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Business before Questions
Speaker's Statement
Mr Speaker
Before we come to today’s business, I want to mark the departure of two senior members of the House Service. Penny Young, Librarian and Managing Director of the Research and Information Team, is retiring at the end of the month. Isabel Coman, Managing Director of the Strategic Estates Team, is leaving the House Service in September.
Penny came to the House of Commons in 2015 following a distinguished career in the BBC, and latterly as chief executive of the research organisation NatCen. In her time here, she has consistently championed the provision of high-quality information and research for Members and the public. She has been valued by her team for her supportive and calm direction, and her ability to get to the heart of any issue.
Isabel joined Parliament in March 2020 and has had a huge job, leading not only on major construction projects, but the Maintenance, Customer and Catering and Heritage Collections teams. She has overseen the completion of a number of major estates projects and has set us on a journey to improve the way we approach major works in Parliament. The insight and experience Isabel has brought to her role since joining has been greatly valued, and I am sure will stand her in good stead in her next role at Transport for London.
I am sure the House will join me in thanking Penny and Isabel for their contribution and wishing them well in the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
India is a dynamic, fast-growing trade partner, and a free trade agreement offers the opportunity to deepen our already strong relationship, which was worth £24.3 billion in 2021. Round 5 of trade agreement negotiations began on Monday 18 July and will continue until the end of next week. We have already closed 12 chapters and continue to work hard to reach a balanced and comprehensive agreement. We are in detailed negotiations and discussions on texts now and are confident in our progress with India, as we work towards a comprehensive FTA.
Bob Blackman
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Clearly, doing a trade deal with India is complex and difficult. The European Union, for example, has been trying to do one for 25 years without success, so I wish her and her team well on negotiations. Clearly, it will be challenging to achieve it by Diwali, but I know that she is committed to doing so. Will she set out, for the benefit of the House, the benefits to the UK and to India of the free trade deal she is undertaking?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Our priority in talks has always been to address the significant barriers that businesses face in exporting to India. In the past decade, UK services exports to India have increased by 60% in current prices, totalling £3.6 billion in 2021. However, the reality is that India’s barriers to services trade are still relatively high compared with those of other trading partners, so this FTA will provide a great opportunity to address those barriers and support the UK’s service sector, in particular, to do business in India’s growing markets.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State must know that Huddersfield and West Yorkshire are the beating heart of the manufacturing sector; so many firms are good at exporting, and have expertise and a history of trade with India, but they are still finding huge barriers to any exporting effort they make. Can her Department not really step up the action to help, especially for the small and medium-sized enterprises?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As always, the hon. Member is a champion of businesses in his constituency. He is exactly right: those barriers to trade are still difficult, and the free trade agreement brings us the opportunity to work with India to strip away those market access barriers. We are listening, obviously, through the consultation process. On the FTA process, at the beginning of the year we asked businesses to talk to us and share their own experiences and the particular areas where they wanted us to negotiate reductions in barriers. I hope that we are doing that. I would be very happy to hear directly from the hon. Member’s businesses whether they have particular areas in mind. We are looking to reach a broad and comprehensive agreement that will strip away many of those market access barriers, be they tariff areas around goods or, indeed, those very many areas of service sector activity, which will benefit both sides. We have some highly mutually compatible business opportunities to work on together.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)
This Government continue to seek an excellent trading relationship with our former EU partners, just as we do with other international markets. Hon. Members will be pleased to note that goods exported to the EU for May 2022 were over 17% higher than the 2018 monthly average, so trade here is already increasing. To increase exports, we need to get more British businesses exporting, and to do that the Department has initiatives such as the Export Academy and the export champions scheme that help to give them the knowledge and practical help that they need.
Helen Hayes
Research by the London School of Economics has found a huge drop in the number of trade relationships between UK businesses and the EU, with a 30% decrease in the variety of goods sold. That is a clear indication of the damage that the Government’s Brexit deal is doing to smaller businesses, which cannot afford the increased costs of administration. Will the Minister detail how many small and medium-sized enterprises applied to the Brexit support fund and how many were successful? May I also ask the Minister, on behalf of the small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency, where is the urgency to find solutions to enable SMEs to trade with our EU neighbours once again?
Andrew Griffith
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your welcome. I also thank the hon. Member for her question. Of course, she did not support the EU trade agreement that this Government put in place, so it is quite rich for her now to turn around and say that we are not increasing exports. In my previous answer, I talked about the many interventions that this Government are making, including internationalisation and the Brexit support fund of £38 million that is going to small and medium-sized enterprises to help them overcome the barriers that the protectionist EU puts in place.
Dr Huq
I, too, welcome the Minister to what I hope is a long and fruitful career. My question is about services, not goods. Our biggest export is the English language—it is the lingua franca of the world, isn’t it?—but the language schools that teach teenagers over the summer months are collapsing at quite a scary rate. Only seven out of 20 remain in Hastings, and there are three in Ealing, but before 2019 there were five. Will the Minister—whoever it is at any particular time—and their officials sit down with me and the trade bodies? They say that there has been an 80% drop in business, which is now going to Malta and Ireland. We can do better than this in global Britain. Can we sit down to talk about removing those things for this once lucrative—
Andrew Griffith
Education is indeed one of the great opportunities, and the lingua franca of English is one of the benefits as we seek to do trade deals not just with our friends in Europe but across the whole world. I am very happy to talk to my colleagues in the Department for Education and between us respond to the hon. Lady.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
As we look to the future, does my hon. Friend agree that it goes beyond the EU, as do the opportunities for trade around the world? From my constituency of Watford to the rest of the world, we have the opportunity to build industry and opportunity for everyone.
Andrew Griffith
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is a champion of small business in his constituency. That is why it is so important that, as we seek to do trade deals such as the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership and those with the Gulf, India, Canada and many more, we have SME chapters and SME preference within them.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I join you in wishing Penny and Isabel well for the future. I also welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box.
I ask this question in place of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), who has covid. I am sure that the whole House will wish him a swift recovery. The tonnage of UK trade in food, feed and drink with both the EU and non-EU countries has fallen and has been steadily falling since 2019. Looking back at the record of this Government over the past three years, does the Minister accept that they have failed to make Brexit work?
Andrew Griffith
I am sure Government Members wish the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) a speedy recovery as well.
Tonnage is, of course, only one measure. I note that, for the year to March, the value of British exports actually increased. [Interruption.] It will be a combination of growing markets, a growing number of exporters and a greater ability of exporters to obtain the price for their exports. That is what we on the Conservative Benches are focused on.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I, too, welcome the Minister to his place.
Thanks to Westminster’s disastrous hostile post-Brexit immigration policy, our lack of workers means that Scottish exports of fruit and vegetables to the European Union are down by 53% and of dairy and eggs by 33%. Given that both candidates for Prime Minister as well as, indeed, the Labour Leader have stated that they will not do anything about that, is it not time that the UK Government stood aside and gave the powers over immigration to the Scottish Government so that we can protect these businesses and their Scottish trade?
Andrew Griffith
I am very happy to talk to my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about the access to skilled workers, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in thanking the Department’s Edinburgh-based team for its dedication to promoting the work of exporters from Scotland.
Drew Hendry
That answer will not give any comfort to those growers who are struggling at the moment. Of course, trade goes both ways, and our importing businesses are being hammered by long delays and increased costs. A single invoice shared with me by a small importer in Inverness, Oil and Vinegar, showed many new charges from the UK Government, running to many hundreds of pounds of additional costs. It contained separate lines for duty, admin fees and import custom fees, and the largest of all the costs was a curiously titled “Customs Add”. Does the Minister know how much the Treasury is raking in from these schemes? It must be vast sums. Will it call for any of it to be returned to those struggling businesses?
Andrew Griffith
I share the hon. Gentleman’s pain in hearing of the friction presented to British firms in seeking to do trade internationally. That is why Scotland remaining in this great Union is a great advantage to British businesses that want a single one-stop shop. If he has not already availed himself of the Export Support Service’s helpline, I would be very happy to connect his businesses to that.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)
Her Majesty’s Government have been clear that there will be no reduction in British labour protections in signing up to new free trade deals. Our new agreements with Australia and New Zealand demonstrate that. We engage extensively with trade unions to make sure that the interests of workers are fully considered in our policy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has hosted trade unions, including the TUC, at the recent UK-US trade dialogues.
Dame Diana Johnson
With the greatest of respect to the Minister, given the contrasts and contradictions in the Government’s approach around things such as the P&O ferry scandal and the recent events with the rail industry, can he tell us what guarantee he can provide to the House that the Government will not sail down the river the rights of working people in this country?
Mr Jayawardena
I would point to precedent. The United Kingdom has ratified all eight of the fundamental International Labour Organisation conventions. We continue to encourage our partners to do the same around the world. The agreements with Australia and New Zealand, as I said earlier, reaffirm our commitment to comply with the core international labour obligations that we are party to.
Chi Onwurah
When I visited Washington DC with the British-American Parliamentary Group, I was told in no uncertain terms—I know that the Secretary of State had the same message at the Baltimore talks—that there could be no trade agreement with the United States that did not, first, protect workers’ rights and also reflect the workers’ voice. Will the Minister set out the detailed process by which he will ensure that British workers’ voices will shape the prospective deal with the United States and how those voices will be reflected throughout international discussions? I know that the Secretary of State’s predecessor met the American trade union movement. I think it is really important that British workers’ voices are reflected consistently in deals as well.
Mr Jayawardena
I thank the hon. Lady for the question and I can confirm that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has met the same bodies. We engage extensively with trade unions to make sure that the interests of workers are fully consulted in our trade policy. We have a trade union advisory group, the TUC is a part of our strategic trade advisory group and, of course, this Conservative side of the House represents the views of hard-working people across the country.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The Government are currently negotiating a free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council. The majority of the Gulf countries do not meet basic international standards for workers’ rights, such as the right to unionise. Why on earth, therefore, did the Government drop human rights and the rule of law from their stated negotiation objectives?
Mr Jayawardena
We decide on future deals based on the potential benefit to our economy, economic trends and whether we can negotiate a quality agreement supporting the British people and the British national interest. Closer engagement is how we increase our influence around the world and support higher standards, including with countries that might have rights that differ from ours. The United Kingdom will not compromise on our high labour standards, and we will continue to work hard to maintain those standards through our free trade agreement programme.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)
We publish more licensing data than any other country. Yesterday, we published our annual report covering 2021. The data reveal that of 4,234 licensing decisions on standard individual export licences, 96.1% were issued, 1.5% were refused and, because of our sanctions on Russia and Belarus, 2.4% were revoked. The Government remain committed to openness on strategic export licensing to provide Parliament with the means to hold us to account.
Jeff Smith
In February, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs issued its biggest ever fine of £2.7 million for breach of the arms exports controls. HMRC has refused to publish any details so we do not know who was fined, the name of the company, the military goods exported or where they ended up. How does the Minister expect us to have any faith or confidence in our arms export controls when they are so shrouded in secrecy?
Mr Jayawardena
The hon. Gentleman refers to HMRC which does not fall under my Department, but I will ensure that the relevant Minister provides him with an answer.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I heard the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), but the reality is that the changes to licensing criteria have reduced transparency and accountability. Can the Minister explain the rationale for changing Government guidance on granting licences from refusing a licence if there is a clear risk that items may be used in violation of international humanitarian law to if the Government determine there is a clear risk?
Mr Jayawardena
As we have left the European Union, we have decided that it is right to review many aspects of our system. This is one part, and we have made the wording of the criteria clearer than before to provide certainty to exporters and others.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)
The Government are committed to promoting the UK’s world leading strengths in services. Latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that service exports were £316 billion in the 12 months to the end of May, an increase of 7% on the previous 12 months. The Government’s export strategy, published in November 2021 by the Secretary of State, recognises the importance of services and commits the Government to working with the sector in its implementation. That includes working with the CBI-led Trade in Services Council to understand and promote trade in services.
Steven Bonnar
The Centre for Economic Policy Research has calculated that since Brexit there has been a 6% drop in service exports to the EU. Services are Scotland’s biggest export, so what, if anything, is the Department doing to stabilise service exports, never mind grow them? There is a real fear that the Government have no real plan for progress or change.
Andrew Griffith
As we recover, we expect to see a continued increase in services exports. The hon. Member is right that Scotland is a significant exporter of services—worth more than £21 billion in 2020-21—making it the third largest exporting region in the UK. I wish all of our Scottish service exporters well, and it is the work of this Department to try to continue to grow that.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)
Removing trade barriers boosts our exports to new and familiar markets around the world. We have resolved 396 barriers around the world in the past two years, and just 45 of the 192 barriers we resolved in the last financial year could be worth around £5 billion to businesses across our country. If we can remove the next 100 trade barriers on our most wanted list, it has the potential to deliver export opportunities for British businesses worth around £20 billion. As one example, last month we removed barriers in Mongolia that prevented the export of British poultry and fish, opening up a market worth £10 million.
Selaine Saxby
Many of my North Devon farmers and the National Farmers Union are concerned about food imports, but given the quality of our British food and drink, and the vast global market for our superior produce, what support has my hon. Friend’s Department put in place to promote and help farmers export around the world?
Mr Jayawardena
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We see real potential for British food and drink exports to grow, particularly in high-growth markets where the middle classes are expanding—notably the Asia- Pacific region. We work closely with farming and food organisations, such as the NFU, to deliver a practical range of export support for farmers and food businesses. We are removing trade barriers globally, as I have referenced, including the ban on British beef in the Philippines, opening up a market worth £375 million a year to British farmers. We are expanding our overseas network of more than 100 agriculture, food and drink trade advisers to include eight new dedicated attachés, who will focus on unlocking trade barriers for our great British farmers.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
What a load of bollards the Government are putting in the way of British trade with other parts of the world, and in particular with the European Union. Historically, loads of British orchestras, theatre groups, ballet groups and bands have toured easily across the whole of the European Union, and endless Committees have been told by Ministers that it is all being sorted out. The truth is that they are now prevented from taking that British export across the European Union. When is any one of these Ministers actually going to do something and get it sorted?
Mr Jayawardena
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which he puts in his usual way. The truth is that we continue to bang the drum for British exports of all kinds around the world, and we will continue to do that with the EU and beyond.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)
The Department is delivering prosperity through trade and investment to all parts of the United Kingdom. In addition to UK-wide initiatives such as the UK Export Academy for smaller enterprises, we have established teams in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, and I hope in my role to be visiting them over the coming months. Those teams will bring business support closer to businesses in the nations and work in partnership with devolved Administrations.
Dave Doogan
I thank the Minister for his answer, but it is clear to farmers across Scotland, nowhere more so than in Angus, that Brexit has made a great many things harder and more expensive, made nothing any easier and created no more opportunity whatever. [Interruption.] That will be the same in Banff and Buchan, by the way. With regard to Australia, and without reference to whisky or salmon, what dedicated analysis has his Department undertaken that evidences net increases for Scotch beef and lamb exports to Australia in quantitative, not rhetorical terms? If he cannot say, will he write to me with that data, please?
Andrew Griffith
I note that Invest in Angus, based in the hon. Member’s constituency, estimates that food and drink is worth more than £200 million to the Angus domestic economy. We are supporting farmers and food producers across Scotland, including in Angus, and that is one of the reasons why we are seeking opportunities for greater agricultural exports through the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership and the Indian trade deal, and with the Gulf.
Patricia Gibson
I am sure that James Withers from Scotland Food & Drink will be interested to hear what the Minister has said, because James has said:
“Brexit has made absolutely nothing better and it’s made a lot of things worse.”
Does the Minister share my concern—I hope he does—that the candidates in the current Tory leadership race are simply not being up front about the mess we are in because of Brexit? They need to listen carefully to businesses and make exporting easier, instead of pretending that Brexit is working for business in Scotland and across the UK, because clearly it is not.
Andrew Griffith
I look forward to meeting Scotland Food & Drink and hearing about the positive opportunities. I hope that it is not overly infected by the hon. Lady’s pessimism about the prospects for this great Union outside the European Union.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Welsh food and drink exports have no better showcase than the Royal Welsh show—the largest agricultural show in Europe—which concludes in my constituency today. It has been fantastic to see visitors from right around the world back on the showground. I want to pay particular tribute to Steve Hughson, who is stepping down as the show’s chief executive after 10 very successful years. Does my hon. Friend agree that agricultural shows are fantastically helpful for boosting our exports around the world?
Andrew Griffith
I thank my hon. Friend for promoting the great opportunities for British food and drink. The Royal Welsh show is a great institution and I am sure that everyone on the Government side of the House thanks Steve Hughson for his endeavours.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)
Small and medium-sized businesses make up a huge part of Britain’s economy, accounting for over 60% of employment and more than half of all turnover from the UK private sector. The Department for International Trade is doing all it can to help businesses overcome the barriers that the protectionist bloc of the European Union now imposes when consumers seek to buy goods from elsewhere in the world.
Wera Hobhouse
The only thing that Brexit has brought for many small businesses in Bath is increased costs, paperwork and border delays, as has been confirmed by the Public Accounts Committee—more barriers, not less. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Will the Government please reintroduce the SME Brexit support fund, with a simplified application process and a significantly expanded remit?
Andrew Griffith
I am proud of the endeavours of my colleagues and those in local enterprise partnerships up and down the UK in disbursing the £38 million internationalisation fund to support businesses as we go through some of the changes that result from leaving the European Union and seek opportunities elsewhere in the world. I will of course undertake to look at any way we can make it simpler for small businesses, in particular, to engage with the Department.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Penny Mordaunt)
The UK is well on the way to joining CPTPP, one of the largest trading blocs in the world. We are now in market access negotiations, which are the final phase of the accession process.
Michael Fabricant
May I first say what a great pleasure it is to ask my right hon. Friend—and she will always be my friend—this question? Will she say—[Interruption.] Sorry, that was an emotional moment, Mr Speaker; I hope you will forgive me. Will she outline the real advantages that CPT—whatever the bloody thing is called—[Interruption.] Whatever the ruddy thing is called. Will should outline the benefits of membership, and will she perhaps also say what sort of difference it will make to our trading relationship with the United States, which is also a member?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my very dear hon. Friend for that question. He is right to point to the benefits of joining this trading bloc: 99.9% of all UK goods are eligible for tariff-free access, it will increase wages in this country, and obviously it will help our relationships with other nations outside the bloc. The UK moving to the accession process will encourage and strengthen other like-minded free-trade nations around the world to co-operate and do more together, and to reform the World Trade Organisation.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Minister’s answer. If the United Kingdom becomes part of this bloc, will the Minister outline what trading advantages will come directly to Northern Ireland and its businesses? We obviously want to gain from it as well.
Penny Mordaunt
Those very same benefits will also apply to Northern Ireland, and the hon. Gentleman will know that we are providing extra support to help with the particular export opportunities, including for services, that are so strong in Northern Ireland. We are determined not only with this accession, but with the other FTAs we are doing, that all businesses can benefit, because that is obviously our end goal.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for a fantastic, brave, clean campaign for the leadership of the Conservative party and to be Prime Minister.
As a passionate Brexiteer, does my right hon. Friend agree that being a force for good in the world for free trade is an absolutely honourable goal and one that the UK should promote at every opportunity?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my right hon. Friend. I am amazed to find myself here this morning given my reported work ethic, but here I am.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the UK, a G7 nation, leaving the regulatory orbit of the EU is an international event. It gives us a huge opportunity, alongside nations like the United States, to set out our view of the world and of capitalism and to fight for the things we believe in.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Environmental campaigners have raised concerns that joining the CPTPP would put our deforestation commitments at risk because it drops generic trade tariffs. What assurances can the Minister provide that our trade deals will not put our environmental commitments at risk?
Penny Mordaunt
I would point to the forestry programmes that this nation has funded—some more than 30 years old—in parts of the world that are covered by this trading bloc. This country has an important history under successive Governments of protecting not only our own environment but that of other nations. I ask the hon. Lady to point those programmes out to any of her constituents who are concerned.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
From swerving eight invitations to attend the International Trade Committee to avoiding bringing a debate with a vote to this Chamber before ratification, we have seen a truly shameless attempt from the Department for International Trade to dodge to any form of scrutiny of the trade deal with Australia. With the UK now negotiating membership of the CPTPP, I have a simple question: will the Minister promise that this House will be granted a full and timely debate before any deal is ratified—yes or no?
Penny Mordaunt
I will ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to set out any parliamentary business and timetable for any future trade agreements. We have clearly committed to a particular process. For my part, every time the International Trade Committee or other body of this House has asked me to go before it, I have. That is the attitude of the ministerial team, and we will continue to do that.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Penny Mordaunt)
The trade deals with Australia and New Zealand are expected to increase bilateral trade by 53% and 59% respectively in the long run.
Kerry McCarthy
It has been revealed that when the Foreign Secretary was Secretary of State for International Trade she ignored advice from her officials that the Australia and New Zealand trade agreements would shrink our food and farming sectors. I think we can all agree that that is a disgrace—[Interruption.] I am glad someone got the joke. The food and farming sectors are already hurting due to severe labour shortages and rising costs, and these rushed trade agreements could be the final nail in the coffin. If the Foreign Secretary cannot be trusted to do the right thing for farmers, can she be trusted to run the country?
Penny Mordaunt
If the hon. Lady would like to write with the specific details, I am sure the Department will be able to provide a full answer to her assertions. The economic modelling was based on full employment, which does not reflect the change in employment between sectors and, critically, does not estimate jobs lost or gained in any sector. However, if she writes with the specific details, I am sure we can address that for her.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)
Increasing the volume and reach of British exports is at the heart of the Department’s export strategy. It includes a comprehensive set of support for exporters, combined with seeking trade deals in the areas of greatest opportunity internationally.
Liz Twist
Tourism to the UK is our third-largest service export. I am sure the Minister, or at least the Secretary of State, will agree that the north-east is a fantastic place to visit and that we want to encourage visitors. In September 2020, the Government ended the VAT retail export scheme and the VAT shopping airside sales concession for airports, such as Newcastle airport. With the majority of visits including shopping as part of the trip, including shopping in Newcastle Metrocentre and, no doubt, Berwick, what discussions is the Minister having with the Treasury on that anomaly?
Andrew Griffith
I assure the hon. Lady that it is not just the Secretary of State but the Exports Minister who agrees about the potential of the tourism economy. We on the Government Benches will do everything we can to make the most of that opportunity, just as we are with freeports, which we are able to establish by being outside the EU. I note that one of those freeports is in the north-east.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
I welcome the Exports Minister to his place. I hope he will join his Front-Bench colleagues, both past and present, who have on many occasions come to Sedgefield to visit our outstanding export businesses. At last week’s Great Yorkshire show, I met Billy Maughan, one of my local farmers, and other members of the National Farmers Union, who talked to me about the opportunities from deals such as the India deal. It would be great if he could meet them to explore those opportunities further.
Andrew Griffith
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for all sorts of businesses in Sedgefield, including his local farmer. I would be very happy to arrange to meet him and Billy and continue what is clearly a tradition.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am asking this question on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), who is away on parliamentary business.
There is a concern among businesses that unlike its predecessor, the trade access programme, the current trade show programme will support a company only if it is exhibiting for the first time or venturing into new markets. We all know that marketing for export requires repeated efforts. There is evidence that there is now a drop in the number of UK exhibitors in some sectors, just when the Government are struggling to stimulate growth in the UK economy. Will the Minister now listen to businesses hoping to export, make the scheme more generous and widen the access criteria to allow businesses to benefit from the support by attending more than once?
Andrew Griffith
As we seek to get more businesses exporting, the first step is clearly often the hardest, so it seems thoroughly reasonable to put the highest amount of support into helping businesses make that first step outside the UK. The trade show programme supports over 128 different overseas trade shows across 28 different markets. I will listen to the hon. Lady, and I have been meeting business organisations in my first few days in this role. We will make sure that the trade show programme, which is a great example of the Department supporting British businesses, remains fully supported.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The Government are committed to effective scrutiny of trade agreements. We have put in place enhanced transparency and scrutiny arrangements for every stage of FTA negotiations. That includes publishing our objectives prior to talks, providing additional time for scrutiny at the end of the process and putting in place the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission to report on new agreements. We are delivering on those agreements. The Australia FTA has been available for scrutiny for seven months, enabling three Select Committees to take evidence and to report on the agreement prior to ratification.
Mr Carmichael
We all know what Government undertakings in relation to trade agreements are worth, and it is not an awful lot. If the Secretary of State does not believe me, she can ask the farmers and crofters in my constituency. Is the breach of the undertaking on the trade agreement with Australia to be a one-off, or is it the start of a course of conduct?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As I set out, we have followed a broad and open process. There is no breach of any situation such as the right hon. Member suggests. The arrangements in place are robust. We want to make sure that as we go through the process—there will be enabling legislation for the Australia and New Zealand trade deals in the autumn—there will be an opportunity for colleagues who wish to raise issues. We know that this process is effective. I talk to fellow Trade Ministers around the world who work with us and it is interesting that they consider our process to be very robust and very inclusive, both at a parliamentary level and with the business community.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
Our exports strategy, coupled with our trade, investment and foreign policy, are a potent combination. For our brilliant UK exporters to reach the people and places where they can be most effective, we need to be able to build closer relationships around the globe, so my Department has launched our Government-to-Government capability. We can now bring industry experience and UK support to provide tailor-made solutions around the world. G2G is a powerful new tool for the UK. It better connects our prosperity, trade and diplomacy agendas and opens exciting new possibilities for our businesses. We are working closely with our Ukrainian counterparts to get UK businesses delivering crucial repairs to bridges, modular homes and railways before the winter sets in. New tools such as our G2G capability will allow us to achieve more in Ukraine and globally, ensuring that UK trade acts as a force for good in the world.
David Duguid
We have heard today about the value of agricultural shows across our United Kingdom, not least in my constituency where we had the New Deer show last weekend and we have the Turriff show, the largest two-day agricultural show in Scotland, at the end of the month. They provide a huge opportunity to showcase the wonderful Scottish food and drink that we have to offer. Will my right hon. Friend confirm what DIT support is available directly to the fabulous Scottish food and drink producers, and what conversations she has had with the Scottish Government to make sure that that support is made directly available to those producers?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We are indeed hearing of the wonderful shows that go on across the UK through our summer months and I commend all Members to visit some if they can. Speaking as a north-east MP who occasionally pops across the border to enjoy some Scottish hospitality, the Scottish shows are as good as any others.
The DIT Scotland team are now based in Edinburgh; we established the new office last year. We have trade and investment expertise there dedicated to supporting Scotland’s businesses to grow through their exporting efforts. We also work closely with the Scottish Government to ensure that all businesses in Scotland have access to DIT support and the full reach of the UK’s global network, including what has been set out by the new Minister responsible for exports—the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith).
Mr Speaker
Never forget the Royal Lancashire agricultural show. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
We Opposition Members have long argued that the Government are not doing enough to support exporters. It is now clear that the former Minister, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), absolutely agrees. He argued that the trade access programme is underfunded and said of it, “We support too few shows, we don’t send enough business, our pavilions are often decent but overshadowed by bigger and better ones from our competitors.” He is absolutely right, is he not?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
It was a pleasure to have the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), in the team; he has been a champion for growing our new tools. Brexit gave us opportunities to own our trade policy and to start to really champion and talk to our businesses about where they can find opportunities across the globe, whether for goods or services. We have a fantastic suite of tools in the export strategy, which we launched in November last year, and we can now really push on with that. As with everything, perhaps Labour Members can tell me where I can rapidly find a great deal more cash to make these measures much more effective. In the meantime, we have put together a fantastic fund that we will continue to use to encourage our businesses to trade.
Mr Speaker
Order. These are topical questions, not “War and Peace” questions. Nick Thomas-Symonds.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
The truth is that the Government have fallen behind woefully on their manifesto commitment to have 80% of UK trade covered by free trade agreements by the end of this year, and there is no comprehensive US trade deal in sight. Something has been going severely wrong. I welcome back the Minister for Trade Policy, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), after her efforts in the Tory leadership contest, but the Secretary of State is far less complimentary about the right hon. Member’s efforts in the Department. She said:
“There have been a number of times when she hasn’t been available, which would have been useful, and other ministers have picked up the pieces.”
Mr Speaker—[Interruption.] Conservative Members shout “Shameful” at me, but these are the Conservatives’ words about each other, not my words. The reality is that it is the British economy that has been suffering. Our projected growth is the lowest in the G7 apart from sanctioned Russia. Is not the truth that trade policy is yet another Tory failure?
Mr Speaker
Order. These are topicals. Topicals are meant to let those people who did not get in earlier ask a question. They are about Back Benchers, not about Front Benchers indulging themselves at the expense of others. Secretary of State—briefly.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I have a fantastic team of Ministers, which is exactly why we are able to do all that we can to make sure that our UK businesses have access to UK Government support to get their fantastic goods and services out across the world. We are rolling out the FTA programme at incredible pace by the rest of the world’s standards, which we are fêted for, and we will continue to do that with the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, India, the Gulf states, Switzerland and Israel—all ongoing at the moment.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)
I congratulate my hon. Friend, who has a strong reputation on the Conservative Benches as a champion of the many excellent businesses in his constituency, including Sterling Thermal Technology, whose products are not just sold around the world, contributing to the path to net zero, but used, I note, in our own Hinkley Point C. One of the benefits of leaving the European Union is that we can now tailor trade deals to suit the needs of British businesses as well as prioritising the markets that are of most interest to exporters.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The opportunity for the TRA, as our independent adviser, to look at these issues is one that we have great respect for. As Members across the House will understand, we await its decision and we will look at that in due course.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The seafood processing sector based in my constituency and neighbouring Grimsby is anxious to increase its exports. Will the appropriate Minister meet me and representatives of the industry so we can push forward with a new initiative?
Andrew Griffith
I will be very happy to meet my hon. Friend’s constituents.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Andrew Griffith
I am sorry to hear that the exports of the hon. Lady’s local businesses are falling. That is not the general experience in the UK; the value of exports was up 9% in the 12 months to the end of March. If she would like, I will write to her with the comprehensive set of measures that I hope she and other hon. Members will take the summer months to promote to small businesses in their constituencies.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I have always been struck by the quiet diligence with which the Minister for Trade Policy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), does her job. Can she please update me on progress on signing individual deals with US states, which my farmers in Rutland and Melton are particularly interested in?
The Minister for Trade Policy (Penny Mordaunt)
This week we have continued our negotiations with Utah; yesterday, we also signed the second state-level memorandum of understanding with North Carolina, which will be based on green growth. We are currently negotiating with half of all US states. The first eight deals that we will sign will cover 20% of the US economy and that will open up procurement, enable mutual recognition of qualifications, and enable British businesses to take a larger share of exports of both goods and services.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As I set out earlier, we have a robust process of transparency and we will continue to follow it as we bring more ratified free trade agreements to the House in due course.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Topically, the Government have announced yet another deal with the American states, in no small part due to the allegedly “work-shy” efforts of the Minister for Trade Policy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). Think what she could achieve if her focus was actually on the job!
The economies of many of these American states are larger than those of European countries. Texas is the 12th largest economy in the world. Can my right hon. Friend give us a cumulative total of the sort of economies that we are dealing with in these trade deals and that are likely to be signing up over the next few months? I think that total is considerable, thanks to her efforts.
Penny Mordaunt
States such as California and Texas are super-economies: if they were nations, they would be the seventh and eighth largest economies in the world. We hope that Texas will be in the first eight deals that we sign. In addition to the potential for their economies and ours, this is also about bringing together smart people, money and ideas to solve problems that we are all grappling with. Texas in particular is doing a huge amount on fintech blockchain; the synergy between what it is doing and the innovation in the City of London could be really special.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Small businesses in my constituency wanting to export to the European Union tell me that they have to fill in customs declarations of up to 70 pages. Why are the Government putting such barriers in the way of small business exports?
Andrew Griffith
It is not at all the intention of the Government to put barriers in place; this Government are about knocking down barriers to export and unleashing the potential of small businesses across the United Kingdom to make the most of the opportunities not just in the European Union but in the rest of the world, as we have heard from Government Members.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced enhanced free trade deal negotiations with our close allies and friends in the state of Israel. Will she set out for the benefit of the House the aims of those negotiations and what the benefits to the UK will be?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)
I thank my hon. Friend for his diligence in championing the opportunities from free trade with Israel and many other countries around the world, including India. As two like-minded partners with expertise in areas such as tech and innovation, we are very confident that we can agree an ambitious deal that will complement both economies and showcase our leading businesses, growing our trade even further than we already have today.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I was interested to learn from the Minister about the close relationship that Department for International Trade officials apparently enjoy with the Scottish Government—something that I suspect will be news to Scottish Ministers.
The Lords report on the Australia-UK trade deal criticised the fact that, despite the heavy impact of the deal on the food and drink sectors in the devolved nations, those nations have been shut out of negotiating the terms of that deal and no doubt future ones. Will the devolved nations be consulted from the outset and throughout negotiations during future trade deals, and will Ministers make Parliament aware of their views?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We have regular and ongoing discussions and a good relationship with all the devolved Administrations, but of course the trade policy programme is reserved to the UK.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
The volume of the trade deals that we are hearing about is incredibly encouraging and shows the role that the UK has around the world. Will the Minister please update me on the trade deals with the Gulf?
Mr Jayawardena
My hon. Friend is a great champion for businesses throughout his constituency of Watford, and they will want to seize the benefits of new trade deals, including with the Gulf Co-operation Council, a group of six countries that want to trade more with the United Kingdom. The GCC is already equivalent to the fourth largest trading partner with Britain, with total trade worth more than £33 billion last year. We are going to boost the economy even further to create jobs, increase wages and support levelling up throughout our country.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
According to HMRC data, UK food exports to the EU fell by 19% in the 15 months following Brexit, at a cost of £2.4 billion. What steps are Ministers taking specifically to protect and promote our fantastic UK food businesses in future trade deals?
Andrew Griffith
Of course, the aftermath of covid reduced trade of all kinds with every part of the world. This Government’s job was to protect businesses in the aftermath and is now to use our dedicated food and drink advisers across the Department’s offices to make sure the world understands the enormous opportunity for the high-quality produce produced not only in the hon. Member’s constituency but throughout the rest of the United Kingdom.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. You almost caught me off guard there, but I do have a question and it refers to Northern Ireland. I know that the Secretary of State is particularly keen to ensure that all the advantages that come out of any trade deals always follow down the line so that my local businesses, especially those in the farming sector, can take advantage of them. Will the Secretary of State confirm that we will always get that advantage?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for making sure that the important voice of Northern Ireland was heard in DIT questions today. Northern Ireland remains at the heart of the UK and we will make sure that, in respect of all our trade deals and, indeed, in the work we do to reduce market-access barriers, our teams speak to businesses in Northern Ireland and throughout the rest of the UK. We are working to support them to make great British exports around the world.
Net Zero Strategy: High Court Ruling
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to provide a response to the High Court ruling that the net zero strategy is unlawful.
The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)
Over the past three decades, the UK has driven down emissions by more than 45%— the fastest reduction of any G7 country. We have one of the most ambitious carbon-reduction plans in the world, pledging to reduce emissions by at least 68% by 2030 and by 77% by 2035, compared with 1990 levels, before of course reaching net zero by 2050. Our track record speaks for itself: the UK overachieved against the first carbon budget and exceeded the second by nearly 14%. The latest projections show that we are on track to meet the third carbon budget as well.
In its judgment on the judicial review of the net zero strategy, the High Court found that Government had not complied with Climate Change Act 2008 in relation to some specific procedural issues and the level of analysis published as part of the 164-page net zero strategy. I stress that the judge has made no criticism about the substance of our plans to meet net zero, which are well on track. Indeed, even the claimants in the case described the net zero strategy as “laudable”. The independent Climate Change Committee described the net zero strategy as
“an ambitious and comprehensive strategy that marks a significant step forward for UK climate policy”
and as
“the world’s most comprehensive plan to reach Net Zero”.
We are now considering the implications of the Court judgment and deciding whether to appeal. As we do this, our focus will remain resolutely on supporting people in the face of globally high energy prices and on boosting our energy security. Our recent British energy security strategy—launched by the Prime Minister—which puts Great Britain at the leading edge of the global energy revolution, will deliver a more independent, more secure energy system and support consumers to manage their energy bills.
Kerry McCarthy
Let us be clear: we are here because the High Court has ruled that the Government’s net zero strategy is unlawful and is in breach of the Climate Change Act. The Climate Change Committee, which the Minister cites, said only a few weeks ago that the Government
“will not deliver Net Zero”
on current projections. Not only have the Government failed to set out the detail of how they will reach net zero, but Ministers cannot even do basic maths, because, as the High Court made clear, adding up the emissions cuts in the strategy will leave a 5% shortfall. How embarrassing that his Department must be dragged to court to hear what we have known for months—that the numbers simply do not stack up.
This week has made it clear why we have to act now. The country has suffered through a sweltering heatwave causing fires across the country and infrastructure failure. But at a crucial time, this Government are directionless and collapsing in on themselves. The High Court has ordered that a revised strategy must be presented by next March. That will be under a new Prime Minister. Yet the current candidates have made their views on net zero clear. One has spent two years in the Treasury blocking climate action that might have saved the Government this embarrassment; the other wants to scrap green levies.
So forgive me if I have little faith that the situation is set to improve—but it has to. We need to insulate millions of homes to slash emissions and bring down bills. We need a green sprint for renewable energy to wean ourselves off expensive fossil fuels. Labour will deliver that, and more, with our £28 billion climate investment pledge. That is what the public want and what the planet needs, so will the Government get their act together, meet their legal obligations, and finally deliver the green future that we need?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that set of questions. Let me first stress that the net zero strategy—I have it here—is a very comprehensive document with pages and pages of annexes as well. It would be well worth all Members re-reading it today. It is a comprehensive plan for meeting our climate targets, outlining measures to move to a green and sustainable future. The Court found that we had not complied with the Climate Change Act only in relation to specific procedural issues and the level of analysis published as part of the strategy. The judge agreed that it did not need to contain measures with quantifiable effects to enable the full 100% emissions reductions required. [Interruption.] We are talking here about a strategy for the next 28 years. Inevitably, there will be some evolution in the strategy, and inevitably there will need to be some flexibility in a strategy with a 28-year timeframe.
The hon. Lady asked about the Conservative leadership candidates. In all the hustings that I have been to—and I think I have been to almost all of them—all the candidates made strong commitments to meet net zero, including at the hustings chaired by her near neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore).
When it comes to net zero and climate change, I am not going to take any lessons from Labour, which is the party that said in 1997:
“We see no economic case for…new nuclear power stations.”
That has set us back decades. There is a reason why 11 of our 12 power stations are coming off-stream before the end of this decade: the decisions, or non-decisions, by the last Labour Government, who increased our dependence on gas from 32% to 46% of our electricity generation—which could only have cheered Vladimir Putin. On energy efficiency, we inherited a position where 14% of properties in this country were rated A to C. We have increased that to 46%. When we took office, renewables made up only 7% of our electricity generation mix. That is now at 43%. So I am going to take no lessons from Labour. It is this Government who are taking the tough decisions, including on Sizewell yesterday, and moving forward on renewable energy and nuclear—not any of the Opposition parties.
Mr Speaker
We now come to SNP spokesperson Deidre Brock. [Interruption.] I am sorry. I did not think anybody was standing. I call David Duguid.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I did wonder if I had managed to catch your eye.
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this Government, whoever leads them after the summer, will remain committed to the net zero by 2050 target, given that, as he rightly said, in successive hustings, all candidates confirmed their commitment to maintaining that target? Will he also confirm that the UK oil and gas companies are at the forefront of driving forward the energy transition through so many different initiatives, such as carbon capture and storage, which will be so important to the St Fergus gas terminal in my constituency?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is correct. He is always a strong voice for all the industries in his constituency, whether they be traditional oil and gas or those making the transition to carbon capture, utilisation and storage, hydrogen and so on. All these technologies will be crucial. The Climate Change Committee itself has said that carbon capture, utilisation and storage is “essential” to the achievement of our net zero goals. We remain on course to reach net zero by 2050 as a world leader, particularly under the COP presidency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma).
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokes- person, Deidre Brock.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The judge ruled that the Minister could not have “rationally” reached the conclusions he did or made the decisions he did as a consequence of his lack of information in making the policy. If, as the judge ruled, the Minister could not have “rationally” made his decisions, on what irrational basis did he make them?
What confidence has the Minister that his Government’s climate policy can be fixed when both candidates for his party's leadership are at best lukewarm on climate issues, and at worst willing to sacrifice net zero? The Foreign Secretary said this morning that she would scrap the green levies, for example.
It is estimated that Scotland is missing out on 2,500 green jobs owing to the languid pace at which the UK Government are developing the renewables sector. Does the Minister agree that the UK Government should devolve financial powers to Scotland so that the Scottish Government can push forward renewables and clean technologies where the UK Government have failed to do so?
In 2020, the Met Office conducted a hypothetical thought experiment to determine what the weather would be like in 2050 if climate change accelerated as expected. Several of those projections are coming true now, 28 years early. Does the Minister not agree that it is vital for our plans to fight climate change to be up to the job, and that the next Prime Minister must remain completely committed to that fight?
Greg Hands
It is entirely wrong to say that any of the candidates to be the next Prime Minister are lukewarm on climate issues. On the contrary, the commitment to net zero from all the candidates—well, both the candidates in the last round—is absolute. I am a little surprised by the Scottish National party at times: this is the UK Government who brought COP26 to Glasgow and brought it to the attention of the world, and all that the SNP has done in the last year is snipe from the sidelines.
The hon. Lady mentioned jobs. There are already 430,000 people across the United Kingdom working in low-carbon businesses. The British energy security strategy will increase the number of clean jobs in the UK, supporting 90,000 jobs in offshore wind, 10,000 in solar power and 12,000 in the UK hydrogen industry by 2028. I think it is about time the SNP got behind our energy transition—supporting, for example, the move to nuclear power, which is a key part of decarbonised electricity generation—and got behind what the UK Government are doing on behalf of the people of Scotland, as well as the rest of the UK.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I attended nearly all the hustings as well, and I was pleased to hear all the candidates support the net zero target and express their commitment to climate change. One of the challenges that we face, however, is the fact that the homes of people in rural areas are less likely to be well insulated and less likely to be easy to insulate. Furthermore, we have no mass transit systems—which, indeed, would be impractical in most rural areas—so we rely much more on fuels for our cars. What can the Minister do to ensure that, as we move towards climate change as a country, we do so in a way that does not penalise those in the countryside most financially, but spreads the risk and the penalty evenly?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is a continuous and doughty champion on behalf of her rural constituents, and she has raised with me previously issues relating to properties that are off the gas grid and the costs of heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas. I am looking at these matters very closely, and have held roundtables both with Members of Parliament and with the industry. I urge her to engage—in fact, I am sure she has already done so—with the trade body, the UK & Ireland Fuel Distributors Association, which will make a strong case that there is a competitive market there. Obviously prices are high—driven by the high global prices of energy, particularly oil—but a price cap, for example, would be an inappropriate means for those companies to use.
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend that the commitment of this party and this Government to net zero is absolute, and one of the strongest in the world.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Oil and gas giants have driven the climate crisis, yet one Cabinet Minister banked £1.3 million from an oil company while a Back-Bench MP, and another has accepted £100,000 from a firm run by an oil trader. I will be tabling a Bill to kick oil and gas money out of politics. Is it not time we did just that?
Greg Hands
That is a familiar refrain from the hon. Gentleman, and he ignores a lot of evidence that those same companies are big contributors to our world-leading renewable energy programme. We have Europe’s largest installed offshore wind capacity, we are moving into tidal, we are increasingly moving into onshore wind and we are ramping up our solar ambitions. A large part of our hydrogen production and our carbon capture, utilisation and storage is being done by energy companies. I look forward to seeing whether the Labour Front Bench supports his Bill.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Climate Change Committee has warned that the Government are on track to cut only 40% of the emissions required to reach the 2050 net zero target. The reality is that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is not sufficiently senior to co-ordinate the Government’s net zero response. Does the Minister agree that, perhaps as part of the evolving strategy he has described, we should have a Department and a Secretary of State for climate change, as there used to be, so they can be held accountable for delivering on that net zero target?
Greg Hands
That is a slightly curious question. The hon. Lady said the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was insufficiently senior to take the decisions, but she then appeared to propose halving the size of his Department, which would probably make him less senior.
On the hon. Lady’s central point about the net zero strategy, this country remains on course to deliver net zero by 2050. Nobody ever said it would be straightforward or easy. The strategy set a 29-year path at the time of publication, and we are on good course. I have every confidence that the strategy will be the blueprint as we move forward.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I do not recall so much complacency oozing from the Government Front Bench in a very long time. I do not know about the Minister’s background, but when I studied economics, I was impressed by what John Maynard Keynes said:
“In the long run we are all dead.”
I believe the heat over the last few days means that 2050 will be too late for much of our population. We have to revise the target and move faster. There are some good things coming, but there are still so many closet climate change deniers in the Government and in the country. It is about time they opened their mind to the fact we now have to move faster and firmer.
Greg Hands
I am afraid to say that is an extraordinary attack, even by the hon. Gentleman’s standards. Actually, this Government were the first to introduce a net zero target. At COP26, we saw our Prime Minister and our COP President leading the world on action against climate change—action that others now seek to copy.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The UK has the lowest tax take in the world from offshore oil and gas. Even with the temporary energy profits levy, the tax take will still be six percentage points lower than the global average, and the new investment allowance announced by the Government will compensate companies 91p for every £1 they spend on new oil and gas projects. Will the Government look carefully at the fiscal regime and abolish the obscene subsidy that is distorting investment into outdated fossil fuels instead of new renewables, which do not qualify for that investment allowance?
Greg Hands
I return to what I said earlier. The situation we inherited from the last Labour Government is that renewables provided only 7% of our electricity mix; it is now 43%. When it comes to oil and gas taxation, the Government’s energy profits levy—the hon. Gentleman will know this, as I very clearly remember him debating it in the Chamber—is set to raise £5 billion this year, which is considerably more than the tax proposed by the Labour Front Bench, which he backed.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I just remind the Minister that it was Labour’s Climate Change Act that called for those targets to be set—in section 4. However, it seems that this Government were asleep at the wheel, knowing that there is a 5% deficit in terms of being able to attain—this is what the judgment said—their net zero target. Therefore, the Government’s inaction has led to the decision of the courts. The Government’s inaction is also leading to the absence of a new green deal for York. We have been promised that by his Department, which supports 4,000 jobs and the upskilling of 25,000 people with a new green deal, yet the Minister has not come forward with the money. When are we going to get that?
Greg Hands
I was referring to the adoption of net zero, of course, which was by this Government in 2019. I answered a question earlier about the jobs being provided through our action on climate change and our move into renewable energy, which I would hope the hon. Lady supports. The hon. Lady suggests that this Government and this party are not taking the tough action that we need and not putting the money there, but we have pledged £30 billion to combat climate change over this spending review. That is a considerable sum and a considerable political commitment by this Government.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
The High Court ruling that the Government’s flagship policy on climate change is unlawful is a clear warning that this UK Government are not doing enough on climate change. They should embrace that criticism and do something about it urgently, but instead they try to dodge it. The Minister mentioned the Climate Change Committee. It has said that nuclear will take too long; there needs to be a rush for electricity through renewables, and carbon capture and storage needs to be developed more quickly too. Why are the Government lagging behind and not taking this advice to deal with this important issue?
Greg Hands
As I said, we are considering our options in the aftermath of the Court ruling, but let me deal with some of the substance of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He is saying that nuclear will take too long. The SNP has been opposed in principle to nuclear power since its very existence. So on the one hand he is saying he does not want it, but on the other hand he is saying it is taking too long. That makes no sense at all. The hon. Gentleman will remember that on the very day we published the net zero strategy we also announced the programme to move forward with carbon capture, utilisation and storage—we are on good track there.
On renewables, the whole of the UK is taking part in our huge move into and boost for renewable energy. Scotland is a vital part of that, which is why we have announced the first ever tidal contracts in the contracts for difference regime, as well as the first floating offshore wind deals. We are making sure that the whole of the UK benefits from our offshore wind assets, including, for example, in the Celtic sea between Wales and Cornwall, as well as off the north-east coast of Scotland, the North sea and the Irish sea.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
I am surprised by the right hon. Gentleman’s response to this debate, because the summary of the findings highlights that the net zero strategy
“did not reveal that the quantitative analysis put before the Minister left a shortfall against the reductions required by CB6”.
Does the Minister agree that this House should have known that and also known how the Government planned to mitigate that? Are they not embarrassed that they felt that they could hide such an omission from this House, where we hold them to account?
Greg Hands
We have to understand the context, which is setting out where 95% of emissions will come from in carbon budget 6. CB6 covers the years 2033—not 2023—to 2037. If we were to have gone back 30 years and asked, “How will we do our emissions over the next 30 years?”, I venture to suggest that that would not have been an entirely accurate exercise. I think that 95% is very credible for CB6, which covers 2033 to 2037. It is worth pointing out again that the court judgment was on this very narrow aspect—it is not about the net zero strategy as a whole. It sounds as though the hon. Lady has read part of the net zero strategy, and I strongly commend that she goes through the whole thing in more detail.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
The Minister refers back to the Labour Government in 1997. Can I just point out to him that that was 25 years ago, and that for the last 12 years his Government have been in power. So in those 12 years, what has been done to rectify this particular problem, apart from possibly one of the major things: a moratorium on land-based wind generation, which has been a complete and utter disaster from that perspective? Has the Minister been asleep at the wheel, or is he only just remembering 1997 now, not in 2010?
Greg Hands
The Opposition cannot have it both ways. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he is going back to decisions made by the last Labour Government 25 years ago, but somebody else in the Opposition has said that new nuclear will take too long. It is worth thinking for a moment about the connection between those two. One of the reasons why 11 of the 12 nuclear power plants in this country are going off generation over the course of this decade is the failure to make the decisions in the 1990s and the first part of this century to replace them. He will be delighted to hear—he will have been in the Chamber to listen to this—that we have rectified that by approving Hinkley Point C and yesterday announcing the planning approval for Sizewell C, and also through the strong numbers in the British energy security strategy to move forward to 24 GW of nuclear by 2050. It is this Government who are making the tough decisions that were ducked by the previous Labour Government.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
There are two zero-emission policies that the Government could adopt to comply with the High Court’s request for a deliverable plan. One is a zero-emission home strategy. Since this Government have been in power, 1 million homes have been built without those standards in place, which makes a huge contribution to carbon outputs. The second is onshore wind, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) has already mentioned. Why have the Government not taken on board the carbon savings that we could have if a significant amount of new growth in onshore wind could be invested in?
Greg Hands
When it comes to wind, I just do not know what would satisfy the Opposition. We are No. 1 in Europe when it comes to our offshore wind capacity—[Hon. Members: “Onshore wind!”] I hear Members shouting about onshore wind. We have even more onshore wind than we have offshore wind. When it comes to energy efficiency, it is worth pointing out that when we took office only 14% of homes in this country were rated in bands A to C—the most energy efficient. We have increased that to 46%—a trebling of energy-efficient homes—and we have allocated £6.6 billion in this Parliament for energy efficiency. So I would say that we have answered the hon. Lady’s questions and we have raised them, in terms of the capacity of offshore wind, onshore wind and energy efficiency.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Climate Change Committee recently said that the Government had credible plans to reduce only 39% of UK emissions and that the UK was not on track to meet net zero. Now the High Court has said that the net zero strategy is unlawful. Is it not simply the case that the Government need to grasp the nettle, accept responsibility and just get on with making those detailed plans? When will the Minister do that?
Greg Hands
The court did not say that the net zero strategy was unlawful; I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier remarks. The Climate Change Committee praised this Government for the moves we have made on electricity decarbonisation. As I say, we are a world leader in this space, and I think she should show a little bit more pride in the efforts that the country is making, including off the coast in the North sea near her constituency, and also in our efforts on electric vehicles. There is a great deal for us all to take pride in across the whole country in terms of our net zero strategy and decarbonisation.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
This week, Conservative Members have given both a full vote of confidence and an enthusiastic standing ovation to a Prime Minister who deliberately missed an emergency Cobra meeting to plan for the heatwave emergency because he was away playing at “Top Gun” with the RAF—playing the part of Maverick, I understand. How can anyone take seriously the climate change credentials of a party that so wholeheartedly supports a Prime Minister who, like some latter-day Nero, chooses to fiddle with his joystick while London burns?
Greg Hands
Well, I do not know quite where to start. I am not sure whether there was really a question embedded there. [Interruption.] Now that I have the hon. Gentleman’s attention, let me say that it is about time that SNP Members started to talk to the Scottish Government, with whom, I have reason to believe, they may have some influence, about why they have an ideological opposition to new nuclear. Nuclear is absolutely the way to provide the baseload zero-carbon energy for the future. Why is his party, and the Scottish Government, fundamentally opposed to it? His time would be spent more usefully on engagement with them than on watching what the Prime Minister was up to at the weekend.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister will agree that we need to strike a balance. Will he outline how he intends to address concerns in the agri-industry sector in Northern Ireland about the fact that livestock numbers in Northern Ireland would have to halve if we are to meet the net zero target by 2050? That would put 113,000 jobs at risk. Can he outline the steps that will be taken to ensure that the demands being made will not have that result?
Greg Hands
I always welcome questions from Northern Ireland. In my previous job at the Department for International Trade, I enjoyed greatly my interactions with the Ulster Farmers Union, with the hon. Gentleman, and with colleagues on behalf of agriculture in Northern Ireland. It is an important sector for the whole country. We are making sure that Northern Irish agriculture can access markets around the world. I would be delighted to pass on his comments to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, though obviously agriculture is devolved to Northern Ireland. On trade in particular, we will make sure that Ulster farmers can access markets.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Calculations have been made to quantify the emissions cuts that will result from the policies in the Government’s strategy. The cuts do not add up to the reductions required to meet the sixth carbon budget; there is a 5% shortfall. That is equal to 75 million tonnes of CO2, which is nearly the total amount of emissions in a year from car travel in the UK. What measures will be implemented to ensure that in future, calculations as crucial as these are informed by those with expertise, and are checked thoroughly before they are relied on in national policy?
Greg Hands
To put this in context, what the hon. Lady describes as a 5% shortfall is not, if I read the judgment correctly, a doubt that the Government can reach the target; it is simply a criticism of why we had laid out only 95%, rather than 100%, of the measures that are needed. I remind her that we are talking about carbon budget 6, which is for the years 2033 to 2037. There is a reasonable case—it was made by the Government in court—for saying that it is commendable that they could outline 95% of the journey that we are intending to make in 11 years’ time.
Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities if he will make a statement on the future of the proposed holocaust memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens.
The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Paul Scully)
The Government remain committed to the creation of a new national memorial commemorating the victims of the holocaust. The new holocaust memorial will be the national focal point for honouring the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the holocaust, and other victims of Nazi persecution, including the Roma, and gay and disabled people. We must build this new national holocaust memorial and the learning centre, so that future generations can never doubt what happened. That is the only way that we can be certain that it will never happen again.
The commitment to creating a holocaust memorial was first made by the then Prime Minister, with cross-party support, in January 2015. I am pleased that the project has continued to enjoy support across a very broad range of people from all political parties, different faith communities, and all parts of society. The current Prime Minister is also very keen on and supportive of the project.
Following an extensive search for suitable sites, in which around 50 possible locations were considered, Victoria Tower Gardens was chosen as the best possible location for the memorial. Constructing the memorial next to Parliament, at the heart of our democracy, provides a powerful signal of the importance we attach to remembering the holocaust and seeking to learn its lessons. Following a lengthy public inquiry, planning consent for the memorial and learning centre was granted in July 2021. Sadly, though, a challenge was brought by the London Historic Parks and Garden Trust, which led to the High Court quashing the consent in April this year.
The loss of that consent was a disappointment, especially to those holocaust survivors who place such high value on sharing their testimony and who want to be confident that their message will continue to be heard. It was a further disappointment that the Court of Appeal decided yesterday that an appeal against the High Court decision would not be heard.
We will of course study those decisions carefully as we consider our next steps, but in addition to the Prime Minister’s personal support, our commitment to holocaust survivors remains strong. The lessons of the holocaust must be remembered and told with honesty and clarity. As the number of survivors sadly dwindles, we face an urgent task to ensure that their work in sharing those lessons continues.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I am grateful to the Minister for coming to answer the urgent question at short notice. Joshua Rozenberg observed today:
“If the government had chosen in 2015 to build the memorial and learning centre at the Imperial War Museum, it would have been open by now”
alongside the powerful Holocaust Galleries. I mention that because the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation’s research and education has led my family to learn that over 100 of my grandfather’s cousins died in the death camps and concentration camps.
The Minister knows that Jewish opinion is divided. Will he take this opportunity to read the National Audit Office report of two weeks ago? Will he also read the Holocaust Memorial Foundation’s September 2015 specification, which said that most of the money should be spent on education, rather than on construction? All the money spent over the past seven years has gone on proposals for construction, with nothing for education, which matters most.
Will he also look at the page suggesting possible central London locations, which include the whole of Regent’s Park, most of Hyde Park, and the Imperial War Museum?
Will he say to fellow Ministers that, as well coming to answer questions here, it is time to look again at how to fulfil the aims of the Holocaust Commission and the specifications of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and actually to talk to those of us who have been trying to say to the Government for quite some time that Victoria Tower Gardens—I played there and have studied, lived and worked nearby for two thirds of my life—is not the place to put a mound and a hole in the ground? The area is insecure and of doubtful value in meeting the purposes, as well as being only one third of the size specified by the foundation only seven years ago.
Paul Scully
I thank the Father of the House for asking the question in the first place and for his thoughts. Victoria Tower Gardens was identified as a site uniquely capable of meeting the Government’s aspirations for the national memorial. There cannot be a more powerful symbol of our commitment than to place the memorial in the gardens next to the centre of our democracy in Parliament. The learning centre exhibition serves a different, although complementary, purpose from the Imperial War Museum’s new Holocaust Galleries, which are now largely completed, making it far more difficult to place the memorial there.
On terrorism, it would clearly be absolutely unacceptable to build a memorial in a less prominent location simply because of the risk of terrorism, because that would be to allow terrorists to dictate how we commemorate the holocaust. However, we will clearly work with security experts, Government agencies and the Metropolitan police to ensure that the site has the necessary level of security.
My hon. Friend also mentioned the NAO report and, as I am new in post, I will get into it in some more detail, but I am reassured that the investigation confirms our assessment of the risks and challenges associated with such an important, complex project. It recognised the challenges we face in managing the cost pressures in the context of inflation across the construction sector and the delays arising from opposition to the planning application. He said that money should be spent on education rather than on building, but many of the costs have related to the consultations and legal challenges that we have faced. We want to get on and build the memorial while holocaust survivors are still here to look at it.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
This is an issue that has generated a range of very strong views, but there should be a common sadness that such an important memorial is set back yet again. Remembering the holocaust and what it says about humanity’s past, present and future is an intergenerational necessity— 6 million Jewish people, Roma and Gypsy people, Slavic people, LGBT people, disabled people all savagely murdered. Antisemitism remains a scourge today that we all must fight together.
I am proud that Nottinghamshire is home to the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, and I urge right hon. and hon. Members and anyone watching proceedings today to visit it. They would not accept credit readily, but the work of the Smith family is a model of how memorials can be very thoughtfully done by bringing people together. We lost Marina Smith last month and I know that all colleagues will want to pass on their best wishes to the Smiths.
We are now faced with the question of what to do next. The Leader of the Opposition made very clear last week our commitment to a national memorial and his very strong belief that it should be sited next to Parliament. Does the Minister intend to bring forward legislation to make sure that this memorial happens? Will he commit to a cross-party, all-community effort to revitalise the project? I know that he is by instinct a consensus builder, and I suggest that he leans on that now, because this is a project of huge national importance and it is a source of sadness that we cannot make something of such universal significance happen. We now must come together to ensure that it does.
Paul Scully
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words. Yes, indeed, we will continue to work. I think that the fact that the commission is chaired by Ed Balls and Lord Pickles shows the cross-party nature of the approach. We all want to have the best sign—the best memorial—to remember, and to teach and bring in a whole other generation of witnesses, as described by one holocaust survivor. In terms of legislation, it will clearly be for the next Prime Minister to direct that, but we will look at the court case and consider all options available to us.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for coming here to respond to the urgent question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). I am encouraged by the continuing strong measure of cross-party consensus on the importance of delivering the holocaust memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the story of the holocaust is, in part, a British story, too, with the taking in of Kindertransport refugees, the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen camp and the taking in of child camp survivors? It is important that we tell that story from the heart of Government here in Westminster, and delivering the memorial and learning centre would be a powerful way of doing that. Will he consider strongly the suggestion of the need to legislate in order to get through and break the deadlock?
Paul Scully
I agree with my right hon. Friend on all those points. It is, indeed, a British, international and global story, and we need to reflect Britain’s place in the global response and make sure that it can never happen again. We will look at what happened in the court case, but also at what measures we now need to take. As I have said, it will be for the next Prime Minister to take those final decisions, but we will certainly be considering it in the weeks to come.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
As the Minister indicated earlier, the holocaust is now slipping from memory into history. I am convinced that that at least partly explains the rise in antisemitism and holocaust denial that we have seen across Britain and Europe. Is it not even more important now that the holocaust memorial centre should, as a number of hon. Members and the Minister have indicated, be right by the epicentre of democracy? I find it absolutely extraordinary that the argument is being advanced that we should not have it in Victoria Tower Gardens because it would become a target. On that basis, why do we not close this place down, because this place is a target? Will the Minister give a commitment, as the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) asked, to bring forward legislation in September to enable the construction of the centre?
Paul Scully
I agree that we need a response and a sign and memorial right at the heart of our democracy. I cannot personally commit to legislation, but certainly we will look at that. It will be a decision for the next Prime Minister, but we will have a robust response as best we can.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The building of the national holocaust memorial was a manifesto commitment by this Government. It has cross-party support and it also has the support of every living Prime Minister and all the faith leaders of this country. It is a cause of great sadness to me that a small number of individuals, many of whom are local residents, are causing this great national project to be delayed. They will not succeed. All they will succeed in doing is ensuring that fewer survivors of the holocaust live to see the memorial open, and that is a national disgrace. Will the Minister bring forward the simple three-clause Bill that is now required? If he will not, I put him on notice that I will amend the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to do just that, and I am sure that colleagues across this House will support me in ensuring that this project proceeds.
Paul Scully
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. As I have said, any legislation will be the decision for the next Prime Minister. It remains a manifesto commitment to build the holocaust memorial so that we remember. On the location, 90% of the gardens will remain unchanged and open. Less than 10% will be used by the memorial, which will be open to the public. That is why Government believe that it fitted within the existing legislation. That is also why we will be reviewing the court case to see what it says, and our response will be in place accordingly.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I say to the Minister that this is not a party political matter—it goes across the parties? We want this centre to be built and we want it to be built sooner rather than later. My father fought in the last war and was one of the Royal Engineers who went to Germany for the clear-up. He never recovered from what he saw there at the end of the war. I have this plea to the Minister. People will be disturbed by this. I was sorry to see that, under the contract that had been let, all the materials will be brought in and the waste taken away by road, but it would be much better for the residents and for the people in London if it were all carried on the river. Will the Minister consider that?
Paul Scully
As Minister for London, I will happily look at that last request, because we are significantly underusing our river. I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he talks about the cross-party nature of this project. We do need to get on and build this memorial, for this generation of holocaust survivors and for future generations.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I declare my interest as co-chairman of the all-party group for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre. It is absolutely crucial that we get the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre alongside Parliament as quickly as possible. I know that, in answering this urgent question, my hon. Friend cannot bind the hands of his successor, but can he not do the sensible thing and, having got the support of the current Prime Minister, consult both candidates, one of whom will be Prime Minister in September? If they both agree that we should bring forward the legislation, will the Minister bring it forward to us on 5 September?
Paul Scully
I will be speaking to both candidates about a number of things, including this matter. I was supposed to be getting a briefing on this from my team today, as I am new in post. Clearly, there is a lot to bring to this issue, and we need to make sure that our candidates understand the feeling of the House.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
A report from the Community Security Trust was released last week on antisemitism in the pandemic. It outlined a very disturbing case in Manchester, my home town, of Jewish people being targeted for spreading covid. Fortunately, the perpetrator was arrested and jailed for six months, but does that not just demonstrate that this does not go away and that there is always an excuse? That is why it is absolutely crucial that we have the national centre to educate future generations on this issue.
Paul Scully
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The reason that we are talking about Victoria Tower Gardens is that it is next to Parliament. This is not a London memorial. We are talking about a national memorial, sitting next to the centre of our democracy. He is absolutely right: antisemitism does not start and stop within the M25.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Of course we should have a holocaust memorial and of course we should have a proper holocaust museum. It is not surprising that Westminster City Council turned this application down, or, indeed, that the Government have lost the case in the High Court and then in the Court of Appeal. Based on questions that I and others asked, the Act of Parliament dating from the beginning of the 20th century is very clear that the park was laid down as a park. May I suggest a compromise? Given that the debate is carrying on and on, the obvious solution is to have a holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to Parliament as everybody wants, and similar to the other memorials such as the Buxton and Pankhurst memorials. It could be a potent symbol, it could blend in with the park and the surroundings and there would be no controversy about it.
The controversy has been about the underground learning centre and all the disruption it would cause. The difficulty with the underground learning centre in that very constrained site is that it would be nothing like the proper memorials and museums in Washington and Berlin. Have the memorial in the gardens and a proper museum at the Imperial War museum.
Paul Scully
As I have said, the education centre would be complementary to the Imperial War Museum. We believe that the plans are consistent with the provisions of the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, and that is why we are disappointed by the result of the court case. The design is sensitive to the existing gardens and would allow residents and visitors alike to continue to benefit from the green space, but we will clearly reflect on the court decision.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The memorial has to be near Parliament. At a time when antisemitism was commonplace, in the 1930s in British society, Victor Cazalet MP was the first person in the House to warn of the coming holocaust. Jack Macnamara MP visited Dachau and when he came back he said that we had to fight Hitler. Rob Bernays MP was called “a filthy Jew” by Hitler’s friends in Germany. All three of them lost their lives and have shields on the walls of the Chamber. This is intimately about Parliament, democracy and antisemitism, and we have to put those things together.
Paul Scully
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his usual erudite approach. There is not a lot I can add, but he is right about the need to site the memorial next to the centre of our democracy.
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
One hundred and seventeen holocaust survivors were interviewed about the memorial, and it is upsetting that, because of the delays, many will not have the opportunity to see the opening. The holocaust is a part of British history, from the Kindertransport and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen to welcoming survivors. It is not always a good story, so the memorial has to be built beside Parliament to remind every future Government of the history. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will do all they can to build the memorial as soon as possible?
Paul Scully
The memorial for the holocaust remains a manifesto commitment of the Government and we will clearly look at the court decision and work out where to go next. It will be a decision for the next Prime Minister, but my hon. Friend has fought for this and spoken out about the holocaust on several occasions, and I know that she will continue to do so.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I get the impression that the Minister greatly understands the concerns of everybody in the Chamber, but can he outline what discussions have taken place with members of the Jewish community to underline the fact that this discouraging news will not deter the Government from taking appropriate steps to facilitate a central permanent holocaust memorial centre to show that this great nation—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—is united in ensuring that future generations understand the importance of remembering the holocaust as a horrifically sad and bloody lesson for everyone?
Paul Scully
I always commend the hon. Gentleman for his work on religious freedom and tackling religious hatred, including antisemitism. With the court’s decision being so fresh, it is early to have had those conversations with the Jewish community, but this is the first signal of our intention to stick to our manifesto commitment of building a holocaust memorial. As the newly installed Minister for faith, I will have talks with the Jewish community across the summer.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In case anyone thinks that I did not declare that I have studied here in Westminster, worked here and lived here for two thirds of my life, I repeat that. I also say that it is not a minority who have blocked the proposal: it is two judges. We should not refer to a High Court judge and an Appeal Court judge as “a small minority” when they are actually getting the Government to obey the law.
Business of the House
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mark Spencer)
It would be a pleasure. The business for the week commencing 5 September will include:
Monday 5 September—Second Reading of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.
Tuesday 6 September—Second Reading of the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill.
Wednesday 7 September—Second Reading of the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
Thursday 8 September—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Social Security (Special Rules for End Of Life) Bill [Lords], followed by a general debate on parliamentary services for Members. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 9 September—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 12 September includes:
Monday 12 September—Second Reading of the Bill of Rights Bill.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. Colleagues on the Opposition Benches will be particularly pleased to see that we will have all stages of the Social Security (Special Rules for End Of Life) Bill. Thanks to those colleagues who have worked so hard on that.
I wish all Members and staff an enjoyable summer recess. As it is culture’s come-back summer, I invite everyone to visit Bristol West and our fantastic cultural life, as well as to visit festivals, the Proms and Edinburgh. Speaking as someone who was at a prom last night, it is fantastic that we are back in real life. I congratulate the Lionesses, who I understand are a football team, on their thrilling victory against Spain last night—that is what it says here. Sorry, anyone who knows me knows that I do not understand football; I do however understand a team at their peak, strong leadership and an electrifying atmosphere, and I have to say it sounds like a far cry from the Tory leadership debate.
I have a bit of an end of school report here. First, on behaviour, there is no sign of the updated Members code of conduct in the forthcoming business. The Standards Committee’s welcome work and recommendations have been with us for a while now. Will the Leader of the House tell us when he will allow them to be debated and voted on?
“Bills going up”, “taxes rising to the highest level in 70 years”, and, “the economy is heading for a recession”—those are not just my words, but those of the leadership contenders, talking about the Prime Minister’s legacy and the cumulation of 12 Tory years. These were senior Ministers in his Administration, yet yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, there was applause, cheers and a standing ovation. I hear rumours that there were even tears of despair that it was all over. Can Government Members not remember why the Prime Minister was forced out of office, including by some I can see in this Chamber, I think? This was the man who partied through the pandemic, ground our economy to a halt, stood by as Britain burned, and they all tolerated his bad behaviour.
Moving on with the end of term report, on paying attention, we have a Prime Minister who has already checked out by checking in at Chequers, failing to attend crucial Cobra meetings. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, not the Prime Minister, came to this House to answer questions on extreme heat, but only when forced to do so, and he might as well not have bothered. He said to “wear a hat”, “stay in the shade” and to drink water. This is not an online local residents’ group; they are the Government. When will they start acting like one?
As the chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance told MPs just last week, this consequence of the climate emergency was predictable and predicted, yet whether healthcare, transport or safety at work, this Government left us all underprepared for the national emergency. Their consultation on a national resilience strategy closed nearly 10 months ago, and still there is no plan for resilience. Where is it?
This morning, the High Court ruled that the Government’s net zero strategy breaches obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008—passed, by the way, by a Labour Government—so will the Leader of the House ask the Tory leadership contenders to say how they plan to meet targets?
Moving on to attendance, it is yet another week where the Home Secretary did not bother to turn up to the Home Affairs Committee. There was a note—a bit like having a note from your mum saying, “Please let her be excused”—but yesterday, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy sent another note saying why he was not going to the Environmental Audit Committee. That scrutiny is part of their jobs, and they know it. Mired by infighting, this party cannot even manage the basics, so could the Leader of the House remind Cabinet colleagues about simply turning up?
Moving on with the school report to the subject of science, the Government have not bothered to fill the vacancy of Science Minister. It has been two weeks, and we are supposed to have the UK as a science superpower. Can the Leader of the House tell us when the remaining vacancies will be filled?
Moving on to the organising of work, backlog Britain is still piling misery on to millions of people, crippling our economy and costing billions. For example, with the Home Office, Members and staff tell me that despite civil servants’ tireless work, everything is still bad: offices spending hours on hold to departmental hotlines, costing the taxpayer; MPs waiting months for responses on asylum claims and passport applications for constituents; people left stranded; and families forced to pay more for worse. I have asked week after week for the Home Secretary to make sure that there are enough people just to pick up the phones. Has the Leader of the House been passing on my messages? What is he going to do to reduce the long, hot, slow queues at the Home Office hub in Portcullis House? Will he tell the Home Secretary to sort this out?
I will finish my end of term report. Whether it is writing off billions to fraudsters or turning Britain into a laughing stock on the world stage, there seems to be no hope that either of the two remaining Tory leadership contenders will offer the change we need. Like every single Tory MP, they propped up this Prime Minister; they were complicit. There is no plan. Labour is ready to take over, and that is the only way we will get a fresh start. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr Speaker.
Mark Spencer
Let me start by joining the hon. Lady in congratulating the Lionesses on their performance last night. To come back from one-nil down and win in extra time is a huge achievement, but I will say no more because I do not want to jinx them in the semi-final.
We have had a very hot week. All week I have been hoping for a little cloud to shade me, and then along comes the hon. Lady, our own little cloud of doom. She is becoming the Eeyore of the Chamber, casting shadow wherever she goes. She needs to be a bit more upbeat and enthusiastic. I think she has fundamentally misunderstood the British people, with her rampant pessimism. There are undoubtedly challenges, I acknowledge, with the global energy and food price increases and with post-pandemic backlogs, but what our constituents want is this Government and our plan.
Labour Members want to sit there and snipe, but they offer absolutely no solutions. We are putting £39 billion of support into our NHS, which they voted against. We are putting in £35 billion of rail investment, as well as £96 billion through the integrated rail plan, and all they want to do is stand on the picket lines with their union paymasters. I want to thank the hon. Lady and her colleagues for binding the Conservative party together by offering us the chance to have a vote of confidence in the Government and getting us all in the same Lobby. Only the leader of the Labour party could inspire the Conservatives as much as he does.
We are getting on with the job. We are supporting families with the cost of living, with £37 billion of investment this year alone. Over 2 million public sector workers will be given the highest uplift in their wages for nearly 20 years. Unemployment rates are close to a 50-year low. We are delivering historic funding to our NHS. We are recruiting 20,000 police officers, with 13,500 already in place.
Finally, as we get to the Sir David Amess debate this afternoon, which the brilliant Deputy Leader of the House will respond to, I know that all Members will want to add their thanks and best wishes, along with the shadow Leader of the House, to all the staff who have helped us: the civil servants, Clerks, cleaners, catering staff, Hansard, the broadcasting team, and everyone else I have missed. If I may, I will flag up the team in the Tea Room, who brighten my day every day.
Mark Spencer
Most importantly, I thank my brilliant civil servants in the Office of the Leader of the House, who have been very helpful and supportive.
I wish everyone a restful summer recess, as we go back to our constituencies. It is important to put on the record that MPs do not go home and rest; MPs from across the House will be working hard in their constituencies, despite what the Daily Mail might imply. I hope that all MPs get a bit of rest this summer and come back refreshed in September.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Can I also wish everyone all the best—all Members of the House and all the staff who work here?
Somebody said that the Leader of the House should have declared an interest in the Tea Room, and on that basis I think I ought to call him: Alec Shelbrooke.
Alec Shelbrooke
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Before I ask my question, I make the House aware that I am a member and vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary groups on Argentina, on Latin America, on Formula One, on Gibraltar and on surgical mesh, and I am a member of the APPGs on cricket and on the BBC.
The Committee on Standards recently published its report on APPGs, suggesting a range of measures to regulate them. Do the Government support those measures, and if so, do they have a preferred recommendation?
Mark Spencer
The Government welcome the thoughtful report and recommendations on APPGs by the Committee on Standards. While the regulation of APPGs is a matter for Parliament, the Government welcome measures that provide proportionate regulation of their functioning and appropriate transparency about their financial support. I acknowledge that this does need some work. If I may be so bold, Mr Speaker, I will write to you and to the Lord Speaker—I think responsibility lies at both ends of the building—on my right hon. Friend’s behalf to ask what you could do to help us move this forward. I put you on notice, Mr Speaker, that that letter is on its way.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Can we have a debate about rats in a sack? There is a confrontation going on just now that makes those much maligned rodents seem like sedated gerbils on tranquilisers. This is ferocious, unrestrained stuff, with no mercy shown—they are going for the kill. Accusations, poisoned barbs, simmering resentment—and that is just what they are saying about each other in their own camps.
Mr Speaker, I offer myself as a peacemaker. I think I could bring some calm to the proceedings. Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there are Tories kicking seven shades out of each other, let us bring offerings of tax cuts. The leadership circus is coming to Perth. Already, we have put the city on an amber warning, with the threat of flying debris. This could be even worse than what we had in the heatwave.
For the third time in as many years, a Prime Minister is going to be chosen by a small group of right-wing Conservative party members—a tiny constituency with almost the exact opposite of the mainstream values of my nation. While democracy will count for that tiny demographic, the democracy of my nation is to be denied. Scotland will have another Prime Minister we did not vote for, while the referendum that we most clearly and decisively voted for is to be rejected. That is not lost on the people of Scotland; this democratic absurdity will be challenged.
I fear for the Leader of the House. I hope this is not his last business question. He is my sixth Leader of the House in as many years. In his short tenure, we have rubbed along quite well together, so I really hope that he will come back. He is perhaps just a little too close to Big Dog and just a little too forgiving of some of the more suspect and dodgy practices, but we hope to see him here when we return in September. I wish him well, and I wish all Members—and, of course, all the staff, as you said, Mr Speaker—well for the recess. I will not go over all the staff again, but we on the Scottish National party Benches hope they have a happy, relaxing and peaceful recess, and we will see you all back here in September.
Mark Spencer
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments—I, too, pray for my survival. Of course he wants to talk about independence again; he does it every week. He did not mention the new plan for independence—the glorious vision for Scotland that the Scottish Government produced, which happened to have an English wind farm on the front cover. I do not know if that is a sign that, even though they do not want to say it out loud, they actually do acknowledge that Scotland is stronger in the Union.
Perhaps it is time the Scottish Government stopped their ideological fixation on independence, but we know why they are doing it. We know what they want to cover up. The CBI and KPMG have produced reports showing that Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK on nine out of 13 productivity indicators. On education, the First Minister said that she would be judged on her Government’s ability to narrow the attainment gap between schools in poorer and wealthier areas—she even said that she would be willing to put her “neck on the line” for that pledge—but then she dropped her promise to help poorer students in Scotland.
The Scottish Government are receiving more funding than they ever have since devolution. The question is, what are they doing with it? I think the answer goes some way to explaining why the hon. Gentleman is so agitated when he comes to the Chamber; it is because he is so frustrated with his colleagues. Today, The Times published research showing that the SNP is hiding behind endless commissions, inquiries and working groups to avoid making the hard decisions required to help its Scottish voters. Since it came into power, we are talking about almost 400 advisory groups under a whole range of different names that it has used to put off taking any action. Five of the nine public inquiries commissioned by the SNP since 2007 are still ongoing, including the Edinburgh tram inquiry and the child sexual abuse inquiry, which have been sitting for more than six years. Maybe they could ask their input-output expert user group for some advice on how to get something done.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
Now then. The BBC has covered up for Jimmy Savile, Gary Glitter, Rolf Harris and a whole list of predatory perverts. Now, sadly, it is attacking our brave SAS in an outrageous “Panorama” documentary, accusing it of having its own death squads. The SAS is the finest fighting unit in the world, saving thousands of innocent civilians from being killed, whereas the BBC has turned a blind eye to hundreds of victims being abused by staff on its own payroll. Does my right hon. Friend think we should have a debate in this House to celebrate all the great work done by the SAS over the years?
Mark Spencer
Now then. I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We have the best armed forces in the world. It is hugely important that Parliament and the public should have confidence in how our armed forces conduct themselves overseas, so we need to reflect on how operations have taken place. Any allegations must be investigated and criminal behaviour held to account. He will understand that it has been the long-standing position of successive Governments not to comment on operations and activity of UK special forces overseas. To do so would put individuals and operations at risk.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Ian Mearns.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I am very grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing in the business statement that we will have some time for Back-Bench business on 8 September. It is good to see the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), in his place. Since his appointment, I have been reflecting that this has to be one of the most classic cases of poacher turned gamekeeper the House has ever seen. I am sure it has not escaped his notice that, with all the things he has asked the Leader of the House to do over the years, he is now almost in a position to do them. I am really looking forward to that relationship developing.
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This is an important point: at the Transport Committee, Mr Steve Montgomery, representing train operating companies, told the Committee:
“We have not agreed to close any ticket office at this moment”.
However, in negotiations with the rail unions, employers have been explicit regarding their intention to close over 900 station ticket offices. Has Mr Montgomery potentially made a contempt of Parliament by making a misleading statement to the Select Committee, and may we have a statement regarding the Department for Transport’s intentions for station ticket offices in franchises that it directly owns?
Mark Spencer
I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the brilliant Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone).
On ticket offices, I would hope that even the hon. Gentleman, with his strong union links, recognises that the world is changing. When I buy a train ticket now, I buy it on my phone on an app. We need to get more people from behind glass screens on to the platforms supporting people as they go about their business commuting to and from work. The railways need modernisation. We need to bring modern working practices to the railways to support our constituents. I hope that he would assist us in doing that by convincing the unions to come back to the table and negotiate rather than strike.
Mims Davies (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Sticking with the rails, my constituents in East Grinstead are fed up with the lack of regular services. It is frustrating many of my Mid Sussex commuters who simply cannot get to their desks for 8 o’clock in the morning, particularly in the City. That is having an impact on people who want to come back to the office, which supports local businesses and hospitality. Often, services are dropped to prioritise central London services, where people have tubes, trains and other options. Sussex commuters have less choice. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on post-covid rail services, so we can properly support local communities and those who want to get back to business as usual?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is a true champion for the needs of her constituents, and she is right to mention the importance of local transport links for people living outside our cities. That is why the Government have committed to more than £35 billion of investment between 2022 and 2025. Our transport Bill will modernise rail services and improve their reliability for passengers. High levels of short-notice cancellations are unacceptable and the Department for Transport is working with operators to ensure a reliable service is provided to all passengers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am indebted to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you so much. You are most kind. The Leader of the House has had his request answered, as indeed have I. Flabbergasted as I am, I have a question.
Yesterday marked the 23rd anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese Communist party. Over the last 23 years, this group has been subject to arbitrary arrest, torture and organ harvesting on a commercial scale. In this time, we have also seen China’s systematic persecution of Uyghur Muslims and increased pressure on Christians and other minorities.
The Leader of the House is always receptive, which I appreciate. Will he join me in making a statement of solidarity with China’s persecuted religious or belief minorities? Does he agree that the new Prime Minister, whoever it might be, should keep freedom of religion or belief as a key foreign policy priority?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman has arrived so early that we may need an incubator. Foreign Office questions are on 6 September, and I know he will be in his place. He is a true champion for human rights around the world. He is right to draw the House’s attention to the appalling record of the Chinese Government. I know my colleagues in the Foreign Office will do all they can to press the Chinese Government to improve their human rights. The hon. Gentleman plays a huge part in the campaign to put pressure on that Government.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The London fire brigade has been busier this week than at any time since the second world war. Indeed, across the country, the emergency services have been under incredible pressure. Unfortunately, there was a massive fire on Tuesday in a building owned by the Swaminarayan Hindu mission that will end up being a temple. Several houses were destroyed, too. Will my right hon. Friend join me in commending the work of the emergency services and, indeed, Harrow council in ensuring that all who were evacuated have been found emergency accommodation and, in the long run, will be provided with new housing?
Mark Spencer
I think I speak for the whole House when I say that we all want to pay tribute to our emergency services and those in local authorities who step up in such moments of horror. I know colleagues on both sides of the House will have watched on TV screens as those fires burned and people’s homes were destroyed. We all have enormous sympathy for those individuals, as well as pride and gratitude that our emergency services stepped in during the most horrendous circumstances.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
In my role as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, I was pleased to speak at the launch of Centrepoint’s “Young, homeless and hungry” report on food insecurity among homeless young people. Centrepoint’s survey and research found that one in four young people with experience of homelessness has £20 or less monthly income left after rent and priority bills, leaving them with less than £5 a week. Given the current food inflation, that is frankly impossible to live on. Can we have a debate on this issue in Government time, particularly given that benefits are widely paid at a lower rate to people under the age of 25?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady is of course right to highlight the need to get people into housing. That need is why the Government have committed £10 billion of investment into housing supply since the start of this Parliament. It is vital not only to try to get the next generation on to the housing ladder but to offer support mechanisms to people in the most difficult circumstances to get them into housing and make sure they can conduct their lives.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
In business questions last week, I spoke about the potential closure of Doncaster Sheffield airport. After recent meetings with Peel Group, I am afraid I am deeply disappointed. Doncaster Sheffield airport is the crown jewel of my local combined authority. Unfortunately, the meeting was held virtually, without Peel’s chairman even attending. I found that particularly poor. In the absence of the chairman, I asked Peel’s board members for an extended consultation period and to be open to talks with future investors. To me, that only seems fair when thousands of jobs are at risk. I have still had no real answer to my request, so will the Leader of the House grant Government time in this place to discuss the corporate responsibility of large landowners and the future of Doncaster Sheffield airport?
Mark Spencer
Ultimately, it is a commercial decision for the airport’s owners. I know that this topic is close to your heart, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to your constituency. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work to highlight the challenges in respect of Doncaster Sheffield airport. I will of course mention the issue to the Secretary of State for Transport, but I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for an Adjournment debate so that he can get all his concerns on the record and hear directly from the Secretary of State.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am very cross with the Leader of the House. Not only did he refuse to have a meeting with me this week—the first time, I think, that a Leader of the House has ever refused to have a meeting with the Chair of the Standards Committee—but he says he is going to reply to our Committee’s report on all-party parliamentary groups by writing to the Speakers, when it has nothing to do with the Speakers: our Committee has produced the report and the Government have so far failed to produce a response.
The Government have also failed to produce a response to our new code of conduct, which significantly strengthens the code. I would have thought that this House, at this particular moment, would be keen to consider that as a matter of urgency.
As I understand it, the Commission has finally got around to interviewing the wonderful candidate we proposed from the panel to be the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, but there is still no motion on the Order Paper. Will the Leader of the House please get on with all these things? Or has he just been off to all the parties with the Prime Minister? It feels as if the Government are not working—get on with it, man!
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman did request a meeting, but last Thursday he stood up in the Chamber and said that I was about to get the sack; there did not really seem much point in meeting him if he was convinced that I was not going to be the Leader of the House in September. I suggest that he requests a meeting with his new Leader of the House—whoever has that privilege.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are going to move the motion on the new Standards Commissioner very early in September. I have no desire to upset the hon. Gentleman; it is my desire and intention to make him happy, if at all possible. I know that is an aspiration that I will never achieve, but I am committed to trying to assist him in his work, not frustrate him.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
May we have a debate about women’s football? While the women’s Euros has been a great success, in Moray we have been celebrating Buckie Ladies, who lifted their first piece of silverware when they won the Highlands and Islands league cup final. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Mel Smith and the entire team on their victory? The club has been formed for only five years and is already winning silverware. Will he also congratulate the club on everything they do to promote women’s football in the area and to coach those of all ages, from youngsters through to the first team? They are a great success story for Buckie and for Moray.
Mark Spencer
I of course join my hon. Friend in congratulating Buckie Ladies. Let us spare a thought for Sutherland Women’s FC, who lost in the final—I think it was 3-1 on penalties—but it was fantastic for Buckie Ladies.
It is great to see the growing popularity of women’s football up and down the country. The Euro 2022 competition is really drawing the nation’s attention to the great role that women’s and girls’ football plays. I hope the tournament goes on to be a huge success for England. My understanding is that the Government have already announced that they will launch a review of domestic women’s football this summer that will look at how to deliver growth at all levels, from the grassroots to the elite game.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is absolutely right for us to thank the House staff as we go into recess, but will the Leader of the House think of constituency staff? As of yesterday, six of my outstanding written questions remain unanswered. A further two apparently
“cannot be answered right now”.
This has been going on for months. My constituency team cannot get through to the so-called MP hotlines, let alone get answers for desperate constituents. Letters and emails are being ignored or unanswered across Government. This is about issues directly affecting constituents’ lives, pensions, social security, passports and much more. When we return, can we have a debate in Government time about how this is so unacceptable and so dysfunctional?
Mark Spencer
I think there have been improvements in the speed at which Government Departments are responding. [Interruption.] I am not suggesting for one moment that the situation is perfect and does not require further improvement. I and the Deputy Leader of the House are very keen to see further improvements in this area, but progress has been made. We will both continue to keep pressure on Departments to make sure that they respond within a short timescale, and I share the hon. Gentleman’s aspirations.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Recent reports show that the number of children using vaping devices has doubled in the past two years. These devices, with their bright colours and popular flavours, are appealing to children. They are illegal for children to use, but more than half of those who do so say that they are buying them in shops. They contain nicotine, volatile organic compounds and chemical flavourings that may be very harmful to children. When can we have a debate in Government time about how to prevent children from using these devices so that we can protect the health of our nation?
Mark Spencer
I do not know whether my hon. Friend was able to be at Health questions this week, but I pay tribute to the work that she does to draw attention to this matter. I will make sure that I write to the Secretary of State for Health on her behalf to draw his attention to her concerns.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Prime Minister and various Ministers have made hollow promises to me and my constituents regarding many serious and time-sensitive matters, including the case of Mr Singh, who was subject to identity theft, causing him to be falsely held by Border Force, his family to be in danger, and his health records to be in chaos. In addition, the families of Chloe Rutherford and Liam Curry, after losing their precious children in the Manchester terror attack, are campaigning to change death registration laws. Will the Leader of the House please use his good offices to ask those Ministers to start doing their jobs?
Mark Spencer
If the hon. Lady wants to supply me with the details of those two cases, I will write directly to the relevant Ministers on her behalf.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Last week our brave frontline services attended a fire at the Abbey View tower block on the Meriden estate in Watford. Thankfully, the speed of their action meant that no one was seriously harmed. This past week, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is not in his place at the moment, those services have been tackling fires across the country, saving lives and keeping us safe this week. These are the people who bravely run into danger while others seek safety. Will my right hon. Friend provide guidance on how we can hold a debate to shine a light on the heroism of our frontline emergency service workers and pay tribute to their bravery?
Mark Spencer
Of course I join my hon. Friend in commending our fire and rescue services for the work that they deliver to protect communities up and down this country. He will have an opportunity, if he chooses, to raise that matter this very afternoon in the Sir David Amess debate, but if he does not get called, I encourage him to apply for a Back-Bench business debate or even one in Westminster Hall, because I am sure that such a debate would be very popular with colleagues.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
A recent Eurostat project showed that Scotland has the most highly educated population in Europe, with more than 50% of 25 to 61-year-olds educated to degree level, and Scotland has recently had its second-highest level of university applications in history, second only to last year’s record. However, last year the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that cuts to state education spending in England had hit the most deprived schools hardest. In 2019 the then Children’s Commissioner wrote to the Government urging them to take action to stem a “shameful” increase in pupils leaving education without basic qualifications.
In April 2020, the Daily Mail said that the number of A-levels awarded in England had been the lowest since 2004, and concerns have been raised about the lack of transparency in the Government’s flagship academy schools. May we have a debate in Government time on why the Government—the right hon. Gentleman’s Government—are failing to keep up with the improvements that Scotland is making in education?
Mark Spencer
I think that SNP Members are living in a parallel universe. It does not surprise me that middle-aged people in Scotland are well educated; that is because they went through the education system before the SNP arrived. I think what matters is the fact that young people today are being let down by the SNP Government. Their attainment levels are poorer than those in England, and that is a source of shame for the Scottish Government.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
On Tuesday, Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service had the busiest day that its chief can remember in a career spanning some 30 years. There were significant blazes in Milton Keynes, Wooburn Green, Denham and my own constituency of Aylesbury, each of which required multiple fire appliances. As we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Dean Russell) and for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the same was happening across the south-east. Fire crews were putting in extra hours in incredibly difficult conditions on the hottest day that the country has seen since records began. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking everyone at Bucks Fire and Rescue, and can he suggest an appropriate way for Parliament to pay tribute to the superb work of our fire and rescue teams?
Mark Spencer
I join my hon. Friend in, again, paying tribute to our firefighters. I know that many of them came in on rest days to give their support in terrible circumstances. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), I think that an Adjournment or Westminster Hall debate would be highly subscribed, as Members will want to pay tribute to their own local firefighters.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The children of our service personnel in Cyprus are being taught by supply teachers who were brought out under employment contracts with the Ministry of Defence. The MOD is now threatening to sack them unless they sign new contracts that abolish their pension rights and lower their terms and conditions. Given that the Government profess to be against the practice of fire and rehire, may we have an urgent statement on why the MOD is joining companies such as P&O in using such unfair employment practices, and an assessment of the impact that the dispute with the teachers is likely to have on armed forces children’s education?
Mark Spencer
P&O actually broke the law. I should be very surprised if the Ministry of Defence is breaking the law. Unfortunately, we have missed Defence questions, which took place earlier this week, but I will write to the Secretary of State on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
In November, the wife of a constituent of mine died, and the inquest ruled that it had been accidental death by drowning. The hearing was conducted sensitively, but the coroner issued a record of inquest that published my constituent’s name and address, which led to his being named in several newspapers with pictures of his house. May we have a debate on how our data protection laws operate? There clearly cannot be a public interest case for causing additional distress of that kind at a time of grief.
Mark Spencer
Let me first convey my sympathies to my hon. Friend’s constituent. Individuals should be given privacy to grieve at such times, and it is concerning to hear of his constituent’s experience in such tragic circumstances. The UK’s General Data Protection Regulation requires data controllers to ensure that the way in which they process personal data is fair and lawful, but I will certainly raise the case with the relevant Ministers on my hon. Friend’s behalf.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Issues raised at a meeting earlier this week between representatives of the Public and Commercial Services Union and Members of Parliament—which was very well attended—included constituency office staff staying on the phone for hours and then being cut off, and emails received by the Passport Office not being answered. May I ask the Leader of the House to encourage Home Office Ministers and appropriate officials to hold, over the summer—which will be a critical period for the Passport Office—regular conference calls and virtual meetings so that Members can raise, on behalf of their constituents, the systemic problems in the Passport Office?
Mark Spencer
We have had, I believe, two urgent questions and an Opposition day debate on this matter. That is why we are recruiting; 850 additional staff have been brought in since April and a further 350 are arriving before the summer. The Passport Office now is processing approximately 1 million passport applications each month. Nearly 98% of all passport applications are completed within 10 weeks, but I acknowledge that the 2% of individual cases that are causing frustration will land in the inboxes of MPs up and down the country, because people have a strong desire to get away. But the Passport Office has made huge strides in processing these passports, with huge numbers of people applying.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Leader of the House might like to know that, at our Home Affairs Committee meeting yesterday, which, very sadly the Home Secretary could not attend—she could not attend the one last week, which had been in the diary for a very long time as well—we heard that actually 55,000 passport applications were over 10 weeks. I say that just so that he knows. What I wanted to ask him about, however, was the fact that my cost of living survey in my constituency has been inundated by people who are genuinely frightened about the energy price hike that is coming down the road. Research from the all-party group on left behind neighbourhoods shows that people in the 225 left behind neighbourhoods in this country will be most vulnerable to the cost of living increases. Orchard Park, in my constituency, has the highest percentage of households in fuel poverty in the whole UK—29.2% compared with 13.5% nationally. So I want to know: can we please have a debate about what the Government are going to do for left behind neighbourhoods—people who live there who are in work? What are the Government going to do to help them with the cost of living crisis?
Mark Spencer
Of course the Government recognise that there is a huge inflationary spike in food and energy bills around the world. We have recognised that challenge, which is why we are spending £37 billion this year alone to help with the cost of living. That means that the most vulnerable 8 million households will receive support of at least £1,200. Last week, the £326 of support started landing in people’s bank accounts. We have raised the national insurance threshold, saving the average worker £330 a year. We are doubling the value of the universal October energy bill discount to £400 and we have got rid of the requirement to repay that money. Our household support fund is now worth £1.5 billion. That is a huge package of investment to help people with the challenges of the cost of living.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
In my constituency, a large brownfield site, Shawfield, is contaminated with the dangerous chemical hexavalent chromium. Clyde Gateway has been doing an excellent job remediating it, but a project of this size needs a lot of funding, which is why it will form one of the levelling-up fund bids from my local authority. I am keen to see this bid succeed for my constituency, as it will open up economic gains. Can we have a statement updating the House on the fund when we return in September?
Mark Spencer
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and wish her well with her levelling-up fund bid. I know that colleagues across the House are working with their local authorities to get these bids in, because the Government have committed a huge amount of cash to assist communities in making sure that they get the right development in the right places, and that their constituencies are economically sound and are generating jobs and opportunities for their constituents.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
May I add my congratulations to the England women’s team and, in particular, to Georgia Stanway for that fantastic winning goal? The Leader of the House is a big Nottingham Forest fan, so I have no doubt that he will be looking forward to the new football season. I am an Everton fan. We lost 4-0 yesterday to Minnesota United, so I am not looking forward to the new season. Instead, can I look forward to a debate on the importance of football to the nation and, in particular, how we can drive forward the Crouch review to improve services for fans?
Mark Spencer
I think I can claim to be one of the biggest Nottingham Forest fans that there is. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the great work that football does, and not only at the elite level—up and down the country, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, parents and coaches go out in all weathers and get kids running around a pitch and kicking a ball, keeping them fit and mentally stimulated. That is a huge tribute to the volunteers who undertake that work. Such a debate would be very popular.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I place on the record my appreciation of colleagues from the Scottish National party and in the Public Accounts Committee, who took on a number of my duties during my recent absence due to covid; they seem to have done that so effectively that nobody noticed I was missing.
Of the 64 written statements that the Government have tabled this week, one from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and one from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy between them give notice of the intention to incur contingent liabilities up to a maximum of £16,000 million over the next four years. Normally, having laid those statements, Ministers would not do anything for 14 sitting days, but clearly that cannot apply here: 14 sitting days takes us right through the recess and almost all the way through the next term, to within a couple of days of the next recess.
Can the Leader of the House assure us that, if there is any indication that these contingent liabilities may become material and involve a call on public funds, the House will be updated with not just a written statement but through an appearance by the relevant Cabinet Minister at the Dispatch Box, so that their stewardship of billions of pounds of public money can be properly held to account?
Mark Spencer
It is good to see the hon. Gentleman back in his place; we have missed his short questions. Of course I acknowledge his concerns, and I will make sure that the relevant Minister is aware of them.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
York made the railways and the railways made York, and it is now leading the industry in digital and advanced rail, both in operations and engineering. Bringing the headquarters of Great British Railways to York will level up not only York and the region but the country and the opportunities for people across the nation.
Rachael Maskell
Will the Leader of the House ask the Transport Secretary to make a statement to the House on the purpose of the popular vote in awarding the operational headquarters of Great British Railways? May I encourage everyone to vote yes to York?
Mark Spencer
I am not sure that the hon. Lady carried the House. The shortlist was announced on 5 July. In fairness, I should name Birmingham, Crewe, Derby, Doncaster, Newcastle-upon-Tyne as well as York. Ministers will take the final decision on the location of the headquarters later in the year.
I pay tribute to York. I have been to the National Railway Museum there and it is the home of the Mallard; I think that Thomas the Tank Engine is also there. York does have a huge history in railways, as do the other contenders for the bid.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
May I point out that the Mallard was actually built in Doncaster?
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
This month, the imprisoned human rights activist Dr al-Singace marked one year of his hunger strike from solid foods to demand the return of his confiscated research in Bahrain. In 2012, the Government expressed deep dismay at Dr al-Singace’s torture-tainted and internationally condemned conviction. Could we have a statement from the Government calling on Bahrain to return Dr al-Singace’s research and release him and other political opposition leaders immediately and unconditionally?
Mark Spencer
I join the hon. Gentleman in that call and I hope that the Government of Bahrain are listening. There are Foreign Office questions the first week back and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be in his place to draw the House’s attention again to the plight of Dr al-Singace.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
My constituent was trafficked into prostitution and raped in 2018. Very bravely, she is willing to give evidence against the alleged perpetrator. The trial has been repeatedly delayed and is currently listed for later this year—four years from the offence. She is desperate to travel to see her family, but the failure of the Home Office to extend her leave to remain means that she cannot do that without the risk that she will not be readmitted to the UK and therefore that she will not be available at trial.
I have contacted both the MPs’ urgent query service and the Home Secretary’s office directly without having received the courtesy of a reply from either in over a month. If I provide him with the relevant personal details, will the Leader of the House persuade his colleague to expedite this case?
Mark Spencer
I am truly sorry to hear about the plight of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. Of course I will write on his behalf directly to the Home Secretary. There will be Home Office questions in the first week back, but I think this case requires more urgent action, so I will write on his behalf.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Driving licence renewals, driving tests, passports and visas are just some of the essential services in which my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran face severe delays. Civil service workers in those sectors are doing their best, but the reality is that this Government have failed to plan for a post-lockdown spike in demand. As a result, staff shortages are causing misery for those using and working in those sectors. Will the Leader of the House do two things? First of all, will he apologise for his Government’s incompetence? Secondly, will he make a statement setting out how the misery of backlog Britain will be urgently addressed?
Mark Spencer
Of course there are challenges coming out of a global pandemic. There is a huge amount of pressure on Government services. That is why we are addressing those challenges by recruiting more staff and putting more efficient measures in place to drive those departments forward, and huge progress is being made.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Just last week I stood in this place and spoke about the tragic murder of Zara Aleena as she walked home through Ilford. I also spoke about a young woman stabbed in the back on 8 July on St Johns Road in my constituency. Today I have to come before this House yet again to speak about another act of senseless violence against a woman in my constituency. Hina Bashir was reported missing from Ilford on 14 July and her body was found in the neighbouring constituency of Upminster just three days later. This is a national epidemic; a woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK. In the light of these crimes, will the Leader of the House find Government time for a debate about the epidemic of violence against women and girls, particularly relating to violence against women from ethnic minority backgrounds, who too often face structural barriers to receiving the help that they need?
Mark Spencer
I am sorry to hear the case that the hon. Gentleman describes. As he will be aware, Home Office questions are on the first day back. The Government are committed to tackling violence against women and girls. That is why we introduced our strategy and we have already invested £100 million of funding. The Home Secretary has made it clear that violence against women and girls is a national policing priority. We are investing £30 million in the safer streets fund and the safety of women at night fund. We have established a new national police lead for violence against women and girls, and, of course, we passed landmark legislation through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. I am sure that there is always more we can do, but in this Home Secretary we have someone committed to tackling this huge challenge.
Points of Order
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I seek your advice? In the run-up to my debate on English language schools in Westminster Hall this week, my office was contacted numerous times by Home Office officials wanting me to change the title of the debate to make it just about visas. I declined to do so, because my content was wider than that. I also had an email the day before the debate from the departmental Parliamentary Private Secretary, asking for my speech. I had not written it by then, but I did give a list of issues to be outlined.
On the day itself, I was surprised that the body language of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who is usually a very pleasant and reasonable chap, made it clear that he did not want to be there. Then, following my contribution and those by others, he read out a largely pre-prepared statement conforming to the desired title that officials had pushed me to adopt, not to what I had addressed. I was accused of being too narrow and of not focusing on things that I had actually addressed, and the Minister said that the debate was a “missed opportunity”.
Madam Deputy Speaker, is it orderly or normal for civil servants to try to move the goalposts of a Member’s chosen subject matter? If someone rolls their eyes at a Member, even before they have opened their mouth, does that not suggest discourtesy, even if Government Members do have other things on their mind—the results of the leadership contest were unfolding while the debate took place. Whoever decided to try to change the terms of the debate, does that not display a concerning disregard for scrutiny?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. I presume that she informed the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) that she was going to raise this.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Thank you. The business to be taken in Westminster Hall is determined by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Backbench Business Committee or the Petitions Committee, not by Ministers or their officials. While the content of Ministers’ responses to debates in Westminster Hall is not a matter for the Chair, I would obviously expect those responses to address the content of the speeches in those debates. If the hon. Lady feels that the Minister’s responses to the points she made in the debate were unsatisfactory, I am sure that the Table Office will be able to advise on how best to pursue the matter. I do not know if the Minister wants to make any comments—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
indicated dissent.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last year, the Government launched their national bus strategy and promised that it would be one of the great acts of levelling up. Over this weekend, the biggest cuts to bus services in decades will take place as recovery funding winds down. In South Yorkshire, a third of services will begin to be cut from Sunday. In the north-east, a swathe of cuts are due, and in West Yorkshire 10% of the network is at risk. This follows the Government telling 60% of local authorities in April that they would see no change in transformation funding whatsoever. Given this huge crisis facing the bus sector, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would be grateful if you could advise whether a Government statement will be required, and if not, what avenues I can explore to elicit an explanation from the Government forthwith, with these latest cuts just days away?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. He asked whether the Government were likely to make a statement. I am not sure whether this was raised in business questions just now, but I do not think the Leader of the House made reference to any statement and I do not believe that the Speaker’s Office has received notification that the Government intend to make a statement today. Government statements are not a matter for the Chair, but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the hon. Member’s points, which he has now put very firmly on record.
Channel Crossings, Migration and Asylum
Backbench Business
Human Rights Abuses and Corruption: UK Sanctions
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
We will now move on to the two remaining debates of the day. Before we start, let me stress that the Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate, in particular, is extremely well subscribed, so we are going to have to impose time limits. In the first debate, we will start with a seven-minute limit, but that may have to go down quickly. Sir Iain Duncan Smith has very courteously suggested that I put a bit of guidance on the screens for the 15 minutes that he has allocated for his opening speech. I hope that throughout the afternoon we will be able to get an equal allotment for participating Back Benchers.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered UK sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption.
The UK’s Magnitsky sanctions regime has, as many of us will accept, provided the UK Government with an important tool for tackling the most egregious cases of human rights violations and corruption committed around the world, but several problems undermining the effectiveness of our Magnitsky sanctions regime still exist. From a standing start, at a low base, in the first year of the regime the UK made good progress and sanctioned 102 perpetrators for human rights violations and corruption. Strangely, that number has fallen to only six perpetrators in the second year.
Let us contrast that with what has happened in the United States of America, which is a good benchmark. To mark international Human Rights Day and International Anti-Corruption Day in December 2021, the US announced sanctions on 108 perpetrators; 16 countries were targeted, including China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Liberia, Iran, Syria and Ukraine. In the same week, the UK Government announced just one human rights designation under the Magnitsky regime and four designations under the Myanmar country regime—no sanctions were issued for corruption. That is surprising, because there is a lot of evidence out there about corruption and somehow we did not seem to get moving on it.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said that it recognises that sanctions are most effective when imposed in concert, yet even as it says that the UK fails to keep pace with its allies, particularly the US, which, again, I come back to as a benchmark. The UK has sanctioned only 20% of the perpetrators sanctioned by the US. That is inexplicable; I have no idea what the US knows that we do not know and why it can act faster and more heavily than we can. We are allowing those sanctioned by the US and other jurisdictions to use the UK as a haven to enjoy much of their ill- gotten gains.
The belated lesson we learned from the international response to the Ukraine crisis shows that such co-ordination is possible, but only if there is sincere determination. That must be reflected in the Government’s effective use of these sanctions. In response to the Ukrainian crisis, the FCDO tripled the size of the sanctions taskforce, but that cannot be just for one country. It is surely vital that the increased organisation does not just focus on Russia; there is an awful lot going on around the world where people are getting away with corruption, brutality and criminality.
That brings us to enforcement. The effectiveness of sanctions is too often undermined by a complete lack of enforcement. Before the invasion of Ukraine, the total value of frozen assets in the UK had not changed significantly since the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation’s first full year of operations, starting at £12.7 billion in 2017-18 and dropping to £12.2 billion in 2020-21. That does not look to me like an awful lot of increased enforcement, although perhaps somebody knows something that we do not. If we look at the money, we see clearly that there was next to nothing happening.
For many parliamentarians, across all parts of the House, oversight of the Government’s use of sanctions has decreased due to amendments made by the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. I say to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who is on the Front Bench, that the UK Government must recommit to reporting to Parliament annually on their use of sanctions and their rationale. On 28 June, the Foreign Secretary told the Foreign Affairs Committee that the FCDO is working with the Home Office and Treasury on confiscating frozen Russian assets. No matter the result of the current leadership race, which I will park for the moment, the Government must surely remain committed to this issue. I want to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister exactly how committed they really are.
The UK has sanctioned over 1,000 individuals connected to the Russia regime, with a total global wealth, I am told, in excess of £150 billion, so we cannot miss this opportunity to finance reparations for the victims of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. During the Westminster Hall debate in December last year, members of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions named 12 individuals and entities involved in some of the most egregious cases of human rights violations across the world. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and I named them to make sure it was clear and that there can be no excuse for the FCDO to suddenly say that it does not know who they are. We went out of our way to make sure it knew, and we have repeated their names consistently. The media have picked this up and repeated them, too. The names are known and these people are known.
There are a number of other cases where the UK also has to take action. All those involved with the all-party parliamentary group will be making recommendations relating to China, Russia, Iran, Sudan, Nicaragua, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh and Nigeria. We will try to list many of them in the time available, without delaying the House any longer than we have to. I want to run through what has happened in China and why we have so signally failed to deal with the perpetrators of the brutality and crackdown in Xinjiang and Hong Kong—after all, we the guarantors of Hong Kong.
Those sanctioned here in the UK over Xinjiang include Zhu Hailun, former secretary of the political and legal affairs committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region; Wang Junzheng, deputy secretary of the party committee and previous secretary of the political and legal affairs committee; and Wang Mingshan, secretary of the political and legal affairs committee; Chen Mingguo, vice chairman of the Government of the XUAR and the public security bureau of the Xinjiang production construction core. Many Chinese Government officials known to be directly involved in perpetrating abuses in the Uyghur region remain unsanctioned.
Let me compared that with the US, which sanctioned Chen Quanguo, the key architect of all that has been going in Xinjiang. He is a brutal and ghastly individual who is exercising his power to destroy lives. The US sanctioned the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a state-owned paramilitary organisation that runs the region’s mass coercive labour transfer programme —slavery—which puts at least 1.6 million Uyghurs at risk of slavery in factories and in other locations. The UK sanctioned the XPCC public security bureau, the subsidiary responsible for running the prison camps, but for some strange and peculiar reason not the corporation as a whole. The US also sanctioned Peng Jiarui and Sun Jinlong, both senior officials in XPCC, and Huo Liujun, the former party secretary for the Xinjiang public security bureau. What is it that the US knows that we do not know?
The EU is also carrying out sanctions at a higher and faster rate than we are. I have four names of people who have been sanctioned by the EU and who remain unsanctioned here, including Zhao Kezhi, Guo Shengkun and Hu Lianhe. They are all sanctioned by the EU, but not by us.
On Hong Kong, we are a guarantor of one country, two systems, a signed international treaty, so we have a unique responsibility. The perpetrators of the crackdown in Hong Kong have arrested peaceful democracy campaigners and others, including even a cardinal, even for opening their mouths and saying anything against the regime. That is a brutal concept that we in this place are meant to stand against. We have still done very little compared to the US. I will leave it to the hon. Member for Rhondda to name them specifically, if he will.
With regard to Hong Kong, 11 people in the Administration have been sanctioned by the US Administration, not one of whom has been sanctioned by the UK Government. What is going on? I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that there is no dodging this. The reality is that we are not doing what we are supposed to do. The UK should sanction these officials because they have undermined the rule of law, dismantled Hong Kong’s democracy, cracked down on a free press—a thing we take for granted that is no longer in existence in Hong Kong—and allowed police brutality against protesters. In fact, I discovered quite recently that UK Government money had been going to a British company helping to train the Chinese police force in different methods. I now gather—my hon. Friend might confirm this—that that financing has stopped, but it should not have taken some of us to call for it to be checked and stopped for that to happen.
I want to touch on two other areas, Sudan and Nicaragua, because this is not just about China and Russia. There is more to come, as I say, with names on China. In Sudan, as has been highlighted before, the US has taken action against the Central Reserve police, who are responsible for the use of excessive and lethal force against protesters. The UK is yet to take action. The Foreign Secretary is committed to looking into this, and I welcome that, but that commitment must yield the force of the UK’s sanctions regime.
In Nicaragua, there have long been allegations against the Ortega regime for its use of torture against political opponents. I want to draw attention to one particular individual in this context—Sadrach Zeledón Rocha, mayor of the city of Matagalpa, who was sanctioned by the US for his involvement in violence inflicted against peaceful protesters. We also understand that the FCDO has received detailed evidence of his involvement in the physical torture of and sexual violence against political prisoners.
I say this to my hon. Friend the Minister: we should be a beacon of freedom, decency and anti-corruption in the world. People should look to the UK as the country that sits on a hill and shines its light of freedom everywhere, into every nook and cranny of the dirty, foul dealings of people who use their money and influence, often here in the UK. I ask him to commit the UK Government, at a minimum, to immediately doing all the sanctioning that the US Government have done. They have the evidence and we have the ability to do it. I simply ask that at the end of this debate he says, “Yes, we haven’t done enough, but now we are going to do all of it immediately.” If he can say that, then he will certainly please us, and he will send hope of freedom to many around the world.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I are tango partners in this—or a tag team, perhaps, depending on which way you want to look at it. I endorse everything he said at the beginning of his speech, but I will start with Iran.
This year, Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, two British citizens, were finally allowed to return to the UK following years of detention and serious human rights abuses in Iran. Those responsible for these abuses are yet to be held accountable and they continue to persecute innocent people, holding them hostage for political gain. In September last year, the FCDO received detailed evidence on 10 individuals involved in state hostage taking and related serious human rights violations that we are also investigating in the Foreign Affairs Committee. In December last year, we named three of those perpetrators during a Westminster Hall debate, as has been mentioned. The FCDO has still failed to take any action in relation to those three people, and that is a mystery to me.
In the wake of this inaction, a number of those individuals known to the FCDO played a key role in the ongoing mistreatment of British citizens, including Nazanin—in particular, Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour, a reporter with state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, who is known for eliciting forced confessions from prisoners in front of camera during interrogations. This is exactly the opposite of what a free media is all about. I understand that she was present at the airport prior to Nazanin’s release, attempting to interview and film her while she was being pressured to confess by the Iranian Government.
The second person is Hossein Taeb, the former head of the intelligence operation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Under him, the IRGC intelligence ran the notorious Section 2A of Evin prison. He was responsible for the mass arrest and torture of hundreds of prisoners and was the driving force behind the IRGC’s hostage taking. I understand that Taeb was instrumental in the continued detention of British citizens, and that his officers enforced the forced, and therefore fake, last-minute confession from Nazanin and subsequently blocked the furlough of other British nationals in defiance of what had been agreed with the United Kingdom.
If the UK had taken action on those individuals last September, or in December when we called for it, they might have thought twice about continuing to abuse British hostages today. As we have seen, Government inaction, I am afraid, always has a cost. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green referred to Hong Kong. How many times have we called for the sanctioning of Carrie Lam? She has been sanctioned by the United States of America, but not by us. We are the country with the closest relationship with Hong Kong. What about Chris Tang, Stephen Lo, John Lee Ka-chiu, Teresa Cheng, Erick Tsang, Xia Baolong, Zhang Xiaoming, Luo Huining, Zheng Yanxiong and Eric Chan? They should all be on the British sanction list, but they are on the US list. It is crazy.
Let me go to Russia—not physically, although I am not sanctioned, oddly enough, but I do not think I would be safe, unlike some other Members. I want to speak about one particular person, who will be known to quite a lot of Members of this House and of the other place. Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of the bravest people I have ever met in politics. He is a British citizen, although originally from Russia. He is currently detained for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. He has been designated as a foreign agent due to his work with international NGOs and his advocacy of Magnitsky sanctions. He is one of the thousands of political prisoners in Russia who have been subject to serious human rights violations. They move him from prison to prison, and nobody has proper access to him.
I have no idea whether the FCDO is taking a proactive enough role in ensuring that Kara-Murza has proper consular support, but I know that the FCDO has received detailed evidence on the following individuals responsible for such persecution. Andrey Yuryevich Lipov, the head of Roskomnadzor—easy for you to say, Madam Deputy Speaker—is the Kremlin’s chief censor. He has been instrumental in restricting Russian citizens’ access to reliable information about the war in Ukraine and contributed to the arbitrary detention of citizens based on their online activity. He has recently been sanctioned by the EU, but not by the UK.
Konstantin Anatolyevich Chuychenko, the Minister of Justice and a member of the Security Council of Russia, bears ultimate responsibility for the implementation of the foreign agents and undesirable or extremist organisations lists used to suppress opponents and critics of the war in Ukraine. He has been sanctioned by the US and Canada, but not by the UK—there is a theme here.
Then there is Oleg Mikhailovich Sviridenko, the Deputy Minister of Justice under Chuychenko. He is responsible for implementing the foreign agents law. Much like Chuychenko, he plays a key role in the suppression of opponents and critics of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
I mention all those names because there is a context: the authoritarian regimes around the world are a serious threat not only to our values in the west, but to our way of life. It is not just about Russia and China, although of course they are often key state actors; it is also, I would argue, about Saudi Arabia.
It is great to be starting a possible trade deal with the Gulf states, but we must ensure that we respect human rights and bring such issues forward throughout the process. After all, how is Saudi Arabia not an authoritarian regime when it executes 81 people in one day and invites a Saudi journalist to an embassy in somebody else’s country, kills him and dismembers him on the instructions of the Saudi leadership? We have to be very careful how we tread, because there is no point running away from one authoritarian regime, Russia or China, into the hands of another.
The tentacles of authoritarianism are very lengthy, including the dirty money in the City of London. There were 14 strategic lawsuits against public participation in 2021, but only two in 2019 and 2020, so this is a growing problem in the UK. I warmly welcome the fact that the Ministry of Justice said this week that it will cap costs on lawyers and introduce a three-part test to strike out meritless cases, but we need to go much further. The one thing I would beg of the Minister is to have a proper parliamentary process so we can defend our values and tackle human rights abuses and corruption in authoritarian regimes around the world.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I declare an interest as one of only three Members of this House to be sanctioned by both China and Russia. My rather lightweight right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has been sanctioned only by China.
This is an important issue, and not just to us. It does not come up every day on the doorstep but, when our constituents understand, they feel strongly about it for three reasons. Our constituents expect our trading partners to respect basic human rights, to be transparent about the nature of the goods and services our constituents might buy on the high street, and to be transparent about jobs. We need that greater transparency.
I would like us to go further in legislation on authentic-ation and quality marks to show that goods are produced by countries, regimes and companies that maintain even basic ethical standards, free of slave labour or whatever, just as we increasingly expect to know about the environmental impact and origins of the goods we buy.
Secondly, our constituents expect our taxpayers’ money to be used for humanitarian and other purposes, and not to be used to aid corrupt regimes and bodies, as too often happened in the past. Thirdly, our constituents expect us to stand up for the rule of law and freedom of expression that we take for granted in the UK. If we cannot see that in the partners we deal with, we should be critical friends and have difficult conversations with them, however sensitive our relationship might be. It is important to our constituents for all those reasons.
The noble Lord Ahmad, a Foreign Office Minister, said earlier this year:
“By leaving the EU and moving to an independent sanctions policy, the UK has become more agile and has real autonomy to decide how we use sanctions and where it is in our interests to do so.”
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK plays a central role in negotiating global sanctions to counter threats to international peace and security, so we have an important, almost unique, position and we need to lead by example.
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 is a welcome start, but we are lagging behind in how we use it. I have banged on in this Chamber and in this House for many years about the Chinese communist Government’s abuses, not least in Tibet, where for 63 years, since the invasion of 1959, that peace-loving people have been subject to the most aggressive and hideous abuse and oppression. More than 1 million Tibetan lives have been lost, yet there have been no sanctions against Chinese Government officials. It is only recently, following the publicity on what is happening in Xinjiang, that the fate to which the Tibetans have been subjected for all those years has come to light.
China is effectively asking the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, to bury her highly anticipated report on human rights violations in Xinjiang, which shows the lengths to which China will go not to have this news get out. We have a duty to give a voice to the oppressed living under such regimes.
So what have we done in China? As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, there have been limited sanctions because of Xinjiang, against just four Government officials and the Public Security Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, but, as we mention in every debate, Chen Quanguo—the architect of so much oppression, first in Tibet and now against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang—is still not on our list. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps is a paramilitary organisation controlling large swathes of the region’s economic production, and it, too, needs to be properly sanctioned. In Hong Kong—where we had that unique historic responsibility—notwithstanding the brutal crackdowns, the undermining of the rule of law and the dismantling of democracy, despite the guarantees we were supposedly given in the Sino-British agreement, no one has been sanctioned by the UK, in contrast to the United States. The list given by my right hon. Friend started with Carrie Lam. Despite all the oppression for which she was responsible, she has never been sanctioned by us, but she has been sanctioned—along with 10 others —by the United States.
There was one very telling bon mot in the Prime Minister’s valedictory comments yesterday. His first piece of advice to his successor was
“ stay close to the Americans”.—[Official Report, 20 July 2022; Vol. 718, c. 962.]
We have the same interests as America in respect of how we deal with oppressive states. I simply do not understand why we are not mirroring the list of people whom it has rightly found to be in violation of the values that we hold dear, and has therefore sanctioned. I strongly echo the cry of my right hon. Friend: let us have all those people included by our Government as a matter of urgency. It would be a great, speedy achievement on the part of the new Minister if he were to bring that about.
I agree with the recommendations of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, and I pay tribute to its members who are present today. We need, very quickly, to increase the number of Magnitsky sanctions imposed by this Government. We need to co-ordinate better and follow the lead of some of our allies who share our values, and then take the lead; we need to resource the FCDO’s scrutiny of some of these people rather better, and we need to act as a global leader. We now have the powers to do that. We have the necessary legislation. It has been a great achievement in the last few years, but it is frustrating that we are not using it properly: that needs to be subject to greater parliamentary oversight. Finally, we need to be bolder in freezing and confiscating, in a speedy fashion—not just securing—the assets of those whom we know to be serial abusers of human rights, and whom we should be sanctioning now.
I urge the Minister to make a name for himself very quickly by taking on board all those recommendations, and everything that he has heard here today.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who have done so much on this issue, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the debate. As has been suggested, it might be polite to call the Magnitsky sanctions a work in progress. This should be an issue that brings all of us together, from all sides, and on which we should be able to reach agreement, but, as we have heard, there is a gap between the rhetoric and the reality in the way in which the sanctions have been implemented thus far. Indeed, in some instances the rhetoric is not even there.
The introduction of Magnitsky sanctions was a positive step in guaranteeing consequences for those around the world who think that they are above the law. It is just unfortunate that the Government have failed to use them to their full potential, or to apply them equally. The horrific scenes that have emerged from Bucha, and many other places in Ukraine, over the last few months are a reminder of our duty to ensure that the people who carry out such atrocities and violations of human rights should be isolated and ultimately brought to justice.
We have heard about the “drop-off” in the general use of Magnitsky sanctions—which are still relatively new—but more broadly, we have seen the Government’s targeted sanctioning of the bankrollers of the invasion of Ukraine become sluggish. In March, the Lord Chancellor and the former Housing Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), told us that they supported a move from a freeze on assets to pursuing the seizure of assets. They specifically mentioned the seizure of homes belonging to oligarchs to house Ukrainian refugees, but I am afraid we heard no more about that. The Prime Minister said that the aim of the sanctions programme was to “hobble the Russian economy” so that the war became untenable. He also promised that, until Putin responded by withdrawing from Ukraine, he would continue to go further in his efforts. Despite the sanctioning of individuals, I do not think that we have seen that followed through.
On corruption, I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement yesterday on the Government’s intention to tackle SLAPPs. The measures both to limit costs and to introduce a public interest test and an early strike-out all seem sensible. As always, the devil will be in the detail.
In their response to the call for evidence, the Government recognised:
“Many respondents who reported that they had experienced SLAPPs said that they had been investigating and/or writing about issues of corruption, financial crime and associated issues.”
They also said:
“The subject matter of work that sparked SLAPPs was not limited to corruption, however. Other respondents spoke of work on human rights violations, notably at the hands of corporations, and environmental issues as being the subject of SLAPPs.”
These powerful people, with access to unlimited resources, have been using SLAPPs to silence criticism and stop the reporting of their shady tactics. The Government are still considering whether to include a penalty for those who have brought forward a SLAPP case. Perhaps where a proven record of corruption can be found, the use of Magnitsky sanctions would be an effective and instant deterrent.
It is important to ensure that the UK applies sanctions on the grounds of both human rights and corruption. There has been a heavy focus on Russian oligarchs, but there are many other atrocities happening around the world. Magnitsky sanctions were used against some of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, but Saudi Arabia continues to violate its citizens’ human rights as part of its regime, and no further sanctions have been applied.
We have double standards on occupation. We speak out quite rightly against the occupation of Crimea and Donbas, but we say and do much less in relation to the occupation of the Palestinian territories and of Western Sahara. We have already heard about the increasingly urgent situation in Hong Kong, where citizens are detained and imprisoned for simple opposition and free speech in relation to the Chinese regime, but we have done very little other than issue platitudes.
We heard earlier during business questions about the appalling record of the Bahraini regime. There are many such regimes around the world. It is not a coincidence, I am afraid, that we are only willing to speak out, and sometimes act out, against those around the world who are not our friends. We should be able to speak up equally about those countries with which we have traditionally had closer relationships.
In summary, we should do more, we should do it equally and we should also do it quickly. We should not have to rely on journalists like Tom Burgis, Bill Browder and Catherine Belton to do the Government’s job for them, and they should not be the victims of much of this oppression. As we go forward, I hope that the Government will be listening and that they will act, particularly by bringing forward early legislation in relation to yesterday’s statement. It will not be easy, because public interest defences and cost capping are difficult concepts to put into law. If the Lord Chancellor is still in post at the beginning of September and we have the Bill of Rights, as was promised in today’s business statement, I do not want this issue to be compromised by association with that very controversial and, in my view, unnecessary piece of legislation. Nor do we want to see the anti-SLAPP legislation used to cover for the press barons who would use it to abuse in their own way. Why cannot we have cost capping where claimants as well as defendants are being abused? That is something for the Government to go away and think about.
I welcome very much this debate and I am very grateful to those who secured it. We just need to see some movement from the Government now.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I intend to speak only briefly. One of the great privileges of sitting in on a debate such as this is to hear from colleagues who know so much more and have worked so much harder that I on this and have provided real leadership. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and, indeed, the doubly sanctioned hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).
If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will briefly break the cross-party unity. I worry that one reason that we have not tackled the sanctions regime nearly as much as we should, which we could easily have done, as he so well illustrated, is that there is still an awful lot of dirty money sloshing around in the City of London and in the London property market, and there are many people there who perhaps do not want that to be tackled. I understand that, but if we are to defend our values, we have to defend them at home as well as abroad. We have heard a menu of likely candidates today against whom we could easily justify bringing in sanctions. There is absolutely no point bringing in the Magnitsky sanctions if we do not then use them. I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I welcome the proposals on SLAPPs, and I look forward to any legislation that is required being brought in fairly quickly and having support across the House.
I wish to briefly talk about Mr Bill Browder, of whom I am a huge admirer. I have met him in this House a couple of times. He initiated the whole Magnitsky sanctions debate and the change in the regime. He has been tried in absentia in what is nothing more than a kangaroo court in Russia and been sentenced to ridiculous lengths of time. His commitment to the memory of Sergei Magnitsky and to justice has never been dimmed, and we should pay tribute to Mr Browder and to continue to support him in his work. His book, “Freezing Order”, which I have read—all hon. Members should read it—reads like a spy novel, but it is not fiction; it is reality. It is quite astonishing. He talks about businesses and other organisations which are facilitators and live in the west—in the United Kingdom, the European Union—and live and work in the United States. For whatever reason, they are facilitating the people who, as has been demonstrated, are undertaking human rights violations. They are facilitating those people’s abuse of our political system to delay, frustrate and put barriers in the way of the search for justice. That facilitation would not be possible in the countries that they come from. Just as I talk about the money sloshing around in the City of London, I say we have be alive to those businesses and law companies—my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda has drawn attention to this in previous debates—that are facilitating and supporting the human rights abuses under the cover of our natural commitment to fair justice and to the fact that everyone should be included.
Those companies need to declare themselves. I am very much in favour, as Bill Browder is in his book, of a foreign agents registration Act for the UK. That is necessary to see who these facilitators are. Frankly, at some point, those businesses, law companies and PR companies need to decide which side their bread is buttered on and where their best interests lie.
Chris Bryant
I completely agree that we should have a foreign agents registration Bill. My understanding is that the Government are intending to put that in the middle of the National Security Bill, but only on Report. Is it not vital that we have proper debate on that, with at least two days on the Floor of the House to consider it, because it is a matter of constitutional security?
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend is an expert in matters of procedure. He is also an expert in matters Magnitsky. If he thinks that that is the best way forward, I think it is the best way forward.
I do not wish to detain the House any longer, but I pay tribute to Bill Browder and all those people around him who, in the face of death threats, have continued their search for justice. We owe it to them to support them.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing this debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee. I will not be taking part in the Sir David Amess Adjournment debate, so I want to place on record the thanks of my party to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker and the wider team of staff, for all you do to support the House. I hope everybody has a good recess.
It is a sad fact that human rights abuses are taking place everywhere in the world, every day. As an MP elected in 2019, I find the information we get on this subject—the wide variety of places where it is happening and also what we hear from constituents—almost overwhelming. I am very grateful to my constituents in North East Fife for raising such issues with me. Like others, I want to refer to some of the campaigns and issues that have caught my attention.
First, I want to talk about political prisoners in Belarus, where there are currently 1,260 persons classified globally as political prisoners. These include bloggers to business owners, politicians to peaceful protesters—hundreds of people imprisoned in politically motivated persecutions, simply because they have exercised their right to freedom of expression and political participation. Through the #WeStandBYyou solidarity campaign, I am one of a number of godparents to one such political prisoner, and his name is Pavel Drozd. He was arrested on 3 November 2020 for alleged computer hacking and was tried earlier this year—a trial held behind closed doors without any due process. He has been sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony. We sadly know very little about his welfare because his family, quite understandably, have distanced themselves from the campaign for his freedom. They are at threat themselves for speaking out, so I do have sympathy with their position.
Will the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to support political prisoners such as Pavel, and to put pressure on the Belarusian Government to free such prisoners and reinstate proper democratic practices? I would also like to invite the Minister, and indeed anybody else in the House as a whole, to join me in solidarity by becoming a godparent. I am happy to send over information to anyone who expresses an interest.
Like others, I would like to talk about Bahrain. I know that it was mentioned this morning and that concern for the plight of prisoners in Bahrain is shared across the House. Indeed, I highlight my early-day motion on the issue and thank Members who have signed it. Dr al-Singace is serving a life sentence for his role in the 2011 pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain. His trial did not meet any of the standards of fairness that we would expect. He has been tortured and denied medical treatment, despite having chronic medical conditions. His work, which was apolitical, has been confiscated and his calls to his family have been stopped. In response to the conditions that he and others are suffering, he has been on hunger strike and has refused to eat solids for over a year. One can only imagine the impact of that on his physical and mental health.
Last year I met with Ali Mushaima, who was on hunger strike outside the Bahraini embassy calling for the release of Dr al-Singace and his own father, Hassan Mushaima, who has also been sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in that uprising. Mr Mushaima is 74 and is in remission from cancer. For the past year he has been held in a medical facility, but the authorities continue to deny him medical care. These are men who are facing life in prison without health care and are being subjected to degrading treatment simply because they believe in democracy.
The Government have continued to hold high-level meetings with Bahraini officials, and Prince Nasser continues to freely attend high-profile events such as Royal Ascot. Just two months ago, it was reported that he met with the Prime Minister. I very much hope those discussions involved highlighting what I have just described. I hope the Minister will join me in denouncing the treatment of Bahraini prisoners, and indeed the anti-democratic rule of a country where freedom of speech and assembly is repressed and the torture of dissenters is widespread.
As I have said, human rights abuses are taking place all the time. As we have seen from the war in Ukraine, where there is the political will for sanctions, then they are applied; but as others have highlighted, for other countries and other places, this Government are strangely reticent. I am conscious that, just last weekend, the “Home of Golf” in my constituency hosted the Open. Golf is not a sport that has been devoid of controversies in this area. It makes it difficult for us to feel that we can make a stand and speak out about the support for potentially repressive regimes if the Government do not do things to support that.
More recently, the situation in Sri Lanka has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds, as the Rajapaksa Government force their country into crisis with unsound economic policies, corruption and draconian police powers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) recently called in the House for an international arrest warrant to be issued for President Rajapaksa. I reiterate that call and hope that the Minister can respond to that point.
Finally, I want to highlight the fact that the Iranian hostage takers have failed to have any action taken against them through Magnitsky sanctions. We are all grateful for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz in March, but the Government’s refusal to use the sanctions regime available to it arguably emboldened their captors. All three went through unthinkably awful experiences before their release that could have been avoided if we had actually taken action. I hope that the Minister will explain to the House and to Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad why that was not done at the time.
As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said in his opening remarks, tools are available within the FCDO. We must properly utilise the taskforce and Parliament must be fully sighted on this. On the last day of term, there is clearly an interest in this topic in the House—please act.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The UK’s role as a leader in the protection of human rights is something to be proud of. We are lucky to live in a country where we do not need to worry about having our rights breached or being abused in the worst ways. It is important, however, that we make use of the tools that we have to deter other world leaders from putting minority groups in danger. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, and it was a good day when we saw their plane touch down on UK soil at RAF Brize Norton.
Turning to China, the state has persecuted and abused minorities for decades there. The Uyghur people are a prime example. The People’s Republic of China has quite openly sought to completely squash a population based on their religion, looking to eradicate them. That campaign has seen the Uyghur tribunal find that the PRC has committed genocide against them. The evidence seen by the tribunal was horrific. It makes for deeply uncomfortable reading, yet the PRC pushed back on the findings—that is unsurprising but galling in the face of the mountains of evidence, because they have so far not faced the necessary consequences for their actions.
The Uyghurs are not the only persecuted minority facing such atrocities in China. It is a country that demands total allegiance to the ruling Chinese Communist party. President Xi Jinping has consolidated his power, asserting himself as the ultimate power in the country in a way that his more recent predecessors did not.
Followers of the religion Falun Gong have also faced a campaign of persecution under the guise of the state’s doctrine of atheism. In reality, it was what the ruling CCP saw as a threat to its total dominance—the religion’s peaceful teachings were popular and its following grew faster than anticipated. Like the Uyghurs, followers of Falun Gong have been subjected to re-education camps, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, torture and death. They have been violated in the worst ways and are allegedly the main victims of forced organ harvesting in China. It is unthinkable and distressing.
Religion has been at the root of almost all similar campaigns of hatred and oppression for centuries—unacceptably so, but that is a sad truth. I recognise, though, that religion is not always at the heart of these problems. Staying with China as an example, we can look at how they have sought to extend their reach, oppressing what they see as treasonous dissent for any reason. Only a couple of weeks ago, I joined colleagues in Westminster Hall to debate the situation in Hong Kong. The treatment of those with British national overseas status as China tightens its grip on the region has been horrifying to watch, with citizens victimised for wanting to live in a democratic society.
Taiwan is another example of how China is looking to dominate what it sees as China’s, even if the Taiwanese people do not. After what we have seen playing out in Ukraine, tensions and anxiety are incredibly high, and it is understandable why. Despite all that, only five Magnitsky sanctions have been designated in China so far. China is not the only country by a long shot that the Government should be looking at closely in this respect. The UK’s sanction regime, applied in the right way and swiftly, could have a real and tangible impact, so why are we not utilising it to its full effect?
Keeping pace with our international allies is crucial if sanctions are to have the desired impact. In the first year of legislation being in place, the UK handed out 102 sanctions to perpetrators of corruption and human rights abuses. The next year, it was just six. To date, we have sanctioned only 20% of the individuals that the United States has, as we have heard, and I struggle to understand why progress is so slow. Co-ordination is absolutely essential.
Chris Bryant
Will the hon. Lady add another country, Nigeria, to her list? It is nothing to do with religion in this case, but there was a terrible massacre on 20 October 2020. Tukur Yusuf Buratai and Ganiyu Raji were two of the officers in charge of the shooting on civilians at a protest on that day. Would she support adding them to the sanctions list?
Margaret Ferrier
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I know my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) often mentions Nigeria. I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda that a whole host of people should be added to the list. We can see how effective it has been with Russian sanctions.
Co-ordination is essential. Not doing so effectively undermines the very purpose for which the sanctions were created. Like so many colleagues, I am passionate about the protection of human rights. It is not enough to just say that we have the liberty to enjoy them here at home; if the UK wants to be seen as a world leader and an advocate for the oppressed and victimised, we have to do our part in modelling that behaviour for the rest of the world. We have the tools already. Let us use them to build something that will stand the test of time and help those who need it the most.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their magnificent and significant contributions. They have covered many of the subject matters. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. I was just sitting here writing down a list, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned Nigeria. Nigeria is an area where there has been barbarism towards the humanists. When the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) and I visited Nigeria back in May, we asked the question for him.
There are abuses across the world. There are the Sunnis and the Shi’as in the middle east, the Baha’is in Iran, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow and Russia, and the Uyghurs and Falun Gong in China. I asked a question in business questions about the issue. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned all those people too. We have Hindus in Pakistan, Muslims in India and Buddhists in Tibet. I know the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is always interested in that issue, and I met some Buddhist people from Tibet this very week on Tuesday morning, and they reiterated the clear issues for them. They were very interested in the kidnapping and disappearance of the Panchen Lama, and the hon. Gentleman knows that case only too well. We have Baptists in Ukraine. Where Russia has taken over, Baptist pastors have gone missing, and we do not know where they are. The churches are destroyed. It is a catalogue of pure evil and wickedness across the world. It is not just one place.
In the short time I have, I will refer to the international ministerial conference that took place just a few weeks ago with 80 countries. It served as a forum where Her Majesty’s Government encouraged international co-operation to protect and promote freedom of religion or belief for all. Six pledges were made, four of which are pertinent to today’s debate. They were: to raise awareness of the current challenges to FORB issues across the world and of best practice in preventing violations and abuses; to speak out bilaterally, as well as through multilateral institutions; to look for opportunities to work more closely together with international partners to implement practical solutions; and to reinforce global coalitions for collective action.
The hon. Member for Rhondda and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) have spoken out a number of times about freedom of religion or belief, and one of the strongest tools we have is Magnitsky-style sanctions. We want to see them working. We must work with other countries like us to champion the rule of law and equal rights for all members of society. These regulations are vital to protect vulnerable minority communities, to stop perpetrators profiting from these crimes and to punish those responsible. We must not forget that it is often minority religious and belief communities who are the canary in the coal mine.
Chris Bryant
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise the phrase “seamless garment”? It refers to Jesus’s robe when it was taken off him and they decided to cast lots for it rather than cut it up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that human rights are a seamless garment in that we cannot separate one category of human rights from another? Would he therefore also seek to condemn the execution in Iran of Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi for homosexuality in February this year?
Jim Shannon
I certainly would, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analogy of the seamless garment. I believe that human rights and religious belief work together and that when we attack one, we attack the other, so I have absolutely no compunction in agreeing with him on that. I will say that and put it on the record.
During the ministerial conference, numerous violations of freedom of religious belief were highlighted. For those cases, the threshold of evidence needed for Magnitsky sanctions was more than high enough. I want to raise one case in particular. Even though it has already been mentioned in today’s debate—the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has been to the fore in this matter—the situation in Xinjiang deserves special attention, especially as this House, the Home Secretary and our closest allies recognise that there is overwhelming evidence of genocide against Uyghur Muslims.
Since 2003, the Chinese Communist party has sought to eradicate—I use that word on purpose; the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) used it as well—the Uyghur culture from China. For nearly 20 years, there has been a systematic approach to Uyghurs that has led to mass forced labour, forced relocation, the detention of up to 2 million people, arbitrary torture, forced sterilisation, executions and even organ harvesting on a commercial basis. As China commits these crimes, it also seeks to profit from the detention of the Uyghur Muslims, and as the arrests have increased, so has the economic output of the region.
This is where Magnitsky sanctions can make a real difference and where the UK can start to implement its duty to prevent genocide under the 1948 genocide convention. This is exactly the kind of situation the regulations were put in place for. Indeed, in 2020 Her Majesty’s Government announced co-ordinated action with the EU, the US and Canada to introduce sanctions on four Chinese Government officials and the public security bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which runs the detention camps in the region. However, unfortunately and disappointingly, the UK Government have refused to impose sanctions on senior Chinese Government officials who are known to be directly involved in perpetrating the abuses, including the six perpetrators who have been sanctioned under near-identical legislation in the United States of America. This is part of a trend where the UK is getting slower in protecting global human rights. I say this disappointedly and very respectfully to the Minister, who I know has the same level of interest in protecting global human rights as I have. I am proud of our country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the world stage and that we are seen as global leaders in this field, but this reputation should not be taken for granted.
In the first year of the UK’s Magnitsky sanctions regime, 102 perpetrators were sanctioned for human rights abuses. However, the following year this fell to just six perpetrators. In the same period, the United States sanctioned more than 130 individuals or companies, again under near-identical legislation, when the threshold of evidence was met for both the UK and US regimes. The major question that everybody is asking is: if the American Government can do it, why can’t we?
The Government’s own impact assessment for the global anti-corruption sanctions legislation stated that the policy envisaged the UK working
“more closely with international partners, including the US and Canada”.
Clearly we are failing to keep pace with sanctions designations. This lack of co-ordination not only weakens the impact on perpetrators but encourages sanctioned individuals to use the UK as a safe haven to profit from corruption or human rights abuses, as many Members have said today. It also sends a message that the UK is unwilling to condemn such behaviour. As of today, the UK has sanctioned only 20% of those sanctioned by the United States. We need to do better. When I and others in this House raise specific questions on sanctions in this Chamber we always get the same response—namely, that it is the policy of the Government not to discuss specific individuals before sanctions are enacted. For goodness’ sake, just do them! Just follow what everybody else does. More transparency is needed from the Government and there is need for increased parliamentary oversight.
I will finish with four questions to the Minister, and I am sorry that I seem to be rushing. That is “rushing” as in rushing my words, not as in Russian. I have questions I want to ask the Minister. What steps have the Government taken to co-ordinate or share evidence of abuses with the United States and the other 22 countries with Magnitsky sanctions legislation? Does the Minister agree that Magnitsky-style sanctions can be an appropriate tool to help to prevent genocide and other crimes against humanity? Will the Government expand the sanctions on perpetrators of atrocities in Xinjiang province? Finally, will the Government use evidence presented in the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief, held just a few weeks ago, to enact sanctions on perpetrators of egregious abuses of the rights of religious minorities? I know that the issue is close to the Minister’s heart, and we are looking for a substantial response. No pressure, but I want the right answers today.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We now come to the Front Bench contributions.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I, too, begin by thanking the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for securing this debate. I also put on record my appreciation for all that they do as co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions. I also thank those who have spoken in this debate—the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), as well, of course, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
It is essential that we take every opportunity in this House to talk about the plight of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Yazidis in Iraq, and that we shine a light on state corruption and abuses of human rights where we see them. That is why the passing of the Magnitsky law in 2020 was so important, putting in place a system whereby meaningful sanctions can be taken against states, institutions and individuals involved in human rights abuses or corrupt practices. It was an extremely important first step, but it was only the first step, because having the law in place and not using it effectively is almost as bad as not having the law there at all. The APPG’s report “Stuck In First Gear” makes for depressing reading for those of us who desperately want to see the United Kingdom lead the way in freezing the assets of, and imposing meaningful sanctions on, individuals and states who commit the most egregious human rights violations.
It appears that having given themselves the power to do something significant and meaningful, the UK Government are becoming increasingly timid in the exercise of that power. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West pointed out, from a first-year high of 102 sanctions, there were only six in the following year. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife and the hon. Member for Strangford said, in highlighting the ongoing abuses in Bahrain and China, as much as we would all love to believe that things were getting better around the world and the situation had improved so much, we know that it simply has not. Indeed, it could be argued that things are getting much worse. It is therefore extremely disappointing to learn that in the opinion of so many highly respected members of the APPG there is a paucity of ambition when it comes to using the legislation effectively and consistently.
Lord Ahmad said:
“Sanctions work best when multiple countries act together…to send a political signal that such behaviour is intolerable.”
But, as we have heard, when the United States announced sweeping sanctions against 16 countries and many individuals, the UK used the power only once against an individual and on four occasions against the Myanmar regime. Why are the powers not being used in a co-ordinated fashion and in tandem with our democratic allies? Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us as to exactly what was the behaviour that the United States saw at the end of 2021 in China, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Liberia, Syria, Ukraine and Iran that they deemed to be intolerable but which the UK Government presumably found to be tolerable?
Yesterday, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) were in contact with Richard Ratcliffe who, along with his wife Nazanin, has repeatedly called on the Foreign Secretary to use Magnitsky sanctions and whatever other options are available to better protect British nationals who are being illegally or arbitrarily detained overseas. As the hon. Member for Rhondda said—Richard made this point, too—the Foreign Secretary has had in her possession since last September a file containing 10 names of Iran’s hostage takers, including three people directly involved in Nazanin’s detention and imprisonment. Could the Minister explain why no sanctions have been imposed on any of those Iranian officials, who both we and they know are complicit in the arrest and detention of UK nationals and in human rights abuses against them?
In 2020, the Government’s intention was to take a global leadership role on Magnitsky sanctions. No one anywhere in the House would criticise them for that ambition, but to be a global leader we must ensure that our own house is in order. Further to the important points made by the hon. Members for City of Chester and for Hammersmith, we must close the loopholes in the UK’s financial system.
Earlier this week, we debated the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria, where endemic corruption is taking that country to the brink of collapse. Next year’s presidential elections could be the last chance Nigeria has to prevent itself from descending into chaos and even, heaven forbid, civil war. But that endemic corruption is not just a problem for Nigeria to solve in isolation. Professor Sadiq Isah Radda, the Nigerian President’s anti-corruption tsar, said:
“There are thieves and there are receivers, London is most notorious safe haven for looted funds in the world today. Without safe havens for looted funds, Nigeria and Africa will not be this corrupt. So, for the West to have a moral voice of calling Nigeria or Africa as corrupt, they must shun looted funds by closing safe havens and returning all looted funds to victim countries.”
I urge the Minister, in addition to strengthening and imposing meaningful Magnitsky sanctions, to look strongly, closer to home, at the role that financial institutions here in the City of London are playing in facilitating corruption, to the extent that a Commonwealth country could be on the brink of collapse if something is not done very quickly.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The summer Adjournment debate will start at around 2.15 pm, so any Members wishing to take part in that debate should start to head towards the Chamber.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) not only for securing this critical debate but for their assiduous leadership on these matters across the House. I also welcome the Minister to his new role. I am delighted that we are engaging in such important discussions before the House rises for the summer, and I thank Members across the House for their thoughtful and valuable contributions to the debate.
Let me begin by reiterating Labour’s support for the Magnitsky sanctions regime introduced back in 2020 and acknowledging the constructive nature of interactions between the Government and the Opposition on, for example, the implementation of sanctions on Russia since its illegal and barbarous invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, I have just received a summons to a debate at the start of the new term on sanctions on Belarus.
Where the Government have got it right, we have supported them, but where we believe they should and could have gone further, we must say so. I express my heartfelt condolences to the family of Sergei Magnitsky. If we are to honour his memory, the full force of our sanctions regime must be utilised to root out and condemn human rights abuses worldwide. Across the House, we know that sanctions work only when the UK works multilaterally to hold the perpetrators of abuses to account by leading and drawing on our historic and defining global partnerships, not least with the United States and the European Union. That has rightly been raised by Members across the House today.
The foreign policy of the next Labour Government will be grounded in securing the rights of people across the world and ensuring that Britain plays a crucial international role in advocating for the rule of law and, particularly when it comes to human rights, working with others and not lagging behind. This matters now more than ever, because we stand at a crossroads: a global trend towards authoritarianism and human rights abuses could prevail if we do not utilise every weapon in our diplomatic and legal arsenals to counter it.
Freedom House articulated this clearly in its most recent “Freedom in the World” report, which concluded:
“The present threat to democracy is the product of 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom...As of today, some 38 percent of the global population live in Not Free countries, the highest proportion since 1997.”
There are so many examples to list. Colleagues across the House have done an exceptional job of providing a sense of the dangers in the global picture and how our sanctions regime must match them.
Of course, in Ukraine, Russian forces have committed egregious and heinous abuses in the deliberate targeting of civilian areas, the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, and the use of mines and explosive equipment to murder innocent people returning to their homes. We are now hearing shocking stories about the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including children, into the Russian far east, and the tearing apart of families in a brazen and appalling attempt to undermine and wipe out Ukrainian society.
We have supported the Government’s sanctions regime, which is levelled at Putin’s inner circle, oligarchs and the profiteers of the regime, but I want to put on the record that the unity between the Government and Opposition on this issue is not uniformity. I had some frank discussions with one of the Minister’s predecessors—the right hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), who is now the Secretary of State for Education—when we believed that the broadening of the sanctions regime did not come quickly enough and when there were clear cracks in the system or a lack of resources.
Let me follow up on the issues that I have raised consistently. What is the Government’s latest position on the seizure and repurposing, as opposed to merely the freezing, of the assets of those who have been sanctioned? Indeed, are any considerations being given to the repatriation of revenue to support humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Ukraine?
I have just returned from an extremely useful trip to the western Balkans. It is clear that the situation in that region is very dangerous and fragile. Indeed, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, has warned of the real prospect of a return to violence. Many in the House will recall the scale and severity of the human rights abuses committed in both Bosnia and Kosovo, which I visited in the 1990s. Labour will continue to support the Government in levelling sanctions at those throughout the region, such as Milorad Dodik, for their role in inciting tensions recently.
As has been mentioned, we must hold those in Nigeria to account for the appalling crimes that have been committed—not least the shocking events in 2020, when military forces opened fire at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos. The then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), called on the Nigerian Government to investigate the reports of brutality at the hands of the security forces, yet to date the Government have failed to impose any sanctions in response, despite their having received, as I understand it, detailed evidence from Redress and Nigerian partners that identifies the perpetrators. We have heard in recent days about the shocking sentences handed out to three gay men in northern Nigeria, who were sentenced to be stoned to death. Surely we must take action against those who perpetrate or threaten such horrific abuses.
After the military coup in Myanmar, the Government took the welcome decision to implement further sanctions against Burmese military organisations—but that took two months, despite egregious crimes being committed against the population in real time. Is it an issue with our existing sanctions regulations, which need to be modified to cope with crises in real time? Or, as I alluded to earlier, are there often simply too few people at the FCDO and the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to ensure prompt and consistent responses? I know that the number in the FCDO unit has increased, and I pay tribute to the officials who do such excellent work in this policy area, but we are lagging behind the United States and others in terms of the investment and resources that we put in. The staff numbers at the OFSI are simply not enough. We need to see better co-ordination among the OFSI, the National Crime Agency and other enforcement bodies to ensure a consistent approach.
Let me turn to a fundamental point that a number of Members raised: why is it the case that the UK has sanctioned only 20% of the perpetrators of abuses who have been sanctioned by the United States? I cannot understand how we are so far behind one of our closest allies. According to Redress and the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, there has been a slowdown in the use of Magnitsky sanctions in recent months. The ramifications are immense.
We have heard about Xinjiang, where the human rights abuses have shocked the world. I pay tribute to those from all parties in the House, many of whom are present, who have been consistent in raising those abuses. However, from the party secretary who has orchestrated the brutal crackdown on the Uyghurs and other religious minorities to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which runs the mass coercive-labour programmes throughout the region, there have been exemptions that are frankly staggering. Why have the Government held off? What more do they need to see to do the right thing?
Chris Bryant
Another problematic issue with the UK lagging behind others is that sometimes people move their assets in case the sanctions come to them as well. We have seen significant cases, one of which I raised with the Foreign Secretary when she appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee recently: in the case of Sistema, the individual simply gave half his material goods to his son and managed to escape the sanctions. Why are we so slow?
Stephen Doughty
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s point, which emphasises the point that I made about acting multilaterally, quickly, urgently and in co-ordination.
We heard a lot from my hon. Friend and others about Hong Kong. The United States have sanctioned at least 11 officials—from Carrie Lam to Chris Tang—for their role in infringing on the rights of the people of Hong Kong. What is the Government’s trepidation about this? We can look at Ali Ghanaatkar in Iran or Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo in Sudan; the former was head of interrogations in Evin prison, while the latter is responsible for gross human rights abuses in Darfur. I have not even got time to mention the many examples that we have heard from across the middle east and the Gulf states. What of Alexander Lebedev—will the Minister clarify? We know that he has been sanctioned by Canada as a former KGB agent and known associate of Putin. Have we sanctioned him, and if not, why not?
We want the Government to make proper and far-reaching use of the Magnitsky regime that we adopted back in 2020, and indeed the country regimes, but that requires ambition, urgency and proper resourcing. The House has made its voice very clear today; there has been complete consistency across the House, as I hope the Minister has heard clearly. The protection and advancement of human rights should be at the heart of any British foreign policy, and I hope that the agreement that the Minister has heard across the House will result in action commensurate with the violations that are unfolding across the world today.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I welcome the Minister to his new role—Rehman Chishti.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Rehman Chishti)
This is my first appearance at the Dispatch Box; I do not know whether it will be my last. First, I want to pay real tribute to the work of our brilliant United Kingdom Foreign Office officials, who work day in, day out around the world on advancing the United Kingdom’s interests. All in the House will want to join me in paying tribute to them, and specifically their work on sanctions—thank you.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important debate. I know from speaking to both of them their commitment and passion about doing everything that we can to stand up for human rights. I pay tribute to the work done by all colleagues in the House to advance human rights, as well as—I look to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—freedom of religion or belief.
I thank the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions for all that it does. Three of the recommendations made through its secretariat, Redress, were considered by the sanctions team at the Foreign Office and designations were made with regard to those specific cases. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda is suggesting certain figures with his fingers, but the specific numbers have to meet specific criteria.
On what the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) said, yes of course I absolutely pay tribute to Bill Browder, who is an inspiration. He did amazing work on getting the United Kingdom where we need to be on the Magnitsky sanctions. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), the former Foreign Secretary, for working with Mr Browder on a bipartisan basis to take the agenda forward. I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for saying that he wants to work together on a bipartisan basis, and I very much look forward to working with him.
We stand in full support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green and all in this House and the other place who have been sanctioned by foreign Governments. On my left, to the back, is my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has been doubly sanctioned. I say to all parliamentarians who have been sanctioned that nothing that those foreign Governments do will ever stop Members in this place from speaking up for what is right and proper.
In my new role as the Minister with responsibility for sanctions, I will continue to engage with parliamentarians across the board. Having heard about the different areas around the world that have been highlighted, I can say—and I did say to the team at the Foreign Office when I was first appointed—that we should have regular engagement with Members of Parliament.
Andy Slaughter
That is all very general, but may I ask the Minister about one specific case, which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and by the shadow Minister? I refer to the Lekki massacre in Nigeria. We know when and where it happened. A judicial inquiry is taking place. We know who was responsible. We know that people were killed by the military and the police there. Given all that, why have the Government not imposed sanctions in that specific case?
Rehman Chishti
The hon. Gentleman knows, having been a parliamentarian here for many, many years, that as a Minister of the Crown I cannot comment on specific cases. What I can say is that I will take the matter away and ask the Foreign Office officials to look at it. I will also say that when we come back in September we will ensure that we have that meeting and engagement with Foreign Office officials, looking at sanctions, and that if I am the Minister, I will look at this specific issue.
The Government have long recognised the power of sanctions to promote our values and interests, and combat state threats, terrorism, cyber-attacks and chemical weapons. We have demonstrated just how powerful these measures can be. Working closely with our allies, we are introducing the most severe sanctions that Russia has ever faced, to help cripple Putin’s war machine. That is a key part of our response, alongside our economic, humanitarian and military assistance for Ukraine and its great, brave people in these difficult, challenging times. Our sanctions include asset freezes on 18 of Russia’s major banks, with global assets worth £940 billion. Since Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine almost five months ago, we have sanctioned more than 1,000 individuals and 100 entities.
Chris Bryant
The Minister should bear in mind that he has managed to do that only because we have basically adopted all the EU sanctions, and all the Canadian and American sanctions, and that those run out in a few days, so he is going to have to do them all over again. It will not be the same number by the time we get back in September.
Rehman Chishti
Let us look at what we have done in comparison with partners around the world, as the hon. Gentleman mentions what we have done with regard to other European partners. We have done more than any other country in the sanctions we have put forward as part of the action we have taken against Russia for its illegal invasion in Ukraine.
Rehman Chishti
The hon. Gentleman says that that is not true. I am very happy to have that conversation with him and officials, but my understanding is that for the number of sanctions we have applied in connection with Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the figures are about 1,000 individuals and 100 entities. In my understanding, that is the largest number of any international partner in the world.
Stephen Doughty
I asked the Minister a very specific question. Canada has sanctioned Alexander Lebedev, so will he confirm whether or not the UK has done so?
Rehman Chishti
I can ask my officials to look at that specific point and come back to the hon. Gentleman on it.
The UK has designated more individuals than any other G7 member, demonstrating our leadership in this field. We also brought forward emergency legislation so that we could respond even more swiftly and effectively. We now have a significantly expanded sanctions directorate within the FCDO to take forward these measures. I visited it this week, where I was impressed by the incredibly hard work everyone is putting in to deliver our objectives. Let me be clear that these measures are working. Sanctions imposed by the UK and our international partners are having deep and damaging consequences for Putin’s ability to wage war.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green asked about greater collaboration with the US as we move forward on sanctions designations. I will be in the US next week to speak to counterparts, looking at sanctions and how we can work together even more in the coming months and years on this point. That may not be quite what he wanted me to say, but it shows our commitment to work with our international partners. Having come into office 10 days ago, I will be in the US next week meeting counterparts about this specific, important issue.
Meanwhile, we continue to impose sanctions in support of human rights and democracy elsewhere in the world, using our geographic regimes. That includes measures cutting off arms flows to the military in Myanmar, targeting those supporting the Assad regime in Syria, and bearing down on politicians who undermine the hard-won peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In recent years, we have boosted the tools at our disposal through our independent sanctions framework. We launched our global human rights sanctions regime in 2020 and our global anti-corruption sanctions regime the following year.
Our global human rights sanctions regime helps us hold to account those involved in serious human rights violations or abuses—including torture, slavery and forced labour—by imposing targeted asset freezes and travel bans. Since the regime was launched, we have designated 81 individuals and entities. We have used it to stand up for the rights of citizens in countries ranging from Russia to Belarus, Venezuela, Pakistan, The Gambia and North Korea. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) mentioned Belarus. Only yesterday, the other place approved the Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, which will come back to this House in September, allowing for further debate.
China and Hong Kong have been mentioned by parliamentarians across the House. We have taken robust action to hold China to account for its appalling human rights violations in Xinjiang, including systematic restrictions on religious practice. On that point, I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for the amazing work of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of region or belief, which he chairs. As a former special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, and having worked with my US counterpart, Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, to set up the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance—it had 26 member states at the time—I totally understand what such partnership working and collaboration can do to advance interests that are important to both our great countries.
Last year, we imposed unprecedented joint sanctions against those responsible for enforcing China’s oppressive policies in Xinjiang. We took that action alongside 29 other countries, demonstrating the strength of international resolve. We have also led international efforts to hold China to account at the United Nations, taken measures to tackle forced labour in supply chains, funded research to expose China’s actions, and consistently raised our concerns at the highest level.
On Hong Kong, we continue to challenge China for breaching its legally binding commitments under the joint declaration. We have called out its conduct on the world stage. Together with our G7 partners, we have condemned the steady erosion of political and civil rights. We have also opened our doors to the people of Hong Kong through a new immigration path for British nationals overseas, with over 120,000 applications. Moreover, we have suspended the UK-Hong Kong extradition treaty indefinitely, and extended to Hong Kong the arms embargo applied to mainland China since 1989, as updated in 1998.
Although it would not be appropriate for me to speculate about future possible designations, we remain committed to working with partners to hold China to account, and not only China. We remain committed to working with international partners, whether our friends in Canada, our friends in Australia, who apply a similar system of sanctions, or the EU. We will work together, hand in hand, to ensure that everything that can be done is being done to hold those perpetrators to account for serious human rights violations. That is a top priority for this Government.
Our global anti-corruption sanctions regime targets those involved in bribery and misappropriation, stopping them freely entering the United Kingdom and using it as a safe haven for dirty money. The hon. Members for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) talked about how we can address the issue of dirty money coming into the United Kingdom. That is also a key priority for the Government. In just over a year, we have designated 27 people, including Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta and their associate Salim Essa, who were at the heart of long-running corruption that caused significant damage to South Africa’s economy.
I conclude by reflecting on the words of Winston Churchill:
“It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.”—[Official Report, 7 May 1947; Vol. 437, c. 455.]
The United Kingdom Government have demonstrated our vision and purpose by taking significant steps on this issue. Of course we can do more, and we will do more. The Government will work with parliamentarians to do all we can to ensure that serious human rights violators are brought to account.
Again, I thank the hon. Member for Rhondda and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green for all they have done. I look forward to working with them when Parliament returns in September. I go to the United States next week, so this timely debate enables me to say to my US counterparts how important this issue is not just for Congress but for Parliament.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before I call Sir Iain Duncan Smith, I want to tell everyone that there will be a six-minute limit on speeches in the summer Adjournment debate.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I start by thanking Redress, which has been hugely influential and important. Without its data, we would not have been able to have this debate today.
My hon. Friend the Minister must not take this personally, but this is not good enough—I am sorry. He set out a very laudable list of people and countries, but the fact remains that we have sanctioned only 20% of what the US has sanctioned. There is no answer yet as to why the US knows more than we do, and why we have not asked it for what it knows that we do not know. As we go into recess, the Government now have a few weeks to get this sorted out and to come back with a list of all the people they will sanction just to get us level with the US. I would like to see us sanction more, but there we are.
I draw the House’s attention to the reality in Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs are being decimated. It is the crime of all crimes: genocide. How have we not sanctioned the architects of this brutal, foul crime? Will my hon. Friend please go back to his office and say, “Get the names of those the Americans have sanctioned, and let us now sanction them immediately.”
We should stand for freedom, human rights and the rule of law, which are features of what we do here. If we cannot spell out to the world that we will not allow these acts of brutality and corruption to take place anywhere in the world, and even in London, we are not worth that title. I believe we are, so can we please come back in September and sanction everyone we can?
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered UK sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption.
Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As I will not be in the Chair at the end of this debate, which is a great shame, I wish a very good recess to everybody here and to all the staff—from the cleaners to the Clerks and all our own staff—who do amazing work to keep parliamentary democracy going in this country. Have a great recess.
It is an honour for me to introduce the first ever Sir David Amess summer Adjournment. If David were still alive today, he would be here, and in the six-minute time limit he would have raised 35 issues, at least. We remember Sir David and his family with fondness today.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead the first Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment debate ahead of the summer recess. It has been and, having been recently re-elected, continues to be a great privilege to chair the Backbench Business Committee since 2015.
Like many colleagues across the House, I will pay tribute to Sir David Amess, a distinguished and respected Member who served on the Backbench Business Committee between 2012 and 2015. Those of us who worked closely with Sir David will know how passionately he felt about Back-Bench issues, and it is entirely fitting that today’s debate and future debates of this kind will carry his name. While we must not forget the tragic circumstances that led to his death, it is right that we remember his positive impact on this House and how enthusiastically he represented his constituents in both Basildon and Southend West throughout his parliamentary career. Like Sir David, I seek to represent the constituents of my hometown of Gateshead in this House and, frankly, to anyone anywhere who will listen.
Last week, it was with some dismay, but not with any great surprise, that I read research published by End Child Poverty in conjunction with the North East Child Poverty Commission. It found that 38% of children across the north-east are growing up poor. In my constituency, that rises to 42%—over four in 10 children living in poverty. The north-east is no stranger to child poverty, but we now have another unenviable award in having the highest rate of child poverty in the UK. The reasons are many, not least the stripping back of the social security safety net, which has worsened poverty across my constituency, the effective £20 cut to universal credit, the two-child cap on universal credit, and the failure to increase payments in line with inflation for much of the past decade.
The apparent attitude across Departments seems to be to spend more effort looking for reasons not to give a positive response than actually tackling vital issues. In addition, we have seen over a decade of cuts to local authority budgets. Perhaps coincidentally, some areas with the greatest deprivation, such as Gateshead, have been subjected to proportionally much greater funding reductions. My own authority in Gateshead has seen its annual budget reduced by £170 million since 2010, even before increased population, greater levels of need and inflation are taken into account. That is £170 million a year extracted from my authority’s budget since 2010.
This Government’s funding model gives vague initiative funding which councils can bid for, only to find that much of the pot wends its way to favoured areas in, I am afraid to say, a pork barrel process. Even if some of that funding finds its way to us, it does relatively little to combat more than a decade of service cuts. Cuts to adult social care, children’s social care, youth services, early intervention proposals, special educational needs and family support all contribute to the situation we now face. Many families are in crisis.
The current cost of living crisis for many households in Gateshead is just acidic icing on an already bitter cake. Many families in Gateshead have spent a decade living from one week to the next, shaving ever more from their weekly shop, depriving themselves of food so they can feed their families, and going to bed early on winter evenings to save heating their homes. That is absolutely shameful and unsustainable. The fact that over 40% of children in my constituency live in poverty is unforgivable.
Gateshead is proud of taking an active role in Government resettlement schemes for families from Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. These additional people are all being welcomed, but it is already a relatively poor community. While I welcome the wraparound support offered as part of those schemes, I draw the House’s attention to the hundreds of legitimate refugees from around the world outside these schemes who reside in Gateshead, many of whom are stuck in the Home Office processing backlog.
I want to raise the case of a lad called Victor—I call him a lad, but he is now over 60—who has been living in my constituency since 2006. Originally from Russia, Victor arrived in the UK after fleeing Russia and Putin due to his public criticism of the Russian regime—free speech is something we talk about so much in this House. Victor applied to the Home Office and has spent much of the last 16 years waiting for decisions. He still does not have leave to remain. Having spent much of his recent life in Gateshead, supported briefly by the Home Office and, after that, compassionately by Gateshead Council, sustaining him on just £30 a week, Victor is no further forward after 16 years.
The Home Office continues to refuse to grant him the right to stay in the UK, but at the same time recognises that Russia is not a safe place to deport him to, especially for those who are critical of the regime. It is not right that people like Victor, who come to the UK with a legitimate right to apply for asylum here, are left in limbo, not to say abject poverty, unable to work, unable to settle here and unable to build a home for fear of removal, yet left for nearly two decades in no man’s land. The recent illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine by Putin has thrown into stark relief the systematic suppression of human rights, civil liberties and freedom of speech in Russia. The circumstances in Russia were never good, but they have changed for the worse. Let Victor stay in Gateshead.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call the Father of the House, Sir Peter Bottomley.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I, too, thank the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the name of this debate. On this Thursday a year ago, David Amess finished his speech with the words, “make Southend a city”, and that has happened, at great cost to him.
The previous debate was about Sergei Magnitsky, Bill Browder and others. Nine years after Sergei Magnitsky was killed, Bill Browder was arrested in Madrid on a Russian order. I pay tribute to the then Foreign Secretary, now the Prime Minister, who, within hours, took a call, took action, and got him released. That is one of the examples of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, acting fast and effectively and, on behalf of Bill Browder, I am grateful for it. International action can work.
I want to refer back to the exchanges we had this morning on the national holocaust memorial. When David Amess and I were first elected, if the Government lost a High Court case they paid attention. They have lost two on this.
I ask the Government to read the specification issued by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, a Government agency, in September 2015. There was no suggestion then that Parliament had to be the place where the memorial was put.
As I described earlier, the acceptable areas included the whole of Regents Park, Hyde Park, out into Spitalfields, and down to the Imperial War Museum. Between September 2015 and January 2016, it became an accomplished fact that it could only go in Victoria Tower Gardens. I asked questions about this when it was first mentioned in Downing Street or in whatever was then the responsible Ministry, but there was no answer at all. That is a cover-up.
No Department wanted to have responsibility for this project. In the National Audit Office report issued on 6 July this year, that is spelled out in polite language. I hope that the Public Accounts Committee will ask the NAO why it did not compare the specification in September 2015 with what is on offer now, which is a third of the size but still far too big for Victoria Tower Gardens. I encourage the Government to look at this, as though from the beginning, to see how soon we can have a memorial of an appropriate type in the appropriate place, and have the learning centre and spend most of the money on education. Those are the tests that the House ought to agree on.
A week ago, I raised with the Prime Minister the question of planning inspectors doing incompatible things in relation to Chatsmore Farm on land north of Goring station in my constituency. He said that I would be able to talk to the relevant Minister. The relevant Minister took 17 minutes to resign.
I would therefore be grateful if my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House could arrange for a substitute to talk to me, and at the same time get together the Department for Transport and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities over planning assumptions on traffic. The A27 is in my constituency and beyond. In my constituency, nothing is happening; beyond, in Arundel, the Department for Transport will not take account of the planned houses that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is forcing on Arun District Council.
We cannot have two Departments working on incompatible figures, especially when the result is a loss to the local community. Will the Minister ask those two Departments to pay attention to a letter from Karl Roberts of the directorate of growth at Arun District Council, and get this sorted out? It ought to be fairly simple: the higher figure should be taken into account when a national road is going through a local area.
On Chatsmore Farm, I still wait to hear that the Government will accept that we cannot allow one planning inspector to say that houses can be built on a protected area, when it was protected before and will be protected again when a second inspector finishes his examination of a council’s plan. It is wrong that any developer should be able to get away with that. If they do, in every field, every vineyard, every nursery and every golf club in my constituency and in other people’s constituencies in England, the same thing will happen. It has to be stopped. If land is available and suitable for housing, fine, but if it should be protected and for some technical reason it is not for a short period of time, then protection is needed.
I turn to the curiosity of environmental networks, including the Conservative Environment Network, trying to ask a Secretary of State to talk about the Drax power station and whether burning wood that has been transported across the Atlantic is in any way defensible in terms of climate change.
My understanding is that the Secretary of State has had 30 meetings or more with Drax, while letters from a number of MPs over the last year still have not produced a meeting. Is there some reason why the Secretary of State is not meeting me and others? Is it because the Government have not developed a policy, or that they realise they do have a policy but it is indefensible? Anything ought to be able to stand up in a discussion with colleagues, so I repeat my request for that to happen.
I want to finish by saying that Members of Parliament obviously have the job of supporting their party when in government—I do that with enthusiasm—but when I am in the Chamber arguing for my constituents, I want the Government to pay attention.
My final point is one of simple justice. My constituent David Parker lost his money because the Financial Conduct Authority and the courts made mistakes. The judge in the case told the Lord Chancellor please to sort it out and give him the money that the court cannot order. I do not want to hear any Secretary of State say that we will not ask how we could do that if we chose to. For someone to say, as was indicated to me, that they will not even ask how we could do that, is an injustice.
Our job in Parliament, whether we are lawyers or not, is to bring justice and law together. Ministers need to be imaginative in making sure that my constituent David Parker gets his money.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to raise a number of issues in the Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment debate. One is the issue of passport delays, which is affecting many of our constituents.
Yesterday, at the Home Affairs Committee, the head of HM Passport Office acknowledged that there was a backlog of over 500,000, despite constant reassurances from the Government Front Bench that passport applications were being dealt with within 10 weeks. The backlog is having a real effect on people’s ability to travel not just on holiday but to family funerals and so on. That is unacceptable. I was the last passports Minister in the last Labour Government, so I know there is a predictable upsurge in demand—we saw it after the banking crisis—and it could have been predicted. It reflects some of the challenges raised by a drop in staffing numbers and without enough of a plan to increase them in time. The Passport Office has always been very good at going with the ebb and flow, so the situation is shocking. I hope that in the few weeks of the summer recess, the Government will get a grip of the issue to ensure that, even if many people are, sadly, still unable to go away on holiday or to visit family, it will be sorted by the autumn.
Another key issue in the Home Office—there are so many—is immigration. I am one of the top six customers, if you like, as a Member of Parliament on immigration issues in the Home Office. There is delay, inaction, inaccuracy and lives being wrecked all over the place. The Syria resettlement scheme was, as the Public Accounts Committee highlighted, run quite well, and we have now had the Afghanistan and Ukraine resettlement schemes, but all of them have knocked out the normal day-to-day work done to support family visas and other immigration cases. I have people living in limbo, unable to get on with their lives, their children unable to go on school trips or to universities. A women wrote to me just today, hoping that her partner would be able to come here as she is due to give birth in Homerton Hospital. She has been told that the 12-week wait for a family visa has now been extended to 24, blowing out their careful planning to make sure they could be settled and together as a family for the important occasion of the birth of their first child. That is just one example out of many of where lives have been wrecked.
On the Afghanistan resettlement scheme, the Syrian resettlement model was well-worn and worked pretty well. The Public Accounts Committee gave it a fairly good thumbs up—although there are always issues on which we want to see improvements—so there was a blueprint in place, yet in a hotel in Old Street in my constituency, Afghan families and individuals have been stuck since last August, unable to move on. We are getting to the one-year anniversary—not a birthday we want to celebrate. While of course we all recognise the challenge and vital importance of supporting our Ukrainian neighbours in their need, the excuses coming out of the Home Office—“We are dealing with these issues, but we have delays because of Ukraine”—are just not acceptable. This is the British Home Office. It should be able to deal with more than one issue at a time. However, we are repeatedly seeing a version of whack-a-mole, in which an issue arises and everyone is shipped over to deal with that issue while other people wait in the queue. These people are stuck, they are living in limbo, and, as I have said, they are suffering devastating consequences. It is a litany of poor communication and delay, and it is having a huge impact on people’s lives.
I have been an immigration Minister, and if someone does not qualify to be in the UK that is fine, but many people who do qualify are sitting in limbo as they wait to renew a leave to remain application which is very unlikely to be refused. What a poor welcome to our country—a country that is built on the shoulders of many migrants. Indeed, we have a candidate for its leadership whose parents entered the UK from another country, and have created a life and a potential new Prime Minister. We should be doing much more to welcome these people.
I do not lay all this on the staff. There have been staff cuts in the Home Office, and indeed across the civil service. Civil service staffing fell to its lowest ever level before 2016 and, although there has been an increase since then, largely connected with Brexit and trade issues, the Government’s proposal to remove 20%, 30% or 40% of officials from Departments poses a real challenge. The Government need to be clear about the consequences of those potential cuts.
Climate change is obviously a huge issue for us all, and I am very concerned about the Government’s repeated failure on home insulation, which is an issue in my constituency and across the country. We have seen a number of failed projects, but the Government now have an opportunity to kick-start the economy. I make this plea now in particular because by the time we return in September we will have a new Prime Minister to hear how we can create jobs, growth and opportunity for people by ensuring that we can get that insulation into people’s homes. Emissions from properties constitute 19% of total emissions, and that needs to be tackled, but it will not be tackled unless we get this right.
As the Public Accounts Committee pointed out in a report published a while ago, the Government have plans for electric vehicles but no real plans for a charging structure. How are people going to make the leap into buying electric vehicles unless they can be sure that they can charge them?
These are small but clear examples of the need for us to turn the challenge of achieving net zero into something that is manageable, meaningful and affordable for the people who need to make those moves in order for us to achieve it. This cannot be done to people; they have to be empowered to do it, and the Government are not helping in that regard. They are missing a real opportunity to drive green jobs, growth and investment.
Finally, I want to reiterate my concern about people living in flats in my constituency. I declare an interest, in that I live with a communal heating system and with cladding—although that is fast being removed from my building by the developer, which, happily, is not charging my neighbours and me.
Communal and district heating is not covered by the energy price cap. Let me give some of the worst examples of what is happening in my constituency. One constituent faces a 600% increase in his gas bill. Another has a well-paid job but is still struggling, with energy prices rising by 400%. In a third case, the increase is over 100%. It is very difficult to absorb such prices during the current cost of living crisis. The Government have said that they will change this eventually, but they need to provide support now for people with communal heating systems, who are really struggling.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The winding-up speeches will begin at about 4.30 pm, so please remember to come back to the Chamber to witness the impossible task of the Front Benchers responding to this debate.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the redoubtable Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, on which I also serve. I entirely empathise with her points about passport delays.
Let me begin by thanking Mr Speaker, the Leader of the House and the House authorities for very kindly naming this debate in memory of my great friend Sir David Amess, who remains sorely missed across this House, not least by me. This was already known unofficially as the Sir David Amess debate because of the inimitable style in which he conducted it, but it is wonderful to know that what was unofficial is now official, and I simply say thank you.
Before the House adjourns for the summer recess, I wish to raise a mere four issues. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), who now represents part of the new city of Southend, has been campaigning hard for the release of Government funding to help expand capacity at Southend Hospital. I—along with my hon. Friends the Members for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), have been supporting her in her campaign. I was delighted to hear only this morning that she has apparently been successful in her efforts, and that the funding is now very close indeed to being released. This sum, totalling over £7 million, will pave the way for a much-needed expansion in capacity, so I hope it will go some way to help ease the considerable pressures on Southend Hospital and the ambulance service. I think that Sir David Amess would have welcomed this crucial funding, too, and, knowing him, I think he would immediately have asked for more.
Secondly, I very much welcome the fact that Rochford District Council has recently announced that it will reopen the popular Mill Hall arts and community centre in the heart of Rayleigh in September. This has been an issue of considerable concern to many of my constituents, and I thank the council, led by Councillor Simon Wootton, for doing the right thing. In the longer term, I understand that the council is now looking at plans to materially refurbish the Mill Hall, and perhaps even extend the building slightly in order to provide some new facilities. Only yesterday, the council began a community engagement programme to invite interested parties to bid to run the Mill Hall in the future. I very much hope that the council will also launch a further detailed consultation once the refurbishment plans have evolved, so that all of my constituents in and around Rayleigh can have their say, as this is an issue that really matters in the town.
Thirdly, I turn to the Home Office’s initial proposals to house cross-channel asylum seekers at the Chichester Hotel near Wickford. I have received a considerable number of emails about this plan from very concerned constituents. Let me put firmly on the record my strong opposition to these misguided proposals. Many constituents have raised worries about the hotel’s conditions, previous cancellations of events there without proper reimbursement, and, most alarmingly, staff redundancies with little or no notice. There have also been worrying allegations, including by former staff, concerning irregularities in the payment of tax and national insurance by the hotel management.
I have attempted via my office to contact the owners of the Chichester Hotel on multiple occasions to seek urgent answers to those very alarming suggestions, yet they continue to ignore requests for clarity and answers from me, as the locally elected MP, and, indeed, from the local and now even national press. Given all of that, I have requested an urgent meeting next week with the Minister for Immigration, in which I will seek to ascertain the exact details of these initial proposals, alongside taking the opportunity, in my usual understated manner, to raise my objections face to face.
We must tackle the vile industry of people trafficking across the channel. It is a form of moral blackmail and has led to many sad deaths already. In the medium term, I believe that we must use the arrangements with Rwanda to break the business model of these awful human traffickers, in which case accommodation such as that at the Chichester would no longer be required.
Fourthly, Sangster Court is a sheltered housing unit in Rayleigh, run—allegedly, at least—by Notting Hill Genesis. This housing association has frequently increased the charges that the elderly residents have to pay, even once charging one resident 79p for depreciation on a communal sofa. This is why some people now refer to the building as “Gangster Court” instead. On top of this, Notting Hill Genesis has consistently had a poor maintenance record. For example, it recently left the building’s communal TV aerial broken for three weeks, despite frequently milking the residents of ever-increasing charges. I can only express the hope that Notting Hill Genesis will soon be overtaken by a larger and more professional housing association that will do a much better job for my constituents.
Finally, it is a great pleasure to see the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) at the Dispatch Box. I think he knows already that I got married recently to a wonderful girl called Olivia, and what Mrs Francois wants to know is: can he promise me, all of Sir David’s friends and colleagues and this House that this will now be known as the Sir David Amess debate forever, because I think that that is the answer we would like to hear?
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Like everyone, I think, I am very pleased to be speaking in the Sir David Amess debate. We were both regular contributors to whingeing gits afternoons before each recess—that is the name that we used to refer to these debates. Although we were regulars—the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) referred to this—I might get in, like the right hon. Gentleman, four or five issues, David would get well into double figures. If I tried to match his batting average, we would probably still be sat here on 5 September when Parliament returns. He was brilliant. He was also one of my neighbours at one time as well.
I want to mention one or two local issues. The first is the planned rebuild of Whipps Cross Hospital in my constituency. This has been promised for some years. It was one of those announced by the Prime Minister some time ago, but the finance has not come through from the Treasury. There has been no explanation for this. The demolition of some of the buildings at Whipps Cross has already commenced, so, as Members can imagine, Barts NHS Health Trust is in a fairly tricky situation.
Let me move on now to the actual plans, which have been in place for some time, but, hopefully, will be changed. I support the construction of a new hospital, but the original plans set out that the number of beds will be cut by 50. In the light of covid, the idea that we can cut hospital bed numbers, which has always been questionable, today seems to be barking mad. The trust has given a very vague undertaking that the bed numbers will be maintained at the level they are at now, but, as I say, that has been very vague and very carefully worded, and I will hold the trust to it.
There is also the plan to break up the Margaret Centre at the hospital, which is an end-of life care centre and is one of the best in the country—I think I can say that with some confidence. I have had emails and letters from people whose relatives have died in the Margaret Centre, all of them praising it, and now the plan is to break up that centre. It will fail. It will backfire. The trust needs to address it now and reverse that decision as soon as possible.
The second issue is that of overflying, which is a big issue in my constituency and for many others in east and south London. The planes that I am talking about go to and from City of London airport. The overflying has been an issue, I think, since the time I was elected, or very soon after. It started to be raised with me, and I then raised it with successive Mayors of London and with Government Ministers. Now City of London airport wants to increase the number of planes flying over east London from 6.5 million to 9 million. That is a huge increase. It involves getting rid of the present curfew, so there will be flights on Saturday afternoons and evenings and an increase in flights in the early morning and late evening. That will make life difficult for the people I represent, but there is also a question, which we are all talking about, of whether, particularly after the extreme weather that we have witnessed recently, we can just keep sticking more and more planes up in the sky, spreading toxic fumes over the country. That has to be, at very best, deeply questionable.
The next issue is not actually a constituency matter. I was the MP for Hornchurch until 2005 when I was ejected—I am not bitter or anything. In my then constituency was the village of Wennington. Members will have all read in the news about the fire that raged through Wennington. I have very happy memories of Wennington and my heart goes out to the people who live there.
My successor in Hornchurch was James Brokenshire. I know that if James were alive today he would be talking about Wennington as well, even though the constituency of Hornchurch was broken up by the Boundary Commission, so James was the last MP for Hornchurch. The MP now is my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas). I know that he has been run ragged by dealing with the after-effects of the fire and by the fire in Dagenham as well.
The last issue I want to raise is, again, not a constituency matter, but it is something that should really affect us all. I am talking about the grooming gangs in Telford, which have been across the news in the past few days and weeks. We have had cases all over the country. This happens again and again. It is the same pattern: a case is raised, ignored, raised, ignored and, eventually, there is an investigation. That leads to people being jailed, but we have years of rape, abuse, sexual exploitation of young girls and it not being addressed. I am bringing this up now because I want to pay tribute to the first person who raised this, which was more than 20 years ago, and that was my mum. She was the MP for Keighley at the time, and she discovered that this was going on because seven women walked into her advice surgery and started talking about it; their daughters were the victims. Again, there was the usual pattern: she raised it with social services and the police and was ignored, ignored, ignored. She then went public and, to their—hopefully—eternal shame, certain figures in the Labour party attacked her for being a racist. Although a number of figures did not support her, one did: the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for the point that he is making. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) is still dealing with some of these issues today. What the mum of the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) did back then is so important—thank you very much.
John Cryer
I am grateful for that intervention. I was going to mention the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), because I have talked to him about this issue, and it is very much in his mind. He has raised it again and again, as have many MPs, but I wanted to pay tribute to my mum because she happens to have been one of the first people who raised it.
David Blunkett is owed our eternal gratitude, because he ensured that the law was changed so that six men could be sent to prison for crimes of rape, exploitation and underage sex. I suspect that if it were not for David, who is now in another place, that court case could have collapsed, as could future court cases. I will not name any of the people responsible, but the people—sadly, from my party—who lined up to attack my mum and smear her as a racist and for doing the British National party’s job for it should hang their heads in shame.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I have just emerged from conducting a leadership contest in Parliament before we rise for the summer recess. Had you not been elevated to your current position, Mr Deputy Speaker, no doubt you would have been alongside me carrying out that process. I am very relieved that, as per usual, we have delivered on time and within budget, with two candidates going forward to the country.
I will start with a number of subjects relating to Transport for London. We still have an extension to the current arrangements under which the Government have provided £5 billion to TfL to keep it going, but we still have no long-term agreement. It appears that the Labour Mayor of London refuses to do what is required, which is to make economies and produce more revenue for TfL. He refuses to take any action on fares, pensions and some of the rather bizarre working arrangements that exist for TfL. We are seeing the effect of that. During the recent heatwave, services were being reduced even before we got to the state where, when temperatures reached 25°, services were cancelled or altered. The Mayor is now proposing a managed decline of bus services in London, which will damage the system still further. It is clear that the Government need to reach an agreement with the Labour Mayor of London to ensure that we have a long-term arrangement.
As Members who regularly attend these debates will know, I always raise Stanmore station.
Dame Meg Hillier
As a fellow London MP, I want to be clear with the hon. Member: no one wants to see buses cut. Is he asking the Government for more money for London to make sure that we backfill the loss of fares as a result of covid? That will mean that the buses do not have to be cut. The Government’s funding is causing the problem, so is he asking for more money?
Bob Blackman
Clearly, Transport for London finances need to be put on a proper footing, and the capital funding that will be required is the most important aspect for the long term. The suggestion at the moment is that Crossrail will be the last investment in London for a very long time. That is the principal concern.
As I was saying, the Mayor of London wanted to build tower blocks all over Stanmore station car park. I am pleased to say that Harrow Council—then under Labour control—rejected that planning application. The Mayor called it in and the developer has now pulled out because they cannot make the financial scheme work, so it is in a state of limbo. He also suffered defeat on Canons Park station. Once again, he wanted to build tower blocks in the car park but was defeated at the planning committee. They are not content and have come back with another proposal for Queensbury station car park, again, for tower blocks on the car park. There is a trend, and it is not providing any new homes for anyone, because the plans will constantly be stalled and prevented by the local authorities concerned.
I am pleased that the new Conservative regime in Harrow has made a great start following the elections in May, with the pledges that were made to the electorate being honoured already. One hour of free parking outside shops will be implemented from 1 August, in record time. There will be a ban on tall buildings in Harrow, so we will no longer see buildings above six storeys built. Tower blocks end up, I am afraid, as ghettoes and in the social discontent that we regularly suffer in London. The council is also combating fly-tipping, with the introduction in September of free bulky waste collections from homes. Those are all new initiatives.
I must declare an interest: my wife was elected to the council to represent the good voters of Edgware. She topped the poll in that ward, which was historically a safe Labour seat. She is now in charge of trying to sort out customer contact—Harrow Council’s email traffic and its telephone system. I wish her well in that regard, because the system has been dreadful; people wait on the phone for 45 minutes and then they get cut off. I am certain that that is all going to change.
Let me turn to some of the problems we are suffering in the constituency. I very much echo what the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) said about passports. Even people who have paid for the priority service are not getting the service within the promised timeframe. That is scandalous. There seems to be a lack of co-ordination and communication, because the Home Office says one thing to constituents and another thing to my office. That cannot be right. Yesterday, at the hub in Portcullis House, staffers waited up to four hours to see someone. It just cannot go on like this. We have even had delays with applications for biometric cards. One constituent has been stuck in Turkey since Christmas; they are still waiting and cannot get home to be with their family. That must change.
There are still 12,000 Afghan refugees stuck in hotels. We have one case of an 11-year-old boy who was unfortunately put on a plane to France instead of the UK. He is still in France and has not been reunited with his family. The bureaucracy is a nightmare. We need to get that resolved. I have just had an excellent briefing from my new friends in Harrow Council—the officers—on what we are doing on Ukrainian refugees. I will be writing to the Minister concerned with a lot of proposals for what needs to happen and change.
I had the pleasure on Monday of meeting former Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. One thing about Israel is that they love elections. The one thing I hope they never inflict on us is their voting system, because we would perennially be in elections here. It was a great pleasure to meet ex-Prime Minister Netanyahu. I wish him well and I hope that Likud is returned to power in the forthcoming election.
The Javed Khan tobacco control review was published recently. Unfortunately, because of the current position in the Government, we are not seeing any movement on that. I hope that the Government will come forward speedily and implement the review’s recommendations without too much delay.
I shall be spending the summer in the constituency. I am delighted to say that I have had a record number of applications for work experience with me—no fewer than 56. Those people will be out on the streets with me, meeting the voters.
Finally, I trust that now we have a new Deputy Leader of the House, he will implement without delay the business of the House Committee that he pledged to introduce a long time ago.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Diolch, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I join those who have already spoken in saying what an honour it is to participate in this Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate? I liked David a lot. He was a gentleman who earned respect across the House and an MP whose support for his community was unwavering, and his integrity and principle are greatly missed in this place. Our paths crossed, as mine often does with Conservative Members, because I truly believe that success comes from working cross party.
Everything I have achieved in the past seven years has been through cross-party working, and I count many people on the Benches opposite as friends. I have no doubt that many of them are as disappointed as I am that long awaited and important legislation has been sidelined because of internal issues in the Conservative party. In their 2019 manifesto, the Conservatives committed to
“legislate to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online”.
Unfortunately, this week’s greatly anticipated White Paper on gambling did not transpire. The call for evidence on the gambling review closed 16 months ago and the publication of the White Paper has now been postponed four times, initially due to covid, then a change in Minister and now because of their internal party situation. There are now just two candidates remaining in the battle for the Conservative leadership, both of whom stood for Parliament on the 2019 Tory manifesto. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that they believed in the pledges that their party made and, along with their leader at the time, were committed to the urgent and long overdue need for gambling reform.
I have spoken many times about why this is so urgent; why we need online stake limits and affordability checks; why gambling advertising, particularly on premier league football shirts, needs to be curbed to protect children and those most vulnerable to harm; why we need a statutory levy to ensure that those in the industry who cause the most suffering make the biggest contributions towards research, education, and treatment; and why we need an independent ombudsman to guarantee that those who seek redress are supported in their cases against multi-million pound global organisations. I have lost count of the number of times that I have had to defend myself against those who say I am anti-gambling or a prohibitionist. That could not be further from the truth. I am not anti-gambling, but I am anti-harm, anti- exploitation and anti the vultures who prey on the most vulnerable and are responsible for untold heartache.
On menopause—my favourite subject—I welcomed most of the women’s health strategy announced this week. But it lacked proposals that would have been most welcome in connection with menopause care. I was pleased to welcome a commitment to improving the training for doctors of the future, but that is little consolation to women who are struggling now to get a diagnosis and medication. I am delighted that doctors of the future will be trained to identify the menopause, but we cannot wait another seven years—we desperately need an urgent pathway for women to get the proper treatment and resources that they need now.
I was also pleased to see the strategy officially set out plans for the single annual prescription prepayment charge, which came about as a result of my private Member’s Bill last year. Again, my delight is tinged with frustration that women are having to wait 18 months. England is the only part of the United Kingdom that charges women for hormone replacement therapy, and that needs to be remedied as a matter of urgency. There was no mention of a much-needed public awareness campaign to ensure that more women are alert to the symptoms and are given the confidence to seek the support they need, nor of a national formulary to end the postcode lottery not just in the availability of HRT, but also its quality. All women should have access to quality body-identical HRT. No woman should have an inferior product because of where she lives.
Finally, I come to my summer scheme to feed children. I want to put on record how pleased I am by the generosity of organisations in my constituency, such as Coastal Housing, Mecca Bingo, Hygrove Homes, Gowerton Golf Range and Admiral Insurance, and my gratitude to my team as we will spend the next six weeks making sandwiches, packing lunches and delivering them to children across my constituency who otherwise might not be fed during the summer holidays.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We will stick to six minutes for Martin Vickers, but then we will have to reduce the limit to five minutes to get everyone in.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for that extra minute. I add my words of tribute to Sir David Amess and his work in this House. This event is not the same without him. He is sadly missed.
I will not detain the House for too long—hopefully not for the full six minutes—but I have two particular issues relating to rail. The first is a constituency matter concerning the services provided by TransPennine Express. The most important service between Cleethorpes, Grimsby and the rest of the country is provided by what should be an hourly train between Cleethorpes and, until recently, Manchester Airport. The service to the airport was curtailed as a result of congestion in the Manchester area. The change is, to put it mildly, inconvenient for passengers and represents a loss of revenue for the rail company. I hope that it can be resolved in the fairly near future. As I said, the service should be hourly, but cancellations frequently stretch that to three or four hours. Staff at Grimsby Town station told me of one recent occasion of six hours without a train. That is quite simply not good enough.
I want to highlight this appalling set of circumstances. I frequently meet the TransPennine Express management, and I recognise the difficulties, but I was told in May that we would be almost back to normal from the start of the summer timetable in mid-May. Some months ago, an amended timetable was printed, which I was told would provide certainty; it has done the exact opposite. The situation is unsatisfactory, and I hope that the Department for Transport will side with the passengers on this one. I do recognise, as I said, that TransPennine Express has had difficulties, and it is doing its best to overcome them. My job is to speak up for my constituents, and they are getting an absolutely appalling service. If the only solution for DFT is to reconsider whether the franchise should be withdrawn, then that is the action that needs taking.
Hopefully, LNER is going to provide a direct service from next May between Cleethorpes and London, via Market Rasen in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). That is in the draft timetable, but I know there have been difficulties at Market Rasen.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a notable champion, for giving way. This is a really difficult issue. We have been campaigning for years to get a direct service from Grimsby and Cleethorpes, through Market Rasen and Lincoln, and on to London. This is a population of a quarter of a million with no direct service. Unbelievably, LNER is now saying that it will provide the train, but it will not stop in my constituency. It is absurd. Apparently, the train is too long. I have been in many trains where an announcement says, “You have to go to the first four carriages because the platform is a bit short,” but for ridiculous health and safety reasons, LNER is threatening not to stop in my constituency. It is an outrage, and I hope the Minister is listening and will do something about it for once.
Martin Vickers
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right, but can I return to TransPennine Express and the appalling service that it is providing?
This is not just about passengers at the main stations, such as Cleethorpes, Grimsby and Scunthorpe, because little information is provided at intermediate stations such Habrough and Barnetby. Local taxi drivers tell me time and again that they receive calls from stranded passengers. Even at the major interchange in Doncaster, there are no TransPennine Express staff to direct people to taxis or buses, and there is a notable lack of information.
Moving on to another rail issue, the taxpayer contributes an enormous amount of money to support this country’s rail system, but—I know the Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), shares this concern, because I have had numerous conversations with her about this—train companies are losing revenue because of the noticeable lack of ticket inspections. Up and down the country, there are many barriers at main railway stations such as King’s Cross, and they are frequently open, so people can wander in and out and get on trains without anybody checking their ticket.
I have frequently travelled from King’s Cross to Grimsby or Cleethorpes on two services—the London North Eastern Railway service to Doncaster and, hopefully, the TransPennine from Doncaster, although that is usually after two or three hours’ wait—and they are frequently not inspected. Last week, LNER did inspect my ticket, but the inspector did not clip it, scribble on it or anything. It was not inspected on the TransPennine service, so I could use it again this week and nobody would be the wiser. I am sure that Members from all parties could confirm that this happens. The point is that this is, to a great extent, a taxpayer-funded service and the companies are not doing all they can to ensure that they maximise their revenue.
I have one other complaint against the Government—of which I am a great supporter, of course. The Deputy Leader of the House will be well aware that an issue frequently raised at business questions is replies to Members’ letters. Two or three weeks ago, I received a letter from a Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that said, “Thank you for your letter of 6 August 2021.” I rather hope that the electronic signature on that letter was a sign that the Minister had never seen it, because I hope that if he or she had seen it they would have at least drawn my attention to that and apologised. The timeframe is not good enough, and it is not good enough that we receive letters with electronic signatures, because we have absolutely no idea whether the Minister has ever been made aware of the issue we have raised.
With that, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you and the Deputy Leader of the House a happy summer holiday.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I, too, pay tribute to Sir David Amess for the work that he did in Parliament. I hope that our Parliament continues to do justice to his memory.
I wish to continue in the vein of the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) as we approach the summer recess. I am sure that during the recess many Members will reflect on the Government’s performance. Time will not permit me to go into great detail, but I would like to cover one or two key points that are causing much frustration not only to me and my staff but, I am sure, to many other Members in the House.
A key priority for all Members of this House is dealing with constituency casework on behalf of the people we serve. Over the past few years, our country has faced the most difficult of times and my office, like those of many others, has seen a considerable increase in the numbers of people seeking assistance. Delays in responses really hamper our work and cause frustration for our staff. From delays at the Passport Office to long waits for driving tests, backlog Britain reaches far and wide. Indeed, the delays have now spread to Ministers’ private offices, with considerable delays across multiple Government Departments.
In one urgent case, I waited 59 working days for a reply from the Department for Work and Pensions; in another, I waited 58 working days for a response from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. One constituent has suffered as a result of an error at the DWP whereby his details were mistaken with those of a family member. His benefits have been stopped and attempts to resolve matters have been unsuccessful. I wrote to the Secretary of State on 23 May and am still awaiting a response. I have even resorted to using parliamentary questions to try to break the logjam.
Such delays are on top of the eye-watering delays at Her Majesty’s Passport Office, UK Visas and Immigration and the DVLA. The excessive waiting times across multiple Departments not only add to the backlog and the frustration of the British people but could be seen to impede the work of Members of Parliament. Many Members have consistently raised the delays, and have done so more frequently in recent months. I have raised the issue, too, and hope that the Deputy Leader of the House agrees that they are unacceptable. If so, when he responds, will he outline what action the Government could take to address such disrespectful behaviour? If he would take a suggestion from the Opposition Benches, I would say that the wrong-headed decision to sack 91,000 hard-working civil servants will only exacerbate the incredible delays.
In the time I have left to speak, I wish to raise one more issue, which is HS2. The Government have designated the scheme as an England and Wales project, even though it has no positive impact for Wales. In fact, the evidence suggests it has a negative impact. Designating it as an England and Wales scheme means that Wales is not entitled to consequential funding, which in this case could be as much as £4.2 billion. The cross-party Welsh Affairs Committee and the leader of the Welsh Conservatives have also raised this issue. I have to ask how anyone in Government can continue to justify this position, which is surely untenable. I hope the Deputy Leader of the House can offer some positive comments this afternoon.
Mims Davies (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I welcome the Deputy Leader of the House to his place. It is an honour to speak in this summer Adjournment debate.
I will take Members on a quick tour around Mid Sussex, as this is my first chance to do so as a Back Bencher for some time. Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope you will indulge me as I talk about my predecessor, who, if the rumours are true, may be in the other place very soon. I asked Sir Nicholas’s long-time agent, Ginny, to remind me of her time with him and to give me some tips. One message was, “If you ever order scampi and chips, you’d better make sure you get some spare scampi. And always have a spoon to share dessert, because he will never order his own but he will definitely want some of yours.”
When I first stood as a candidate, I asked Sir Nicholas to give me some tips on how it might work, and he said, “Mimsy, be careful. There are some very clever girls on the candidates list. I mean some of them are lawyers and barristers, and everything.” He was nothing but charming and incredibly supportive. One of his favourite things was Fridays in the constituency, which we all absolutely love—it is my favourite experience, too.
Sir Nicholas’s surgeries were hysterical, not surprisingly, and he was impeccable in supporting jobs, schools, businesses, country pursuits and, of course, the South of England show in nearby Ardingly. He also supported the Haywards Heath bike ride and the Mid Sussex marathon weekend, which I founded. He was a brilliant supporter from day one. We wish him incredibly well.
Finally, when Sir Nicholas was on his rather famous diet, he found tuna flakes. He found little pots of them in Portcullis House and it was life changing: “I have never experienced these things, these tuna flakes”—that is what Ginny told me. It is a pleasure to follow him and to speak about my constituency.
In my gallops around Mid Sussex, on Zoom and Teams over the last few years, and when giving out covid certificates, I have met and had conversations with about 300 groups, businesses, organisations, churches, schools and shops.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
As my hon. Friend mentions businesses, and given her role over the past few years, I want to thank her for supporting my local jobcentre in Watford and, in particular, for supporting the launch of the self-employed mentoring scheme.
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for saying that.
It was a pride and joy to be at the DWP for the last three years. I saw 163,000 young people going into their first job, and I opened more than 150 youth hubs and 200 new jobcentres to address the covid impact. It was remarkable to see just this week that 2 million women have gone back to work since 2010, which is very positive. Jobcentres can give important support to the self-employed, and my hon. Friend does important work mentoring and supporting people in his constituency.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who has now left the Chamber, mentioned support for resettled Afghans and Ukrainians and getting them into work. Jobcentres are at the heart of this, helping people to get a fulfilling career, whether they are resettling, a veteran, over 50 or have been affected by the pandemic.
On jobs, it was exciting to see the University of Sussex research facilities come to Haywards Heath, with Universal Quantum Ltd. I will be having my latest bounce back business breakfast at CEA Systems in September. Boeing, also based in Burgess Hill, was here in Parliament just this week. I have some amazing charities in my patch, including Group Strep B Support, which was also in Parliament this week.
I am sure we are all going to enjoy our summer as we go to visit many of our businesses. Without the welcome back fund or the cultural recovery fund, some of them simply would not be there. For example, the support for Borde Hill in my constituency and the Orion cinema in Burgess Hill has been crucial. However, I must raise a couple of issues. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities needs to help shovel-ready regeneration projects get their money and get things out the door. We have been waiting since 2011 for a new town centre in Burgess Hill and people are getting fed up. There have been two planning permissions and we are ready to go. I really hope the new application coming forward will help to support our beleaguered high street.
We need a new Clair Hall—it has been delivering vaccinations, but we need a cultural centre back in Mid Sussex. We also need a running track and much more support for sports pavilions and other areas, where we absolutely have the participation but we do not have the funding matching what is needed. May I follow the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), in linking transportation and planning issues? We are delivering homes in Mid Sussex, in the right places, where possible, through a local plan, but we are being ridden roughshod over by the Planning Inspectorate on neighbourhood plans and that is unacceptable. Our constituents are fed up. They are doing their bit when it comes to housing and they want Government to listen.
I wish the House a very happy summer, and I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, wish to pay tribute to Sir David Amess and the indelible mark he left on this place. His family called for a legacy of kindness and love across Parliament. I think we still have some way to go on that journey, but he was never afraid to speak truth to power, which I trust I will do today. It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies). I, too, will be picking up on the issue of housing in my speech.
Normally, we enter the summer with relief, but this year it is different. We have chaos across Government and across the country. The scale and depth of the multiple crises is weighing heavy on my constituents: it is taking five years to see an NHS dentist; GPs are under unbelievable stress and struggling with demand, with appointments now being issued for 16 August, with nothing before; we have the elective surgery backlog; we have the mental health crisis— I do not know where to begin there—covid is, yet again, dangerously on the rise; children’s social care is unable to meet demand; children are in dilapidated schools; we have the courts backlog; we have the passport backlog; we have the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency backlog; we have the visa backlog; we have a climate crisis; we have an economic crisis of inflation at 9.4% today; and we have a cost of living crisis. After 12 years, this is what the Tories have given our country. We are in meltdown, not just because of the temperature, but because of the temperature of what is coming out of the policies of this Government. It is left to us as constituency MPs to pick up the pieces.
Today, however, I want to focus on the biggest crisis facing York: the housing crisis. Having spent weeks on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee, it is clear that the Government are yet to get to grips with the housing crisis and the solutions that are needed. My amendments have focused on addressing the lack of community voice in planning and matching need to what is being delivered in housing. It does a disservice for Government because, as they set these targets, if they are building not to need but to the market, they are unable to deliver also.
My city should be the very best place to live. We know its assets. People visit it and it is a wonderful city, with amazing people living there, but it is rapidly turning into a complete nightmare. The Airbnb market is surging in York. Short-term holiday lets are moving up at a rapid pace. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had 1,999; today we have 2,068. The number is rising rapidly as people are seeing the opportunity to make money out of my city. We have a rise in second homes and empty homes, but I wish to focus on the issue of Airbnbs and what is happening across the housing economy. We are seeing an extraction economy, instead of an investment economy—housing, money and opportunity extracted from my constituents, instead of investment in housing, people and communities for the long term.
This issue needs to be addressed urgently. It is disrupting the economy. We are unable to recruit to the care sector or to local jobs. It is undermining local businesses, such as B&Bs and guest houses. It is having a significant economic impact, but it is also hollowing out rural communities. Some places have only one place to let, but in York the Airbnb and short-term holiday lets market is turning family streets into party streets, and I can tell the House that it is not pleasant when there is a hen do next door every single weekend.
Section 21 notices are being issued at such an alarming rate that my constituents are being forced out of the city because there is nowhere else for them to live. Instead of getting an average—and it is high—£945 per calendar month for renting a property, landlords can make £700 over a weekend. Cash buyers, mainly from London and the south-east, are buying up swathes of housing in York in order to make money, but not to provide the housing that we desperately need. We have a real crisis in social housing and affordable housing. Couples who have saved for their first deposit are not getting the opportunity to buy because cash buyers are putting down up to £70,000 in addition for each property. The York Central development, which should be transformative for my city, risks becoming Airbnb central, with 2,500 units being built but probably not lived in by people from my local community.
We need the Government to get a grip. I will be bringing forward a Bill in December, and I trust that the Government will get behind it, because we need to license these properties and ensure that we have local homes for local people.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I am a trustee of one of the charities that I will mention. I also want to say thank you to all the staff, to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to everyone across the House for the incredible work they do. Of course, I want to pay tribute to Sir David, who is still hugely missed by us all.
I also want to thank my community in Watford. Across my town we have such an incredible wealth of community volunteers and supporters. Our charities include is One Vision, with Enoch and Harjit, who are friends and colleagues when it comes to working for the local community; Small Acts of Kindness; Goods for Good; Hand on Heart; Sewa Day; New Hope, which is a fabulous homelessness charity; the Peace Hospice; the Salvation Army; and the Rotary Club, with the most magnificent lady called Actar, who is an incredible force for good.
There are also the volunteers who are working to deliver my mental health first aid initiative, which aims to train 1,000 mental health first-aiders across Watford. The team at Watford and West Herts chamber of commerce have helped deliver almost half of that target, which I am incredibly proud of and very grateful to them for.
When I talk about mental health, of course I cannot fail to mention health services. My biggest ask of the past two and a half years, since being elected, is to get Watford General Hospital rebuilt and to have the shovel in the ground as soon as possible—as I told the Prime Minister recently, during Prime Minister’s questions, I will even go and buy the shovel myself. That brings me to an important point about frontline services.
Earlier today, during business questions, I said that I would love to have a debate to say thank you to all our frontline emergency services. We have seen them do so much over the past week in response to fires, but just last week in my constituency, in the Meriden ward, there was an awful fire at the Abbey View tower block. Had the frontline services not got there as quickly as they did, the situation could have been a lot worse. Thankfully, there were no fatalities or serious injuries.
I am so proud to be able to support our local services, and that includes our police. I have been working with the local police and crime commissioner to make sure we get a new Watford police station, which will be coming later this year. I look forward to cutting the ribbon—I hope I will not get into trouble with the police through that act of vandalism.
On work with veterans, huge respect and thanks are due to Luther Blissett, the former Watford Football Club legend and England player, his partner Lauren, Liz and Norman, who have been working with veterans in Watford for a long time now. They have been setting up the former players club through which they are creating a tailor-made organisation. I say “tailor” because of the impact Graham Taylor has had and the inspiration he has been in creating Forces Reunited, which I believe will be launched today as a forces’ forum to help veterans.
There are lots of things I would like to cover about infrastructure. I am doing work to look at bus and train infrastructure, and also, as I have mentioned in this place before, to fix Woodmere Avenue, which is an absolute nightmare. The width restriction scratches very many cars and has become almost legendary in the challenges that it has brought to local residents. I hope there is some movement to get that sorted.
Over the past two years, I have seen how we have all come together to work together from an inter-faith perspective. The inter-faith community across Watford is truly incredible. At places like the Peace Garden where we are close to nature, all the different faiths across Watford come together for the good of our community. That ties into the environmental message and how we are trying to tackle waste in Watford. I set up my Dean’s green team, and I am very grateful to the young people who have been involved to help to make it a success. We have lots more to do, but listening to young people about the environment is critical.
Mims Davies
My hon. Friend makes a really important point about environmentalism. I presume that the green team does litter-picking and other interventions. When young people want to help their environment, that is one of the most positive things that they can do. They really benefit when we visit schools and then follow up with a litter-pick, as I have seen in my own constituency, because they have seen that direct action in their community.
Dean Russell
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Absolutely—we are planning litter-picks and all sorts of things, but also looking at how we can tackle waste and food waste across the area, especially with organisations such as Random Café doing amazing work.
Culture is at the heart of our community. We have the “Harry Potter” studio tours, but also Leavesden studios, which makes what would be Hollywood movies but are Watford movies. During the pandemic, I worked with Tom Cruise’s team to open up the global film industry. That is a story for another time, but I was very proud to be able to do that from Watford and Leavesden studios. Watford culture is incredible. On the High Street we have places such as the Pump House theatre, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and has the Watford Fringe coming up later this year. Please do all buy tickets; there are some fabulous acts. We also have the Electric Umbrella doing cultural work with people with disabilities. I recently pushed a yellow piano up the High Street to promote its work and support it. The Watford Workshop works with people with disabilities as well to support them. We have fantastic clubs such as the Deaf Club, which also celebrated its 50th anniversary a few months ago, and I was proud to be there.
A few weeks ago in this place, I presented a petition to save the local Pryzm nightclub. The night-time economy is absolutely critical, and we need to support it. I was very pleased that last week we had the Second Reading of my private Member’s Bill to make sure that workers could keep their tips in hospitality and elsewhere.
Thank you to all, have a fantastic summer, and I look forward to seeing you back in September.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
It is very touching to see today’s summer Adjournment debate bearing the name of our late colleague, who always stole the show in these debates. The renaming of the debate is a fitting tribute.
Much of January was spent on tenterhooks, and Russian forces finally invaded Ukraine in February. This produced a mountain of new casework for my office. My team and I have had some successes, such as in the case of Natalia, a 15-year-old Ukrainian girl. Last month I was able to visit her and her aunt in their new home in Hamilton. It was emotional but a wonderful reminder of the impact of what we do in this place on real lives.
Another humbling experience was taking through a private Member’s Bill in the previous Session. I was incredibly proud to see it gain Royal Assent just before Prorogation in May, becoming the Pension Schemes (Conversion of Guaranteed Minimum Pensions) Act 2022. I once again place on record my gratitude to the team at the Department for Work and Pensions, who provided such excellent support.
The cost of living crisis is the biggest challenge the UK faces right now. Like many colleagues, I have spent many hours in debates and question sessions raising fuel prices, household energy bills and affordability of food to highlight some of the biggest concerns that my constituents have. It is a shame that we will break for recess without having lined up other support for the autumn and winter months. I hope that work will continue in Government Departments so that new measures can be presented swiftly in September.
On another challenge this term, just the word “passport” elicits a visceral reaction from Members and staffers alike. I am very proud of my team, who have managed to secure a positive result in every case they have handled so far. There is some valid criticism that the crisis could have been foreseen and planned for, but I have to say that some of our cases have received excellent support.
Mims Davies
The hon. Lady’s comments are a pertinent reminder of the work of our caseworkers. I am sure you will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this has been an incredibly hard period, with the challenges including covid grants, business reopening and passports. We have had over 60 cases. It has been very challenging, and we must thank all of our casework teams, because their work matters so much to our constituents.
Margaret Ferrier
I could not agree more. The staffers are the people behind us as we do our jobs. I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention.
One of the greatest things about this job is the variety. No two days are ever the same. I feel so honoured to represent my constituents during debates on topics such as animal welfare, which so many contact me about, the child maintenance service and energy prices. I feel honoured to make sure that their voice is heard when legislation is scrutinised and during important announcements covering crucial policy such as immigration and asylum, defence, and community access to cash, and to do casework helping people with their driving licences, visas and community projects. It is so important to me that every email that a constituent writes is read and, where possible, that that information is translated into action on their behalf.
It has been an absolute pleasure to see at first hand the brilliant community spirit in my constituency. People have really pulled together. I want to give honourable mentions to the community councils in my constituency—Rutherglen, Burnside, Cambuslang, Halfway, Blantyre, Hillhouse and Meikle Earnock—which take so much pride in their communities and work to support them.
I also give my deepest thanks to all staff here in Parliament, who do so much to make sure that we are all supported. We could not function without you all. Thanks also to my staff: Kim, Gillian, Laura, Lynne, Natalie and John.
What has struck me most this term is how difficult a time it is in politics in the UK and in the world. Colleagues, staff and constituents are all feeling the pressure. That is why it is so important that we are able to work together, across these Benches, for the benefit of our constituents. On any given day, this Chamber is full of people with strong political beliefs. Naturally, we will not all agree on everything, and in some cases we may not all agree on much at all.
I put on the record my thanks to a number of Ministers, because they have genuinely endeavoured to help me in some of the most complex cases that my team have been dealing with. Although it is tempting to take all the credit, I have to acknowledge that those cases would likely not have been resolved without their input. I am glad that they have on occasion sought to work across these Benches. Only this week, the Home Secretary and her officials assisted me and my team in resolving a complicated case. I put my thanks to them on the record.
We need to see more such collaboration next term. Some might disagree, but regardless of our political differences, we are all here for the same reason, and that is to help our constituents, and I am always willing to work with whoever I need to in order to get the right resolution.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I arise with Sir David Amess’s smile, cheek and kindness very much in my heart, and hoping to drive the reason why all of us come here, which is love of constituency, love of country and love of that sense of duty and what we can achieve in this place.
I love Rutland, Melton, the Vale and Harborough villages. I represent 180 villages and three towns. We are the place where rugby was truly invented. They used to tackle a solid wooden beer barrel over different fields. The priest from Rugby School came over, saw the game being played and took it back to the school, where it was then supposedly invented. We are also where Sir David Attenborough discovered his love of fossils. Members are all very welcome to come fossil searching in my constituency. It is where those involved in the gunpowder plot had some of their meetings, in Stoke Dry. I have taken no inspiration from them myself, of course. It is also the home of Stilton and pork pie and Rutland bitter and so many other great foods and drinks of this country. It is home to Belvoir castle, where “The Crown” was filmed. It is also home to an ichthyosaur—the greatest discovery of what is not a dinosaur but many people believed was a dinosaur over the centuries. It is the home of the Rutland mosaic, which has changed our view and understanding of Roman Britain, and of the Hallaton hoard, which has changed our understanding of iron age Britain. It is also the place where the phrase “paint the town red” comes from.
There is nowhere quite like the Rutland, Melton, The Vale and Harborough villages, and I am truly blessed to be able to live and raise my children there, but we do have some pressing problems. Rurality is at the core of the issues that I am going to raise today and of the pressures that we face. The first is transport. The A1 goes up the east of my constituency and it is one of the worst accident hotspots in the country. We urgently need it to be made into a full motorway, and we need safety improvements up and down the stretch from Peterborough to Blyth to reduce the number of casualties and deaths. Some parents in my constituency are lobbying me on graduated driving licences, because of the deaths of young children. The understanding is that introducing graduated driving licences would give new learners a little bit longer to gain the confidence they need to reduce accidents.
The A52 has an accident hotspot outside the village of Bottesford at the Belvoir junction. This is a real problem, but Highways England says that it cannot put in place the improvements we need at the junction because there are not enough accidents. I would argue—I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to put a letter in to the Transport Secretary about this—that we should take into account the rurality of villages when we calculate these things. If this same dangerous junction were outside Loughborough or a more dangerous area, there would be significantly more accidents. Rurality should be factored into these calculations, because how rural somewhere is can hide just how dangerous a junction is. I have also been meeting constituents recently about the Rutland TT in Thorpe Satchville and Twyford. They are concerned about noise pollution. I am really keen for the Government to do more to tackle this as it is a blight on our rural areas.
Turning to crime, a few years ago I secured the creation of the first ever Rutland rural crime team across Leicestershire and Rutland and they are doing a fantastic job of reassuring residents. I am pleased to be able to meet them so often. I have also managed to secure more than £500,000-worth of CCTV across Melton, Oakham and Uppingham, and we are now looking at where we can put them to support people. When I talk to my police, however, their main concern is vehicles. I have urged our police and crime commissioner to provide more vehicles for Rutland and Melton. It is not acceptable to give us cast-offs from Leicester city that have done many miles and cannot race down the long stretches of road that we have. I have more than 460 square miles in my constituency, and we cannot be getting second-hand vehicles if we are to protect our communities.
When it comes to rural health, my GP surgery in Melton serves over 40,000 people. One surgery for 40,000 people is unacceptable. It is driving down health rates and people are not getting the care and support they need. We urgently need a new GP practice in Melton. Also, there is not one dental practice in the whole of those 460 square miles that is taking on pregnant women or children, which they are legally required to do. The Government must step forward and do something about dentistry. Concerningly, our practice in Oakham was recently found to be inadequate, and we must also look at what we can do about that.
When it comes to the economy, we need more fair funding for Rutland and Leicestershire. Leicestershire is the worst funded county council and Rutland the worst funded unitary authority in the country. We need a social mobility grant to look at those areas that have the worst social mobility in the country. Turning briefly to Mallard Pass, I have spoken a great deal about the attempt to build a 2,100-acre solar plant in my constituency using a company that has been found guilty of being complicit in Uyghur slave labour. We must do something to tackle that.
I do not have time to raise the many other things that I would like to raise, so I will wrap up by saying an enormous thank you to my team: Lisa, Helena, Harry and Alex—I think that is everyone; I am having a moment of stupidity. Lisa, Helena, Harry, Emma and Alex, I love you all very much but I am clearly having a moment and losing my mind. I thank you for all you do and the difference you make for constituents every single day.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am very pleased to speak in this debate. I am also pleased that it is called the Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment debate. I have probably taken part in every one of these debates since I came here in 2010, and Sir David would sit there where the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) is sitting now and he would tell us many, many things in a rush of words—just as I do, but he would do it better. In the five minutes that he had he would tell us about all the many things that he wanted to get done. Listening to him was something I particularly enjoyed.
I want to talk about something those in this House may or may not know about: the Orange parade we have every year on 12 July. I want to say how proud I am to walk on 12 July. This year, we walked in my home village of Greyabbey. As Ulster Scots, we called it the Great Greba 12th and it was, and I stand here taking pride in that. I am a member of the Kircubbin LOL 1900, true blues. I am also a past master and a master in the House of Commons lodge, which sits here. I want to take the time just to say what it is really all about and why it is so important not just to me but to a five-year-old in Belfast and to an 18-year-old from Londonderry.
It is a family day designed to remember and celebrate the victory of religious freedom for all in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The battles in the then Ireland were not the story of the troubles, but the history of this nation: the glorious revolution that is taught in history classes throughout the United Kingdom. The celebration of wearing the Orange sash in honour of King William of Orange by parading the streets reminds us all that having religious freedom is worthy of the historic bloodshed and worth celebrating.
My parliamentary aide had coffee with my mum, who was 91 years old on 14 July, before enjoying the parade with her six and seven-year-old girls. They felt happiness as the men and women they knew walked past with their heads held high. They enjoyed the pipe bands from Scotland, the accordion bands from Portaferry and the silver bands that accompanied the lodges. As they share their packed lunch with friends made on the day, the community comes together in the open air and celebrates a tradition that is as meaningful today as it was when the first Orange lodge was formed in a rural village in Loughgall in the late 1700s to commemorate the battle of the Boyne in 1690.
I am so thankful that the Orange Order did what it sought to do for hundreds of years and led by example during covid. It promoted the 12th at home in 2020, and in 2021 it advocated for public safety and asked for a localised 12th in small areas. It could have done no more, yet the BBC this year declined to give it the coverage it once had. The parade was carried out by tens of thousands of participants, and watched by hundreds of thousands more, with decency and order in the most part, even when there were some attacks on occasions from nationalist bands against children. In the face of adversity, they marched with pride. I am very thankful to GB news, which stepped into the breach, and my former party leader Dame Arlene Foster, who ably explained and highlighted the positive aspects of this family event.
What does it mean to be an Orangeman in Ulster? It means the opportunity to provide a welcoming environment for a street party enjoyed by hundreds of thousands in the Province, and to feel a part of the community no matter the political persuasion. It means being part of a community with members from Canada to Australia, New Zealand to Togo, and Ghana to Nigeria, people who believe that our history and the battles fought then can still provide lessons today. It means being allowed to continue the privilege of peacefully and respectfully walking traditional routes because the message matters. It means being part of a family day out, meeting those we see daily and those we see rarely, and enjoying laughter and friendship. It means standing on the shoulders of the Ulster Division who fought in the battle of the Somme in 1916. They wore the sash with pride on the battlefield, a rallying cry as they fought for the continued freedom, liberty and democratic process that we enjoy today. It means the opportunity to teach my grandchildren —I have five, with a sixth on the way—how their ancestors fought and died to ensure that every religion had a place in this nation.
On the banners as we march, they say “Civil and religious liberty for all”. We mean that and we act that out. It means so much more than you may ever see in the media, which focus only on the negative. To some of us, it is the foundation of who we are: the children of God, the children of Northern Ireland and the Union, and the children of our fathers who are unashamed of our heritage of faith, family and religious freedom for all.
I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the other Deputy Speakers, Mr Speaker and all colleagues in this Chamber for their friendship and comradeship over the last year. I thank my constituents, whom I have the privilege to serve as the hon. Member for Strangford, and all my staff, who really make my job much easier.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
It is a privilege and an honour to speak in the first Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. David always exuded such joy and compassion, and it was difficult not to smile whenever you saw him. I am sure we all miss him.
I will begin by highlighting a particularly significant issue in my constituency, which I have raised many times in the Chamber: the M49 junction, which would link the motorway directly to the Severnside enterprise and distribution area. The area is home to GKN, Amazon, Tesco, Royal Mail and many other companies. When completed, the junction will not only help to bring thousands of new jobs to the area but help to reduce heavy goods traffic and pollution in small surrounding villages such as Pilning and Easter Compton.
It seems remarkable to me that the project was started without the means to complete it and connect it to the link road. There is essentially a 160 metre-long privately owned strip of land between the newly built motorway junction and the road connecting it to the distribution centre. How was £50 million of taxpayers’ money spent on a motorway junction without the land to connect it up to the link road?
Since 2019, I have had meetings with the Secretary of State for Transport, roads Ministers, South Gloucestershire Council, Highways England and the West of England Combined Authority, but we still seem no closer to getting the project completed and connecting the road to the motorway. I will continue to meet Ministers, South Gloucestershire Council and Highways England, and I will urge them all to get a grip of the situation and get the project completed as quickly as possible.
I turn to the bid for local levelling-up funding to regenerate world war one Hangar 16U, an exciting and substantial project by developer YTL located alongside the Brabazon and Charlton Hayes mixed-use developments. The restoration and reuse of that historic building will achieve the following aims. First, it will secure the restoration of a world war one hangar that contributes significantly to the unique and important heritage of the area, making the building accessible to all. Secondly, it will support the wider regeneration aims of the north fringe masterplan, which in turn will address issues of deprivation in some of the nearby communities of Patchway and Filton.
Thirdly, the project will support visitor and tourist attractions while meeting the needs of existing and newly emerging communities. Fourthly, it is in a highly accessible location by foot, cycle and public transport. Fifthly, its community focus supports community cohesion and wellbeing. Having always supported the evolving north fringe development area, I have no doubt that when it is completed, it will be a truly fantastic place to live, work, visit and be entertained. I look forward to the result of the funding bid and very much hope that Ministers will look favourably upon it.
As well as its historic links with aviation, demonstrated fantastically by the Aerospace Bristol museum and science, technology, engineering and maths learning centre—home to the last Concorde to land at Filton airfield, where the British Concordes were designed and built—my constituency in the south-west of England is at the centre of the largest aerospace cluster in Europe. There are 800 companies and 57,000 people in the south-west working in the aerospace supply chain for companies such as Airbus, Rolls-Royce, GKN and Leonardo.
The Farnborough international air show is taking place this week. Not only does it serve as a showcase for the UK’s aerospace sector, but it is a great platform for exports. The UK’s aerospace sector represents more than 110,000 jobs. In my constituency of Filton and Bradley Stoke, more than 20,000 jobs are directly dependent on the aerospace and defence sectors, with many more involved in the broader supply chain. In 2019, the aerospace sector contributed £34 billion to UK exports. It was good to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister supporting the air show on Monday.
This week, the Government announced £155 million of joint industry and Government funding, through the Aerospace Technology Institute, to help the industry invest in the technology of tomorrow, such as solar cells that can be used in electrically powered aircraft, low-weight electric motors, and the extra high-performance wing led by Airbus. Of course, we also look forward to increasing activity in the space sector.
Let me conclude by thanking you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the staff who look after us here. I hope everybody manages to take some time out and get some rest, recuperation and quality time with loved ones over the summer.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
While the media’s focus may be on the comings and goings in Westminster, local community groups make a huge difference to the lives of people in Dudley South week in, week out. The last recess covered the platinum jubilee celebrations, and it was a real pleasure to join the events at Oakfield community centre in Brierley Hill, St Mary’s church in Kingswinford and the Dudley Hindu Cultural Association to mark the incredible service that Her Majesty has given during seven decades as our Queen.
We are fortunate in having many amazing community organisations in Dudley. I shall not try to match Sir David, but I would like to mention just a few I have encountered in recent weeks. Harry’s Café is run by the Top Church Training charity and helps disadvantaged jobseekers into work in catering and hospitality, as well as providing free food packages and online cooking classes. There is also Kingswinford British Legion, who I supported over Armed Forces Weekend as they raised funds to help ex-service personnel and their families.
As a former scout, it was a pleasure to join Dudley District Scouts to thank leaders and volunteers for everything they do to make sure that local young people have opportunities that otherwise just would not be available. It was a privilege to meet and support Stuart Bratt, whose Tough Enough to Care charity tackles male suicides by encouraging men to be open about mental health. The £80,000 lottery funding it has received will allow it to do even more to support even more people, and we want more local good causes in Dudley to get funding. That is why I organised a national lottery funding workshop last week. I thank Sinead from the National Lottery Community Fund for explaining to dozens of local groups how they can get funding and give themselves the best chance to succeed and do more for our community.
As we look forward to the Commonwealth games coming to Birmingham, it was great that Stuart was one of the local heroes, as well as Jennie Bimson and Councillor Shaz Saleem, taking part in the Queen’s baton relay; I look forward to it coming to Brierley Hill on Sunday evening. One of the baton bearers is from Pens Meadow School. I was pleased to see its amazing new forest school, which is an exceptional facility for its special needs pupils aged three to 19. I am delighted that Dudley Council has committed the funding for a new school building that will allow them to combine their two sites into one, providing better education and care on a single site for vulnerable pupils.
I also thank Dudley Council’s cabinet for blocking plans to build on precious green spaces at Lapwood Avenue, Bryce Road, Severn Drive and Bent Street. I hope that the Association of Black Country Authorities will also safeguard green-belt sites at Holbeache and the Kingswinford triangle when it meets next week, and that the Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further strengthen green-belt protection.
Our green spaces are important to us in the Black Country, and it was heartbreaking to see large fires at the Fens Pool nature reserve and Ridgehill Woods during this week’s extreme temperatures. Disgracefully, some of them might even have been started deliberately. I join our community in sending a big thank you to everybody from West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service for their bravery in fighting and containing those fires.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, last week marked Black Country Day—the anniversary of Newcomen’s engine. We are proud of our industrial heritage and it was wonderful to join pupils from Brierley Hill Primary School at Brierley Hill library as they unveiled the displays on our local history that they had created for the public to enjoy. It is now a decade since Gracie Sheppard designed the Black Country flag, which has become one of the biggest selling and most recognisable regional flags in the country. She designed it as a 12-year-old at a local school and it is now literally seen around the world—whether at The Ashes, the Indy 500 or Glastonbury.
Alicia Kearns
My hon. Friend rightly raised the importance of local flags. Leicestershire was the only county in the country without a flag until last year, when I secured the first ever flag for Leicestershire. It flies proudly outside Parliament this very day. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising the importance of flags, given their pride of place and the message that they send of unity in our communities.
Mike Wood
My hon. Friend is proud of her local area and flies her flag proudly.
As we look at the ongoing Conservative leadership contest, I shall be pressing whoever wins to keep levelling up right at the centre of their agenda, and to make sure that my constituents in Dudley South can have opportunities every bit as good as those enjoyed in other parts of the country. Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you and all the staff of the House a very happy and, I hope, restful and peaceful summer.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), and an honour to be participating in the first Sir David Amess Adjournment debate. This is a very fitting tribute indeed for a great champion and an enthusiast for the format. He was someone to whom service of his constituents, his party and his country was of the utmost importance. There is so much inspiration for us newer Members in his example. I welcome his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), to her place today. I also welcome five other Members who have joined us since last summer. A few of them came in on the back of by-elections that were quite painful for my party, but it is important that we remember the people who sent us here, and by-elections are a way to do that, and perhaps they have given this party a wake-up call over the past year as well.
I have spent the past few weeks trying to argue for a clean start in Government, but I think we also need a clean start in Parliament when we come back. When we come back, we will have a new Prime Minister, and that is an opportunity for us all to reflect on the way that we conduct ourselves in this Chamber and in the estate more widely. I have come to feel that Parliament is perhaps suffering from a bout of long covid of its own—some bad habits that are antithetical to the good working of this place as well as contrary to some long- standing culture and practice. Some of these things have taken hold and are not serving ourselves, our constituents or the reputation of this House well.
If I have the time, I want to cover four particular points: the debate itself; the tone in which we speak to each other; standards; and the culture around the estate. Some of it is a hangover literally from covid. The new intake of 2019 participated in debates where there was no back and forth. We were basically recording clips from the comfort of our own living rooms. The May 2020 report of the Procedure Committee, on which I now sit but did not at the time of the report, said that
“debates have become recitals of prepared texts rather than lively exchanges of view.”
I wholeheartedly concur, and I fear that this tendency has been slower to depart than some of the other arrangements that we had during covid.
Although it is of course vital that our constituents can see what we do here, I do not think that it is necessarily wise that what we do here is simply for our constituents to see—whether it is on our Facebook pages or on Twitter, the echo chamber for the retweets and likes. I will, of course, concede that today’s debate is a noble exception and that we should all go for it in the way that Sir David used to do. But that is not really what we are here for. We are legislators. We are here to scrutinise legislation. We are here to hold the Government to account, whether we are supporters of the Government or members of the Opposition. We are not here to make viral clips only tangentially related to the legislation that we are supposed to be considering. I think that all of us, including me, probably need to do a little bit better. What we need is genuine debate. We should refer to previous speakers in the debate. We should take interventions—I am willing to take one now—and we should take on and win arguments with other people.
We also need a clean start on tone in September. During the confidence debate, there were flashpoints. I do realise that the past few months have been tough and fraught, and that is just on the Conservative side of the Chamber. The temperature has literally risen over these past few days, but what we say in this place really matters. We should all remain moderate and collegiate. We should argue and disagree with each other, but in good faith and with good humour and respect. We should set an example. We heard only the other day in points of order from my hon. Friends the Members for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) and for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) that if that tone gets out into the country, it could be really, really damaging. It could threaten our security and it could threaten our families, so we must set an example in this place.
I will touch on standards briefly, because I made my views known on this in the debate that we had after the Owen Paterson affair. We cannot have one rule for us and another for everybody else. We must do better.
We need a clean start on estate culture. There have been exposés in the papers about staffers getting drunk and sleeping in offices, to say nothing of the behaviour of some MPs that has been well documented recently. We really must address that when we come back in September. We must have a clean start.
On the Speaker’s Commission, which is part of the solution, I am not at all convinced that the right solution is for MPs not to employ their own staff. Some may have noticed that, over the past few months, my support for the Prime Minister has been open to question. If, for example, my staff had been employed by the Conservative party, they would have faced a huge conflict of interest; they owe their job to the Conservative party, but they owe their judgment to me. Who would they be beholden to? There would be an unacceptable conflict. I have discussed this with my staff, and I know that they would have found it extremely difficult to navigate these past few months had their loyalty been split. It is not a small concern to them. They need to know who they are working for and whose interests they are employed to pursue—obviously our constituents, but ourselves as Members as well.
Moreover, that would not fundamentally solve the issue of the worst behaviour of MPs towards their staff, other Members’ staff, Clerks, House staff and so on. What we need to do is grapple with bad behaviour and stamp it out. No human resources policy in the world can mitigate some of the terrible behaviours that we have seen reported about former Members of this House.
Finally, because it is Sir David’s debate, we need a clean start in Newcastle as well. We need levelling up. We need the money coming through from the towns fund. We need to clean up the antisocial behaviour. Most of all, as I have said in this debate previously, we need to clean up that landfill at Walleys quarry. [Interruption.] We need to stop the stink—thank you very much. We need a clean start in Parliament, in Newcastle and in the country.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am afraid that I have to reduce the time limit to four minutes.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the powerful and thoughtful contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell). I start by raising a number of issues on all things rail. We know that rail numbers are down by a fifth since the pandemic, and yet the Government persist in building High Speed 2, a topic on which I have spoken in opposition on multiple occasions since my election to this House. Indeed, it is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on the Front Bench. He was with me in the Lobby the other day when we voted against HS2 going further north.
The reality on the ground, accepting that the thing is being built, is that HS2 Ltd continues to be anything but a good neighbour. I have spoken in the Transport Committee, in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall giving countless examples of where HS2 is making people’s lives a misery. It is bringing in HGV movements through villages where they simply should not be going. It is closing roads at a moment’s notice. It is not dealing with landowners in a fair or proportionate way when it takes their land. The latest complaint to reach me over the past 24 hours is about land that HS2 has taken but done nothing with, where poisonous weeds such as ragwort are being allowed to take hold and bleed across as seed moves into land where cattle, sheep and other animals can be affected by it. HS2 has been apprised of that time and time again, and yet it has done nothing. I urge the Government to clamp down on HS2 Ltd and ensure that it becomes the good neighbour it purports to be.
Likewise, the construction of East West Rail continues to be a nightmare for my constituents. It is the railway we want—it will bring greater connectivity to Buckinghamshire with a new station at Winslow—but its construction brings similar misery to that of High Speed 2. It looks as though East West Rail will launch with entirely diesel rolling stock, to boot. I urge the Government to reconsider that urgently and to look at hybrid options, hydrogen or a newer, greener technology. It is simply preposterous in this day and age for a new railway to be built with diesel- only stock.
Likewise, I urge the Government to give us some clarity, because there has been some speculation in recent days that perhaps the whole of East West Rail will not be completed, and that the part that goes beyond Bletchley towards Cambridge may not be built. This House needs urgent clarity on that when we return in the autumn.
Moving on to a planning matter, the Ministry of Justice had proposed building a mega-prison in my constituency adjacent to HMP Grendon and HMP Springhill, on land that it partially owns but that also involves the compulsory purchase of a farm. Buckinghamshire Council’s strategic sites committee wisely rejected the proposal. It was not a technical rejection at planning; the proposal in fact breached policies BE1, BE2, I2, NE1, NE4, NE5 and S1 of the local plan, as well as paragraphs 7, 8, 57, 58, 99, 105, 174, 180 and section 16 of the national planning policy framework. It was by no means a technical refusal, yet unfortunately the Ministry of Justice is seeking to appeal that and to cost taxpayers probably hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees. It is simply not right or fair that that project continues to hang over my constituency and the villages of Edgcott, Grendon Underwood, Steeple Claydon and others around. I urge the Government to reconsider and to pull that appeal.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I join colleagues in paying tribute to the fact that this debate is called the Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. It is a fitting tribute to him and a fitting reminder to us that however good or entertaining we think our speeches are this afternoon, none of them will be as good as the one he would have given were he with us.
The first thing I want to talk about is a man called Merv. He is an 86-year-old man in my constituency who lost his wife after 56 years of marriage in 2014, meaning he was on his own. Thanks to a fantastic local organisation called the Didcot Good Neighbour Scheme, run by a fantastic woman called Sandy Sparrowhawk, I have been matched with him to go round and see him every week, which I have been doing since last September. It is supposed to be for him, but it is the highlight of my week, because whatever is going on here—heaven knows lots of things go on here—when I go to have my cup of tea with him on a Friday after all my visits, he never fails to cheer me up with his stories of being in the Army and of driving coaches.
He is a great football fan—a misguided Chelsea supporter—and we have a real laugh. We now know that loneliness affects not just mental health but physical health, and it only takes up a small amount of my time. I would encourage everyone here and outside to do it, because it makes a huge difference to both people.
I have passed up no opportunity since my maiden speech to raise the infrastructure issues in my constituency. We still need Grove station reopened, we still need the A34 and A420 improved, and we still need more GP surgeries. The two districts I cover are in the top 10 areas for house building relative to their size, and we have not had any new GP surgeries. I hope what we can do through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is get to a position where we start to put this infrastructure in first, rather than promising it after the houses have been built, because it never arrives. The other thing I hope we might do with that Bill is require new houses to be built to the latest environmental standards set by Government, rather than the one that existed when planning permission was granted, often five or six years earlier. We are building thousands of houses that we know will need retrofitting.
While on the subject of the environment, I am currently the lead sponsor of the Local Electricity Bill, which now has 309 MPs supporting it. If Members are not yet backing it, please do so. People argue whether to have fracking or nuclear or oil and gas or onshore wind, but they do not argue about having more community energy, with local communities able to sell it to local people. That would help to achieve our net zero goals and promote competition while offering vast environmental benefits.
Finally, when we come back, we will understandably focus on the economy, the cost of living and Ukraine, but there are two other issues that I hope will receive some focus. One is the reform of public services. We all get too many complaints about visas, driving licences, passports and planning applications. It is not just that it takes too long to get a response, but that the response is not human enough. The second is an increased focus on social mobility. It is a decades-long problem, but we slightly lost focus during covid, which made it harder. We all need to do more if background is to be no barrier to people achieving their potential.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
I will use the limited time available to outline some of the many challenges that this House and the next Prime Minister must face when we return from the summer recess. The No.1 issue facing the country is inflation, which hit 9.4% in June—the highest in 40 years—and is expected to climb even further. It strips away the value of the pound in our pocket, hitting every aspect of our economy. People’s savings are eroded, pushing home ownership out of reach, and the value of pensions that people have worked long and hard for is reduced. Our export market is made less competitive, limiting investment, jobs and growth. I am particularly concerned about those on fixed and lower incomes, because their real-term take-home pay is getting hit the most.
We all know what is driving this pressure: rising demand in China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, compounded by covid and disruption to global supply chains. As a result, the energy price cap is due to rise 65% in October, taking typical bills to around £3,240 a year, with another rise in January. I welcome the Government’s package of measures to mitigate those price rises, with a third of households each set to receive £1,200, but tough choices lie ahead. It is incumbent on Members across the House to be honest with the public and with ourselves.
During the recent heatwave, many reflected on the similarities with 1976—not just the weather, industrial strife, nationalist demands for a referendum, a prime ministerial resignation, a leadership contest, and energy prices soaring following conflict, but the real risk of a wage/price spiral and stagflation. At the same time, our fiscal room for manoeuvre is increasingly small. Quantitative easing and pump priming the housing market are no longer viable options, if indeed they ever were.
Moreover, we are facing a demographic crunch, with an ageing population and fewer people of working age. That means that the demands of the state grow, while raising tax revenue becomes more and more difficult. If we are not careful, we will end up with Scandinavian levels of taxation for Mediterranean levels of public services.
Now is not the time for telling people what they want to hear; we must put pragmatism ahead of ideology. We need a functioning state, not an ever smaller one. I encourage any Members who disagree with that to talk to their constituents and to check their inboxes. They will find that those inboxes are full of emails from people who are struggling to get driving licences or passports, or whose GP appointments or routine medical procedures have been delayed. This requires hard-headed, mature judgment and grown-up politics, not pandering to nostalgia.
I am also increasingly alarmed about the failure of investigative policing. According to a recent report, police have failed to solve a single burglary in nearly half the country’s neighbourhoods over the past three years. Other police forces have been found to have wilfully neglected to investigate reports of child abuse and grooming gangs for fear of stoking racial tensions, and we learn of botched murder investigations due to officers’ homophobia. Meanwhile, mild-mannered comedians are being investigated for telling jokes. In Britain, policing is by consent, and it is dangerous for democracy and the rule of law when this trust breaks down. The next Prime Minister urgently needs a plan to rebuild investigative policing and confidence in our police. That, too, will require serious, pragmatic leadership and a willingness to face facts and level with the British people.
We are facing high inflation, anaemic growth, disrupted supply chains, a dysfunctional energy market, a demographic crunch, alarming shifts in climate, a national child exploitation scandal, national security threats at home and abroad, an increasingly divided society, and declining trust in our politics. On a brighter note, however, rain is forecast for the weekend.
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, all my colleagues, and all the amazing staff in this place. I also thank my own amazing staff, both here and in the constituency. Since I was elected two and a half years ago, we have taken up more than 40,000 individual cases and responded to more than 75,000 emails. They do an amazing job, and I am proud to have them working for me. Have a lovely summer, everyone.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
It is an honour to speak in this debate, in which Sir David delivered so many legendary performances. I can only do my very best to emulate him, so here goes.
Sir David’s dedication to putting people before politics lives on in Southend West. I have now helped more than 100 constituents at my regular surgeries. My No. 1 priority is to make Southend safer, and I am pleased that three new CCTV cameras have been installed in Old Leigh; but, more important, I campaigned for and secured portable knife detection poles for our police ahead of the summer, and I am delighted to say that they arrived last week.
Our local hospital is vital to our community, and I want to thank everyone who works in our NHS. I abseiled down the hospital tower for charity earlier this year. I am delighted that much-needed enabling capital funding to expand our A&E department is now imminent. We also have 111 new ambulance staff and 11 new ambulances.
Mr Francois
May I just congratulate my hon. Friend on her brilliant campaign to help secure about £7 million for Southend Hospital? Well done!
Anna Firth
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention, and for his support in the securing of that funding.
Community pharmacies are the unsung heroes of our NHS, and Belfairs Pharmacy is a shining example.
As for transport, C2c’s performance continues be a concern, especially the broken ticket machines: contactless payments are imperative. I am pleased that Chalkwell Station is being upgraded, and that there will soon be new lifts to make it accessible to everyone. I have been battling unjustified cuts in our bus services, and will continue to campaign to see routes reinstated. Speeding is a big issue locally, and with the results of my online survey, I intend to ensure that new safety measures are introduced. However, I will not sleep easy in my bed in Leigh-on-Sea until night flights are eliminated from my constituency.
I have already visited 22 of the 30 schools in Southend West, and was delighted to give certificates to every school and every primary school child to celebrate the platinum jubilee. Tomorrow I will be holding a welcome tea party for Ukrainian refugees in Southend, and I was proud to help Chalkwell Lifeguards to secure funds for a new eco-engine for one of its rescue craft.
Now that we are a city, Southend must become the UK City of Culture in 2029. Leigh Folk Festival moved to a new home this year in Leigh Library Gardens, which was a fabulous event. My charity funding fair in Belfairs enabled several local charities to obtain much-needed grants. Driver Shields UK Ltd has been given the Queen’s award for enterprise and is a fine example of the talent in Southend.
I have hosted six fantastic work experience students this summer. I thank Maddie, Molly, Matilda, Sean, Shannon and Andriy for all their hard work.
I attended countless fantastic jubilee events last month. Southend West really did Her Majesty proud and showed the county how to party.
Following the tradition started by Sir David, there will be a centenarian tea party in Southend West in September.
Volunteers are the backbone of our local community. I thank especially HARP, Havens, the Leigh Lions, the Royal British Legion and the Carli Lansley Foundation, among many others, for the great work that they do. I also thank our local Conservative councillors and the amazing clergy for their hard work for our community.
Our thoughts and prayers are with my constituent Hollie and her son Archie in their brave fight.
I am super excited to attend the first game of the new season at Southend United. I am sure that the Shrimpers will be on top form this year.
The inspirational Music Man Project, which was so beloved of Sir David, will go to Broadway. Who knows what its amazing founder David Stanley will set his sights on next.
Local charity Prost8 is improving the lives of men diagnosed with prostate cancer in Southend.
I thank those from the Tamil association for their hard work and for letting me not come last on their sports day.
Having never previously bowled a wood in my life, I am now an expert, having opened the outdoor bowls season at Chalkwell, Belfairs and Essex bowls clubs. I am hoping to improve my wrist action before next season.
Finally, I wish all colleagues, House staff and my wonderful team a very happy, healthy and enjoyable recess. I intend to spend the summer eating my own body weight in our delicious Rossi’s ice cream. My final exhortation must be to the Deputy Leader of the House: make Southend the UK city of culture in 2029!
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the new Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) and a true honour to speak in this debate dedicated to our wonderful late colleague, Sir David. When I entered Parliament he showed me so much love and affection because I became the next Conservative MP for Hyndburn after his best friend, and godfather to two of his beloved children, the late Ken Hargreaves.
Before I talk about Hyndburn, I would like to read a quick excerpt from David’s eulogy to Ken that describes the cheeky relationship they shared. It is about a joke that David played on Ken. He said:
“I had thought that we had the same views on pornography, thinking there should be less of it, but one evening I observed Ken dashing into a lobby to vote. The lobby was fairly empty and when he came through he asked me what he had voted for not knowing himself. ‘More pornography’ I replied. ‘Oh eck’ said he.”
What shines through in his eulogy is a clear understanding of how they became such great friends. Every word that he attributed to Ken could be attributed to Sir David. He concluded as follows:
“Ken was undoubtedly an inspirational character, a man of the highest integrity and generous to a fault. The nearest thing to a saint that I have ever met and he was certainly a political saint if we excuse his voting record on pornography! So I share with everyone in this Church the pain and grief of our loss, but this is a celebration of a very great life and let us be cheered in the certain knowledge that if anyone deserved to go to heaven Ken did and that is where he is now.”
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Will the hon. Member join me in thanking the Government for dealing with the issue of extreme unction when it came to Sir David and setting up a commission to look at third-party access to crime scenes? They did that and it is now part of the guidance issued for all police forces throughout the country. I am grateful to the Government for that.
Sara Britcliffe
I share the hon. Gentleman’s gratitude for that. That the Government acted quite swiftly on the issue was key and put us all at ease after such a tragic incident.
Now on to Hyndburn and Haslingden, my fantastic home. We have some really exciting projects coming forward in Hyndburn and Haslingden. We are putting forward our £20 million levelling-up fund bid, which could bring back the life that Accrington town centre needs and that everybody knew and loved. That is something we are putting forward.
Lancashire County Council is putting forward a £50 million bid, and much of that money will be spent on Hyndburn to improve transport and our local roads, and to create the community hubs that we need. The shared prosperity fund will help to support businesses across Hyndburn and Haslingden, and promote our culture and heritage, which is desperately needed. We have some beautiful architecture: it just needs a little bit of tummy loving care. We also need to make sure that some of the shared prosperity fund is spent on Haslingden market hall, which I have pushed for. We have received funding for Clayton community hub, which is now the heart of the boxing club.
Lancashire is now home to the national cyber security centre, which is a £5 billion project bringing more than 3,000 jobs to the heart of Lancashire, and we now need to make sure that young people get the skills they need to feed into those jobs. We are looking at access for all at our local railway station. Work is already going ahead at Accrington, which is key, but we are now looking at Church and Oswaldtwistle, and Rishton. We need more frequent rail services to Manchester from Accrington, and I am working on that.
Accrington and Rossendale College became an institute of technology and received funding from the Department for Education, and received a grade of outstanding from Ofsted this year, which is a credit to Amanda Melton. She has just retired from teaching, but she was really keen in that.
We need funding for transport infrastructure, more frequent rail services and measures to improve pollution and congestion on our local roads. We also need to tackle speed, which is a key issue for local residents, and I am working with our fantastic police and crime commissioner, Andrew Snowden, to achieve that. We also need to look at our parks and green spaces and see investment in Victoria park in Haslingden. Hyndburn Council has just bought 88 acres of land in Oswaldtwistle to create a country park, which will be a fantastic asset. We have also created a BMX track—
Sara Britcliffe
I have to carry on.
Floral displays are needed across all of my beautiful market towns—Great Harwood, Oswaldtwistle, Haslingden and Rishton—not just in Accrington town centre. I will spend my summer in my home of Hyndburn and Haslingden, knocking on doors and speaking to what I believe to be the best constituents in the country. I am looking forward to having that break and connecting with local voters and speaking to them about the matters that mean most to them.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. I mean no disrespect to the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), but when I see “Southend West” on the annunciator, I very much think of the brilliant campaigning Member of Parliament, David Amess, and it is fitting that the debate is named after him. Only fairly recently, animal welfare, an issue about which Sir David was very passionate, was back on the statute book, and that law was very appropriate. Thinking back to his many achievements in getting legislation through, there was also the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, which redefined public policy in tackling fuel poverty in the UK. That is a pertinent issue now, as we face the cost of living crisis.
One phrase I keep hearing, but I do not really like, is that people have a choice of whether to heat or eat. I do not like that phrase because there are still far too many people who do not even have that choice. When they go to a food bank, they are looking not just for food but for a fuel voucher. The reality is that too many people are still in poverty across our islands. It has been a surprise to me that that has not yet featured as an issue in the Conservative party leadership contest.
The contest can be entertaining for those of us watching from the outside. Indeed, one of the leadership candidates appeared to suggest that Darlington was in Scotland, and that was a surprise to both the people of Scotland and the people of Darlington.
I should welcome the Deputy Leader of the House to his place. I am told that researchers are discovering that he is one of the first Members of Parliament to have been elevated to the Front Bench who has seen his contributions in Hansard drop sharply. I think that is because of his many contributions from the Back Benches. I wish him well in his glittering career on the Front Bench, which I will be watching with interest.
Chris Stephens
He may very well become an establishment stooge, but I will be watching his glittering career from the safety, in the years ahead, of an independent Scotland. He and I both follow the NFL and American football passionately, and he will be aware of the brand and logo of my team, the Raiders, which is “Commitment to Excellence”. If only the Government had a commitment to excellence; I am thinking here that so many Members from across the House have mentioned issues with the Passport Office and the problems our constituents have. I am genuinely trying to be helpful when I reiterate the call I made during business questions. If Ministers and officials have regular updates, either virtually or through a conference call with Members from across the House so that we can address some of the systematic problems that exist at the Passport Office, it would be really helpful for everyone across the House.
I wish to raise a couple of other issues of concern. A number of Members talked about the tone of debates, and they were right to do so. There now seems to be a debate about the size of the state going on. I am very concerned that the Government seem to be pressing ahead with 91,000 civil service job cuts, and Departments are being asked to put forward proposals for staff cuts of 20%, 30% and 40%. Departments are being asked, “What would the Department look like? What could it not do?” That is the wrong approach.
David Linden
Does my hon. Friend, like me, see the contradiction on the part of the Government? They talk about cutting tax and therefore having fewer resources to resource our public services with. How does that add up with the idea of levelling up? The two of those things are mutually exclusive, are they not?
Chris Stephens
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The fact that the Government also want to close government offices—in some towns and cities, public sector offices are the largest employer—also goes against that. I am also concerned about the increasing anti-trade union rhetoric we have heard recently and this way of legislating in haste. I am thinking in particular about the attempt to bring in agency workers to bust strikes. Agencies themselves do not support that legislation, so I have no idea why the Government went ahead with it.
I want to pay tribute to every constituency office and constituency staff member across these islands, but I must pay particular tribute to the No. 1 team, who find themselves in Glasgow South West. I refer of course to Justina, Dominique, Linsey, Raz, Alistair, Keith, Greg and my new office manager, Scott McFarlane, who takes over from the great Roza Salih. I was delighted that she was elected as the first refugee councillor in Scotland in the May council elections, representing the Greater Pollok ward. I pay particular tribute to all community groups, particularly those in Glasgow South West, which will be running summer programmes, looking after the elderly, looking after young people and addressing food poverty. That just leaves me to wish everyone a good summer. To quote Alice Cooper, “School’s out for summer”.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
As Mr Deputy Speaker said earlier, it is a bit of an impossible task to try to wind up these debates. Before I begin, may I put on record my thanks to the Speaker’s Office and to everyone who works in this place, from the police officers, the security guards, the wonderful Doorkeepers, the Clerks, the unseen Committees such as the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, through to the catering, cleaning, Hansard and IT staff, who keep the whole parliamentary estate ticking over day in, day out. We are very grateful to them. As the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) mentioned, we are also grateful to our constituency staff and teams. That allows me to thank my team and the excellent Sarah Banwell, who won Labour caseworker of the year from Prospect this year—I wanted to give her a little mention too.
It is a pleasure to respond to today’s Adjournment debate on behalf of the shadow Leader of the House team and it is also a real honour to speak in a debate dedicated to our late colleague Sir David Amess. We all know that there is no doubt that he would have been in the Chamber today, speaking up for his beloved Southend. As a regular myself, I used to look on in awe at his contributions. He owned this debate. It was a masterclass. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) seemed to do a good job of mentioning as many issues as he did. The hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) made her contribution, which Sir David Amess would have been extremely proud of. His legacy will live on both inside and outside Parliament.
I welcome the Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), to his place. In one of my first contributions in this role—I was a bit lonely because I had no one to shadow, so I am pleased that he has come along—I reflected on how my appearance at the Dispatch Box would give hope to late developers everywhere, and the same can be said for him. Over the years, he has forged a reputation as a stickler for parliamentary protocol, often to the chagrin of his own party, and he is no stranger to the rough and tumble of this place.
My former neighbour and friend in Newport West, the late, great Paul Flynn, enjoyed regular verbal jousts with the hon. Gentleman in this Chamber, and it is a shame that their spells on the Front Bench never coincided. The hon. Gentleman once commented that Paul was his inspiration for running for Parliament, having been a constituent of his for some years as a travel agent in Newport. With characteristic good humour, Paul noted that he would carry for life the burden of being responsible for the hon. Gentleman’s parliamentary career, so I am sure he would be delighted to see his unlikely protégé elevated to his new place on the Front Bench today. Some would say that the Deputy Leader of the House must be a glutton for punishment to step into the role with a Government who are crumbling all around him, but that is nothing new to him—after all, he once stood as the Conservative candidate in Islwyn, where Tory voters are a rarer breed than costed policies from his party leadership candidates.
End-of-term Adjournment debates are a valued opportunity, like Thursday’s business questions, to raise a whole range of issues. Today we have heard some great contributions from Members across the House on issues that are close to their hearts. Home Office delays were mentioned by, among others, my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I very much recognise the experiences they talked about, with constituents left in limbo and delays to day-to-day family visas. It is no fault of the civil servants; there is a failure to cope and plan, and a lack of resources. I, too, have Afghan interpreters’ families still living in bridging hotels for far too long, and it is not good enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) mentioned James Brokenshire. It is good that we also remember him today, as well as his mother, Ann Cryer, for her legacy through her work in campaigning on sexual exploitation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) mentioned that the gambling White Paper has been delayed four times and that we need gambling reform. She is quite right. Her comments are very much based on her experiences in Swansea East and her expertise on this issue. I hope that Ministers heed her calls to get on with this. I also congratulate her on her work on the menopause; she has done so much to make sure that this area gets the attention it needs. Not least, she managed to get both of us into Hello magazine.
The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) talked about rail, giving me the opportunity to agree that we need greater rail investment from this Government, particularly in my corner of south-east Wales, where we have 11% of the rail network and 2% of rail enhancement funding. I strongly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney about consequential funding for HS2 for Wales. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke very well about the cost of living crisis, backlog Britain and NHS delays, as well as the housing crisis and the need for investment in housing and communities, with her call for local homes for local people.
In acknowledging the contribution of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), let me say how pleased we all were to see him get called very early in business questions today—a special end-of-term treat for him and for us all.
The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) spoke about the importance of aerospace to our economy. Being in a neighbouring constituency, I agree with that, because many jobs in Newport East, too, are dependent on aerospace as people commute to his constituency.
It is the time of year for end-of-school reports and if we apply the same metric to this Government, the conclusion could only be: “Must do better”. One of the barometers by which to measure the Government’s performance is the timeliness of responses to inquiries from MPs across the House. Even on that basic criteria, the Government are failing dismally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney mentioned in business questions and during this debate.
Aaron Bell
The Procedure Committee has been conducting its usual work on this matter and a report should be out tomorrow.
Jessica Morden
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I shall look at that with great interest as Members are very interested in this issue. Multiple Departments have a dire record on written parliamentary questions, particularly in relation to COP26 and the Department of Health and Social Care. The record on named day questions is not much better either.
The picture is not much brighter on general written correspondence. The most recent data shows that only 16% of MPs’ and peers’ letters on COP26 were responded to within the timescale set, with the Government Equalities Office and the Department of Health and Social Care faring only slightly better. That bleeds through to MP hotlines, which have been unreliable for some time. The Home Office said that it needs a recovery plan to support its hotline to return to acceptable service standards, and it is preparing that. However, the Home Office is not the only Department in need of a recovery plan. The recent chaos at the Passport Office shows how badly the Government need to improve. The passport issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, the hon. Member for Harrow East and my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. We thank the civil servants, including those in the Newport passport office, who work so hard. I also put on record our thanks to all those who have come to work in Portcullis House.
I am running out of time, but I will mention another group who are being let down by the Government: the victims of the contaminated blood scandal. Ministers have had more than enough time to respond to Sir Robert Francis’s report, which recommends interim payments for victims now and the full inclusion of family members who lost loved ones in a future compensation framework. That would be a final recognition of the suffering of families such as my constituents, the Smiths, who lost their seven-year-old son, Colin, after he received infected blood products from a prison in Arkansas. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) is absolutely right that the Government must get on with this.
I am pleased, however, that progress is being made on the Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill, which will finally scrap the hated six-month rule. Much thanks is due to charities such as the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Marie Curie, which helped me with a ten-minute rule Bill on this issue. I am glad that the social security Bill will come through the House in September and I know that it will get cross-party backing.
Alicia Kearns
Will any aspect of that end of life Bill address assisted dying? The House is united on the fact that there should be a debate on that issue. For too long, Parliament has not had a say on such a vital issue, which the public wants us to discuss.
Jessica Morden
I am sure that the Deputy Leader of the House will address that issue.
Finally, I wish everybody a happy recess. We will all be working in our constituencies through the summer, but I hope that staff get a break.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Peter Bone)
It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Deputy Leader of the House. I did live in Newport West and that is exactly what Paul Flynn said. She was a little unkind to me about Islwyn, where I had the best Conservative result ever—I lost by only 36,000 votes.
It is a pleasure to sum up this really important debate, which is one of the few occasions when Members can bring up whatever they like on many different occasions during their speech. It is also the Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment debate and I wish to start with the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth). I did not expect to get emotional at this stage, but I am a Southend West boy; I grew up there and Sir David was a great friend. Many years ago, I was waiting to be considered as the next Member of Parliament for Southend West. I was in a little room outside Iveagh Hall, waiting for my turn to go and convince the members that I should be the person for Southend West. There was some chap in there before me, and he had them roaring with laughter. And he got a standing ovation at the end. That was, of course, Sir David Amess.
One year ago almost to the day, Sir David spoke in this debate and raised 15 points in three minutes. His last eight words were
“of course, we must make Southend a city.”—[Official Report, 22 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 1212.]
That is exactly what happened. I hope Sir David is looking down on us today and smiling with pleasure, especially at his replacement, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West. I wrote rapidly to note everything she said, and she mentioned the CCTV in Old Leigh. Gosh, that is where I spent my teenage years, and thank goodness they did not have CCTV then.
My hon. Friend mentioned hospital funding, and I used to live right by the general hospital. It is amazing if she abseiled down that. I declare an interest, as my sister used to work there and I am grateful that it got the £7 million as part of the hospital upgrades we are seeing across the country. My local hospital has also received money, and I will be going to see it tomorrow.
I note that we have not made party political points today, which is what is so special about this debate. My hon. Friend mentioned Chalkwell station and, as a little boy, I remember being scared to go up the station steps because I thought I would fall through. Apparently the rail service is still as bad as it was when I lived there—c2c needs to improve.
My hon. Friend mentioned so many other things. I hope Southend United still play at Roots Hall. Rossi ice cream is the best in the United Kingdom. She mentioned Havens hospice, where my mother unfortunately died, but it is a great hospice.
As my hon. Friend mentioned at the end, closest to David’s heart was the Music Man Project, which is the most amazing charity. I am so pleased it is going to Broadway, and my sister’s daughter will be part of that. It is a great charity that helps disabled people to sing. It is the most amazing thing to see. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making 40 requests in five minutes, which beats Sir David’s average.
It will be impossible to reply to everyone. I made notes and, where Members raised important issues, I will ensure that I write to the relevant Minister to get a response. Several themes came through; one was the Passport Office and another was visas. The Home Office will have heard those remarks about the Passport Office, which also came up at business questions. The hub in Portcullis House has helped enormously. I can say that 98% of passports arrive within 10 weeks, but all we ever hear about are the 2% that do not. I hope the Home Office has been listening, because the issue was mentioned by Members on both sides of the House.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) made an interesting point about the visa situation. When Ukraine happened, we demanded that the Home Office took action. It brought people in, but the numbers have now fallen back. I do not blame the Home Office for that, but I understand the issue. The issue of Afghan refugees in hotels also needs to be addressed, and I am sure that the Home Office will have listened to that point.
Another theme that came across from a number of Members, I think on both sides of the House, was the business of unanswered parliamentary letters and questions. As the Leader of the House has said on many occasions, that is not acceptable. Departments respond at different rates. I am not quite sure how one Department is so good at doing it and another is not. I hope that I am allowed to say that I am about to do a grand tour of Whitehall during the recess. I am going to go to each Department and discuss with them, among other things, how they help us in Parliament. I will bring up the issue of questions, and I will ask them how they respond and how quickly. I shall also have the figures myself, so I shall be able to point out that MPs are not happy and that Departments have to improve. To be fair, some Departments are very good at responding. We just need to raise the game there.
Let me turn to some of the points that were brought up by individuals, starting with the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). I listened to what he said about the holocaust memorial. There was an urgent question today and there was a difference of views in the House, but he made very important comments, and I hope that they will be listened to. I was shocked to hear that a number of Ministers were apparently not willing to meet the Father of the House. If that is true, I will arrange to make sure that those meetings take place.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I am sure the Ministers are willing; it just has not happened.
Mr Bone
I will make sure that it happens, then. The Father of the House also brought up an individual case. If he lets me have the details of that, I will pass them on.
The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) brought up a number of issues, including child poverty, which he has raised before. Obviously, I could say, “Look, we’ve done £36 billion” or whatever, but that does not actually mean anything, does it? I think Members across the House welcome the levelling-up commitment but want to see that turn into real money and real action. I am sure that Ministers will have heard that.
The hon. Gentleman also talked about the Afghan resettlement scheme. [Interruption.] Let me see what I have done wrong. [Interruption.] I have not done anything wrong quite yet. Actually, to be honest, Madam Deputy Speaker, they want to shut me up before I say anything else I will get in trouble for—that is the truth.
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, all Members and everyone who works here—it is a fantastic place; it is the home of democracy—and I wish everyone a happy and safe recess.
Ian Mearns
I thank the Deputy Leader of the House. It is a tough gig, answering this debate.
This has been an historic first Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate. I thank Members across the House for taking part and raising a wide range of issues. I am sure that the letter writers in the offices of the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House will be busy for a few days following today’s contributions.
Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you and every Member of this House, House staff, all those working across the parliamentary estate, and all staff in constituency offices across the country, a restful, enjoyable and well deserved summer recess.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Thank you. This has been an excellent debate—quite a contrast to the rest of the week—and a fitting remembrance of our dear friend Sir David. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday in this House I raised on point of order that images of my wife and two children have been used this week in paid-for Facebook adverts by the Rother Valley Labour party.
Today my office received this message from a constituent:
“I’ve arrived at work to 4 people being asked to leave the carpark”—
this was outside the Dinnington Tesco in my constituency —with
“a petition to remove Alex Stafford.”
She then says that she was shown an image of
“Alex, the wife and kids”.
Let me be clear about what has been reported by several constituents. The Rother Valley Labour party is using images featuring my wife and two young children, one of whom is only seven months old, to drum up anger and sentiment against me and my family.
On top of this, a former Rother Valley Labour councillor said today on a Rother Valley Facebook page:
“Stafford made the mistake of posting family images on Facebook…he is only in a hole because he dug it himself…he is happy for his family to stand metaphorically in the road on a busy bus route.”
He is stating that my wife and my two children are fair game because they feature on Facebook. What sort of level of politics have we sunk to when children are being used to attack other politicians and to whip up hatred?
I am again calling on the leader of the Labour party, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), and the Labour Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell), to immediately suspend all the Rother Valley Labour party members involved, and to speak to me tonight about these incidents, which I can only see as being designed to create anger and hatred against my family. I am also calling on my fellow Rotherham borough MPs—the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—to condemn the use of pictures of my family in party political attacks.
This is not “campaigning”, as some have suggested. These are pictures of my young children, being used to whip up anger and hatred, and being shown to people in order to create an environment of intimidation. This needs to stop before we have another horrific incident.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I took the point of order that he made yesterday on the same subject, and I appreciate that matters have deteriorated since yesterday. As I said to the hon. Gentleman and to the House yesterday, I have to be very careful in dealing with these matters here in public in the Chamber, because this really is a matter of security. I have made sure that our security team here at the House of Commons will give the hon. Gentleman every assistance that they possibly can, because these matters are taken very seriously.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned various Members of this House. I appreciate that he was, of course, not criticising them, but having mentioned them, I hope he will give them notice, if he has not already done so—[Interruption.] I am grateful to him for confirming that he has already done so. I appreciate that he was not criticising any Member of this House, but merely drawing the matter to their attention. I repeat that these are matters that are taken very seriously.
Business without Debate
No-fault Benefit Debts
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I am very grateful to have secured this debate, particularly as the last item of business before we rise for the summer recess. Before moving on to the substance of the debate, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in the House, especially the staff, a very happy, peaceful and restful break.
A number of organisations have been incredibly helpful in briefing me for this debate, including StepChange, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Salvation Army and my local citizens advice bureaux in Easterhouse, Parkhead and Bridgeton.
Other than housing and asylum, benefits and social security issues make up the largest cohort of my constituency casework. In the five years that I have served in this House, I have seen endless problems with the social security system, which too often is found wanting when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable in our communities.
The issue I want to hone in on today is no-fault benefit debts. That is not to say that there are not other aspects of our social security system that could do with repair, but in the interests of time I will confine my remarks solely to no-fault benefit debts. I am particularly appreciative of my colleagues in the Child Poverty Action Group, whose early warning system flagged this matter up.
Let us look at a particular case study that brings a human angle to the issue, rather than focusing on dry regulations, as can often be the case. Jess and Mark have a benefit debt of £600 because they were accidentally paid too much universal credit. The Department for Work and Pensions has acknowledged that it made a mistake when it worked out their entitlement, but it is asking for the money back, and Jess and Mark are legally obliged to pay it. Since they do not have the £600—they thought it was theirs, so they have spent it on essentials for themselves and their two children—the DWP is recovering the debt by taking £80 a month off their universal credit. Jess’s and Mark’s income was already low, and now they simply do not have enough to live on.
Unfortunately, this issue is becoming a more common concern. There are a few more case studies I would like to draw the House’s attention to. One claimant with a mental health condition has been left with an overpayment because he was accidentally given too much help towards his rent—that is, the wrong local housing allowance rate was applied; he had his young son staying with him but only the minority of the time. He could not have been expected to spot that pretty technical error.
A lone parent of a 10-year-old with disabilities was overpaid UC through no fault of her own—she received the severely disabled child element of UC when she should have received the disabled child element only. Again, she could not have been expected to spot that; but again, she is liable to repay the difference. A bereaved claimant with diabetes and osteoarthritis was overpaid UC when the DWP failed to act on information that she herself had given them about a private pension she had inherited from her late husband. She is now paying back the overpayment at £48 a month. As of April this year, she still had another 17 months of that left to go.
No matter how an overpayment of universal credit happened, the Department for Work and Pensions can ask for it back, even when somebody has done nothing wrong and indeed has done everything that could reasonably have been expected of them.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this important issue forward. He has outlined some cases; I had a similar case, and I commiserate with his constituents. Does he not agree that when someone has done all they can to be open and honest and there is clearly no fault for which they can be responsible, the stress of debt repayments on a household can be crippling? There must be a compassionate clause that can be used to override the computer systems. I think that is what the hon. Gentleman is asking for; it is certainly what I would ask for.
David Linden
I thank the hon. Gentleman. When I and the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) visited his constituency office on holiday during the Easter break, I saw at first hand how hard he works for his constituents; there were piles of casework all around him that day. His intervention is born of the fact that he is a hard-working constituency MP and can see the reality of this issue. He is right to call for that special clause.
Speaking about the rule before the introduction of universal credit, the then Employment Minister, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), said:
“The practical reality is that we do not have to recover money from people where official error has been made, and we do not intend, in many cases, to recover money where official error has been made.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 19 May 2011; c. 1019.]
Yet the DWP almost always asks for the money back now. Overpaid claimants can ask the DWP to waive recovery, but only about 10 waiver requests were successful in 2020-21, set against 337,000 new overpayments caused by DWP mistakes in the same period. The DWP openly asserts that it will abandon recovery only in “exceptional” cases.
When the DWP insists on recovering a no-fault debt, it has the power to make large deductions from somebody’s future universal credit payments—up to 15% of their standard allowance. To be clear for those watching today’s proceedings at home, I should say that the standard allowance is the amount that the Government believe a person needs to live on, so reducing it by 15% certainly causes hardship. The Government have already suspended energy companies from that, so why on earth are they doing it?
All this is out of line with basic ideas about fairness and fault. The rules about recovering overpayments are very different from what they were for the legacy benefits and tax credits that the universal credit system replaces.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. There is another issue here—this goes back to fairness—about the case law on the overpayment of wages, where there is an error in law and an error in fact. Perhaps that is something the Department should reconsider.
David Linden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who not only has a close interest in this issue from a constituency point of view but serves on the Work and Pensions Committee and has seen it at first hand. He makes a valid point, and it is on the record.
The new system is leading to financial hardship and debt, and it is likely to have long-term consequences for the health and wellbeing of adult claimants and their children.
One less obvious consequence of the rules is the potential for a decline in the quality of DWP decision making. Now that overpayments can be claimed back, it is possible that decision makers will not feel the same pressure to get decisions right first time. If that is the case, it will have consequences for DWP debt figures.
I have a number of recommendations to put to the Minister, who I have enormous respect for, and who I know to be somebody who listens, especially to those of us who have a significant constituency case load of DWP matters. First, I would like to see the Government change the rules so that no-fault universal credit debts are non-recoverable. That was the position for legacy benefits, for a good reason.
Secondly, the Department should ensure that decision makers are trained on the updated “Benefit overpayment recovery guide” and that recovery decisions truly take into account the list of factors in paragraph 8.4, including the circumstances of a debt and the conduct of the individual. Although that guidance changed in February 2022, we have not seen any changes in actual decision making.
Thirdly, I would like to see the Minister change DWP policy so that no deductions are made while someone is waiting for the outcome of a waiver request or appeal. Again, much of this was standard practice for the older benefits and tax credits.
Lastly, the Minister should set a 5%—not 15%—maximum for Government debt deductions, bringing them in line with deductions for other kinds of debt.
I have outlined how these issues are adversely impacting my constituents, and indeed people right across these islands. Not only that; I have also outlined some practical solutions that I think could alleviate the immense difficulty that the state is unnecessarily inflicting on those we represent. It is clear that these issues are occurring more and more, and it would be an abdication of responsibility for me, as a legislator, not to flag them up to the Government as a concern. But it would be even more of an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Government not to act to resolve them. I look forward to giving the floor to the Minister, who I am sure will be keen to work with me and our constituents to help resolve these issues.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing the debate. It is always a pleasure to follow the Deputy Leader of the House, who was responding to the Sir David Amess summer Adjournment debate—even the fact that the debate has been named after him is very moving.
I also congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East on his tenacity and assiduous approach to these issues and many others in this space. Of course, today he has been rewarded with the last Adjournment debate before the summer recess, which shows not only his keen interest but his dedication. I have always valued our exchanges, because he raises important issues and I try to respond as best I can. I do not doubt his sincerity in these matters.
The Department for Work and Pensions plays a pivotal role every day, including through paying benefits to millions of households in a timely and accurate way, providing the vital welfare safety net that people need. In addition, where people are able to work, work coaches in our jobcentre network help our claimants into sustainable employment all across the United Kingdom.
The universal credit system rose to the challenge of the pandemic admirably. The DWP redeployed staff, harnessing the agility of the system to process benefit claims remotely, and paid over 3 million households. Incredibly and crucially, we kept payment timeliness at very high levels during that time of genuinely global disruption. To illustrate the strength of our welfare system, despite the challenges I have laid out, the statistics from the 2022 financial year show that universal credit official error overpayments were at their lowest recorded level of just 0.7%, having fallen for the third year in a row. Despite the record low levels of official error, which I am proud to be able to set out, I want to assure the hon. Gentleman and other Members that we are absolutely committed to improving further on that record. The good news is that as a percentage, we are on a downward trajectory and we want to go even further. Not only do we run extensive checks to rule out fraud, but we also have a series of internal checks in place that allow us to correct errors pre payment and to learn from any errors we do make to minimise the risk of reoccurrence.
As Members may be aware, under section 105 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, any overpayment of universal credit, new style jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance in excess of entitlement is recoverable. This includes overpayments arising as a result of official error. The approach ensures fairness for the taxpayer and that claimants receive the appropriate amount of support given their circumstances. The Department seeks to recover benefit overpayments as quickly and efficiently as possible, including prescribed official error debt, but it is committed to doing so without causing undue financial hardship. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who also deserves a medal today for his assiduousness and tenacity, should be cognisant of that fact. He used the word compassion. We try to lean into that important word through the process we embark on. We do not abandon people in financial difficulty, and we will always work with and support any individual who deserves our help.
We understand the difficulties claimants can face, which is why we have taken action and lowered the standard cap on deductions from universal credit twice in recent years, from 40% to 30% in October 2019, and then to 25% in April 2021. I am sure Members, particularly those who follow these matters, will appreciate that in April this year a temporary change was introduced, so that for 12 months only benefit claimants themselves can ask the DWP to pay their ongoing energy bills directly from their benefit or alter any existing arrangement. This ensures that claimants have greater autonomy over their benefit award at a time when energy prices are at a record high. Deductions are taken in priority order, which means that higher priority deductions such as utility payments are taken first, with debt only taking up the remainder of the overall cap. Where a person feels they cannot afford the proposed rate of recovery and the debt has not arisen as a result of fraud, they are encouraged to contact us.
David Linden
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. One issue, which came up in a call I had yesterday with StepChange and a number of other advice lines and organisations, is that when people try to get through to the Department to that specific team, it is incredibly difficult to do so. I am not asking for a miracle at the Dispatch Box, but can he go back to the Department and consider whether it could be made easier for people to get in touch with the Department when they face such financial hardship?
David Rutley
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I will take it away for sure and follow it up. I have replied to StepChange recently in its correspondence with me, or I am about to do so, on those very same issues. He makes a good point and I will genuinely follow up on that.
The Department is then able to work with individuals, reviewing their financial circumstances and, in most instances, agreeing a temporary reduction in their rate of repayment. We have recently extended the time period, from 12 months to 18 months, before any reduced debt repayments are reviewed. To ensure people can get in touch, we are automating processes, freeing up debt management staff time to respond to customer calls and provide timely support. Again, I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s point and will follow up on it. We also have a rapid response team in place to help manage calls at peak times.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the specific recommendations he made. He mentioned the distinction between legacy benefit official error debt and universal credit official error debt. Because of existing legislation, he is right in saying that the Department writes off legacy benefit official error debt, but, as hon. Members will know, Parliament voted to end legacy benefits and to make universal credit the welfare system of the future. The intention is that the vast majority of working age claimants will move to universal credit by 2024, and a long-standing part of the universal credit system is that official error debt is recoverable. The 2012 welfare reform changes were designed to ensure that claimants took ownership of all aspects of their claim, including the accuracy of their payments. I reassure the hon. Member that I understand the points that he has raised and that, as a Department, we recognise that official error can cause disruption to our claimants, which is why minimising these occurrences is a major focus.
The Department maintains vigorous control of the official error via its quality assurance framework, which provides an assurance that the necessary quality controls are in place. Additionally, an independent quality and assurance team checks transactions conducted within DWP benefits, and this insight informs training requirements, infrastructure improvements and risk management processes. A senior stakeholder group, comprising directors, oversees the quality agenda. I am confident about the approach that our Department is taking. We are minimising the occurrence of official error, and also recovering payments where this unfortunately does occur. We need to balance our duty to the taxpayer with the need to deal with customers sensitively and appropriately. In that context, we do not think it is unreasonable that all overpayments are repayable.
The hon. Member also asked that we ensure that decision makers are involved in determining whether overpayments should be repaid. We are trained to take account of the factors listed in the benefit overpayment recovery guide. I can give the hon. Member a very clear assurance that this is the case, and also that regular refresher sessions are undertaken. The guidance to which the hon. Member refers was updated to give further clarity on some of the factors that have always been considered relevant when deciding whether to grant a waiver, as well as the evidence that should be provided to support an application. I am confident that this guide will make it clearer from the outset what evidence should be supplied in support of a request for waiver. We, of course, recognise the importance of doing all that we can to safeguard the welfare of claimants who have incurred debt. Our debt management agents are trained how to recognise signs of vulnerability, which is a critical point, and how best to support those customers.
My Department also has a network of advanced customer support leads to provide additional support to our most vulnerable customers. We are working in partnership with the Money Adviser Network, which offers free, independent and impartial money and debt advice, to routinely refer indebted customers to their service. In addition, the guidance to all universal credit agents is being reviewed to ensure that cases that may be appropriate for consideration of waiver are duly identified and referred to the waiver team for consideration.
Recovery of benefit debt must be balanced against the claimant’s social obligation to repay the money they owe to the Exchequer or the taxpayer. In April 2021, we reduced the cap on standard deductions to 25%, as I have explained, and at the same time we doubled the new claim advance award period to 24 months. This provided all new universal credit claimants with greater flexibility over how they received their advance. Such changes have helped hundreds of thousands of UC claimants retain more of their award in any given month. Some people have advocated for a reduction of the maximum deduction rate for the Government debt, as the hon. Member has done today. However, the limits that we currently have in place strike the right balance between managing the social obligations while supporting claimants with debt. To be clear, reducing the threshold further would risk key payments, including child maintenance, not being fulfilled. I think that those points need to be considered, notwithstanding the concerns that he has raised.
In addition, through the universal credit system, the recovery of universal credit and tax credit overpayments can be taken up to a maximum of 15% of the standard universal credit allowance, although this can be higher where a claimant has earnings. As I have said already, we understand and take seriously the impact that the recovery of overpayments can cause. However, reducing the 15% cap would extend the length of time until claimants return to their full UC award, and there is already a significant amount of support that is available for claimants repaying these overpayments.
Claimants can already contact the debt management to agree an affordable rate of repayment. There is no minimum amount that a person is expected to repay; they can pay an amount less than 5% if that is all they are able to afford. That is an important consideration.
Moving on to the last of the hon. Gentleman’s points—I have taken them in a slightly different order—the Department can waive benefit debt in exceptional circumstances, but waivers are generally granted only in truly exceptional circumstances where it can be clearly demonstrated that a person’s circumstances will improve only by waiving the debt. Such requests are rare, and there would normally need to be specific and compelling grounds for a waiver, such as when the recovery of the debt was causing either long-standing financial hardship or welfare issues for the debtor and their family. Waivers are granted at the discretion of the Secretary of State.
As a number of requests is low, we do not normally feel it is necessary to stop recovery during the waiver process. When a request is received, it usually follows a discussion with the claimant regarding recovery of the debt, and that discussion often already results in a reduction or could involve a suspension in recovery, so there are other factors we can consider in the journey of the individual claimant. Further along in the process, we do not suspend recovery of an overpayment during the appeal process because, in legislation, anything paid in excess of entitlement is recoverable, and there is no right of appeal against the recoverability of the overpayment. The Department is responsible for ensuring fairness to the taxpayer because, as I stated earlier, overpayment is effectively debt that is owed to the taxpayer.
It is also worth highlighting that other measures are in place to support people struggling with debt, such as the breathing space scheme, which I think we may have mentioned in previous debates. The hon. Gentleman knows about it, so I will not prolong this point. Let us use all the tools that are available. In Scotland, the debt arrangement scheme provides similar support to that available in England.
We recognise that people are facing serious challenges in Glasgow, in Scotland and across the United Kingdom and much of the world, and I think even the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that we have put a significant package on the table. We have had similar debates, so I know he feels that it is not quite enough, but it is substantial none the less, now totalling £37 billion. We as Members have a duty to communicate and reassure people that a package of support is being made available to them. The £326 means-tested cost of living payment has gone out to nearly all eligible benefit claimants, but others will receive the first of those instalments by the end of the month. Claimants will get a second payment to get up to £650 well before Christmas, which will be vital for their budgeting at that time of year. The £150 disability cost of living payment will be made available in September. The energy bills support scheme will also provide £400 for all who have a domestic electricity contract. Of course, pensioners will receive—I know the hon. Gentleman has strong views on the support available—£300 on top of their winter fuel payment.
Whatever our views on the different approaches to supporting people in poverty and those facing financial challenges, a significant amount of support is available. I will be doing all I can to help to communicate that, and I am sure he will do the same with his constituents. I want to put it on the record that, through the programme of support that will be put in place, 8 million low-income households in the United Kingdom will receive a package of support of around £1,200, which will be of significant help in these challenging times.
Of course, additional funds will be made available through the household support fund in England. There is similar support in Scotland; I have learned from previous debates that it does not total £79 billion in Scotland—that is for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales—but it is £41 million in Scotland. I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has taught me that lesson in previous debates. None the less, further funds have been put in place to help people with the cost of essentials.
To conclude, I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the Government are taking a considered and balanced approach to the recovery of debt. We are not overlooking, and will not overlook, anyone who needs our help and is struggling during these times of financial uncertainty. Equally, we will always strive to be both fair and equitable to people who are paying back the debts that they owe. We will continue to recover debt where the law allows, but we will also try to set recovery plans that are sustainable for the individual. If people are concerned about their benefit debt, I encourage them to contact the Department to discuss the help and support that might be available to them.
I thank the staff for their amazing work this year and I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your support throughout the year and in similar debates. I wish the hon. Gentleman and other Members present a good recess. I wish to pass on my huge thanks to the officials at DWP who have provided me with a huge amount of support over recent months. It is much appreciated and they do sterling work.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
As we approach the final Question before the summer, I join the Minister and everyone in the Chamber in wishing all Members and everyone who helps, supports and looks after us so well in the House a most peaceful and refreshing summer.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Collins
If something is illegal offline, it is illegal online as well. There are priority areas where the company must proactively look for that. There are also non-priority areas where the company should take action against anything that is an offence in law and meets the criminal threshold online. The job of the regulator is to hold them to account for that.
[Official Report, 12 July 2022, Vol. 718, c. 161.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins)
Errors have been identified in my response to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry).
The correct response should have been:
Damian Collins
If something is illegal offline, it is illegal online as well. There are priority areas where the company must proactively look for that. There are also non-priority areas where the company should take action against anything that is an offence in law which has an individual victim and meets the criminal threshold online. The job of the regulator is to hold them to account for that.
The following is a further extract from the debate on Report of the Online Safety Bill on 12 July 2022.
Damian Collins
On the amendments that the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), spoke to, the word “consistently” has not been removed from the text. There is new language that follows the use of “consistently”, but the use of that word will still apply in the context of the companies’ duties to act against illegal content.
[Official Report, 12 July 2022, Vol. 718, c. 209.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins)
Errors have been identified in my intervention on the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark).
The correct response should have been:
Damian Collins
On the amendments that the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), spoke to, the word “consistently” has not been removed from the text. There is new language that follows the use of “consistently”, and the use of that word will still apply across the safety duties and in particular for category 1 platforms.
The following is a further extract from the debate on Report of the Online Safety Bill on 12 July 2022.
Damian Collins
A number of Members raised the issue of freedom of speech provisions, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) at the end of his excellent speech. We have sought to bring, in the Government amendments, additional clarity to the way the legislation works, so that it is absolutely clear what the priority legal offences are.
[Official Report, 12 July 2022, Vol. 718, c. 218.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins)
Errors have been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie).
The correct response should have been:
Damian Collins
A number of Members raised the issue of freedom of speech provisions, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) at the end of his excellent speech. We have sought to bring, in the Government’s commitments via written ministerial statement, additional clarity to the way the legislation works, so that it is absolutely clear what the priority categories of harmful content are.
The following is a further extract from the debate on Report of the Online Safety Bill on 12 July 2022.
Damian Collins
The Bill absolutely addresses the sharing of non-consensual images in that way, so that would be something the regulator should take enforcement action against—
[Official Report, 12 July 2022, Vol. 718, c. 259.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins)
Errors have been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips)
The correct response should have been:
Damian Collins
The Bill absolutely addresses the non-consensual sharing of intimate images in that way, so that would be something the regulator should take enforcement action against—
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
BACKBENCH BUSINESS
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Agricultural and County Shows
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Given the unseasonably warm weather, I am happy to give my blanket permission for everyone to remove their jackets. The convention is that you have to go through me, but you can all have it off, as it were.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Just the jackets! I call Richard Holden to move the motion.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the importance of agricultural and county shows to rural Britain.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Thank you for stepping in today. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the debate, and Members—I know many cannot be here—from all parties across the House and all parts of the United Kingdom for coming to support it, including the Members who have in their constituencies the Royal Highland Show, the Royal Welsh Show, which happened in recent days, and the Balmoral Show, which is run by the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society.
Britain has a long and proud tradition of agricultural and county shows. The 350 that take place a year fuel economic activity in our rural communities, and provide incalculable value to the societies that they celebrate. They showcase the very best of farming—a sector that contributes about £115 billion a year to the economy.
One reason I am so keen to talk about the subject is that the first show in England, I am reliably informed, took place in 1763 in my patch of North West Durham, in the town in Wolsingham. Since then, the shows have become central to the social fabric and economy of the parishes, villages and towns of North West Durham, and they have become wildly popular in modern Britain, with over 7 million people attending them annually. Agricultural shows span the length and breadth of North West Durham. They range from some of the largest fairs, such as the Wolsingham Show, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the town every year, to smaller ones, such as the historic Stanhope Show, which is over 180 years old. The very smallest, such as the Blanchland and Hunstanworth Show, right up in the north Pennines, celebrate some of the most rural parishes.
County Durham has a rich history of farming, stretching back thousands of years. The Normans enclosed large areas of it as the County Palatine of Durham back in the early middle ages. Around that time, some of the land in the rural north Pennines was cleared for farms, for mining and particularly for small-scale cattle raising and sheep farming on the hills. In the 19th century, people in Weardale often subsidised their work in the mines with smallholdings and subsistence farming.
Today, for places across County Durham and across the country, county shows still provide a strong link between that rich agricultural history and present day society. Although agriculture has fundamentally changed over the centuries, and county shows have evolved as well, the shows are still unique points at which our towns and villages can come together. Agricultural shows provide people with a unique opportunity to celebrate what makes our local rural communities so special. They incorporate a huge range of rural activities, such as dry stone walling, which I tried my hand at last year at the Weardale Show in St John’s Chapel, and sheep shearing, which I know many hon. Members are always keen to take part in.
Despite the huge diversity in attractions, animals and events on display, what the shows have in common is the local pride that they instil in people and in the small local communities they serve. I am thinking particularly of the fact that cattle are still very much at the heart of even the larger shows in my constituency, such as the Wolsingham Show. Having the winners paraded around the ground is very much the highlight of the day, even with the much broader attractions that are now on offer.
These shows enrich our local communities. They help to reinforce social cohesion, and are an invaluable asset to modern Britain. Unfortunately, as we have all seen, over the last couple of years covid put a stop to some of them. I was at the Eastgate Sheep Show back in May, which was able to go ahead for the first time since my election as an MP in 2019. This year, I hope to see people return en masse to our county and agricultural shows, to help our communities rediscover their social benefits. We all took those benefits for granted not that long ago, but we now realise just how important they are. I look forward to visiting the Weardale Show in St John’s Chapel, the Wolsingham Show and the Stanhope Show later in the summer.
Farms are intrinsic to the identity and image of rural Britain. Without them there would be no such green and pleasant land that we all enjoy. They play a really important part in ensuring that our rural communities are connected to our local towns. While farming practices have changed, meaning that we do not need huge proportions of the population working the ground and the land anymore, farms provide a symbol for many people in those small towns and villages, and a real connection with the land that feeds our nation and other nations across the world.
I would welcome any Member coming to visit my patch this summer. British tourism is incredibly important, and it is not just the agricultural shows themselves that are the driver. They also provide a real anchor for many other rural activities, particularly rural pubs, which I am a keen supporter of, as a member of the all-party parliamentary beer group, and the hospitality trade, which in so much of rural Britain was also hammered during the covid pandemic. I urge anybody thinking of travelling around the country this summer to anchor it with a rural show, and to spend some time in those rural villages too.
In the modern era, farms are at the frontier of so many environmental measures, with farmers committed to working as much as possible in harmony with nature, while producing sustainable and nutritious food and products from their land. I am glad that when we come back in September, the trade agreements that we have negotiated will be addressed on Second Reading, and I am glad that the Department has had the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 to ensure that Britain’s agricultural interests are looked after. The Government are driving forward changes to Britain’s agricultural sector, following our exit from the EU. I hope that environmental land management schemes will, over time, provide a real environmental link, while ensuring that good food production is maintained in the UK.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend rightly highlights the importance of agriculture remaining at the heart of the county shows that he eloquently describes. Does he agree that food production must remain at the heart of UK agricultural strategies? That does not mean that we are ignorant of the net zero challenge, and some of the environmental imperatives, but keeping British farmers farming and producing high-quality food must be the overriding goal.
Mr Holden
I agree with my right hon. Friend, and he is right to highlight that. It is true not just in agricultural farming but for our fishing industry, as I am sure his community would reflect. Nothing has brought that home more than what has happened recently overseas, and the knock-on impact on inflation and food prices here. There is also the security element, so he makes a valid point, which I will return to later.
David Linden
I agree with the point made by the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), but do we not need to be realistic in this debate and ensure that we take a much more liberal view towards migration policy if we are to support the UK’s agricultural sector? There is no doubt that we have a workforce shortage, which so far the Government are not doing enough on.
Mr Holden
I thank the hon. Member for raising that point. One important point that I would mention to him, though, is that we need to have a really productive farming sector, and I am glad that the Government are looking to introduce some measures to drive that productivity. If we look across the sea to Holland, which actually has more people employed in the agricultural sector than we do, it has introduced some very productive farming measures over the past few years. There has to be a broader picture, but capital investment in particular is going to be essential if we are to grow our way out of the issues we face with not just food security, but the rural economy.
To pick up on a broader theme that both my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) have highlighted, I am really keen that we put our focus on the environment where it can do most good. In my area, we have huge amounts of upland peat, and there is currently a lot of grit removal going on, which is helping to ensure that our rural communities can engage in carbon capture and storage on relatively low-value agricultural land. Peat takes up four times as much carbon dioxide per acre as forestry, so I would much rather concentrate on where we can get the biggest bang for our environmental buck and not be pushing afforestation as widely as possible, particularly on higher-value agricultural land. That is a particularly important point; it is something I have discussed with Ministers, and it is something the Government are moving towards.
British farming is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector; in fact, it is important to remember that we could not have had an industrial revolution without an agricultural revolution before it. Despite the enormous output, with the specialisation and diversification of Britain’s farms and the premium products they produce, we now need to aim for another agricultural revolution. That is why I am so keen to ensure that we get some real capital into our farming communities to help drive the next wave, because those things go hand in hand with each other.
I am proud of the unique output of our farming communities, and I am particularly proud to see them celebrated in these rural shows. As I said, those shows bring us together as local towns and communities to see what is happening on the farm—I am sure Members from across the House will have seen that locally. We do not want our agricultural and rural communities to just become the sites of holiday homes.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech, highlighting the importance of the shows to rural communities. The Anglesey Agricultural Show on 9 and 10 August is perhaps the most high-profile event on the Ynys Môn calendar. It has a proud history, going back over 200 years. Over 50,000 people flock to the show to see livestock, equestrian events, local crafts and food and, this year, even giant tortoises. That show owes its success to a team of hard-working volunteers, so does my hon. Friend agree it is vital that we give support to shows such as Anglesey’s to support our rural communities and rural heritage? Does he also agree that I should help with the sheep shearing?
Mr Holden
I certainly think that my hon. Friend should help with the sheep shearing, and I hope she shares some videos on social media. She raises a particularly important point about the volunteers behind those shows. I have seen it myself on the ground: they could not take place without the volunteers who run the committees, put up the signs and do the fundraising to ensure that they are sold out. Often, the judges will themselves be volunteers. They are the backbone of those shows, reflecting the real link between the rural communities and the shows. I obviously encourage as many people as possible to go to the Anglesey show.
My hon. Friend’s intervention relates to the point I was making about tourism in rural areas. We have to ensure that our rural areas are thriving hubs not only of agriculture, but of environmental land management and tourism. We have to ensure that they do not die— that they do not become dormitory villages or just the sites of second homes. It is really important that those local communities are able to thrive, and that the links between agriculture and the broader economy and our lives are maintained. That is one of the reasons why these shows—including, obviously, the Anglesey Show—are so important.
We must ensure that our farmers are as productive as possible and that they grow for Britain, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire was saying. Direct interaction with the farming community through county shows will probably help to address some of the issues and concerns that people might have by showing some of the diversification that takes place in the sector. There is always a danger of an urban disconnect with rural Britain. That is why these shows are so important: they provide an easy and very accessible link between our rural communities and people from across the country.
In the light of the rising costs of food, people are starting to look at food in a slightly different way. The Russian blockade of Ukraine has caused huge problems, following their illegal invasion of that country. It is not so much that Britain needs to be totally self-sufficient in everything, but we certainly need to be more self-sufficient than we have been. When I was a special adviser looking at the balance of trade between Britain and other countries, one of the biggest things that we were importing that we could, actually, easily do here was food. I am particularly glad that the Government are starting to look at that area, to see how we can become more productive and grow more in the UK. That is also particularly important when we look at the environment at the moment. We want to see those food miles reduced as much as possible and see things grown in the UK. We need to take more account of the transportation costs and the environmental impact of that transportation, rather than simply the bottom line in terms of price and other considerations.
Britain’s farms are essential to our national economic interests, not just because they look great and they keep our country looking great, but because we need them to be as productive as possible to help our country. Country fairs are central to that rural economic fabric and to highlighting the great work that our farmers do. They provide unmatched social benefits to our towns and villages. County fairs also play a pivotal role; we saw the county flags around Parliament Square just yesterday, showing that they are also at the heart of rural Britain. The fairs provide a brilliant opportunity for the transfer of knowledge as well, by getting farmers together to see innovations and spread best practice within the rural community.
The shows provide a value beyond their locality as a source of income generation for the wider community, for the people visiting, and as an eye-opener for what farming is actually about in modern Britain. The largest shows—such as the Royal Cornwall Show, of which I know the Minister is a great fan, the Great Yorkshire Show, which I am sure will be mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), the Royal Three Counties Show, the Royal Highland Show, the Royal Welsh Show and the Balmoral Show—are not just in their local interest; there is also a national and often international interest in them. They offer a new set of opportunities for our farmers to diversify their operations, expand into new markets and find new, much-needed revenue sources.
Rural Britain must maintain its cherished position in the national fabric. It is imperative that we protect and promote county and agricultural fairs across modern Britain and do everything we can to ensure that they thrive into the future. They provide a stage on which the very best of our rural towns and villages can be showcased, as well as serving as a much-needed driver for innovation, investment and tourism in our rural economies. Their importance cannot be underestimated, and I look forward to visiting my local rural shows in Wolsingham, Stanhope, Hunstanworth and St John’s Chapel later this summer.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I start by thanking and paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for the intelligent and eloquent way that he set out the issues. It was an enjoyable speech to listen to, and informative as well. It is a timely moment to secure a debate on county agricultural shows in a week when, as my hon. Friend said, the historic county flags are flying around Parliament Square. It is delightful to see Pembrokeshire’s county flag among them.
The four-day Royal Welsh Show has been taking place this week. It is another great success, and it is great to see it back after the difficult covid years. It is a good moment for this debate, as we look ahead to the summer recess that is about to start. Many of us will be getting out and about in our constituencies, and going around our county shows. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham said, the smaller—often village-sized—shows are still an important part of the fabric of rural and agricultural life in the 21st century.
My county show—we refer to it as “the county show” —is the Pembrokeshire agricultural show. It is the pre-eminent county show in Wales. It is one of the last remaining three-day shows. Covid has been a huge interruption to the show. It is back this year in a two-day format, but I hope it will return to the full three days in future years. It attracts more than 100,000 visitors every year. It always falls in the middle of August, when there are thousands of tourists visiting the beautiful beaches and countryside of Pembrokeshire.
What we get at the Pembrokeshire County Show is an incredibly impressive shop window on agricultural and rural life in Pembrokeshire. It is not just about farming, although that remains at its heart. It also brings in other industries from the private sector, such as car and machinery dealerships. All kinds of voluntary groups and charities have stands. Myself and Conservative colleagues in the Senedd have a stand, and run advice surgeries. No other event in the Pembrokeshire calendar brings together so many people from so many different backgrounds to celebrate agriculture, farming and rural identity. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham makes about identity and cohesion in a community —that sense of community feeling—is really important. For us in Pembrokeshire, the county show is a great vehicle for expressing that.
It is the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society that runs the Pembrokeshire show. I put on record my thanks and pay tribute to the team from the society, particularly the new chairman this year, Mansel Raymond. Those Members who have been involved in dairy issues may recognise the name from his time chairing the National Farmers Union dairy board. He is a very successful farmer in the community; he takes over from Stephen James, a previous chairman of NFU Cymru. They and their teams have done a fantastic job of keeping the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society running during these difficult years of covid, getting it to the position where we can run the show once again this year.
The Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society was actually founded in 1784; it goes back more than 230 years. It was founded exactly at a time when the agricultural revolution was feeding into the industrial revolution, which my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham talked about. The founder of the agricultural society was one William Knox; he was not a Welshman but from Scotland, a relative of John Knox. He was a former Under-Secretary of State for America who found himself in Pembrokeshire. The society had some difficult years, but it was re-founded in 1901, specifically with the purpose of running the flagship county show every summer. That has happened every year since, and for the last 63 years it has happened at the Withybush airfield site, just outside Haverfordwest, which is of course the county town of Pembrokeshire.
It is a tremendous show, Dr Huq, and if you ever find yourself in west Wales in the middle of August, I hope you take some time out to visit the Pembrokeshire show. Indeed, I have seen many colleagues over the last 20 years, from all sides of the House, visiting the show when they have been on holiday in Pembrokeshire. They always have a great time.
For all the activities, the stalls and the fun, leisure aspects that tourists and visitors enjoy, at the heart of the show remains agriculture, farming and competition. There are livestock competitions and other types of contest. Farming remains at the heart of the show, which is a really key point that I want to stress, because farming is the backbone of rural life. Some shows around the country have morphed over recent years into more generic country fairs; they have a place and are fun as well. But for the county agricultural shows that we are discussing this afternoon, the key point is that they have farming strongly at their heart. As I said, farming is the backbone of rural life.
I chair the Welsh Affairs Committee, and it is great to see some colleagues from Wales present this afternoon. We recently completed an inquiry into the social and cultural benefits of family farms in Wales, taking into account the signing of new trade deals and some other trends in agriculture. I think that all members of the Select Committee would agree that maintaining vibrant farming is really important, not just for the economic benefits to rural communities, but for protecting something that is quite unique and special about our heritage. That has particular importance for us in Wales, where I think it is fair to say that the farming community is probably the most important vehicle for incubating and protecting the Welsh language, which of course goes to the very heart of our identity in Wales. All these things link together and come together very effectively in these annual agricultural shows.
In the report that the Select Committee produced on family farms in Wales, we highlighted a number of risks that I think it is important to put on the record. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has already touched on them. We made the point about keeping farming principally about food production. There is also the point about tree planting in Wales. We observed as a Committee that more and more high-quality agricultural land is being purchased for tree planting in Wales. That represents an almost permanent loss of agricultural land for these activities. I have a particular concern that some of that land is being purchased by corporations with no real connection to Wales at all. They are, in my view, practising a form of greenwashing: it allows those corporates to say that they are offsetting their carbon emissions. I do worry. I worry about farming when farming is being pushed more and more away from core food production. I worry about farming when more and more land is being given over to tree planting. That of course has benefits, but when it means a permanent loss of quality agricultural land, that is a concern.
The Pembrokeshire County Show will be happening again this August. It is a fabulous shop window on our rural community. However, smaller shows are happening as well. We have the Nevern Village Show and the Fishguard Show. My local show is the Clarbeston Road Show, in the next village along from where I live. They all have their particular characteristics. They all have their local characters and individuals who give so much of their free time to volunteer and to make the show happen. Those people are the bedrock of our communities, and we salute them this afternoon.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq, and it is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), who gave us a wonderful picture of just how important county shows and the smaller shows are to rural life and to the fabric of communities in Preseli Pembrokeshire.
I join the right hon. Member in congratulating the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) on securing this very important debate. He has timed it perfectly, as it comes at the end of Royal Welsh week. However, I congratulate him primarily on a tour de force of a speech, which covered the county agricultural shows in his constituency, their long history, and the importance of agriculture and rural life to his communities and parishes. He eloquently described in great detail how integral these shows are to the social and economic fabric of the communities and parishes that he represents. It will not surprise hon. Members to hear that I will make the same case for the importance of agricultural shows in my constituency of Ceredigion.
We have already heard an interesting point that I had not considered before coming to this afternoon’s debate. The origin and purpose of a number of these agricultural societies and agricultural shows was not only to showcase farmers’ wonderful produce and stock, but to exchange best practice and techniques. That was an important endeavour, and it played such an important role in the agricultural revolution. As a rural MP, I think the importance of the agricultural revolution is often downplayed when we consider the history of the United Kingdom; as the hon. Member for North West Durham said, without the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution would not have followed.
The Cardiganshire Agricultural Society was established in 1784; the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire told us that the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society was founded then, too, so there was something in the waters of west Wales in that year. I am afraid to say that it was not Mr Knox who founded ours, although I note that he was an Under-Secretary of State for America, so in 1784 he perhaps had a bit more time on his hands, after the 1783 treaty. However, the purpose of that society was to promote agricultural techniques and to share best practice. I am pleased to say that it continues in existence, and continues to meet regularly. I have a fond memory of attending one of their annual dinners in Lampeter some years ago, when I was a relatively new Member of Parliament. It is fantastic that their sharing of best practice continues to this day. Such bodies are of integral importance. They represent broader networks of societies, both at parish and village level, but larger towns would also hold an annual agricultural show.
The first Cardigan county show was held in 1854, so there was a bit of a gap after the society was established. I am pleased to say that we have continued to have annual shows, except during the covid pandemic and in a few other instances over the decades. It is a staple of the local calendar. We have missed it for the past two years; perhaps I underestimated just how much I would miss agricultural shows—not just my home show of Lampeter, but all the other shows that we Members of Parliament have the privilege of—well, a convenient excuse for—attending.
I am pleased to say that in Ceredigion, we have the best part of 20 agricultural shows. Despite the two-year gap forced by covid, they are all back up and running. The first one started in June, and they will continue through to the beginning of September. Obviously, produce and livestock is on show, but they also serve as important social hubs for rural communities. The larger county shows that we have in Cardigan and Aberystwyth are really impressive spectacles and feats of logistics—I am in awe of them—and they are made possible by the committees of volunteers who are in charge of them.
The smaller shows also serve an important function. The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire mentioned the number of challenges that agriculture faces. In Wales, there are changes to agricultural policy, the disruption of covid-19 and Brexit to some extent, and the challenge of losing large tracts of agricultural land to planation for forestry and offsetting schemes. Our farmers come under the cosh, whatever direction they face. Farming is, as I am sure hon. Members know, a lonely profession at times, so the local show is a great opportunity for local farmers to take the day off and socialise with each other. They go to shows to share problems and advice, but also to enjoy each other’s company. We have missed that for two years, so I am pleased that this year we will have the whole host of shows again in Ceredigion.
Some shows have merged; they have had to change quite a bit. We now have a great variety of displays and attractions. If anybody needs a holiday suggestion this year, I invite them to Ceredigion. We have it all. We have the core elements of an agricultural show, livestock displays and goods—vegetables and preservatives, you name it—but we also have speed shearing events, which are fun. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) may wish to attend a few of those events in Ceredigion before she tries her hand at shearing at the Anglesey show later in August. We also have the harness racing—several racing events, as it happens—vintage displays and tractor runs, and of course we have the Barley Saturday celebration in Cardigan. If Members have not been able to attend that yet, I very much recommend that they catch it next year.
These events are a celebration of our rural heritage, but they also look to the future, and allow us to share techniques and technology. Perhaps most importantly, shows allow young people, especially at the local show level, to try their hand at showing animals, or exhibiting vegetables, fruits or preservatives. They given them a chance to compete. I pay tribute to the Ceredigion Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, or YFC Ceredigion, the county organisation for the young farmers clubs; the opportunities they give to our young people are second to none. YFC Ceredigion had a good time of it in the Royal Welsh Show this week, where it won the display competition. I believe YFC Ceredigion is playing rugby later against Brecknock in the final; I do not think the match has kicked off yet. I wish the team the very best in that endeavour. YFC Ceredigion also managed to win the after-dinner speaking category of the competition run by the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs.
There is a close link between large shows and the network of local, smaller shows at which young people first experience competing in a whole range of categories and codes. Those shows feed up to the counties and ultimately the Royal Welsh Show. We have heard a little bit about the Royal Welsh already. It is a fantastic event —a really impressive week—and I pay tribute to the organisers, who even managed to provide air conditioning for some of the livestock sheds in this week’s warm weather. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) perhaps will not thank me for reminding the House that the first ever Royal Welsh Show for agriculture was held in Ceredigion, back in 1904, although I am willing to concede that the present location in Builth Wells is just as good for the animal event. Without the smaller shows and the county shows after them, the Royal Welsh would not be the great success that it is.
In closing, I thank the scores of volunteers who serve on the committees of these small shows, ensuring that everybody is registered in time, that the information and entries are in order, and that the insurance is sorted out. It was a particular challenge this year to secure marquees for the produce tents. Those volunteers do it year in and year out, often without seeking any thanks or celebration, but it is a great pleasure—once again, I thank the hon. Member for North West Durham for giving me the opportunity to do so—to place on record how much we appreciate their efforts. Without their tireless work to make sure that small and county shows go ahead, the rural community could not come together every year to share and celebrate our rural heritage, and to keep a little bit of that social fabric intact. I am sure that all rural MPs will agree that there is a real and specific type of community spirit in rural areas, and rural agricultural shows make an invaluable contribution to the endurance of that spirit.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Thank you very much, Dr Huq, for calling me to speak. It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, but particularly when you have been so flexible with your diary in getting here today.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) on securing this debate. Agricultural and county shows are hugely important for our economy. They are also one of the most enjoyable parts of rural Britain, whether the shows are large or small. In Harrogate and Knaresborough, we have both types, and I love them both. Thanks are due to the organisers of all these shows up and down our nation. It requires a huge effort and great skill to put these events on, and much of the work is done by volunteers; we should recognise and celebrate them.
I will make an immediate declaration of interests—I spent last Friday at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate. For those who have not visited it yet, it is the largest agricultural show in England and it is, as described, great. There is a 250-acre site in Harrogate. The show is over 160 years old, and there was a wonderful sense of excitement and fun about it.
I will spend a few minutes discussing the ingredients that make agriculture and county shows so special and important. I agree with colleagues that the most significant ingredient is the sense of community and belonging brought about by each show. The Great Yorkshire Show is from Yorkshire, for Yorkshire and, of course, in Yorkshire—it is a part of our Yorkshire identity. Of course, shows across the country are part of and reflect their local community, and that has been made clear in the debate. Some 140,000 people came to the Great Yorkshire Show last week. When I went on Friday, I had a little think about when I first visited, and I think it was in 1973.
Andrew Jones
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham is a generous man, but he is also completely wrong. My point is that the show has been a big part of something I have enjoyed. About 80% of the visitors are from Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-east, which means that many visitors come from a considerable distance away, which obviously brings a significant boost to the tourism and hospitality sectors.
The shows are places where people come together. We have highlighted that that is particularly true for farmers, but the shows are social beyond that; the beer tent does a brisk trade. Shows also celebrate the local agricultural sector, and the stock displays are critical to that. It is always great to see the pride in animal husbandry. Last Friday, I spoke to cattle farmers in the morning and sheep farmers in the afternoon, and congratulated those who had won prizes, such as best in show. The competition was strong, and their delight in winning was good to see. The livestock are the heart of the show.
There is obviously a commercial element to shows, and a strong retail presence. There are also agricultural equipment displays, which are a good way for people to see what is available and learn about new ideas and technology to boost productivity. There is business, and lots of money changes hands, but that is not the beating heart of the show. They are not just trade shows; they are much more complicated, but also more significant, than that. They are a platform for the celebration of the produce of an area, and they are a showcase of that produce. I do not just mean the livestock; I am particularly thinking about some of the smaller food producers. The quality of local produce, up and down all four nations of the country, is absolutely fantastic.
The shows are a platform that enable companies to reach customers and be spotted by bigger distributors. Introductions can be made, knowledge shared, and, later, deals done. I am sure we can all think of examples of how that has worked in our constituency. Certainly, judging by the sampling in the food halls last Friday, the enjoyment of local produce was pretty strong. The shows keep evolving, of course, and there are always new things to celebrate and new things to learn, as well as old. There can be new companies and new displays; for example, this year, the Yorkshire Show had sheepdog trials for the first time, which drew crowds.
The knowledge-sharing mentioned by a number of Members is an absolutely critical but under-recognised part of the shows. That works in a few ways. To give a practical example, Rural Payments Agency staff may be available to answer questions, and there can be expert talks put on to enable the sharing of best practice. Shows are also critical, and practical, for MPs. I had many excellent conversations at the Great Yorkshire Show last week, including with ASDA; I met its representatives to discuss local sourcing and the challenges of food inflation, and I met the National Farmers Union to discuss the challenges faced by local farmers. When I was last at the Boroughbridge Show, I met the Rare Breeds Survival Trust—a charity whose aims I support—and I did so again in Harrogate last week. We also had Ministers present, which was valued by those who got the opportunity to say hello. I do not think my hon. Friend the Minister has yet visited the Great Yorkshire Show, but I hope it is only a matter of time until he does. He would be welcome.
There are many elements that make agricultural and county shows work, but at their heart is a celebration of the countryside, its people and produce, its stewardship and its future. Their anchor is in local communities, and they make communities stronger. They are important to rural Britain, as the title of the debate suggests, but I would like to go further and say that they are important to all of Britain.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I am sure that most people are wondering why on earth the MP for the small, four-mile-long urban constituency of Glasgow East is speaking in the debate. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), who had intended to speak—no doubt paying great tribute to the Turriff Show—has had to return to his constituency, so I have been drafted in at short notice. I am sure the Chamber will be disappointed to hear that.
I thank the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for securing and opening the debate. I suspect there is a good chance that that was his last speech from the Back Benches; we shall see what happens in September.
Across Scotland, agricultural and county shows are hugely important to the cultural fabric of local communities. Some events have taken place for hundreds of years. Indeed, the First Minister marked the 200th anniversary of the Royal Highland Show this year, emphasising its importance as
“a place where the agricultural sector meet, debate and exchange ideas. And it showcases often to audiences who might not otherwise think very much about these things”—
myself included—
“the quality, the variety and the importance of Scottish agriculture and of the Scottish food and drink industry.”
In the past two years, the pandemic has prevented many agricultural and county shows from going ahead, but it is fantastic to see these events go ahead this summer, and to see people from not just across Scotland, but across these islands, embracing and celebrating the rural community. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention the various issues that have affected, and still affect, the farming and agricultural community across Scotland. As the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) said, the conflict in Ukraine, the devastating impacts of Brexit and the ongoing disruptions caused by the pandemic continue to worry our farmers.
North of the border, the Scottish Government are committed to supporting rural and agricultural communities. Indeed, earlier this year, the Scottish Government launched the national strategy for economic transformation, which makes it clear that every part of Scotland, especially rural Scotland, is crucial to the recovery from the pandemic. In March, the SNP Government set up a food insecurity taskforce to advise on the problems that the invasion of Ukraine would cause, including the difficulties caused by increased costs—a point already made in the debate. The taskforce has already reported, and some of the key recommendations have been accepted, such as the establishment of a new food security structure in Scotland.
Alongside pressing the UK Government to do more to support the food and farming sectors, the Scottish Government are using their powers to the maximum in order to address the challenges that face our farmers every day. Indeed, our First Minister has already announced major investment of more than £200 million through the 2022 to 2027 environment, natural resources and agriculture strategic research programme. By contrast, the Conservative Government in Westminster remain committed to a disastrous Brexit policy that undermines farmers, while also failing to address the significant cost of living crisis, which is devastating for our rural communities.
I can absolutely get behind the tone of the debate that the hon. Member for North West Durham has brought to the Chamber. However, when we politicians turn up at agricultural and county shows across these islands this summer, pose for our photo ops—some of which might include sheep shearing—and chat away to our constituents, we must remember what we have voted for. Did we support a Brexit that harmed farmers, and a Tory Government who are failing to act on the cost of living crisis, which is undoubtedly impacting on rural communities?
Agricultural and county shows should showcase the very best of farming and rural communities across these islands. However, such communities can flourish only if they are properly funded and supported, and the success of farmers in Scotland is fundamental to our environment, our economy and our reaching our sustainability goals. They should never, ever, be taken for granted.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for filling in at the last minute, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for securing this important debate and informing us of the many agricultural shows that operate in Durham. I remember as a nine-year-old going to the Royal Show at the National Agricultural Centre in Stoneleigh, which sadly has now closed. I was amazed at the animal activities and the sounds and smells, which stayed with me, so I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about agricultural shows.
The years 1066, 1939 and 1966 are all famous in our history. The years 1763, 1796 and 1838 probably mean little to most of the population, but mention them to farming communities the length and breadth of the country and the response will be different. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Wolsingham Show, which was the first agricultural show to be held in Britain, in 1763. The Otley Show in my constituency was first held in 1796, and is now the longest-running one-day agricultural show in the United Kingdom, and 1838 saw the creation of the Yorkshire Show, now the Great Yorkshire Show, which the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) spoke about at length. It is now the largest show, with 140,000 visitors, and I am sure that will grow year on year. I did not go this year, but I went last year, when there were only 130,000 visitors. We are clearly ramping up the visitor numbers at the Yorkshire agricultural showground.
All agricultural and county shows play an extremely important role in rural Britain. They provide an insight into farming and an opportunity for farmers to promote stock and produce, as well as the food industry more widely. They are above all a celebration of British farming, but they are not only that. We need to reflect on the fact that farming can be an isolating job on a day-to-day basis. Shows give farmers community, something to aim for, and an opportunity to reaffirm their pride and commitment to farming. Farmers put a huge amount of time and effort into their stock, and shows provide the platform to build both their reputation and their business.
It is not just farmers who benefit from agricultural shows, though. Whatever their size, shows give the public the opportunity to learn more about farming and build an understanding of the connection between our farms and the food on our tables. In a world of prepackaged, pre-cut supermarket produce, it is a much-needed education about the origins of our food. In a world of uncertainty about the quality of our food, it gives the public the reassurance that livestock is well cared for by our farming communities.
Agricultural and county shows provide an opportunity for us to celebrate rural life and the invaluable contribution that farming makes to this country. Agriculture is a vital industry filled with talented and hard-working people, but under the watch of our current Government, the farming sector has been beset by crisis after crisis, from the pig backlog that resulted in tens of thousands of healthy pigs being culled, to the avian flu outbreak of the past year—the worst in living memory.
During these difficult times, farmers in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and mainland Europe have been able to turn to their Governments for help. Farmers in England have not been given the same support. This year, at agricultural shows up and down the country the main topic of conversation among many attendees will be the latest set of crises bearing down on the agriculture sector: inflation, lack of seasonal labour, and the botched roll-out of the environmental land management scheme. It is a dangerous combination that is putting the future of British farming and agriculture in jeopardy.
Farmers, those in the industry and Opposition Members have been warning for months that British agriculture faces a chronic shortage of workers this year, but the Government have apparently not listened. The response in ramping up the number of seasonal worker visas has been very slow: they are now at 40,000, but the NFU has said it wants 70,000 worker visas to bridge the gaps. NFU survey data for April showed an estimated notional seasonal worker shortfall of 12% in horticulture—three times the figure for the same month last year. Industry experts say that there will be a catastrophic waste of home-grown fruit and vegetables this summer due to the lack of workers. Ultimately, many agricultural businesses face bankruptcy if they cannot access the necessary labour to harvest their crops. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will address those issues when they go to the shows this summer.
On top of a shortage of workers, farmers are also contending with soaring inflation, which is pushing up the price of agricultural inputs. Independent consultant Andersons’ latest inflation estimate for agriculture is 30.6% — three times higher than general inflation. Agflation is a huge issue, and one we must address.
As we all know, the invasion of Ukraine has resulted in significant increases in gas prices. For some farmers, the price of gas is now as much as 200% higher than it was at the start of 2021. Without food security, the food supply that people up and down the country expect will start to disappear. We saw shortages of food on shelves during covid; we might be back there again, perhaps worse. Some greenhouse growers cannot afford to heat their greenhouses and we are seeing a drop in the production of crops like peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes, which will mean more imports and potentially more shortage as demand builds across Europe.
In addition, fertiliser production is also heavily linked to gas. As international gas prices soar, so does the cost of fertiliser. In January 2021, the cost of ammonium nitrate was £200 per tonne; it is now £900 per tonne and rising. We are seeing a catastrophic conflation of problems affecting farmers, who will be going to the shows this summer and discussing them with each other, and raising them with us as politicians.
Food businesses face the same problems. I recently spoke to a Yorkshire biscuit manufacturer that has seen a huge increase in the prices of all its main ingredients. Margarine, sugar and wheat prices are all affected by the war in Ukraine and the agricultural worker shortage. The manufacturer cannot afford to increase workers’ wages, but has had to put up its prices as inflation is running at over 10%. That same issue was raised with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough in his discussions with Asda at the Great Yorkshire Show. As Asda is a Leeds-based business, I will also be discussing those issues with the company.
These latest crises take place against the backdrop of the slow introduction of the ELM scheme—another big talking point among farmers, the NFU and the Country Land and Business Association at shows and elsewhere. The Government are phasing out direct payments, but were are seeing a significant gap between the ELM scheme’s introduction and direct payments being phased out. Farms could go to the wall if the scheme’s roll-out is not accelerated. This is another example of agriculture being pushed into a difficult place. If the Government continue to push ahead as they are, many farming businesses will go bust. This not only harms farmers, but undermines our efforts to reach net zero, which may force us to import more food, produce to lower environmental standards, and use more carbon to get it here.
Many Government Members will be preoccupied over the summer by yet another Tory leadership election, but at agriculture and county shows, I fear people will be more concerned about the challenges facing British agriculture and food businesses. While the Government may be content to amble on without a plan, Labour pledges to provide agricultural communities with the support they need. On the ELM scheme, the Opposition support the NFU’s call for basic payment reductions to be paused for two years to provide more time for the scheme to be rolled out. We would reprioritise the ELM scheme to secure more domestic food production in an environmentally sustainable way, as part of our plan to support farmers to reach net zero. The shadow Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs team will be at shows all summer discussing these issues and offering solutions. I hope the Minister can offer us some now.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Already becoming a veteran for a relatively new Minister, I call Steve Double.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Double)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for securing this important debate. What better way to end our last moments of this term before we leave for the summer recess than talking about our amazing regional agricultural shows?
We have had a virtual tour of agricultural shows across the country during this debate, from the Wolsingham Show, which we were told is the oldest in the country, beginning in 1763, to the Ynys Môn Show—I am sure we all look forward to seeing pictures of the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) shearing sheep in due course. We also heard about the Royal Welsh Show and the Pembrokeshire County Show, mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), as well as the Cardigan County Show. In typically modest Yorkshire style, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) highlighted that the Great Yorkshire Show had 135,000—I think he said 140,000, but my figures say 135,000—visitors this year, which beat the Royal Cornwall Show, which had a mere 126,000 visitors. However, we did have the Prime Minister, so I trump him there. The Royal Highland Show—although a long way from Glasgow East—was mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden). It would be remiss of me not to mention the Cockermouth Show. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson), who is my Parliamentary Private Secretary, so is unable to speak in the debate, was telling me before the debate what a wonderful show it is and that he will have a stand there this year. I am sure everyone looks forward to that.
There are more than 400 show days per year around the country, put on by over 350 agricultural and county shows. They welcome over 7 million visitors and act as a vital link between rural and urban Britain. Shows of all sizes, big and small, connect our rural communities and play an important part in the tapestry of rural life. Agricultural shows bring people together to network and do business, and they give the public a glimpse into farming life. They play an important role in continuing to inform and education the population about where our food comes from and the vital connection we all need to have with the natural world.
Agricultural shows provide a chance for farmers to discuss emerging technologies and innovations with manufacturers. Several hon. Members made the point about the importance of farmers getting together at these shows and talking about their working practices. They are a fantastic showcase for the diversity and success of British agriculture, particularly for people who do not work in the countryside. They offer benefits to small businesses and the local area, and they are a great showcase for the amazing regional food and drink that is produced up and down our country.
A number of hon. Members said that virtually every show has had to stop for the past two years because of the pandemic, and it has been welcome seeing so many of them being held again this summer. The strong attendance at shows up and down the country shows how much they not only have been missed, but are valued by so many people. For the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, agricultural shows give us the chance to meet people from all kinds of farming backgrounds and rural lives across the country. They help us better understand the experiences and views of members of the farming community, who can help shape ideas, ask questions and offer challenge.
The future farming and countryside programme, which is leading the farming policy reforms in England, attended 28 events in June alone. These included the Royal Cornwall Show, the cereals show in Nottinghamshire, as well as shows in Norfolk, Hereford, Lincolnshire, Devon and Northumberland. I look forward to attending the North Devon Show next month and, as a proud Cornishman, I am sure I will get a warm welcome. Attending the agricultural shows is valuable to DEFRA. I know the Secretary of State and all Ministers have been working hard to attend as many shows as possible this summer and will continue to do so. I also know how important attending shows is to local Members of Parliament, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham mentioned. They give us that important connection and ability to discuss rural issues with so many people.
Agricultural shows are of great value to farmers. As well as the opportunity for networking and seeing examples of best practice, they allow farmers to give feedback to DEFRA Ministers and officials. For example, we have spent much of the summer so far talking about the new sustainable farming incentive, which opened at the end of June. These conversations have been extremely fruitful for talking about the benefits of the sustainable farming incentive and other environmental schemes and grants, and receiving feedback on what farmers want to see in the future from our work. Conversations with farmers at shows provide vital feedback that we will incorporate in our future communications about the scheme, helping many more farmers than just those we meet in person to understand the benefits.
Of course, agricultural shows afford broader benefits to the economy. For example, they provide income and employment for small businesses, such as exhibitors and marquee manufacturers that rely on agricultural shows, as well as local accommodation providers, caterers and equipment hire providers. The economic benefit of these shows goes beyond the agricultural sector in supporting the rural economy.
Agricultural shows also play an important role in connecting rural communities and educating the wider public. The Country Land and Business Association commented that agricultural shows are particularly important to the culture of rural areas. The shows act as a vital link between rural and urban Britain, and can be used as a major education tool in informing those who attend about the diversity of agriculture and land-based activities, and in promoting the importance of those who live and work in rural communities.
A further point can be made in relation to land management practices, given that the shows are seen as showcase events. Since the start of the century, we have seen the importance of the environment and the role that land managers play as custodians of the countryside. It is here that education is becoming so important; and, in a practical sense, shows provide a larger audience for the essential message of what agriculture is and does.
Let me respond to a number of the points raised during the debate. Several colleagues wanted to thank the many volunteers who make these shows possible; I would like to reinforce that point. From my own experience, I know the importance of the hundreds of volunteers who give their time to put on these shows. It is right that we all acknowledge their work and say thank you to them for all that they do.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire made a really important point about making sure that food production is at the heart of agricultural policy. That is something that we have demonstrated with the publication of the national food strategy; with the events of recent years, including the events in Ukraine, it will become even more important going forward to put food production and security at the heart of our policy making. He also said that farming is a unique part of our national heritage—a point that I am sure many of us can get behind and welcome.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) made the point that shows give a great opportunity to young people, which I have seen many times. One of my earliest memories was being given the day off school to attend the Royal Cornwall Show, which is something I would encourage. I am not here to make education policy, but it is important to teach our young people about where our food comes from, in order to help them better understand the importance of food production and our environment, and the central part that our famers play in that. The more we can give our young people the opportunity of engaging with these shows, the better, because they are a really great way of teaching them about those things.
One thing I was aware of before—but of which I have become particularly aware in the two weeks that I have had this role—is that sadly sometimes our farmers are presented as the villains when it comes to environmental protection and net zero. I think that is very unfair, because certainly all the farmers I know are really committed to sustainability and to doing everything they can to protect out natural environment. Again, our agricultural shows can play a vital role in getting that message out and helping people to engage with the farming sector, in order to understand all that the sector is doing to work with us to protect our environment, fight climate change and adapt to it. That is an important point to make.
In closing, this has been a great debate and a great way for most of us to end our time in Parliament before we head off to the recess. Agricultural and county shows are an essential part of the ongoing relationship between DEFRA, farmers, land managers and the wider public. They continue to be a fundamental element of our open dialogue with farmers, and we are committed to working in partnership with them. Like all Members who participated in the debate, I celebrate our agriculture and county shows, and I wish them the very best for the future.
Mr Holden
I thank Members for the broad and mostly cross-party spirit in which the debate has been conducted. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) and the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), who gave us a great tour of west Wales—I might even get down there myself this summer.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) does not have any shows in his patch, but he stepped bravely into the breach today, as did the Minister— I know there was a debate about whether he or a Minister from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport would be responding. I thank the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who is just down the road from me; it is always great to see him here. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) was suffering in silence today, but at least he got a shout-out for Cockermouth.
I want to highlight the important economic benefit of these shows and the invaluable contribution that they make to our rural communities and the sense of belonging there. Most of all, I thank the volunteers at the shows, who keep them going year after year, because they are such a valuable part of our rural communities. I thank the guys at Wolsingham Show and Stanhope Show, and the Weardale Agricultural Society, which is run from St John’s chapel. I look forward to seeing them in the next couple of months.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
More holiday suggestions than you can shake a stick at.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the importance of agricultural and county shows to rural Britain.
Written Statements
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Serious Fraud Office and the Unaoil Case: Independent review
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Attorney General (Suella Braverman)
I wish to provide details of the findings of an independent review I commissioned into the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) failings identified by the Court of Appeal in the case of R. v. Akle and Anor (2021). I committed to this in my written statement of 9 February 2022.
The objectives of the review were to consider and provide recommendations in relation to the following matters:
1. What happened in this case and why? In particular, assessing the two key failings identified in the judgment: a) What occurred as regards SFO contact with third-parties and why; and b) Why did the SFO disclosure failures identified in the Court of Appeal judgment occur?
2. What implications, if any, do the failings highlighted by this case have for the policies, practices, procedures and related culture of the SFO?
3. What changes are necessary to address the failings highlighted by the judgment and any wider issues of SFO policies, practices, procedures or related culture identified by the reviewer?
I am grateful for Sir David Calvert-Smith’s work on leading this review. His findings fall into two categories: thematic failings and events. Sir David found five recurrent themes that were fundamental to the Court's judgment, some of which indicate general organisational issues within the SFO’s control and where failures occurred. These themes are: record-keeping; compliance with casework assurance processes; resourcing; understanding about priorities; and distrust between the case team and senior management resulting from the latter’s contact with David Tinsley. Sir David highlights a sequence of 17 events or mistakes that led to the Court's judgment.
Following these conclusions, Sir David makes eleven recommendations which the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and SFO accept. They broadly cover:
1. Case assurance—all cases should have sufficient resources, all members of case teams should comply fully with case assurance processes and all contact with defendants, suspects and their representatives should be recorded as necessary. Superintendence should be revised and considered further.
2. Disclosure—all cases should have effective disclosure strategies and management, and the Attorney General’s Office and SFO should work together to identify any necessary changes to the Attorney General’s disclosure guidelines.
3. Personnel—all staff should be able to raise concerns about cases, the relationships between investigators and prosecutors should function as envisaged under the Roskill model, and there should not be “interregnum periods” between Directors or General Counsel.
Building on work already undertaken by the SFO a clear plan of action to respond to the review recommendations has been developed. I will be closely monitoring the SFO’s progress and delivery of that plan and will provide an update to Parliament in November 2022 and February 2023.
I will place a copy of the review and the response in the Libraries of both Houses so that they are accessible to Members. Junior officials’ names have been redacted from the published review in line with standard Government practice. The SFO has waived legal privilege in relation to legal advice referred to in the review only for the purposes of this review.
The documents will also be available on gov.uk.
[HCWS267]
UK Commission on Covid Commemoration
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
My noble Friend the Minister of State, Lord True CBE, has made the following written statement:
Today, I am establishing a UK Commission on Covid Commemoration to secure a broad consensus across our whole United Kingdom on how we mark and commemorate this very distinctive period in our collective history.
I have appointed the right hon. Baroness Morgan of Cotes to chair the Commission. She will be supported by 10 members from across the UK who have knowledge and understanding of some of the issues experienced by those affected by covid-19 and are well respected in their fields of expertise.
Working together with the Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Commission will recommend how those who have lost their lives should be remembered in our communities and across the UK. It will also consider how we can commemorate the service of critical workers, recognise the experience of those who were seriously affected by covid-19, celebrate the advances in UK science and remember the national spirit which led to so many people volunteering to support their neighbours and communities.
The Commission will engage individuals, particularly those who have lost loved ones, and organisations across the UK, to inform its recommendations. I have asked the Commission to submit its report to the Prime Minister by the end of March 2023.
I have today placed a copy of the list of the Commissioners and terms of reference for the Commission in the Libraries of both Houses in Parliament and published them on gov.uk.
[HCWS262]
Annual European Union Finances Statement
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
I am today laying before Parliament a document entitled “The European Union Finances Statement 2021 on the implementation of the Withdrawal and Trade and Cooperation Agreements” (CP 732). This is an annual publication and the 41st in the series.
This year’s statement continues to include an updated Government estimate of the financial settlement. As detailed below, the estimate can be found in annex A and contributing figures in chapter 2 and 4.
This year’s edition is the first in the publication series to cover the UK as a non-member state and having completed the 11-month transition period. Now that the UK has left the EU and is no longer involved in the EU’s multiannual financial framework, detailed financial reporting on participation is of diminishing relevance.
This year’s edition follows the recommendations from the European Scrutiny Committee in relation to how the information is presented in this year’s document. The cut-off date for reporting for this edition of the EU finances statement is December 2021, as these statements will continue to be published on a yearly basis. However, the statement also provides brief details of the invoice received subsequently to this period in April 2022, and which will be reported on in detail in next year’s statement. This year, the April invoice provides a single net liability for the UK of €3,419,693,252.35 (£2,877,500,887.19)
The focus of this statement, therefore, is on the implementation of the withdrawal agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement, in effect turning the formerly annexed chapters into the main body of the text. The presentation of both payments and the outstanding liability under the WA has changed accordingly.
This year the statement separates backward-looking reporting on the payment of net liabilities made by the UK from HM Treasury’s forecast of outstanding liabilities. Chapter 2 gives a breakdown of the April and September 2021 invoices received from the EU and their payment during that calendar year. It gives an updated figure for the total paid up to 31 December 2021 of £5,812,719,159.
Chapter 3 of the statement provides detail on the verification arrangements that HM Treasury has undertaken in relation to the financial settlement under the WA and which was reflected in domestic law in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
HM Treasury estimates that the current net value of the financial settlement is £35.6 billion. Chapter 4 breaks down the forecast outstanding UK net liabilities to the EU from 1 January 2022 onwards, providing a point estimate of the total outstanding of €29.0 billion (£24.6 billion).
This statement reports on the status of EU programme association in chapter 5. In this edition we give the current estimate for the total cost of participation in all three programmes over the seven-year MFF (around £17 billion). This breaks down to in the region of £15 billion for Horizon Europe, £1.2 billion for Euratom R&T and Fussion4Energy, and £0.8 billion for Copernicus.
As all payments will be made from departmental accounts, HM Treasury do not plan to replicate or consolidate financial reporting on the TCA in future editions of the statement. Nor do we intend to report annually our revised estimate of liabilities expected under the TCA, because actual costs will, in future years, appear in the departmental resource accounts.
The latest estimate of £42.5 billion shows an increase against the original range of £35-39 billion, which is primarily due to the most recent valuation of the UK’s obligation under article 142 for EU pensions. The primary drivers are the latest discount rates and inflation assumptions, which are centrally set by the Government for valuing long-term liabilities. However, given that this is a multi-decade liability, the variables used in this forecast will continue to fluctuate up and down. The agreed scope of the underlying liability remains unchanged, and the UK will continue to pay those liabilities as they come due, according to the actual value at the time.
[HCWS272]
Military Support to Ukraine
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
I am pleased to provide the House with a further update on equipment that the UK is providing to the armed forces of Ukraine. The UK is proud to lead the way in providing military assistance to Ukraine. The Prime Minister announced at the NATO Leaders’ Summit on 30 June that a further £1 billion of military support to Ukraine will be provided. This brings the UK’s total military support to Ukraine to £2.3billion. Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Anti-Air <100 >300 Anti-Tank <100 >9,000* Anti-Structure >15,000 Anti-Personnel (including small arms, mortar & grenade) >6,000 >1,000,000 Anti-Ship <100 Artillery <10 >16,000 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Long range <100 Satellite >100 Short Range >400 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Jamming >300 Physical Counter <100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Spare Parts >100 Tools (pallets, kits etc) <100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Laser Designator (eg range finders, aiming systems) >100 Optical (including Uncrewed Aerial Systems) <100 Radar <100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Rations <100,000 Medical <100 Clothing <100,000 NVDs / Thermal >5,000 Sleeping >2,000 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Armoured Fighting Vehicles >100 Ambulances <100 Soft Skinned (including cargo Uncrewed Aerial Systems) <10 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Ballistic Vest >8,000 Helmet <100,000 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Anti-Air >700 >100,000 Anti-Tank <4,000 <250,000* Anti-Structure >2,000 >600,000 Anti-Personnel (including small arms, mortar & grenade) >7000,000 >100,000,000 Anti-Ship <200 Artillery >200 >250,000 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Armoured Fighting Vehicles >600 Ambulances <100 Soft Skinned (including cargo Uncrewed Aerial Systems) >200 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Long Range <100 Satellite >900 Short Range >400 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Jamming >400 Physical Counter >200 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Spare Parts >12,000 Tools (pallets, kits etc) >100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid PPE <100 Metal Detector >400 Robot <100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Laser Designator (e.g. range finders, aiming systems) >2,000 Optical (including Uncrewed Aerial Systems) >500 Radar <100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Rations >1,000,000 Medical >200,000 Clothing >200,000 NVD / Thermal >30,000 Optics (sights, binoculars etc) >30,000 Sleeping >500,000 Utilities (including generators) >100 Weapon Ammunition Other Aid Ballistic Vest >100,000 CBRN PPE >70,000 Helmet >200,000
We have already supplied Ukraine with a significant quantity of equipment, including:
More than 6,900 anti-tank missiles (including more than 5,000 next-generation light anti-tank weapons, as well as Javelin, Brimstone, and other anti-tank weapons)
Multiple launch rocket systems
120 armoured fighting vehicles
Six Stormer vehicles fitted with Starstreak launchers as well as hundreds of Starstreak missiles
Maritime Brimstone
More than 16,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, as well as anti-structure munitions and 4.5 tonnes of plastic explosive
Communications equipment
Electronic warfare equipment
More than 82,000 helmets, 8,450 sets of body armour, medical supplies and more than 5,000 night-vision devices.
Our support for the armed forces of Ukraine (AFU) will continue. In the next few weeks, we will be giving the AFU equipment, including:
More than 20 M109 155mm self-propelled guns
36 L119 105mm artillery guns and ammunition
More than 50,000 rounds of ammunition for Ukraine’s Soviet-era artillery
At least 1,600 more anti-tank weapons
Unmanned aerial systems (including 100s loitering aerial munitions)
Counter-battery radar systems
Medical equipment
Future planned military support will also include more sophisticated defence systems across a range of capabilities.
On 25 April I also committed to placing an update on international donations of military equipment to Ukraine in the House Library. I include below two summaries: one of UK donations; and a second of combined international donations. These summaries only contain quantities known to the UK where other countries are content for this information to be released. We do not necessarily see or know the totality of assistance provided by all donors. The delivery and provision of aid is dynamic and fast moving so the numbers and types of capability included are likely to change quickly.
The scale and range of equipment we are providing, at pace, demonstrates how we are delivering on our commitment to provide Ukraine with support to resist and defeat the Russian invasion. We will continue to do so until Ukraine’s sovereignty is restored.
UK donations to Ukraine:
Major capabilities
Communication systems
Electronic warfare systems
Equipment support
Intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance (ISR) systems
Life support
Mobility
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
*includes single use weapons and unguided munitions
International donations to Ukraine—43 countries including UK (International data as at 5 July 2022)
Major capabilities
Mobility
Communications systems
Electronic warfare systems
Equipment support
Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD)
Intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance (ISR) systems
Life support
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
*Includes single use weapon and unguided munitions
[HCWS259]
Academy Trust and Local Government Pension
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (James Cleverly)
In 2013, we introduced a guarantee to local government pensions scheme (LGPS) administering authorities that in the event of the closure of an academy trust any outstanding LGPS liabilities will not revert to the fund.
Although there is no end date to the guarantee, we committed to undertake assessments at regular intervals to determine whether the guarantee remains affordable and is being fully recognised by LGPS administering authorities in their risk assessments of academy schools and the subsequent setting of employer contribution rates.
I can today confirm that we will continue to provide a guarantee to LGPS administering authorities with a new increased annual ceiling of £20 million, and a parliamentary minute, which sets out the detail of the guarantee, has been laid in both Houses.
When we first introduced the guarantee, we agreed annual limits for each financial year based on estimates. We have reviewed all payments the Department has made under the guarantee policy since 2013 and have set a new annual limit of £20 million per annum.
In the three most recent financial years the amounts requested and paid under the guarantee policy were as follows: 2021-22: £3 million, 2020-21: £4 million, 2019-20: £11 million. Since the guarantee was introduced, the Department has never reached the set annual limit.
We expect administering authorities to recognise the direct Government backing provided by the guarantee and continue to treat academies equitably with local authority maintained schools when setting employer contribution rates and deficit recovery periods.
The guarantee provides academy trusts with direct Government backing for certain pension costs which will enable LGPS administering authorities, and I ask you to ensure that this is reflected in this year’s scheme valuation, both in the setting of the employer contribution rates and the length of the deficit recovery period.
[HCWS261]
Further Education Funding and Accountability: Consultation
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Andrea Jenkyns)
Today, as the Government continue to build back better from the pandemic and begin the critical work of levelling up the UK, I am announcing further steps towards delivering the ambitious reforms set out in the Skills for Jobs White Paper. Skills for Jobs set out our vision for a skills system that supports people to access the skills required and to get the jobs our economy needs, increasing productivity, supporting growth industries, and giving people opportunity.
We are launching a second consultation today, containing proposals for implementing a new further education funding and accountability system in England to help deliver on this vision. The consultation is open from 21 July 2022 until 21 September 2022.
In this consultation, we want to hear from all interested stakeholders and welcome responses to the consultation from individual learners, providers (especially colleges), employers, representative bodies, local government partners and MCAs.
Our reforms are about changing the incentives in the further education (FE) system by focusing on employment outcomes and simplifying the funding system so we can best support learners into high-value jobs. These reforms will:
Deliver a simpler and more effective funding system, to make it easier for providers to invest in the best way possible to achieve good outcomes for their learners.
Deliver a fairer system by moving towards a more equitable approach to funding areas in the next spending review, and in the meantime, exploring how our available resources can support those areas most in need to support levelling up and spread opportunity across England.
Finally, we want to create and deliver a system that is focused on outcomes. We will use the funding system to encourage providers to offer courses that lead to better outcomes for the local and national economy and society, while holding providers accountable for delivering for their learners.
This will enable providers to ensure that they are meeting the needs of their learners, employers, and the wider area, putting taxpayer investment to the best effect.
Subject to the responses to the consultation, we intend to introduce our reforms from the academic year 2023-24, with further reforms coming in the next spending review.
This is a key milestone in the delivery of our Skills for Jobs reform programme, which will transform the whole skills system so that we can train the dynamic and flexible workforce our economy needs.
[HCWS268]
NHS Covid Travel Pass for Children
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)
As part of our continued commitment to support travel for the school holidays, on 21 July the Government are launching an NHS covid pass service for parents or guardians of children aged 5 to 15 years old to request a digital travel pass on behalf of their child. This will include a record of all covid-19 vaccinations received and proof of prior infection (recovery status). Children aged 5 to 11 can currently only access an NHS covid pass letter. Children aged 12 to 15 can currently only access a digital NHS covid pass using their own NHS login; this new service means that parents can also request a pass on their behalf.
Launching this new service, and thereby extending a digital solution to children aged 5 to 11, alongside giving the parents of children aged 12 to 15 the ability to request a pass on their child's behalf, will make it quicker, simpler and save families the cost of testing in countries where this is required for foreign travel. The UK has no covid certification requirements, this is to support outbound travel to a variety of countries that still have requirements.
A parent or guardian will be able to request a PDF version of the travel NHS covid pass via the NHS website. The digital pass will only be sent if they enter a mobile number which matches the number on the child’s GP record and if they correctly enter a one-time password sent to this number, or if they enter an email address that matches the email address on the child’s GP record.
This service will be available for children aged 5 to 15 resident in England or the Isle of Man. For those registered with a GP in Wales, parents or guardians should check the gov.wales “Get your NHS covid pass” website for information on their service. In Scotland, under 16s can request a copy by phoning the covid status helpline on 0808 196 8565. In Northern Ireland, parents or guardians of children aged 5 to 11 years can request a digital or printed covid certificate on behalf of a dependent. Those under 16 can upload the certificate—requested on their behalf—to display on the COVIDCert NI app.
[HCWS273]
Covid-19 Vaccine Supply
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)
This statement is a retrospective notification to the House of Commons following accounting advice that the initial phase of this transaction should be classified as a gift. It is normal practice that when a Department proposes to make a gift of a value exceeding £300,000, a minute is presented to the House of Commons setting out particulars of the gift.
In September 2021, the UK Government announced initiatives to share 4 million Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses with Australia and 1 million doses with the Republic of Korea. This arrangement was mutually beneficial and ensured these Pfizer/BioNTech doses—which were not immediately required in the UK—were used to support international vaccination efforts. The same volume of doses were returned later in the year. Sharing doses meant those countries had immediate access to vaccines they could put to use in their domestic campaigns and enabled the UK to better align timings of our own supply with our requirements.
The vaccine taskforce has worked to optimise supply for UK domestic need through its close work with vaccine developers, as well as supporting the global distribution of vaccines with our international partners. The reciprocal dose sharing arrangements with Australia and South Korea is an example where we have worked with other countries in a mutually beneficial way to achieve this.
HM Treasury has approved the decision.
[HCWS266]
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The United Kingdom continues to make good progress toward joining the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership (CPTPP) this year. Below is an update to Parliament on developments in negotiations over the course of recent months.
This bloc of 11 countries represents around £9 trillion in GDP and includes some of the world’s largest current and future economies. Joining CPTPP puts Britain at the heart of a dynamic group of countries, as the world economy increasingly centres on the Pacific region. And as these economies grow, it is even more important that the UK is in a free trade agreement with them, so that we benefit from this growth.
CPTPP membership offers a wide range of benefits for the UK. Accession could see 99.9% of UK exports being eligible for tariff-free trade with CPTPP members. Joining could also, for example, greatly benefit our world-class services sector through advanced provisions that facilitate digital trade, and modern rules on data to enable more financial and professional services markets to be opened up.
This will support the economy across the UK: the Department for International Trade’s published scoping assessment shows that joining the agreement could benefit all parts of the country, with the greatest relative gains expected in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The UK announced its intention to join CPTPP in February last year and began formal negotiations on our accession in June 2021. In February this year, CPTPP parties confirmed that we were ready to move to the final phase of the accession process, having largely demonstrated our compliance with the existing CPTPP rules.
This final phase of the accession process involves applicants making high-standard market access offers to CPTPP parties. The UK submitted initial offers in March 2022, including on goods, services, investment, Government procurement and financial services. Since then, we have continued to engage in talks on both a bilateral and collective basis with CPTPP members in order to come to an agreement on these market access issues.
We will continue to negotiate with CPTPP members over the coming months. We will ensure the UK joins the agreement on the right terms, and that British businesses can begin taking advantage of this trade deal as soon as possible.
The Department will continue to engage with Parliament over the course of negotiations. Once the agreement is signed, it will be subject to pre-ratification scrutiny under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (CRaG), and any legislation required to implement the agreement will need to be passed. Prior to commencing scrutiny under CRaG the Government will commission and publish the advice of the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission, as well as laying its own report under section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020.
[HCWS265]
Mexico Trade Negotiations
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The first round of United Kingdom-Mexico free trade agreement negotiations took place during the week commencing 11 July. A small delegation of officials undertook technical discussions in person in Mexico City with most talks taking place virtually.
During the first round, talks focused on gathering insights on key interests and priorities across policy areas as well as building a shared understanding of each other’s initial positions in the areas expected to be covered in the free trade agreement. Technical discussions were held across 31 policy areas over 28 sessions.
The United Kingdom and Mexico share a joint ambition to take our trade and economic relationship to the next level, deepening trade and increasing investment flows for the benefit of both countries.
The existing United Kingdom-Mexico trade continuity agreement is outdated. These negotiations are an important opportunity to negotiate a significantly more ambitious agreement which is better suited for the 21st century. This includes strengthening United Kingdom-Mexico trade in goods and services, already worth £4.2 billion, and delivering on new and progressive issues such as digital trade, trade and gender equality and innovation.
The second round of official level negotiations is due to take place in autumn 2022.
HM Government remain clear that any deal will be in the best interests of the British people and the economy.
HM Government will keep Parliament updated as these negotiations progress.
[HCWS270]
UK-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The Government have, today, laid before Parliament a report on the UK-New Zealand free trade agreement. The report is required under section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020, prior to the agreement being laid before Parliament for formal scrutiny under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (CRaG).
The Government have always been clear that we will not compromise on the UK’s high environmental protection, animal welfare and food safety standards in our trade negotiations. This report, which draws on independent advice from the Trade and Agriculture Commission1, Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, confirms the Government’s view that the UK-New Zealand FTA is consistent with the maintenance of UK statutory protections in these areas.
This report is intended to inform and support scrutiny of the UK-New Zealand agreement prior to its ratification and entry into force. The text of the agreement was published on 28 February 2022 and will be formally laid before Parliament for scrutiny under the provisions of CRaG in due course.
1 TAC advice published on 30 June 2022 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-new-zealand-fta-secretary-of-state-for-international-trades-request-for-trade-and-agriculture-commission-advice
[HCWS269]
Intergovernmental Relations Quarterly Report: Quarter 2 2022
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Greg Clark)
Today, the UK Government published the report of our engagement with the devolved Governments in quarter 2 of 2022 on gov.uk.
The report covers a period where we have seen unprecedented events, and gives an insight into the extensive engagement between the UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive between 1 April and 30 June 2022. During this reporting period the Governments collaborated on a number of areas, not least in the further development and progress of the domestic response to the war in Ukraine, including the expansion of the Homes for Ukraine resettlement scheme to allow children and minors under the age of 18 to come to the UK in defined circumstances.
The report is part of the UK Government’s ongoing commitment to transparency of intergovernmental relations to Parliament and the public. The UK Government will continue with publications to demonstrate transparency in intergovernmental relations throughout 2022 and beyond.
[HCWS264]
Government Delivery
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
The Government that I have had the privilege to lead have focused relentlessly on delivery. This statement updates the House on what we have achieved since I was invited by Her Majesty The Queen to form a Government in July 2019, and puts on record why the millions of people who voted Conservative in 2019, many for the first time, were right to place their trust in me and in this Conservative Government.
First, after the country had endured three years of indecision and uncertainty with a deadlocked Parliament and a paralysed Government, we got Brexit done. We delivered on the decision the people of the United Kingdom made in 2016, and took our country out of the European Union, negotiating a new trade and co-operation agreement that preserves zero tariff, zero quota trade. Since our exit, we have been seizing the opportunities that come with this new freedom. We have signed three major new trade deals with Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, supporting food, drink and manufacturing exports as well as digital trade, and taking our total number of FTAs to over 70, with negotiations under way on many more. We have selected eight locations for freeports, with two already operational and the others coming on stream later this year. We have passed the Agriculture Act and the Fisheries Act, reforming what were wasteful and bureaucratic European schemes to the benefit of our farming and fishing communities and the environment. We have put in place a points-based immigration system that gives the people of this country control over our own borders. It is because we have this control that we have been able to react swiftly and generously to events in Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine, and strike the migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda in response to the shared international challenge of illegal migration, breaking the business model of people smuggling gangs.
Second, thanks to the fortitude and spirit of the British public, we guided the country through its greatest challenge since the Second World War. A pandemic is the kind of crisis that no Administration want to face, but which it is the Government’s solemn duty to tackle. We supported the NHS and the incredible doctors, nurses and carers who acted so valiantly to treat and care for the ill, and to whom I owe my own life. We built a huge testing regime, distributing more than 2 billion lateral flow tests across the UK, and at the peak delivering more than 7 million tests to households every 24 hours. We invested in antivirals, adding more powerful new drugs to our armoury than any of our neighbours. In the face of predictions of 12% unemployment, we deployed the furlough scheme, which supported the jobs of 11.7 million people through lockdown. Most importantly, we bet early and bet big on vaccines before success was guaranteed, becoming the first country in the world to administer one outside of clinical trials and the fastest in Europe to roll them out at scale—over 70% of the entire UK population aged 12 or above received at least one dose within the first six months, and the total number of jabs now stands at over 150 million. Thanks to these efforts, we were able to emerge from lockdown early and set out our plan for living with covid, getting our lives back on track.
Third, when I became Prime Minister I stood on the steps of Downing Street and said it was my job to level up the country, because while potential is evenly distributed throughout the population, opportunity is not. This meant bringing down crime, strengthening our health system, sorting out social care and improving our schools—and the Government acted on every front.
Our streets are safer. We have recruited more than 13,500 additional police officers, over halfway to delivering our pledge to put an extra 20,000 officers on the streets by 2023. We have taken over 50,000 knives and offensive weapons off the streets, and brought knife crime and thefts down last year compared to 2019. We have backed the police with the support they need, providing the largest funding boost in a decade, and equipping them with new powers to tackle disruptive protests and use stop and search. We have rolled up over 1,500 county lines, going for the gangs that peddled them and protecting the young people exploited by them. We have changed the law to make sure serious violent and sexual criminals spend more time behind bars.
Our NHS is on a surer footing. We have more doctors and around 30,000 more nurses than in March 2019, well over halfway to meeting our commitment of 50,000 more nurses by 2024. We have recruited another 18,000 primary care staff, such as physiotherapists and pharmacists, putting us on track to reach 26,000 by 2024. We have launched the biggest catchup programme in the NHS’s history to tackle the legacy of the pandemic, aiming to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024-25 than before the pandemic hit, underpinned by a £39 billion investment. We have opened almost 100 community diagnostic centres, helping millions of patients to access earlier diagnostic tests closer to home. We have begun the biggest hospital-building programme for a generation. We have published England’s first women’s health strategy to improve the health and wellbeing of women and girls, and widened access to life saving drugs.
Our broken social care system is finally being fixed. We have ended the cruel lottery of social care costs with a plan that means no one will pay more than £86,000 over their lifetime, when previously many had to pay six figure sums. We have lifted the previous limit for financial support by more than 400%, so that anyone with assets of under £100,000 will be eligible for help, and those with under £20,000 will pay nothing at all. We have designed a way to make the overall system fairer, so that those who fund themselves do not pay more than state-funded individuals for the equivalent standard of care. We have committed to providing our brilliant social care workforce with new training and qualification opportunities, so that they can progress and improve while providing an even greater standard of care.
Our schools are better. We have supported children to recover from the impact of the pandemic with over 2 million tutoring courses and a programme to reach 6 million by 2024. We have supported teachers too, with over 80,000 benefiting from additional training and support, while bringing starting salaries up to £30,000, attracting more bright and able graduates to inspire the next generation. We have injected the biggest funding boost in a decade, taking core funding to £56.8 billion by 2024-25. We have driven up school standards, with 87% of schools now rated good or outstanding, up from 68% in 2010. We have set an ambition for 90% of children to leave primary school at the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030.
Fourth, in spite of the challenges posed by covid and the subsequent headwinds in the global economy, we secured the fastest economic growth in the G7 last year. We have helped people into jobs by partnering with employers, including 500,000 since January this year through the Way to Work programme, and we have the lowest unemployment rate in almost 50 years. We have focused on getting young people into work, an area where versus other OECD countries we know we can do better, with 163,000 supported by the Kickstart scheme to start their career and gain vital work experience. We have redressed Britain’s historic underinvestment in infrastructure, developing a five-year, £600 billion pipeline of infrastructure projects to improve connectivity and drive economic growth, including a £96 billion investment through the integrated rail plan—building three new high-speed lines in Northern Powerhouse Rail, HS2 East and HS2 West, and reopening lines to industrial and country towns cut off under Beeching. We have committed £5 billion to boost buses and cycling and a further £5.7 billion to level up local transport systems in the mayoral combined authority areas. We have accelerated the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen power generation, with the 10-point plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and our broader net zero agenda already yielding £22 billion in private sector investment and 68,000 clean jobs—and an ambition to unlock £100 billion of investment and 480,000 such jobs by the end of the decade. We have continued to support the production of domestic oil and gas in the nearer term, which must underpin our transition to cleaner and cheaper power, working to retain the skills and industry in Aberdeen and elsewhere by putting nearly £2 billion into technologies such as carbon capture, usage and storage. We have raised the proportion of properties able to access the fastest gigabit-capable broadband from 9% when my Administration took office to 68% now. We have set an ambitious 2030 date for ending sales of new petrol and diesel cars, with over half of all new cars sold now electric or hybrid, and we have bolstered our strategic road network through a £27.4 billion road investment strategy that includes building the first new trans-Pennine dual carriageway since 1971.
We have awarded 101 towns deals across the country to address high levels of deprivation and open up new opportunities by fostering economic regeneration, stimulating investment and delivering vital infrastructure. We have made it easier to own a home, with over 400,000 first time buyers last year marking the highest number since 2006, and housebuilding rebounding strongly after the challenges posed by the start of the pandemic. We have set out plans for renters reform that will provide renting families more security at the same time as supporting landlords. We have cemented the UK’s status as a science superpower, recognising that the ability to advance and exploit science and technology will be an increasingly important competitive edge over the coming decade, growing research and development spending by 33% over this Parliament, the fastest ever rate. We have attracted more venture capital investment in tech startups this year than any country bar the US, putting us ahead of China, Japan and Germany. We are levelling up skills, because stronger skills lead to better, higher paid jobs—with over 20,000 people already benefiting from skills bootcamps, and 175 colleges due to offer T-levels from this September. We have announced a lifelong loan entitlement so that from 2025 everyone can access funding to support up to four years of post-18 study, be that modular or full time—helping people gain skills at any stage of their life. We have increased the national living wage by the largest ever cash amount, and reduced the universal credit taper rate to make sure work pays.
Fifth, embracing the freedom we now have to chart our own course, we led on the international stage. We used our G7 presidency to launch the $600 billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment—closing the infrastructure gap in developing countries while enhancing our economic and national security—and to agree a minimum corporate tax rate to crack down on avoidance. We have driven action on climate change, marshalling nearly 200 countries at COP26 to treble global net zero agreements so that they now cover 90% of the world economy, committing to reach net zero in the UK by 2050, and driving down emissions at the fastest rate in the G7. We have stepped up where our help was needed, be it in evacuating over 15,000 people from Afghanistan in just 16 days through Operation Pitting, offering a route to the UK for holders of British national (overseas) passports and their family members in Hong Kong, standing up the Homes for Ukraine scheme, or providing £548 million to COVAX to get 1.3 billion vaccine doses into 87 developing countries.
Across these five fronts—Brexit, covid, public services, the economy, and the world stage—this Government have delivered. As we prepare for a change in Administration, there are two further fronts on which we are already taking decisive action, and on which the commitment of the next Conservative Prime Minister will not waver.
At home, we are standing by the side of the British public as we cope with pressures on the cost of living—just as we did in the darkest hours of the covid crisis. We have set out a £37 billion package which will see the most vulnerable 8 million households get support worth £1,200. Qualifying low income households will get £650, with the first half being paid into bank accounts this month, and the remainder following in the autumn. Every household in the country will get £400 towards their energy costs. Most will get a £150 council tax rebate. Pensioners in receipt of winter fuel payments will get a separate payment of £300, and disabled people a further £150.
Both I, and my successor, will continue to focus support on those who need it the most.
Abroad, we are standing up for Ukraine—as we always have when our fundamental values are threatened. We have brought the G7 and NATO together in support of the Ukrainian people so that the free West speaks with one voice and brings its collective might to bear. We have provided significant amounts of lethal aid, including 2,000 anti-tank missiles in January before the invasion started. We have committed military, humanitarian and economic assistance totalling nearly £4 billion, more than any other country apart from the US. We have donated over 11 million medical items, 856 mobile generators and 20 NHS ambulances, and sent the largest fire deployment to ever leave the UK. We have acted decisively with our allies to sanction over 1,000 individuals and 100 entities, freeze the assets of banks, and isolate Russia from international trade. We have introduced the fastest and largest visa scheme in our history to welcome Ukrainians who wish to find safety elsewhere, with over 95,000 arriving in the UK to date. We have stepped up our NATO commitments to strengthen the alliance, more than doubling our presence in Estonia, providing the SkySabre air defence system to Poland, and delivering enhanced air policing missions. For as long as it takes, the UK will continue to back Ukraine’s fight for freedom.
Finally, in everything this Government have done, we have striven to deliver for the whole of our United Kingdom—for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. From the vaccination programme, where we were able to ensure everyone across our islands could benefit from swift access to jabs, to the furlough scheme, which relied on the financial firepower of the UK Treasury, to our Levelling Up fund, supporting town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets across the UK, the benefits of our great union have never been more evident.
I am proud of our record in office since 2019. I remain determined that we continue to deliver in our final weeks. And I know that the Conservative Government that follows after us will do what their predecessors have always done and meet the challenges of the day by serving the British people.
[HCWS260]
Active Travel England: Framework Document
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
The Department for Transport is today publishing the framework document for Active Travel England. This confirms Active Travel England’s responsibilities and objectives and sets out its relationship with, and accountability to, the Department and Parliament.
Active Travel England will lead the delivery of the Government’s strategy and vision for creating a new golden age of walking and cycling where half of all journeys in towns and cities are walked and cycled by 2030.
Active Travel England will hold the active travel budget in England, including for new infrastructure and behaviour change initiatives such as cycle training. It will assess all applications for active travel capital and revenue funding, including from wider funds such as the city region sustainable transport settlements, the levelling up fund and road investment strategy 2, and award funding to schemes only if they meet the standards and principles set out in local transport note 1/20, or any later national design standards. It will also inspect new active travel infrastructure to ensure schemes meet these new standards and principles and ask for funds to be returned for any which have not been completed as promised, or not started or finished within the agreed timeframe. Active Travel England will work with local authorities developing new schemes and support their capacity by delivering training and disseminating best practice. ATE will also begin to inspect, and publish reports on, highway authorities for their performance on active travel and identify particularly dangerous failings in their highways for cyclists and pedestrians. In these regards, the commissioner and inspectorate will perform a similar role to Ofsted from the 1990s onwards in raising standards and challenging failure.
It will also act as a statutory consultee in the planning system and review active travel provision in major planning applications.
Ministers at the Department for Transport will have responsibility for Active Travel England. As an Executive agency, Active Travel England will have a degree of operational independence in delivering its duties. It will be led by its chief executive officer who will be the agency’s accounting officer and report to Parliament as needed. Active Travel England will also have its own board which will be chaired by the national active travel commissioner.
The framework document will come into effect when Active Travel England is formally established as an Executive agency later this year and will be reviewed next year. I am placing a copy of Active Travel England’s framework document in the Libraries of both Houses.
The standing up of Active Travel England is gathering pace. Today’s publication of its framework document follows last month’s announcement of senior appointments to Active Travel England. This included confirming Chris Boardman as England’s national active travel commissioner on a permanent basis and the appointment of Danny Williams as Active Travel England’s chief executive.
[HCWS263]
Search and Rescue Aviation Procurement
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
Following an extensive 18-month procurement process to procure the next decade of search and rescue aviation services, this process has now finished, and I wish to inform the House of the results.
I am pleased to announce that a £1.6 billion contract will be signed today to provide a search and rescue helicopter service for the whole of the UK with Bristow Helicopters Ltd.
The new contract will see the UK search and rescue region benefit from advances in technology to save more lives, even more quickly. A fleet of state-of-the-art helicopters, planes and drones will operate across the United Kingdom and far out to sea in support of the lifesaving work of HM Coastguard. These aircraft will also support the work of the other emergency services, border protection, fisheries protection and pollution prevention.
A strong competition led to this contract being signed, and a credible, data-led requirement resulted in a contract that is highly innovative and takes account of anticipated future demands such as increased tourism in certain areas.
The new contract will guarantee that there will be no base closures or job losses in this critical service. Instead, two new seasonal bases, operating for six months of the year, will be opened in areas of particular growing demand. A new base at Fort William will meet the summertime peak tourism demand in the Ben Nevis area, while a new base in Carlisle will also meet similar demands in the Lake District area.
All helicopter bases will continue to be operational 24 hours a day, apart for Fort William and Carlisle which will operate 12 hours a day from April to September. The transition out from the current contract will start 30 September 2024 and run through to 31 December 2026. The transition will be seamless and will follow extensive engagement with stakeholders including the thousands of rescue volunteers who rely on these arrangements.
In addition to our existing base in Doncaster, highly sophisticated surveillance planes will operate from Prestwick and Newquay. This will give the UK much more capability to search for people needing our help over large areas and prevent illegal or anticompetitive activity in UK waters. Both Doncaster and Prestwick will be operational 24 hours a day, with Newquay operational 12 hours a day all year round. Some of these aircraft can reach the mid-Atlantic, which is the extent of the UK's search and rescue region.
The new service will comprise of:
18 helicopters including existing Leonardo AW189s and Sikorsky S92As augmented with the introduction of Leonardo AW139 helicopters.
Six King Air fixed-wing planes, including the B350, B350ER and the B200.
One mobile deployable Schiebel S-100 drone system capable of operating anywhere in the UK.
A new state-of-the-art search and rescue helicopter simulation training facility at Solent airport next to the HM Coastguard training facility will house a synthetic rescue hoist and helicopter suspended over a large training pool. This is a vital addition to training the next generation of technical winch crew.
Further innovation throughout the life of the contract will involve the use of uncrewed aircraft and aircraft powered by sustainable aviation fuels.
This is a major investment by the UK Government in critical national service which covers a wide range of activity. It protects the services we have come to rely on for years to come.
[HCWS271]
Grand Committee
Digital Regulation: Communications and Digital Committee Report
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Communications and Digital Committee Digital regulation: joined-up and accountable.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I am very pleased to introduce this debate on our report, Digital Regulation: Joined-up and Accountable. I will emphasise the principle behind that title quite a bit in the remarks I make today.
Before I get into the substance of my contribution, I note that this is my first debate as chairman of the Communications and Digital Select Committee. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Gilbert of Panteg. He is very well respected across the industries and sectors that the committee focuses its work on. He has become a respected figure because he has ensured that we as a committee have focused on matters of importance and that we have done so in a fair and balanced way. The work we have done has had some impact as a result. He is a tough act to follow.
I add to this tribute by paying thanks to Theo Demolder, who supported the committee for three years, initially as our policy analyst and then as our clerk. He finished that role at the beginning of this year. I also thank the policy analyst who then worked with us and remains part of our team, Emily Bailey Page. I would like to welcome our new clerk, Daniel Schlappa. They and the whole committee are greatly assisted, as always, by the wonderful Rita Cohen. I am very grateful to the team.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who sit on the committee and I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Vaizey for being here to speak today. We had to decide whether to accept what I might describe as this “graveyard slot” in the Moses Room on the last day of term during a hot and sunny week, or perhaps wait months for another opportunity to have this debate. The trade-off was few people being available, but I know my colleagues are with me in spirit. I am grateful to the Labour and Lib Dem Front Benches for fielding their A-teams and to my noble friend the Minister for his never-ending zeal and commitment to his brief, whatever the weather or political events outside. I look forward to everybody’s contributions today.
This inquiry and the resulting report were the final pieces of work undertaken by the committee under my noble friend’s chairmanship, as a follow-up to a major inquiry into digital regulation carried out by the committee in 2019. Three years ago, the committee’s central finding was that the digital world requires not merely more regulation but a different approach to regulation. Digital technologies are playing an ever-greater role in our lives and the regulation of those technologies deserves increasing scrutiny.
As I say, that does not necessarily mean more regulation, but we believe that regulators would need new and different powers. Indeed, they would need to adopt a different kind of regulation. It would need to be principles-based, with regulators having to exercise greater flexibility and judgment, which in turn would require greater collaboration between regulators and much greater and co-ordinated parliamentary oversight than ever before.
We published our report Digital Regulation: Joined-up and Accountable in December 2021 as a follow-up to the earlier inquiry. So fundamental was the need for a change of approach in regulation, we thought it was important to find out what progress had been made in the two and a half years since. In December last year, regulators appeared to be on the verge of being granted broad new powers, urgently necessary to keep pace with the fast-changing digital world.
Unfortunately, since then, what was expected has not yet come to pass. The parliamentary progress of the Online Safety Bill has recently been delayed, and the proposals to place the Digital Markets Unit within the CMA on a statutory footing have not been brought forward, despite multiple reviews and consultations over nearly five years pointing to this as the way forward.
In the meantime, other jurisdictions are pulling ahead. The Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act have been adopted this month by the European Parliament. As a result, the UK risks becoming a rule taker, rather than a rule maker, in this area of digital regulation. To state the obvious, this means that we could lose our influence in setting the agenda. It is hard to understand why the Government have been prepared to let this happen, because designing our own framework was a benefit of us leaving the European Union, and the UK’s proposed approach has been held up as much better—I will come back to this later.
Our report, published seven months ago, at a time when we were on the verge of change, focused on the need for better co-ordination and co-operation between regulators—and that requirement remains a priority. But, as a committee, we were also clear that more co-operation between regulators needed to be accompanied by updates to the legislative framework, because, however well co-ordinated they are, they will be ineffective if they do not have the powers required.
I of course understand that the call for more regulatory power can often trigger alarm. Mission creep and unnecessary red tape would not be supported by any sensible person, which is why our report recognised the legitimate concerns that many will have about regulators being given broad new powers and increased discretion to make judgments in complex areas. Furthermore, this is precisely why our report recommends that increased parliamentary accountability for regulators is an equal necessity. What we cannot escape, and what we are clear about, is that, given the pace of technological change, regulation needs to become more principles-based. But we are equally clear, as I say, that this must be coupled with greater parliamentary oversight.
I turn now to what we reported in December 2021, having reviewed progress against that earlier March 2019 report. In our first report, we asked for regulation to be strengthened and better co-ordinated, to make it capable of responding to the fast pace of change and the impact of that across the economy and society. The Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum or DRCF—even the acronym is a mouthful—was then established in July 2020. This was an early step in the right direction and includes representatives of the CMA, Ofcom, the ICO and, latterly, the FCA.
But there are persistent challenges that are not being dealt with adequately, which we raised in our December 2021 report. For instance, we found that more needed to be done to improve co-ordination and co-operation, particularly to identify new and emerging risks. The DRCF told us that it is difficult to recruit people with the right skills to scan the horizon for new regulatory challenges and that it cannot compete with the salaries that big tech companies can offer to skilled individuals. Yet, although it was struggling to do that, there is a proliferation of horizon-scanning activity in industry, academia, think tanks and advisory bodies. One of our witnesses—Andrew Murray from the LSE—told us that new reports identifying a lot of these challenges were coming out “almost daily”. In fact, as an expert working on this full time, even he could not keep up with it, although it was supposed to be his day job.
So there was no need for the DRCF to attempt to replicate this work, but it needed to do better to take advantage of the work already being done by others. As a result of that, we are pleased to see that it is doing so and joining up more now with SMEs, start-ups and academia via external engagements and symposia. However, we still feel that there is more to be done. In our report, we recommended that full membership of the DRCF be extended to all statutory regulators with an interest in the digital world, and partial membership extended to relevant non-statutory and advisory bodies.
The second challenge we identified in our report is something I have already talked about: a lack of parliamentary accountability for regulators as their work expands. Just as we believe that the work of regulation in the digital world needs to be “cross-sectoral”, if noble Lords will forgive the jargon, so too must be the process of holding regulators to account in Parliament. As I have already said, as the work of regulators expands and involves more discretion and judgment, some parts of the industry are understandably concerned that this will lead to overreach and unaccountability.
The committee believes that if the DRCF were placed on a statutory footing under a non-executive board of directors and led by an independent chair, this would enable Parliament to hold the DRCF directly accountable. We made that recommendation in our report. Unfortunately, it was not supported by the Government, but this accountability is becoming increasingly important as individual regulators increasingly take joint decisions.
As noble Lords will know, no single Select Committee has a remit to focus on digital regulation across government departments and industry sectors. Many Select Committees have remits relating to digital regulation but must balance them alongside other work. Indeed, the Communications and Digital Committee must balance scrutiny of digital regulation alongside work on the media and creative industries. Stakeholders told us that they would welcome formal public scrutiny of the work of the DRCF via a parliamentary committee, both as a counterweight to regulatory reach and to ensure that regulation is effective.
Again, one of our specific recommendations was that a Joint Committee of Parliament be established to provide sustained scrutiny of digital regulation. In fact, it is worth noting that the Joint Committee on the Online Safety Bill—the committee that did the pre-legislative scrutiny—agreed and made a similar recommendation. Unfortunately, the Government did not support that recommendation, either. Maybe my noble friend the Minister can offer us some further thoughts on that, as we are identifying it as still a key issue.
The third key concern was that the DRCF lacks robust mechanisms for resolving conflicts that may arise between regulatory agendas, increasing the risk that powerful tech companies will be able to play regulators off against each other. For example, encryption might be favoured from a privacy standpoint, but child protection advocates may seek to limit it. One of our witnesses, Dr Elena Abrusci, warned that
“the DRCF may suffer from a power imbalance between regulators. Without an independent chair or a procedure to manage trade-offs between contrasting interests, the DRCF could be limited in its actions.”
So without statutory underpinning of the DRCF, which is something we have called for and which the Government do not support, there is a limit to what the DRCF can achieve here.
We also made a recommendation to formalise DRCF co-ordination by introducing statutory measures, including duties for regulators to consult one another and the creation of statutory information-sharing mechanisms. We welcome the Government’s commitment in response to that that there will be statutory duties for the CMA and the ICO to consult other regulators, but what legislation will that appear in and when will it come forward?
Since our report, albeit that there were specific recommendations that the Government did not support, as I identified, they none the less gave overall support to the report, and we welcome that. They agreed with us about the scale of opportunities and challenges posed by digital innovation, as well as the importance of ensuring that our regulatory system keeps pace with developments in digital technologies and markets.
The DRCF itself published its workplan for 2022-23 a few months ago, including plans to build further on the joint statement between the ICO and the CMA from the year before about data protection and competition, and sharing knowledge on algorithmic auditing. We welcome the joint statement from Ofcom and the CMA earlier this month on online safety and competition in digital markets. We also welcome action from individual regulators, such as the CMA’s decision to launch market investigation references into Google and Apple’s dominance in mobile app ecosystems, while it awaits the necessary powers to place the Digital Markets Unit on a statutory footing.
So all of this is welcome, but without the DMU being put on a statutory footing and the new pro-competition regime we will not have a UK equivalent of the news media bargaining code, which has provided enormous benefit to the news industry in Australia. I know that the Government care about the future of journalism. They committed to a news media bargaining code in their response to the consultation on the pro-competition regime for the digital market, but the policy solutions that the media industry is crying out for are sat on the table.
We welcome the initial progress, but there remains a long way to go. We as a committee are concerned that the UK is falling behind in this vital area of digital regulation, particularly in the area of competition. We urge the Government to bring forward legislation to put the DMU on a statutory footing and give it the ex-ante powers it needs to address fundamental imbalances in the market.
As I have commented before in debates, my noble friend has had busy slate of legislation to steward through your Lordships’ House, but, as much as I am concerned for his well-being in undertaking all that work, I am now also concerned about the potential delay to some of this. Will my noble friend give us an update on what is happening to the Online Safety Bill, the latest on the media Bill and, in response to something in the newspaper today, the Government’s latest position on the independent review of the BBC’s future funding? I look forward to all noble Lords’ contributions to this debate, particularly the Minister’s, and I beg to move.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate and to welcome this report. As my noble friend Lady Stowell knows, I am always here for her, which is why I am here today. I notice lurking in the shadows another former member of our committee who took part in this report, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. We wait to see whether he will make a contribution. We note that he has shaved and had a haircut, and that bodes well for some important contribution later in this debate—that did not go down so well, but it was meant in affection.
It has been a pleasure to serve on this committee for the past couple of years. I can say this because I am not responsible for the direction of travel of the committee’s reports, but it seems the committee has a history of leaning into policy and helping to move things along, not least, for example, in calling for the Digital Markets Unit to be set up—which is still a work in progress, but one that is much needed.
It goes without saying—it is a trite thing to say—that everything is now digital, so trying to bring some coherence into how one regulates a world of digital is extremely important. The advent of the Digital Regulatory Cooperation Forum—my noble friend Lady Stowell is quite right that it is a mouthful whether one uses its full title or its acronym—is a welcome development. Anyone who has ever worked with government knows the extraordinary frustration at the way that Whitehall is currently configured, with departments working in silos and with the only co-ordinating mechanism appearing to be the Cabinet or the Cabinet Office. It is extremely difficult to get joined-up government, and it is equally difficult to get joined-up regulation, so anything that moves the dial in that respect has to be welcomed. I often think that perhaps one day we could use technology to abolish all government departments and at last have government by task, where we can mix and match the right people to achieve the right outcomes for our country—but I digress.
The point about the Digital Regulatory Cooperation Forum is that it is here, and this report is a welcome intervention in the beginning of this process to ask how it can be improved and made better. That is the spirit with which this report should be read. It is in no way a criticism of anything, but simply looking at the existing situation and thinking how it could be improved and built upon. In that respect, I hope the Government and indeed the regulators will regard it as something they can keep referring to when they think about the next steps.
The first and most obvious point, given that there are four regulators involved in the DRCF, is how many more regulators should be involved. Given what I said earlier about digital being everything, the list is almost endless, but the report details six or seven other regulators that could have a role in the DRCF. That made me think a bit about the progress of the European Economic Community and later the European Union. At what point does one reach optimal membership? I started to speculate that perhaps in 25 years’ time we might have the head of the Information Commissioner’s Office demanding a referendum so that it could leave the Digital Regulatory Cooperation Forum—but, again, I digress. It is certainly something that the forum has to keep in mind: which additional regulators could and should be members?
The other important point the report makes is that there are additional stakeholders who are not necessarily formal non-departmental public bodies or quangos but which still have huge degree of expertise that they can bring to the debate about digital regulation. One of those cited, for example, is the Internet Watch Foundation, which I used to work with closely and which I think is technically a charity. That is a classic example of something that is not a government body but which nevertheless contains an enormous amount of expertise and takes action in the important area of child sexual abuse.
Given that the DRCF has been established, it again goes without saying that accountability and transparency, which the report touches on, are extremely important. It is important that we know what is the DRCF’s remit, the issues that it is looking at, and its plans for this year and years to come. Again, it is important, given what I said earlier about stakeholders, that even if they do not have a formal role, people can input into the work plan, if you like, of the DRCF and the regulators that sit on it.
It is also important, as the report says, that we have a rigorous process in the DRCF. Its greatest opportunity is to look at conflicts of regulation to try to work out where one regulator’s remit begins and another’s ends—I was going to say “turf wars” but that would be an inappropriate term. For example, I remember bringing together Ofcom and the ICO to discuss the important issue of nuisance calls, which affects the day-to-day lives of many people. Bringing those two regulators into a room to work together provided a much more impactful response to that. However, it is important that one regulator does not go off on a particular campaign without having at least had some engagement with other regulators, who may have locus and expertise to bring to bear, and it is important that those conflicts are resolved.
One of the other interesting aspects of the report is how one constitutes the DRCF formally. It now has a well-respected chief executive who comes from industry but it does not have a board, and the report recommends an independent non-executive chair and a number of other non-executives. I note that your Lordships’ House has provided Ofcom with a fantastic chair, and no doubt it will be able to provide the DRCF with a superb, independent, non-executive chair in the months and years to come—a process, of course, like the previous one, that will be completely free from political interference and which will simply seek out the best candidate.
It is also important that the DRCF provides an opportunity for regulators to share information. When I had a briefing from the DRCF before we even started our report, one of the things that I was struck by, which is a lesson that I have taken elsewhere with other organisations I worked with, was the idea of joint hiring, which struck me as a brilliant albeit obvious opportunity—although obvious only once it has been explained—in the world of technology. Hiring people who know about and can work with technology, who can therefore command pretty high salaries from technology companies, is very difficult for regulators, who are quite rightly constrained by public sector pay restraint. However, the opportunity to hire highly talented people who can work across those regulators is obvious. With that naturally flow other ways of co-operating, such as joint regulation and joint powers explicitly set out. However, as the report makes clear, that needs to be set out potentially in legislation.
Finally, the report is quite right to focus in its opening paragraphs on the opportunity for this forum to be an organisation that does horizon scanning—that looks at what is coming down the line. I noticed that the Government, for example, published yesterday their plans to support artificial intelligence in the years to come—I think I only noticed it on a tweet; I must sign up for the DCMS emails. Those kinds of reports coming out of DCMS are extremely valuable and important. However, it struck me that, with the DRCF in place, here is a perfect opportunity to involve the regulators on the ground floor, as it were, when DCMS is doing this kind of work, looking at particular sectors of technology. Getting regulation right is just as important as getting right government financial support, fiscal support, skills or whatever. A great regulatory climate is just as important when we are leaning into technology.
As my noble friend Lady Stowell outlined in her excellent speech, it is quite right as well that there be a parliamentary Joint Committee to scrutinise the work. It could bring together the heads of the various Select Committees that have a place in talking about digital regulation, so that they can meet regularly, scrutinise what is going on and compare their knowledge and information.
This is an incredibly useful report on a pretty niche and narrow issue that fascinates a few of us but not necessarily a general audience. Nevertheless, it is the kind of thing that can really make an extraordinary difference to UK plc—to use that terrible phrase—in creating a forward-looking, dynamic regulatory climate for technology and digital in this country.
My noble friend the Minister will no doubt cover this brief for many years to come. I know that he has been asked to tell us about the progress of the Online Safety Bill, about which I will be extremely interested to hear. I will leave him with one final thought: the DRCF also could be a prompt to the Government to shine a light on the plethora of digital bodies and committees that now exist to supervise technology policy in government. Many of them are excellent individual bodies in themselves, but there appears to be no particular coherence in how they work together. Just as with the regulators, there appears to be no clear road map of where one research or grant-giving body’s remit ends and another one begins. I know that my noble friend never puts his feet up, so I urge him to turn his mind to that work over the Summer Recess, which might save the Government some money and give them much more bang for their buck.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
I shall speak in the gap; I am sorry that I did not get my name down early enough to speak properly. I have one or two quick comments. First, I welcome this useful and excellent report, which will be a useful step forward if something happens about it. I notice that DCMS has responded to it but, actually, regulation involving digital issues runs across all departments, so it almost ought to be a joint response from every single department. That is something that we miss; “divide and rule” in the Executive is very dangerous.
From the summary, I picked out references to
“unnecessary regulatory burdens which could limit the benefits of digital innovation”—
that remains very true—and
“a lack of overarching coordination and oversight of regulatory objectives.”
That is also extremely true, and I have hit it several times. Paragraph 9 states:
“The solution was not to be found in more regulation, but in a different approach to regulation, with a coordinated response across policy areas.”
Therefore, the Government’s response—they are not down as saying that they actually want this to happen—really worries me. I thoroughly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, when she said that we should set out the principles in what we do sometimes. We cannot control complex systems using rules, as they start conflicting and alter in unpredictable ways; there is a lot of theory around this. We have to realise that we must set out the objectives and principles behind them.
Paragraph 62 is about “power to resolve conflicts”. Someone needs to have that power. I will illustrate that with a real example. Among other interests, I have been involved in the whole thing about age verification for many years, going back to Bills on ID cards and things like that—although that was not so much about age verification. One of the challenges is that the civil servants who know all about it tend to move within a year and a half to two years, so you lose your expertise the whole time. All those who worked on Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act—we had to get them up to speed—have gone. I do not know where; they are probably desperately hiding somewhere else.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
Exactly—we will never see them again. This is the big problem. I chaired the British Standards Institute’s publicly available specification—PAS—1296 on anonymous age verification; we solved the problem, and it is out there. The sad thing is that this is now being elevated to international standards used by Europe, but I do not know whether we still recognise that it exists. In 2020-21, the French started implementing the protection of children in legislation—I am not up to speed on exactly where they are—so it is actually happening there. But what have we done? We have said that we will stop it in the Online Safety Bill, repealing the part that was going to work in the Digital Economy Act. This is complete lunacy and, in fact, goes against the principle of the supremacy of Parliament—but I will not go into constitutional issues.
Looking forwards, the benefits and potential risks of AI will not be a single-department thing; this will run across all departments, because it involves everyone and everything. A lot of people mean different things when they say “AI”, so this is huge.
Finally, yes, we need some horizon scanning, but we do not want to get bogged down in trying to anticipate futures that may not exist. As someone said, a lot of other people are doing this. If you have knowledgeable people in the committee and in the Lords, they can help to spot where things are coming from and go from there. I welcome this report.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to be speaking in this short but perfectly formed debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her accession to the chair of the Communications and Digital Committee and on her comprehensive introduction. I also congratulate the committee on a niche but highly significant piece of work.
In their digital regulation plan, first published last July and updated last month, the Government acknowledged that
“Digital technologies … demand a distinct regulatory approach … because they have distinctive features which make digital businesses and applications unique and innovative, but may also challenge how we address risks to consumers and wider society.”
I entirely agree, but I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, that we need to do this without the kind of delays in introducing regulation that we are already experiencing.
The plan for digital regulation committed to ensuring a forward-looking and coherent regulatory approach for digital technologies. The stress throughout the plan and the digital strategy is on a light-touch and pro-innovation regulatory regime, in the belief that this will stimulate innovation. The key principles stated are “Actively promote innovation”, achieve “forward-looking and coherent outcomes” and
“Exploit opportunities and address challenges in the international arena”.
This is all very laudable and reinforced by much of what the Select Committee said in its previous report, as mentioned by the noble Baroness. But one of the key reasons why the design of digital governance and regulation is important is to ensure that public trust is developed and retained in an area where there is often confusion and misunderstanding.
With the Online Safety Bill arriving in this House soon, we know only too well that the power of social media algorithms needs taming. Retention of public trust has not been helped by confusion over the use of algorithms to take over exam assessment during the pandemic and poor communication about the use of data on things like the Covid tracing app, the GP data opt-out and initiatives such as the Government’s single-ID identifier “One Login” project, which, together with the growth of automated decision-making, live facial recognition and use of biometric data, is a real cause for concern for many of us.
The fragility of trust in government use and sharing of personal data was demonstrated when Professor Ben Goldacre recently gave evidence to the Science and Technology Committee, explaining that, despite being the Government’s lead adviser on the use of health data, he had opted out of giving permission for his GP health data to be shared.
As an optimist, I believe that new technology can potentially lead to greater productivity and more efficient use of resources. But, as the title of Stephanie Hare’s new book puts it, Technology Is Not Neutral. We should be clear about the purpose and implications of new technology when we adopt it, which means regulation which has the public’s trust. For example, freedom from bias is essential in AI systems and in large part depends on the databases we use to train AI. The UK’s national AI strategy of last September does talk about public trust and the need for trustworthy AI, but this needs to be reflected in our regulatory landscape and how we regulate. In the face of the need to retain public trust, we need to be clear, above all, that regulation is not necessarily the enemy of innovation; in fact, it can be the stimulus and key to gaining and retaining public trust around digital technology and its adoption.
We may not need to go full fig as with the EU artificial intelligence Act, but the fact is that AI is a very different animal from previous technology. For instance, not everything is covered by existing equalities or data protection legislation, particularly in terms of accountability, transparency and explainability. A considerable degree of horizontality across government, business and society is needed to embed the OECD principles.
As the UK digital strategy published this month makes clear, there is a great deal of future regulation in the legislative pipeline, although, as the noble Baroness mentioned, we are lagging behind the EU. As a number of noble Lords mentioned, we are expecting a draft digital competition Bill in the autumn which will usher in the DMU in statutory form and a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. Just this week, we saw the publication of the new Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, with new powers for the ICO. We have also seen the publication of the national AI strategy, AI action plan and AI policy statement.
In the context of increased digital regulation and the need for co-ordination across regulators, the Select Committee welcomed the formation of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum by the ICO, CMA, Ofcom and FCA, and so do I, alongside the work plan which the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, mentioned. I believe that this will make a considerable contribution to public trust in regulation. It has already made great strides in building a centre of excellence in AI and algorithm audit.
UK Digital Strategy elaborates on the creation of the DRCF:
“We are also taking steps to make sure the regulatory landscape is fully coherent, well-coordinated and that our regulators have the capabilities they need … Through the DRCF’s joint programme of work, it has a unique role to play in developing our pro-innovation approach to regulation.”
Like the Select Committee in one of its key recommendations, I believe we can go further in ensuring a co-ordinated approach to digital regulation, horizon scanning—which has been mentioned by all noble Lords—and adapting to future regulatory needs and oversight of fitness for purpose, particularly the desirability of a statutory duty to co-operate and consult with one another. It is a proposal which the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, of which I was a member, took up with enthusiasm. We also agreed with the Select Committee that it should be put on a statutory footing, with the power to resolve conflicts by directing its members. I was extremely interested to hear from noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about the circumstances in which those conflicts need to be resolved. It is notable that the Government think that that is a bridge too far.
This very week, the Alan Turing Institute published a very interesting report entitled Common Regulatory Capacity for AI. As it says, the use of artificial intelligence is increasing across all sectors of the economy, which raises important and pressing questions for regulators. Its very timely report presents the results of research into how regulators can meet the challenge of regulating activities transformed by AI and maximise the potential of AI for regulatory innovation.
It takes the arguments of the Select Committee a bit further and goes into some detail on the capabilities required for the regulation of AI. Regulators need to be able to ensure that regulatory regimes are fit for AI and that they are able to address AI-related risks and maintain an environment that encourages innovation. It stresses the need for certainty about regulatory expectations, public trust in AI technologies and the avoidance of undue regulatory obstacles.
Regulators also need to understand how to use AI for regulation. The institute also believes that there is an urgent need for an increased and sustainable form of co-ordination on AI-related questions across the regulatory landscape. It highlights the need for access to new sources of shared AI expertise, such as the proposed AI and regulation common capacity hub, which
“would have its home at a politically independent institution, established as a centre of excellence in AI, drawing on multidisciplinary knowledge and expertise from across the national and international research community.”
It sets out a number of different roles for the newly created hub.
To my mind, these recommendations emphasise the need for the DRCF to take statutory form in the way suggested by the Select Committee. But, like the Select Committee, I believe that it is important that other regulators can come on board the DRCF. Some of them are statutory, such as the Gambling Commission, the Electoral Commission and the IPO, and I think it would be extremely valuable to have them on board. However, some of them are non-statutory, such the BBFC and the ASA. They could have a place at the table and join in benefiting from the digital centre of excellence being created.
Our Joint Committee also thoroughly agreed with the Communications and Digital Committee that a new Joint Committee on digital regulation is needed in the context of the Online Safety Bill. Indeed the Secretary of State herself has expressed support. As the Select Committee recommended, this could cover the broader digital landscape to partly oversee the work of the DRCF and also importantly address other objectives such as scrutiny of the Secretary of State, looking across the digital regulation landscape and horizon scanning—looking at evolving challenges, which was considered very important by our Joint Committee and the Select Committee.
The Government are engaged in a great deal of activity. The question, as ever, is whether the objectives, such as achieving trustworthy AI, digital upskilling and powers for regulators, are going to be achieved through the actions being taken so far. I believe that the recommendations of the Select Committee set out in this report would make a major contribution to ensuring effective and trustworthy regulation and should be supported.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, like other colleagues this afternoon I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her excellent presentation of the report, its findings and its recommendations. I am very flattered that she might consider me part of the “A team” responding today to that report—I am certainly not in that league. The noble Baroness was elevated to her role; I think we should look at in that light rather than as “accession”. This report was timely when it was published, and I regret that we have had to wait seven months for the opportunity to debate it because, as we are all aware, the digital world moves on very fast and we are, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, urgently awaiting the arrival in this House of the Online Safety Bill.
I am ever grateful to the Communications and Digital Committee for its work. Its 2019 report Regulating in a Digital World and now this report with suggestions for addressing the insufficiencies—and the sufficiencies—of the current regulatory system are very welcome. As all sides have acknowledged, digital innovation comes at us rapidly: some developments are anticipated, while others are more surprising. Regulation of some clearly sits with a particular regulator, whereas some other activities may cut across several remits. This report makes a case for better co-ordination and the updating of powers.
Whether we see developments coming or not, and regardless of the regulator involved, it is rare that we have proven models to replicate or to take influence from. That inevitably means that our initial attempts might not be wholly successful.
While we must leave room for innovation and the possible substantial economic and social benefits it can bring, any responsible Government must also deliver a regulatory framework that recognises and mitigates risk, and which has the tools to react if and when things go wrong. We await some of that.
In their response, the Government are right to note that policy responses must be “proportionate and evidence-based”—which leads me to be rather surprised by some of their conclusions on the simple and effective recommendations that the report has brought forward. Although it is important to implement the right system, and although we might not be able to be ahead of the curve, we must try to keep pace with developments rather than allow ourselves to lag behind. That is clearly what has happened with the digital world. For example, we need confidence that the evidence base for potential policy responses is being built right now, rather than having Ministers wait for problems to arise before research is commissioned or consultations take place. I hope that the Minister can provide some assurance on this front.
I also wonder whether the Minister, before he puts his summer flip-flops on, could comment further on the Government’s decision not to put the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum on a statutory footing. I think most Members here in the Committee today are wondering why that is. It seems a very strange decision indeed. The Government’s response talks of the importance of
“sufficient clarity and transparency around the DRCF’s ways of working”,
but surely the best way of delivering such clarity and transparency would be to enable scrutiny of the body’s remit and working practices through consideration of legislation. Similarly, the committee’s report talks of the need for the DRCF to engage with regulators and other relevant bodies, whether those organisations are based domestically or overseas.
The Government used their response to outline several meetings held between the forum and interested parties, but future engagement depends very much on ongoing good will and co-operation rather than having any firmer underpinning. Does the Minister think that that is right?
I also wonder why the Government failed to support the proposal of a Joint Committee across both Houses. It worked very well for the consideration of the Online Safety Bill. I wonder what the harm is. I do not buy the argument that there is duplication. There is value in this, because Parliament needs to have a say in these matters.
There are any number of related issues, including how we regulate artificial intelligence—the favourite subject of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—but, given everyone’s wish to wrap up for the Summer Recess, I look forward very much to the Minister’s response. However, I add my voice to the list of questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, as to what has happened to the Online Safety Bill, what is happening to the review of the BBC’s future funding and where we are at with the media Bill. I know that at this time in the political cycle, when you change political leaders, there is a temptation to park things, but it would be good to have an update on some of those things from the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for moving and so expertly teeing up this debate on your Lordships’ committee’s report. It is yet another example of the committee’s foresight in placing digital regulation at the centre of public debate—something it also did very effectively through its 2019 report Regulating in a Digital World. I am very grateful to all the members of the committee for their work and to the noble Lords who have spoken today.
I certainly add my voice to the commendation of my noble friend on the constructive way she goes about her engagement and the scrutiny she gives the Government on behalf of your Lordships’ committee, and I also join her in paying particular tribute to our noble friend Lord Gilbert of Panteg, who chaired the committee so ably during the course of this and previous inquiries.
Before I turn to the specific recommendations made in the report, it may be helpful to set out briefly the fundamental issue which lies at the heart of this inquiry: how we approach the regulation of digital technologies. Your Lordships’ committee has done great work to highlight the importance of ensuring that our regulatory approaches can keep pace with the opportunities and the challenges posed by digital technologies, enabling us to maximise the benefits they bring while minimising the risks they pose. Crucially, that is not just about ensuring that our regulators are able to work effectively together, or that we have effective horizon scanning in place, important as these considerations are. It is also, more fundamentally, about how we design and implement our overarching regulatory approach.
The Government take this issue extremely seriously. In July last year we published the plan for digital regulation, setting out our overarching approach to digital regulation for the first time. The plan outlined our commitment to develop regulatory policy which is capable of delivering our core objectives: to promote competition and innovation, to keep the UK safe and secure online, and to promote a flourishing democratic society.
Momentum since the publication of the plan has been steady. Indeed, we have continued to make rapid progress even in the relatively short time since the committee concluded its inquiry. In March, the Online Safety Bill was introduced to Parliament, which will equip the UK with powerful regulatory and legal tools to keep internet users, especially children and vulnerable people, safe. As your Lordships know, it is still on Report in another place, which means that, regrettably, we will not have our Second Reading in the first week back after the Summer Recess. However, I hope that it will reach your Lordships’ House expeditiously so that we can do that swiftly.
Also in March, the Secretary of State wrote to the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum outlining the Government’s priorities for digital regulation, including more effective horizon scanning and greater regulatory join-up, key elements of which are being addressed through the current work programme of the forum.
In May, we confirmed our approach to delivering the new pro-competition regime for digital markets, which will help to deliver lower prices for UK families, enable entrepreneurs to compete and grow, and give consumers more choice and control over the services that they use online.
In June, we confirmed our data reform proposals, setting out how we intend to update our data protection laws, implement a more flexible approach to compliance and ensure that the Information Commissioner’s Office is better able to account for the increasing importance of its remit for competition, innovation and economic growth.
In July, we published our approach to regulation in the UK Digital Strategy, including new research on regulatory innovation, as well as an “initial outcomes monitoring framework”, which will enable us better to understand and assess the evidence base for regulatory policy.
In addition, only this week, as my noble friend Lord Vaizey of Didcot spotted through his assiduous monitoring of the DCMS Twitter feed, we published a policy paper on the governance of artificial intelligence, setting out our proposals for a new approach to AI regulation, which will unleash growth and innovation while safeguarding our fundamental values and keeping people safe and secure, and we introduced the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill to Parliament.
I list all this to emphasise how seriously the Government take this issue, and I hope to provide some reassurance to noble Lords. Like your Lordships’ committee, we are committed to making sure we have a coherent approach to regulation which will deliver the full benefits of digital technologies, and we are taking the steps we needed to do this.
I turn now to the specific recommendations made by the committee in its report, beginning with its proposals on regulatory co-ordination and co-operation. As we have been discussing, the report made two connected recommendations: to expand the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum and place it on a statutory footing as the “digital regulation board”, and to implement new statutory duties to strengthen and facilitate regulatory co-operation.
On the proposal for a digital regulation board, I emphasise the points that we made in our response to the committee’s report. Although the Government agree that the forum has a fundamental role to play in the regulatory landscape, we do not currently support the idea of converting it into a statutory body with the power to direct and oversee other regulators. That is partly due to the complexity that such a body would create in the regulatory landscape at a time when regulatory regimes and remits are quickly evolving, as noble Lords noted. In particular, we are concerned that such a move would confuse issues of accountability and ownership, at a point when consumers and industry are looking for more—not less—clarity on where regulatory responsibilities sit.
Our reticence to create more formal architecture at this stage also reflects the value that we attach to the agility of the forum. The former Minister for the Digital Economy, Chris Philp, made this point in evidence to your Lordships’ committee when he noted that the forum has to work much more quickly than would have been possible with a statutory body. Statutory bodies can be cumbersome to create and operate, whereas less formal approaches can enable us to move more quickly and make more rapid progress, which is critical given the fast-moving nature of digital technologies.
Indeed, I point noble Lords to the impressive work which the forum is doing, to some of which my noble friend Lady Stowell alluded in her opening speech. This year alone it has published a landmark statement on online safety and competition regulation, major publications on algorithmic processing and auditing and an ambitious work plan for 2022-23, as well as launching its digital market research portal. I also venture to suggest that it is the flexibility afforded by the forum’s model of co-ordination that has made it such a strong focus of international interest, with comparable bodies already established in the Netherlands and Australia, and other countries such as Singapore following its work with close interest.
I recognise that it was not only the legislative basis of the forum but the extent and scope of its membership that was a central concern in the committee’s proposal for a digital regulation board. As the Government have made clear in our plan for digital regulation, the digital strategy and the Secretary of State’s letter of priorities to the chief executives of the forum, effective co-ordination will need to involve a wider set of regulators than those currently included in the forum, although clearly they will play a central role in digital regulation. We therefore welcomed the commitment that the forum made in its current work plan and letter to the Secretary of State to engage comprehensively with other regulators via quarterly round tables and to identify opportunities for collaborative work on that basis. Those round tables have already seen the forum engage with the Gambling Commission, the Bank of England, the Payment Systems Regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority, the British Board of Film Classification, the Intellectual Property Office and the Electoral Commission. There is clearly scope for further engagement, although it is important to note that there is inevitably a trade-off between the breadth of the forum’s activities and its ability to progress specific projects quickly.
I turn to the second element of the committee’s recommendations on co-ordination. I am pleased to confirm that we are in the process of implementing a range of statutory measures to enable regulators to collaborate and share information in the delivery of new regulatory regimes. As recently discussed in another place in relation to the Online Safety Bill, we are updating Section 393 of the Communications Act 2003 to ensure that Ofcom can disclose information with other regulators including the Competition and Markets Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Payment Systems Regulator for the purposes of its functions under that Bill. We will likewise introduce a duty for the Digital Markets Unit to consult the Financial Conduct Authority, Ofcom, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Bank of England and the Prudential Regulation Authority as part of the planned measures for the new pro-competition regime. Finally, in reforms to the data protection regime and ICO, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill introduces a new duty for the ICO to consult regulators and other relevant bodies when exercising its duties to have regard to growth, innovation and competition.
We are confident from intensive discussions with regulators that these measures will provide them with the powers they need to address key points of intersection between the new regulatory regimes while being proportionate and tight in scope. Of course we recognise that further measures may be needed to address other challenges that may be raised in the future. For example, issues of co-ordination are likely to become a major area of focus as we develop our proposals for AI regulation and governance which will be outlined in our forthcoming White Paper. I assure noble Lords that we will continue to keep such issues under review.
I turn to the next key area of the committee’s recommendations: the need to ensure greater consolidation in regulatory horizon scanning. I agree that this is vital, given the speed and suddenness with which disruptive digital technologies can transform society. The Government have made science and technology policy, driven by evidence, a major priority. There are strong networks across government for sharing insights from the horizon-scanning teams in different departments. This is led by the national science and technology council, chaired by the Prime Minister, and the Government Office for Science, led by the Chief Scientific Adviser. These organisations bring together expertise from inside and outside government to identify the mechanisms required to deliver our ambitions for innovation.
It is also an area where the regulators, the DRCF in particular, are making rapid progress. Last year, for example, the forum launched its technology horizon-scanning programme, which is explicitly designed to enable join-up with small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups and academia—partnerships which bring great benefit, as my noble friend Lady Stowell rightly said. In March, it followed this with the launch of a research portal to help regulators and others access existing knowledge about topical issues, and has undertaken the first of a projected series of symposia on issues such as fintech, the metaverse and Web3. Alongside this, it has continued to strengthen its engagement with international counterparts.
Government and regulators are also supported by a network of advisory bodies. These include the Alan Turing Institute, which specialises in data science and artificial intelligence, the Regulatory Horizons Council, an independent expert committee which identifies the implications of technological innovation and provides government with impartial expert advice on regulatory reform, and the AI Council, another independent expert committee that provides advice to government and high-level leadership of the artificial intelligence ecosystem.
As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, noted—
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
Can the Minister say a bit more about the Regulatory Horizons Council? It seems to be one of these shadowy bodies that very rarely publish anything or make updates. The Minister mentioned many other bodies that clearly do useful work, but I have my doubts about the Regulatory Horizons Council.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I would be very happy to provide an introduction for the noble Lord so that he can speak to it directly.
I was going to follow the point the noble Lord made about the report this week from the Alan Turing Institute on how regulators can address the challenges and opportunities of regulating AI. That report echoes the Government’s national AI strategy and plan for digital regulation in concluding that there is a greater need for regulatory co-ordination; it proposes enabling co-ordination, including resource pooling, as my noble friend Lord Vaizey mentioned in his points about joint hiring, to increase readiness for AI across the UK’s regulatory landscape. All these bodies provide us with useful insights. I am very happy to provide an introduction for the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to the Regulatory Horizons Council.
As ever, there is much more work to be done and the Government will continue to analyse how we can best support work across the different institutions involved in the complex science of horizon scanning. Again, this is likely to become a particularly salient issue as we develop our thinking on AI governance and regulation, and one where we expect to offer further suggestions in due course.
I turn to the committee’s recommendation for a new parliamentary Joint Committee to scrutinise digital regulation. Again, I refer noble Lords to the position we outlined in our response: we believe it would be unnecessary to establish a permanent Joint Committee of this kind when we already have rigorous scrutiny provided by established committees such as your Lordships’ committee and the DCMS Select Committee in another place. We will therefore not take forward the recommendation for a new Joint Committee, although, as the former Minister for the Digital Economy made clear in Committee on the Online Safety Bill, we continue to assess whether some form of additional scrutiny is needed in the context of that piece of legislation. We remain open-minded on that and I look forward to discussing it with noble Lords when the Bill comes to your Lordships’ House.
My noble friend Lady Stowell asked about the timing of the digital markets Bill. As she knows, the Queen’s Speech outlined that we will publish a draft digital markets, competition and consumer Bill. Publishing in draft allows us to engage with Parliament and interested parties on the details of the regime to ensure that the legislation is effective, balanced and proportionate. Pre-legislative scrutiny certainly improved the Online Safety Bill, and I hope the engagement that the publication of a draft Bill will allow us will help sharpen its proposals.
In the meantime, the Government will continue to work with the Digital Markets Unit to ensure the operational readiness of the regime, ahead of the legislation being passed. We have engaged with interested parties extensively, through a public consultation, and published our responses earlier this month. As I say, we committed in the Queen’s Speech to publish a draft Bill in this parliamentary Session, and that remains our commitment.
My noble friend also took the opportunity to ask a slightly off-topic question about BBC funding. As this is her last chance to do so before the Summer Recess, I am happy to say that DCMS will begin preparatory work over the summer, including considering the findings of your Lordships’ committee. We will look at what lessons we can learn from other countries on how they have reformed public service broadcasters in their jurisdictions in recent years. Although it has not been possible to launch a review of the licence fee funding model before the Summer Recess, the next Prime Minister will obviously have a role in deciding how we approach it.
To conclude, I reiterate the point about the speed with which new opportunities and challenges are being generated in the regulatory space. By necessity, the decisions that we make today about our regulatory approach and institutions will not be the final word on any of these questions, and the Government are fully committed to reviewing our regulatory approaches and structures.
I thank noble Lords for their willingness to engage so constructively with us as we chart our course through these new challenges. I encourage them to continue doing so as digital innovation continues to transform our lives still further—but perhaps not until after they have all enjoyed a well-earned summer break.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone for their powerful contributions. This may have been a small Committee, but it has been perfectly formed.
To repeat something that I said at the beginning, I welcome the important work of the statutory regulators, which are responsible for a lot of important aspects of our national life. It is incumbent on me in particular—as chair of the Communications and Digital Committee, which engages with all of them—to put on record just how much we acknowledge and recognise the important work they do.
I also again welcome the creation of the DRCF. As I said, this is an important step in the right direction and, as noble Lords touched on, its work is already making a difference, which is to be acknowledged. I was taken by my noble friend the Minister’s remarks on the benefits, sometimes, of something not being statutory but agile and flexible. I take that point, but I emphasise that the nature of what we are talking about requires us to keep this under constant review. I remain of the view that there needs to be some statutory underpinning for a body that is able to pull together the work of these various regulatory bodies and deal with the occasional conflicts and issues that might require trade-offs. If it were to be on a statutory footing, that would make its accountability and the parliamentary oversight of it that much more effective.
I also endorse noble Lords’ references to the non-statutory bodies that do important work in this area. I will name a few: the Internet Watch Foundation, the Advertising Standards Authority and the British Board of Film Classification—that is not an exhaustive list. It is important that we recognise their work, the importance of the statutory regulators working hand in hand with them and the requirement for that to continue.
I was encouraged that my noble friend said that the Government remain committed to bringing forward the draft Bill on digital competition. What he said about the potential for a new Joint Committee to scrutinise the implementation of the Online Safety Bill once it is passed by Parliament was interesting. As he alluded to, when that Bill comes to your Lordships’ House, we might want to return to some of the issues we have talked about. If a Joint Committee is to be set up specifically for that, it may make sense to look at its remit.
In closing, I want to repeat something that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said: regulation is not the enemy of innovation; it can encourage public trust and therefore the take-up of new technologies. It is important for us to understand that properly. As I said in my opening speech, I acknowledge and appreciate that there is fear about regulation being stifling. What we are calling for and recommending in our report—I am very pleased with my noble friend’s constructive response—is the need for a new approach to regulation in the digital sphere and making sure that our regulators are equipped to serve the public interest as a whole. Just believing that what exists currently will be adequate for a very different kind of world is not right. Things are changing, and we need to make sure that regulation changes too.
To illustrate that point, I turn to of putting the Digital Markets Unit on a statutory footing. One of the real-life impacts of it not having ex-ante powers—at least, not yet—and therefore not having the ability to assign strategic status to the likes of Google or Facebook is that it is very limited in how it can intervene in these markets at the moment. As I say, and wish to stress, intervention by regulators is a very sensitive area for anything to be done. In 2018, the CMA did a study of online advertising which showed that both Google and Facebook were consistently earning profits well above what is required to reward investors with a fair return to the tune of £2 billion. That was in 2018. The real risk of not being able to revisit this sort of thing—which would need to be very sensitively done; it is not something you would want to do without proper oversight—means that customers are potentially being overcharged for products and services that make heavy use of digital advertising, such as consumer electronics, hotels and insurance. In a world where we are talking about a cost of living crisis, that brings into focus that there is sometimes a need for regulators to intervene in the public interest which, at the moment, they would be not well equipped to do. Should it be decided that that is the right thing for them to do, the oversight of that does not exist in the way we might want it to in the future.
This has been a very helpful and rewarding debate. I say again that I am very grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I am grateful to the Minister for his update on the legislation and where we are with the Government considering the committee’s recommendations on the future funding of the BBC and their decision to launch an independent inquiry. I look forward to reconvening with him after the summer break when we are all refreshed to crack on with the important work we are responsible for.
House of Lords
Introduction: Baroness Willis of Summertown
Retirements of Members
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirement, with effect from today, of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I thank both noble Lords for their much-valued service to the House.
Crypto Asset Technology
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards their ambition to make the United Kingdom a global cryptoasset technology hub.
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Government’s clear message to crypto asset firms is that the UK is open for business. The Government have announced a range of reforms to position the UK as a crypto asset technology hub, including legislating to bring stablecoins into payments regulation, committing to consult on regulation on a broader set of crypto asset activities later this year and exploring ways to enhance the competitiveness of the UK tax system to further encourage the development of the crypto asset market.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer. Cryptocurrencies are characterised by opacity, volatility, lack of intrinsic value and bare regulation. In recent days, even stablecoins have exhibited a lack of stability. The Government seem to be content for cryptocurrency to form part of the UK’s financial architecture. My question is: if the Government see a virtue in cryptocurrencies that transcends the way in which a fiat currency or a central bank digital currency operates, what exactly is it? Would the Minister kindly explain why cryptocurrencies operate as a better means of exchange?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, it is not necessarily the Government’s position that crypto assets offer a better means of exchange, but they represent part of a trend of rapid innovation in financial technology. That is something we want to encourage, particularly because of some of the technology underlying some crypto assets. But the noble and learned Lord is right that they also pose risks to consumers. That is why we have already taken action on, for example, financial promotions of crypto assets and are looking at the wider question of crypto asset regulation in a consultation later this year.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my registered interests, particularly my work with Bifinity. The UK has no crypto unicorn. In fact, the one crypto unicorn founded in the UK has now moved abroad. Even Austria has a crypto unicorn. It is a tragedy that the FCA is not working harder to regulate crypto companies, which would provide much better protection for consumers. Given that successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have quite rightly said that the UK, with its history of prudential financial regulation, should be a hub for crypto, can the Minister update me on when we are likely to see progress on the regulation of crypto companies?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I would like to reassure my noble friend that we are taking a staged and proportionate approach to crypto asset regulation that is sensitive to the risks posed but also responsive to new developments in the market. I have referred to a number of areas in which we have already regulated for crypto assets, and in the forthcoming Financial Services and Markets Bill we will legislate to regulate stablecoins. Later this year, we will also consult on the wider regulation of the sector. I absolutely agree with him about the opportunities this market can provide for the UK economy.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, if the cryptocurrency market got so huge that it posed a major credit threat, would the Government consider introducing some form of regulation?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Government are considering some form of regulation; that is why we are consulting on it later this year. My noble friend is absolutely right that financial stability is one consideration that we have to bear in mind when looking at this market.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, if the Government are to consult on this area later this year, can the Minister give the House an undertaking that they will consult scientific bodies such as the Council for the Mathematical Sciences or the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications? Underlying cryptocurrencies is a very complicated system of mathematics and, to be quite honest, I would challenge any Member of the House easily to be able to explain the nature of what a cryptocurrency is.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I am glad the noble Viscount did not challenge me to explain the intricate details that lie behind crypto assets. The consultation will be public and we will make sure we engage a wide range of experts in the area to ensure that we are best informed of the way forward.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, given the cybersecurity and the anonymous and open nature of risks in blockchains, this seems to be rather inconsistent with money laundering rules in the rest of the financial system. Can my noble friend comment on inconsistencies in the environmental protection issues that this Government have worked so hard to achieve, given the environmental dangers of the proof-of-work cryptocurrency development and the risk to consumers, even in stablecoins?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My noble friend is right about the risks around money laundering and illicit finance. That is why crypto assets were brought within the anti-money laundering regime a few years ago. She is also absolutely right that some crypto assets can have a significant environmental impact. It is about the method by which they are generated or proved, and that is something we will consider as part of our consultation later this year.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, for a remote contribution.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, has the Minister seen research from cybersecurity company NordVPN about cryptocurrency scammers targeting British pension pots? Fraud losses were more than £226 million in the year to May 2022, up 58% from £143 million in the previous year. To protect British citizens from these bitcoin bandits, will the Minister issue advice to “Beware of dodgy downloads; don’t be rushed; do your homework; be suspicious of celebrity endorsements; and use a virtual private network service so that hackers won’t be able to see what you do online”?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I have not seen the specific report the noble Lord refers to, but he is absolutely right that the risks of online fraud are significant, particularly for potentially vulnerable people. The Government put a huge amount of effort into our anti-fraud measures, including some of the public messaging the noble Lord referred to.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, as the Minister has already said, derivatives of cryptocurrencies are regulated. However, for many years now, the FCA has been considering regulating cryptocurrencies. Can the Minister tell the House exactly how many years it has been considering it and what it would take to make it actually do something?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness noted, there have been a number of different interventions to regulate this market over the years, including the regulation of derivatives, including bringing crypto into anti-money laundering regulation, into the regulation of financial promotions and, in the forthcoming financial services Bill, the regulation of stablecoin. Action is happening now but, in terms of the broader market, there will be action this year in terms of the consultation on future regulation.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, during the SI debate earlier this week, the Minister and I discussed the need to better regulate crypto assets, particularly in relation to money laundering. In her answers today, she seems to accept that cryptocurrencies potentially facilitate money laundering. Does she not feel that this is very important and must be gripped quickly?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord about the importance of ensuring that crypto assets cannot be used for money laundering or, for example, for the avoidance of sanctions when it comes to Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. That is why we have brought it within our anti-money laundering regime. We have extended the scope of those rules. The SI that we were debating this week is part of the action to do so. We will also continue to work internationally on the regulation of crypto assets, because that action is needed to ensure that other jurisdictions cannot become areas where people use crypto assets for illicit finance.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard from across the House, regulation is the key to this. How stable does the Minister think that stablecoins are? Some Governments are looking at introducing a central bank digital coin. Do Her Majesty’s Government have any plans to introduce a CBDC?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My understanding is that the Bank of England is looking at the question of introducing a CBDC. In terms of stablecoins, the name derives from them being linked to other assets, rather than because of any inherent stability. We are seeking to regulate them because of that link to other assets. They may become a form of payment within the wider system, which would raise questions of financial stability and is why we have prioritised regulation in that area.
Primary Care: Quality and Access Improvements
Baroness Merron
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the variations in the quality of primary care across England, including access to GP services; and what plans they have to improve quality and access.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, we are working to expand and diversify the general practice workforce to create an additional 50 million appointments a year, which should improve access for patients across England. NHS England continues to provide support to practices working in the most challenging circumstances in order to provide better access to patients via its accelerated access improvement programme.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, clearly the Government have no chance of meeting their target of 6,000 additional MPs, or rather, GPs—they might be happy with that at the other end—by 2024, when this month the BMA is reporting that there are over 1,700 fewer GPs. More GPs are seeking to leave, the population is growing and, as we know, health problems are ever more complex. In the light of this, will the Government review the numbers of promised GPs? What urgent and specific action can the Minister offer to those who cannot get an appointment, particularly in the more deprived areas and those places identified for levelling-up support?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, we have 1,400 more full-time equivalent doctors working in general practice compared with March 2019. But the noble Baroness is right that we must do even more to expand the numbers. We have a record 4,000 trainees who have accepted a place on GP training this year. Another element is the wider primary care workforce, where we are on track to meet our commitment of 26,000 additional patient care staff working in primary care. The most deprived areas are being targeted for the accelerated access improvement programme, which is providing tailored support to practices in those areas to improve access.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, in a recent inquiry by the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, the Minister in the Commons was asked whether he thought that general practice was in crisis. He disagreed but did agree that there were some serious challenges to be faced. Can the Minister say what the Government think that these challenges are in the short term and how they intend to address them? Furthermore, the long-term sustainability of primary care and community care will require some reforms, as suggested by two recent reports: the Policy Exchange report and the report by Claire Fuller, a practising general practitioner. I will be glad if the Minister can answer.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I absolutely recognise the pressure that GP practices are under. To name just two of the factors, we have seen increased demand on the practices, which are seeing more patients than ever before, but we also have reports of people struggling to get access. There are workload pressures on those working in those practices and the need to increase staffing numbers, not just of GPs but those wider primary care staff. In terms of reform, I have not seen those specific reports, but the noble Lord will know through the Health and Social Care Act that was passed recently that the creation of integrated care boards and integrated care systems will, I hope, bring primary and secondary care closer together and enable local areas to design care that is meeting the needs of their populations better.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests with the Dispensing Doctors’ Association, based in North Yorkshire. Will my noble friend restore the funding to general practice of 11% of the overall health budget? Will she immediately allocate £1 billion of that to primary care networks, for the reasons that the noble Baroness opposite gave?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, we have increased funding to general practice and primary care to address some of the pressures that they have faced. In addition to funding, we are seeking to give greater support to those practices in the most challenged areas to improve their ways of working; for example, with their telephony systems, to ensure that patients can get through to their practices and book the appointments that they need.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, traditionally general practice has been one of the most satisfactory things for many doctors, who have been very proud of being GPs. The current crisis is critical. Just two weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, suggested that we might have a Select Committee to look at why there is so much dissatisfaction now among general practitioners. I am sure there would be broad consideration of that across the House if it were something that the Government were interested in trying to promote. What message can the Minister take back to the Department of Health about this?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Department of Health and Social Care is cognisant of the pressures on GPs and is looking at improving the retention as well as the recruitment of GPs to increase their numbers. A number of programmes are in place looking at tailored solutions in certain areas to see why GPs are leaving the profession. We continue to work with the NHS and the profession to understand how we can help GPs and improve their working environment.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
I understand that we do not yet have enough UK-qualified clinicians. Is the Minister confident that trained practitioners from the rest of the world wishing to work here will be welcomed by both the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office?
Baroness Penn (Con)
In terms of GPs specifically, my understanding is that because general practice is quite unique to the UK, we have a large number of people who have done their basic training elsewhere and then come to the UK to do their general practice training. That is something that we continue to support and encourage. With regard to trained people in general practice, that training tends to happen only in the UK so we do not tend to have a great number of people coming in at that level.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)
My Lords, the Carr-Hill funding formula is based primarily on ageing, not need. The RCGP and NHS England have called for this to be reviewed. We saw during the pandemic how outcomes can vary due to inequalities. What is the Government’s view on reforming that funding formula?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I am afraid I do not have the specific details of that funding formula to hand so I will write to my noble friend.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, how much infection control is taking place in the community now that testing for the coronavirus is no longer free? Are there effective vaccines for the most recent variants of Covid-19, and is there sufficient vaccine for the monkeypox?
Baroness Penn (Con)
On infection control, the NHS continues to keep in place the right infection control measures proportionate to the risk. While free testing is not available to the general population, tests are still available where they may be needed. On the vaccine, my understanding is that it continues to be effective against the variants, and last Friday we announced our acceptance of the JCVI recommendation that all over-50s be offered a booster this year. We will also continue to keep in place the extended flu vaccine eligibility that we had last year.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not the case that this crisis has been made worse by the changes to the pension scheme for GPs? What are the Government going to do about that?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government have taken action in terms of the annual pension allowance. We are also aware of the issue of the lifetime allowance for GPs. However, it is generally still in the interests of GPs to stay in the profession even when they hit their lifetime allowance. The NHS is working to raise awareness of pensions and the true value of the pension reward package. We know that the lifetime allowance is not the only driver for early retirement. Last year’s GP Worklife Survey reported that the most considerable job stressor is GPs’ increasing workloads, which is why we are so focused on increasing the number of staff in those practices to help deal with that workload.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister be kind enough to address the question asked by my noble friend Lord Winston, which was specifically whether or not the Government support a Select Committee being established to look at the current difficulties for GPs? That was the specific point put, and maybe she would be kind enough to answer it.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My understanding is that the establishment of Select Committees is a question for Parliament, not the Government.
Lord Bird (CB)
Is it possible to look at the fact that 50% of the people who present in the NHS are suffering from food poverty? Of those suffering from cardiac arrest, for example, 50% are to do with food poverty. When are we going to address the long-term overriding problem of poverty, which destroys our NHS?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I am not aware of the specific statistic that the noble Lord refers to but we are doing a huge amount to support people, particularly during this difficult economic time. People are facing increased costs, which is why we have put in £37 billion worth of support this year, focused on the most vulnerable and those on the lowest incomes.
Channel 4: Annual Report
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bassam of Brighton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made representations to Channel 4 regarding the contents of its annual report and, if so, why.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
The department laid Channel 4’s annual report before Parliament on 13 July with no changes to its content from Channel 4’s draft. The timeline for the department receiving the draft annual report from Channel 4 and laying it before Parliament follows last year’s timetable. It is usual practice for departments to review annual reports ahead of publication.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, rather than trying to sex up Channel 4’s annual report to suit the privatisation agenda, is now not the time for the Government to do a bit of a Lynton Crosby, “scrape the barnacles off the boat” and finally admit that neither the public—nor, for that matter, the parliamentary Conservative Party—want Channel 4 flogged off?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, given that Channel 4 is currently publicly owned, the Government are fully entitled to comment on the contents of its annual report. As I say, it is usual practice for departments to review annual reports. We cannot direct a public body to change what it says but it is quite proper for us to make representations. The Government are clear that we have the long-term interests of Channel 4 at heart in want to ensure that it continues to access the capital and funding it needs to continue doing the brilliant work that it has done for 40 years.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware of something that struck me as quite a striking feature of this report, which is that the chief executive of Channel 4 has had a 20% pay increase? Obviously, I look forward to the day when this is none of the Government’s business but, as long as we have the current arrangement, perhaps he would like to comment on the disparity between many viewers of Channel 4 dealing with real-terms pay cuts and what strikes me as an extreme level of high remuneration in this instance.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is correct. The chief executive of Channel 4 received a 20% pay rise last year, taking her total salary to £1.2 million. That is twice the salary of the director-general of the BBC and more than the chief executive of ITV. Salaries are a matter for Channel 4 but I think this shows that the company is in rude health, one of the many things that make it an attractive asset to a potential buyer.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, the Minister says that the Government are happy with the Channel 4 report, which he will know shows that Channel 4 has significantly exceeded the quotas set for it. In the unnecessary privatisation plans, the Government say they want the new owner to
“deliver outcomes in line with those we see today”.
Can the Minister explain whether those are the outcomes that the channel is actually achieving, the ones we see today, or the much less ambitious outcomes laid out in the remit?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, we want Channel 4 to continue what it is doing in terms of commissioning from the independent sector. The difficulty is that, because of the global streaming giants driving up the costs of our thriving and very successful independent production sector, Channel 4 needs access to larger sums of money in the decades to come. That is why we want to ensure that it is able to raise that private capital and continue to compete in the global market.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests, including my work with LionTree. When I was Minister, I would regularly review the reports and accounts of the bodies that I oversaw and we regularly had huge rows, mainly because there were not enough photos of me or sections detailing my excellent work as a Minister. Is it not the case that while the Government own Channel 4 they are perfectly entitled to see a draft of its report and accounts and perfectly entitled to have a grown-up discussion with Channel 4’s very grown-up board, which of course includes my wonderful noble friend Lord Holmes?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right. I have been looking through the annual reports of many arm’s-length bodies that it is my responsibility to lay before Parliament. The Government are entitled to make representations to Channel 4 as its current owner. Of course, if it were privately owned, we would not have that role. We cannot force it to change things but we are perfectly entitled to disagree. In this instance, Channel 4 laid the annual report it had originally drafted.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, Parliament was involved in the setting up of Channel 4. Indeed, it was an Act of Parliament that created it. In that sense, we in this House and the other House have an interest in the arrangements under which Channel 4 is supervised. The Minister did not give a very explicit Answer to the original Question from my noble friend. Could he sketch out for us, very briefly and perhaps later in writing, what the points were that the Government wished to raise with Channel 4, so that we are better informed about the debate?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I am happy to say that we wrote to Channel 4 on 9 June, three weeks, I believe, after receiving the draft copy of the report, outlining our concerns relating to some of the language in the report, which we believed to be at odds with commitments, given to the department at official and ministerial level, to work collaboratively on this issue of its future ownership. As I say, we may have disagreements with some figures at Channel 4 about that, but the Government’s intention is to ensure that Channel 4 has a secure future and the access to capital it needs to continue to entertain and inform audiences in the decades to come.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, the Government very rightly supported the headquarters of Channel 4 moving to Leeds. Those of us from Yorkshire are particularly proud that we now have that Channel 4 presence in Leeds. I think some Ministers indicated that it was part of the so-called levelling-up process. Can my noble friend confirm that whatever decision the Government might take, they will do their very best to ensure that the headquarters of Channel 4 remains in Yorkshire?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
We are very proud to see the benefits that Yorkshire and other parts of the country have accrued from Channel 4 moving its headquarters. Under private ownership, we will maintain Channel 4’s existing obligations for regional production across the whole of the UK. That is one of the things that is so distinctive about the channel, and which would make it an attractive asset to a buyer.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, if the Government have decided that Channel 4 is doing well, which apparently it is, and they would like it to carry on with some of the things it has been successful with, where is the Conservative principle of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, or have we dumped that?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is not about this year’s results; it is about securing the long-term sustainability of Channel 4. Channel 4 is particularly dependent on advertising revenue. Fewer people are watching live advertising. The cost of independent production is rising because of the entry into the market of global streaming giants, so we want to make sure that, in the decades to come, Channel 4 is able to raise the capital to continue doing what it is doing so successfully now.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister at all concerned that privatisation might mean that artistic innovation is sacrificed? Very often, that is where money can be lost, simply in terms of views, as the Minister has just outlined. Therefore, that is the first thing that tends to go.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
No, I am not. According to PACT, only 7% of the total independent production sector revenue came from Channel 4 commissions. Channel 4 spends less on commissioning than ITV, which is of course privately owned. We think the things that Channel 4 does are what make it so successful. We are convinced that any future owner would want to continue to build on those things.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Government continue to say that they do not like to interfere with board decisions, and here is a board that has been very successful. The reason members had that salary increase was that it was linked to the company’s productivity, yet this Government think they know better than the board about the future of the Channel.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
As I say, this year’s report shows that Channel 4 is performing well. It is doing well in the current climate but, as the responsible owners of Channel 4, the Government are looking to the decades to come to make sure that it can continue to do that for the next 40 years and beyond.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, is it not a Conservative principle that no Conservative Government have any business owning television companies?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the Government do not own the BBC. It is set up in a particular way to make it a state broadcaster, not a government broadcaster. We benefit from having a range of different channels with different ownership models. We are focused on making sure that Channel 4 can continue to thrive in the market, which is fast evolving.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My understanding of the public consultation was that 96% of respondents wanted Channel 4 to remain as it is. So why are the Minister and the Government not listening to people?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, we had a referendum and the noble Baroness’s party did not listen to the latter. We received 56,000 responses to the consultation, 40,000 of which were organised by the campaign group 38 Degrees, which is perfectly entitled to make its views known. We looked at all the consultation responses, but the Government have set out their thinking and their rationale for safeguarding the future of Channel 4.
House of Lords Appointments Commission
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness D'Souza
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of recent press comments, what plans they have to alter the role or composition of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, I thank the minister for his Answer.
The Burns report, commissioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was warmly received in this House and by the Government of that time. Its recommendations included a limit to the number of Peers appointed to the House of Lords and changes to the authority of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Will the Government now undertake to be guided by these recommendations, or are they to be abandoned?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I have answered on a number of occasions in relation to the Burns committee. On the specific question of whether the Government have plans to alter the role or composition of HOLAC, I repeat: we have none.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, we are no better informed than we were previously. Debates in this House have strongly endorsed the Burns committee and the calls of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for the House of Lords Appointments Commission to be on a statutory footing. The reason for this is the scale and controversial nature of appointments made by this Prime Minister. For this House to work at its best, it needs to be smaller and to be assured of the integrity of all appointments. Anything else undermines those who take on their positions to contribute in the national interest.
I have two points for the Minister, which I hope he will take back to Downing Street, whoever happens to be in occupation at the time. First, this House needs assurance that the Prime Minister will not make appointments that do not have the approval of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Secondly, is not this the first time in history where the House of Lords, instead of resisting government reform, is leading the calls for a smaller house and the end of hereditary Peer by-elections, and for HOLAC to be listened to, while it is the Government who are resisting reform?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission is greatly valued. It is advisory and one of its primary purposes is to vet nominations to the House of Lords. Your Lordships’ House is in need of being refreshed constantly. We have had the pleasure today of welcoming a new Member, just as yesterday we heard the valedictory speech of one of our most beloved and long-serving Members, my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay. There is a difference, although it is unchivalrous to point it out, of 37 years between those two Members. Refreshment is part of that and any Prime Minister will always seek to do it. My observation is that there is a need for an urgent refreshment of the Front Bench opposite, whose work is outstanding and presses hard on them. I have long advocated, and hope it will happen, that there should be a refreshment of the Front Bench opposite. I hope that will not be resisted by your Lordships.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Perhaps my noble friend might suggest to the Prime Minister that, in making appointments, he adopt the policy pursued for Cross-Benchers who come here via HOLAC of getting assurance that those who are appointed will take this place seriously and do the work.
Lord True (Con)
I can certainly agree with my noble friend and the implication of the question put earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. To be a Member of your Lordships’ House is one of the highest privileges that any person can ever receive. I have always tried to attend and do my duty here. I would hope that those who are appointed would behave in the same way.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, is it the Minister’s view that, to protect the integrity of your Lordships’ House, the Prime Minister should always follow the advice of the Appointments Commission?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, any Prime Minister would normally pay heed to the advice, as this Prime Minister has made clear. There is a particular case to which your Lordships continually return, where the Prime Minister made an appointment on his own judgment. I defend that particular person; he plays a valuable role in our House.
Lord Burns (CB)
Since the establishment of the Lord Speaker’s committee, some three-quarters of political appointments have been made to the Conservative Benches. There are now 89 more Conservative Members than Labour Members and there are more Conservative Members than Labour and Liberal Democrat Members combined. If there were to be a change of Government at the next election and similar partisan behaviour were to continue, would the Minister be comfortable with a House of 900 or more Members?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the reality of this House is who comes here and who works. Sometimes, those who do not come here very often make enormous contributions; I can think of a very distinguished scientist who comes on occasion. The Prime Minister has appointed—I should say recommended; Prime Ministers do not appoint—91 Peers since he became Prime Minister. That is not out of order with numbers in the past.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Would my noble friend accept that, at the moment we are in a—to use the word correctly—unique situation? We have a Prime Minister who we know is going. Can my noble friend assure the House that, whatever the Prime Minister does with a resignation honours list, to which Prime Ministers are entitled by tradition, he will not issue another list while he is the caretaker of No. 10 Downing Street?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister is the Prime Minister and the Queen’s principal adviser. It is for the Prime Minister of the day to advise the sovereign on appointments to your Lordships’ House. I observe that, were there to be a resignation honours list—these things are all speculative—it is highly unlikely that people in other parties would be on it.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I follow what the noble Lord, Lord Burns, has said about the numbers, given that the Conservatives already outnumber the joint Opposition. There is a likelihood that Labour will form the next Government. That would offer two choice: either we have to do exactly the same and stuff this place to get the business through—which is not in the interests of this House—or there would be a major and rather dramatic cull of the sort that might not support the work of this House or our democratic function. Can the Minister take back the very serious implications of what will happen if the continuing dominance of the present Government outweighs the Opposition to the extent that they do at the moment?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I did not notice that dominance in the massive number of defeats suffered by the Government in your Lordships’ House in the last Session. However, the noble Baroness, whose wisdom and experience I always heed, makes an important point: your Lordships’ House is a House that advises and has the capacity to ask the other House to think again; its conduct must be based on restraint and, above all, a good understanding across the Front Benches between Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition and the Government of the time. Historically, this was founded in the arrangement known as the Salisbury/Addison convention. I hope that we will continue to heed that doctrine, whoever is in office.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, when I came into this House, I was told by the Conservative Chief Whip that the difference between this House and the Commons was that in the Lords you had to win arguments to win votes. It seems that we are moving towards an untenable situation where one party in this House is trying to get a majority.
Will the incoming Prime Minister commit to working with this House to achieve the aim of the Burns report? That aim was to have a responsible second House that can challenge the Government; although, as my noble friend Lord Cormack and I both know, in the final event we accept the primacy of the elected Chamber. All we are asking for is balance. When I am told the Labour Benches are going to be strengthened by eight new Peers when we get 20, I am not sure that is balance.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am not certain it is the role of your Lordships’ House to challenge the other place, although I agreed with the later points made by my noble friend. I believe your Lordships’ House worries at this question too much. I repeat that I do not believe fundamentally—as I have said many times from this Dispatch Box—that your Lordships’ House, which is unelected, can aspire to dictate who and how many Members are in it.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister referred to the numbers of government defeats in recent Sessions. Would that not be a case for refreshing the Government Front Bench, rather than the Opposition Front Bench?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, there is an instant when you are thinking, then you have to stand up and give a reply to your Lordships’ always-penetrating questions. I was going to say in response to my noble friend Lord Balfe that I must have been pretty awful at putting arguments from this Dispatch Box because I have lost quite a few. I think the phrase is: “them’s the breaks”. We listen to the arguments put forward by your Lordships. I have had the privilege of taking—and am currently taking—legislation through your Lordships’ House, and have gained very much from the engagement and events with Peers on all sides, and indeed in Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Minister makes the best of sometimes rather weak cases when putting them forward. He knows the Prime Minister much better than I do. Does he occasionally wonder whether the Prime Minister—a declared disruptor of our institutions—wants to undermine the current constitution of our second Chamber by flooding us with more and more appointments, and whether that will push us towards the next stage of much-needed reform?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, disruption is in the eye of the beholder. The historical policy of the Liberal Democrats is to replace your Lordships’ House with an elected Chamber.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)
My Lords, if he has the figures, or if he knows, can my noble friend say how many Peers previous Prime Ministers appointed? How many Peers were appointed by Tony Blair, for example?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, further to the excellent question from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will the Minister admit that there is a genuine problem with a perception of a Peerage as merely an honour one above a knighthood? The reality is that we need people who will be working Peers and who will scrutinise legislation and question the Government. Surely it is right to ask anyone who is nominated to membership of this place for a guarantee that they will attend at least a minimum number of sittings and, as far as is possible, play a proper and full part in our work.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I know that many of your Lordships feel that way, and I have intimated what I think about that in one of my earlier answers. Having been an observer of your Lordships’ House for a long time before I had the honour of becoming a Member, I can put the point that, while it is true that there are some noble Lords who come here infrequently, they none the less make very major contributions to specific and specialised debates. In addressing the challenge put forward by the noble Lord opposite, I beg your Lordships to recognise that quantity of speech is not necessarily consonant with value or quality of contribution.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, only a matter of months ago, the Prime Minister said:
“There is one ‘first’ that is still long overdue and that is the moment when—for the first time—we finally achieve 50:50 … in our Parliament.”
The only place in which the Prime Minister has the power and opportunity to make progress towards this ambition is here in your Lordships’ House. Like other noble Lords, I hope he will show restraint but, if there are more Members to come, it is worth noting that he has so far appointed seven women and 29 men to the Conservative Benches. It is not too late to put this right. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that a new list is an opportunity to redress this balance?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point, to which every past, present and future Prime Minister should pay heed: this House is enriched by all manner of diversity. I strongly agree with what she said about the great importance of a full contribution by women in your Lordships’ House.
Sri Lanka
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to give urgent material assistance to Sri Lanka to alleviate the economic crisis in that country.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we are closely monitoring the humanitarian and economic situation in Sri Lanka. The United Kingdom provides assistance to organisations in both these areas in Sri Lanka, including through the Red Cross and the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund; the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, CERF; the World Bank; and the Asian Development Bank. We have offered to support a key role in the UN on humanitarian co-ordination. This is in addition to our existing £11.3 million CSSF programme funding focused on addressing the legacy of conflict.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, when I asked a similar Question on 16 May, the Government said they were monitoring the situation; it is hard to fault them for lack of consistency—they are still “monitoring”. The situation in Sri Lanka is dire: people are starving, people are dying for want of medicine, and fuel and electricity are scarce. Practical and immediate help, more than monitoring, is needed. Britain, as a leading figure in the Commonwealth, should surely be doing more and acting more vigorously in relation to this Commonwealth country that has been hit with this disaster. Sir Peter Heap, a former British diplomat, has described the British Government’s response as shameful. I do not expect my noble friend to agree with that, but surely he could agree that this Government should be doing more.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, in my Answer to the original Question I outlined the financial support we are giving, so I disagree with my noble friend. Of course we are monitoring the situation. We are not intervening militarily; it is for the people of Sri Lanka to determine their future. We should be supporting the right to free protest, which we are. We should be working with international partners on the ground and UN agencies, which we are, and we are working directly with Commonwealth partners. I am looking to engage with the Foreign Minister of India, and we have already reached out. I am looking to have a call next week with the new president, who has just been elected. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister engaged with the new president directly when he was the prime minister. We are working with the Government, we are working with UN agencies, and yes, we are monitoring. By monitoring we ensure that any intervention we make is the right one.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Commonwealth Secretariat is in close touch with the situation and seeking ways in which it can assist in this very difficult position. Would he make sure that his colleagues in the Foreign Office co-ordinate closely with the Commonwealth Secretariat, as this may be the best channel, or one of the best channels, to co-ordinate efforts to ensure that Sri Lanka does not fall too rapidly into the Russian orbit, the Chinese orbit, or indeed both?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I can give that assurance to my noble friend, not least in my role as Minister for the Commonwealth. I reassure him that, during the Kigali summit, we met directly with key Commonwealth partners. Foreign Minister GL Peiris was there, who is still in situ in the new Government. We are engaging directly and bilaterally, and scoping what level of co-operation we can offer Sri Lanka, including on the positive progress that has been made thus far, in a dire situation, through the IMF support, to ensure that Sri Lanka sustains itself as a democracy that is inclusive to all people.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, we have a remote contribution form the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, will Her Majesty’s Government urge the Americans to provide more assistance to the people of Sri Lanka? After all, are not the woes of developing countries such as Sri Lanka compounded by the strength of the US dollar, itself largely the consequence of belated remedial action to raise interest rates following the excessive stimulus provided by Washington to the US economy during the last two years? Should not the Americans take account of the impact of their domestic policy on other very vulnerable countries both for humanitarian and geopolitical reasons.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, what I can talk to is the response of the British Government. We are working closely with all key allies, including the US, which, like the United Kingdom, plays an important role within the context of the support being given on the ground—tantamount to several hundred million dollars—through the World Bank.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that fuel is of acute importance to this crisis in Sri Lanka. Its previous president negotiated a purchase of Siberian oil, brokered through our allies in Dubai. The current, new Administration are also seeking to purchase new Russian supplies of oil and Putin has offered Russian wheat to Sri Lanka. What is the UK doing specifically to prevent Sri Lanka becoming, effectively, a purchaser of Russian oil? The geostrategic interests of the European war are now moving to Asia, and the UK is not part of these discussions.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord. We are engaging quite directly with key partners in Asia and south Asia. As I have already alluded to, I shall be speaking to Foreign Minister Jaishankar in the near future, because India has a key role to play. On the issues of fuel and Russian supplies, the UK has a robust sanctions regime in place, which we are co-ordinating with our key partners.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, do Her Majesty’s Government agree with those commentators who believe that part of the issue has been an overclose relationship between the ruling family and China? Does the Minister also agree that this is a wake-up call to those countries which are now being courted by China? What else can Her Majesty’s Government do to increase our soft power among the Commonwealth at this time when people are vying for power in this volatile part of the world?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the right reverend Prelate. We have discussed before in your Lordships’ House the ever-growing role of China, and it is important that we work not just as the United Kingdom but with key allies, including the European Union, America and other like-minded partners, to offer economical alternatives for long-term infrastructure development. He is correct that we have seen the key port in Sri Lanka being financed by Chinese money, which then leads to a large level of debt being held by the Chinese. Current stats show that China holds 10% of Sri Lanka’s external debt stock. Although at a similar level to Japan, that debt is nevertheless on a rate which disables the economy rather than enabling it.
Baroness Amos (Lab)
My Lords, can I press the Minister on the humanitarian support that we are giving to Sri Lanka? Last month, inflation on food prices was 80%. There is rising unemployment and the World Food Programme has talked about 3 million people in need of dire humanitarian assistance. Supporting a co-ordinator in New York is not going to deal with the immediacy of that humanitarian crisis.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, it is not just the co-ordinator role; we are providing support through CERF and money through the World Bank. But the noble Baroness is quite right about further direct support, and I have tasked officials—I have seen one submission already, but sent it back to them—on enhancing support bilaterally for the funding we can stand up, specific to the very point she raises about humanitarian support. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, mentioned fuel, as did my noble friend in his original Question, but it is equally important that we look at averting further famine on the ground, if indeed that is the next repercussion. We are encouraged by the incorporation of a degree of political stability, which we see with the swearing-in of the new president. As I said earlier, I will be looking to engage with him directly over the coming days.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have two questions. First, the Minister mentioned India, but are the British Government also in touch with Bangladesh, which has a high-quality supply of medicine? Secondly, what are the Minister and his Government doing to ensure that there is no violence against women or rape in any upcoming conflict that there may be? Can he assure me that his team is watching this situation?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a valid point about Bangladesh. We are talking to key Commonwealth partners in this respect; I mentioned India because it has a key role to play in direct economic support. On the issue of violence more generally, and specifically to women, we are of course looking at that constructively. We are offering direct support on the ground through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, where money has been stood up and is invested in projects. When I said in my original Answer that there was monitoring, of course we are monitoring the security situation and working with key partners. We are imploring the importance of peaceful protest, which should be sustained. Underlying issues still remain, such as the historic conflict which gripped Sri Lanka. We need to ensure that we stay focused, so that the current political and economic instability does not lead to communal violence.
Heatwave Response
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it would be helpful for the House to hear me read out again the points I made yesterday. I say to the Minister: yesterday’s scenes from Wellington, and other places, of homes and lives devasted are shocking and heartbreaking. As a former fire and safety Minister, I pay tribute—and I am sure the whole House will join me—to all our emergency services for their extraordinary efforts, especially the London Fire Brigade, which faced its most challenging day since the Blitz.
I hope that even those in this House who derided the concerns about extreme weather when we had the Statement on Thursday, with fond memories of the summer of 1976, will now recognise that the current events are very different. This week’s events in the UK and across Europe, when added to the previous extremes we have seen causing flooding and weeks of power supply problems, are a stark reminder that the climate emergency is real and pressing.
I am grateful to the Minister for responding in writing to my question about funding support for local resilience forums and confirming that this could be reviewed. However, given the damage and destruction we have seen—lives being devastated and the potential for it to happen again—will the Government commission a lessons-learned review on how local emergency services, LRFs and the Cabinet, which has been distracted by internal politics, can be better prepared? Can he make sure that the right funding is in place to ensure that, when these events occur, we are properly prepared at every level to respond to them?
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. I entirely endorse what she said about the horrific nature of some of the pictures and films we saw, behind each of which is a person whose life has been affected; our hearts go out to all those people. I also wholly agree with what she said about the role of fire services in this particular instance, as well as all the other emergency and response services, which have worked so hard during those events.
I take the point the noble Baroness made about needing to learn lessons, and hopefully this will be one of the things that feeds into the new resilience strategy under preparation at the moment. I can certainly assure her that, in both the national security risk assessment and our work on resilience, the lessons of the last few days will be taken into account. I am grateful for what she said about those who have worked so hard.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the response to this extraordinary event has been extremely good. I hope the Minister will agree with me that the local responses were as important as the national effort. This reinforces the argument that we need to pay more attention to ensuring that our local authorities, their public health officers and others play a larger role and have the resources necessary to help their communities, because not everything can be done from London or Whitehall.
I hope that the events of the last two or three days have finally killed off the views of climate change deniers and those in the Minister’s own party who say that climate change adaptation is better than attempts to stop the transition in its tracks. While a more active Government would mean a larger state, that is less disastrous, they would argue, than climate change. I hope that he would also agree that the active interventions needed to stop climate change will involve a good deal of long-term public investment and that this may need to take priority over tax cuts. Those who insist that tax cuts are what come first under any circumstance—which seems to be the major theme of the current Conservative leadership contest—should take account of what we need to do if we are to adapt to climate change. This includes water storage—which the east of England in particular needs to invest in more—and ways of changing the built environment, particularly by greening our cities and providing houses and flats built not just for keeping warm but for keeping cool in the summer by, for example, reducing the amount of glass. In the longer term, a whole range of measures will be needed to ensure that we cope with the international transition. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the national resilience strategy: how do the Government plan to present that, and how will it engage a national conversation on the very substantial transition we need to make over the next five to 10 years?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions, and he knows that I share his deep and profound respect and affection for local government and the astonishing public service given by local government officers and councillors up and down this country. The local resilience forums referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, yesterday have performed admirably—I endorse what was said—during this response and are mitigating almost all the problems before escalation. DLUHC and partners held four resilience co-ordination group meetings, some of which were attended by the Secretary of State, and strategic co-ordination groups have overseen the local response. We have also welcomed co-operation with the devolved Administrations.
On the noble Lord’s broader points, I speak for Her Majesty’s Government, not for who one might want to lead a future Government. This Government, under the leadership of my right honourable friend Mr Johnson, have been, as I said earlier in the week, absolutely at the forefront of progress towards net zero. Our objective is that, by 2030, 95% of British electricity will be low-carbon. We are looking for 40,000 more jobs in the clean industries—a figure that we think will reach almost half a million by 2030. COP 26 shows the deep commitment of this Government to that battle. The resilience strategy is nearing completion and will be published after the Recess. I cannot advise your Lordships on the actual timing and date of its publication, but work is well advanced.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, we have all seen the dramatic pictures of this week’s extreme heatwave, and I pay tribute to all those involved in trying to deal with it, but perhaps I might bring to the House’s attention other aspects that have not been seen. For example, I do not know whether your Lordships know this but a major London hospital this week lost all its computing power, and all the back-up servers went down. By any standards, that is a failure of real importance. It is not just the dramatic television pictures that we need to worry about. As a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, I can say that we are examining the issues of resilience in great detail, and I dare say that the House will have other opportunities to debate it, but will the Minister take back from this exchange the fact that some really important things can go wrong that you do not see?
Lord True (Con)
As ever, the noble Viscount speaks wise words. I shall take back what he said. The reality is that, despite the pressures that there were in various places, the NHS emergency call handlers dealt with record numbers of calls to 999. All those public servants involved have done an outstanding job. One thing that helped was that the advance warning process worked very well, and people were able to prepare. Indeed, the weather forecasters take a bit of a pasting in this country—it is a favourite pub conversation—but I think that they did pretty well on this occasion, enabling everyone to be put on the right footing. However, I agree with the noble Viscount that there are issues that do not necessarily always come to the forefront, and all of them must be swept in and considered as we prepare for future similar events. I have no doubt about that.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, according to climate change risk assessment evidence produced by the Climate Change Committee every five years, up to 90% of hospital wards in this country are at risk of overheating, because they are not designed for the kind of weather that we are going to get in future. Could the Minister tell us how many of the 40 new hospitals that the Government have committed to build by 2030 will be built in a way that is resilient to extreme heat?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I can hear some chuckling about the 40 new hospitals, but I have no doubt that those facilities will be built and must be built. Setting the chuckling aside, the serious question put by the noble Lord is one that I shall take away and seek advice on. Obviously, it is not my department that is supervising that, but the noble Lord makes an important point, and I shall report back to him on it.
We must be responsive to the challenge of climate change. However, we must not forget that there are other challenges at the other end of the spectrum. We also need to continue to protect elderly people against the effects of cold in winter. It is very easy to obsess about extreme heat now, and rightly so, but other dangers also lurk in the natural world that we inhabit.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, we read that a comparatively small number of people had their houses either completely destroyed or very seriously damaged. Should not special provisions be made for such people in the circumstances that my noble friend has described?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the reports were certainly shocking. At the moment, the data is provisional, but we expect there to be up to 100 damaged properties, with at least 41 damaged and destroyed in London alone. In the wildfire in Wennington, Essex, 88 properties were evacuated and 15 damaged and destroyed. Data is provisional at the moment, and we will have to watch that as it comes in.
As for what is done in individual cases, every one of those cases will vary, and I do not think that it is for me at the Dispatch Box to say what might or might not happen in the individual circumstances of a particular family whose house has been destroyed or damaged. I hope that all the authorities concerned will approach those families with the utmost sensitivity and understanding.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, it is right that we think about the effect on human beings, but these high temperatures have a huge effect on our agricultural sector, particularly on livestock. Extreme heat reduces milk yields from cattle, for example, and reduces fertility and increases the number of miscarriages. What work is being done by government scientists to prepare our agriculture industry if this continues, and what advice is being given in the short term to help our first-class British agriculture sector adapt and continue to provide the food as it does so well?
Lord True (Con)
The right reverend Prelate makes an important point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, earlier. I regret that I am not in possession of advice on that point at the moment, but I shall certainly pass on his comments to my colleagues in Defra, and will do so with some urgency, because he makes an extremely important point. The countryside suffers as well as the urban areas, and we need to be prudent and thoughtful custodians wherever we live.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. The Minister has several times referred to the importance of local resilience forums. He has been asked in the past what their current level of funding is, and whether it has been maintained. Could he also tell us whether that funding is going to be properly ring-fenced? The other day I asked him about the Civil Contingencies Secretariat. Can he tell us whether that still exists, or whether it is continuing but on a basis of a 30% vacancy factor?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I very much regret that, although I wrote to the noble Baroness opposite about the resilience forums and funding, which is embedded and due to continue, I did not reply on the question that the noble Lord has asked and has asked again. That is a deep fault within me; I apologise to him and to the House, and I shall come back with an answer on the point that he asked about. I hope that he will pardon me for a day or two, until I get that information to him.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I support entirely what the right reverend Prelate said with regard to farming and livestock, given the extreme conditions this week. The last time we had a drought and appointed a Drought Minister, it was followed by significant floods. Will my noble friend support the idea of considering a national grid for water, like the regional grid set up by Yorkshire Water in the whole Yorkshire region, which is able to feed water through pumps and pipes to those areas where there is water stress or shortage? That would enable areas of the UK which suffer water stress, such as East Anglia and the south-east of England, to benefit in this way in future years, if this is going to be a regular occurrence.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, again, I am tempted to speak outside my brief. Perhaps I could express a personal response: the water that
“droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven”
is a precious resource given to us and to people in every nation, and we have the duty to do the best that we conceivably can to preserve that precious resource in our own nation, as well as an enormous responsibility to bring the gift of clean water to every person and nation of the world.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Could the lessons learned, or the resilience strategy, study the weather this week in detail and the local impacts and assess the likely frequency of future heatwaves? Has the Gulf Stream changed; is hot weather more likely to be pushed up from Europe than before? We need to invest in the right things and not the wrong things and I think a proper assessment of the weather, rather than ex cathedra statements about climate change, are really needed if we are to do the right thing.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend has just made a point, as did so many noble Lords who have contributed, that should not be characterised as a sceptical point, or whatever, as so often those kinds of responses are. Our response should certainly be scientific and based on information and I am not going to talk at this Dispatch Box, as a member of this Government, about what might be the meteorological reasons for this particular invasion of Sahara air. Obviously, the jet stream this year is deflected in an unusual way, but I agree that we should study these things carefully and I hope that my colleagues and the Government’s scientific and meteorological advisers will continue to do so.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Minister said, quite rightly, that this crisis was well predicted in advance. In the event of any major crises in the future that are either predicted or predictable, what arrangements could there be for this House to return to hybrid operation, so that people who are not able to make it to London could fully participate? There has been some concern over the last couple of days that some people were unable to make it here.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, again, I think that is a matter not for the Executive but for the parliamentary authorities. I am sure they will have heard the noble Lord, who is a most assiduous attender—nobody will have thought of him when people who do not attend very much were spoken about earlier. I think people have heard what he said. Obviously, these things have to be held in balance. Overall, as a parliamentarian and someone who loves your Lordships’ House, I prefer to be able to look somebody in the eye, hear what they say and accept the challenge. I think that is the proper role of Parliament, but I am sure the authorities will consider what the noble Lord has said.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, first, there was a comment earlier that some noble Lords derided concerns about extreme weather. I actually heard those comments and saw them as balanced and proportionate. Will the Minister comment on another danger, which is scaremongering and sensationalism that can create a climate of fear? I watched the news with pictures that were described as, “We are witnessing Armageddon.” Many elderly people, children and so on must have been very frightened when they saw that, so is that a different kind of danger?
Secondly, on infrastructure, it was certainly shown up to be a bit creaky. On Sunday, before the heatwave, the trains I was trying to get were not running because of the weather, and neither were they running yesterday, after the heatwave. Could there be an opportunity for the Government to use their levelling-up initiative to improve infrastructure so that it can cope with weather challenges?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, there were number of points there, and I could quite easily be tempted to go rather further than I should. I said when we were discussing this earlier in the week that I do not really care for project fear in any form. My mother used to tell me the tale of the boy who cried wolf. There is a wolf, actually—there is climate change—but I think it is very important that this be tempered. People can be easily frightened and should not be frightened, because the response that needs to be made is a collective, international response and individuals should not be subjected to unreasonable stress by exaggerated and alarmist reports; there is a balance there.
As for trains on Sunday, it would be a fine thing to be able to get to Stansted Airport on a Sunday, would it not? UK rails are stressed to withstand temperatures of 27 degrees, which is the mean summer rail temperature in this country. Obviously, other countries, where the kind of weather we had earlier this week is normal, stress their rails to higher degrees, but obviously if you stress your rails to too high a temperature, you have problems at the lower level and we are told that there is the wrong kind of snow on the line. Network Rail needs to consider, and I am sure is considering, these matters. Three-quarters of UK track is modern and set into concrete sleepers, which helps prevent rails buckling in the hot temperatures, but I am sure the good railway people will have heard what the noble Baroness said.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as my husband represents a part of east London where there were two devastating fires. I have seen film footage by the fire brigade of the two communities and it is complete devastation. I hope the Government can manage to provide some extra funding, because it looks like a complete war zone. People would have lost their lives had the local community not managed to help evacuate them just in time. It was literally just in time and it is complete devastation—they have lost everything. If the Government could see their way to providing some extra funds to the local authorities, I think it would be appropriate.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I greatly welcome what the noble Baroness has said, and I tried to make the same point earlier: 45 members of the public at Wennington had to self-evacuate; 10 members of the public were evacuated to a rest centre; and 10 firefighters were affected by heat exhaustion, two of whom went to hospital. It was a horrific and shocking event for those involved. I hear what the noble Baroness said but I can only repeat what I said earlier: that I hope all the authorities involved—some of those will be private as well as public—will address with sensitivity the cases she referred to.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the Minister referred to difficulties getting to Stansted Airport on Sunday. That is, of course, contributing to the problem, whether you travel by rail or road. He may be aware of the report this morning from UCL and LSE academics and Carbon Tracker showing that the oil and gas industry has delivered profits of £2.3 billion a day over the last 50 years to multinational companies and petrostates: that is a total of $52 trillion. Should that industry not be paying a lot more in tax instead of, in the UK, just since the Paris agreement was signed, the Government subsidising it to the tune of £13.6 billion?
Drawing on the point made by the noble Baroness, will not the people of Wennington and the other parts of east London and the other parts of the country so affected by these events, by wildfires that are entirely outside the British general experience, be thinking that those oil and gas companies should be paying into our long-awaited national resilience strategy and making a contribution for the conditions of the Anthropocene that they played a huge part in creating?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness comes from an extremely radical anti-capital stance, which she has exemplified. I will not be an advocate for any particular company, but I think many of the companies in the industry concerned are bending many tens of millions of pounds towards investment in renewable and positive energy developments. It was incautious of me to mention Stansted Airport—it was a remark that was made to me this morning when I was coming to the office—but I sincerely hope that the Just Stop Oil protesters who blocked the M25 arrived either on foot or by bicycle.
Northern Ireland Protocol Bill
Thursday 21st July 2022
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022-23 View all Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 20 July 2022 - (20 Jul 2022)
Food Insecurity in Developing Countries due to Blockade of Ukrainian Ports
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Alton of Liverpool
That this House takes note of (1) the impact of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports on food insecurity in developing countries, and (2) its contribution to the danger of famine in (a) the Horn of Africa, and (b) East Africa.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in opening today’s debate I should like to thank all noble Lords who are going to take part, especially the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, who will make his maiden speech. I couple those thanks with my thanks to the House of Lords Library, Dr Ewelina Ochab, the World Bank and others who have provided us with such excellent briefing material. I draw attention to my non-financial interests, including being a patron of the Coalition for Genocide Response and co-chair of the APPG on Eritrea.
Our debate is taking place as Russia, Iran, and Turkey, with its responsibility under the 1936 Montreux convention for naval traffic entering the Black Sea, have been meeting in Tehran. Turkey has proposed that Russia allows Ukrainian grain ships to leave Odessa on designated routes—grain corridors—so long as checks are made that the ships are not carrying arms. Beware Putin, broken promises, blackmail and Potemkin village scams.
This debate is also taking place against a backdrop of mass displacements, thousands of deaths and devastation, all unleashed by Putin’s war on Ukraine, with Europe left facing its worst energy and economic crisis since the 1940s. The war’s effects reverberate around the globe: food price inflation and supply disruptions from the war in Ukraine have left millions, in Africa especially, vulnerable to famine and starvation.
In 1988, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I visited Ukraine and met political and religious leaders, some of whom had spent nearly two decades in the Kremlin’s prison camps. It was inspiring to watch people lay flowers each day at the doors of churches closed by Stalin 40 years earlier. They proudly held aloft their blue and yellow flags of defiance. Putin’s deluded idea that these brave people would now line the streets with flowers, cheering the new imperial occupation and the reconquest of their country, simply beggars belief.
An abiding memory from that time is of conversations with families who had personally experienced Stalin’s Holodomor, which translates to “death by hunger”, and had occurred 50 years earlier from 1932 to 1933. Stalin’s Holodomor, like Putin’s today, was an entirely man-made catastrophe, leading to anything from 3.5 to 5 million deaths and is regarded by many historians as a genocide. The Holodomor was methodically planned and executed by denying the producers of the food the sustenance necessary for survival. It seems especially cruel and perverse to have used food as a genocidal weapon in the breadbasket of Europe.
While people were starving to death, the Soviet state stole over 4 million tonnes of Ukraine’s grain, enough to meet the needs of 12 million people in a year. As Ukrainians resorted to eating grass, acorns and even cats and dogs, Stalin banned any reference to famine. His decree of “Five Stalks of Grain” stated that anyone, even a child, caught taking produce from a collective field, could be shot or imprisoned for stealing socialist property. In 1933, 2,000 people were executed.
The Holodomor, also known as the Terror Famine, was caused by a dictator who wanted to replace Ukraine’s small farms with state-owned collectives and punish independence-minded Ukrainians who posed a threat to his totalitarian authority. Does that sound familiar? Today, in a mirror image of Stalin, it is Putin committing food terrorism by purposefully destroying Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure and stealing Ukrainian grain and agricultural machinery. Last week, we saw vivid footage of his militias setting fire to fields, scorching the earth and reducing crops to ash. Along with the blockading of ports, this is using food as a weapon of war—a war crime. The weaponising of mass hunger is straight out of Stalin’s playbook. Protocols added to the Geneva conventions state:
“Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited”.
The Rome statutes of the ICC codify it as a war crime and the 2018 Security Council Resolution 2417 condemned the use of food insecurity and starvation as a tactic of war and laid duties on the Secretary-General when such situations occur.
When the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who will reply to our debate, recently met Karim Khan QC, the ICC prosecutor, I wonder what he learned about the prosecution of those responsible for this and other war crimes, including the mass killings and atrocities in Mariupol, Bucha and elsewhere, the use of cluster munitions and much more besides. Notwithstanding vetoes, how are the Secretary-General and the UN Security Council holding Russia to account for its violation of Resolution 2417?
Putin’s militias and missile strikes have damaged and destroyed many farms, stocks of food and seeds, silos, warehouses, oil depots and agricultural machinery and equipment. Unharvested winter crops across many of the war-affected areas have resulted in an estimated $1.4 billion of damage. Will seized Russian assets be used to provide restitution and reconstruction?
In addition to destruction, there are credible reports of Putin’s military looting around 500,000 tonnes of grain from the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions—a third of the stocks required for sowing and domestic consumption. The grain is then shipped from the Russian-controlled Crimean port of Sevastopol and from the port of Berdyansk. To date, satellite imagery has identified 41 bulk carriers, mostly under Russian or Syrian flags, transporting plundered grain. The BBC says that in many instances these ships switch off their automatic identification system transponders to hide the origins of the looted food.
Now put this into context. The scale and nature of Ukraine and Russia’s role in global food supplies is phenomenal. As such, the lack of access to Ukraine’s grain has catastrophic global consequences. In 2021, the Russian Federation or Ukraine, or both, were ranked among the top three global exporters of wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed and sunflower oil. Agriculture and food represent almost 10% of Ukraine’s GDP. Last year Ukraine exported food products worth almost $28 billion to the world, including $7.4 billion-worth of food to the European Union.
As many as 25 countries import more than one-third of their wheat from the two countries. Some 400 million people in the world depend on grain from Ukraine. This raises long-term questions about the need for greater diversification and about overconsumption by us in some parts of the world.
The immediate crisis, however, is best understood by figures from the Ukrainian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which told me that 2021 saw a record-breaking grain harvest that collected 107 million metric tonnes, while so far this year Ukrainian farmers have threshed just 3.6 million tonnes of grain. Before the war, every month, Ukraine exported between 5 million and 6 million metric tonnes of agricultural products, 90% from the seaports on the Black Sea and the Azov Sea. In June, by using trucks, railways, rivers and its three Danube port terminals, which are all at capacity, it managed to export 2.1 million metric tonnes, but even with welcome adjustments it would take years to export the current stockpile of grain, let alone a new harvest, unless the sea routes can be reopened.
The war has also contributed adversely to a sharp rise in the cost of fertilisers and transportation. The cost of transporting one tonne of barley via the Romanian seaport of Constanta has risen from $40 to $160. Unsurprisingly, in May, the price index on cereal was up by 29.7% on May 2021 value, with wheat prices up on average by 56.2%. The UN food price index puts food prices at their highest since records began 60 years ago, with the World Bank reporting several countries introducing bans on the export of their wheat. This will all hit the poorest hardest. Between 2018 and 2020, Africa imported $3.7 billion-worth of wheat from Ukraine; some of those countries most dependent include Somalia, Libya, the Gambia, Mauritania, Tunisia and Eritrea.
As of June 2022, 89 million people, nearly one-third of the population, are food-insecure across east Africa, with pockets of famine-like conditions in Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan. The World Food Programme says that a record 345 million people across 82 countries are facing acute food insecurity; that is up from 276 million at the start of this year. Up to 50 million people in 45 countries are on the verge of famine and 880,000 are already living in famine-like conditions in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. The grain crisis has amplified an already precarious situation in an Africa beset by raging conflicts. Think of the man-made disaster in Tigray alone. It has amplified the drought, locusts and climate change that they all face. The OECD says that the cumulative impact will make it impossible to end hunger by the UN’s stated goal of 2030, and we can assume it will also add to the now 100 million displaced people—recent figures from the UNHCR—as they flee existing instability, riots and unrest. The International Committee of the Red Cross has scaled up its operations in 10 countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, and says that
“more than a quarter of Africa’s people—346 million—are facing a food security crisis”.
It describes it as an “alarming hunger situation”.
The World Food Programme, which has seen a 44% rise in its operating costs, warns of an “unprecedented hunger challenge”. Noble Lords should read the exchange of 9 June between the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee and the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, in which we warn that the war in Ukraine has left
“millions of people facing an impending famine and starvation.”
In reply, the Africa Minister said:
“It is President Putin’s responsibility to lift this blockade so that Ukraine’s food can feed the starving.”
Yes, but we too have responsibilities, not least under the genocide convention, as we see the serious risk of genocide and Putin imposes conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the group, in whole or in part. We also have responsibilities in the context of the cuts that we have made to our development and aid programmes. Never has the WFP’s funding gap been so wide. In 2021. the value of UK contributions to the WFP in east Africa stood at just over one-third of the 2018 value. In 2021, the value of contributions to the WFP in Somalia, where there are currently pockets of famine-like conditions, stood at just 9% of the 2018 value. In 2021, the value of contributions to the WFP in Sudan stood at 18% of 2019 funding. Does the scale of our response now meet the moment? No, it does not.
I hope the Minister will tell us what plans the Government have to increase humanitarian funding for food assistance programmes to reflect the increase in global food and fuel costs, which are driving up the operational costs of agencies such as the admirable World Food Programme. I hope he will elaborate on what plans we have to work through the G7 Global Alliance for Food Security to develop international solutions to the global food crisis. Specifically, is the £130 million pledge made to the World Food Programme on 24 June additional funding, and not to be diverted from other programmes? Can he confirm that, as indicated by Minister Cleverly on 5 July, the proportion to be provided as unearmarked funding will be additional to the FCDO’s core contribution to the World Food Programme?
For the sake of millions of beleaguered people in poor countries, beyond immediate famine relief, we must do all we can to help Ukraine survive this existential assault and restore its place as the breadbasket for millions of people. We must hotly dispute the outrageous, toxic Kremlin narrative that attempts to blame western democracies for food shortages and escalating prices. It may take years for Ukraine’s farm sector to fully recover from the invasion. Fields have been destroyed, poisoned or mined, and they have been cluttered with abandoned Russian trucks, tanks and munitions. Farmers’ livelihoods will be at risk if their ability to trade is not restored. There are practical things that can be done immediately; for instance, we should welcome and join the agreement signed on 29 June by Ukraine and the EU to speed up road freight transport and the opening of what the EU has called solidarity lanes to increase throughput at EU border checkpoints. We should also help in the development of GrainLine, a grain trading platform aimed at aligning supply and demand; then there is the railway system and the need for temporary grain elevators, all of which I am sure will be explored in this debate.
To conclude, this debate is an opportunity to reiterate our condemnation of Putin’s war; to shine a light on its consequences; to demand the withdrawal of his troops from Ukraine; to call for an end to the blockades of the Ukrainian ports and to relentlessly demonstrate how Putin has precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe through the worsening of world hunger, the use of starvation as a weapon of war and his complicity in a war crime. The message should go out loud and clear from this Parliament that consumer countries should not buy stolen, plundered Ukrainian grain; that we will document every illegal shipment of stolen grain and lay the evidence before the prosecuting authorities; that we will not be blackmailed by the Kremlin; and, in the absence of an agreement, that we will work with our allies under the auspices of the United Nations to open a Black Sea humanitarian corridor to enable functioning maritime routes for the export of Ukrainian agricultural goods. I beg to move.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, what a pleasure and privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, the breadth of whose interests matches the depth of his humanity, and how sobering that he should have begun by reminding this House of the Holodomor, and the horrors and monstrosities experienced by Ukrainians. I recently read an eyewitness account of a hideous scene that unfolded in the spring of 1933 in the market in Kherson. It is almost unbearable to read, even after the passage of nearly a century. It concerned a dead mother with a still living infant, trying to suckle the last few drops. What was most shocking to the observers was that they had seen that exact scene many times before—it was no longer shocking to them. I think we can all agree in this House about what is happening in Ukraine and where the blame lies. This is a territory twice targeted by hunger, first by Stalin and then by Hitler. As the Yale historian Tim Snyder points out, it was the most dangerous place to live in the world between 1933 and 1945.
I should like to talk about how we respond. What do we do to lessen the effects of this disaster and, as importantly, what do we not do? First, do no harm, because something that alarms me is the way in which in every continent, on every archipelago, we hear people responding in a way that is emotionally understandable but intellectually very dangerous, by retreating into the illusion of self-sufficiency and protectionism. People will say that because world food supplies are being disrupted and prices are spiking, we need to be more self-sufficient—we need to grow more of our own food and be secure in our own supplies. That, it seems to me, is this worst possible response. If countries around the world begin to do this, they will exacerbate the problem and, indeed, tip the problem into a spiral of unmitigated calamity.
It is happening. Xi Jinping recently summoned a meeting of the rubber-stamp Parliament in Beijing and said, “We need to be self-sufficient in food. The lesson we must draw from this is that we cannot rely on the West”. He proposed setting aside 300 million acres of Chinese land purely for agrarian use, not to have to depend on international trade. Ukraine has, perhaps understandably, imposed a grain export limit, but it is being followed by other countries across Asia and Africa. If this carries on, we really do risk turning a problem into a calamity.
It seems to me that we are responding, as people do, in a very natural, instinctive way. We want to have food supplies close at hand because we are still thinking with our palaeolithic brains. We want to have a hoard of food nearby to survive the winter, and we struggle with the reality of the modern globalised economy, which depends on this rather counterintuitive—in the literal sense—notion of depending for our key supplies on strangers whom we cannot see. That, however, is what has eliminated famine from the world. It was at the end of the 1960s, when countries, particularly in Asia and South America—and, to a degree, in Africa—began to understand that there was a difference between food security and self-sufficiency, that famine began to disappear as a regular feature of our lives.
The reality is that food security depends on having the broadest range of suppliers—the most diverse group of suppliers possible—so that you are immune to a local shock or disruption which might as easily take place in your own territory as anywhere else. But that idea goes to a mental blind spot. It offends our inner caveman, and runs up against these inherited instincts. I am afraid that I see the world devolving into more and more barriers, which means more and more hunger.
The tragedy is that this war has come just after a pandemic which primed those caveman instincts even more. I was shocked repeatedly during the lockdown by how many people who I had down as reliable free marketeers were suddenly saying to me, “Surely, Hannan, even you must now accept the need to grow more of our own food—even you must see that it’s very dangerous to be importing 40% of our food into this country”. Is that really what people got from the lockdown? Let us recall that it happened at the end of March 2020, at the beginning of what our farmers call the hungry gap: the time of year when we do not really produce much food in this country; when we have reached the end of the winter harvest and are not producing any more turnips, potatoes and cabbages, but have not reached the start of the main summer harvest. Between the end of March and the beginning of May, other than rhubarb, asparagus and maybe a little bit of purple sprouting broccoli, we basically do not produce food in this country—but fortunately it did not matter, because we were able to rely on global markets.
That same lesson applies in spades to countries which are poorer than us. They need access to cheap, accessible global food supplies rather than the illusion of self-sufficiency. To illustrate this, you might say in an extreme way, I give your Lordships the countries at the furthest ends of that spectrum. First, consider North Korea, the country that has turned self-sufficiency into its ruling principle. “Juche” is the idea that there should be import substitution and that you should grow and produce everything possible at home. It is the last place on the planet that still experiences manmade famines. At the other end of the scale is Singapore, which does not produce one edible ounce. Singapore is wholly reliant on imports for its drinking water, food and electricity. Where would you rather live? Singapore has the cheapest and most secure food supplies in the world because food security and self-sufficiency are not the same thing. It was understanding that difference that brought our planet to a level of prosperity that previous generations could not have imagined. The worst possible thing we could do would be to turn back the clock decades, or even centuries, and thereby return to the poverty that our ancestors took for granted.
I am proud to have played some role in persuading our Government to lift all tariffs on Ukrainian exports, setting a precedent for others to follow; I was very pleased that the European Union followed suit five or six weeks later. That is of great value to Ukraine at the moment, because it has no sea access and therefore all of its exports must pass through EU territory. Can we not extend the principle? At a time when the world is dealing with a cost of living crisis, and when every country and every continent is touched by the scourge of inflation, could we not extend that principle and remove trade and other non-tariff barriers to the free flow of basic commodities such as food? Tariffs and non-tariff barriers on food fall hardest on the people who are poorest, because they have to spend a higher proportion of their income on the basics.
The United Kingdom raised itself above the run of nations in Victorian times by being the first place to have unilateral tariff removal and to invite the traffic and commerce of the world without hindrance. Let us live up to what our ancestors did, and let us lead the world a second time.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, it is fascinating to speak immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, whose contribution advocating global free trade was nothing if not passionate, and clearly extremely well-informed. It was a thought-provoking contribution, but perhaps one that did not speak to all the problems in the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in this debate. Discussing insecurity and self-sufficiency might matter at certain times for certain countries, but the Horn of Africa and countries that are on the verge of starvation already are not saying that they must be self-sufficient. They are facing extreme poverty and food insecurity precisely because of manmade problems caused by the war led by Russia. Although there is a lot we can talk about around free trade and the ideas put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I would like to take the House back to Ukraine, and think about the implications of this war and starvation as a weapon of war.
We are already five months beyond the Russian incursion into Ukraine—five months that appear to have gone very quickly. When the invasion happened, Ukraine was at the top of the headlines. People in western Europe were listening very closely; we were following everything that happened. Five months on, if you follow the British media, one would be hard pressed to know that there was anything going on other than two days of climate crisis—a heatwave—and a Conservative leadership campaign, one of the leading candidates being the Foreign Secretary. One wonders whether she has time to be doing the day job while vying to be Prime Minister, but I will leave that aside.
For five months, the Ukrainian people have sought to defend themselves. The food insecurity they are facing is manmade; it is caused by Russia. One of the questions I would like the Minister to think about and respond to is whether Her Majesty’s Government have looked at the 1977 protocols to the Geneva convention and the 1998 Rome statute of the ICC. Have Her Majesty’s Government thought about whether the actions of Russia could be tantamount to using starvation as a tool of war, and so potentially a war crime? If that is the case, should Russia be brought before the ICC on those grounds?
The war in Ukraine shook Europe. It shook the very foundations of people like me: liberal, European integrationists who thought that European integration had kept the peace in Europe for 70 years, and that we were not likely to see war again in our continent. Lest anyone pop up to say, “But there was Bosnia, 30 years ago”, I have not forgotten that. For those of us in the United Kingdom, and in western and particularly central Europe, the invasion shocked us and raised a set of concerns. Very often, we hear that in other countries in other parts of the globe, Ukraine is still seen as a distant place and the reasons for the war are contested; in many ways, it appears that the consequences of the war are misunderstood. The assumption is that this is about the continent of Europe. But this goes far beyond Ukraine: it impacts global food security, and in particular it impacts the very poorest in the world.
I should like briefly to outline the impact of Ukraine on food insecurity and food supply, and then look at the wider global implications, particularly as they affect Africa. As we heard from my noble friend Lord Alton, much of global wheat supply has previously come from Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine exported its wheat through the Black Sea. That is no longer possible precisely because of the actions of Russia: deliberate actions for which we need to hold Russia accountable. I was shocked and surprised to hear my noble friend say that when the Minister for Africa responded to your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee about Ukraine, she said, “Well, it’s Russia’s fault.” Russia may be the cause of this, but we all need to look for ways in which we can enhance food security and reduce the risk of famine and food insecurity in the African continent.
We have listened to parliamentary debates and the Conservative leadership campaigns. We keep hearing about the cost of living crisis, but fuel and food prices are also being inflated by the consequences of the war. It is desirable that we all look for ways to enhance Ukraine’s ability to continue producing food and exporting it. We have a very serious situation, which my noble friend already touched on.
I am grateful to Ewelina Ochab for a briefing she sent raising some of the issues that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had raised with her. I understand that the Minister met with a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief, so those issues will not come as a surprise. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is saying that there are credible reports of Russian troops on Ukrainian agricultural land, inevitably rendering it not fit for purpose and damaging agricultural produce, attacks on Ukrainian agricultural infrastructure and the high-level blocking of exports via the Black Sea. Putin is targeting grain and destroying crops, and then there is the question of looting. What assessment have Her Majesty’s Government made of the situation in terms of food security and the indications for Ukraine? There are 12 million displaced people in Ukraine, and many of them are facing food shortages.
Those shortages are compounded by a sense of compassion fatigue. I received two letters ahead of this debate from charities, Kaganek in Poland and Caritas in Lviv. Kaganek said that, at the start of the crisis, it was able to take a truck of food a week into Ukraine, and then built up to two trucks a week. In the first half of May, it sent 10 trucks, but now it is struggling to send one truck of food in a month. Why is that? Because donations are no longer forthcoming. Perhaps the media is not covering the crisis in the same way. Similarly, Caritas suggested that there has been a decrease in humanitarian aid estimated at 70%.
The Minister will reply not on behalf of the Foreign Office but of what is now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Does he feel that what Her Majesty’s Government are able to do to assist on a humanitarian basis in Ukraine is adequate? Does he believe what we are able to do in Africa is adequate? The House of Lords Library, in its excellent briefing, gave a response from Vicky Forde, the Minister for Africa, about what the UK is doing in Africa, and it is merely a drop in the ocean. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing in terms of aid, because we see potential catastrophe in Africa caused by the blockade of the Black Sea?
I have a final question for the Minister. In order to unlock the Black Sea, what conversations have Her Majesty’s Government had with President Erdoğan, and what does the Minister believe has come from the meeting in Tehran yesterday? The media seem more interested in the fact that Erdoğan kept Putin waiting for 50 seconds then the actual outcome. This should not be about the optics; it should be about clear and practical politics and getting solutions. This is in part about Ukraine, in part about a domestic cost of living crisis and, crucially, about the potential death by famine and starvation in the continent of Africa.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for introducing this very important debate at the very last minute, giving us all the opportunity to express our compassion for what is going on in Ukraine and, indeed, the rest of the world. The crisis is extremely serious and is, as we have heard, likely to spread, affecting the most vulnerable countries in the world.
As if the war in Ukraine and its consequences were not enough, there is also conflict in many other vulnerable countries, with the possibility of violent riots in Egypt, for example. There are exceptional world weather patterns of drought and floods, the long-term and profound effect of Covid on economies and Russia’s theft of grain from Ukraine’s stores to sell at inflated prices around the world. If this is not a perfect storm, what is?
We know that money is needed—and lots of it—to counteract rising prices of all commodities, including food and energy as well as transport. The sinister words of the editor in chief of the pro-Kremlin channel RT should alert us to possible Russian intentions; she said:
“The famine will begin and they will lift the sanctions”,
Russia is clearly playing a long game with thousands upon thousands of lives while shoring up its own war economy through inflated food and oil export prices.
We are tiptoeing around this vast country and its corrupt government. It seems that the job of the world’s diplomats is to avoid a catastrophic escalation of hostilities. Perhaps there have even been a grisly calculation of the number likely to die from starvation compared to the possibility of deaths from nuclear attack. However, unanimous international condemnation of Russia’s actions together with ever more stringent sanctions might provoke Mr Putin to sacrifice his own people under the false banner of national pride.
War has been accompanied by severe food shortage and even famine—the two are different—for millennia. Widespread famine has also occurred as a result of the failure of democracy. Between 1959 and 1961, 20 million Chinese died following Mao Tse-Tung’s industrial experiment, where every landowner throughout the country was forced to produce steel. Food supplies disappeared overnight. No one surrounding the great leader had the courage to let Mao know that his experiment was failing and causing the death of millions on the streets of China.
The great Bengal famine of 1943, during which 3 million people died, was in part due to a strict censorship in which the spread and scale of food shortage was hidden. The arrival of a free press following the famine, including in the vernacular, has guaranteed government accountability and a more equitable distribution of grain, even during periods of severe drought. It is very unlikely that famine would ever occur there again.
The end of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan came about when the mothers of the slaughtered soldiers began to realise the extent of their sacrifice through local information networks that flatly contradicted the propaganda being put out by the Soviets at that time. Although it is unlikely that there will be an avalanche of democratic institutions in Russia in the near future, every possible effort must be made to ensure that ordinary people in Russia, regardless of their long-standing animosity towards Ukraine and its people, are reliably informed about the war and able to communicate deep concerns about the progress—or not—of the fighting.
The other alternative is some kind of political compromise—something we are all reluctant to talk about. At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we had brave words from the UK Government insisting that Russia must fail and that no compromise was possible. Thirty years ago, a sad rump of Soviet soldiers and coffins departed Afghanistan for their homeland. The cost of this failed occupation over more than a decade, not to mention the longer-term consequences, appeared far from victory for anyone, as we now know. Certainly, the Soviets failed, but what does success look like and is it worth the price?
Bombing a nation into submission, together with life-affecting sanctions, does not work as a strategy for winning wars. Can the Minister tell the House whether longer-term plans, including compromises, are being tabled, discussed and refined? As we go into the Summer Recess, is there a glimmer of hope that the world is beginning to unite against Russia as the wider consequences of food shortages reveal imminent disaster? What actions have been taken internationally to curb the price of Russian exports of food and oil? Are there serious efforts to supply alternative staple foods, such as rice—mostly from south-east Asia and India, presumably—for Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt and some countries in north Africa? Are the UK Government in discussion with international partners to build adequate food reserves for the immediate future, because food shortages are likely to become an endemic problem? Finally, would Russia, or indeed Ukraine, accept the sequestration of the Donbass region in the interest of providing more food security for the world?
The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I begin by thanking fellow Members for their gracious welcome and expressing my gratitude to the parliamentary staff and officers who have so kindly supported my introduction to the House.
It is an honour to make this maiden speech in such an important debate, which focuses so clearly on the needs of the most vulnerable: those affected by the sudden steep rise in global food prices resulting from Russia’s terrible war and blockade in Ukraine. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, both for bringing this debate to the House and for his long record of campaigning advocacy on behalf of those whose suffering is too often overlooked.
It is more than 12 years since a Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham has been in this House, although the previous bishop has been a passionate advocate for the poor and young since joining the House as my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham. Nurturing the aspirations and potential of young people, particularly their influence and impact as future leaders, has long been a distinct feature of my own work, first for 17 years in parish ministry, including 10 as a vicar in south Buckinghamshire, then for 13 years as a bishop. I started out in west London as area Bishop of Kensington, and for the past seven years I have been a diocesan bishop in the east Midlands, where, along with my family, I now feel very much at home. It is my interest in the development of young people that underpins my contribution to the debate today.
Although the city and county of Nottingham are perhaps most famous for the folklore hero Robin Hood, the region has a long track record of nurturing many lesser-known heroes, who have none the less been world-shapers, championing the causes of the poor and the young; they include the inspirational founders of the Salvation Army, Catherine and William Booth. Since moving to the diocese, I have been inspired by modern heroes on the ground making a difference to the life chances and prospects of young people, proving that nurturing every talent matters.
What has struck me most is that, although parts of the city and county continue to struggle with higher than average levels of poverty, the aspirations of young people are rising. Their innate instinct to make a difference is far from parochial. Their outlook is global. They see themselves as part of an interconnected and increasingly interdependent world. That is why there should be no tension between charity at home and abroad. Their example inspires my engagement in this debate.
Compassion for those who suffer was characteristic of Jesus Christ. In the gospels, it is clear that he frequently surprised those around him by disturbing their inclination to limit the boundaries of who may qualify as a neighbour and how far their responsibility to care should extend. The lessons of the good Samaritan are rightly deeply imbedded into our spiritual heritage as a nation. I suggest that they should inform our urgent response to the crisis in the Horn of Africa and east Africa. This is no time to look away. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are now 7.1 million malnourished children in the Horn of Africa, with 2 million severely malnourished. The position is similar in east Africa.
I want to draw particular attention to how the needs of young people are disproportionately affected by the present food insecurity, not only their health but their education and life chances. Informed by some valuable links that churches in my diocese have with schools in Uganda, it is clear that the food crisis is already causing many schools to reduce their teaching week as they simply do not have enough food for the children in their care. According to the World Food Programme, one in three schoolchildren in Uganda has no food to eat during the school day. Feeding learners has become an essential priority for schools across that region. Families in desperate need also keep children out of school. Instead, they find themselves working to help earn a little more to pay for food, the cost of which has risen by nearly 14% since January. This is in a country that has the highest number of refugees and asylum seekers in Africa—nearly 1.6 million as of March. With acute malnutrition rising fastest among under-fives in the region, many thousands of children will not even reach school age.
This is not only a short-term crisis of survival. It has longer-term tragic consequences, undermining the capacity of a rising generation to be equipped with the education, skills and personal support that they need and deserve. There are tens of thousands of teachers in Uganda—and no doubt across the region—with a heartfelt and compelling vision for their students. They see the difference that a consistent, supportive and uninterrupted education can make to the future of the nation; it can also be a major contributor to food system resilience, which must be an important longer-term goal.
It is true that large sums have already been given, both bilaterally and through multilateral projects in these regions, but the need is now greater still. We should not wait until a famine is declared. Although I am thankful for some signs of progress that may result in the recent initiatives by the Turkish Government to provide safe passage for grain from Ukraine, I none the less ask the Minister this: will the Government consider increasing further bilateral aid to the Horn of Africa and east Africa without delay? It is not too late to save lives and prevent a devastating famine, with the unacceptable human cost that will result. In the long term, immediate intervention will improve the prospects and God-given potential of millions of young people across that region.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his brilliant introduction to this debate. I also welcome my colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, and congratulate him on his maiden speech. I know he has huge experience to offer to this House and will be drawing not least on the huge successes and, indeed, some of the challenges of the east Midlands, where he is based. We look forward to hearing much more from him.
Next Tuesday we will start the next Lambeth Conference. Hundreds of bishops are gathering from all round the world. They are flying into this country as we speak, including many bishops from the whole of Africa and parts of Asia, and we are going to be meeting many of these people who, in their dioceses, are facing the famine that is now ahead of us. We hope that will be an opportunity to get first-hand reports of what the challenges are and how we might be able to try to respond, to alleviate some of the terrible suffering facing our world and particularly the Horn of Africa.
Today’s debate is happening against the backdrop of the negotiations to unblock grain supplies, which we can only hope will be successful. The war in Ukraine is a powerful reminder of the interconnectedness of global supply chains, their propensity to collapse during times of conflict and the devasting far-flung consequences this can have. Relieving that blockade and the logistical backlog is to some extent a matter of life and death for many people in east Africa and one that demands an immediate breakthrough in the infrastructural solution for Ukrainian exports. The EU is working with us and others to establish solidarity lanes, which will provide additional transport stock, prioritise exports and create flexibility with respect to customs, alongside a much longer-term approach to increase Ukraine’s land-based infrastructure. It is going to require funding, not least from the USA and probably from us, if collectively we are going to maximise the amount of grain we can get out of Ukraine.
However, that is only half the story, the other half being the consequence this is having across the developing world, especially east Africa. While the situation in Ukraine has contributed to the appalling conflict and famine in east Africa, this is also the product of climate change, a severe drought and, of course, in some parts of Africa, the devastating effect of huge swarms of locusts, which have had a terrible impact.
The weather we have been experiencing this past week should be a stark reminder of how real climate change is and, while we may have experienced discomfort, rising global temperatures have much more serious consequences for most people. The confluence of all these factors, all of them human in origin, lie at the heart of the crisis in east Africa—a region with a history of famine—which makes our decision to cut some of our aid budget to those affected nations woefully misconceived.
Between 2019 and 2022, British humanitarian aid to Kenya fell by £21 million, to Sudan by £32 million and to Somalia by £18 million. Of course, aid is not the only answer. We need to try to develop trade and enable these countries’ economies to develop but we can and must respond to the immediate famine. If we are not persuaded of the moral case, it is in our own long-term interest because we are going to see huge displaced populations making their way to western Europe. It is in our interest to help them retain what they are doing and keep going.
This is a crisis that requires global intervention and support to prevent. One thing that is clear is that the crisis that is unfolding is not very well publicised. Christian Aid found that while 90% of people in the UK were aware of the war in Ukraine, only 23% were aware of the food crisis in Africa. I mention this because we have seen the most extraordinary outpouring of generous response to the Ukrainian people. In my diocese we have a whole system of welcoming and integrating families into homes and building up support groups in our parishes. Very many of those who come are traumatised; they need much more than just shelter and food. They need support, counselling and help. It has been a very traumatic time for them. We have seen the most incredible outpouring.
For this reason, we need to try to raise awareness of the potential famine in east Africa as public donations and acts of generosity may be a small additional way of responding to the immediate crisis. This is vital for us. The situation in Ukraine and in east Africa are key elements of self-reflection as we battle with our own cost of living crisis. Yes, many people in our own country are struggling but, despite this, the generosity of the British people remains extraordinarily buoyant and strong when we recognise how fortunate we are in real terms compared with most other parts of the world. We as a country have a duty to assist here—in Ukraine’s war effort, in helping end Russia’s blockade and in materially aiding east Africa during these challenging times.
I hope the Government can provide assurance that they will do everything in their power to contribute to the international effort in support of these aims.
Lord Risby (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I particularly congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham on his most informative and, frankly, moving speech. We all much look forward to his future contributions in your Lordships’ House.
I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on securing this debate, which is so timely as it underlines the brutality of Russia in threatening energy supplies to Europe and heading towards not only malnutrition but actual starvation of vulnerable people. I applaud the noble Lord, who always so admirably brings to the attention of your Lordships’ House human suffering and injustice, wherever they exist.
Last night, the think tank that I chair, the Council on Geostrategy, published a report titled Deepening British-Ukrainian Relations in a More Competitive Era. The foreword was signed by the Foreign Ministers of Ukraine and the United Kingdom. We have a relationship with Ukraine which began to take off most particularly in 2005 and has grown enormously since then. As I know, as a long-standing chairman of the British Ukrainian Society, there is huge personal admiration currently for our outgoing Prime Minister and his role in supporting Ukraine. But as I said last night in reassurance, and as I know is 100% supported by your Lordships, the freedom and security of Ukraine will, for us, be absolutely central irrespective of who the Prime Minister here is; of that, there is no doubt whatever.
We have heard the statistics. In peacetime 10% of global wheat exports come from Ukraine, 12% of maize and 37% of sunflower oil. There have been discussions under the United Nations umbrella, and particularly with the positive involvement of Turkey, to get food shipments out of Odessa, heading towards those parts of the Middle East and Africa which most particularly need wheat. It is truly shocking that Russia is, in practice, blocking real progress in this regard. Hints of positive movement have not been brought to fruition.
While huge efforts have been made to take this precious cargo to Romania, Moldova and Poland, there are severe logistical limitations. The port of Odessa has always been and remains the exit port for food products from Ukraine. Historically, Ukraine has been the breadbasket of not only the old Soviet empire but much of Europe. The silos are now filled and only a small fraction can be substantially moved out of the country by road or rail. Shocking too is that the violence meted out to Ukrainians and the wanton destruction we witness each day have been aggravated by Russians taking wheat supplies for themselves.
This brings me to the substance of our debate. David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme, bluntly warned that
“50 million people in 45 countries are now just one step from famine.”
This is true nowhere more so than in east Africa and the Horn of Africa. As has so frequently been highlighted, climate change and often poor agricultural activity have been added to by four years in a row of failed rainy seasons and the after-effects of the Covid pandemic. There is real violence and instability, particularly in Ethiopia and Eritrea; in the latter case, all wheat imports are from Russia and Ukraine. In common with so many countries, price shocks are playing their part in social dislocation and instability. The IMF has made it clear that potential food price increases will disproportionately affect Africa.
But I return to Ukraine because, even before the current invasion, there was massive displacement of millions of people in Ukraine after the de facto occupation of the eastern part of the country. More latterly, millions of people fleeing the country are leaving behind a colossal bill to rebuild it, in due course. This is having a devastating impact on the livelihood of farmers, many of whom have been subject to violence and attack.
I also bring your Lordships’ attention to the situation in Egypt, which has seen an explosion of its population. Egyptians consume around 37% of their calories from wheat and 25% of their imports are from Ukraine. In 2010, food supplies and distribution problems undoubtedly provided a backdrop for extensive protest. There has been rioting in Iraq and there is real concern in Egypt that there could be violent social instability. Your Lordships know all too well that problems and protests in Egypt often spread elsewhere in the region. The Minister is well aware of this, so I know that many of your Lordships will be anxious to hear about any additional support, either singly or collectively, to the most vulnerable areas we are talking about.
We have been made very aware of migratory flows in recent years. In Europe, we are particularly conscious of this but, if you examine the statistics, they reveal a massive increase in migratory flows on the continent of Africa. For example, between 2015 and 2019 the number of migrants from Burundi living in Uganda increased by 69%, and migrants from Ethiopia living in Somalia increased by 42%. Many migrants in Djibouti and Rwanda have escaped from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The number of Eritreans who managed to get to Europe virtually doubled in the same period, but the food crisis, as a result of the savage and unprovoked attack on Ukraine by Russia, will undoubtedly hugely increase migratory flows, most particularly within Africa but inevitably to Europe as well.
I once again express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. It is a terrible irony, as has already been expressed, that Stalin in effect starved millions of Ukrainians for not complying with his takeover of their lands—the Holodomor. It is a tragic irony that modern-day Russia may yet again cause the death of huge numbers of people who are totally removed from the conflict that the Russians have initiated, without the slightest justification.
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)
My Lords, I am deeply grateful, as always, for the piercing analysis and persistent pressure of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He consistently reminds not just the House but the country, especially the Government, of what matters most to the heart and the mind. I also say at this juncture—I hope not just on my behalf but on behalf of the whole House—that we hope this is not the last time the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, answers a debate of this nature. He is hugely loved and appreciated across the House and we hope he stays in post—please note, those who have responsibility.
This is a difficult debate. We are talking with huge anxiety about issues we can barely affect. One of the reasons for that is the ineptitude of the United Nations as an organisation. I encourage the Minister to depart from his brief, if he feels able, and express a view. The UN Security Council, which ought to be able to discuss and decide how to respond to crises of this nature, has a permanent member whose veto will ensure that no action is possible. We may continue to wring our hands for the next few years or decades, but do we not need to come to a point at which the free countries of the world, which we hope will maintain a generous engagement and involvement in the world’s development for the poorest, make a decision about the right to reside in the UN Security Council?
At what point does the post-war settlement have to change? What thinking have Her Majesty’s Government put into the prospects of a long war in Ukraine, driven by Russia’s evil intentions and our inability to take action? We must stare at our enemy across the circle in New York and simply utter platitudes that cannot get decisions. That is not something that I or any of us can give a straight answer to, but if government is not thinking about it, we are all in trouble. Government needs to think about it.
Two friends asked me this morning why I am speaking in a debate on Ukraine; it is not my normal area of interest. Africa definitely is, however, and I remind the House of my roles as a vice-president of UNICEF, an ambassador for Tearfund, the chairman of the council of ZANE, the Zimbabwe aid agency, and a governor of the M-PESA academy in Nairobi, Kenya. One of our students, a wonderful young man from Somalia, graduated three weeks ago. He went back to the Kakuma refugee camp and immediately found that his mother was unable to afford his existence, simply because food prices had rocketed to such an extent in the matter of weeks that he had been absent—he was born in a refugee camp and lived with refugee status—that his mother was unable to feed him. We assisted and all will be well, but it brought it home in such sharp relief: ordinary people struggling with difficult and complex backgrounds are fighting again for the basics of survival.
As always, and as we have heard in so many other speeches, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, gave us a litany of statistics that have come in the endless briefs, which are incredibly helpful. There is no need to repeat them, but I want to press two other points. We are conscious that at the moment we are looking at a mass food distribution problem, not just because of the limitations of food available from Ukraine and Russia but simply because our world has become used to waste.
I decided to spend some time this morning checking what and how much we waste. A third of all food produced in the world is wasted, 55% of it by those of us in the North. The European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States account for some of the largest wasters on earth. By percentage levels, Belgium comes in just after the United States. That is ironic, as Belgium is the headquarters of many esteemed institutions that ought to be better resourced in how to deal with that waste. Some 3 trillion meals are wasted every single year. Were we to galvanise our efforts with the 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted in the world, that would represent 10 meals per day for every starving child or adult to whom we have referred in this debate.
Why is this important for us? This has to become a moment of national effort. This morning we heard that the gas has been turned back on for Germany, but Germans are being encouraged to save gas to be ready for the autumn lack. It may get more difficult. It may become impossible to light their gas fires or even to power up their electricity supplies. Saving gas is a way of saving the country’s impending problem.
We need a national effort to save food. We need a European effort to save food. We need a G7 effort to save food. We need a G20 effort to save food. I am not aiming to be political in any way at all, but this is why we need alliances such as the European Union—so that we can save on the things we waste so easily and freely. If we do not save food and we continue to throw and trash it, 52.5% of all food in the United Kingdom will continue to be thrown away daily from restaurants, supermarkets and households. We are wasting while others are starving, and we need an effort driven from the centre and from the top—not just by NGOs but by the Government—to save and redistribute food. At the moment we have nothing at all from government on that issue.
We also need to consider how we think about loose resources, not necessarily gained by ill means but thrown around in a careless society where waste is so evident. Yesterday I noticed the EuroMillions lottery win of £195 million. That is $234 million, which represents $2 for 117 million people—that is the population of Ethiopia. One person will benefit with largesse and extreme gain, while millions will starve. I hear some saying, “But come on, you can’t take away the free-gotten gains of individuals”. How long will we watch millions starve, as Putin may wish, so that we become desperate in our alternative foreign policy options?
I note also—this may be uncomfortable for the Minister, but I hope not—that his current boss announced this morning that she could find £30 billion of tax cuts to be announced within the first week of her premiership, should she get there. It is worth noting, as Iain Duncan Smith did in campaigning for Liz Truss yesterday, that there is now tax headroom for substantial cuts. This year and last the United Kingdom cut our aid budget by £5 billion each time, meaning that when it comes to supporting the most vulnerable we are stripping ourselves of the ability to do so.
This should be a moment for stateswomanship or statesmanship at the helm of the Conservative Party, the Government and our nation. As we watch Ukraine drop down the headline list, and as we become more careless about what happens because we are more interested in how hot our homes are than in how desperate their lives are, we have to ask ourselves what kind of world we are creating in which we can watch such great waste, such careless abandon about public resources, such self-interest in public policy and such disregard for the destitute.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for initiating this debate. He is always well worth listening to and has deep concern for not only this issue but many others that I also have concern for.
I welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham to our ranks. I am sure we will hear much more from him. On the basis of his maiden speech, I certainly hope so, because I think we will all benefit from his wisdom.
I wish to add a bit of free thinking to this debate, as is my wont. I always used to preface speeches to schools by saying, “Nothing I say should be taken to represent in any way the party that I supposedly belong to”—and I said that while in both of the parties that I was a member of. Frankly, we are engaged in a huge amount of hypocrisy. We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, about room in the Budget for £30 billion in tax cuts. We have heard about the need for Britain to economise, and that we have to cut £5 billion from our aid budget. We have also heard of the need for us to stand up to dictators and send £4 billion-worth of military equipment to Ukraine. This is the economics of the madhouse.
In my view, we have to start by understanding the world that we are currently living in—and I am not sure we do. It has changed a lot. It is fine to talk about the veto in the United Nations; the United States used it for 40 years to defend itself over Chile, Nicaragua and invading the British territory of Grenada. The UN Security Council has been a valuable organisation purely because it is a place where people can sit down and talk. It has never actually managed much but it has achieved a certain level of understanding, and part of that understanding is that we can all make contributions.
I shall talk about one very obvious contribution: there is a great shortage of grain in the world, but if you look at the amount of grain that we stuff into animals so that we can have a steak for our lunch, you realise that we could have a bit of rebalancing. You do not have to become a mad vegan to realise that the extent of food poverty is prompted by some of the practices that we in the West defend in the name of freedom but which actually lead to people going hungry in much of the world.
We have great difficulty in understanding the Russians. The Russian mind is quite different from ours. They are not a western European nation. They are a Christian nation but they have an odd way of looking at the world, part of which is not dissimilar from that of the United States: first, they believe that they are God’s given people; secondly, they believe that they have the right to do things that smaller countries would not even contemplate; and, thirdly, we have to face the fact that the Russian people are very largely behind Putin, and we should not imagine that they are not.
I welcome the talks that are taking place between President Erdoğan, President Putin, the leader of Iran and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. All that I would point out is that those talks contain only one European voice from our side, and that is the Secretary-General, who is of course Portuguese. We have abandoned the field of diplomacy to an alarming extent. President Macron tried to keep the dialogue open, but he has more or less had to give up in the face of everything.
Looking at the situation, I see that we have been extraordinarily provocative. We did not try to get the Minsk agreements enforced; we let them bobble on, unenforced for years, and failed to realise the anger that was building up in Russia where it was seen as hypocrisy. Then the West—as a great generic term—decided that they would destabilise Ukraine by getting rid of the Yanukovych Government. That Government were no better than the Kuchma Government or the Poroshenko Government, but they did happen to represent both ends of the country. The moment they were overthrown, the Russians effectively gave up on any hope of getting any sense. We may not like it, but they regard Ukraine as being their near abroad with the same ferocity that the Americans regard Canada or Mexico as being their near abroad, and there is a limit they will not go beyond. That is the problem that we face at the moment.
The second problem we face is that, if we are successful in the sanctions, we will point Russia away from Europe. Maybe people have not fully understood that there are already two major gas pipelines running from Russia into China. There is a huge demand for resources in China, India and Pakistan. Russia can supply those resources; it has, in the Russian part of the Arctic, a huge amount of mineral wealth that it can and will deploy. If the British and other Governments persist in such foolishness as trying to destroy the Arctic Council, in the end they will find that there is a new Arctic council. Russia, which controls the greater part of the Arctic, will join with China, which, God help us, has been admitted to the Arctic Council on the basis that it is a near-Arctic country. Remember that China, that near-Arctic country, is slightly further away from the Arctic than we are from north Africa, but nonetheless it is there.
If we do not sit down and try to work out what the problems are, we face the danger of getting ourselves into a position where we are compounding our problems for the future. There will be no gas in Russia to come back to Germany; it will all be going to China and to the south, and to those emerging countries where an emerging middle class is demanding the standards that our middle class command.
Let me wind up this chamber of horrors by saying that we have to get ourselves into a position where we are talking to other European countries. It is quite possible—I think of the Scandinavian countries—to have good and principled foreign policy without doing what we are doing now. The Ukrainians will fight as long as we pump equipment in there; as long as we send arms to Ukraine, they will fire them. But one day we will go one stage too far and supply something that is just a bit too technologically advanced, and someone in Ukraine will just pop it over the border into Russia, and things will escalate from there.
While we cannot do much about it, I ask the Minister to use his influence to try to dial down the tension and stop the arms going into Ukraine, because while they go in there they will be used to destroy the country. The people of Ukraine are the losers in this, not the winners; they are going to inherit a devastated state, which will be of no value to anyone and be a lasting rebuttal of our policies. I ask us to stand back and cool down. I hope we will not have to come back here in the middle of August because things have gone desperately wrong and the war has escalated to an end that we would not wish.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for initiating this debate on a topic which I believe is central to the interests of the United Kingdom, not only to thwart Russian aggression against its neighbours but to maintain the rules-based order on which our own future growth and prosperity, as well as the sustainability of the planet, depend.
In only a few weeks, we will have a new Administration in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has just appreciated the work of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon. Likewise, I wish him good luck and possibly a promotion in the new Government.
Lord Loomba (CB)
He deserves it. But whether the former Chancellor of the Exchequer or the current Foreign Secretary wins the election, it is critical that from day one the Government focus not only on the cost of living crisis at home but on global insecurity in the supply of food and energy, all hugely aggravated by Mr Putin’s unjustified war in Ukraine.
We are aware of the impact of the Government’s decision, 18 months ago, to cut overseas aid. Leaving that important, broader argument to one side, I will merely highlight the dangers created by the impact of food insecurity in some of the poorest countries in the world, including in the Horn of Africa and east Africa. What is the value of talking tough and sending arms to Ukraine, if victory in that endeavour is made ever more unlikely by prolonged conflict and global instability? This was highlighted by the noble Lord who spoke before me.
We know that in times of trouble and economic stress it is always the poorest who suffer first and most, not only here at home but all over the world. Last year, Russia and Ukraine both ranked in the top three global exporters of many grains, oils and fertilisers, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Disruption to those supplies affects almost every country, including ours, by creating shortages and pushing up prices, but it is especially critical in countries that are unable to meet their own basic needs. As a result of the present situation, the UN has estimated that more than 180 million people in 41 countries could face a food crisis or aggravated levels of food insecurity.
We know from the anguished European discussions about Russian oil and gas in recent months that overreliance on some countries—perhaps any country—presents unacceptable security risks. We must look both at how we can meet our own needs and how we can diversify and broaden supplies. All this is equally true when it comes to food imports, but, just as with gas and oil, any alternatives take time, perhaps many years, to provide a realistic answer—particularly as for many of these countries their chance of self-sufficiency in food production is made an even more distant prospect as a result of climate change. These are just some of the reasons we are signed up to the United Nations sustainable development goals, which include ending hunger and poverty.
Her Majesty’s Government are committed to economic growth at home, withstanding aggression abroad and tackling migration. From what we have heard so far, those objectives at least are not likely to change with a new occupant in No. 10 Downing Street. However, the stresses created by the food insecurity that is caused by the conflict will stifle growth by stoking inflation, undermine a resolution in Ukraine and drive up migration, regardless of where in the world the Government threaten to send those arriving by unauthorised routes. Tackling food insecurity in Africa, in short, is central to achieving the Government’s objectives at home.
Action is being taken by both allies and opponents to protect their interests. As a Minister in the other place stated recently:
“The G7 is committed to providing support to those countries who need it and ensuring any sanctions against Russia have no direct impact on food security or supply chains.
The UK is working with Ukraine and international partners to help Ukraine export its grain and play its role as the breadbasket of the world. We will continue to fund humanitarian aid and economic support for those who need it most.”
As the World Bank has made clear, however, world grain prices are currently up 34% as a result of the uncertainty, so one is tempted to ask the Minister about that earlier reassurance. How is that going?
Russia is attempting to use the situation to form closer ties with Iran and drive a red wedge into Turkey’s relationship with its NATO partners. What is the Government’s assessment of how these manoeuvres are likely to play out? Do the Government feel that global leadership in this case requires proper co-ordination with allies around a thought-through strategy that can succeed just as much as it did during the financial crisis in 2008, and after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990?
In summary, we have a humanitarian duty to do what we can to alleviate suffering, and we have a direct interest in addressing the wider impacts of this dreadful war, which, like any war, has unpredictable consequences. I wish the Government well in their efforts to address the situation but would say that genuine multilateral collaboration is key to any successful strategy and there is no room for complacency.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate, which, as expected, has already been high-quality in its focus on both dealing with the immediate crisis and looking at broader issues. There is absolutely no doubt that there is an immediate crisis. It is essential that every possible string is pulled and every emergency step taken to keep hunger, child stunting, desperation and fear to a minimum in the Horn of Africa, east Africa and elsewhere more broadly.
I will mostly take what might be called the longue durée view, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, did in his powerful and clear introduction to this debate. This crisis did not start with the illegal Russian attack on Ukraine; it is a crisis with a long history of centuries of destruction of human knowledge, ecosystems and tens of millions of lives by a global political system that has concentrated wealth in the hands of a few in a few countries by a narrow and ignorant scientific orthodoxy. This system has destroyed ecosystems and farming systems that operated successfully and sustainably for millennia on principles that we would now call agroecological. It was a system that relied on terror and murder to enforce its inequalities and starvation, as the British Empire did in India with the Great Famine of 1876 to 1878. That system has now clearly failed due to the long series of disasters predating the Russian invasion, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, set out. These disasters include, but are far from limited to, the creation of the new geological age of the Anthropocene.
In attempting to tackle the structural failures created by an extractive and exploitative political system, the work has concentrated—again unsuccessfully—on a few narrow aspects of human ingenuity and thought. There has been so little innovation in our mainstream economic, social or political thought that has been in the hands of a neoliberal consensus which has, for decades, dominated an extremely narrow band of what has been considered mainstream politics. This has even further concentrated financial resources in the hands of the few, frequently parked in extraordinarily unproductive and pointless tax havens, and robbed by a corruption that steals at least 5% of the world’s total production—a figure from the International Monetary Fund.
The noble Lord, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, spoke about food waste; 5% of the world’s entire resources have been wasted and stolen. Collectively, those in power have shown enormous hubris in treating soil ecosystems, of which we have had no understanding, such as inert substrates, and in assuming that, by focusing on the handful of crops that now form the majority of human diets, we would be able to tackle whatever pests and diseases nature, with its hundreds of millions of years of biological development, would throw up. Their military forces continued to support despotic dictators; Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein are two of the most frequently cited examples, but I have been reading recently about the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo. Should an alien be unfortunate enough to land today on the island of Hispaniola, blighted by centuries of colonialism and neo-colonialism, they would get a crash course in the nature of the world that we have created—a world built on exploitation and inequality.
That exploitation, inequality and repression started close to home. I am not sure how many noble Lords know the history of why wheat became such a dominant crop: the aristocracy wanted to eat white bread because it was the posh thing to do, so peasants who wanted to grow a variety of crops were forced by feudal systems to grow only wheat—a much more dangerous and riskier crop—rather than other alternatives.
We can see a parallel in maize, a crop that came from the new world, where it was grown in ecological systems, mixed with beans and squash—yet we have brought it here and grown it at huge expense, with desperately bad human, animal and environmental impacts, to feed to animals and into our car engines. But that is all the past; we cannot change it—what we have to do now is look to the future. In the days, weeks and months ahead, we have to focus on getting people fed. We know of some ways. We have seen, at least at a trial level, the institution of universal basic income to give people cash transfers that they can use to meet their own needs and make their own choices. That is far better than imposing on them whatever food aid, often from our own resources, we think we can deliver to them.
The Government’s official development aid policies, already referred to by many speakers, have taken a disastrous direction, not just in slashing the volume of that ODA but in an explicit redirection towards our own trade interests. I know that the Minister will not be able to make a commitment, as we do not know what the new Government will be like, but we can hope that they might take a different direction in future.
What we need to do is to get away from the hubris of the narrow areas of what we have called science. We need to draw on, develop, enhance and support traditional ways to produce food and traditional agricultural systems. I shall give one example of the kind of system that is so essential to meeting our future food needs. There is a traditional practice in Niger, known as tassa. Farmers dig small pits uniformly across fields to collect rainwater and place manure in the bottom of each pit to increase soil fertility. Seeds are then planted in the long ridges of each pit. In one trial with millet, a matching piece of land planted without the technique yielded 11 kilos per hectare. The tassa land yielded 553 kilos per hectare.
Small-scale agriculture can and must provide a good secure living, with some essential prerequisites, including security of land tenure, with democratic local structures of input and information enabled among farmers, and crops grown that are suited to the natural environment and are diverse and resilient. We can start at home by supporting our own farmers to move fast towards agroecological systems, to feed ourselves, as work at the Centre for Alternative Technology has demonstrated is possible. What right do we have to rely on other people’s soil, water and labour to feed ourselves? Sure, if they produce something extra-special, tasty and attractive, such as spices or coffee, there is nothing wrong with swapping that for something we produce that they want, but we should not be taking essential staple foods or nutrients out of the mouths of others, particularly the world’s poor.
It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, is not in his place, because I want to address some of the points he raised, starting with the free trade deal with Australia. Noble Lords may not know, but I suspect it will come up a lot in our future debates that a major “state of nature” report has just come out in Australia. It is a bit of a contest, but it is probably even worse than our “state of nature” reports. It says that Australia
“lacks an adequate framework to manage its environment”,
yet we are planning to take food from there.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, said that the last place on earth to experience man-made famine was North Korea. I am not sure that he was actually listening to the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in which he gave a very long list of famines experienced in the world now and in the recent past. Relying on the market for food means the rich can get what they want while the people without money cannot. Relying on the market for food has left us, since the 1990s, when most of these figures started, with a world in which about the lowest figure we have managed to get is 750 million people regularly going to bed hungry. We have never done better—if that is the right word—than that. That is a failed model.
The idea seems to be that we will just ship this food round and round the world. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans made a really important point about the sheer fragility of relying on global supply chains, which of course the situation in Ukraine only helps to highlight.
I come to a final point and a direct question for the Minister. I talked about small farmers needing land security. I believe it is time that our Government spoke out strongly against the transnational land agreements that are stealing the most basic resource, particularly of Africa, from people who are effectively powerless to resist. Will the Minister comment, and perhaps update the figures I have from 2008 and a study from the Wilson Center, which say that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and the eastern nations controlled more than 7.6 million cultivated hectares overseas? I have no doubt that that figure has since grown. I am almost out of time, but—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Well, I have one sentence, to finish, about that transnational land ownership. In the Victorian-era British Empire, men who stood in this very Chamber forced Indian soldiers, abused into submission by the vicious repression after the Great Rebellion, to guard trains that were taking away desperately needed food from their wives and children, to be shipped to these shores—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Will we tolerate the same thing happening in the 21st century?
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, follow that. The noble Baroness is one of our most interesting and provocative Members and in some of her historical interpretations, Karl Marx would be proud of her. Nevertheless, she made some very pertinent points about famine and there were things of which we should take note.
I begin, as others have done, by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate, as we prepare to rise for the Summer Recess, on this very important topic, and for expounding it brilliantly in his opening speech in such a way that we do not need to repeat the statistics he gave, which were chilling. This subject is chilling. The brutality and barbarity of Russia in Ukraine is something that Europe has not seen since the Second World War—on a smaller scale, yes, in Bosnia, but not on a large scale since the Second World War.
It is very good that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham has made his maiden speech. We welcome him to the House and we hope there will be many more contributions, particularly on those subjects on which Bishops, frankly, should hold forth in this House. I am sorry that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans is not present, and very sorry that my noble friend Lord Hannan is not present. I just wonder if the Whips will consider putting out a little note to the effect that in short debates, we really should all be here for the whole debate, because it is difficult if one wants to respond to something in a critical way if the person to whom one wishes to respond is not present. I hope that when we come back it will be a rule that if a debate is four hours or less, other than for an urgent call of nature one should be in one’s place throughout.
This is a terrible situation we are facing and it is not sufficient, as my noble friend Lord Hannan did, to preach—most eloquently—the doctrine of trade. Of course, trade is the lifeblood of nations and it is very important that trade should be encouraged in every way possible and should be as free as possible, but in a time of war, that is not always possible. I know, as one brought up in the Second World War, when we were indeed urged by our great wartime leader to, “Dig for Victory”, that it was important to have a degree of self-sufficiency. I think we have to recognise that by taking an extreme line on anything, we frequently defeat our own arguments.
We are rising for the Summer Recess and I want to concentrate on something that is more domestic, although very much related to what we are saying. I begin by saying what a joy it was to see for a few minutes in our midst the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. There is no one who has served our constitution better than the noble Lord, or been a better historian of modern Britain. I long for the day when he is able to come back, much recovered from his ill-health, and contribute to our debates as I know he has done to the Constitution Committee throughout the pandemic and beyond.
Having mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, I want to talk about the government of our country. We do not have control internationally, and the noble Lord, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, made some very pertinent comments about the United Nations. What we do have is an absolute duty, at a time like this, to be fully present on the international scene.
I am one of those, and I have mentioned it before in your Lordships’ House, who deplores the fact that at the moment we are in something of a vacuum. We know the Prime Minister is going—we think it is going to be on 4 or 5 September—but throughout August, which is a very difficult month historically, we are not going to have a fully functioning Government with Ministers who know they are in office for the foreseeable future. The First World War began in August; the Second World War began on 3 September, and August was the build-up month. Only last year we were summoned back in August over the crisis in Afghanistan. I believe that if it had been handled better, we might not have a war in Ukraine, because if the West had demonstrated proper resolution at that time, led by the greatest nation in the West, the United States, I do not think Putin would have tried it on. I cannot prove that—nor can anybody else—but I think it highly likely that the history of the last 12 months would have been noticeably and significantly different.
It is very important that a country not be left without a fully functioning Government for six weeks. The problem at the moment is that we are in that position, as Parliament rises. If there is a need for a recall, how is that managed? I do not know. It is very wrong—and I choose my words deliberately—that a great political party should so organise its business that a mere 160,000 people and the need to consult them leads to a suspension of fully effective government for six weeks. I hope that my party will look at this again. If you are choosing a Leader of the Opposition, it is a more relaxed exercise. If you are choosing the Head of Government—the Prime Minister—well, I am one of those who believes that it should take place at the other end of the Corridor, in the other place.
Had that been the case, a new Prime Minister would have chosen today, and would have been able to move into Downing Street tomorrow. I think it is a great missed opportunity, because the world is a dangerous and, in many ways, fragile place. As a great country—and we are a great country—with international responsibilities, membership of the G20 and G7 and a permanent seat at the United Nations, we should not put ourselves in the position where we cannot take great decisions at times like this. I am sorry to have to say this, as I am very proud to be a Conservative—or have been. I have been a member of the Conservative Party for almost 70 years, I fought my first general election as long ago as 1964 and I have been in Parliament for 52 years. I have devoted much of my life to the Conservative Party and to Parliament, and I find it very painful to have to say these things. But they have to be said, because we must not put ourselves into a similar position ever again. Indeed, that applies to all political parties: it is important that the Official Opposition—another great political party—learns from the mistakes it made, for instance, over the manner in which Mr Corbyn became its leader.
However, to go back to where we began: we are in a great crisis. We could be engulfed with famine of a sort that we have not seen before in parts of Africa. We could see the war in Ukraine escalate, and we must be very careful indeed about how we handle that because, as I said in the first debate we had on Ukraine,
“There is no point in rattling sabres if all you have are scabbards.”—[Official Report, 25/2/22; col. 495.]
We must make sure that we have proper defences, both to give them and for ourselves. All these things need to be addressed and, when we come back in September, I hope that we will begin addressing them anew.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, after that I feel many of us would have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack; I pay tribute to his long parliamentary service—he should know. Whether the Government can respond on that one today, I do not know, but I am quite certain the Minister will resolutely defy what has been said.
All of us feel despair when we hear news of the many civilian casualties in Ukraine, from weapons not of war, but of murder, wielded by the Russian army at the behest of one man. He is playing with human lives like toys and we cannot stop such cruelty without much more focused international agreement. I must thank my noble friend for taking on yet another huge global issue and, as usual, he has the knack of good timing; his reminders of past famines in Ukraine are themselves quite chilling.
Less understood by the public than the war, I think, are the knock-on effects of the grain blockade on civilians in developing countries that were already vulnerable to starvation and famine for many reasons not to do with Ukraine. My noble friend has mentioned Eritrea and the Horn of Africa. I will focus mainly on the two Sudans, and I speak as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sudan and South Sudan, and I am pleased to see that other members are present. I commend the FAO’s latest report, which says, in summary, that the Ukraine blockade has come on top of inflation, rising food prices, soaring fuel and transport costs and the effects of the Covid pandemic. All this has led to lower incomes that have negatively affected both the quality and the quantity of food throughout the world. Millions are malnourished simply because they cannot afford a healthy diet. The world is quite off-track as far as the relevant sustainable development goals are concerned. Naturally, the FAO says, there must be a complete reassessment of the way world food is distributed. I cannot respond to that myself, but I know that Oxfam disagrees with the present system of food distribution and cites the FAO report as confirmation that the present system works against the more vulnerable and the poorest farmers.
I begin with some of the latest assessments of UN agencies on the spot. The World Food Programme reported last month that more than 15 million people in Sudan, or one in three Sudanese, are food insecure, which is a 7% increase on last year. The figures are higher for Darfur and Blue Nile, which are areas of conflict, but weather extremes are also to blame. The WFP says that Sudan imports 50% of its wheat from Russia and 4% from Ukraine, on average, so food access and availability will be sharply and directly reduced by any shortfall and the inevitable price increases. The worst affected area is West Darfur, where the needs of over 323,000 IDPs—internally displaced persons—have to be met. In Kordofan, there are over 270,000 IDPs and 40,000 South Sudanese refugees. Finally, Gedaref has over 77,000 refugees from the war in Tigray. These conflicts are having effects across the borders of neighbouring countries. At a national level, food prices are rising in Sudan, and the economy is quite unstable following the army coup last October. The political scene is dire, with the army incapable of working with highly respected and quite sophisticated civil society representatives, as the Minister knows from his own experience.
Moving to South Sudan, the agencies are reporting very serious malnutrition and food shortages on an alarming scale. Again, some 8.9 million people—which in this case is more than two-thirds of the population—are estimated to need significant humanitarian assistance and protection this year. One major problem is funding. The humanitarian agency OCHA reported on 4 July that life-saving humanitarian operations have been either suspended or reduced, or that they will be terminated if the funding situation remains as it is. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has already presented us with a case study from Somalia of what happens after that.
Many local communities have been displaced by communal violence in South Sudan. UNICEF is appealing on behalf of malnourished children, such as those referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, whom I welcome to the House. He spoke very movingly about children in Uganda. Other smaller UN agencies such as the IOM, which manages migration, are doing a remarkable job looking after the more vulnerable refugees and displaced and trafficked people. The noble Lords, Lord Loomba and Lord Risby, both made this connection with migration. Any diminution of food supplies is bound to hit these groups hardest, and I hope the Minister will explain why the international response to UN appeals has been so inadequate.
Our perception of food distribution on the television tends to be that it is off the back of a lorry, sometimes with violent scenes involving the most hungry, so it does not have a very good image. The vast majority of grain is distributed at the next level down, through local organisations, NGOs and churches, and is, on the whole, safely and fairly delivered. Without those NGOs, the UN system would fail. Without secure food delivery, other charitable work will suffer or dry up altogether.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, the deeper problem is that humanitarian funding is drying up. This was also emphasised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. Churches and faith-based organisations have been active not only on the humanitarian side but with conflict prevention. Living in the Salisbury diocese, which is linked with both Sudans, I am aware of several peace initiatives, including medical and educational projects, supported by the diocese. It is tragic that, while so many Sudanese bishops are coming to the Lambeth Conference this month, our church leaders have not been able to visit Sudan or South Sudan because of insecurity. The arrival of so many bishops from Africa presents a formidable challenge to our churches, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out.
The UNHCR has increasingly turned its attention to the internally displaced. For example, the conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia led to at least 2.5 million more people being displaced within their country, some 1.5 million of them returning to their homes. The UNHCR says that the DRC, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen all saw increases of between 100,000 and 500,000 people internally displaced. My noble friend mentioned a global total of 100 million, which is almost incredible.
Finally on Tigray, I well remember the famine in the 1970s—I expect many of us can—which is when I joined Christian Aid. I especially recall Emperor Haile Selassie’s total neglect of the northern provinces of Tigre and Wollo. History is repeating itself, because the Tigray people then rose up against the Amhara and took power in the 1990s, and this could happen again. This time, it is Ethiopia refusing to admit or declare a famine, even condoning the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray.
The Minister will know that last July the special rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea published a devastating critique of the treatment of Eritreans by their own Government, including sexual violence against refugees in Tigray. Does he think there has been any progress, given that that report has been blocked by Russia and China? What representations has the FCDO made to Addis Ababa about starvation in its own country?
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his consistent humanity and leadership, and congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his excellent maiden speech. I was thinking that the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham is probably the only bishop with two racecourses.
Last Monday, the Telegraph online published an article describing the first-hand experience of cattle herder Dahir, whose family had lived a pastoral life in Somaliland for generations. The article illustrated the brutal and devastating circumstances that have transpired as people try to navigate surviving the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa for 40 years. The article, headed “First I lost my livestock. Then I lost my children”, depicts the harrowing story of how two of Dahir’s children, Amina and Muhammed, aged four and six, died from dysentery after being faced with no other option than to drink murky water. Dahir had already lost his income and the ability to support his family, as his goat herd had diminished to 10% of its original size in just 18 months. A lack of funds meant that Dahir was unable to afford transport for his children to receive treatment and, as a result, tragically, they died.
This year, at least 805,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Somaliland and Somalia in search of food and water. That number is rising as we speak, with thousands suffering from the long-term impacts of four failed rainy seasons. The story I just told describes one person’s experience and one family’s tragedy but this is happening across the entire Horn of Africa. According to the International Rescue Committee, over 18.4 million people in the region, half of them children, are on the verge of starvation.
Although the devastating drought is a significant reason for the current emergency, it is only one factor. On 11 July, the President of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi, published a letter requesting drought assistance. He began the letter by stating:
“In a country that is still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19, the accumulation of multiple factors—the cyclic droughts, measles outbreak, and war in Ukraine has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Somaliland.”
President Abdi’s letter outlines how a conflict almost 5,000 miles away has managed to have an outsized impact on the region.
As has been stated, the Ukrainian Government banned the export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and some other food products to forestall a food crisis and stabilise the market. The partial ban on wheat and grains by Russia between 15 March and 30 June has further squeezed global supplies. Wheat and wheat products account for 25% of the average total cereal consumption in east Africa, with the highest consumption per capita in Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan. Somalia and Somaliland import about half of their national food supply, including 92% of their grain supplies, from Ukraine or Russia; that same grain currently lies blocked off in Odessa. Up to 84% of the wheat demand in the entire region is met by imports, and reliance on direct imports from Russia and Ukraine has led to the rise in global prices.
As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, two further major exports of Ukraine and Russia are fertiliser and sunflower oil. As well as pastoral farming, most countries in the Horn of Africa rely heavily on crop farming as a large contributor to the economy, as well as a protection to ensure food security. Fertiliser is key to revitalising the soil and creating an environment where crops such as teff, a staple grain for Djiboutian cuisine, can be grown. For countries such as Djibouti, the conflict in Ukraine is a double-edged sword. Not only can they not import grain to feed their population; they cannot import fertiliser to grow their own crops. This will do little to aid the cause of food security in such nations.
The Russian invasion has caused major disruption to global supply chains. We have felt the impact of those disruptions here in the UK; for example, with longer waiting times, back-ordering, and a lack of sunflower oil on supermarket shelves. But we need to consider the detrimental impact that these disruptions have had on countries such as Somaliland, Djibouti and Sudan.
As a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, it has become increasingly difficult to source even the most fundamental medicines needed for the oral rehydration of severely malnourished children living in the Horn of Africa. As acute malnutrition rises across Somaliland and Somalia, with nutrition clinics reporting a 265% increase in the number of severely malnourished children under five needing treatment, the IRC has found that aid delivery has been severely impacted by the 200% jump in malnutrition treatment costs due to disruptions in the global supply chain.
One country that sits at the heart of this crisis and which I continue to mention—it is a country close to my heart and one that I recently visited—is Somaliland. Somaliland is an internationally unrecognised former British protectorate. It is a stable, peaceful and functioning pro-western democracy in a region ravaged by conflict, Islamist extremism and Chinese appropriation.
This perfect storm of humanitarian crises, made worse by the Ukraine conflict, could not have come at a more dangerous time for Somaliland. Like many other developing countries, Somaliland had just begun to emerge from the pandemic with a growing economy, boosted by UK assistance and investment in the DP World port facility of Berbera, as well as a major trade corridor that links Somaliland with its landlocked neighbour, Ethiopia, and its population of over 100 million.
I have previously mentioned in this Chamber the devastating fire that ravished Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa. This fire engulfed and destroyed the central market of the capital city, destroying the livelihoods of thousands of mostly female market traders and the families they supported. This only contributed to Somaliland’s already dire economic, food and health crises.
While unrecognised, Somaliland has failed to receive even 20% of the aid it needs to survive the impending famine. But if Somaliland was recognised as an independent democracy, it would better protect its citizens and ensure that aid funding and relief is delivered directly to people such as Dahir and his children. Furthermore, recognition would unshackle Somaliland’s incredibly entrepreneurial and free-market economy to make sure aid was no longer the sole driver of development. Somaliland’s small businesses and leading companies would contribute to development by lifting millions out of poverty.
I pay tribute to the impressive and diligent Foreign Minister Dr Essa Kayd and of course, to the indefatigable spokeswoman for Somaliland, former Foreign Minister Edna Adan Ismail. But Somaliland’s lack of recognition means it is currently completely cut off from the international financial system, from development funds in the World Bank, the African Development Bank, or international commercial banks. In fact, non-recognition means that Somaliland, a genuine democracy, is effectively under more financial restrictions than Russia.
Helping Somaliland is not just about a moral responsibility to an ally of the UK; it matters to us here too. Somaliland has been free of the almost daily terrorist violence inflicted by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab in the rest of the Somali region. That is because Somaliland spends 30% of its annual budget on security. We in the UK recognise the critical role Somaliland is playing in the security of its 850 kilometres of Red Sea coast shoreline by being a leading supporter of its security forces. Ensuring Somaliland’s continued stability is helping us, here in the UK, keep safe.
I appeal once again to the Minister, who I know understands this issue well, to go back to the FCDO and ensure that we fulfil our obligations to the people of Somaliland. They need our help, they need our assistance and they need our recognition.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Lord and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, have focused on this geographical area towards the conclusion of this debate. In my view, it is the natural area where our focus should be as the consequence of Putin’s aggression. It is in that area, in Somalia in particular, that this summer 350,000 children are facing not just acute hunger but starvation.
When a young boy or girl starves because they are not receiving sufficient calories, their body starts to feed itself on its own carbohydrates, fats and proteins. When these are diminished, their body cannot regulate its own temperature so they have painful chills. A number of days later, their kidneys fail and their immune system weakens. Then their body has no other choice but to feed on itself, with muscle and heart failure. This is 350,000 children in Somalia this summer. That is the equivalent of all under-fives in Scotland.
So this debate is about the children, and I am so pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, secured it and opened it so comprehensively. As others have been, he was so comprehensive with the statistics that they need not be repeated. He and others including the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, referred to this region. I have a particular interest in Sudan, of which the Minister is aware; I was there just a couple of months ago. But a number of years ago, I visited one of the regions that the noble Earl singled out, Gedaref. I met with sorghum farmers who are seeking to innovate but under enormous difficulties, being so close to the border. They need resilience against flash-floods and they continue to struggle against the political oppression that there had been under the previous regime, a dictatorship. This is not simply a discussion about innovations in agriculture or about free trade; it is the confluence of all these complex areas, especially for those people who have very little resilience themselves.
I declare an interest in that I chair the UK board of Search for Common Ground, which is the world’s largest peacebuilding charity. Coincidentally, I was chairing it this morning. I left the meeting to ask the question about Sri Lanka, which is linked to this issue, in many respects, with people suffering because of a lack of fuel and food. There has been a consensus in this debate that one of the consequences of the Russian aggression is that more states are now vulnerable to conflict and instability. That means we are also likely to see a struggling harvest in Ukraine in the coming year, which will add to that. This is after the convulsions of the pandemic, in which the world’s most vulnerable saw the West operating with a degree of vaccine nationalism and selfishness, and, as we heard in the debate, a lack of full replenishment of the requests for support from western countries.
We are at a very dangerous point in the world, at the moment. That is why today’s debate, as we break for a summer holiday, has been of such a sombre nature. It is also depressing, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, because to some extent we thought that one part of history would never repeat itself—what I would term the weaponisation of wheat. It is that truly awful element of using starvation of children as a tactical or geopolitical weapon. I am so pleased that my noble friend Lady Smith and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referenced the update to the Geneva convention and the ICC. We have heard about the difficulties with Russia for the ICC and know about these complexities, so I would be grateful to know if part of the UK’s support for the ICC to capture evidence of war crimes is looking at this area, in particular. What is the evidential base that the UK Government consider when building evidence of starvation as a war crime?
When I saw the full Russian invasion, I knew almost immediately that there would be long-term impacts. There were two reasons. The first is because, having represented an agricultural community in the Scottish Borders, I would speak to farming friends—this is a number of years ago—who would monitor the Ukrainian wheat market almost as oil traders or financiers would in the City of London. They would know what the impacts would be of likely yield on harvest, likely prices, those who were buying ahead or those who were effectively shorting on this market. They knew that the impact of the shocks on the Borders economy would be immediate.
Equally, as the Minister and the House know, because I referred to it when I came back, during the first week of the full Russian invasion I was in both Baghdad and Beirut. In these countries, the supply of bread is fundamental not only to their diet but to their culture. From conversations I had with people there, they knew the impact would be immediate. We therefore see the consequences of prices going up and staggering inflation—food inflation of 44% in Ethiopia, nearly five times the global average, and a 78% increase in maize prices in the Horn of Africa. The impact across the Middle East and other regions has been enormous.
During Questions today I raised the fact that the geostrategic interest is perhaps moving east into Asia, with other countries now having an impact in this area. We are seeing a global element. As much as our press will consider that we are perhaps winning the war within Europe, we know that the consequences are spreading wider.
I find it slightly distasteful that the Foreign Secretary is touting the Ukraine example as part of her leadership credentials; I think this issue should be left out of that. She seemed rather uncomfortable this morning when asked about her Liberal Democrat heritage.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I have inadvertently united the House.
She said in her defence that it is “ludicrous” to believe the same things when you are 46 as when you were 17. I joined my party when I was 16. One of the reasons I joined it is that we were committed to spending 0.7% on international assistance. I not only believe that now but worked with colleagues to legislate for it; I am a passionate advocate of this. It is not ludicrous to believe in some of the things you believed in when you were 16 and started to be politically active.
The debate on the UK response to this global humanitarian situation is not just on the security aspect but on development assistance. Last week the Government announced £156 million for the financial year for the humanitarian crisis in east Africa. That is welcome, but in 2017-18 it was £861 million. I would be grateful to know where the funds are being secured for this £156 million. Is this included in the unlawful 0.5% target or is it over and above that, given the circumstances of the crisis?
On support for the World Food Programme, in June this year a Downing Street press release heralded, “PM Pledges New Support for Countries on the Food Security Frontline”, which announced £130 million to the World Food Programme. People welcomed it, and they should, but I looked back on the Government’s performance agreements with the World Food Programme. In the year in which we legislated in this House for 0.7%, UK support for the World Food Programme was £264 million—literally double. In this debate we have identified the global need as considerably higher than it was then, so why have the Government halved their support for the World Food Programme, given that the need is so enormous?
Let us look at one individual country that has been raised frequently in this debate. Here I welcome the right reverend Prelate to the House and the speech he gave. He and his right reverend friend the Bishop of St Albans, who has worked with dedication on these areas, mentioned the Horn of Africa and Somalia. Support for children in Somalia is critical. In 2019-20 UK support was £260 million because we recognised that this was a priority area. That fell by £120 million to £141 million in 2020-21. I raised concerns about that, and was shocked to realise that it fell again to £91 million in 2021-22. It is scheduled to go up to £116 million, but it will be down to £58 million in 2023-24. All the extra support that the Government have announced will not even get close to matching the gap in funding of £370 million, just for humanitarian support for the people of Somalia, that we have seen cut within just two years. On top of that, we have seen bilateral aid slashed in so many areas.
The fault of all this is not with the British Government; it is with Putin’s aggression, and Russia should be held to account for it. However, the response for the people who are suffering the most can be in our hands. It is in our interests as a country, geopolitically and strategically, and on defence and security, that fewer people starve and fewer people fear hunger, which will prevent them becoming internally displaced people, or moving to Europe and this country. It is in our benefit but, even more, it is in the benefit of those people, to see the UK—one of the richest and most privileged countries in the world—as having a moral basis that is the opposite of Putin’s aggression, and to see the UK stepping up support to ensure that those victims have a friend. I want this country to be their friend.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for initiating today’s debate. Listening to the speeches here today, I think the expertise and care that has been shown on this issue does this House enormous credit. It has been a sobering debate.
I noted that a number of noble Lords paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, in his role, and expressed their hope that he remains in this role the next time that we discuss such issues at the Dispatch Box. I hope that he does, but if not, I hope that he is in a more senior post to which he can bring the care and compassion he has shown in this role, because we want to see that across government, not just in isolated pockets.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, said that he wanted to shine a light on the impact that the war in Ukraine is having on other areas as well. We have heard that today, and I will comment on other speeches. The capacity we have here to have a more detailed debate has shown that it this is not just about the military response; the Government and international agencies must have a much wider response to address the consequences.
It is in that regard that I turn to the maiden speech from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham. The House will benefit from his expertise and wisdom on the issues that he spoke about. His speech today was passionate and powerful, but also very grounded; that is an attribute that will be of enormous benefit to your Lordships’ House. I welcome him joining us and look forward to further contributions from him.
As we have heard today, the destabilisation resulting from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine continues, bringing with it humanitarian crises that go way beyond the region in which we see military action. Many millions of people in developing countries, including in the Horn of Africa and east Africa, are already suffering from hunger and malnutrition, and it is predicted to get worse. The scale of this crisis is not one that immediately comes to mind in the press reports that we have seen or in comments that are made, which tend to focus on the destruction in Ukraine without focusing on the much wider implications around the world. We know that the invasion is a clear act of aggression and an illegal act, but the blockade of ports is barbaric and has an international impact. By seeking to prevent the export of grain, and destroying crops and farming infrastructure, Putin’s objective is that the suffering created by the invasion goes much wider than the immediate region.
As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, this is using hunger and starvation as a weapon of war. It is almost trying to blackmail other countries into not supporting Ukraine and backing off from attacking Russia’s actions. We have to be clear that we stand unshakably with our NATO allies in providing military support and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. However, if we fail to recognise the global insecurity in food and the threat of hunger and starvation across the world then we are failing in our wider duty.
I hope the Minister can say something about the efforts of Turkey and UN officials to broker an agreement to open the Black Sea. Clearly that is essential, so we would be grateful if he could tell us about progress on what is happening there.
I share the concerns of the other noble Baroness, Lady Smith—that gets very confusing—who raised this issue: in so many of the press reports, we do not read about these kinds of issues and we do not hear these debates. The only thing that I saw about the talks were the comments that she referred to about the face that Putin was pulling when he had to wait for just under a minute for the talks to start. We need greater awareness of the impact that this is having beyond Ukraine. If those talks can be successful, and if there is anything we can do to facilitate them, they will have an enormous impact.
Last month the Foreign Secretary met her Turkish counterpart to discuss the option of using UK support to escort grain. I appreciate that she is rather distracted at the moment but there is nothing more important than this matter, and I hope the Minister here can press this. I would certainly like to hear more about the discussions and about the Foreign Secretary’s ongoing role in them, because we do not know that. As much as we love the Minister, it needs the authority of the Foreign Secretary to be engaged at the highest level. What form would that UK support take? How would we manage it? Has anything been agreed? If the Minister has anything to report back on this during the Recess, I ask that he write to noble Lords who have taken part in today’s debate rather than waiting until we return in September.
Any agreement with Putin’s regime has to be treated with some caution, not just because there may be instability in the regime as we progress but because there is the possibility that Russia may not hold to its agreements. Noble Lords will know that one issue we feel very strongly about is that nations should hold to agreements that have been made, which is why there were some murmurs earlier today when the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill had its First Reading. Abiding by agreements is essential but we have to treat with caution any agreement with President Putin. We need an absolute commitment to pursue the end of this conflict because that is the only way to resolve so many of these problems. They will not just be solved by negotiation and finding alternative routes.
On that, I would be interested to know just how closely aligned the two government departments are. I am grateful for the brief that I had this morning from the Ministry of Defence on its ongoing actions, but I am not clear how the issue of food supplies and wider humanitarian issues are fed into the Ministry of Defence, because the two departments have aligned themselves policy-wise.
While the negotiations are ongoing, we have to commit ourselves to taking steps to mitigate the blockade. We have heard a number of facts and figures today but 96% of Ukraine’s grain has historically been exported via the Black Sea. When that route is closed off, the impact is hugely significant. There is the potential for limited quantities to leave by rail and road, but if that were easy then it would have been done before; it would have been the route used previously.
Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister has raised the prospect of new trade routes through Poland and Romania. I am sure the Minister is aware of the challenges that this poses, not least because of different gauges of railways and having to deal with attacks from the Russian military. Are we currently giving any support to the Ukrainian Government to try to support those routes? They might have a limited impact but that would still be significantly more than we are seeing at present. Can he say anything about any financial contribution being made by the FCDO to repair the rail infrastructure that has been destroyed by the Russian military? Are there any ongoing discussions about other borders that could be used as well?
Those on the brink of starvation—those countries on the brink of famine—cannot just wait for the war to end to see some relief to their suffering. Despite what I have said to the Minister about giving us an update on what mitigation measures are being taken, that in itself will never be enough. There is an urgent need in the developing world for support now.
The noble Lord, Lord Polak, referred to Somalia and, from the examples he gave, one thing struck me: what happens there affects stability in this country. In assisting other countries there is a self-interest—a self-awareness of the impact it has here as well. The right reverend Prelate referred to the cuts in international aid that are affecting these countries. It does the Government no credit whatsoever that these cuts have been made at a time when that support is needed the most. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about that. Somalia was importing 92% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, so it is especially vulnerable; I think the noble Lord referred to that. Long-term forecasts in Ethiopia suggest that rainfall later this year will be significantly less than the amount necessary to support a strong harvest, so it has problems importing and the climate emergency is affecting such countries as well.
In a sense, the Government’s role is twofold or threefold. It is important and we want them to take a lead in this. We must work with multilateral institutions to deliver the aid that is needed, but I would like to press the Minister more on the resilience measures that the Government want to build in, and the resilience-building measures that we can help countries take so people are not forced to leave their homes to search for food, water or medical care and support. Is he able to say anything about the action that has been taken as part of UNICEF, the World Food Programme and other multilateral agencies not just to deliver aid but to build resilience and provide expertise?
In conclusion, the only point I need to make is that this has shown us how interdependent countries are. Is it not part of chaos theory that, when a butterfly flaps its wings, the impact is felt around the world and it gathers pace as it moves? Many years ago, as the Cold War came to an end, I think we relaxed a bit too much. People took a step back and thought, “This is resolved”. What we have seen is an escalation of problems that are now damaging the entire world. If we have learned anything as a country, we need to heed the lesson that we are not completely independent. We are not just self-reliant—a point the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, was trying to make earlier on. We are co-dependent with others and we have responsibilities to that co-dependency. If we just stand back and think this is a problem for other countries, we harm not just those countries but ourselves. We do so in practical terms, but we harm our humanity as well. There is an opportunity here to step up and show both our resilience for our nation and our humanity to other nations, as it is the right thing to do. In what I hope is not his last outing in his post at the Dispatch Box—unless he is going on to greater things—I hope that the Minister today can show that there is humanity still in the Government and that we will be addressing these issues in the way that we should.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, first and foremost, I join all other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for tabling this debate. David is someone I have known for many years, and I concur with everything that has been said. Today’s debate and his insightful, detailed and expert knowledge on a subject that, once again, draws the House together on the importance of our collective response in the face of aggression is something that I know that he champions but that we also celebrate. We thank him for all he does in this respect.
I join others in welcoming the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham to his place. His contribution today was insightful and showed expertise, but it also very much brought home the importance and the role of faith in finding some of the solutions. As someone who just oversaw the delivery of the FoRB conference in London, I think faith institutions and faith NGOs, as well as others, have an important role to play as we face up to many of the development challenges, including those humanitarian causes around the world.
I want to quote from a UN report which was published on 8 June. I commend it to all noble Lords. There have been direct discussions with the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, and I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, that we are working closely with our multilateral partners. I have certainly taken that important relationship very seriously in my capacity as Minister for the UN. I reassure noble Lords that while the summer break beckons for most, I certainly intend to be at the UN in the middle of August, partly on this very issue of Ukraine but also on others, such as Sri Lanka, because the world does not stop. Unfortunately, the challenges of famine and the war in Ukraine will not stop. Of course I say to the noble Baroness that if there are updates to be shared I will share them with your Lordships’ House. I also assure her that I work closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence in our collective response, not just to the situation in Ukraine but in focusing on the continuing plight of many people suffering in Afghanistan, among other places.
The UN report alluded to focused on food security. I will quote directly from it:
“A war is always a human tragedy, and the war in Ukraine is no exception. The ripple effects of the conflict are extending human suffering far beyond its borders. The war, in all its dimensions, has exacerbated a global cost-of-living crisis unseen in at least a generation, compromising lives, livelihoods, and our aspirations for a better world by 2030.”
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is wearing the SDGs badge on his lapel. Again, whether it is the Covid crisis or this war, it really puts under the microscope the real challenge of facing up to the delivery of the SDGs by the target of 2030. However, we need to remain focused in this respect.
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, that we recognise the global impact. The noble Baroness mentioned cash transfers, for example, and that remains a central part of our development programme. I have not shied away from the fact that when you cut, as we have had to, from 0.7% to 0.5% it has had an impact on our development spend, but I stay proud of our strong traditions and the support we continue to give around the world.
I take heed also that sometimes a crisis brings into focus what the opportunities are. While sharing my noble friend Lord Hannan’s view of the world and of the importance of open markets, I also concur with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that the Covid crisis taught us about the importance of the interdependence of humanity. We are at our best when we help each other. We leverage our expertise and provide global solutions, and I believe open markets help in that respect. Look at the 60% of arable land which is currently uncultivated in Africa; there is a huge opportunity for all. In that same report there are innovative solutions including, for example, having a food importing financing facility. They provide the premise for discussions to take place in the future.
There was much in what my noble friend Lord Balfe said that, unfortunately, I do not agree with and I pose him three questions. Are we to accept Russia’s annexation of a sovereign nation or part of Ukraine’s sovereign territories? Are we to accept flagrant violations of human laws and the law of humanity? Are we to accept the suppression of not just the Ukrainian population but the Russian population? I say to my noble friend: ask Alexander Navalny and his family. The three answers are no, no and no. We will continue to stand united, as this House and this country, in support of Ukraine. It is the Ukrainians who should lead on peace negotiations, and we will support them and continue to stand firm.
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is talking to President Zelensky regularly. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary spoke to Foreign Minister Kuleba last week and is doing so again this week. I am in touch with Foreign Minister Kuleba and was in The Hague last week, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, talking about atrocities to Karim Khan, among others. We are very much engaged. Perhaps on a slightly lighter note on a sombre subject, I assure noble Lords that House of Lords Ministers stayed in place to ensure that our Government carried on functioning.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked about increasing funding for international organisations, including the World Food Programme. I have been speaking to and keeping in touch with David Beasley, and we have made a £130 million pledge to that programme. I assure the noble Lord that that funding is not diverted from other programmes. It includes funding allocated to in-country offices and flexible funding provided at central level as well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the land ownership in Africa. The UK has played a lead role in promoting good land governance in Africa and will continue to support states’ development in this regard and, of course, community rights. She talked about forces from India diverting food support from their country to the UK. Look at the UK for here and now. There is little I can say other than that when we look around the UK at the rich heritage that is not just part of our history but of our present and future, we recognise that the UK today is a very different place and long may that be the case.
The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, talked about long-term plans for peace. We support Ukraine’s desire for a just negotiated outcome and of course we support any noble initiative led by or involving Ukraine, but this is Russia’s war of aggression. Russia can stop this tomorrow, but the impact is still going to be felt for not just months but years ahead.
I thank my noble friend Lord Cormack, the noble Lords, Lord Hastings and Lord Loomba, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, among others for their kind words about my role, but it is important that we remain resolute. We expect Russia to uphold its international obligations. It is a P5 member like the United Kingdom, and that brings responsibility. We cannot have these flagrant violations continuing. It is for Russia to bring this to an end. It is in contravention of international obligations, including those under the UN charter.
We move forward to face up to the crisis of food and the impact of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports mentioned by many noble Lords. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, it is weaponising food and is impacting global security. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans also talked rightly about raising awareness. I look forward to the outcomes of the conference and perhaps practical suggestions from on the ground that can be shared with the Government. The region’s worsening food crisis is caused by an accumulation of pressures, as several noble Lords pointed out, including the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. They include local conflict and climatic shocks, but the war in Ukraine is making it worse. When crises happen, people look at differences and divisions. They are then exploited—or worse.
It is Mr Putin’s war, and the associated rise in food, fuel and fertiliser prices is making the problem much more acute. Yesterday it was 11 years since the UN first declared a famine in Somalia. My noble friend Lord Polak spoke of this and while I hear what he said about Somaliland, he is aware of the United Kingdom’s position, and we feel it is right for Somaliland and Somalia to bring forth an inclusive agreement. It was a brutal famine which has led to the deaths of 250,000 people, the majority of them children, and left 500,000 children malnourished. It is important that the UN acts in this particular way.
We are helping not just the region but Ukraine directly. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that we are providing more than £3.8 billion in support—£220 million in humanitarian support. She mentioned rebuilding infrastructure, and we have allocated another £200 million in that respect. The city of Kyiv has been assigned to the United Kingdom. As a country we are helping the people and Government of Ukraine to rebuild.
Today’s debate is extremely timely, as several noble Lords have said. Let me state categorically: we will stay united with Ukraine. I am grateful to all noble Lords, in particular Her Majesty’s official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats, for their strong and united support on this issue. Looking at food crises around the world, right now, more than 48 million people in east Africa are facing severe food insecurity, and more than 13 million people are on the cusp of famine conditions, in particular in the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia, which the noble Earl mentioned, and there are issues of CRSV which he brought to light.
We have a conference in November later this year where we will report on some of the work that has been done. Frankly, I fear that the lack of humanitarian access has meant that, once the lid is fully lifted, the situation on conflict-related sexual violence will be very dire.
Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are all in the grip of a severe drought emergency. In those three countries, over 18 million people are severely food insecure, and famine conditions are already a reality for more than 600,000 people. As all noble Lords have alluded to, including my noble friend Lord Risby, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and its blockade, coupled with reduced agricultural production—400 million people used to be supplied from Ukraine alone—have caused a sharp increase in global grain prices. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I was never an MP for a farming constituency, but I worked in the commodities sector, where the impact on prices has been enormous and incredibly impactful for the long term. Of course, farmers need to protect their prices; this is a knock-on effect.
The UK is at the forefront of this, with £3 billion in global humanitarian support over the next three years. This was discussed, for example, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. That was a difficult negotiation, into which the issue of conflict fatigue stepped in, and the question: why does Ukraine matter? It matters, not because it is a conflict between two countries or on one continent but because it is a conflict impacting the whole world, as we have seen through the issues of energy and food prices. We will remain focused in this way, and I assure noble Lords that we will continue engaging with the multilateral system and IFIs on food insecurities via the World Bank’s $30 billion set aside for food security.
The issue of food waste, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, provides a stark reality check for us all. I will share this point with our colleagues in Defra. The reality is that food is being wasted, which can perhaps be managed very differently.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Smith of Newnham and Lady Smith of Basildon, and my noble friend Lord Risby spoke of the recent talks in Iran, where the Turkish President met with President Putin. Ministers and senior officials, including those in our embassy in Ankara, have been in very regular contact with the Turkish authorities on these international efforts to get grain out of Ukraine, and we welcome the important role that the Turkish authorities are playing. As I receive more details, I will share them with noble Lords. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon: as much as we will put in land corridors and are supportive of efforts through them, they cannot replace the ports. The ports are under attack; Odessa has been under increasing pressure in recent days. We also need to make sure that we retain our focus with other countries to ensure that whatever can be leveraged from land routes is fully realised.
Use of fertilisers has declined due to a nearly 30% price increase. In turn, cereal production has fallen by a fifth. As I have said, the UK is working with its international partners to hold Russia to account, being clear that western sanctions do not target food production. This is understood by our international partners. The sanctions imposed by the UK, the EU and the United States do not prevent Russia exporting its fertilisers or grain in any respect. In fact, Russian grain exports are continuing apace, with exports to key trading partners similar to those in previous years.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its blockade of Ukraine’s ports have produced the logistical situation in Odessa, as my noble friend Lord Risby said. It is mined through floating mines from Russia, which means that the navigation issue will not have a solution in a matter of days or weeks; it may take months to demine this whole area. However, we need to remain resolute and focused. The UK is working with Ukraine to help export its food and fulfil its role as the breadbasket of Europe. The UN currently estimates that up to 23 million tonnes of grain for export remain in storage in Ukraine. It is ultimately President Putin’s responsibility to lift this blockade, but we are working with international partners to alleviate the situation.
At the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in April, the UK and its partners secured the largest ever financial commitment from the World Bank of $170 billion until June 2023. This will be targeted specifically at the countries and regions impacted. Of this, $30 billion will be focused on food security. The UK has also announced emergency humanitarian assistance to address food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, Yemen and Afghanistan. Over the next three years, we will direct £3 billion in total across the world to vulnerable countries and people.
We have recently committed another £10 million to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, bringing our allocation for the poorest countries to £186 million. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Alton, among others, that we are working with G7 allies through the Global Alliance for Food Security to scale up a rapid needs-based, co-ordinated response.
My noble friend Lord Risby, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and others mentioned the importance of and impact on north Africa. I have already visited Tunisia and Algeria, and I am shortly about to go to Morocco. I have also visited Egypt. It is a food crisis. They are finding feeding their populations a real challenge for the here and now. Of course, I shall engage with all the key interlocutors and, if there are updates, report back. The fact is that there is a crisis, and it can be averted only if we act together, but at the same time seek to bring this conflict to an end—and that is very much on Russia.
The right reverend Prelate raised east Africa, which several noble Lords, including the noble Earl, drew attention to, as did my noble friend Lord Polack. In January, the UK announced £17 million of emergency humanitarian assistance to address critical needs in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and Kenya. In February, we announced £5.5 million of support allocated for Somalia, and in March a further £1.6 million to support the drought response in Ethiopia. In April, £25 million in aid was announced to provide vital food services to people in Somalia. We are playing a leading role bilaterally and with our key partners.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised the issues of war crimes and accountability. We are working closely with the ICC. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, talked about the protocols. I discussed them directly with Karim Khan, who is making those assessments. Noble Lords will be aware that we have set up the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group with our friends and partners in the EU and US, focused on atrocities across the piece. I look forward to working with noble Lords in identifying how we can put specific parameters in and ensure through the Murad code, for example, that crimes of sexual violence are fully investigated and documented to allow successful prosecutions to take place. We are also working within the Human Rights Council parameters and its commission of inquiry, the OSCE’s Moscow mechanism and the Council of Europe’s monitoring bodies, so there is a broad approach to ensuring that accountability is focused on.
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others, particularly on the issue of asset seizures that he raised, that as the Foreign Secretary said at the Foreign Affairs Committee, it is an issue that we are working on with the Home Office and the Treasury, and we will update your Lordships’ House as well as the other place on the specifics. It is important that we get this right, but that particular issue is a live one, which we are looking at quite directly.
In concluding this debate, I assure noble Lords that we remain very much focused on our responsibilities through the G7 and G20. The UK’s director-general for humanitarian development has made numerous visits to the region, and we have a special envoy to the Horn of Africa. In June, my honourable friend the Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford, wrote to David Malpass at the World Bank to highlight the gravity of needs. We also maintain a productive dialogue with non-governmental organisations, which are extremely important. In June, the Minister for Africa met members of the Disasters Emergency Committee. Our officials remain fully engaged on the ground and here in London on working with key partners.
To conclude on the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, we have all documented it, with our different perspectives. We have had a wide-ranging debate—although I say to my noble friend Lord Cormack that he went so wide in his contribution that it may have been wider than I have ever experienced in my time at the Dispatch Box. Nevertheless, I am sure that people have noted his contributions quite carefully. I assure my noble friend that the Government continue to be very active, and I hope that through the examples that I have illustrated he is somewhat reassured that we stay very much focused on this.
I lived through the crisis last summer in Afghanistan and it was important that we continued to stand by our commitments. I am proud that the Government have continued to stand by our humanitarian commitments in Afghanistan and our commitments to the people of Ukraine, whether on the economy or humanitarian support, or diplomatically and militarily. It is important that this war ends: it is in Russia’s hands to end it but, in the meantime, we will continue with our obligation and support, including in east African countries, the Horn of Africa, to ensure that after a fourth consecutive season of failed rains, we continue to have decisive, co-ordinated, bilateral and multilateral swift action from the international community to avoid severe humanitarian outcomes. I hope that I have, in part, convinced noble Lords that the United Kingdom is continuing to play its part.
In closing, I record my sincere thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, for their contributions over the recent period of the current Government, for the positive and practical insights they have brought and for their solutions. This is not always a challenge to the Minister at the Dispatch Box. I value their insights and experience. I also offer my thanks, through the good offices of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, to the noble Lord, Lord Collins. I record my sincere thanks because the advice and insights I have received is extremely valuable to any Minister seeking to do their job. We face unprecedented challenges, challenges of humanity and of humanitarian crisis, but I acknowledge our collective efforts as your Lordships’ House, whether we do so with the other place or on a cross-party basis. When we act together, as we did during the Covid crisis and as we are doing on Ukraine, we are at our best when we act as a country, collective and unified in our response to those who seek to cause division and discord. For that, I am eternally grateful to all noble Lords. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for once again bringing your Lordships together on this important subject.
I was reminded of a quote as I listened to the debate. My father was an Urdu poet, God bless his soul, and one of the famous poets he used to appreciate and hold in high regard was Rumi. I was reminded of Rumi, who said,
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself”.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, the quality of a debate is determined by those who participate, and no one could have hoped for a better informed, knowledgeable, wise or humanity-related debate than the one we have had this afternoon. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said that it underlines the purpose of your Lordships’ House to be able to conduct debates of this kind, and I entirely agree.
No one will have been surprised by the passion and vigour with which the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, responded to us today. He is a great example of how to conduct oneself as a Minister. I hope he was not making a valedictory statement in his closing remarks, because I hope he will go on being a Minister at the Dispatch Box in your Lordships’ House for a long time to come. He is also a deeply committed parliamentarian. Whether it is insights that he communicates from his mother, as he did in the recent FoRB conference, or today from his father, through some of the Urdu poets, I hope we will go on hearing those insights for a long time to come. We first met when I was in another place and a group of people came with the young Tariq Ahmad to persuade Members of Parliament to take the persecution of his Ahmadi community seriously. Happily, I responded positively, said that I would write to Ministers and did. Years later, he teasingly said to me, “Now you are getting your own back, because barely a day passes when I do not receive representations from you.” It was a great privilege, during the recent FoRB conference to chair one of the side events on the plight of the Ahmadi community.
In a way, that underlines what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said to us about our interdependence and how we are determined one against another all the time. Was it not Nelson Mandela who said, “A person is a person because of other people”? We are coexistent on this planet; we must learn to respect and to live alongside one another. In that sense, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, said about the dangers of self-sufficiency, but the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was right as well to say that, in times of war and conflict, that is not the only issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newham, rightly said in her excellent speech that we suffer from a sort of attention deficit if we are not careful and could have compassion fatigue. She talked about the inadequacy of our response, “a drop in the ocean”.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, talked about the need to live up to and to honour our commitment to the 0.7% spending target, a point made by a number of noble Lords during the debate. Back in 1970 as a student, I made my first speech in the student union on the subject of the General Assembly resolution on 0.7% and it was the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who did so much to ensure that that was enshrined in statute. It is a terrible tragedy to have reduced that funding. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans is right to remind us that this is not just about generosity and altruism; it is also in our self-interest to ensure that we retain those target figures and do what we can to alleviate the suffering of the poorest in our world today.
In his excellent maiden speech, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham reminded us of the connections between his diocese and the Salvation Army. He talked specifically about Uganda, his links with that part of Africa and the impact of the crisis on the life chances of young people. We all look forward to hearing many more speeches from him in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Risby, reminded us in an excellent speech about the dangers of this spreading through instability and to many places, including Egypt about which he knows a great deal, and the impact of migration flows.
My noble friend Lord Hastings talked about waste. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, quite rightly told us that this is a crisis with a long history, and we have done far too little thinking about and developing how we see the role of food and how we avert crises of this kind from recurring.
My noble friend Lord Sandwich took us to Sudan. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, took us to Somaliland. I have great admiration for my noble friend and for the noble Lord, Lord Polak. I serve with my noble friend on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sudan and South Sudan. I have visited Darfur: 300,000 people died there during the genocide and 2 million people were displaced. This is happening all over again, and we must do more than we are doing to avert it.
Let me end with what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said to us about being the moral opposite of what Putin represents; we must do better than we have been doing. Our values are the values that matter in this world, but they do not come cheaply. They come at a price, and we are seeing that price, whether it is in the loss of human life or in treasure. They comes at a price, and we must be willing to pay that price, not least because of the kind of stories, such as that of Dahir in Somaliland, that we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Polak.
I read in the Wall Street Journal recently the story of a little child in neighbouring Somalia, one of the early victims of the current crisis: two month-old Muad Abdi who died after a night of diarrhoea and vomiting in a sprawling camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu. The newspaper reported his mother saying,
“‘His eyes turned up, and I felt he was no longer with me’”.
The report continued,
“His older brother was fighting an infection in a crowded hospital, his defences weakened by the kind of severe malnutrition”
that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, described.
“His 1-year-old sister, Habiba, slumped limply on her mother’s hip.”
His mother said that,
“Until three months ago … the $1 to $2 a day her husband earned from occasional construction work bought two meals of rice and beans for the family of six. Now that money is barely enough for one daily meal of rice”.
The situation had been exacerbated because of the crisis in Ukraine.
We owe it to families such as this to do more than we have done, and I know it is the united view of your Lordships’ House that we must do that. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated.
Net Zero Strategy: High Court Ruling
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat the Answer to an Urgent Question in the other place given by my right honourable friend Greg Hands MP:
“Over the past three decades, the UK has driven down emissions by over 45%—the fastest reduction of any G7 country. We have one of the most ambitious carbon-reduction plans in the world, pledging to reduce emissions by at least 68% by 2030 and by 77% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels, before of course reaching net zero by 2050. Our track record speaks for itself: the UK has overachieved against the first carbon budget and exceeded the second by nearly 14%. Latest projections show that we are on track to meet the third carbon budget as well.
In its judgment on the judicial review of the net zero strategy, the High Court found that the Government had not complied sufficiently with the Climate Change Act in relation to specific procedural issues and the level of analysis published as part of the 164-page Net Zero Strategy. I would stress that the judge has made no criticism about the substance of our plans to meet net zero, which are well on track. Indeed, even the claimants in the case described the net zero strategy as ‘laudable’. The independent Climate Change Committee described the net zero strategy as
‘an ambitious and comprehensive strategy that marks a significant step forward for UK climate policy’
and as
‘the world’s most comprehensive plan to reach Net Zero’.
We are now considering the implications of the judgment and deciding whether to appeal. As we do this, our focus will remain resolutely on supporting people in the face of globally high energy prices and boosting our energy security. Our recent British Energy Security Strategy—launched by the Prime Minister—which puts Great Britain at the leading edge of the global energy revolution, will deliver a more independent, more secure energy system and support consumers to manage their energy bills.”
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, paragraph 252 of the High Court judgment ruled that the Government’s net zero strategy was unlawful. The court found that the net zero strategy did not go below national and sector levels to look at contributions to emissions reductions, and that it needs to be rewritten with quantified accounts and a realistic assessment. The Energy Bill is currently passing through your Lordships’ House; it establishes an independent system operator and planner, which is a welcome step. However, the legislation does not establish a system operator and planner at a regional level to promote the 2008 Act. If Her Majesty’s Opposition were to lay an amendment to deliver a regional system operator and planner which would solve some of the problems of the judgment, would Her Majesty’s Government support that?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I would need to look at the details of the noble Lord’s amendment before giving him an answer. As the Climate Change Committee recognises, the net zero strategy is a comprehensive plan for meeting our climate targets, which outlines measures to transition to a green and sustainable future, helping businesses and consumers move to clean power. We think we are on strategy; as I said, we will look closely at the judgment and decide whether or not to appeal.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, one of the problems is that the Government have been very good on targets but much less good on delivery. Can the Minister comment on the view of the former Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, that we should not relax the restraints on onshore power or encourage it? Is that how we will achieve delivery against these targets?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I think the noble Lord is wrong in his first statements; we have so far met, or indeed exceeded, all our carbon budgets and we are on track to meet the latest one. This is a reference to a carbon budget in 12 or 17 years’ time, so of course we will look closely at the implications of the judgment. On the noble Lord’s question, we have said that we are not against the expansion of onshore wind, but we will need to do it in close co-operation with, and with the support of, local communities. Meanwhile, as he will be aware, we have massively expanded the ambition of our offshore wind, which during the latest contracts for difference round is now coming in at record low prices.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, when I saw this headline judgment, I thought for a moment that the court might be making the obvious point—which I think most people agree with—that while our national net-zero target is pressing ahead rather well, with the contribution and efforts of my noble friend, and while other Western countries are moving towards net zero, emissions are rising very fast when they should be at least level, if not falling, under the Paris targets. The Paris targets are receding, and almost everyone in the world of combating climate change recognises that a vast uplift in international efforts to curb carbon emissions, of the kind that involves a huge abstraction of carbon from the atmosphere on a global scale, is now needed. That is what the UN and the IPCC are saying and even the CCC agrees to it. Leading figures such as John Kerry also agree with this view. If there is a criticism, it is perhaps that our contribution there is not realised enough, so much are we concentrating on NZ. However, I fully agree that we are doing that rather well, and I hope that we appeal.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My noble friend makes some important points. Of course, our contribution to global emissions is relatively small, but this is very much a global problem. As a leading industrialised nation, it is right that we should set an example, and we are doing so. As I said, we have some of the fastest and most ambitious reduction targets. We will certainly look closely at the judgment, but we will carry on with our ambitious decarbonisation strategy.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the court judgment refers to the need for and the lack of quantified realistic assessments. If we look at what we have heard from the Government in recent days, we have the frankly fanciful jet-zero aviation strategy and the Energy Bill, with its huge focus on the unproven-at-scale carbon capture and storage. I am aware that the Minister cannot speak for whatever future Government we might have, but will he acknowledge the judgment of the Committee on Climate Change, among others, that the Government’s plans and action on agriculture, buildings and heat are totally inadequate, and that these are areas in which urgent action and deliverable plans are needed?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her questions. I do not share her pessimism about the jet fuel initiative. It is very important that we deliver low-carbon jet fuel. After all, we want to enable her Green colleagues to continue to fly up to COP summits in a carbon-neutral manner. With regard to her comments about the other contributions we need to make, of course agriculture is a particular challenge. The energy sector is decarbonising well. Home emissions are difficult for the UK, given the age of our housing stock; something like 6 million homes were built before the First World War, and a third of our properties were built before the Second World War. That presents a fairly unique challenge in Europe, but it is one that we are tackling. Emissions are coming down, and we are proceeding well.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, surely a key aspect of reaching net zero is implementing the British Energy Security Strategy, which aims to increase the share of nuclear to 25%. Can the Minister tell the House what more the Government are doing to encourage modular nuclear systems and nuclear fusion?
Lord Callanan (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right; I am sure he noticed the granting of planning permission to the Sizewell C reactor yesterday. We are supporting Rolls-Royce to the tune of over £100 million to support the production of designs for small modular reactors, and we think that they will have a significant contribution to make—albeit not for a number of years yet. Of course, the latest developments in fusion, which we are also supporting, are particularly exciting. If my noble friend wants to contribute to the debates on the Energy Bill, we are setting in place a regulatory framework for fusion.
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)
My Lords, can I use this as an opportunity to plug a great new report out today, Investing in Energy: Price, Security, and the Transition to Net Zero, by the Economic Affairs Committee, which I happen to chair? It is very timely because, on the back of this Question, it concludes—as my noble friend Lord Howell said—that while there has been considerable progress by this Government, for which they should be given credit, there are
“gaps between the Government’s ambitions and practical policy”
which are “significant”. I hope my noble friend will take this report with him to his deckchair to read.
I have one specific point regarding where we are right now as we approach what will probably be another very difficult winter in terms of energy and energy prices. One of the committee’s core recommendations was that the Government should publish an energy demand reduction strategy particularly focused on home insulation. Would my noble friend take that recommendation back and peruse it so that the next Government can act on it swiftly when they come in September?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his recommendation for my holiday reading. I am not certain yet I will get a holiday, but if I do, I am sure his committee’s report will make fascinating reading—though I need no persuading of the importance of home energy efficiency and insulation schemes. We continue to progress work on just such a scheme, and I hope the new Prime Minister, when he or she comes into office, will support it.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I will be taking the Energy Bill with me as my holiday reading. I congratulate my noble friend on the Statement he made and on having regard to the unprecedented energy circumstances in which we find ourselves and the challenges this poses for farmers and others. In support of the words of my noble friend Lord Howell, I ask my noble friend the Minister to increase the efforts of international co-operation to ensure that other countries are matching the efforts of this country and others in Europe.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My noble friend can be assured that we will do that. We make a relatively small contribution. We need to set the lead, but this is the epitome of an international problem, and all our efforts will be negated if other, bigger emitters do not reduce their emissions as well, so her point is correct and powerfully made.
Women’s Health Strategy for England
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for taking this Statement today, and I hope her noble friend is fully recovered from the bug that he acquired—goodness knows where. I declare an interest as a maternity safeguarding champion at a London trust hospital.
We must welcome this rather late and delayed strategy. For too long, women’s health has been an afterthought and the voices of women have been at best ignored and at worst silenced. I welcome the appointment of Professor Dame Lesley Regan as the first ever women’s health ambassador for England.
If this strategy is properly funded and actually delivered, it may not solve the crisis in women’s healthcare after 12 years of Conservative mismanagement but it would certainly help shift the policy and delivery of services. Four out of five women who responded to the Government’s survey could remember a time when they did not feel listened to by a healthcare professional.
The context for this strategy is that, in recent years, we have seen a string of healthcare scandals primarily affecting women: maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford; more than 1,000 women operated on by rogue surgeon Ian Paterson; thousands given faulty PIP breast implants; many left with traumatic complications after vaginal mesh surgery; and the use of medication such as Valprol during pregnancy, as highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in her report, First Do No Harm, which has helped to transform issues in this space
There is one issue I wish to raise with the Minister immediately, and of which I have given prior notice, which calls into question the Government’s commitment to sexual health rights for women. In the past few days, it has emerged that a statement on freedom of religion or belief and gender equality was issued by the UK as part of the intergovernmental conference it hosted in London on 5 and 6 July. Commitments to abortion and sexual health rights have been quietly removed. Is that true, and, if so, why has that happened?
I return to the Statement. The context of the strategy is that every woman who needs to use the NHS today faces record waiting times. The NHS is losing midwives faster than it can recruit them. Gynaecology waiting lists have grown faster than any other medical speciality. The number of women having cervical screening is falling, and black women are 40% more likely to experience a miscarriage than white women. We need to look at what is being proposed in this strategy.
The strategy promises new research, which is absolutely vital and very welcome. I draw the Minister’s attention to the report from the University of Birmingham commission into safe and effective, accessible medicines for use in pregnancy, Healthy Mum, Healthy Baby, Healthy Future. Chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, it addresses the terrible lack of research into conception and pregnancy. The starting point is that virtually no drugs have been developed or trialled for pregnant women in the many decades since Thalidomide. This leaves women at the mercy of general diseases, the diseases of pregnancy and drugs that are usually unlicensed.
Pregnant women and babies throughout the world continue to get sick and die from largely preventable and treatable causes. Even in the UK, the way in which medicines are developed currently risks preventing pregnant women accessing the benefits of safe and effective medicines. Most recently, the exclusion of pregnant women from Covid vaccine trials has probably led to needless deaths among pregnant women and babies, which highlights this issue. The commission provides a blueprint for action. Will the Government make use of it?
Studies suggest that the gender bias in clinical trials is contributing to worse health outcomes for women. There is evidence that the impacts of female-specific health conditions, such as heavy menstrual bleeding, endometriosis, pregnancy-related issues and the menopause, are overlooked. Can the Minister set out how exactly the Government intend to make use of the new research to improve outcomes for women? How will they address widespread bad practice across clinical trials where women are not selected because their hormones might distort the results—which really means that they might reveal the side effects that treatments will have on them?
Moving on, we welcome improving the education and training of health professionals as absolutely vital. Almost one in 10 women have to see their GP 10 times before they get proper help and advice about the menopause. Why is it that almost half of medical schools do not teach doctors about the menopause, given that it affects every single woman? Those are two small consequences of not addressing gender in the training of our medical professionals.
I want to ask a question about what my honourable friend Carolyn Harris said in the Commons yesterday:
“I am delighted that my private Member’s Bill that I negotiated with the Government last October now appears as part of the strategy, but I am bitterly disappointed that the timeframe for that once annual charge is delayed until April 2023—18 months after it was promised”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/7/22; col. 980-81.]
My honourable friend needs an answer on that. Why have the HRT costs been delayed until April 2023?
We can only welcome the extra £10 million for the breast screening programme. This screening can prevent avoidable deaths by identifying breast cancer early, but we must note that fewer women in the most deprived areas receive regular breast screening. Even before the pandemic, too many women with suspected breast cancer were waiting more than the recommended two weeks. Can the Minister tell the House how the programme announced today will make a difference to outcomes for patients if, once diagnosed, they end up on a waiting list that is far too long?
There are plans in the strategy to remove barriers to IVF for lesbian couples, which we welcome. For too long, they have faced unnecessary obstacles to accessing IVF for no other reason than the fact that they love another woman. It is encouraging to see the Government take action to set this right.
As well as the appalling figures on black maternity deaths, a quarter of black women surveyed by Five X More felt that they received a poor or very poor standard of care during pregnancy, labour and post-natally. Women who live in deprived areas are more likely to suffer a still-birth than their richer counterparts. Labour has pledged a new race equality Act to tackle the structural inequalities in our society, including in healthcare. Does the Minister acknowledge that those inequalities exist?
There is one final issue that I would particularly like to draw to the attention of the House. Support counselling for women victims of rape is absolutely vital but End Violence Against Women estimates that the Government need to provide a minimum of £195 million each year to rape crisis services to properly respond to that need, with a significant proportion ring-fenced for specialist BAME services. The problem, as a recent survey revealed, is that 60% of people believe that access to free counselling is readily available for rape survivors. That is not the case. The waiting lists are growing. Do the Government accept that this is not an acceptable situation?
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has said. It is always interesting to see what is included and what is excluded in documents such as this. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I would like straightaway to query the omission of rights to abortion and sexual healthcare. Is that now the policy of the Government and the Department of Health? If it is, that is a very significant change that will have a huge, detrimental effect on the health of women.
It is notable that this document lists its ambitions at the beginning, talking about the availability of RSHE in schools so that young people know and understand what good health is and what their rights to it are. Unfortunately, there is still a dearth of appropriate material getting to schools and there is equally no commitment to training staff in schools to deliver appropriate training. I therefore ask the Minister when that situation is going to be rectified.
Organisations such as the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and RCOG have been telling the Government for years that there is an absolute crisis in reproductive health services. We have a completely fragmented system for access to basic contraception, which is having a huge impact. We now know that approximately 50% of pregnancies in this country are unplanned. That statistic in itself tells us how far reproductive health has slid backwards.
I am glad to see the appointment of Professor Dame Lesley Regan. Some of the work that she has done in this report says that investment in contraceptive and fully inclusive reproductive and sexual health services is a public health investment which has a massive return on investment. Every £1 spent on contraception is a saving of £9 in public health services. If you invest that £1 in maternity services, the return on investment increases to £33. It is a no-brainer, yet at the moment we fracture access to services so that women who want access to proper reproductive health services end up going multiple times to multiple places. Why? It is because funding streams are fractured. Can the Minister say when that is going to be rectified? The sooner it is, the swifter we get a proper impact on women’s health.
One of the things that I have noticed, having read the review, is that for the first time it tries to be inclusive in its definitions. I also welcome the statements made about access for lesbians to assisted reproduction. The review includes Roma women. It notes the disparities in the appalling health inequalities for black women and women of colour. It also completely ignores trans people. I have a simple question for the noble Baroness. Is that the policy of the Government and the Department of Health? Are these people going to be excluded from our health policy in future?
The final thing I wish to say is that one of the big things that has been noted all the way through our reviews of continuity of care and the great work by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is that continuity of care is key to outcomes, in particular, continuity of care in primary care, which is where most women want to get their health services. Will the Minister say what will be done to do that?
One other thing we certainly know is that we have an impending crisis in the workforce. The skilled women and men—largely women—who have been delivering women’s health services for the past 30 to 40 years are, by and large, about to retire now. Young male and female doctors and nurses, particularly in primary care, have not been given access to training. What will be done to make sure that the looming skills deficit is dealt with? Unless we address that, this is just a load of pipe dreams that will never come to pass.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that for too long the voices of women have been ignored in the healthcare system. She is absolutely right, which is why I am proud that this Government have produced the first women’s health strategy in England. It has been widely welcomed, if not overdue. We should recognise that.
The noble Baroness also said that women have not been listened to in the past. That is the feedback across the range of different experiences. That is why I am so pleased that at the heart of the development of this strategy was the call for evidence we held, which saw nearly 100,000 responses. Listening to those responses has really shaped the strategy. We are also cognisant that there may have been people who did not proactively respond to that call for evidence, so we made particular efforts to reach underserved groups who might not otherwise be heard. That is important, and it has been translated into the approach we took in the strategy.
On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, we wanted to address a perceived ambiguity in the wording used in the statement on freedom of religion or belief and gender equality at last week’s international interministerial conference and ensure that its scope remains focused on freedom of religion and belief. A revised version of the statement was produced in light of that. I reassure the House that we remain committed to defending and promoting universal and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, including safe abortion. This is fundamental to unlock the potential agency and freedom of women and girls in this country and across the world.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked why sexual and reproductive health, and abortion in particular, were not covered in depth in this strategy. The Department of Health and Social Care is developing an action plan to improve sexual and reproductive health, including ensuring that women can continue to access robust and high-quality abortion services. We aim to publish this later this year. I hope that addresses many of the points she raised.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, highlighted the importance of research. She drew my attention to a particular piece of work by the University of Birmingham, which I will happily take back to the department. As someone who was pregnant during the pandemic, I have personal experience of trying to navigate the guidance on whether to get a vaccine combined with the advice that I was at higher risk. That stems from the difficult problem of how to represent women and pregnant women more in medical research. That is not straightforward to solve, but we are making efforts towards it. There will be a new policy research unit in the National Institute for Health and Care Research dedicated to reproductive health. The department’s chief scientific officer, Professor Lucy Chappell, will lead a round table of researchers this autumn to explore the best ways to tackle the underrepresentation of women in research. This will include women from ethnic minority groups, older women, lesbian and bisexual women, pregnant women and disabled women. The NIHR is leading work to improve the diversity of research participants, and we wo;; continue to press ahead with that.
The noble Baroness asked about our action on menopause and our commitment to reducing the cost of accessing HRT treatment. I do not have the latest timelines on that, so I will write to her. We have established the UK Menopause Taskforce to join up and accelerate work across the UK to tackle menopause-related issues. We have also set up work to tackle access to supplies for certain HRT treatments.
On breast cancer screening, the additional money announced in the strategy is aimed at doing exactly what the noble Baroness said about addressing disparities. All the work going into addressing the NHS backlog in elective treatment is looking to close that gap between diagnosis and treatment.
I will address a few other points. On training for teachers, we have invested more than £3 million to date in supporting teachers to teach PSHE in schools. We continue to focus on that.
I will address the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, on trans people and their inclusion or otherwise in this strategy. The strategy’s aim is to improve the health of all women and girls, and we will work with NHS bodies to ensure that women are properly represented in communications and guidance and that there is appropriate use of sex-specific language to communicate matters that relate to women’s and men’s individual health issues and different biological needs. We recognise that some transgender people may experience some of the same issues—for example, transgender men perhaps needing cervical screening or menopause care—and we will ensure that our work acknowledges that. Transgender healthcare is a very important but separate issue. For example, the noble Baroness will know that the NHS is working on guidance to enable GPs to have a better understanding of the health concerns of transgender patients, which will improve their experience of primary and community care.
I will pick up one final point from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about disparities in maternity care for black mothers or mothers from ethnic minorities. I believe a task force has been set up, the Maternity Disparities Taskforce, to look specifically at this. That is an important piece of work that I know is ongoing. I will write to both noble Baronesses in response to the other questions I have not addressed.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Government for this important announcement. I particularly welcome the aim to introduce a voluntary certificate of loss scheme to parents who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth before 24 weeks of pregnancy. I have a Private Member’s Bill in the House asking for this provision, so I declare an interest. This will provide comfort to millions who have experienced this type of loss, and I congratulate the charity Saying Goodbye on its work on this over the last eight years. When will the scheme be implemented? Who will administer it?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s work in this area and campaigning on this issue, and to the chairs of the pregnancy loss review, Samantha Collinge and Zoe Clark-Coates. That review’s work is still ongoing, but we were able to pick up an interim recommendation from it to allow us to start work on the introduction of the certificate. I believe the NHS will implement this and is undertaking the appropriate scoping work to make sure we get the implementation right. That will be taken forward as soon as it can.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the Minister referred to the Government’s work developing a reproductive health plan, particularly in the context of what she said was the commitment to safe abortion. I hope that she is aware of the letter that was sent to the DPP by 66 organisations, including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and Southall Black Sisters, which was calling for an end to prosecutions for accessing abortion in the UK. Recent research has demonstrated that over the past eight years, at least 17 women have been investigated by the police for allegedly ending their own pregnancies under illegal circumstances, although the actual figure is likely to be higher.
I am sorry that this is very disturbing. In one case, a 15 year-old suffered what was seen as an unexplained stillbirth at 28 weeks’ gestation. She had her phone and laptop confiscated in the middle of her GCSE exams. She was driven to self-harm. A coroner concluded that this stillbirth had occurred through natural causes. Are the Government seriously looking at what can be done about not inflicting similar ordeals on girls and women, and are they considering the obvious step of decriminalising abortion?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, prosecution decisions lie with the Director of Public Prosecutions and his staff. The Government have no plans to decriminalise abortion, but we are absolutely committed to ensuring that women can continue to access robust and high-quality abortion services and that young women can access sexual health services and other health services, to ensure that they get the proper support that they need, whatever circumstances they are in, and that they get support and care from the services that they seek to access.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, coming to another issue, I welcome the strong coverage of endometriosis in this strategy. However, there is great concern from those who have been campaigning to get better recognition for chronic urinary tract infections. These get two mentions in the glossary only, and nothing in the main text. The background to this is that chronic—rather than recurring—urinary tract infections affect women in particular for many months or years. The NHS has only just realised that this condition exists. The term has still not been clinically defined by NICE. I am aware that this is a very detailed area. Can the Minister perhaps write to me about what progress is being made on ensuring that the full assessment is available to women? Currently it is available only in a limited number of oversubscribed specialist clinics.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I would be really happy to write to the noble Baroness in detail on the point that she raises. It is one that I am aware of, but I cannot give her a more detailed answer at this time.
Rwanda Asylum Partnership: Removal of Unaccompanied Children
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Lister of Burtersett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure no unaccompanied children are removed to Rwanda because they have been mistakenly assessed to be adults.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have signed up to speak and the Minister; I suspect they were all hoping to have started the Recess by now. I tabled this QSD because I was so dissatisfied with the answer that the Minister gave on 15 June during questions on a Statement. In essence, I asked the question posed today, and the answer I received was that the Minister
“made clear in the other place that no unaccompanied asylum-seeking child will be sent to Rwanda, and I am sure I repeated it in this House.”—[Official Report, 15/6/22; col. 1597.]
No doubt she did, but that was not the point of the question.
I know it is government policy not to send unaccompanied children to Rwanda and that is welcome, although your Lordships’ House made clear during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act its view that responsibility for anyone claiming asylum in this country should not be “offshored” in that way, particularly now that it has become clear that they will be given a one-way ticket regardless of whether they are subsequently granted refugee status.
The point of the question was to draw to the Minister’s attention the real concerns among members of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium of over 60 organisations that the commitment not to remove unaccompanied children is already being undermined because some of these children are being wrongly assessed as adults. Those concerns are reinforced by today’s highly critical report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration on the processing of boat arrivals, which states:
“The treatment of those claiming to be children was not child-centred … The age assessment process was perfunctory and engagement with the young people was minimal.”
My concerns are all the greater given the forthcoming changes to age assessment, which I will not pursue now but were also rejected by your Lordships’ House. As was made clear during our debates, age assessment is not easy. Many children arrive without documentation of their birth date, for totally legitimate reasons, and it is widely recognised that physical appearance is not a reliable indicator of age. Nevertheless, an initial Home Office decision will be based on an individual’s “appearance and demeanour”. Where that gives rise to suspicion, one of two courses of action are currently taken. Under the first, the individual is treated as a child whose age is disputed and they are referred to a local authority for further assessment. According to a recent Written Answer, during the first quarter of this year, of 255 age disputes resolved, half concluded that the person was a child. Under the second course of action, if their
“physical appearance/demeanour very strongly suggests that they are significantly over 18”,
the individual is treated as an adult and moved straight to adult accommodation or detention—but there are no statistics for how many are so treated and no monitoring of the consequences. Why are these data not kept? Will the Minister look into the possibility of doing so?
Some data have been collected by the Helen Bamber Foundation from local authorities on those referred to children’s services because of staff doubts over their adult status, having first been sent to adult accommodation/detention between January and March of this year. Of the 211 in 64 authorities for whom they got information, two-thirds were found to be children, meaning that in just three months nearly 150 children could have been at risk of wrongful removal. The chief inspector cites Refugee Council statistics which show that in all but six of 106 resolved cases of young people deemed to be over 25 on arrival, they were subsequently found to be children.
On Report I cited the tragic example of Alex, who had killed himself and whose inquest concluded that his wrongful assessment as an adult and his subsequent ill treatment contributed to the “destructive spiral” that led to his death, even though the error was rectified. It is argued by Ministers that the wrongful treatment of adults as children has safeguarding implications, but this example illustrates the serious safeguarding implications of treating children as adults. Those consequences will be considerably more serious if they are removed to Rwanda as adults.
The Home Office has reassured critics that:
“Everyone considered for relocations to Rwanda will be screened and have access to legal advice”
and that there are adequate safeguards to ensure that children are not subject to inadmissibility procedures, but that was contradicted by oral evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee by Asylum Aid, the Refugee Council and Medical Justice. In their experience, recent arrivals to the UK are being detained without any screening for vulnerabilities. To quote the director of Asylum Aid:
“While detained, isolated, frightened and overwhelmed, they often do not understand what is happening to them”.
They are told that they may be sent to Rwanda and have only seven days in which to access legal advice and respond to the many complex questions that arise in such cases. The notice of intent, the inadmissibility notice and the information pack do not even set out that unaccompanied children should not be sent to Rwanda. Why is that the case? Will the Minister undertake to ensure that, as a minimum, those documents contain that information?
Without prejudice to its opposition to the Rwanda scheme as a whole, the consortium makes four recommendations with regard to children as follows. First, no one who claims to be a child but is being treated as an adult by the Home Office should be issued with a removal notice until confirmation is received from their legal representative that they have not been, or will not be, referred to a local authority. Secondly, in any case of an age dispute, where a person has been assessed as an adult by a local authority or the new National Age Assessment Board, the Home Office should not initiate or continue with the inadmissibility process until the time limit for challenging the decision via judicial review or appeal has passed, or the challenge or appeal has been heard and decided. Thirdly, where a person has been issued a notice of intent but is then subsequently accepted into children’s services as a child, the Home Office should confirm that their asylum claim will be deemed admissible. The process to be followed should be published. Finally, as I argued earlier, those claiming to be children who are assessed as adults at the outset should be identified in the statistics and what happens to them monitored.
The Government rightly accept the principle that no unaccompanied child should be removed to Rwanda. Let us try to put ourselves in the shoes of a child who has made a difficult journey to the UK, often having faced trauma in their home country or during the journey, and who now believes they have reached safety. What must if feel like to be told that they are now to be forwarded, alongside adults, to a country they know nothing about, like a parcel stamped “no return to sender”. We are given some insight by testimony from a Refugee Council worker who has been working with two children initially detained as adults. That worker writes:
“They were very worried these kids. Very, very depressed, very emotional, lack of energy, lack of sleep. They just didn’t know what would happen to them, all they were thinking about was Rwanda … They are so frightened. The first one I saw, he just locked himself in his room … He was shocked. He said the experience was worse than travelling to the UK”.
Pretty sobering, my Lords. Perhaps the Home Office will dismiss such observations as just anecdotes but, as the Home Affairs Select Committee, which raised a number of concerns about age assessment in this week’s report, observed:
“Specific instances may illustrate systemic issues”.
From all I have read and heard, I fear we are talking about systemic issues. If the Government believe that no unaccompanied child should be sent to Rwanda, surely it behoves them to do all in their power to ensure that this principle is not undermined in practice. I thus welcome the fact that there will be a meeting between consortium members and officials soon. Might I ask that the consortium’s recommendations be given serious consideration and that there is a real commitment to working out a way of ensuring that the Government’s own aim is achieved? Might I also ask that those who spoke in this debate today are told what practical steps will be taken as a result of this meeting? We have a bit of time now that flights have been suspended during the leadership election. Please use it constructively to ensure that unaccompanied children receive the protection promised them.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on securing this debate and on highlighting the intractable problem of how we cope with people whose age we cannot be certain about. We can all agree that we should open our arms to children who arrive in a safe country alone, unaccompanied because their parents or guardian may have been killed or died en route, while they were fleeing persecution in their homeland. Likewise, a young teenager, who has fled his or her homeland because their parents have been killed or jailed, and they were destitute and had no alternative but to flee their country, are worthy and deserving of our support and refuge. However, such circumstances are comparatively rare and the numbers involved would not be a serious problem, I would have thought, for our social services or immigration system. After all, in those circumstance, very few children would be able to obtain the finances to pay people smugglers to bring them illegally to this country.
Can the Minister tell us more about the reasons unaccompanied children give for arriving here without parent, relative or guardian? I am told that, pretty frequently, they are sent here by their family in the perfectly understandable, and in many ways laudable, hope that their child will find a better and safer life here. Parents may not be able to obtain the money to pay for more than one passage, so they send a teenager in the hope that he or she will at least have a better life than they have back in their homeland.
However, there are probably innumerable families in poor and troubled countries who would willingly send a child here if they could; they are essentially economic migrants, not political refugees. Can my noble friend confirm that that is why we do not provide an unlimited safe and legal route for children in these circumstances, if they have no relatives here already and that, if we did, it would impose a considerable burden on our local authority children’s services? Still less should we create a loophole for anyone who can pass themselves off as under 18 to enter this country and obtain costly support.
The problem is, of course, deciding on the age of a young person—a person claiming to be under 18—if they have no evidence of their age or year of birth. Adults are invariably told by the traffickers to destroy their papers en route, but young people who are genuinely under 18 would be better advised to bring and retain evidence of their age. Can my noble friend tell me whether such evidence tends to be available for young children in the sort of countries from which many of them come? If so, for those countries where it might be reasonable to expect a person to have some proof of age, should not the absence of that proof count in the decision as to whether their age is what they claim to be or what they appear to be?
As I said at the beginning, it is an intractable dilemma that we face because there is no scientific way of proving beyond peradventure the age of someone claiming to be a child. I have spoken to a former Minister for Education who said that in his experience, from having seen many of those purporting to be children, he was convinced that many were not. But we are talking, of course, of people coming here illegally from Europe. If they are worried about the fairness of the system here, they can of course put themselves in the hands of the authorities in Europe. It is always odd to me that so many people who want us to remain in Europe are so keen that everybody else gets out from that terrible place.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for initiating this debate. I should say that I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, where we have been looking at this issue. Although we are mainly looking at the Human Rights Act, we have had some time to look at it. I thank also the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for its very helpful briefing.
Perhaps I may answer a question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley. At least one Afghan boy in Calais said to me that the reason he had made the journey and left Afghanistan before the Taliban took over completely was that they were busy recruiting young men into their armed forces. He and his family had no wish to fight for the Taliban, and therefore the family helped him to flee and paid the money. That seems to me a worthy example of why somebody becomes a refugee.
I do not believe that the memorandum of understanding on Rwanda has been properly debated. This is our first chance to have a debate on it at all, but the absence of such debate, with just little bits in Question Time, seems quite unsatisfactory for such a controversial policy, one which is widely opposed by so many people. There was a reassurance given by the Government that children will not be removed to Rwanda. We will take that at face value; we have had other assurances about children before. It was said clearly, so we had better take the Government’s word for it, but now they are trying to finesse it by arguing about the age of children.
What happens if somebody who arrives under the age of 18 then becomes 18 while waiting for their asylum claim to be sorted out? Does that mean they become automatically liable for removal to Rwanda, or will that be taken into account? What about young people in Calais trying to come to this country by legal means, which have mainly been closed to them? What happens to them if they have been in Calais, perhaps for a year, and then become 18? Are we going to say to them, “You’ve reached 18—you have to go to Rwanda”? This underlines why the policy is so unsatisfactory; it seems not to have been properly thought out. What happens if a person is sent to Rwanda and is adjudicated not to be an asylum seeker? We have never heard what happens to them then. Are they sent back here, or do they stay in Rwanda but not as an asylum seeker? These are the issues which require proper debate.
My knowledge of age assessment is that it is a very unsatisfactory experience. When the Home Office was doing it, I was told by a mother looking after a Syrian refugee girl that the girl had to go for an age assessment to the Home Office. The mother asked if she could go into the interview with the child and was told “No.” The result is that a child—I think she was 15 or 16—was put through a most unpleasant interview and came out of it absolutely traumatised. If a young person is a criminal, they are allowed to have either a parent, guardian or lawyer with them, but we do not allow that for asylum seekers. That seems absolutely perverse. Maybe it does not happen like that anymore, but I found that a very shocking experience.
There have been examples brought to light where young people have been detained under these provisions and given notice of intent for removal, even though their age assessment has not been completed. A long journey across several countries might make people look a lot older than they are. It is pretty difficult to have an accurate age assessment, and we should be understanding of what people have been through. This is a totally unsatisfactory policy and I hope the Government will climb down.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, what must it be like to be forced to leave not just your country but your home and to know little about where you are trying to head for, though you have an idealised version in your head? It is a journey full of hazards, because you have no means of travelling direct by a safe, regular route—such routes may not exist—and you are alone. What must it be like to find you are treated with suspicion? They say you are an adult, and you may look it after the experiences you have been through; inside you feel very young indeed and you are a child.
What would it be like then to be moved on to Rwanda, where, undoubtedly, criminal gangs will be operating to smuggle refugees who find themselves there to another country? Crucially, what will it be like to reach the UK, not having—and never having had— convenient proof of age, have difficulty being understood and be given a notice of intent about being sent to Rwanda?
What discussions have the Government had with the Rwandan Government about unaccompanied children? What assurances have they been given about the treatment of children and young people found, in fact, to be children? What have the Government advised their liaison officer in our diplomatic mission in Kigali or the monitoring committee? Those are both mentioned in the memorandum of understanding. Saying that children will not be sent there is not adequate when there is even the slightest doubt whether the procedures will ensure that no child will be treated as an adult.
It is largely NGOs which provide support in challenging decisions for those they can. Their resources are limited. I realise that caseworkers are stretched, and Home Office guidance may be difficult to apply, but it seems very wrong that society has to be so reliant on the third sector.
Members of the House received powerful representations about the age assessment provisions of the then Nationality and Borders Bill, and we had a very helpful, but necessarily limited, briefing from the noble Baroness, Lady Black of Strome, the interim chair of the interim age assessment committee—I understand that everyone is still interim there. However, the British Dental Association conversely believes that the use of dental and other X-rays to assess age is a fait accompli. It is concerned that dental age checks—if “checks” is the right term—are already taking place. It seems a long way from what we were told at the time of the Bill about safeguarding and triangulating information from different sources as a safety net. I found that very reassuring at the time; I hope not to be disillusioned, but I am on the way there.
Our Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I am lucky enough to chair, heard last week from an academic who said there was
“not really any process for the best interest of unaccompanied refugee children to be properly weighted in any assessment … It is an impossible state of exception”—
an exception to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He added:
“We have no discussion about unaccompanied refugee children’s development.”
Another witness said that family life and a child’s best interests are often portrayed
“as private matters, versus immigration control being in the public interest.”
She referred to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, in the Supreme Court, putting it that
“there is actually a strong public interest in”
the upbringing of, and opportunities for, children.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for ensuring that the House debates these issues; I wish it were not necessary.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I recognise of course that some adults pretend to be children, and therefore there must be some sort of age assessment process. However, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, I was reminded of when I too went to Calais and met Afghan boys. Those looking after them were absolutely satisfied that the half-dozen I met were all under 18, and mostly around 16. They all had moustaches, and one boy had an incipient beard. Anyone looking at them would say to themselves, “Well, I wonder, aren’t they bound to be over 18?” The fact is that those young men who had come from Afghanistan, fleeing the Taliban and the prospect of having to join the Taliban, were undoubtedly underage, but they mature very much more quickly than western Europeans. That is, to a great extent, an answer to part of what the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, said.
Looking at the Nationality and Borders Act, what really worries me is its wording: what sort of training would a “designated person” have? Under Section 52, it appears that they will have to use “scientific methods in age assessments”, and I wonder what sort of scientific methods those will be. The Act sets out some of the ways, but what are the people who will apply them be able to do, and how are they really going to show that a young man or girl—it is generally a young man—is in fact under 18? As has been said again and again by other noble Lords today and during the passing of the Nationality and Borders Bill, this is a really serious matter.
A number of very sensible amendments were put forward—not by me, but I supported them—in Committee and on Report of the Nationality and Borders Bill. None of them, as your Lordships’ House will remember, were accepted in the Commons by the Government, and none of them were agreed. As others said earlier, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, there is a real danger that, for those young men aged 16 and 17, what they have gone through before will not be made any easier but in many ways will be made worse by what this Government are putting them through.
Baroness Neuberger (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for securing this debate. It is really important that we debate this issue again—and, possibly, again and again. I am also very grateful to the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium for its valuable briefing, and to the House of Lords Library. We have had excellent material.
Much that needs to be said has already been said, but I want to echo the words of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. You can see a whole variety of 16 to 19 year-olds and, depending on the culture from which they come, some of them will look quite old and some quite young. You cannot just look at them and decide what age they are; it is a really dangerous game to play to say that you can do it absolutely scientifically. This House needs reassurance that those individuals, arguably children but whose age is doubted, who are presently treated as adults after a short visual assessment by border officials, cannot be issued with a notice of intent to remove them to Rwanda. That is the first thing that we need from the Minister. We know that there have been a number of cases where that has been the case and, given the very short time available, I ask the Minister to answer several questions about this.
First, in the case of individuals claiming to be children who are sent straight to detention or adult accommodation, can the Minister tell us how many young people, adults or children, this affects? Can she tell us whether the Home Office monitors what happens to them or whether, in the light of this question, this debate and other concerns raised recently, she can reassure this House that the Home Office will in future monitor what happens to them?
Secondly, given concerns raised about age-assessment methodology when we debated the Nationality and Borders Bill, and the reassurances we were given that no child or young person would be forced to have an X-ray, and nor would refusal be taken as a negative indication in any age assessment, can the Minister assure this House that, while such assessments are being made, no attempt will be made to serve a notice of intent and that a refusal to be X-rayed will not make such a notice more likely?
Thirdly, associated with that point—and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised this in part—can the Minister tell us whether dental X-rays, or any other X-rays for that matter, have been used already in the age-assessment processes since the Nationality and Borders Act was passed, and whether they might have been used in assessing the age of any of the migrants currently awaiting removal to Rwanda? The Age Estimation Scientific Advisory Committee has not yet made any formal recommendations on the issue of X-rays, and it would be good for this House to know. It is truly disturbing to hear that some of these people whose age is disputed, who have been detained as adults, are being served with notices of intent. These people are often found to be children, as other noble Lords have said. Can the Minister reassure this House that, until confirmation has been received from a person’s legal representative that they have not been and will not be referred into the care of a local authority, such Rwanda removal notices will stop?
This whole policy begs questions about safeguarding and children’s rights. Can the Minister reassure this House that the rights of children, including those whose age is disputed until a firm assessment is made and, where appropriate, also challenged, will be respected in full, and that the rights of the child will be paramount?
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for securing this debate. We debated age assessment at length during the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill, the difficulty in accurately assessing the age of children and the danger that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children might be wrongly identified as adults and removed to Rwanda. I agree with everything that was said in the comprehensive opening by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and reinforced by other noble Lords—perhaps with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, who said many things with which I would take issue if I had more time.
Evidence in the High Court this week has cast doubt on the whole Rwanda scheme, with UK officials apparently repeatedly telling the Government not to strike a deal with Rwanda over asylum seekers, according to court documents, as reported in the Independent newspaper. Rwanda was initially excluded from the shortlist of potential partner countries on human rights grounds. The UK high commissioner in Rwanda indicated the country should not be pursued as an option because it has been accused of recruiting refugees to conduct armed operations in neighbouring countries, has a poor human rights record and has been criticised by the UK for extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances, torture and crackdowns on anyone critical of the regime.
In February 2021, Rwanda was not recommended as it was rated amber/red for human rights, its asylum system and political feasibility, questioning whether mitigation measures would provide a respectable case against legal challenge. Officials in the Foreign Office continued to advise No. 10 against engagement in May 2021, suggesting Rwanda does not have a functioning asylum system in compliance with refugee convention obligations. A draft of the official government guidance, published after the deal was announced in April, had been sent to the Rwandan Government for review. They flagged a number of points of concern on the evidence base on human rights in Rwanda, and the Home Office changed the document based on their comments. Parts of the documents covering Rwanda’s previous asylum deal with Israel, which was ruled illegal by the Israeli Supreme Court, have been redacted by the Home Office’s legal team.
Numerous memos were circulating in the Foreign Office raising concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record and violations of the political opposition or those who oppose Rwanda’s president. The criticisms go on and on—and these are government documents that have been declared to the High Court. On April 12, the day before the agreement with Rwanda was signed, an internal government memo said the agreement was
“unenforceable, consisting in part of upfront payments, meaning fraud risk is very high.”
This is just some of the evidence, with more disclosure to come. Rwanda is no place to send any asylum seekers, let alone children.
There is no foolproof way of assessing age, as noble Lords have said. There is a real danger of highly vulnerable children being further traumatised—wrongly traumatised—by being sent to Rwanda if the Government proceed with this inhumane policy.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I start by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Lister for sponsoring today’s debate and for her long-term commitment to this issue. The quality of debate and the calibre of speakers who have taken part demonstrate the widespread concern over this policy. Fortunately for the House, it also means there is little that I need to add, other than the strong support on these Benches for the concerns and questions raised.
The shadow Home Secretary has recently asked the Government to provide an evidence base and transparent costings for the migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda, and has received neither. These calls have now been echoed by the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee, whose latest report has called for detailed costings and stated that:
“There is no clear evidence that the policy will deter migrant crossings”.
The committee reported:
“There is a worrying trend in Home Office policy announcements being made before detailed policy has been worked through, tested and even agreed between Government Departments”.
It is part of that worrying trend that we are today having to repeat concerns over a lack of a proper screening process for those who are chosen for offshoring.
Is the Minister able to confirm that of the cases pulled from the aborted flight on Tuesday 14 June, there were known concerns that those due to be on the flight included children and victims of torture and trafficking? What changes have been made to the screening and safeguarding process since mid-June? Organisations working in the sector have raised concerns that children as young as 14 are being given a “standard age” of 23 when they arrive in the UK. What engagement have Ministers had with local authorities and organisations working with asylum seekers to discuss reported concerns? Can the Minister provide the House with more information on how the best interests of the child are being demonstrably prioritised in age assessment policy?
Finally, the proven way to stop children taking desperate and dangerous journeys to reach safety or family is to provide safe and legal routes. Will the Government look again at family reunion routes for unaccompanied children, to allow children who have survived unimaginable hardship to join loving family members in the UK?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for securing this debate and all noble Lords who have contributed to it. It is a very important topic and I am very happy to set out the Government’s position. In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I am happy to engage in future debates on this important issue.
Before I come on to discuss the specific points that have been raised, I hope colleagues will allow me to briefly set out some background. Last year, the Government published our New Plan for Immigration, and we have since introduced the Nationality and Borders Act, which is the legislative vehicle through which we will put much of that plan into action. In April this year, we announced the migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda, which is part of a co-ordinated strategy to disincentivise dangerous and unnecessary journeys, such as small boat crossings, to save lives and to increase public confidence in our immigration system. In reply to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, we have many safe and legal routes which allow people to come here safely. The UK and Rwanda have worked closely on the arrangement to ensure adequate safeguards are in place to protect vulnerable people seeking safety, as set out in the memorandum of understanding. There are provisions for a monitoring committee to monitor the end-to-end process.
Turning to the specific topic of today’s debate, I cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings but our position under the Home Office’s inadmissibility guidance is clear: unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are not suitable for third-country inadmissibility action and as such are not eligible for relocation to Rwanda. The approach to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is also extended to any individual whose age has been disputed by the Home Office but where that age dispute is ongoing. I hope that answers the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Lilley, as to why we cannot speculate on the reasons why unaccompanied asylum-seeking children might travel to the UK, everyone considered for relocation to Rwanda will be screened and have access to legal advice. This includes individuals who are undergoing a full Merton assessment and those who have legally challenged their assessment. The age of an individual arriving in the UK is normally established from the documents with which they have travelled. However, many who claim to be under the age of 18 do not have any definitive legal documentary evidence to support their claimed age, to answer the question from my noble friend. While many are clearly children, for others it is less clear. It is important that there is an effective decision-making process in place, not least for safeguarding reasons. An incorrect determination could result in an adult being placed with or alongside children. Conversely, if a child is wrongly assessed to be an adult, they may be served with an inadmissibility decision.
This initial age assessment is just the first stage in the broader age-assessment process. Where there is still doubt, the individual will be treated as a child, pending further consideration of their age. The Supreme Court recently and unanimously held that the Home Office’s initial age assessment policy was lawful in the case of BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, and that was last year.
The policy contains various safeguards, including that an individual whose age has been disputed may be treated as an adult without further consideration of their age only where two officers, one of at least chief immigration officer grade, have independently assessed them as being over the age of 18, based on their physical appearance and demeanour. There is a large margin of error in the individual’s favour, and that is designed to ensure that only where it is very clear that the person is an adult will they be treated as such.
Where there is less certainty, the policy directs officers to afford the individual the benefit of the doubt and treat them as a child, pending further assessment by a local authority. These measures will collectively serve to further minimise instances of individuals being mistakenly assessed as adults and provide them with an easily accessible route to seek a remedy where error does occur. There are also a number of safeguards in place to ensure that children are not mistakenly removed to Rwanda. Those who are deemed suitable for the inadmissibility procedure go through either a detained or non-detained route following a case-by-case assessment of their suitability for detention. For those who are not detained, where their age has been disputed by the Home Office, they are at liberty to approach a local authority and ask for a holistic age assessment, which takes into account all relevant information and evidence in relation to the young person. These are led by qualified social workers who are trained to work with children, and it is long-established Home Office policy to give significant weight to any decision on age made by a local authority. There has been no use of X-rays in the context of age assessment since the Nationality and Borders Act came into force.
However, where an individual is assessed by a local authority to be an adult, they are at liberty to challenge that decision through the courts. Where an individual is assessed to be suitable for detention, they will be referred through the detention gatekeeper process. This was introduced in June 2016 and works independently of both referring operational teams and detained caseworker teams to ensure that individuals enter immigration detention only where it is for a lawful purpose and is considered to be a proportionate measure on the facts of the case. If the detention gatekeeper is not satisfied that detention is lawful and proportionate, a referral can be rejected, or returned for further information. This process provides an element of independence in the detention decision-making process and protects potentially vulnerable individuals from being detained when it is not appropriate to do so. This would include individuals for whom there are any reasons to have concerns about the reliability of a decision on age.
Another safeguard is the requirement for regular detention reviews. Our published detention guidance sets out prescribed points at which continued detention must be reviewed. If a person who is detained makes representations that detention is unlawful on the basis that they are a child, the officer conducting the review will consider this and a decision on whether to maintain detention or release must be made as promptly as possible. In addition to monthly detention reviews, individuals also have the circumstances around their ongoing detention considered periodically at a case progression panel. These consist of a chair, panel members and panel experts, who review the appropriateness of continuing detention in accordance with the policy and legal framework.
Those subject to inadmissibility procedures will also have access to legal advice. They will be served with a notice of intent which notifies them that they are under consideration for the inadmissibility process and provides them with an opportunity to make any representations as to why they believe the inadmissibility process should not apply to them before a decision is made; this can include any representations about age. They will have the ability to seek legal recourse where they believe they have been wrongly treated as an adult and placed in detention.
Access to independent legal advice and judicial oversight of the process are two of the most important safeguards against the removal of individuals who may have been incorrectly assessed as adults, and the Home Office will of course fully respect the outcome of any successful legal challenge. Where an individual does put in a legal challenge on the basis of their age, we will of course wait for that to conclude.
Finally, we have in place a provision within the migration and economic development partnership to facilitate the return to the UK of an individual where there is sufficient cause. This would include individuals where it is subsequently established that removal was unlawful on any basis.
In terms of further strengthening the system, and on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, we recognise that there is more to do to make the wider system as robust as possible. The age assessment reforms within the Nationality and Borders Act will improve the accuracy of age assessment outcomes, minimising the risk that a person will be incorrectly treated as either an adult or a child.
I close by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for securing the debate—
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I think we have some time, so before the noble Baroness sits down, I would say that we have identified a gap between theory and practice. The Minister accepts that more work needs to be done but then says that everything will be fine once the Nationality and Borders Act is operational. However, this House rejected the age assessment procedures as taking us backwards rather than forwards. A number of specific questions were asked, which I do not think the Minister has answered. I would be grateful if she could do so subsequently in writing, but could I at least have an assurance, as I asked, that officials will consider seriously the recommendations put forward by the consortium, and that whatever decisions are taken at that meeting are relayed to noble Lords who have spoken in this debate?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I know that this House did not accept the age assessment process, but Parliament did, and eventually this House did not demur on that. I will certainly take back the noble Baroness’s points on the consortium, and I hope that we can make progress in a constructive way. As I say, I look forward to further debates on this issue, because I think it is important that we get it right.
Private Equity: Economic and Social Risks
Lord Sikka
That this House takes note of the economic and social risks created by the regulation and practices of private equity.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
I am grateful for an opportunity to exchange some thoughts about private equity, a subject that should really concern us all. In my view, it is likely to be the location of the next major financial crash, and there will not be enough money to bail out the affected entities. Private equity is enmeshed with numerous other parts of the economy. It gets its cash from insurance companies, pension funds, banks, local authorities, trusts and wealthy individuals. The Government’s quantitative easing of £895 billion has also provided vast amounts of resources to these firms.
Private equity consortiums function as banks but are not actually regulated as banks. There is no minimum capital requirement, no control on leverage and no stress tests, even though the collapse of a private equity firm can destabilise all other sectors. The recent collapse of the US-based Archegos Capital Management shows how quickly the domino effects spread. It very quickly depleted the capital buffers of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Credit Suisse. My first question is: can the Minister publish the Government’s assessment of the possible domino effects which may arise from the collapse of a UK-based private equity firm?
In a light-touch environment, private equity has been cooking its books. Recently, the Financial Times reported that parts of the private equity market resemble Ponzi and pyramid schemes. Private equity firms are transferring assets between each other at knowingly inflated prices to bump up profits, balance sheets and returns. My second question is: can the Minister explain what estimate has been made of balance sheet and profit inflation by the UK-based private equity firms, and what are the Government going to do about it?
In 2021, 803 private equity buy-out deals, worth some £46.8 billion, were completed. This investment is welcome, but private equity also poses threats to jobs, pensions, the country’s tax base and the wider economy. On average, private equity retains its interest in a company for 5.9 years, sometimes a lot less. There is no long-term commitment to any place, product, workers or customers. We all know that short-termism has been holding this country back for years. Financial engineering, tax avoidance and opacity are key parts of the private equity business model. Short-term returns are extracted through related party transactions in the form of rental payments, management fees, royalties and much more.
Private equity eliminates the downside risk of bankruptcy by injecting finance not as equity but as secured debt. This means that, in the event of bankruptcy, private equity needs to be paid first. Inevitably, unsecured creditors recover little, if anything, of the amount due to them. I give some examples. Bernard Matthews, Bon Marché, Cath Kidston, Comet, Debenhams, Flybe, Maplin, Monarch Airlines, Payless Shoes, TM Lewin and Toys “R” Us are just some of the monuments to the predatory practices of private equity are just some of the monuments to the predatory practices of private equity. All too often, wages are pushed down, jobs lost and pension schemes looted to generate short-term returns for private equity.
In September 2013, private equity firm Rutland Partners acquired a £25 million stake in Bernard Matthews. The company was then loaded with bank borrowing and a secured loan from Rutland, which carried an interest rate of 20% per annum. Asset stripping began straightaway. In 2016, the assets of Bernard Matthews, but not the whole business, were sold off for £87.5 million to Boparan Private Office. Rutland made a quick profit of £13.9 million. The key was dumping the amount owed to unsecured creditors and the £75 million deficit on the employee pension scheme, which eventually resulted in 700 employees losing some of their pension rights. At the time, I was advising the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee on the case and, on 3 March 2017, the committee wrote to Boparan to ask why it bought only the assets, not the entire business, including liabilities to unsecured creditors and the pension scheme. Boparan replied that it had offered to buy the whole company, including its liabilities, but the offer was rejected by Rutland because, by dumping liabilities and the pension scheme deficit, it stood to make a bigger profit.
The business model of private equity is all about asset stripping and dumping pension obligations. This pattern is visible across many private equity businesses. Silentnight appointed KPMG as administrator to enable its rescue but the firm did not actually do that. KPMG and its insolvency partner deliberately pushed Silentnight into insolvency, so that private equity firm HIG, a client coveted by KPMG, could buy the company out of administration at a lower price by dumping pension obligations to employees. About 1,200 workers lost some of their pension rights. That is a criminal act. The partner of KPMG lied—he has been found to have lied by the regulators—but the Insolvency Service has not mounted any criminal prosecution. Indeed, the Government have rewarded KPMG by giving it lots of public contracts.
Water companies have long been exploited by private equity. From 2006 to 2017, Thames Water was owned by a private equity consortium fronted by Macquarie Bank. During this period, Thames Water’s debt ballooned from £2.4 billion to £10 billion, mostly from tax haven affiliates, and interest payments paid to the group itself swelled the charges for customers. For the period of its ownership, private equity extracted £1.2 billion in dividends, plus £3.186 billion in interest payments. The company’s tax liability for the years from 2007 to 2016 totalled only £100,000, but we know that billions of litres of water leaked away and the company dumped raw sewage into the rivers. Meanwhile, the private equity investors got a return of between 15.5% and 19% a year.
In 2007, Alliance Boots was bought by a private equity firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. The company’s control immediately shifted from Nottingham to Zug in Switzerland. The buyout was financed by the borrowing of £9 billion and loaded on to the company. This enabled the extraction of profits and profit shifting; and Alliance Boots engaged in a series of transactions through entities in Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and Gibraltar to transfer profits. The net result was that Alliance Boots, which relied heavily on revenue from NHS prescriptions, dodged taxes in this country of £1.28 billion.
Asda has been bought by private equity firm TDR Capital, in conjunction with the billionaire Issa brothers. What was the company’s first step? To set up a parent company in Jersey. We know what will follow: a lot of financial engineering and tax avoidance.
Morrisons has been bought by Clayton, Dubilier and Rice’s offshore vehicle, Market21 GP Holdings, which is registered in the Caribbean. The supermarket is now controlled by a newly created entity in the Cayman Islands. We know the next step: asset stripping, profit shifting and tax avoidance.
The involvement of private equity in social care is a source of crisis. Private equity firms own one in eight care home beds in England. They typically load debts of around £35,072 for each care bed with an interest charge of £102 per bed per week. This roughly amounts to an average of 16% of the weekly cost of a bed, leaving little for staff and front-line services. Staff are poorly paid, which is one reason there is high turnover. They cannot provide the promised levels of service. Too many private equity-owned care homes, especially those owned by HC-One, are regularly sanctioned by the regulator for failing to meet the minimum standards.
At the time of its collapse in 2011, Southern Cross was owned by a private equity firm called Blackstone. Many of its care homes were sold to Four Seasons Health Care, another private equity-owned firm—this time, owned by a company based in Guernsey. In 2017, with 220 care homes and 17,000 residents, it became bankrupt because it had extracted high returns and did not provide the required level of service. Again, it made billions in profit.
In the time available, I have provided a glimpse into some of the predatory practices of private equity. The Bank for International Settlements has now warned that excessive leverage is a danger as private equity firms will struggle to meet the higher borrowing costs imposed by rising interest rates. The Government can of course stop the dangers of high leverage by abolishing the tax relief on interest payments. It is not a business cost. Why on earth is tax relief being given? Whether an investment is funded by equity or debt has absolutely no impact on the systemic or business risk of the project concerned. Therefore, there is no case whatever for allowing tax relief on interest payments by corporations. Tax relief on mortgage interest payments made by individuals was abolished long ago on the grounds that it encouraged excessive borrowing, distorted markets and created new risks. That is even more applicable to private equity entities, which can drag the whole economy down.
I remind noble Lords that the previous financial crash was caused not by people rushing to banks to withdraw their funds but by excessive leverage. Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns had leverage ratios of 30:1 and 33:1. Private equity has even higher ratios yet we seem to be oblivious to that. There is nothing in the 330-page Financial Services and Markets Bill, published yesterday, to address any of the concerns I have raised. I hope we do not live to regret that. I beg to move.
Viscount Chandos (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Sikka on securing the time for this debate, although that timing, as the last business before the Summer Recess, has led to a group of speakers which, in the words of Private Eye, might be described as very small but perfectly formed, if that is not too self-congratulatory. The absence of any speaker form the Conservative Bank Benches would suggest either that the gameshow excitement of the past two weeks has been too much for them or they are already queuing to get into one of the 18 hustings between the two candidates to succeed this terminator of Prime Ministers. Either one of whom, I think even my noble friend Lord Sikka would agree, poses even greater economic and social risks than anything that could be caused by private equity.
My noble friend has spoken and written extensively over the years about his concerns about private equity’s impact on the economy and society, and in his speech today he has laid out these concerns very clearly. As will become clear from my remarks, I see private equity as a glass at least half full in its economic and social impact as opposed to my noble friend’s glass at least half empty. None the less, I am very grateful for the opportunity that he has given the House to consider this important subject.
I declare my interest as a trustee and investment committee member of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, which has substantial investments in private equity funds where I have no personal financial benefit; and as an investor through my personal pension fund in the private equity fund of funds, HarbourVest Global Private Equity, where I obviously have a personal benefit.
The experience of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, one of the largest grant-making foundations in the UK, represents a microcosm of some of the benefits from private equity investment. Over 15 years, these investments have become the most important contributor to the foundation’s investment performance and hence to its ability to increase its grant-making by many millions of pounds more per year than would otherwise have been the case. The same is true, I believe, for the Wellcome Trust, whose genuinely world-leading work in medical research and healthcare has grown hugely off the back of its private equity returns.
Analysis by the leading investment advisory firm in this field, Cambridge Associates, suggests that there is a strong correlation between the overall investment performance of major US endowments and foundations and the allocation of 15% or more of their investments to private equity. Globally, academic research; improving access, diversity and inclusion in higher education; disease eradication; poverty alleviation; and many other causes are benefiting by billions of dollars a year from the superior returns achieved by successful private equity investment programmes. The same is true to a more limited extent to members of those pension schemes able and willing to invest in private equity.
Of course, none of this would be acceptable if these were returns at the unacceptable expense of employees, consumers or the environment and that is clearly my noble friend’s concern. Private equity as a generic term covers, as my noble friend might see it, a multitude of sins or, in my more nerdishly neutral way, a multitude of sub-asset classes. According to alternative asset data provider Preqin, globally, there are around $3 trillion of assets invested in or committed to buyout funds, on which my noble friend has focused his analysis and remarks.
However, almost as much—around £2.8 trillion—is invested in venture and growth capital, through which start-up, early-stage and fast-growing companies are supported. In these cases, little or no debt is used, so there is not the leverage risk that might apply to buyouts, to which my noble friend referred. These fast-growing, innovative companies are important generators of jobs and, through their products and services, benefit both consumers and enterprises.
Although the adoption of formal environmental, social and governance—ESG—policies by private equity managers is growing fast, with over 40% now having done so, even those venture and growth capital managers that have not yet done so are, through their focus on innovation and the industries and markets of the future, delivering higher levels of impact than, say, a typical public markets equity fund.
That is not to say that there are no issues for this key segment of the private equity market. For instance, a life sciences venture capital fund may take a transformative new drug or therapy from the earliest preclinical stage all the way to licensing or selling it—a pinnacle of high-impact investing, in my view. This does not guarantee that it will be made available to healthcare systems around the world at an affordable price. I suggest, however, that this is a broader issue than that of the role of venture capital or private equity.
Even when looking at the activities of buyout firms, as my noble friend has done, my feeling is that in many cases the issues are more general to the overall corporate sector than specific to private equity. Employment rights, pension protection, thin capitalisation, insolvency law, competition and merger policy are all areas where significant improvements are needed in corporate law and regulation, to which private equity and private equity-backed companies must adhere.
In thinking about insolvency law, I was interested to read the ruling of an Appeal Court judge:
“I have long thought … that the ordinary trade creditors of a trading company ought to have a preferential claim on the assets in liquidation in respect of debts incurred within a certain limited time before the winding-up. But that is not the law at present … winding-up debenture-holders generally step in and sweep off everything; and a great scandal it is.”
Those were the words of Lord Macnaghten in the case of Salomon v Salomon in 1897 and, 125 years later, not much has changed regarding the rights of unsecured and trade creditors.
My noble friend raised a number of specific issues about private equity. While it is for the Minister to address them, I would like to express a view on a few of them. I do not believe that there is a real systemic risk arising from private equity. The degree of leverage of the investment banks in 2008 and the issue of subprime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities are of a different scale from anything that currently exists in leveraged buyouts. I look forward to talking to my noble friend outside the Chamber, but do not understand his analysis that private equity is leveraged 30 times. The average leverage applied to companies acquired by private equity firms is somewhere between six and eight times the EBITDA of those companies.
I was struck by the companies he listed in his example. Many of them seem to come from sectors, whether airlines or retail, that are clearly going through major challenges in the current changing consumer environment. I accept that there may be cases where private equity firms’ behaviour exacerbated those problems, but in other cases I believe there are retail businesses, for instance, that have been given more chances than might otherwise have been the case by the willingness of specialist private equity firms and restructuring funds to attempt to turn those businesses around.
Yes, sometimes private equity funds may make a relatively quick gain. That may be through asset stripping —which I think is very much less of a practice than it was 20 or 30 years ago—but in general one of the positive aspects of private equity is an ability for private equity funds to take a longer-term view than investment managers in the public markets can.
In conclusion, I believe that, as in every area of the social market economy, improvements could be made to regulation and practice in the private equity and particularly buyout markets, but overall they make a positive net impact to both the UK and global economies and contribute to employment and improving the lives of many members of society.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Sikka on securing this debate; I am also grateful to the other speaker in this discussion. Given the imminent arrival of the Recess, the group is small, but several interesting points have been made and important questions posed.
Like it or not, private equity is part of our economy. It is an umbrella term, but each fund is different and each transaction unique; we should bear that in mind. Nevertheless, as the Lords Library briefing on this debate highlights, opinion on the role of private equity is split. Some work, mainly in the field of academia, has been done to assess its impact, but the evidence base is not extensive. There are competing views about the sustainability of the increased company debt, the extent to which these funds create jobs or improve pay, and so on. It seems to me therefore that one of the tasks we face is to better understand and quantify some of the practices discussed this afternoon. I hope the Treasury and others are working to expand the evidence base and come to more concrete views. Perhaps the Minister can touch on that in her reply.
One of the areas covered by my noble friend in his remarks was the role of the Financial Conduct Authority, the FCA, in regulating the activity of relevant funds. Over the years we have had many debates on the FCA, its powers and performance. It fulfils some of its functions very effectively, but some have a nagging feeling that it lacks certain tools and fails to properly utilise others.
My noble friend will know that in recent weeks I have tried—somewhat unsuccessfully, I concede—to tease out details of the forthcoming Financial Services and Markets Bill. I believe that the Bill has now been published and that consideration will begin in another place following the Summer Recess. In fact, I know it has been published since I have a copy, and I realise that first you have to weigh it to get a sense of its depth. I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to go into detail about the Bill at this stage. However, she can expect my noble friend to be able to pursue some of these issues further through amendments to that Bill.
That legislation will of course be considered immediately after the Conservative leadership race, which has highlighted something of an obsession with deregulation. While that may be expected, given the personalities involved, surely the answer to questions about the role or potential risks of private equity is to regulate this area in a smarter way? Part of that better regulation could be to close some of the tax loopholes exploited by private equity firms. As has been mentioned, the carried interest loophole is particularly controversial. Many also perceive an incentive for funds to take on debt rather than making equity investments. Labour has committed to closing some of these loopholes, using the process to fund an expansion in mental health care. It took some time, but the Treasury did eventually come round to Labour’s proposals for a windfall tax on energy profits. Can I perhaps tempt the Minister to take on this plan, too?
Another oft-cited concern with private equity has been its interest in established British businesses. We have recently seen the acquisition of Morrisons by a US firm, for example. In recent months, the high-street chemist Boots has been seeking a buyer, with several private equity firms expressing an interest. Ultimately, potential buyers struggled to raise funds and that sale has been abandoned—for now. However, we can be sure that funds will continue to show an interest in large British firms.
With that in mind, what consideration have the Government given to introducing enhanced takeover tests when UK firms of a certain size find themselves the target of a takeover? Ministers often cite the ability to scrutinise or block deals under the National Security and Investment Act, but those provisions do not seem to be sufficient. “National security” is not properly defined in that Act. It is for the Secretary of State to decide what it means, and it is also their decision whether to issue a call-in notice. The Minister may not think there are any issues here, but the Government should at least be willing to outline their position.
It is not just so-called traditional businesses that are targeted by private equity; overseas investment funds also have an increasing interest in British sports clubs. Several private equity firms have been involved in takeovers of football clubs, particularly—but not exclusively—in the Premier League. Just a month ago, the multi-billion-pound sale of Chelsea Football Club was completed, enabling the exit of Roman Abramovich. That consortium was fronted by California-based firm Clearlake Capital. We hope that such deals will ultimately prove to be good for the clubs involved, and for British football, but recent history creates some doubt. There are numerous examples of clubs which have been taken over by private equity or venture capital funds, who load the club with debt and leave others to pick up the pieces. This is one of the reasons why the Government commissioned Tracey Crouch’s Fan-Led Review of Football Governance, and why we will soon have an independent regulator with powers to investigate takeover bids.
However, it is not just sport. As others have noted, we see increasing private equity involvement in our social care sector. While the Department of Health and Social Care insists that this is not impacting on care quality, those who work in the sector speak of pressure on wages and resources, with owners of some facilities seeking to maximise their profit margin. There are genuine fears about what this will mean in the future, given the growth in demand for care services and the issues around staffing. The Government have repeatedly promised social care reform but, as in so many other areas, we have not seen meaningful progress. Private equity ownership of care homes need not be a bad thing if core regulatory requirements protect the quality of service, but it is not clear that current rules are up to scratch.
Elsewhere last year, Parliament passed the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Act, formally setting up a body of that name to invest in high-risk but potentially high-reward projects. During the passage of that Bill, Labour suggested that ARIA should be able to take an equity stake in the ventures that it funds or have a share of the intellectual property developed by those businesses. Those amendments were pursued by my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton out of a fear that venture capital firms, probably based in America, would swoop in and buy out any British start-ups that showed promise, moving IP and jobs across the Atlantic. The Government were not able to answer why they felt it right that these start-ups would be taxpayer-funded while their eventual success would be enjoyed by private investors. Does the Minister believe that is a sustainable position?
Despite the concerns that I have raised today, the involvement of private equity in the British economy is not inherently bad. It is a way for some firms to raise much-needed funds, enabling expansion or any number of other desirable outcomes. However, as the debate title suggests, there are risks. Too often we see firms that are operating entirely successfully taken over by private equity, overleveraged and ultimately left in a less stable position. That is not good news for our economy, nor for those who have given years of loyal service to a business. We should not discount the role that investment funds can play but we must ensure that this activity is adequately regulated. I hope the Minister can demonstrate a commitment to that in her response.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, on securing this debate. Private equity is a salient issue for the UK economy, and it is important for us to recognise both the benefits that private equity investment can bring and the risks that can occur alongside it. I thank the other two noble Lords for their constructive contributions to the debate.
I will politely disagree with the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, on his remarks about the Conservative Benches. I look to the Cross Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches; even our Green representative is not here. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that attendance tonight probably has more to do with the timing of the debate than other events going on at this moment. However, I welcome the noble Viscount’s glass-half-full attitude to private equity investment.
The UK is proud to be home to businesses of all shapes and sizes, in every region of the country, and across a variety of sectors. Each of those companies will require different growth strategies for their business that reflect their individual strengths. Private equity plays a valuable role in providing companies with the capital to achieve that. It can also help to ensure that innovative companies are able to weather disruption and continue their long-term growth trajectory to reach their full potential.
Private equity can unlock funding for firms that would not be able to easily access public markets, a vital source of support for both early-stage businesses and businesses that are struggling temporarily, and can enable them to grow into thriving firms. In 2021, businesses backed by private equity and venture capital directly contributed £102 billion to the UK economy, representing 5% of UK GDP. As firms thrive, that benefits the British people both as consumers and as employees of these firms. On jobs, private equity-backed businesses employed 1.9 million workers last year, meaning that 6% of the total jobs in the UK are supported by private equity-backed businesses.
The Government recognise the risks that can come with this form of financing. Private equity has a responsibility to represent the long-term interests of the businesses in which they invest. When mismanagement of a business occurs, it is important that those in the business’s senior management can be held accountable. In order to ensure that this can happen, directors of UK companies owned by private equity firms are subject to the same duties and obligations as other directors. They must comply with the duty to promote the success of their company in Section 172 of the Companies Act. They must exercise reasonable care, skill, diligence and independent judgment, and they must comply with insolvency law. To ensure that any payments to shareholders are legal and sustainable, any dividends and other distributions to shareholders of these companies can be made only out of realised profits.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
The argument is that there are all these laws to protect everybody. Has any action been taken against any private equity firms for disobeying any of these laws?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I will have to check that point for the noble Lord and get back to him in writing. From memory, action has been taken but I would want to check whether it was specifically against private equity companies or private equity-backed companies, rather than more broadly. I will also acknowledge, later in my speech, that there are instances where the laws and regulations have not always worked well, and where there is more progress to be made, such as in our audit reforms.
In addition, many private equity firms have voluntarily taken action to improve their disclosures by signing up to Sir David Walker’s Guidelines for Disclosure and Transparency in Private Equity. Private equity-backed companies above a certain size that volunteer to sign up to these guidelines agree to disclose information comparable to that published by listed companies in the FTSE 250. These regulations and guidance aim to ensure that private equity firms’ involvement in UK companies is in the best interests of the company and its employees in the long term. To further support this, the Government have reviewed the legislation on limited partnerships and intend to introduce measures in this parliamentary Session that will increase the transparency of the ownership and activities of these structures.
Transparency is important, and it is vital that investors and all those who depend on the largest companies can rely on the information they publish. That is why the Government are taking further action in this area, which aims to protect the UK economy against risks to jobs, pensions and suppliers from unexpected company collapses. Under the Government’s recently announced audit and corporate governance reform plans, the definition of a public interest entity will be expanded to cover virtually all types of company with a turnover of more than £750 million and more than 750 employees. This means that large private equity-owned companies will be subject to enhanced disclosure obligations relating to resilience and other matters. They will also be subject to stronger audit rules and the new, strengthened regulator will have powers to sanction directors for breaches of duties relating to reporting and audit.
As a result of these audit and corporate governance reforms, private equity-backed firms will have to publish information about the risks they face and the steps they have taken to prevent fraud, and disclose their realised profits and losses which are the basis for dividend payments. The Government recognise that instances of asset stripping do occur, to the detriment of creditors, employees and wider stakeholders. That is why, in 2018, the Government committed to delivering new powers to better enable insolvency practitioners to reverse transactions that have unfairly extracted value from companies prior to formal insolvency proceedings. The Government’s reforms will enhance the transparency requirements for our largest companies as well as the tools our insolvency practitioners can access. This is designed to ensure that large UK firms will not be able to dish out dividends when they are on the brink of collapse.
To address the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, about the creditor hierarchy for small traders, the hierarchy that currently exist in insolvency law—
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has referred a number of times to distributable profits. A distributable profit can be calculated only if there is a notion of capital maintenance in financial reporting. There is no clear notion of financial reporting in international accounting standards. It is a mishmash of maintenance, money capital, real capital, physical capital—any number can be dreamed up.
In addition, we do not have a central enforcer of company law in this country at all. A number of companies have paid their dividends illegally. In yesteryears, I asked questions, and I persuaded some Members of this House and the other place to ask questions as well, about this. The Government were unable to name where the buck stops. Who exactly is responsible for enforcing the part of company law relating to distributable profits and payment of legal dividends?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Lord is right that different aspects of our company law regulation and financial services regulation belong to different regulators. The point I was trying to make to noble Lords was that the extended and enhanced obligations that public companies currently face will be extended to those large companies in private ownership. That will enhance the transparency and regulation that they are subject to and, although it does not change those existing regulations, I hope that will none the less be welcomed.
I was talking about the creditor hierarchy, which has been well established for many years and is common among most international jurisdictions. Promoting the ranking of one group of creditors will mean that other creditors get less, and it would impact the positive environment that the UK economy creates for lending to business. With that in mind, any proposed change to the creditor hierarchy should only ever be considered with the utmost care.
I understand noble Lords’ concerns about recent high-profile cases where significant losses have occurred to creditors such as employees or small traders, including cases where the taxpayer has had to fund the continuation of vital services and where losses may have resulted from misconduct by the directors of those companies. I hope noble Lords will understand that it is not appropriate or helpful for me to refer publicly to individual cases, some of which may still be under investigation by various regulators or investigatory bodies, or where proceedings may be under way or in contemplation. However, I reassure noble Lords that the Government keep the insolvency and corporate governance frameworks under constant review. This includes learning lessons from such cases and, where necessary, the Government will take action to improve or strengthen those regulatory frameworks.
The noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Tunnicliffe, both raised concerns about the evidence base for private equity’s impact on our economy, specifically in relation to risks to financial stability. I agree with them on the importance of evidence and note that the Financial Policy Committee is responsible for identifying, monitoring and taking action to address systemic risks to UK financial stability. The FPC achieves this, in part, via the identification and assessment of risks and stresses in its biannual Financial Stability Report, published most recently on 5 July.
Both noble Lords also mentioned the Financial Services and Markets Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is right about its heft and, without going into detail, I am sure the Government will welcome noble Lords’ scrutiny of the Bill when it comes to this House. They will have the opportunity to table amendments in the usual way, but perhaps I can provide some words of reassurance to your Lordships on that Bill. It aims to make the UK one of the most competitive places in the world to do financial services business. However, I think the noble Lord talked about better regulation rather than deregulation; that is the spirit and aim with which the Bill is being taken forward, and the UK has a strong record in delivering that.
Both noble Lords also raised concerns about carried interest and the tax treatment of debt compared to equity. The Government believe that the UK’s approach to the taxation of carried interest, which is comparable to that of other jurisdictions, strikes an appropriate balance. The existing rules reflect both the nature of carried interest as a reward and the importance of maintaining the UK’s competitiveness for fund management.
As with other costs in relation to debt versus equity, debt interest is generally deductible as a business expense. Again, the UK is not an outlier in allowing groups to deduct interest in the calculation of taxable profits. Meanwhile, the UK has wide-ranging interest restriction rules that ensure highly leveraged groups deduct only a proportion of their worldwide third-party net interest expenses, equal to the UK’s share of the group’s worldwide profits. There are many reasons, other than the tax deductibility of interest, why companies may favour debt over equity financing. These include lower costs, easier access, greater flexibility and non-dilution of capital.
Noble Lords asked about takeover powers and what consideration the Government have given to enhanced takeover tests for large companies. As an open economy, overall we welcome foreign trade and investment where it supports UK growth and jobs and meets our stringent legal and regulatory requirements. The details of mergers and acquisitions are primarily a commercial matter for the parties concerned. However, the Government acknowledge that there are instances where such transactions might result in concerns for consumers and the economy more broadly. That is why there are established processes for considering whether there are specific public interest reasons for Ministers to intervene in mergers under the Enterprise Act 2002. These are limited to matters relating to financial stability, media plurality and public health emergencies.
The National Security and Investment Act 2021, which came into force in full in January 2022, introduced mandatory notification and clearance requirements for certain acquisitions in 17 sectors of the economy, including parts of the UK’s critical national infrastructure and advanced technology sectors. This brought further improved security to British businesses and people.
I am conscious of the time, but I have one more point to address. The noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Tunnicliffe, mentioned the establishment of ARIA. Earlier this week, the Business Secretary appointed the new CEO and chair of ARIA. These appointments will now drive forward the final steps in setting up the agency, ensuring it is best placed to fulfil its objectives of enabling exceptional scientists and researchers to identify and fund transformational research that leads to new technologies, discoveries, products and services. As part of finalising the set-up, careful consideration will be given to the most effective funding mechanisms for the agency to have at its disposal.
I close by praising the support that private equity provides to UK businesses and agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, that we must be conscious of the economic and social risks that can arise. I emphasise that the Government understand the consequences that can arise from malpractice in private equity. The ongoing reforms and regulation involving private equity-backed businesses, alongside the upcoming audit and insolvency reforms, are designed to address these issues. In doing so, we will work to ensure that the UK economy continues to be open, competitive and above all fair to those whose jobs and livelihoods depend on it.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
I thank noble Lords for a very interesting debate. Although we had relatively few speakers, the quality of comments presented by all noble Lords was very high. I am especially grateful to the Minister, who has had a very long day today; I am sure she is looking forward to the end of it, so I will not hold her for too long.
It was said that private equity earns “superior” returns. As noble Lords who are familiar with efficient market hypotheses will know, if markets are efficient, there can be no such thing as a superior return; there may be a higher return, but that is something entirely different. Private equity has frequently secured this with low wages—as evidenced by Bernard Matthews, Debenhams, Maplin and care homes—and uses tax avoidance techniques ferociously and seems to get away with it. It is subsidised by the tax system. However, it was only in the early 20th century that the tax relief on interest payments began to be given; before that the courts had specifically refused that it was a cost. The change was due to lobbying by the finance industry, which obviously then makes money by asset stripping, examples of which I gave previously. On private equity, we all welcome the investment, jobs and business rescues, but the downside risks are too high.
As I have already referred to, the US regulators have recently expressed grave concerns about the operation of pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes, but we have not heard anything from the UK regulators about what they are going to do. I believe that the SEC in the US is looking at it.
The Minister referred to transparency, but I do not see transparency in the accounts of private equity companies. One reason for this is that the entity at the apex is in a tax haven, and you cannot see the accounts or any details about them. The entities underneath do not provide full details of the corporate structures in which they are enmeshed. They will tell you what the immediate parent company is, but this is just one cog in a giant wheel. Therefore, it becomes very difficult to see any transparency.
The Minister also referred to the audit Bill. From what I have seen, I do not have any faith in it, but we will leave that for debate on another day.
I thank all noble Lords for staying behind and wish them a very happy and relaxing summer.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I wish the six or so stoic noble Peers remaining in the Chamber a very restful Recess.