase in business rates from 2026, which will affect the profits and viability of what was, under the Conservatives, a flourishing sector.
The Opposition congratulate the Government on their most recent reset—there are only a few more resets left before Christmas. The Labour party might want to try turning it off and, well, maybe just leaving it off, but it is good that it has taken the time to come up with an emergency list of priorities. After only 14 years in opposition and five months in power, it has finally decided on some things that it is going to work towards.
The statement was quite punchy about the past, unusually punchy for the right hon. Gentleman. If he is rattled, and he is not the rattling type, it is a sign that the Government must be feeling pretty unstable at the moment. Labour Members talk about legacy, and I wish them good fortune in government—I genuinely mean that.
The last Government had to clean up the mess from the greatest financial crisis in a century. The last Government had to deal with the biggest pandemic in a century. The last Government had to deal with the biggest war in Europe since 1945. [Interruption.] Labour Members might gloss over that, they might pretend it is not important, but history judges it very differently. It reflects very badly on the Labour party that it refuses to acknowledge the importance of those extremely significant events.
I will now turn to each of the new millstones in order.
First, raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom so that working people have more money in their pockets, no matter where they live. How is this to be measured? What are the metrics? When will the data be published? Who will be held to account? We all need to know.
Secondly, building 1.5 million homes and fast-tracking planning decisions. The Office for Budget Responsibility has already said that this Government are very unlikely to build more homes than the last Conservative Government. What has changed since the Budget? Why do the Government now believe they will be able to achieve this? Is there more money? Have the spending plans changed?
Thirdly, tackling hospital backlogs. We have already seen funding first, reform later—a disastrous way to do business. NHS bosses have been briefed about this, and they are already briefing the press that this requirement will put enormous pressure on A&E without additional money beyond that given at the Budget. Is more money going to be made available for the NHS to fulfil this milestone?
Fourthly, policing. Only 3,000 of the 13,000 neighbourhood police officers are extra new police officers. This target is not genuine. Is there a proposal to deal with the backlog in the courts? Without that, extra police officers will lead only to greater backlog in the courts. Does the Labour party have a plan for this?
Fifthly, energy. In March, Labour’s missions document said that, by 2030, the UK would be the first major country in the world to run 100% on clean and cheap power. Since March, this has been degraded by 5%. Can we expect the target to be degraded by 5% every nine months?
Sixthly, getting children ready to learn. This is a genuinely wonderful target, but what does the right hon. Gentleman mean by “ready to learn”? How will it be measured? When will the House be told whether progress is being made?
Obviously, on all of these, there are good things to be done, but the missions will only mean anything if the Government are honest about what they are doing and about the milestones they are hitting or not hitting. Also, why have the Government downgraded certain other priorities? How have they chosen these six issues over immigration, over GP surgeries, over A&E, over defence, over the £300 energy bill reduction target or over becoming the fastest-growing economy in the G7? Why have the Government chosen these priorities? The House should be told.
Finally, who is taking responsibility—I mean real responsibility—for achieving the targets? A lot of us were pleased when, the other day, the Health Secretary said that individuals at the top of the health service would be held accountable with their jobs if targets were not hit. Will the same apply to Ministers? Who in Government is taking real responsibility for the targets? If the Government are serious, we need data, accountability and transparency. Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee to the House that we will get that?
Pat McFadden
I have spent more of my life than I would have liked in opposition, and I learned one thing about being in opposition: one has to decide what one’s attack is. As I listened to the hon. Gentleman, I was not sure whether he supported or opposed the plan.
The hon. Gentleman refers to millstones. Let me tell him very clearly: the only millstone that this Government and this country have is the appalling legacy left by the Conservatives. Let us contrast what we are announcing today with their milestones of failure. They had record high waiting lists, the worst Parliament for living standards on record, a surrender on house building, a failure on infrastructure and a £22 billion hole in the public finances —those are their milestones of failure.
These are our choices today. The metrics by which we measure things are set out in the document before the House. The targets will make a real difference to people’s lives: higher living standards across the country, more housing, fewer people on NHS waiting lists, more community police and the best start in life for all children. That final metric is already measured when children start school at the age of five; under the hon. Gentleman’s Government, that metric fell, so our plan is to raise that, so that three out of four children can start school ready to learn. That is the measure that we will choose.
The truth is that the Conservatives could not tackle the challenges we have set out today, and they know it. They could not unblock the housing system or get the growth the country needs because they are the ones blocking the new housing and the infrastructure that we need. They could not fix the schools or the hospitals, or get more police on the streets, because they are still saying that they support the investment while opposing any revenue measure that pays for it, thereby sacrificing any reputation for economic competence that they had.
What a contrast. We will not subscribe to the fatalistic view that all we can look forward to is more of the kind of failure we saw over the past 14 years. We believe in setting out plans that will improve people’s lives, because we know that a united Government, with a clear sense of priorities, prepared to do the hard yards and make the difficult long-term choices for the country, can deliver a better future for people. That is what is set out in the plans we have published today.
Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s plan for change, which will ensure that the Government are focused on delivery, not the dither we have seen for the past 14 years with the Conservatives. I especially welcome the NHS target of 18 weeks; the last Labour Government were able to deliver that target and NHS satisfaction levels were at their highest in history. Fourteen years of the Conservatives running the NHS into the ground have left it in an appalling state. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that that must never be allowed to happen again?
Pat McFadden
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. When we came into office in 1997, we were also faced with an NHS that was in severe difficulty. Let me be clear with the House: meeting that target is extremely challenging, but we believe that by setting it and driving the system towards it, we can make real progress towards reducing waiting lists. What a contrast in terms of what the public felt. When we left office in 2010, the public satisfaction rates with the NHS were the highest ever recorded. When we came back into office in July, those satisfaction levels were the lowest ever recorded. That is what we are trying to turn around through the plan we have published today.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for advance sight of the statement. This new Government have followed the disaster of the previous Conservative Administration. The Conservatives broke the NHS, they crashed the economy with the disastrous mini-Budget and they managed the staggering feat of delivering five Prime Ministers in six years. It should not exactly be a hard act to follow—and yet, too many people feel like this new Government are still not listening to them.
When my colleagues and I speak to our constituents, they simply cannot comprehend decisions such as the increase in national insurance, which will hurt jobs just as we need to get the economy going; the tax on family farms; or the utterly misguided removal of the winter fuel payment. The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, therefore, if I approach today’s announcement with a degree of scepticism. New targets are all well and good, but people have heard lots of similar pledges and targets before. As they know all too well, without a proper plan for delivery, they fail. I hope the Government recognise that pursuing the targets at the expense of all the other things left broken by the Conservatives will not cut it. The British public will not be taken for fools.
On that point, I want to focus on the NHS. Yes, bringing down waiting lists for treatment is a crucial part of the picture, but doing so at the cost of neglecting A&E waits or the ability to see a GP is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. We know that to fix the crisis in the NHS we must also fix the crisis in our care system. Indeed, it is on fixing health and care and delivering on the issues that people care about most that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches will continue to hold the Government to account. When will we hear more detail about how the plan is to be delivered, and particularly, about spending allocations for the NHS to fix our hospitals and reduce those waiting lists?
Pat McFadden
I welcome the questions from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. She is right to point out the Conservatives’ record, but I gently say that she too seems to support extra spending but oppose all the revenue-raising measures that go towards that. The truth is that if we are serious, we cannot do that. The reason we have had to raise revenue was the appalling legacy that we inherited. We had to stabilise the public finances and fix the situation we were left with. Now that we have done that, we can look forward to delivering on these key goals.
The hon. Lady asks how the plans are to be paid for. There will be a spending review next year, as she knows. However, we have already announced £22 billion extra for the NHS over the next couple of years, which is accompanied by the reforms that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has set out.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
This Labour Government’s plans to make work pay will give thousands of workers in my constituency a much-needed pay rise after 14 years of failure by the Conservative party. Does my right hon. Friend agree that plans to support low-paid workers in insecure jobs will be not only crucial but absolutely central to our plan for change?
Pat McFadden
I welcome what my hon. Friend said about pay. The Chancellor announced a significant increase in the minimum wage at the time of the Budget a few weeks ago. Of course we want public sector workers and everybody who helps to deliver a plan to be rewarded well, but it also has to come with change in the way the state works, to make sure we get the best value for money and the best productivity and make the best use of technology. We cannot have that just in the private sphere; we have to apply it to the public sphere to make sure we get the best bang for the taxpayers’ buck.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I do not think anybody doubts the sincerity of the new Government in wanting to achieve these laudable aims. I remind him, however, of John Lennon’s line:
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Notably absent from the priorities are ones such as reducing the national debt or dealing with the demographic challenge or the lack of defence and security that we need to build up to confront global challenges. Are these aims the Government’s only priorities or will we see a bigger list that deals with some of the really existential challenges that threaten the independence and survival of our country?
Pat McFadden
I welcome the hon. Member’s question. He referred to defence and security. I did deliberately mention that area in my remarks, because it is an absolute foundation of any Government that their first duty is to protect their people. That is why there is a specific section on it in the document, and why it is an underpinning foundation for the goals that we have set out today.
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
I listened carefully to the shadow Minister’s reply, and it sounded to me like he welcomed much of the investment that our Government will deliver, but, funnily enough, he will not support any measures to pay for it. I was always taught that the Tories were against a something-for-nothing culture. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this will only compound the Tories’ reputation for economic recklessness?
Pat McFadden
I do think the Tories have a problem. The new Leader of the Opposition stood at that Dispatch Box a couple of weeks ago and said that she supported all the extra investments. Therefore, every time the Opposition stand up and oppose the revenue measures that are designed to fund them, all they do is expose their own economic incoherence. It is quite simple: if the Opposition support the investments, they have either to support the revenue measures that we have set out, or set out alternative revenue-raising measures to meet the investments that they support. So far, they have utterly failed to do that.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Five months in and after a Budget that the Office for Budget Responsibility says will lower growth over five years, increase inflation and reduce the number of people in jobs, it is extraordinary to see a document that has so many areas not covered. I want to probe the right hon. Gentleman specifically on his goal of increasing disposable income for working people. What would he say to those 44,000 terminally ill older people who, in shocking news last week from Marie Curie, will not get their winter fuel allowance this year? Will he be judged by his governance actions?
Pat McFadden
Every Government are judged by their actions and by the legacy that they leave to their successors. We had to take that decision on winter fuel precisely because of the legacy that was left to us. We do want to see a rise in people’s living standards and in their disposable income. Those stagnated under the previous Government, and let us not forget how unusual that was. This was the first Parliament in living memory that saw stagnated living standards across the whole population. We aim to change that and make sure that people see rising living standards wherever they live in the country.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
When I was a child in Denton Holme in Carlisle, PC Kevin Scott was a very familiar figure. He knew us and we knew his name. Does the Minister agree that not only does society exist, but it is woven from thousands of communities such as Denton Holme, and that our commitment to reintroducing named community police officers will strengthen those communities, strengthen society and take back our streets?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right. Let me praise PC Kevin Scott and other officers like him who are known in the community. While I am here, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me mention Kenny, our police community support officer on Bilston high street, who helps to keep us safe. We want to see more named officers like that, so that people know who is keeping their streets safe and can put a face to the name, and we can restore proper community policing to make our streets and our town centres safe.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
However the Minister tries to dress this up, there is an unmistakeable whiff of panic about it. One would have thought that a decade and a half of opposition would have been ample time to prepare a plan for change, rather than the relaunch of a Government whose five-year plan seems to have unravelled after just five months. I was particularly interested, however, to hear about the Government’s commitment to reform of the state. He said that each time, they will ask, “Is power being devolved enough?” Given that the Scottish Government have asked for powers on migration, employment law and the constitution to be devolved, when can we expect to see some action on that reform of the state, and that important commitment to devolution?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Member calls this a relaunch. I hate to break it to him, but the Government he supports in Scotland produce a programme for government every single year. Does that mean that they relaunch every year, or does he put that accusation only to us? He asks about devolution. We were the party that created devolution because we believed in a powerful Scottish Parliament. We still do, and it has just received its biggest real-terms increase in funding since devolution came into being. He missed out his thanks to the Labour Chancellor who made that happen.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome today’s statement, which is a real plan for change and hope. It is clear that the Conservatives do not like us talking about their record, but it had a real-world impact in constituencies such as mine, particularly when it came to bobbies on the beat. For 14 years, the Conservatives stripped us of bobbies on the beat, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) said, neighbourhood policing was stripped out of many local communities. I particularly welcome the requirement in today’s plan for more neighbourhood policing, which will have a real-world impact on my constituents.
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we saw huge cuts in the number of police officers after the Conservative party came to power, which really affected the neighbourhood community policing teams that we had set up during our period in Government. We want to ensure that there are proper neighbourhood policing teams in every community, with a named officer, so that people can feel safe on their streets and in their communities. That absolutely underpins our quality of life. There is no freedom if people do not feel safe, which is why it is such a core part of the plan that we have produced today.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s commitment to revitalising faith in democratic politics, and I agree that Government can be a force for good, but he will know that perhaps the biggest macroeconomic challenge that we face is productivity; indeed, he mentioned it today. I am therefore disappointed to see in the plan no real mention of work- force skills or national economic resilience, in terms of growing more of the food that we eat and making more of the goods that we need. Will he look at those two areas and set productivity targets, for which Ministers can be held accountable, so that what really counts is not just what we spend but what we get for what we spend?
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Member might have noticed that I said in my opening remarks that an old debate just about the size of the budget is not enough for the situation that we face. Of course budgets, resources and investment matter, but so too does reform of the way the state works, the application of technology, and the balance between what is done centrally and what is done in devolved areas. Alongside any delivery goals there has to be a real plan to make them happen that reforms the state. I am clear that that must go alongside the goals that we have set out today.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Waiting lists on the NHS have already been mentioned, but they need to be mentioned again, because the last 14 years have made such a difference to constituents in Truro and Falmouth. They have really struggled to work and to live, having to wait one or two years for orthopaedic operations. Please will my right hon. Friend speak again about what has already been done to deal with those waiting lists, and how that will lead into the future?
Pat McFadden
This is a hugely important problem for the country, because the current levels are not just bad for those waiting a long time for NHS treatment; they are also bad for the economy, because we have so many people in that position. That number has started to fall slightly since we came into office, but it will take a long and sustained effort and a combination of investment and reform. I am glad that we were able to announce the biggest increase in NHS funding since 2010 outside the pandemic period, but that has to be used in a way that gets waiting lists down, helps the people waiting for NHS treatment and, crucially, helps produce the economic growth and productivity we need. The truth is too many people are waiting in pain and too many people of working age are out of work on long-term sickness benefits, and we have to do something about both those things if we are to meet our economic growth targets and get the rising living standards we want to see.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
In the document, the Government have downgraded their pledge to have the fastest-growing economy in the G7 and junked their pledge to cut energy bills by £300, breaking two promises to the British people. Of the milestones they are keeping, who is accountable for each one, what are the detailed metrics, where are the implementation plans and will Ministers take responsibility if they fail to meet them?
Pat McFadden
If the hon. Member reads the document carefully, he will see that the growth target is very much in the document, but the document also says that it is not enough just to have economic growth; people have to feel it in their standard of living. That should be an important lesson for all of us in politics.
The hon. Member challenges me on accountability. Of course the targets are challenging, but let us look at the alternative. We were not prepared to carry on with the thinking that announcements were something real, with no real focus on delivery and driving the system. In case he has not noticed, there is a crisis of faith in politics out there. We have set out targets today that will make a real difference to people’s lives. I accept that they are challenging, but if we have fewer people waiting in pain, more people able to own their own home, safer streets and a better chance in life for children starting school, that is change worth having, and that is why we published the plan.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the statement. Harlow is a town plagued by low-paid and insecure work and people being forced out of work due to waiting for operations. Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster describe how the plan will help tackle those issues for residents in my town? I gently say to the Conservatives when they talk about metrics that they are the party that criticised schools during their tenure because apparently half the schools were below average.
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right that when people do the right thing and they go out to work and try to earn a living, they should have a decent reward for what they do. That is why Labour introduced the concept of a national minimum wage in the first place—opposed by the Conservatives, who said it would destroy jobs—and why the Chancellor announced at the recent Budget a significant increase in that wage so that when people do the right thing, they are rewarded and can get a decent living for the hard work they do.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Flexible affordable childcare is a critical part of our economic infrastructure. It gives parents more choice over how to organise their life, and it helps them return to work if they want to, as well as giving children a good start in life. Yet nurseries in Marple in my Hazel Grove constituency have told me that the Government’s increase in national insurance charges will force them to increase costs to families. The Government rightly say they are serious about fixing early years provision and tackling the attainment gap for disadvantaged children, so do they plan to exempt early years and nursery settings from their ill-advised hikes to national insurance charges?
Pat McFadden
If the hon. Member looks at the document, she will find that an expansion of nursery places is in it, because we know it is good for children and for working parents. That is part of the plan we set out today, and part of our plan to ensure that children in early years have the best possible start in life. I cannot announce anything further to the Budget on national insurance, but she knows the background to why we had to take those decisions.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Listening to Conservative Members, one would think we were left a golden legacy. Despite that halcyon legacy, it is no wonder the Conservatives were resoundingly beaten in the last election—my constituents want an NHS that can be relied on, yet Lord Darzi’s report was clear that we have not sorted out the health service or social care. Indeed, 13% of NHS beds are taken up by people who could be in social care. Will the Minister outline what he will do to ensure that we finally get to grips with that crucial issue?
Pat McFadden
The legacy of the Conservative Government was not just economic or in policy, but a loss of faith in government’s ability to do things. That is part of the backdrop to the plan that we are publishing today. I commend Lord Darzi’s report to anyone who has not read it. It fully sets out the legacy in health. We have put getting waiting lists down at the heart of the plan that we are publishing today because that drives the whole system; if we get them down, we will have a healthier population, more people ready to work, more people to contribute to the country and more people to contribute to our productivity. That is why it is at the heart of the plan.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for taking the time to come to the House to set out where the milestones are—that is a positive move for a Government to make in order to give clarity. However, it would also be incredibly helpful if he set out how he will keep the House updated—perhaps on a six-monthly basis—to track the plan’s development and the Government’s delivery of it. There is a long time until the next general election, so it would be good to see how the plan is progressing throughout this Parliament.
Pat McFadden
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the plan, which stands in marked contrast to the scepticism shown by his party’s Front Benchers. He will have plenty of opportunity, now that we have published the plan, to ask Ministers about these things as we move forward. We know that they will be challenging to deliver. We have not yet followed the advice of the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara), who suggested that we do this every year, but I am sure that the Ministers in charge of these goals will keep the House regularly updated.
Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
My constituency saw the highest price rises in the country back in August, as a direct result of the Conservatives’ opposition to building the houses that are clearly so desperately wanted and needed in my constituency. Can the Minister assure young people in my constituency, who are desperate to buy their own homes, start families and get on with their lives, that Labour will deliver for them?
Pat McFadden
Building more houses is a challenging thing to do because there are always people who will object and blockages in our planning system, and things take too long. We have a major planning and infrastructure Bill coming in the new year that aims to unblock some of that. We know that the target is challenging, but we must build more houses in this country—and not just houses, but more infrastructure in order to get the economic growth that we need. It takes too long for major investments to happen. I look forward to the Conservative party’s support for our planning and infrastructure Bill when it is introduced in the new year.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
The Conservative Government brough the NHS to its knees. Theirs is a legacy of crumbling hospitals, of doctors and nurses working at burnout, and of patients being treated in corridors. The Liberal Democrats welcome the extra investment in the NHS and support the ambition to get waiting lists down, but the Government cannot fix the NHS without first fixing social care. At Winchester hospital—part of the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust—almost one in five beds are filled by someone who could be cared for through the social care package but is stuck in a hospital bed. That has the knock-on effect of increasing A&E and ambulance waiting times, and of elective surgeries being cancelled. Will the Government review the national insurance increase for social care providers and hospices, and will they commit to cross-party talks so that we can have a long-term plan to fix social care?
Pat McFadden
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but there is a contradiction at the heart of it. He began by saying he welcomed the extra investment in the NHS, and ended by saying he opposed the national insurance increase that is necessary to fund these things. As I have said before, people cannot support the extra investment we have announced, but oppose every revenue-raising measure that contributes to it—it simply does not work like that. If we want the extra investment, we have to support the revenue-raising measures that make it possible.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
The plan for change is clear. This Government will restore order to the asylum and immigration system, clear the asylum backlog, end the use of hotels, increase returns and cut small boat crossings. Does the Minister agree that this plan stands in stark contrast to the open borders policy that the Conservative party subjected the country to?
Pat McFadden
It is striking that when the Conservatives came into power, they began by promising to reduce net migration to under 100,000, and bequeathed us a situation where that figure was 10 times higher. This happened on their watch with their policies, and now we are left to clear up the situation and restore some order to our migration policy. The country will always need migration, but the “Plan for Change” document sets out what my hon. Friend said; we will reduce net migration and deal with illegal migration in the way she set out.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am very pleased to read that Labour’s drive is for the working man and woman—that has to be welcomed, and I very much welcome the £25 billion for the NHS. It would be churlish of me, or of anyone in the House, not to do so.
However, the Budget put a question mark over the viability of working farms. It stripped pensioners of their winter fuel allowance and put what could possibly be unsustainable pressure on 99% of microbusinesses and small businesses in Northern Ireland. That is not helping the working man or the working woman. Everybody in this House wants the Labour party to succeed, for the sake of the country and for its people—actually, I might want it more than most, if I can say that. I once again ask whether the Government will have the strength to acknowledge and put right the wrong calls that have been made, to lead this great nation successfully to prosperity with no pensioner, small business or family farm left behind.
Pat McFadden
I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Member has asked his question. On farms, as the Chancellor made clear, a couple would have an allowance of £3 million before any inheritance obligation kicked in, and then it would be at half the rate that other people have to pay, so significant protections are built into the policy. On pensioners, it is very important to remember that we have said we will protect the triple lock, which is reflected in the pension increase that has been announced for next year.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
After 14 years of repeated broken promises, it is hardly surprising that many people are distrustful of politicians and the ability of government to do anything positive. Does the Minister agree that in setting out a clear plan for change, the Government are offering the British people not just the hope of a better future, but clear, measurable metrics against which they can be held to account?
Pat McFadden
This question of distrust and loss of faith is really important, because after so much chaos in recent years, it is very easy for our constituents to turn off from politics—to think that no Government of any political colour can deliver for them. We were determined not to allow that scepticism to set in and become the norm, so we have set out targets. I acknowledge, not for the first time today, that those targets are challenging. They are not easy to meet, but progress towards them—with lower waiting times, more houses built, and the other things set out in the plan for change document—will show that the Government are trying to deliver for people and that politics can bring productive change. That is change worth having.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), I welcome these milestones, and I agree with what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said about the need to restore trust. How will Labour’s health policies in England differ from those that they pursued in Wales?
Pat McFadden
I am sure that in every part of the country, Governments who run the NHS want to see waiting lists fall. We put that at the heart of the plan for change today because it drives the whole system, and because the levels of satisfaction with the NHS that we inherited were the lowest ever recorded. No Government can be content with that; I can tell the right hon. Gentleman honestly that no Labour Government are content with it. That is why it is an important part of the plan.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
In West Brom, one issue dominates all else: the fact that people are working harder and harder, but can afford less and less. That is the record of the Conservative party, who crashed our economy and oversaw the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. Can my right hon. Friend set out how the plan for change will make ordinary people better off and deliver exactly what people voted for in July?
Pat McFadden
I very much welcome that question from my parliamentary neighbour. We represent very similar communities, and I agree that when people go out to work and do the right thing, they want to be rewarded, rightly. That is why we protected people’s payslips in the Budget. It is why we announced an increase in the minimum wage in the Budget. It is why we made sure in the Budget that carers could earn more before losing part of their revenue. We want work to be rewarded. We are the Labour party; we are the party of labour. When people do the right thing, they should be treated fairly.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
The Conservatives have always claimed to be the party of law and order, but they took police officers off the streets. Knife and youth crime, antisocial behaviour and local drug activity are some of the most common complaints in my constituency. I welcome the Labour Government’s urgent action to recruit more neighbourhood police officers. My right hon. Friend knows my constituency well, because it adjoins his in Wolverhampton. Can he confirm that this action will make a real difference to my constituents?
Pat McFadden
I welcome the question from my parliamentary neighbour on the other side of my constituency. He is right that people in his constituency and mine care deeply about the safety of their community. They saw the cuts in policing after the Conservative party came to power. They saw their neighbourhood officers being more and more stretched, trying to cover more and more area with not enough officers. It is really important to restore a sense of community policing, so that people feel safe in their community and on their street, because that underpins the freedom that people need to live their life.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. When these achievements are reached, the impact on communities like mine will be profound. For too long, people have been told that government does not work. They need to understand that when government is done well, it can and will work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the British people need these milestones for progress, after 14 years of milestones of failure?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As I said in my statement, let us consider what the situation would be if we did not do these things. We would just carry on with the situation that we have, in which, for example, young people work harder and harder and think, “How will I ever get a home of my own?”, and people waiting for NHS treatment are told that they might have to wait for 18 months or two years. That is too long to wait for treatment. That is why we put those things at the heart of the document today. It will make a real difference to people’s lives if we manage to meet the milestones. They are challenging, but doing this can help drive the system and ensure progress towards our goals.
Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)
The NHS has long been a top issue raised by local residents when I have been out knocking on doors across the whole of Filton and Bradley Stoke, so I welcome not only the investment, but the reform alongside that, and these clear milestones for change, which are what the country voted to see. Will the Minister give a commitment, on behalf of the Government, that no matter the lack of support from the Conservative party, he will persevere with this, as that is what the country wants?
Pat McFadden
I can give my hon. Friend that commitment, and I can assure her of the passion that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care feels for this goal, for turning around the system and for reducing waiting lists and waiting times. He knows how important that is for patients, and for our goal of growing the economy, and that is why the goal is part of the document.
Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)
I welcome each and every one of the milestones, and the real, tangible difference that they will make to the lives of my residents in Rossendale and Darwen. Each is a crucial step in the process of mission delivery. I also welcome the recognition that to get them met, we need to do government differently. Devolution and a move away from command-and-control government represents a real opportunity to enable more effective and efficient delivery, and perhaps even restore some of the trust in politics that was so broken and destroyed by the Conservative party.
In Lancashire, we have been held back by an outdated two-tier local government system. Does the Minister agree that it is time for Lancashire leaders to come together to grasp the huge opportunity that devolution offers?
Pat McFadden
As I said, if the goals are to be reached, it will require reform of the state itself, and part of that is about local delivery. There has been a lot of innovation in recent years. We started devolution when we were last in power, and the Conservative party took it forward with the creation of a number of mayors around the country. There is further to go with that. Having mayors and strong local leaders as partners can really help us to deliver the goals set out in the document.
Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement. He has set out concrete, deliverable and measurable milestones against which the British public can judge us. What a stark contrast to Conservative Front-Bench Members, who still refuse even to acknowledge the Liz Truss economic disaster that was the mini-Budget, and to apologise for it. Does my right hon. Friend agree that any sort of U-turn that sees the Conservatives backing our steps to restore economic stability is unlikely, and that they will continue to cling to the idea of the magic money tree?
Pat McFadden
The Conservatives did deliver some things. They delivered a huge economic crash, a Bank of England intervention in order to prop up the pension system, and significant increases in mortgage rates, which people are still paying today. The most important thing about defeat is to learn from it, and I have to say from observing the Conservative party that they are not yet doing that.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
The legacy of 14 years of the Conservatives in government and a century of Tory complacency in Hexham is seen in how police numbers in Prudhoe fell under the last Government, and indeed in Callerton and Throckley. They have also fallen in our most rural communities. Rural crime is unfortunately brought up with me regularly. That is an example of how the Conservative party has failed to understand the modern countryside. Will the Minister outline how this plan will make a measurable change for our rural communities, as well as towns like Prudhoe?
Pat McFadden
The goals in this document can make a real difference to rural communities. We know that many people in rural communities are worried about rural crime, so more neighbourhood policing can help them. We also know that many young people in rural communities are wondering how they will ever have a home of their own. That is why we support more house building, as well as shorter hospital waiting lists and neighbourhood policing teams, as set out in the document.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I am the last Member to be called, but I will try not to take too long. I welcome the scale of the ambition in the Secretary of State’s statement, but I challenge what he said about there being only one millstone in the UK. My residents in Edinburgh South West increasingly feel held back by our incoherent Scottish Government. Yesterday was a fine example of that. In the Scottish Parliament, the SNP Government set their Budget—one largely funded by the hard work of Scottish Labour MPs in this place, who secured the biggest ever settlement for Scotland. Meanwhile, SNP MPs in this place voted against our money-raising measures. They want to eat their cake and have it.
Dr Arthur
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always good to be guided by you. The Secretary of State set out how living standards will increase right across the UK, and Scotland is part of that. How will he work with the Scottish Government and the incoherent SNP Government to do that?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the recent devolution financial settlements were the biggest in real terms since devolution was introduced, as a consequence of the announcements made by the Labour Chancellor at the Budget. That provided the funding, and it is completely incoherent to welcome that funding—in fact, to run around saying that it will be spent on this and that—but then to vote against the revenue measures that contribute to it. If we want increased investment and boosted services, we must support the revenue-raising measures that make that possible; and then we have to combine investment with the reform necessary to deliver. That is the next step.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat McFadden Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The Government’s five missions offer real benefits to people living in every part of the country: higher living standards, more energy security, safer streets, lower waiting lists, and a renewed confidence that the future will be better for our children. We have already made progress, including launching a national wealth fund, providing an additional £22.6 billion for the NHS over the next couple of years, launching a new border security command, providing £1.4 billion more for school rebuilding and removing the de facto ban on onshore wind farms. The Prime Minister will unveil his plan for change later this morning, which sets out how we will deliver further on our missions over the next few years, and I am due to give a statement to the House on that matter later this morning.
Rebecca Smith
How will the Prime Minister’s five mission boards learn from the clear lack of join-up between the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs over the family farm tax and the family business tax to ensure that they do not become five mission silos?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Lady is right to say that one of the benefits of missions is to work across departmental boundaries. That has been tried many times and is difficult to do, but I believe that farmers and people in rural areas will benefit from greater energy security, from lower waiting lists in the NHS, from rising living standards, and from the other things that are at the heart of our missions.
Andrew Cooper
Too many children face barriers to opportunity. Their life chances are being held back by rationed access to mental health support and diminished by a system that does not do enough to support those with special educational needs and disabilities. What action can be taken on a cross-Government basis to increase the availability of mental health support to cover 100% of schools, so that we can achieve our vital mission to break down barriers to opportunity?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. He will be aware that we have announced extra funding for special educational needs. That issue is rising up the agenda and is causing a lot of anxiety for parents throughout the country. At the heart of our missions is making sure that a greater proportion of young children are ready to start school, because if that is not the case, it can hold back their opportunity for the rest of their lives.
Richard Baker
With GB Energy headquartered in Scotland and the Methil yard in my constituency—a fantastic facility to build the renewables infrastructure we will need—how is my right hon. Friend ensuring collaboration across Government and with the Scottish Government, to deliver the mission for growth through investment in renewables?
Pat McFadden
As my hon. Friend says, we have made good progress in setting up Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company, including announcing that its headquarters will be in Aberdeen. This transition to clean power offers huge economic opportunities for the whole UK. I am glad to report to the House that co-operation between the Scottish Government and the UK on this matter has been good, and this is at the heart of our clean energy mission.
Melanie Onn
Can the Minister give us some indication on the timeline for GB Energy? When does he expect it to be up and running at full capacity? Does he think there is any opportunity to incorporate green skills to support new jobs in areas such as North East Lincolnshire, Grimsby and Cleethorpes?
Pat McFadden
In just five months, the Government have made progress in setting up Great British Energy. We have announced £25 million to establish the company, with a further £100 million of capital funding to spend in the next financial year. We have announced the partnership with the Crown Estate and selected the chair, Juergen Maier. As I said a moment ago, we have chosen Aberdeen as the location for the headquarters.
As for the next steps, more information on Great British Energy’s early priorities will come in the new year from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. That will support skills development across the country, including in the Humber, which is at the absolute forefront of the UK’s net zero ambitions and is home, I am pleased to say, to several groundbreaking renewable energy projects, which we support.
Andrew Ranger
A recent report by the Social Mobility Foundation showed that on average people from working-class backgrounds are paid an incredible £6,000 less than their privileged peers. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Labour’s opportunity mission will be critical to ending that damning statistic and finally smashing the class ceiling that enables it?
Pat McFadden
We firmly believe that, whoever someone is and wherever they come from, Britain should be a country where hard work means they can get on in life, and that their circumstances of birth should never dictate their future. The reality for too many children in Britain today is that that can be the case—that opportunity can be limited—and our opportunity mission is aimed at breaking that link. We will roll out Government-funded childcare to support improved access, delivering on the funded hours expansion and on the Government’s manifesto commitment to create 3,000 more school-based nurseries, increasing the availability of childcare places where they are needed most. As I said, we want to get a greater proportion of children ready to start school when they walk into primary school for the first time.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Stepping Hill hospital in Hazel Grove is reported to have a repairs backlog of £130 million. The people on waiting lists, which have been elongated by this repairs backlog, are police officers, teachers and nurses, thereby making it more difficult for the Government to deliver on any of their other missions. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that due weight is being given to reducing NHS waiting lists, so that all the other missions can be achieved?
Pat McFadden
We announced an extra £22 billion for the NHS over the next couple of years in the recent Budget. I can certainly assure the hon. Lady that reducing waiting times is at the heart of our missions, because current waiting times are bad for people’s health and bad for our economy.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
It is a pleasure to face the right hon. Gentleman across the Dispatch Box for what I believe is the first time. I am pleased to see three members of the Cabinet on the Front Bench—it is quite right that the Cabinet Office should be so well reflected.
The day after he entered Downing Street, the Prime Minister pledged to personally chair each mission delivery board to drive through change. We now hear that he is not chairing each mission delivery board. Why has the Prime Minister broken his pledge?
Pat McFadden
Let me begin by welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his position; I look forward to our exchanges. He is also the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, so I hope his party leader will be giving him a Christmas bonus for productivity and hard work—he will certainly deserve it.
The Prime Minister is very engaged in the delivery of these missions, and meets for missions stocktakes regularly with the Secretaries of State in charge. That is the benefit of having this kind of programme: the Prime Minister can personally hold Secretaries of State to account and ensure they are all focused on delivery of the Government’s priorities.
Alex Burghart
The right hon. Gentleman is right: as the holder of two shadow portfolios, I get double the money. [Laughter.] I am sorry not to hear an explanation for why the Prime Minister has gone back on his word. There are growing concerns that the mission delivery boards are not being taken seriously. Those concerns were felt by members of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday, when the right hon. Gentleman’s very capable permanent secretary said that
“the governance and the wiring of how we do this might not be immediately observable”,
which is a masterful piece of civil service phraseology if ever there was one.
These boards are not Cabinet Sub-Committees, which means they are not authorised to make policy. The Prime Minister is not there, so his authority is absent. The Government will not reveal who is on them, what they discuss or when they meet. They are starting to sound like figments of the Government’s imagination—a litter of Schrödinger’s cats. Will the right hon. Gentleman at least commit to regular published updates on what each of the boards is doing, who sits on them, what decisions they make, what work they are undertaking and what achievements they have achieved?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Gentleman is going to get a published update in a couple of hours, when he will receive a very full account of what the boards have been doing, how they have been prioritising their work and what the next steps are. He is a former Cabinet Office Minister, so he will know that one of the wonderful things about the Cabinet Office is that it does a great deal of work under the bonnet—sometimes not in the full gaze of publicity—and that that is the privilege of all of us who have served in the Cabinet Office. That is true of this work. However, we are publishing a very important update later this morning.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Genomics is a great British success story, and our genomics databases are vital for world-leading life sciences and health research. The organisations that have such databases have to provide data protection and security training, and have to make sure that researchers can access data only for approved purposes. The opportunities come with risks, which is why the Government will always try to minimise the risks of biological data to protect our bio-economy. We are working on this issue across Government Departments and through our national security structures.
Mr Carmichael
I take it that genomics databases will not be designated as critical national infrastructure, then, which was the question. As the Government seek to reset the relationship with China, will Ministers be mindful of the old maxim that you need a long-handled spoon to sup with the devil, and of the fact that Chinese genomics companies such as BGI do not behave as normal commercial competitors? Will the Secretary of State ensure that the interests of British genomics are not left vulnerable as a consequence of any reset relationship?
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Member asks a very important question about the twin interests of national security and economic growth. In this territory, we work with UK organisations that hold genomic data to make sure that they have robust data protection systems in place, and our security services give them advice on these matters on a regular basis, so that our pursuit of growth does not conflict with our very important national security objectives.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe, which is why national resilience is a top priority for us. In July, I announced that I would lead a review of resilience, and work has been progressing across Government. We have engaged at all levels with the public, private and voluntary sectors, and this work is overseen by the dedicated resilience sub-committee of the National Security Council, which I chair. It is also closely linked to our consideration of the covid inquiry module 1 report, to which the Government will respond next month—within the six-month timeframe set out by the chair of the inquiry.
Richard Foord
The module 1 report recommended resilience and preparedness, and particularly
“Bringing in external expertise from outside government and the Civil Service to…guard against ‘groupthink’”.
How is the Minister planning to bring in that external expertise? Would he consider issuing a brochure to British citizens on preparation for crises, as the Swedish Government have just done?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Member raises an important point. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare), has done a great deal of work on consulting people outside Government—external experts across business, the voluntary sector, local government and so on. It is really important that, as part of this, we hear voices not just from Whitehall but from beyond, too.
Ashley Dalton
The module 1 report of the UK covid-19 inquiry has found that the impact was most acutely felt by the most vulnerable—the elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions, people living in overcrowded housing, and those on low incomes. As the Government undertake their review, can the Minister assure the House that they will work to deliver resilience for everyone, not just some of us?
Pat McFadden
This is such an important point. If resilience is to mean anything, it has to be for us all, not just for some. My hon. Friend is right to say that one of the lessons of past tragedies, whether it is covid-19, Grenfell Tower or others, is that it is often the most vulnerable in our society who are hardest hit. That is why it is so important that we learn the lessons of the past and have support for the most vulnerable at the heart of our work.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead, recently met senior representatives from a range of organisations that support people who are disproportionately impacted by emergencies and crises to make sure that resilience is, indeed, for all, and not just for some.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
As I set out in my speech to the NATO cyber-defence conference last week, we are working to strengthen the UK’s cyber-resilience, but there is, of course, still more to do. In the King’s Speech, we announced that the Government will bring forward a cyber-security and resilience Bill, which will help to strengthen the UK’s cyber-defences and our work with industry to help to make the UK a safe place to live and work online.
I stress to the House that this is an ongoing effort. It can never be perfect, but we are constantly working to make sure we have the strongest cyber-defences possible.
Nick Smith
The college in Ebbw Vale has a brilliant cyber security course training young people for jobs in this growing sector. However, the national cyber-security chief says there is a “widening gap” between the UK’s defences and the threats posed by hostile nations, so can the Minister confirm what is being done to scale up the workforce to defend our crucial infrastructure?
Pat McFadden
I congratulate the college in Ebbw Vale on its brilliant cyber-security course.
My hon. Friend is right to point out the threat, which is why I spoke at the NATO cyber-defence conference last week. State and non-state actors are constantly probing our defences. It is a constant effort to keep those defences strong, and we are determined to work not only with education but with business and our critical national infrastructure to make sure we are as well protected as we can be against the threats we face. Security is no longer just about hard military power; it is also about cyber-security, which is why that has to be a real priority for the Government.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
As I said a few moments ago, last week I addressed the NATO cyber-defence conference about the increasingly aggressive and reckless behaviour from Russia, in particular in the cyber-realm, including attacks on NATO members. I made it clear that no one will intimidate us into weakening our support for Ukraine. I also announced the Laboratory for AI Security Research and a new incident unit to help our allies respond to cyber-attacks against them.
We promised to make a tangible difference to people’s lives. I will shortly be setting out in this House our ambitious plan for change over the next few years, and copies of that plan will be made available to Members in advance of the statement.
Alison Bennett
During the recent debate on the infected blood compensation scheme, the Government made promising indications regarding boosting engagement with affected groups. Victims and their families in Mid Sussex and across the country have been waiting for decades for answers. It is essential that people begin to receive the compensation that is so long overdue. Why did the Government make last-minute changes to the accepted documents for interim compensation claims required from the estates of people who died after receiving contaminated blood and blood products? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me what action is being taken to tackle the unacceptable delays?
Mr Speaker
Order. I say gently to the hon. Lady that we are now on topicals, which are meant to be short and punchy. Today, we seem to have a bit of time, but please try to help each other.
Pat McFadden
Let me assure the hon. Lady that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, who leads on this, is fully aware of the issues she has raised. He is working with the groups affected and is determined to ensure that initial payments are out by the end of the year.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Was the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team informed by Downing Street of the former Transport Secretary’s conviction before she was appointed as a Minister of the Crown?
Pat McFadden
The former Transport Secretary had exchanges with the Prime Minister last week, which have resulted in her resigning from the post. She set out her reasons for her resignation in that letter. We now have a new Transport Secretary, who has already made an excellent start in the job.
Alex Burghart
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for restating what is already known. Obviously, it is a matter of public interest whether the propriety and ethics team had been informed before the right hon. Lady was made Transport Secretary. I ask him again: will he confirm whether the PET was informed by Downing Street of the former Transport Secretary’s conviction before she was appointed a Minister of the Crown?
Pat McFadden
All Cabinet Ministers have an interview and make declarations to the propriety and ethics team before they are appointed to the Government. I am aware of what I told the propriety and ethics team before my appointment, but I do not look through the declarations from every other Minister.
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Earlier this week, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to bring in proportional representation for Westminster elections and English local elections. I was delighted that it passed a Division of the House. It was supported by Labour Members, as it reflected Labour party policy on this matter. Now that it is the express will of the House that my Bill gets a Second Reading, will the Secretary of State commit to giving the Bill Government time so that it can be fully debated?
Pat McFadden
I hate to do this as we are approaching the festive season, but I am afraid that I will have to disappoint the hon. Lady. We have no plans to change the electoral system, and I cannot give her the Government time that she requires.
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
I am very sorry to hear about the cyber-attack against my hon. Friend’s local authority. Such attacks can have a serious impact on local residents. As I said in my speech to the NATO cyber-defence conference last week, the Government are determined to strengthen cyber-resilience in the UK. We publish guidance on it and meet with stakeholders. Advice is available from the National Cyber Security Centre. In October, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government launched the cyber assessment framework for local government, which is particularly geared at the local authorities about which he speaks.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
“What now for our special envoy?” lament the people of Scotland, now that Sue Gray has told the Prime Minister what he can do with his job offer. In the spirit of cross-border co-operation, might I suggest that the Minister informs No. 10 that we have known all along that this has been nothing more than an embarrassing fiasco, and a cynical face-saving attempt by the Prime Minister, who must think we button up the back?
Pat McFadden
I thought that the hon. Member was going to give me a Christmas greeting, but I am still waiting. In the absence of any envoys, he will have to put up with me instead, as the Minister for intergovernmental relations. It is a part of my job that I take very seriously, for perhaps obvious reasons. I enjoyed my conversations yesterday with the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. I will keep having such conversations.
Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)
In the light of today’s very important announcements about the mission milestones, could we hear a bit about the important work of the mission boards, which have led us to this point?
Pat McFadden
I will have more to say on this shortly, but it is important that Governments set out what they are trying to do and on what timescale, particularly when we have an atmosphere in politics—this is the serious point—of a lack of faith among many in the electorate in the ability of Governments of any stripe to deliver. We take that seriously, and want to do something about it.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Next Tuesday, the Northern Ireland Assembly is to be invited to agree that the European Parliament should make its laws for the next four years in 300 areas of law affecting Northern Ireland. The Cabinet Office issued an explanatory document that does not set out what was meant to be set out, according to the Windsor framework. Article 18 said that the process would be conducted “strictly in accordance with” the UK unilateral declaration of October 2019. That declaration required a public consultation. There has been no public consultation. Why is that, and why is the matter proceeding in the absence of it?
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
I am delighted to give Christmas greetings to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and I am sure that most of us in the House feel a great deal of respect for him.
As the Prime Minister knew he was appointing a convicted fraudster to the Cabinet, was it not incumbent on him to tell the propriety and ethics team? If I can slip a second question in, Mr Speaker, will the right hon. Gentleman, who is committed to and leads in the Government on transparency and openness, all of which have been promised, undertake—notwithstanding the fact that he has not looked at these declarations—to find out and let the House know whether she declared it to the House?
Pat McFadden
As I said to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) a few moments ago, all Secretaries of State give their declaration to the propriety and ethics team upon appointment. The matter was concluded last Friday with the Transport Secretary’s resignation. She has been replaced by a new Secretary of State, and she set out her reasons for resigning in her resignation letter. If the right hon. Member has not had a copy, I am quite happy to make it available to him.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s commitment to a duty of candour for public bodies. In the light of the appalling crimes of John Smyth, who left over 100 children assaulted and traumatised while senior members of the Church of England looked the other way, what steps is the Minister considering in conjunction with the Church so that bishops, dioceses, cathedrals and national church institutions are designated as public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000?
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The Golden Valley development adjacent to GCHQ in Cheltenham will pay a vital role in our nation’s cyber-security. The recent confirmation of £20 million from the Government for that development is welcome, but will the Secretary of State confirm that the project will continue to feature in future iterations of the national cyber strategy?
Pat McFadden
The best thing to do when it comes to a specific place is for me to look into the exact situation and come back to the hon. Member. I assure him, as I have said several times during this session, that cyber-security is extremely important to the Government. It is not just the Government’s job; cyber-security has to be taken seriously by business and the whole of society. That is why we have the National Cyber Security Centre giving advice to bodies of all kinds to ensure that they are defended as well as possible.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Government’s commitment to the infected blood compensation scheme, and everybody in the House and across the country is pleased to see it. As of this month, how many individuals have registered for infected blood compensation payments, and can the Minister provide an update for the delivery of compensation in 2025? I would be pleased to get those figures for the United Kingdom, but in particular for Northern Ireland.
COVID-19 Inquiry Response Costs: Quarter 2 2024-25
Pat McFadden Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The covid-19 pandemic impacted each and every person in the UK. The work of the UK covid-19 inquiry is crucial in examining the UK’s response to and impact of the covid-19 pandemic. There are evidently lessons to be learnt from the pandemic and the Government are committed to closely considering the covid-19 inquiry’s findings and recommendations, which will play a key role in informing the Government’s planning and preparations for the future. Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Cumulative total Cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff (including contingent labour costs) £5,049,000 £5,303,000 £10,352,000 Number of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff (full-time equivalents) 280 284 N/A Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Cumulative total Total legal costs £4,236,000 £5,818,000 £10,054,000
The Government recognise the unprecedented and wholly exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, and the importance of examining as rigorously as possible the actions the state took in response, in order to learn lessons for the future. The inquiry is therefore unprecedented in its scope, complexity and profile, looking at recent events that have profoundly impacted everyone’s lives.
The independent UK covid-19 inquiry publishes its own running costs quarterly. Following the publication of the inquiry’s financial report for quarter 2 2024-25 on 24 October 2024, I would like to update colleagues on the costs to the UK Government associated with responding to the UK covid-19 inquiry.
Figures provided are based upon a selection of the most relevant Departments and are not based on a complete set of departmental figures and are not precise for accounting purposes. Ensuring a comprehensive and timely response to the inquiry requires significant input from a number of key Government Departments, including, but not limited to, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Home Office and HM Treasury, many of which are supported by the Government Legal Department. While every effort has been made to ensure a robust methodology, complexities remain in trying to quantify the time and costs dedicated to the inquiry alone.
It should be noted that alongside full-time resource within Departments, inquiry response teams draw on expertise from across their organisations. The staff costs associated with appearing as witnesses, preparing witnesses and associated policy development work on the UK covid-19 inquiry are not included in the costs below.
Breakdown of staff and costs
The Government’s response to the UK covid-19 inquiry is led by inquiry response units across Departments.
Number of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff: 284 full time equivalents.
Cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff: £5,303,000 (including contingent labour costs).
Financial year 2024-25 (Q1 and Q2), total cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff: £10,352,000 (including contingent labour costs).
Total inquiry response unit legal costs
Inquiry response units across Government Departments are supported by the Government Legal Department, co-partnering firms of solicitors, and legal counsel. These associated legal costs—excluding internal departmental advisory legal costs—for Q2 are below.
Q2 legal costs: £5,818,000.
Financial year 2024-25 (Q1 and Q2), total legal costs: £10,054,000.
[HCWS259]
Updated Ministerial Code
Pat McFadden Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The Government have today published an updated ministerial code. The code is available on www.gov.uk'>www.gov.uk. The new code will be instrumental in setting out the high standards that the British people expect and that Ministers must follow.
Changes to the code include incorporating the seven principles of public life directly into the code; strengthening the powers of the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards; setting out guiding principles for Ministers on gifts and hospitality; and introducing improved transparency arrangements to align more closely the publication of ministerial gifts and hospitality with the House of Commons register.
The new code has also been restructured into three distinct sections: Ministers’ standards of conduct; Ministers’ interests; and Ministers and Government procedures. This brings ethical standards to the forefront of the new code, ending the confusing blend of public service values and everyday governing processes found in previous versions.
The new ministerial code also:
Reinserts an explicit reference to international law and treaty obligations as part of Ministers’ overarching duty to comply with the law.
Includes updated terms of reference for the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards—previously the independent adviser on ministers’ interests.
Ensures the code reflects existing rules, guidance and procedure, including the guidance on use of non-corporate communications channels for Government business, quasi-judicial decisions, and public appointments.
This new ministerial code will help to restore the public’s trust in politics, and shape this Government’s mission to return Britain to the service of working people.
The List of Ministers’ Interests
The list of Ministers’ interests is also being published today on www.gov.uk by the independent adviser on ministerial standards. The list provides details of the personal interests of members of the Government that are judged by the independent adviser to be relevant to their ministerial portfolios and duties.
The List of Ministerial Responsibilities
The Government will today be publishing the list of ministerial responsibilities and the list of non-ministerial departments and executive agencies on www.gov.uk'>www.gov.uk. I have requested that a copy of the list of ministerial responsibilities be deposited in the Libraries of the Houses of Parliament. The list of ministerial responsibilities includes details of ministerial Departments, their correspondence contact details, the Ministers within each Department, and their portfolio responsibilities. The list of non-ministerial departments and executive agencies includes details of each of these organisations, along with associated correspondence contact details, the parent Department and the responsible Government Minister.
The Special Adviser Code of Conduct
The Government have today published an updated code of conduct for special advisers, in line with the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. The code is available on www.gov.uk'>www.gov.uk. Alongside establishing the key responsibilities of special advisers, the updated code of conduct for special advisers sets out the standards of behaviour this Government expect of them and formalises the existing policy for managing interests. The code of conduct for special advisers is part of special advisers’ terms and conditions of service.
The Special Adviser Contract
The Government have today published an updated special adviser model contract, which is available on www.gov.uk'>www.gov.uk. The model contract sets out the terms and conditions that apply to all special advisers appointed by Ministers and employed by Government Departments.
This Government have introduced a small number of changes to the terms of the model contract. These are:
To require special advisers to obtain the required level of security clearance for their role within the first four months of starting in post.
To enable special advisers to leave Government with a severance payment at the start of the pre-election period before a general election—or at the Dissolution of Parliament.
To confirm that special advisers are entitled to an annual review of their salary, and the process for determining any increases in salary.
[HCWS198]
Income tax (charge)
Pat McFadden Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) has confirmed that this is his last appearance at the Dispatch Box, at least in his current guise, so I begin by thanking him for his service to government and to the country. He and I have something in common: we both inherited an awful mess from our predecessors. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer as the repair man—the adult in the room—and was meant to sort things out after the disaster left by his predecessor. He was supposed to be the antidote to Liz Truss, but in recent days, he has become an ally of Liz Truss, united with her in attacking the OBR. He was brought in to praise the economic institutions, but he has ended up condemning them. However, he cannot hide from the verdict: the OBR has confirmed that the previous Government hid billions of pounds of pressures that they knew about, and the Treasury has given us a full picture of precisely what those pressures added up to.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman states that a full breakdown was provided by the Treasury yesterday, but that is just not true. In fact, the chair of the OBR said on “Sky News” last night:
“Nothing in our review was a legitimisation of that £22 billion”
claim. That was him making it very clear that the OBR does not support and has not endorsed the claim in the Treasury report. Will the right hon. Gentleman now confirm, with a simple yes or no, that the OBR does not legitimise that claim?
Pat McFadden
Let me read what the OBR has said:
“The Treasury did not share information with the OBR about the large pressures on RDEL, about the unusual extent of commitments against the reserve… had this information been made available, a materially different judgement…would have been reached.”
Jeremy Hunt
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman ought to read the next paragraph, in which the OBR says that it is “not possible to judge” how much those pressures would have been offset by savings elsewhere, which demonstrates that they were within the range of the normal cost reductions that a Chief Secretary to the Treasury would make ahead of any Budget.
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Gentleman suggests that things got better after February. They did not; they got worse, and that is how we got to £22 billion. This is not just a verdict about what happened but an indictment of the Conservative party’s final period in office. The truth is that, under his watch, the Treasury had stopped doing the basic job of controlling expenditure.
Announcements were made with no money set aside, the asylum and hotel bill was funded by emptying the country’s reserves within the first few months of the financial year, hospital building programmes were announced without the necessary funds set aside to pay for them, a pay award sat on a Secretary of State’s desk while they looked the other way, and compensation schemes were announced without the full funds being set aside to pay for them. That was an irresponsible dereliction of duty that has led to us picking up the pieces and to the right hon. Gentleman attacking the independent watchdog that was set up by his own party. Even his predecessor, the former Member for Spelthorne, admitted this morning that Labour is clearing up the Tory mess. If Conservative Members are more out of touch with reality than the former Member for Spelthorne, let me tell them that that is not a good place to be.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the IFS, which said this morning that the Chancellor
“is not wrong to stress that she got a hospital pass on the public finances.”
Pat McFadden
No, I am not giving way.
The Conservatives talk about their golden legacy, and we heard the former Chancellor read out some of his greatest hits. Who are they kidding? The last Parliament was the worst on record for living standards, with British families worse off than their French and German counterparts. His Government had the second lowest growth in the G7 since the pandemic and the highest inflation in the G7 since the pandemic. They left a prison system overflowing and just days away from collapse, and rather than take responsibility for it, they cut and ran and called an early election.
I have to give the previous Government credit: some things did grow on their watch, such as hospital waiting lists, housing waiting lists, shoplifting, insecure work and the decline of our high streets. That is their record, and it falls to us to fix it and start to rebuild Britain, so there is no point in coming to this Chamber and pretending that people are making it all up.
The former Chancellor talks about business. His party stuffed business—his colleague, the former Prime Minister, said “eff business”, and then the Conservatives carried out the policy. Under them, we had the lowest business investment in the G7. Why? Because of constant chaos in their Governments, meaning that business did not know who would be leading them from one year to the next; because they caved in to their Back Benchers and blocked anything substantial from being built; and because businesses could not hire the workers they needed with so many people on the sick.
This could have been a Budget where we just muddled through—patched up some mistakes made by the Conservative party and hoped something would turn up—but that is not good enough. We have had that time and again. In fact, we have had 14 years of it—long enough to show that that approach is not going to work. The country voted for change, and this was a Budget to deliver change. It is not a time for more of the same; it is a time to choose. We did not duck the challenge or look the other way; we confronted the challenge, because that is what the country needs. This is the moment when the country turns a corner and sets out a proper plan for the years to come.
We did make tax changes in this Budget, which is never an easy thing to do. That was because the first thing we had to do was fix the foundations and put the public finances on a sound footing. With this Budget, we say how we will pay for what we will do. The first fiscal rule announced by the Chancellor is to fund day-to-day spending from the revenue that we raise, a rule that the OBR judges will be met two years early.
The IMF, to which the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash referred, has today welcomed
“the Budget’s focus on boosting growth through a needed increase in public investment while addressing urgent pressures on public services”,
so let me turn to those public services. Secondly, there will be more NHS appointments to get waiting lists and times down; more technology to improve productivity; more prevention to stop people falling ill in the first place; new surgical hubs and diagnostic centres; a hospital-building programme brought from fiction to reality, this time founded on more than hot air; new schools to help children learn; more teachers to bring out the best in every child; and more investment in further education to give people the skills they need. It is investment and reform together—not just more money into the same system, but changing the system for a new age, with productivity targets alongside the extra money.
The right hon. Gentleman also talked about welfare spending, but the Conservatives had plenty of time to sort out welfare spending. Their legacy is almost 3 million people out of work because of long-term sickness. The truth is that they did not have a plan, but they do have a record, and again, it falls to us to sort that record out. We will take tough action on welfare fraud, and we will not give up on those who can work and make a contribution, because we understand that when the sick can get treated and when every child of every background has the best chance to learn, that is not just good for them and their families but for the economy as a whole.
Thirdly, this Budget put in place help with the cost of living for millions: a rising minimum wage with extra help for young workers, fuel duty frozen, carers allowed to earn more, the triple lock protected, the household support fund extended to help the poorest, and lower deductions from universal credit. Those are the choices that we made—real help for millions of people.
Finally, we reject the path of decline for investment that the Conservatives were planning. They wanted to cut public investment by a third. That was the right hon. Gentleman’s plan—to once again cut back on the house building, schools, hospitals and transport projects that the country needs. That is a path of decline that has been chosen too often in the past. The Tories do not yet have a leader, and the only policy to come out of their leadership contest so far is to cut maternity pay, but on the question of investment, they do have a position. Budgets are about choices, and yesterday they chose: the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) railed against our new investment rule, and more Conservative Members have spoken out since. What does that mean their position is? New money for housing—opposed. New money for schools—opposed. New money for potholes—opposed. New money for research—opposed. Investment in the future itself—opposed by the Conservative party. I understand the perils of opposition. We have had long enough experience of it, but if the Conservatives really want to run around the country opposing every new investment over the coming four or five years, be our guests.
Yes, this Budget was a big choice, and in opposing the investments within it, the Conservatives have made a big choice too. We will remind them of it, project after project, year after year. They wanted to lock us into the world that voters rejected just four short months ago.
Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend has mentioned the policies, or lack thereof, that have come out of the Tory leadership contest. Unfortunately, I spent an evening watching the GB News debate between the Tory leadership contenders, and the one policy that one of the contenders said she would put in place on day one as Prime Minister was a tax cut for private schools. That is the priority of the modern Conservative party: opposing the investment in this Budget while offering tax cuts for the very richest.
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, although I have to say that his television viewing choices are a little bit different from mine. With regard to education, we have always said that we support aspiration for all children in every type of school.
Our growth plans are about far more than this Budget. They are about planning reform to get Britain building, a challenge that was ducked by the Conservative party year after year. They are about more clean energy for energy security. They are about private investment, with £63 billion of investment announced at our investment summit just a few weeks ago—investors are finally appreciating the stability that has come to the country after the chaos wrought by the Conservative party—and they are about reform of business rates to support our neglected high streets.
This is a big moment for the country. In July, the public did not vote to carry on as we are—they did not vote to continue with the plans of the Conservative party. They voted for change, and this is a Budget for change: not just change in policy, but facing up to the reality of what the Conservative party left behind. It is a Budget to stabilise the public finances, to help people with the cost of living, to begin to turn our public services around, and to start to rebuild Britain. It is a choice between investment and decline—a turning of the page after 14 years. It is a Budget that launches a new chapter for Britain, and we will be proud to vote for it in the Lobby next week.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
UK Biological Security Strategy
Pat McFadden Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
I want to update the House on the implementation of the 2023 UK biological security strategy. The strategy’s ambition is to ensure that, by 2030, the UK is resilient to a spectrum of biological threats and a world leader in responsible innovation.
In adopting the strategy, this Government have reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to improving our preparedness for future pandemics and infectious disease outbreaks, countering proliferation of biological weapons and mitigating the risks of biological accidents and incidents, prioritising a holistic approach to developing national capabilities to shore up our defences, and learning and applying lessons from covid-19.
Over the past year, the strategy has delivered impact across short, medium and longer-term commitments, including:
Delivering system-wide leadership across the UK including by establishing a lead Minister, senior responsible owner and a dedicated team in the Cabinet Office;
Enhancing the UK’s early warning capabilities, including a prototype biothreats radar and pilots for a new national biosurveillance network;
A new UK Biosecurity Leadership Council, bringing Government together with business and academic leaders, developing responsible innovation practices and policies with the biotech sector;
Publishing voluntary screening guidance for providers and users of synthetic nucleic acid to guide use for legitimate purposes, while also mitigating risks of malicious or accidental misuse;
A new UK-wide Microbial Forensics Consortium to develop new tools and capabilities to attribute biological incidents and deter the use of biological weapons;
Funding for the international biosecurity programme which supports international projects to enhance global biosafety and biosecurity, reducing deliberate and naturally occurring biological risks to the UK;
Building new standing capabilities to carry out sensitive testing of biological risks in AI models;
Establishing a chief scientific advisers group dedicated to chemical, biological and radiological security to provide holistic, expert advice to underpin policy development and delivery;
Launching the US-UK strategic dialogue on biological security, reflecting our shared ambition and approach to protect against a growing and diverse spectrum of biological threats.
To get ahead of future threats, we need to continue to innovate to understand, prevent, detect and respond to biological threats. We will ensure that we have the capabilities we need to protect the public from a spectrum of biological threats, no matter how they occur and no matter who or what they affect.
[HCWS161]
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat McFadden Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary staff do excellent work on behalf of the Royal Navy and for our national security, and I pay tribute to them for that work. I have been in contact with the Secretary of State for Defence on this issue. I am hopeful that a resolution can be found on the pay matters currently under discussion between Nautilus, the RMT and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and that the current dispute can be resolved.
Mike Amesbury
I welcome the efforts of the Cabinet Office and other Government Departments—unlike the previous Government, who sat on their hands—to resolve this dispute in the not-too-distant future. I urge Ministers to double their efforts with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury.
Pat McFadden
Government officials are in negotiations with the trade unions. We want to see an end to the dispute that results in a fair pay offer for the workers involved and delivers value for money for the taxpayer. That is what we will try to achieve.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
This Government were elected to deliver for people throughout the United Kingdom, and whatever political differences we have in different parts of the UK, the public expect us to work together for the common good. That is why we held the Council of the Nations and Regions recently in Edinburgh, which was focused on investment and good jobs across the country.
Mr Forster
I am sure we all agree that local communities know what is best for their own affairs. Will the Minister formalise the council of Ministers so that the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, along with regional leaders in England, can meet regularly to shape their communities?
Pat McFadden
The idea is that the Council of the Nations and Regions, which met in Edinburgh the other week, will meet twice a year. However, I believe that these relationships are about more than formal meetings. It is important, underneath the formalities, to establish as good and as normal a working relationship as we possibly can.
Graeme Downie
This new Labour Government have already outlined that they are going to invest in sectors vital to the economy of Dunfermline and Dollar, including renewables, defence and engineering. That investment can only fully deliver if there is alignment with the Scottish Government to deliver the pipeline of skills needed for local people to fill those jobs, which is an agenda that the SNP has singularly failed to address in 17 years in power. Will the Minister outline how this Labour Government will co-ordinate with and press the SNP to ensure that the opportunity of this investment is fully realised?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress investment. Investment was the theme of the first meeting; it was also the theme of the investment summit held last week. Through that, we were able to announce over £60 billion of inward investment to the United Kingdom. This will benefit people in all parts of the country. My hon. Friend is right to say that to make the most of it we have to give people the skills to do the jobs this investment will bring.
Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
As we have heard, last week we had the Second Reading of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to modernise the Lords. We have also delivered on our manifesto commitment to hold the first Council of the Nations and Regions. We are working hard to deliver justice for the victims of the infected blood scandal. We have published a written statement today on the implementation of the UK biological security strategy. Finally, we have set out the position on the right balance of flexible working and time in the office for civil servants.
Sonia Kumar
What plans does the Cabinet Office have to support small and medium-sized enterprises in building resilience to future economic shocks and crises, to ensure that they can continue to operate under difficult conditions?
Pat McFadden
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Our agenda for growth will help small businesses. We are determined to support them. I assure my hon. Friend that they are an important part of our resilience strategy and our resilience review. Earlier this week, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare) met a range of businesses to discuss shared goals in respect of resilience and to ensure that they can have input into the strategy we are preparing.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
Can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster provide an update on the current situation for British nationals in Lebanon, including the measures being taken to ensure their safety? Are there any plans for further evacuations, given the ongoing instability in that region?
Pat McFadden
The situation in Lebanon is serious, and there are several thousand UK nationals in Lebanon. The Foreign Office advice for some time has been simple: leave now. The Government have chartered several flights to help UK nationals to leave. We are also running a “register your presence” site, to ensure we can track anyone who is in country and have the best possible communications with them. We have made preparations for other evacuation measures, should they be necessary for the protection of our citizens in Lebanon.
Sir Oliver Dowden
I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for that answer. May I echo from the Opposition Benches that the correct approach for British nationals is to leave now, rather than to rely on the Government to take further steps for them? However, in the event that the situation deteriorates further, what contingency plans do the Government have in place to ensure the swift and safe evacuation of British nationals, particularly in high-risk areas?
Pat McFadden
We have been monitoring the situation closely for some months. I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the whole House that the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and all parts of Government are putting in place the necessary measures, should the situation on the ground change to a point where we judge that more needs to be done to get people out of the country.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
Whether workers are working in-sourced or outsourced, we always want them to have a good deal and a fair deal at work. That is why the Government brought forward this week a powerful Bill to improve employment rights for people right across the board. We believe that when people go to work they deserve fair pay and decent conditions.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Pat McFadden
It is very important that the voter ID system does not prevent people who have a legitimate right to vote from exercising their democratic right, so we are keeping it under review, and we are already making a change to make it easier for veterans to get the ID necessary to vote.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
As you can imagine, Mr Speaker, the people of Scotland are beside themselves with excitement—I would go so far as to say we are fair giddy—at the prospect of receiving a visit from the Prime Minister’s special envoy. As we prepare the red carpet and the massed pipe bands to welcome her, may I ask exactly what was the Cabinet Office’s role in the creation of the post, when we will see a job description published, and when the special envoy will finally take up the post officially?
Pat McFadden
I thought the hon. Member would be joining me in satisfaction at a nil-nil draw away from home last night. As for the personnel matter that he raised, all I will say is that I am enormously grateful to the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff for her efforts as chief of staff. I do believe that we want good, normal working relationships with the Scottish Government, and anything to do with the post will be announced in due course.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The provision of blue-light escorts is clearly a matter of operational policing, but last week my colleagues on the London Assembly wrote to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asking for an inquiry into the provision of tickets to politicians, including the Labour Mayor of London, and the pressure that was then applied to the Metropolitan police to provide an escort to Taylor Swift. Will the right hon. Gentleman conduct a review so that we can see what happened and ensure that, if mistakes were made, they are rectified and this does not happen again?
Pat McFadden
These are operational decisions for the police, but I am glad that the person who is currently the biggest pop star in the world was able to play in London, particularly following the threat of a terrorist attack at her previous concerts in Austria. I am glad that the show went on.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
You will be aware, Mr Speaker, that we are coming to the end of Whistleblowing Awareness Week. Civil servants and others are Ministers’ best friends. They are the people who can indicate where to find evidence of fraud, corruption and other criminal activity. May I press Ministers to create the office of the whistleblower, to give new legal protection, to normalise speaking out and to promote greater public awareness of whistleblowing rights, demonstrating the importance of whistleblowers in a fair, open and transparent society?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to draw attention to two things: the good work that civil servants do and the valuable role that whistleblowers play. That is why the last time we were in government, we legislated for legal protection for whistleblowers. It is important that people can come forward without fear of what they have to reveal.
Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I welcome yesterday’s publication of the child poverty taskforce framework. Is the Minister able to say more about the delivery of the strategy, other than that it will come out in spring?
Pat McFadden
This shows the importance of the issue to the Government. The last time we were in office we reduced child poverty; it is an issue dear to our hearts. That is why the strategy is coming forward and why Ministers are working hard on it. We have been clear since we took office that while we want economic growth throughout the country, we also want the benefits to be felt by people in every part of the country and in every income group.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I am proud to be part of a mission-led Government, but mission-led government is not just about missions; it is about how the Government do that. Does the Minister agree that it should be data-driven?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Here, in the spirit of the exchanges this week, I want to pay tribute to something the previous Government did, which was to improve the data operation at the heart of government. That does help when the Government are forming policy. We want to build on that and use data. It is important that we modernise how government works. The accurate use of data can help us to make better policy and that is what we want to do.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Almost 29,000 families in Scotland benefited from maternity pay last year, worth over £200 million. Does the Minister share my concern about suggestions from a Conservative party leadership candidate that it should be reduced?
Pat McFadden
I very much share my hon. Friend’s concern. In fact, the only economic policy we have had so far from the Conservative leadership contest has been the suggestion that we reduce maternity pay. That will do nothing for families, nothing for mothers and children, and nothing for the good operation of our economy. I hope they think twice about that suggestion.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Ahead of any Budget, there is always talk about tough decisions. Could the Minister remind us why we are in this difficult position in the first place, and will he please update us on progress on clawing back covid fraud, where we saw taxpayers’ money being handed over to former Ministers’ mates?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We knew we would inherit a difficult position, but it was much more difficult than we thought when we came into office. Anybody who objects to difficult decisions announced in the Budget next week should know where the responsibility for those lie: squarely on the shoulders of the Conservative party. It falls to us to clean up the mess we have inherited from the Conservatives. That you will hear more about when the Chancellor gets to her feet next week.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
Over the last few years we have seen an increase in attacks by foreign Governments on UK cyber-security. Will the Minister please update us on what steps his Department is taking to ensure our public services across the UK are fully protected?
Pat McFadden
This is vital work for the Government. We have a combination of legacy systems with vulnerabilities and, of course, constant investment in new systems to ensure our public services can work in the most modern way. It is really important that we guard against either foreign state interference or other malign actors who would try to disable institutions and disable public services through cyber-attacks. That is an important part of resilience and an important part of protecting services for the public good.
Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend tell me what steps he is taking to keep Scotland at the heart of the Union and keep Ayrshire’s economy growing?
Pat McFadden
I believe that people in Scotland have tired of the politics of grievance and division. They expect Governments, whatever their political colour, to work together to promote economic growth, get inward investment in, get good jobs for people and have good public services. Would that not be a refreshing contrast to some of the division we have had in recent years?
National Security and Investment Act 2021: Annual Report
Pat McFadden Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
I am today laying before Parliament the annual report covering the operation of the National Security and Investment Act 2021 for the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. This fulfils the requirements under section 61 of the NSI Act and a copy of the report will also be published on www.gov.uk.
The Government are committed to ensuring the Act protects our national security and does so as effectively, efficiently, and transparently as possible—giving investors the certainty they need to kickstart growth across the UK.
The report shows the vast majority of notified acquisitions—95.6%—were cleared to proceed within 30 working days. Of the 847 notifications reviewed, only 4.4% were issued with a call-in notice and underwent further assessment. Five final orders were issued and 10 called in acquisitions were withdrawn before a decision was made. All notifications were screened within the Act’s statutory time limits.
This report shows that notifications, call-ins, final orders, withdrawals, and final notifications covered many different sectors and acquirers’ countries of origin.
I have included new information in this year’s report. For the first time, the report sets out how many calendar days—as well as statutory days—different stages of the process took: for example, the time it took to make a final decision following a notification or a call-in. I hope this will provide further transparency on how the Act is operating.
[HCWS82]
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat McFadden Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Government estimates of the amount of money lost to fraud and error vary hugely, in truth: the latest estimate has a range of between £40 billion and almost £60 billion, which is a huge range. The public rightly expect us to do all we can to minimise fraud in the use of public funds, which is one reason why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced the establishment of a covid corruption commissioner, whose job it will be to track down as much as possible of the money lost to fraud during the pandemic. The Cabinet Office will work closely with the Chancellor on this to try to ensure best value for money for the public and, of course, crack down on fraud right across Government Departments and agencies.
Tom Rutland
Covid contract fraud has cost the public purse an estimated £7.6 billion, with the previous Government assigning contracts worth billions for useless personal protective equipment to those with close personal connections to Ministers through their so-called VIP lane. With the Chancellor announcing a new covid fraud commissioner this week, can the Minister please outline how his Department will work with the Treasury to support that commissioner, in order to ensure that this egregious waste of public money is rectified and the British taxpayer gets back what they are owed?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to what happened during covid, when VIP lanes and dodgy contracts ended up burning through billions of pounds, sometimes for unusable equipment. We will do everything we can to recover money that has been lost, and my Department will work closely with the office of the covid corruption commissioner to oversee that work and try to ensure the best value possible for the taxpayer.
Chris Vince
New technology must be at the beating heart of the new Government, and artificial intelligence presents an opportunity to tackle waste and error. The National Audit Office has claimed that the counter-fraud agencies are only just beginning to utilise new technologies in their fight against public sector fraud, and rely on outdated legacy systems and incomplete, time-lagged data. How will the Minister implement new technologies, including AI, to tackle fraud and error in government?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is potential for greater use of AI in detecting and rooting out fraud. We want the UK to be an excellent place to develop new uses of AI, both in its public sector applications and the development of private business. There is already a single network analytics platform, which is an AI-based detection tool to help public sector organisations detect fraud, but like many AI applications, we are probably only at the beginning of what can be achieved in this area. We should use every technological tool at our disposal to secure best value for money for the taxpayer.
Dr Huq
As well as Matt Hancock’s pub landlord scoring a PPE contract despite having zero relevant expertise, non-covid error, fraud and waste cost the public purse £58.5 billion in the year 2020-21 alone. Could my right hon. Friend tell us how those colossal sums of money will be recovered? He mentioned a commissioner; can he also tell us how we will get rid of cronyism and nepotism, so that these things never happen again?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the scale of the problem. The truth is that, according to the latest figures, the amount that has been recovered is relatively small compared with the scale of loss. The previous Government’s own former Minister for counter-fraud described the Conservative party’s record as “nothing less than woeful” and riddled with “schoolboy errors”, and the shadow Business Secretary, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), described the previous Prime Minister’s handling of this issue as dismissive. We cannot afford to be dismissive: we have a duty to take it seriously and use whatever means we can to bear down on fraud, so that money meant for public services and legitimate recipients of public funds is used for its intended purposes.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I want to highlight innocent errors where Government systems are failing to pick up overpayments and as a result people are chased. I am thinking particularly of unpaid carers earning just a few extra pounds, which means that the Department for Work and Pensions is clawing back thousands from them in carer’s allowance, because HMRC systems fail to alert the DWP when earnings have increased. What is the Cabinet Office doing to ensure that Government systems properly work to stop these things happening?
Pat McFadden
This issue has been highlighted more than once in the Chamber this week. We are of course hugely appreciative of the job that carers do, and that has to be balanced with the proper use of public funds so that those funds get to the intended recipients. Where there are overpayments, they do need to be recovered in the interests of the taxpayer, but I hope that is always done in a proper and compassionate manner.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I very much welcome the Minister to his place and wish him well in the role he now plays. This is a vastly important question right across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does he hold statistics for Northern Ireland on the costs of fraud and error to the public purse, and what discussions will he undertake with the devolved institutions to improve financial decisions, particularly at the Northern Ireland Assembly?
Pat McFadden
This is my first but I suspect not my last exchange with the hon. Member. I have not seen a specific breakdown of this figure for Northern Ireland, but I can tell him that we take relations with Northern Ireland extremely seriously. That is why the Prime Minister went to Northern Ireland, as well as Scotland and Wales, on the weekend after the general election.
Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Yesterday, I met the civil service unions together with the new Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould). We had a very positive discussion covering a whole range of issues. I made it clear that the days of Government Ministers waging culture wars against civil servants are over. Instead, we want a civil service that is motivated, valued and helps the Government to deliver their priorities. On the specific issue of pay, the Government will have more to say on civil service pay before the summer recess.
Mary Glindon
In 14 years, the Tory Government did nothing to tackle the ludicrous situation whereby there are over 200 pay bargaining units for civil servants across all Government Departments and agencies, a highly time-consuming and inefficient process that generates unfair pay disparities between people doing near-identical jobs in different Government offices. Will the Minister take this opportunity to look again at whether pay bargaining can be consolidated across the civil service, and will he agree to meet the Public and Commercial Services Union to discuss the advantages of such reforms?
Pat McFadden
We do value civil servants, and of course we want all public servants to be properly and fairly rewarded. As with any public expenditure, what is spent on pay has to be balanced against other priorities and fair to taxpayers as a whole. On meeting the PCS, yesterday, I met the general secretary of the PCS, as well as other civil service unions. I hope for a fruitful dialogue with them. Departments do have flexibility on pay. They can direct pay towards the needs of their own workforces. As I have said, we will have more to say about civil service pay before the summer recess.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the Minister for the reply he has just given. Will he assure the House that he is going to make progress towards a return to full sectoral bargaining? He must be aware that many thousands of civil servants are not covered by a pay review body or any other bargaining mechanism. Will he take steps to ensure that all civil servants are bought within the purview of a pay review body bargaining unit as part of a return to sectoral bargaining?
Pat McFadden
I thank the right hon. Member for his question. I hope to have a good and fruitful dialogue with the civil service unions about pay and many other issues. It is important that we have public servants who feel valued and motivated, and who do their part on delivering the Government’s objectives. On the specific issue of pay that he has raised, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon), the Government will have more to say on civil service pay before the summer recess.
Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Digital technologies will be vital to the delivery of the Government’s missions and to effective public services. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the move of the Government Digital Service’s central digital and data office and the incubator for artificial intelligence from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The Treasury and the Cabinet Office will work closely with DSIT on this. Creating a strong digital centre of Government is intended to help drive forward innovation and ensure a better experience for the citizens who use Government services.
Lucy Rigby
I welcome the entire ministerial team to their places. The UK has the chance to become a world leader in bringing new technologies into the heart of Government. The concept of a mission-led Government provides a unique opportunity to do exactly that. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that digital technologies are used to support the Government’s missions, to deliver for my constituents in Northampton North and across the country?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right that the UK has the potential to be a leader in this area. It is all about securing both value for money for the taxpayer and the best possible citizen experience for users of public services. It is with that in mind that we are creating a strong digital centre of Government. The DSIT Secretary is in the driving seat, working closely with the Cabinet Office and the Treasury to try to achieve those twin aims.
Josh Simons
Despite significant spending of taxpayer cash, as in so many things, public sector productivity got worse under the last Government. When I worked in artificial intelligence, it was clear that so many of the barriers to harnessing technology are specific, granular and often not glamorous, such as sharing data better across organisations. Has the Minister assessed how digital technologies can be used to increase productivity in the public sector and improve public services?
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and let me take this opportunity to thank the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) for the work he did on public sector productivity. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I suspect we are only in the foothills of the potential here. That is why we have created this strong digital centre of Government. We want to ensure good value for money and to use tech to improve the citizens’ experience. The real challenge here is to reform public services to match the constant innovation that people experience in other parts of their lives. We cannot have a world where that innovation is experienced in the private sphere, but is not applied and properly maximised in the public sphere, so that is what we want to do.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
It is important to restore confidence in Government and public life, and to ensure the best possible standards. This was an important manifesto commitment. We will establish a new independent ethics and integrity commission, with its own independent chair, to ensure the highest possible standards. Work has begun on that, and I will keep the House up to date as it develops.
Debbie Abrahams
I thank my right hon. Friend for his response and welcome all the team to their places. Will he expand a little bit more on exactly what the terms of reference might include? For example, will they also include participative and deliberative democracy methods that might also help to restore trust in politics, which, as he knows, is at an all-time low?
Pat McFadden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will certainly keep her up to date with this as it goes. In truth, this is always going to be about “show, not tell”. We will set up the best system that we can with the new commission. On that front, the Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) is taking immediate action to tighten the existing prohibition on MPs providing paid parliamentary advice. The House will be debating that later today. We are also setting up a modernisation committee. So, on several fronts we want to get the right systems in place, but in the end it is a matter of show, not tell.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
My Department has begun its work on helping the Government to deliver on our manifesto, and we are focused on the first steps and missions that we spoke about during the election campaign. We will play our full part in driving forward the announcements made by the Government, such as establishing a national wealth fund, lifting the ban on onshore wind, and beginning the changes needed to get Britain building again. We have also responded to the first module of the covid report published last week, and the Minister without Portfolio, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and East Dulwich (Ellie Reeves), made a statement on the IT outage, which exposed the fragility of the systems we all rely on.
Andrew George
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. Given that it is the Department’s responsibility to investigate waste, will it also investigate the impact? My inquiries have revealed that £242 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on covid aid that was handed out to holiday home owners in Cornwall during that period, whereas only a fraction of that amount has been given to support those who are desperately in need of affordable homes, with many locals being displaced by the massive growth of holiday homes in the area. Will the Government please investigate the impact—be it positive or negative—of spending that kind of public money?
Pat McFadden
I assure the hon. Member that we take value for money seriously; it has been a theme of today’s questions. The Government supported businesses during covid—necessarily and rightly—but it is important to ensure the best value for money in such schemes. In the end, it is all taxpayers’ money, so that should have been done. Where that is not the case, and where there has been fraud or waste, we will do our best to recover what was wrongly spent.
Mr Speaker
Can we pick up the pace of questions and answers? We are on topicals now. Rachel Hopkins will set a good example.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
I begin by welcoming the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to his position. I know that he will be supported by a brilliant team of civil servants who are truly dedicated to public service. As we saw in module 1 of the covid inquiry report last week, biological threats pose potentially catastrophic risks to our nation, and those risks will be exacerbated by long-term trends such as climate change. To help to prepare us, I published the UK biological security strategy. Will he take the opportunity to recommit to its objectives and to provide an annual update to the House on its implementation?
Pat McFadden
I welcome the right hon. Member to his position. I mean that genuinely: it is not easy to step up and serve in opposition after an election defeat, so I welcome what he and his colleagues are doing. I echo his praise for the civil service and the Cabinet Office team, who have supported me and my colleagues in the best way in the past few weeks. On the UK biological security strategy, my answer is simple and short: yes.
Sir Oliver Dowden
I welcome that answer and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. An effective strategy must be underpinned by dedicated resources, which is why one of my final acts in the Cabinet Office was to announce that we would ringfence biological security spending across Government. Will he uphold that commitment, so that important resilience spending does not fall victim to day-to-day spending pressures?
Pat McFadden
If the right hon. Member set aside spending for his commitments, he did something pretty rare for the last Government. When we look under the bonnet, we find that that was not often the case. We will have more to say about that in the coming days.
David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
We are getting on with our first steps, including on healthcare, which is a top priority for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We want to make the NHS fit for the future. We did it before and we can do it again.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
This summer, we have been celebrating 25 years of devolution in Scotland. In the last Parliament, the Scottish Affairs Committee looked at how the relationship between the UK and Scottish Governments has deteriorated in the past decade and how we can improve it. Does the Minister agree that in the next tranche of devolution, we should look at how to improve relationships with the devolved Administrations and regional authorities? Perhaps we should set up a UK council of Ministers to involve Ministers from all the Administrations and regional mayors.
Pat McFadden
We intend to set up a council of nations and regions. The hon. Member is right to say that we need to improve relations. That is easier said than done because such organisations are run by political parties, but I hope that the election result, in all its facets, represents the opportunity for a bit of a reset and better relations in future.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
We will do everything we can to collect the greatest amount of tax possible—that is right. We are interested in value for money and, given the legacy that we have inherited, I assure the right hon. Member that that is needed.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
All lessons should be learned about the procurement pressures at that time, including the lesson that my hon. Friend mentioned.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
Pat McFadden
The great danger is preparing perfectly for the last war. The real challenge in resilience is looking around the corner for things that have not already happened. As we respond to the covid pandemic, it is important to keep that in mind, and we will try to do that.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
On behalf of the 12% of people in my constituency who have served in the armed forces, I ask the Cabinet Secretary to explain why he is not joined by a veterans Minister on the Front Bench this morning.
Pat McFadden
That is because responsibility for veterans is being transferred to the Ministry of Defence, which is a better home for it. Looking after our veterans will be a big priority in the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Speaker
Order. We are all on a learning curve, but we do need to ask short, punchy questions. Also, “you” means me, but I am sure that we will not be doing that again.
Pat McFadden
On this, perhaps the simplest thing is for my hon. Friend to write to me, so that I can get her question considered by the proper Minister.
Mr Speaker
That completes questions. Before we move to the business questions, I shall let those on the Front Benches leave.
Covid-19 Inquiry
Pat McFadden Excerpts(5 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the covid-19 inquiry. Yesterday, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the UK covid-19 inquiry, which examines the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom between 2009 and early 2020.
My thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Their grief and the nature of their loss is harrowing, with so many loved ones lost before their time; so many heartbreaking last goodbyes said over a phone or iPad; and in some cases there was not even the chance to say goodbye at all. So many friends and family members were denied even the chance to go to a funeral, and many others found their lives changed by covid forever. We can only begin to imagine the anguish and anger that people feel, because this report confirms what many have always believed: that the country was not as prepared as it should have been, and that more could and should have been done.
Baroness Hallett is unequivocal:
“The UK was ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus…pandemic”.
She finds that “processes, planning and policy” across all four nations failed our citizens. There were fundamental failures of state, with poorly performing public services, as well as health and social inequalities contributing to our vulnerability.
The inquiry finds that
“the UK prepared for the wrong pandemic”,
with a focus on influenza to the effective exclusion of other potential pathogens. There was a lack of leadership, a lack of appropriate challenge and oversight from Ministers and officials, which allowed major gaps to open up in the UK’s resilience in the period leading up to the pandemic.
Baroness Hallett finds
“fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks”
and
“a failure to learn sufficiently from past civil emergency exercises and outbreaks of disease.”
Ministers and officials took false comfort from a positive analysis of the UK’s preparedness. Not enough thought was given to how we might seek to prevent the worst effects of a pandemic, such as with a system of test and trace, rather than accepting the consequence of spread as inevitable.
In this emergency, the cracks in our society were exposed. The inequalities were glaring, and that weakened the response. That is why the report’s findings on the most vulnerable are so important: what it says about the elderly, ethnic minorities and those already subject to existing health inequalities, particularly in the early months of the pandemic; those with higher risk of serious illness who were asked to shield for extended periods; those living in overcrowded houses, working in the gig economy or on low incomes; those who suffered as a result of the appalling increase in domestic abuse during the lockdowns; and, of course, disruption to education and the inequalities of vastly different access to online learning and IT equipment. Resilience has to be for all of us, not just some of us.
The underlying picture that this report sets out is stark. Before the pandemic began, our public services were already stretched to their limit, during what should have been normal times. This was especially true of the NHS, overstretched even before the pandemic hit, and key workers in other services, overburdened in normal times and then asked to go above and beyond. A nation can only be as resilient as the foundational strength of its infrastructure and public services.
As I stand here today with 8 million people on NHS waiting lists, prisons overflowing, councils pushed to the brink and public services in a worse position than they were even in 2020, we must ensure that we are prepared. Baroness Hallett says that it is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when. Resilience is not just about another pandemic, but about the full range of risk that we face. We are reminded of that this morning as reports come in about a global IT outage affecting airlines, GP surgeries, banks, media and other organisations. It is not easy to know what the future holds. We cannot plan fully for every possible risk, but we must do what we can to learn the lessons of this period.
The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is a top priority of this Government. With a long-term approach to strengthening our national resilience, I shall lead a review of our national resilience against the range of risks that the UK faces. I shall chair a dedicated Cabinet Committee on resilience to oversee that work. Of course, it is not just about central Government, so we will work with the devolved Governments, regional mayors and local leaders as we consider the report’s recommendations. When we have an emergency, we should do everything we can to work together locally and nationally. The Prime Minister has already started to reset relationships with critical partners, because resilience is too important for division to get in the way. Instead, it has to be about co-operative strength.
Some improvements to our operational effectiveness have already been made. The previous Administration did make efforts to improve preparedness. These include changes in the way that the Government access, analyse and share data, including with the public. They also changed the risk assessment processes and the way in which the centre of Government works to prepare for and respond to crises. As an incoming Government, in office for just two weeks, we will look at those efforts in the coming months as we develop our own approach. Where things are good, they should be kept; where they are not good enough, they should be changed.
The inquiry’s report recommends improvements in the way whole-system risks are assessed and managed across the UK Government and the devolved Governments, and improvements to the leadership and oversight provided by Ministers. The Government will carefully consider all the findings and recommendations, including any from the Grenfell inquiry that also have a bearing on resilience planning. We will respond in full within six months.
We will also play our full part in international efforts to improve global health and pandemic preparedness, from disease surveillance and vaccine development to strengthening health systems in the global south and building even greater international co-operation. The United Kingdom has a huge amount to offer and it is in our national interest to do so, because, as we have seen so powerfully, pandemics do not respect international borders, so global health security is an essential element of national security.
I wish to thank Baroness Hallett and her team for all their work so far and for putting the voices of the bereaved at the heart of the inquiry. Amid the tragedy of the pandemic, the British people came together in the most extraordinary ways—from the incredible service and sacrifice of our frontline workers, not least in the NHS, to the generosity of volunteers across our communities supporting one another with acts of kindness. It was a story of service that showed the very best of our country. This Government of service are determined to learn the lessons from this inquiry and to prepare as best we can for the future. That is the duty that we have to the people we serve, and indeed to the memory of those we lost. It is in that spirit that I commend this statement to the House.
Pat McFadden
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response and for the tone in which he spoke. He set out what the previous Government have done, and in my statement I acknowledged that progress has been made, but I think it is also right that a new Government take the opportunity to have a fresh look at this, with fresh eyes and in the right spirit.
The right hon. Gentleman asked a couple of questions on consultation with the devolved Administrations. Yes, that is essential, as is consultation within England with local authorities and elected mayors. It is important that different parts of the country work together when there is a national emergency. There were also questions about how this operates within Government and the balance of responsibility between the centre and individual Government Departments. Baroness Hallett is quite clear that in a truly national emergency the centre has to step up and responsibility cannot be left to individual Departments.
The right hon. Gentleman was right to conclude with the spirit of co-operation that we need on this issue. This work is in the national interest and in the public’s interest. It is the first duty of any Government of any political stripe to do what they can to protect the public. The challenge is that the risks we face are more complex and more unpredictable than they have been in the past. As I said in my statement, we cannot fully plan for every risk, but we have to try to have a system in place that gives us the best possible chance of planning for the risks we can see in front of us.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Like everyone, my thoughts are with the many victims who tragically lost their lives. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hard-working staff at St Thomas’ hospital in my constituency who cared for so many people in their last dying days, and who cared for the former Prime Minister when he caught covid-19. You will be aware, Mr Speaker, that the national covid memorial wall is in my constituency—a stark reminder of the many lives that were lost, each heart painstakingly painted by a family member and dedicated to their lost one. It is a reminder of the many lives that were lost. Will my right hon. Friend visit the covid memorial wall with me and meet the families, and look at how we can make that wall permanent? This is not just about resilience, but about remembering those victims who tragically lost their lives.
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to the staff at St Thomas’ and other NHS staff across the country, who did so much to care for people during that very difficult period. I have visited the memorial wall in her constituency, and she is right: it is an incredibly moving and human experience. I am very happy to take up her invitation to visit again.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say to the Front Benchers that we are all learning, but we should do so by setting the best example? You are meant to have two minutes, not three. Please can we help each other? Otherwise, I will have Members complaining that they did not get in.
Pat McFadden
I thank the hon. Member for her questions and the spirit in which she asked them. The truth is that it is easy for any of us to say, “Lessons must be learned,” and whenever anything goes wrong, people say that. The proof is in the practice. Will it be shown in practice? That is the ultimate test for us all.
I am happy to confirm to the hon. Member that, just as I said to the Opposition spokesperson, yes, we are happy to work across the aisle on this and to consider suggestions. My colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are considering the recommendations on the memorial.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
The Minister spoke of resilience. He is aware that Northwick Park hospital in my constituency was the epicentre at the start of the pandemic, and the lack of resilience meant that nurses there had to wear bin bags to protect themselves. I noted that he spoke of Grenfell in his statement. That was fundamentally important, because this is not simply about resilience in health. In that regard, I ask him to look at the issue of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The same RAAC that caused problems in our schools was used in many housing developments at the time. We need to be resilient to any potential disasters in that respect, too.
Pat McFadden
I echo my hon. Friend’s tribute to the work of the NHS staff in his constituency. RAAC in public buildings is part of the Government’s inheritance. Just because the problem has slipped down the news agenda somewhat, that does not mean that it has gone away. In time, we will have to address it to ensure that such buildings—whether housing accommodation or public buildings—are safe for people to live in, work in and be treated in.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on his new role and welcome the tone of his statement. The report is a stark reminder—if any were needed—that even the most eminent and public-spirited scientists can occasionally be wrong when groupthink affects assumptions. What can the Government do to ensure that Ministers and parliamentarians have access to the widest possible range of advice—including, where appropriate, dissenting voices—across a whole range of issues?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Member is right that groupthink is identified in the report, so it is important for the Government to have access to the widest range of advice, but no part of that, for me or the Government, will be about engaging in anti-science rhetoric or anything of that nature. A diversity of views, yes; a denial of the facts, no.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Yesterday evening, I walked alongside the covid memorial wall and was moved by the number of hearts, each one representing someone who died from covid. I extend my sympathies to all the bereaved families who lost loved ones. Many people of all ages continue to suffer the consequences of the lack of resilience and preparedness due to long covid, so will my right hon. Friend reassure Members that those children and adults who continue to suffer with long covid—such as the young granddaughter of one of my constituents in Shipley—will not be forgotten as the inquiry continues its work?
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Again, I echo her comments on the memorial wall. Following the election, we have a lot of new Members in the House; if any of them find themselves with a spare hour, they could do a lot worse than go to the memorial wall, contemplate, and look at the outpouring of grief that is reflected on that wall.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about long covid, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. When we think about the pandemic, of course we think about those who were lost and their families, but there are also people several years on from the pandemic who are still living with those consequences.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement. As the former Minister of Health in Northern Ireland who served during the pandemic, my thoughts and condolences are with those who were lost and those who were bereaved, and I pay a tribute of thanks to those who worked across health and social care during that trying time.
The Minister said that resilience has to be for all of us, not just for some. I ask him to ensure that all the devolved nations are equally involved. He talked about there being a consultation with the devolved nations and regions. Can I ask for it to be more than just a consultation, and for it actually to be a partnership?
Pat McFadden
I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He is quite right: this report covers all parts of the United Kingdom, and it makes a real effort to do so. The new Prime Minister also made an effort to do so in the days following the election, and one of his first priorities was to visit Northern Ireland. I agree with the hon. Member about co-operation—I think it is essential. Small differences sometimes act to the detriment of the whole effort.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend and near neighbour to his place. Like so many families, my family was affected by the death of a loved one during the pandemic, and a small heart on the national memorial wall reflects my auntie for time immemorial. Does my right hon. Friend agree that procurement during a state of emergency such as the pandemic is important, and that any fraud that occurs must be pursued ruthlessly?
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and ask that he accepts my condolences on the loss of his auntie during the pandemic. He is absolutely right to draw our attention to the procurement issues that have been highlighted—they are not specifically covered in this report, but they will be. As he will be aware, this Government will bring forward proposals for a covid fraud commissioner to recover as much as we can of the money that was lost to fraud or waste during that period.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I welcome the statement from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and was particularly pleased to hear him talk about the role of local government. Local government was instrumental in the response, and I imagine the inquiry will find that had it had a greater role, there would have been better resilience. However, as we know, local government financing is in crisis; my own local council is trying to save £100 million this year. What reassurance can he give us that local councils will be given the funding they need to have in place the resilience we need for the future?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Member is right to praise the role of local government. My experience in Wolverhampton was that the council stepped up and did a fantastic job for local citizens during the pandemic. The financial position of local government is difficult; the financial position on a number of things is difficult. I am afraid the truth is that I cannot stand here and promise to write big cheques for everything. We did not say that we would do that during the election, and we will have to operate with a difficult—very difficult—economic inheritance. Everything that we do has to be underpinned by economic stability and financial responsibility. Tough as that is, I am afraid that we have seen the consequences of doing otherwise all too clearly in recent years.
Bambos Charalambous (Southgate and Wood Green) (Lab)
In her report, Baroness Hallett said:
“The UK government’s…pandemic strategy, from 2011, was outdated and lacked adaptability. It was virtually abandoned on its first encounter with the pandemic.”
Can my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that any future strategy will be robust and will be updated regularly?
Pat McFadden
One of the things that Baroness Hallett advises in her report is that every three years there is a proper exercise to test any plan and see whether it is fit for purpose. That is an important recommendation to take away and consider. It is difficult to plan for every possible risk. This is not an easy thing to do, but it is really important to try to have the best possible systems in place between the centre of Government, between the Departments and, as we have said, between local authorities and the devolved Administrations too.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the constructive way in which this has been approached, looking both at the things that went well and at the things we need to learn? Having external scrutiny from the covid inquiry provides that lens. As the Government look at the recommendations and begin to put plans in place, some of that will build on the work that was already being done and some, as he said, will be on things that need to improve. I suggest that external scrutiny of the Government’s response is equally important. Will he ask Lord Norton’s Statutory Inquiries Committee to monitor the Government’s response to the covid inquiry?
Pat McFadden
Scrutiny is always good, and I am sure that what we do will be scrutinised. It is really important to have a proper dialogue with the public about these things, because it does no harm for us as citizens, and as Government Ministers, to have a conversation about resilience, about what we do in an emergency, and about we think about that. We do not want to frighten anybody, but it is a good thing to do, and it is a proper role for Government to have a good dialogue with the public about this.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
I visited the wall this week, and it was a stark reminder of my own experience during the pandemic. I am an operating department practitioner, and I worked in emergency maternity theatres during that time. From day one, there was next to no strategy. Staff were fighting over inadequate personal protective equipment. We tried to speak up, but we were not heard. We were given out-of-date masks, gowns that were ill-fitting and visors that just fell off our faces.
Even when colleagues sadly lost their lives to the disease, the chaos continued. I sat with new mothers, holding their hands because their partners were not allowed to be with them. We stood by the bedside of a colleague on life support as they lost their battle with covid. Even now, staff are traumatised all over again when people who have waited so long for treatment cannot be helped. Will this Government ensure that NHS staff can have an input in future pandemic planning, as it is we who know how best to protect our patients?
Pat McFadden
I am very, very grateful to my hon. Friend for reflecting her experience. There is nothing that I can add to the power of her words. She is absolutely right that in planning for future pandemics, we have to listen to the voice of the staff, who are the people the country will rely on if we face any kind of similar emergency in future.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Members on both sides of the House will recognise that children and young people really felt the impact of the pandemic and the lockdowns on their mental health, their learning and their social and emotional development. We all recognise that executive decisions have to be taken in an emergency to protect children and staff in schools, but I think the public were aghast that pubs and zoos opened before our schools and colleges. Will the right hon. Gentleman’s committee look at putting a proper process in place—potentially designating schools and colleges as national critical infrastructure—with this House taking a vote on any extended lockdowns of our schools and colleges if those ever need to be put in place, and with evidence taken from the Children’s Commissioner and our school and college leaders?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the pandemic’s impact on education through lost learning and, as I said in my statement, the great inequality that children suffered as a result of differential access to online learning. Did they have a good wi-fi connection at home? Did they have the equipment? Was the school fully geared up to providing online learning? The answer for some children to some of those questions was yes, but the answer for a lot of children was no. It is really important in future planning that if we have to make a change, we ensure that it does not reinforce inequality but helps everyone.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I put on record my gratitude for the service of the staff at the Hospital of St Cross and of other healthcare workers and volunteers across my constituency of Rugby. Does my right hon. Friend agree that failures of state in the pandemic, and in other cases, have often been due to under-investment and an ideological suspicion of the state among some, including, regrettably, some members of the last Government? Does he agree that a party that puts service first and that believes in investing in our health service and wider Government will ensure that this country is far better ready for future crises?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend talks about failures of state, and that is the essential finding in Baroness Hallett’s report: there were failures of state. He also mentions ideology; I tried in my statement to make it clear that we would not take an ideological approach and that where the last Government had done good things in response to the pandemic, we would keep them. But I also think that a change of Government after such a long period in power is an opportunity for fresh eyes—not necessarily in a partisan way, but having a different set of people to look at what has been done, keeping what is good and changing things if need be. That is one of the advantages of a change of Government, regardless of political colour, after one has been in office for so many years.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and I welcome his announcement of a review of national resilience. Does he agree that the many legacies of the pandemic are still very much with us, from the awful personal impacts of bereavement and long covid to the terrible public service impacts on everything from school readiness to social care systems and more? Does he agree that those impacts were worse than they need have been, as set out by Baroness Hallett yesterday? In that spirit, does he agree that this Government’s work of renewal must necessarily also be a work of repair?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend talked about the legacies and, yes, they are very much still here. In terms of vulnerabilities and exposure, Baroness Hallett also mentioned the different impacts on different ethnic minority communities. When I say that resilience must be for everyone, that is also what I am talking about: it has to be for everyone, young and old, and regardless of their ethnic background. Sometimes there were vulnerabilities—particularly in the early months of the pandemic—that exposed inequalities in that regard, and that should give us all pause for thought.
Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and welcome him to his place. May I also thank Baroness Hallett and her team and associate myself with the comments that everyone here has made to the victims, the bereaved families and frontline workers? As my right hon. Friend said, the voices of the bereaved are at the heart of this report, and that is right. Can he assure me that when the Government are reflecting on the recommendations, that same spirit will be applied so that those insights go into the Government’s response?
Pat McFadden
Baroness Hallett deserves credit for putting the voices of the bereaved up front. If anyone has looked at the actual report, they will find that before we even get into the recommendations, findings and so on, there are quotes from the bereaved that bring home exactly what these losses of loved ones meant to people, and the lasting impact of that. Here we are some four years on from the beginning of it.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
I recognise the conclusion in Baroness Hallett’s clear report and thank her for it. In Cornwall, our peripherality made it so much harder. Our local authority’s public health test and trace was halted by the Government on 12 March when fewer than half a dozen cases were in existence in Cornwall. PPE came very slowly. Citizens were making masks and some councillors and officers drove up to Exeter to pick up some. Care homes and workers in particular were slow to get PPE. In many care homes in my constituency, there were tragic results. Will we ensure that local authority public health directors can be more involved with decision making and setting up local solutions such as test and trace?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue of care homes, where it was such a difficult situation throughout the pandemic. We were trying to get the right PPE to the staff. It was a huge problem during the early weeks of the pandemic. I remember raising questions about that, and it just exposed what a scramble for safety there was, particularly in the early months. She is right to urge us to learn the lessons from that.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Mr Speaker, as you will have noticed, and as other people have referred to, the report states that there was a failure to engage appropriately with local government in preparing for the pandemic. Sadly, that failure continued throughout the pandemic. I had the dubious pleasure of being the cabinet member for health and social care in Hammersmith and Fulham council throughout the pandemic. We had to fight to close our care homes because the hospitals, under instruction from the Government, were discharging residents without testing and would not listen to us and would not stop. We had to fight to get vaccination in our local pharmacies, and we had to fight to establish a local test and trace system, which then reached 99% of people when the Government were only reaching 62%. Does my right hon. Friend agree that further stages of the inquiry, or what the Government now do, should identify and learn from the previous Government’s failure to engage appropriately with the local authorities not only before but during the pandemic?
Pat McFadden
The points that my hon. Friend makes about local government are well made. As I have said, my experience in my local authority area was that I thought the local council stepped up. Sometimes the issue of who is vulnerable and where they are is much easier for a local authority to know than central Government. The spirit of co-operation that I called for in my opening statement is in the public interest and the national interest, and it is what we have to do. If we co-operate, we will be stronger.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my right hon. Friend for an important statement, and I welcome him to his new role. Like many of us in this room, during the pandemic I lost a good friend and Harlow lost an incredible councillor in Councillor Frances Mason, an incredible community champion who served her community until the very end. In my constituency, NHS staff at Princess Alexandra hospital were on the frontline during this terrible period. Their feedback to me was that the Government’s initial response to covid was too slow and failed to recognise the seriousness of the issue. Does my right hon. Friend agree?
Pat McFadden
Let me offer my hon. Friend my condolences on the loss of his colleague Frances Mason. He is right to pay tribute to NHS staff. Baroness Hallett has set out a number of failings, whether speed, leadership or co-ordination. It is important that we try to learn lessons from this, and we intend to do that.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. May I associate myself with the comments made today about the bereaved and the integral role of our public sector workers throughout the pandemic? Local government workers across Paisley and Renfrewshire South were on the frontline during the pandemic. They established temporary mortuaries to bury our dead, and they looked after the children of key workers so that they could go to work. Could my right hon. Friend say a little more about how to ensure that local authorities will be treated as an integral partner in our resilience planning and the response? That is about not just their funding but the respect with which they are treated by Government. Could he assure us that, in that spirit of co-operation across the four nations, Barnett consequentials given to the Scottish Government will be passed on to their intended recipients?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the important role of local authorities, as other hon. Members have. I hope that I have made it clear in my statement and in my responses today that this must be an effort by the whole United Kingdom: central Government, devolved Governments and local authorities in every part of the country. We are stronger together.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and Baroness Hallett for her important report. On the doorsteps of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, the anger and grief are still palpable. Where was the accountability from Ministers? Where was the leadership? Royal Cornwall hospitals NHS trust was on high alert before the pandemic hit. Is it not the case that our NHS was desperately struggling years before, through mismanagement from the Conservative party, and that lives were unnecessarily lost because of it? Careful preparedness planning and management of our NHS and social care services must be a top priority for this Government.
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right that the NHS was in a vulnerable position before the pandemic, which is why the long-term health of the NHS is so important. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has begun that process. I have to be honest with the House: better long-term strength for the NHS will not happen overnight but it should still be an important aim for us.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place on the Front Bench, and I thank him for his statement. He touched on victims of what has been labelled the shadow pandemic—the surge in domestic violence during lockdown. Does he agree that any lessons learned must include action to protect those for whom the instruction “stay at home” is the most dangerous they can receive?
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He highlights a very important issue that I spoke about in my opening remarks. It is an important aim of this Government to reduce violence against women and girls. I can assure him that the Minister put in charge of that will champion the cause with a passion and determination that I think and really hope will lead to results. Homes should be a place of safety. Sadly, as he rightly points out, during the pandemic that was not the case for some.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. We all have stories from the pandemic about how we and our families were affected. That is as true for Members as it is for constituents right across the country. My family were on the other side of the England-Wales border, and my stepfather was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during the pandemic. I was not able to visit him and provide the support to my mother that our family needed. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that we will create a joined-up national strategy? As he rightly notes, the pandemic did not pay attention to our national borders. Will he assure me that we will work very closely with scientists to ensure that there is a national strategy moving forward?
Pat McFadden
I thank my hon. Friend, who highlights the difficulties people had in not being able to visit relatives and so on. Being joined up across the UK is really important. As I said, there is no place in this kind of planning to let what are sometimes small differences get in the way. We have to work together in a co-operative way. We are stronger together.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
Module 1 of the report finds that pandemic planning did not take pre-existing health inequalities into account. In my constituency, those inequalities are particularly wide, as we saw at Grenfell Tower. I welcome the Minister’s statement that the Grenfell inquiry recommendations will be incorporated into the Government’s response. Does he agree that in that response we must have a far better plan for protecting the most vulnerable in our society, who are often the most disproportionately affected?
Pat McFadden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his mention of the Grenfell inquiry. As I said, it is important to take its findings into account. It is also true that pre-existing inequalities left people more vulnerable. A national emergency like this exposes weak points and brings them into the a glaring public light, and they weaken the response of the whole country. The truth is that we have a stronger response as a country if we manage to reduce inequalities, be they on the basis of ethnic minority or of income.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. To build on the previous question, Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK has said that module 1 of the report does not go far enough in looking at inequality. Given the high incidence of diabetes and other long-term health conditions in the south Asian community in particular in my constituency, and the disproportionately high covid death rate among disabled, black and Asian people, what assessment has he made of the deep structural inequalities in the health of the nation, after years of Conservative inaction, that caused us to be less prepared for covid-19, and that ultimately led to unnecessary deaths?
Pat McFadden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. She is quite right to point out that the prevalence of a particular health condition can be higher in one part of the community. As I have said a few times today, the inequalities exposed in the pandemic made the response weaker than it might have been. If we are to be stronger and better able to handle an emergency like this in the future, we have to address those inequalities. That is not just in the interests of those it will help directly, but in the interests of all of us, because when it comes to emergencies like this, we are all in it together.