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Mr Speaker
Before we get under way with proceedings, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering our warmest congratulations to Andy Murray on becoming the men’s singles world No. 1—the first British man to do so since the inception of the ATP rankings in 1973. It is a tribute to his talent, to his big-match temperament and to his tireless endeavour over many years.
Oral Answers to Questions
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)
May I add my congratulations to Andy Murray? Having said those remarks, I am sure that Mr Speaker will be able to watch many more matches played by the world’s No. 1 tennis player. It is absolutely fantastic news.
Small businesses are vital for growth and innovation, whether they work directly with the Ministry of Defence or through our prime contractors. We have committed to increase our direct and indirect procurement spending with small and medium-sized enterprises from 19% to 25% by 2020.
Mark Pawsey
It is good to hear from the Minister that our armed forces can benefit from the innovation and entrepreneurship of small businesses. However, one such business in my constituency tells me that dealing with the Department can sometimes be overly bureaucratic, including the need to apply to remain on a list of approved suppliers. Can the Minister take any steps to simplify the process and encourage even more small businesses to come forward?
Harriett Baldwin
We recognise that processes are overly bureaucratic. We have got rid of the idea of an approved suppliers list, and we are working hard to reduce red tape. We are introducing a shorter contract and a network of supply chain advocates. May I suggest that any businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency or any other contact the relevant supply chain advocate? I look forward to sending my hon. Friend those details later today.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Will the Minister outline what steps are being taken to help British businesses? In that context, will she tell us why the Department decided to procure combat garments for the Army from a Spanish company rather than a Scottish one?
Harriett Baldwin
We welcome competition in procurement for all our contracts. We also recognise that our £178 billion equipment budget is being spent with more than 5,000 businesses here in the UK.
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
SMEs make up a large part of the helicopter manufacturing industry in my constituency and they are worried that the potential local closure of GKN foreshadows an erosion of that. What support can my hon. Friend provide to keep a full helicopter manufacturing capability in the Yeovil area?
Harriett Baldwin
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s fantastic work representing his constituents in Yeovil and the magnificent work that they do. We took delivery of the most recent Wildcat helicopter just in the last month. We look forward to working with Leonardo in Yeovil as part of a major strategic partnership agreement. It is important that my hon. Friend puts such issues about helicopter manufacturing forward as part of the industrial Green Paper that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will produce later this year.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Last week’s announcement on the Type 26 frigate was good news for Scotland. What steps have been put in place to ensure that UK SMEs and larger companies, for example those based in the north-east of England, will gain work from this contract?
Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight this fantastic news for companies up and down the country, including our shipbuilders on the Clyde. We have already announced contracts worth some £1.9 billion which are related to this programme right across the UK. Importantly, we will be publishing, alongside our prime contractor, the opportunities for the British steel industry to bid into this manufacturing opportunity.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
One reason we have bureaucracy, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), is to ensure that SMEs stay in business during the whole course of a contract. The biggest enemy of any SME is a poor cash flow. What is the Department doing to ensure that SMEs are paid promptly?
Harriett Baldwin
My hon. Friend is right to highlight that this is an important issue, which is why the Ministry of Defence is so committed to being able to pay our invoices promptly. We give that guidance to our prime contractors, and I would certainly like to hear of any examples from Members of where prime contractors are not passing on that prompt payment from the MOD to their suppliers.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
The Minister will be aware of the fabulous job being done by SMEs and large companies to deliver the Royal Navy carriers at Rosyth, both of which are on time and on budget. How does she plan to reward Rosyth and its highly skilled workforce after the carriers are gone? What good news has she got for Rosyth today?
Harriett Baldwin
I would have thought the hon. Gentleman might have started by welcoming Friday’s announcement about the shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde, but he is absolutely right that it is a wonderful national moment as we complete these two fantastic carriers at Rosyth. I am sure he and I are both looking forward to seeing the Queen Elizabeth sail down the Forth some time next year. Given the ambitious shipbuilding strategy that we have and the national shipbuilding strategy that will be announced nearer to the autumn statement, I am sure that there will be great news for shipbuilding across Scotland and the whole of the UK.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
The RAF’s significant contribution to the fight against Daesh is second only to that of the Americans. To date, we have conducted 1,048 airstrikes in Iraq and 67 in Syria. In Iraq, the RAF has helped Iraqi security forces to halt and push back Daesh, with about three quarters of the current strikes now supporting operations to retake Mosul. In Syria, the RAF has struck oilfields and supported the liberation of al-Shaddadi and Manbij.
Mr Cunningham
What further support is the Secretary of State going to give to the Iraqi Kurdish forces in recapturing Mosul? He has outlined an up-to-date version of events, but what further support can he give them?
Sir Michael Fallon
We are supporting the Mosul operation through airstrikes, through surveillance and reconnaissance from the air and, above all, through the training that we have supplied to Iraqi and Kurdish forces. I can tell the House that British troops have now trained more than 30,000 Iraqi soldiers, including Kurdish.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State will recall that the decision to launch airstrikes, both in Iraq and latterly in Syria, was taken not under the royal prerogative, but by resolution of this House. Does he agree that that precedent might well be useful in discussions in the months ahead?
Sir Michael Fallon
My hon. Friend tempts me into a matter to be considered by this House a little later this afternoon.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Reports at the weekend suggest that the deployment and moves into Raqqa are imminent. Can the Secretary of State give us any update on what is going to happen and what support we will be providing to the efforts against Daesh in Raqqa?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes, I can tell the House that we expect operations to first isolate, then encircle and then liberate Raqqa to begin shortly. Our forces—the RAF—will be involved in a similar role there, providing intelligence and reconnaissance from the air, but they will also be providing close air support to troops on the ground.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The Royal Air Force is world renowned for the accuracy of its missile strikes. Will my right hon. Friend confirm what I think is still happening, which is that innocent casualties are at an absolute minimum when the RAF strikes in Iraq and Syria?
Sir Michael Fallon
I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend on that, because we take great care to plan our missions in a way that will minimise the risk of civilian casualties in accordance with the rules of engagement that I laid down at the beginning of the campaign. In more than 1,000 airstrikes now conducted by the RAF as part of the campaign, we have found no evidence yet of civilian casualties, and we do carry out an assessment after each of the British strikes.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
In the run-up to Remembrance Day, we think of all those who have served our country as well as those who are currently serving it around the world, and we remember the immense sacrifices that have been made to defend our freedoms.
We support the RAF’s involvement in the campaign to liberate Raqqa. Daesh has used the city as its headquarters to plot attacks against British citizens, and it is vital that that evil organisation is routed for good. Before launching the operation to free Mosul, the Iraqi Government made careful plans about exactly which groups would be allowed to enter the city to avoid the real risk of sectarian violence. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether similar plans have been made in respect of Raqqa?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Let me formally welcome her and her team to Defence questions, and echo the tributes that she paid—and that we will all be paying over the next few days—to the work of our armed forces here and around the globe.
The hon. Lady is right that a lot of work went into the preparation of the Mosul campaign to ensure that there was sufficient reassurance for its predominantly Sunni population that the way that it was to be isolated, encircled and eventually liberated would not further exacerbate the tensions in that already complex city. Raqqa is predominantly an Arab city, and it is the coalition’s view that its encirclement and liberation should be accomplished by a predominantly Arab force.
Nia Griffith
We are also all deeply concerned about Russia’s corrosive role in the Syrian conflict. Its planes have hit schools and aid convoys and now, as we understand it, the signs are that it is preparing for a devastating assault on Aleppo. I am sure that the Secretary of State agrees that what the people of Aleppo want is an immediate cessation of hostilities. What is the Government’s strategy for achieving a meaningful ceasefire agreement?
Sir Michael Fallon
I think there is agreement across the House that Russia’s actions speak far louder than its words. The key is to stop the violence and return to the cessation of hostilities as originally agreed. There have been a number of these ceasefires and, in each case, they have been broken by the Assad regime and its Russian supporters. It really is time now that Russia called a halt to the slaughter and got engaged with us in finding a political settlement so that Syria can finally live in peace.
Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
We encourage the Iraqi Government’s efforts to protect civilians, minimise the humanitarian impact, and support political reconciliation. A successful military operation must be followed by sustained stabilisation and reconstruction. The UK is providing £15 million to help secure liberated areas, clear explosives and support the renovation of power networks, clinics and schools. This year, we are also providing £90 million of humanitarian assistance to help people across Iraq, including those affected by the military operations in and around Mosul.
Natalie McGarry
The Government spent £320 million on bombing Libya and only £25 million on its reconstruction when the campaign ended. Libya is now fragmented and lawless. In Mosul governorate, towns have been destroyed and people such as my Yazidi friend Elias Qirani have been displaced to camps in Sinjar, freezing and without adequate food this winter. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that the lessons of Sinjar and Libya have been learned and that this Government have planned for peace and reconstruction in Mosul and Raqqa?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes, I think it is fair to say that we learn the lessons from each of these successive campaigns. This is a campaign being helped by the international coalition and led by Iraqi forces, but yes, we have made our contribution to the United Nations effort to ensure that there are sufficient tents, food aid and medical supplies for those towns that are liberated. I hope the hon. Lady supports the overall aim of the campaign, which is to allow the Yazidi people to return to their homes and to live in peace.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Given the complex ethnic make-up of Mosul and the split between Sunnis and Shi’as, what plans are there for some kind of international observer force to be on the ground in the city once it is liberated?
Sir Michael Fallon
It is for the Iraqi Government in the first instance to determine the future local government of Mosul. It is, as my hon. Friend says, a very complex city and not entirely a Sunni city, and it is important that the administration there after liberation can command the confidence of all groups represented in that city. We have made our views on this known to the Government and military commanders of the operation.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
We welcome the progress in the operation to liberate Mosul and we fully support this important offensive. I recently met the Iraqi ambassador, who reiterated the need to defend the border between Iraq and Syria to ensure that Daesh cannot return to re-establish itself in Mosul or anywhere else. What role will the UK play in securing the border and defending the territorial integrity of Iraq?
Sir Michael Fallon
It is not for us in the west to question the territorial integrity of Iraq. In the end it is for the Iraqi people to decide their borders. One of the aims of the counter-Daesh coalition, which I shall be chairing at its next meeting next month in London, is to focus on the period after the liberation of Mosul and after the final mopping-up operations along the Tigris and in the Euphrates river valley, to see what more can be done by the coalition countries to help Iraq to reinforce its border and ensure that Daesh does not come back through it.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)
The UK is not a member of the Saudi Arabian-led coalition. British armed forces personnel are therefore not involved in selecting targets, carrying out strikes, or directing or conducting operations in Yemen.
Dr Whitford
The UK continues to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, despite repeated bombing of civilian targets and non-governmental organisation hospitals in Yemen. The most conservative figures from the United Nations Human Rights Council demonstrate that there have been at least 10,000 casualties and 4,000 confirmed dead in a country facing humanitarian disaster. Will the Minister and the Secretary of State heed the previous call by the Business, Innovation and Skills and the International Development Committees to end export licences for these arms, or are these casualties just considered a fair price to pay?
Harriett Baldwin
We will be responding to those reports imminently, but I want to put on record that we have one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. We are aware of the alleged violations that the hon. Lady mentions and we take alleged violations in this conflict extremely seriously.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am sure the Minister will agree that in this situation we have to be careful what we wish for, given the alternatives. Will she outline what support the UK Government are giving to the parties involved to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law?
Harriett Baldwin
My hon. Friend is right to say that in this situation the UK particularly supports a political solution. We believe that this is the best way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and to end the conflict. With respect to ongoing support, the UK backed UN resolution 2216, as my hon. Friend knows, and we have an ongoing defence engagement relationship with the Saudi Arabian Government.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Last Monday, the Security Council discussed Yemen for the first time in six months. I observed the proceedings. There was unanimous support for an immediate ceasefire and the four-point plan put forward by Matthew Rycroft, our ambassador. Will the Minister speak to the Foreign Secretary in person or through the Defence Secretary to ensure that a new resolution is tabled as soon as possible so that it can be discussed and passed, and the humanitarian and military crisis can be dealt with?
Harriett Baldwin
The right hon. Gentleman, who pays such close interest to this subject, will be aware that the UK continues strongly to support the work of the UN special envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and we strongly support a political solution. I will certainly pass on the sentiments he has just expressed to colleagues in the Foreign Office.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
The implementation of the covenant is overseen by the covenant reference group, chaired by the Cabinet Office. Next month’s annual report will detail the fact that considerable progress has been made across Government and with the wider public, private and third sectors, including on key areas of education, healthcare, accommodation and access to commercial services.
Lilian Greenwood
I thank the Minister for that answer. The head of the forces charity SSAFA has warned that the armed forces covenant
“provides excellent guidance but there is no guarantee of enforcement.”
Forces families often find themselves in real difficulty when seeking housing or school places. In this week, when our thoughts are with those forces families who have made the ultimate sacrifice, what are the Government doing to make it clear to service providers that the guarantees contained in the covenant are legal duties, not just optional extras?
Mark Lancaster
The hon. Lady is right to raise that, because it was this Government who enshrined the covenant in law. We have made substantial progress in recent years, not least through the £22.5 million that has now been spent on the service pupil premium or the £20 million that has been invested in veterans’ accommodation. However, I do recognise that more needs to be done, and I feel that I have a duty to ensure that local authorities across the country are doing their bit to enforce the covenant.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the recent report published by the Royal United Services Institute on the corporate covenant is a really important step in highlighting where the Government need to do much more to reach out to a much wider group of companies to get them to support those who are leaving the service and those families who need support.
Mark Lancaster
Of course we recognise that the covenant is very much a partnership between Government, the third sector and the corporate world, which is why I was delighted to see that we recently passed 1,200 signatures on the corporate covenant.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
What discussions has the Minister had with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to see the armed forces covenant enforced in Northern Ireland? What steps has his Department taken in the interim to work with veterans’ services in Northern Ireland until the scheme is fully implemented?
Mark Lancaster
Of course, we have unique challenges in Northern Ireland, but I am pleased to report that we estimate that 93% of covenant issues are being enforced in Northern Ireland. Clearly, we need to do better, and that is going to be my focus for the year.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
While there are many examples of good practice across the United Kingdom, it is clear that not everyone in the forces community is experiencing the benefits of the covenant. A recent report by the Local Government Association found that nearly 40% of those who served in the armed forces felt that their service left them disadvantaged. What are the Government doing to ensure that the covenant becomes a reality for every serviceman and woman across the country?
Mark Lancaster
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post, and I encourage him to look at the last four covenant reports, which detail the progress we have made over the last four years. However, his point is well made, and it is precisely why, earlier this year, I commissioned the Forces in Minds Trust to do a review so that we can ensure that best practice from the various local authorities across the United Kingdom is shared.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
I will meet the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), shortly. I had several such meetings with his predecessor at which we discussed mental health.
Andy Slaughter
Part of the problem is that only about 50% of veterans who have mental health issues come forward with them because of culture, stigma, or whatever. What are the Government doing to reach out to those who do not seek treatment to ensure that they also do so?
Mark Lancaster
The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point. The problem is not specific to veterans; for some time, we have had problems in society whereby mental health has been a stigma and people are reluctant to come forward. We are working closely with the Department of Health, because ultimately this is its responsibility, but we also have a number of programmes within the Ministry of Defence, not least the veterans and reserves mental health programme, which ensures that veterans are contacted one year after they leave the service to be encouraged to seek support if they need it.
Karl Turner
Servicemen and women are able to access defence mental health services for up to six months after they leave the military, but poor mental health can kick in at any time. Given that the NHS is frankly on its knees in relation to mental health services, will the Minister consider extending the access period to allow veterans proper priority in mental health services? That would also take the pressures off the NHS.
Mark Lancaster
This is an interesting area. Ultimately, the national health service is responsible for our veterans because, as a society, we do not have a specialist veterans department; I think that is the right approach. Nevertheless, we have invested over £13 million of LIBOR money in this specialist area. We do indeed allow people access for up to six months, and I am happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion to see how we can perhaps do more.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
The provision of a psychologist specialising in trauma services would be of huge benefit to the many veterans in Devon, particularly in East Devon, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Will my hon. Friend commit to having an early discussion with the Secretary of State for Health to make such a provision available to my constituents and others?
Mark Lancaster
As I mentioned in my original answer, I have a regular meeting with my counterpart at the Department of Health, and I am happy to add my hon. Friend’s suggestion to the agenda.
Mr Speaker
While it is always a pleasure to hear from the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan), she has already had a substantive question. She can have another go in topicals, but Members cannot speak twice in substantives, I am afraid.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Mark Lancaster
I should declare my interest as a serving reservist. From my own experience of being mobilised on three occasions over recent years, I can say that it has been interesting to see the extra support I have had on returning from mobilised service latterly compared with when I first did it in 1999 to 2007. Progress is definitely being made. As I said, we have the veterans and reserves mental health programme, which ensures that extra support is given to reservists. I fully recognise that when reservists are demobilised they do not always have the same support as those returning to a regular unit.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Mark Lancaster
In certain circumstances, veterans should have priority treatment. That is precisely why, on 13 July, I announced the new integrated high dependency care system, which is a partnership between the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health to ensure that those who need specialist support can continue to get it from Defence Medical Services.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)
This Government put our security first. The spending review confirmed that the Ministry of Defence’s budget will rise by 0.5% above inflation in every year to 2020. We will spend 2% of GDP on defence each year, and the defence budget will rise to almost £40 billion by the end of the decade.
Karl MᶜCartney
Sentinel aircraft based at RAF Waddington in my constituency play a vital role in the fight against Daesh, so may I welcome the Department’s announcement of £130 million support contract funding from our growing defence budget? Will the Minister confirm how many jobs that will sustain?
Harriett Baldwin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the important role played by Sentinel aircraft based in his constituency. The contract is good news for the UK defence industry and it will sustain about 120 jobs at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, and about 40 jobs at Hawarden airfield in Broughton in north Wales.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The pound has dropped nearly 20% in value and the price of vital military kit that we buy abroad is set to sky-rocket, so will the Minister confirm that we have enough contingency to pay for the F-35 fighters planned for the new aircraft carriers?
Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a double lock in terms of the budget and that it is based not just on 2% of our economy, which I am pleased to say grew again in the third quarter. There is also a lock in terms of a rise of 0.5% above inflation every year to 2020.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that this issue arose from the first review for about 30 years to result in an increase, rather than a reduction, in the size of the armed forces? Does she agree that, as the world gets more dangerous, it is all the more important that we get more bang for the buck from every pound spent?
Harriett Baldwin
May I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his efforts during his time at the Department? They resulted in the settlement in the 2015 autumn statement, which I mentioned earlier. He is absolutely right to say that defence spending is going up every year, and that is so that we can invest in the new Type 26 frigates, aircraft carriers, attack helicopters, fast jets, armoured vehicles and, as we heard last week, our cyber-defences.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
May I begin by sending my condolences to the family and friends of Lance Corporal Joe Spencer, who was tragically killed at RAF Tain last week?
On Friday, I warmly welcomed the announcement that steel would be cut on the Type 26 frigates in summer 2017. However, I repeat my point that the contract remains unsigned, so will the Secretary of State get a move on and sign it? The defence procurement Minister said last year that Type 23s would be replaced by Type 26s on a like-for-like basis. Is that still the case?
Harriett Baldwin
I think I detected in that question a sliver of a welcome for the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on Friday two decades’ worth of shipbuilding work on Type 26 frigates in Scotland. I remind the hon. Gentleman that none of that shipbuilding would have happened if he had achieved his desired outcome in the Scottish referendum.
Brendan O'Hara
Is it not the case that only the original order for 13 Type 26s would have kept the yards working until 2035? Now that there are only eight and there is no confirmation of the general purpose frigates, how can an order for just eight Type 26s secure two decades’ worth of work on the Clyde?
Harriett Baldwin
Did you, Mr Speaker, detect any mention there of the five offshore patrol vessels that are also being built on the River Clyde? The hon. Gentleman’s comments are absolutely extraordinary. I am reminded of the P.G. Wodehouse phrase—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. It is bad enough for the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) to ask a question that is too long, but for him to rant for too long and then, when the Minister gets up to reply, to continue ranting is not statesmanlike behaviour by the hon. Gentleman, for whom I previously had high hopes.
Harriett Baldwin
As P.G. Wodehouse said:
“It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
As the former Minister responsible for Type 26s, may I warmly welcome the order for them, although I and the nation could well do with more? I also welcome the decision to maintain defence expenditure at 2%, but may I remind my hon. Friend that last year that was done only by viring £1.2 billion of expenditure from the Department for Work and Pensions to the Minister of Defence? Why is it that I am hearing from senior officers that their budgets are being cut this year and that they are having to find in-year savings? Where is the extra cash?
Harriett Baldwin
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his enormous contribution. He has always made the case for a growing defence budget. I am sure that he, too, will welcome not only the announcement we made last week about the Type 26 frigates, but the announcement made at last year’s strategic defence and security review that we would develop a general purpose frigate and commit to at least five of those.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
It is right that the Government are sticking to our NATO commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence, but as the Select Committee on Defence has noted, the Government are doing so only by including areas that were not previously counted. Can the Minister tell us what defence expenditure would be as a percentage of GDP if we used the accounting rules that were used in 2010?
Harriett Baldwin
We use exactly the methodology that NATO approves, and everything is consistent with NATO’s definition. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify whether the Labour party will also commit to spending 2% of the country’s GDP on defence.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
British Forces are involved in 28 operations in more than 25 countries, protecting the United Kingdom and its interests from a range of threats and promoting security in key regions of the world. The Royal Navy deploys some 29 ships and submarines across the globe, supported by more than 8,000 sailors and Marines.
Mrs Drummond
Women have served alongside men with distinction aboard Royal Navy ships in combat service for many years. Does the Secretary of State agree that opening up front-line roles to women in the Royal Marines, the Army and the RAF will enhance their effectiveness in operations?
Sir Michael Fallon
The Royal Navy has been ahead, as one might expect of the senior service, in demonstrating how women serving in front-line roles improve the capability of our armed forces. Five Royal Navy vessels and one shore establishment are currently commanded by women, and some 9% of the Royal Navy is now female. Opening ground close combat roles to women will provide further opportunities to attract and retain talented women from the breadth of society. Doing so is fundamental to the successful delivery of operations now and in the future.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I press the Secretary of State on the co-operation that we need to be effective? Is he happy with the level of co-operation we get across NATO, where many of our NATO friends are not spending sufficient amounts of money on their defence? Is he worried that if the presidential election in the United States went one way tomorrow, we would be hard put to be an effective force against Putin?
Sir Michael Fallon
A number of NATO members have much more to do. Some of them still spend less than 1.5%, and a few of them even spend less than 1%. But in the deployments that are being agreed on the eastern border of NATO we are seeing more co-operation, with countries such as France and Denmark coming alongside the battalion that we will lead in Estonia next year.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State, in the context of the operational effectiveness of our forces, emphasise that such things are normally done in partnership with other countries? Does he therefore agree that it is vital that members of the US Administration and other NATO partners recognise that they are strengthened by the contribution that NATO countries collectively make to the defence of the United States?
Sir Michael Fallon
It is probably the wrong day to comment on the position of the United States. Yes, NATO is a collective defence organisation, and we all, in that respect, rely on each other. I note, for example, that when Britain leaves the European Union, three of the four battalions on the eastern border of NATO will be led by non-EU countries.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
Speaking as a ray of sunshine, may I ask whether the Ministry of Defence has made any assessment of how the Army’s new Ajax fighting vehicle would fare against Russia’s equally new T-14 main battle tank?
Sir Michael Fallon
I do not think it is right to compare one particular armoured vehicle with a completely different type of armoured vehicle. What is important is to look at our armoured vehicles and our combat systems as a whole across the range that we have deployed and are going to deploy, including the new Ajax armoured vehicle.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
In Iraq, operations to liberate Mosul are continuing to make good progress, with Iraqi forces reaching the outskirts of the city. In Syria, the Manbij pocket has been closed, restricting Daesh’s access to the Turkish border, through which they were bringing in fighters, and in September they were expelled from the culturally significant town of Dabiq.
Andrew Stephenson
The military success against Daesh in Iraq is to be welcomed. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that after the eventual liberation of Mosul we will continue to support Iraqi forces in their fight to defeat Daesh?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes. The Iraqi security forces, including the peshmerga, are playing the primary role in the fight against Daesh in Iraq, but the support and training provided by the global coalition, including the United Kingdom, has been a key contributor to their success. This fight will not end with the liberation of Mosul, nor will United Kingdom support.
Neil Gray
What discussions has the Defence Secretary had with his counterpart in Turkey to ensure that the Turkish military and Turkish-backed militia are not working against the overall aims of the international coalition during the recapture of Mosul and, above all, that they are ensuring the protection of civilians and the provision of humanitarian aid?
Sir Michael Fallon
I last met my Turkish counterpart a couple of weeks ago at the NATO Defence Ministerial. Key to the success of this campaign is that all the various parties involved in what is a complex situation in northern Iraq respect the sensitivities of the very complex make-up of the individual towns and villages. That applies to the encirclement and the liberation, but it will also of course apply to what we call the “day after”—the day after liberation—when we have to restore local administration and essential services.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State say what progress is being made in destroying and degrading Daesh’s capability to recruit and, indeed, to infect the minds of young people in this country? What success have we had on that front in recent months?
Sir Michael Fallon
We have seen a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters from this country to Syria and Iraq. We have intensified the work we have been doing with other countries in strategic communications to lessen the appeal of Daesh by interdicting some of their material—taking down material from their websites and reducing the appeal they have through social media—and we will continue to work at that. Meanwhile, there are perhaps 200 to 300 British citizens still involved with Daesh in Iraq and Syria. We will have to make sure that they no longer pose a threat to this country and, indeed, are held to account for any criminal acts they may have committed.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
I am sure the whole House is in agreement in hoping that Mosul can be decisively liberated from Daesh as quickly as possible. A devastating consequence of this ongoing conflict is the effect it is having on the city’s children. It has been estimated that about half of the civilians fleeing Mosul are children, while recent reports have found that Daesh are kidnapping boys as young as nine to use them as soldiers. What are the UK armed forces doing specifically to aid the children in this city?
Sir Michael Fallon
Our armed forces are not involved in combat on the ground in and around Mosul. We have been supplying close air support, intelligence and training. It is important to remember that those children were suffering before the operation began—they would have been suffering in Mosul anyway—and I think we can best help by making sure, as these areas are progressively liberated, including the suburbs of Mosul, that UN agencies are ready to go in and provide the necessities of life and get those children out if they can.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Mosul has suffered deeply from cultural destruction. As we look forward to the ratification of The Hague convention, what will the armed forces do to limit further damage to the cultural heritage of Mosul and support the good work of Lieutenant Colonel Tim Purbrick’s cultural property protection working group, more catchily known as the monuments men?
Sir Michael Fallon
We have consulted international partners on best practice and have tasked the Army with establishing a cultural property protection unit, which will help to ensure that cultural property is protected from damage and looting, will provide advice, training and support to operational planning processes, and can investigate, record and report cultural property issues from any area of operations. I know that my hon. Friend will join me in welcoming our intention to ratify the convention, through legislation before the House, early next year.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes. The United Kingdom is absolutely committed to supporting the Kurdish peshmerga in their efforts to defeat Daesh. I visited them while they were training recently. Our commitment is demonstrated by our participation in the building partner capacity programme. Among the peshmerga are the Kurdish women whose bravery and resolve have had such a tremendous impact on the campaign. I am sure the whole House will wish to join my hon. Friend and me in paying tribute to the female peshmerga for the contribution they are making.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)
The Ministry of Defence meets the Treasury regularly as part of its routine business. The spending review set out the Ministry of Defence’s spending plans for the rest of this Parliament. The defence budget is growing at 0.5% above inflation each year until 2020. We also have access to the new joint security fund. These commitments mean that the defence budget will rise to almost £40 billion by the end of the decade.
Chris Elmore
I thank the Minister for her answer. I listened carefully to the answer she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on the cost of the pound and the purchasing power of the Ministry of Defence. The Royal United Services Institute has suggested that the purchasing power of the UK’s defence budget could be cut by 2% as a result of the fall in sterling. What plans do the Government have to offset that?
Harriett Baldwin
Again, I put on the record the fact that defence spending will go up regardless of currency fluctuations because of the double lock on the defence budget. As part of ongoing management of the budgets at the Ministry of Defence, we pay and have paid regard to the currency risk in terms of our procurement programme.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
When Ministers meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer will they remind him that although the defence budget is going up in absolute terms it is nevertheless at a lower proportion of GDP than ever before? We really ought to be looking at something approaching the 3% mark, bearing in mind the fact that the level of threat we face today is similar to that of the 1980s, when we regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence.
Harriett Baldwin
My right hon. Friend was calling for 5% the other day—“Go for five and stay alive” was the catchphrase he came up with, I think. He is right that it is important that we continue to keep the Ministry of Defence’s budget under review, and we were very pleased that last year the spending review committed to a rise of 0.5% above inflation every year during this Parliament. Another spending review will have to look at the budget again in due course.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
My priorities remain the fight against Daesh and implementing our strategic defence review. I am delighted to confirm to the House today that the United Kingdom has been chosen by the United States to become a global hub for maintenance and support services for the F-35 programme. The initial contracts will generate hundreds of millions of pounds of revenue and support thousands of highly skilled jobs. It is excellent news for the UK economy, and for Wales in particular, where the hub will be based.
Dr Lewis
May I welcome the fact that steel cutting will belatedly begin on the Type 26 frigates in the summer of 2017? However, the fact remains that, for the total of 19 frigates and destroyers to be maintained, each frigate will have to be replaced at the rate of one a year. Will the Secretary of State confirm that if the steel cutting begins in 2017, the first ship will be ready to enter service at the same time as HMS Argyll, the first of the Type 23 frigates, is due to leave service in 2023?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes, I can confirm that it is our intention to replace the anti-submarine frigates within the Type 23 force with eight new Type 26 anti-submarine frigates.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
What assurances has the Secretary of State given to our NATO ally Estonia after a recent report by the US army-linked RAND Corporation showed that the current mismatch of forces in the Baltic region could result in Estonia being overrun by Russian troops within 36 hours in the event of an invasion?
Sir Michael Fallon
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman comes new to these matters, but he may have heard me announce three weeks ago that we are sending 800 British troops to Estonia next year, backed up by French and Danish companies. There will be similar battalions in each of the Baltic states from next year, along with a battalion in Poland, which is all part of NATO’s measures to assure and help to deter any possible aggression.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
There is a still a large number of British nationals in Syria and Iraq fighting against Daesh on the side of the Kurdish forces, yet there seems to be no Government line on whether it is a criminal offence to do so under the Terrorism Act 2000, leaving a number of people, including my constituent Aidan Aslin of Newark, in legal limbo upon their return. Will the Secretary of State look into the matter and get a policy to help those British citizens on their return?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am very happy to undertake to look into that particular matter, but our emphasis, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree, must be on the 200 or 300 British citizens who have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight for Daesh and pose a potential threat to this country, and who may well have committed criminal acts in fighting alongside Daesh. They are the people who need to be investigated first.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
It is good news. The hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Byron Davies) have been absolute champions when it comes to pursuing the opportunity for cadets in Wales to glide in Wales, so I am pleased to announce that I will facilitate summer gliding camps at St Athan on a trial basis next summer, with a view to continuing them in future.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
We have heard a lot this afternoon about the Type 26 frigate, but I should like to ask about our minesweeping capability. What progress and innovation in minesweeping technology has been made for the Navy?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)
I was delighted recently to announce, along with our French partners, an unmanned maritime minesweeping capability. We are building the demonstration phase, which will be an innovative and interesting investment in minesweeping technology.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/ Co-op)
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes, and I provided that certainty at the recent meeting of the EU Defence Ministers in Bratislava. I made it very clear that while we remain members of the European Union, we will be full members of it. We will continue to participate in Operation Sophia in the central Mediterranean, to which we currently contribute two ships, and in Operation Atalanta to curb piracy off the horn of Africa.
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
During the passage of the Armed Forces Bill, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State undertook to review the current policy that means that not all sexual offences are referred to service police. Will he provide an update to the House?
Mark Lancaster
We have always made it clear that there is no place for sexual offending in the armed forces. However, following concerns raised in this House I have decided to bring before Parliament draft legislation to add the offences of sexual assault, voyeurism and exposure to schedule 2 of the Armed Forces Act 2006. I will write to those who have previously raised such concerns shortly.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Harriett Baldwin
I will look into the matter the hon. Gentleman raises and write to him.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Most of us in this place would welcome the announcement, made last week, with regard to the Type 26 ships. Does my right hon. Friend share my bemusement at the carping and pettifogging from some hon. Members about this rather welcome announcement?
Sir Michael Fallon
It is extraordinary for a pledge of 20 years of work for the Clyde to be welcomed in such a grudging fashion. Let us be very clear that if Scotland was outside the United Kingdom, these frigates would not be built on the Clyde. If Scottish National party Members had been successful in defeating the renewal of Trident, we would not have needed anti-submarine frigates.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Harriett Baldwin
The right hon. Gentleman is very knowledgeable about these matters, so, again, I would have thought he would welcome the fact that we are acquiring this capability, which will be based at Lossiemouth in Scotland. Discussions with Boeing are ongoing in relation to the substantial inward investment it is making in the United Kingdom.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
The increase in Russian aggression is concerning many of our NATO allies. Can my right hon. Friend provide reassurance on what reassurance he has given to them in the face of this increased aggression?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes. We have, as NATO, agreed to the deployment of four battalions in the three Baltic states and Poland from next year. In addition, I announced two weeks ago that we would be deploying RAF Typhoons for the first time to assist southern air policing, based in Romania, from next year. That will provide considerable assurance to countries such as Romania and Bulgaria in curbing any Russian aggression in the Black sea region.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Sir Michael Fallon
This country has led the way in getting money assembled for the reconstruction of Syria. First, of course, we have to get the civil war brought to an end. So far as Iraq is concerned, we have contributed to the United Nations fund. That money is now ready to go in to the reconstruction of the towns that have been liberated and to provide as quickly as possible the power and hospital and school services that the population needs.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give the House an update on progress in providing specific support and welfare provision for those of our armed forces in the Iraq Historic Allegations Team system to support their families and themselves through this traumatic period?
Mark Lancaster
I am pleased to say we are making progress in this area. We expect the number of claims to go down quite substantially. We hope to report to the House shortly.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Last week I felt really powerful as an MP, given that the Secretary of State flew up to Glasgow to make an announcement just because I had a question on the Order Paper. I thank him for that. Instead of trading insults back at us, will he give a straightforward commitment that the five general purpose vehicles will be built on the Clyde as well?
Sir Michael Fallon
Just on Friday, I announced that the first eight Type 26 anti-submarine frigates would be built on the Clyde. It is too early to say how the new general purpose frigate, which is still to be designed, will be manufactured and assembled, but of course BAE Systems on the Clyde will be in pole position.
Article 50
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
With permission, I would like to make a statement on the process for invoking article 50. The Government’s priority at every stage following the European Union referendum has been to respect the outcome of that referendum and to ensure it is delivered on. To leave the European Union was the decision of the British people. It was taken after a 6:1 vote in this House to put that decision in their hands. As the Government told voters:
“This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide”—
no ifs, no buts. So there can be no going back; the point of no return was passed on 23 June.
Implementing the decision to leave the EU means following the right processes. We must leave in the way agreed in law by the UK and other member states, which means following the process set out in article 50 of the treaty on European Union. We have been clear about the timing. There was a good reason why the Government did not take the advice of some in this House on 24 June and trigger article 50 immediately. Instead, the Prime Minister was clear that she would not invoke article 50 before the end of this year. That gives us time to develop a detailed negotiating position, but we have also said that the process should not drag on and that we intend to trigger article 50 by the end of March next year.
Let me now turn to the issues at hand this week. Legal action was taken to challenge the Government on the proper process for triggering article 50. We have always been of the clear view that this is a matter for the Government, and that it is constitutionally proper and lawful to give effect to the referendum result by the use of prerogative powers. As I have said, the basis on which the referendum was held was that the Government would give effect to the result of that referendum. That was the basis on which people were asked to vote.
Our argument in the High Court was that decisions on the making and withdrawal from treaties are clear examples of the use of the royal prerogative, and that Parliament, while having a role in the process, which I will come on to, has not constrained the use of the prerogative to withdraw from the EU. Our position in the case was that the Government were therefore entitled to invoke the procedure set out in article 50. The Court has, however, come to a different view. It held that the Government do not have the prerogative power to give notice under article 50 without legislation authorising them to do so.
The Court said that the starting point was that the Crown does not have power to vary the law of the land using its prerogative powers unless Parliament legislated to the contrary. It held that the European Communities Act 1972 brought rights arising under EU law into the law of the United Kingdom, and that the Crown has no prerogative power to withdraw from the EU because the effect of withdrawal would be to take away those rights.
Let me be clear about this: we believe in and value the independence of our judiciary, the foundation upon which our rule of law is built—[Interruption.] I have to say to the Opposition that I have a little more background in protecting that independence than they have, in view of the previous Government. We also value the freedom of our press. Both those things underpin our democracy.
The Government disagree with the Court’s judgment. The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum approved by an Act of Parliament. Our position remains that the only means of leaving is through the procedure set out in article 50, and that triggering article 50 is properly a matter for the Government using their prerogative powers. As a result, we will appeal the High Court’s judgment at the Supreme Court.
Given our appeal, it would not be appropriate to comment further on the details of the legal arguments—I am sure that the House understands this—but let me say a brief word about the process of the appeal. We have taken two necessary procedural steps. First, the Government have been granted a certificate to bypass the Court of Appeal and leapfrog the case to the Supreme Court. This will ensure that, when we lodge our appeal, it will be heard directly in the Supreme Court without further delay. Secondly, we will this week apply for substantive permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. It is likely that any hearing will be scheduled in the Supreme Court in early December. We would hope that the judgment would be provided soon after. This timetable remains consistent with our aim to trigger article 50 by the end of March next year.
We are now preparing our submissions to the Supreme Court in the usual way. As I have said, it would not be proper to go into those in great detail here today, but the core of our argument will remain that we believe that it is proper and lawful for the Government to trigger article 50 by the use of prerogative powers.
Of course, litigation is also under way in Northern Ireland. It is considering a number of specific issues linked to Northern Ireland’s constitutional arrangements. The High Court in Belfast found in the Government’s favour on these points. A hearing is being held in Belfast tomorrow to consider whether an appeal by the claimants in that case should also leapfrog to the Supreme Court, and whether the issues that overlap with the English courts should remain stayed pending the outcome of the hearing in the Supreme Court. Again, it would not be appropriate for me to say more at this stage, except that in the event of any appeal in the Northern Ireland litigation, the Government will robustly defend their position. For the avoidance of doubt, our view is that the legal timetable in relation to this case in the event of an appeal should also be consistent with our commitment to notifying under article 50 by the end of March next year.
I have said that because of our appeal, I will not go into detail on the points that were raised in the High Court’s judgment, but let me set out some fundamental principles for how we move ahead. First, our plan remains to invoke article 50 by the end of March. We believe that the legal timetable will allow for that. Secondly, the referendum result must be respected and delivered. The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum provided for by an Act of Parliament. There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum. The country voted to leave the European Union and it is the duty of the Government to make sure that we do just that. Parliament had its say in legislating for the referendum, which it did in both Houses, with an overwhelming majority in this House and cross-party support. The people have spoken and we intend to act on their decision.
Thirdly, irrespective of the ongoing court process, there is an important role for Parliament. Parliament will have a central role in ensuring that we find the best way forward, and we have been clear that we will be as transparent and open as possible. There have already been a number of debates and parliamentary statements on Brexit, and the Prime Minister has pledged that that process will continue before article 50 is invoked. I informed the House in October that there would be a series of debates on Brexit in Government time—the first will take place today—and that is on top of a number of other debates and opportunities for scrutiny. The new Exiting the European Union Committee has been established, and it provides another place for parliamentary scrutiny of our withdrawal from the EU. If I remember correctly, its members will be visiting my Department tomorrow.
The Government will introduce legislation in the next Session that, when enacted, will repeal the European Communities Act on the day we leave the EU. This great repeal Bill will end the authority of EU law and return power to the United Kingdom. We have made it clear that European Union law will be transposed into UK law at the time we leave, providing certainty for workers, businesses and consumers. We intend that this Act of Parliament will be in place before the end of the article 50 process.
It is important to remember that article 50 is the beginning of the process, not the end. As the Prime Minister has made clear, there will be many opportunities for Parliament to continue to engage with the Government once article 50 has been invoked. When negotiations have concluded, we will observe in full all relevant legal and constitutional obligations that apply. However, there is a balance to be struck between parliamentary scrutiny and preserving our negotiating position, which was why the House unanimously concluded last month that the process should be undertaken in a way that respects the decision of the people of the United Kingdom when they voted to leave the EU on 23 June, and does not undermine the negotiating position of the Government as negotiations are entered into. We will give no quarter to anyone who, while going through the motions of respecting the outcome of the referendum, in fact seeks to thwart the decision of the British people.
We are disappointed by the Court’s judgment in this case and we will appeal against it in the Supreme Court. None of this in any way diminishes our determination to respect and deliver the outcome of the referendum, and to notify under article 50 by the end of March next year. We are going to get on with delivering on the mandate to leave the European Union in the best way possible for the UK’s national interest—best for jobs, best for growth, and best for investment.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. This is the third statement that he has made to the House in just a few months. Nobody could accuse him of not being willing to turn up to the Dispatch Box; it is just that each time he does so, we leave none the wiser about the Government’s basic approach to the negotiation. Today was no different; he has not even made clear what will happen if the Government lose their appeal. I was going to say it is all process and no substance, but I realised I said that last time and that I am in danger of repeating myself—there are only so many times I can say, “Is that it?”
What we do know is that last week was not a good week for the Government. On Thursday, the High Court ruled the Prime Minister is acting unlawfully in seeking to use prerogative powers to invoke article 50. The Court had to remind the Prime Minister that only Parliament can make and repeal laws, and it is because the Prime Minister is seeking to use prerogative powers to change the European Communities Act that the judgment went against her. Only Parliament can do that. As the Court had to make clear to the Prime Minister, when it comes to legislation, Parliament is sovereign. That sovereignty matters.
The Government have approached their task in the wrong way and their approach is now unravelling, and I am afraid to say it is unravelling in the most divisive and ugly way. In the aftermath of the High Court judgment, we saw a series of appalling personal attacks on the judges, including the suggestion that they are “enemies of the people”. Some of us have worked in countries where judges do as the Executive tell them, and believe you me it is highly corrosive of democracy. Robust comment on, and criticism of, court judgments is right in a country that respects free speech, but we all have a duty to stand up for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. The Lord Chancellor has a special duty to do so because, by convention, judges do not engage in public debate and are thus unable to defend themselves. Yet the Lord Chancellor has been too slow and too reluctant to do her duty. It was disappointing that the Secretary of State did not take this opportunity to put on record the Government’s clear and unambiguous condemnation of personal attacks on our judges, and I ask him to do so now.
Turning to the approach that the Secretary of State has set out, it is clear that the Government intend to appeal last week’s ruling. Clearly, legally, they are entitled to do so, but would it not be better for the Government to stand back and ask whether it is right to continue with the approach they are taking? No one expects the Government to reveal the detail of their negotiating hand, but there are big headline issues that matter to everyone in every part of the UK. What relationship with the single market are the Government aiming for? What is the opening stance on the customs union? How do the Government envisage our future co-operation with EU partners in combating terrorism and serious crime? Do the Government have a plan for transitional arrangements in March 2019? These basic questions require clear answers.
Labour has repeatedly made it clear that we accept and respect the outcome of the referendum—[Interruption.] I have said that every time I have stood at this Dispatch Box. There is a mandate to leave. We will not frustrate the process by voting down article 50, but we cannot have a debate in a vacuum. The future relationship of the UK with our EU partners is at stake. The future relationship of the UK in the world is at stake. The Prime Minister simply cannot keep all this to herself. The Government need to act in the national interest—build a consensus; act not for the 52%, but for the 52% and the 48%; and put the country first. I call on the Secretary of State to abandon the furtive Executive approach that has been taken so far and to commit to a course of action that respects the role of Parliament and provides for proper scrutiny and challenge—to commit to a course of action most likely to deliver the right outcome for all of us and for generations to come.
Mr Davis
The hon. and learned Gentleman finishes by calling me “furtive”, having started his contribution by commending me for the number of times I have appeared at the Dispatch Box—an interesting idea. I thank him for his reply none the less. I shall respond to his points in a moment, but let me first say that I am determined to work constructively with Opposition Members who want to make a success of Brexit. I have said that the Government will be as open and transparent as possible as we approach these vital negotiations—this must be the 20th time I have said that—and that Parliament will be closely and repeatedly engaged in the process of exit.
The hon. and learned Gentleman suggests that his party respects the referendum result and is not seeking to undermine the decision of the British people, but I have to say that the approach being taken by certain Opposition Members rather gives the game away. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), has declared that what the referendum result—the biggest democratic mandate for a course of action achieved by any Government—needs is an “injection of democracy”. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) has suggested that Labour would amend any article 50 Bill to bring about a second referendum.
The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), the former Deputy Prime Minister, who is in the Chamber, suggested after last week’s result that his party would seek to amend any legislation on triggering article 50 to allow for a second referendum on our new relationship with the EU. He did not like the first answer given by the voters, so he is seeking to put the question all over again in the hope of getting a different one. These are not constructive proposals to enable Britain to make a success of Brexit. I am sorry to say that they look increasingly like attempts to thwart and reverse the decision that was taken on 23 June—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Bacon, I always regard you as a cerebral denizen of the House, not the sort of person who would point across the Chamber. That is profoundly discourteous and very un-Bacon-like, if I may say so.
Mr Davis
As we are speaking of cerebral issues, Mr Speaker, I shall return to the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). I read in the Financial Times that he recently attended a private event in Parliament at which he was hailed as
“the man who’ll make sure we stay in the EU”.
Apparently he winced at that because he
“does not want expectations to get out of hand.”
We have had a weekend of Labour confusion. The Leader of the Opposition suggested he might seek to block the triggering of article 50 if various conditions were not met. A few hours later, the deputy leader said that that was not right. I heard the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) on the radio this morning and he now appears to be suggesting a different approach. He says that triggering article 50 should be conditional on our going into this negotiation with all our cards face up for everyone on the other side of the table to see.
I have said repeatedly that we will be as open as we possibly can be. Indeed, we have set out our strategic aims for the negotiation again and again. I have told the House before—I do so again today—that they are: to bring back control of our laws to Parliament; to bring back control of decisions over immigration to the United Kingdom; to maintain the strong security co-operation we have with the EU; and to establish the freest possible market in goods and services with the EU and the rest of the world. But there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.
We will not achieve a good outcome, however, if the negotiation is being run by 650 people in the House of Commons and nearly 900 in the other place. No negotiation in our history has been run in that way. Indeed, if Parliament insists on setting out a detailed minimum negotiating position, that will quickly become the maximum possible offer from our negotiating partners, and the talk of a second referendum from some Opposition Members will simply encourage the EU27 to impose impossibly difficult conditions in the hope that the British people will change their minds. In other words, their whole approach is designed to wreck the negotiations.
So, Parliamentary scrutiny—yes. Telling the Prime Minister which cards to play and forcing her to disclose her hand to those she will be negotiating with—no. That will not be the approach taken by our EU counterparts. The European Commission states in a public document on how its negotiations are conducted:
“The negotiations and their texts are not themselves public...A certain level of confidentiality is necessary to protect EU interests and to keep chances for a satisfactory outcome high. When entering into a game, no-one starts by revealing his entire strategy”.
I will consider any suggestions that the shadow Secretary of State constructively has to make. We have said that we want as broad a consensus as possible, but we will not do anything to compromise Britain’s negotiating position or give grounds to those who want to thwart the result of the referendum.
The shadow Secretary of State did raise another point that I do not want to let pass. He accused the Lord Chancellor of failing to defend the judiciary. I do not accept that. I have the quote in front of me and the Lord Chancellor said:
“The independence of the judiciary is the foundation upon which our rule of law is built and our judiciary is rightly respected the world over for its independence and impartiality.”
I have been in this House for a little while. Over the past decade or so—since about 2004—there have been a number of occasions when I was sitting on the Opposition Benches that the Labour Home Secretary of the day criticised by name and in terms individual judges. I never did that. I did not attack him because I thought he was doing something he believed in—even if he was wrong. Nevertheless, I certainly never ever undermined the judges when I was in that position. A little later in that decade, Mr Peter Hain was threatened with prosecution for criticising judges, and I led the campaign to stop that prosecution, so I will take no lessons from Labour on this subject.
Mr Speaker
As usual, I want to accommodate the enormous interest of the House in this important statement and will strive to do so, but I must say to the House that questions and answers must be brief from now on.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend recall that during the passage of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 the then Foreign Secretary, now the Chancellor, made it unequivocally clear that the purpose of the Bill that was being passed into law was to give to the British people the absolute right to decide whether we stayed in or left the European Union? At no stage was that unclear. Does my right hon. Friend therefore deplore all those, including 70 Opposition Members, who now say that that decision does not stand and that we should fight to stay in the EU regardless of the public’s decision?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend is quite right. The then Foreign Secretary said in terms to this House, “This is giving the decision to the British people.” The Government of the day also spent £9 million circulating a leaflet saying just that: the decision was the public’s to take and that the Government would implement it.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement. We are about to embark upon one of the greatest constitutional upheavals that the United Kingdom has ever experienced. It will have an impact on almost every Government Department and every area of responsibility of the devolved Administrations. That means that scrutiny of the work of the Executive by the legislature is now more important than ever and should not be done on a nod and a wink. Just as the judges did their job in upholding the rule of law, so should this place have a full role in scrutinising the Government’s work.
Will the Secretary of State tell us whether a White Paper or any other preparatory materials for a Bill are being produced? Furthermore, will he acknowledge that democracy no longer begins and ends here and that there will be a significant impact on the devolved Administrations? Will he therefore tell us what meaningful involvement those Administrations will have over and above a hotline that takes 36 hours to answer?
Finally, the Secretary of State mentioned what he believes. Does he agree, and has he told his boss the Prime Minister, that we could have saved this Government, their lawyers and Ministers, and High Court judges a lot of time and effort had Parliament approved the Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill that he brought before the House on 22 June 1999? It would have clearly restricted the use of the Crown prerogative until
“the assent of the House of Commons has first been obtained”,
including
“to exercise executive powers not conferred by statute”.
Mr Davis
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I have to say that I am a little surprised at his comments on the devolved Administrations and their involvement, as the very first thing the new Prime Minister did was visit the First Minister of Scotland to discuss exactly the issue we are talking about today. This week, we are having the second Joint Ministerial Committee meeting, at which Scotland’s Government will be represented.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Lisbon treaty Act of 2008 are both constitutional Acts—sovereign Acts—of the first order? Does he also agree that not only did the 2015 Act expressly and clearly give the voters the absolute right to leave the EU, but the 2008 Act also clearly intended that the Government would give notice to leave under article 50, and that the Government stated that both before and after the referendum?
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
The Government have at various times in the past few months said that they wanted to unify the country, heal our divisions and build a national consensus, and all of us, in each part of this House—leave and remain—should want to see that. But how is it remotely possible to build that national consensus unless the Government are far more transparent with the country and this House of Commons about their plan for the Brexit negotiations?
Mr Davis
It is not possible by trying to thwart the will of the people by all sorts of parliamentary games, but what I will say to the right hon. Gentleman is this: I agree that we want to unify the people of Britain about a common position, but in truth there are very few differences across this divide. When I looked at what the Leader of the Opposition said on Sunday, I thought I could agree with at least two thirds of it. I do not think the divide is quite as wide as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) thinks.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Government remind the Supreme Court that prerogative powers have regularly been used by Ministers over the past 44 years to introduce and change British law by accepting European decisions and regulations, without any referendum cover? Will they also give all the abundant evidence that this was not an advisory referendum to that same Court?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend is inviting me to comment on the case in detail. I will not do that, but I will agree with him in one respect: prerogative power has been used for the past 40 years to increase the burden of European legislation but it seems not to be to reduce it.
Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)
Is the Secretary of State aware that the Governments of the day, of different political persuasions, published White Papers on their negotiating priorities ahead of the Amsterdam treaty, the Nice treaty, the constitutional treaty and the Lisbon treaty, and that Maastricht treaty negotiations were preceded by two whole days of debate under John Major’s Government and a vote in this House? Can the Secretary of State explain to the House why an approach involving Parliament’s prerogatives of scrutiny is appropriate for amendments to EU treaties but not appropriate to the much larger endeavour of pulling the UK out of the EU altogether?
Mr Davis
What the right hon. Gentleman forgets of course is that we have announced already, right at the beginning of this process, that we will introduce the great repeal Bill, which will lead to an enormous length of debate in this House on exactly what powers will be kept and what powers will remain—most will remain. After that, there will be other Bills, I should think, that will also deal with the individual elements of the negotiation, which will inform the House, with the House having the right to both amend and vote on them. So I do not see what he is complaining about.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Our country is deeply divided. In my county of Nottinghamshire, hate crime is 18% higher today than it was a year ago. Is it not important that, in everything that we say and do in the years and months ahead of us, we watch the language and make sure it is temperate, and that we involve everybody? Seventeen million people voted to leave the EU and 16 million of us voted for us not to leave the EU, and most of us have accepted that we are now going to leave the EU. In that spirit of bringing our nation together, in the interests of everybody, will my right hon. Friend now take this opportunity unequivocally to condemn the language and the vilification of our judges, including the homophobic abuse of one of our judges? Will he now please set the tone for us to work together?
Mr Davis
I wholeheartedly deplore the threats and the violent language used against the individual who I think launched this judicial case—that is utterly to be deplored. The point of division when one defends free speech is the point at which it encourages violence. In that respect, I absolutely agree. Hate crime is despicable, and those sorts of assaults are despicable.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State indicated last Thursday that, in all probability, legislation would be required to trigger the article 50 process if the judgment is upheld. Is that still his view? If so, will he give the House an assurance that, before that legislation is brought before the House, the Government will have published their negotiating objectives for the great endeavour on which the nation is about to embark. Whether people voted for or against remaining in the European Union, what all of them want to know now is: do the Government have a plan? The more he stands at the Dispatch Box and does not reveal one, the more worried people become.
Mr Davis
First, on the question of legislation, the actual outcome will depend on what the Supreme Court judges rule. What I was commenting on was the state as of the hearing or declaration last week. On the negotiation, as I have said before, we will be as open as possible subject to the overwhelming national interest of preserving our negotiating position. It is no good creating a public negotiating position, which has the simple effect of destroying our ability to negotiate—full stop.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
The independence of our judiciary is a very precious thing and it must be respected. The independence of our free press is also a very precious thing, and it must be respected. The fact that 17.4 million people—a majority of the British people—voted for our national independence is a precious thing and that must be respected. Will my right hon. Friend guarantee to me that he will not allow the efforts of the right hon. Members for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) and for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) or indeed any Member of the other place to thwart the mandate that this Government have been given in order to ensure that we can take back control of our laws, our money, our trade and our sovereignty?
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s words about the independence of the judiciary were welcome, but he will know that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said last week that the High Court decision was an attempt to frustrate the will of the British people. Does he agree that that was a deeply unhelpful thing for him to say, particularly at a time when the UK Independence party is calling for democratic and political control of judges—that was this morning—and when we all have a strong responsibility to ensure that the process of Brexit strengthens democracy and the rule of law in Britain and does not undermine and subvert it?
Mr Davis
I did not hear the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government speak. I have seen—[Interruption] Wait a minute. I have seen some of the reportage of it. I say to the right hon. Lady that we can respect the judiciary’s independence and disagree with the conclusion that it arrived at—that is perfectly proper within our country.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, like the European Parliament under article 50, this Parliament will have a vote on any prospective deal with the EU 27 at the end of the negotiations, and that although it is very important that he informs his negotiating position by consulting all shades of opinion and interest in the country and in this House, our decision will be at the end of this process, not at the beginning?
Mr David Davis
My hon. Friend is right. I have said to the House on a number of occasions that we will—I have used the same formula—obey all the laws and conventions. He will know that that includes, for example, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 and other Acts, including the European Union Act 2011. Before then, as I have said already, we will have the great repeal Act, which will be a major Act debated at length in this House, with possible consequential legislation, which may also be amendable. There is both a ratification process at the end and an amendment process along the way.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement and for the regular meetings that he is having with Members in the devolved Assemblies and Members from the devolved regions about this important matter. He can be assured that on the Ulster Bench the Government’s fixity of purpose is supported. Have last week’s events been a reminder that the courtroom is not the place for Britain to conduct its politics? Does he foresee any circumstances in which this case could end up in the European courts, and is there a contingency plan to address that matter?
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If the result had gone the other way, leavers like me would have unequivocally accepted it—[Interruption.] That is absolutely the case. Therefore the same should be expected of hon. Members who were defeated by the referendum result. Given that they all say that they would vote for article 50 in a vote in the House of Commons, why do we not hold such a vote straight away on a straightforward resolution, so that we can see whether that is sincere or whether they are as cynical as their reaction to the true statement that I made seems to suggest?
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
The basis of the judgment last week was that rights conferred by legislation cannot be taken away by royal prerogative. The Secretary of State said in the wake of that judgment that it was his understanding that therefore legislation would be needed to give effect to the judgment. Is that still his understanding, or does he think that the judgment can be given effect without legislation?
Mr Davis
As the judgment stands, that is my understanding. Basically, the right hon. Gentleman is right. What the court said, in effect, was, “You cannot remove rights without legislative power, and to give the Government legislative power, you have to have legislation”, but remember, we are now waiting on the Supreme Court outcome, which may be different.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Some 105 years ago it was a Liberal Government who established the supremacy of the elected over the unelected Chamber, so would it not be a scandalous state of affairs if Lib Dem peers were to use a parliamentary vote to frustrate the will of the people of this country?
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Is not the pressure on us, not on the judges? At elections the people give us sovereignty to exercise on their behalf, and at referendums we return that sovereignty to them. Woe betide us if we do not abide by that. Will the right hon. Gentleman hazard a guess as to how many remainers’ turkeys will vote for Christmas in next May’s election?
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
Is there not a way to cut through the debate and to start to heal the rift between Parliament and the people? The Secretary of State has an opportunity this afternoon to say that there will be a one-line Bill authorising the triggering of article 50, which would be introduced to this House and then pass through the House of Lords. I would urge him to bring that Bill forward soon to test the will of this House and the House of Lords, which I think will approve the passing of that Bill, and we can then get on with negotiating the exit.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
In 2010, responding to a House of Lords constitutional affairs report, the Government Minister asserted:
“Under the UK’s constitutional arrangements Parliament must be responsible for deciding whether or not to take action in response to a referendum result.”
Can the Secretary of State explain what has happened since 2010 to change the Government’s view on that?
Mr Davis
What happened in 2015 was that the Government Minister responsible, the Foreign Secretary, said to the House of Commons that this gives the decision to the British people—full stop, no ifs, no buts. The Government then published a number of documents saying the same thing over and over again. If we betray the people by not responding to that properly, I think it will be very difficult to ever make a referendum matter again.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
I am delighted with the certainty my right hon. Friend has that we are sticking to the current timetable, but he will have noticed that those who voted to remain are putting out a false narrative that we now have a choice between soft Brexit or hard Brexit. Will he please confirm that the biggest majority in British history voted to take back control, and that means making our own laws in our own Parliament?
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
The Attorney General, who is helpfully sitting next to the Secretary of State, will know that the Government failed in the European Union Referendum Bill to set out how notification under article 50 would be given in the event of a leave vote. Consequently, the courts have had to intervene. So should the Secretary of State not come to the Dispatch Box and condemn the hysterical, vicious, personal attacks on our independent judiciary and condemn some of the comments from those on his own Front Bench?
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that some people have been describing this moment as some kind of constitutional crisis? I will be inviting the constitution Committee of the House of Commons to take an interest in this crisis, if it is a crisis. In the meantime, may I commend my right hon. Friend, and indeed the whole Government, for taking a cool and calm approach to this? May I invite him to pursue the appeal to the Supreme Court, because the present judgment leaves unanswered a number of questions that need to be resolved? May I also say that it is quite possible that the Supreme Court may choose to exercise its independence by reversing the decision of the High Court?
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The Government’s handling of this situation does not inspire confidence at any level: Ministers cannot convince the High Court that their actions are lawful, they are fearful that they cannot persuade Parliament that their negotiating strategy is the right one, and they cannot even agree a UK-wide strategy that involves all the devolved Parliaments. On what basis are we expected to believe that this Government can persuade our partners in the EU that we should get a good deal from Brexit?
Mr Davis
Yet again, I am astonished that Scottish National party Members are saying that we cannot agree a UK-wide strategy. We are two meetings into the process. We presumably intend to try to agree a strategy—or is it the intention of the hon. Lady’s party not to let one happen?
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
While it would be improper for Ministers to criticise judges, though not judgments, and disorderly for this House to criticise judges, except under a specific motion, is it not absolutely right that our press are free, fearless and outspoken, because there may be less happy times when judges need to be held more firmly to account?
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
It is now more than four months since a clear majority voted to leave. In a spirit of constructive engagement, and further to what the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, may I suggest that Secretary of State bring a motion, as opposed to a Bill, before the House ahead of the Supreme Court hearing in January, because doing so might underline where the balance of opinion lies both in this House and in the unelected place?
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that nothing in the High Court judgment in any way constrains the ability of Parliament to determine its own procedures, and that, in light of that, it would be possible for both Houses of Parliament to amend their procedures in such a way as to bring forward a Bill and to pass it, long before the Supreme Court judgment?
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree with the view expressed by some of his colleagues that the High Court ruling was “clearly an attempt to frustrate the will of the people”?
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State celebrate the fact that parliamentary sovereignty is now embraced even by those who campaigned to leave it in Brussels?
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Of course we should all accept the outcome of the referendum, but that does not necessarily mean that we all have to agree on the detail or that we should rush ahead with triggering article 50—particularly in March, ahead of the German and French elections, and before the Government have even developed a plan. As we now know that if the Secretary of State loses the Supreme Court judgment we are likely to have a Bill—primary legislation—he should entertain the idea of an amendment that considers triggering article 50 after the summer, not before September, so that we have the time to get this right.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
The Prime Minister is currently in India attempting to begin negotiations on a trade deal that the UK may, in the event, not have the authority to conclude—not, that is, unless the Government have already quietly decided to leave the customs union. Will the Government give at least some indication of when they will set out their negotiating position on the core objectives of whether we remain in the customs union, whether we are attempting to retain full access to the single market, and whether we intend to retain passporting for our financial services?
Mr Davis
As my right hon. Friend well knows, the issue of the customs union is a complex one. There are many different configurations. Turkey is inside the customs union but outside the single market, Norway is inside the single market but outside the customs union, and Switzerland is outside the customs union and partly inside the single market. We have to make a judgment on what is best for Britain in toto, in terms of its access both to the European market and to the rest of the world. We will make that judgment in due course and make it public in due course.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that nobody is above the law, not even his own Government?
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
On the subject of devolved Administrations, does my right hon. Friend agree that the Welsh Labour Government’s announcement that they will now seek to join the legal challenge to the article 50 process at the Supreme Court is entirely unnecessary and opportunistic, and that, rather than seek to impede or complicate what should be an orderly exit from the European Union, the Welsh Labour Government and the Labour party in this place should spend more time talking to their own voters about why they turned out so overwhelmingly to vote for Brexit?
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Since the referendum result, there has been a carnival of reaction that has been in part vicious and pernicious, and that is now verging on the seditious with regard to the rule of law. The Prime Minister seems to want to just crowd surf that mood, wrapped in the royal prerogative. Would it not be better for this Chamber to move beyond yet another episode of roaming commentary and to give real consideration to the precepts and purposes that will inform negotiations? Does the Secretary of State recognise that it is not just UK constitutional interests that are at stake? Irish constitutional dimensions need to be taken care of, too.
Mr Davis
I referred to the Northern Irish case, which the Government won, and the decision about whether to leapfrog it will be made tomorrow. I am entirely aware that this is a very wide constitutional issue that has to be resolved properly. That is one of the reasons I am resisting calls to do something before the Supreme Court rules on the issue. That is the proper place for the decision to be taken.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am glad that the Secretary of State has characterised the decision as being a judgment. The judges were asked to answer a legal point of significant importance and they did so, rightly and faithfully, in accordance with their oath. Does he, therefore, agree that it is important for our reputation after we have left the European Union that all of us speak up for the independence of the judiciary and, above all, that we do not regard freedom of expression in the press as any excuse for personal, abusive and, frankly, disgraceful innuendo being raised against individual members of Her Majesty’s judiciary? That undermines us all.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Of course, there should be absolutely no doubt that this House complies with the rulings of the Supreme Court and that we will do whatever is required by the law to trigger article 50, but article 50 gives expression to the result of the referendum. Does the Secretary of State agree that this House would do well to remind itself that, if the referendum had been a general election, 401 of the 632 English, Welsh and Scottish constituencies would have voted to leave?
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Since we clearly must respect the decision of the British people, and since it is also clear that the majority of Members of this House, including me, would vote to trigger article 50, surely the real question is the substantive one about what kind of Brexit will be pursued. Why is it that the former Government were able to set out a White Paper on their objectives ahead of the Lisbon treaty negotiations, but that this Government are saying that they will not set out a similar document in respect of these much more important negotiations?
Mr Davis
I guess I was the part-author of the White Paper ahead of the Amsterdam treaty, and our aims were put only in very broad terms. In those terms, we already have our broad aims. They are very plain: control of laws, control of borders, maintenance of our security and the maximum possible access to free markets, both in Europe and elsewhere. Those are the broad aims. In terms of detail, I have just been asked about the customs union. As I have said, when we get to the point of being sure of where we are going on that—[Interruption.] I am glad that Labour Members are all very sure about that, since they do not seem to have looked at any of the numbers at all. The national interest requires that we make sure what the outcome is before we attempt to achieve it. That is a very small negotiating lesson.
I do not think that I want to commit at this point, but let me say this. I have said over and over again in this process that we will be as open as possible, consistent with maintaining our negotiating stance. I mean that. I have stood up for that principle through decades in this Parliament, and I will not stop standing up for it just because I am standing here.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Last week’s ruling was not about overturning the referendum, but it did recognise that this issue will affect every man, woman and child in this country and that therefore their democratically elected representatives should have a role in making sure that the Government get the best deal for everybody. Without greater transparency, how can the Government provide the reassurance that they are representing not just 52% or 48%, but the whole country?
Mr Davis
The hon. Lady makes a good point, in that the aim of the Government is to carry out the national instruction, because that is what it was, in the national interest. At the risk of repeating myself, I have said that we will be as open as it is possible to be while maintaining that national interest, which means a degree of confidentiality in the early stages of negotiation. Parliament will have plenty of opportunities both to scrutinise the legislation and to amend it before it takes effect.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I was very pleased that the Secretary of State started his remarks by saying that he wanted to respect the decision. It seems to me that the confusion among many is that they think that the decision the British people took on 23 June was conditional on some kind of deal; it was not. I was on the remain side of the argument, but I accept unconditionally the decision of the British people. We are leaving. The task at hand for the Government is to negotiate with our partners for the best trade deal, the best access to the markets and the best security arrangements. I am confident that the Prime Minister will do so. Too many Opposition Members think that leaving is conditional; it is not.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Gina Miller, who brought the case, has been subject to death threats. She has been attacked for being foreign-born. She has been subject to racial abuse and threats of sexual violence simply for exercising her rights as a British citizen. As has been mentioned, the judges in her case have been attacked simply for doing their job and not dancing to the tune of the Executive. Does the Secretary of State believe that whether we voted leave or remain, we can all agree that these vicious and deplorable attacks are not what our country is about or in keeping with British values? On that point, in relation to the judiciary, if our judges are intimidated and harassed and we have marches on our courts, that takes our country down a very dangerous avenue indeed.
Mr Davis
I have already commented on the judges, but let me comment on the treatment of Gina Miller. I have said that I deplore—I cannot find words strong enough, frankly, to say how much I detest—the attacks on her. I have not seen them directly, but they sound to me to be effectively criminal attacks, because incitement of violence, threats of violence and racial abuse are all crimes.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
May I press my right hon. Friend further on the idea of allowing both Houses of Parliament to vote early on a resolution calling on the Government to exercise article 50 before 31 March? Surely to do so would respect the judgment in the High Court, because that judgment made it clear that this House is sovereign; and, as a sovereign House, we should decide how to exercise that sovereignty.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Independent judges are vital to our democracy because they keep Governments honest and ensure that they cannot overrule the rule of law. The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) is right that language matters. The Secretary of State talks about keeping his cards close to his chest, as though he was playing a late-night game of poker, but he must understand that people are exercised, whether they voted to leave or to stay, because they know the stakes he is playing for are their lives. The British public deserve to know whether there are any nasty surprises ahead. Will he now be honest about his Government’s red lines, so he is not left red-faced with the British public?
Mr Davis
It is not a late-night game of poker; it is a devil of a lot more important than that. The simple truth is: when you go into a negotiation of this nature and you publicise your minimum negotiating objectives, you make them your opponent’s maximum negotiating objectives and you increase the price. I am afraid a commitment to parliamentary accountability—I share such a commitment with everybody else in the House—is not an excuse for naivety in negotiation.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
If the referendum was no more than advisory, it makes one wonder why some people who now claim it was only advisory campaigned so hard during the referendum campaign. Triggering article 50 is just the start of the process, so if the Supreme Court does not overturn the perverse decision of the High Court, does my right hon. Friend expect the Labour party to agree to triggering article 50 without any conditions? Given that it was made perfectly clear in the Conservative party manifesto at the last election that we would have a referendum and honour the result of the referendum whatever the outcome, does he expect the House of Lords to honour one of the conventions of this place, which is that it should not stand in the way of a manifesto promise?
Mr Davis
I am responsible for many things, but the Labour party’s stance is not one of them. Frankly, that is just as well, given that it had three of them—three different stances—over the weekend. As I understand it, the approach taken by my Labour opposite number is that conditions will be attached to the approval of triggering article 50. That does not reflect the will of the people at all—just the reverse.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State not accept that the judgment given by the Supreme Court could come as late as January? Does he not accept that, nevertheless, the debate about what the Government think Brexit should look like does not have to be constrained by the court judgment, and could start tomorrow if the Government had the political will? Does he not accept that the best way of doing that would be to table a White Paper as soon as possible?
Mr Davis
The hon. Lady has not listened to my responses to earlier questions. Yes, she is right in one respect: the judgment may come as late as early January. The expectation is that the case will be held in early December, and I suspect that it will take two to three weeks for the judgment to be written up. I think the proper role of the Government is to await and to respect the judgment from the Supreme Court—full stop.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree, despite the arguments of Labour Members and of some Conservative Members, that no successful business deal has ever been done when the hands of the negotiator have been tied, and that the best way to take this forward is to allow the Prime Minister to negotiate without boxing her in?
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Following the UK Government’s decision to challenge the High Court judgment, the Welsh Government have announced that they will seek legal representation in the Supreme Court hearing, because of the impact of the use of prerogative powers on the legislative competence of the National Assembly for Wales. Surely the UK Government should now take a step back, take a deep breath and, instead of trying to steamroller through Brexit, fully engage with this Parliament and the national Parliaments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
Having worked with my right hon. Friend for many years in this place, both in opposition and in government, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever about the truth of his suggestion about the value of the independence of the judiciary. Will he accept that the referendum gave the Government permission to leave the European Union—and that is going to happen—but the referendum did not give the Government a power they do not have?
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I add my support to the principle of—and the urgent need to clarify and state—the independence of the judiciary, and its importance for our rule of law. I believe that it is to our shame that we are having this discussion at all, and that it is incumbent on every Member of this House, and of the media, to uphold the language and the high standard of debate that this country needs and deserves. If the Secretary of State wants the best deal for the country and the best chance of success in negotiations, does he not think that the Prime Minister will be helped by going into those negotiations with a united country, a thorough debate that is public and transparent, and the vote of support of Parliament behind her?
Mr Davis
I reiterate that the independence of the judiciary is one of the fundamental pillars of our democracy, as is a free press and a number of other freedoms that are sometimes uncomfortable for people, I am afraid. Of course it would help to have the support of the House, and there will be plenty of opportunities for that to happen. During the great repeal Bill debates there will be a great deal of opportunity for all parts of this House and the other place to vote on the measures put before them. That will provide some support for the Government.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
One of the complexities of article 50 is that there are no transitional arrangements. I know that the Secretary of State understands that there are genuinely held fears about people’s rights. Will he confirm that, notwithstanding the outcome from the Supreme Court, cases referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union either before article 50 is invoked or before the final date of the UK’s departure from the EU will be heard by that court and, more importantly, that any decision by that court, however long it takes, will remain binding in the UK?
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
This summer, the country was failed by an embarrassing, misleading and, at times, toxic debate about the EU that all too often inflamed rather than illuminated. Legislation before article 50 is triggered could help lift us out of this quagmire, giving the issue the sort of thorough scrutiny and sensible debate it deserves. Why will the Secretary of State not commit to a Bill and a programme motion that allows each and every one of us to set out our views on the principle of triggering article 50, the terms on which it should be invoked and the process thereafter?
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that invoking article 50 changes not one word of English law, but is simply the process of sending a letter formally notifying the EU of the people’s vote to leave, and that failure to do that would be a betrayal of the British people that they would not lightly forgive?
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
Further to that, the Secretary of State should take some comfort from the fact that the High Court in Belfast reaffirmed the view of the Northern Ireland Attorney General that not one comma or full stop of our devolved settlement will be amended by the triggering of article 50. Given that, and the fact that devolved arrangements are subject to the will not only of this House but of this Government and that constitutional arrangements and external relations are reserved matters, does he agree that this decision will be taken as a nation by this nation as a whole?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
While I understand the Government’s desire to proceed with the court case—there is a principle of law—is it not a good idea, which we have heard from both sides of the House today, urgently to put a resolution to the House that can be voted on, which would help the courts to decide Parliament’s view on article 50?
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has referred to the timetable for article 50. Once it is triggered, we have a maximum of two years. Does he agree that, if we do not have agreement towards the end of that period, we face a ticking clock, which weakens our position? Is there merit in the suggestion in today’s Financial Times, which apparently the Prime Minister is considering, to have a transitional arrangement of several years afterwards? Is it not time that hon. Members debated that?
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I believe that acceptance of the High Court ruling would have offered a symbolic and inclusive hand to those of us who voted to remain. Inclusion is a part—a key ingredient—of the Prime Minister’s strategy of bringing the country back together and we all need to come along on this journey. The Government have chosen not to do that, but can we agree that the judiciary have an important role to play in our constitution and should be allowed to do so independently, with our respect? This is what grown-up sovereignty feels like.
Mr Davis
I do not recognise the first part of my hon. Friend’s comments and I do not see how the Government have refused to be inclusive. We have taken input on vast amounts of policy from large numbers of people who voted or campaigned for remain, so I do not think her description is remotely true.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State tell the House how much taxpayers’ money he is expending on the court case, the appeal and future action to stop this House having a say on the important issues of the single market, employment rights and prisoner transfer agreements, which all matter, even if we have accepted the will of the referendum, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has said?
Mr Davis
All those figures will be published in due course, but the right hon. Gentleman is wrong about one thing: I have given in terms an undertaking to the House that there will be no dilution of employment rights as a result of our leaving the European Union. He has not been paying attention.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
The High Court judgment noted:
“The Government accepts that a notice under Article 50 cannot be withdrawn once it has been given.”
Why did the Government simply accept that? If they had maintained that triggering could be reversed by Parliament, would not Parliament remain sovereign, despite the Executive taking the decision to trigger article 50?
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I would be the first to admit that I am no legal expert, but throughout campaigning on the EU referendum I was clear with my constituents that Parliament would very likely have a vote on these matters. Have the Government been disingenuous with the public from day one, or are they completely unsure of the existing constitutional law of the country they govern?
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Is it not the case that, at various times and in various ways, the Government have given clear indications of their direction of travel on legal supremacy, migration policy, trade policy, reciprocal rights and regulatory continuity? To go further on what has been said and to tie the Government’s hands would be to act against the national interest.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State accepts that he could publish a Bill next week and we could have it on the statute book long before the judges have done their business, so the reason for taking the decision to the next stage is not to expedite it but some other. I can only presume that it is because, somehow or other, this man—the Secretary of State—a man who has always fought for Parliament, is suddenly fighting for the prerogative rights of the Crown.
Chris Bryant
No, the Secretary of State is fighting for the prerogative rights of the Crown. Would it not be a phenomenal irony if the people who clamoured to bring back control to this country handed it from Parliament to Ministers and the Crown?
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
There are far too many Members of both this place and the other place, including my right hon. Friend’s opposite number at lunchtime today, who are taking to the airwaves to tell us that they fully respect the result of the referendum and then go on to insert that very important word “but”. Will my right hon. Friend use this occasion to explain, from the Dispatch Box, to those at this end and the other end that there are no buts on Brexit?
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Why will the Government not seek the agreement of Parliament to their basic broad objectives for Britain’s future relationship with the European Union before article 50 is triggered?
Mr Davis
I really like the right hon. Gentleman. I am a great admirer of him and what he has done in his life. I will say this to him: we have made a great deal of information available one way or another and we are going to make more available. The simple truth is that nobody on the Labour Benches appears to recognise that serious decisions are being taken in the public domain. They just do not like them.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Who will be leading the Government’s case to the Supreme Court? Will it be the Secretary of State, the Attorney General or the Prime Minister? Or can we expect all three?
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I am glad the Secretary of State is having a jolly time over this, but when I spoke to my constituents over the weekend, whether they voted to remain or to leave—I respect both votes—they were all deeply concerned about the sinister turn of events in the commentary in the media. Will the Secretary of State be absolutely clear on whether it is acceptable to call judges enemies of the people? Will he be equally clear that someone’s sexuality does not preclude their ability to make legal judgments or to hold the highest offices in the land?
Mr Davis
The latter point is self-evidently the case, but let me say this to the hon. Gentleman. Over the decades, I have fought battles on both the independence and rights of the judiciary and the freedom of the press. They are both important, and they are particularly important when one does not like what they say.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Earlier this afternoon, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) said that no one expects the Government to reveal their negotiating hand. Then, however, he set out a series of negotiating positions he would like the Prime Minister to reveal. Does my right hon. Friend agree that rather than trying to tie the hands of the Prime Minister, Members of both Houses of Parliament should put the national interest first and let the Prime Minister get on with the job of getting the best deal for Britain?
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend has absolutely nailed the flaw in the case of the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras. Their case is to say, “We only want you to tell us a little bit, and a little bit more, and a little bit more.” Eventually, the whole thing will be in the open and no negotiation will be possible. She is exactly right.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
The country will have noted that seven times now the Secretary of State has refused to comment on, or certainly to condemn, the statement on “Question Time” by his colleague on the Front Bench, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), that clearly impugned the integrity and impartiality of the High Court judges. I do not anticipate that he will do that, so will he instead condemn the comments by another politician who has urged people to march on the Supreme Court in order to intimidate it? Will he use this opportunity to ask the country not to do that?
Mr Davis
Well, actually, I think in both cases the hon. Gentleman has misquoted the individuals. I will say two things about a recommendation to march. The right to demonstrate is another of our freedoms. One of the great things about our Supreme Court—indeed, all our courts—is that it would not matter how many people marched. It would not move its judgments by one comma and we should be proud of that.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) suggested that the Government should abandon their appeal. Does the Secretary of State think that that would be sensible given that the Northern Irish court, albeit looking at a slightly different question, accepted the logic of the argument that article 50 does not of itself change individual rights, which was at the heart of the divisional court’s decision?
Mr Davis
My hon. and learned Friend makes an important point that lies at the heart of the argument. She is quite right. The plaintiffs in the Northern Ireland case may appeal, but that case is not the same as this one, although it does have a relationship with it. It is therefore very important that if that appeal is allowed and expedited—even if it is not expedited—the cases are heard properly and together.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) mentioned the Secretary of State’s Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill. Does the right hon. Gentleman still agree with the content of that Bill?
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has come under quite a degree of criticism for not being more revealing and transparent about the Government’s position. In fact, he is told that he is holding his cards close to his chest. I think that this warrants greater investigation. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meeting me and cross-party group of Members in the Department for a game of poker? They can put their cards on the table; we can keep our cards to our chests—and the money can go to Southend charities!
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituent Christopher voted to leave the European Union, but he told me:
“I did not vote to suspend the rule of law, nor to forgo the protection of Parliament as a bulwark against tyranny.”
Does the Secretary of State accept that people on both sides of the Brexit debate are appalled by the Government’s approach so far? Will he just get on and accept the judgment that was made last week?
Mr Davis
I do not know what the hon. Lady thinks she is talking about. First, we made our case in court. We are going to appeal, as is entirely proper in an important constitutional case such as this, and we will respect the outcome of that appeal. In what respect is that somehow suspending the rule of law?
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
The High Court’s position is very straightforward: parliamentary consent is required to invoke article 50. Does my right hon. Friend agree that our response should be equally straightforward: give that consent without haste and without any conditions that seek to fetter the Prime Minister’s negotiating position?
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
I accept that Labour Members’ criticism of the procedure adopted by the Government is fully justified, but given some of the comments made by Government Members, let me make it absolutely clear that although I was on the remain side in the referendum, I accept the electorate’s decision without qualification. There can be no question but that, whatever the procedure, article 50 must be invoked. The British people made the decision by a majority—it does not matter that it was a narrow majority—so we should accept it. That is democracy.
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
The judges are not enemies of the people, but the enemies of democracy would be Members of this House who sought to frustrate the triggering, or adulterate the substance, of article 50. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will not allow those still oscillating among the five stages of grief to derail our leaving the EU?
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that we have negotiating power only prior to triggering article 50 and that, after that, the 27 remaining EU member states are free to determine our fate and to say, “Like it or lump it”? Would it not therefore be right to delay the triggering of article 50 until we have a clear idea of what that means for costs, the economy and migration, so that the British people can then judge in another referendum whether the exit package represents a fair reflection of what they voted for in principle and whether they want to leave on those terms, with a default position of staying in the EU?
Mr Davis
I will make two points to the hon. Gentleman. First, under the mechanisms of the European treaty, the only point at which negotiations can formally start is when article 50 is triggered. Secondly, the notion that a two-year timetable is somehow problematic is true only if countries are unprepared when they go into the process. Ultimately, there will be costs on both sides if we do not get a deal and, as a result, I would expect everyone to behave rationally and get that deal.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Delivering his judgment, the Lord Chief Justice said
“the court…is…dealing with a pure question of law. Nothing we say has any bearing on the question of the merits or demerits of a withdrawal by the United Kingdom from the European Union; nor does it have any bearing on government policy, because government policy is not law.”
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Government policy is indeed to trigger article 50 before the end of March, to leave the European Union and to enact the great repeal Bill, and that the commitment of the Prime Minister and the Government is undiminished, regardless of the hearing in the Supreme Court?
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Why does the Secretary of State think his Conservative friend, the now resigned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, believed that Ministers had ignored Parliament since the Brexit vote?
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
My understanding of parliamentary sovereignty is that it is a mixture of the will of this House, the views of the other place and the Crown in Parliament as exercised by the Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that article 50 should be triggered and implemented as intended because the instruction has been given by the ultimate holders of sovereignty in this country—the British people?
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
A majority of voters and a majority of constituencies voted to leave the European Union, so of course Parliament will trigger article 50, but does the Secretary of State understand the difference between revealing his hand in negotiation and telling us what his opening position would be? In the past week we have seen the resignation of a Conservative MP because of the way in which the Government are handling their position and the Chairman of the Treasury Committee urging the Secretary of State to come clean about issues such as the customs union. If the Secretary of State did read the Financial Times, perhaps he would understand that his dithering and delay, and the lack of clear direction, are costing jobs and inward investment, and affecting the pound in people’s pockets today.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Having had to report to the police disgraceful death threats that were made to me over the last few weeks, may I ask whether the Secretary of State agrees that we must all condemn all forms of hate crime on both sides of the political argument, and that it is utterly wrong to try to suggest that people who voted for the independence of Great Britain are in some way responsible for the unrepresentative actions of a tiny minority?
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Three quarters of my constituents and the majority of this country have said that they want to exit. I agree that we must get on with it—unequivocally, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). Why, however, are we waiting for a decision that may well go against the Government? By all means let the Secretary of State pursue the case in court if he must, but let him bring a Bill to the House and let us vote on it. Let us vote to trigger article 50 at the right time, as the Government have set out, and let us pursue exit from the European Union. Why does he not just do it?
Mr Davis
I am going to. First, because the triggering of article 50 should be done only when the policy work is complete, and it is not yet complete. Secondly, because the judicial timetable still allows us to meet the date of 30 March, which is the date that we are going to hit.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am not sure that the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) yelling “Answer” from a sedentary position quite constitutes the sort of knightly behaviour that we have come to expect of him.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
If the courts have banged their metaphorical gavel on our prerogative powers, does my right hon. Friend share my concern that they may do so again regarding, for example, a decision to go to war?
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I am sure that the Secretary of State will be glad to hear that I am delighted with the outcome of the referendum—the industrial working-class of West Dunbartonshire and the entire nation of Scotland voted to remain—but my constituents share a concern already brought to the Floor of the House by me and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about our relationship with our closest neighbour and our border with the sovereign nation of Ireland. This concerns the Ireland Act 1949, and I have had no answer from the Secretary of State. The Government talk about the common travel area, but there is no answer to this question yet. Will the Secretary of State say now on the Floor of the House that there will be no change to the rights of Irish citizens as dictated by the Ireland Act 1949?
Mr Davis
That is a very specific question; forgive me if I have not answered it before. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, but I think the answer is that there will be no change. The aim, as I have said to him before, is that common travel area rights both ways—including the rights to vote, to work and so on—will continue, but I will write to him about the detail.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
If the Government do bring forward a Bill to trigger article 50 and any Member tries to amend it in any material way that binds the hands of the Prime Minister, does the Secretary of State agree that the British public would lose out? They would get a worse deal on our exit, so nobody who truly believes in our national interest would do that?
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State accept that people voted to leave or to remain for all sorts of reasons? When they read that question on the ballot paper, however, very few of them wanted to vote to reduce the power of the judiciary to hold the overweening power of the Executive to account. Very few of them voted to reduce parliamentary democracy and the right of Parliament to discuss Government policy. Is it not therefore right that the Government come back to this House and seek authority to trigger article 50?
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is extraordinary to see Labour Members saying that Parliament should decide on article 50 and all matters Brexit when just a few short weeks ago they piled in to defeat a Bill that I brought to this House that would have provided for exactly that? Is that not double standards and doublespeak from Labour Members, including the shadow Secretary of State on this morning’s “Today” programme? Is it any wonder that the people of Britain think that Labour Members are seeking to subvert the will of the British people and to defeat the mandate of the masses, and that they have lost touch with the hard-working classes of modern Britain?
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State explain how any Prime Minister could be expected to negotiate effectively for the best outcome for this nation if the other side knows her objectives, aims, plans and goals before she sits down at the negotiating table?
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I presume that one of the reasons the Secretary of State used to believe in publishing a White Paper was that he wanted to ensure that business had confidence in the economy of this country. He will know that in the past week both the Japanese and Indian chambers of commerce have expressed grave concern about the current uncertainty and the situation’s impact on the confidence of international investors. Why does he not go ahead with publishing his White Paper and set out a plan so that international investors can have the confidence they need to continue investing in this country?
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
After all the questions that we have heard, I am slightly surprised that my right hon. Friend still wants to go ahead with his appeal. It must be blindingly obvious to him that a short Bill committing us to invoking article 50 would receive a huge majority on Second Reading. Will he reflect on the powerful statement that that would send to our EU partners and to those in the other place, if it happened?
Mr Davis
I note that my hon. Friend adds the condition “if it happened”. There are issues here that are political, constitutional and legal, and we need to resolve all of them. The best way to do that is to take this case to its full course, and that is what we will do. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will make the decision.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Yesterday my party colleague Mike Russell MSP spoke of how the Scottish National party has a triple mandate to protect Scotland’s place in Europe: from our manifesto commitment at the 2016 Holyrood election; from the 62% who voted to remain; and from the Scottish Parliament’s vote to protect our place in Europe. We in the SNP are fully committed to safeguarding Scotland’s place in Europe. Does the Secretary of State accept our overwhelming mandate, or is he willing to disregard the democratic will of the people of Scotland?
Mr Davis
The decision in the referendum was taken at the United Kingdom level. If, in the Scottish independence referendum, the hon. Lady’s side had had a majority but, say, half of Scotland had voted against, would she have said that that had invalidated the referendum result? I do not think so. I do not think that any smaller group than the whole of the United Kingdom can invalidate or veto the referendum.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I echo the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) about the possible implications of this judgment for areas such as defence. Does the Secretary of State agree that while the independence of the judiciary is indeed a crucial pillar of our independent constitution, it is only one of a number of them? Does he also agree that for the judiciary to interfere between Parliament and the Executive would break frightening new ground?
Mr Davis
Well, no. As I have said, we are taking this case to the Supreme Court for a reason. We are a Government who operate under the law. My hon. Friend has a point in that there has been a degree of judicial activism in modern times, but I do not think that this case is susceptible to that analysis.
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the interests of the people depend on the Prime Minister and her balanced Cabinet having the maximum flexibility and authority to negotiate and conclude new arrangements with the EU as soon as possible, and that a second referendum would guarantee a bad deal, lost jobs and further divisions in our society?
Mr Davis
Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. A second referendum would give those on the other side in the negotiations—the European Union—an incentive to give us the worst possible deal to try to force the British people to change their mind. That would be entirely improper.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Secretary of State obviously does not challenge his speechwriter much, because nothing changes from statement to statement. The High Court has just made a judgment on something that, at one time, he was fully in agreement with. So, for the third time of asking, will he tell us why he now disagrees with the Bill that he tried to bring forward? It was not about going to war; it was about the Crown prerogative not being exercised without the assent of the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. Just before the Secretary of State responds—which I am disinclined to facilitate him doing—I must just say that although I appreciate that repetition is a common phenomenon in politics and not in itself to be deprecated, there is a bit of a tendency on the Scottish National party’s Benches to keep asking him about matters for which he is no longer responsible. The questioning is to the Secretary of State in his capacity as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, not in his capacity as someone who previously expressed views from the Back Benches or elsewhere in an earlier incarnation.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
The independence of the judiciary must be supported and upheld and—I do not say “but”; I say “and”—the Court itself recognised that the case had both political and legal aspects, and that they must be assessed elsewhere, namely in this place. Will the Secretary of State therefore reassure my constituents that he will respect the will of the people and lead us out of the EU?
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
For a moment I thought I was going to be the last contributor, Mr Speaker. May I bring us back to the fact that on 23 June we had a single vote on a single political question? People across the country made their view clear. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it was a direct decision to leave the EU? Therefore, we in this place should be doing all that we can to ensure that article 50 is triggered as soon as possible, and that the Prime Minister is able to negotiate the best possible deal for our country.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
You left it a long time to put me out of my misery, Mr Speaker. I am struggling somewhat, because we hear from Opposition Members and some in the country that, on the one hand, we need certainty for businesses—I agree with that and so do Ministers—and then, on the other hand, that they want to drag the whole process out with talk of next summer for invoking article 50. Has my right hon. Friend got on any better than I in understanding and deciphering exactly where they are coming from?
Mr Davis
Listening to my hon. Friend’s question, I am reminded of the biblical comment that the first should be last and the last should be first. He asks a first-class question. He is right that it is impossible to work out what they are trying to do unless one assumes that they are trying to foil the interests of the British people.
Defence Estate
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on our strategy for a better defence estate. Our defence estate is where our people work, live and train, where advanced equipment is maintained, and where cutting-edge research is undertaken. It is where major exercises are conducted and major operations are launched. Our estate is vital, but it is also vast. It is almost 2% of the United Kingdom’s land mass—an area almost three times the size of Greater London. Yet while the size and structure of our armed forces have changed to meet different threats, our estate has failed to adapt.
Our estate is too inefficient. It costs £2.5 billion a year to maintain, and 40% of our built assets are more than 50 years old. It too often fails to meet the needs of our armed forces and their families, with capabilities spread across small, remote sites, often far removed from population centres and job opportunities. Last year’s strategic defence and security review committed to increase the defence budget in real terms and to spend £178 billion to create a world class joint force 2025. However, an ambitious joint force needs an estate to match, so today I will set out a long-term strategy to achieve that ambition.
First, we will transform an estate built for previous generations of war-fighting into one that better supports military capability and the needs of our armed forces. It will help deliver joint force 2025 by bringing people and capabilities into new centres of specialism, clustering units closer to their training estates. Since the beginning of this year, I have announced plans to dispose of 35 of our most costly sites. Today, based on advice from the chiefs of staff, I am announcing the release of a further 56 sites by 2040.
I now turn to what this means in practice. The Royal Navy will continue focusing on operating bases and training establishments around port areas and naval stations, with surface ships in Portsmouth and Devonport; all the UK’s submarines on the Clyde; a specialist amphibious centre in the south-west, based around Devonport; and helicopters based at Yeovilton and Culdrose. It means the Army having specialised infantry in Aldershot; mechanised, wheeled capability, including two of our new strike brigades, in Catterick; air assault forces in Colchester; armoured and tracked capability around Salisbury plain; medical services in the west midlands; and hubs of light infantry battalions in London, Edinburgh, Lisburn, St Athan, Blackpool and Cottesmore. It means the RAF building on its centres of specialism, with combat air in Coningsby, Marham and Lossiemouth; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at Waddington; air transport at Brize Norton; force protection at Honington; and support enablers at Wittering and Leeming.
Let me turn to the impact on the devolved nations. In Scotland, this strategy will result in investment being concentrated into fewer, better locations. Our proposals will release eight sites over the next 15 years. We will invest in main centres of specialisation: at Lossiemouth, home to one of our three fast-jet squadrons, where the new P-8 maritime patrol aircraft and an extra Typhoon squadron will be based; at Faslane where all the Royal Navy’s submarines, including the new Dreadnought class, will be based; and at Leuchars, where the Army will consolidate its regional command. Contrary to some speculation and unnecessary scaremongering, Kinloss will be retained. This comes on top of the substantial investments I have already announced, such as £100 million for the P-8 aircraft at Lossiemouth and, of course, the Type 26 frigate, on which we will cut steel next summer. In Wales, we will release three sites and consolidate the defence estate into capability clusters, with a specialist light infantry centre at St Athan. In Northern Ireland, we are releasing three sites and consolidating our estate in larger centres of population. Full details are set out in the strategy, and I have placed a copy of the document in the Library of the House.
Secondly, this strategy will deliver a better estate for service families. Over the next decade, we will invest £4 billion in improving our infrastructure and modernising our accommodation. By locating our servicemen and women together with capability, we will provide better job opportunities for their partners and more stable schooling for their families, and increase their ability to buy their own home. We have purposely focused on sites that will support recruitment and retention, giving our personnel and their partners greater certainty and confidence to put down roots in local communities. As we implement these plans, we will seek to minimise any disruption to the armed forces, their families and civilians, and give as much notice as possible over planned redeployments.
Finally, a better defence estate will deliver better value for money for taxpayers. By releasing sites we no longer need, we can help build the houses that we do need. I can confirm that the Ministry of Defence now has firm plans to achieve its target to release sufficient land to build up to 55,000 houses in this Parliament. My Department will now work with local authorities, the devolved Administrations and industry, as well as our personnel, to deliver that, supporting construction and infrastructure jobs, and boosting local economies.
In conclusion, this strategy looks ahead to 2040, to provide a better defence estate: an estate that supports a more efficient and effective military capability; an estate that gives our armed forces a world-class base from which to work; and an estate that helps defence keep Britain safe and promote our prosperity. I commend this statement to the House.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for sight of his statement. We on the Labour Benches recognise that the requirements of the defence estate will change, and that there is a need to modernise to reflect that. The Government are right to seek to restructure the estate to ensure that we optimise our military capability and deliver value for money for the British taxpayer. The changes proposed in the report are very considerable in scale, and there is a real need to ensure that they are delivered in a way that does not cause undue challenges to our forces and their families.
The closing of so many bases will affect the livelihoods of a very significant number of people. The potential impact on communities with a long garrison history such as the City of York will be far-reaching: servicemen and women and their families will be required to move, and civilian staff will face redeployment. In the meantime, many face gnawing uncertainty, as the exact relocation of their base has not yet been decided.
Will the Secretary of State tell us how the Ministry of Defence will be consulting with all stakeholders? What will he do to minimise the period of uncertainty for all those concerned? What help and support will be given to employees who are not able to move?
The Public Accounts Committee has criticised the Government’s record on achieving value for money when disposing of public land. Will the Secretary of State set out how he will safeguard the public purse by ensuring the best possible price for taxpayers, and what commercial expertise will he bring in? Given the need to protect the defence budget, what discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Treasury about how much of the money realised by the sale of MOD assets will actually be retained by the MOD?
Finally, the Government have made much of releasing publicly owned land on which to build new homes, but we know that the Government’s record on house building has not matched the rhetoric of their promises. Will the Secretary of State assure us that the 55,000 houses that he says will be built on former MOD land during this Parliament will be located in areas where there are housing shortages, and that they will be homes that people can genuinely afford to rent or buy?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for what I think was a welcome for the statement, as it showed an understanding of the task in front of us. The Ministry of Defence owns, I think, around 1,000 sites, 300 of which are very large. Today, I am announcing the disposal of 56 of those 300 large sites. Yes, it is a large number of disposals, but each one is based on military advice on how the capabilities that the armed forces need can be better clustered, and on how the families of those who work for us can be better looked after in terms of job opportunities for their partners and more stability for their children.
On the civilian employees, we will provide them with as much support as possible. In the document itself—I appreciate that the House will not have had time to go through this yet—we set out a timescale for the disposal of each of those sites. In many cases, it will be over 10 or 15 years hence. Yes, we will seek the best possible value for money for the taxpayer, but, in the end, this is not just for the taxpayer. The answer to the hon. Lady’s sixth question is that all of the receipts—not just some of them—will come back into the defence budget, which shows that we have every interest in maximising the value from the sites that are to be disposed of so that we can get on and spend the money not just on our other defence priorities, but on modernising the estate that we are going to keep.
On the 50,000 homes, yes, we do need to build more houses where they are needed most, and that includes in the south and south-west of England where there are sites to release. We do not entirely control the planning process, but with regard to affordable homes, it is for the local authority to specify exactly what proportion of the estates those homes should have.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Is the Secretary of State content that any historic buildings among the estate that is being disposed of will be suitably protected and preserved for the nation’s heritage? Following on from his recent testimony to the Defence Committee’s inquiry into the Army and SDSR, is he satisfied that our relatively small forces will have the capability to regenerate in time of war if they do not have a sufficiently large defence estate to occupy in times of emergency expansion?
Sir Michael Fallon
I note what my right hon. Friend says about some of the historic buildings sometimes found inside these sites. Obviously, we need to be careful to make sure that military heritage is preserved wherever possible. Sometimes that is not within the direct ownership of the Ministry of Defence; it has already passed to the trusteeship of the relevant museum or whatever, but I certainly note that point. There are a number of sites in the list today where that occurs and about which we may hear later this afternoon. On regeneration, the strategy being published today does not so far include the training estate where, to regenerate forces in time of war, as my right hon. Friend said, we would seek to rely on the training facilities that we have, and we are currently looking carefully at those.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for prior sight of the statement. Although we have been primed to expect big reductions in Scotland’s defence footprint, having now heard the statement, I fear that when a Government Department tries to spin cuts as investment “concentrated in fewer, better locations”, what it is actually saying is, “Prepare for a savaging of what remains of Scotland’s defence footprint.” Once the detail is published, it will go far beyond anything that we were prepared for. Let me be clear: it will be totally unacceptable if, once again, Scotland’s service personnel and our conventional defence capability are hollowed out and sold off because of this Government’s obsession with nuclear weapons—an obsession which is swallowing up more and more of the defence budget. My fear is that when the detail emerges of today’s announcement, it will do nothing to ease the grave concerns of many of us on the SNP Benches that as our conventional capability shrinks to pay for our nuclear obsession, the United Kingdom’s first line of defence becomes its last line of defence.
At the referendum just two years ago, we were told that defence jobs could be protected only if we remained in the Union. The then Secretary of State for Defence, the present Chancellor, even claimed that Scottish independence would blight “the futures of thousands of families across Scotland”, and that Scotland would not benefit from the level of security or the prosperity provided by the UK armed forces and the defence industry. How hollow those words sound today. Fewer and better is rarely the case for those who are on the sharp end. I have one question for the Secretary of State: how is this cutback good for Scotland?
Sir Michael Fallon
First, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are investing in defence in Scotland. I was there on Friday, announcing that eight of the most advanced warships that this country has ever built are to be built in Scotland over the next 20 years. We are stationing our new maritime patrol aircraft at Lossiemouth. We are making the Clyde the home of all the Royal Navy’s submarines. In terms of personnel, we are adding 400 service personnel through the RAF to Lossiemouth. We are increasing employment on the Clyde from 6,800 to 8,200. That is not savaging Scotland; that is investing in Scotland. On the reduction in the overall base footprint, the reduction in the defence footprint arising out of today’s announcement for the United Kingdom in terms of acreage is around 30%. For Scotland it is only 19%.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I commend the Secretary of State for his statement today and for the magnificent job he does in defending our country. It is not in today’s announcement, but I think it is relevant that it has been announced that Chetwynd barracks in my constituency will close. We will miss the Army very much, especially the Royal Engineers. It sounds a strange request, but we want to get that land as soon as possible as it will help us to achieve our housing targets. Can my right hon. Friend give a commitment today that when it comes to the disposal of land, the Army and everybody else will do it as quickly as possible?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, particularly for the terms in which she has been considering this matter for some time. The proposal in the strategy is, as she knows, to close Chetwynd barracks by 2021 and to move the principal units from there to Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire. I can well understand the feeling of the local community that it wants to get on with this now—that it wants to get the Army out and the new housing in—and I will certainly undertake to have a look at whether we can speed up that timetable.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
In 1996, the then Tory Government, of which the Secretary of State was a member, sold 60,000 married quarters to Annington Homes. As part of that deal, before the MOD hands back those homes to Annington, it has to improve them. Has he established exactly how many will be passed back through this process and what it will cost the taxpayer to compensate Annington Homes?
Sir Michael Fallon
I was not, in fact, a member of the Government in 1996—I was taking a temporary leave of absence from Parliament at that time—but I obviously recall the Annington Homes contract. The hon. Gentleman is correct that a number of these homes have to be handed back when that lease expires, but that is slightly separate from the strategy I am announcing today, and I will write to him in detail.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
I am pleased that the MOD is releasing land for the building of 55,000 new homes, but will it still fund the armed forces Help to Buy scheme after 2018? Members of the armed forces would then be in a position to buy one of those homes, some of which I assume will be near military bases.
Sir Michael Fallon
I announced at the Conservative party conference that we are extending the forces Help to Buy scheme for another year, from the beginning of April 2017, and I hope that is welcome. We will need to take another decision as we come up to each future year.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
We all know that we are fast approaching another Remembrance Sunday, when we rightly, across this country, remember the great sacrifice of our Armed Forces in two world wars and, more recently, in Afghanistan. In Northern Ireland, of course, we will also be remembering those who served with the British Army and who gave their lives during the troubles.
The Secretary of State’s reference to the consolidation of our estate in Northern Ireland as “releasing three sites” is beautifully ambiguous, but I do not like ambiguity. Will he confirm whether Kinnegar in my constituency is included among those sites and, if so, what exactly he plans to do with the personnel? Can he guarantee that there will be no job losses and that there was consultation before this announcement?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes, I can be very open in replying to the hon. Lady. The Kinnegar logistics site is going to be disposed of, and those who occupy it at the moment will be moving to the Palace barracks in Holywood.
Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)
Despite the very generous notice my right hon. Friend is giving, does he accept that the closure of Carver barracks in my constituency will come as a shock to the military personnel and the civilian population alike, between whom there has been a very harmonious relationship over the years? Will he undertake to start discussions with Uttlesford District Council as soon as possible as to the ultimate destination of the quarters that already exist there, and with Essex County Council about the impact on certain primary schools?
Sir Michael Fallon
I can certainly give my right hon. Friend that undertaking. The disposal date is foreseen to be 2031, but it is not too soon for us to start those discussions with local authorities to make sure that the best possible use is made of the site and the facilities there.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State tell us what is going to happen to the brilliant infantry training base at Brecon?
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to Yeovilton. I commend to him the opportunities to take advantage of the dualling of the A303 in order to make the most of the estate by building on what is at that location.
Sir Michael Fallon
I know that my hon. Friend will be pleased that Yeovilton is to become one of the specialist helicopter centres. I visited the base with him only a year ago. I note again his bidding for the dualling of the local road. This is good news for Yeovilton.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will be aware that Leuchars is one of the best military assets that the Government have. What are his plans for the investment he mentioned, and will there be any cutbacks there?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am glad to have cheered up somebody on the SNP Benches. Leuchars is going to become an even more important base for the Army in Scotland. I visited it in July. There is room to house additional units in Leuchars. None of the changes that have taken place in Scotland involves any Army personnel moving out of Scotland. We simply have to decide on the best possible location for them in Scotland, and Leuchars is a very strong candidate.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
The investment in Lossiemouth, Leuchars and Faslane is hugely welcome. As the Secretary of State will know, if Scotland were an independent country, it would have inherited a huge budget deficit. How big does he think the defence forces would be in an independent Scotland? Would they be any bigger than a couple of stray corvettes and possibly an Argyll, but not a Sutherland, Highlander?
Sir Michael Fallon
My right hon. Friend is right—it would certainly be something of that order. I am very clear that that investment on the Clyde would not have gone ahead in an independent Scotland because our warships are built within the United Kingdom, and of course we would not be building anti-submarine frigates to help protect the deterrent if the SNP had triumphed in the referendum and voted against the deterrent.
Mr Speaker
It has been solemnly pointed out to me that the question was some distance from the defence estate. Nevertheless, as I have had reason to observe previously, I am inclined, on the whole, to enjoy the creative licence of the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), provided of course that it is exercised within reasonable limits. He got away with it today.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Can the Secretary of State assure me that this is not driven solely by the need to raise cash for the MOD and that the armed forces were actively consulted about alternative uses for the land that is being disposed of? Will he use every method of leverage possible to ensure that the homes that are built are affordable, both to buy and to rent? Will he acknowledge the concerns among service personnel about the future accommodation model and the potential impact on some service families?
Sir Michael Fallon
First, let me make it very clear to the House that every decision within this strategy is based on military advice—the advice of the service chiefs— as to how we better organise our capabilities. Secondly, in the end it will be for local authorities to rule on the exact proportion of affordable housing, but yes, we need more housing, and more affordable housing, in areas of shortage. Thirdly, we are consulting on the future accommodation model whereby we may be able to help service families in different ways. For example, rather than saying that their only option is to live on the barracks—on the estate—we could consider an option for them to have the money themselves to rent or, as has been suggested, to start to buy their own homes. We are looking at different ways of satisfying modern housing needs, but at the moment we are merely consulting on the different options.
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. He has previously announced the closure of Clive barracks at Ternhill in my constituency. That will be very sad news, as we have never had a regiment like 1st Battalion the Royal Irish who have got so integrated locally. Wearing my hat as a previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, may I ask him, as he looks for an alternative site, to try to make sure that he finds one with easy access to airports that go to Dublin and Belfast, as Ternhill has access to Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham? Can he give an idea of when the moving out might take place, and whether it will happen as one hit or be staged over a couple of years?
Sir Michael Fallon
The decision is to dispose of the barracks ultimately by 2022, but I will certainly consider whether it should move in more than one phase. I note what my right hon. Friend says about future location: there are, obviously, considerations to be taken into account with the Royal Irish Regiment. I assure him that no decision has yet been taken, but we will endeavour to take it in good time before 2022.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
A decision to abandon the highlands, with the closure of the garrison at Fort George after 250 years of service and sacrifice, would be bad enough, given the disgraceful lack of engagement with our communities and even the Scottish Government. If that is correct, what assurances will the Secretary of State give to the 750 people in supporting jobs that are affected, the communities economically hit, and those who were told that the fort was the permanent home of the Black Watch?
Sir Michael Fallon
It is envisaged that Fort George will not close until 2032. There is plenty of time to consult the local authority and others on the future use of that site. Fort George is a very old barracks and it costs £1.6 million a year to run. It is extremely expensive to upgrade and it is not appropriate for a modern infantry unit. Inverness as a city has expanded by, I think, nearly 20% in the past 15 years and it has an unemployment rate of 1.3%.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I am pleased that the Secretary of State has confirmed that the strategy is informed by defence needs, and I am particularly pleased that he has detailed how important the investment will be for service families. However, those areas that have hosted a battalion will be disappointed that it will no longer be based in their constituency. Will he confirm when Beachley barracks in my constituency is likely to cease to have a defence use, and will he also confirm that detailed negotiations will take place with my local authorities to make sure that the best possible use can be found for the barracks in the future?
Sir Michael Fallon
The disposure date for Beachley barracks is set at 2027, so there is plenty of time for those discussions to begin. The purpose of publishing the strategy today is so that we can get on with those discussions with local authorities and see what alternative use might be made of the site. It could be residential or, indeed, commercial. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is already having discussions about a new technology park in the place of Sir John Moore barracks outside Winchester. There are many alternative uses that we will want to discuss with the local authorities concerned.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Secretary of State referred in his statement to three sites in Northern Ireland, one of which is Ards airfield, where the cadets meet. When hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and I met the former Minister, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), to secure extra funding and equipment for the air cadets, that was agreed and the funding was put in place. My reaction to the statement’s proposals is one of great regret that the hangars are on land designated for recreational use only and that they will therefore have no potential for housing development. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me to discuss the matter and to ensure that, in this their centenary year, the Newtownards air cadets, who, importantly, co-operate with Regent House School and Ards flying club, will continue into the future?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am happy to offer the hon. Gentleman a meeting, perhaps with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster), who has responsibility for defence personnel and is in charge of this particular portfolio. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the volunteer glider school at Newtownards has been disbanded, but it is important that the cadets should have proper provision, so I am happy for that meeting to be organised.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Although the defence estate takes up only 2% of the United Kingdom, it takes up nearly 50% of my constituency. To the east of Shoeburyness, on Foulness Island, QinetiQ does some excellent work. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give me about that land? Perhaps he could deploy the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster), to come and review that excellent facility, which I understand is the best not only in the United Kingdom, but in the northern hemisphere; my hon. Friend will also be able to blow a few things up.
Sir Michael Fallon
My hon. Friend the Minister is readily deployable at a few hours’ notice, and I would be very happy to see him deployed to the ranges of Essex. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) talks about the ranges and training estate of Essex; they are not directly covered by this document, but we will go on to look at the training estate. The Shoeburyness ranges are a key part of the Army’s training needs.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) referred to the Public Accounts Committee inquiry on land disposal, and I commend our report, which was published last week, to the House. We had a number of representatives from each Department at our hearings, because we are hoping for some joined-up Government thinking about the disposal of that land and its purpose for meeting the housing target. May I invite the Secretary of State to encourage his own Department and others to work locally on the ground to make sure that the best use is made of that disposal for local people, including key workers and people in other sorts of housing need?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am happy to give the hon. Lady that assurance. I have read the reports of the Committee’s public sessions with interest. It is important that we move on from the statement and see these local discussions take place. We have a target, to which we have committed, of 55,000 new homes across this Parliament, so we, too, have an interest in making sure that we maximise the number of homes that can be released. I was drawing the House’s attention to the other possible commercial uses—for small businesses, technology parks and so on—that may, in some circumstances, be more appropriate.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I am grateful for the statement from my right hon. Friend. I understand the arguments that he is making for carrying out the review at this time. I am disappointed that the earlier decision to shut the base of the 14th Signal Regiment at Brawdy in my constituency, which I was told a year ago had been reversed, now seems to be back on the cards. That has all been unsettling for the soldiers at Cawdor barracks and their families, who are a well-loved part of the Pembrokeshire community. Will my right hon. Friend provide a bit more detail of the timeframe for the closure of the base, if it is indeed to happen? Will he give an assurance that there will not be any freeze of investment and that the base will be maintained to an acceptable standard as we approach the closure date?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am certainly happy to discuss continuing investment in the facilities with my right hon. Friend. The estimated disposal date for Cawdor barracks is 2024, so I hope that that gives some more certainty to those who support the Signal Regiment there. We are shortly to confirm where the 14th Signal Regiment will be re-provided for.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
The Glencorse barracks in Penicuik in my constituency are a fundamental part of that community and the wider constituency, but there was no mention of the barracks in the Secretary of State’s statement. I am now wondering whether this is closure by stealth, as the Government look to continue to invest in weapons of mass destruction at the cost of conventional defences.
Sir Michael Fallon
No, that is not the case. We are reinvesting, as I have said several times today, in Scotland, which is a key part of the defence of the United Kingdom. Just as the RAF is centring all its squadrons on Lossiemouth and the Navy is focusing its submarines on the Clyde, so the Army will be not wholly, but principally, based around Leuchars Station in Fife. The result will be that the capabilities that the Army needs will be clustered more efficiently together.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I very much understand the need for consolidation of the Ministry of Defence estate and the importance of value to the taxpayer, but I want to point out that that will inevitably have a massive knock-on effect in Taunton Deane with the transfer of 40 Commando and the closure of Norton Manor camp. Those 40 Commando Marines and their families play such a big part in our community, living in our houses, going to our schools and taking part in everything. Please can I urge the Minister to give every thought to the careful nurturing and transfer of those people and their families? May I also urge him to give careful thought, working with me, the local authorities and everyone else concerned, to ensure that we can fill the economic hole that will be created when they all leave Taunton Deane?
Sir Michael Fallon
I understand my hon. Friend’s disappointment, and I appreciate the role that 40 Commando has played in her constituency. The disposal date is 2028. I emphasise to her that this is another decision that has been taken on military advice, on the advice of the Royal Marines themselves, so that they will be clustered in the Devonport area rather than spread out over a series of locations. There is plenty of time—another 12 years—for us to plan this departure and get it right.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
In the interests of clarity, will the Secretary of State name the eight sites in Scotland that are to be released, and will he indicate the extent of the consultation that will take place?
Sir Michael Fallon
While I am looking up the eight sites, I can certainly emphasise that consultation will take place, and that is the point of publishing this strategy document today. It will release these sites for detailed consultation with the local authorities concerned and, indeed, with the Scottish Government where relevant.
The sites to be disposed of in Scotland are Craigiehall, which has already been announced; Condor airfield near Arbroath; MOD Caledonia in Edinburgh; Redford cavalry barracks; Redford infantry barracks; DSG Forthside and Meadowforth barracks at Forthside, Stirling; Fort George, in the highlands; and Glencorse barracks.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
I welcome the consolidation of the amphibious capability around Devonport, but could I ask the Secretary of State to bear it in mind that we have a fantastic facility at HMS Raleigh in Torpoint, in my constituency? Will he confirm that he will consider the possible relocation of some of those Royal Marines to the modern facilities in HMS Raleigh?
Sir Michael Fallon
The answer to that is yes. HMS Raleigh will be considered as a receiver site, as we call them, for some of the units that are being consolidated into the Devonport area and into the excellent accommodation, which I have visited.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
Some 240 jobs are associated with the Forthside barracks in Stirling, which the Secretary of State mentioned a moment ago. That makes it an important employer and one of the few operational elements of the armed forces still associated with Stirling, particularly since the appalling treatment of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which was mentioned a few moments ago, disgracefully, by the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). How many jobs will remain in Stirling following the move, and how many, in total, of the jobs that are there just now will be retained?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about the number of jobs per site, but I can tell him that the local authority has ambitious plans for the future development of that accommodation. Some of the units are likely to be re-provided for at Leuchars, but we hope to see that site become part of the commercial lay-down in the Stirling area.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) on the work that they have done to provide a good set-up for defence and to meet the housing target of 55,000 homes. I urge my right hon. Friend, in looking at the accommodation strategy, to bear it in mind that the provision of good-quality service family accommodation is crucial not just for retention, but, in many cases, for maintaining morale among soldiers and other service people who go to war, particularly when there are casualties.
Sir Michael Fallon
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his earlier words. Some of the decisions in this strategy document were difficult decisions. That is inevitable when we have to match the defence estate to the capabilities and needs of the modern Army. It is important that we give families certainty about where they are likely to be going, which is why some of the timescales are some way out. So far as future accommodation is concerned, all the receipts from the decisions that have been taken in this document will come back to defence, and they will be part of the regeneration and renovation of the defence estate more generally. Much of that will find its way into better and new accommodation for our service members.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
We live in uncertain times, and our armed forces have been reduced considerably. I understand the need for consolidation, but will my right hon. Friend tell the House what plans he has for the defence estate abroad, as these bases are crucial in maintaining our military flexibility and, of course, our liaison and so forth with NATO?
Sir Michael Fallon
That matter is important, although not directly part of my statement today. We have invested in the defence estate in the Falkland Islands, some 30 years after it was first built following the Falklands war. We have also invested in our facilities in Gibraltar and elsewhere. We have moved personnel back from Germany. As my hon. Friend says, it is important that we continue to upgrade the facilities at bases that are so important, including in the Falklands, Cyprus and Gibraltar.
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
The proposed development at and disposal of MOD Weathersfield to the Homes and Communities Agency puts at risk the future of high-tech security businesses, air cadet flying and the headquarters and training functions of the Ministry of Defence police. I thank Ministers for making themselves available to discuss the disposal with me during the past few months. Whatever the future of the site, may I ask that the high-tech security businesses, air cadet gliding and Ministry of Defence police functions, which should not constrain other activities on the site, are prioritised in whatever negotiations take place with its future owners?
Sir Michael Fallon
I am very happy to agree to that. I think this site had already been announced for disposal some time ago. I hope that those discussions will continue as we move the police, in particular, further west. I note what my hon. Friend says about the importance of the elements on the site, and about making sure that we maximise its potential.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
There will be concern in North Devon that, as part of today’s announcement, the Royal Marines are to vacate their base at Chivenor. First, will my right hon. Friend confirm whether this move has been requested by the Royal Marines? Secondly, will he agree to visit Chivenor with me to meet the base commander, the leader of North Devon District Council and the local business community to discuss future support both for the military families who are concerned and for the local economy?
Sir Michael Fallon
The answer to my hon. Friend’s first question is yes. These decisions have been taken on the advice of the military, including on the concentration of marine units in the Devonport area. The disposal date for the Chivenor site is 2027, so there is plenty of time for the discussion that he has outlined. I always enjoy my visits to North Devon, and I would be very happy to come down to discuss this further with him and the local authority.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State’s statement will deliver a devastating blow to the people of Brecon. The town has been proud to host a barracks since 1805, and this country has been proud to receive from those barracks the servicemen and women who have defended this country. Today, as always, a large number of military and civilian personnel are based there, and they will be very concerned about the decision that has been announced. Within the barracks, there is a regimental museum, which hosts the display celebrating and commemorating Rorke’s Drift. As we all know, Rorke’s Drift was immortalised in the film “Zulu”. In the regimental museum inside the barracks, there is the largest collection of Victoria Crosses in this country. May I ask my right hon. Friend two questions? First—this was touched on earlier—will the Infantry Battle School in Dering Lines and Severn Bridge be unaffected by these cuts? Secondly, will he join me again—I repeat, again—in visiting the barracks to discuss what future role we can have?
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman will know that my natural generosity got the better of me.
Sir Michael Fallon
Let me confirm again that the infantry training centre will not be disposed of. My hon. Friend makes the very important point that the barracks contains the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum. I have visited the museum, and seen the memorabilia associated with Private Hook and others in the battle of Rorke’s Drift. The position is that the museum is currently negotiating a long-term lease with the Ministry in order to secure lottery funding for an extension. The lease has not yet been finalised, but it is likely to contain a clause enabling the trustees to purchase the freehold if and when the site is disposed of. I hope that is helpful to my hon. Friend, but I am very happy to discuss all this further with him.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I have bobbed up and down so often this afternoon that I feel I have undertaken my own military fitness training.
I thank the Secretary of State very much for his statement. May I just clarify whether the barracks at Bassingbourn in my constituency, which has been closed for some time, will now receive personnel from Burgoyne barracks in 2019, RAF Henlow in 2019, Weathersfield in 2020 and Chilwell station in 2021? I understand that from an email that has just arrived on my phone. If that is the case, that is an enormous and very welcome uplift in the number of personnel at Bassingbourn. May I have a contact in the MOD, so that the local authority can start to plan education, schools, GP surgeries and so on?
Sir Michael Fallon
Yes. This is good news for Bassingbourn. I can confirm the gist of what my hon. Friend said. Bassingbourn will be one of the key receiver sites for some of the units that are now on the move. She said that she would like a contact in the Ministry of Defence, and I suggest that she contacts the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster).
Points of Order
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman is a specialist delicacy to whom I will come in due course.
Clive Efford
I do not know how to take that, Mr Speaker.
I have asked the Department of Health several questions on the process by which the Greenwich clinical commissioning group allocated a £74 million contract to Circle Holdings for our local orthopaedic services. In one of my answers from the Department of Health, I was told that there had been local discussions about the impact this would have on other national health services. Investigations I have undertaken into that answer have exposed the fact that this information, which was supplied to the Minister of State, Department of Health by NHS England, is incorrect. He therefore misinformed me in his answer—I accept that he did so inadvertently—as a consequence of the information he was given by NHS England. My point is that in many of the questions I have asked about this process, I have been told that it is a matter for the local NHS, and this dereliction of duty on the part of the Department of Health has even led to NHS England not scrutinising the process properly.
How can we get the record corrected? I will be shocked if you, Mr Speaker, have not heard that the Department of Health wants to make a statement to correct this error. I would like to know how it is going to improve its performance in scrutinising what is going on when such multimillion pound contracts are let.
Mr Speaker
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is to be shocked, but I am afraid that he will be because, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I have received no indication of any intention on the part of the Government to make a statement on this matter in the way and of the kind that he wants. I am grateful to him for giving me notice that he wished to raise the matter. Let me say this: as I repeatedly remind the House, the content of Ministers’ answers to parliamentary questions is a matter not for the Chair but for the Minister concerned. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s point has been heard by those on the Treasury Bench and will be relayed with alacrity to the Minister of State. If the Minister finds that his answer was inaccurate—that was not altogether clear to me—and therefore essentially agrees with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis, I am sure he will take steps to correct the record. It may be—I am not saying it is—that the Minister takes a different view of the facts of the matter, but I cannot arbitrate between different views. Meanwhile, however—we await events—the hon. Gentleman has succeeded in placing his concern on the record.
Dr Julian Lewis
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I, with my customary delicacy, seek to return to a problem being encountered by the Defence Committee in its bid to examine the worrying plans of the BBC to close Caversham Park and make severe cuts in the BBC Monitoring service? We have been trying to get a relevant Minister from either the Cabinet Office or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to appear before the Committee and answer key questions on this matter, which is of direct relevance to defence and defence capability in terms of open source information. Is there anything I can do on the Floor of this House within the rules of order to try to add to the moral pressure I am trying to exert on one or other of those Ministers to do their job and appear before our Committee?
Mr Speaker
The short answer to the right hon. Gentleman is that there is and he has identified it, namely to raise in eloquent terms a point of order drawing attention to the failure thus far of a Minister to appear, or apparently to agree to appear, and to register the dissatisfaction presumably both of the right hon. Gentleman in his capacity as Chairman of the Defence Committee and presumably of other members of the Committee at that failure or refusal. The question of whether a Minister appears before the Committee is not in the first instance—and arguably not in the last—a matter for the Chair. However, I have known the right hon. Gentleman now for 33 years, and I am bound to say that if Ministers think they can just ignore his protestations, frankly they do not know him as well as I do. It would be a lot better if they just gave up the unequal struggle and fielded one of these characters—preferably, sooner rather than later—because unless they do, they will not hear the end of the matter.
Exiting the EU and Workers’ Rights
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered exiting the EU and workers’ rights.
It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to debate a matter as important as workers’ rights, which our country and this House have a very proud record and history of upholding. I am also pleased to be opening the first in a number of debates about some of the specific policy areas connected with leaving the EU. The Prime Minister has made it clear that Members of this House will have the opportunity thoroughly to discuss how we leave the EU with regard to a number of issues—we have had another opportunity earlier today—in a way that respects the decision that the people took on 23 June.
In the near future we will also have the chance to discuss other important issues that will affect the future of our country, but it is quite right that we start that series of debates with an issue that is so important to all of our constituents, namely the protection of workers’ rights. It is heartening to see so many Members from all sides of the House present to debate this issue, late into a day of intense interest. It affects every working person in this country.
This Government place a great deal of importance on the fundamental protections that workers in the UK have. Whether protection from discrimination or unfair dismissal, equal treatment—working full time or part time— or the right to a minimum wage or to paid holiday, the Government are committed to safeguarding those rights.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I am delighted to hear the Secretary of State’s commitment to safeguarding existing employment rights here in the UK that derive from the European Union. However, is he aware that while we are debating our exit from the EU, it is forging ahead with new employment rights that we would hope people in the UK would also benefit from, and will he extend his commitment to ensuring that we do not fall behind the rest of the EU?
Greg Clark
I will come on to say something about that in a few seconds, which I hope will satisfy the hon. Lady.
No one listening to this debate should think that we have any intention of eroding the rights that we enjoy in this country through our process of leaving the European Union. In fact, the opposite is true. We will be using the legislation before this House to entrench all existing workers’ rights in British law, whatever future relationship the UK has with the EU.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been listening to the Secretary of State, but does he understand why people would have concerns that the Government might seek to undermine those rights given that this Government introduced the Trade Union Act 2016?
Greg Clark
This Government introduced the national living wage as well, and I will go on to talk about some other proud achievements. It is a helpful feature of this debate that we are able to say, clearly and unambiguously, that all the rights derived from membership of the EU will be imported into UK law through legislation in this House.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that in many areas—for example, paternity leave—workers’ rights in this country are ahead of the European Union minimums and that going through the Brexit process will not change those?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This House has had good reason to be proud of the protections we have given workers in this country over the years. We do not need to rely on protections from the EU. We have inaugurated them in this House, and have a proud history of doing so over the years.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The Secretary of State just said that he would guarantee all protections. Will he absolutely confirm that that is going ahead of what the Government have said in the past—that it would only be “wherever practical”? Will he also rule out the idea of the great repeal Bill having a sunset clause that would mean that all EU law expired unless it had been specifically endorsed anew by the Government?
Greg Clark
I will be very clear that all of the workers’ rights that are enjoyed under the EU will be part of that Bill and will be brought across into UK law. That is very clear. There is no intention of having a sunset clause.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Currently all workers’ rights are guaranteed by the European Court of Justice. After we leave they will be guaranteed by the Supreme Court, advised by us. Therefore, in the future they can all be ripped up if we leave the EU, if that is the choice of future Governments; if we stay in the EU they cannot be ripped up but are guaranteed. They are guaranteed only under EU law. They cannot be sustainably guaranteed by the Secretary of State.
Greg Clark
I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I would have thought that hundreds of years of parliamentary sovereignty and a robust and independent judiciary are a very strong guarantee of the rights we have in this country.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the point made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) not hammer home the fact that one moment the Opposition are saying that this House should be sovereign on article 50 and all matters to do with Brexit, and in another that this House should not be trusted with employment law? Is there not a deep irony there?
Greg Clark
I share my hon. Friend’s puzzlement at the lack of confidence in the institutions that we are very proud of in this country. I am astonished by it.
As we leave the European Union, the Prime Minister has indicated that it is our intention to give businesses and workers the certainty they should expect. When the great repeal Bill was announced in October, this Government clearly stated, and we reiterate today, that all EU law in this area will be brought into British law. I hope the House will agree that that will give certainty and continuity to employees and employers alike, creating a stability in which the UK can grow and thrive.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to reassure workers that the TUPE regulations, which are so important in protecting workers who are transferred from one company to another, will in no way be affected by any change his Government may want to introduce?
Greg Clark
I have been very clear that all of the existing law under the EU will be brought into British law. There is no intention of changing that. In fact, so far from wanting to dilute current law, in many ways, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) has said, we go further than the EU in a number of important respects. For example, in the UK all workers are protected by a strong set of core rights that do not depend on the type of contract—full time or part time— an employee may be on. That is not consistently the case in other European countries. In the UK, women who have had a child can enjoy 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave and 39 weeks of pay, not just the 14 weeks under EU law.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that Brexit offers an opportunity to strengthen workers’ rights? [Hon. Members: “Sit down!”] Will he look at my Parental Bereavement Leave (Statutory Entitlement) Bill, which would give the UK the best workers’ rights in the world?
Greg Clark
Opposition Members should attend with greater courtesy to my hon. Friend, who speaks with a great deal of experience and knowledge of rights for parents who have suffered bereavement. He has made excellent speeches about that in the House. His private Member’s Bill, which has a huge amount to commend it, would allow bereaved parents to have time off to deal with the consequences of an infant death in their family. I look forward to working with him to make use of his knowledge and wisdom, and to see whether, through the reforms that we will introduce, we can capture the spirit of what he says. I am grateful for his intervention today and his earlier contributions.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way again—he is being extremely generous in taking interventions. Does he recall as I do that, in the previous Parliament, many of us campaigned on the matter of zero-hours contracts? Nothing had been done about that for 13 long years under the Labour Government, and our Government, and campaigners on the Government side of the House, including me, made the case for legislation on exclusivity contracts, which was passed. We did not wait for Europe; we did it here.
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have not waited for Europe. Through many centuries the condition of working people has been an important responsibility of the House, and we have advanced that consistently, as we did on zero-hours contracts. When my hon. Friend says that I am being generous in taking interventions, I interpret it as a coded signal that I ought to make progress, so I will do precisely that.
Greg Clark
Not at the moment.
As the House knows, from last year, subject to certain conditions, parental leave can be shared by the father of a child, giving families choice as to how they balance their home and work responsibilities. That is not part of EU legislation—the House introduced it. In addition, the UK offers 18 weeks’ parental leave, and that provision goes beyond the EU directive because it is available until the child’s 18th birthday. All UK employees enjoy more than five weeks’ statutory annual leave—5.6 weeks—not just the four weeks set out in EU law. It is therefore clear that in this case, as in others, British law is stronger and goes further than EU law. The Government have shown our commitment to extending workers’ rights when that is the right choice for the UK. We will continue to do so when we leave the European Union.
Melanie Onn
Many of the increases in rights for working people that the Secretary of State has mentioned are the result of Labour Governments who have been incredibly progressive on workers’ rights. The Government have introduced tribunal fees and increased minimum employment thresholds to restrict individuals’ access to their rights. With regard to primary legislation, will the working time directive have the same status as the Employment Rights Act 1996 as and when all laws are entrenched in UK legislation through the great repeal Bill?
Greg Clark
We have discussed a number of areas in which the Government have extended workers’ rights. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) cited the important protection against exclusivity in zero-hours contracts. This Government and our predecessors introduced the national living wage. The hon. Lady should therefore be a bit more generous in giving credit. Of course, the working time directive, like all other directives that are part of EU law, will be transposed into UK law so that there is continuity.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Contrary to what the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) says, the Conservatives have a record of such action over hundreds of years. Robert Peel, the father of Sir Robert Peel, introduced the very first factory Act under the rather wonderful title of the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802.
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is exactly right and we continue that tradition today. I am not sure that we regulate the morals of apprentices, but the health of apprentices is very important. The Conservative party has been the party of workers’ rights over the centuries, from Shaftesbury’s Factory Acts to William Hague’s Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The Conservatives have always understood that the decent treatment of people at work is not at the expense of industrial success, but a foundation of it.
Since 2010, the Conservatives have strengthened the rights of workers. This April, the Government introduced the mandatory national living wage for workers aged 25 and above, meaning that a full-time low-paid worker earns £900 more a year than they did before its introduction. We have also cracked down on employers who break national minimum wage and national living wage law. We have increased the enforcement budget by more than £9 million and strengthened enforcement so that people who break the law face an increased financial penalty—it has increased from 100% to 200% of arrears.
Our measures to protect workers’ rights and support our labour market have meant more people in work, more people earning a living and more people contributing to the prosperity of the UK than ever before. Our high employment rate is complemented by strong protections for UK workers, so our country is not only a great place to start a business, but a great place to work. However, to maintain that position, especially as we leave the European Union, we cannot stand still. We need to make further changes that support workers’ rights in the tradition of Conservative Governments over the years.
Greg Clark
I have given way already to the hon. Gentleman.
This Government will not only maintain existing rights, but set a very high standard. Like most Members of the House, I want to deliver an economy that works for everyone. Workers’ rights have an important part to play in that. We will build on the work that the Government have done to combine the dynamism of the UK labour market with robust protections for workers.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I do not share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for the European Court of Justice. The ECJ’s Laval and Viking judgments undermined the minimum wage and changed the definition of what it was to go on strike, which loosened workers’ rights. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will look at those judgments with a view to increasing workers’ rights, guaranteeing the minimum wage against those judgments, and maintaining the previous definitions of going on strike?
Greg Clark
I will look at those judgments, but the hon. Gentleman establishes the point that the House is more than capable of setting high standards of protection, as it has done for many centuries.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
The Secretary of State will know that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice established the principle of direct effect for various provisions of EU treaties and directives, meaning that they require no implementation at all by the Government. Will he confirm that, even with the great repeal Bill, those rights that are directly effective, and on which workers can rely, will remain post-Brexit?
Greg Clark
Yes, the intention is that all workers’ rights that derive from the EU will be brought into British law.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I am listening carefully to the Secretary of State. It would appear that Opposition Members believe that everything that Europe does is marvellous for workers, but that is not right, is it? Will he comment on the Uber cases, in which the EU has singularly failed to protect self-employed people?
Greg Clark
I think it is clear from what I and my hon. Friends have said that we have a proud tradition in the House of setting standards for workers and employment protections that are adjusted to this country, and that go beyond the more basic protections offered by other countries and the EU. I will not comment on the Uber case; I believe it is subject to an appeal.
The Government announced an independent review of employment practices in the modern economy to investigate how we can respond to the rapidly changing world of work to ensure, as we have in the past, that changing patterns of employment are accompanied by a consideration, including by the House, of appropriate necessary protections so that the economy continues to have the right framework of employment protections for the workers of this country. The review will address six themes: security, pay and rights; progression and training; defining rights and responsibilities in new business models; representation of employees; opportunities for under-represented groups; and how new business models can be supported. Colleagues may have read or been present for Friday’s excellent debate on unpaid internships that was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke). I am pleased that we have included the question of unpaid internships in the review.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Several times the Secretary of State has referred to the plan to transpose all these matters into UK law and several times he has referred to this House. What consideration has been given to issues that are clearly within devolved competencies? At what point will they be devolved? Will it be from day one with the commencement of the great repeal Act, or will those powers be held in some sort of holding centre here before they are subsequently devolved?
Greg Clark
When we set out the legislation, I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will want to meet Northern Ireland Ministers and the hon. Gentleman’s party to consider how best to deal with that. The clear intention is that all rights and protections available through the EU will come back to the United Kingdom and be active from day one. There will be no gap.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), will the Secretary of State confirm whether discussions have taken place with the devolved institutions? Employment rights are particularly intricate for the Northern Ireland Executive.
Greg Clark
My colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in particular, will have those discussions as we draw up the great repeal Bill.
Where rights are breached, we are taking action. We have already named nearly 700 employers that have not paid the national minimum wage. They owe more than £3.5 million in arrears between them. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will investigate every complaint it receives and ensure that miscreants are made to pay their arrears and fined for any offence. Crucially, we will be vigorous and proactive, looking across the workforce and wider society to ensure that all rights and interests are protected.
Since 2010, there has been a record number of women in work, but we know we have more to do to achieve gender parity. That is why, for example, the Government have been piloting a scheme to help talented women to gain the experience they need to get their first board appointment. In addition, we have asked Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith to lead a review to examine the obstacles faced by businesses in developing black and minority ethnic talent, from recruitment right through to executive level. We are encouraging and supporting disabled people to take steps into work where they are able to and to fulfil their potential.
The Government have shown their commitment to extending workers’ rights when that is the right choice for the UK and we will continue to do so when we leave the European Union. We will set and expect the highest standards for protecting workers and their rights. The Prime Minister and I have set out a clear vision for the Government’s approach to workers’ rights, on top of what we have already achieved for individuals across society and for the wider economy. It is not just a question of fairness: a strong relationship between businesses and the workers who sustain them underpins our economy and our future prosperity.
We will not dilute or dissolve workers’ rights. They will be not just protected but enhanced under this Government, because the Conservative party is the true workers’ party and the only party dedicated to making Britain a country that works for not just the privileged few, but every person in it. I look forward to the remainder of the debate, which is our first general debate on matters relating to the exit of the EU. This is a strong and important subject with which to begin. It underlines the positive future that we will have when the House has control of this agenda on which we have had such a proud record over decades past.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
I note that when Conservative Members talk about being the party of the workers, they can barely keep a straight face. I am pleased to open the debate for the Opposition. Indeed, I am very pleased that we are having this debate at all, given the events of last week and the attitude of Government Members earlier this afternoon.
Our country is going through a period of dramatic change. We are in a rare moment in history. The decisions made in the coming months will reshape our country and the world for generations to come. As I said to the Secretary of State last week, in moments of such national importance, it is imperative that the Government are subject to scrutiny by the elected representatives of the entire country. That is not in any way to diminish the result of the referendum. Like the Secretary of State, I voted to remain. Like him, I fully accept the democratic decision of this country and am committed to implementing it.
In voicing their preference to leave the European Union, however, the people of this country did not get the chance to say what they wanted in its place. They voted to set off on a journey, but were not asked their preferred destination. As a result, the Government cannot treat the referendum result as a blank cheque. They must work through a process of dialogue with the House to ensure that Britain exits the European Union on terms that carry the country with them. There are few areas on which Brexit has more potential to impact on people’s lives than workers’ rights.
Stephen Doughty
Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Foreign Secretary says he wants to scrap the social chapter and the International Development Secretary says she wants to halve the burden of EU employment and social rights, we should be very concerned? That is exactly why Parliament should be scrutinising this issue.
Clive Lewis
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. It reminds me of the old adage “Never trust a Tory”—that is what this comes down to.
Clive Lewis
I will make some progress. I will give way, but I will make some progress first—[Interruption.] I will take nothing back.
It is a well-established fact, and not one that reflects well on us as a country, that many protections and rights awarded to workers in Britain reside in EU legislation. Throughout the referendum campaign and since, my party has sought assurances that leaving the EU will not lead to any erosion or dilution of those rights. It follows that much of what the Secretary of State has said today will be welcomed by Opposition Members, but let us not forget that it is EU law that has given working people in this country their rights to a limited working week and guaranteed rest periods. It is the EU that has ensured equal pay and protection against discrimination, and it is to the EU that we owe maternity and paternity rights and much, much more. Removing these rights would cause real damage to the lives of working people.
It is a relief to hear that the Government intend to transfer those rights into British law, but that is not enough. I share the Government’s assessment that the overwhelming majority of the 17 million people who voted in favour of Brexit were not voting to axe our employment rights, but there is a tiny minority who were. It is that minority that has a strong presence on the Government Benches.
Clive Lewis
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, one of the individuals in question.
John Redwood
As someone who has always fully supported the transfer of all these rights into British law, I welcome the Secretary of State’s promise. Will the Labour party promise us that, assuming the proposed Bill transfers all those rights unequivocally, they will support that Bill? It will be the only way to transfer and guarantee those rights.
Clive Lewis
That is a really important point. What we did not hear from the Secretary of State was any promise or guarantee that employment legislation will not, once it comes out of international law, simply go into secondary law. We want to see it in primary law, and our concern is that once it goes into secondary law, the Government will use statutory instruments to undermine employment law and workers’ rights, and that is not what we want to see.
Let us carry on. I am talking about the Foreign Secretary, who described the weight of EU employment legislation as “back-breaking”. Then there is the Secretary of State for International Trade who dismissed the idea of protecting workplace rights as “intellectually unsustainable”. Then there is the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU who spent years attacking employment rights embodied in EU law as “unnecessary red tape”.
Melanie Onn
Does my hon. Friend also recognise that the former Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) went so far as to call for the UK to
“halve the burdens of EU social and employment legislation”
after Brexit?
Clive Lewis
The list is lengthy.
Let us go back. Who spent years attacking employment rights embodied in EU laws as unnecessary red tape before undergoing his recent makeover into an ally of the working class, insisting that it is only “consumer and environmental protections” that he regards as unnecessary? As an aside, it is worth emphasising that those protections are as important to the quality of life of working people as employment rights, but they are not the topic of today’s debate.
Caroline Lucas
The hon. Gentleman is making a very strong case. Does he agree with me that what many workers value most of all is the right to work in other EU countries, and that the best way to guarantee that is by free movement? Will he therefore join me in pressing for free movement to be a fundamental right that needs cast-iron protection as part of any future relationship with the EU?
Clive Lewis
That is a very important point, and it is one to which I shall come back in the future.
Let me return to the issue at hand. While I welcome now, as I have before, the Government’s recent apparent Damascene conversion when it comes to workers’ rights, I cannot but remain sceptical about how deep it goes. When it comes to limiting the number of hours people have to work in a week and giving temporary workers the same rights as permanent staff, the Conservative party has resisted at every turn the enhanced protection for workers that was introduced through EU legislation. Yet now we are asked to believe that they will defend that legislation. How are the workers of this country supposed to trust them? The public have already been misled about what Brexit will mean.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman says that these developments are recent, but as I pointed out to the Secretary of State, in fact they go back hundreds of years—back to 1802, which saw the very first factory Act enacted by a Conservative Government. Furthermore, there is no need for these laws to be protected by the EU, because we enhance those protections and have already done so.
Clive Lewis
Shall we have a little history lesson? How many Acts of Parliament between 1980 and 1993 that attacked working people through anti-trade union legislation do you think your Government took part in? Was it one, two or three? No, it was six, so don’t lecture us on the history of workers’ rights. You have nothing to say on it.
Clive Lewis
No.
The public have already been misled about what Brexit will mean. On the morning after the referendum, Mr Farage’s hangover had barely set in before the leave campaign withdrew the promise that leaving the EU would free up £350 million a week for the NHS. In the last week, we have seen that the Government are prepared to go to the highest court in the land to avoid proper democratic scrutiny of the terms of Brexit.
Anna Soubry
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us how many pieces of legislation introduced by the last but one Conservative Government the then Labour Government repealed?
Clive Lewis
I think you will find that through the employment legislation of the last Labour Government, we made considerable strides on improving workplace rights for working people, so we will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady on workers’ rights.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that the only reason the social chapter was introduced into legislation in the United Kingdom was that we had a Labour Government?
Clive Lewis
You make the point very well. When it comes to the rights of working people in this country, it is only the Labour party that can be trusted to deliver.
Several hon. Members rose—
Clive Lewis
I want to make some progress.
So why should we believe that the party that has fought tooth and nail against EU protections for workers and that has dismissed as “unnecessary red tape” laws that have made UK workplaces more fair and more humane will now be the defender of those rights? I want to believe it—I truly do—but I cannot. It is not just because of the Government’s record of opposing the very legislation that they now claim to support; it is because, despite his good intentions—I am prepared to believe that he has good intentions—nothing that the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister or anyone else in this Government has said or done over the past six years convinces me that they understand or care about the lives of working people. This Government are the children of Thatcher. Sticking up for workers goes against every instinct and is contrary to the very political DNA of so many Conservative Members.
I would like to shift focus and reflect on people’s experiences of the world of work under this Government, on how workplaces and labour markets are changing, on what this has meant for working people and on what the Government have—or, more often, have not—done for them. From the recent exposé of Victorian employment practices at Sports Direct to the horror stories of Uber drivers being unable to take a toilet break, working conditions in this country are getting worse, not better, for too many people. Over the past six years, jobs have become lower skilled, less secure and worse paid. We have seen the rise of zero-hour contracts and growing reliance on agency workers. We have seen the birth of the gig economy, taking more and more workers outside formal employment regulations. The Tories boast about the recovery of employment since 2008, but on every other criterion, our labour market is failing.
Geraint Davies
Given that there will be enormous pressure on business from tariffs, no more money coming in and less inward investment because of blockages to the markets, does my hon. Friend accept that the business community will ask for their costs to be reduced, which will threaten statutory holiday pay, maternity pay and other workers’ rights? Once those powers have been given to this Government, they will be empowered to repeal those things in the future, and there will be no European guarantees. We will be at the will of future Governments. [Interruption.]
Clive Lewis
I hear Conservative Members talking about scaremongering, but the facts speak for themselves. You are the enemy of working people. The Tories boast—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. First, the House is too noisy. This is meant to be a genteel and well-behaved debate on an important matter. Secondly, although I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) while he is speaking from the Dispatch Box, I must point out that he has now used the word “you” on several occasions, and that there are several good reasons why we use the third person in this place. It has to do with keeping the level of debate reasonable and courteous. I know that the hon. Gentleman is extremely courteous and will want to continue to be courteous. If he wants to accuse hon. Members of something, he should not accuse me.
Clive Lewis
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I stand formally chastised, and rightly so. I think, however, that it reflects the level of anxiety and passion felt by Opposition Members about workers’ rights. I so often see smugness from some Conservative Members who obviously feel that Brexit is going to be bonfire of regulatory rights in the workplace—and we do not want to see that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Clive Lewis
I shall make some more progress.
The Tories boast about the recovery of employment since 2008, but on every other criterion, our labour market is failing. Wages, which have been falling as a share of national income for decades, have stagnated under the Tories, creating nearly a decade of lost pay. Too many people are having their work-life balance undermined by rising workloads and suffering stress due to punitive performance reviews. Even those who are not in precarious employment worry about their future job security.
Clive Lewis
I am going to make some progress, if that is all right.
We cannot continue to prioritise quantity over quality in the belief that if we want to ensure that everyone has a job, we have to accept any job. From the millions of women who continue to be paid less than men to the growing number of involuntarily or bogusly self-employed, it is hard to escape the reality that, for most, conditions have become worse. What have the Tories done in the face of all that? They have frozen public sector pay for six years running; they have introduced fees for employment tribunals, making it harder for people to gain access to the rights to which the law entitles them; they have placed severe restrictions on the right to strike, and onerous burdens on the ability to organise. In the Trade Union Act 2016, they have pushed through the biggest attack on workers’ rights in a generation.
We are back to the issue of trust. The Government have recently taken to calling themselves the party of working people, but in their last six years in office, they have not acted like that; on the contrary. Is it any wonder that, for those of us who genuinely care about workers’ rights, the promises that the Secretary of State has made today provide only cold comfort and a heavy dose of wary scepticism? I do not intend to brand the Secretary of State a liar; he seems to me to be a decent guy. [Interruption.] I did not say that, and I do not intend to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I understand rhetoric just as well as the hon. Gentleman, and I appreciate that he used the negative, but he nevertheless used a word that is not suitable in the Chamber. I am sure that he can make his point just as strongly through a rather different use of words.
Clive Lewis
I will rephrase that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not intend to brand the Secretary of State a person who exaggerates excessively; he seems to me to be a decent guy. However, given that the Brexit triumvirate of Mr Johnson, Mr Davis and Mr Fox have so regularly said and done things that contradict the promises that we have heard today, it is hard to be confident that the Government will deliver.
Stephen Doughty
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. He is very generous. Does he not also find it incredible that the Secretary of State prayed in aid the appointment of Baroness McGregor-Smith to a position that involves advising on employment rights? She was ennobled at a time when her company, Mitie, and its subsidiary MiHomecare were being investigated by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for non-payment of the minimum wage to its workers.
Clive Lewis
I did not know that, but do you know what? It does not surprise me in the slightest.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Will the hon. Gentleman explain why, during the 1970s and 1980s, when I was a teenager growing up in the part of the United Kingdom where I live, the unemployment level was regularly over 30%?
Ian Paisley
No, there was a Labour Government.
Today my children, aged 18 and 19, see an unemployment level of 5% or 6% in some areas. Will the hon. Gentleman explain the analysis that he has given to the House, suggesting that there are no jobs? There are jobs, and there are opportunities for people.
Clive Lewis
I think that the peace process—a Labour-oriented peace process—would have had a great deal to do with that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Clive Lewis
I will make some headway now. I can see that you are agitated, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Ian Paisley
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it right for the hon. Gentleman to use the peace process as an excuse for unemployment legislation?
Madam Deputy Speaker
As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not for me to decide whether what a Member who has the Floor is saying is reasonable or otherwise, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) will bear in mind what has been said by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and will moderate the way in which he is using his excellent rhetoric.
Clive Lewis
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Even if we take the Secretary of State at face value, he is surrounded by the kind of free-market fanatics who, past behaviour suggests, will always work to undermine workers’ rights rather than to bolster them.
Clive Lewis
I am going to make some progress. I am conscious of time, and many other Members clearly want to have their say.
Last time I had the pleasure of facing the Secretary of State across the Dispatch Box, he reached out to me in the name of bipartisanship. One cannot help wondering if the opinion of some of his colleagues has forced him to consider whether he might find it more congenial to work with us on the Opposition side of the House. I sympathise: if he truly believes what he said to us today, no wonder he has reached out for allies on our Benches. So I say to him, “You’re on. “ If he is serious in his commitment to workers’ rights, let us work together towards three goals.
First, the Secretary of State must accept that given his Government’s record, a day one transfer of EU rights to UK law is simply not enough. Grant Shapps must not get his sunset clause.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I really have tried not to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, and when he has done something once I have let it go, but I am afraid that I cannot do that twice. In the Chamber, we must either refer to each other by constituency or refer to “the Minister” or “the Secretary of State”. I will not insist that the hon. Gentleman get the constituencies right; just the odd reference to “the Minister” would do fine.
Clive Lewis
I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was a genuine error, for which I apologise.
The right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) must not get his sunset clause. Instead, workers need a cast-iron guarantee that rights will not be eroded over time, either by a failure to keep pace with new EU legislation or because UK courts interpret it more weakly.
Secondly, all EU citizens who are currently employed here must be guaranteed the right to remain. These are people who have built their lives in this country. To leave their future shrouded in uncertainty so that they can be used as a pawn in future negotiations with the EU is quite simply wrong. It is also bad for businesses. We know that many are already having to recruit and train replacement staff as EU workers up and leave before they are pushed.
If the Secretary of State would agree to work with us to achieve those two objectives, it would prevent us from going backwards, but we cannot afford to stand still when it comes to workers’ rights. The United Kingdom ranks 31st richest out of 34 on the OECD’s employment protection index. Among comparable economies, we already have one of the least regulated and least protected workforces in the world. That simply is not good enough.
Clive Lewis
No, I am going to press on. I do apologise.
The fact that we have relied on the EU for so many of our protections reflects badly on all of us in this place. How can we interpret the referendum results other than as an expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo—a demand for a better deal? Labour wants to give the people a better deal, and where better to start than in the workplace? Labour markets are changing, and technological progress is opening up new possibilities for the way in which we organise our workplaces and working lives, but for too many workers, new technology has meant not new freedoms, but new forms of exploitation.
Brexit Britain faces a choice. We can enter a race to the bottom, steadily eroding workplace protections in an attempt to attract investment and custom away from low-wage countries, or we can lead the way in ensuring that workplace rights and protections keep pace with changes in labour markets, and developing new business models that harness the benefits of new technology for the many and not just the few, as part of a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy. We cannot win the former, and in truth we would not want to; but we can do the latter, and that is the only way in which to ensure that the people of this country get the better deal that they deserve.
I call on the Secretary of State to sign up to a new social settlement: one that places workers’ rights at its centre, and recognises and rewards everyone’s contribution; one that empowers people to take more control over their workplaces and their lives. That will require more than just rhetoric. For the Government, it will require a drastic change of direction. It will mean repealing the Trade Union Act and embracing, and working with, trade unions, rather than attacking them. It will mean leading the way on workers’ rights across Europe, rather than digging their heels in and resisting every advance. It sounds far-fetched, but it is time for the Government to put their money where their mouth is. You say you want to be the party of workers, Mr Secretary of State.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. No: they say they want to be that. I do not say anything.
Clive Lewis
They say they want to be the party of workers. They say they want to work together. Well, these are the terms, and we are game if you are.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I admire the passion and enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), but I would like him to reflect a little on what I put to him in an intervention: this is a unique moment in the House of Commons where Government and Opposition are completely united on something very fundamental. I strongly believe my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Government he speaks for when they assure us that every right in the UK directly deriving from European law will be faithfully transferred into UK law and will be safe all the time they are governing this country from this Front Bench—and should the public decide at some point in the future to replace this Government with a Labour Government, I am quite sure they will offer exactly the same assurance.
It seems to me that we have for once got a wonderful understanding or agreement between the two parties. So I just ask the Labour party to understand that sometimes they have won—that sometimes they are in agreement with the Conservatives, and, as disagreeable as they may find that, surely it is cause for celebration that both main parties wish to advance employee rights, and have absolutely no wish to undermine employee rights that currently come from the EU and wish to offer the legal framework to protect them. So I repeat again: will the Labour party now agree to welcome and support the great reform Bill when it shows that all those crucial rights—not just the worker rights, but the environmental rights and the others they have mentioned—will be transferred?
Geraint Davies
But does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that if businesses face higher costs through tariffs and Britain wants to attract international inward investment platforming into Europe, it will move towards reducing costs in respect of public health and the environment and, in particular, workers’ rights, which are currently guaranteed through the European Court of Justice but will no longer be guaranteed other than in a sort of gentleman’s agreement here which is not sustainable in law?
John Redwood
I think this high court of Parliament—this great legislature of ours—is quite capable of defending workers’ rights, and I do not believe the Government will get very far if they first promise the British people that they will guarantee all those rights and then a year later turn around and say they are not going to. I have got some pretty difficult colleagues on this side of the House who would also object rather strongly to that. If I have given my word to my electors that all those rights will be transferred, the Whips are not going to find it very easy to get me to vote against them, but I do not believe I am going to have to, because I am quite sure I believe the Secretary of State and there is absolutely no reason to assume something else is going to happen.
I would like to begin, Madam Deputy Speaker, in an uncharacteristic way by praising both the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers of this House for having shown in the run-up to the referendum that they have been able to grant time and make sure the voices of the minority were heard over a very sensitive and explosive public debate. As part of the leave minority in this House—we were rather a modest minority in terms of numbers; we were very outgunned in terms of weight of office and numbers of votes and the amount of material coming forward from both the Government and Opposition Front Bench—I am very grateful for the way the Speaker and the House authorities made sure we had our chance to make our case. If that had not happened, I think the public would have felt their Parliament was completely out of touch, because we now know that we on the leave side spoke for 52% of those voting in the referendum, a massive 17.4 million people, and it is important that our Parliament stays topical and is able to take the minority view in here because it might be the majority view out there.
I am equally sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you and the Speaker will make sure, now that the tables have been turned and we know the majority in the country is with the leave side, that there will be plenty of opportunity for those who wish to represent the views of the significant remain minority and make sure their legitimate worries are considered and taken into account in the longish process that will follow as the Government, after sending in the article 50 letter, start the negotiations on our future arrangement once we are again an independent country having a series of crucial working relationships, collaborations, agreements and trade arrangements with our former partners in the EU.
We hear from Labour all the time that the Government are not coming clean about the negotiating aims. I find that very difficult to understand. We have heard tonight, on the matter that most concerns Labour MPs, an absolutely definitive statement. Question: “Are our employment rights at any risk?” Answer: “No, they are not if you vote for the repeal Bill.” Question: “Are other rights at risk?” Answer: “No, they are not because they are all being transferred by that same repeal Bill.”
Turning to the question of the high-level aims, Labour have a perfectly reasonable point when they say, “Of course the Government must explain the high-level aims” while also agreeing that the Government cannot provide a running commentary or give the intermediate or fall-back positions in a negotiation as that would be crazy. But Labour always say they have not heard the high-level aims, yet I think we have already heard them so let me have another go at explaining them. The aim is to take back control. The aim is to make sure all the laws that apply to UK citizens are made in this Parliament, not in Europe. The aim is to ensure legal continuity with all current laws that come from Europe being transferred, for obvious reasons. The aim is to make sure we control our borders. The aim is to make sure we control our own taxes and spending plans. The aim is that we take back those controls so that we can again be a sovereign Parliament representing a sovereign people. What is so difficult to understand?
The issues that we will have to discuss with our partners are mainly about trade and future collaborations in a number of areas, and as the Prime Minister has rightly said, that will be a grown-up discussion between a country taking back control of its laws and policies and a group of other countries working together in what they wish to advance as a monetary and political union. It will be a free and fair negotiation where I think, in the end, when angers have cooled and tempers calmed down, our friends on the continent will understand that tariff-free—and reasonably free—trade makes even more sense for them than it does for us, and that surely is the aim we are trying to achieve.
Mark Durkan
The right hon. Gentleman refers to the great repeal Bill, which is in essence the great download and save Bill for day one of Brexit. Who controls the delete key thereafter as far as these rights and key standards are concerned? Is it, as he implies, this House? Would any removal of rights have to be done by primary legislation, or could it be done by ministerial direction? And where is the position of the devolved Administrations in this? These matters are devolved competencies; will they be devolved on day one?
John Redwood
Why does the hon. Gentleman laugh? The Government are engaged—I think, again, in good faith—in an earnest discussion with the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments of the United Kingdom. I presume that quite shortly after the powers have returned, they will be properly devolved. As to the question of what guarantee there is that these major powers cannot be eroded, the first guarantee is that the Government have already made it clear that they have no plans to do so. They have given their word, and if they broke their word there would be very strong protests in here and there would be the usual pressures of public opinion, and then loss of seats for loss of faith should the Government proceed in that way. But as I understand it, primary legislation will guarantee all these rights and laws from the EU; these are not secondary matters, and so primary legislation will be required in order to deal with them in the future. And it may be that in the future we will want to improve these rights, which would entail amending them, and that is something we will be entirely free to do once we have taken back control; we can then do it in the way we see fit, without any complications from European law.
The 17.4 million people voted to take back control, and that was a remarkable vote. They voted to take back control despite being told by the great and the good, the Government and leading figures in the Opposition that there would be a short-term economic cost to them if they dared to vote to have a sovereign Parliament representing a sovereign people. We did not believe them, however, and I am very pleased that we did not do so. We have now had four months of growth, with more jobs, more shopping, rising incomes and all the other things that they said could not possibly happen, were we to dare to exit the European Union. Is it not good that experts are sometimes wrong and sometimes too pessimistic, and that sometimes the people are more sensible and know what is right for them?
The people also understood that this was about more than money. They did not feel that their money was at risk; they felt that something bigger than money was at issue. What was at issue was the question of who controls. Do the people any longer have their sovereign power? Can they elect a Parliament to do the things they want Parliament to do? They realised that they could not. They realised that this Parliament could not abolish VAT on tampons or green products in the way that most people would like it to because to do so would be illegal under European law. They realised that this Parliament could not amend the fishing rules in order to have a fishing industry that was good for English fishermen and English fish—or Scottish fishermen and Scottish fish—because that would be illegal under European law. They realised that both the major parties in the general election wished to make changes to the benefit rules, but that both sets of proposals turned out to be illegal under European law.
The British people said, “For goodness’ sake, we’re fed up with this puppet Parliament. We want a Parliament that can carry out our will. We want a Parliament that will take back power.” It took the people to say that, because this Parliament was incapable, on its own, of realising that it did not have enough power, that it could not carry out the wishes of the British people in so many fields, and that it ought to do something about that. A lacklustre negotiation with our former partners produced absolutely nothing of value, so the British people took the matter into their own hands.
Anna Soubry
I appreciate that the results of the referendum were declared on a local authority basis, but could my right hon. Friend confirm that the people of Wokingham actually voted to remain?
John Redwood
That is by no means proven. As my right hon. Friend says, Wokingham borough had a modest majority in favour of remain, but Wokingham borough comprises parts of four different constituencies. My own constituency contains bits of Wokingham borough as well as parts of West Berkshire. According to my canvass returns, I think it was roughly 50:50 in my constituency. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Anyway, it does not really matter—[Interruption.] My right hon. Friend must listen, because I think she actually agrees with me on this, although she will not admit it.
Members from both sides of the House trooped solemnly through the Lobby to put through the European Union Referendum Act 2015, and it was crystal clear from what Ministers and others were saying at the time that we were passing the decision to the British people. We were not asking their advice. We were not giving them a rather grand and expensive opinion poll. Ministers said, “You, the British people, will make this decision.” And just to ram it home, a leaflet was sent to every household in the country—at the taxpayers’ expense, which some of us were a bit worried about—repeating that message. A solemn promise was made by the Government. The Opposition were involved with this, because they did not object and they helped to vote through the money for that promise to be sent to every household. That promise was crystal clear. I feel, and I think my right hon. Friend agrees with me, that we are now under a duty to expedite the decision of the British people.
Charlie Elphicke
I backed remain, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), but a majority of the people of Dover voted to leave. Is it not incumbent on all of us to listen to our electors and to act on the instructions that we have been given?
John Redwood
I think it is incumbent on this Parliament to accept the verdict of the referendum that we gave to the British people and to understand that we are all under a duty now. Democracy is on trial. What would the public think if their Parliament gave them a decision to make and then tried to stop that decision being implemented? That would put us in an impossible position, and anyone who followed that course would have a very miserable time when they next faced the electors.
Once the referendum is over, we have a duty to represent all our constituents. I have to represent the remain constituents of Wokingham just as much as the leave constituents. I cannot possibly vote on both sides of the issue, but I can ensure that the legitimate concerns of my remain voters are taken into account. I can assure the House that I will be very active in lobbying Ministers when remain voters identify real problems. The main problem that they are identifying at the moment is the uncertainty. They want us to speed up, and the more Members think that delay is a good idea, the more the uncertainty will build and the more damage could conceivably be done. We all have a duty now to speak for all our constituents, but we can only have one vote. Surely MPs must now vote for the settled will of the British people, having offered them that referendum.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does not my right hon. Friend find it rather strange that, although the people on the remain side who do not want to accept the verdict of the electorate in the referendum want to drag out and delay the process of triggering article 50, the other members of the European Union want us to get on with it? We talk about the binding nature, or otherwise, of the referendum, but is not the person who best illustrates its binding nature none other than David Cameron? If it was just an advisory referendum, why on earth did he feel it necessary to announce his resignation the following day?
John Redwood
That is another piece of evidence—of which there is so much—that it was not an advisory referendum. We know that from ministerial statements at the Dispatch Box, from the Hansard records of the passage of the legislation and from the leaflets that were sent to every household. That was one of the few things on which the remain campaign and the leave campaign agreed. Both stressed to the voters the fact that this was deathly serious, that it was their decision and that if they got it wrong, they might not like the answer. Indeed, the whole purpose of the remain campaign, as I saw it, was to terrify people. It worked on the premise that if we voted to leave, we would be out. I remember Mr Dimbleby announcing the final result on television—the BBC was a bit reluctant to get to that point, but it eventually did so—that we were out of the European Union. He did not say, “Oh, we’ve just had an interesting advisory vote and maybe some people in Parliament will now think they ought to do something about it.”
Geraint Davies
A lot of the Brexiters I have spoken to voted for Brexit on the basis that there would be lower costs—the figure of £350 million a week was mentioned—yet we are now going to tear up the deficit plans in the autumn statement. They also voted on the basis of continuing market access, which is now at risk from tariffs, and of lower migration, which is obviously going to go up in the next two years as people run in through the door. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the British people should have a referendum on the exit package when they can see whether what they reasonably expected has come to fruition? They could then vote to leave if they wanted to, and if not, they could vote to stay in.
John Redwood
There is absolutely no point in having a referendum on the exit package. By the time we get to that point, we will already be leaving. The people have decided to leave. If we had a vote on the exit package and decided that we did not like it, the rest of the European Union would not say, “Oh, we’re very sorry, United Kingdom. We’ll improve your exit package.” Absolutely no way! They would say, “We are absolutely fed up with you, United Kingdom. You can’t make up your mind, you mess us around and you dominate the agenda with things we don’t want to talk about. You are out!” We have to understand that some of our partners have only a limited amount of patience. Some of them do not have very much patience already.
I regard my views and my vote as being those of a good European. I have always understood the full nature of the European project. It is a noble ideal to unite countries around a united currency, a political union and much more collaborative working. I also know that the British people, including myself, do not wish to do that. It is too close for us. That is why the British people have made the bold, heroic and sensible decision, as good Europeans, to say, “We don’t want to join the currency. We don’t want to join Schengen. We don’t want to join the next bit, which will be the political union.” So is it not good that Britain has honestly said—
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As much as I am enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s dissertation on the Brexit vote, it has been some time since we have spoken about workers’ rights. Is there anything that we can do about that?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that to my attention. I am listening carefully to the speech of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and he began by speaking about workers’ rights. The title of this debate is “Exiting the EU and Workers’ Rights” and I know that the right hon. Gentleman will strike a balance between the two parts of the motion. I am quite sure that he will remain in order, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for ensuring that I am paying attention.
John Redwood
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am speaking more about exiting the EU than the specific issue of workers’ rights but, as Members should understand, workers’ rights are entirely subsumed by the process of exiting the EU. We have to talk about the principles and the way in which we will exit the EU to make any sense of the workers’ rights part of the debate.
Tom Brake
One of the many claims made by the Brexiteers during the EU referendum campaign, and one to which the right hon. Gentleman has not referred, was the famous figure of £350 million a week for the NHS. One of the other claims was that they would support the rights of EU workers. I wonder whether he might touch on that because it directly affects the 1.5 million to 2 million UK citizens who are in other EU countries.
John Redwood
The Vote Leave campaign was clear that we want the Government to guarantee the rights of all legally settled workers in this country. The Government have said that everyone who is here legally is quite entitled and welcome to stay on the assumption that no one from our country who is living overseas is threatened. I do not believe that any of our European partner countries will threaten any of our people who are legally settled in those countries, so I think it is more or less absolutely guaranteed that everybody is welcome to stay and that the British Government have absolutely no plan to suggest that they should not be.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The right hon. Gentleman may be aware of an EU ruling in Northern Ireland just in the past two weeks. The Northern Ireland Assembly allocated some £7 million to help fund a direct link between Belfast International Airport and New York, but that was overruled by the EU, which said that it was out of order. Is that not another example of why we should be exiting the EU right now and not waiting until 31 March?
John Redwood
I am very much on the hon. Gentleman’s side on that issue but, as he knows, that will not be possible given the delays that are now being built in as a result of various issues and processes.
This House must now rise to the challenge of ensuring workers’ rights and removing the senior powers of the European Union in the way that the British people voted for. Of course, we want to take back control of the money and, once we have, the Government will have considerably more to spend on their priorities. The Vote Leave campaign recommended health as a priority, but it will be for the Government of the day, as Vote Leave always made clear, to decide exactly how to spend the money.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way again. On workers’ rights, did he hear the shadow Minister talking about the importance of making it easier to strike and his intention and desire to roll back trade union legislation? Does he share my concern that that would not help workers’ rights but simply reduce the number of workers?
John Redwood
I think that goes beyond the issue of European workers’ rights. All I want to say today on workers’ rights is that we must guarantee all of them as promised. I am strongly in support of the Minister.
In conclusion, we have a brave public who decided, despite the odds and the advice, that they wished to leave the European Union. They were not only brave but right. They are fed up with a Parliament that cannot do their bidding, that cannot even choose the taxes to impose on them, that cannot spend the money that all the taxes raise, and that cannot choose laws for them or amend them in the way that they wish. The issue today and in the weeks ahead is whether the MPs in this House can rise to the challenge. Can MPs at least follow the public and realise that they want a sovereign Parliament to represent a sovereign people? Where are the peace-loving Pyms and Hampdens of the modern era? Where are the champions of our liberties? Where are those who say, “Yes, we will support that great repeal Bill. Yes, we will give those powers back to this Parliament. Yes, we will make it easier to achieve Brexit, not more difficult”? That is what the public want and the Opposition should join us, welcome that view and get on with it.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate today and, I have to say, to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). Although I have great respect for the way in which he delivered his speech, I could not agree with a word of it apart from when he said that democracy is on trial. It is indeed, and the people of Scotland are watching intently.
However, begging your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to start with probably the only thing I have to say today that will garner support from Members on both sides of the House and offer my congratulations to Scotland’s own Andy Murray on securing top spot in the global tennis rankings. Becoming the first Scottish or British men’s No. 1 in the strongest era of the global sport of tennis is an incredible achievement. He will go down as not only one of the best Scottish or British sportsmen, but one of the greatest ever male tennis players. Well done, Andy; it is thoroughly well deserved.
We are now approaching five months since the EU referendum vote took place and we are still no clearer than on 23 June about what leaving the EU will actually mean. We still do not even know what role this House of Commons or the devolved Parliaments will have in invoking article 50. You would have thought that this would be a fairly simple matter of process that would be spelled out in a document before the referendum—perhaps something like a White Paper. Regardless of what people thought of the White Paper on Scottish independence—whether people agreed with the blueprint for an independent Scotland or not—it is clear that the people of Scotland were given far more information about what their vote would mean than happened in the EU referendum.
The Scottish Government produced a 700-page White Paper on Scottish independence. Whether this UK Government or the leave campaign, nobody came up with as much as a side of A4 on what would happen if the UK voted to leave—no plan, no blueprint, no vision. That is why it is impossible to tell what motivated a majority in the UK to vote to leave. Was it some idea of British nationalism? Was it immigration? Was it the whopper about £350 million a week for the NHS? Was it the ridiculous scaremongering from the former Chancellor or all the surviving former Prime Ministers? That is why when people talk about mandates and what the people want, it is clear the Prime Minister has a mandate to pursue exit from the EU, but she has no mandate over what that exit looks like, or to rip Scotland from EU institutions against its will. Indeed, the only detailed mandate that has been delivered to the Tories regarding Brexit is on the matter of the single market. It is spelled out in their 2015 manifesto, which states:
“We say: yes to the Single Market.”
It could not have been clearer, yet now we see prevarication.
What is clear is that far from having a cunning plan, this Government do not even have a seating plan. Where do they sit on the single market, on the customs union, on social security rights for UK nationals living in Europe, on the right to take advantage of the Erasmus scheme, or on Europol? Finally—although this list is far from exhaustive—where do they sit on the rights of EU workers to remain here in the UK?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. That was a good correction just in time, but if I have to be strict with the Official Opposition Front Bench at this end of the Chamber, I have to be strict with the SNP Front Bench at that end as well.
Neil Gray
I perfectly understand.
Despite months of SNP campaigning for the security of EU workers based in the UK, they are still to be played as bargaining chips or negotiating pawns for at least another two years. We have no idea how EU workers in the UK will be treated after Brexit or what rights they will have. This is about not just morality and the fact that these workers and their families have chosen to live, work and contribute to the UK, but the economic value that they add. The Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee is currently taking evidence on the economic impact of exiting the European Union. A paper submitted by 4-consulting states that EU workers contribute £7.3 billion to the Scottish economy. That is why the SNP is so keen to see a different immigration system for Scotland, one that recognises not only the value of workers from other countries to our economy but how dependent many communities and sectors are on imported skilled labour. But this Government will not give Scotland those guarantees, and we have no guarantees about workers’ rights in general either. We are getting mixed messages from those on the Government Benches. We are being told by some that workers’ rights are a burden, with the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) wanting a sunset clause, and others saying that we should implement only the workers’ rights that are practical.
Michael Tomlinson
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is making his case eloquently. However, did he fail to listen to the speech made by the Secretary of State, who set out clearly that all these rights will be transferred?
Neil Gray
For how long? In addition, does the Secretary of State carry the confidence of his Back Benchers? We are still to find that out. As I have said, so many of his colleagues have given us mixed messages about the so-called “burden” of EU workers’ rights on this country.
A substantial component of UK employment law is grounded in EU law, and where it exists it provides a minimum standard below which domestic employment cannot fall. Although some protections already existed in domestic law before being enhanced at an EU level, in many cases new categories of employment rights have been transposed into domestic law to comply with emerging EU obligations. Subject to the provisions of the EU withdrawal arrangement or a subsequent trade agreement, withdrawal from the EU would mean that the UK employment rights currently guaranteed by EU law would no longer be so guaranteed, which leaves us reliant on a Conservative Government to step up for workers.
A post-Brexit Government could also seek to amend or remove protections enshrined in EU law for UK workers. The House of Commons Library paper makes it clear that EU-derived employment rights that feature in primary legislation would be relatively safe from the effects of leaving the EU, but would be
“newly susceptible to the possibility of change.”
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
On 27 October, I received a reply to a question about what would be in the great repeal Bill. Part of the answer was that on exit day existing rights would be enshrined, but subsequently it would be open to the Government and this Parliament to change those rights.
Neil Gray
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and the point he raises will fill workers up and down this land with dread, because it will be this Conservative Government who are going to be responsible for the workers’ rights that we all enjoy. The Library paper identifies the greatest risk as the uncertainty surrounding the protections in secondary legislation, which is where much employment law is contained. That is where Unison and others also see the greatest risk, with the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield having been reported as seeking a five-year sunset clause to the great repeal Bill. That would mean that all protections currently the subject of EU regulation would automatically expire, wreaking intended and unintended damage to hard-fought workers’ rights and, in turn, to the economy.
Tom Brake
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that workers’ rights are most vulnerable in areas relating to agency workers and working time limits, particularly now that the Cabinet contains senior Members who have previously advocated a bonfire of the regulations on workers’ rights?
Neil Gray
Absolutely, and I will come on to those points later in my speech.
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 predates EU rules, but EU standards have led to the introduction of broad duties on employers to evaluate, avoid and reduce workplace risks. According to the TUC, the number of worker fatalities in the UK has declined significantly since EU directives were implemented. The Scottish National party continues to argue for better work conditions and fairer working environments. The protections for workers in insecure employment, including part-time workers, agency workers and those on fixed-term contracts, are enhanced by the EU.
Kevin Foster
The hon. Gentleman said that workers should be filled with dread, but should they not feel encouragement, as in so many areas this Parliament has legislated for standards that are higher than the EU minimum, not lower? There is no reason to believe that that will not continue, not least when people want to put election manifestos forward at election time.
Neil Gray
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the recently passed Trade Union Act 2016 and hope that he will consider his comments in those terms.
In these challenging times, we have seen moves to zero-hours contracts across many industries, and conditions where workers are vulnerable to exploitation and being trapped in a cycle of low pay. EU TUPE rights introduced important protections for workers affected by contracting out, company buy-outs and even the privatisation of public services. Without those rights, employees in permanent, secure jobs could be placed into more uncertain contracts or have their terms and conditions reduced.
The UK must continue to comply with EU employment law in full, including new rights adopted within the EU, meaning that future Governments cannot remove rights at work. UK workers should not be denied any of the rights enjoyed by working people across Europe. New rights are already under discussion within the EU, such as protections for posted workers, improved rights for working parents and the European pillar of social rights, so UK workers could be excluded from these protections post-Brexit. The TUC has said that
“workers should benefit from the highest level of protection in the EU. It should not be possible for future governments to take the opportunity to compete with other countries on the basis of a race to the bottom on rights at work.”
It is female workers who stand to lose the most from Brexit. Alongside the European working time directive, we also now have protections over maternity leave and equal pay, and better protection from sexual harassment and from pregnancy or maternity discrimination. Women in the UK secured the right to equal pay for work of equal value thanks to the EU, and although there is still a long way to go to close the gender pay gap, the protections from the EU push the agenda forward, rather than backward. We have no idea of what is to come post-Brexit. Pregnant women and new mothers have been protected by day one rights and unfair dismissal rights, and by protection from discrimination. The right to paid time off to attend antenatal appointments is also now secure for pregnant women, keeping them in work. The parental leave directive allows parents to take up to 18 weeks’ unpaid leave to care for a child and protects workers who need to deal with family or domestic emergencies. A staggering 8.3 million working parents qualify for these rights in the UK.
Perhaps one opportunity I can see from Brexit is to discuss where the powers and responsibilities currently held at EU level will reside when the UK leaves. Obviously, we would expect the areas of devolved responsibility, such as agriculture and fisheries, to be automatically devolved, along with their substantial budgets, but I would like this to go further. Last year, during the Scotland Bill debates, we were told that we could not devolve employment law, but it makes perfect sense to do it post-Brexit. It is not just the rights currently enjoyed by workers that we can see being eroded; current and future events are likely to have a detrimental impact on working conditions and the quality of life of working families.
We have a perfect storm approaching for working families. We see the report from the Resolution Foundation today on the devastating impact of the benefit cap, but we also have cuts to universal credit work allowances coming down the line, a potentially devastating spike in inflation predicted to arrive next year, a massive drop in the pound and the potential threat to employment law post-Brexit. Employers and employees alike are demanding information, details and plans from this Government to provide security where there is currently significant insecurity and uncertainty.
This evening we are going to hear, as we have indeed already heard, Tory after Tory trump up—that pun was intended—that somehow they speak for workers in these isles and that somehow because it was Conservative Governments that brought in factories Acts in the 19th century, that absolves them of their most recent disastrous history. So let me remind the House that it was a Conservative Prime Minister who destroyed the lives and livelihoods of mineworkers with generations of unemployment; that it was a Conservative Chancellor who said at that Dispatch Box in 1991 that unemployment was a price “worth paying” for bringing down inflation; and it was those Government Members sitting opposite now who forced through the worst legislative attack on workers’ rights in living memory, in the form of the Trade Union Bill. So forgive me if my party and the people of Scotland do not trust any Tory government with workers’ rights.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate although, in many ways, it has little value. On the basis of some of the speeches that we have heard from Opposition Members, it has added nothing to what should be a serious consideration of how we move forward as we give effect to the will of the people. The majority was slim—we must always remember that—but nevertheless we have to accept the verdict.
We are debating something that was never a strong point for the remain camp during the referendum debate. I had a very firm view on this, because we do pass laws in our Parliament and we do have a sovereign Parliament. I really do not want to rehearse all the arguments of the EU referendum debate, but when it comes to the issue of workers’ rights, I think that the argument advanced by some in the remain camp was weak, because this Parliament has extended workers’ rights. Doubtless other Conservative Members who contribute to the debate will remind us of our party’s fine tradition of extending workers’ rights. For example, in the previous Parliament, I was proud that we extended paternity rights in a way that the EU had not. I always thought that it was just a non-debate to say that, for those who wanted to remain, the heart of the matter was protecting workers’ rights.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Does the right hon. Lady not appreciate that many of us had to argue that case because trade unions used EU law to get victories for their workers in court?
Anna Soubry
Yes, but the unions did not need to use EU law—that was the point. This country has rights through common law and in statute; it was just not a problem. I am somewhat concerned and slightly agitated about this matter. The very firm words from our excellent Secretary of State—I was delighted when he was appointed to his job—could not have been clearer. He said that all the rights that we have by virtue of our membership of the EU will be transferred into substantive British law. Which part of that do Opposition Members not understand? My right hon. Friend could not have been clearer. I absolutely do take his word, and indeed the Government’s word, on this. In many ways, this is a bit of an otiose debate—if I can put it in those terms—because I have no fear that any of the rights that have been accrued over decades by virtue of our membership of the EU will be diminished.
Anna Soubry
And now, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because this is a debate.
Neil Gray
I ask the right hon. Lady to forgive me for not giving way during my concluding remarks; I thank her for giving way to me. Although she may take her Secretary of State at his word on this, can she not understand our worry that there are members of this Government who are quite clearly of a different view, and who made that very clear during the EU referendum campaign?
Anna Soubry
Heaven forbid that we should ever have different points of views within the Government. I will come on to the concerns that some rightly raise about the rhetoric of the leave campaign. I wanted to intervene on the hon. Gentleman because, as someone who had experienced the miners’ strike on an almost daily basis—I was a reporter working for Central Television in Nottingham—I wanted him to understand that what the Conservative Government rightly did was to protect the rights of coal miners in counties such as Nottinghamshire who had had a vote and had decided that they wanted to work. They faced, on an almost daily basis, a small army of pickets who came down and used the most atrocious tactics to try to prevent them from exercising their right to work.
Anna Soubry
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am more than happy to have a debate with him about the rights and wrongs of the miners’ strike outside the Chamber, but I take grave exception to the rather large amounts of nonsense that he was spouting when he gave us his comments about Margaret Thatcher and the then Conservative Government. None of those pieces of legislation that were passed by the Thatcher Government —particularly when they were up against the tyranny of trade union leaders who frequently denied workers the right to have a say about how they worked—to restore workers’ rights and to do the right thing by working people were repealed in the 13 years that Labour were in government. Why was that? It was because members of the Labour Government knew in their hearts that that legislation was what working people wanted. I say that as someone who is a proud trade unionist and who was a shop steward in my union.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. I am glad that we will be on the same side on this issue. Does she agree—I think she has alluded to this—that the Brexit debate has been characterised by a lot of misinformation and broken promises, hence the need to make sure that this matter stays on the agenda? Does she also agree that there is understandable concern and perhaps confusion about the Government’s commitment and their ability to bind any future Ministers and Governments, because some Conservative MPs have raised the issue of a sunset clause or a watering down of employment protections, and have promised to implement that wherever practical?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady will have an opportunity to make a speech later.
Anna Soubry
Given the hour, the fact that we are all on a one-line Whip and the fact that the House will rise tomorrow, I suspect that a lot of Members will want to make their speeches by way of a quick intervention. I forgive the hon. Lady for her intervention and hope she does make a speech.
If there are to be further debates, we should consider some of the matters raised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who seems to have vacated his place. He talked about the detail of how the transfers will take place. Will that happen in a general sense under the great repeal Bill, or will it be done in dribs and drabs by virtue of statutory instruments? The effect will be exactly the same, so I do not have any concern in that regard. His point about how the devolved Administrations will be affected is important.
The hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) should have raised such matters in his speech, but instead he used the debate as an excuse to launch off a series of slogans based on ideology that were, in many ways, deeply offensive. He then turned his speech, in a rather childlike way, into a tirade against Tories. His hugely unsubstantiated and sweeping statements did nothing to advance the argument for having a proper debate and restoring politics in this country to a much more civilised footing.
I do understand that Labour is in a huge dilemma. The reality is that seven out of 10 Labour MPs represent seats that not only voted remain, but, in most cases, overwhelmingly voted remain—[Hon. Members: “Leave”.] Sorry, I meant to say leave. If only they had voted in the way I said, but sadly they did not. Would that not have been a sweet moment? Would it not have made the position of the Labour party so much easier?
The hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) represents my neighbouring seat. I have a lot of time for her—I hope that that will not be used against her. Such is the current atmosphere, which has been stoked up by people such as the hon. Member for Norwich South, that a Conservative giving praise to a Labour MP can be used against them by the so-called Corbynistas and Momentum. I hope that I cause the hon. Lady no difficulty by paying tribute to her. She is a great MP who has brought much to our House. There was an 80% turnout in her constituency—no disrespect to the good people of Ashfield, but they have never voted in such numbers—and just under 70% of people voted to leave. That means that it is inconceivable that she will not vote for article 50, and she is by no means alone.
I very much hope that that vote takes place in this House. I do not want to go too far into that debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you would rightly admonish me, as we are meant to be talking about workers’ rights as well as about these other much bigger problems, but it is the sort of debate that we really should be having in this place. I want debates after which we have votes that actually mean something. Labour is in a real dilemma. As I say, if we have that vote on article 50, it is inconceivable that Labour Members to a man and a woman will not vote to leave the EU, not least because many of them, like me, understand that we went to the nation saying clearly that if people voted leave, that was what they would get.
I will be quite honest: I have struggled with this ever since June. It has been my long-held belief that our country—our nation—is considerably better off as a member of the European Union. I have spoken about that at length. I am a firm remainer. If there was a scale from one to 100 showing how firm a remainer someone was, I would put my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) at 100 and myself at about 95. I have grappled with my own long-held views, which I hold passionately, and with the fact that when I stood up and addressed my constituents, wrote my email newsletter or went out into the streets of Broxtowe and beyond, I said, “If you vote leave, you will get leave.” One colleague—it might have been my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood)— said that we in the remain camp were very clear about that.
Although I will find it extremely difficult, because it will be against everything I have ever believed in, I cannot see how I have any alternative but to be true to what I said I would do and true to my party’s manifesto—I never demurred from any of this at any time. Therefore, with huge regret, I would have to vote in favour of article 50 being triggered when the mater comes to this place—and it should come to this place; the learned judges are absolutely right. I say to the Government with some gentleness that it would be very good if having read the judgment, as I and many others have done, and understanding the law of this land, they said that they were not going to appeal. Three of the most senior judges took part in that judgment. The Government should not appeal it, but should bring legislation before this House.
Already right hon. and hon. Members have heard not only my views but those of colleagues such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). It is clear that those of us who now sit in the corner from which I am speaking would vote in favour of triggering article 50.
Geraint Davies
I am amazed that the right hon. Lady thinks that everybody who voted to leave was voting unconditionally to leave. Many of the voters in my constituency believed what they were told: their jobs were secure, they would save money and all the rest of it. In fact, the deficit plan has been ripped up. In Swansea bay 25,000 jobs depend on EU exports, many of which will be at risk. If people wake up and find that they have lost their jobs, they will think, “This is not what we were promised,” and they will be very angry. It is ridiculous to give unconditional support, as if everything that was said was true and there will not be problems.
Anna Soubry
I am sort of grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I have never given up on anything, but I have to understand, as he must, that we were very clear. We said to people that the referendum was their decision and that if they voted leave, they would get leave. However, that does not mean that I would not fight tooth and nail to make sure that the Government go into the negotiations seeking to make sure that we stay a member of the single market, for example.
The hon. Gentleman knows my views on the free movement of labour and people. Along with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), I am the most liberally minded—with a small l—Member of this House on immigration. Labour Members have the huge problem that they find themselves looking over their shoulders at the vote in their own constituency knowing, as I hope they do, why their constituents voted as they did. In many constituencies, people voted to leave because they wanted to reduce the number of people coming into our country. We should be clear about that. Labour Members have far more of a dilemma than I have as we leave the EU and try to work out the best deal for our country. I have no difficulty in making the case for us to stay in the single market, and I certainly have no difficulty in making the case for the free movement of people.
Kevin Foster
My right hon. Friend may take some solace from knowing that I am in a similar position, having voted in remain in the referendum, while the majority in my constituency voted leave. Does she agree that all the way through the campaign it was clear that if people voted leave, we would leave the EU, but it was never disputed that Parliament would deal with the details of how we did so?
Anna Soubry
Indeed. It is right that we in this place should assist the Government in determining our objectives—our underlying principles. I want our Government to go into the negotiations wanting us to stay a member of the single market, with all that that entails. They might not be able to achieve that, but they need some guiding principles and I want that to be one of them.
This Government have a proud record of defending the rights of workers. It is the Conservative party that has restored our economy, which is the foundation of everything else that we do. This is the party that is seeing employment going upwards and the number of people on jobseeker’s allowance going down. It is this party that could claim responsibility—effectively, by virtue of our economic policies—for that huge rise in employment, which means more jobs. If we really want to help workers in our country, we should make sure that they have good, safe, sustainable employment. I am also proud that it is this party that not only introduced the national living wage, but has taken so many millions of low-paid workers out of taxation.
There is far more that can be done to protect the rights of workers. I completely agree that conditions in places such as Sports Direct are totally unacceptable. I wish the local Member of Parliament had raised the matter in this place considerably sooner. I am delighted that our Prime Minister has made it clear that she takes the firm view that among her priorities are workers’ rights, and responsibility among businesses for how they employ people and protect their rights. For what it is worth, I agree that we should have workers on the boards of businesses.
It is important to talk about British people’s rights to free movement and travel so that they may go to other countries in the EU and work. Immigration—migration of labour—is a two-way process. Undoubtedly, our economy benefits greatly from the fact that people come here, whether they are low-skilled, no-skilled, middling skilled or high-skilled. We benefit from them coming to our country and working in our businesses and industry. We would be lost without them. When constituents of mine say, “We want less immigration. We want to send these people home”—that is the tone of the debate that is breaking out in our country—I say to them in quite robust tones, as the House may imagine, “Who is going to do the jobs? Who is going to do the work?” If we look at those areas with the highest rates of employment, that is where there are more migrant workers, because they do the jobs that need to be done. This is a two-way process.
I hope that the Government will think carefully before they rush down a route that leads to over-reducing and over-curtailing the number of migrants coming into our country, for all the reasons that are not the subject of this debate. Many hundreds of thousands of British people have the right to go and work freely in the EU. I think that that right is worthy of being protected.
This debate is not the most important of all those that we shall have when we consider and, more importantly, decide how we leave the European Union. I do not know who chooses the topics—[Interruption.] It is the Government. May I gently suggest to the Government that we should have real debates about the real difficulties, the real dilemmas and the need to make sure that we get the right guiding principles as we leave the European Union?
There is one last thing, which is very important. We talk about the 17 million people who voted leave, but we are in real danger in our country if we forget the more than 16 million people who did not vote to leave. At the moment, they feel forgotten and marginalised. Some of them feel bullied, threatened and intimidated on Twitter and other social media, and that is not acceptable. The job of all of us now is to bring people together and to move forward, not to reheat and rehash all the arguments we have had. We must come together, respect all points of view and move forward as we leave the EU.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), and I begin by echoing the last point she made: we are a divided nation, and what this referendum result has shown is that we are divided almost entirely down the middle. We in this House have a responsibility to seek to heal the wounds and to reduce the division that has been created by this big choice—like the right hon. Lady, I accept the result, even though I campaigned passionately for remain, although I am not going to say where I would rate on her scale. However, we have to uphold and respect the decision of the British people, and it is very important that we are clear about that. Secondly, I very much support what she said about this being, I hope, the first of many debates in which the House has an opportunity properly to scrutinise the enormous task we have as a country in negotiating our withdrawal from the European Union and in establishing a new relationship with the 27 member states—although we are leaving the institutions, we are not leaving Europe. Therefore, I welcome the fact that we are having this debate.
We have heard already that membership of the European Union has made a significant contribution to the development of rights and protections for workers in the UK. I am bound to reflect on the fact that that played an important part in changing the attitude of the party of which I am proud to be a member, and of the trade union movement, towards Europe. One could trace that back to a particular moment: the speech Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission, gave to the Trades Union Congress in 1988, when he laid out before delegates the vision of a social Europe—I think he was named Frère Jacques because of that speech. The Labour party and the labour movement, which had been Eurosceptic, began moving towards a strongly pro-European position, as the Conservative party, which had been pro-European, passed us in the other direction, heading towards being a predominantly Eurosceptic party.
The Government have given a commitment to maintain employment rights and workers’ rights, and I am absolutely sure that the House will hold Ministers to that commitment. I want briefly to raise four issues in relation to that. The first is the relationship between the great repeal Bill and those rights. As all Members of the House know, those rights are already enshrined in our law, but some are to be found in primary legislation—for example, the equality rights in the Equality Act 2010—so they can be amended only by primary legislation. Others—for example, working time rights and the protection of agency workers—were implemented by means of secondary legislation, and can therefore be more easily changed and repealed. There are also some EU rights that have direct effect because they are derived from the treaty.
Therefore, there is a serious question to the Government, which I hope the Minister will address in responding to the debate. Given the different basis of these rights—my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) made this point forcefully in his opening contribution—how exactly will they be given equal status and equal protection in the great repeal Bill? In particular, what will be the mechanism for making any changes to the different types of legislation? Could that be done by amending statutory instruments in the case of those rights that have been put in place by that means, or would primary legislation be required to entrench them and therefore give greater reassurance?
Obviously, it remains to be seen what is in the great repeal Bill, which is actually the great retrenchment Bill, because the only repeal bit will be the very last stage of the process, which is repealing the European Communities Act 1972 to take us out, but the rest of it will entrench in legislation these rights and many others, as well as environmental protections and so on. However, I just say to Ministers that the House will need to be reassured that there will be full and proper parliamentary scrutiny of any proposal to undo or change legislation.
Given the nature of the reassurance that Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have given, there is also the related question of what will happen to the body of European Court of Justice judgments that have interpreted the way in which legislation has been applied, and of whether anyone, once we have left the European Union, will seek to re-litigate some of the judgments that the Court has made, which some people in this country have taken exception to—wrongly, in my view.
The second issue I want to raise is the relationship between our potential future access to the single market and the further development of workers’ rights in the European Union pending our departure from it and after we have left. As we know, the Government have yet to make a decision about the nature of our continuing access to that market, but there is a question as to what would happen if and when the 27 member states, after we have left, decide to change or improve workers’ rights inside that market, and the UK, for the sake of argument, has access to it, but is not a full member of it. Understandably, in those circumstances, other member states might be worried that the UK, by not applying those rights if we do not follow suit, is in some way undercutting those other member states or engaging in a race to the bottom. Therefore, in terms of arguing for the fullest possible access to the single market, which I presume is what Ministers will eventually conclude is the right thing to do, not least because of the assurances they have given to Nissan to secure future investment, it would be helpful to hear from the Minister what approach Ministers would intend to take in the eventuality I have described.
The third issue is the Government’s negotiating objectives, which we dwelt on to a great degree in the Secretary of State’s statement earlier today. The truth is that we now know what the Government’s negotiating objectives are in relation to workers’ rights and employment protection, because those have been set out in the debate so far: we are going to move them into domestic legislation. We therefore now know what the Government want to do on that. We also now know what their negotiating approach is to the motor manufacturing industry, because of the commitments set out clearly to Nissan. In particular, we know that their negotiating objectives for the industry are not to have tariffs, but also to ensure that there are no bureaucratic impediments—those were the words of the Secretary of State—that make it more difficult for trade to be undertaken, whether that is rules of origin, or greater certification or product standards. Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate for the rest of industry and our service sector—80% of our economy is services, and we have 1 million jobs at least in financial services—to ask, as I suspect they will, “So what are the Government’s objectives for our industry, our sector, our future, our concerns and the reassurance we are looking for?” I gently say to Ministers that I really do not think they are going to be able to sustain the position they are currently taking, which is to resist such requests in the face of what will be a growing queue of people who will be looking for facts, reassurance and a plan.
That brings me to my final point, which is about transitional arrangements. Given that the Government have not ruled out transitional arrangements—if we believe today’s report in The Times, those are under active consideration—what approach will they take to such arrangements, including in so far as they affect employment rights, pending the negotiation of a new trade and market access deal? It may be that the Government will be able to pull off the divorce negotiations, which is what article 50 is really all about—the parallel would be dividing up the CD collection and deciding who is going to pay the outstanding gas and electricity bill—in under two years. The Prime Minister has said that she wishes to trigger article 50 by the end of March. However, there are elections in France and in Germany, and in all probability we will not know the nature of the new Governments—certainly in the case of Germany—until the autumn, and it may well be hard to start substantive negotiations until such time as there is clarity about the position of the German Government. If article 50 is triggered at the end of March, we could therefore have just over a year and a half to complete all of this. If it is not going to be possible to do it all—the divorce settlement and negotiating a new trade and market access agreement—then it would be very wise for the Government to look to negotiate a transitional arrangement, and even more wise for them to say now that that is what they intend to do.
Anna Soubry
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Should we trigger article 50, very simply through a very simple piece of legislation, as soon as possible, and then look at the other arrangements that he is talking about, or does he fear, as I do, that we will have no option as soon as this place has triggered article 50—if it does so—or the Government do so in March, since the clock will start ticking as soon as that happens?
Hilary Benn
I have consistently made clear my personal view—the Select Committee has not yet considered this—that it is wise to separate out the issue of triggering article 50 and the Government publishing their negotiating objectives, for the reason the right hon. Lady gave in her speech. Those of us who campaigned for remain lost the referendum, and we have to uphold the result. I fear that bringing the two things together—conflating them—would inevitably turn any vote on the triggering of article 50, if it is allied with conditions, requirements or whatever, into what the public would see as a vote about whether we are going to uphold the outcome of the referendum. We should deal with the two things separately.
When the time comes, I shall, as I have already said, vote in favour of triggering article 50. The referendum decision having been made, the only way in which we can honour that—the only way for us to leave—is for the article 50 button to be pressed; there is no other mechanism. We are therefore bound to vote in that way. I know that not all Members will share that view, but I believe that the vast majority will accept the logic of the argument. We should keep separate our request to the Government, which we will hear increasingly in all parts of the House, to tell us what the plan is. I am sorry that earlier today we were still hearing the argument that in asking the Government to publish a plan we are somehow trying to undermine the outcome of the referendum. No we are not—we are accepting the outcome of the referendum. We are leaving, and it is therefore really important that the House and the public know what the plan is. This is a serious business with very important consequences for the nation.
The reason for announcing that transitional arrangements will be sought in the event that this cannot all be tied up within two years is that, in particular, it will offer some reassurance to industries that are thinking, “Crumbs, we might tumble out in as little as two years with no agreement.” We know what that would mean for trade under World Trade Organisation terms. Some businesses—one thinks of parts of the financial services industry—will say, “We can’t face that possibility because it creates huge uncertainty and might affect our ability to carry on doing our business.” They will therefore start working backwards and say, “We can’t possibly get into a situation where we tumble out and we can’t do the business we are doing at the moment so we need to make contingency plans now.” That may lead them to decide to do things that have consequences for jobs and employment here in the United Kingdom.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I am grateful to my Committee Chair for giving way; he is making a sterling argument. Are not transitional arrangements so important because there are strong noises coming from Europe that it will not even begin discussing the new relationship until the exit procedures are completed?
Hilary Benn
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful and important point. The question in these negotiations will be the extent to which the 27 are willing to talk informally about tying up these arrangements. If the argument in Europe is, “We should leave that until later”, the need for transitional arrangements becomes even more urgent because otherwise we are left with a cliff edge, as many people have described it. If one is going to fall off the edge of a cliff, which is not something I have ever done, it is probably wise to plan where it is one is eventually hoping to land. That is a very strong argument for this.
It is not seeking to undermine the referendum result, it is not unpatriotic, it is not demanding a running commentary, it is not trying to tie the Government’s hands, and it is not trying to box in the Prime Minister and the Ministers who are going to negotiate this to say to the Government, “Please share your plan with this House.” Parliament would like to be a participant in this process, which is the most important task that we have faced as a nation for decades. I sincerely hope that it will not be too long before we get a chance to see that plan.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. This has been a very good and lively debate, and I do not want to put on a formal time limit because that curtails the quality of the debate, but if, from now on, Back Benchers would take approximately nine minutes each, then everyone who wishes to speak will have a chance to do so.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It is a great pleasure, Madam Deputy Speaker, to catch your eye in this important debate. It is also a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Chairman of the new and important Brexit Committee. I hear what he says, but I am concerned about revealing too much of the negotiating position. I enjoyed what he said about the ECJ and the body of case law. He is right that there is an important amount of work to be done in that regard. It is also a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). We approach this from different sides having fought on different sides of the argument in the run-up to the EU referendum and, I suspect, on some of the detail thereafter. I applaud the tone and maturity of her speech. I also applaud what she said about triggering article 50, and entirely and wholeheartedly agree.
Employment and workers’ rights is a very important subject. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on youth employment. Very sensibly, my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), changed the name of the group from “youth unemployment” to “youth employment”—an altogether more positive outlook—and I have continued that tradition. Each month, we look at the latest figures and statistics on unemployment and the labour market. My right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe is entirely right in her analysis of those figures. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) is wrong in much of his analysis. I need only mention one or two points to show that that is correct. Employment is at a record level of 31.8 million—up by over 500,000 this year, and up by over 2.8 million since 2010. The hon. Gentleman said that wages are decreasing, but he is wrong. Pay, including bonuses, rose by 2.3% over the past year. There are now over 740,000 job vacancies, despite the fact that we are at record levels of employment and of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance. Just touching on those figures makes it abundantly clear that when the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Prime Minister say that the Conservative party is the workers’ party, it is said with a very straight face, utterly seriously and sincerely.
In the nine minutes or so that you have allowed me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to discuss two points. First, there are the accusations made by Opposition Members that the Conservative party cannot be trusted with workers’ rights. Secondly, it has been said, wrongly, that we rely on and need the European Union in order to protect workers’ rights. Those accusations are wrong on all fronts.
It is successive Conservative Governments who have strengthened workers’ rights. My right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, who made many good points, mentioned two issues: the living wage and lifting those on low pay out of taxation. I will add a third, namely the coalition Government’s measures on family rights, including maternity and paternity rights, which the Secretary of State himself mentioned. Those rights are not reliant on the EU; they go further than the EU. The EU’s minimum requirement of 14 weeks is far outstripped and exceeded by the 52 weeks introduced by this Government.
I will come back to the EU, because for now I am going to concentrate on the successes and track record of successive Conservative Governments. I mentioned in an earlier intervention the wonderfully titled Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802, which was introduced by Robert Peel, the father of the Robert Peel with whom we are more familiar. He was first baronet and Member of Parliament for Tamworth, and the Act was the very first document on the statute book to formally protect workers’ rights. For the very first time, working hours and conditions of labour were regulated, not by a Labour Government—the party did not yet exist—or a Liberal Government, who were very illiberal at times, but by a Conservative. His son, as Prime Minister in 1844, continued that tradition and further strengthened workers’ rights.
In 1878, Disraeli consolidated the Factory Acts. In 1901, Lord Salisbury further consolidated and enhanced workers’ rights. Neville Chamberlain is remembered for many things, but rarely for his excellent work further consolidating and strengthening workers’ rights in his Factories Act 1937. I could go on, but I will mention just one more example, because I am mindful of your time restriction, Madam Deputy Speaker. In 1961, another Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, introduced another consolidating Act and workers’ rights were strengthened.
People could say, “1802, 1878, 1901 and 1961 are ancient history. What relevance do they have?” They are relevant not only because it was Conservative Prime Ministers who strengthened the rights of workers, but because it happened before we were in the EU. Far from requiring the EU, we were leading the way and doing so at every turn.
I turn to the false argument that we need the European Union in order to have strong workers’ rights. That is wrong. In fact, the United Kingdom has been ahead of the game for a long time in terms of workers’ rights, particularly health and safety, which is very important. I will digress momentarily, because the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 was enacted by a Labour Government. We should not forget, however, the important work of Willie Whitelaw, who unfortunately was booted out of power before he had a chance to enact that legislation as the Secretary of State for Employment. He stood at the Dispatch Box in January 1974, before the general election, attempting to legislate on the subject.
I will stick with the theme of health and safety at work. The United Kingdom has consistently had one of the lowest rates of fatal injury across the EU. According to a 2016 paper that refers back to 2013, the rate was 0.51 per 100,000 employees. Of course, any figure relating to fatalities is too high, but it is worth noting that that figure is among the lowest in the EU—it is second only to Malta—in terms of health and safety records.
I will mention just one other statistic that is worth taking into account: only 1.4% of United Kingdom workers reported an injury occurring at work that resulted in sick leave, compared with 1.8% in Spain and 3.1% in France. Again, the figure is too high, but it is among the lowest and it demonstrates a high level of commitment in this country to the health and safety of workers. We are consistently ahead of the European Union and have been for a long time.
The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) mentioned—I have no doubt that he is still discussing it now—the European Court of Justice, but he was wrong to pray in aid the ECJ as some sort of helper for workers’ rights. The truth is quite the opposite. Let me give just one example. In 2007, the ECJ determined whether this country was in breach of article 361 of the 1989 European directive on health and safety at work. Thankfully, the Court eventually determined that this country was not in breach of it: it took it only 33 years to determine that this country had, in 1974, secured the very workers’ rights that the proponents of the EU who opposed us had said that we had not enacted. It is a shame that it took 33 years for the ECJ to accept that the 1989 directive had already been secured by this country. Those rights that the EU said that we should protect had already been protected in 1974. We do not need the European Union in order to protect workers’ rights. This country has long been ahead of the game.
Melanie Onn
In the spirit of this and the immediately preceding Government’s championing of workers’ rights, does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that a rule that stood for more than 150 years, namely that a worker injured as a result of a breach of health and safety legislation could bring a civil claim for damages, was simply swept aside in 2013, meaning that only criminal sanctions are applicable, thereby reducing the rights of working people?
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, because that was the very point that the ECJ looked at in 2007. It determined that a criminal sanction was a more than sufficient and adequate remedy and protection for workers. It determined that this country was ahead of the game back in 1974, albeit as a result of an Act introduced by a Labour Government. The Prime Minister is right to say that we should leave the jurisdiction of the ECJ. We do not need its help in order to be ahead of the game when it comes to workers’ rights.
Does that mean that all is perfect? No, of course it does not—there is always room for improvement—but neither does it mean that the accusations levelled at us from the Opposition Benches are right. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have confirmed that EU law will still apply and that existing workers’ rights are guaranteed.
I can see your thumbs drilling away, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have exceeded my nine minutes by a minute, but I have had an intervention. I will end by saying that the Secretary of State is absolutely right to call us the workers’ party. We should not rely on the EU or the Labour party to protect workers’ rights, because they will not do so. Workers’ rights did not start with the EU, nor will they end when we leave. We can be confident that, under this Prime Minister, workers’ rights will be protected.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I welcome the thrust of what the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has said today, and I welcome the assurances given by the Prime Minister in her conference speech. I am genuinely inclined to believe that this is what the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union honestly think will happen, given what the latter argued in an article on the ConservativeHome website after the referendum but before he got his current job:
“The great British industrial working classes voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. I am not at all attracted by the idea of rewarding them by cutting their rights. This is in any event unnecessary”.
However, my concern is that the Government’s proposals so far simply do not measure up to their rhetoric. At the risk of echoing the salient words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), despite what the Secretary of State has said today about the great repeal Bill we have not been offered any more explanation about it and the Secretary of State has stopped short of offering a commitment to primary legislation to protect workers’ rights. That gives me continuing cause for concern. The great repeal Bill will not protect all existing workers’ rights. It will leave them in a much more vulnerable position.
According to the House of Commons Library, the Government’s great repeal Bill is likely to seek to secure in its existing form all legislation passed under the European Communities Act 1972. That includes equal rights for part-time and agency workers, the working time directive and the TUPE regulations. Those who were in the Chamber for the launch of my Workers’ Rights (Maintenance of EU Standards) Bill will remember that I am no fan of those regulations. However, maintaining workers’ rights laws in secondary legislation while removing the minimum floor that the European Union provides will put those laws in a weaker position after we leave the European Union. This is not about saying that we must remain in the European Union. This is not, as has been suggested repeatedly, about frustrating the process of leaving the European Union. This is about ensuring that the future for working people in this country is not left hanging in the balance.
In theory, the proposals that have been laid out would allow any future Government to repeal or reduce existing employment protections without holding a debate or even a vote in Parliament. Realistically, I do not think that any Government—not even this Government—would simply repeal wholesale parental leave or any of the other fundamental rights that we have derived from the EU. I am, however, concerned about a chipping away at workers’ rights after we have left the EU, in the name of efficiency, cutting red tape, easing the burdens on business and streamlining regulation. I know that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has ruled that out, but his word only goes so far—much to his annoyance, I am sure. The fact is that the other two thirds of the team responsible for leaving the EU disagree with him.
In 2014, the Foreign Secretary said:
“The weight of employment regulation is now back-breaking”.
He said it was “very disappointing” that the previous Prime Minister, the former right hon. Member for Witney, took employment rights off the table during his renegotiation. The International Trade Secretary—the man who will be negotiating our trade deals post-Brexit—thinks that it is too difficult to fire staff in this country. He has said:
“It is intellectually unsustainable to believe that workplace rights should remain untouchable”.
When the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) mentioned health and safety legislation, my immediate thought was to consider this country’s excellent record in health and safety legislation. How has that been ensured? It has been by having health and safety representatives in workplaces, as agreed under collective bargaining rules with trade unions. Despite that, the Conservative Government have introduced legislation to try to decrease the opportunity for people to have paid time off to carry out those essential roles in the workplace.
When several members of the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister herself, have gone on record with statements similar to those that I have quoted, there is more than legitimate cause for concern about the future of workers’ rights. The Government could protect those rights by putting such laws into the strongest form of legislation. Any future Government that wished to reduce, alter or improve employment protections would have to hold debates and votes in both Houses of Parliament, under the full scrutiny of the parliamentary process, and they would have to make their argument in public.
Beyond allowing workers’ fundamental rights to be weakened, as I have already mentioned, the Government’s great repeal Bill—or the great entrenchment Bill—will also in effect cut a huge number of smaller employment protections. The Transport Secretary, when he was sent out on the Sunday morning of the Conservative party conference to explain the great repeal Bill, said that
“the Act gets rid of the supremacy of EU law. Decisions made by the European Court of Justice over the United Kingdom cease to apply.”
In practice, that means the ruling giving care workers the right to full pay for sleep-in shifts would cease to apply, as would the ruling saying that holiday pay must take account of overtime and commission payments, the provision for uncapped compensation for discrimination, the ruling that travel time is working time and the ruling protecting parents who care for their disabled child from discrimination at work. All those rulings would no longer apply.
There is a clear contradiction. If the Government’s great repeal Bill means that ECJ rulings will immediately cease to apply and it does nothing to protect people in such cases, a huge number of workers’ rights will be lost the day we leave the European Union. How does that square with the guarantees the Secretary of State gave the House earlier and with what the Prime Minister promised in September? The Government must address this point as soon as possible. My proposed Bill, which is currently going through this place, does exactly what I have argued for—protecting all existing workers’ rights in the strongest form of UK legislation. If the Government are serious about this issue, as they have said they are, I hope they will support my Bill when it returns to the House on Second Reading.
Finally, I want to address the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) in The Times two weeks ago, and reiterate that it would not be a sensible way to move forward. This was mentioned earlier in the debate, but there is no harm in repetition. He suggested that a sunset clause should be attached to the Government’s great repeal Bill to impose a limit of five years on every law passed under the European Communities Act. Parliament would then have to agree to each law it wanted to retain, and any that were not secured in time would fall at the deadline. However, this House would spend five years on nothing other than passing laws that already apply in this country. I cannot speak for the people of Welwyn Hatfield, but I know my constituents sent me here to win them more jobs, bring them higher wages, and to argue for better schools and hospitals, not simply to be content with the world as it is. The idea that we should allow him and his colleagues the opportunity to ransom working people’s rights, which trade unions fought for decades to win, is as laughable as it is dangerous. I hope the Minister will assure the House that the Government will whip their Members to vote against this ridiculous proposal as and when it reaches the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. We have about an hour left and eight Members wish to speak: they can do the arithmetic for themselves. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for keeping to the informal limit, but I think it should now be nearer to eight minutes.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), a Unison colleague.
I have to say from listening to some of the Government Members that the debate so far has been a bizarre, surreal and Orwellian experience—or should I say a Dickensian experience, given that reference has been made to the Conservative party’s glory days in 1802? Let us remind ourselves that Ebenezer Scrooge was a boy and children were sent up chimneys in 1802, the Conservative party’s glory days. As for the Conservatives being the workers’ party, I can only assume that Comical Ali is working in Conservative central office.
On the real issue about workers’ rights, I disagree with the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), because I do not think we emphasised workers’ rights enough during the EU referendum. I say that because of the legal advice issued by Michael Ford QC to the TUC, which states that
“employment rights in the UK are guaranteed by EU law. These rights include: protection against discrimination…; protections of workers on transfers of undertakings and in insolvency; health and safety…; rights to collective information and consultations on transfers and redundancies; working time rights; protection against discrimination of fixed-term…workers”—
I have had to use that very key EU law as a trade union representative before I came to this place—and, indeed, “data protection rights.”
Workers’ rights need to be protected if the UK—or even part of the UK—leaves the European Union. As others have said, those of us on the Opposition Benches have every reason to fear for workers’ rights if the Government are freed from the constraints of the EU. Our real fear is that there would be a war on workers’ rights from this Government. As others have noted, the Secretary of State for International Development said in a speech to that advocate of workers’ rights, the Institute of Directors:
“If we could just halve the burdens of the EU social and employment legislation we could deliver a £4.3 billion boost to our economy and 60,000 new jobs.”
I do not accept that economic illiteracy. It is a bit like the claim that the national minimum wage would cost £1 billion a year, when in actual fact it did the opposite. Who argued that position? It was the so-called workers’ party, the Conservatives. Viewed from working people’s end of the telescope, those so-called burdens are protections that we should be very keen on.
Which rights coming from the EU must be protected? The first is surely the EU equal treatment directive, which underpins equal pay legislation and has secured equal and improved pay for millions of women across the public services. Improvements do not rely only on directives; common law decisions of the domestic courts rely heavily on EU law. That has had the positive effect of women not needing to find a male comparator where they have suffered pregnancy discrimination.
The part-time workers directive has resulted in thousands of part-time workers gaining access to public sector pensions when previously they had been prevented from joining a pension scheme. The agency workers directive has resulted in UK agency workers gaining access to pay and leave improvements, and in many agency workers gaining permanent employment.
The much maligned working time directive has resulted in increases in holiday pay so that it includes regular allowances and so that pay is not reduced during holiday periods. It has allowed care workers on sleepover shifts in care homes to have their working time recognised when they are woken in the middle of the night to help the elderly. It has ensured safe shift patterns, reducing accidents and critical incidents, and pro rata annual leave for zero-hours contract workers for the hours that they have worked. The EU collective redundancy regulations have kept thousands of workers in work, rather than on the dole, by ensuring meaningful alternative redeployment or retraining are considered first before a final decision on employment is made.
Those are not burdens but real protections and have provided fair rights at work. Those workers’ rights must be protected. If the UK, in whole or in part, leaves the EU, we must ensure that those protections stay, and are not under attack from the zealots and fanatics who believe nothing good has ever come from the European Union.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who mentioned many of the benefits that workers get. The European Court of Justice guarantees those rights in work. The simple fact is that once we leave the EU, those rights will no longer be guaranteed. It is all very well having undertakings from Government Front Benchers that they will be there for the next few years; subsequent Parliaments may choose to repeal laws and get rid of those rights. If we stayed in the EU, they would not have that power.
It is also the case that if we leave the EU, as it looks like we will, we will face considerable tariffs and business costs. Businesses such as Nissan have already negotiated sweetheart deals, money under the table and that sort of thing; others will do the same, to have a level playing field. People suggest that there will not be tariffs, but only Germany and Holland have a net trade surplus with us. Other countries are likely to vote for some level of protectionism, if only to stop others leaving the EU.
Businesses will try to recover those costs and the Government will respond by reducing environmental standards, health standards and rights at work. The Government have already been taken to court by ClientEarth because 40,000 people are dying of diesel pollution. Why did the Government not act automatically? Of course, once we are out of the EU there will be no mandatory enforceability under EU standards. The case will be similar for people at work.
The Prime Minister has a vision of free trade for all. The International Trade Secretary has simply signed off the comprehensive economic and trade agreement—the Canadian trade deal—without reference to Parliament. The agreement enables companies to take democracies to court in arbitration courts without due process. They can sue Governments for passing laws that increase costs and reduce profits. We know the risks, and the assurances we have heard today cannot be trusted for the future.
My view, which I know not many people share, is that we should delay triggering article 50, because as soon as we trigger it, we have no negotiating power and have handed back our membership. The 27 other states will decide the deal we get and tell us what it is, and we can like it or lump it. Up to that point, we have negotiating power, but only if the EU assumes that we will map out a settlement that we can put to the people in a vote on the exit package.
I appreciate that there is not much appetite in the House for that, but I contend that the people of Britain who voted for Brexit did so on the basis of market access and lower costs—£350 million a week for the NHS. We know from the Chancellor that he will rip up his deficit reduction plans and borrow billions more. Obviously, there will be less money because there will be less inward investment, and therefore fewer jobs. They also voted on migration, but we have yet to see what will transpire. The simple point is that if people vote in principle for a product or action, they should have the right to vote again on whether their reasonable expectations have been fulfilled. In my view, they simply will not be fulfilled. In essence, people were mis-selling to the British public, and we will end up with a situation in which we will all be the poorer.
A lot has been said about the punishment from the majority of the British people if we have a quiet reconsideration of the situation and the exit deal, but I contend that the silent majority is already no longer in favour of leaving. That is clearly borne out when we look at the polls. Obviously, if 16 to 18-year-olds or ex-patriates had also been included, we would not have voted to leave. People are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with what is happening in the economy, whether it is because of the £14 for a visa to go to Europe, because the banks are saying that they will leave Britain, or because of the 30-year low in sterling and increasing inflation.
I do not believe that the advisory vote gives the Government a blank cheque to jump over the edge at all costs. We should certainly be free to debate and discuss these things without the intimidating tactics of people such as Nigel Farage, who said that we will see
“political anger the likes of which none of us have ever witnessed in our lifetimes”,
that there will be disturbances on the streets, and that he will summon up 100,000 people to march on the Supreme Court in order to put mob rule ahead of the rule of law and of parliamentary democracy. He seems to be the new, emerging Oswald Mosley.
It is frightening that the Government, in making the poor poorer by punishing them for the bankers’ errors, and in turning round and saying, “You can blame foreigners,” have helped to whip up a frenzy in the Brexit debate. The reality is that people from Europe who are working in Britain on average contribute 35% more in taxes than they consume in public services. I fear the direction of travel politically in this country. It is extremely divisive. As I have said, people are conjuring up hate and violence. Assuming that this goes through without people having the opportunity to have a final look at what they have voted for before jumping, they will be dissatisfied with what they get. Those who have most hope have most to lose.
The Labour party passed a conference motion saying that many people had, for various reasons, voted to leave and that the final settlement should be agreed to if it is considered acceptable. If it is not, we should have another look at it through a vote in Parliament, a general election or a second referendum. I appreciate that that view is not held wholeheartedly by my Labour colleagues.
I will conclude now, Mr Speaker, to give other Members time to speak. My fear is that people have voted in good faith for a stronger economy, lower migration and lower costs, but will not get that. If the package that is ultimately negotiated does not achieve that, they should have the right to reject it.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Every single MP I have spoken to since the referendum respects the result, but there is considerable disquiet about the Prime Minister’s hard Brexit rhetoric. She seems intent on severing not only all political ties but economic ones as well. Such a reckless Brexit would be disastrous for the economy, with a negative impact on the financial wellbeing of those we have been elected to serve.
Following the referendum, there is a clear ideological divide in this House between those who favour a hard Brexit and those who prefer a soft Brexit. I do not find the sort of rhetoric we heard following the High Court judgment—that we who prefer a soft Brexit are backsliders—particularly helpful. Since the High Court’s decision, the UK Government have been briefing heavily that if the House of Commons tries in any way to undermine the chosen path of the UK Government, they will hold a snap election. A general election could be triggered by a simple majority of MPs if the Government decide to bring forward a no confidence motion in themselves. As parliamentarians, our foremost duty is to look after the interests of our constituents. It is clear that, following the referendum, a softer Brexit is the best outcome we can hope for. A hard Brexit, whereby the UK leaves both the single market and the customs union, would be fraught with economic danger, even if the UK Government were miraculously able to negotiate a comprehensive new bilateral trade deal before the completion of exit procedures.
In the event of the UK Government cynically engineering a vote of no confidence in themselves, under the terms of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, an election will be held unless an alternative Government with the confidence of the House of Commons can be formed within 14 days. The Prime Minister could risk being challenged by an alliance of MPs from all political parties who oppose her hard Brexit trajectory. At such a pivotal moment in the UK’s constitutional history, pragmatic MPs should come together, rise above party politics and negotiate a soft Brexit for the UK.
The UK Government find themselves in this position because there was no plan for Brexit if the leave side won the referendum. By contrast, during the Scottish independence referendum, the Scottish Government published a 300-page White Paper on what independence meant. The UK Government effectively have a blank canvas, which is why we find ourselves having such debates and trying to work out the Government’s intentions on vital issues such as workers’ rights.
Following the result, the absence of a clear plan has meant that irresponsible politicians have been interpreting the result to fit their own ideological priorities. There is now apparently a mandate to leave the single market, despite the clear pledge in the Tory general election manifesto to protect our membership, to introduce draconian immigration targets, and to force companies to produce official lists of foreign employees. There is no mandate, however, to destroy the economy, which would cost jobs and affect people’s financial wellbeing. The overriding priority for all decisions should be to choose the Brexit option that minimises that impact.
Wales is, alas, more exposed because it has an exporting economy. Wales turns out a £5 billion annual surplus. Some 200,000 jobs in Wales are sustained by membership of the single market. Our great trading success is driven by our relationship with the European Union, not least the 53 deals we have with countries across the world as a result of the customs union. In answer to my parliamentary question, the UK Government disclosed that 15% of UK exports are dependent on those 53 international trade deals. The key question, therefore, is this: how long will it take to renegotiate all those international trade deals if we choose a path outside the customs union?
A trade deal with the EU might not even solve the wider issues around trade barriers, as they often just focus just on tariffs. Tariffs are, of course, a concern, but a blinkered focus on these obvious obstacles to trade detracts from the greater impediment of non-tariff barriers. On average, non-tariff barriers are over six times more costly than tariffs in the EU, and there is only one way to ensure that these non-tariff barriers are kept to a minimum—full single market membership.
Very simply, the terms of debate around Brexit are being driven by what is most important—economic concerns or concerns over immigration—and it appears that public opinion is already shifting. A poll earlier this month said that the economy was far more important than controls on immigration as people began to focus on the impact of Brexit on their jobs and wages. Perhaps the big driver has been the fall in the pound. I am someone who is normally seduced by arguments around devaluation, but the 20% fall that we have seen has been driven not by deliberate central bank policy, but by currency markets that are now betting heavily against sterling, affecting future confidence in the economy of the UK. That means that the sterling zone is now up there with the Nigerian naira, the Azerbaijani manat and the Malawian kwacha as one of the worst-performing currencies in the world. The impact of devaluation on people’s lives is, of course, that disposable income gets compressed as prices for food and fuel increase.
We should also be concerned about the extra costs that the UK Government will face if they want to borrow. We urgently need direct capital investment in infrastructure to drive economic growth, but the cost of putting that in place will be far dearer because of the fall in the pound. That is not to mention the £66 billion deduction in revenues that has been leaked by the Treasury. As the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) mentioned earlier, supply-side reforms in the economy could endanger workers’ privileges, protections and rights. The end result of these reduced revenues will be to smash the Treasury’s deficit targets, so we await the autumn statement, and not least the Office for Budget Responsibility report, with great interest.
The Prime Minister has triumphantly proclaimed that existing workers’ rights will continue to be guaranteed in law as long as she is in office. However, as the House of Commons Library and other legal experts have pointed out, many workers’ rights stem directly from EU treaties—the right to equal pay between genders, for example—and once we leave the EU, those rights would cease to exist, so new primary legislation would be needed to reinstate them. Do the UK Government intend to bring forward primary legislation to ensure that all rights currently enshrined at EU level are secured in domestic legislation? Rather than bringing in a repeal Bill, should we not be bringing forward a continuity Bill? As events proceed, people will become increasingly angry about the way things are going.
We have heard good points from SDLP Members about devolved competencies, but I do not think we had a clear answer to how the great repeal Bill envisaged by the UK Government will work with the devolved nations. As we know, there is a hugely diverging agenda between the Welsh Government and the UK Government when it comes to workers’ rights, as was evidenced by the recent court case over the agricultural workers dispute.
Returning to trade, we have heard a duality of messages from Brexiters since the referendum. There was supposed to be a protectionist paradise. Such arguments held considerable sway in the steel industry in south Wales in the face of Chinese dumping. Of course, dairy farmers face competition from Ireland and hill farmers in Wales are challenged by lamb coming from New Zealand. Yet the rhetoric that we currently get from the UK Government is that Brexit will lead to a free trade bonanza.
Given the time constraints, I shall finish now. If there is to be a future outside the customs union—as envisaged, I fear, by the UK Government—it is vital that the devolved nations have a veto and a direct say in discussions about international trade deals.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful for the chance to speak in today’s debate at a very critical stage in our nation’s history. Today’s debate is on workers’ rights and leaving the EU. It is very important because it is also symbolic of who could win or lose in post-Brexit Britain. The debate is vital, I believe, for our future fairness and prosperity. I hope that the choice of debate reflects an understanding on the Government’s part that this is one aspect of Brexit that it is vital for us to get right. Workers’ rights must be maintained in post-Brexit Britain. I also believe that the debate must strongly engage, and respect, the voices of those who voted or campaigned for leave as well as the voices of those who voted or campaigned for remain.
Over the summer, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), I wrote a piece proposing a six-point Brexit plan to help to support our prosperity and security. We said we believed that the UK needed to remain a member of the single market, although some reform of the market might be necessary if it were to do so. We recognised that the Tories’ 2015 manifesto promised to safeguard Britain’s interests in the single market. We called for, and understood the need for, greater controls over freedom of movement, on which, in my view, we should seek to negotiate with other countries. We said that we should protect our financial services sector—for example, through passporting rights—and keep up with the EU in respect of measures to tackle tax avoidance. I believe—I shall say more about this shortly—that we must keep our stake in the European Investment Bank. We said that we must shadow the EU’s environmental legislation, and must not become the weak link in Europe when it comes to tackling pollution and climate change. Vitally, however, we need to shadow the EU’s employment legislation: that, I believe, is absolutely crucial.
During the referendum campaign, people were promised that workers’ rights would be protected in a post-Brexit Britain. Yes, that means protecting the rights that we currently have, but it must also mean keeping up with future rights so that people in Britain, including the workers, do not have worse terms and conditions than their counterparts in Europe, where there may be companies that work across boundaries, and, indeed, where we want to ensure that our workers, particularly young people, have the best chances and opportunities for their futures as well. We want to ensure that we do not have weaker employment legislation than the rest of Europe. That would send all the wrong messages about Britain, which, as a progressive nation, has fought for so many rights over so many years, and, indeed, has been a leader in Europe in many debates of this kind.
Last week, I was proud to be part of the launch by the Fabian Women’s Network of a charter to help to protect the rights and support that we currently receive from the European Union, which make such a difference to women’s lives in the UK and whose loss could well have the most impact on women. That includes maintaining our workplace rights, much of which are underpinned by EU legislation; meeting
“funding requirements for the work programmes currently reliant on the European Social Fund which support women moving into work”;
safeguarding and protecting
“funding for programmes addressing violence against women and girls”,
and safeguarding the rights of survivors of such violence by ensuring that women have the same access to rights and legal remedies as they have under EU law; continuing to
“push for wider representation of women in top positions across all industries within the public and private sector, and step in to support female entrepreneurship and start-ups”,
including those in industries of the future, such as innovation and tech; and making a commitment
“to tackle the rise of hate crime and protect the rights of refugee women and ensure that the health and maternity needs of women who are imprisoned or detained are properly attended to.”
Women who voted leave did not vote to be worse off, or vote for their daughters to be worse off, and I hope that the gender impact assessments will form part of the Government’s plans.
We have big questions that need answering, and that is why the political process that we go through is important. We have big questions that must be answered before we are ready to get to grips with the details of how to protect employment legislation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) laid out very clearly the disparities in the basis of our rights in law and how a lot of detailed work will need to be done to make sure that they can all be embedded in UK law going forward and be on an equal basis.
It is because of the importance I place on getting this right for workers that I am so concerned about the process that we put in place now. If Parliament does not even have a say without there being heckling on the membership of the single market, what hope do we genuinely have of making sure we keep up with the finer points of employment legislation? As things stand, it appears the Prime Minister expects us to do nothing but rubber-stamp whatever deals she manages to negotiate by 2019. This seems to expect a sovereign Parliament to sit quietly by while she and her Ministers strike a deal behind closed doors. To say that her Cabinet Ministers are giving mixed signals would be an understatement. She called for a hard Brexit precipitating a fall in the pound to a 168-year low and she then started promising exceptions to some sectors, including the automotive industry and top banks. She has picked a time to trigger article 50 just seven months before federal elections in Germany and presidential elections in France, effectively wasting a quarter of our negotiating period, and meanwhile three of her MPs have resigned. More than four months after the referendum, we still have no idea what her plan for Brexit is, and as a senior leader recently said to me, we appear to be the only country in the world without a plan for Brexit.
As parliamentarians, our vital role is to hold the Government to account, and that means to scrutinise and have a say in the decisions that affect our constituents. We are not trying to kill off Brexit, and castigating those who ask probing questions as being enemies of the people or something similar is frankly a terrifying way for the Government to behave, and is not where we should be. We respect the mandate for leaving, but the terms matter. The precise terms on which we negotiate are vital and Parliament should have sight of, and comment on, those terms. Indeed our constituents—their lives, livelihoods and families—could face a very different outcome and future depending on the terms we negotiate.
We need a strategy for negotiation, therefore, and the Government must urgently review their approach and put their plans for Brexit before the House of Commons, and if not their detailed plans yet, then their priorities. They should include ensuring ease of doing business, ensuring that there are still maximum opportunities for young people to travel and learn, ensuring that there will still be opportunities for collaboration between scientists and investment in our universities, and making sure that our country is open and that people see we are ready for investment. We would then not have the sort of comments we have heard this week from the former high commissioner for India, who said that Britain is no longer seen as open and is becoming less relevant and less influential. We need to fight for the best possible deal—a deal that protects jobs, the economy and workers’ rights.
It is important that we maintain our stake in the European Investment Bank, and that we maintain a relationship that is as close as possible to what we have now. We need that infrastructure investment to support our economy now more than ever. It is the way we will address poor productivity and drive up growth and wages. When it comes to infrastructure investment, the EU has been critical to Britain’s prosperity and competitiveness. We currently hold a sixth of the shares in the EIB and last year it lent about £6 billion for 40 projects up and down our country, a 10% increase on the year before. Those cheap loans have been a vital source of funds, including £400 million for social housing in London. They have supported skills, jobs and apprenticeships and we should be doing all we can publicly as well as privately to push for this very beneficial relationship to be maintained post-Brexit. Indeed, how are we to ensure, understand and believe that the Government are doing all they can to negotiate the best possible deal if there is no scrutiny?
I welcome today’s debate. I also welcome the fact that the Government say that they want to secure our rights, but they need to do much more to cement their commitment. They need to address the questions about our different sets of rights. Some have their basis in primary legislation and some in secondary legislation, and different areas of our rights are underpinned by EU law. The Government need to set out how this will be taken forward in their great repeal Bill and how these rights will be maintained on an equal footing.
The Government must also make clear their position on a sunset clause in any great repeal Bill. They must give a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no dilution of current workers’ rights, and they must recognise the wider concerns expressed by stakeholders about the uncertainty that is currently being created. For example, the British Chambers of Commerce has reported that skilled EU migrant workers who have played an important part in our economy are leaving this country and going home because of uncertainty about their future. That is a wider issue relating to skills and employment. We also need to look closely at the transition arrangements, to ensure stability for investment in industry. There is a bigger picture here as well. We need to be assured that rights and fairness for workers will be clearly set out so that we will not be worse off in a post-Brexit Britain. There is more than one way to Brexit, so let us make sure we get it right.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra). Like her, I shall restrict most of my remarks to the subject of women, who are often disproportionately affected by the decisions that are made here. First, however, I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who so eloquently laid out the Scottish National party’s position on Brexit and on workers’ rights. In a similar vein, I also want pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who has impeccable credentials in this respect. He has been a champion of workers’ rights all his working life. We have heard mention of democracy and democratic will throughout the debate. I again want to put on record—in case anyone has forgotten—how Scotland voted in the European referendum. I remind the House that 62% voted to remain. We have heard today about the democratic will of the people of Scotland and the fact that the Scottish Government have a triple mandate to keep Scotland within the EU.
The subject of today’s debate is workers’ rights. In the past few decades, our membership of the EU has played a pivotal role in protecting and promoting equality and the rights of women in our country and across our continent. Thanks to EU legislation, women in the UK secured the right to equal pay for work of equal value. While there is still a long way to go in closing the gender pay gap, the protections that have emanated from our EU membership have served to push this agenda forwards. Thanks to EU laws, pregnant women and new mothers have been protected by a day-one right to unfair dismissal rights and to protection from discrimination. It was not that long ago that pregnant women could be immediately dismissed by employers, who had no responsibility whatever to re-hire mothers who had taken leave to have a baby. Now, specific rights have been enshrined in EU regulations, which provide protection for pregnant workers and new mums. Rights to paid time off to attend antenatal appointments are also now secure for pregnant women, keeping them in work.
The parental leave directive, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts, has helped 8.3 million working parents—a huge number—across the UK to take up to 18 weeks’ unpaid leave to care for a child. The directive also protects workers who need to deal with family or domestic emergencies. There is, however, still some distance to travel to deliver true gender equality at work, and the EU has brought us some way to protect families who are struggling to balance paid work and care for their children.
Over and above those specific rules to promote equality for women, EU legislation guarantees workers’ rights in areas such as protecting our entitlement to paid holidays and ensures, most importantly, that part-time, fixed-term or agency workers get fair and equal treatment in the eyes of the law. The rules protect everyone, but women in particular reap the benefits of a fairer, more equal workplace. The rights are some of the key reasons why I and so many others voted to remain in the EU. It is also the case that many who voted to leave want to see the rights maintained. The Prime Minster clearly stated to her party conference last month:
“And let me be absolutely clear: existing workers’ legal rights will continue to be guaranteed in law – and they will be guaranteed as long as I am Prime Minister.”
That is a welcome start, but I remain concerned that the Government’s actions are not matching that rhetoric.
I am particularly concerned by a written answer given last week to a question from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). When asked about the Government’s plans to give domestic effect to the agency workers directive through the so-called great repeal Bill, the Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) ominously stated:
“The Bill will convert existing European Union law into domestic law, wherever practical.”
How does “wherever practical” fit with the cast-iron assurance given by the Prime Minister on this wider issue only weeks ago? What practical issues have the Government identified so far regarding giving domestic effect to these vital rights? Which of the protections that have been given to workers in the UK are now under threat due to these practical issues? Can the Minister set that out today?
Throughout today’s debate, the Conservatives have sought to portray themselves as the party of workers’ rights. Our current rights were often resisted by the UK Government during EU negotiations, such as with agency workers’ rights and limitations on working time, so I am not quite sure why they are asking us to trust them today—we certainly do not button up the back. The ever-helpful House of Commons Library’s note prepared for this debate states:
“For example, having negotiated concessions in the proposal that became the Working Time Directive and then abstained from the final vote, the UK challenged the Directive’s legal basis”.
Those rights are now under threat again today. For example, we need clarity from the Government about the impact of Brexit on a range of specific rights and provisions for workers.
We are constantly, and rightly, contacted by constituents, such as mine in Ochil and South Perthshire, about what the result means for them, so I want to ask the Minister a series of questions. Will the Government seek to impose a cap on the compensation available for discrimination claims? Do Ministers intend to re-evaluate whether workers should continue to accrue holiday entitlement during a period of sickness absence or maternity leave? At present, workers cannot work in excess of 48 hours a week unless they opt out of this protection, but do the Government plan to consider removing that restriction? Following Brexit, what plans are being considered to remove or reduce worker’s TUPE rights? The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 give agency workers the same rights to basic employment and working conditions as other workers, so will the Government seek to remove or amend those regulations, which protect so many female workers?
It is all very well to say, as we have heard throughout the debate, that all rights will continue on day one. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who is not currently in his place, has said so often and so eloquently, the Government may well intend to highlight and copy in some of the rights from day one, but I am more interested in where “Select all”, copy, delete or paste will apply. We want to know that the rights will continue. Indeed, we want to know whether the UK will continue to keep up with much or all of the good legislation that comes out of the European Union about protecting workers’ rights if and when the UK leaves the EU. The Government need to be transparent about their intentions and act to reassure workers who are watching at home right now and guarantee the rights that have served women and men in this country for so long.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I rise to speak as a Member with more than 15 years’ experience as an employment lawyer before I entered this place and as someone who was motivated to seek election here in part because I do not believe our current system of workplace protection is adequate.
As we saw in the EU referendum, telling someone on a zero-hours contract or in agency work that there is a risk to their job from Brexit just did not cut it; a culture has been created in this country that views employment as a flexible, disposable concept. People do not know from one week to the next how many hours they will work or whether they will work at all, yet some still wonder why millions of people voted to reject the status quo. So although I welcome the assurances given on workers’ rights so far, I believe we need to go much further to obtain a workplace settlement that puts fairness at its heart. As I will explain, I am still concerned, despite the assurances given, about whether employment rights will be retained, given the track record of many in the Cabinet on this matter.
Employment workplace protection in this country at its current level is woefully inadequate. A person can work somewhere for two years of their life but still find themselves cast aside without any reason and without recompense, even if they have done nothing wrong—that was introduced by the coalition Government. How can people feel confident enough to plan for their future if we have a system that sacrifices that future at the altar of flexibility? We need a country where people have the security of knowing that if they do a good job and if their employer runs the business well, they are going to be rewarded properly and are likely to stay in work. What we have instead is a hire-and-fire culture where workers are seen as disposable commodities and where loyalty counts for nothing.
I would like to see many improvements in the current law—a reduction in the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, the strengthening of unfair dismissal laws and the abolition of employment tribunal fees, which we are still waiting for the Government’s review of—but in the context of Brexit the immediate concern has to be to retain what we currently have.
As I said, I welcome the assurances given, but they do not go far enough. We are all familiar with the term “gold-plating”, and in 2011 the Government announced they were ending the gold-plating of EU legislation and would not go beyond the minimum requirements of the EU legislation when implementing it in this country. I consider the term “gold-plating” to be misleading and insulting when talking about basic rights at work, as it conjures up images of opulence and extravagance that simply do not reflect the reality of most people’s experience in the workplace.
One example of where employment legislation is considered to have gone beyond the original EU rules is what is covered by the definition of “pay” in the agency worker regulations, but probably the most widely discussed relates to the working time regulations. The most obvious example of supposed “gold-plating” is the requirement for 28 days’ paid leave in UK law, whereas only 20 days’ paid leave is granted in the directive. It is not just the removal of the gold-plating that concerns me, as many other facets of the regulations could be altered domestically which would fundamentally change and weaken those rights. Could the maximum working week be increased? Could the number of hours worked before entitlement to a rest break accrues change? Could the way weekly rest breaks are calculated alter? Could these be changed across industries to suit? Could we see a return to the prevention of the accrual of holiday pay during sick leave? On collective redundancies, we have already gone down from 90 to 45 days in respect of the consultation, but the Government could go even lower. At the moment, businesses are required to consult trade unions where they are recognised, but what is to stop this Government taking the opportunity to undermine trade unions yet again by altering the rules so that employee representatives could be consulted instead?
There are similar provisions in the TUPE regulations, where there is also another good example of supposed gold-plating, with the application of the service provision changes. That applies to thousands of transfers every year, so I hope there will be no attempt to restrict TUPE’s reach. Another area where there is an opportunity for those who want to see an erosion of rights is in relation to post-transfer changes to terms and conditions of employment, a fiendishly complicated area of law, much of it subject to European Court of Justice judgments. I fear there will be a temptation for those who want to rid us of supposed red tape to say that it would be much simpler just to say there are no specific post-transfer restrictions on changes to terms and conditions.
So the Government can claim to be protecting employment rights derived from the EU, but they could, if they chose to, nibble away at those rights in the way I have outlined. I believe the temptation will be too great for many Government Members—I refer not to removing rights altogether but to significantly weakening them. Why do I say that? One has only to look at what members of the Cabinet have said in the past to get a flavour of where they are coming from. Although we have heard plenty about them tonight, these comments are so concerning that it is worth repeating a few again. Let us start at the top, because the Prime Minister, in an interview with HR magazine in March 2010, when she was shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said:
“Issues we are particularly concerned about are the Working Time Directive…and the Agency Workers Directive.”
In 2012, the Foreign Secretary said that the UK should scrap the social chapter. Last year, he said that the Government should “weigh in” on all that “social chapter stuff”. He claimed that the weight of employment regulation was “back-breaking”. When the Secretary of State for Defence was Minister for Business and Enterprise, he said that the Government must
“turn the screws tighter on burdensome red tape”,
and “de-regulate further and faster.”
The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), has also had quite a lot to say on the subject:
“To restore competitiveness we must begin by deregulating the labour market. Political objections must be overridden…It is too difficult to hire and fire, and too expensive to take on new employees…It is intellectually unsustainable to believe that workplace rights should remain untouchable”.
I could not disagree more with that. It is not just what the Government have said, but what they have done. The last coalition Government introduced legislation that enabled employees to be bought out of their statutory employment rights. They also introduced employment tribunal fees that have proved to be a massive barrier to people seeking to enforce their rights, as well as doubling the qualifying period before people can claim unfair dismissal.
If there has been a sudden and belated conversion to the importance of employment rights, I would welcome it and encourage Government Members to join me in arguing for increased workplace protection. If they agree that these rights are important, they will also know that not only are they about individual dignity and respect in the workplace, but they have social and economic value and are an essential component of a healthy, stable and progressive country.
Employment rights ensure that people can participate in the labour market without facing unfair discrimination. They give vulnerable workers more job security and stability of income. They help to encourage a committed workforce and the retention of skilled workers. They are not something that we spend enough time talking about in this place, but most of our constituents will be affected by them. While we need more workplace protection not less, I and everyone else on Labour’s Benches will be keeping a close eye on this Government in case they attempt to water down the rights that we currently have.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Last year, the people of Scotland made their voices heard loudly and clearly by filling these Benches with Scottish National party Members. The public discontent was palpable during the election campaign. Many people were sickened by the broken promises of the better together campaign. One may find no better example of that than being told that the only way to secure EU membership was to vote no. Indeed, people clearly remember Ruth Davidson MSP promising just that during a live televised debate on 2 September 2014, when she said:
“I think it is disingenuous...to say that no means out and yes means in, when actually the opposite is true. No means we stay in; we are members of the European Union.”
Let me be clear from the outset. I am here to represent my constituency, but as a member of the SNP, I was put here to ensure that the interests of Scotland are heard in this place. I was elected on a manifesto commitment to oppose withdrawal from the European Union.
The SNP Scottish Government were returned for an unprecedented third term in May on a pro-EU manifesto. It was the express will of the Scottish people a few weeks later in June to remain within the European Union. Scotland as a whole voted overwhelmingly to remain, as did every single one of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas.
While the Prime Minister fumbles around with what Brexit means—something that the people of Scotland rejected which is now being forced upon them—I can categorically tell her what it means to us. It represents economic uncertainty, a devalued currency, rising inflation, higher bills and mortgage payments, and a loss of up to 80,000 jobs. This is the plague of locusts that was supposed to follow a yes vote, according to the no campaign during the independence referendum. It really is not good enough for Scotland to be treated as secondary partner during Brexit negotiations. Scottish citizens are EU citizens, and their interests should not be sidelined by a Tory Government for whom they did not vote.
People in Scotland voted to remain for a whole host of reasons, but when I was out campaigning in the run-up to the referendum, workers’ rights were a common refrain from voters. They recognise the impact that the EU has had on the health and safety duties of employers to evaluate, avoid and reduce workplace risks. According to the TUC, the number of worker fatalities in the UK has declined significantly since EU directives were implemented. Pregnant women and new mothers have been protected from day one by unfair dismissal rights. There is a real understanding of the enhancements that the EU has delivered to the UK’s discrimination laws to include rights on grounds of sexual orientation, religion or belief, and age. The Prime Minister has been unable to give a cast-iron guarantee to Scottish citizens on the future of these and other workers’ rights after we leave the EU.
The European Union has ensured that workers are not subjected to exploitation or discrimination. Through its promotion of beneficial working practices, it has ensured that workers are treated fairly. As we have seen already with the introduction of tribunal fees, the draconian Trade Union Act 2016 and the increase in the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, the Tories seem intent on eroding the rights of people in the workplace. The bottom line is that the Conservative party cannot be trusted with workers’ rights. I worry about what the Government will attempt to do post-Brexit, unfettered by the EU.
Although EU-derived employment rights which feature in primary legislation would be relatively cushioned from the effects of Brexit, the greatest risk is the massive uncertainty that surrounds the protections afforded in secondary legislation, in which much employment law is contained. These laws are susceptible to revocation by secondary legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) said, the Prime Minister made a commitment at the recent Tory party conference to guarantee existing workers legal rights as long as she is Prime Minister. This gives me and many others little comfort. We have heard nothing of plans to move EU employment rights contained in secondary legislation into primary legislation as part of the great repeal Bill. If the Prime Minister wants to give guarantees, that would represent a good starting point.
A report recently published by Professor Alan Page of the University of Dundee entitled “The implications of EU withdrawal for the devolution settlement” suggests that many laws affecting devolved issues could be unilaterally scrapped by Westminster following a withdrawal from the EU. The repeal of EU regulations brought about by secondary legislation would not require the consent of Members of the Scottish Parliament. Professor Page has described this as “a significant potential gap” in law-making in devolved areas, and he points out that
“there is no requirement of the Scottish Parliament’s consent to UK subordinate legislation transposing EU obligations in the devolved areas”.
I agree with Professor Page’s conclusion that there are very considerable implications for devolution.
I say this today as a warning to the Prime Minister. What she does now—the action that she takes which affects Scotland—must be carefully considered. Her party holds no mandate north of the border, and people there will not stand idly by while she disrespects their wishes. Whatever Brexit means to her, she can rest assured that it will mean something completely different in Scotland. Those of us on the SNP Benches will not vote for anything that will damage the interests of the people of Scotland, and if the Prime Minister is serious about keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom, she will not ask us to.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to be called in this debate. I thank the Minister and hon. Members for giving us all a chance to participate. There are a number of issues that my constituents have asked me to raise in the House and I intend to do so.
My office staff will laughingly point to a sign in the office which works out time off in such a way that they owe me. Annual leave is only one of many workers’ rights that will be discussed and, more importantly, protected during negotiations. The Government told us:
“‘This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide’—no ifs, no buts”,
no second referendum. It was not a regional or a constituency referendum. It was a decision which all the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland took collectively, and that decision was to leave. Let us get on with the job and make sure that that happens.
The Government have been clear about the protection that will remain. The Prime Minister said that
“by converting the acquis into British law, we will give businesses and workers maximum certainty as we leave the European Union. The same rules and laws will apply to them after Brexit as they did before. Any changes in the law will have to be subject to full scrutiny and proper Parliamentary debate. And let me be absolutely clear: existing workers’ legal rights will continue to be guaranteed in law—and they will be guaranteed as long as I am Prime Minister.”
That is what our Prime Minister said. It is very clear. Let us focus on that as well.
I am probably a lone voice on the Opposition side of the Chamber, as one of those who voted out. I am very happy to say that I voted out, and my constituency voted that way as well. I genuinely respect every Member on this side of the House, and I enjoy their friendship, but the fact of the matter is that I have a different opinion from many of them.
Geraint Davies
Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Will he say how long the Prime Minister is going to be—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman should not chunter from a sedentary position. We have to start the wind-ups at 9.40 pm.
Jim Shannon
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I am quite clear on what my time is.
Workers in the UK are entitled to five weeks and three days of paid holiday a year, including public holidays. The Working Time Regulations 1998 guarantee four weeks’ paid leave as a European minimum, but for 35 years before joining the EU, the United Kingdom had legislation on paid holidays, so that is very unlikely to change or to be reneged on— indeed, my office staff would be the first to revolt if it were, and my life would not be worth living.
It is clear that we have the morals and the principles in terms of European law. At times, we have even furthered protections and enhancements. Such is the case with maternity leave. My parliamentary aide had a child and came off maternity leave after only six months, as she was expecting another baby. Although our law would have enabled her to have two years off—one after the other—and we have said that mothers should be allowed to take that decision, she felt she needed to return to work for a few months to keep her head in the game. However, the ability to take that leave is what we have enshrined in the law at present.
We have even enshrined it in law that mothers must take two weeks off work—or four if they work in a factory. That law will stand. It is the mother’s decision. I wonder at those who seem to say that mothers will have fewer rights if they decide to have another baby after article 50 is invoked. That is nonsense. The 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave in the UK are considerably more than the 14 weeks guaranteed by EU law, and of those 52 weeks, 40 are available for shared parental leave.
EU workers are important in my constituency, as they are in everybody’s constituencies. The agri-food sector in my constituency depends a great deal on them for the work they do in companies. We will enshrine their needs and rights and ensure that they are protected.
The issue of workers’ rights will differ from person to person. I have had small and medium-sized enterprise owners asking for the opportunity to have an input into any new regulations, and Brexit gives them that ability. If there is a need to change law, it will be done in the normal way in this place. That will allow people to sow into the legislation they harvest from.
The issue of small and medium-sized businesses needs to be re-addressed. It is sometimes argued that employment regulation is fine for larger organisations with human resources departments, which have the resources to deal with red tape, but it is much more difficult for small and microbusinesses to cope with it. The nuances of employment law will remain unchanged unless we act to change things in this place. I therefore ask the Minister for more help for the small businesses that do not have the HR budget or the resources, so that they can know their rights and help their employees to understand their rights as well.
For those who have told employees that they will lose their holiday, sick pay and maternity rights, it must again be underlined that, if anything, our rights have been more robust than the ones imposed by Europe. We take protection of our workers seriously, and that is highlighted by the fact that recent changes to the unfair dismissal qualification period, and the introduction of fees for employment tribunal applications, emanated from the UK, not Brussels, as did the introduction of shared parental leave regulations in April last year. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) talked about some of the issues we need to address, and there are issues that have been raised on the Opposition side of the House that need to be looked at.
There is uncertainty as to the practice in terms of primary and secondary legislation, but it has been made clear that any change in rights will come through legislation and not through a repeal of all rights that come from Europe—that cannot happen, and will not happen, in what we fondly call the highest seat of democracy in the world, which is right here, in this House. The scaremongering must stop. People should rest assured that, should article 50, by some miracle, be invoked on new year’s eve, new year’s day will still be a public holiday, they can still have their Easter eggs and summer holidays, and they can have as many children as they like without fear that they will be sacked from work. That is a fact of life.
I recently watched the film “Amazing Grace”, which shows Wilberforce’s journey to get this House to ban slavery. I do not believe that any Member here is interested in reinstating slavery for anyone in the world, let alone our own citizens. We have a history of protecting the little man and little woman, and that will not change because, in theory, there is a possibility that it could change. We are still interested in doing the right thing in this place, and we are still accountable to the public for the decisions that are made. Yes, the Brexit team will need to work on the nuances of the rights of our workers in Europe, but intimating that this will be the time to eradicate rights is mischief and nothing more.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and to contribute to the first of an important series of debates.
We have heard a number of thoughtful contributions from Members on both sides of the House and from all parts of the United Kingdom, but I want to pick out four in particular. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) spoke with his usual eloquence, setting out a very detailed case with questions and points that I hope the Minister will respond to. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) made a very thoughtful speech. She should be commended for the ten-minute rule Bill she introduced a few weeks back, which raised lots of the concerns that have been aired today. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who brings a considerable amount of expertise to the debate, rightly raised concerns about the Government’s intentions in this area. I must also single out the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who is not in her place at the moment. I did not agree with everything she said, but she spoke with her customary candour and robustness, and brought an important set of views to the debate.
There has been a fair amount of consensus on the view that our membership of the European Union has played an important role in protecting working people, particularly women, from exploitation and in combating discrimination, and has acted as a vital bulwark against pressure for the further deregulation of our labour market. Of course, it is right to argue, as many Conservative Members did, that in some areas where the EU has legislated, the UK already had laws in place, such as on equal pay and maternity rights, and we have indeed gone further in a number of areas. Even so, EU action has improved and extended a wide range of rights and delivered stronger protection with regard to equal pay for women, workplace discrimination, equal treatment at work for agency workers, rules limiting working time, health and safety protections, and a host of other essential safeguards.
Britain has one of the most lightly regulated workforces in the OECD. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) said, many of us would like to go further on employment protections to adjust to the changes we are seeing in our economy and in our labour market. As a minimum, the Government have a duty to maintain and protect the floor of rights that workers currently enjoy, which are underpinned by EU law. There is also good reason to believe that that is what British workers, and the majority of remain and leave voters, expect. In a TUC poll carried out in the wake of the referendum, the vast majority of remain and leave voters backed, by considerable margins, safeguarding vital rights such as maternity leave and protection against discrimination at work. That is important because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) argued, this is ultimately about who wins and who may lose from Brexit.
We have heard a number of pledges from the Secretary of State and other Conservative Members that reiterate those made by senior leave campaigners during the referendum. I want to be very clear that those pledges are welcome. However, Conservative Members protest too much when they disparage our very real concerns that in the process of bringing EU-related law into domestic effect, parts of that legislation may be chipped away and watered down. The record of this Government and of the previous coalition Government, whether on increasing the qualifying period before individuals are able to claim unfair dismissal or introducing fees to access employment tribunals, gives cause for concern. I do not doubt in any way that there is a genuine Conservative tradition of social reform. Nevertheless, I hope that Conservative Members can understand why some of us are concerned, not least given the comments made by some senior leave campaigners, including some who are now members of the Cabinet.
However, let us take the Government’s pledge at face value. I am willing to do that, and I am sure that the Minister will further clarify the position. That said, the form and details of the mechanism by which those workers’ rights are transposed into British law is important, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe has said, and Members have raised a number of concerns. I hope that the Minister will provide further detail on them.
First, a number of hon. Members have pointed out that UK laws that derive from EU law and have been implemented not by primary legislation but by regulation—from protections relating to the transfer of staff to new companies, to maximum hours of weekly work—are more vulnerable in the process that we are about to undertake. We have heard conflicting messages from the Government. I recently wrote to the Minister, asking him specifically whether the repeal Bill—I think that, technically, that is its correct title, rather than the great repeal Bill—would give effect to 18 EU directives and regulations in domestic legislation. He replied that the Government will convert existing EU law into domestic law, “wherever practical”. There is a discrepancy between that reply and what we have heard today, so it would be useful if that was cleared up.
When he winds up, the Minister has another chance to confirm how workers’ rights that derive from EU law and have been implemented by regulation will be given domestic effect by the repeal Bill. Will he confirm, as a number of my hon. Friends have asked, whether they will be underpinned by primary legislation? It would also be useful if he touched on those EU directives and regulations that may come into force in the next two years, as we negotiate an exit, and whether they will be introduced as primary legislation.
Secondly, a number of hon. Members have raised concerns about what the Government intend to do to protect workers’ rights that derive from rulings of the European Court of Justice, including those on equality and working time, and the Court’s recent decision that the calculation of workers’ entitlement to holiday pay should include earnings from bonuses, commissions and overtime payments. The Prime Minister has been clear that her vision of Brexit involves the UK leaving the jurisdiction of the ECJ, so it would be useful to know the Government’s intentions with regard to those employment rights that have been given greater legal strength as a result of ECJ case law, and how and whether they will be enshrined in the forthcoming repeal Bill.
Thirdly, this may be a minor point, but primary legislation influenced by EU law will not be automatically repealed once we leave the EU, but it could be modified. For example, the Equality Act 2010, which was opposed by the Conservative party, could be amended to introduce a cap on compensation for discrimination claims, as contemplated by the coalition Government-commissioned Beecroft report in 2011. Will the Minister confirm that it is not the Government’s intention to use Brexit to repeal or amend vital rights delivered by previous Governments?
Finally, the Minister needs to rule out the possibility of any attempt by the repeal Bill and the Brexit process to time-limit existing workers’ rights. Pledges have been made and we have heard denials of the proposal of the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) to insert a sunset clause in the repeal Bill. Support for that proposal may be confined to a minority consisting of just the right hon. Gentleman, but I suspect that other Government Members share his view. It would be useful to know how the Government intend to get the repeal Bill through without amendments and without time-limiting any of the legislation so that, although it might be amended by a future Government, all existing workers’ rights given effect by EU law will be pulled over for the remainder of this Parliament.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central raised a number of points about the impact of the negotiations on workers’ rights and employment regulations. How will our potential access to the customs union free market on whatever terms that the Government may secure influence employment rights? It would also be useful to hear from the Minister about the impact that any transitional arrangement with the European Union would have.
I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). Like the vast majority of my fellow Labour Members, I accept that the British public voted to leave the European Union and the democratic imperative that that vote created. In voting to exit the EU, however, the British public did not vote for any diminution or dilution of their employment and workplace health and safety rights. If any of those existing rights are lost or watered down in the process of Brexit, it will be seen as a gross betrayal. Labour will keep a close eye on how the Government bring those rights across, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s wind-up.
The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) in what was, I believe, his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. This has been an excellent debate, and I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to it. It is right that the question of workers’ rights should be debated at length and in some detail, because it is of fundamental importance to Members on both sides of the Chamber.
This has been the first in a series of debates on important issues that arise in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union promised by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. My Department intends to bring forward, in Government time, a number of further debates on key issues related to EU withdrawal over the coming weeks and months.
Let me first reiterate that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in his opening speech, the Government fully recognise the fundamental importance of strong workers’ rights in this country, and we are determined to preserve them. Not only do they exist for the protection of all employees, but they have a vital function in encouraging the development of a productive and thriving economy. It is clear that the Government’s determination to preserve, and not to erode, employment rights is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) celebrated the fact that we were experiencing a rare moment of accord between the Conservative and Labour parties.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government will not, as a consequence of our withdrawal, allow any erosion of rights in the workplace, whether those rights derive from EU or UK law. She has further made it clear that the Government are determined to deliver an economy that works for everyone, and fundamental to that is the preservation of existing workers’ rights.
I repeat the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in his opening speech that the UK already goes beyond EU minimum requirements in a number of areas of employment legislation. For example, UK domestic law already provides for more than a week’s additional annual leave—5.6 weeks rather than the minimum of four weeks set by the EU—nearly four times the required amount of statutory maternity leave and much greater flexibility around shared parental leave, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out.
Furthermore, we have recently adopted a number of measures to strengthen further the protections provided to workers, including introducing the national living wage in April this year and increasing funding for enforcement activity to ensure that employers are meeting their responsibilities. We have commissioned a review of modern employment practices—the Taylor review—with a view to ensuring that new practices of working, which were touched on by the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), do indeed work for everyone. We are legislating to ban exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts to stop the abuse of such contracts. We introduced shared parental leave in 2015 and extended the right to request flexible working to all employees from June 2014. Those are measures pursued by a Conservative Government committed to providing strong protections for workers. We are determined to maintain those protections beyond withdrawal from the EU by enshrining them in our law under the great repeal Bill.
A number of points were touched on by hon. and right hon. Members, and I will seek to address them in the brief time available to me. One point that was made by a number of Members—including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), in what I thought was an excellent and passionate speech, and by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)—was the need to heal the wounds, so to speak: to build a national consensus ahead of our exit from the European Union. That is what the Government are seeking to do, and we hope that debates such as this will help to achieve it.
The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), echoed by the hon. Members for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), raised issues about devolved competence and how they will affect the negotiations. The Government have made it absolutely clear that the concerns of the devolved Administrations will be central to the negotiations that we are embarking on. Indeed, the first meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee for the exit negotiations will be held this very week, so there is close consultation between the Government and the devolved Administrations.
Mr Jones
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way. I have very little time, and I am trying to deal with as many points as I can.
The right hon. Member for Leeds Central made an excellent speech, which underlined his credentials as the chief scrutineer of the Government in his capacity as Chairman of the Select Committee. He raised a number of issues, and I will briefly touch on them. He asked what changes to employment legislation in the great repeal Bill will be made through primary as opposed to secondary legislation. Such issues fall to be considered during the passage of the Bill. The House will therefore have the opportunity to debate those issues in full in due course. There will have to be full parliamentary scrutiny, and I have no doubt that his Committee will play an important role in that regard.
The right hon. Gentleman raised, as did the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), the issue of what will happen to EU case law and judgments of the European Court of Justice. I wish to make it clear that the starting position of the Government is that EU-derived law, from whatever quarter, will be transferred into United Kingdom law in full at the point of exit.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the important issue of what happens if the United Kingdom has access to the single market, but we do not follow whatever new legislation may be developed in the EU. The word “if” is of course important, and it remains to be seen whether we will have full access to the single market. It is fair to say that the Government are still working on the many details that will determine our future relationship with the European Union. This will be an important consideration in that process, and, again, I have no doubt that his Committee will want to explore this issue further.
The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) made what I have to say was rather a bleak speech, although he seemed to recognise that Members on both sides of the House accept that Britain is indeed leaving the European Union, and he acknowledged that his is a minority opinion. He seemingly accepted the word of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that workers’ rights would not be eroded, but he expressed concern about what future Parliaments might do. I must point out to him that no Parliament can bind its successors, but the whole purpose of exiting the European Union is to restore sovereignty to this Parliament and to place our trust in our successors in the Parliaments of the future.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) made a very thoughtful and useful speech. She raised several important issues, particularly women’s issues, which were echoed by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh). May I say that the contribution of the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston to this debate is exactly the sort of contribution that the Government are looking for in debates such as this? Such contributions will certainly inform the Government’s consideration of the future relationship of the United Kingdom with the European Union. There were several other excellent speeches, but, sadly, I do not have the time to deal with them all.
The United Kingdom has a long and distinguished history of protecting workers’ rights, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) pointed out in his erudite and instructive speech. For example, the principal plank of our workplace safety legislation is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which was developed independently of the EU. In this country, we have a comprehensive framework of legally guaranteed minimum rights for workers that seek to ensure that everybody is treated fairly at work and that businesses thrive. The UK has led the way on improving workplace diversity. Our generous provisions on maternity and parental leave have helped record numbers of women into work, and as a consequence of our approach the UK economy is thriving.
This has indeed been an excellent debate. It has fully justified the Government’s approach of holding general debates. As I have said, all the contributions have been valuable, and they will inform our consideration as we leave the European Union.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered exiting the EU and workers’ rights.
Business without Debate
Midland Main Line Electrification
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
Thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker, for granting this Adjournment debate. I thank colleagues from the midlands who are here this evening to support the debate; we have representation here from Leicester, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire and even as far north as Sheffield.
In politics there is often a sense of déjà vu. Back in April 2012 I led a similar Adjournment debate on proposals to upgrade and electrify the midland main line between Bedford and Sheffield. The line serves the cities of Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, my own constituency of Loughborough, and a number of other growing towns across the east midlands, including Chesterfield, Market Harborough, Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough. Together, those places are home to more than 5 million people and 2.1 million jobs; we believe that they comprise the economic backbone of England.
The east midlands in particular has helped to lead the United Kingdom out of recession, with strong private sector job growth over the past five years. We have huge potential for export-led growth, already accounting for 20% of gross value added. Latest projections from the Office for National Statistics suggest the population of the east midlands will rise by half a million people by 2030 to 5.1 million, which will be the fastest growth outside London and the wider south-east.
The midland main line itself has been a huge success story. As those of us who are frequent travellers on the line know all too well, passenger numbers have increased by 130% in the past 15 years—I can probably say on behalf of colleagues that there are times when it feels like all 130% are on the particular train I have caught from London St Pancras—and a further 30% rise is expected in the next 10 years. Rail freight is also booming, showing a 70% increase since the mid-1990s, but the line has suffered from years of under-investment. It is the only north-south rail route yet to be electrified. It has some of the slowest mainline speeds in the country, meaning that trains are rarely able to go at their top speed.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for securing this vital debate. She points out, correctly, that inter-city connectivity between these crucial areas of growth is so poor that without electrification we cannot legitimately look for a midlands engine, which is, after all, the Government’s supposed priority for the next Budget.
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We know from our constituency experiences just how much the east midlands is driving economic recovery in this country. He is right to highlight the importance of transport connectivity to the success of the midlands engine, which we believe can rival the northern powerhouse.
Some of the rolling stock is more than 40 years old, so I was delighted when in July 2012, the then Secretary of State for Transport announced that the upgrade and electrification scheme, which had been promoted by councils, local enterprise partnerships and business groups in the east midlands and south Yorkshire, was to be delivered in full by 2020. Since then, there has been progress on implementation, but not everything has gone according to plan. The pausing of the electrification elements in 2015 resulted in the demobilisation of a high-skilled technical team within Network Rail, which has taken time to reassemble. The pause also had a considerable financial impact on local companies in the supply chain.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady makes a compelling case. Does she share my concern that any further delay to electrification would not only break the promises that Ministers made to our region, but further damage our vital east midlands rail industry, which is important to her constituents? Businesses have told me that that will mean less investment, fewer jobs and fewer apprenticeships, and that it could harm their prospects of export growth.
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. As I understand it, the east midlands has the largest cluster of companies that rely on the railways and rolling stock, and other businesses that form part of the supply chain, anywhere in the world. The point is that the debate is not just about one railway line. As she says, it is about economic growth, and the impact on local companies and local jobs.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing the debate to the House. Does she agree with the east midlands chamber of commerce that electrification is vital to the long-term economic needs of constituencies such as Loughborough and South Leicestershire, and those throughout the east midlands? Does she also agree that any further delay will only increase the costs of electrification and reduce the confidence that businesses in Loughborough, South Leicestershire and elsewhere have in Government projects?
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that this is about driving economic growth and reflecting the fact that the midlands is an engine for that growth. He is right that the costs of the project go up the longer it takes, which is why Members are so keen for the Government to give the project the full green light so that we can get on with it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Nicky Morgan
I am very popular. I give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) first.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way to a voice from as far north as Sheffield. She makes a powerful case about the midlands economy, but does she recognise the importance of the electrification of the midland main line to the northern economy? Does she also recognise that, should there be a further delay in that investment, it will be taken as a very bad signal of the Government’s commitment to investment in northern infrastructure and to regenerating the northern economy?
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. He is right that we are talking not only about the midlands, as they might be known, but the impact on the train line to Sheffield and further north. I will talk about HS2 in a moment, but he is right, as we all know from those who journey north from our constituencies, that the electrification project is important for connectivity further north.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Lady for bringing this vital debate to the House. Does she share my concern—my constituents and lots of people along the midland main line share it—that the line is the poor relation of the rail network? If the Government have to find savings for investment in other lines, the midland main line will once again be delayed and have its investment cut. The people in our constituencies will be the losers. The Government need to listen to her and other hon. Members, and get on with doing something about the midland main line.
Nicky Morgan
As I said, the midland main line is the only north-south rail route yet to be electrified. In fact, I think it is the only inter-city line that remains to be electrified. It is fair to say that the midlands should not be paying the price for cost overruns on other infrastructure projects around the country.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
I do not want to tempt the right hon. Lady too much, but does she agree that the electrification of the midland main line is more important than HS2? Go on, have a punt!
Nicky Morgan
I have resisted the hon. Gentleman’s blandishments for many years. The point I will come on to in a moment is that the schemes go together. There are strong feelings about HS2, in the midlands and elsewhere, but both projects need to be delivered.
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman is right to say electrification of the midland main line offers better value, but both are needed for capacity.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I feel I have to say something on behalf of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), because Leicester has not been mentioned so far—[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady did refer to Leicester, but it has not been mentioned during the debate. On behalf of Leicester, may I say that the electrification will provide not just growth but additional jobs? We should also pay tribute to the staff on the railway who work very long hours, sometimes for very low pay. Does the right hon. Lady agree that electrification would increase the number of jobs?
Nicky Morgan
I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He is right to pay tribute to the staff of East Midlands Trains. We are fortunate to have such a good train operator. I enjoy reading its tweets and how it responds to customers, both the good and the bad. He is right that jobs would be created along the line. It would also enable people who live in the midlands to commute elsewhere to work on a safe and reliable service.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
May I draw attention to the point that the right hon. Lady made about some trains being 40 years old? The HST trains will have to be replaced in 2020 because they are no longer compliant with disability legislation. If electrification does not get the go-ahead as per the current programme, there will not be a case in 2020 for replacing the old rolling stock with electric-compatible rolling stock. The whole programme could be delayed, effectively for ever.
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is important that the Government make a commitment now because of the need to procure new rolling stock.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way—I would have hated to miss out. Perhaps I can take her back to HS2, which I support. Given its strong benefit-cost ratio, does she agree that if the Department or Network Rail are short of money, the electrification scheme has the best return? It should be prioritised, not put to the back of the queue.
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend makes a good point. He is right to say that the scheme represents very good value. The Minister might want to address the benefit-cost ratio. It is why we midlands MPs, as well as those from further north, feel so strongly that it should not be our area that pays yet again for cost overruns elsewhere in the country.
I mentioned the pausing and how it led to the technical team that Network Rail put together being demobilised. The extended completion date of 2023 is not ideal, but the decision of the previous Secretary of State to press ahead gave certainty to passengers, local communities, businesses and investors. I am reassured that the main upgrade measures remain on track to be delivered by 2019, and by recent public statements from Network Rail that work on electrification is also progressing. The reason for holding this debate is that colleagues in the industry tell me that there is no such thing as a committed transport scheme until it is actually built. A number of local interests have contacted me and other Members to say that another pause, or worse, could be in the offing.
The debate gives the Government the opportunity to set the record straight and confirm support for the whole scheme. The economic, environmental and practical arguments for electrification remain as strong as ever. In addition, I draw the Minister’s attention to the impact that any further delay or uncertainty over the electrification of the midland main line would have.
Rolling stock has already been mentioned. As we have heard, the current fleet of high-speed trains is approaching 40 years old and will have to be replaced by 2020. Currently, there is no clear plan for that. While I understand that the Government’s stated preference is to procure new rolling stock through the forthcoming franchise competition, as the new franchise is not planned to commence until July 2018, it is unclear whether that can be achieved. Without certainty over the electrification process, it will be difficult for the private sector to make that investment, unless the Government specify electric-diesel bi-mode rolling stock.
It has been mentioned that the plan for re-letting the east midlands franchise already falls mid-way through electrification and track upgrades, and that the revised completion for electrification to Sheffield already falls mid-way within the next franchise period. Both of those will present significant challenges for the next operator.
HS2 has been mentioned, too. The east midlands has developed a strong local consensus in support of HS2 and a hub station at Toton. Key to unlocking wider connectivity via HS2 is the ability to run so-called “classic compatible services” via the hub station, which will require an electrified midland main line. HS2 Ltd’s recent proposals for serving Sheffield midland station via Chesterfield will also require an electrified railway.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has made a hugely impressive speech and a devastatingly powerful case, uniting both sides of the House. Should not the Minister commit in his response to meeting all of us with the Secretary of State so that we can impress on them how important this issue is to all our constituencies and the fact that we refuse to be left behind again?
Nicky Morgan
My hon. Friend has it absolutely right. Yes, the midlands refuses to be left behind on this important infrastructure project. I hope that the Minister will agree to facilitate a meeting with the Secretary of State as well as him, so that we can continue these discussions. I look forward to hearing the Minister confirm that.
We have also talked about the impact on the local supply chain. Any further delay or uncertainty will fundamentally undermine business confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver major investment. We have also heard about the potential impact on apprenticeships. For our residents and constituents, electric trains offer a quieter, smoother and more reliable passenger experience. They have a positive impact on air quality and thus on people’s health, which is becoming a major issue in many areas along the midland main line.
In conclusion, the midland main line is a major driver of local economic growth and a key asset, as we have heard, for the Government’s midlands engine initiative. The upgrade and electrification scheme was conceived as an integrated package. Only by implementing the whole scheme can the benefits to passengers, freight operators and local businesses be delivered in full. It remains vital that the Government deliver the upgrade and electrification scheme in full by 2023 at the latest. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the concerns of Members and give his commitment to the whole scheme. We heard the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for the Minister to agree to facilitate a meeting between himself, the Secretary of State and Members present today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on securing this debate, and I note the presence of so many regional MPs in the Chamber to show their interest in, and concern about, this issue—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) will just have to wait, and he should not intervene from a sedentary position. My right hon. Friend is, of course, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on heritage rail, which I look forward to addressing in the coming weeks. I also note that this particular midland main line programme uses local suppliers such as Brush Traction in my right hon. Friend’s Loughborough constituency, as well as supporting new apprenticeships in Network Rail and the private sector. I think my right hon. Friend spoke powerfully about the importance of this project to her constituents—not just as passengers, but economically.
Let me talk first about why this Government have chosen to invest in our rail network and why we chose to invest in it for the future. We are making journeys better, simpler, faster and more reliable. Most importantly, we want to make transport not just safer, but more sustainable. I thus entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that the investment we are making today will help prepare our country for tomorrow. Our national plan will support jobs, enable business growth and bring our country closer together.
That is why we are supporting a record £70 billion investment in rail, roads, ports and airports, and we are undertaking the biggest rail modernisation since Victorian times. We are ensuring that every part of Britain benefits from a growing economy, and that all those who work hard have the opportunities that they need in order to succeed. As Members have pointed out tonight, the midland main line services provided for passengers today are compromised. The attempt to serve all passengers with inter-city trains means that, as my right hon. Friend has said, long-distance passengers suffer from slow peak journeys, and commuters to London have to board already crowded inter-city trains.
To solve the problem, as we design and build the next franchise, we will create two distinct services, one for commuters from Corby, Kettering and other stations to London and one for long-distance travellers, in order to serve both more effectively. That will significantly reduce journey times from Sheffield and Nottingham to London by reducing the number of stops on those long-distance services, as well as speeding up the trains themselves. On average, the slow Sheffield morning peak services will be reduced by between 20 and 30 minutes to about two hours, and the Nottingham services will be reduced, on average, by between 10 and 20 minutes to about an hour and a half.
It is vital for the first steps of the capacity work to be completed, and I am delighted to say that we are making good progress in delivering that. We will make the whole route between Bedford and Kettering four-track, and the whole route between Kettering and Corby two-track. The stops between Corby, Kettering and other stations and London, mainly used by commuters, would then be served by electric trains up to 12 carriages long.
That proposed approach will be consulted on as part of the upcoming East Midlands franchise competition, ahead of a planned invitation to tender in May 2017. I would greatly welcome engagement and input from Members to help us to achieve the right balance between journey time and connectivity on the route, and I am more than happy to accept the offer from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) to meet the Secretary of State and me to discuss such matters further. I look forward particularly to seeing bidders’ innovative proposals to improve services for passengers and other users of the railway, building on the Government’s substantial investment.
We are committed to electrification on the midland main line. We will deliver electrification from London to Kettering and Corby by 2019. Electric train services taking advantage of those improvements will begin as soon as possible after the completion of the infrastructure works, providing passengers with better trains, more seats, and better facilities on board. Those enhancements will provide increased capacity to relieve congestion on the railway.
Paul Maynard
If the hon. Lady waits for one minute, she may hear what she is hoping to hear.
The move to electric services to Corby will mean that we are able to deliver a third more carriage miles than today across the route. I can also assure Members on both sides of the House that development work is continuing on further electrification of the route to Sheffield and Nottingham. I am keen to ensure that the scheme delivers value for money for the taxpayer, and a better experience for the passenger.
We recognise that this is a challenging programme, with many difficult engineering hurdles to overcome, but we are determined to work with Network Rail to face the challenges and deliver the best possible railway for the people of this country. Work has already started to deliver the programme. If one travels from Corby to Kettering, one can see that the track-doubling and electrification are already in delivery. A major blockade to deliver those enhancements has just finished where work on strengthening bridges and viaducts was successful. Tens of millions of pounds are being spent on the project, which is laying the foundation for the new electric services.
We will remove the long-standing bottleneck at Derby station in 2018, to speed up midland main line, CrossCountry and freight services. We are improving the line speed between Derby and Sheffield, and at both Leicester and Market Harborough. Platform-lengthening work is going on throughout the network to enable longer trains to run. Overall, the programme will nearly double capacity into London in the morning peak, giving passengers a significantly quieter and smoother ride as well as a shorter journey. I believe that there will be a much better service for both current and future passengers.
Vernon Coaker
The Minister has made some interesting comments, particularly about the line from St Pancras to Kettering and Corby. Can he, in a nutshell, tell me and the House what he is saying about the Government’s commitment to investment in the electrification of the line from Kettering and Corby to Sheffield, Derby, Nottingham and the stations in between—
Paul Maynard
Let me make it clear that we are committed to continuing the ongoing development work, and my focus today is on how, in the shorter term, we can deliver faster journeys and better trains for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents.
Lilian Greenwood
Last year, the then rail Minister assured hon. Members that the Hendy re-plan would mean that
“we will have a deliverable and affordable set of improvements.”—[Official Report, 16 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 330WH.]
When the project was unpaused, the chairman of Network Rail assured us that
“the line north of Kettering to Derby/Nottingham and Sheffield can be electrified in stages by 2023.”
Will this Minister commit to that timescale?
Paul Maynard
I will merely repeat what I have just said, which is that we are committed to the development of the ongoing electrification programme. I urge the hon. Lady today to consider the benefits that will accrue to her constituents and her local economy from the improvements in journey times that we are going to be accelerating through the new franchise process. There will be faster, better trains for her constituents, as well as constituents in Leicester, Sheffield and around the east midlands because of that.
Mr Betts
Let us be absolutely clear about something. We were given a promise in this House by Ministers when the electrification was unpaused that electrification would happen—to Sheffield, with the whole line complete —by 2023. Is the Minister now rowing back on that commitment or is he prepared to confirm it?
Paul Maynard
I am continuing to stress to Labour Members that we are continuing to develop the electrification proposals. What we are focusing on today is ensuring that we have better quality train services on the inter-city routes by ensuring that the longer distance trains have fewer stopping places south of Kettering. Therefore, we are continuing that development work. I am not going to take lectures from Labour Members about the pace of electrification, given that the Labour party failed to electrify more than 6 miles in its entire time in government. We are electrifying the line from St Pancras to Corby and Kettering to enable faster journeys for commuters on that route, and then we are continuing the development work as planned to ensure that we continue to improve services to Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, as we laid out.
Let me stress again that I recognise what my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough has said about the ageing rolling stock on the midland main line, but I remind her that although the HSTs are 40 years old, about three quarters of the inter-city fleet is made up of the Meridians, which are only 10 years old and are performing relatively well. Through the franchise competition, we will look to improve the rolling stock on the long-distance inter-city services. Across the country, rail passengers today are seeing the fruits of this approach to improving rail services. We need only look at the new stations at Manchester Victoria, Birmingham New Street and elsewhere across the country to see that.
My right hon. Friend also referred to freight, which I just want to touch on because it is very important to consider this in the context of the midland main line. The movement of freight is vital to the economic prosperity of the regions that export and manufacture. Indeed, a number of upgrade projects across the region, such as on the great northern great eastern line, have been specifically designed and delivered to improve freight paths for manufacturers in the region. Investment in transport across the UK—
Lilian Greenwood
Does the Minister not recognise that electrification also provides the additional capacity and gauge clearance that freight requires? Is that not one of the reasons why electrification on this line is so important?
Paul Maynard
I can only repeat what I keep saying to the hon. Lady, which is that she needs to focus on the fact that we are continuing our development work on the further stages of electrification. This is an incremental process. I am trying to emphasise that we as a Government are seeking to deliver the benefits that will accrue from a range of projects on the line as soon as possible through the new refranchising process. I urge her, when she gets the chance—[Interruption.] I ask the hon. Member for Sheffield South East very politely not to interrupt from a sedentary position. I urge hon. Members to look at Hansard tomorrow morning and to read carefully what I have said about what we wish to do with the new franchise. I have already offered to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues and the Secretary of State to discuss how best we can improve the service to Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield in the short term while we continue to improve and deliver on the electrification process alongside that by continuing the development work. I have been clear about that today, and I am happy to make it clear to the hon. Gentleman again in any meeting that we might subsequently have.
Our enhancements are already being delivered, and we will be running an additional passenger train per hour on the midland main line into St Pancras as well as opening up additional capacity for crucial freight services. This will provide much needed extra capacity for passenger services on the stops from Kettering and Corby and other stations into London used by regular commuters into London, as well as allowing a reduction in journey times for passengers travelling from Sheffield and Nottingham via Derby and Loughborough into London.
I always welcome fact-filled debates and submissions from Members on both sides of the House. I thank them for their attention today, and I look forward to discussing this in more detail in the weeks to come.
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Royal Mail delivery office in Bredbury
Royal Mail delivery office in Marple
Written Statement
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Information Commissioner’s Office: Triennial Review
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Karen Bradley)
Following a statement by the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Human Rights, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on 16 July 2015, I wish to inform the House that the triennial review of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that was announced in Parliament on Tuesday 25 November 2014, has been published today and a copy has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Government welcome the review’s positive assessment of the ICO’s contribution to the protection of personal data and the increased transparency in public life over the last 30 years. The review rightly notes the considerable strides the ICO has made in improving its performance in a number of areas against a challenging economic backdrop.
The review also recognises that the environment in which the ICO operates has changed considerably over the last decade due to the proliferation of digital information and rapid changes in technology. In turn, the ICO’s powers and functions have grown to meet this challenge. In response, the review concludes that the functions of the ICO are still required but recommends that the organisation should be restructured as a multi-member commission to encourage a greater breadth of decision-making and accountability.
The Government have considered the review’s recommendations very carefully. It agrees that the expansion in role highlighted by the review does necessitate a step change in governance and leadership at the ICO and that is why we welcomed the separate decision by the previous Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, to widen the existing leadership cadre to allow for greater collective decision-making on regulatory matters.
However, the Government have decided that reconstituting the ICO as a multi-member commission is not the right change to make to its governance arrangements. The new Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, took up post in July 2016. Her first priority is to ensure that the organisation is properly equipped to take forward the requirements of the general data protection regulation (GDPR), which will come into force in the UK in May 2018; and to provide clarity and certainty to businesses and organisations as they make preparations to implement the regulation. Alongside this is a need to prepare the organisation for any changes to data protection regulatory landscape after the UK exits the European Union.
Strong and stable leadership is crucial during a period of rapid organisational change and the Government believe that a single Information Commissioner working through an enhanced senior leadership team is the best model for achieving this. We therefore do not intend on making any statutory changes to the governance model of the ICO.
More broadly, the review recommended that the ICO improves its digital and technological capability to meet the economic and societal challenges posed by the rapidly growing digital economy. A number of improvements have been made over the last year, expanding the number of technology experts at the ICO and improving the visibility of technology in the ICO’s communications. This additional expertise has significantly strengthened the ICO’s investigation and enforcement capability in relation to cyber and other data protection breaches. The Information Commissioner is committed to publishing a refreshed technology strategy in 2017, including further investment in expertise available to the ICO and drawing on external knowledge through better research and collaboration with experts from academia and industry.
[HCWS238]
House of Lords
NHS: Primary and Community Services
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Wheeler
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Carers UK report Pressure Points: carers and the NHS, concerning problems faced by carers in accessing primary and community support services for the people they care for.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, we recognise that far too many people who could be treated at home or in their communities attend A&E. Sustainability and transformation plans are bringing together commissioners and providers to deliver the five-year forward view locally and will include radically improved out-of-hospital care through stronger integration and improved access to primary care.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. The report identifies major problems for carers accessing primary and community support services for the people they care for, and who therefore have no real option but to take them to A&E. Many of these emergency hospital admissions could have been avoided with adequate social care support at home, better access to a district nurse or essential local support for carers themselves. On carers’ support, councils across the country are having to cut back on vital services. My own council in Surrey has a programme of cuts of 33% over three years. With the CQC’s dire warning that social care is at a tipping point, is it not time for the Government finally to acknowledge this and use the Autumn Statement to provide the increased funding and investment that is urgently needed for carers and the people they care for to get the support they deserve?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I acknowledge that there is tremendous pressure in the social care system. Looking back over the last 20 years, not enough support has gone into primary, community and social care relative to what has gone into acute care. The sustainability and transformation plans are designed to bring together social care and healthcare. They are being published intermittently as I speak.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, the country owes so many carers an enormous debt of gratitude for what amounts to unpaid work they are doing on behalf of the state. The NHS website says to carers:
“If someone you know is in hospital and about to be discharged, you should not be put under pressure to accept a caring role”,
or to take one if you are already doing this as their carer. It continues:
“You should be given adequate time to consider whether or not this is what you want … to do”.
The carers report has found that three out of five carers say they felt they had no choice, and of those not consulted four out of five carers said it was way too early and that there were readmissions as a result. What will the Government do to ensure effective communication between hospitals and carers truly happens, so that there are no more unprepared discharges and carers get the support they need?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, delayed and inappropriate discharges are clearly a huge issue for the whole health and care system. Again, this is something the STPs are designed to address. The five-year forward view is explicit in saying that there are 5.5 million carers in England and their continuation goes to the very sustainability of the NHS. The importance of care is not in dispute. The Care Act, which the noble Baroness’s party and mine put through in the last Government, recognised that so as to give them parity of esteem with those they care for. There is no question but that better communication with carers would go a long way to improving the problems we have with inappropriate discharges.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has acknowledged that discharge from hospital is an important time for carers. You can literally become a carer overnight when your relative is discharged without warning. The carers strategy is currently being refreshed. Would the Minister consider an input into the carers strategy that meant it was incumbent on the National Health Service to consult carers and get their agreement before discharges are made?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I am not sure we could go so far as to say that one should always have their agreement—sometimes, discharges from hospital are incredibly complex and difficult—but there is no doubt, arising from the Carers UK report, that where there is proper communication with carers, the discharge procedure is much better for everyone, from the point of view of the carer, the patient and the hospital. If proper arrangements are not put in place, delays arise long after the patient should have been discharged home. It could be to do, for example, with a care package or altering the patient’s home.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I have recently become a carer myself and therefore have experience of a number of hospitals. Why is there such a postcode lottery in terms of where one finds oneself? West Suffolk Hospital, where my partner found herself, has given excellent service and—we must not run it all down—we have had fantastic aftercare in that area, whereas the London hospital does not even answer the telephone. Why is there such a difference? She was also in a mixed ward, the use of which I thought had already stopped.
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Baroness’s friend was in a mixed ward because their use is supposed to have stopped unless there is an absolute emergency when only one bed is free. Unless there were exceptional circumstances, it is very disappointing to hear that that happened. Perhaps the noble Baroness would like to write to me about it. On her first point, there is variation in pretty much every aspect of health and social care around the country, which is inevitable. To some extent, it is not a bad thing, because it drives up standards if those who are not delivering great care can see how best it can be done. The STP process is designed to build in best practice, but I am afraid that a degree of variation is inevitable.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, following the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will my noble friend clarify whether everybody in need of care is the responsibility of the Government?
Lord Prior of Brampton
The thrust of the Carers UK report is that 5.5 million carers take huge responsibility for their loved ones and that the primary responsibility often falls—I think, rightly—on carers and families rather than on the Government.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister care to join me in condemning Members of Parliament who have voted nationally to force local authorities to reduce services but have then attacked the local authorities because they wanted the libraries kept open, the bus services run and the care packages maintained—all of those things—while washing their hands of any responsibility?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I think the noble Baroness will agree with me that there are very difficult choices to be made when it comes to public spending. Sometimes, there is perhaps not always a high degree of consistency from our colleagues in the House of Commons.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
The Minister mentioned discharge procedures. Unfortunately, carers often do not know about plans for discharge early in the period during which the one they care for is in hospital. As has been said previously, surely the discharge process should start at admission. If the carer is brought in at that point and works with people to make the discharge process work, it will be better. This has never happened. Does the Minister agree that it really must?
Lord Prior of Brampton
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness. Good practice means that as soon as a patient comes into a hospital, an estimated date for discharge should be agreed then with the carer, which would enable all the services to come together at the point of discharge. Where that does not happen, one can have long delays.
Japanese Knotweed
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Sharples
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in controlling the spread of Japanese knotweed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, we continue to explore bio-control options through the controlled release of the psyllid insect Aphalara itadori. Releases have been carried out at 18 sites this year using improved methods to increase the chances of establishment. Local action groups, some established with Defra support, continue to reduce or eradicate Japanese knotweed in several places in England. Community protection notices are starting to be used by local authorities to address the nuisance this plant causes.
Baroness Sharples (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is he aware that I first asked this Question nearly 30 years ago? There has not been a great deal of progress. Is he aware of the man who killed his wife and committed suicide as he could not sell his property because of knotweed? Also, many people cannot get mortgages on their houses because of knotweed.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, first, I acknowledge my noble friend’s tenacity in seeking to deal with this brute of a plant. On mortgages, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors published an information paper only last year that aims to help valuers and mortgage lenders better understand the implications of this plant for residential properties. We anticipate that this will lead to a more pragmatic approach between all parties in dealing with it. On what my noble friend said about the tragedy, this invasive species of plant is of great concern and we need to deal with it where we can.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, while the Minister’s work with the psyllid, the jumping plant louse, gets going, will he encourage local action groups around the country to tackle this dreadful plant in the ways it can already be tackled—though that needs a lot of work? Is he aware of the good work being done in my own borough of Pendle by an organisation called the Environmental Action Group? It employs young people who might otherwise have difficulty getting jobs, trains them and does good local environmental work. Along with the Ribble Rivers Trust, it has set about the task of eliminating Japanese knotweed from our borough.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I certainly acknowledge what is happening in the noble Lord’s part of the world and I am well aware of the group in Pendle. Many local action groups are working to treat this problem and there is very good national coverage. As examples of where, with tenacity, we can deal with this, the Norfolk local action group eradicated all Japanese knotweed on the River Wensum special area of conservation, while in Bristol Japanese knotweed on all publicly owned land is now 95% under management. There are a number of good stories to tell. My view is that wherever people are determined to deal with this, it can be dealt with.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister recently wrote to me confirming that Defra has a list of non-native species on its national eradication programme but that Japanese knotweed is not on it. Is that not evidence that the Government have rather given up on trying to eradicate it from our shores?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I must be clear: this plant has been in the country since the 19th century and is very widespread—unfortunately, we sent it from Kew up to Edinburgh, thinking it was interesting. The prospect of eradicating every bit of Japanese knotweed is, alas, not viable at the moment but we hope the psyllid will, if successful, weaken the plant. That is the whole purpose of it. Certainly, where we have had species such as the Asian hornet, we acted immediately to deal with it. There are a number of species on the list that we want to eradicate immediately but I am afraid that a plant such as Japanese knotweed has been here rather too long.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
I thought one of the Bishops might have come in on this Question to help us. However, since we have experts such as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in the House, have the Government thought of appointing one of them as a knotweed tsar to get rid of all this?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My noble friend would make an excellent tsarina. The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that we constantly update officials in the Scottish Government because, as I say, this occurs across our nation. We need to deal with it, which is why where local action groups work together, they have been successful. They use herbicides, injections, glyphosate and all sorts of things, and they are making a difference where they want to.
Lord Bird (CB)
We could do what Dame Roddick did; when she went to Nepal and noticed that all the cyclamen were stopping water from flowing, she bought them and turned them into paper. If we could find a use for knotweed, all the Boy Scouts in the world could rush around to get it, raising money for our local charities.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I am all for raising money for local charities but, ideally, I would much prefer to have our native species than this invasive species, which is harming our natural environment.
Lord Spicer (Con)
Is the Minister aware that our noble friend Lady Sharples is somewhat of a patron saint among gardeners for her sustained attack on Japanese knotweed and for telling Ministers to get knotted every so often when they give excuses?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I know that my noble friend is tenacious and persistent. I very much hope she will continue to keep Defra and me on our guard, making sure that we do all the things, such as the Check, Clean, Dry and Be Plant Wise campaigns, that we need to make ourselves ever more biosecure.
Children: Local Authority Care
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Laming
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that children in local authority care are placed in a location close to their extended family and current school.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to take account of wider family and school networks when placing children. At 31 March 2015, 77% of placements were within 20 miles of the child’s home. However, all decisions are subject to the placement being the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Ofsted inspects how well local authorities perform in this area, and where there are inadequacies, we will intervene.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. He and indeed the whole House will understand that when the services of the state remove a child from its immediate family, that can be extremely distressing. It can be made worse if the child loses contact with its extended family, school, friends and familiar places. It can be made even worse when the local authority that places the child at a distance does not want its social workers to traipse up and down the country, and therefore contact is lost, and the local authority in whose area the child is placed will not know of its existence. This is an illustration of the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind”. Will the Minister remind local authorities that being a good parent to these vulnerable children is about more than just putting a roof over their head?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord raises an extremely good point; I know he is very experienced in this area. Local authorities must notify each other when placing children out of area, and a placing local authority has a duty to visit looked-after children to supervise arrangements and to promote their welfare. Every child should be visited within the first week, and thereafter children must be visited at intervals of no more than six weeks for the first year, and in subsequent years visits must also take place at intervals of not more than six weeks unless it is a permanent placement, in which case it is every three months. The IRO must monitor the performance of the local authority, as does Ofsted. However, I will take back his concerns to make sure that local authorities are completely aware of their duties in this regard.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that, for every child who goes into care, their trauma is added to because they want to know and understand what has gone wrong, and they want help to find the way forward? The more work is done with the family they have come from, the better the outcome will be. Some of the best outcomes come when children are placed in kinship care. Will the Government work hard to open up opportunities for social workers to learn more about who might be considered a kinship carer and make sure that that is the first option for children who come within the local authority sphere?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness makes a very good point. It is of course appropriate that children are placed with families and friends where possible. We have done a great deal of work in this area: the adoption support fund can help in this area and help the special guardians. The Family Rights Group and Grandparents Plus have also been funded in this area and we will continue to push in this regard.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, while I recognise the important steps that the Government have taken to improve the welfare of young people in care, will the Minister look at whether more could be done to stop children coming into care, as they increasingly do year on year? This makes it so hard to place them locally. For instance, will he look at the lowering today of the caps on benefits to families to see whether that has any impact on the numbers of children coming into care? To look globally, how do we help local authorities by strengthening families so that children do not come into care?
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, highlighted the potential implications of out-of-area care placements on young people’s sense of stability and belonging. Can my noble friend explain to the House how decisions about out-of-area placements are made and how rigorous the sign-off process is?
Lord Nash
Yes, there is a very clear process for out-of-area placements. They have to be approved by a nominated officer and if the placement is a distant one, which means not in its local authority or a local authority adjoining, it has to be approved by the director of children’s services. Local authorities must consult with the authority in which children are placed and the independent reviewing officer—IRO—has a role as well. Ofsted will inspect local authorities for how well they are performing in this regard.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that children who are placed a longish way from home are more likely to run away to get home, and in the process they may be subjected to further abuse given their vulnerability on their travels home?
Lord Nash
I am not sure whether we have evidence of that, but I certainly agree that, intuitively, it seems likely that that is the case. We are using the innovation fund to see whether we can encourage local authorities to have a more strategic view of where they place children, to be more aware of their particular needs and to try to ensure that they have a more joined-up approach to sourcing suitable placements for them.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, what are the Government doing about young people and children who are often difficult to place and end up in more than one kind of care? They very often end up in different schools and are not really being monitored throughout the system. Can he say what the Government are doing about monitoring these young people? Can he also say what opportunities for different kinds of care are being offered to many of these troubled young people?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness makes a very good point. It is well known that children in care quite often have a depressing number of placements. We are very well aware of this: in schools, we now have the concept of a virtual school head to take responsibility and a designated teacher in each school. There are often mental health issues as well concerning these kind of pupils. Where the child requires specialist services such as CAMHS, the local clinical commissioning group has a clear role. The noble Baroness will be aware of our strategy Future in Mind, which focuses on that area as well.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Education Select Committee’s report on the mental health of looked-after children, published in April this year, echoed the view of NICE that:
“Children and young people placed out of the local authority area are less likely to receive services from CAMHS in their new location”.
Matching children and young people to suitable fostering and residential settings, including the kinship settings that my noble friend Lady Armstrong mentioned, is crucial to providing stability and longevity in a placement and happiness for the child. Will the Government revisit the advice that they give to local authorities to ensure that the mental health needs of a child or young person are properly considered when deciding where they are placed?
The Lord Bishop of Durham
Does the Minister agree that children’s social workers do a fantastically good job, but one of the difficulties they face is their sheer workload, which means that their monitoring of children in care is not as adequate as it is should be?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree that social workers have this challenge. It is one of the reasons why we are looking at bringing in the ability to innovate to have more flexible arrangements. We are doing a great deal of work with the chief social worker to improve the arrangements for social workers and their training.
HMS “Ocean”
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the amphibious helicopter lift capability provided by HMS Ocean will be provided after she is paid off.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, following the decommissioning of HMS “Ocean” and prior to the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers being brought into service, a combination of the existing amphibious ships of the Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary will provide the lift capability for our amphibious forces.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, which I find very disappointing. I have commanded task groups and amphibious assault groups, and it is clear and well known that the only way of providing simultaneous two-company lift is to have a large deck with at least six spots that can be operated simultaneously and a hangar that can carry up to 12 or 14 helicopters. Anything else will not achieve the amphibious capability that is laid out clearly in our doctrine. What worries me is that this is yet another cut to our Navy. There seems to be cut after cut. Some £65 million has just been spent on refitting this ship in order to run it until 2025, and it is suddenly being laid up in 2018. “Diligence” has just been laid up. Saying we are ordering eight frigates—which I am sure is the sort of response we will get—is great, but they are years late, and there are eight rather than 13. In this highly dangerous world, the most chaotic I have known in 50 years on the active list, can we not put “Ocean” into reserve status, as we will with HMS “Bulwark” next year, and keep her until 2025 when the carriers are online and she can be replaced, and therefore have that capability if it is needed?
Earl Howe
My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the specified service life for HMS “Ocean” was 20 years as from 1998, and we announced in the SDSR 2015 that she would be taken out of service in 2018. The Royal Navy has been clear that, following the decommissioning of HMS “Ocean”, its priority was to maintain surface lift capability using “Albion” and “Bulwark” while preparing to bring the carriers into service with a smooth sequencing programme. I do not share the noble Lord’s perception of the Royal Navy as suffering cuts; if anything, it is very much on the up. We have the arrival of the two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers to look forward to, which will provide immensely greater capability than we have at the moment.
Lord Boyce (CB)
My Lords, I am afraid that I do not find the Minister’s Answer to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord West, particularly convincing. Does the Minister agree that paying off “Ocean” makes no strategic sense and that, despite what he said, it has been done because defence is badly underfunded and, in the Royal Navy’s case, badly underresourced in people as well? Does he agree that it was a mistake to impose an unrealistically low manpower ceiling in the 2010 defence review and to compound that mistake by not addressing it properly in the 2015 defence review, and that the current underfunding of defence resources, which is requiring the services to make cuts of some 10%, is having a very bad effect on training and the quality of life of our soldiers, sailors and airmen?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I always listen carefully to the noble and gallant Lord, as I do to the noble Lord, Lord West. There are always difficult choices to be made within a fixed budget, and that applies to any government department. However, last year’s strategic defence and security review announced an increase in the size of the Royal Navy of 400 personnel—to 30,600—by 2025. That represents an uplift of 1,600 over the 2010 SDSR position. Of course, there are manning pinch points; we acknowledge that and the Royal Navy is addressing them. But we have to live within the means that we have and address the capabilities we need, and I believe the Navy is doing that.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Will my noble friend confirm that one of the pressures on the naval procurement budget results from the ordering of two aircraft carriers by the noble Lord, Lord West, which still do not have enough aircraft—the F35, at £100 million apiece—to fly off them?
Earl Howe
I am sure my noble friend will be pleased to know we have already taken delivery of five of the F35s and have announced an accelerated buying programme to allow us to embark up to 24 of these fantastic fifth-generation aircraft by 2023. When my noble friend sees the “Queen Elizabeth” coming into Portsmouth, as it will next year, he will be very proud of the capability that this country can offer in terms of naval power.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, the role of HMS “Ocean” has been to provide the marines with a capability to deploy on land using landing craft and helicopters, and I understand that in future this will be provided by modifying one of the new Elizabeth-class carriers. Can the Minister say what these modifications will entail and how much they will cost? As has already been said, the Government have spent £65 million on refitting “Ocean” only to decommission it. They also spent £16 million on refitting RFA “Diligence”, our only at-sea repair ship, only to put it up for sale. That means they have spent £81 million refitting two ships in order to scrap them. What does this tell us about the Government’s long-term naval planning—that there is no long-term planning, but simply an endless waste of taxpayers’ money?
Earl Howe
I can reassure the noble Lord there is a great deal of long-term planning, as I witnessed myself at last week’s Admiralty board. He asked about the sequence of programming for the new carriers. The first of the carriers, HMS “Queen Elizabeth”, will enter service in 2018, after which she will conduct flying trials, initially with helicopters and then with the F35B Lightning II aircraft. We will deliver an initial carrier strike capability by 2020, but in parallel we will be developing our carriers to deliver amphibious assaults with Royal Marines and battlefield helicopters as well as to mount global counterterrorism strikes. I hope the noble Lord will agree that there is a logical sequencing programme in train.
Modern Slavery (Transparency in Supply Chains) Bill [HL]
Monday 7th November 2016
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Modern Slavery (Transparency in Supply Chains) Bill [HL] 2016-17 View all Modern Slavery (Transparency in Supply Chains) Bill [HL] 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text
Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Wales Bill
Monday 7th November 2016
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Wales Act 2017 View all Wales Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 63-II(a) Amendment for Committee, supplementary to the second marshalled list (PDF, 52KB) - (7 Nov 2016)
Lord Wigley
“Apprenticeship levy
(1) In Part 4A of the Government of Wales Act 2006, after Chapter 4 insert—“CHAPTER 5Apprenticeship levy116O Apprenticeship levy(1) The Treasury must make separate provision in regulations for apprenticeship levy charged to a person in Wales with a pay bill.(2) The Treasury must lay an annual report before the Assembly and the House of Commons on the amount of apprenticeship levy raised in each tax year from persons in Wales.(3) The Treasury must consult the Assembly before setting a levy allowance or a relevant percentage applicable to persons in Wales.””
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, after that rush of enthusiasm for the Wales Bill, I rise to move Amendment 23, which stands in my name and the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands. It relates to the devolution of the funds generated through the apprenticeship levy. The issue has been raised with me because of the uncertainty experienced by employers based in Wales regarding this matter. The Government’s rather chaotic and haphazard approach to the apprenticeship levy has left all the devolved Administrations scratching their heads. Although the specifics are clear for businesses in England, the way in which businesses and organisations in Wales will be able to access and benefit from the money generated by the levy remains completely opaque.
Of the projected £3 billion in the 2015 Autumn Statement, the Treasury specified that £2.5 billion would be spent exclusively on England while the remaining £500 million would be divided among Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We were told we would have our fair share. Despite the fact that this levy is due to be introduced in April, just five months away, we are left facing more questions than answers on the matter. What is our fair share? Are the receipts going to be Barnettised? What happens if the levy yields less money than projected? Will England’s funding be prioritised at the expense of that which is promised for Wales? The lack of transparency in the Treasury’s funding formula for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland is creating practical hurdles for those Governments as they prepare for their own apprenticeship schemes.
Apprenticeships are a devolved matter. So are education and training. Operating at a UK level a levy that is meant to directly fund the devolved function has every potential to cause confusion. I am told that an employer-led institute of apprenticeships is to be set up in April 2017 to advise the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the administration of funding and apprenticeship standards in England. Is this institute specifically for England? If so, where does that leave Wales? Surely a similar institution for each of the devolved areas should have a parallel role in advising the Secretary of State. Are the devolved Governments expected to set up their own bodies analogous to the institute or are they expected to relate directly to an institute whose remit extends only to England?
Online services will apparently be provided to employers in England but will not be available to Welsh employers. Another issue that remains unclear is how the levy will work in relation to companies that have headquarters situated in one country but employ people across the border in the territory of a devolved Administration. Plaid Cymru MPs were given assurances in the other place that the Treasury is working in co-operation with the Welsh Government to determine the implementation of the levy. We are yet to see any development on that front.
The apprenticeship levy status in Wales is reduced to a mere link on the UK Government website directing readers to a nondescript Welsh Government webpage that provides no clarity to those in Wales seeking information. What discussions took place between the UK Government and the Government of Wales before that link was advertised? With apprenticeships and businesses keen to take advantage of the levy in Wales in the immediate future, it is not right that they are left guessing while their English counterparts are able to plan in advance.
The UK Government are introducing legislation that pays no regard to the specific needs of the corresponding system in the devolved Governments. They are England-centric in their planning and implementation and appear to be progressing the matter without any co-ordination with the devolved Governments. More broadly, the patchwork devolution settlement being offered to Wales in the Bill will result in confusion and mismanagement. One solution to this problem, as my amendment today sets out, would be to devolve the apprenticeships levy in its entirety to Wales. This would allow the Welsh Government to administer and control the money raised and to align it with apprenticeship policies. Put simply, it would clarify any doubts over Wales’s fair share of the money raised, and would enable employers and apprenticeships to plan their programmes in a co-ordinated fashion. This is a constructive proposal to address a very real problem. I appeal to noble Lords on all sides to indicate their support for the amendment and I appeal to the Government either to accept it today or to undertake to return on Report with their own amendment to answer these very real difficulties. I beg to move.
Lord Rowlands (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as honorary president of the National Training Federation for Wales, and in its early years I was one of its advisers. The federation brings together many or most of the training providers that deliver the apprenticeship and skills policies and funding from the Welsh Assembly Government. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for tabling this amendment and bringing to our attention the peculiar and now very difficult situation that has arisen as a result of the introduction of the levy.
I say nothing about the merits of the levy. Frankly, it is a fascinating piece of interventionist politics in the labour and employment market. In fact, it reminded me—although I make no direct comparison—of when I was first in the other place in 1966 and a Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced something called the selective employment tax. I am not sure how many Members still remember that or it its fate. It was a novel tax which did not last; I wonder how long this novel levy will last.
Baroness Gale (Lab)
My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and my noble friend Lord Rowlands have spelled out the difficulties of the apprenticeship levy. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is proposing that it should be a Wales apprenticeship levy, devolved to Wales in its entirety, and that it should be collected and administered in Wales. My noble friend Lord Rowlands pointed out quite a lot of the difficulties and the lack of transparency around this issue.
The UK Government have said that the new apprenticeship levy, when it is implemented in April 2017, will apply to all UK employers and that the levy will be charged on those employers with a pay bill of more than £3 million, with a levy set at 0.5% of the pay bill. The Welsh Government have rightly raised concern about the introduction of the levy, and noble Lords have spelled that out today. I understand that the Welsh Government were not consulted about this, and perhaps they should have been before the initial announcement was made, bearing in mind that the apprenticeship levy funding policy is devolved and it will be for the Welsh Government to decide how they use it.
Last year, the Welsh Government consulted extensively on aligning their apprenticeship model to the needs of the economy in Wales and the wider UK. They published consultation responses in July 2015 and, since that time, have delayed publishing their apprenticeship implementation plan, as they want to have the opportunity to properly consider the impact of the UK Government’s proposals for the operation of the apprenticeship levy in England and the associated changes in apprenticeship standard.
We are several months away from the levy being implemented, and there is a lot of confusion and a lack of transparency. Can the Minister ensure that the UK Government will continue to work with the Welsh Government on the implementation of the levy? The Government should ensure that Wales receives a fair share of the revenue raised by it so that it can continue with its very successful apprenticeship programme. At present, it is funded by the Welsh Government with the support of the European Social Fund, which will probably disappear in a few years’ time.
Can we get a much clearer picture than we have at the moment so that there is transparency and the Welsh Government will know how this is going to operate? It seems that they are a bit on hold at the moment, as other noble Lords have pointed out. I am sure that the Minister will be able to clarify the position.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on the amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for moving it.
To fund the step change needed to achieve 3 million apprenticeship starts across the country by 2020 and to improve their quality, the Government are introducing an apprenticeship levy so that spending on apprenticeships will be double the level that it was in 2010-11 in cash terms. I think that that is something that noble Lords across the House will welcome. I recognise that some employers have concerns over the design of the levy. Following the announcement at the summer Budget of 2015, the Government consulted on its design; the consultation that took place during the autumn of that year revealed overwhelming support for the levy to be as simple as possible to operate across the United Kingdom. For this reason, it was decided that the apprenticeship levy would be based on the UK-wide definition of earnings as used for class 1 secondary employer national insurance contributions. Not only is the definition one that employers are familiar with but it is applied consistently to employers wherever they operate within the United Kingdom’s single market and is information they readily have available in their payroll. The definition also avoids considerable practical difficulties that would arise if there were different rates and thresholds of the apprenticeship levy in different parts of the United Kingdom, which appears to be the purpose of this amendment—or at least a consequence of it. However, because the charge is on the employer, it would be necessary to determine how such a system would operate for organisations working across borders or with plants in different parts of the country, such as Toyota. This would create additional and significant administrative burdens for businesses that we believe are best avoided.
That said, I can recognise the points that are being made by the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Rowlands, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gale. I thank her for her comments. It is certainly the intention for work between the Treasury and the Welsh Government to continue, as she suggested. Policy on apprenticeships is devolved to the Welsh Government; once there has been a discussion on how we ensure that Wales has a fair share of the money, it does not necessarily follow that it will be Barnettised. I rather suspect that it will not, and presumably they will look at the number of employees in different parts of the country. I am not sure that Barnett would present the right answer. But once it has been done, it is a matter for the devolved Governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as to how they operate the apprenticeship policy. They could presumably add more money in if they wanted to, or put in a smaller amount—that is a matter for them.
I have heard the contributions to this debate, and I understand that noble Lords want to ensure that Wales’s corner is being protected; I do too. I will ensure that a note is sent round to noble Lords who have participated in the debate so that they can see the state of play as things stand at the moment.
Lord Rowlands
My understanding is that the way it is going to be delivered in England is through this so-called digital voucher. First, can the Minister confirm that that is the case? Secondly, is it also the case that Wales and other Administrations have all rejected that process? If it is not going to be that, what will the process be by which Welsh companies can claim on the levy?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The noble Lord is right in the sense that the essence of devolution is that if the policy is devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales it is a matter for those Administrations as to how the apprenticeship policy is rolled out. The apprenticeship levy discussion will be happening between the Treasury and the devolved Administrations. I will get noble Lords an update on how that is progressing. It will then be for them to decide how the money is spent. The discussion on how the cake is being divided up will be led by the Treasury with the devolved Administrations. That is my understanding of how it will operate.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I will press the Minister further on this. Does he accept that, for the Welsh Government—or, for that matter, the Scottish or Northern Ireland Governments—to roll this out they need to know how much money they are getting; the mechanism for delivering it; the timing of it and the conditions that may be placed on it? It is now over 12 months since this thing was kicked off. Without knowing those details they cannot, with all the good will in the world, meet what is required. Inevitably, companies in Wales are going to be in an inferior position to those in England. Will the Minister also clarify the position of those who are employing people across the border: companies which may be based in England but employing in Wales, or vice versa?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, this was precisely the point that I was dealing with. As I said, I will get a note round about how the discussion is going on how the policy will be rolled out in terms of the amount of money that will be given to the devolved Administrations. The discussion will go on at that level on how that is being sorted out. As I understand it, the basis on which the policy is rolled out is that the place of employment will be where the policy applies. If a business is in Wales it will be a matter for the Welsh Government to decide a policy which is relevant to it. All the Administrations will want to bear in mind businesses which are on both sides of the border and ensure that there is some consistency in approach. However, that is a matter for them.
Based on my assurances that I will write to noble Lords on how the discussion is going now and that it is a matter for the devolved Administrations to decide the relevant policy—
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. It is, of course, satisfactory that the Minister will write to noble Lords, but this is yet another example of where discussions have been going on for some time since the Bill passed in another place and yet the up-to-date position on them has not been presented to this Committee. Like the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who made the point in an earlier sitting, I do think this is very unsatisfactory. We really should be updated in adequate time on all these discussions and not told that we will be given the information at some stage, perhaps before Report.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I am not quite sure what my noble friend wants me to say, other than that, as I have just said, I will endeavour to ensure that noble Lords will have the information that is being requested ahead of Report. With that, I ask the noble Lords to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for his response, but he must be feeling a little uneasy with the quality of the brief that he has been given on this. It is recognised the length and breadth of Wales that this is a totally unsatisfactory position which is causing problems for employers and those employees who are hoping to gain benefit from apprenticeship schemes. It is causing problems for the Welsh Government as they forward plan their budget for the coming year. We are talking of a sum of money that may be, let us say for argument’s sake, in the order of £150 million—a significant sum. Whatever the detail on the way in which these schemes are rolled out in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, none the less, if this is the funding arrangement that has been agreed, there should be transparency. We are now in November, and the budget will be coming in April. It is totally unsatisfactory for the UK Treasury and Government to place the devolved Administrations in this position. Whereas the note that no doubt will be sent round will give the fullest information that the Treasury is willing to make available, it none the less may well not answer the serious questions that have been raised.
I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, with his expert knowledge in this area, and to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, for intervening. We need to know. I realise that it is not the tradition to divide the House in Committee. However, if there is not a satisfactory answer from the Treasury and the Minister, I most certainly intend to come back to this on Report and, at that point, to press it. It is just not acceptable that we in Wales are placed in this position. It is not the fault of the Minister personally, but it is certainly the responsibility of the Government and the Treasury. I hope that between now and Report the Minister will have serious discussions with the Treasury, and that if he in his heart recognises that there is a serious problem here, he himself might choose to come back on this. On that basis, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, I beg to move that Clause 17 does not stand part of the Bill and in so doing apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Hain, who is unable to be with us today. I am glad to say that my noble friend Lord Kinnock, who has also signed this Motion, is with us this afternoon.
It is just over 20 years ago now that the people of Wales voted in the referendum to establish a Welsh Assembly. It is just over 20 years ago that the people of Scotland voted to establish a Scottish Parliament. It was at that point, two decades ago, that the people of both countries were asked about the nature of the devolution that they wanted. In Wales, income tax was not an issue. In 1997, when the people of Wales voted, as they did, narrowly for an Assembly, it was not to have a system of income tax. On the other hand, the people of Scotland voted in favour not just of a Scottish Parliament but also of powers to vary income tax in that country, even though they have never done that.
The purpose of this probing amendment—and it is a big probe—is to find out why the Government have changed their mind since the previous Wales Bill. That Bill, just a couple of years ago, said that if income tax powers were to be introduced in Wales then the people of Wales would be asked their views. I suppose, in a way, we have had a lot of referenda of late, which have caused all sorts of difficulties and problems. Nevertheless, the principle of asking the people of Wales whether they want income tax powers for Wales is no different from what was asked in 1997 of the people of Scotland. Now, however, we have a proposal in this Bill to abolish that question. The people of Wales will not in fact be asked to decide whether they want income tax powers for their Assembly or whether they want the Assembly itself to agree to the principle of income tax raising powers for the Welsh Government and Assembly. I want to find out from the Minister why this change took place and, indeed, what mandate there is for this change to occur.
The second reason why this issue is important is that there is a good, sound economic and financial reason why the people of Wales should not be burdened by an extra income tax. I understand the issues of accountability, and that was the main principle that the Government and others have argued: that there should be this income tax provision. However, given the Minister’s vast experience in this area, I am sure he will understand that Wales is not a wealthy country by comparison with England. Probably thousands more wealthy people live in the county of Surrey than in the whole of Wales. Therefore, the resource base in Wales for income tax is very low indeed, but the burden upon the people would be high were an income tax to be raised in Wales alone.
My noble friend Lord Hain is keen to expostulate that, if income tax is levied at a United Kingdom level, it is properly and fairly distributed among the less wealthy parts of our country. Therefore, Wales benefits from that fair distribution because we are not as wealthy as the south-east of England. That is an important issue to consider when we look at whether income tax should be devolved. Also, if income tax were to be raised in Wales—whatever the levy, be it 2p or 3p in the pound—if all that did was plug a gap because the block grant had been reduced, that, too, would be pointless. If income tax is to be raised, it should be extra and above the block grant allocation—the Barnett formula, flawed as it is—as my noble friend Lord Rowlands indicated.
The third and final reason why the Government should say why this change has been introduced is that they are in the middle of negotiations with the Welsh Government on a fiscal framework for Wales. That is a vital discussion and an important negotiation. If income tax is to be partly devolved to Wales, the onus lies on the Government to ensure that the fiscal framework is so devised that that inequality between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom is recognised and any block grant or Barnett formula ensures that Wales has a fair deal. For those reasons, I ask the Government to rethink this measure and I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, before contributing to this Clause 17 stand part debate, I apologise to the Committee, and to the Minister in particular, for not having taken part in the debate at Second Reading.
I welcome the Government’s decision to remove the requirement for a referendum before devolving powers over income tax to the National Assembly for Wales. I am afraid that I have to take issue with the noble Lord on the Labour Benches, who still sees the need for a referendum.
Our democratic institution, the National Assembly, commenced 19 years ago and successive Bills have conferred increasing powers on it. The aim of this Bill should surely be to further build that democratic institution by providing it with the powers it needs to do its job. Along with those powers, there must also be a means of providing the Assembly’s electorate with the opportunity to hold the institution to account. For me, these two factors—power and accountability—are the basis of democracy. Providing the Assembly with powers over partial income tax devolution, which brings with it the opportunity for transparency and accountability without holding a referendum, should be a mark of the confidence of this House in the Welsh Government’s ability to carry out their functions. The Bill should be about indicating a clear way ahead for the Assembly to provide the people of Wales with the mature and confident democracy we want and deserve, not about placing further obstacles in the path of their progress.
I am tired of living in a country which has had to hold out the begging bowl to the Treasury to enable it to receive funding via its annual block grant. I am tired of hearing Welsh Ministers blame the UK Government for every shortfall in funding. But, most of all, I am tired of there being no means by which I, as a Welsh elector, am able to hold the Government of my country to account for the way they raise and spend their revenue.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak on Clause 17, which the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, opposes. On many matters concerning devolution, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, were he here, would accept that we are usually in agreement. I was a great admirer of the way that he succeeded in getting the 2006 Act on to the statute book, notwithstanding its shortcomings.
Tomorrow is election day in the USA. “No taxation without representation” was the phrase coined in 18th-century colonial America. Today, in 21st-century Wales, we have representation but we do not have powers over taxation. We need both.
As the noble Baroness said a moment ago, the devolution of fiscal powers to Wales establishes an intrinsic democratic link between citizens and the policymakers they elect. Devolving income tax means that we can create better Welsh solutions to the challenges faced by Wales, in both the economy and the delivery of public services.
Although I understand the background to the wishes of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, described by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, for a referendum on income tax powers, I suspect that another referendum is not really what either of them dreams about at night. Indeed, if they do, they probably have nightmares about the use of this ostensibly democratic tool of government. They both know, as I do, how easily a referendum can transpose itself into a verdict on anything but the issue on the ballot paper. It should be used for only the most clear-cut matters, which the electorate clearly understand and know what the consequences would be. It may be fine for deciding locally whether pubs open or close on a Sunday but it is not an appropriate tool for deciding on taxation policy.
From what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said, I think he agrees with me on the need for the Assembly to have some tax-varying powers at the appropriate time for reasons that are becoming increasingly apparent. One of the major challenges for the Welsh Government now is to trigger a substantial capital expenditure programme to develop our industrial infrastructure. Plaid Cymru has called for a national infrastructure commission for Wales, which would enable the Welsh Government to borrow up to £7.5 billion over a 10-year period, and we need a tax-raising facility to fund such a programme. It does not have to be income tax—it could be other taxes, which we will discuss later—but income tax should be available for the Welsh Government, in their wisdom, to decide whether or not to use it.
It has been estimated that the servicing cost of that £7.5 billion would amount to £165 million a year, and it is unrealistic to believe that such a sum could be funded from the minor taxes alone. This is why the devolution of income tax is essential. We cannot call for an expenditure programme without accepting the need to fund it. The two go hand in hand and are essential to build a new forward-looking economy for Wales.
Income tax devolution will be the dawn of a new era of accountability for the National Assembly, reflecting the need for a mature public policy to balance the requirement for resources with the practicality of raising them. It is all too easy—and politically far too facile—for politicians of any party to call for greater spending on this or that element of public services without saying how the money is to be raised. It is equally irresponsible for politicians on the right to call for lower taxes without explaining which public services would lose funding. The acceptance of both as obverse sides of the same coin is a reflection of political maturity. Giving tax-varying powers to the Assembly represents another step to it becoming a genuine home of Welsh democracy. For that reason, I support Clause 17 remaining part of the Bill.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate but I should like to make two points. First, I am not persuaded, after what we have experienced in the past few months, that referendums are a source of clear, unambiguous decision. They are disastrous. We have seen that in connection with larger matters than Wales. To have a referendum on the deeply technical issue of the relationships of finance between local and central authorities—a very complicated matter—would resolve into the popular papers of the Welsh press, such as we have, debating whether it would mean income tax going up or down. The idea that fiscal principles would be subject to deep and profound scrutiny is not credible. We have had quite enough referendums as a substitute for democratic decision. They are a bogus form of democracy for the reasons we have seen and I would not want one for this.
Apart from a referendum being an unsatisfactory source of clarity and wisdom, as has been said by other noble Lords, it is an imperative of devolution that the Welsh Government should have some fiscal powers. The Scottish Government have had them since 1997, although they have not used them, and that is perhaps significant for whether the Welsh Government would use them. We do not know.
A devolved democracy that depends on handouts from somewhere else inevitably provokes complaints—as it has done in the history of Wales for decades; Westminster never offers or does enough—and will produce unsatisfactory responses. On the references to the American revolution, the reverse of what was said is profoundly true: if you do not have tax powers or the ability to raise your own revenue, you are not really a democracy because you are in a position of subservience. The whole history of Welsh devolution and other parts of the Bill show—in spite of the excellent intentions of the Minister and others on the Conservative side—that Wales has been treated in an inferior sense. Its status has not matched that of Scotland or Northern Ireland. That is riddled throughout the Bill, nullifying its good and noble purposes. So it is with regard to taxation.
It has been said that we should wait until things sort themselves out and the Barnett formula is removed. Let us wait. It is a temporary stop-gap, as we were correctly told by the noble Baroness. Lord Barnett himself explained what a very bad idea it was, because it was designed to plug what was thought a short-term problem in, I think, 1978, when the distinguished noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, who is sitting in front of me, was in Cabinet—if I am wrong he can contradict me. Like other stop-gaps, it has survived the decades. It looks remarkably healthy for a stop-gap. A proposal to wait until the Barnett formula is resolved is a way to put off a decision completely. I very much hope we will not have a referendum and that we will bring to further completion the process of democracy in Wales.
Lord Crickhowell
My Lords, I find myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, on the subject of referendums and, indeed, with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I hope Clause 17 will stay part of the Bill. It would be particularly unfortunate to remove it when, as I pointed out at earlier stages, we still do not know what the financial arrangements will be. My noble friend has helpfully pointed out that we hope to know more about that before Report. In all the circumstances, it seems an extraordinary proposal that we should remove Clause 17. I hope very much, for the reasons given by the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Morgan, that it stays as it is.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, the powers on income tax are one of the most important aspects of the Bill. As the Minister knows better than I, the Silk report recommended a referendum as a compromise on income tax. There were those members of the commission who were very keen for the Welsh Government to have those powers and those who were not keen at all. The compromise position was that they should have the powers, but only after a referendum. I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—otherwise, I am equally sure, he will remain discreetly silent on the issue.
However, the devolution story has moved on a very long way since that recommendation. We have had the Scottish referendum, the St David’s Day agreement, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, reminded us, the previous Wales Act, which I took through this place. So a referendum requirement is well out of kilter with the times. Forgive me: along with several other noble Lords who have already expressed their views, I am a little out of love with referenda. They do not always answer the question on the ballot paper.
I also remind the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, that powers over income tax could possibly mean that income tax could go down as well as up, or that the Welsh Government could choose to do as the Scottish Government have done for nearly 20 years: to have that power but not to vary the rate of income tax. But there are many reasons associated with the principle of powers over income tax that make it essential that the Welsh Government are given those powers.
There are reasons associated with certainty and transparency. The Welsh Government have evolved from being a purely executive body within the Assembly to being a full legislative body. As those powers have developed, they have lacked the right to levy taxes generally. Gradually, in the previous Wales Act, they were given some of those powers. Clause 17 would increase them.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, in a tiny way this is a historic occasion: it is the first time in my recall that I diverge ever so slightly from the view of my noble friend Lord Morgan, and it is on the issue of the relevance and applicability of referendums. It is clear from what several noble Lords have said that bruises are borne as a result of the fact that we in this country having recently been through a referendum—indeed, I have not only bruises but scars to show for the experience. Nevertheless, the reality is that in a parliamentary democracy referendums are justifiable when there is a proposal to change the way in which we are governed.
That was the basis for the justification of the 23 June referendum, just as it was for those of us who campaigned for a referendum on entry to the European Communities and those of us who campaigned for referendums on Scottish and Welsh devolution back in 1979 and greeted with satisfaction the proposal in the 1990s that referendums should determine whether a Welsh Assembly and a Scottish Parliament were introduced. The same joy stirred our hearts when we saw an enacted proposal for referendums to determine whether major conurbations in England should have elected mayors. I use these references only to demonstrate the realism and the relevance of using referendums when there is a proposal to change the way in which a democracy or part of a democracy is governed.
Such is the case if there is a proposal to offer to the Welsh Assembly the power to levy income tax. That would profoundly change the way in which Wales was governed. It is on that basis that there is a straightforward justification for a referendum on such a fundamental constitutional and economic decision that has immense social, commercial and personal implications for every family, every community, every business and every employee in the whole of Wales.
Left at that, it could be dismissed as an academic, almost arcane argument—but it is not. It is much more prosaic than that. I join with my noble friends in objecting to the removal of the undertaking to give a referendum on the issue of the introduction of income tax-raising powers for the Welsh Assembly. That undertaking was not only given by several political parties representative of and represented in Wales, it was the subject of statute. It remains the subject of statute unless and until this Bill is enacted. For many years—indeed, decades—most political parties offered to the people of Wales the utter reassurance that they would have the final determining word on whether the elected Welsh Assembly is to have the power to levy income tax. Clause 17 should be removed from the Bill to ensure the continuity and integrity of those previous, voluntarily offered undertakings to the people of Wales.
There is a further consideration: we have a model to consider. It has been referred to already. It is, of course, the fact that the Scottish Parliament, from its inception, has had the power to vary income taxation in Scotland and has never seriously considered—let alone debated or proposed—in any formal manner such a variation. Why is that? Because of the utter unacceptability and impracticality of such an idea, even for a substantially devolved institution in a unitary state. I will certainly give way in a moment but will just finish this particular reference. The proposal that the Welsh Assembly should have this additional power in the absolutely certain and cynical knowledge that it would not be exercised is like offering me a car with the capacity to travel at 200 miles per hour and I buy it in the knowledge that the speed limit in the United Kingdom is 70 miles per hour.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
It might be helpful to recollect that when the referendum on devolution took place in Scotland, there were two questions. One was on the principle of devolution but the other was whether a devolved Assembly, as it was called in those days, should have tax-varying powers. That was separated out in the case of Wales but in Scotland, where I was, we had a vote on both at the same time. On exactly the point that the noble Lord was making, we had the democratic decision with a substantial majority that the Assembly, as it was then called, should have tax-varying powers. We got it all achieved in one.
Lord Kinnock
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. At the time, I almost rejoiced in the full implementation of the long-standing Labour Party policy—developed under my leadership, as it happens, on the basis of continued representation from my comrades in Scotland—that a specific opportunity should be given to the people of Scotland to decide on that issue. Equally, and with substantial force, there were representations from Wales that that offer should not be made. Influences, parties and opinions in Wales suggested that that should not be the case. But their views were set aside—while undoubtedly being recognised and respected, as is our manner in Wales—and the issue was never put, and it never generated the merest scintilla of a spasm of objection.
Almost on the contrary, at that time in the 1990s and at this time in the second decade of the 21st century, there was and is no evident support among the public for the idea of income tax-raising or income tax-varying powers to be allocated to the Welsh Assembly. In this era, when all of us, if we have any sense at all, must be aware of the feeling of distance that exists between the general electorate and those who are elected to govern them, we should be sensitive to the idea that when there is no measurable support for a proposition that is as significant as the varying of taxation powers, and yet the recognised elected authority and the Executive go ahead and grant that power, on the best day it will be greeted as an irrelevance. On a less good day, it will be greeted with cynical dismissal.
Lord Crickhowell
The noble Lord said that it was a great constitutional change and dismissed the argument advanced—I thought very convincingly—by his noble friend Lord Morgan about the unsuitability of the question to be put in a referendum. However, will not the Welsh Government, or parties in the Welsh Assembly, have to put before the electorate the proposal in their manifesto that they will introduce or intend to introduce or change taxation? If they do so, will they not afterwards face the judgment of the Welsh electorate if the electorate disagree with what they have done and the way they have done it? Surely, therefore, we have a constitutional arrangement that allows the Welsh electorate to make their judgment both before and after a general election.
Lord Kinnock
I agree with the noble Lord. Certainly we have not only a constitutional but an electoral arrangement, which is of at least equal relevance. We speak of course in 2016, the year in which—indeed, just a few months after—an election of a new Assembly took place in Wales. I do not recall any proposition from any party—outside Plaid Cymru, which has been entirely and honourably consistent in its proposals—that said, “If you elect us, we will work to ensure that the United Kingdom, in a change of legislation, will allocate to us the power to vary income taxation in Wales”. I know that that is a political point, but it is worth taking into account. On this central issue of accountability, I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said when he advanced the idea that the allocation of powers to the Welsh Assembly to levy and vary income tax would enrich accountability in Wales. I say to him, and in part I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, that accountability must relate not to abstract, desirable, mooted, arguable or deluded powers, but to exercisable powers. What we see in Scotland is a myth of accountability. When they have the power to vary taxation, as they have had for the best part of 20 years, and have not even begun to consider the implementation of such powers I simply do not see how accountability—the central principle of democracy—is enhanced by having a power but never exercising it, and never daring to exercise it. Where is the enhancement of accountability there?
Lord Hope of Craighead
Perhaps I might correct the noble Lord on a point of slight detail. The Scottish National Party, which is the governing party in Scotland, has made it clear that it intends not to follow the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England on the level at which the 40% tax rate comes in. I think that the proposal in England, and indeed in Wales for the moment, is that there should be a rise of that level at which 40% becomes payable. The Scottish Government have said that they are not prepared to go along with that, so for the Scots the level will remain as it is at present. I grant the noble Lord that this is under a different power which has been given in a later enactment but to say that there is no desire by the governing party to make changes is a little excessive, with great respect.
Lord Kinnock
I accept the point entirely. I can respond to it only by saying that I await, without bating my breath, for the implementation of this proposition. I can see the attractiveness of it, especially to a party which is self-confessedly populist and has gained great strength by means of offering simple answers to complex questions. That has served that party well for several years—astoundingly well. I await that exercise of the variation under the supplementary powers granted to them and on that occasion, I will withdraw all speculation about Scottish inclinations to vary taxation powers.
Lord Wigley
The noble Lord very kindly talked of our consistency on these matters; I also respect his consistency on them from 1979 onwards. Can I press him on the point that he made about exercisable powers? The next bank of amendments will talk about a new exercisable power to have a capital investment fund. Without some ability to vary taxation, how does the noble Lord square that circle or does he not support the demand for a greater capital expenditure fund?
Lord Kinnock
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who I respect greatly, that it would be—without oversimplifying this—on the same basis as borrowings are undertaken now. He will know of the generous and immensely useful support given to a variety of projects in Wales by the European Investment Bank. Nobody has required the allocation of tax-varying or tax-raising powers to the Welsh Assembly to enable that support. Since there is also a guaranteed income for the Welsh Assembly—inadequate and stunted by the application of the Barnett formula, as he and I would agree—but nevertheless significant, as he and I would agree, nobody lending money for major capital investment projects in Wales, within reasonable limits and according to the required fiscal disciplines, should worry about it because they will be guaranteed a return on their investment. It is not necessary to add to the obligations of the Welsh Assembly to facilitate that—within limited confines, as I say. I will give him an example, which I will pluck out of the air.
If, for instance, a sensible proposal was made for establishing a link between Rhoose international airport and the main train line from London to Swansea, I would certainly support it, or, indeed a spur road from the M4 or even a direct road from the A48 into Rhoose airport in order to enhance the attractiveness of this major infrastructure advantage, substantially, and rightly, supported by the Welsh Government. There is no reason why a guarantee of return on the investment should not be made by the imposition of a small toll on the road or the railway line. It is not unprecedented across continental Europe. If we want to know how successful such arrangements can be, the noble Lord only has to look that the second Severn crossing. A huge capital sum, vastly in excess of anything that would be needed to link Rhoose airport, has been paid off with, in my view, excessive and unfair impositions—I am speaking of the degree, not the principle. The same thing could be done elsewhere. I am not advocating it; I am simply saying that there is a variety of ways of guaranteeing a reasonable return on long-term capital investment without requiring the allocation of fund raising through income tax-raising powers for the Welsh Assembly.
If this removal of a requirement for a referendum is to have a real justification, it has to have evident support from people across Wales. They have expressed no significant demand for, or preference for, the further allocation of such a power to the Welsh Assembly. The maxim employed earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, which was coined by a Welshman at the time of the American Revolution, “No taxation without representation”, bears an addition in this century. It is: “No further allocated powers of taxation without at least consultation, without at least deliberation, without at least endorsement and, finally, without at least agreement”. That brings us back to the referendum because where there is an absence of demand for this change in the way in which the people of Wales are governed, there has to be a supreme additional justification for allocating a power that is not only not demanded but that we have every reason to assume would not be exercised, a power that would not lend itself to extra accountability or enhance transparency or enrich democracy. I wait to hear from the Minister a justification of the dismantling of the undertakings previously given by all parties and enacted for a referendum as a prerequisite of the allocation of income tax-raising powers to the Welsh Assembly.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, I wonder whether I can assist the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, in his final question by telling your Lordships about my brother-in-law, who is Welsh, but who has lived in Aberdeenshire since the 1970s. In 1979, like the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, he was wholly against devolution to Scotland. In 1998, he had not changed his mind, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and in the referendum he voted no to devolution to Scotland, but yes to tax-raising powers if a Parliament should be formed. At the time, we thought this was slightly odd. But what he was saying was that you should not have a parliament unless it is accountable—fully accountable. That is the point.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the Welsh Assembly was constituted, and the Labour Party has, one way or the other, exercised power in Cardiff since its inception—it still does. The purpose of a proper Government is to raise taxes and to spend them, and to be accountable to the people from whom they raise those taxes as to how they handle their money. It is a perfectly simple proposition, but for the last 20 years, we have heard from the Labour Government in Cardiff that if they are incapable of providing adequate services in Wales—for example, in the health service or in education—it is because they do not have enough money sent to them from Westminster.
It does not require a referendum now. The reason why a referendum was provided for in the last Bill and why it appeared to be a good idea was that we were following the Scottish practice of 1998. But we moved on; devolution has moved on. We were tired, as my noble friend Lady Humphreys said, of the excuse that we are failing as a Government because Westminster does not give us enough money. It is time that income tax is devolved to Wales and that proper accountability should occur.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I will briefly emphasise a point strongly implied by my noble friend Lord Kinnock but perhaps not yet made fully explicit in this debate, which is that there is an issue here about trust between people and their politicians. As has been noted, the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and others have promised a referendum on this question of income tax-varying powers over many years. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, it was a manifesto pledge by the Conservative Party at the last general election, and we need to look at that question of whether it is acceptable and politically prudent for a Government to slide away from a manifesto commitment that was so very clearly made.
I understand, and in large measure agree with, the point made by my noble friend Lord Morgan about the unsuitability of the referendum as a device for resolving technical and complex political issues. I also accept what has been said about income tax-varying powers being a mark of the maturity of the Welsh Assembly, which may call itself a Welsh Parliament. It is desirable in principle that a parliament should have those powers and be held accountable to the people on whom it would propose to levy income tax. It is perhaps desirable that these powers should be created, but one must also recognise that if the people of Wales are asked in a referendum whether they favour the introduction of powers that they would anticipate will be used to raise income tax, they might well say no. Taxable capacity in Wales is decidedly limited, and people on the whole do not vote for higher taxes. But none the less, if they have been offered the opportunity to make that choice for themselves, it may well be rash and improper to take that choice away from them.
The alternative will be that this legislature will impose on Wales an income tax-varying power for the Welsh Assembly. It has been assumed in this debate that that power to raise income tax would be most unlikely to be used in the foreseeable future. But I do not entirely share that confidence, because we have no long-term fiscal framework and no settlement. The Barnett formula has not been reformed, and I agree with those who have said that to wait to move on this until that formula is fully and satisfactorily reformed is to wait for ever. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that, after 2020, we could see a future Government of the UK reducing the block grant for Wales—indeed, if the Government have their way in this Bill, we will see borrowing powers for Wales very severely curtailed—and in those circumstances Wales would need to increase the proceeds of income tax and to use those powers.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I was 12 in 1979 when we had the first referendum on whether we wanted devolution to come to Wales, and I have had a little taster this afternoon of what it must have been like during that campaign. But we have had a different result from that in 1979; the Assembly has been established for 19 years and it is maturing and developing.
I thank my noble friends Lord Murphy and Lord Hain for tabling this amendment because this issue is worthy of debate. I am afraid the people of Wales were told when we established the Assembly that we would put the issue of income tax-varying powers to them in a referendum. We have heard today what a risky business referendums are; I concur—I also have the scars from the recent referendum—and, let me tell you, I am no longer a fan of referendums.
It is worth repeating the question asked by my noble friend Lord Murphy: what has changed since the last Bill that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, brought through the House, and what is the difference between that Bill and this one? What has made the Government change their mind on this issue? It is worth drawing attention to the fact that Wales is not a rich country. My understanding is that only about 6,000 people in Wales pay the highest rate of income tax, those who earn over £150,000, while only one in 16 pay the 40p higher rate of income tax. We are not talking about people that it is easy to tax, so it is worth remembering and understanding that this is not going to be a power that is easily exercisable.
However, I beg to differ with my colleagues on this issue, because times have changed. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, the Assembly has moved a long way during those 19 years. On top of that, we have the issue of austerity. The IFS said recently that, by 2020, there will have been an 11% cut since 2010 in funding coming to Wales. That is hitting some of the poorest members of our society. Austerity is hitting not only our revenue budgets but our capital budgets. It is all very well to talk about borrowing money from the European Investment Bank, but we do not even know whether we will be able to access that kind of funding in future.
Why do I support the amendment? I support the amendment because, at this difficult time, borrowing against this income stream will be essential if we want to invest in our infrastructure in Wales. There is demand for better infrastructure. People want improvements in Wales. That demand is there. However, it is important to understand—we will come to this in the next amendment—
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I do not think that she is speaking in favour of the amendment; she might want to clarify that.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I am not speaking in favour of the amendment because of the next amendment. We need an increase in the borrowing powers because of the funding stream and the devolution of taxation. That is critical to investment in Wales.
We know that the Welsh Government and the UK Government have an understanding and that there will be an agreement on the fiscal framework before we enter the next phase of the Bill. It is important that, in that fiscal framework, we have an offset to the block grant in return for that tax revenue. We need to see how that offset will interact with the Barnett formula, and we need the funding floor to be made permanent. It is critical that we should not accept a situation where Wales will be materially worse off as a consequence of devolving taxation. That would not be good for the people of Wales?
We expect the Minister to negotiate that with the Finance Minister in the Assembly, but can he can assure us that that fiscal framework will be resolved before we have an understanding? We will come in the next amendment to the amount that may be borrowed, but can he assure us that we will be able to have an increase in borrowing powers as a result of the fiscal autonomy that will be coming to Wales?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate. For the sake of clarity—I correct myself as well—this is a clause stand part debate rather than a debate on an amendment to Clause 17.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Kinnock, for moving and speaking to the Motion that the clause do not stand part. I disagree with their intent. As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said, we have been here for nearly 20 years since the first successful referendum in 1997. Circumstances massively changed in that time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, said.
Let me try to deal with some of the points. Circumstances have changed since the Silk commission’s first report. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has been consistent on this topic, as has the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock. I confess that I have not. I am more like the brother-in-law of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford: I have changed my mind on some of these issues. I should set that out first. In the Silk commission, all four parties recognised the need for income tax powers for the National Assembly for Wales. If it was to become a full legislature in the proper sense, it was accepted that it needed income tax powers. Some noble Lords have used the phrase as if it meant all income tax powers; of course, it does not; some income tax powers remain with the United Kingdom. We should make it clear that this is not transferring all income tax powers; it is transferring some. It is a significant change, I agree, but the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, for example, that it is a fundamental, apocalyptic change to the way things happen but that it will not be exercised is somewhat inconsistent. It cannot be both apocalyptic and not be used.
I very much hope that it will be used. We cannot necessarily draw conclusions from what has been happening in Scotland. I hope that the National Assembly for Wales will be more imaginative. I was there for 12 years, and there was evidence of a lot of free thinking on many issues, not least in this area, so I do not accept that the power will not be used. We must realise that it is a limited power; it is not transferring all income tax powers to Wales.
I agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lords, Lord Wigley, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Morgan, about circumstances having changed, that perhaps we make use of referendums too freely, and that they are not always appropriate. I feel that if we were to insist on a referendum, it is arguable that we would be holding Wales back. In some quarters—I certainly exempt the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, from this—it is being put forward as a means of trying to defeat the proposal or slow things down. We would not be doing Wales a great service if we did that. This is a power for a purpose, as was identified by the Silk commission. It is bringing in accountability. It is making what I hope becomes the Welsh Parliament, in name as well as reality, a real Parliament with this element of tax-raising power on income tax.
Lord Kinnock
I asked the noble Lord for justification of the change in the law that would be implied by the enactment of the Bill, and he seems to suggest that times have changed and that the Silk commission has made recommendations. Does he believe that times have changed enough to give the Welsh people a real appetite for their Assembly to have the power to impose income tax additions? Does he think the Silk commission was really so conscious of the true economic condition of Wales and the distribution of incomes, referred to by my noble friend Lady Morgan, that it would permit a change that altered the law, removed the requirement for a pre-income tax allocation referendum and justified the introduction of new law? I do not think times have changed that much.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord on this point. I remember the same argument being put forward when we had the 2011 referendum. People were saying that it would not pass and that opinions had not changed in Wales. I remember people on my own side arguing that it would be defeated in all parts of Wales, up and down the country. That did not happen. It was won decisively in every local authority bar one—Monmouthshire, where it was marginally defeated. Do I think that circumstances have changed so that we do not need a referendum? Yes, I do. The noble Baroness speaking for the Labour Party thinks similarly, as do the other political parties. There is probably one political party that does not think that—UKIP—but I disagree with it. Opinion has changed and we would be doing Wales a massive disservice by having a referendum that I do not believe is necessary in the changed circumstances of devolution in 2016.
Lord Kinnock
Does the noble Lord recognise that to justify his contention about the movement of opinion in Wales, he referred to the 2011 referendum? Does he not consider that that makes my point for me?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
No, it does not. Rather the reverse, it showed that opinion in Wales had changed much more than people thought. The noble Lord put a fair question to me: whether I thought that opinion had changed in Wales such that we did not need a referendum. I hope I have given a very fair answer. It is a truthful one—I think opinion in Wales has changed to that degree.
Arguments were put on various issues in relation to this, not least in the area of borrowing. I agree again that, to have significant borrowing powers, there has to be a separate stream of revenue. This would present a separate stream of revenue, and even if the income tax rates were retained exactly as they are in England, it would give that separate rate of revenue. So, there is that as well. I know that we are coming on to a subsequent amendment on this issue. In view of the fact that I do not believe that this change is necessary and the strength of opinion from noble Lords around the Chamber, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Crickhowell
On a point of detail, it was suggested that there was a Welsh Conservative manifesto commitment. I have taken the trouble during the debate to read the Welsh Conservative manifesto, which I confess I had never read before, and there is no such commitment.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I am most grateful for that clarification. I do not think I had read it either. It is always useful to hear these things from someone who speaks with authority, and I thank my noble friend very much. Of course, I am not urging noble Lords to withdraw the amendment; I am just urging that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen
Obviously, I shall not oppose the clause standing part, but I shall make two points in response to the debate. First, I have never felt particularly deprived as a Welsh taxpayer and citizen by not having extra income tax for Wales. In the 30 years that I represented a Welsh constituency, not a single representation was made to me about this issue. In the five years when I was Secretary of State for Wales, not one Welsh Minister ever made representations to me about the need for income tax. However, the issue is not about the need for income tax—it is about the need for a referendum. That is what this resolution is about.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
The noble Lord seems to think that this is about additional income tax but we are talking about tax-varying powers. They could go up or down or they could stay the same, but they would give a separate stream to the income of the Welsh Assembly, which would assist in borrowing. What disappoints me in the Minister’s reply is not to hear some idea of the fiscal framework. I wonder whether the Welsh Government have ever put forward a variation on the Barnett formula. We all oppose the Barnett formula in one way or another, but I have never heard the Welsh Government suggest an alternative way in which to raise money, other than the Barnett formula. Can the Minister say something about the broader picture?
Lord Murphy of Torfaen
I had not quite finished my remarks—I thought the noble Lord was intervening on me. The issue is about the principle of a referendum. Right from 1997, the people of Wales agreed on a devolution settlement. In 1979, my noble friend Lord Kinnock and I disagreed with the idea of a Welsh Assembly. Twenty years later, we agreed with it—and, as the Minister himself said, in 2011 there was a referendum to change that settlement. I approved of it, I agreed with it and I supported it. That gave legitimacy to the change, because at the end of the day the people of Wales agreed.
I suspect there has been a change in the past 18 months because, after all, this is about a change in the current law. It is not about introducing something but about abolishing something: the right of the people of Wales to have a referendum on income tax. My guess is that it has nothing to do with the spread of devolution or the other issues to which the Minister referred; it is about their thinking that they would not win it. But the principle of the referendum would give it that legitimacy. Indeed, if the Government and others thought it would be hugely popular, what is wrong with a referendum on it? If we had one on the powers, we can have one on income tax. The Minister has not explained why the Government have changed their mind about the principle of a referendum in under two years. That is a pretty rapid change, and there must be other reasons lying behind the Government’s views. At the end of the day, if the people of Wales want income tax variation—and, by the way, it is not extra money. I reject that idea; I do not think for one second that any income tax powers will produce a penny more for the people of Wales, because the block grant will be reduced. That imposition has been put on a country that is poorer than England. Having said all that, I shall not push this to a vote this evening.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
In Committee, I think I am entitled to speak as many times as I wish. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, for interrupting him in full flow, but I still look to the Minister to give us some idea at this stage of how he sees it. What is the future fiscal framework? What does he have in mind? Will it be a deduction from the block grant, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, suggests, or will it not?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I am very happy to supply the information that I gave previously at Second Reading, when I said that I would update noble Lords, before Report, on the progress of the fiscal negotiations that are going on between the Welsh and United Kingdom Governments. As I indicated then, the discussions are progressing well. The ministerial Joint Exchequer Committee has met twice and, according to reports I have had from both the Welsh and UK Governments, it is going well. I am not all over the detail; it would be unwise to be so until they are nearer to a conclusion. There will obviously be a reduction in the block grant because 10p income tax will be raised at the Welsh level. So the discussion is about exactly how we do what is right for Wales and for the United Kingdom within that context. It is good news that progress is being made.
Lord Wigley
I will press the Minister for clarification. Of course, if 10p is transferred over there will be a netting off, but if there is an increase of 1p in income tax there would not be a reduction in the block grant because of that.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That is absolutely right. The National Assembly for Wales doing something imaginative to raise income will be to the benefit of the Assembly and of Wales. That is the whole point of what is going on. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, in suggesting that there is something sinister in the change of heart here. Other parties have had this change of heart; it is a recognition that we do not need a referendum. I suspect that many of the people urging it are hoping to delay things—I exempt the noble Lord from this—or, indeed, defeat it. That should not be the aim. The aim should be to do what is right for Wales. I strongly and sincerely believe that if we were to have a referendum, it would be carried.
Lord Kinnock
On the issue of taxation levied on the people of Wales, will the Minister spend a moment explaining the logic, or lack of it, of a fiscal regime that has ensured, as he will acknowledge from his own experience, huge reductions in the public resources available to local authorities throughout Wales, with awkward consequences for some services and tragic ones for others? These include adult social care and post-16 educational opportunity. Where is the rationality in imposing such a fiscal regime nationally—for purposes I disagree with, but nevertheless that is the law of the land—and simultaneously introducing legislation that would, without a referendum, or further ado, allocate to the Welsh Assembly the power to vary, including raising, income taxes?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, we are being taken in a direction completely off the particular provision in the Bill. As I made clear before, this is a power which, as the noble Lord has just indicated, would enable the National Assembly for Wales to vary income tax up or down, or to ensure that it stays the same if that is what it wants to do. I myself dislike the word “imposing” on the National Assembly or people of Wales. Discussions are going on between the Finance Minister and his team in the National Assembly for Wales—for whom I have the greatest respect—and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and his officials. I believe that an agreement will be reached. If it is not, we do not get the legislation, because the LCM will only come forward if an agreement is reached to the satisfaction of the National Assembly for Wales, and presumably the Welsh Government as part of that. That will carry things through. I do not see that the local government position is anything to do with this.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
“Lending for capital expenditure
(1) In section 122A of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (lending for capital expenditure), in subsections (1) and (3), for “£500 million” substitute “£2 billion”.(2) In section 161(2) of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (commencement), after “120(3) and (7)” insert —“section 122A(1) and (3),”.”
Baroness Morgan of Ely
My Lords, to me this is one of the key clauses in the whole Bill. I have made no secret of my lack of enthusiasm for the way the Bill has been written, but we are now living in very difficult financial times. The IFS has claimed that there will be a 3.2% cut, in real terms, in the Welsh budget over the next three years. We have little confidence that the UK Government are going to make up the losses that Wales will face as a result of Brexit. The IFS has said that if they do not make up the losses, that will lead to a doubling of those cuts if EU aid is not replaced after Brexit. I am aware that there has been a promise until 2020, but nothing beyond that.
The devolution of tax powers through the Wales Act 2014 will also enable the Welsh Government to borrow in order to invest in capital infrastructure. That will benefit the economy and communities across Wales. The current level of capital borrowing permitted to the Welsh Government is £500 million. That is based on the devolution of two fairly minor taxes: stamp duty land tax and landfill tax. In the Command Paper published alongside the Wales Bill in March 2014, the UK Government committed to reviewing the level of capital borrowing available to Wales if income tax is partially devolved. This Wales Bill will result in the transfer of an additional £2 billion in tax revenue to the Welsh Government, and so will significantly increase the size of the independent revenue stream available to the Welsh Government. In line with the commitment given in 2014, the Bill provides an opportunity to give Welsh Ministers a more meaningful degree of borrowing power to reflect the significant increase in devolved tax revenues under their control.
The Silk commission, of which the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, was a member, recommended that the Welsh Government’s capital borrowing limit should be at least proportionate to the limit agreed for Scotland, taking into consideration the relative lack of exposure to PFI in Wales. With comparable devolved tax powers, the UK Government agreed a capital borrowing limit of £2.2 billion in the Scotland Act 2012. In line with the recommendation from the Silk commission, a capital borrowing limit of £2 billion would therefore be proportionate to that agreed for the Scottish Government, after taking into account the Welsh Government’s lower exposure to PFI. The UK Government’s position that a limit of £500 million is appropriate, as set out in the Government of Wales Act, is contradictory to the approach taken for the Scottish Government in the Scotland Act. At a time when there are significant economic uncertainties, the ability to bring forward additional capital investment would provide a much needed economic stimulus to Wales. With a capital borrowing limit of £2 billion, the Welsh Government would have the fiscal tools available to support the level of investment needed in Wales.
The Welsh Government and Assembly are anxious to grow up, but it is as if the UK Government still want to treat them like children, telling them how much money they can spend and that they are allowed to borrow only if they tell “daddy” what they are going to spend the money on. An increase in the Welsh Government’s borrowing capacity is absolutely critical, and I for one would find it very difficult to support the Bill without that increase. We understand that this will form part of the discussions on the financial framework, but we strongly recommend that both the Welsh Government and the UK Government come to an agreement on this critical area. I ask the Minister to give a commitment that there will be a revision of the amount that is currently in the Government of Wales Act.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 24 moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, which seeks to raise the limit on capital expenditure lending from £500 million to £2 billion. We touched on this issue in our debate on the previous group of amendments.
In the economic climate we find ourselves today, with further uncertainties ahead of us, it is more necessary than ever to have available to the Welsh Government a facility to boost jobs and stimulate growth by way of capital investment—in particular, in capital expenditure on infrastructure projects. Many expect the Chancellor to reflect that sentiment in his Autumn Statement later this month. The Bill imposes on capital borrowing the disappointing limit of only £500 million, which is not enough even to pay for the Welsh Government’s M4 relief road scheme—unless they were to adopt a more sensible route than that currently being advocated.
Lord Crickhowell
My Lords, I am not sure that I know what the upper limit should be. However, I sympathise with the view of the noble Baroness who moved the amendment that the present limit seems on the low side. The Treasury has published a very useful paper setting out the allocations in England, Wales and Scotland. The noble Baroness referred to the comparison with Scotland. I would like to know the logic behind the Government’s views in setting this limit and the differences that appear in that Treasury paper. I will withhold my judgment until I have heard the case advanced by the Government.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, undoubtedly £500 million is an anachronistic figure. As has been said several times this afternoon, devolution has moved on, and time has moved on. However, I draw noble Lords’ attention to another aspect of the Silk recommendations—namely, the fact that the report said that the borrowing limit should be subject to review at each spending review. Therefore, it is my view that, rather than putting a bald figure in the legislation, we need not just a figure but a mechanism in law which requires the regular review of that figure. Further, the Explanatory Notes should at the very least give some kind of rationale for how the figure was arrived at as the appropriate figure. I ask the Minister to address that issue in his reply.
Having said that, the key point is that borrowed money has to be paid back out of future spending—so the more the Welsh Government borrow, the more they eat into their spending capability in future years. I am rather cautious about this figure of £2 billion, because the Scottish Government have a right to borrow £2.2 billion. Therefore, to balance this properly, we need to look in great detail at other borrowing obligations that the Welsh and Scottish Governments have.
Given that the Bill clears the way for income tax powers, it is obvious to me that the £500 million figure needs to be looked at—but we need more clarity on the figure that is there and a proper mechanism for future revision.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, the figure of £500 million, set as the limit for borrowing by the Welsh Government, is so small as to be well inside the margin of error in any computation of UK Government borrowing. Will the Minister say what £500 million is as a percentage of the UK Government’s present borrowing requirement? To set the figure so low is contemptuous of Wales. With the powers to vary income tax devolved, the Welsh Government will have the capacity to service a higher level of borrowing, even if interest rates rise. I agree with those who have said that it seems very odd to fix a figure in legislation. Will the Minister also explain why that fixed figure of £500 million is in the Bill? I think that the Government should be more generous towards the people of Wales and allow them the opportunity to invest as they need for the future of the economy of Wales.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, if EU investment in south Wales suffers, as some of us fear it might, we could find ourselves with some very dire unemployment problems. Therefore, we will need every penny possible to reinvest in that area.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have participated in the debate on Amendment 24, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, for moving it.
The amendment seeks to quadruple the Welsh Government’s capital borrowing limit set in the Wales Act 2014 from £500 million to £2 billion. As the noble Baroness is of course aware, borrowing falls within the scope of the funding discussions between the United Kingdom Government and the Welsh Government that are proceeding alongside the Bill. As we know, the Bill cannot proceed without the legislative consent Motion, which is dependent on those discussions being successful.
I refer noble Lords to the communiqué published following the Joint Exchequer Committee meeting in September. The two Governments discussed the rationale for the existing capital borrowing arrangements and agreed to consider changing them. Therefore, I can give the noble Baroness the undertaking that she seeks, and I think it is consistent with what I said in the previous debate. It is unthinkable that the matter would not be raised. However, I think she will understand that I cannot give a specific figure. Indeed, the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, perhaps indicate that we do not want to constrain the figure in case the discussions lead to it going higher than that. I have given noble Lords an undertaking, which I will repeat: ahead of Report I will give a summary of where we are on the fiscal discussions, which are going well—including, as I understand it, in this area.
As noble Lords have indicated, there are two key considerations in relation to the borrowing limit. The first is ensuring that borrowing is affordable for the Welsh Government. Of course, the transfer of the taxation powers that we have just been looking at will certainly help in that regard, as will the smaller taxes that have already been transferred. The second is ensuring that borrowing is appropriate within the funding arrangements for the United Kingdom as a whole. I am sure that those two points are being borne in mind during the discussions—which, as I said, seem to be going well.
In relation to Welsh Government affordability, as I have indicated, we need to ensure that the Welsh Government have sufficient independent revenues to manage their borrowing costs. As I said, the new taxation powers that are being carried forward by the Bill will help in that regard. In relation to the wider United Kingdom funding arrangements, it is important to recognise that, within any given fiscal position, additional Welsh Government borrowing will mean less spending in the rest of the UK, including in relation to some of the issues funded for Wales from United Kingdom taxation.
Those are the issues being looked at, and I can give two undertakings: first, we will not get the legislation without the LCM; and, secondly, I repeat the undertaking that I gave at Second Reading—I appreciate that not all noble Lords were here for that—to give a summary of where we are so that noble Lords will be aware of it ahead of Report.
I understand the points that are being made and I think all noble Lords who have spoken—the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, and the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Berkeley—recognise the need for these powers in order that the Welsh Government can borrow. Of course, it is then for the Welsh Government to decide how they borrow and how they spend the money—that is within their devolved competence.
Given the undertakings I have given, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I thank the noble Lord for those undertakings. I was particularly pleased to hear that the amount could even go above £2 billion. We will certainly underline and take note of that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Brexit: Article 50
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I will now make a Statement on the process for invoking Article 50. The Government’s priority at every stage following the referendum has been to respect the outcome of that referendum and ensure it is delivered on. To leave the EU was the clear decision of the British people. It was taken after a six-to-one vote in this House to put that decision in their hands. As the Government told voters: ‘This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide’. No ifs, no buts. So there can be no going back. The point of no return was passed on June 23.
Implementing the decision to leave the EU means following the right processes. We must leave in the way agreed in law by the UK and other member states, which means following the process set out in Article 50 of the treaty on the European Union.
We have been clear about the timing. There was good reason why the Government did not take the advice of some in this House and trigger Article 50 immediately. Instead, the Prime Minister was clear that she would not invoke Article 50 before the end of this year. This is giving us the time to develop a detailed negotiating position. But we have also said that the process should not drag on, and that we intend to trigger Article 50 by the end of March next year.
Let me now turn to the issues at hand. Legal action was taken to challenge the Government on the proper process for triggering Article 50. We have always been of the clear view that this is a matter for the Government: that it is constitutionally proper and lawful to begin to give effect to the referendum result by the use of prerogative powers. As I have said, the basis on which the referendum was held was that the Government would give effect to the result of that referendum. This was the basis on which people were asked to vote.
Our argument in the High Court was that decisions on the making and withdrawal from treaties are clear examples of the use of the royal prerogative, and that Parliament—while having a role in this process which I will come on to—has not constrained the use of the prerogative to withdraw from the EU. Our position in the case was therefore that the Government were entitled to invoke the procedure set out in Article 50.
The court has, however, come to a different view, and held that the Government do not have the prerogative power to give notice under Article 50 without legislation authorising them to do so. The court said the starting point was that the Crown does not have power to vary the law of the land using its prerogative powers unless Parliament legislated to the contrary. It held that the European Communities Act 1972 brought rights arising under EU law into the law of the United Kingdom, and that the Crown has no prerogative power to withdraw from the EU because the effect of withdrawal would be to take away those rights.
Let me be clear about this: we believe in and value the independence of our judiciary, the foundation upon which our rule of law is built. We also value the freedom of our press. Both these things underpin our democracy. The Government disagree with the court’s judgment. The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum approved by an Act of Parliament. Our position remains that the only means of leaving is through the procedure set out in Article 50 and that triggering Article 50 is properly a matter for the Government using their prerogative powers. We will appeal the High Court’s judgment at the Supreme Court.
Given our appeal, it would not be appropriate to comment further on the details of the legal arguments. I hope that the House will understand this, but let me say a brief word about the process of our appeal. We have taken two necessary procedural steps. First, the Government have been granted a certificate to bypass the Court of Appeal and ‘leap-frog’ the case to the Supreme Court. This will ensure that, when we lodge our appeal, it will be heard directly in the Supreme Court without further delay in the courts.
Secondly, we will this week apply for the substantive permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. It is likely that any hearing will be scheduled in the Supreme Court in early December. We would hope the judgment would be provided soon after. This timetable remains consistent with our aim to trigger Article 50 by the end of March next year.
We are now preparing our submissions to the Supreme Court in the usual way. As I have said, it would not be proper to go into those in great detail here today, but the core of our argument will remain that we believe that it is proper and lawful for the Government to trigger Article 50 by the use of prerogative powers.
Of course, there is also litigation under way in Northern Ireland. This is considering a number of specific issues linked to Northern Ireland’s constitutional arrangements. The High Court in Belfast found in the Government’s favour on these points. We welcome that outcome. A hearing in Belfast is being held tomorrow to consider whether an appeal by the claimants in this case should also leap-frog to the UK Supreme Court and whether the issues that overlapped with the English courts should remain stayed, pending the outcome of the Supreme Court.
Again, it would not be appropriate for me to say more on this at this stage, except that in the event of any appeal in the Northern Ireland litigation, the Government will robustly defend their position. For the avoidance of doubt, our view is that the legal timetable in relation to this case in the event of an appeal should also be consistent with our commitment to notifying under Article 50 by the end of March next year.
I have said that, because of our appeal, I will not go into detail here on the points of law that were raised in the High Court’s judgment, but let me set out some fundamental principles for how we move ahead. First of all, our plan remains to invoke Article 50 by the end of March. We believe that the legal timetable should allow for that.
Secondly, the referendum must be respected and delivered. The country voted to leave the European Union, in a referendum provided for by an Act of Parliament. There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum. The country voted to leave the European Union and it is the duty of the Government to make sure we do just that. Parliament had its say in legislating for the referendum, which it did in both Houses, and with overwhelming majorities in this House and cross-party support. The people have spoken and we intend to act on their decision.
Thirdly, irrespective of the ongoing court process, there is an important role for Parliament. Parliament will have a central role in making sure that we find the best way forward and we have been clear that we will be as transparent and open as possible. There have already been a number of debates and parliamentary Statements on Brexit, and the Prime Minister has pledged that that process will continue before Article 50 is invoked.
I informed the House in October that there would be a series of debates on Brexit in government time. The first is this afternoon. This is on top of a number of other debates and opportunities for scrutiny. The new Select Committee on Exiting the EU has been established. This provides another place for parliamentary scrutiny of our withdrawal from the EU and the committee will be visiting my department tomorrow.
The Government will bring forward legislation in the next Session that, when enacted, will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 on the day we leave the EU. This ‘great repeal Bill’ will end the authority of EU law and return power to the UK. We have been clear that EU law will be transposed into UK law at the time we leave, providing certainty for workers, businesses and consumers. This will be an Act of Parliament, which we intend to have in place before the end of the Article 50 process. It is important to remember that Article 50 is the beginning of this process; it is not the end.
As the Prime Minister has made clear, there will be many opportunities for Parliament to continue to engage with the Government once Article 50 has been invoked. When negotiations have concluded we will observe in full all relevant legal and constitutional obligations that apply, but there is a balance to be struck between parliamentary scrutiny and preserving our negotiating position, which is why the House unanimously concluded last month that the process should be undertaken in such a way that respects the decision of the people of the UK when they voted to leave the EU on 23 June and does not undermine the negotiating position of the Government as negotiations are entered into. We will give no quarter to anyone who, while going through the motions of respecting the outcome of the referendum, in fact seeks ways to thwart the decision of the British people.
To conclude: we are disappointed by the court’s judgment in this important case. We will appeal that judgment to the Supreme Court. None of this in any way diminishes our determination to respect and deliver on the outcome of the referendum and to notify under Article 50 by the end of March next year. We are going to get on with delivering on the mandate to leave the European Union in the best way possible for the UK’s national interest—best for jobs, best for growth and best for investment. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which I feel he had no hand in drafting. My guess is that he would have preferred to get on with allowing Parliament to trigger Article 50. Indeed, how much better it would have been if the Government had listened to the wise words of our Constitution Committee in September, when it said that a parliamentary vote would be needed. It is hard to understand why the Government are getting in such a tizzy about this. Rather like after their tax credit defeat, they overreact when faced by any challenge.
In September, I commented that,
“leaving the EU is not a simple step outside but a journey”.—[Official Report, 8/9/16; col. 1131.]
But will we leave Brussels via Dunkirk or Ostend, by train through Calais, by plane via Dublin or, heaven forfend, by the good ship “Titanic” piloted by Boris Johnson?
These are serious matters. In our economy, highly dependent on services, we have to secure a future for our creative, internet, design, legal, engineering and financial services and for intellectual property. We must be sure that our insolvency practitioners, chasing down funds for UK-based creditors, have access to squirrelled wealth in EU countries—currently allowed for under the mutual recognition of appointments—and that our lawyers retain rights of address and legal privilege. We need to safeguard the future of UK nationals living abroad as they lose their EU citizenship. We have to disentangle our competition law from that of the EU, law developed to protect consumers from monopolies and cartels, while helping our exporters, who will still be subject to EU competition rules.
Until we know the terms on which we will leave the EU and our relationship with the remaining 27 member states after we leave, we cannot negotiate trade deals with the rest of the world, so the terms on which we disengage from the EU and their consequences should be debated in Parliament. Parliament needs to question whether the Prime Minister has the right negotiating objectives for how we leave the EU. What priority will she give to remaining in the single market? Is she safeguarding—indeed, promoting—our regions, which have done less well from globalisation? Is she seeking to enhance consumer, environmental and workplace protections? Are her objectives grounded in security considerations and promoting human rights and are they acceptable to the electorate?
The British people decided that we should leave the EU, but it is for Parliament, not simply Downing Street, to debate the exit details. Whichever route we take, we have a long journey ahead of us. In that time, my fervent hope is that we see no more of the British press, which ought to recognise the sovereignty of Parliament and the independence of our judiciary, printing 72-point headings naming the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice as “Enemies of the people” simply for doing their job and pointing out that, constitutionally, the Government,
“does not have power under the Crown’s prerogative to give notice pursuant to Article 50 … for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union”.
The High Court ruling will not derail Brexit. However, given that the Government were caught short by the referendum result and none of the preparatory work was done in the case of a Brexit outcome, can the Minister assure the House that they will not find themselves in the same position this time if the judgment is upheld, and that a Bill is in preparation? Our EU committees have already started work on the myriad issues to be addressed. Could the Minister confirm that the Government will listen to the experience and knowledgeable words of these colleagues as they go forward?
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I could not agree more with the assertion in it that implementing the decision to leave the EU means following the right processes, including securing the time to develop a detailed negotiating position. The right processes mean implementing the repeated pledge to honour UK parliamentary sovereignty and seeking parliamentary approval for the negotiating position.
By December, the Government will have lost six months in that process. In fact, they seem to be tying themselves up in knots trying to avoid such parliamentary involvement, getting bogged down in their misguided pursuit of executive autonomy over the Article 50 process in an unnecessary and delay-inducing court case. Their incoherence is displayed in having to offer special comfort deals to particular firms such as Nissan instead of being clear in regard to the single market and the customs union. This is creating destabilising uncertainty for all kinds of economic operators and other bodies. Now we hear the Prime Minister talk about putting on the table more visas for Indian nationals, while apparently immigration is treated as a barrier to the single market. That seems somewhat contradictory.
We must rely on leaks in the press to try and read the Government’s mind—or read the tea leaves. Indeed, there is much speculation about a Bill but no such indication in the Statement today. I join the noble Baroness in asking for clarification on that. We need a respectful relationship between Government and Parliament, one indeed sketched out in several reports of our own EU Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and one last month from the Constitution Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton. A lot of work and evidence went into those reports but the Government just brushed them aside.
The Government are not only behaving arrogantly towards Parliament when the political constitutional basis for Parliament’s role was in fact clear without the legal process, but also—to the dismay of people across the political spectrum—indulging in populist and xenophobic language, culminating in the failure to properly defend the institution of the judiciary. Freedom of the press may incorporate a freedom to criticise a particular judgment but not to indulge in scurrilous personal and institutional abuse of judges and the judiciary. It is very disappointing that neither in the days since the High Court judgment nor today have the Government rebuked the nature of the press comments notably in the Daily Mail and rather more shockingly in the Daily Telegraph, including the famous “enemies of the people” slogan evocative of Nazi Germany. It would be good to hear from the Government a condemnation of that kind of press coverage, and of the incitement to rioting in the streets from the former leader of UKIP, Mr Farage.
The Government say they intend to act on the decision to leave but it is on the character of that action that we need clarity since there are many different varieties of Brexit—probably more than 57. It is necessary to be respectful to those who voted remain if the Prime Minister genuinely wants to unite the country. The phrase in the Statement about giving no quarter is a rather disturbing signal.
Liberal Democrats in no way seek to undermine the negotiating position of the Government. Parliament having an overview of the objectives would not do so. Indeed, having the backing of Parliament, as was mentioned in our several reports, would strengthen the Government’s hand in those negotiations. We are not asking for details of particular trade-offs or red lines.
Any delay is down to the Government. If they act in good faith, there is no reason not to meet a March timetable. This does not mean a series of interesting but essentially purposeless general debates in which the Government stonewall, but an opportunity to get to grips with a concrete plan and a substantive strategy. Can the Minister therefore tell us whether the Government are planning to inform Parliament about their negotiating objectives in a White Paper, as is rumoured, and what kind of Bill they are planning to produce? The Government need to stop waffling and sidestepping and give us enough meat to be able to vote for the triggering of Article 50.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Ludford, for their contributions. I am determined to work constructively with Members of this House who want to make a success of Brexit. I said that at the start, that offer remains, and I am grateful to noble Lords who have spared their time and their expertise to meet me in private. As I say, my door remains open to anyone who wishes to have any conversation with me.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked why we are appealing. As I said in the Statement, our position has been and remains that the decision to leave the EU was taken by the people in a referendum and that triggering Article 50, the starting point of the process, is a matter for the Government. That is an important principle, which is why we are appealing the judgment. As regards what would happen were we to lose, we are obviously prepared for all eventualities, but equally obviously, we are focused on the appeal to the Supreme Court. As we said last week, the logical conclusion to draw from the High Court judgment is that legislation would be necessary, but we are appealing the judgment and hope that the Supreme Court will rule differently. In the event that it does not, we will assess what remedy the Supreme Court requires and will set out our approach at that point. Therefore the speculation about a Bill is just that at this juncture—speculation.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Ludford, referred to the response to that court ruling. To embellish a little what I said in the Statement, I strongly believe, as the Government do, that one of the basic tenets of a free society is freedom of speech and expression, but so too is the independence of the judiciary, which is clearly a cornerstone of our democracy in maintaining the rule of law. We must observe due process and the independence of the judiciary and abide by its rulings. Meanwhile, however, we must all respect the outcome of the referendum and the wish of 17.4 million people to leave the EU.
On the role of Parliament, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said a fair amount just a moment ago. She also talked about this on the “Today” programme this morning, when I was munching on my cornflakes, saying that the Government were completely excluding Parliament, and she just said that the Government are being arrogant towards Parliament. I will not get into a war of words on this. I will just put on the record what the Government have done so far. They have answered 302 Parliamentary Written Questions, made three Oral Statements, answered seven Oral Parliamentary Questions, given four Ministerial Statements and made 10 Select Committee appearances, and have replied to over half a dozen other debates. Currently there are over 30 Brexit-themed Select Committee inquiries. I make that point to say that we are giving Parliament the chance for scrutiny. On top of that, Parliament will vote to repeal the ECA and, as I said in the Statement, parliamentary procedure will be followed to ratify any treaty.
Furthermore, on the role of Parliament, our key aim in the negotiations will obviously be to deliver the best outcome while protecting the national interest. The Government have said that we will be as open as we possibly can be and we have set out our strategic aims. I argue, as I have done before, that we will not achieve a good outcome if this negotiation is run from the back seat by the House of Commons and this House. No negotiation can possibly be run in that way. Indeed, if Parliament insists that triggering Article 50 should be conditional on us going into this negotiation with all our cards face up for everyone on the other side of the table to see, that detailed minimum negotiating position will quickly become the maximum possible offer from our negotiating partners. Furthermore, the talk of a second referendum from some in this House and elsewhere will simply encourage the EU to impose difficult terms in the hope that the British people will change their minds if only the question is put to them again. To those who argue for certainty I ask: what greater uncertainty can there be than for that to be injected into the system?
Therefore, parliamentary scrutiny? Absolutely. But telling the Prime Minister which cards to play and seeking to force her to disclose her hand to those with whom she will be negotiating? I say no.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend that the principles of judicial independence and of freedom of the press are fundamental to our constitution. However, my freedom as a citizen does not entitle me to assault my neighbour, and the freedom of the press certainly does not entitle the press to insult, in a vicious and vocal manner, judges who are carrying out their statutory responsibility.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Everybody who took part in the case made it clear that the judges were asked to determine a question of law, which was entirely within their jurisdiction. They made it abundantly clear that they had no views to express on Brexit or anything associated with it except on the question of law which was put to them, which is simply whether the prerogative power enables this triggering to happen. I express no view upon that matter because it has been appealed to the Supreme Court and I verily believe that in due course, it will address it and I await its judgment. In the meantime, however, I am concerned about the reaction of a substantial section of the press, which needs to be dealt with now, which is why I felt it necessary to say what I have said. It is entirely necessary that the independence of the judiciary should be respected, and I believe that all my colleagues in this House are of the same opinion. I hope that the Minister is also of the same opinion.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble and learned friend that the independence of the judiciary and the right of the judges to determine without fear or favour the issues before them are absolutely sacrosanct. They are there to use their best endeavours to interpret and apply the law, which is clearly what they have done and will continue to do.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, I entirely endorse what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said. I recognise that the Government cannot and should not try to control the press. I do not read the result of the referendum as throwing away all our constitutional protections. One of those constitutional protections is the rule of law—that depends upon the independence of the judiciary. The judiciary is strong; it is fine as long as it knows that the Government will support it against scurrilous attacks.
What is so disappointing about this Statement and the conduct of the Government since Thursday, when these scurrilous attacks began, is that: first, at no stage have they said that they accept that the three judges acted in accordance with their judicial oath; and secondly, nobody on behalf of the Government has separated themselves from the remarks of Mr Sajid Javid, who described the three judges as thwarting the will of the people. We in this House respect the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, and we know that he will have prepared properly for this Statement. Can he confirm on behalf of the Government that they accept that the three judges acted entirely in accordance with their judicial oath? Secondly, can he make it clear that the statement of Mr Sajid Javid on Thursday evening did not represent the views of the Government?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I will absolutely answer the first point by saying: yes. Indeed, I read with interest the noble and learned Lord’s article in the Daily Mail over the weekend, in which he made a number of these points. I completely agree that they acted in good faith and according to their oath. We are questioning the judgment and that is why we are appealing but I am certainly not going to stand here and say that they acted in bad faith. As regards what else he had to say, I have nothing further to add.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, it has been said that 17 million people voted in favour of leaving the EU; that still leaves a very divided country. Not everybody who voted to remain can be assumed to be trying to thwart the decision of the British people simply by asking legitimate questions. The final part of the Statement says:
“We are going to get on with delivering on the mandate to leave the European Union in the best way possible for the UK’s national interest”.
That is defined as,
“best for jobs, best for growth and best for investment”.
Does the Minister agree that we should perhaps have added, “Best for social order and the nature of our public and political discourse”?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The right reverend Prelate makes a good point. He points to a sin of omission here. I totally agree that we need to be looking at what is best for the communities of this country; that is why I am delighted that I have met with representatives of the Church of England to discuss this. Brexit raises a whole range of issues which are posing challenges for communities. I know that is so as regards EU funding. There are concerns across the board on various points. I am happy to discuss those with all faith groups and I am delighted that the Church of England has agreed to do so.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister inform the Prime Minister that she should invite the Minister for Justice to study her constitutional duties under the Constitutional Reform Act—particularly Section 3(1) and 3(6)—to defend the judiciary, in view of her half-hearted and delayed defence of the judiciary and her failure to rebut some of the inflammatory comments in the newspapers, in which she was joined by a senior Minister as well?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I hear what the noble and learned Lord says. I have made my position clear on this and I really do not have very much more to add.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
Can the Minister tell us when the Government intend to inform Parliament about the content that they would like to see in the framework for our future relationship with the European Union? The Minister will recognise that I am quoting from the language of clause 2 of Article 50. Also, when will we be told whether leaving the European Union will also mean leaving the EU customs union—a point of some importance to manufacturers with modern, just-in-time supply chains?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord makes an extremely good point and speaks from considerable experience. We will be as open and transparent with Parliament and businesses as we possibly can, with the important caveat that I set out: we cannot and must not undermine our negotiating position and the national interest. As the noble Lord understands, we are looking at considerably complex issues right now. That is why we are looking at 51 sectors of the economy and at issues such as the supply chain. As I say, when we are in a position to do so we will be as open and transparent as we can be.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, we have not heard from the Lib Dem Benches.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem
My Lords, we all believe in the freedom of the press and in the independence of the judiciary. But I doubt very much whether there is a single one of your Lordships who does not believe in the supremacy and sovereignty of Parliament. The decision made by the High Court judges underlines and ensures the application of that doctrine. Why, in the four corners of this Statement, is there no reference to the sovereignty of Parliament?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, the noble Lord asked me last week whether we respect the sovereignty of Parliament. We do. We respect the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law, but the sovereignty of Parliament reflects the will of the people—and the people voted for a Government to give them a referendum on leaving the European Union. Parliament passed that legislation and 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, in view of all the high feelings which we have just heard, would it not be wiser and better in the interests of a smooth and speedy Brexit, which I certainly want to see, to work with Parliament from now on rather than battling against it? Why can the Government not give us a really detailed Green Paper, outlining and analysing all the complexities of the situation? It would be nothing to do with the negotiating position, which comes quite separately. We could then debate that Green Paper over two or even three days and give the best input of Parliament from both its Houses. The Government could then bring forward a one-clause Bill authorising the Article 50 process to go forward. Is that not a simpler and more constructive way of proceeding than the one we are on now?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I hear what my noble friend has to say but the Prime Minister has made it clear that we are going to appeal this judgment. That is the position we are in. As regards setting out our position on the future negotiations, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, we have been clear that we will be as transparent and open with Parliament as we can possibly be, once we have finished our analysis of the options open to us.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
We really should try to go round the House. It is the Labour Party’s turn.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, the Minister rightly celebrates the independence of the judiciary. However, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer asked him to condemn the words of Sajid Javid, who by his words undermined what the Minister is saying. What the right honourable Minister said was completely unacceptable; indeed, those words corrode the very democracy that the noble Lord seeks to uphold. Please will he condemn the words of the right honourable Sajid Javid?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I am sorry to say that I have nothing further to add on this matter.
Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)
My Lords, your Constitution Committee did indeed state in its report on the invoking of Article 50 that it was constitutionally appropriate that Parliament should be involved in the various stages of the negotiations, including the triggering of Article 50. I am sure that we would still stand by that view. However, we accept the need to make progress and to make it reasonably rapidly, removing uncertainty not least from the economy and the concerns of the business community, and the possible jeopardising of the future of that economy should matters be drawn out unduly. Does my noble friend agree that the triggering of Article 50 is essentially a matter of timing? It is therefore not an appropriate time for diving into the detailed study of the Government’s negotiating plans, which it might anyway be inappropriate to lay before Parliament in advance and thus declare their position.
However, if it is a matter of timing, would it not be sensible to consider bringing before both Houses of Parliament a short and tightly drawn Bill and seeking the agreement of the various parties involved to achieve rapid progress through the House on a fast-track basis? That would remove the uncertainty that is causing so much concern; proper consideration can then be given to the negotiations. Finally, since this is about the invoking of Article 50 and not about what the Daily Mail said about the judges, could we have a debate on the invoking of Article 50 and the reports of the Constitution Committee and the European Union Committee on that subject?
Lord Bridges of Headley
On the second point, that is a matter for the usual channels. On the first point, I would certainly say that it is a matter of process. The Prime Minister and the Government have made it clear that we are going to appeal this judgment. I very much respect and value the work that the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Lang, does. We have tried to allay uncertainty wherever we can, be it by our approach to repealing the European Communities Act or to European funding. We are certainly doing that and will continue to look for ways in which we can mitigate it elsewhere.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, is it not the case that the Government have already laid out the basis of their negotiating strategy; namely, that we will insist on taking back control of immigration, that we will take back administration of justice in the UK to the UK courts, and that thereafter we will seek to do as good a deal as we can for trade in goods and services to the benefit of both the UK and our European partners? Given this basis, is there not plenty of time, following what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, for the Government to lay a Green Paper with rather more detail and get legislation through in time to meet their deadline of triggering Article 50 by the end of March?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, once again, I respect what the noble Lord has to say. I have set out as far as possible that we are undertaking that extensive analysis. Clearly he is absolutely right that we have set out the underlying principles of the Government’s negotiating position, and with that in mind, that is the basis upon which our analysis is proceeding. As regards a Green Paper, to which the noble Lord and my noble friend Lord Howell referred, we intend to be as transparent and open as possible in the course of events.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, to the extent that the Government cannot divulge their full negotiating hand prior to moving Article 50, does that not reinforce and make even more important that 20 months down the road, or whatever it is, when these negotiations have been concluded, the question should be put back to Parliament to take a decisive decision?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord will be delighted to hear that there will be considerable opportunities between now and then for us to have many more Statements, debates et cetera. As regards what will happen at the end, we have made it very clear that all treaties arising from the negotiations will be subject to the due process of constitutional precedents. On that, I have nothing further to add.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
My Lords, why have the Government ignored the reports of the Constitution Committee referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lang? Why is Parliament not being given the intentions regarding the presentation of specified information? Why are Ministers in principle not being required to report back to Parliament at all? Why is Parliament not being involved in the negotiation process subsequent to the initial determinations?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, we have taken the position we do on the court case—if I understand the noble Lord correctly—because we believe that starting the process of triggering Article 50 is a matter for the Government. As regards the negotiation process, I have nothing further to add to my response to the noble Lord, Lord Butler.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, why is the Minister so reluctant to condemn the scurrilous attacks made in the press on Her Majesty’s judges? Does he not accept that what they were asked to do was to look very carefully, historically and analytically, at the prerogative powers? Those powers started as a monarchical dictatorship and were gallantly challenged in the 17th century in the civil war. Today, the remnant is not sufficient to allow the Government to do anything that would further the process of Article 50. Had the judges done anything different they would have been betraying their oath and would have indeed been unworthy of their position. They have acted in the very best traditions of the British judiciary.
Lord Bridges of Headley
As I said, I am not going to go much beyond what I said before. I totally respect and wish to protect the independence of the judiciary, and I am absolutely sure that those judges acted in good faith.
Lord Higgins (Con)
The Statement seems to imply that the referendum made a decision to leave the European Union. Those of us who served on the Bill setting up the referendum know that that is not so; it was clearly an advisory referendum. It is therefore very important that the Government should not now treat it as a mandatory referendum which would be contrary to and incompatible with our system of representative parliamentary democracy. I think the right thing to do now is to take the advice of the referendum, but it is clear that on the details—the expression “Brexit means Brexit” is totally meaningless—Parliament should be able to take a view on whether to implement Article 50 and go along with the judgment of the High Court.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, the Government are appealing against the judgment of the High Court and believe that the views of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave should be respected. As regards the position of this House, I repeat all the points I said before about the role it has so far had in setting up the referendum and the role it will have in due course in issues such as repealing the European Communities Act.
Defence Estate
(7 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence, “A Better Defence Estate”. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on our strategy for a better defence estate. Our defence estate is where our people work, live and train, where advanced equipment is maintained and where cutting-edge research is undertaken. It is the place where major exercises are conducted and major operations launched.
Our estate is vital, but it is also vast. We control almost 2% of the United Kingdom’s land mass, an area almost three times the size of Greater London. Yet bigger does not mean better. While the size and structure of our forces have changed to meet different threats, our estate has failed to adapt. It is too inefficient. It costs £2.5 billion a year to maintain, with 40% of our built assets more than 50 years old. And it often fails to meet the needs of our Armed Forces and their families, with capabilities spread across old, small, remote sites, often removed from population centres and job opportunities.
Last year’s strategic defence and security review committed to increase the defence budget in real terms every year of this Parliament, with a £178 billion equipment plan to create a world-class Joint Force 2025, but an ambitious joint force needs an estate to match, so today I set out a long-term strategy to achieve that ambition.
First, we will transform an estate built for previous generations of war-fighting into one that better supports military capability and the needs of our Armed Forces. It will help deliver Joint Force 2025 by bringing people and capabilities into new centres of specialism and clustering units closer to their training estates. Since the beginning of this year, I have announced plans to dispose of 35 of our most costly sites. Today, based on advice from the Chiefs of Staff, we are going further by freeing up a further 56 sites by 2040 and bringing the total of sites released to 91.
I now turn to what this means in practice. It means that the Royal Navy will continue focusing on operating bases and training establishments around port areas and naval stations, with surface ships in Portsmouth and Devonport; all the UK’s submarines on the Clyde; an amphibious centre of specialisation in the south-west, based around Devonport; and helicopters based at Yeovilton and Culdrose. It means the Army having specialised infantry in Aldershot; mechanised, wheeled capability, including two of our new strike brigades, in Catterick; air assault forces in Colchester; armoured and tracked capability around Salisbury Plain; medical services in the West Midlands; and hubs of light infantry battalions in London, Edinburgh, Lisburn, St Athan, Blackpool and Cottesmore. It means the RAF building on its centres of specialism with combat air in Coningsby, Marham and Lossiemouth; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at Waddington; air transport at Brize Norton; force protection at Honington; and support enablers at Wittering and Leeming. Fuller details are published in the strategy, which will be available in the Vote Office.
Secondly, this strategy will deliver a better estate for service families. Over the next decade, we will invest £4 billion in improving our infrastructure and modernising our accommodation, including funding from disposable receipts and the £1 billion secured at the spending review. All savings from running costs will be recycled back into defence. By consolidating our estate and locating our service men and women together with capability, we will provide better employment opportunities for their partners, provide more stable schooling for their families and increase their ability to buy their own home. We have purposely focused on sites that will support recruitment and retention, giving our personnel and their partners greater certainty and confidence to put down roots in local communities.
Finally, a better defence estate will deliver better value for money for taxpayers. By releasing sites we no longer need, we can help build the houses that we do need. I can confirm the MoD has firm plans to achieve its target to release sufficient land to build up to 55,000 houses in this Parliament. My department will now work with industry, local authorities and devolved Administrations, as well as with our personnel, to deliver this—supporting construction and infrastructure jobs and boosting local economies.
This is a strategy that looks ahead to 2040 to provide the defence estate we need to keep Britain safe and promote our prosperity. As we implement it, we will seek to minimise any disruption to the Armed Forces as well as to service personnel, civilians and their families. We will give our people as much notice as possible over planned redeployments, ensuring all are well provided for. As well as the built estate, I am determined to widen our focus and seek better value from our training and reserve establishments as well. We will update Parliament on our progress in our first annual report next October.
These reforms provide a vision of a better defence estate: an estate that supports a more efficient and effective military capability; an estate that gives our Armed Forces a world-class base from which to work; and an estate that helps defence play its part in securing our security and prosperity. I commend it to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which is an opportunity to pave the way for a more efficiently and better-run defence estate. When I served as Minister with responsibility for the estate, it was worth £15 billion. I understand it is now worth £31 billion. Our first requirement in maintaining a defence estate is to meet the needs of our Armed Forces for bases, for training, for headquarters and operations, and of course for accommodation for service men and women and their families.
In an Answer to a Question in the other place on 12 January this year, the Defence Minister, Mr Lancaster, confirmed that the estate included,
“11 operating golf courses, one pitch and putt centre and one driving range”.
I am not sure how these facilities contribute to our defences but they should at least be earning money for the defence estate, or alternatively be sold off. Perhaps the Minister might have something to say about that. My key point is that the defence estate should be managed by a commercial team of professionals tasked with a duty to meet the demands of the military in the way I have already set out, but also a duty to generate income by the sale of surplus land and facilities or derive an income from them where it is appropriate to do so.
There have been three separate announcements by the Ministry of Defence over the past year regarding the release of more sites where homes can be built. On 18 January, the Defence Minister, Mr Lancaster, said:
“The income generated from the sales will be ploughed back into defence”.
On 24 March he said that,
“every penny generated from the disposal”,
will be,
“ploughed back into defence spending”.
On 6 September, the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said that,
“all of the money generated from land sales will be invested back into meeting the needs of the Armed Forces”.
Today’s Statement does not mention this in the same way, so can the Minister confirm that all money generated by the sale of MoD land will be invested in defence and not taken back by the Treasury? Can the Minister say how much will be raised from the disposal of the surplus sites listed today?
On 18 January, we were told the sale of land would provide 15,000 homes and generate £500 million for defence. On 24 March, we learned that the sale of land would provide 7,000 homes and generate £140 million for defence. On 6 September, the Government said the sale of land would provide 17,000 homes and generate £290 million for defence. In total, the Ministry of Defence has freed up land for 39,000 homes, generating £930 million for defence. Can the Minister say what the £930 million from the sale of MoD land will be spent on? Is there a plan to use this money? If the £930 million is to contribute to funding the SDSR, how does the MoD plan to contribute the same amount next year when there may be no more MoD land to sell? His department has committed in its statements to,
“generating £1 billion through land sales during this parliament”,
and providing land for “up to 55,000 homes”.
The amount of land made available so far is sufficient to build 39,000 homes and will raise £930 million. This leaves a shortfall of 16,000 homes and £70 million. How do the Government intend to fill this shortfall?
Today’s Statement locates the places where there will be Ministry of Defence facility closures. The closing of bases affects people’s livelihoods. How many service men and women and their families will be required to move? What civilian staff will face redeployment? Can the Minister say what help and support will be given to civilian employees who are not able to move? How will his department be consulting with all stakeholders concerned? The Government’s Statement indicated that they would seek to minimise disruption by giving,
“as much notice as possible over planned redeployments”.
Where there are intended closures, how do the Government plan on minimising the disruption to those in the Armed Forces, their families and civilians? The Statement tells us that the defence estate,
“costs £2.5bn a year to maintain, with 40 per cent of our built assets more than 50 years old. And it often fails to meet the needs of our Armed Forces and their families, with capabilities spread across small, remote sites, often far removed from population centres and job opportunities”.
One reason for the sale of this land, however, is to contribute to the Government’s target of 160,000 new homes by 2020. Can the Minister explain why they want to build new homes on land that has been described as “small, remote” and “far removed” from population centres and job opportunities?
Finally, the timeframe in this Statement takes us up to 2040. Would it not be a good idea to have a regular review of this policy—say, at least every five years—as circumstances might make changes necessary?
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. The MoD’s aim is to reduce waste from overcapacity or inefficient use of facilities. That has to be welcomed, but as yet we have not seen the list of estates—if it has been released, I have not yet seen it. We welcome the general thrust of what the MoD wishes to achieve, but, as with all things, the devil is in the detail. The opportunity to improve accommodation for service personnel is long overdue, and their families will welcome that investment.
Times have changed. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, referred to golf courses and pitch and putts, and I have to confess that over 40 years ago, the father of our best man was known as SHAGO—Security, Horse and Golf Officer—for one of the golf courses and Navy bases near Portsmouth. But several serious issues arise from the Statement.
There are the revenues from the sales, the impact on local communities and the opportunity to rationalise the functions of our Armed Forces geographically. Is this just a short-term attempt to plug the gap in defence accounts? We get capital from this money only once, so why is now the time to sell? Are there buyers for these sites? Will the income from the sales go into MoD or Treasury coffers?
In the Statement the Minister said:
“I can confirm MoD has firm plans to achieve its target to release sufficient land to build up to 55,000 houses in this Parliament”.
This makes no mention of whether the houses are affordable homes, for which there is a very clear need; whether it is housing that will benefit the local communities, meeting their needs; or whether the houses will be expected to have green standards—all of which is the least that a community should expect, given that it will feel it is losing quite a lot. Has any impact assessment been done of the effect on local communities of losing jobs? There is no point in building houses in these places if there are no jobs to attract people.
I ask the House to excuse me: I am not going to refer to the Army or RAF issues as I have not had time to do the research. I know rather more about the Navy, so I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify some issues surrounding the Devonport naval base and the area around it. Would he confirm that the Trafalgar class submarine will move from Devonport to Faslane? Will he comment on whether the rehousing of the Royal Marines from Royal Marines Stonehouse to Royal Marines Tamar is a possibility? The closure and sale of Stonehouse was announced in the previous Statement amid much local sorrow and anguish but it was not clear, and I do not think it is clear yet, where the Marines and their capability and functions will move.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their questions and comments. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, began with a statement with which I wholly agree. This programme has been built around the needs of the Armed Forces; that is the first requirement that we should always consider. I hope the fact that the Chief of the Defence Staff has put his name to the document alongside that of the Secretary of State demonstrates that the strategy is based closely on advice from front-line command. This is about enabling an infrastructure that better supports military capability and the needs of a modern fighting force. That is its starting point. It will see the defence estate consolidated into fewer centres of gravity and specialisation, with better support capability.
He asked about golf courses, which I can cover quite quickly. The department currently has 11 operational golf courses, five of which are contained in today’s announcement: Molesworth, Abercorn, Condor, Henlow and North Luffenham. While we do not resent our personnel enjoying the odd round of golf, there is perhaps a happy limit to the number of courses that it is proper for the ministry to maintain.
The noble Lord asked an important question about disposal receipts and whether they would be reinvested into defence. I can give him that assurance. It is not a statement that was included in the words that I repeated, but it applies as much to these disposals as those that we have previously announced.
The noble Lord asked how much would be raised. In the nature of this programme, that is not a question that I can answer because we are looking at a disposal programme over the next 25 years. These are sites that we are now signalling our intention to dispose of, but many of them will in fact not be sold for a number of years, for reasons that I will come on to. But I can say that the disposals will contribute significantly towards the MoD’s £1 billion target for land release sales, as set out in last year’s spending review. The money raised will be reinvested in the defence estate, where it is most needed. The strategy will also generate savings of more than £140 million in running costs over 10 years, rising to nearly £3 billion by 2040. Again, all that can be reinvested in defence.
The noble Lord asked how many service families would be required to move. We are closely reviewing how to offer service personnel more choice in their accommodation options in future, and by consolidating the defence estate around capability in regional clusters we are able to provide additional stability to service personnel. We recognise the vital contribution made by the families of our personnel and it is our intention to provide better employment opportunities, particularly spousal employment opportunities, for those who often make great personal sacrifices to support the careers of the men and women of our Armed Forces.
The noble Lord asked about regular reviews of this programme, perhaps every five years. I hope I can reassure him even more firmly than that: where plans are required to change we will inform our personnel and we will update Parliament every year on our progress. This is a matter of continual review, not just review every five years. The annual update that we give to Parliament will include updates to reprovision on a rolling five-year basis.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, asked why now was the time to sell. As I have indicated, we do not anticipate selling these sites now or even next year, but some will be disposed of in this Parliament and some in the next Parliament and the Parliament after that. The key point here is that this is an imperative. We have to grip this. The estate is too large, the cost of maintaining it is spread too thinly and we need to configure the estate, as the Statement makes clear, in accordance with the needs of the Armed Forces and their capabilities.
The noble Baroness asked about affordable homes and green standards. Those are discussions that will need to be had with the relevant local authorities as time goes forward. The whole issue of the disruption to local communities, and indeed the enhancement to some local communities, along with the jobs that will be lost and created will be part of those discussions. Again, though, the important point is that we are giving ourselves enough time to have those discussions with local authorities, and I hope that they will welcome that.
On Devonport and the removal of submarines to Faslane, I can confirm that the plan is to base all our submarines in due course at Faslane. I will have to get back to her about the other question she asked about the rehousing of the Royal Marines, if she will allow.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, the place for the Royal Navy is at sea, and for that you need ships and submarines. I welcome this rationalisation, but can the Minister confirm that this new money, particularly the capital side of it, will be used to run on ships that have already been refitted, as we have discussed in this House, and maybe to buy new ships, and that it will not be used to disguise what is actually a systematic underfunding of defence for Joint Force 2025 because there is insufficient money there to achieve that?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I can confirm that. One of the plus points of the strategic defence and security review, if I can put it that way, was an agreement from Her Majesty’s Treasury that by creating these efficiencies—for that is what they are—we can plough the money back into defence. Some of the money will go back into the defence estate, but in the round it will enable our money to go further. Additionally, we have the promise that during this Parliament the defence budget as a whole will increase by 0.5% in real terms every year. So this is not a plan to somehow secrete money away into areas other than the front line; it will in fact boost the front line.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the single largest and most valuable site which could—and, I would argue, should—be released for sale for housing, which would probably meet the £1 billion target on its own, is RAF Northolt? Is that being considered?
Earl Howe
Northolt is not being considered at the current time. It is a very valuable facility for the RAF, as well as for the services generally—it is located close to the centre of London—so it is not on the MoD’s list at present. However, I recognise the point that my noble friend makes: it is clearly a valuable site.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
Can the noble Earl say a little more about the centres of gravity as they affect the Army in Scotland? He mentioned the position of the light infantry battalion in Edinburgh—3 Rifles is presently stationed there and has been for some time. It is widely rumoured that one place that is to be disposed of is Fort George in Inverness-shire, where one of the battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland—the Black Watch—is stationed. That raises a question: if Fort George is closed down, will there be any place for a battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland to be stationed in Scotland? If not, what is proposed? There is something to be said for having at least one of the Scottish battalions stationed within Scotland, not some distance south of the border.
Earl Howe
I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord. Fort George is a site of historical importance to the Army; there is no question about that. It is home to the Black Watch, but it has many minus points. It is an isolated site; it is not good for retention for the Army; it is a long way from the training estate; and it costs £1.6 million a year to run. It is therefore on our disposals list, but we are clear that 3 Scots will relocate to an alternative location in Scotland. After all, the origins of 42 Regiment Foot, which is how Black Watch originated, were from the Tay. Although I cannot say that it will move back to the Tay, the fact that it is in Fort George is perhaps a product of history more than anything else. We will engage with the Scottish Government and the local authority to identify the most appropriate combination of development types to maximise the opportunity that Fort George presents. We now have time to engage with local authorities generally about how this is to be managed.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, will Crichel Down issues apply in the case of selling off of much of the land? Also, in the case of sites contaminated by former MoD activity, will proper evaluation be made of the cost of decontamination to ensure that when they are ultimately sold, they are not sold at deflated prices? Are MoD officials—civil servants—well aware that the National Audit Office will pore over the sales at some stage in future?
Earl Howe
As to the last point, yes, we are all too well aware of that. We are anxious at all times to achieve best value for the taxpayer. Crichel Down considerations can and do arise where former owners come forward to claim title. Of course, due process is followed. It is being followed in the case of Southwick Park, for example, which I think was announced as one of our intended disposals in September.
Decontamination is also a live issue on many of the sites. There is no question of disguising contamination where it occurs: environmental assessments always have to be made and are done openly and transparently with potential purchasers.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
The noble Earl is quite right to say that the Black Watch traditionally came from north of the Tay—and south, as well—because it has traditionally recruited in Angus, Perthshire and Fife. My question is whether any impact on Reserve units in all three services arises from the Statement he has made today.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I follow that question precisely. My noble friend’s Statement is very welcome, but he knows that in future forces, the Reserve Forces will play an enhanced and important part, so their ability to train on mobilisation is very important. Can he say a bit more about how capacity for their training can be supplied? In particular, Bassingbourn Barracks in my former constituency has lain idle for more than two years, is brilliantly situated and well-equipped to provide Reserve Forces mobilisation training.
Earl Howe
I am grateful to my noble friend. In a sense, considerations for the Reserve Forces cannot be separated from those for Regular Forces because, with the whole force concept, training is now taking place with regulars and reservists side by side, which is entirely appropriate. I am aware that Bassingbourn’s future use has been the subject of a great deal of speculation, but I cannot inform my noble friend in detail about the site. Again, if I can enlighten him in writing I am happy to do so.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the welcome announcement about the development of an infantry centre in Edinburgh, the improvements at Lossiemouth, his earlier announcement on the Royal Regiment of Scotland and the announcement made last week about the frigates on the Clyde are all possible only because the people of Scotland two years ago rejected separation, and that it is part of the welcome union dividend?
Earl Howe
The noble Lord makes a very good point, and I agree. It enables us as a department to commit to an enduring defence presence in Scotland through a number of programmes. As he is aware, we have now committed to building eight type-26 global combat ships on the Clyde. We are investing more than £500 million in the infrastructure and capability of the naval base at Clyde as it becomes the home of all Royal Navy submarines by 2020. We are investing in the expansion of RAF Lossiemouth, so that it will be home to at least one additional Typhoon squadron, as well as the maritime patrol aircraft. We are investing in concentrating some Army capabilities in Leuchars Station. That will improve access to suitable training areas. Across a whole range of projects, Scotland will benefit.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I have a couple of questions for the noble Earl. Generally, I welcome the Statement, but in repositioning units and so on considerable capital expenditure is incurred. Is it reasonable to expect that the amount of money from sales will be adequate to meet that expenditure as it occurs, and not fall to the Ministry of Defence to find additional funds early on in the hope of jam tomorrow? Secondly, runways are of course vital to the Royal Air Force and to any flying unit. With the reduction in the number of airfields, will there be sufficient runway availability when some runways have to be repaired and flying from that unit will have to stop? Finally, this presumably refers only to MoD holdings in this country, and not to holdings overseas.
Earl Howe
I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord. I can confirm that this applies only to holdings in this country. As regards runway availability, I will have to write to him as I do not have it in my brief. He makes an important point on the cost of reprovision, but again I come back to what I said earlier: this is being driven primarily by the needs of the Armed Forces. While we may find in some cases that the net receipt from a disposal is of a fairly de minimis nature, nevertheless the reprovision will be the right thing to do for that particular unit or part of the service.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, we have already heard about the National Audit Office and questions about value for money for the taxpayer. That has so far been on the receipts side, but can the noble Earl tell us what work is being done to ensure that the defence procurement contracts to deliver the better estate for service families, which will be most welcome, and the maintenance contracts for accommodation for services will also deliver value for money for the taxpayer and the best possible outcome for service families?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the department takes the provision of good service family accommodation very seriously. We are continuing to manage the improvement of the performance in this area of CarillionAmey, which is the contractor as the noble Baroness knows. At the end of May 2016, following what was called a “Get Well Plan”, CarillionAmey effectively passed with a performance that was markedly better than it had achieved previously: in the next generation estate contract, 29 of 30 KPIs met performance targets; in the national housing prime, six of seven key performance indicators met performance targets. We will continue to monitor closely the company’s delivery performance, working collaboratively with it, of course, to sustain and improve its performance. But the noble Baroness is absolutely right that we need to achieve value for money in this area. I believe that now we are nearly there, but CarillionAmey is under no illusions that it must maintain this rate of improvement.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, I too was responsible for the defence estate for a time in the previous Parliament. My question concerns not golf courses but the growing disconnect between the Armed Forces and the people of this country whom they defend. With the reducing footprint that my noble friend the Minister has mentioned, the Armed Forces have a tendency to retreat back into their barracks and away from the people they defend, so there comes a greater disconnect. Can my noble friend reassure me that this will not lead to the civilian population regarding the Armed Forces as a race apart?
Earl Howe
My noble friend makes an extremely important point—one that has been very much in our minds as we have taken these ideas forward. I will be quite open with him: it is a risk. The more that personnel are concentrated in fewer centres, the more that the population as a whole will feel disconnected from the armed services. Ways must be found, therefore, to prevent that happening. We can see routes through events such as Remembrance Sunday and the commemorations around that. We can see it through the charitable work of organisations such as Help for Heroes, and so on. It is something that we need to bear in mind as we go forward. As Minister with responsibility for community engagement, I can tell my noble friend that I receive regular advice on this very topic.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, I follow the point made by the previous noble Lord by asking about recruitment. I notice that Dale Barracks in Chester are on the hit list. That has been a centre of recruitment for the Cheshire regiment over the years. It is hardly a small and remote site, as referred to in the report. Now the 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment is pretty much based there. How is recruitment to the Armed Forces likely to be affected by this withdrawal from a large number of sites, where the association with the Army—or the Navy or Air Force, for that matter—goes back a very long way?
Earl Howe
The concentration of sites that I have been talking about plays into recruitment in the round because the more stable and confident armed services personnel and their families feel about their roots and where they are, the more we are likely to see a better performance in recruitment and retention. The problem with some of these sites—I do not necessarily include the one referred to by the right reverend Prelate—is that they are remote, do not play into the recruitment agenda very easily, and certainly not the retention agenda, and they are not conducive to spousal employment either. We want a better deal for families in the round, and I hope that over the next few years, as this programme rolls out, the personnel of our Armed Forces will see it in the same way.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
My Lords, as there will continue to be an enduring defence presence in Northern Ireland, can the Minister confirm that Ballykinler in County Down will be disposed of, and has Drumadd Barracks in Armagh city already been disposed of?
Earl Howe
My Lords, Ballykinler will continue to provide valuable training assets for both the Regular and Reserve forces within Northern Ireland. There are no plans at this stage to reduce the training facilities in either location. I apologise to the noble Lord—he mentioned a second site.
Lord Kilclooney
Drumadd Barracks in Armagh city. It was up for sale, but we do not know what has happened.
Lord Spicer (Con)
My Lords, anything which improves the morale and efficiency of the Armed Forces is to be welcomed in the face of the rising Russian menace. In that context, and relevant to it, can my noble friend say at some time, if not now, what number of hostile probes there have been in NATO by Russian naval ships and by the Russian air force?
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, will the vital monitoring of our skies against hostile incursions continue to be carried out from RAF Boulmer in Northumberland, bearing in mind that, the last time there was a proposal to move it, the proposal got short shrift from the National Audit Office?
Wales Bill
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Elis-Thomas
“(e) those functions of a Minister of the Crown specified in paragraph 11(1)(b) to (e) of Schedule 7B.”
Lord Elis-Thomas (Non-Afl)
My Lords, we come to the end of our scrutiny of Part 1 and to the group of clauses subtitled, “Executive competence etc”. The Minister will not be surprised to know that I am particularly interested in the “etc”, because the issue of the competence of the Assembly and how it is defined in law is one that he and I have followed throughout our political careers in Welsh devolution—or should we now say “Welsh reserved matters”? The Assembly has developed away from a body that did not have an Executive: the notion of an elected body—that is, the legislature—and a Government—an Executive—were confused in the original Government of Wales Act 1998, which was really a rewritten version of the Wales Act 1978. But that was the form of constitution with which we had to work. It is not just a matter of what politicians work with but the understanding of the constitution outwith the political class and the ability of the electorate to engage with the constitution that I have always been deeply concerned about.
I am not sure where we are going in the detail of this Bill. In the attempts to define the functions of Ministers and the transfer of ministerial functions, which we are dealing with in these clauses, we have not moved much further in clarity of understanding of what devolved matters are about and how Ministers derive their functions. I pray in aid the Explanatory Notes, which in introducing us to the delights of Clause 18 tell us about new Section 58A, inserted into the Government of Wales Act 2006, which seems to be taken as the urtext of our constitution—I may come back to that later this evening with the question of consolidation. The Explanatory Notes emphasise that that new section inserted into the Act,
“confers common law type powers on Welsh Ministers; these powers are described as executive ministerial functions and they will be exercisable both in relation to devolved functions and ancillary to executive functions conferred on”,
Ministers in reserved areas. It goes on to say:
“Subsection (5) defines what is meant by an executive function; this does not include any prerogative functions”.
Clearly, the earlier Statement in this House, repeated from the Commons, and the judgment of the High Court has been much about the definition of “prerogative” and its limits and potential in defining what Ministers can do. If we are being told that Welsh Ministers have no functions by virtue of any legislation or the prerogative, how do they derive their functions? There is no explanation known to me or my advisers for the exclusion to which I have just referred.
During the debate in the other place, the Government said that they intended to transfer,
“as many of these functions as we can”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/7/16; col. 835.]
That is, they will transfer to Welsh Ministers pre-commencement functions and devolved powers. What is the present ministerial position on that, and on the draft transfer of functions order which was promised to be brought forward in later stages of the Bill? In particular, I would like a clearer explanation of why the approach adopted in the Scotland Act 1998 has not been adopted in how we define the functions of Welsh Ministers. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
I have one very naive question, in which I shall simply display my ignorance—but I am puzzled by the explanation given in the Explanatory Notes that Clause 18(1) inserts a new section into the Government of Wales Act which,
“confers common law type powers on Welsh Ministers”.
That is the passage that the noble Lord just quoted. I thought that the judges and the courts created common law; I did not think that the Ministers created it. I would be most grateful if someone, presumably the Minister, could educate me on that point.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
We have quite a strange group of amendments here but, rather than uncouple them, I would like to suggest a degree of support for the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, and the question from my noble friend. We believe that our amendments, notably Amendment 29 in the next group, will achieve the same result of a better alignment between the Assembly’s legislative competence and Welsh Ministers’ executive powers. I shall save my comments on the general principle of aligning legislative and executive powers until the next grouping.
I shall address the specific issue of fishing, addressed by one of the government amendments in this group. At present, Welsh Ministers have powers to exercise fisheries functions in relation to Wales and the Welsh zone. The Welsh zone includes a zone of 12 nautical miles next to the Welsh coast and the territorial sea, which, because Ireland is to the west of most of Wales, reaches beyond that point significantly only in the south-west of Wales, on the Pembrokeshire coast. Unfortunately, the extent of Welsh Ministers’ powers do not reflect the arrangements in England and Scotland, with those Administrations having executive powers in relation to their relevant areas. My understanding is that the Welsh Government have pursued a solution to this for several years, so it is encouraging that the amendment has been brought forward.
The amendment goes some way to addressing requirements, but it requires further work to work properly. For example, as currently drafted, the amendment would permit functions under Section 5 of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act but not Section 5A, which permits functions to be exercised for “marine environmental purposes”. A number of other aspects need to be considered. It would be better if the amendment mirrored the scope of the Welsh Zone (Boundaries and Transfer of Functions) Order 2010, which covers the sort of functions required. It would help to achieve a degree of consistency around who controls fisheries management measures. While we support the Government’s amendment on fisheries as far as it goes, we hope that further work can be done on this matter before Report to ensure that the provisions are fit for purpose.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on these amendments, and the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, for bringing them forward. I am well acquainted with his burning passion in relation to these matters, which I know we have discussed many times before.
I turn to the amendments, through which the noble Lord and the noble Baroness seek to extend the common law-type powers of Welsh Ministers. I shall break off and explain what I think that means to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. The issue here is that, yes, common law grows up over a period of time, mostly, though not exclusively, from the contribution of judges—some of it would be by convention in other ways, I think. Here we are seeking to confer these types of powers on Welsh Ministers. We cannot do that by the effluxion of time, because time has not allowed that, so we are taking what is already the position in relation to the common law powers that exist for UK Ministers and saying that we believe that those types of powers should exist for Welsh Ministers. We are transposing them because we cannot build in the period of time element.
It is our view that these amendments would undermine the protection given to a very limited number of Minister of the Crown functions, which the Assembly may modify only with the consent of United Kingdom Ministers. Clause 18 is a key part of delivering the clear settlement that we are putting in place through this Bill. Ministers of the Crown and Scottish Ministers already exercise these common law-type powers. This clause would put Welsh Ministers broadly on the same footing as Ministers of the Crown and Scottish Ministers by ensuring that in future they too will be able to exercise such common law powers.
The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, asked a very fair question in relation to the royal prerogative. I am very willing to meet with him to discuss this further but, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the royal prerogative has not been conferred on Welsh Ministers. They derive their powers from transfer of function orders or under the legislation. The noble Lord probably knows more about the royal prerogative than I do; I am very happy to meet with him on this issue.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My very short and technical question is whether it is humanly possible, in any event, for prerogative powers to apply to a Parliament of the nature of the devolved Welsh Administration. As I tried to say in a contribution earlier this afternoon, the royal prerogative derives from what started off as a monarchical diktat, curbed by Coke in 1610, very largely whittled away during the Civil War, and largely defined during the First World War—the noble Lord will remember the case of the Attorney-General v De Keyser’s Royal Hotel Limited. By now, there is hardly a remnant left, but I submit that that remnant can remain only with the mother Parliament.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The noble Lord jogs my memory on the Attorney-General v De Keyser’s Royal Hotel Limited which was a compulsory purchase situation. I believe that he is right and he speaks with great authority. I am always stunned by the noble Lord’s recall of these matters, without any note. I am confident that he is right on this issue, but nevertheless I am very happy to meet with the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, to look at it further.
I was also asked about the transfer of powers, which we are doing by transfer of function order rather than in the Bill. I have notified noble Lords of the functions that we have identified that will be transferred to Ministers. We are consulting with the Welsh Government in case they find any more that we have missed. I do not think that is the case, but if it is we will, of course, amend the transfer of functions orders.
The noble Baroness referred to and welcomed Amendments 31 to 35, which add a number of additional fisheries management functions to the licensing functions already being transferred to Welsh Minsters. These are management functions under the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967. The noble Baroness has said that she is happy with this but it could go further. I will go away and take a look at it, reflect on what she has said and come back to it on Report. On that basis, I urge the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Elis-Thomas
My Lords, I will take up the Minister’s offer of a meeting, not that I want to add to his diary which is obviously very busy during the passage of the Bill. I know that he understands my concern about the general failure of the Bill to move us forward and provide a stronger basis for both the functions of Ministers and the operation of the National Assembly itself. I will not pursue that, because I am leading on the next amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Elis-Thomas
“(6A) In this section and section 58AA, “within devolved competence” and “outside devolved competence” are to be read in accordance with subsections (7) and (8); but for the purposes of section 58AA no account is to be taken of the requirement to consult the appropriate Minister in paragraph 11(2) of Schedule 7B.”
Lord Elis-Thomas
We come to a further elaboration of the relationship between ministerial functions and those of the Assembly. This is a basic constitutional issue which we have failed to address throughout the years of the pursuit of the holy grail which United Kingdom Governments of both parties and one coalition keep calling a “settlement” of Welsh devolution. I think I have said in this House—I have certainly said it in the Assembly—that there is no such thing as a settlement of democracy or politics: it always evolves. If we are looking for something akin to what is available in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which is what I would look for in the context of the United Kingdom, then this Bill does not deliver it, particularly in the area of the relationship between the definitions of ministerial functions and the competence of the Assembly. In her evidence in July, the chief legal adviser to the National Assembly, Elizabeth Jones, referred the constitutional committee—to which, I am happy to announce, I have recently been re-elected following my change of description—to the position, put forward by the former Presiding Officer, that,
“the situation in Wales should be equivalent with Scotland; that is that all ministerial functions, functions of Ministers of the Crown, exercisable within devolved areas … should lie with Welsh Ministers. From a constitutional law point of view, that would be a very logical situation and would also increase the clarity of the settlement very considerably”.
I must pursue this. Perhaps I could discuss it with the Minister at the same meeting he gave me the option of having earlier when we discussed the royal prerogative. It seems to me that the aligning of executive functions of Welsh Ministers with the legislative competence of the National Assembly would address some of the complexity that will arise in relation to the Minister of the Crown consent in the current regime. If there was such an alignment, then UK government consent would not be needed before the National Assembly could affect UK Ministers’ functions in devolved areas because those functions would already have been transferred to Welsh Ministers. These are the issues that I am trying to pursue in this series of amendments. The Minister will, no doubt, be aware of and have read the report of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, whose work in this area is equivalent only to the work of the Constitution Committee of this House. We have been so exercised by the attempt to make sense of the devolution structure with which we have to work that I do hope it will be possible for the Minister to consider whether a move towards the alignment of legislative and executive competence would not clarify the devolution structure much more effectively. I beg to move.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for setting out some of the issues relating to the transfer of Minister of the Crown functions and the need for an alignment of legislative and executive powers. Many of the amendments in this group make provisions for the executive competence of Welsh Ministers to be aligned with the legislative competence of the National Assembly; that is to say that Welsh Ministers would gain all the relevant executive functions in devolved areas. Given the Government’s intention of producing a Bill that is to provide clarity and coherence to the Welsh devolution settlement, it is difficult to understand why such a simple provision as the alignment of executive and legislative competence has not been included.
The Government have made it clear that they believe that the reserved powers model of devolution is superior to the conferred powers model—that is common ground between us. Why then does the Bill provide for a reserved legislative competence but continue to operate on the basis of a conferred powers model in respect of executive powers for Welsh Ministers?
The continued heavy reliance on transfer of functions orders, with their itemised listing of the statutory powers available to Welsh Ministers, is a relic from the past. I note that the Minister has said today that he will look again to see whether there are any more that he has left out. But it is the principle involved here that we are concerned with. We need now to fully accept the logic of the reserved powers model and align legislative and executive competence in the way set out in the simple and straightforward formula proposed in Amendment 29.
It has become clear that the Government have used the Scotland Act as a guide in developing this Bill. Again, it is therefore difficult to understand why a fundamental principle of the Scottish devolution settlement is not being replicated in this Wales Bill. The Bill provides for the extension of the competence of the National Assembly in a number of areas. Surely as the legislative powers of the Assembly expand, it is essential to align executive powers with them. We recognise that transfer of functions orders will still be needed where there is a proposal to transfer ministerial functions in areas that are reserved—emergency powers are a case in point. However, in the general principle, it is just not clear why the Government have taken this point.
My noble friend referred to the constitutional committee of the Assembly. I now want to refer to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, which said that:
“If the Government’s intention is to align, as far as possible, the executive and legislative competence of the Welsh Assembly and Government, we question why it is doing so via secondary legislation rather than in primary legislation—as was the case in Scotland”.
The general principle should be that executive powers in devolved areas should be exercised by Welsh Ministers. Why do the Government have such difficulty with this simple proposition? I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I want to add just a word or two from the Scottish perspective to what has just been said. I was involved in the consideration of the Scotland Bill that became the Scotland Act 1998, some considerable number of years ago. One of the groups of sections, which is now to be found in Sections 52 to 56 of the Scotland Act 1998, dealt with ministerial functions. The critical section, which is closely aligned with what is proposed in this amendment, is Section 53, which says in subsection (1) that:
“The functions mentioned in subsection (2) shall, so far as they are exercisable within devolved competence”—
those critical words—
“be exercisable by the Scottish Ministers instead of by a Minister of the Crown”.
That was part of the whole structure of the Scotland Act, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, has noted, was designed on a reserved powers basis but is very much relevant to what has been designed for Wales today, dealing as it does with the idea that anything to do with devolved competence so far as Ministers are concerned should be within the functions of Scottish Ministers in place of Ministers of the Crown.
The functions listed in subsection (2) were three. The first is,
“those of Her Majesty’s prerogative and other executive functions which are exercisable on behalf of Her Majesty”.
I do not think it is being suggested that that should be done in this case. The second is,
“other functions conferred on a Minister of the Crown by a prerogative instrument”.
The third and important one for the present purpose is,
“functions conferred on a Minister of the Crown by any pre-commencement enactment”.
Those are the words we see echoed in subsection (1) of proposed new Section 58B. We then have a definition in the Scotland Act of what a pre-commencement enactment means, which is exactly as set out in the amendment.
So far as Scotland is concerned, the effect of Section 53 was to achieve complete clarity and make it very simple for those who were designing statutory instruments to give effect to the transfer of functions to find a solid base for what they were proposing to do. Again, I was quite closely involved in observing the way in which the functions were transferred. It seemed to me that the matter went very smoothly, given the clarity set out in the Scotland Act.
Although I certainly am not as fully aware of the position in Wales as those who have already spoken are, I think, with great respect, that there is great force in the idea that an amendment of this kind should be made. It is part of the development that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, mentioned earlier of progressing the Welsh Assembly and its Ministers into the modern structure that suits the evolving nature of what is now taking place in Wales.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, the call for the alignment of legislative and executive powers is not just a call for tidying-up: it is a call for clarity of accountability. Unless we have that alignment, in the same devolved matter, Welsh government Ministers will be accountable to the Welsh Assembly on some aspects and Ministers of the Crown will be responsible to this legislature on others. That makes for confusion and a political mess. Is not it far better to get some coherence and clarity of accountability, as my noble friend and other noble Lords are calling for?
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, on 5 July, in the House of Commons, the Government promised to produce draft transfer of functions orders. Have those been produced so far—and if not, why not? Is the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, right when she says that they will be conferred functions rather than reserved functions?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this part of the Bill and specifically the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, who are seeking to broaden the definition of the Assembly’s legislative competence to include functions where consultation with a Minister of the Crown is required before modification, by virtue of paragraph 11(2) of new Schedule 7B.
Specifically in relation to the functions set out in that sub-paragraph, I should say first that they are very few. We should be clear that the great bulk of ministerial functions will be transferred by transfer of functions orders—that is the intention—but there are four here that need prior consent. I am willing to go away and look at these, but I have to say that some relate to circumstances that perhaps noble Lords have not taken account of. For example, the very porous nature of the border means that for water—noble Lords will know that we are still looking at this—the present position is that the National Assembly for Wales has some competence in relation to customers who are in England, and vice versa. Therefore, it is not quite as straightforward as it might be in Scotland, with respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. That said, I will have another look at the functions as they are set out and be in a position to better inform noble Lords as to the precise thinking behind these.
However, in relation to, I think, Amendment 36, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, or Amendment 37, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, the reason for the measure is specifically the evolving picture on water. We are still looking at that. That is why the measure is in the Bill. Having looked at it, I think it is probably wider than we need, because, if it is needed just for water and sewerage, I do not see why we cannot say so. Therefore, I will certainly take that back to see whether we cannot amend it. If the noble Baroness and noble Lord look at that provision, they may see that we need it because of the situation to which I have just referred of some English customers being subject to Welsh law and Welsh customers being subject to English law. We need to tidy that up.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, asked about the transfer of functions orders. He will be aware that I wrote to noble Lords setting out those we intend to transfer. Because of the evolving nature of reserved matters—for example, on teachers’ pay—work on that is still going on. I assure him that work continues on that, perhaps not quite as we speak but pretty much as we speak. On the basis of these remarks, I would be grateful if the noble Lord would withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hope of Craighead
I take up the noble Lord on one point. If I heard him correctly, he said that the amendment was concerned with legislative functions. Strictly speaking, it deals with executive functions, certainly from the perspective of the Scotland Act. Looking at it against that background, I see this as dealing very definitely with the functions of Ministers, which is the executive branch, rather than the powers of the Assembly.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord is absolutely right. I correct myself.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
The noble Lord has not clarified to me why he would object to the principle of this alignment between executive and legislative competence. He has told us that he has looked at all these different things, has brought most of them forward, that there is a long list and that he does not think there are many more. But why would he object to the principle of this alignment?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, with respect, for the reason I have given—namely, that it is fine as a principle but, because it on occasion throws up circumstances that cannot be foreseen, it is wise that we go through it with a fine-toothed comb. If we had not done so, it would create difficulties with the alignment we are seeking on water, for example.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
Would it not be possible to do it the other way round and make an exception to the principle? Would that not be easier?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Once we know what the exceptions are, of course, that is the case, but we need to go through them to make sure that there are none of those exceptions.
Lord Elis-Thomas
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister yet again for his generosity in responding to the arguments. We await his further consideration and, no doubt, will have further discussions with him. As the former Member of Parliament and now the Assembly Member for a particular length of the River Dee, I certainly would not want to deprive customers anywhere on either side of the Marches of Wales of their water supply. It is a bit rich, when we revert to this exceptional issue, to suggest to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that because the rivers in Scotland apparently flow into the sea rather than into England, the situation in Scotland is somehow different. We need weightier arguments on that issue than we have had.
However, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, emphasised the need for clarity and accountability. That is exactly the clarity that all of us who have tried to build and rebuild the devolution settlement in Wales seek. I was particularly grateful, as always, to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for his incisive questioning, and, of course, to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, whom I affectionately earlier called the red baroness. I hope that did not cause her offence. Perhaps I called her that in the Assembly; I keep confusing the Assembly and this Parliament. I will withdraw the amendment but I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
I propose to speak later on the water issue but the noble Lord observed that the rivers in Scotland flow straight into the sea. As a former chairman of the National Rivers Authority, I can assure him that the Solway does not flow straight into the sea; it flows from Scotland through England. We had considerable difficulties when we tried to charge the Scots for the work we did on fisheries on one side of the border, so there is not even that exception to justify the treatment. I hope we can move to simplicity and clarity in the Bill, something I have urged all along. I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken for their clarity and brevity on this constitutional issue, in contrast to the extraordinary verbosity with which a so-called constitutional issue was addressed earlier this evening.
Lord Elis-Thomas
I do not think it is for me to comment on that. I am grateful to the noble Lord, who was a very distinguished Secretary of State and took many initiatives from which we benefited in Wales. He was certainly an extremely distinguished chair of the National Rivers Authority. I can never forget that. I recognise that there are exceptions in Scotland and in Wales. Perhaps one day we will legislate in this House in a way that removes this notion of a border between England and Wales. As a late medieval scholar, I always thought that everywhere within a 40-kilometre band of the so-called political border was the Marches. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“(2) The functions are—(a) functions of a Minister of the Crown under section 1 (size limits, etc for fish) and section 3 (regulation of nets and other fishing gear) of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967;(b) functions of a Minister of the Crown or the Marine Management Organisation under section 4 (licensing of fishing boats) and section 4A (restrictions on time spent at sea—appeals) of that Act;(c) functions of a Minister of the Crown under section 5 (power to restrict fishing for sea fish) and section 6 (prohibition on landing of sea fish caught in certain areas) of that Act;(d) functions of a Minister of the Crown under section 15(3) of that Act (conferral of enforcement powers on British sea-fishery officers), so far as relating to the sections listed in paragraphs (a) to (c);(e) functions of a Minister of the Crown under section 5 of the Sea Fisheries Act 1968 (regulation of conduct of fishing operations), so far as they relate to the identification and marking of fishing boats, and section 7 of that Act (sea fishery officers);(f) functions of a Minister of the Crown under section 2 (access to British fisheries) and section 7(1) (power to incur expenditure) of the Fishery Limits Act 1976;(g) functions of a Minister of the Crown under sections 15(1) and 16 (financial assistance) of the Fisheries Act 1981.”
Baroness Morgan of Ely
“Functions exercisable concurrently or jointly with Welsh Ministers4A_ Functions of the Secretary of State under section 272 of the Transport Act 2000 (financial assistance for inland waterway and sea freight) so far as they relate to—(a) the carriage of goods by an inland waterway that is partly in Wales, or(b) the carriage of goods by sea where the carriage concerned is wholly or partly by sea adjacent to Wales (within the meaning of that section),are exercisable concurrently or jointly with the Welsh Ministers.”
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I can move it, if noble Lords would like that. Is that acceptable? The issue addressed by this group of amendments is that of the trust ports.
The Bill as drafted enables the Assembly to legislate on ports and harbours and transfers additional executive functions in respect of them from the Secretary of State to Welsh Ministers. This is in line with the Silk recommendations and the St David’s Day announcement. However, the Bill also creates a specific category of reserved trust ports which reach a certain turnover threshold on which the Assembly cannot legislate and over which Welsh Ministers cannot exercise any powers. Therefore, the Welsh Assembly is able to legislate on almost all ports, but a significant one is missing. This reservation was absent from both the St David’s Day Command Paper and the Silk report. Currently, the only Welsh port to reach the threshold stated in the Bill is Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. The UK Government’s justification for this peculiar reservation is the strategic significance of Milford Haven as a key energy port. They point to the fact that 62% of all liquid natural gas that comes through UK ports is handled by Milford Haven and that the oil refinery and fuel storage facilities at the haven, which are dependent on the port, play an important role in securing supplies of road and aviation fuel.
That is especially odd considering that the UK Government declined to cite energy security as a policy driver for investment in Milford Haven to support the sale of the Murco refinery in 2014. It is worth noting that the trust port of Aberdeen, which could be seen to have a strategic significance equal to that of Milford Haven due to the importance of North Sea oil to the UK, is under the control of the Scottish Government. There is an element of double standards at work here. In Scotland, all ports and harbours are devolved, including Aberdeen.
Reserving the port also brings into play the danger that the UK Government could in future privatise the port authority against the wishes of the people and the National Assembly. Some have already noted their concern about the potential for asset-stripping and fragmentation, were that to occur. Removing any reservation regarding Milford Haven would safeguard from privatisation what some have called “The People’s Port”. It would also bring the Welsh Government’s devolved powers with respect to ports and harbours in line with those of Scotland, with the Silk report and with the St David’s Day announcement. I am therefore proposing amendments that would remove the concept of a “reserved trust port” from the Bill, which would enable the National Assembly to have competence in respect of all trust ports in Wales.
I should like to touch briefly on another amendment in this group, concerning coastguards. There is no rhyme or reason to discuss it here but it is included in this group. I think it is asking the Secretary of State very little to consult Welsh Ministers on the strategic priorities of the coastguard in Wales. This is done in Scotland and perhaps the Minister could comment on that.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I support the noble Baroness’s comments. I really cannot see any shadow of logic behind the exception being given to Milford Haven. It makes no economic sense to give the Assembly the power over all the other ports but to make this the one exception. Of course, the exception hurts all the more because, by some strange coincidence, it just happens to be the largest port in Wales.
I strongly believe that Welsh devolution should not be a slavish mirror of Scottish devolution. I accept that there is a long and well-populated border between Wales and England, and it is not always the case that what is good for Scotland is good for Wales. However, I can see absolutely no reason why Milford Haven, which is about as far from the border as you could possibly get, should not be subject to the same kinds of rules to which Aberdeen is subject. It is clearly inconsistent for the Scottish Government but not the Welsh Government to be given this power, and I fear that, yet again, it is a case of Wales being treated as second class.
I also fear that we are going to come across dozens of examples—if not today then certainly in next week’s debates—of the Government simply mirroring the existing messy settlement in the long list of reservations. That will not provide the stable settlement I had hoped the Bill would achieve, and which I believe many of the Bill’s architects had originally hoped for. Therefore, I very much hope that the Government will use the opportunity between Committee and Report to think again about this issue.
Lord Crickhowell
My Lords, for 17 years I was the Member of Parliament for Pembroke and I had very detailed and involved discussions—and sometimes arguments—with the trust board at Milford Haven. Undoubtedly it is a strategic port. Gas imports are important, and the port’s position at the end of the oil pipeline that conveys the gas to the rest of Britain is clearly of great significance. However, from time to time I had profound disagreements with the port authorities, not least on safety matters, and I frequently urged the UK Government to interfere and take action, which on a number of occasions they were reluctant to do. The Welsh Government might be more likely to give attention to those concerns than the UK Government.
I remain completely open-minded on this issue. As I said, I understand the strategic significance but, on the face of it and on the basis of my experience, I am not entirely convinced that the job could not be done by the Government of Wales. Therefore, I will listen with considerable interest to the case made by my noble friend. I am quite prepared to be persuaded, but I think that a legitimate case is being advanced here and we need to know the exact reasons for the Government’s decision.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I shall be brief. It strikes me that it is for the Government to make the case for Milford Haven being an exception. The natural position would be for it to be within the competence of the Welsh Government and Assembly, and a case for it needs to be made—a case that I have not yet heard.
I support the points about Milford Haven made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely. As she said, it handles 62% of all the liquid natural gas, but it has had other strategic existences in the past and it may well do so in the future. At one point it had a strategic position in regard to fishing due to its deep-water facility. At the time, there was the possibility of Celtic oil off the Pembrokeshire coast. In that context, Milford Haven would have been important to the economic development of the area. Therefore, taking out what should be a focus for possible future growth in Pembrokeshire seems perverse, and a strong case needs to be made for allowing that to happen.
On coastguards, many other services in Wales come under the National Assembly—one thinks of the ambulance service, for example. One would have thought that the coastguard facility would naturally have the same sorts of conflicts. Again, I would be interested to hear the Government’s case.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
My Lords, Milford Haven is at the other end of Wales from me and I have never been there. However, I am very familiar with Aberdeen Harbour, having on a number of occasions rowed upstream from there as far as the main road bridge, and I have fished in the river very frequently.
There are differences and I can assist the Minister to this extent: I do not believe that oil or gas is discharged in Aberdeen Harbour, as it is in Milford Haven. However, that makes my point. It seems to me that the Welsh Government would control the standards and risks of pollution at Milford Haven in a much more hands-on way than could ever be the case in Westminster. The Minister should explain why such a distinction is made between Milford Haven and the other ports in Wales.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
I support this amendment, the first of a series dealing with individual areas where the British Government do not want certain things devolved to the Welsh Government. I understand why that should be the case in some areas but the onus is squarely on the United Kingdom Government to explain why it should not be the case in others. I am not convinced that Milford Haven should be any different from any other Welsh port. If the issue is about the devolution of ports, the ports should be devolved, both Milford Haven and the rest of them. There may well be a reason but, given the general situation in regard to all these functions, as we go through them today and next week, I repeat, the onus must squarely be on the Government to explain why, under this new system of reserved powers, the Welsh Government cannot have responsibility for them.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I apologise for being blindsided on the government amendments in this group but perhaps I may turn to them first before answering the points raised by noble Lords.
Through the government amendments we will give the Welsh Ministers new powers and more flexibility to make grants or payments to encourage freight modal shift from road to water. The Welsh Ministers are already able under Section 272 of the Transport Act 2000 to make grants or other payments for carriage of freight on inland waterways where this is wholly within Wales, but neither the Secretary of State nor the Welsh Ministers are able to award a grant for a cross-border inland waterway service. This relates to the porous nature of the water, canals and so on to which I referred earlier. Two separate grants would be needed—one for the section of waterway in England and the other for the section of waterway in Wales. The amendment will enable a single grant to be made by either or both the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers for a cross-border service on inland waterways. I hope noble Lords will acknowledge that that is very sensible. This already happens for rail in the mode shift revenue support scheme, which is a scheme for rail and inland waterways.
The amendment would also give the Welsh Ministers new powers to award grants or other payments under Section 272 of the Transport Act 2000 for freight services by sea to, from or within Wales. At present only the Secretary of State is able to do so. Although the waterborne freight grant scheme is a Great Britain-wide scheme, the Welsh Ministers do not currently have the same powers as the Scottish Government to award grants under it. The amendment will put that right.
Joint and concurrent powers will offer the flexibility to make awards for cross-border freight services by inland waterway and sea. They also allow for the possibility that there could be circumstances in which the Secretary of State might wish to provide support for services to or from a reserved trust port in Wales and another port in Wales.
Government Amendments 83C, 83D and 107B transfer further powers to the Welsh Ministers to allow them to make loans to harbour authorities under the Harbours (Loans) Act 1972 and the Harbours Act 1964. They enable the Welsh Ministers to make the loans out of the Welsh Consolidated Fund and they apply requirements for the loan accounts to be certified by the Auditor-General for Wales and laid before the Welsh Assembly. The effect of the amendments is to ensure that in relation to harbours wholly in Wales, other than reserved trust ports, the Welsh Ministers can fully exercise the loan-making functions currently conferred on the Secretary of State, subject to equivalent controls.
The Bill already provides for the Welsh Ministers to make loans under Section 11 of the Harbours Act 1964 to harbour authorities for works to harbours wholly in Wales, other than reserved trust ports. The first amendment will also allow Welsh Ministers to make loans to these harbour authorities to pay off capital debts, temporary loans and overdrafts as provided for by the Harbours (Loans) Act 1972.
The second amendment inserts new provisions into Section 43 of the Harbours Act 1964 which supplement the transfer of loan-making powers under the Harbours Act 1964 and the Harbours (Loans) Act 1972. These comprise giving the Welsh Ministers the power to set the repayment terms of any loans made; enabling the issue to the Welsh Ministers of sums to make the loans from the Welsh Consolidated Fund; requiring that all loan repayments must be paid into the Welsh Consolidated Fund; and requiring the Welsh Ministers to prepare annual accounts in respect of loans issued to and repaid by harbour authorities and the Auditor-General for Wales to certify and report on the accounts of the Welsh Assembly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, has tabled a number of amendments which would remove reservations for reserved trust ports from the Bill and indicated her intention to oppose that Clause 32 stand part of the Bill, which would remove the definition of a reserved trust port. Amendments 61 to 64 seek to remove reservations for and other references to reserved trust ports from Schedule 1, which reserves legislative competence for these ports. Amendments 84 and 86 to 95 seek to remove reservations for and other references to reserved trust ports from Clauses 29, 30 and 33, dealing with the transfer of the executive functions to Welsh Ministers. Clause 32 does not contain any reservations but defines the term “reserved trust port”, and its removal from the Bill would be consequential upon the amendments The Government believe that the reservations for reserved trust ports are an essential element of the Bill and therefore cannot support the amendments of the noble Baroness.
However, in the light of the comments made—particularly by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, who obviously is well acquainted with the trust port—but without any promises, I will have another look at this issue. The point of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that we should not be slavishly mirroring Scotland, is well made. We have to look at the issues specifically on the basis of the nature of Wales. It is right that this would be the only port caught within the definition by some margin—all the other ports are much smaller. Some noble Lords have said that this is just replicating the current position but that is not true because other trust ports would be transferred under the proposals in the Bill.
It is right that this is significant in relation to LNG—I have got 63% but we will not argue about 1%—and gas. It was also at one stage suggested by the current First Minister as a base for the nuclear fleet. The Government are not considering that but it gives an indication of the important strategic role played by Milford Haven. It is a deep water port of unique significance. As I say, I will have another look at the issue but without making a promise on the conclusion.
Lord Crickhowell
Perhaps I may clarify something. I entirely accept and understand the strategic argument but perhaps I should explain why I slightly question the aspect of safety. To give an example, the old Esso jetty, which is a mile long, stretches right across the entrance to the port into the area where all gas tankers entering the port have to pass. It is one of the most exposed parts of the port because it is close to the mouth of Milford Haven. If an accident was to happen, for example, by a gas tanker being blown on to the end of the Esso jetty—and collisions have occurred in the past with fishing vessels hitting the jetty—and an explosion occurred, it would devastate the towns and the oil refinery on the south bank and the town of Milford Haven on the north bank. It is therefore a matter of considerable interest to the Government of Wales on grounds of safety and its possible effect on inhabitants. It is an issue that needs to be considered because there is probably a case for the Government of Wales to at least be involved in some way in considering the possible consequences on the population around the haven if an accident were to occur.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank my noble friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right about the need for partnership working between the Government in Wales and the Government at Westminster—as happened in the past, I think he would acknowledge, in relation to disasters that happened in the port. As I said, I have also been involved with the port of Milford Haven through the enterprise zone. It is my understanding that there is co-operation with the Welsh Government at the moment, but there is certainly consultation on certain matters on the part of the port with the Government. It is, of course, important that they are fully engaged. As I have said, I will go and look at it, but without making any promises.
Amendment 98 would require the Secretary of State to consult with Welsh Ministers while setting the strategic priorities relating to the Secretary of State’s delivery, in Wales, of functions under two pieces of primary legislation: the Coastguard Act 1925 and the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. These functions are all reserved matters, exercisable by the Secretary of State for Transport, and are in practice delivered in the United Kingdom by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, an executive agency of the Department for Transport.
The strategic priorities involved would cover decisions over subject areas such as the 24-hour search and rescue helicopter service provided by the coastguard, and the promotion of seafarer health and safety standards. “Strategic priorities” does not cover operational activities and incident response decisions, which remain the responsibility of the chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Such consultation would normally be effected through administrative arrangements. However, I recognise that the noble Baroness’s amendment mirrors the action taken by the Government through the Scotland Act 2016. Despite having said we will not slavishly mirror things, I will look at that and reflect on the issues raised by the noble Baroness in the amendment. In the light of that, I ask that she does not press her amendments in this group.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I thank the Minister for that and welcome the amendments he put forward relating to the modal grants, the cross-border initiatives and the loans for harbour authorities. I note he said there was an exception and that trust ports would not be allowed to access those grants. I assume they would be allowed to access other UK grants. Perhaps he could clarify that.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I think that related just to reserved trust ports, so it would only be those that are reserved in relation to the Milford Haven issue.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I thank the Minister. I noted he said that Milford Haven was essential to the Bill. He then said that he would take another look. I ask him to think about the issues that people have underlined today. The integration of the economy, the environment and safety have all been touched on. The noble Lord was on the enterprise zone for that area. He will therefore be aware of how crucial that interactivity—the interaction between local communities and the local authority—is. All those things need to be co-ordinated. Would it not be a lot easier to co-ordinate that if that power were given to the Welsh Assembly? I appreciate that he will also look at the issue relating to the coastguard and I would be prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, on the point the noble Baroness raised on the enterprise zone, it exhibited that the current arrangements work very well, but I will have a look at it. In the meantime, I propose that the amendment be agreed to.
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
The question is that Amendment 35A be agreed to.
Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Act 2016 (Independent Reporting Commission) Regulations 2016
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Dunlop
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 15 September be approved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Dunlop) (Con)
My Lords, this statutory instrument makes provision for the exercise of functions of the new Independent Reporting Commission. The commission is being established under the fresh start agreement to report on progress towards ending paramilitary activity connected with Northern Ireland.
Your Lordships will recall that the fresh start agreement included a range of measures agreed by political parties in Northern Ireland last November on ending paramilitarism and tackling organised crime. The Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Act provides the legislative foundations for the commission. This House debated clauses relating to the commission in April and the Bill received Royal Assent on 4 May 2016. During the passage of the Bill there were many constructive contributions from noble Lords from across the House. I welcome the opportunity for further debate tonight on the provisions set out in this statutory instrument. The debate also provides me with the opportunity to update the House on progress towards establishing the commission.
The UK Government and the Government of Ireland signed an international treaty on 13 September to establish the IRC. This confirmed the two Governments’ joint intent to ensure that future generations in Northern Ireland are not blighted by the scourge of paramilitarism. The treaty also brings to life our commitment to end paramilitary activity, which we made in last year’s fresh start agreement.
A treaty is, of course, more than words on a piece of paper and more than a legal obligation. It is also a solemn and genuine commitment between states diligently to work together in pursuit of a common goal. The common goal in establishing the IRC is to rid Northern Ireland society of the harm caused by paramilitary activity. Let me be clear: there never was any justification for paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. There is none today and there must not be any in the future.
The treaty was laid in this House on 22 September. It will come into force when the necessary UK and Irish legislation is completed. The Irish Government intend to pass their legislation by the end of this year and the Government expect the IRC to be established early in 2017. The statutory instrument before us, which gives full effect to the treaty, is the next step in the process.
Before I turn to the specific provisions of the instrument, I remind the House of the IRC’s functions. These are: to report annually on progress towards ending paramilitary activity connected with Northern Ireland; to report on other such further occasions if jointly requested by the UK Government and the Government of Ireland; and to report on the implementation of the relevant measures of the UK and Irish Governments, and the Northern Ireland Executive, including on the Executive’s strategy to tackle paramilitary activity.
I turn now to the regulations themselves. Regulation 2(1) requires the IRC to exercise its functions with a view to supporting long-term peace and stability in society, and stable and inclusive devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Regulation 2(2) requires that, in exercising its functions, the IRC must not do anything which might have a prejudicial effect on the prosecution of crime. Your Lordships may recall that Section 2 of the Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Act 2016 already requires the IRC not to act in any way that might have a prejudicial effect on the prevention, investigation or detection of crime. Regulation 2(2) is necessary because Article 9(3)(c) of the treaty requires the commission not to act in a way that might have a prejudicial effect on any proceedings which have, or are likely to be, commenced in a court of law; and Article 9(3)(d) requires it not to act in a way which might have a prejudicial effect on the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of crime.
These requirements are already reflected in Section 2(3)(c) and (d) of the 2016 Act, with the exception that Section 2(3)(c) does not expressly require the commission to avoid acting in a way which might prejudice the prosecution of crime. The prosecution of crime could include criminal proceedings which are at too early a stage for it to be said with certainty whether proceedings are likely to be commenced. It may also cover matters related to prosecution which are not focused specifically on criminal proceedings—for example, the gathering of evidence. The purpose of Regulation 2(2) is therefore to ensure that this aspect of the treaty is given full effect in the UK.
Regulation 3(1) requires the Secretary of State to lay reports of the commission before Parliament and to arrange for them to be published. Regulation 3(2) requires the Secretary of State to lay the commission’s accounts and auditor’s reports before Parliament, and to arrange for the accounts and reports to be published.
The impact of paramilitary-style attacks and activity in Northern Ireland is all too evident. There have already been four paramilitary murders this year. This is abhorrent. We must ensure that the paramilitary label is no longer seen as a badge of honour and that paramilitary-style control, coercion and extortion of communities is stopped.
Since my appointment in July as a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, I have made visits and met groups across Northern Ireland, and I have seen at first hand the progress and economic development being achieved. Paramilitaries are the enemies of progress and economic development in Northern Ireland. They hold back communities, deterring investment and jobs and preventing people moving forward with their lives. Tackling effectively paramilitary activity must therefore include measures to help communities challenge the control that these groups exert upon them. The reports of the new commission will play a key part in informing how we do that and ensuring that the Northern Ireland Executive are doing all they can to drive out paramilitary activity from local communities. The UK Government are committed to playing their part. We have committed £25 million over five years to support the Northern Ireland Executive’s action plan to end paramilitarism. We have committed a further £3 million to fund the work of the IRC.
It is essential, however, that the Executive’s plan is focused on delivery in areas where it is most needed and that it has both real and measurable outcomes. The Government are working with the Executive to ensure that the funding secured under fresh start is used to greatest effect.
The ultimate test of success in all our endeavours will be whether communities dealing with the malign influence of paramilitary activity experience a real, tangible and positive improvement to their lives. This will be the most important feature flowing from the Independent Reporting Commission’s work. It is right that we should all set high expectations of what we seek to achieve, because those affected by paramilitary activity deserve no less. I beg to move.
Lord McAvoy (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his full explanation of the regulations before us. I thank him and his staff for keeping me fully informed on this legislation from day one. That assistance is greatly appreciated.
The Minister mentioned the paramilitaries and referred to work to remove the breeding ground for unjustified paramilitarism. That is very important. Collectively, we have made huge strides in Northern Ireland and that needs to continue. My honourable friend Vernon Coaker, former shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is long on record as having called for a commission along the lines illustrated by the Minister. I again place on record our full support for the Government’s efforts in this field. The way in which the Government have sought to involve the Opposition and all Members in this matter indicates the bipartisan nature of attitudes towards issues in Northern Ireland.
A number of questions were asked in Committee in the Commons—I am not taking credit for them; I am just picking them up from Hansard. The questions may have been answered elsewhere by letter, but it would be useful if the Minister could either answer them now or, as did his counterpart in the other place, undertake to write. My honourable friend Stephen Pound asked whether the commission’s reports would be laid before the House and whether it would be an annual process or a one-off. He asked also what attitude the Government had to the cross-community aspect of the commission, whether there would be a deliberate effort to make it cross-community or whether any other methods were being considered. As we all know, all communities in Northern Ireland need to feel that they have a stake in whatever happens.
The Minister in the Commons indicated that he would respond in writing on a number of matters. He indicated that he was not sure whether the reports would be placed in the Library or laid before the House. He continued:
“As for sensitivities around the appointments”—
which we all understand—
“there is a detailed process for making them, and I am happy to explain that in writing”.
In the interest of clarity, will the Minister undertake to write to all noble Lords present tonight with responses to the questions asked in the Commons? Stephen Pound MP asked about the appointment of the chair of the commission. Are any proposals on record yet as to how that would be tackled? I want to make it clear that, like anyone else, I appreciate the sensitivities around these issues in Northern Ireland. I do not ask these questions to embarrass anyone or to cause difficulties for the Government, but clarity is needed and we need to know exactly how the appointments work. The Minister in the Commons, Mr Kris Hopkins, said:
“Again, I will write to the hon. Gentleman about appointments to the commission and how appointees are selected, and will give him that information in full”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 2/11/16; col. 6.]
If these questions have been answered in writing by the Minister in the Commons, will the Minister repeat those letters?
Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, the Liberal Democrats also welcome the regulations. I thank the Minister for his clear explanation of them to the House.
As this is my first intervention from these Benches on Northern Irish issues—I think there are a few fellow Scots around this evening—I shall keep my remarks brief, but I start by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Alderdice both in his role as a member on the fresh start panel and in his role as spokesman from these Benches for the past six years. His level of expertise and deep understanding of the issues make him an extremely daunting act to follow.
The Independent Reporting Commission is an important part of the fresh start agreement and its role in reporting annually on progress will be vital in shining a light on continued paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland. It will also play a crucial role in reporting the progress that the Northern Ireland Executive, the UK Government and the Irish Government make in implementing measures to reduce paramilitary activity.
In a democratic society there is no place for paramilitary groups and the violence and criminal acts that they perpetrate. A huge amount of time, energy and commitment has gone into sustaining the peace process in Northern Ireland, and that support needs to continue and be enhanced as we move to the next phase, not least because of the extra pressures that the Brexit negotiations will bring. A permanently peaceful society with politically stable institutions and a strong economy in Northern Ireland are intricately linked. Strengthening the economy, tackling social exclusion, overcoming inequalities, delivering efficiency in public services and tackling violence are all essential elements in challenging the division that exists in Northern Ireland.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, in welcoming the establishment of this body, I further emphasise that I am disappointed that it will have no sanctioning powers. In other words, it can deliberate and report but, unlike its predecessor, it cannot impose any sanctions on persons it deems to have participated in paramilitary activity.
It is 22 years since the ceasefires and 18 years since the Belfast agreement. One would have thought that, with the passage of that length of time, one could have foreseen a gradual diminution in paramilitary activity. However, while the terrorism is not on the scale it once was, it has reached a sort of plateau. As the Minister said in his opening remarks, there have been four deaths already this year. But that is not the only expression of paramilitary activity. If we take figures from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, in the past 10 years 6,261 people have claimed they were intimidated out of their homes by paramilitaries and the housing executive accepted 3,720 of those claims. In the year up to April, 588 such claims were made and 414 were accepted. By any standards, paramilitaries continue on their path. We also had the tragic death of a teenager—last week, I believe—who was driven to his death by paramilitaries for non-payment of a fine they had imposed upon him. The idea that we are moving at pace towards the end of paramilitary activity is very misleading.
We welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, to the Front Bench. If she does not have a full working knowledge of Northern Ireland affairs at the moment, she does not know what wonder awaits her as we move forward. However, she made reference to the Government’s promise—as the Minister reiterated—of £25 million over five years to help with the strategy to tackle paramilitary activity. Unfortunately, the Executive in Stormont have not yet been able to finalise these proposals. Consequently, and understandably, the Government have had no alternative but to withhold the funds because there is no strategy there, as there should be. Yet there is a continuing flow of funds from government to organisations populated by persons who have had paramilitary connections. That particular flow of funds is able to continue whereas the strategy to deal with this is paralysed by inaction. That is a very negative development.
We know this is deep-seated and there are a lot of social and economic reasons for it, as the noble Baroness referred to. We know that young people in areas with significant deprivation and a lack of education and job opportunities are easy prey to the elements around. It is still in some areas a badge of honour to be associated with some of these organisations. However, remember that it is only just over a year since the activities of some of these organisations almost brought down the Executive. That precipitated urgent talks but just over a year ago it almost brought down Stormont. The idea that this is resolved is misleading.
We seem to be still in the foothills. If after 18 years we cannot even agree a strategy for dealing with paramilitaries, what are we doing? What is the delay? Why is this not happening when there is a funding stream clearly available and promised? I would have thought anybody would have taken the opportunity to get on with that and it is regrettable that it has not happened. The longer we leave it, the more of these young people will be sucked into these organisations. They have their lives ruined and miss opportunities. With that level of funding available, it is outrageous that we are not able to get out there and spend it to avoid young people in particular getting sucked into this.
Of course, hardcore paramilitaries continue to try to kill members of the Prison Service and of the police—the PSNI—in particular. That is continuing. Thank God they have been intercepted in many cases. I must pay tribute not only to the PSNI but also to the Garda for the work and co-operation that exists there. They have prosecuted a number of cases successfully. But there is still a large number of people involved, bearing in mind that they are a generation past the agreement and when there was open paramilitary fighting with the Army. Still these organisations exist. Still weapons are being found. Still weapons are being acquired. It is very disappointing that it has not been possible to get behind a strategy to deal with this and spend the money already allocated. I do not understand why we have this continual paralysis.
I regret that there are no powers of sanction for this body. Nevertheless, perhaps it can shine a light on what is going on in its reports. If I remember correctly—noble Lords will correct me if I am wrong—it can produce a special report if requested. However, with the figures released on people who are still being intimidated out of their homes, it is time that this paralysis was ended. I hope the Minister will use all his influence with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that he is in a position to make those funds available, release them and get something happening on the ground that will keep young people away from these organisations.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I support the implementation of this statutory instrument, and I note with pleasure the bipartisan support it received from the opposition Benches. I absolutely accept the problem that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, noted, that the Independent Reporting Commission will not have the power to deliver its own sanctions. None the less, it sends out a powerful signal that government, and even the Northern Ireland Executive, are not prepared any longer to sweep paramilitary crime under the carpet. That is of value in its own respect. For the rest, we must hope that the decision to devolve policing and justice will pay dividends in the next couple of years or so.
I will make a point about the £3 million that has been made available. This is not a criticism of what has been done; we have no choice but to go down this road. This body is part of the means by which Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland politicians extracted themselves from a near-fatal crisis of the Executive. A promise has been made, and it is quite right that Her Majesty’s Government try to deliver on their side of the promise. However, is it not unusual that Her Majesty’s Government are paying for all of it but have only one nominee, whereas the Assembly has two and the Irish Government have one, although the £3 million that is keeping the thing going is from Her Majesty’s Government? In this case, it is right; it is an inevitable if difficult decision, although a defensible one. However, in the future we need to be careful about arrangements in which Her Majesty’s Government pay the piper but do not call the tune, particularly with respect to arrangements that might be made about legacy issues in the future. It is slightly worrying from the point of view of the future, although it is the right thing to do at this time.
I will make another point about a positive part of the statutory instrument, which is the decision to have more transparency about the way the Executive display their finances and in particular the role played by the United Kingdom Exchequer. This is a positive development. One of the things those of us who live in Northern Ireland understand, in a way that perhaps those who do not live there do not, is that the discussion of the local finances goes on in an extremely airy-fairy world, without respect to the importance of the subvention from the UK Exchequer, which is vital to the survival of the Northern Irish economy. I totally support that—that is what the United Kingdom means, and the fact that Northern Ireland has been in distress and in difficult circumstances and has been helped by the United Kingdom is a tribute to the concept of the union and the United Kingdom. I totally support it, but the people of Northern Ireland have a responsibility to be realistic about these matters and to take their own role in this seriously. The decision that now the Executive must make clear what the financial relationships are is a positive one. The hero of the Troubles has always been the unknown British taxpayer, and it is right that he be respected at this moment. It is now 18 years since the Good Friday agreement, and the time has come and it is right for us to have this transparency about public funding.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, it is impossible to forget the widespread feelings of shock and outrage which were evoked by events in Northern Ireland in the summer of last year. They demonstrated, in the most stark and vivid manner, the continuing malign presence of paramilitary organisations 17 years after the signing of the Belfast agreement. The sheer extent of paramilitary malignity was most vividly illustrated for us by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, in his powerful and moving remarks a little while ago.
Some of us felt last year, and still feel, that it was unfortunate, to put it mildly, that the Independent Monitoring Commission, which could have continued to play a most useful role, had been wound up in 2011. It is so much easier to adapt an existing institution to deal with fresh challenges and difficulties than to establish an entirely new one, particularly when two sovereign Governments then have to reach a fresh agreement between them. But of course no sense of regret for what is past should inhibit full-hearted support for the new Independent Reporting Commission. It will have a most important contribution to make in strengthening the still fragile peace of Northern Ireland, which matters above all else.
Some important questions have been raised by noble Lords this evening, and I would like to raise three more. First, the fresh start agreement, signed a year ago this month, states that it,
“places fresh obligations on Northern Ireland’s elected representatives to work together on their shared objective of ridding society of all forms of paramilitary activity and groups”.
One year on, how much progress has been made in advancing these fresh obligations?
Secondly, will the Independent Reporting Commission have all the legal advice that it will need to ensure that its work does not,
“have a prejudicial effect on any proceedings which have, or are likely to be, commenced in a court of law”,
in the words of the agreement signed in September between the two Governments?
Thirdly, when will the remaining regulations subject to the negative procedure be laid? The appropriate period will need to elapse before they become law, which presumably means that they may not have been passed when the commission is established early next year, as my noble friend Lord Dunlop indicated in his remarks at the outset of this debate, although the Explanatory Memorandum issued with the regulations gives next month—December—as the date of establishment.
I hope that the first report of the commission will be forthcoming as soon as possible. We need to be clear that a successful working partnership has been forged between its four members. We need to be clear about the specific aims and objectives that the commission has set for itself in the first phase of its existence. Such matters need to be kept before this Parliament. Under the old Stormont regime, devolution in Northern Ireland meant indifference to the Province’s affairs here at Westminster; that must never ever happen again.
Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)
My Lords, first, I apologise to the Minister for not being here at the start of this debate. I see this very much as a further development of the political process in Northern Ireland. This can only help. I know that the Executive are dealing with some very difficult issues at the moment. I would hope that these provisions will help them to deal with those issues a lot sooner.
We should put on record the previous Secretaries of State who have worked tirelessly to get where we are in Northern Ireland today. We need to recognise that we have had almost nine years of fairly stable government; okay, there have been a few bumps along the way—some of them fairly serious—but they have managed to stay together. I think that we have a stable Government and a stable Assembly in Northern Ireland now. That is a huge achievement compared to where we came from 20, 25 or 30 years ago. We have all moved on in Northern Ireland. You have only to look at the pledge of office used by Ministers in the Assembly, and by Assembly Members, which is set out in Schedule 4 to the Northern Ireland Act. All this is moving Northern Ireland forward.
This all comes out of what was agreed by the political parties on 17 November in A Fresh Start. I hope that we will now have a commission which will report independently—“independently” is very important. The objective is of course to help end paramilitary and criminal activity in Northern Ireland. I do not believe that this commission can do that on its own; there has to be a collective approach from politicians, policing and the southern Government to bring this activity to an end. I know that some Peers have said, rightly, that it has been 20 years and we still have paramilitary organisations and criminality. They are almost leeches to their own communities; they beg from their own communities and create major problems there. We have to remember that they are happy enough to keep their own community in the way that it is because that helps their cause. For me, it was never about when they would leave the stage; for me, it is how they leave the stage that is vitally important.
I believe that we have paramilitaries who genuinely want to come into the democratic process. We should try to help to bring them in. The police and the justice system in Northern Ireland should deal with those who do not want to come into the process. When you talk to paramilitaries, there is a desire to leave it behind and come in. It is about how we get them in and deal with them, and then how they eventually leave the stage, but they must be part of the solution in Northern Ireland. We cannot isolate them totally and absolutely. Yes, as noble Lords have said, it is 20 years but that is 20 years too long. We need to find a way of dealing with this issue. They are a total curse in Northern Ireland. I believe that on some occasions they hold back our politicians who want to move forward even quicker. The legacy issue in Northern Ireland is a major issue. We must try to resolve that issue. I am hearing reasonably good soundings that they are moving forward on it. If it can be resolved, that will be better for the future of Northern Ireland and for all its people, so let us move forward. This is good news here tonight.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his statement and I, too, apologise for missing the opening. I very much welcome the regulations relating to the setting-up of the Independent Reporting Commission. Does the Minister agree that good progress has been made in Northern Ireland since the signing of the fresh start agreement? A long list of issues has been agreed and all are being progressed and implemented. The situation in Northern Ireland today is much more positive and, as we have heard, there has been a long period of stable government.
However, the threat posed by paramilitaries from both the republican and the loyalist sides, unfortunately, still exists. Only last night, we witnessed the murder of Mr Jim Hughes at Divis flats. This has to be condemned by all right-minded persons. All parties must work together to rid society of all paramilitary activity.
I look forward to the Independent Reporting Commission beginning its work and to receiving its first report, which I trust will prove to be an important arm in helping to bring an end to all forms of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland, which for far too long has been a scourge to law-abiding communities in Northern Ireland. I very much hope that the next step in securing long-lasting peace is for all parties to agree a way forward to finding a solution for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles.
Lord Dunlop
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate and for their support for these regulations. In particular, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, to her new role and echo her warm words for the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, who was part of the independent panel that made 43 recommendations on how we take dealing with paramilitary activity forward.
As I said earlier, this is another important step in the process of meeting the commitments entered into as part of the fresh start agreement. A number of points were raised during the debate, and I will try to address as many of them as I can now. If there are any points that I am unable to cover, I will, of course write to the noble Lords concerned.
First, on reporting, Regulation 3(1)(a) requires the Secretary of State to lay the reports of the commission before the House. If the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, would like further detail on the process, I am, of course, happy to write to him.
On the cross-community nature of the commission, there will be four commissioners, one nominated by the UK Government, one nominated by the Irish Government and two appointed by the Executive who will be nominated jointly by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister. That is to ensure collaboration and to provide cross-community credibility.
With regard to the appointment of a chairman of the commission, this is not required by the legislation or necessarily envisaged, but the IRC has the autonomy to appoint a chairperson if it so chooses. We hope that the commission will be in place in early 2017. We are aiming for January 2017.
I can assure the noble Baroness that the Government will not allow the negotiations on exiting the EU in any way to compromise the Government’s determination to carry forward their commitments to Northern Ireland.
When we debated the primary legislation, my noble friend made the point about sanctions. It is open to the IRC to make recommendations to inform the Executive’s programme for government.
With regard to the Executive’s action plan, as has already been mentioned, the UK is providing £25 million to tackle paramilitary activity. The Government are working with the Executive to deliver a robust action plan. Before the UK Government can agree to release funds, we must see a prioritised and effective plan from the Executive, and we look forward to seeing more detailed plans from the Executive. It is essential that the Executive make urgent progress on this.
On the funding of the IRC, I note what the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said. It is important that the transparency of the Executive’s finances is underpinned by an independent fiscal council.
My noble friend Lord Lexden asked a number of questions. The IRC may contract such legal services as it considers necessary. That is obviously part of why the Government are providing £3 million funding for the commission.
We hope that the further regulations will be laid soon. I hope that I have covered most, if not all, of the points that have been raised.
In conclusion, the continuing activities of paramilitaries are a blight on communities across Northern Ireland. The Independent Reporting Commission will have an important role in helping to rid Northern Ireland society of these heinous activities. I am sure the whole House looks forward to the IRC starting its work early next year.
Lord Empey
My Lords, just before the noble Lord sits down, I am bit unclear about one thing—if he is not in a position to answer now, perhaps he could write to me. The £5 million a year has been promised, but the Government clearly have some issues over the lack of clarity on the part of the Northern Ireland Executive’s strategy. Could he tell us whether there is any timetable for resolving that issue? Could he even share with us—if not now, perhaps by writing and putting the letter in the Library—what it is that is not sufficiently developed? We have been at this game for well over 20 years now, and it is very disturbing that there is money there while there are huge areas of deprivation and paramilitarism is still active. It would be most unfortunate if we cannot get that already-provided resource out there, making some positive contribution. If the Minister could help us in some way on that, I would be most grateful.
Lord Dunlop
As my noble friend will know, the Secretary of State has to persuade the Treasury to release funds. The House will know that the Treasury requires sight of detailed and measurable plans, and that is what is at issue here. I cannot give him a precise timetable tonight, but if there is further information that can be usefully shared, I am happy to write to him on that. The key point is that the Government are seized of the need to make urgent progress on putting in place an effective, detailed action plan that will start to tackle this scourge on society in Northern Ireland.
Wales Bill
Monday 7th November 2016
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Wales Act 2017 View all Wales Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 63-II(a) Amendment for Committee, supplementary to the second marshalled list (PDF, 52KB) - (7 Nov 2016)
Baroness Morgan of Ely
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, many amendments have been put together in this group, but I will focus in the first place on the so-called purpose test. Here we come to the crux of the constitutional issues with the Bill, and an area which has been criticised by some of the top constitutional experts of this country. I will raise some general questions about how the so-called purpose test works, in order to determine the scope of the Assembly’s legislative competence, because if we do not get clarity on this, the chances of ending up in the Supreme Court are extremely high.
The Bill appears to operate in a binary way. If a provision in an Assembly Bill is exclusively concerned with non-reserved matters, such as agriculture or health, it is of course within the Assembly’s legislative competence. If, conversely, a provision in an Assembly Bill “relates to” a reserved matter, the Bill is outside the Assembly’s legislative competence. Whether a provision relates to a reserved matter is, as the Bill has it, to be,
“determined by reference to the purpose of the provision, having regard (among other things) to its effect in all the circumstances”.
This is the purpose test that I would like to explore.
Of course, in the real world, matters can never be so black and white. Any Assembly Bill seeking to address the complications of modern life is unlikely to be able to do so by making provisions exclusively about non-reserved matters. It may be necessary, for entirely sensible reasons, to touch on reserved matters as well as non-reserved matters.
The question that I am exploring is how far the Assembly can do that before stepping outside the scope of its competence. Does the fact that a specific provision in an Assembly Bill deals in some way with a reserved matter automatically take the Bill outside the Assembly’s legislative competence? If so, that could present some major practical problems for the Assembly. The Minister will know that in the agricultural case, under the current devolution settlement the essence of the matter was that what the Assembly had done could be characterised either as relating to the conferred matter of agriculture or, as the Government contended, to some other matters entirely that were effectively reserved. The Supreme Court held that under the present settlement, provided that the provision fairly and realistically relates to a conferred matter, it makes no difference that it could also be described as relating to a matter on which the 2006 Act is silent—it would still be within competence. On that basis, a certain degree of flexibility is inherent in the current settlement.
Additional flexibility is also available under the present settlement as, where a provision falls within one of the exceptions to the Assembly’s competence, it can still be included in an Assembly Bill where it is incidental to or consequential on another provision within the Assembly's competence. What flexibility is implicit in the settlement envisaged by the Bill before the House? I invite the Minister to address that question. In so doing, I simply make the point that, given the inordinate length of the list of reserved matters that the Assembly will face, this is far from being a theoretical matter. The Constitution Committee’s valuable report on the Bill points out that,
“this test may have the effect of reducing the scope of the Welsh Assembly’s legislative competence, and perhaps lead to further referrals to the Supreme Court. We would welcome”—
again, this is what the Constitution Committee of this House said—
“an explanation from the Government as to whether this was the intent of the legislation and, if not, what steps they intend to take to ensure that the competence of the Welsh Assembly is not inadvertently reduced”.
I ask the Minister to address that issue. We need to know whether the Assembly could be hopelessly constrained from taking action on important social concerns by being unable in its legislation to touch on reserved matters in the course of addressing issues that otherwise would clearly be within devolved competence.
There are a whole load of other amendments in this group, and I would like to deal also with the issue of “ancillary”. Section 108 of the current Government of Wales Act enables the National Assembly for Wales to pass legislative provisions that are ancillary to devolved matters—or, to use the exact terminology, provisions that are,
“incidental to, or consequential on”,
devolved matters, or which,
“provides for the enforcement”,
of such matters to make them effective. But no such express provision is made in the equivalent clause of the Bill, which, coupled with the overlapping issue of the necessity test imposed on modifying the law on reserved matters, is a cause of deep concern. The issue of enforcement is more allowable in the current system than in the one that the Minister envisages with the Bill.
When this issue was raised in the other place, a somewhat confusing response was given. On the one hand, it was said that making such a provision would,
“drive a coach and horses through the key principle underpinning the new model, which is a clear boundary between what is devolved and what is reserved”.—[Official Report, Commons, Wales Bill Committee, 11/7/16; col. 87.]
On the other hand, it was claimed that the ability to make ancillary provision is “simply not needed” as it was already provided for. I find that response as confusing as the Bill itself.
Those promoting the Bill could also have said that it is in this respect merely following the precedent of the Scotland Act 1998, which has a similar provision. But blindly following those provisions in these very different circumstances is unwise. The approach taken in the Bill is uncertain and obscure. It is by no means clear that the National Assembly can make ancillary provision, as no express provision is made in the Bill; it is merely implied.
Why can the Minister not deal with this clearly by making express provision, as is done in the Northern Ireland Act 1998? If, as the Government claim, it is clear that the manner in which the purpose test operates means that ancillary provision is not reserved, why is there a need to state in Schedule 7A that it is not reserved where it,
“is ancillary to a provision of any Act of the Assembly or Assembly Measure”?
Such a provision should be unnecessary if ancillary provisions are not reserved.
The ability to make ancillary provision is vital for Welsh law because of the narrowness of the devolution settlement. The mechanisms necessary to enforce the law, such as police and the courts, are all devolved in Scotland, which they are not in Wales. Put simply, the obscure way in which this is dealt with in the Scotland Act and the attached necessity test is of little practical importance, while in the Government of Wales Act it is crucial to enable the National Assembly to legislate freely. Again, lessons can be learned here from Northern Ireland, where such matters as policing were not initially devolved. It is no doubt for this reason that clear provision is made to ensure that ancillary provision is within competence.
This is not a minor, technical matter worthy of debate only by lawyers and academics. This goes to the heart of whether the Welsh devolution settlement is workable. As has been alluded to by the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee in their excellent reports, the particular reserved powers model adopted by the Government risks further reducing the legislative competence of the Assembly, and the failure to make express provision for ancillary matters and the constraint of the necessity test is in the same vein.
Amendment 75 provides for an exception for ancillary provision on certain justice matters for the purpose of enforcing legislation on a subject matter that is not reserved, so that the Welsh Government can give effect to such legislation. Unless this is allowed, it may be difficult for the Assembly to enforce provisions in Assembly Acts.
Finally, I touch on Amendment 81, which restates the existing powers of the National Assembly to modify Minister of the Crown functions within devolved areas where doing so,
“is incidental to, or consequential on”—
another provision in an Assembly Act. I will give one example of how absurd the law could become if something is not done.
Wales was one of the first places to ban smoking in public places. Last year, the Welsh Government hoped to introduce a law under the Public Health (Wales) Bill to ban the use of e-cigarettes in the workplace in Wales. They planned to impose duties on workplace managers in Wales to police the new ruling. The problem is that the UK Government in London would be required to give their consent in workplaces under their authority, such as the DVLA and the Crown Prosecution Service. If the Government refused to grant consent, we could have legions of Welsh people traipsing over to the DVLA to smoke their e-cigarettes.
Can the Minister give us clarity on the situation and how we can resolve what I believe is a serious matter?
Lord Elis-Thomas (Non-Afl)
My Lords, my amendments in this group are all focused on attempting to ensure that the legislative competence of the Assembly is not reduced by the movement from conferred powers with exceptions, to reserved matters with even more exceptions.
I was always concerned about this matter when I had responsibility for presiding over the Assembly because I had to make decisions about the competence of legislation. I often found it difficult to assure myself that there was clarity about the boundaries, although I was advised by excellent lawyers. The current Presiding Officer of the Llywydd has published a series of amendments to enable us to study the question of the constitutional propriety of where we are heading. What particularly troubles me—I am sure the Minister will understand this—is that the UK Government seem to have no intention of publishing an explanation or rationale, if there is such a thing, across the whole 200 or so reservations that would help us to understand the constitutional principles at work here.
Although we were promised by a previous Secretary of State that the pause in the Bill would give an opportunity for these matters to be considered, and there would be a response, this does not seem to have happened. My amendments would restore or maintain the current competence of the Assembly by enabling it to legislate in an ancillary way in relation to reserved matters. I know the Minister will say that ancillary matters are a minority interest but they are of great constitutional import. In my view, this is a clear example of how the move from the current form of legislative powers to the new form is narrowing the Assembly’s competence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely and to the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, for tabling the amendments. I am particularly grateful for the careful way in which they have spoken to them.
I understand the importance of the issues that have been raised, and I shall try to address them in general terms by giving some examples of how the purpose test should operate in practice. First, on the wording, I say to the noble Baroness that the legislative competence in proposed new Section 108A(3) is a dual test. It allows the Assembly to legislate if it,
“is ancillary to a provision of any Act of the Assembly or Assembly Measure or to a devolved provision of an Act of Parliament, and”—
so there is the additional requirement—
“(b) has no greater effect otherwise than in relation to Wales, or in relation to functions exercisable otherwise than in relation to Wales, than is necessary to give effect to the purpose of that provision”.
So, it is a dual test. It is not simply ancillary but has to be “necessary”, under proposed new subsection (3)(b) of the provision.
These are important issues but they are not novel. Exactly the same sort of questions arose in respect of the Scotland issue because both in Scotland and Wales we are relying on the so-called purpose test to help define the scope of the relevant legislature’s legislative competence. We now have the benefit of guidance, as has been stated, from the Supreme Court, on the proper interpretation of these provisions. The guidance, although given in a Scottish case, will be highly relevant to the Welsh matters provided for in the Bill before us.
The starting point is that whether a provision in an Assembly Bill could be said to “relate to” a reserved matter is dependent on its purpose. As has been pointed out in the Supreme Court,
“the expression ‘relates to’ indicates more than a loose or consequential connection”.
I stress that the application of the purpose test in a reserved powers model should be interpreted as meaning that a provision that merely refers to a reserved matter, or has an incidental or consequential effect on a reserved matter, will not relate to that reserved matter. In other words, to fail the “relates to” test, an Assembly Act provision must have a reserved matter as its purpose. The purpose of a provision must be established by having regard to its legal, practical and policy effects in all the circumstances. The Assembly Member bringing forward the Bill cannot simply assert a purpose for one of its provisions. The purpose must be assessed by considering how the provision has been drafted and what it actually does, as well as the wider context, including the other provisions of the Bill of which the provision under scrutiny forms a part.
It is also important to say that the move from the current conferred powers model to one based on reserved matters reverses the operation of the purpose test. It shifts the burden, which is important. Whereas under the current settlement an Assembly Act provision needs to satisfy the purpose test by positively demonstrating that it relates to one of the subjects conferred in Schedule 7 to the 2006 Act, the reserved powers model instead requires that such a provision must not relate to a reserved subject matter. In other words, the case would need to be made that an Assembly Act provision is outside competence because its purpose relates to a reserved matter. As I say, it shifts the burden of proof. If such a case could be made, the provision would satisfy the requirements of the proposed new Section 108A(2)(c) and would be within competence, provided, of course, that it satisfied the other legislative competence requirements of new Section 108A.
To demonstrate how the purpose test ought to be applied in practice, I thought it would be helpful to give some examples. However, it is important to bear in mind in each of these hypothetical examples that it would depend on how the provision was drafted and what it actually did. As I have mentioned, the purpose test requires assessment of the effect of the provisions, including all the circumstances, in the round. An Assembly Bill which required tenants to insure their residence could relate to the devolved subject of housing and not to the insurance limb of the financial services reservation in Section A3. Rather than aiming to amend the law of insurance, the provision’s purpose would be to ensure the quality of housing stock in Wales. I think that most people would appreciate that that was the purpose.
A further example is that an Assembly Bill provision creating competitive tendering requirements for local authorities would be to improve their efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and would therefore not relate to the competition reservation in Section C3. Furthermore, the jurisdiction of the Agricultural Land Tribunal is set out in the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. This Act also specifically excludes certain matters from the jurisdiction of the ALT—for example, disputes between landlords and tenants of agricultural land. An Assembly Bill may seek to alter this position by bringing such disputes within the jurisdiction of the ALT and no longer subjecting them to arbitration. This would not engage the arbitration reservation in Section L4 because the purpose of the provision would be to facilitate the smooth and economic operation of the agricultural sector by providing a practical, accessible and cost-effective way of settling disputes about agricultural land. The effect on arbitration would be incidental to, or consequential on, that purpose.
Lastly, an Assembly Bill provision requiring information-sharing between schools and Estyn which supported more general provisions aimed at improving the operation of the education sector in Wales would not relate to the reservation for the protection of personal data in Section L6. I hope this explanation of how we see the purpose test working, and these hypothetical practical examples, are sufficient to reassure the noble Baroness and that she feels able to withdraw her amendment. It is not possible to go through every conceivable example. I think that lawyers would accept that, as drafted, this would serve to answer particular cases that may be brought forward.
Through his Amendments 39 to 41, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, is seeking to broaden the circumstances in which the Assembly could legislate in relation to reserved matters, and in that respect he is probing similar issues to those raised in Amendment 38. I therefore hope that the explanation I have given is reassuring.
As I have said, unlike under the current settlement—where an Assembly Act provision needs to satisfy the purpose test by positively demonstrating that it “relates to” one of the subjects conferred in Schedule 7 to the 2006 Act—the reserved powers model instead requires that such a provision must not relate to a reserved subject, so that the burden is shifted. In other words, the case would need to be made that an Assembly Act provision is outside competence because its purpose relates to a reserved matter. If such a case could be made, the provision would satisfy the requirements of the proposed new Section 108A(2)(c), and would be within competence, provided, of course, that it satisfied the other requirements. I do not therefore see a need for the Bill to be amended in the way that these amendments propose. Indeed, a side effect of the noble Lord’s amendments would be to prevent the Assembly being able to legislate otherwise than in relation to Wales for ancillary purposes—currently an important part of its competence that allows for enforcement provisions to apply in England. This is something that I know the noble Lord does not intend.
Government Amendment 42A is a minor change to ensure that the wording of the test in Section 108A(5) coincides with the wording in paragraph 12 of Schedule 7B. Both provisions ensure that, when considering the legislative competence of the Assembly in the context of an Act of Parliament, any requirements for the consent of, or for consultation with, a Minister of the Crown, are not relevant. This makes sense on the basis that it would be clearly inappropriate to require a Minister of the Crown to consent to, or be consulted about, an Act of Parliament. This is a technical amendment ensuring consistency throughout the Bill.
I turn to Amendments 47, 75 to 78 and 81 and 82. Paragraph 6 of Schedule 7A reserves the core elements of the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. These include the courts, judiciary and civil and criminal proceedings. Sub-paragraph (2) provides an exception to this reservation to enable the Assembly to provide for certain appeals or applications in relation to a devolved civil matter where it is ancillary to a provision of an Act of the Assembly or an Assembly measure.
Amendment 47 seeks to remove the ancillary requirement from this exception and allow the Assembly to directly place devolved functions on to civil courts. This ancillary requirement is crucial in that it enables the Assembly to enforce its legislation and to allow appeal decisions on devolved matters to be heard in a court on civil proceedings, yet it maintains the clear boundary that the single legal jurisdiction is a reserved matter. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 7B restricts the Assembly’s ability to modify the law on reserved matters. This includes any enactment whose subject matter is reserved. Paragraph 2 sets out the exception to this restriction. It allows the Assembly to modify the law on reserved matters where the provision is ancillary to a provision on a devolved matter and has no greater effect on reserved matters than is necessary to give effect to the provision. This provides the Assembly with the flexibility to legislate with regard to the law on reserved matters in a limited way to give effect to provisions that are within its legislative competence. However, such a provision cannot go further than required to achieve its objective.
Amendments 75 and 76 seek to remove the second limb of this exception—that the provision must have no greater effect than necessary—from Assembly provisions that seek to modify the law in relation to paragraphs 6 and 7 of the new Schedule 7A. These are the reservations for the single legal jurisdiction and tribunals. Amendment 77 seeks to remove the necessity element of this test altogether. This would allow an Assembly, through on Act, to amend the law on reserved matters without a requirement for it to act proportionally to meet its objective. The law on reserved matters is, by definition, not an area of the law that should be open to wide-ranging alteration by the Assembly in this manner. This is vital to effect a clear boundary between what is devolved and what is reserved.
The matters within paragraphs 6 and 7 to Schedule 7A specifically are fundamental to the maintenance of the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. The Government’s position on the maintenance of the single jurisdiction is clear. Allowing the Assembly to modify these areas puts at risk the uniformity on which the single jurisdiction is based. Removing the requirement that Assembly modifications to the law on these matters should go no further than necessary would give the Assembly a significant increase in competence. The constraints represent an appropriate and balanced limitation on the Assembly’s competence. This gives the Assembly the same powers to modify the law on reserved matters as the Scottish Parliament has in relation to Scotland.
Lord Wigley (PC)
Amendment 82 was discussed in the other place and the Minister gave the same assurance to my colleagues there that the powers would not be exercisable on Acts of the Assembly that had already been passed, and therefore it was not a question of rolling back any existing legislation. However, is it not totally perverse that there should be a different set of circumstances relating to legislation that has been enacted in the past and identical legislation that may be enacted in the future, but they are handled in different ways?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I do not think I follow the noble Lord’s point. It is obviously a hallmark of good legislation that it is not retrospective. Therefore, anything that we are doing here will not, as it were, undermine anything that has already happened. But I think what we are doing otherwise is fairly clear for the future, so I do not quite understand what he means by perverse in that context.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I shall be very happy to discuss it further with the noble Lord.
The inclusion of exceptions to the Minister of the Crown consent process would undermine the whole principle of providing clarity within the devolution settlement over who can legislate for what.
The remaining government amendments in this group—Amendments 78A to 78D and 80A—build upon Clause 13, which is an important part of the Bill. Through that clause we are devolving competence to the Assembly so that it can set up its own regime for the audit and accounting of the Welsh Government and its public bodies, similar to the arrangements made by this Parliament for the UK Government and by the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish Government. Clause 13 has been the subject of detailed discussions between the United Kingdom Government, the Welsh Government, the Assembly Commission and the Wales Audit Office, and these amendments are the result of those discussions.
Through Amendment 78A we are devolving competence to the Assembly to amend Section 146A(1) of the Government of Wales Act 1998. Amendment 78B replaces paragraphs 5(2) to 5(6) of new Schedule 7B, as inserted by Schedule 2 to the Bill, with simpler drafting without changing the effect of the provisions in any way. The effect of these two amendments is that the Assembly will be able to modify Section 146A(1) of the Government of Wales Act 1998, which allows the Welsh Ministers to delegate or transfer supervisory functions to the Auditor-General for Wales, provided that that amendment is a provision about the oversight of the Auditor-General for Wales.
Through Amendments 78C and 78D we are devolving competence to the Assembly to amend sections of Part 5 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, other than those that are already listed in paragraph 7(2)(d), without the consent of the Secretary of State provided the amendments are incidental to, or consequential on, provisions relating to budgetary procedures or devolved taxes.
Finally, Amendment 80A will put in place key safeguards in paragraph 7 of new Schedule 7B so that the Assembly will be able to amend Treasury functions in Sections 138(2) and 141(4) of the Government of Wales Act 2006 only with the consent of the appropriate Minister.
Section 138(2) allows the Treasury to appoint another member of the staff of the Assembly as principal accounting officer for the Assembly Commission if the Clerk is unable to discharge these responsibilities or the post of Clerk is vacant. There are already arrangements for dealing with the replacement of an Assembly Clerk in certain circumstances, such as incapacity, and the accounting officer appointment should follow from that process. If these arrangements are changed, it is only reasonable that the Treasury gives consent because it is the guardian of the overall accounting officer system in the UK.
Section 141(4) ensures that the Treasury may continue to determine the form in which the Welsh Government submit their returns for the whole of government accounts. Although we are content for this to change in principle, the Treasury quite rightly wants to make sure that any change aligns with the arrangements for the Scottish Government, and so a requirement to seek Treasury consent is sensible.
These are technical but important amendments that build upon the important provisions in Clause 13. I therefore commend government Amendments 42A, 78A, 78B, 78C, 78D and 80A to the Committee and I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, in introducing his Amendments 77 and 78, did not expand very much on what they mean. I support the Government on the necessary test for the law on reserved matters, and I think it is essential that it be confined in that way.
I would be extremely concerned if there were an attempt to have a different criminal law applying in Wales, save in matters concerned with the enforcement of regulations or Acts of the Welsh Parliament. However, any modifications to the criminal law that dealt with, for example, the meaning of intention, recklessness, dishonesty, and so on or “secondary criminal liability” would cause great conflict. I have to tell your Lordships that I was involved in the definition of “recklessness” in the House of Lords Judicial Committee 25 years ago. My argument was dismissed but 25 years later their Lordships overruled the previous decision. It was similar with secondary criminal liability. My argument about that many years ago was dismissed but in very recent times has been accepted. These are difficult concepts and they should not be interfered with in any way.
Baroness Morgan of Ely)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive answer. There is a lot to digest.
It gives me a degree of comfort to understand that the amendment will fail the relate test if it has reserved matters as its purpose—that was clearly underlined by the Minister. The shifting of the burden of proof is also useful. I find that examples tell the story more readily than heavy legalese. However, it would have been useful to have heard examples of where it would have failed. We may be able to look at that in future. We need to be clear about where the lines are.
It was useful to understand that there will not be a need for consent by a UK Government Minister in relation to reserved bodies if it relates to general duties. I am again comforted by that.
As I say, there is a lot to digest and we will need time to look in detail at the Minister’s answer to see whether it meets some of our concerns. At this point I reserve judgment on whether he has answered all of my concerns and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wigley
“(c) relates to the Welsh Government’s provision of support for the furtherance of the Welsh language and culture in the Argentinian state of Chubut where the provision has the agreement of the UK Government and the Government of Chubut.”
Lord Wigley
My Lords, Amendment 42 relates to the Welsh community in Patagonia, which is located entirely within the Argentinian state of Chubut. I declare an interest in that I was president of the 150th anniversary celebration committee, which last year stimulated a programme of events to mark the occasion, and in particular to create a legacy which will help stimulate and sustain Welsh language and culture in Chubut.
Over the past 50 years, there has been a growing interest in matters relating to Welsh culture in Chubut, and there are today about 7,000 Welsh speakers there, of whom about 1,100 are learners of the language. Over the past 20 years, practical help and support has been given by way of helping teachers from Wales to work for two or three years in Patagonia to assist with the teaching of Welsh. The Welsh language school Coleg Camwy has been teaching Welsh in Gaiman, the most Welsh of the towns in Chubut. There are schemes to expand this school currently under consideration. A new Welsh school, Ysgol yr Hendre, was opened in Trelew, the largest city in Chubut, some 10 years ago, and this year a new Welsh school has been opened in Trefelin in the Andes. Welsh language and culture is also taught in dedicated classes in the town of Esquel.
This is relevant to the Wales Bill because since the opening of the National Assembly, the teacher scheme, which was originally established by Welsh Office Ministers back in the 1990s, has been taken over by the Assembly. Indeed, two First Ministers have visited Chubut—first Rhodri Morgan and last year Carwyn Jones—and other links between the National Assembly and the Welsh community in Patagonia have been established. These activities and links are associated with the National Assembly’s responsibility for Welsh language and culture. Although the Assembly and the Welsh Government have no direct responsibility for overseas activities and relationships, it has been recognised that such overseas links can be accepted as being within their competence because they are ancillary to safeguarding the broader interests of the Welsh language and culture.
However, with the new, tighter approach which seems to be taken by the UK Government in the context of this Bill, with “silent issues” being seen as reserved matters, words along the lines proposed in this amendment are needed to ensure beyond all doubt that these powers continue to be available to the Assembly and that nothing in this Bill should be seen as undermining such activity. I suspect I can carry the whole House with me in these aspirations. If the Minister can assure the House beyond peradventure that these powers will continue to be exercisable by the Welsh Government, the amendment may be unnecessary, but if there is any doubt whatever, such words should be added to the Bill. I hope the Minister can respond positively on this matter. I beg to move.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, a good many years ago I and my wife visited the Welsh settlement in Patagonia. We were greatly impressed and moved by what we found there. We met a large number of people with Welsh names. Indeed, we stopped to picnic by the roadside and an individual in a truck drove up and asked what we were doing. We told him why we were there. He said, “Oh, he’s Welsh”, pointing to the nearest farm, the owner of which had a Welsh name. He pointed at another farm and the owner of that one had a Welsh name. We found wonderful examples of Welsh culture and the Welsh language, and an enthusiasm for Welsh culture and language that I, for one, found greatly moving and was very impressed by.
I know that, a good time after our visit, the support described by the noble Lord began. It has continued and has been very successful and influential. I hope it can be continued. It may be that my noble friend will be able to tell us that the amendment is not needed, but if by any chance it is it has my warm and wholehearted support.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, while I share the aspirations of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, I would like to ask him a couple of questions. The condition of his amendment is that the provision should have,
“the agreement of the UK Government and the Government of Chubut”.
Can the noble Lord tell us that he has squared the Government of Argentina, or is that not necessary because competence in this matter has been devolved from Buenos Aires to Chubut?
Lord Wigley
Indeed. Education in Chubut is a wholly devolved matter in Argentina. The state legislature of Chubut has been very positive on these matters. It contributed to the opening of Ysgol yr Hendre 10 years ago, which I mentioned. It is now actively involved in the possibility of expanding the school at Gaiman. In other words, there is a good working relationship between the Government of Wales and the Government of Chubut. The central Argentine Government have been very supportive. Indeed, they have provided funds to safeguard all 16 of the Welsh chapels in Patagonia to ensure they all remain open, provided there is one service once a quarter in each of the chapels. In other words, whatever other dispute there may be—disputes do arise in Argentina on various matters—on this issue there is harmony that is well worth building on because of its interest not only in Argentina and to Wales but to the United Kingdom in our relationship with Argentina.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said is totally correct. Y Wladfa, the Welsh community in Chubut, rather benefited from the Falklands War, because the Argentine Government were rather anxious to show that they were solicitous of the needs of cultural minorities in their country. I feel, on behalf of Welsh historians everywhere, that I should support this. I have not been to Chubut, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, has, but I have taught Chubut students in Swansea. I twice published articles by historians from that community in the Welsh History Review when I edited it. They have a very living contact; it is not an antiquarian matter. All Welsh people should strongly support it.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for introducing the amendment and other noble Lords who have participated in the debate. Through the amendment, the noble Lord seeks to extend the Assembly’s competence so that it could legislate otherwise than in relation to Wales to support the Welsh language and Welsh culture in the Argentinian province of Chubut.
Of course, the history of the Welsh settlement—“settlement” in a sense that I hope I will be allowed to use here—in Patagonia is one of the great stories of human migration and holds a special place in the hearts and minds of people in Wales. It is a story of typical Welsh tenacity and fortitude that led settlers to travel thousands of miles, driven by the desire for a better life and the dream of establishing a new Wales.
In Patagonia today, interest in the Welsh language and Welsh culture is flourishing, more than 150 years on from the first settlement. Members of the Welsh Affairs Committee in the other place saw this for themselves when they visited Patagonia in 2014, a year early, to mark the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Welsh settlers. Although the anniversary was in 2015, typical Welsh efficiency and promptness meant that they were there a year early. The settlement is of course a part of Argentina and, while Welsh culture thrives there, it is wonderfully intermixed with the rich culture of South America. I, too, have taken an interest in the settlement. When I was on the British Council committee, access to finance and help were certainly provided to Chubut.
When the amendment was tabled, my reaction was, “Surely, the National Assembly has the power to do this already”—and that is our conclusion. The common law-type powers that we are devolving to Welsh Ministers will ensure that they can continue to act in the way that they are doing in support of the Welsh language in Chubut. I will have another look at it to ensure that that is the case and will be happy to speak to the noble Lord if that is helpful, but I am sure that we would all want to see this continue. With that, I ask the noble Lord if he would kindly withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I thank everyone who contributed to this short debate and am grateful for the positive spirit and in particular for the response of the Minister. I had hoped that he would say that the powers that already exist are not in any way diluted or diverted by virtue of the Bill. The Minister mentioned legislation. I should clarify that it was not my intention that the National Assembly should legislate for what happens in Chubut—obviously not—but there are Executive actions which support the language, and it is the continuation of those that I wish. Given the assurances that the Minister has given, and assuming that he does not find any snag that he has not seen so far, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Elis-Thomas
Lord Elis-Thomas
I have always believed that constitutional legislation in any state should be intelligible, or as intelligible as possible, not only to the practitioners of public life but to the general public. This is particularly the case with the constitution of Wales. The episode that we are now involved in is a further obfuscation of the constitution rather than its opening out to intelligibility, which is why these amendments on consolidation are important. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who will no doubt want to speak to them.
The question of how a constitution is made accessible was highlighted in the outstanding judgment of the High Court last week. In their judgment, their Lordships said:
“The United Kingdom does not have a constitution to be found entirely in a written document. This does not mean there is an absence of a constitution or constitutional law. On the contrary, the United Kingdom has its own form of constitutional law, as recognised in each of the jurisdictions of the four constituent nations”.
But because the constitution of Wales is currently spread over four pieces of legislation, it hardly meets the test of being intelligible to the population or to any of those active citizens who wish to participate in understanding their constitution.
This has been a persistent theme of the National Assembly’s relevant committee dealing with constitutional matters. That is why the predecessor committee of the current one, of which I was also a member for a period, recommended that a clear commitment should be given to consolidating the constitutional legislation of Wales and to having this done in the current parliamentary term. If for good reasons of their own the UK Government did not feel able to undertake such consolidation, there should also be a clear provision—or at least there should not be any hindrance—in any Bill so that the National Assembly itself could undertake it. Amendments to this effect were tabled in another place and in the debate the UK Government said this was not necessary because the constitutional settlement for Wales is the Government of Wales Act 2006 as amended—a matter to which I alluded earlier. Quite simply, the urtext that is the basis for our understanding of the constitution of Wales is the Government of Wales Act 2006 as amended, but it does not meet the test of consolidation and intelligibility.
Is it not now time to give the people who are most concerned about this matter—those of us who must live and work through the constitution we are given by courtesy of the Houses of Parliament of the United Kingdom—responsibility to make that consolidation? It is not an attempt to amend legislation, merely to consolidate it. This approach should recommend itself to all who are concerned about constitutional clarity and democratic principles. All that Amendments 43 and 44 would do is permit the National Assembly to consolidate the devolution statutes relating to Wales in both its languages. This is not to blow my own trumpet because I happened to be born bilingual, but we are officially a bilingual legislature. We work actively and daily in two languages. To allow us to legislate and provide consolidation in this area would mean that we were able to serve our citizens much more effectively. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I have huge sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, just said. Why have the Government not presented this legislation to Parliament in consolidated form? That would have greatly facilitated scrutiny and, more importantly still, as the noble Lord suggested, it would be for the benefit of the people of Wales and all our fellow citizens who are interested in and care about the development of our constitution, by enabling them much more readily to understand the Government’s constitutional proposals. I cannot see why we must wade through these thickets of legislative obscurity to try to get the measure improved and an adequate and comprehensible piece of legislation presented to the world.
Lord Crickhowell
My Lords, I have every sympathy for what has been said about consolidation. My difficulty is more fundamental. I am not a lawyer, and I know I am a bear of very little brain, but quite frankly, I do not understand what lines 5 and 6 mean. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me, in simple language, what on earth they mean, because it is far from clear to me.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I have added my name to the second of these amendments, but I should have added it to both. I have felt strongly that law should be accessible to the people to whom it applies. You cannot expect a population to understand the law that surrounds it and the way it lives unless it is intelligible and accessible. Ever since the Assembly came into being, divergence of the systems, particularly in education, health and social care and planning, has meant that we have an increasingly complex range of legislation. Cardiff University was where Wales Legislation Online first started as an attempt to provide some kind of solution to this. I was pleased to be part of the campaign at that time to get that instigated. That subsequently evolved into Law Wales and is now more formalised.
This requirement and request for consolidation came through quite clearly in the report of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which made clear that we need consolidation. I cannot see that the Government in Westminster will ever feel particularly motivated to consolidate, but I can see that the Assembly would feel motivated to do so.
Lateral to that, this all fits with a quiet campaign I have had over the years. In 2004, I asked the Government to make sure that the Explanatory Notes accompanying each Bill provided a table listing all the provisions to give powers to the National Assembly. The response I had from the Lord President of the Council was that:
“It will be suggested to departments that they present this in a tabular form where appropriate”.—[Official Report, 11/10/2004; col. WA 1.]
During the passage of the Government of Wales Act 2006, I further pursued the need to be able to track legislation, particularly because of this effect of divergence. I stressed that solicitors and other professionals in Wales, such as healthcare professionals, educators and so on, need to know and understand the law which governs the way they function and live and their everyday activities such as their professional duties with regard to the rest of the population.
Can the Government therefore explain what they lose by giving such powers to the Assembly? I cannot see that they would lose anything at all. Why could they not seek to adopt this amendment, which might provide a solution to a problem which will probably get worse over the years, as further constitutional changes come through in other pieces of legislation?
Baroness Gale (Lab)
My Lords, by now, after the contributions that have been made, the Minister will be quite clear that there is a need to consolidate the Welsh Acts of Parliament. We believe that the Wales Bill would be appropriate and without doubt could consolidate matters so that the Welsh constitution is accessible as a single piece of legislation.
The Bill as it stands constantly refers to or amends many previous pieces of legislation, in particular the Government of Wales Act 2006. As such, reading and understanding where power lies in relation to Wales can be needlessly complicated. As noble Lords have said, we should therefore aim to bring as much clarity as possible to what could be a landmark piece of legislation.
So far, however, the UK Government do not seem to want to consolidate the Welsh devolution settlement into one authoritative piece of legislation. I believe they have said—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—that it is “not necessary”, because the constitutional settlement for Wales is in the Government of Wales Act 2006. We should strive for more than what is just necessary; rather, we should aim to produce a Bill that all of us in Wales will be proud of.
The Welsh Government have already drafted an alternative Wales Bill, drawing together many pieces of legislation into one self-contained whole. In that sense, the hard work has been done. Could the UK Government not simply follow the approach of the Welsh Government, and what I believe is the wish of noble Lords tonight? This would be an opportunity for us to forge clear, accessible and ambitious legislation. I am sure that the Minister has been listening to what all noble Lords have said, and I hope that he will come forward with some positive responses.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
My Lords, I am a lawyer, but I have no idea what Clause 3(5) means. I look forward to the Minister explaining it because what is being referred to if,
“power to make laws other than that of the Assembly is disregarded”?
I have no idea at all.
On Amendment 44, I believe in consolidation but I do not know that I believe in this particular amendment. The law affecting Wales will be what one might call Acts of the Assembly, subordinate legislation under Acts of the Assembly and legacy law—that is to say, if in devolved areas the law in England moves on, the provisions which previously applied to Wales will continue. In devolved areas, the Westminster Government may decide to change the law as a result of policy, leaving Wales with the legacy. Proposed new Section 108B says on consolidation that:
“Nothing in this Act prevents the Assembly restating … the provisions of any enactment that provide for the government of Wales”.
What does that refer to? Is it the legacy law and, if so, how does the Assembly restate it?
Subsection (2) of the proposed new section in Amendment 44 really makes me puzzle. It says that the Secretary of State—presumably, the Secretary of State for Wales—
“may by regulations repeal the provisions of any enactment … restated by the Assembly in accordance with subsection (1)”,
so whatever mechanism restatement is supposed to be, the Secretary of State here in Gwydyr House can repeal it. The Assembly may make this pronouncement: “We are following the law that previously applied to England and Wales but England has moved on. We are continuing the law as it was previously stated in Wales”. Then the Secretary of State for Wales comes along and repeals it, not by any legislation but simply by statutory instrument on an affirmative resolution by each House of Parliament. I really do not know what this consolidation means. I agree with my noble friend Lady—
Lord Thomas of Gresford
My noble friend Lady Randerson. I was getting my names mixed up for a moment. She said the other day that it is—as a matter of fact, I have forgotten what she said so I shall leave it at that.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their participation in this part of the Bill. Through these amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Elis- Thomas, is seeking to provide the Assembly with the competence to consolidate the law as it applies in Wales. Through Amendment 43, I think that he seeks to broaden the circumstances in which the Assembly could legislate other than in relation to Wales. However, the amendment as drafted would actually narrow the Assembly’s competence to legislate otherwise than in relation to Wales by making the “no greater effect than necessary” test more restrictive. I am sure that this is not the noble Lord’s intention.
Through Amendment 44, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, seek to give the Assembly a wide-ranging power to restate without modification any law that provides for the government of Wales. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, was referring to an alternative Bill that is not a consolidation measure. We would hesitate to accept an alternative Bill which is nothing to do with consolidation.
Nevertheless, let me answer the question about consolidation because it seems to me that the consolidation of United Kingdom legislation can realistically take place only in the United Kingdom Parliament, and no more could or should the United Kingdom Parliament consolidate legislation of the Welsh Assembly or, for that matter, the Scottish Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked why we have not consolidated previously. The reason is that we have been under continuous pressure—I think that probably applied to the previous Government as well—to change the laws in relation to Wales because it has been a fast-moving position. There has been understandable pressure to make amendments, and it is difficult to consolidate the law at the same time as the law is being changed. In relation to an area that I know something about—company law—before the consolidation in the Companies Act 2006, which was then and I think still is the largest piece of legislation ever to go through the UK Parliament, there had not been a substantial consolidation measure since 1948, although there had been consolidation to some extent in 1985. That is why these things get postponed.
Before we get too exercised by this, I remind noble Lords that this does not alter the law. The law is there. I would need to be convinced, as I think others would too, that people in Wales are hanging about for a consolidation measure and that they want the law somewhere neatly. I do not think they are particularly exercised about this. I would have to be convinced that this is something that is exercising people up and down Wales or, indeed, in England. There was a suggestion—I am characterising it slightly—that this primarily concerns Wales, but it concerns England too, and Scotland, because it carves out the constitutional position within the United Kingdom.
That is not to say that it may not be necessary at some stage, but when it is done, it is important that it is done in the UK Parliament. In the meantime, it is important that we get the law right. I appreciate that we have got some way to go on some of that, but it is more important to get the law right before we consider consolidating it, so I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
I apologise to my noble friend Lady Randerson. What she said on the first day in Committee, which I now recall, was that there should be an easy way of access to Welsh law, and so far nobody has put together any form of loose-leaf book or anything of that sort that shows the current law in Wales. That is the point she made, which I follow.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, there is a commercial opportunity there. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her good idea.
Lord Crickhowell
I am sorry to intervene again, but I thought I was being pretty stupid at a late hour at night when I asked what subsection (5) meant. When a leading Welsh lawyer got up and asked exactly the same question, I decided that perhaps I was not quite as stupid as I thought. I would love to know what it actually means.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I believe it means—and I will write to noble Lords if I am incorrect in this, as I may be—that, in determining what is necessary for the purposes of subsection (3), which relates to the test of ancillary and necessary, you cannot allege that it is necessary that the law is passed unless it is necessary that it is an Assembly law. It cannot be necessary for another legislative body. I think that is what it means. If I am wrong, I will write to the noble Lord and copy the letter to other noble Lords. I may be wrong.
Lord Elis-Thomas
I am, of course, disappointed by the Minister’s response, but I should be disappointed at least once in a debate in this Parliament. I am grateful for the support from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Gale, and for the interventions by the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Crickhowell.
The consolidation of the law is about the intelligibility of the law and the transparency of political activity. I will continue to pursue this with greater vigour and will call upon my distinguished academic colleagues throughout the Principality and beyond to get on and do it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
“Working group on constitutional development
The Secretary of State for Wales shall, within the period of three years following the principal appointed day referred to in section 55(3), establish a working group to study the possibilities for Wales, as a land and nation, of constitutional development within the terms of and consistent with the principles of the Statute of Westminster 1931, and developments thereafter, and shall within the said period of three years present a report of its study to Parliament with such recommendations as it deems appropriate.”
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, these two amendments, Amendment 45 and Amendment 46, are intended to stimulate thought—particularly the first of those amendments, which relates to dominion status—and to try and deepen and broaden the whole issue of the constitutional future of Wales. The second, which deals with the constitution of reserved powers, is intended to seek to repair and ameliorate some very serious flaws which, in my submission, exist in this part of the Bill.
Dominion status is not about a rigid pattern of government. The principle is enunciated in the Statute of Westminster 1931 and has developed politically, broadly and indeed fruitfully over the 85 years thereafter. It is full of possibilities for meeting different situations in different parts of the world. Obviously, when one is speaking of dominion status in the context of Wales, one is not speaking in any way of a replica of the constitutional situation of New Zealand or Australia. Nevertheless, the common refrain which runs through it all is that it involves a territory that was once under direct British rule and which still accepts the sovereignty and the titular authority of the Queen. Beyond that, the possibilities are almost illimitable. Indeed, my appeal in this situation, when we are thinking of the future of Wales, is to think big. If you think big, you will achieve something worth while; if you think small, what you will achieve will be small, or even perhaps smaller than that which you have set out to obtain. That is the situation that confronts us now.
The possibilities of dominion status are almost illimitable. It is an open secret that about 10 years ago the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of Spain almost came to an understanding—this is hardly believable—about the future of Gibraltar, with a plan for some form of dominion status. In other words, the concept is so flexible, so malleable and so adaptable that it was possible for the ancient conflicts there to come very near to a friendly settlement. That is an illustration of exactly how pliable dominion status can be. It is in that context that I would ask for imagination to roam and for the spirit to be broad and liberal and inspiring in relation to the possibilities here. There are endless plans and changes that can be considered, but within them there is the possibility of Wales playing a full, dominant, honourable and splendid part in the life of the United Kingdom. Who knows what the situation will be in five to 10 years’ time? It is a situation of total flux, and it is therefore incumbent upon us as Welsh people, and indeed upon all of us as British people, to consider exactly what this possibility should be, side by side with many other possibilities.
I turn to the second matter, the question of the creation of a reserved powers constitution for Wales. Normally I would jump with joy at this development because it places Wales upon the same constitutional basis as Scotland and Northern Ireland. It also tidies up a great deal of what is now in a state of confusion and, if I may so describe it, confetti. When you deal with a long period of transferring small powers, day in and day out, coming from hundreds of different sources, you create a situation that almost guarantees some constitutional neurosis on the part of many generations of Welsh lawyers. Avoiding that would in itself be utterly worth while.
However, I am far from happy with the situation because I believe it is deeply flawed and a blueprint for failure and disaster. The fact that there are 200 or more reservations—I am wrong, actually; it is about 198 or 199—and the very nature of the reservations themselves makes the matter a nonsense. Consider the matters that are reserved, though I touched on this at Second Reading so I will not go into all the detail: licensing, something that Wales had devolved to it in 1881; dangerous dogs; sharp axes and knives; hovercraft; prostitution; charitable collections—one could go through dozens of examples here of what are mere trivia, matters that are clearly domestic in their nature. The inclusion of them by way of reservation is to my mind an insult to the people of Wales.
It is on that basis that I ask the House to consider very carefully whether in any way this can fit in with what I have described as the moral and constitutional geometry of the situation. By that, I mean that when you have a settlement such as we are now seeking in relation to Wales, one that one hopes should last for a long time or at any rate be a basis upon which further development can be built, there has to be mutual trust and some sense of balance. The subsidiary parliament states straight away, “We are not concerned with the question of succession to the Crown, defence or foreign policy and perhaps three or four allied questions of that nature, but we are concerned with matters that are purely and classically domestic in their character”. If the current Parliament refuses to accept that, the whole moral geometry of the situation is affected.
How did this come about? Not, I think, on account of any mendacious conspiracy on the part of Ministers against Wales; I do not think there is any conscious machination at all in regard to it. It came from a long history of prejudice that has formed what you might describe as a permafrost of attitude towards Welsh devolution. I do not believe that the situation was anything different from this: the Secretary of State for Wales, perhaps rather deferentially, went to various colleagues and said, “What would you like reserved, my dear chap, from your department?”. Each one said, in his mind and his heart if not indeed in actual words, “Practically everything. It doesn’t matter how meagre, niggardly, small or utterly local it might be, we will reserve it if we possibly can”.
Why? I believe that it has a lot to do with the fact that Wales was England’s first colony. That was the situation in the 13th century. In the Act of Union of 1536, Wales was said to be part, inevitably and as it always had been, of the United Kingdom, and its affairs were to be assimilated, incorporated and included within the greater realm of England. We have not broken through that mould.
On Second Reading, I made this—I think, not invalid—point. When you think of some of these reservations—there are dozens which, to my mind, are utterly ludicrous—can you imagine the Colonial Office of the United Kingdom 60 years ago, particularly when James Griffiths was the head of that department, going to a British Caribbean or African colony and saying, “These are the reservations that I demand of you”? It simply could not happen.
It is against that template that one has to consider this matter. For that reason, I have drafted this new clause, which of course I shall not press to a Division tonight, but it could well be revisited before we finish with the Bill. It calls on the Secretary of State to be responsible for setting up a working party to report to Parliament within three years on the question of how the reserved powers are operating in each case. The purpose of that—allied, no doubt, with recommendations from the working party—would be, first, to narrow the gap between the situation now and that which existed on the very day in July 2014 when the Supreme Court gave its judgment in the agricultural workers case. The gap is immense. The powers that we have under the Bill are, strictly speaking, immensely inferior to what we had then, when it was discovered that silent transferred powers, which no one had ever appreciated, had given immense authority to Wales.
I think that the Government were reluctant to accept the reserved powers constitution that they had enforced on them; their hands were forced. I do not believe that there is even now a messianic commitment, and most certainly there is no incandescent enthusiasm for this reform. It is something to which they feel that they must surrender.
The effect will be, secondly, to get rid of many of these anomalies; and, thirdly, to set out a coherent pattern, for in fact there is no theme—no coherence—to this. For that reason, I beg to move.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I support my friend, the noble Lord, Elystan-Morgan, on Amendment 45, which he moved so eloquently, and Amendment 46, which is coupled with it. The noble Lord has throughout his political life been a strong advocate of the merits of dominion status, as defined by the Statute of Westminster 1931. In his way, tonight, he has, even at this late hour, elevated the debate above the uninspiring contents of a rather unambitious Bill.
Since the United Kingdom became a member of the European Community in 1973 and now—at least for the time being—of the European Union, I must admit that I had tended to look at Wales’s future in European terms more than in terms of the Commonwealth. I had no difficulty in regarding Wales as both an historic nation in its own right and a European region. As the EU grew to its present strength of 28 member states, with eight of them smaller in population than Wales, now including in their own right small countries such as Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Malta and Luxembourg, I looked on our legitimate aspiration as being a member state of the EU in our own right.
That was not in any sense a separatist argument. If England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and indeed, the Irish Republic, were also member states, we could co-operate within a new relationship covering Britain and Ireland. We would have our own presence in Europe. It was indeed the converse of a separatist approach. I regarded a pooling of sovereignty on a European level, subject to the principle of subsidiarity, where decisions are taken as closely as possible to the community on which they impact, as being most appropriate to the modern world, in which the physical barriers between nations should be regarded as a thing of the past.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, I yield to no one in my admiration for my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan, but although I agree fundamentally with one of his amendments, I disagree fundamentally with the first. Dominion status is about the shedding of British governance. The 1931 statute of Westminster gave the dominions power over their own affairs, effectively making them semi-independent. I do not want to give up British governance in Wales; I am glad that we have it—and I am also glad that we have Welsh governance in Wales. I like the two, which is why I believe that we are in the right position in the United Kingdom whereby we have devolved Governments in those places that require them—Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I hope that we can extend the same system of government to parts of England, too. I have always believed that, and I think we are heading towards it.
I cannot agree with the first of the amendments, but I fundamentally agree with the second—that a working party should be set up to look at the operation of Schedule 1 to the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is absolutely right and put his finger on it when he asked why this particular list has come to fruition. It has come to fruition because individual government departments have made a wish-list of what they wanted to keep. It was not about looking at the bigger picture of what should happen in this new dispensation for Wales. So to have a body that looks at the operation of the new situation in Wales, with the reserved power Assembly, with this schedule, is absolutely right and I support it.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
It is really heart-warming to hear my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan—and I call him that—go back to the dominion status which was the lodestar of the early days of Plaid Cymru. Saunders Lewis did not want total independence; he wanted dominion status. I have no doubt that 1931 was very much on his mind at the time, having regard to the date of the statute of Westminster. I have always regarded that as totally unrealistic, requiring as it does that Wales should look after its own defence, foreign affairs, social security and so on. That is what dominion status means, and always has meant. So whereas I have always been a supporter of devolution, I rather go along with the Gordon Brown argument, which was so successful in the Scottish independence referendum, when he reminded his fellow countrymen that the United Kingdom is united because it shares risks and wealth. Those areas that are depressed at one time in history can be supported by those that are successful.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the highest wages were paid in the Rhondda valley, and as a result it attracted in the Irish and people from all over the United Kingdom. It was the Aberdeen of its day, if you like. Aberdeen has attracted people from all over and is currently suffering because of the fall in the price of oil and the possible diminution of oil resources in the North Sea. But it will be balanced by another part of the United Kingdom—and that is the important point. We are not really concerned with going back in history and talking about a British colony. I recall that Henry Tudor came from Wales and brought with him the Cecil family, who played a very big part not only in the proceedings in this House but in British history ever since. Although he had a Donald Trump attitude towards sex, he was nevertheless favourable towards Wales. His introduction into Wales of the assize judicial system and his formation of the counties of Wales was for their good, not in order to conquer them as his predecessors tried to do.
I do not go along with the idea of the English colony. As a Welshman, I do not feel, and never have felt, that I am in any way subject to the colonial oversway of the English. We have provided leadership in the United Kingdom over the years with our politicians—some great men who, as the noble Lord will no doubt recall, have held the highest offices in this country. For example, I will refer not to Lloyd George but to Aneurin Bevan. Many, many Welshmen have played their part in the governance of the United Kingdom as a whole. We have to stay with that and not go back to what I consider to be, with the greatest respect to my noble friend, the rather romantic aspirations of dominion status. I therefore support the basic proposition in the Bill that the Welsh Parliament—as I hope it will be—should have all the powers it needs but on a reserved powers model, not a conferred powers one. We should work towards that.
Although I have some sympathy for the second amendment which the noble Lord has put forward, it is our duty to try to deal with these issues here and now, as the Bill goes through, not simply kick them into the hands of a commission. That would, no doubt, be made up of great Welshmen but would sit in Cardiff or elsewhere and chunter over the provisions of the reserved powers set out in the Bill. In my Second Reading speech, I argued that we should not have 190 separate reservations. One effect of the Agricultural Wages Bill was that we became very interested in detail, whereas one could describe the powers which should be reserved to the Westminster Parliament in much broader terms, such as defence, foreign affairs and so on. I am very sorry: although I voted for the noble Lord in 1964 when he was a Plaid Cymru candidate, I cannot go along with his interesting and reminiscent arguments for dominion status.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Will the noble Lord accept my word for it that I am not in any way advocating any jurisdiction for Wales over foreign policy or defence? The point I was seeking to make was that you can make dominion status whatever you wish it to be in the particular context and circumstances of that case. No doubt the noble Lord will, over the years, have studied the position of Newfoundland, which was a dominion for some years. It started off with direct rule, then became a dominion, then ultimately became part of the dominion of Canada. It is an illustration that you can make dominion status be whatever you wish it to be.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I will not embark on a personal excursion into Welsh history. However, apropos the excellent Amendment 46, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, which would establish a working group to review the operation of Schedule 1, I hope that the members of that group would follow the example articulated by the Silk commission and the Welsh Affairs Committee, both of which recommended that, in determining what matters should be reserved and what not, principle guidance should be issued so that there are criteria against which all can judge whether a reservation proposed by a department in Whitehall could be justified. Unfortunately, that guidance as to principle, and the questions that departments should ask themselves, was not issued.
The consequence is that we have this ragbag of reservations which have been accumulated all around Whitehall, apparently on no better basis than what we have we hold or, if in doubt, we will hang on to. That is a very poor basis for the institution of a reserved powers model for devolution, so I hope that all of us welcome the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, that such a working group should be set up. I simply want to see added to its terms of reference as set out in his amendment that principle guidance should be provided for that working group, or that that working group itself should develop the principles. But we must have criteria against which judgments can be made on whether particular reservations are appropriate or not.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this part of the Bill. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, for moving the amendment with such fluency and commitment, although he will know that I disagree with him fundamentally, particularly on the first of the two amendments in this group.
Through their Amendments 45 and 46, the noble Lords, Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Wigley, seek to place new duties on the Secretary of State for Wales to review the constitutional arrangements for Wales and the operation of the Wales Bill that we are putting in place. Indeed, through Amendment 45—at least on the wording, although I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has said—they seem to be proposing that the Secretary of State of State be required to review Wales’s readiness for independence. I can act only on the basis of how the dominion status has operated in the past. The Statute of Westminster 1931 is expressly referenced in the amendment. There is no appetite for this proposal in Wales. Both noble Lords will know that that is shown in opinion polls and at the ballot box.
The Statute of Westminster established the dominions as sovereign states and enshrined in law the principle that no legislation made in this Parliament could apply to the dominions unless a dominion requested it. We cannot possibly agree to that. It also provided that the Parliaments of the dominions would have the power to amend or repeal any previous legislation made by this Parliament. Therefore, we cannot possibly agree to what is proposed. As a representative of a London-based polity, as it is called, I do not believe this proposal is wanted in England and it is certainly not wanted in Wales either.
Through Amendment 46, the noble Lords are seeking to place a new duty on the Secretary of State for Wales to establish a working group to review Schedule 1, which sets out the reservations, as soon as possible after it comes into effect and to report on reservations that should be removed within three years of the principal appointed day—the day on which the new reserved model comes into force under Clause 55.
Once again, we have a measure in front of us to set up yet another commission or working party to look at constitutional arrangements. I do not believe that would be welcomed in Wales. We have a duty to get on with the job on this Bill. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, on the question of dominion status, I was tempted to make the mischievous point that for many centuries Wales was a dominion in law. The actual wording of the Act of Union of 1536 refers to the,
“dominion, principality, and country of Wales”,
so that wording has been there for many centuries. However, that is a mischievous point, probably made much too late at night.
Some years ago, a good friend said to me, “You could be a very nice chap if you did not tilt at the English so often”. I am not sure what a nice chap was intended to mean in that context, or whether I would ever qualify within that definition. However, as far as the second part of his proposition was concerned, I have never tilted at the English. I have immense respect and, indeed, often, admiration for our neighbours. I conceive nationalism in the context of Wales as being a patriotism that knows not the hatred of any other nation. That is what Welsh nationhood and Welsh nationalism at their very best should be and are. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“(a) welfare advice to courts in respect of family proceedings in which the welfare of children ordinarily resident in Wales is or may be in question;(b) representation in respect of such proceedings;(c) the provision of support (including information and advice), to children ordinarily resident in Wales and their families, in respect of such proceedings;(d) Welsh family proceedings officers.”
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, turning to the next group of amendments, I am pleased to speak, first, to government Amendment 47A, which was tabled as a result of discussions with the Welsh Government.
Paragraph 6(5) of new Schedule 7A provides for an exception from the reservation for courts and civil and criminal proceedings as part of the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. The exception is for the,
“provision of advisory and support services in respect of family proceedings in which the welfare of children ordinarily resident in Wales is or may be in question”,
so that the provision of such services is not reserved by paragraph 6(1). This exception was intended to reflect the existing exception for what may be described as the functions of CAFCASS Cymru.
The Welsh Government have argued—in our view with some force—that the wording of the exception is too broad and does not sufficiently closely reflect the Assembly’s current competence in respect of CAFCASS Cymru. Amendment 47A seeks to insert into paragraph 6(5) modified wording which, I understand, the Welsh Government support.
Government Amendment 47B would remove sub-paragraph (2) from the defence reservation. It would have no effect on the substance of the defence reservation but it would remove a tautology. Removing this sub-paragraph would not change the powers that Welsh Ministers have under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 to appoint marine enforcement officers, who then enforce legislation in relation to sea fishing; nor would it change the automatic appointment of certain members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces as marine enforcement officers under the same Act. I am pleased to say that UK Government and Welsh Government officials have worked together closely to come to the conclusion that this sub-paragraph should be removed.
Government Amendment 52A is a technical amendment. It seeks to provide clarity in relation to Section C2 in new Schedule 7A by providing a definition of “business association”. There is already such a definition in Section C1, but interpretation provisions in the schedule cannot be read across to apply to other sections.
Government Amendments 53A and 53C would make minor adjustments to the consumer protection and product standards reservations to ensure that the Assembly’s competence in these areas remained unaltered from the current position.
Amendment 48, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, proposes the devolution of policing. As the noble Lord will know, the Government have been clear that, in the absence of a consensus around the Silk commission’s proposals in this area, policing is not being devolved. We believe that the current England and Wales arrangements for policing work well, and the proponents of devolution have failed to adequately address some of the risks that would arise if these arrangements were disrupted.
Lord Crickhowell
On this very point, at Second Reading I asked the Minister to explain why it appeared that powers over policing were being given to some English regions while they were not being given to the Welsh Government. I am entirely in favour of a general reservation and I would simply like an explanation of that apparent difference.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I shall deal with that briefly before I resume. I recall my noble friend raising this at Second Reading and I will write to him. The devolved arrangements that I think he is referring to in relation to some of the city regions in the United Kingdom, specifically in England, do not involve devolution in the way that it is being talked about here. They do not establish separate lines of authority within national boundaries, for example. I will write to him with details on that but I think that the form of devolution is rather different in that respect.
There are factors that I think I should touch upon in relation to why policing is being retained within the England and Wales system under the Bill. First, policing is inextricably linked with the criminal justice system. It is a key component. The criminal justice system’s priorities and ways of operating have a direct impact on other parts of the criminal justice system and vice versa. This can be seen, for example, through quality of evidence gathering and the mutual role played in crime prevention and reducing reoffending. Secondly, existing governance and partnership arrangements provide a significant level of integration and autonomy. The establishment of police and crime commissioners has already devolved policing to the local level. Thirdly, there would be cost and complexity in separating out the existing national structures and arrangements. Fourthly—although admittedly this is a factor that is more easily accommodated—police forces in England and Wales are responsible for tackling a range of crimes and other threats that go beyond the boundaries of a single police force.
At the national level, the strategic policing requirement which applies to police forces in England and Wales sets out the threats which are considered of particular national significance. These include terrorism, organised crime, public disorder, civil emergencies, cyberattacks and child sexual abuse. These threats can require a co-ordinated or aggregated response in which resources are brought together from a number of police forces. Devolution could lead to a weakening of both the regional and national response to these serious crimes. In short, the devolution of policing could lead to a disjointed criminal justice system, adding costs for both the people of Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Amendment 49 would remove the reservation in relation to anti-social behaviour. This would remove our ability to legislate to prevent and address anti-social behaviour through coercive methods such as the tools and powers introduced by the 2014 Act. The subject matter in the Act is intended to reserve coercive responses to anti-social behaviour generally, whatever its form, rather than the detail of the specific orders contained in the Act. The whole approach to anti-social behaviour set out in the Act is intended to encourage the police, councils and other partners to work together to deal with problems quickly. The legislation provides local agencies with a range of different powers and measures and it is for front-line professionals to develop jointly solutions which address the causes of the behaviour and protect victims and communities.
I will listen carefully to the arguments made in this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, seek through Amendment 50 to devolve responsibility to the Assembly for private security. I appreciate the view that private security should be a devolved rather than a reserved matter. I understand those who question why bouncers in, say, Merthyr, Swansea or anywhere else in Wales should be regulated on an England and Wales basis but there are sound reasons why private security is a reserved matter.
First, the security industry is regulated in England and Wales by the Security Industry Authority, an effective regulator which provides consistent standards across borders. In an inherently mobile industry it promotes consistency, maturity and professionalism through, for example, the approved contractor scheme. The licensing regime operated by the authority provides reassurance that those who work in the private security industry have the appropriate qualifications and training and have been subject to rigorous criminal records checks.
Secondly, there are close links between private security and the police, particularly in relation to the night-time economy. The Security Industry Authority has an investigative arm which, in co-operation with the police and other government bodies, tackles criminality in the private security sector, including organised crime. All Security Industry Authority-approved qualifications also include counterterrorism awareness, for example, in looking out for hostile reconnaissance, and the industry is playing an increasingly important role in being the eyes and ears to potential terrorist threats. These current arrangements work well.
Amendment 51 seeks to remove the reservation for the sale and supply of alcohol and the provision of entertainment and late night refreshment. These activities are regulated under the Licensing Act 2003 and the proposed paragraphs preserve the current devolution settlement in respect of all matters covered by that Act. Regulated entertainment includes live and recorded music, plays, films, indoor sporting events, boxing, wrestling and dance performances.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I think the noble Lord has decoupled that amendment. We will deal with heating and cooling at a different time.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I apologise. I am grateful for the intervention. In that case, I have dealt with our amendments. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her timely intervention. I beg to move.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I have great personal respect for the Minister, as he well knows, but it is absolutely outrageous that he should be replying to a debate before the arguments have been put forward relating to the amendments. Amendment 48 in my name, to which he has responded comprehensively before I spoke to it, was the lead amendment in this group on Thursday afternoon when I left Westminster. When I came down here at 1 pm today it had been tacked on to the government amendments, which means that the very substantive issue of devolution of police in Wales has been tucked away without an opportunity for a proper debate.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I apologise to the noble Lord. Had he got up at an earlier stage I would have happily given way to him, but our amendment was the lead one in the group. I certainly would have given way to him if he had asked.
Lord Wigley
I accept entirely the Minister’s point that they have been grouped in this way, but when I realised they had been coupled in this way it was too late for me to get the decoupling done. That means that devolution of the police, which was a major issue for the Silk commission, is being tucked away at this hour of the night and has been responded to before the arguments have been put. I intend to put those arguments, even at this late stage of the night, and I shall not truncate what I had to say.
Amendment 48 would remove a reservation and subsequently devolve matters relating to the police in Wales to the National Assembly. As noble Lords will be well aware, the Silk commission, of which the Minister was a member, recommended unanimously the devolution of policing and related matters of community safety and crime prevention. Given that the Minister was so keenly in support of that in the Silk commission, it beats me how he was able to say what he said a few moments ago. It is my contention, shared by many people in Wales, that this Bill should have enacted the Silk recommendations—or at least the unanimous recommendations and in these matters in particular.
To put it simply, Wales, like the other nations of the United Kingdom, should have responsibility for its police forces. I cannot see any reason why police priorities in Wales should be dictated by the UK Parliament and not by the National Assembly. Given that policing is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland, I can see no reason why it cannot be devolved to Wales. What makes Wales an exception?
The four police forces are unique within the United Kingdom. They are non-devolved bodies operating within a largely devolved public services landscape. They are thus required to follow the dual and diverging agenda of two Governments. Additionally, all four forces in Wales accept the need to provide a service in Welsh and in English. North Wales Police does this with great effectiveness and is held up as a model among public sector organisations in Wales for its language training support and initiatives. This has largely broken down barriers which were at one time widely felt within Welsh-speaking communities in northern Wales and has created a new climate within which police and public co-operation have flourished.
All four police and crime commissioners, the Welsh Government, the Official Opposition in Wales and even the Welsh Conservatives are in favour of devolving policing to Wales. In fact, the only elected body of people in Wales who share the view of the UK Government are the UKIP AMs elected in May—I am not sure whether they are now unanimous on this matter either.
Transferring responsibility to the Welsh Government would not be the tectonic plate shift that many in this Committee might be inclined to believe. Relationships between the Welsh forces and the UK services, such as the police national computer and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, would continue as at present, as is the case with Scotland. I remind the Committee that many of the public services which are directly relevant to policing work are already devolved. That is the case with regard to highway matters, social services, local government, the ambulance service, youth services, education and training. It makes practical good sense to devolve policing, so that a synergy can be developed with these other devolved services.
Why should the people of Wales not be given the same democratic freedom enjoyed by the people of Scotland? Doing so would lead to greater clarity and efficiency by uniting devolved responsibilities, such as community services, drug prevention and safety partnerships, with those currently held by the UK Government.
The Silk commission was established by the Tories and comprised all four main political parties in Wales, including the Conservative Party. Its members spent two years consulting the public, civil society, academia and industry experts on the powers necessary to strengthen Wales. It received written evidence, heard oral evidence and visited every corner of Wales. It heard evidence from the police themselves and from the Police Federation calling for the devolution of policing, and the report recommended accordingly.
Budget cuts to Welsh police forces have been severe. We have seen a reduction of 1,300 in police officer numbers in Wales since 2010. It is true that these cuts have been across the board, but, as Plaid Cymru has recently discovered, they may well have been more manageable had the formula used to fund the police in Wales been according to population and not to crime figures.
A policing grant consultation launched in July 2015 by the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, was abandoned earlier this year after Policing Minister Mike Penning admitted that there had been a “statistical error” on which several police and crime commissioners threatened legal action. Last year’s formula would have resulted in a £32 million cut to Welsh forces, which. as everyone can imagine, would have caused the Welsh police severe difficulties.
The 43 police forces of Wales and England often have different needs and challenges. Policing is a field for which sophistication and complexity are needed in the funding formula to properly account for the relative needs of each force. The review last year sought to place greater emphasis on socioeconomic data and more general crime figures. Such a formula does not properly consider the workload differences in each constabulary. Figures provided by Dyfed-Powys Police indicate that funding our forces in line with population would result in an additional £25 million for the four forces in Wales. That is the Dyfed-Powys Police figure, not mine.
Of course, if policing were devolved to Wales—a position supported by all four police and crime commissioners—the overall Barnett formula would be applied as for the funding of all devolved public services and based on our population. So by retaining police as a non-devolved service controlled from Westminster, Welsh forces face the prospect of these very significant cuts. This is particularly relevant when we consider that policing is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Consequently, that new formula will not apply to them. Policing is the only emergency service not to be devolved. I am yet to come across any convincing argument, even after listening to the Minister tonight, for not doing so.
Even at this late stage, I beg the Government to think again and show that they are sensitive to widespread feelings in Wales on the issue, particularly within the police forces themselves, and add this provision to the Bill. It would then start to garner a critical mass which parties in the National Assembly would see as a significant step forward and create a logical framework of devolved services that could better serve Wales. There is no point in me adding more now: the reply has already been given. I write that into the record and I emphasise that I am very unhappy about the way this debate has been handled.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I greatly regret that we are discussing one of the key features of the Bill at this very late hour but there are things that certainly need to be said on this issue.
I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about policing. My party has been firmly committed to the importance of devolving policing to the Welsh Assembly for many years. That is simply a recognition of the reality of the situation. If you talk to senior—and junior—police officers in Wales, you see and hear their feeling of identity with the Welsh Assembly. It is to the Assembly that they look for the structures within which they work on a day-to-day basis. Devolving policing would not prevent them from linking in with, for example, training facilities or on rules and regulations across Britain. I have observed the way in which the police force in Northern Ireland manages to do that very successfully in a very difficult situation, and at a much greater distance from England. It works well.
In addition, it is very important to remember that the funding of policing in Wales comes predominantly from local sources within Wales one way and another. Therefore, it is important that the Welsh Assembly has more than a guiding hand on that.
In addressing the amendments in my name, I also share the Assembly’s serious concern about the impact of reservation 37 on the prevention, detection and investigation of crime. That illustrates the complexity of this situation and the way in which these issues are interwoven. For example, think of the ability within the Assembly’s power to deal with domestic abuse and sexual violence. The Assembly passed its own violence against women Act so clearly has competence within that area. However, it seems that the reservation I just referred to would make it very difficult for the Assembly to act in that area. It is important that we bear in mind the responsibilities of local government in this area as well as those of the police. The whole thing is an interlinked whole, and by not devolving these responsibilities you make it difficult for work to be done as effectively as possible.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, I know that the hour is late. I want to endorse the sentiment expressed so clearly just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. Although it is late, we have to cover these topics because there is no other opportunity to do so and I am concerned. I have already heard that the Minister is not going to accept the amendment looking at alcohol licensing but I hope that he will at least listen to what I say and agree to meet me after this, because it is terribly important. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, eloquently described the moral geometry and the problem of an utterly local issue being held in a reserved power. I suggest that that applies exactly in terms of alcohol licensing because the health and well-being of the Welsh population require some control over the way that alcohol is sold and supplied. It is widely acknowledged that that is one of the most effective ways of tackling alcohol harms.
The wording of the Bill would appear to be even more restrictive than the current exemption, which would mean that the proposals in the draft Public Health (Minimum Pricing for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill would be a reserved matter, and therefore outside the legislative competence of the Assembly itself. It would seem only sensible to add the protection of health and well-being to the four points listed by the Minister in relation to licensing.
Alcohol remains a major cause of preventable death: the Public Health Wales Observatory has reported that:
“Every week in Wales alcohol results in 29 deaths; around 1 in 20 of all deaths”.
This impact of alcohol puts enormous pressures on health systems. Every week, hospitals handle as many as 1,000 admissions related to alcohol. Emergency departments are straining. When people in Wales go into those emergency departments and see them full of alcohol-fuelled harm and its effects, they ask: “Why isn’t the Assembly doing something about it?”. The answer is that it cannot because the thing that it wants to do—to look at the sale and supply of alcohol—comes outside its powers.
We know, sadly, that alcohol consumption in Wales remains a problem. In the latest Welsh Health Survey, 40% of adults still reported drinking more than guideline amounts in the previous week. There is a pressing need to tackle alcohol misuse, using every tool available to government. That means policies that control the licensing and supply, which are the only way that we can promote sensible drinking. It would also require licence holders to offer a ratio of non-alcoholic drinks to alcoholic drinks on their premises to give people a wider choice—to be social but not to get completely destroyed by the adverse effects of alcohol.
The Bill should provide an opportunity to address health and well-being. The sad thing is that Wales bears the costs of the alcohol abuse, particularly in expenditure on health and social care, yet it is not being allowed to have control over licensing and supply as part of its national strategy. When tackling alcohol harms in Wales, the Assembly is operating with more than one hand tied behind its back. It just seems a completely inexplicable state of affairs.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, it is simply demeaning for Wales that public order and policing should not be devolved. Why should Wales, which has a mature Assembly and is a nation anxious to take more responsibility for its own affairs, not be allowed the same level of responsibility as Northern Ireland and Scotland? I have not heard a good reason. I do not believe that there is any greater necessity to have a single system embracing England and Wales than there is for other parts of the United Kingdom.
If the Government would be a little bolder and allow devolution of responsibility in such matters as drugs and alcohol, everybody might benefit because Wales would have the opportunity to experiment with policy. In the field of drugs and alcohol, for example, we know very well that the existing orthodoxies, practices and policy are not working particularly well. Often they are working downright badly. We have huge problems with regard to drugs and alcohol. Surely it would be better to allow Wales to pioneer and develop policies of its own. Wales would obviously have to take responsibility and a degree of risk, but it is surely better that it should be able to take responsibility and to experiment than that we should simply carry on in Wales with orthodoxies that have failed in the United Kingdom as a whole. No harm has been done by Wales having a degree of independence in education policy—in schooling, for example—so surely that is the right principle.
There will, of course, be questions of resources if more responsibilities, particularly the major responsibility for public order and policing, are to be devolved. In consideration of that we have again to go back to the question of the devolution of income tax-varying powers. We debated that issue earlier this afternoon. I shall very gently make a point to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, who disputed whether a manifesto commitment was being broken by the Government. If he looks at the Second Reading debate in the House of Commons on 14 June, at col. 1653 he will see his Conservative colleagues Mr David Jones, the former Secretary of State, and Mr Chris Davies, the Member of Parliament for Brecon and Radnorshire, bemoaning the fact that the Government have, in fact, broken a manifesto commitment in that regard. I do not want to labour the point, but it ought to be corrected for the record. Certainly we have to consider, in conjunction with the question of what reservations are appropriate and what reservations the Government may decide after all to abandon, the associated question of resources—because it is no good willing the end without enabling the Government of Wales to have the means.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
My Lords, I know it is very late, but this a critical group of amendments. This is the first time we have discussed the reservations, and it worth pausing a moment to think about them and the way the Government have approached this issue.
There are a number of reasons why I think the Government’s approach to how they have included certain reservations is lacking. I shall refer to some key quotations. The first comes from a letter from the First Minister to the then Secretary of State for Wales after the Secretary of State announced in November 2014 a programme of work designed to produce a new devolution settlement for Wales. The First Minister expressed his support and said that,
“previously, under administrations of both political colours, the development of a clear and robust settlement has … been hindered by a nit-picking reluctance on the part of particular Whitehall Departments to acknowledge the case for further transfers of responsibilities. It will be important that that reluctance should not re-emerge”.
However, I am afraid we have seen it again.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, once again I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, in particular. I was a victim of the way in which the grouping was set out; because the government amendments were put first, that was the way I felt was appropriate to tackle it. I shall try to respond to points that have been made on these various amendments.
First, no noble Lord should have been taken by surprise by the Government’s attitude on policing. We made it very clear that we have a set agenda, which I have set out. I do not accept that this was somehow a surprise.
I am happy to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, about the alcohol reservation, to see whether we can meet her concerns. I have spoken to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, about the Pubs Code levy—so it did not just come up this evening—and explained that one reason why we do not think it appropriate for devolution is that the way that the levy operates would not be affordable in Wales. I said when speaking to those amendments that that would be to the detriment of Wales, but I am happy to look at it further with her if she wants to revisit it. I am very happy to speak to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the issue of ticketing and bus services that she raised, to see what we can do.
I accept that a lot of issues are involved here, from bouncers to alcohol the Pubs Code and so on. I accept that it is late at night and that we have covered a lot of territory, although there was considerable discussion on an issue where I think that virtually the whole House was united. We spent a great deal of time discussing that on an earlier amendment, which was certainly not of my choosing, although I was happy to respond for the Government on it.
I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments in the group—which is, I appreciate, a considerable number of amendments. The reason for some of the government amendments is that we have been listening and are responding—on teacher’s pay, the community infrastructure levy and so on. I hope that noble Lords accept when they say that the number of government amendments indicates that it is a fluid area that that is because we have been listening. I am happy to indicate that we will listen further, and I hope that that has been my approach, but I am duty bound to let noble Lords know what are regarded as red lines for the Government, where we are unable to meet the wishes of some—perhaps a majority—of noble Lords. However, where we can help and where powerful arguments are being made—as I have indicated have been on a number of amendments this evening—we are happy to move.
With that, I ask noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group not to press them.