Draft Building Societies (Restricted Transactions) (Amendment To The Prohibition On Entering Into Derivatives Transactions) Order 2018
Draft Financial Services Act 2012 (Mutual Societies) Order 2018
Draft Co-Operative And Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Amendments To Audit Requirements) Order 2017
(6 years, 2 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Building Societies (Restricted Transactions) (Amendment to the Prohibition on Entering into Derivatives Transactions) Order 2018.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Financial Services Act 2012 (Mutual Societies) Order 2018 and the draft Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Amendments to Audit Requirements) Order 2017.
John Glen
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, for I think my first time as a Minister. Today’s three orders relate to the mutuals sector, which encompasses co-operatives, community benefit societies, credit unions and building societies.
In the mutuals sector, the interests of members, not shareholders, are paramount—hence mutuals offer a viable and accessible finance alternative to millions of British people. Mutuals are an important part of Britain’s diverse and resilient economy, and we wish to keep it that way. Building societies are responsible for 27% of mortgages and hold 21% of the UK’s savings, and they offer important diversity and competition in the financial services sector. Their mutual structure means that members own the business, and all profits are returned to them rather than any shareholders. That gives them the ability to provide members with a more bespoke service. Credit unions are another mutually structured financial institution, offering their 2 million members affordable and responsible credit, savings and financial education, particularly focused on lower-income and financially excluded people.
Mutual societies allow millions of UK consumers to access the financial services that they need on a daily basis. This issue is very close to my heart—I am a passionate advocate for responsible capitalism and ensuring that the financial services sector does its bit. That is why I am chairing the Government’s financial inclusion policy forum with the Pensions and Financial Inclusion Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman). The forum will look at what more can be done to ensure that individuals, regardless of their background or income, have access to affordable financial products and services.
We are here today because the Government have introduced a package of measures to provide further support for the sector, and to help to level the playing field between mutuals and companies. The proposed legislative package does multiple things: it helps to reduce burdensome auditing requirements for co-operative societies; it allows building societies to join central clearing houses; and it consolidates the registration and regulation of Northern Irish credit unions. Those measures have all been requested by representatives of the mutuals sector and are practical ways for the Government to support it.
I will first introduce the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Amendments to Audit Requirements) Order 2017. There are nearly 7,000 co-operatives in Britain today, which together contribute more than £36 billion to the UK economy. Those co-operatives employ more than 200,000 people and are part-owned by 13.6 million members of our society. The Government recognise the value of co-operatives and the need to ensure that their administrative requirements are proportionate and that they are not disadvantaged compared with companies of comparable size.
Since 2012, small companies have enjoyed an exemption from the requirement in the Companies Act 2006 to have their accounts fully audited. The order will increase the thresholds at which co-operatives are required to appoint a professional auditor, bringing their auditing requirements in line with companies legislation, which had its auditing threshold increased to keep pace with inflation. That means that co-operatives will enjoy a more proportionate auditing regime, but I should note that appropriate controls remain in place: members must vote to apply the exemption—they are not obliged to do so—and the regulators can still demand a full audit if they have concerns about the management of the co-operative. Furthermore, co-operatives that disapply the requirement to appoint a professional auditor will still be required to prepare a less onerous audit report. That will help co-operatives to save money and ensure that they are not saddled with unnecessary administrative burdens.
The next draft order before the Committee relates to building societies. Building societies serve more than 20 million UK customers and are an integral source of loans to first-time buyers, providing £2.9 billion in net mortgage lending in the last quarter. That constitutes a 27% market share of total net lending. In order to offer fixed-rate mortgages safely, building societies must hedge against the risk of interest rate changes, and may do so by buying derivatives.
The European market infrastructure regulation of 2012 requires all derivatives to be centrally cleared, which means that building societies must either become direct members of a clearing house or clear through third-party members. In practice, however, the legislation works to prevent building societies from complying with the membership rules of the main UK clearing house. As a result, building societies must clear indirectly through third parties that are members, incurring expensive broker fees and placing them on an uneven footing compared with other financial institutions.
The draft order will amend the Building Societies Act 1986 to allow building societies to trade derivatives—not only to hedge their balance sheet but to comply with the membership rules of a clearing house. That will help building societies to reduce costs and manage risks more effectively, all of which will support them to compete on a level playing field in the mortgage market.
The last draft order before the Committee concerns mutuals in Northern Ireland, including credit unions. Under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, mutuals in Great Britain are registered with, and regulated by, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, and previously by the Financial Services Authority. Following the failure of the Presbyterian Mutual Society in October 2008, at a cost to the taxpayer of £50 million, Northern Ireland Ministers and the Treasury agreed that responsibility for regulating Northern Ireland credit unions and other mutuals should transfer to the FSA. Responsibility for that regulation was actually transferred in 2011. The aim of that transfer was to provide members of those mutuals with access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and the Financial Ombudsman Service, among other benefits.
Today we are completing that work by consolidating the registration and regulation of Northern Ireland mutuals by the FCA and the PRA. A good deal of preparatory work has now taken place, and officials from the Department for the Economy and the Foreign Office are working together closely to ensure that Northern Ireland’s mutuals are supported during the transfer or registration. Societies previously registered with the Department for the Economy will not have to re-register; their records will simply transfer to the FCA. The draft order will create a more sensible regulatory and registration regime for Northern Irish mutuals. It is clearly logical for registration and regulatory oversight to lie with a single authority, as it reduces complexity and red tape for both the mutuals and the regulators.
I trust that the Committee will agree that the draft orders are a welcome update to mutuals legislation, for the wider benefit of the sector across the country. I commend them to the Committee.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Robertson, for calling me to speak on behalf of the Opposition.
Building societies and other mutuals certainly perform a vital role within the UK financial services industry. As a Labour and Co-operative MP, as are a number of my colleagues on the Committee, I have always taken a strong personal interest in creating a well-regulated and supportive environment that is conducive to a strong mutuals sector. In fact, one of my formative political memories, having grown up in the north-east, is the demutualisation of Northern Rock in the late ’90s, when everyone was seemingly offered free money with no catches. However, 10 years later, the situation looked somewhat different.
I want the Committee to pay particular attention to the second draft order that the Minister described, on building societies, which I think will bring about the most substantive changes of all the draft orders. Mutuals need a level playing field between building societies and their retail banking counterparts. That has to include the ability to manage risk directly by hedging their activities using derivatives, which is clearly essential for any major financial institution. As the Minister said, that is not the case at present, given that building societies are obliged to use brokers given their inability to be a member of a clearing house themselves. It is reasonable to consider changing that asymmetry, which inhibits the ability of building societies to operate as independent market participants.
All efforts to improve the resilience of our financial systems since the catastrophic events of 2008 certainly have the Opposition’s full support. The establishment of clearing houses has been essential to creating a more robust derivatives infrastructure. It makes sense to us that building societies might want to hedge their risk, while complying with this new regime that will help make markets safer. As long as they cannot be members of clearing houses themselves, they will have to remain dependent on brokers for market access, which means that they are unable to manage risk in the same way as a retail bank. The legislative changes proposed today would enable building societies to compete on a level playing field, and we are certainly sympathetic to that.
I seek clarity from the Minister on one outstanding point. Will he provide a more detailed outline of how a building society would be impacted in the unlikely event that a central clearing house should collapse in its entirety? That issue was raised in the Lords debate earlier this month, and Lord Young committed to write to Baroness Kramer with further details. I request that copies of that letter be placed in the House of Commons Library and sent to me, so that we can all be better informed about how such a scenario would unfold in practice.
John Glen
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his observations. I will seek to ensure that that letter is relayed to him and his Front-Bench colleagues.
On the specific question of the failure of a clearing house, since the financial crisis, the expansion of clearing has played a major part in the reforms to make derivative markets more transparent and resilient, and the UK has worked with global partners to develop international principles in regulating clearing houses to ensure that they are robust. The scenario the hon. Gentleman suggests is extremely unlikely. The strictest standards have been agreed to ensure that clearing houses are resilient and their members are protected, even in periods of extreme market distress. The Bank of England and the European Securities and Markets Authority conduct regular stress tests on the clearing houses and have found that they would remain solvent under the most severe extreme market scenarios, including the last financial crisis. I would respectfully submit that the situation the hon. Gentleman suggests is so unlikely to happen as to not be realistic, but it would be a matter for the PRA, the FCA and the Bank of England to deal with, in a crisis that I cannot foresee.
In the spirit of trying to abbreviate the proceedings as reasonably as I can, and given the widespread agreement, which I had hoped for on laying these measures before the House, I will now conclude. I hope that the Committee will agree to them.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT FINANCIAL SERVICES ACT 2012 (MUTUAL SOCIETIES) ORDER 2018
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Financial Services Act 2012 (Mutual Societies) Order 2018.—(John Glen.)
DRAFT CO-OPERATIVE AND COMMUNITY BENEFIT SOCIETIES ACT 2014 (AMENDMENTS TO AUDIT REQUIREMENTS) ORDER 2017
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Amendments to Audit Requirements) Order 2017.—(John Glen.)
Draft Waste Enforcement (England and Wales) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 2 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Waste Enforcement (England and Wales) Regulations 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Criminal activity in the waste industry is having significant and widespread consequences across our country. In particular, illegal activity at waste sites can severely damage the natural environment. Odours, and fly and vermin infestations, blight nearby communities, and fires at these sites can shut down main roads and railway lines, resulting in the public sector spending millions of pounds. The economic cost of waste crime is also significant: in 2015, the estimated cost to the economy in England was £604 million.
The draft regulations are another example of the series of measures the Government are taking to crack down on waste criminals, and we will set out a strategic approach to waste crime later this year as part of our resources and waste strategy. We have given the Environment Agency an additional £30 million over the next four years to target waste crime. Owing to the Barnett formula, the Welsh Government will have further funding to allocate to Natural Resources Wales to tackle waste crime, if they choose to do so.
The draft regulations are a composite statutory instrument, meaning a single instrument with provisions that apply to both England and Wales, but which is made by the UK Government in relation to England, and to the Welsh Government in relation to Wales. The Welsh Assembly is due to debate the draft regulations on 6 March inasmuch as they apply to Wales. The draft regulations set out two new powers to tackle illegal activity at waste sites. We developed the regulations in consultation with the waste industry and others in response to the regulators’ calls for further enforcement powers at waste sites.
One of the most effective ways to prevent issues at waste sites from escalating out of control is to act quickly to stop more waste entering the site. The first power in the draft regulations will enable the Environment Agency to restrict access and the importation of further waste on to a site by physical means, such as by locking the gates or barring access. The Environment Agency will be able to do this where there is a risk of serious pollution to the environment or serious harm to human health as a result of the waste on the site, and where action is necessary to prevent the risks from continuing. The agency will also be able to do this when an offence has been committed and there is pollution or harm to human health from the waste on the site.
The Environment Agency will be able to issue an immediate restriction notice for up to 72 hours. It will also be able to apply to a magistrates court for a restriction order for up to six months. A restriction order can be applied for without a restriction notice being issued first. This power will make a critical difference and will be a significant addition to the Environment Agency’s toolbox, allowing it to act quickly and decisively when the situation requires it.
The second power will enable the Environment Agency and local authorities, in their role as waste collection authorities, to require all waste at a site to be cleared, not just waste that has been deposited unlawfully. The gap in the regulations was exposed when we lost a court case and, as a result, all the waste stockpiled at a particularly problematic site could not be cleared.
The Environment Agency and local authorities can require an occupier or landowner to remove waste that has been unlawfully deposited at a site—for example, waste deposited above the limit specified in a permit. However, they do not have the power to require the removal of waste deposited lawfully at the time, within the conditions specified in the permit or under a registered exemption, but is subsequently unlawfully kept or disposed of. That has led to situations in which, after permit conditions were breached, or waste was kept for longer than the time specified in the registered exemption, or a business went into liquidation, all the waste could not be cleared.
Through the regulations, we are closing that loophole. The new power will enable the Environment Agency and local authorities to require occupiers or landowners to remove all the waste at a site, irrespective of whether it was deposited unlawfully or not. This will be a significant change that will ensure full clearance of waste sites that blight our country. Giving the regulators these two additional powers will enable them to tackle illegal activity at waste sites, and demonstrates our commitment to cracking down on all criminals operating in the waste sector. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Robertson. It must be waste, because all three of us—you, the Minister and I—are here. I welcome the Minister to her seat.
Dr Drew
Yes. At least we know we are not dealing with the bag of black waste; this time, we are dealing with more than that. We will not get into an argument over that.
I will make some general comments to start with and then home in on the statutory instrument, because this is an important issue. For anyone who lives in a rural area such as mine, there are three areas of constant complaint: potholes, dog excrement and waste—largely fly-tipping, because that is growing. I caught a little bit of what the Minister said yesterday—I am sorry that I could not stay longer—and I would love to see the evidence that shows that when local councils impose a charge, it does not lead to more fly-tipping. It is important for us to know what the empirical evidence is, so I hope she will provide it, otherwise she will get a raft of parliamentary questions from me.
The SI puts the onus on the landowner who has had something tipped on to their land to take even more responsibility for dealing with it. In her summing up, will the Minister say what the safeguards are around that? The landowner seems to get hit every which way: they have stuff dumped on their land, and if it is toxic material such as asbestos, which needs specialised treatment and removal arrangements, they have to pay for that, too. That leads us into interesting areas of responsibility and blame.
The problem of stuff being tipped is growing by 7% a year. The figures show that local authorities have dealt with more than 1 million incidents of fly-tipping. Whether that is going to legitimate waste sites or not, that is still dealing with the problem of waste in a way that we do not want. Inevitably, people will find alternative ways to try to dispose of their waste, which is when we see fly-tipping. In particular, people who are on the more criminal side will see an opportunity to open up sites and to take money from people.
Local authorities have carried out 474,000 enforcement actions, which cost them about £16 million. It is great that the Minister is giving £30 million to the Environment Agency, but my big question is: what is she giving to local authorities at the front end? They will only bring the Environment Agency in afterwards because, initially, it is local authorities’ responsibility. There does not seem to be any more money going to local authorities, which is a worry, because it means that there will be a build-up. Once people see a pile of rubbish, they tend to add to it, and it becomes more and more of a problem.
Today’s SI is pretty obscure; one has to like legal documents or like reading what SIs are about to want to read it. It is not even as clear as chucking things from vehicles, which we eventually agreed that we understood. To pick up on specific points, proposed new section 59ZB on page 3 gives a waste regulation or collection authority the power to issue notices where waste is kept or disposed of in their areas. It goes into detail about what they are, and about the notion of 21 days. In some respects, 21 days is far too long, because the waste will mount up if it is not dealt with quickly, but if there is an argument about responsibility, that may end up in the courts and be difficult to resolve in that period.
The explanatory memorandum is the most interesting and clear bit in many respects. On page 2, it states categorically:
“More waste has been diverted away from landfill and put to beneficial use, with clear benefits to the environment and the tax payer.”
The sad fact is that it will not be recycled—recycling is flatlining—but will go to incineration.
The Opposition increasingly question, and look at alternatives to, incineration; to me, sticking stuff into the atmosphere is no better than sticking it in the ground. I know it may be lower down the waste hierarchy, but it is something that we ignore at our cost in the long run. When all this waste is collected, what pressure is on local authorities or the Environment Agency to deal with it appropriately? Clearly, most of us want to recycle what we can, and to avoid waste being incinerated or, dare I say, going into landfill.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman says about waste incineration. It is my understanding that more dioxins and other nasty things are released from an ordinary garden bonfire in one day than are released from a waste incinerator in a whole year, given the complexity of the scrubbers and all the cleansing arrangements. It is a total myth that waste incineration is polluting to the atmosphere.
Dr Drew
I would argue that we are far too lax in our control of bonfires. I could add a fourth thing that people moan about: people setting fire to their garden waste next door. Given that in many authorities—including mine—there are ways to dispose of garden waste, to me, bonfires are an idle way of dealing with it.
On dioxins and furans, which come out of incineration, my argument is that we are not properly checking that. We are somewhat ignorant about particulates and what they end up doing; they do come down somewhere, because their nature is to reassemble themselves. We are not necessarily talking about incineration here, but I am just using it as an example of why we have to be very careful about what we collect and what we do with it, because in this country we are not very good at deciding what we are doing.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Is not the whole point of having a waste hierarchy that at the top of it is reducing waste from occurring in the first place? Then we try to recycle and reuse. Even anaerobic digestion allows us to produce energy from waste. Incineration is right at the bottom of the pile, before landfill, because it does not make any good use of those precious resources.
Dr Drew
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Whenever we talk about waste in this place, it is right that we critique what we are doing and ask whether we can do it better. I could go on about how this building operates. I found out through parliamentary questions that we are not that good in how we dispose of our rubbish—out of sight, out of mind. If we cannot get it right in this place, how can we expect the Great British public to take waste more seriously?
I would like the Minister to explain in more detail the difference between what is unlawful and what is undesirable; that may be the argument that is considered when someone is thinking about whether they are responsible for removing certain waste. Take the example of a farmer who has had waste tipped on their land. It has been there some time, because it is difficult to remove. At what stage in the 21 days has it become unlawful? Is the onus entirely on the landowner then to remove it, pay for it and take precautionary measures to stop it from happening again? That is what was discussed in the bit of the meeting that I was in yesterday. We all know from going around the countryside that there are now more fields with boulders at the gates. That is about stopping people from getting access to the fields and, more particularly, stopping people from fly-tipping. That is an ever-present and difficult problem.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
I was following the hon. Gentleman, but I am now perplexed, because proposed new section 59ZB(4)(a) and (8)(c) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 specifically talks about the occupier not knowingly permitting the disposal of the waste. He cites the case of a farmer who has stuff dumped on him by some fly-tipper, and who has obviously not knowingly permitted it. In that case, the last paragraph of proposed new section 59ZB(8) makes it clear that
“the authority may remove the waste from the land, or take steps to eliminate or reduce the consequences of the keeping”
of it, and that responsibility does not fall on the landholder. It seems to me that the SI is quite clear on the point he is raising.
Dr Drew
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, but if that is the case, then where is the money for local authorities? If they are going to have to pick up the bill for all that removal, it will be a substantial increase in both their responsibilities and their funding. It will be more difficult to prove that there has been tipping, because sometimes people are casual in how they have allowed waste to collect on their land, and there may be an argument about whether they encouraged it, and whether it is their waste or something that has been tipped—particularly fly-tipped—as a result of illegal activity. That is what I would like the Minister to look into. I am basically asking where the resources are. If the Government want local authorities to be more proactive, they must give them resources. We know resources are given to the Environment Agency, but the Environment Agency will only take action as a back-up; it will only be brought in subsequently.
To finish my questions to the Minister, I would be interested to know what pressure there is on local authorities, and indeed the Environment Agency, to dispose of this waste appropriately. Of course, in one respect this is a welcome move, because we are dealing with illegality and an ever-present problem. I go back to what I said on the previous SI: I would prefer primary legislation. The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, which some of us were responsible for, was a good bit of legislation, but it certainly needs updating, because the nature of the problem has grown, and the way in which we deal with it therefore had to change. These SIs are indicative of that. I would prefer to deal with waste through primary legislation; we in the Opposition would give it support, because we feel that waste is such a big issue that it needs this sort of attention.
I hope the Minister has heard what I have to say. I am sure other people will want to make points about this important SI. My concluding remark is that I wish we could deal with this matter through primary legislation. That would make the public more aware that this place is doing something. More particularly, we would have the powers and responsibility to deal with the issue in the way that it should be dealt with.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.
Far from being obscure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, these regulations are of real importance to people in my Blaydon constituency. The detail may be obscure, but the issue is real. In my constituency, we have two active landfill sites very close to urban areas, in Blaydon and in Ryton, which I should say is the ward I represent on Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council. In 2015, I faced a major issue with a litter escape from one of the landfill sites. The site is in a rural area, just off the built-up areas; litter escaped from the site and still festoons the trees, hedges and fields around it, despite litter-pickers. It is impossible to get a cherry-picker up into a tree on a rural road.
There are real problems, and there is absolute outrage among the community that that could be allowed to happen. I talked to the Environment Agency, which advised me that these regulations were under consideration. I now have the privilege of being able to comment as a Member of Parliament on the regulations that were so important to us in 2015.
That was not the end of the story, because not far from that site was another landfill site that has, for many years, caused odour problems. We may not be talking about odour in detail here, but let us be honest: we all know that waste, when it is rotting, produces gases and odour. There is no getting away from that, and it is a real nuisance to the local community. We have had odours for many years from both sites, but we had a major problem last year at one of them, when it was flooded and there were really awful smells.
I commend the Environment Agency officers who have worked closely with me as a local councillor, and with the local authority, to do what they can to enforce regulations. However, it has become clear to us as a community that existing regulations are not powerful enough, and that enforcing them has cost the agency a lot of money—more than it has taken in fees. This is a very real problem, so I am pleased that there will be additional money for the agency; I hope some of it will come from increased charges on the landfill operators, on the “polluter pays” principle.
Let me give an example that shows clearly why operators should be made to pay for problems at sites. For three months in 2016, there was a horrible, sulphurous odour hanging over my community. People had real concerns about their health. We had discussions with the Environment Agency and even Public Health England, such was the level of concern. I am glad to say that the site in question has closed down and been capped, so hopefully there will be no more odours from it. However, there are still smells coming from another landfill site. As recently as Friday, I met the Environment Agency and the local authority to discuss what we could do to end them.
There are real problems. My constituents and I cannot understand why the Environment Agency cannot just tell an operator to shut down when it is not operating properly and is causing problems. We need to get hold of this. There is also a bigger issue to do with ensuring that landfill sites are not too close to built-up and residential areas. Some people in my constituency live very close to landfill sites. Solving that problem is a desirable objective, although it may not fall within our debate today. If possible, we should end landfill sites altogether, because they are not good for the environment in any way—but that is another campaign.
I welcome the increased powers in the draft regulations, although I would have liked to have seen even greater powers for the Environment Agency. This really matters to people in my constituency, and it has mattered for a long time. I am sure that other hon. Members will have constituency experience of the same issues, including landfill and fly-tipping.
I welcome the draft regulations, but I have to say that they are long overdue, because we started talking about them in 2015 when we had the litter escape. I certainly encouraged the local authority and others to respond to the consultation, because it is so important that we strengthen the Environment Agency’s powers to protect our local communities and ensure that our environment is protected in the long term.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I welcome the draft regulations. My constituency includes a large industrial site called Avonmouth, very close to the villages of Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston. My predecessor once had to tackle what can only be described as the plot of a low-budget horror film. A waste company called Boomeco packages refuse-derived fuel into bundles, stores them on the port and ships them out for incineration. One hot summer, it had not quite wrapped the bundles properly and fly larvae erupted, covering Avonmouth village with a storm of flies.
Darren Jones
It was absolutely hideous. Some may laugh at my joke about a cheap horror film, but my constituents had to eat their dinners under mosquito nets, and the local pub had to close. The primary issue was that no one seemed to have the power to make it stop; the Environment Agency, Public Health England, the landowner and Bristol City Council all said that it was someone else’s responsibility. Meanwhile, my constituents had to use fly spray provided by their local councillors.
I welcome the further enforcement powers for agencies such as the Environment Agency, but I stress that co-ordination powers and resources are as important as granting more powers to any one agency. We need to ensure that the agencies work together so that any situations that arise do not fall through the gaps between legislative powers. Agencies need to be able, and mandated, to come together to find a solution.
More needs to be done. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that this matter should be tackled at primary legislative level. In Avonmouth, there is a high density of waste companies close to local communities and villages. Areas such as Bristol North West expect us to have the powers to ensure that they are protected from either mistakes or abuses by the companies providing services in places such as Avonmouth. That is why I and others have called for measures such as regulated borders around residential areas. Avonmouth village could have a regulated border between it and the industrial estate; any planning applications for these types of business in the area could have to undergo enhanced scrutiny.
I welcome these regulations, but I repeat the message that has been sent, and urge the Government to go further, so that there can be powers to protect my constituents—and, indeed, all our constituents.
Kerry McCarthy
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I, too, welcome the Government’s taking action on this matter, but I question why it has taken so long to introduce the proposals. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs conducted a public consultation in 2015 on proposals to tighten regulators’ powers at waste sites, and the vast majority of the respondents agreed with the proposals. One would have thought that that meant that we could move ahead speedily. For some reason—I am not sure why—the Department conducted a restricted stakeholder consultation on this statutory instrument in April 2017, and the results were not published. I understand that of the 113 organisations that responded to the original consultation, only eight replied to the 2017 consultation. Perhaps they felt that they had already had their say and did not need to make a further contribution—or the issue may have been that it was a restricted, four-week consultation over Easter, and they did not have time to reply before the deadline. In the interests of ensuring that we can introduce similar legislation more speedily and efficiently in future, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why this measure has taken so long to come to the table.
On the broader issue, fly-tipping and waste crime are a growing problem, as the Minister will know from discussions that she has had when appearing before the Environmental Audit Committee, particularly when we were looking at the problem of China enforcing a ban on the substantial amounts of plastic and paper waste that we were previously exporting to them. We were exporting the problem, some people might say, but the simple fact is that we are not equipped in this country; we do not have the infrastructure to recycle our own waste and use it sustainably, whether that be through reuse programmes or anaerobic digestion, ideally, or through, as a last resort, sending it to landfill. We should not be doing that. I think that the Minister now accepts that we need considerably more investment in infrastructure if we are to adhere to the waste hierarchy and deal with our waste sustainably.
Any MP, whether they have a rural or an urban constituency, will be aware of the blight of fly-tipping. In my constituency, under the M32 flyover, we have a significant problem with vans coming off the motorway and dumping refuse, usually from household clearance. One problem is that Bristol, quite rightly, reserves its household recycling centres for the use of Bristol residents, so people have to prove that they are a local council tax payer to use them. People in South Gloucestershire who want to use those sites are basically not allowed to do so, but unscrupulous firms will collect people’s waste under the pretence that they will dispose of it responsibly, and will just come off the motorway and dump it in the street. Although the waste has not been generated by Bristol households, it is the responsibility of Bristol City Council to clean it up. We have persistent complaints from councillors about that. It is a huge cost to the local council. People might say that we could make the recycling centres open to everyone, but why should we pay to dispose of things that South Gloucestershire residents want to get rid of?
Companies are meant to have waste licences to collect waste. There is a real problem with lack of enforcement in respect of those licences. Many companies are not licensed to do the job, but the average householder will not know whether a company is licensed, and will not even think to check whether someone has a licence. The Minister needs to address that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West spoke about the fly infestation in Avonmouth. He was not in Parliament in the time, and it is not my constituency, but that certainly caused a lot of concern locally. I think it started with a bale of biofuel, and it spread all across the local area, including to food waste bins. Eventually, the Environment Agency stripped the company in question of permission to operate on the docks. However, that took a long time to highlight. Viridor said at the time that it was
“yet another example of poor practice in RDF export.”
I have already mentioned China’s ban on our sending much of our waste there. I hope that the Minister will look at whether there is a risk that the plastic waste previously sent to China will be diverted to refuse-derived fuel in this country instead. I hope she will assure us that that will not be the case.
Finally, it is one thing to bring in measures—I welcome them—to deal with waste and fly-tipping, but the starting point should be preventing the waste. We heard lots of noise from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about bringing forward a deposit return scheme, for example. In the Budget last year, it hit the front pages that we were consulting on a tax on single-use plastics. So far as I know, the call for evidence on that has still not even been issued, so a consultation that was on the front pages in November has not yet started. What is the delay?
Why can we not get on with being serious about the circular economy in this country, reducing waste and enforcing the waste hierarchy? Perhaps then we would not have so much waste to clear up.
Dr Coffey
I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. I will restrict my comments to the draft regulations, apart from on one or two very specific issues. We do not seek to propose more broadly the concept that the landowner has liability. Of course, we expect any waste to be treated in accordance with the waste hierarchy.
I welcome the support from the hon. Members for Blaydon, and for Bristol North West, not only for the Environment Agency but for the powers in the draft regulations. The Environment Agency is undertaking the consultation on cost recovery. However, I point out to the hon. Member for Bristol East that that is just one of a series of powers we will introduce as a result of the initial 2015 consultation.
I agree with the hon. Member for Bristol North West on the need for partnership. That is very much in evidence around the country, with the Environment Agency working with other groups. Some of the issues that the hon. Member for Bristol East raises, particularly in regard to waste licences and homeowners, are being addressed and are subject to a separate consultation. Two thirds of fly-tipped waste is believed to come from households.
The 21-day period that the hon. Member for Stroud referred to is to allow an occupier or landowner served with a notice to challenge that notice with an appeal to the magistrates court. That provision is closely linked to the existing provision in section 59 of the 1990 Act. He also talked about funding. The point is that we are giving powers that local authorities and the Environment Agency have asked for. The powers that local authorities will have are not about restricting access, but about a requirement to clear an entire site.
The reason for having a second consultation—it was deliberately short, so that we could make progress—was that the 2015 consultation was somewhat broad. The second consultation allowed us to confirm certain aspects of our approach, and to be prudent in making sure that the draft regulations were correct and effective. It is important to get these things right.
I recognise that quite a lot of the law dealing with waste is complex. However, in regard to the idea about primary legislation, the Committee will be interested to know that the draft regulations are in fact an example of using what is commonly referred to as a Henry VIII power: using secondary legislation to amend primary legislation. I am pleased that the draft regulations have had the scrutiny they have had. They have been subject to extensive consultation, and I hope the Committee will wholeheartedly support the two new powers, which I think will do a lot to tackle a lot of the waste sites around today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Waste Enforcement (England and Wales) Regulations 2018.
Draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 2 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this slightly chilly Committee Room, Ms McDonagh. The regulations would, for the first time, set passport fees under the primary charging powers in the Immigration Act 2016.
In 2017, Her Majesty’s Passport Office issued nearly 7 million passports worldwide. It continues to provide excellent customer service: over the past year, the average turnaround for the vast majority of passport applications was approximately seven days. Its excellent performance has resulted in high levels of customer satisfaction; in a recent customer satisfaction index survey by the Institute of Customer Service, HM Passport Office ranked once again as the best-performing public service organisation. It has improved its customer satisfaction index scores over each of the past five years and has now appeared for the first time among the top 50 high-scoring organisations in the survey.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
By way of evidence, I renewed my passport very recently indeed and it came back in five days. Under the new system, in which applicants can upload their photograph from an iPhone, the application took 10 minutes. What a fantastic service!
Caroline Nokes
I am delighted to hear that feedback from my hon. Friend, the former Immigration Minister.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
As a counterpoint to that excellent experience, I know of a case in which a passport that had been correctly applied for was delivered by courier to the wrong house. How often does that happen?
Caroline Nokes
There are two points that I would like to address. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby makes the valid point that the proportion of passports issued within seven days has surpassed 95%; the vast majority are issued very quickly and with huge customer satisfaction. However, I am always concerned to hear about instances of the process going wrong. If the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood raises the case with me outside the Committee, I will raise it personally with the head of the Passport Office.
Maria Eagle
I raised it at the time with the then Home Secretary, who is now our Prime Minister. The situation has been ameliorated, but the problem has not been solved. A new, full and correct British passport was delivered to what was obviously the wrong address and never, to my knowledge, has it been recovered.
Caroline Nokes
By her own admission, the hon. Lady refers to a case that must now be several years out of date. [Interruption.] Well, at least 18 months. I reassure the hon. Lady—
Caroline Nokes
As I have said, the customer satisfaction with Her Majesty’s Passport Office has increased significantly. We have made excellent improvements with the digitisation of the service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby referred to, but I am absolutely prepared to take up the issue of the missing passport, find out where it has got to and, of course, ensure that it is cancelled, so that no one can use it fraudulently.
We now score alongside organisations such as Amazon and John Lewis on customer satisfaction. We are the only public sector body on the list, and we scored higher than Prudential, Debenhams and Hilton. I welcome those accolades as testament to our hard-working officials across the UK.
The 2016 Act includes powers that allow Home Office fees to reflect the costs not only of considering an application and issuing a passport, but of any other function of the Secretary of State in connection with UK passports, including costs associated with British citizens leaving and entering the UK. The full costs associated with processing applications and issuing passports are funded by income from fees charged for passport services, but the number of passengers arriving at the UK border continues to rise: approximately 130 million passengers arrive each year, of whom approximately 70 million are UK passport holders. This leads to a significant cost for the Home Office that is largely funded by the Exchequer. Allowing passport fees to reflect the costs to the Home Office associated with UK passengers leaving and entering the UK means that we can reduce the burden on the Exchequer and move towards a “user pays” basis for our overall service to UK passport holders.
Maria Eagle
The impact assessment suggests that if the draft regulations are implemented, £50 million of additional income in the next financial year from these increases will come into the Exchequer. If that happens, will the Minister tell us what percentage of the costs that she describes will be met by income from passports?
Caroline Nokes
I will move on to explain how the income received is only part of the £100 million investment that the Home Office will make in our borders in the coming 12 months. It is important that we recover any additional costs in a balanced way that incentivises the use of the more efficient online application process, which we intend to become the standard passport application channel. Although we are proposing to increase most fees, people who submit their application online will be charged a lower fee than if they submit their application by post.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that constituencies such as mine, which have an older population who have limited access to the internet, will be discriminated against by that? Has she done any equality impact assessment on constituencies such as mine?
Caroline Nokes
We have looked very carefully at this issue, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that 90% of the UK population have access to the internet. I recently made the point in a different Committee Room that many older people use the internet very successfully and with great efficiency. It is important that we reflect the difference in cost to HM Passport Office between a postal application and the online application, which obviously is much more simple and more straightforward. We also provide an assisted digital service for those who might have difficulty submitting their application online.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Could the Minister give a bit more information about how the assisted service works for people with disabilities or the elderly in remote or rural areas, such as parts of my constituency?
Caroline Nokes
We are enabling people to submit their application via a third party, so they can ask people to assist them if they have particular disabilities or challenges; that applies particularly to those who have a visual impairment. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about areas that might have lower broadband speeds. In my constituency in the south-east, I have some of the lowest performing wards for broadband in the country, although I am very conscious that my excellent colleague, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has made huge strides and has hit our targets for increasing high-speed broadband across the country. I accept that there is still work to be done on that.
We intend to increase the online adult fee by only £3, which is broadly in line with inflation. That will mean that the adult fee will increase to £75.50, which is still below what was charged between 2009 and 2012, when an adult passport cost £77.50. The child passport fee will increase by the same amount, and will be set at £49. Fees for adult and child passports applied for via post will each increase by £12.50, to £85 and £58.50 respectively, to reflect the additional cost of processing postal applications. HM Passport Office provides excellent priority services for applicants who wish their applications to be processed faster, or who prefer to apply in person. It is right that applicants pay more for these priority services. We intend to move the fees for these services towards full cost recovery sooner than online or postal services, given their optional nature and the additional benefits that the customer receives by using them.
Finally, we are introducing a new and specific power in the regulations that allows the Home Office to consider waiving fees for replacement passports where they have been lost or destroyed during an incident considered a national emergency or crisis, where the UK Government have activated exceptional assistance measures overseas. This will allow the Government to ensure that we can provide the appropriate support to vulnerable individuals in emergency situations and crises.
We are committed to ensuring that the Government continue to move towards a position where the border, immigration and citizenship system is funded by those who directly use it, and where, as a key part of that, passport application fees include the cost of UK passengers leaving and entering the UK. The additional income from the proposed fee increases will help to protect vital frontline services, and ensure that we continue to operate a world-class border system.
Conor McGinn
Could the Minister confirm that the additional revenue raised will be used to re-employ some of the 1,000 border control staff whom this Government have got rid of in the last seven years?
Caroline Nokes
I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that, as part of our plans for Border Force, we have already recruited 300 additional staff, and we are launching a recruitment campaign for a further 1,000 staff. Of course, he will be as conscious as I am that as we move towards Brexit, it is imperative that our Border Force has the necessary number of staff.
Maria Eagle
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I wonder whether she has had time to gather her thoughts about my earlier question, which was: if these regulations are implemented, what percentage of the full costs will be recovered by the fees for issuing passports?
Caroline Nokes
As I have said repeatedly to the hon. Lady, we acknowledge that this change will increase the amount of revenue by about £50 million, but we are investing £100 million in our borders and our passport control system over the coming year. I think that is a very straightforward answer: 100% of the fees recovered will be reinvested in our borders, immigration and citizenship service, as I very clearly stated.
I have nothing more to say, other than that I commend these fee regulations to the Committee.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
First of all, Labour supports the proposal to waive passport application fees for members of the armed forces, members of the diplomatic service and individuals who have been affected by a crisis. It seems an oversight that these people have had to pay fees until now, and it is right that that situation is being corrected.
Labour is opposed to the 27% increase in the cost of children’s passports and the 17% increase in the cost for adults. A family of four applying by post would pay £287 for all their passports. We consider that an extortionate fee. Penalising people who apply for their passports offline hits families with children and everyone who does not feel comfortable applying for a passport online. In response to one of my written questions, the Immigration Minister said that
“Her Majesty’s Passport Office is developing further help for those who wish to apply online, which includes exploring options for making services available from the High Street and by working in conjunction with community support groups.”
Exactly what progress has there been on that? How many high street services have been made available? How many community support groups have been contacted, and in what ways are the Government working with them? It is vital that such support is rolled out ahead of the fees increase at the end of March.
The Home Office and Ministers have repeatedly made the commitment that post-Brexit registration of EU nationals will cost no more than the cost for UK nationals of applying for a passport. Does that apply to the price of a UK passport before or after this increase comes into force? It would seem underhanded for the Government to fix the cost of settled status applications at the cost of a British passport, and then increase the cost of applying for a passport.
Finally, research by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants found that the hostile environment and right-to-rent policies are causing discrimination against British citizens who do not have passports, particularly those from ethnic minorities. When asked, 42% of landlords stated that as a result of the scheme, they were less likely to rent to someone without a British passport. The black and minority ethnic tenant without a passport was 25% less likely to be offered a viewing of a property and 20% less likely to be told that the property was available.
What are this Government doing to monitor the right- to-rent scheme, and to make sure that it does not engender discrimination? What are they doing to ensure that those with the right to rent have easy access to documents that prove that, and do not have to pay £85 for a passport unnecessarily?
Mr Goodwill
I personally do not consider the cost of a passport to be exorbitant. It is a 10-year passport, so for less than £8 per year a person can have a red passport—in future, I hope they will have a blue passport with gold lettering.
I have used the online process, and it is very good, but it is not all online: people have to return their old passport in the post. Indeed, many people consider a passport so valuable a commodity that they return it by recorded delivery, with all the costs involved in that. The Passport Office will then clip off the corner and send it back. When I was in the Home Office, we looked at whether it was necessary for the person to send the passport back, only to have it sent back to them. I wonder if the Minister will consider whether it would be cheaper for the Passport Office, and for us applicants, if it was no longer necessary for the old passport to be sent in merely to have its corner cut off, given that all the information the Passport Office needs is now held electronically on its system.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I am absolutely appalled by comments that have been made about the cost of the passport not being excessive. The cost may be all right for the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby, but it is not all right for a good number of my constituents in Scotland, who not only struggle to pay for the school trips that their children might want to go on, but will very much struggle to pay these exorbitant passport fees.
I am deeply concerned that, for many people in poorer communities in Glasgow, there is also a digital divide. That has been a well-documented phenomenon. Carnegie UK Trust’s recent report, “Across the Divide”, says that around 40% of the poorest communities in Glasgow are not online. They are being asked by the Government to pay a premium for the online service, despite the fact that they are not able to get online and access it.
Alison Thewliss
I will let the hon. Gentleman intervene in a second. In some of these communities, 46% of single parents do not have internet access. If the hon. Gentleman would like to explain how this is a good deal for single parents, I am happy to let him intervene.
Andrew Percy
I simply point out to the hon. Lady that I represent a constituency that has very poor broadband coverage and comprises some of the most deprived postcodes in the country. However, if people go to a local library or even some schools, they will be able to access the service and can often receive support. There is a lot of support for people to get online and access the digital world. It is not impossible to access the passport service online through a facility in their area.
Alison Thewliss
It may be possible for random constituents in his constituency to stroll into schools and go on to the computers, but that is not the case in Glasgow. There are many computers in Glasgow’s libraries, and they are very much used by the population, including those who are trying to apply for universal credit online. There are lots of pressures on library services, precisely because the Government are moving things online, while many people do not have the facilities to access them: they cannot afford broadband, if it is even available, or a computer, and unfortunately still do not have the digital skills to access them. It is unacceptable that the Government are making people in poorer communities pay a premium for something to which we should all have a right.
Alison Thewliss
I want to move on, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind. I am concerned: the Government talk about more modern processes and things becoming cheaper and more efficient, but that is not reflected in the fees, which are going up. If the service is becoming more efficient and cheaper to run, because things are going online, members of the public should see a decrease in their passport fees. It is ridiculous that they are actually seeing an increase; whether for an online application or not, the price continues to go up.
I asked the Library to prepare figures on this for me. It had some difficulty in finding the range of figures over time, but I have the passport application fees for 32-page passports for adults and children. In 2001, the fee was £30 for an adult and £16 for a child. That will go up to £75.50 for an adult and £49 for a child if the application is made online, or £85 for an adult and £58.50 per child by post.
The online change since 2001 is a 151.7% increase for an adult and a 206.3% increase for a child. That is absolutely unacceptable, particularly when we consider that child passports last for only five years. By the time a child reaches the age of 16, they could have had three different passports. That is an unacceptable burden on families, particularly at a time when all other prices are also going up and household incomes are being squeezed by Tory austerity every single day.
Could the Minister tell us about her full cost recovery plan for paper applications? That indicates to me that there will be a further increase next year. It is a significant cost for people, particularly if they do not drive and so do not have a driving licence, because the passport will be the only way of having validated and accessible identification. The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, mentioned that that is becoming a requirement for many more people, to get a rental agreement or financial agreement, and in life. It will also be a requirement should Tory plans to ask for ID at voting stations go ahead. People will find themselves disenfranchised if they do not have the £85, £75.5 and £49.50 to pay those exorbitant fees. If the Government want to propose ID cards, they can do so, but doing this by the back door and charging people an absolute fortune for it is utterly unacceptable.
The Minister mentioned that, to deal with vulnerable groups who cannot use online resources, the Government will work to improve the accessibility of systems and support arrangements to help people to access services online and minimise the impact on protected groups. I would be very interested to know what consultation they have done with groups that are considered vulnerable. What have they done to engage with all those groups? Will they publish any of that consultation process? I have not seen any of that information out there. The draft regulations are coming through a Delegated Legislation Committee and will come into force at the end of March, and there is very little time for people to have any kind of say on this matter before then. I would be very concerned if vulnerable groups had not been consulted formally.
Maria Eagle
Paragraph 8 of the explanatory memorandum states that there has been
“no public consultation on the fees set out in this instrument.”
It is therefore very likely that there has been no consultation with the groups that the hon. Lady mentions.
Alison Thewliss
Clearly, there has been no public consultation, as this instrument has come through in the way that it has, but I was curious about whether the Government could tell us anything about private consultations that they may have had with these groups, and about exactly what improving the accessibility of our systems would mean in practice. For many people, the systems are not easily accessible, which is why people like to do the application on paper—to take their time, to go through things properly and to ask for help and support in a way that is appropriate to them. We need to do an awful lot more to ensure that these services are accessible. I ask for a good deal more clarity.
The impact assessment says that there is no impact on businesses, charities or voluntary bodies, but I dispute that to some degree. Some charities require their staff to travel or to have a second passport for various purposes. It would be useful to know what consultation there has been with charity groups and those types of organisations that may require their staff to travel and be passport holders. Organisations may have an interest in absorbing those costs in their business, or they may ask their employees to take up that extra cost in particular sectors and industries.
Finally, we are being asked to pay more for passports, but we do not know yet what will happen with Brexit, and what the value of this new passport will be, because we will be able to do less with it than we can with our passports at present. [Interruption.]
The Chair
The acoustics in this room are poor. I am having a problem hearing what Members are saying and I want to hear what everybody has to say, as I am sure we all do. I call Maria Eagle.
Maria Eagle
Thank you, Ms McDonagh.
The impact assessment and accompanying notes state on page 3, under the paragraph on “Problem under consideration”, that in the Immigration Act 2016,
“provision was made for the passport fee to cover the cost of British citizens crossing the UK border”.
From the papers we have received we know that if implemented, these provisions are expected to raise an additional £50 million for the Home Office in the first year. If the proposals are implemented and there is that additional £50 million, what percentage of the cost of British citizens crossing the UK border will be covered by passport fees? It is a simple question. The provision in primary legislation under which the regulations are being made was intended to lead to full cost recovery. If these provisions are implemented, will full cost recovery be achieved? A Minister implementing proposals under legislation that has the express intention of meeting that goal should be able to answer that. Perhaps she will try again and come back with an answer in her response.
I wish to make a few other minor points arising from casework experience. I am sure we all get cases where things go wrong with passports at the last minute. I do not have the figures, but with newer passports there seems to have been an increase in the number of chips that stop working. I do not know whether they are in a more vulnerable place, but they seem to stop working more regularly than those in the previous design of passport. When a passport’s chip stops working, it effectively invalidates the passport, because although technically it can still be used, people get stopped at borders because the passport shows up as not having the biometric information that the chip imports to the document.
People who have a dud passport—even if it is only six weeks old, never mind 10 years old—have to buy another, because it is not replaced if the chip stops working. Does the Minister think it is right to propose that, in circumstances where a chip stops working through no fault of the passport holder—the passport has not been put in a washing machine or anything like that—the higher fees ought to be waived? Why should that person have to pay again? I know of instances of that happening, and with the higher fees there will be an additional problem for people.
People also lose passports suddenly, sometimes—unfortunately for them—just before they are due to go on holiday, or use the passport in another way. For example, there was an enormous fire in a Liverpool car park at Christmas that destroyed every car in the car park. Some people will have had their passports in their cars, and nobody has been able to return to their vehicles, most of which are mere cinders. Many people might therefore have had to apply for another passport. Will there be any ways in which people who lose their passport through no fault of their own—an act of God like that—can get a discount, given how passport fees are going up?
A sudden loss of a passport just ahead of a planned trip can necessitate using the premium collect service, and there are circumstances—I know they are rare—in which entire families could lose their passports just before they are due to go on holidays. For premium collect, even an online application for a family of four—two children under 16 and two adults—would cost £656. That is an enormous sum of money; sometimes more than the cost of the holiday a family expects to go on. We have all come across extremely unfortunate circumstances when families have suddenly needed to acquire passports swiftly. While it is welcome that there is such a service, can the Minister tell us whether in any circumstances those very high fees might be lowered?
The regulations have provision for waivers, where there is a reference to crises abroad. The regulations define a crisis as
“an incident in which at least five British citizens have been killed or injured, or are in danger of being killed.”
During my time in the House, I have dealt with casework where there has been a crisis abroad but not as many as five people have been killed. I am sure many colleagues have, too. Can the Minister explain why at least five UK citizens have to be killed, injured or in danger of being killed or injured for something to count as a crisis and for the waiver in the draft regulations to be implemented? Members often go to the Home Office and say, “I’ve got this crisis with a family of constituents.” Will the Minister have any discretion over that definition? It does not seem to me that she will. Why has five been identified as the appropriate number? I could bring up other cases—as I say, we have all had them—but the ones I have mentioned illustrate some of my concerns about the draft regulations.
Caroline Nokes
I certainly thank hon. Members for the consideration they have given the draft regulations. I want to pick up some of the issues that have been raised, particularly about assistance for people who need it when applying for their passport online. In addition to providing phone support and suggesting help from friends and family—assistance from a third party—we have designed the online application to comply with screen readers for those with sight impairment, but we will come forward with a full range of proposals. We have worked with organisations such as Age UK to ensure that they are sighted on this and understand the assistance that can be given. We are finalising the guidance that we will bring forward.
On high street assistance, which a number of Members raised, we have worked with the Association of British Travel Agents to see what support travel agents up and down our high streets might be able to give their customers who are not able to get online.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Only a handful of travel agents in my constituency come to mind, and I cannot think where in their small spaces they would be able to put computers for my constituents to apply for passports.
May I press the Minister on the digital divide? Everyone in this room can afford a mobile phone, owns one and knows how to use it, but thousands, if not millions, of people across our country do not have those skills or access to those resources. Particularly in the wake of the most recent plans by the Department for Work and Pensions to close jobcentres, including two in my constituency, my constituents have fewer opportunities to access computers. What will she do to ensure that people really can access provision and apply online?
Caroline Nokes
As I have indicated, there are other facilities that people can use. We have heard that it is perfectly possible to apply on a smartphone, but Age UK is there to support people who want to avail themselves of its services. I noticed that there was some scoffing at the suggestion that people could use computers in schools. The Romsey School and the Mountbatten School, which are community schools in my constituency, welcome in members of the wider community and like to regard themselves as hubs that encourage access. Further education colleges across Hampshire are able to bring their communities in, too, so I dismiss the idea that there is a barrier to communities. Actually, those institutions have discovered that it is a way to have a much more rounded community.
A comment was made about broadband speeds, particularly in Scotland. I note that Ofcom commented in a 2016 report that there was a 79% satisfaction rate, and that broadband take-up in Glasgow in particular has gone up significantly.
Alison Thewliss
The Minister seems to have misunderstood my point. I was not talking about broadband speeds in Scotland; I was talking about broadband access—people being able to use a computer and access digital services. That is the issue I was trying to point out. There is a digital divide in cities: many people and communities just do not have access to the internet at all.
Caroline Nokes
I regret that I do not have the figures to hand, but I would be interested in the number of smartphones that are used across Glasgow and in the hon. Lady’s constituency. A number of Members mentioned universal credit, which many users of DWP services access via their smartphone or tablet.
The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood asked what percentage of the cost of primary control points would be associated with UK passengers. This increase will enable that to be a 40% contribution, which is still some considerable way from covering the entire cost. However, as the powers in the 2016 Act set out, we will be able to review those costs going forward. Hon. Members will note that, when it comes to priority services, which are, by and large, optional, we have sought to move to quicker full cost recovery.
In certain circumstances, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has the ability to exercise compassion and discretion. I have to say that my experience, even before coming into this role, was that it was always keen to make sure that the best service was delivered to constituents who found themselves in difficult situations in which, at the last minute, an emergency passport is needed, whether for compassionate travel or when somebody had not anticipated that their passport would expire.
Passports are only one way to prove identity, and across Government we certainly seek to encourage people to look at all sorts of different ways to prove their identities, including ambitious plans for digital identity. However, we will continue to make sure that those who need a passport as a form of ID will be able to use it. I point out to the hon. Member for Glasgow East—
Caroline Nokes
Central; I apologise. I point out to her that passport fees went down in 2012. She provided us with a comprehensive list of the increases since 2001, but I make no apology for the action of the last Labour Government.
Luciana Berger
I had a moment to check the statistics on smartphone use in the UK. This year, it is 73.12%. Does the Minister therefore accept that we cannot expect the just under 27% of the population who do not have a smartphone to be able to access the service in the way she set out just a moment ago?
Caroline Nokes
I respectfully point out to the hon. Lady that, just because somebody does not have a smartphone, it does not mean that they do not have access to a computer via a library or a desktop computer either at home or at work. As we have heard, a range of steps have been taken, including the work we are doing with ABTA to make the service available in high street travel agencies.
The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood makes an important point on chip failure, although those are rare events. I have to say that I suffer myself from a nine-year-old passport whose chip no longer works. I have never found that to be an impediment to travel, but I cannot use e-passport gates, which makes me very cross. However, I will be renewing the passport shortly. In the event of chip failure, customers can send their passport to us, and if it is confirmed that the chip has failed, we will replace it for free.
An important question was raised about fee waivers. That is a very specific power that we chose to introduce after the recent horrendous tragedy at Grenfell Tower. There was no specific power for Her Majesty’s Passport Office to automatically reissue passports lost in that dreadful tragedy. We have introduced the waiver power, I have to say, sincerely hoping that we are never in a situation in in which we will have to use it. However, as I said, the Passport Office acts with compassion. Certainly when British travellers are overseas and need passport documents restored very quickly, it has a very strong track record in meeting its customer service objectives—I will not say duties. It is absolutely committed to that, and I think it has done well in proving its compassion when those circumstances arise.
As I sought to explain, the planned fee increases are a vital step towards meeting the Government’s ambition for a border, immigration and citizenship system that is increasingly funded by those who use it. They will ensure that we can continue to fund the world-class passport service that British passport holders already receive. There were 46 million passenger crossings through e-passport gates using UK passports in 2017. The UK passport remains excellent value for money. As I have pointed out, fees were reduced in 2012, and there has not been a fee increase since 2009. We currently process 99.9% of straightforward applications within three weeks, and on average, customers making a non-priority application can expect their passport to be issued seven working days after the application is made.
We are committed to meeting the needs and expectations of those who increasingly wish to use digital channels to access Government services, and I am conscious that 33% of applications are already made online. The new fee structure reflects the fact that it costs more to process postal applications than those submitted online, and is in line with key Treasury charging principles.
Operationally, Her Majesty’s Passport Service often works with speed and flexibility to respond to particular customer needs where there is a compassionate case for it. Only recently, the public counter in Glasgow remained open for business despite severe adverse weather conditions, working beyond normal opening times to honour a priority appointment that an applicant had missed due to the bad weather.
With more than 90% of adults in the UK having access to the internet, and third parties being permitted to apply on a person’s behalf, the vast majority of people should face no obstacle to applying online. However, as I have said, we are developing further help for those who wish to apply online but need additional advice or support. We are working to deliver an assisted digital leaflet for relevant support groups to enable them to help their clientele apply online. They will also ensure that their online application route is built in such a way as to be extremely simple to use and compatible with various aids, such as screen readers.
Alison Thewliss
When does the Minister expect the service to come into force, and will it be before the passport fee increase?
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Lady will know, the passport fee increase is scheduled for March of this year. It is certainly our ambition to make sure that all the assistance is available as soon as is practically possible.
We will continue to provide an excellent service to millions of passport holders and applicants. As such, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put,