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Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
We are delivering a new prison education service. The first prisoner apprentices have now started on highway maintenance for Kier and hospitality for Greene King. We are launching an employability innovation fund to bring more businesses into prisons.
Siobhan Baillie
MMC Homebuilding Ltd in Hardwicke is working with inmates from Leyhill Prison to build affordable homes quickly. I have met some of the lads, and they have mastered the skills needed to create thousands of homes for key workers, but there are daft barriers in place, particularly in relation to the acquisition of public land. What is the Ministry of Justice doing, with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office and the Treasury, to unlock those issues so that win-win schemes such as this one can build thousands of key worker homes and allow prisoner rehabilitation at the same time?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend; she is championing a brilliant project in her constituency. Getting more prisoners into work is absolutely vital for them, but also for reducing reoffending. Training prisoners in modern methods of construction is one of the ways we can equip them with the skills to deliver. As a former Housing Minister, I am very conscious of the need to release more surplus land for those purposes and I will speak to my colleagues in the way she asks.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Last month, the chief inspector of prisons wrote a paper on why prison education is so poor. He said it is not a priority, prisoners are not taken to classes, there is an inadequate curriculum and there is no accountability from the MOJ. Does the Secretary of State agree with all that, and if so, what is he doing about it?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is right to refer to the problem. In relation to covid, it has been more difficult. What I can tell him is that: first, through the use of in-cell technology; secondly, with vocational skills and apprenticeships; and thirdly, when I became Justice Secretary I applied a whole set of key performance indicators and lifted up the waiting for both study in prison and getting offenders into work. That is having a dramatic effect.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The overall proven reoffending rate has fallen since 2010, from over 31% to less than 25%, but that is still too high, so we are making major investments in drug treatment, accommodation support, education and employment to drive it down further.
Selaine Saxby
Onward’s latest levelling up report found that tackling antisocial behaviour in crime hotspots is one of communities’ top priorities. In the six months to October 2022, the top 10 offenders in North Devon committed 137 offences. What steps is the Minister’s Department taking to reduce that reoffending and to support communities in tackling antisocial behaviour?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that antisocial behaviour is a blight. It is one of the reasons we are upping the amount of unpaid work hours available, including in Devon and Torbay probation unit. There were 37,000 hours of such work last year, and we want to increase that further. On stopping people reoffending, a number of things need to come into play to make that work, including some of the things that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was just talking about: sustained attention on drugs, both outside prison as well as inside; and the Turnaround programme for young people on the cusp of offending.
Mark Pawsey
Futures Unlocked, a charity based in my constituency, does great work to rehabilitate ex-offenders, with a 30% reduction in reoffending rates among its clients. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the £90,000 grant it has just received from national lottery funding, which will allow John Powell and Laura Halford, together with their team of 33 volunteer mentors, to continue this really important work?
Damian Hinds
Yes, indeed. It really is important work across Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull. I join my hon. Friend in strongly commending John, Laura and the whole team of volunteers. I also very much welcome the news about the grant from the national lottery community fund, which will help Futures Unlocked to extend its support for ex-offenders to lead crime-free lives and help to ensure that communities are safer.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Does the Minister agree that education and training are absolutely crucial in preventing reoffending? If so, how does he account for the 90% reduction in the number of prisoners taking AS-level qualifications over the past 10 years? Will he address that Select Committee finding from just three years ago? Will he also address the fact that one in four people in the prison estate are care leavers? How will he target those who have been in care to ensure that they do not go into the prison system in the first place?
Damian Hinds
That is a multifaceted question; I do not think I will do justice to all of it, but there were a number of very important points. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about care leavers. We are very conscious of the prevalence of care leavers in the system. Of course, we do not always know exactly, because it depends to some extent on self-declaration and not everybody wants to do that, so we have to be very conscious of that. I am also very conscious of people who leave the youth offending estate who may be going back into it. That is another thing we need to look at. I am slightly puzzled by his focus on AS-levels. As he will know, the whole landscape has changed, away from the AS and A2 system and towards a more linear programme of study—that is nothing to do with prisons; it is the general education system. But he is absolutely right about the centrality of education, which is why we have such a focus on literacy, numeracy and, increasingly, IT skills, as well as crucial vocational qualifications.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
A company in my constituency called LettUs Grow, working with HM Prison Hewell in Worcestershire, is introducing prisoners to vertical farming, which is an excellent way of not only growing food for the prison but teaching prisoners new skills. However, it is disturbing to note that many prisons are doing less in the way of food growing and involvement in farming. Is the Minister planning to roll out this pilot to other prisons?
Damian Hinds
We are, in fact, introducing more variety of employment in prisons, but I want to see that go even further. One of the advantages of urban vertical farming is the fact that, for obvious reasons, it takes up less space than traditional farming. There are, of course, limits to what can be grown in that way, but the hon. Lady has made an interesting point that we shall no doubt have an opportunity to discuss further.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
An effective probation service is key to reducing reoffending, but ever since the disastrous Tory privatisation the probation service has been in crisis. Six serious further offences are committed each week, experienced staff are abandoning the service, and the chief inspector of probation has said that it is
“impossible to say the public is being properly protected”.
The Tories’ legacy is failing to protect the public, failing to punish criminals, and failing to prevent crime. Is it not time they stood aside and let Labour fix their mess?
Damian Hinds
If I may start at the end of the hon. Lady’s question—no. I do not think that we will be taking lessons from the Opposition Front Benchers when it comes to clamping down on crime and standing up to criminals.
The people who work in the prohibition service do a unique and immensely difficult job, making difficult judgments and helping to support people, but also determining when it is necessary for them to be recalled to prison. It is important that when things do go wrong we learn lessons, and we have been learning those lessons. Let me also gently say to the hon. Lady that, sadly, serious further offences, although rare among people who have come out of prison on probation, happen every year, and it is important that we bear down on them and seek to learn lessons whenever they occur.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
The outstanding case load at Chester Crown court at the end of September stood at 626. We are taking action across the criminal justice system to bring down backlogs and improve waiting times for those who use our courts. We have introduced new legislation to give more flexibility for cases to be returned to the magistrates courts, we have ramped up judicial capacity, and we are investing a significant amount of funding for the criminal justice system.
Mike Amesbury
We are now witnessing a backlog of 60,000 Crown court cases and 350,000 magistrates court cases, all as a direct result of political choices to close 260 courts, one of them in Runcorn in my constituency—it became a cannabis farm next to a police station before being burnt down. Does the Minister actually believe that a four-year wait for victims to have their day in court is acceptable?
Mike Freer
The hon. Gentleman is right on one count: it is about political choices. If the Opposition stopped backing strikers, there might not be the current case backlog in our criminal justice system, which is a direct result of action by the Criminal Bar Association. It is this Government who are increasing the judiciary, who have settled the dispute and who are increasing court capacity, for instance by opening more Nightingale courts. We are taking the action; the Opposition back the strikers.
Rehman Chishti
In the context of addressing the backlog and engagement with the legal profession, when I spoke to leading criminal lawyers such as Sarah Forshaw KC, they raised with me a specific question: when will the Government appoint the chair of the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board? The board was set up in October 2022, nearly a year after the independent review conducted by Sir Christopher Bellamy. Is there to be another year’s wait before this appointment is made?
Mike Freer
The appointment of the chair following the independent review is currently being considered by the Secretary of State and an announcement will be made in due course. The board has met and continues to do its work. It is working effectively while we decide on the best form of chairing the meetings.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Government’s common platform roll-out has been nothing short of disastrous. Among many other problems, I have heard of dozens of prisoners being released without the tags that their licence conditions demand and other instances where individuals have been detained in custody beyond their release date. This is all avoidable chaos caused by Tory incompetence. Can the Minister explain why, despite the best efforts of the staff, the data systems simply do not work? Will he outline when he will finally get a grip and sort out this very wasteful scandal?
Mike Freer
I have to say to the hon. Gentleman yet again that if he wishes to return to the legacy systems he is welcome to argue that case, but those systems are at the end of their useful life. Since taking on this portfolio, I have gone out of my way to speak to the practitioners—the people down at the sharp end—and ensure that their concerns are reflected in all the technological enhancements. To describe the common platform as a disaster is simply untrue. This Government are investing in modernising our criminal justice system; Labour Members are nothing more than luddites.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Our Bill of Rights will envisage us remaining a state party to the ECHR and fully availing ourselves of the margin of appreciation to restore some common sense to our human rights regime.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
As we prepare to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, will the Secretary of State recognise the extent to which the ECHR is integrated into that agreement, and the fact that leaving the convention would be a breach of his Government’s obligations under the peace process, which I am sure is something he would never countenance?
Dominic Raab
No one is more committed to the integrity of the UK than this Government. I set out the position on the Bill of Rights earlier. We have made it clear that we would not rule out ever withdrawing from the ECHR in the future. We certainly need to make sure that we have a viable legal regime that allows us to tackle illegal immigration.
Angela Crawley
Does the Secretary of State agree with the former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, who reminded the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee earlier this month that, far from being some bureaucratic creation, the ECHR was championed by Churchill and his Conservative Government, and that leaving the convention would place the UK in the dubious company of Belarus and Russia?
Dominic Raab
I do not think that many people take issue with the convention. Of course, it was negotiated at a very different time and place. The real issue has been the mission creep and the expanding and elastic interpretations of the ECHR since that time. I am confident that, with the Bill of Rights, we can address that in a comprehensive way.
Mr Speaker
Can I just say to the two Members who want to leave that they should stay for two full questions after they have spoken? We have not yet completed this question.
Mr Carmichael
May I take the Secretary of State back to his answer to the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes)? If he is not ruling out ever leaving the convention, is he then not ruling out ever breaking the Good Friday agreement?
Dominic Raab
We are absolutely committed to the Good Friday agreement and the stability of Northern Ireland, which is why the efforts of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister are so important.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State’s proposed Bill of Rights will mandate British courts to override the European convention on human rights in certain circumstances and restrict access to convention rights through British courts, but the Good Friday agreement guarantees direct access to the courts for any breaches of the convention, so how will he achieve his plans without breaching the Good Friday agreement?
Dominic Raab
We can remain absolutely committed to the Good Friday agreement with the Bill of Rights, not least because—the hon. Gentleman would know this if he had bothered to read it—the ECHR is retained within a schedule to the Bill of Rights. He has to face up to the fact that at the moment we have too many foreign national offenders whom we cannot remove from this country because of things like elastic interpretations of article 8. If he really wants to show his mettle—as he beats his chest, given the potential reshuffle on the Labour Front Bench—he should back us in taking every measure to remove foreign national offenders, because that is what the British public care about.
Steve Reed
The truth is that the Justice Secretary has no answer to the question and his plan to rip up the Human Rights Act will create fresh divisions in Northern Ireland, where there is still no agreement on the protocol. What discussions has he had about this reckless plan with the Government of the Republic of Ireland or with the US Government, who have made it clear that any unilateral attempt to weaken convention rights in Northern Ireland would threaten a future US-UK trade deal?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman needs to read the Bill of Rights. It envisages that we will stay a state party to the ECHR, which is retained in a schedule, so all his other concerns melt away.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have repeatedly failed to rule out withdrawing from the convention in the longer term, the impacts of which would be international humiliation for this country and a severe blow to international human rights law. It is shocking that these questions even have to be asked of the Government. What we need from the Justice Secretary is a full-throated defence of the convention and a commitment to the UK’s long-term membership. Instead of playing along with his more extreme Back Benchers, will he now deliver that unequivocal defence and a long-term commitment?
Dominic Raab
I am surprised to hear the SNP talk about extreme members of other parties. At the moment, the UK’s single biggest human rights concern is the trade in misery we see with the small boats and illegal immigration across the country. If the hon. Gentleman is committed to human rights, he should back us in taking every conceivably measure to deal with that problem.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The “Beating crime plan” of 2021 highlighted, once again, the importance of early intervention for young people. One such programme is our support for 200 voluntary and community projects to engage children at risk of involvement in crime through mentoring and sports activities.
Suzanne Webb
I am keen to see a more preventive approach to crime committed by young adults, particularly knife crime. In 2017, Ryan Passey, aged only 24, lost his life to a perpetrator with a knife, and we are still seeking justice. Will the Minister join me and the Passey family in exploring more ways of reaching out to young adults to ensure that carrying a knife does not become the norm? We all know that people who carry a knife risk becoming either a perpetrator or a victim.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Obviously I cannot comment on this individual case, but I join her in extending my sympathies to Ryan’s family. We have to do everything we can to bear down on serious violence, and serious violence reduction orders are part of that. The work of youth offending teams is also important in trying to catch people before they turn into more hardened criminals. Even before that, what happens in schools and in our communities is fundamental to helping children and young people stay on the right course.
Jack Brereton
We see a concerning number of young people being criminally exploited by drugs gangs, particularly in Stoke-on-Trent. Will my right hon. Friend look at what more can be done to prevent young people, particularly the most vulnerable, from being drawn into a cycle of criminality?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am always keen to hear from him on this important subject. The Government have invested a lot of money in the 10-year drugs plan, and there is a strong commitment across Government to making sure we see through those commitments. He is also right that the best intervention point draws young people away from the lure and the great personal danger of drugs in the first place. The youth offending teams are part of that, and the new Turnaround early intervention programme goes further, alongside programmes such as the youth justice sport fund.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I do not think the public are convinced that the Minister is serious about preventing children and young people from entering the criminal justice system. I say that because £1 billion has been slashed from youth services, 750 youth centres have closed and 14,000 youth and community jobs have been axed. This Government have consistently cut services for children and young people. Will he agree to look again at the Government’s policies and, indeed, to follow Labour’s plan to invest in youth services?
Damian Hinds
It is not the case that we do not have a comprehensive approach to supporting young people. The Turnaround programme is an important new investment in this area. By the way, fewer under-18s are being incarcerated than when Labour was in government. It is right to try to keep people out of young offender institutions—out of being deprived of their liberty—where, quite often, they turn into more hardened criminals. We must also ensure that there is community support, and programmes such as the youth justice sport fund, which my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary launched the other day, are an important part of that.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
People in Hull North are a bit fed up with a very small minority of young people who are blighting their community through antisocial behaviour, including, most recently, throwing objects at buses, which has meant the suspension of bus services to an area of the country that has a very low rate of car ownership. What more can the Government do to help police forces such as Humberside, which is a top performing police force, and Hull City Council, which has seen its budget slashed over the past 13 years by this Government, to divert young people from crime and to deal with young offenders early?
Damian Hinds
I understand what the right hon. Lady says about the frustration and anger felt by her constituents when they have to deal with antisocial behaviour. In different ways, it is something that all hon. Members have to deal with, and it is important that we bear down on it. A range of out-of-court disposals is available to be used for young people, and there are diversions to help them get back on the right path. It is difficult for me to comment about the specific case of the kids throwing things at buses without knowing more about it, but I have no doubt that she will be in close contact with her local authority and her police as needed.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
The hon. Lady raises a hugely important issue. It is completely unacceptable that women and girls continue to be subject to violence and to the horrendous crimes that constitute VAWG—violence against women and girls. That is why, on top of the significant measures already taken by the Government, the Home Secretary yesterday announced a range of additional steps, including adding the most dangerous domestic abuse offenders to the violent and sex offender register. Much has already been done, but it is right that the Government remain focused on doing more and on continuing our reforms in this area, as I am sure the hon. Lady would expect.
Chi Onwurah
Fewer than one in 50 recorded rapes results in a charge and it takes two years on average for a rape case to come to court. I hope the Minister will congratulate Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, on introducing independent sexual violence champions to support victims in their journey through the criminal justice system in the face of the massive failure of his Government, which is retraumatising victims. Will he agree to the immediate roll-out of specialist rape courts to prioritise rape victims, to which Labour is committed?
Edward Argar
I am happy to join the hon. Lady in congratulating her local police and crime commissioner on her work on this hugely important issue. I would highlight the significant progress that has been made under this Government. The number of reports to the police of rape and serious sexual offences is going up, the number of referrals from the police to the Crown Prosecution Service for charge is going up, and the number of Crown court receipts is going up. Those are all significant signs of progress, but there is more to do.
On the hon. Lady’s point about courts, she will be aware that three courts—Snaresbrook, Leeds and Newcastle—are piloting additional measures on these issues. Those pilots are in their relatively early months and it would be wrong to prejudge them, but I continue to follow the progress of those courts with specialist measures with care.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Minister is right to emphasise the importance of bearing down on these dreadful offences. Has he seen the research published this week in the Criminal Law Review based on the largest ever dataset of Crown court cases, which suggests that convictions for rape have risen markedly since 2018 and now stand at 75%, against an increase in charging as well, and that the conviction rate for rape and serious sexual offences is now higher than for other offences of violence against the person? That is important information. That work was carried out by Professor Cheryl Thomas, who is regarded as the leading academic expert on juries, using the largest ever dataset. Does the Minister agree that we should take that into account when we consider how best to take forward our policies to bear down on these serious offences—using up-to-date information to adjust our policies?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I confess that while I am aware of the Criminal Law Review article, I have yet to read it in full. I will certainly do so, given his strong recommendation. He is right to highlight what it says, which is that significant progress has been made, and that it is important to base our debates on this hugely emotive and important subject on evidence. A lot has been achieved, but there is still more to do.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Two years on from the Government’s end-to-end rape review, rape allegations leading to a charge or summons stand at 1.6%, rape victims are waiting 1,113 days for their case to get to court, and only 2,500 rape prosecutions were completed last year—half the level of 2016. Is this not a Government who are letting rapists off and letting victims down?
Edward Argar
I debate these matters regularly with the hon. Lady, but I have to say to her, as I have said to other hon. Members, that while there is still more to do, there has been considerable progress under this Government. The number of people convicted of an adult rape offence went up by 65% over the past year; compared to pre-pandemic levels, convictions are up by 41%. That is significant progress, but of course there is more to do. That is why the Government are supporting the roll-out of Operation Soteria, quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services, and increasing the number of independent sexual and domestic abuse advisers by 300, to over 1,000. Those are just some examples of the measures the Government are taking. There is no complacency here—just a strong track record of work and delivery.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
The Government have consulted on the draft Victims Bill and have now responded to the Justice Committee’s excellent prelegislative scrutiny of it. Alongside that Bill, which we will bring to the House when parliamentary time allows, we continue to invest in victims’ services, as I set out in response to the previous question.
Liz Twist
A survey by the former Victims’ Commissioner revealed that less than half of victims who had made a police report would do so again, due to their traumatic experiences. Victims are important, but seven years and six Justice Secretaries since the victims Bill was first promised, it still has not made it to the statute book. Will victims ever be a priority for this Government?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, with whom I normally have a measured interaction on these issues. We have been clear in our commitment to the victims Bill, and we have been clear that we will bring it forward as soon as parliamentary time allows. It is a priority for my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor.
I say gently that this party and this Government put the needs of victims front and centre. We have massively increased the support and funding they receive. Through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we have ensured that courts have the powers that they need to give tougher sentences to ensure that victims get justice. The Opposition talk tough, but when it comes down to it, as we saw with the PCSC Act, they fail to back victims and to put their votes where their mouths are. They talk; we get on with delivering for victims.
Stephen Morgan
A staggering 3,000 incidents of antisocial behaviour take place every day, with almost 20 million people having experienced it last year. With the Government allowing this behaviour to fester and go unpunished, when will Ministers finally appoint a Victims’ Commissioner to champion the rights of victims of ASB?
Edward Argar
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being drawn in the ballot to ask a similar question to the one that he asked at the last Justice questions. The Victims’ Commissioner is a hugely important role, so it is right that we follow due process and ensure that we get absolutely the best candidate installed, as he would expect. That process is ongoing, and I look forward to a Victims’ Commissioner being appointed shortly.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
We introduced the Bill of Rights to this House, which will limit the abuse of human rights and restore some common sense. I have regular discussions with my colleagues, particularly the Foreign Secretary, on the work that we are doing to support the International Criminal Court and end impunity for war crimes in Ukraine.
Alison Thewliss
In an article this morning, Lee Marsons of the Public Law Project sets out the significance of the European convention on human rights to LGBTQ people and the fact that the ECHR has allowed the expansion of human rights. Does the Secretary of State understand that human rights are for us all and that withdrawing from the ECHR is a specific threat to marginalised communities, whose hard-won rights should not be undermined?
Dominic Raab
I remind the hon. Lady that this Government introduced single-sex marriage—I did so proudly, along with my colleagues—and there is nothing in our reforms that would undo the important work we have achieved.
Hannah Bardell
Given that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has said clearly that the UK Government should not pursue reform of the Human Rights Act 1998 without the consent of the devolved nations, will the Secretary of State promise right here, right now that he agrees with that and that his Government will not roll back or interfere with our human rights?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady will be shocked to know that I did not agree with all the contents of the JCHR report, but I refer to the statements we have made on how we have approached the devolved Administrations. I have personally been to all the nations of the United Kingdom to speak to not only politicians and Government officials, but academics and practitioners. We will continue that engagement and I am sure we will get the right thing for all people and all citizens of the UK.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. The Department has been working closely with the Home Office and other criminal justice partners to deliver on our commitment to drive up quality standards in forensic science. Yesterday, the House debated the new statutory code of practice required by the Forensic Science Regulator Act 2021, which will grant the independent regulator statutory powers to investigate providers who fail to meet the required quality standards and who may put the interests of justice at risk.
Mr Sheerman
Is the Minister aware that the Chair of the Justice Committee and I are co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice? The group is very concerned at what leading forensic scientists are telling us about the running down of the forensic science service in this country—a service that must be at the heart of any good justice system. Some £55 million was put into the pot to improve forensic science over the past three years, but nobody knows where it has gone, where it was spent or when it will take effect to stop the loss of great experts that we are experiencing.
Mike Freer
Again, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. This is a complex issue and I am more than happy to sit down with him and my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee to discuss it in further detail, to get their expertise and to see how we can move things forward.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
We have launched the early legal advice pilot; we have invested in domestic abuse legal aid; we have invested money for housing reform and immigration legal aid; and legal aid spending is £1.2 billion per annum. The Government have a record of delivery on legal aid, investing in key areas, unblocking access and ensuring that money is well spent to protect those who need access to justice.
Beth Winter
With the number of civil legal aid providers falling from more than 2,100 to fewer than 1,400 in the past 10 years and with areas such as the south Wales valleys, including my Cynon Valley constituency, becoming legal aid deserts, what assurances can the Minister provide that he will not allow further closures of legal aid providers before the review of civil legal aid concludes?
Mike Freer
In fact, since the new standard contract was introduced in October, we have seen an increase in duty solicitors and firms taking on legal aid. We have restored some stability to the system. I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, but I can tell her that the Legal Aid Agency monitors the issue of what are known as deserts closely to ensure that no part of the country is left uncovered.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The Government have repeatedly made political choices that have left our criminal justice system on its knees. They have recently found additional money to ensure that defence and prosecution barristers are given the 15% increase in line with the Bellamy review recommendation, but solicitors have been given only a 9% increase. That unequal decision puts at risk access to justice for victims, with more than 1,000 duty solicitors quitting in the last five years. Will the Lord Chancellor commit to funding all of Bellamy’s recommendations and put solicitors on the same footing?
Mike Freer
The uplift for solicitors and barristers has already started to be paid. The hon. Gentleman mentions duty solicitors and, as I have said, since the new contract has been in place, we have started to see an increase in the number of people taking on those roles and in firms taking on legal aid, so we are seeing the benefits of the investment in both the litigators’ graduated fee scheme and the advocates’ graduated fee scheme.
On the general investment in legal aid, I am aware of the concerns of the Law Society, with which I am having constructive discussions to try to find a way forward.
Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
Although I have faced the hon. Gentleman in Westminster Hall, I think this is the first opportunity that I have had to congratulate him from the Dispatch Box on his election to the House last year—[Interruption.] Wait and see.
It remains our priority to deliver swifter justice for victims. We are increasing court capacity by removing the limit on sitting days in the Crown court for the second financial year in a row, and we are recruiting up to 1,000 more judges across all jurisdictions in 2022-23. The Government took action to tackle the Criminal Bar Association strike, which added to those delays, and alongside all those measures we are implementing the £1.3 billion court reform programme, which aims to make our court processes more efficient.
Andrew Western
Under this Government, just 1.5% of recorded rapes result in a charge. When charges are made, sentences are often woefully inadequate. That is why Labour has proposed minimum seven-year sentences for rapists. Why do the Government not support that?
Edward Argar
As I highlighted in response to previous questions, reports to the police are up, referrals by the police to the CPS are up, and charges and Crown court receipts for such crimes are up. As I said to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who is no longer in her place, I will take no lessons from the Labour party about being tough on sentencing. That party voted against measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to give judges the power to increase sentences.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Last month, we published our plan to deliver the female offender strategy for England and Wales, including better outcomes and physical conditions for women in custody.
Neale Hanvey
The recent controversy over the custody of double rapist Adam Graham and other violent offenders has illustrated the danger and naivety of self-ID, with tumultuous consequences, yet the Ministry’s latest statistics for England and Wales show that 230 trans-identifying males are being held on the female prison estate, and that there have been 97 sexual offences, 44 of which were rape. The Scottish Government acted swiftly, so what action will the UK Government take to limit that harm, review practices and clarify equalities legislation to ensure that prisoners are protected from abusive males?
Damian Hinds
Of course, safety must always come first. I can confirm that we do not hold prisoners based on their self-declared gender identity. Our approach is that transgender women, including those with gender recognition certificates, can be held on the main women’s estate only if a risk assessment concludes that it is safe. The changes to our policy mean that no transgender woman convicted of a sexual offence, or who retains male genitalia, can be allocated to the general women’s estate other than in truly exceptional circumstances.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
May I welcome the comments about the female prison estate? Turning to the male prison estate, His Majesty’s Prisons Garth and Wymott in my constituency—
Mr Speaker
Order. That does not link into this—[Interruption.] Order. One of us will have to sit down, and it is certainly not going to be me. It might help us both if I suggest to the hon. Lady that she might catch my eye during topical questions, when it would be appropriate to raise the very important matter in her constituency.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
This question relates to the previous question, as well. Since the 2019 strengthening of our policy, there have been no assaults or sexual assaults committed by transgender women in women’s prisons, and last year we further strengthened that policy.
Andrew Lewer
I welcome the fact that the Government are issuing new guidance on the accommodation of such prisoners, but does my right hon. Friend agree that having no biological male imprisoned in a woman’s prison should be a strong principle henceforth? Does he agree that women’s prisons and the women within them must not be used as therapeutic support for trans-identifying male prisoners?
Damian Hinds
I am happy to confirm to my hon. Friend, as I said a moment ago, that safety must come first. We want to support everybody who is in our care and who we are keeping inside for the protection of the public. We need to make sure that safety in prisons is as strong as it can be, and I can confirm to my hon. Friend that following the policy updates, transgender women with male genitalia will not be held in the general women’s estate except in truly exceptional circumstances. Exemptions will require sign-off by a Minister to ensure they can be considered only in the most truly exceptional cases.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
For those who identify as transgender, it is important to recognise, as the Minister has, the safety issues. Across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it is important that we have a policy and a strategy that is the same everywhere. Has the Minister had any opportunity to talk to the police and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland to ensure that we in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Assembly have a policy that follows the route and focus here?
Damian Hinds
The short answer is that I have not had a chance to have that conversation. It is true that there are differences in different parts of the United Kingdom, and those have been played out in the media substantially over the past couple of weeks. I believe our policy here in England and Wales is the right one. It is respectful to everybody, but makes sure we are making safety paramount.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Since the last Justice oral questions, I have announced the expansion of incentivised substance-free living units from 25 to 45 prisons and investment in up to 18 abstinence-based drug recovery wings. I have also announced 220 community support organisations that will benefit from a £5 million fund to prevent young people from falling into crime, and I visited Strasbourg to discuss with colleagues at the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe how the Government’s Bill of Rights Bill will protect and promote human rights.
Mary Kelly Foy
Testimony provided by the POA trade union to the Justice Committee shortly before recess illustrated just how cruel, degrading and utterly dangerous it is to make prison officers work on the landings until the retirement age of 68. Would the Minister have wanted his own grandparents to have been forced to restrain violent young prisoners, or will he agree to open negotiations with the POA over the retirement ages of officers? We all know that 68 is too late.
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady. Of all the public servants I have worked with in my time as a Minister and an MP, none command greater respect than prison officers. I understand the huge job they do, which in the pandemic in particular was difficult. We are not going to revisit the retirement age issue, but I am always willing to discuss matters with prison officers and in particular the POA, and my door is always open.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right about this. It is one of the crusading missions we have, along with getting offenders into work. That is why we are increasing the number of incentivised substance-free living units from 25 in 2022 to 100 by March 2025 and investing in drug recovery wings. The big thing is not just to stop illegal drugs getting into our prisons, but to wean offenders off heroin and opiate substitutes such as methadone.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It has become apparent that if the Justice Secretary does not act, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill could see thousands of part-time judges face a massive loss of pension rights, pushing many away from office at the worst possible time. This morning, when we debated the matter in a Delegated Legislation Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), was a little vague about whether the Department would fix this specifically by retaining the relevant regulations. Can the Lord Chancellor give that clear commitment today?
Dominic Raab
Of course, as the retained EU law Bill goes through, we will consider any significant issues that are raised, but that Bill is critically important as we take control of our own destiny and make sure that we have laws tailored to the UK that best suit the circumstances of the UK, whether that is England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. The hon. Gentleman ought to support that.
Kate Kniveton (Burton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
I am aware that this is an incredibly sensitive issue, and one that the Government want to get right. I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Government will be publishing the response to that review very soon—as soon as we can do so.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
We published our response to the Bellamy review and the criminal legal aid independent review, and indeed are already implementing those reforms. They include uplifts of 15% to most legal aid fee schemes, which is very significant given the current context of public sector pay challenges. The hon. Gentleman needs to put this in some kind of perspective: just to give one aspect, criminal legal aid spend is expected to be £1.2 billion a year, so we are doing the right thing to make sure we support the most vulnerable who need access to legal aid and to the courts.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for the work he did as Prisons Minister—I remember it, because I was a junior Minister in the Department at the same time. He is absolutely right about the value of prison officers, and how they are out of sight and out of mind; people do not bang pots and pans for them in the same way they do for other public servants, but we should take every opportunity to sing their praises.
To answer my hon. Friend’s specific question, between the end of 2016 and 2022, the number of full-time prison officers increased by 3,677 to 21,632. That shows that the recruitment programme is bearing fruit.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a very considered and long-standing interest in this issue. Legal aid needs more money, which is why we are increasing spend by up to £138 million a year, taking the expected criminal legal aid spend next year to £1.2 billion, but it also needs reform. We cannot have the situation that we always have with the Labour party, where it just asks for more and more money but does not face the challenge of reforming systems so that they work in the best interests of the people of this country.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
HMP Garth and HMP Wymott are successful prisons that do great work rehabilitating prisoners, but the Ministry of Justice has plans to put a third prison on the site, almost doubling the number of prisoners there—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Can the two people who are talking stop? I want to hear the hon. Lady. Sorry, please just sit down. Can I just say to the Whip that this is a very important question that really does matter to all of us?
Katherine Fletcher
The MOJ plans to almost double the number of prisoners on the site of HMP Garth and HMP Wymott, but those plans are hamstrung by an almost complete lack of public transport improvement or roads infrastructure improvement. Does the Minister acknowledge the deep concerns about these plans in Ulnes Walton, Croston and Leyland, and will he withdraw them, think again, and stop the third prison?
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I acknowledge what my hon. Friend says about the concerns that people have. She could not be faulted for the strength and consistency with which she has campaigned on behalf of her constituents on these matters, and particularly the transport infrastructure that she mentions. She knows this, because there are already two prisons there, but a new prison delivers hundreds of construction jobs locally, hundreds of ongoing jobs and a whole range of roles and careers, with a very significant boost to the local economy.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
The challenge is less gaps in the law and more evidential difficulties in bringing prosecutions, but I share the hon. Lady’s aim to do everything we can with new technology to ramp up the number of prosecutions, to make sure there is accountability for what is, it must be said, an awful crime.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
HMP Berwyn in Wrexham is piloting an MOJ employment board, chaired by John Murphy of J. Murphy and Sons and the governor, Nick Leader. The board brings together businesses and agencies to equip prisoners with meaningful employment ahead of release via work academies that certify them in logistics, construction and hospitality, while addressing issues for reoffending. I sit on the board, and I know that the Justice Secretary has not visited the UK’s newest and largest prison, so will he visit, please?
Dominic Raab
How could I resist such a tantalising offer? My hon. Friend makes the case powerfully. As the Prisons Minister just said, this can bring huge opportunities to the local economy, but critically, it gives offenders who are willing to take a second chance to turn their lives around an opportunity to get skills and get into work, and that makes our communities safer.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
On the availability of legal aid, does the Secretary of State agree that where successful applications for legal aid are made by the same person successively on similar or the same issues, it is important that freedom of information requests tabled by Members of Parliament are answered, and the full cost of such legal aid is made available to the public?
Dominic Raab
I certainly support the hon. Gentleman’s pursuit of maximum transparency. If he is having problems, he can feel free to drop me a line and I will see what I can do, but the FOI Act sets out clearly prescribed limits, and we want to make sure we process those applications fairly and properly.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
Around 12 months ago, the Minister set out a plan to recruit a further 4,000 magistrates. Can he give us an update on how that is progressing? What steps is he taking to retain the most experienced presiding justices?
Mike Freer
There are a couple of things we are doing to achieve our target of 1,000 additional judicial vacancies this year, which is on track, and I am willing to share that with my hon. Friend. We have reformed judicial pensions today. In addition, we have increased the age limit, so that we can retain the best judiciary.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State aware that probably the greatest scandal in the justice system at the moment is joint enterprise? I believe that there are nearly 1,000 young people in prison with long sentences for it. He should take this cause to his heart. I will be here every time he is in the House, reminding him about joint enterprise, until he talks to the senior judiciary and gets something done about it.
Mike Freer
I am meeting the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) tomorrow to discuss this issue, and I am about to be briefed on the announcement that the Crown Prosecution Service made over the weekend on this subject. I will, of course, make sure that the hon. Gentleman is kept informed.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know the importance of good, reliable data in driving justice policy and will recognise the work done by the Legal Education Foundation and its director Dr Natalie Byrom in this regard. Will he welcome its establishment of Justice Lab, a new dedicated research centre in this field, which is being launched in Dining Room A in this House tomorrow?
Dominic Raab
As always, the Chair of the Justice Committee draws our attention to critical developments in the criminal justice system. Data and that initiative are incredibly important. The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) will attend the event in the House of Commons, so he will laud that even further and at more length.
Water Company Performance
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on what measures can be deployed to ensure water companies are performing adequately.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for bringing the matter of ensuring that water companies are performing adequately before this House. I think we all agree that this is an incredibly important and serious issue. I have been clear that water companies’ current performance is totally unacceptable and that they must act urgently to improve to meet Government and customer expectations. The British people expect better and so do this Government.
We have committed to deliver clean and plentiful water, as set out in the environmental improvement plan, and we have set out clearly how water companies must deliver that. First, our strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the water company regulator, sets out four clear priorities for water companies to protect and enhance the environment, deliver a resilient water sector, serve and protect consumers, and use markets to deliver for our customers.
Secondly, we have set new duties, through the Environment Act 2021, on water companies to monitor their overflows and set new legally binding targets to restore our precious water bodies to their natural state by cracking down on harmful pollution from sewers and abandoned mines, and improving water usage and households.
Thirdly, the storm overflow reduction plan, launched back in the summer, requires the largest investment programme in water company history and builds on the existing statutory duties. Water companies already have a statutory duty to provide a supply of wholesome water under the Water Industry Act 1991 and associated water quality regulations. They must ensure the continuation of their water distribution functions during an emergency.
I will begin by addressing my right hon. Friend’s concerns, because she has been in touch. I appreciate the lengths to which she has gone to hold her own water company to account, particularly over the supply interruptions experienced by Southern Water’s customers following multiple emergency incidents back in December 2022. A more recent incident last week led to approximately 15,000 Southern Water customers being off supply for an extended period, as she will know. Although some supply interruptions cannot be avoided, the repeated failure to properly ensure customers’ continued water supply is totally unacceptable. I will be meeting with Southern Water’s chief executive officer to understand how it plans to address its failings.
The Government and their regulators hold water companies to account in a number of ways, particularly through transparent reporting and performance. As the economic regulator for the water industry, Ofwat tracks performance against performance commitments, which are set at the start of the funding cycle.
The current performance commitments were set for the cycle from 2020 to 2024 and include pollution incidents, treatment works compliance and supply interruptions. Ofwat assesses performance against each of those metrics annually and ranks the companies in the water company performance report according to whether the metrics have been achieved. It reported that five water companies were extremely poor. The Secretary of State and I met them to hold them to account and to make it clear that we need further progress—
Mr Speaker
Order. We are now a minute over—we are on four minutes. Can you do the conclusion to help us out? Just pick the last sentence.
Rebecca Pow
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to be clear that where water and sewage companies are found to be breaking the law, there will be substantial penalties. We have increased all our measures on those penalties, and we are looking at whether we will go ahead with the £250-million cap that has been proposed. We will be consulting on that shortly.
Caroline Nokes
Water companies’ performance is not just about finances and Ofwat must not just be an economic regulator. It is about customer satisfaction, consistent supply, treating waste water, investment in networks, and making sure that our constituents have a clean drinking water supply all the time. In addition to compensation, customers need there to be better ways to hold water companies to account for significant outages, such as the three that we have seen in southern Hampshire in just five months, each of which lasted for days.
There is the ignominy of being in the Ofwat category of “lagging behind”, but that does not seem to have improved Southern Water or Thames Water, which have been in that category for two years running—shame does not appear to be effective. There are poor customer satisfaction ratings, but what do they change? There is a requirement to produce an action plan and targeted improvement plans, but by when, and what are the penalties for not delivering on them?
My constituents have gone without water to wash with, to drink, to cook with and to flush the loo with for days on end, with poor and in some instances misleading communications and without access to bottled water stations in my constituency. The only one was accessible on foot only, but water is really heavy to carry. They want significant fines for failure to supply, in the same way that there are significant fines for pollution. They want a requirement for emergency and back-up supplies to be available when parts of the network go down. Is it acceptable that if one part of the Otterbourne water supply works in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is out of action, there is no provision to bypass the problem and continue supply?
Ofwat has said that it will push the “lagging behind” companies, but how hard, and what is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs doing to make sure that that happens? What is the penalty for not delivering on improvement plans? Last year, only 68% of the forecast improvement moneys were spent. At what point will DEFRA step in and recognise that the current situation is not working for the companies, the regulator or the poor customer?
We heard last week that there were plans to “water down” excessive fines, but a record £90 million was levied on Southern Water a few years ago, and that was not enough to convey the message. Rather than fines, can we therefore ensure that money is levied to force investment in the network, because current performance suggests that, so far, it simply has not worked?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my right hon. Friend for reiterating the situation that we have just witnessed with Southern Water, which was completely and utterly unacceptable, particularly following the incidents in December. I have communicated with the chief executive and I am asking again for an urgent meeting as a result of the situation last week.
My right hon. Friend raises some pertinent points about holding water companies to account. She knows that there is a system whereby water can be credited back to the billpayers, and I urge that that will be looked at and followed up. She also asked about the action plans for different companies. The Secretary of State and I had the five worst-performing water companies in before Christmas to talk about their failures, including leakages. We are taking swift action against them: they all have to produce an updated action plan to say what they are doing.
We have done a great deal to ensure that there is enforcement, which is critical, because everybody wants water companies to be held to account for what they do. The Environment Agency already has powers to issue unlimited fines through the criminal courts, but that can take a long time, as my right hon. Friend knows. It also needs data, but because of all the monitoring that the Government are doing, we are getting more of that, so we will be able to take more enforcement action. DEFRA is currently consulting on plans to raise the cap on fines and to make it quicker and easier to issue fines when we know things are not working correctly.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this urgent question. She, like many of us, is absolutely sick and tired of the impact that sewage discharges are having on our streams, rivers, seas and local economies. They are devastating whole regions and devastating our coastlines. Frankly, we are here again with the same old excuses and the same old promises for action getting drawn out, but there is no action behind it. The water companies know they can laugh all the way to the bank because the Government will not take action, and the regulators know that the Government will not take action because they have taken away the capacity to take action from the regulators.
All the while, it is local people who are suffering—whether that is people being able to enjoy their local beauty spots and to take a walk down the river, or that is coastal businesses that are reliant on seasonal tourism to provide jobs and livelihoods to people. They are affected, not the Government, and what do we see? This year alone, when the Bank of England and the Government are telling hard-working people to rein it in and stop asking for pay rises, the water bosses are asking for 20% increases in salary. There is not a single thing the Government have said—in the environmental improvement plan or in anything said at the Dispatch Box—that sends out the message that things will be any different, and the water companies know that. They have already banked £66 billion in dividend payments and more will follow.
Labour does not want to sit on the sidelines and witness our country being turned into an open sewer. We set out at the Labour party conference in September a position that would clean up the water industry in this country, deliver value for money for consumers and bill payers, and finally work in the national interest, so when on earth will the Government get on and deliver Labour’s plan?
Rebecca Pow
It is so easy to just stand there with no facts and no detailed information, and level an attack. I agree, as does the Secretary of State, that sewage in water, unacceptable leakage and so forth are not to be tolerated, and that is why we have set so many actions in train—more than ever before. We are taking more action than any Government have ever before on the water companies.
Do not forget that, since privatisation, the water companies have made a huge investment—billions of pounds of investment—in improving our water company infrastructure. Because of our new storm overflows discharge reduction plan, they are now committed to £56 billion of investment up to 2050, and £7.1 billion of that is already under way, including the Thames Tideway super sewer. A great deal of enforcement action is already taking place. Just in 2021, £121 million of fines were meted out to water companies. Because of the very detailed investigation now under way by Ofwat, the regulator, and the EA, we have more and more data and information to pinpoint where permits are being contravened and where water companies are not taking the actions they should be, and enforcement will follow. We are now consulting on a potential figure of £250 million to make sure we have a realistic and sensible fine that will really do the job in holding our water companies to account.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
The Minister knows that the River Mersey flows through the middle of Warrington—she has been to see it for herself—and I was struck recently by the comments of a local resident who reminded me of the pink film that used to exist on top of the river. Much has been done to clear up our rivers. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is absolutely right that water company dividends are directly linked to their performance in providing services to their customers and in cleaning up our rivers?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. In 2019, transparency became much more critical in Ofwat’s holding the water companies to account, because it had to agree, in the price review, how much they should be spending on infrastructure to provide clean water and to ensure the supply. Ofwat has now been directed to ensure that water companies can demonstrate that payments to bosses and so forth are linked to environmental performance.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree with the almost 209,000 voters who have signed a petition started by my constituents, SOS Whitstable, calling on the Government to at least consider renationalisation of the water companies? Profit-driven, largely foreign investors do not prioritise the cleanliness and economy of British beach communities or the way of life in constituencies such as mine? If the companies were answerable directly to the taxpayer, they might start to act at last.
Rebecca Pow
The hon. Member forgets that since privatisation £120 billion has been invested by the water companies in the critical infrastructure that we need not only to provide clean and plentiful water but to ensure the supply, so I do not agree with her that we should be renationalising them. What we do need to do is hold them to account where they are doing wrong, but also enable them to continue to invest the £56 billion they are now required to spend to deliver our future water system, with our growing population and the demands of climate change.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The use of storm overflows is completely unacceptable, but does the Minister agree that the best way to tackle that is through enhanced monitoring, requiring a record £56 billion investment by the water companies, and the use of significant fines and criminal prosecutions? Does she also agree that the water companies should be in no doubt that they are in the last-chance saloon and that they and regulators must be held to account to deliver major improvements for our constituents?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for those sensible points. To be honest, it is because of the monitoring this Government have put in place that we now know what is going on. Under the Labour Government there was virtually no monitoring at all: in 2016, some 5% of storm sewerage overflows were being monitored; that figure is 90% now, and by the end of the year it will be 100%. We will also have to monitor upstream and downstream of every sewerage overflow outlet, so we will know exactly what is going on, and unacceptable behaviour will be acted upon.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Water bosses are actively allowing more pollution, because they know it is cheaper to pay the fines than to put in the investment, mend the leaks and stop the sewage. When will the Minister introduce the higher fines of £250 million that the Environment Secretary has pooh-poohed, and take the Environment Agency’s advice to put directors in jail if they fail? Will she give an undertaking that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will not get rid of all the protections from Europe, so that we do not have even more stools in our rivers and on our beaches?
Rebecca Pow
If the hon. Gentleman had been listening earlier, he would have heard me say that we are consulting on plans to raise the cap on fines to £250 million, to make it quicker and easier to tackle enforcement. That will be a significant step, along with all the other measures we are taking, which I have clearly outlined, to hold the water companies to account.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
The Minister knows the importance of water quality for my beautiful constituency of Southend-on-Sea and that the use of storm overflows has been completely unacceptable. I welcome the Government’s actions to ensure executive pay and dividends are linked to environmental performance, but she will know that the chief executive of Anglian Water earned £1.3 million last year, including a bonus of £337,651. I have asked him repeatedly for meetings but have still not got a date; will the Minister meet the CEO of Anglian Water with me so that we can understand his plan to stop storm overflows being used in Southend West?
Rebecca Pow
My hon. Friend is a tremendous campaigner for Southend and I would be happy to meet with her and the head of Anglian Water to push that forward.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
We have seen £2.8 billion in water company profits, £1 billion in shareholder dividends, and a 20% rise in executive water company pay, 60% of which has been in bonuses—in my book, bonuses are for doing a good job, not a terrible one. Meanwhile in Cumbria, the River Eden at Kirkby Stephen has had 101 days of sewage outflows, Swindale Beck at Brough has had 115 days, the River Eea at Cark and Cartmel has had 252 days, and Windermere lake at the heart of the English Lake district has had 71 days. All of that, outrageously, is legal. When will the Government force the water companies to clean up not only their act, but our lakes and rivers too?
Rebecca Pow
If I might say, the hon. Gentleman is a fine one to talk. I believe the water Minister in the coalition was a Liberal Democrat: what exactly did he do? It is this Government who are taking action now on the water companies. This Government introduced the storm overflows reduction plan and, in addition to that plan and all the requirements it puts on the water companies, just this week the Secretary of State has asked that a plan be submitted for every single storm sewerage overflow, with water companies’ proposed actions clearly outlined.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
Before Christmas, some 20,000 of my constituents were without water—last week, thousands were—and this clearly stems from a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure by South West Water, despite its balance sheet showing an ability to do so. Six weeks later, we have the same issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) has organised a meeting with the chief executive later, but one word not elaborated on is “compensation”. Will the Minister contact the CEO to press that point, and will the Government up their game not by asking water companies to invest in infrastructure but by forcing them to do so?
Rebecca Pow
There is a clear compensation scheme, as my hon. Friend will know, and that will be being looked at by his water company. I urge him to press for that. If he wants my involvement in ensuring that that is properly understood and followed, I am happy to do that.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The same greedy water companies that are dumping sewage into our rivers and increasing people’s bills, ripping the public off, have handed out more than £50 billion to shareholders since privatisation. That is the reality. Is it not time that we had our water back in public ownership, rather than empty words from the Minister?
Rebecca Pow
Clearly I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The water companies have invested billions of pounds since privatisation—£120 billion—and they will invest a further £56 billion up to 2050. That investment has already begun and Ofwat is going through the water companies’ new plans to agree what is necessary in the next price review. We must remember that what comes out of our taps is considered the cleanest water in Europe. We must also be mindful of the cost to bill payers. We have to balance a clean and plentiful supply of water with holding our water companies to account, while enabling customers to be able to afford the bills.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
In Edgware ward in my constituency we have had a large number of new housing developments without a single improvement to the sewerage system. As a consequence, during heavy rain raw sewage comes out of the manhole covers on to the streets. Will my hon. Friend have a word with the planning Minister to ensure that before developments take place sewerage systems are improved to cope with the additional housing?
Rebecca Pow
My hon. Friend raises an important point about housing supply and the suitability of our water supply system. I have been in close communication with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about all those related issues, which is why I am delighted that we have agreed that sustainable urban drainage systems will now be mandatory. That will make a great difference to our water system. Similarly, the amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will enable the upgrade to tackle phosphates produced by waste water treatment systems—after all, sewage comes from us—and make sure that what goes back into rivers is clean, so that we can have the clean water that we all deserve.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
People in Lancashire know that we are lucky to live in an area with so many beautiful river walks by the River Wyre and the River Lune, but they are no fools—they can see their water bills going up as are the profits of companies such as United Utilities. At the same time, we are seeing higher discharges into our beautiful rivers. Can the Minister explain why she thinks the current system appears to be working just fine?
Rebecca Pow
If the hon. Lady had been listening, I did say that pollution—which is a range, not just sewage but phosphates, nitrates and pollution from old mines—is unacceptable, and that is why we have set all the targets through the new environment improvement plan, with a trajectory for making the changes that we need. It is also why we have signalled through the regulator that performance and payment must be linked to environmental performance.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Can my hon. Friend assure me that more will be done to give out accurate information when water companies invest in making improvements and to ensure that campaigners have that information, rather than the Opposition’s fiction? Bathing water quality on beaches in North Devon is improving, following millions of pounds of investment, and our overflow usage halved last year and will continue to improve because of the work the Government are doing through our world-leading Environment Act 2021 and the storm overflows discharge reduction plan.
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for that and I could not agree with her more. She is a strident campaigner for the beautiful environment in which she lives, and our bathing water status should be commended—72% of our bathing waters are classed as excellent and 94% as good. It is an extremely good record and we should be proud of it.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Over the course of 2020 and 2021, raw sewage was dumped in Britain’s rivers and seas more than 770,000 times. That is almost 6 million hours of pollution discharge. But, as we have heard, the pay of water company executives increased by a fifth, on average. Will the Minister force water companies to invest those profits into urgently upgrading the outdated sewage infrastructure—not ask them, not require more plans, but force them to do it? Will she look again at bringing the companies into public ownership so that money is properly reinvested, not siphoned off to shareholders? She does not seem to understand why people are so angry when water companies are swimming in cash while the rest of us are swimming in sewage.
Rebecca Pow
I have said constantly that it is unacceptable that storm sewerage overflows have been used in contravention of permits. Let us not forget, however, that they were put there for a reason by the Victorians: heavy rainfall and sewage all goes down the same pipe and could back up in our loos, so storm sewerage overflows are there as an emergency precaution. It is clear that they have been relied on too much by water companies, and that is why the Government, having put in the monitors and got more data, can step in. We have launched the storm sewerage overflows reduction plan and the water companies are now committed to so much funding to put all the overflows into the correct operating position, concentrating first on areas near bathing waters and our wonderful protected sites and then all the others. There is now a clear plan of action against which to hold the companies to account.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The River Tame in my constituency is cherished by all the residents who live along it. The Tame valley is the jewel in the crown, but unfortunately the river is subject to regular pollution from several outlets, including chemicals as well as sewage. What more will the Minister do to work with United Utilities and—more importantly—to get the Environment Agency to tackle those companies that use the Tame as an open source to pollute?
Rebecca Pow
The hon. Gentleman raises not only the issue of sewage but a whole range of issues. That is why the Environment Agency operates a permit system, why it has powers to take action to enforce, why we are looking at stronger enforcement through increased fines, and why we set targets under the Environment Act to tackle not just sewage but chemicals and the run-off from old and abandoned mines and to clear up whole stretches of rivers. I think—we met about this—that that applies to his particular area. It will take time—we cannot pretend things will happen overnight—but in fairness there is now a clear plan when under other Governments there was not.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Minister may be aware that Thames Water is considering plans to draw out water from the river at Teddington in my constituency in times of drought and replace it with treated sewage. That can cause all sorts of havoc with ecosystems if it is not monitored and regulated properly. She will appreciate that my constituents and I have little faith in regulators when Thames Water is currently losing a quarter of its supply every day through leaks and avoiding fines because the targets set for it are just not strong enough. Will she look at strengthening those targets so that companies are more liable to fines and at cracking down on the eye-watering bonuses executives are raking in, which is forcing them to look at these sorts of damaging river abstraction plans when they should be fixing leaks?
Rebecca Pow
The issue of leaks is important. We are tackling it and water companies have targets to cut leaks. In the 2019 price review, they had to cut leakage by 16% and reduce bursts by 12%. If they are not seen to be reaching their targets, Ofwat imposes penalties on them. Three companies are currently paying back £150 million because of leaks and supply cuts. So there is already a system in place and it needs to be adhered to. Water is a precious resource and we need all the water we can get, which is why it is so important to tackle leakage and not just tackle environmental performance in terms of bonuses. I agree with the hon. Lady that bonuses should be linked to environmental performance, and that is what we have directed Ofwat to do.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
As the Minister will know, Cornwall is often at the coalface of the fight against sewage. When we had a leak in St Agnes a few months ago, one issue we found was that the investigation did not take place immediately and there was some ambiguity as to whether it was sewage or run-off. Can the Minister explain to the House what we are doing to ensure that when there is a problem we get the data as quickly as possible so that there is no further ambiguity?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for that important point. I think the incident she refers to turned out to be one of not sewage but soil. That is another issue we face and we now have targets to reduce soil sediment run-off. We do not want all that soil in our water; we need soil on the land because it is so precious. She is absolutely right about having the right data. Now, because of the increased monitoring that the Government have set under way, every storm sewage overflow will be monitored by the end of this year. It is a phenomenal project that has happened at great speed, ramping up over the last few years. It will provide us with the clear data we need, as well as monitoring upstream and downstream. Real-time monitoring will come into play. That is what we really need, so we can go on to a website, look at our home area and say, “That storm sewage overflow should not be emitting. It is not heavy rain. We have not had a massive downfall. It should not be emitting.” We will be able to go on there and truly hold the water companies to account.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I am sure the Government are well aware that the public are really upset about this issue. In my constituency people are very much disgusted by it and they do not see a market in operation. We had a 67% increase in discharges locally in the River Avon and River Leam. In Worcestershire, there was an increase of 80,000 tonnes of discharge into rivers which led to a £1.5 million fine for Severn Trent Water. Yet the chief executive got a 27% pay increase to £3.9 million. Can the Minister confirm whether chief executive pay is index-linked to discharges?
Rebecca Pow
I am not going to disagree with the hon. Gentleman that the discharges are unacceptable, but I would also like to say that it is because of what the Government are doing and because we have made this such a priority that it has come to light—a great deal more than it did under previous Governments. We are taking action. It is now a top priority through all the measures we have in place. The strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the targets in the Environment Act and our storm sewage overflows reduction plan—all that cumulative work—will take us on the trajectory we genuinely want and need. We still have clean and plentiful water coming out of our taps. We should not underestimate the fact that that is what the water companies are also delivering.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
The fact is that every two and a half minutes people can smell sewage and see the sewage in their rivers and on their beaches, yet water companies are laughing all the way to the bank. The best we can get from the Minister is that we now monitor it. It is pathetic, isn’t it, after 13 years of Tory government?
Rebecca Pow
I clearly understand the concern among the public. I count myself as one of them. I have said many times, as have other Ministers, that sewage in water is unacceptable. But let us not mislead; let us get our facts straight. As I said earlier, 72% of our bathing water is classed as excellent and 94% is classed as good. That is a tremendous record that has been achieved under this Government. It has improved year on year and will continue to improve. All the actions the Government have put into place will tackle the issues the hon. Gentleman talks about. They will tackle unacceptable pollution all round, and that is what we need. It is about not just sewage but getting the right infrastructure in place—the £56 billion the water companies will be investing, required by this Government, and all the other measures, not least working with farmers on the pollution they cause, through our new slurry infrastructure grants and so on. A comprehensive and holistic programme is now in place, which was not in place under previous Governments.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Labour’s plan to clean up the water industry would include cutting sewage discharges by 90%, mandatory monitoring of outlets and automatic fines for discharges. Will the Minister enact it, for the benefit of Portsmouth people, with immediate effect?
Rebecca Pow
There is already a comprehensive system of enforcement. As I said, we are now consulting on the £250 million potential cap and what might be the realistic cap, to really make a difference and put a stop to unacceptable pollution incidents.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
The current arrangements are clearly not working. Last month, I asked the Minister if she thought that water regulation was fit for purpose. She replied:
“Yes…but many tweaks and improvements”
are needed
“to ensure that it is working properly.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 702.]
Let me give her another opportunity to answer the question. Does she really think that the current system of regulation for the water industry is fit for purpose?
Rebecca Pow
We have a regulator. Its job is to regulate the water companies. The Government sent a very strong policy statement to Ofwat to direct the water companies on a whole range of measures, not least putting the environment at the top of the agenda but also enabling the supply we need for the future population, so we can all have the clean and plentiful water we deserve. We now have an extremely comprehensive plan in place to deal with that.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
As the Minister knows, Wolvercote Mill Stream in Oxford became the second river in the country to get designated bathing water status. Can she therefore understand our frustration when the official designation for 2022 was poor and over the Christmas period 676 hours—nearly an entire month—of sewage was discharged upstream in Witney? Can she seriously say, in light of that, that she and the Government are doing enough? Why will she not set even stricter targets, especially in areas with bathing water status? Can she give a cast-iron guarantee to our community that we will not lose bathing water status because of lacklustre action by the Government?
Rebecca Pow
As the hon. Lady will know, I visited that site, and indeed I even paddled in the water. She knows full well that the system we have introduced will help to clean up bathing water areas such as hers, and the monitoring that we have introduced both upstream and downstream will deliver the change that we need.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that the Minister does not want to mislead the House in any way when she talks about the quality of bathing water, but Yorkshire Water has told me that there is not one river in the United Kingdom that is fit to swim in, and that is a real mess. Have her Government considered—after 13 years—adopting a plan that Labour Members discuss frequently, namely, the introduction of a golden share in these companies with two directors, so that we can actually do something about the dreadful mess that we are in?
Rebecca Pow
Talking of misleading the House, I am not sure where the hon. Gentleman gets his data. Let me reiterate what I said earlier: 72% of bathing waters are excellent and 94% are good, so a great many are extremely clean and wonderful to swim in. We now have a comprehensive plan for inland bathing waters, and we have gone out to ask whether people want to present proposals for further bathing waters. There is a strict protocol applying to how they reach the right standards and whether they are classed as fit to swim in. I urge the hon. Gentleman to have a look at the details.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
The scale of the mismanagement of our nation’s water resources under the stewardship of the private water companies is far greater than that of the appalling disregard for our precious beaches and waters. Sir James Bevan has warned that much of the country is now staring into “the jaws of death”—the point at which we will not have enough water to meet our needs. Last summer demonstrated just how ill-equipped the water companies are to deal with protracted periods of extreme heat. Does the Minister agree that the most effective way of tackling water insecurity is to create an integrated publicly owned water supplier serving the whole of England?
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
In July 2021 several hundred properties in my constituency suffered a combination of surface and sewer flooding, some for the third or fourth time in 20 years, despite these being—according to Thames Water—one in 100-year or one in 300-year floods. Last week Thames Water wrote to the affected households saying that if their properties were at low risk, medium risk or even high risk and were subject to surface flooding, they would “not require a solution”. This constitutes appalling complacency and neglect on the part of Thames Water. What is the Minister going to do about it? In the words of my constituent Brendan Smith, Thames Water needs to be “held to account”.
Rebecca Pow
The issue of the surface water flooding is serious. It is all related to the ground water table coming up and influencing the whole system. It is a complicated system, and the situation obviously needs to be addressed. Thames Water is investing a great deal in cleaning up its water; as the hon. Gentleman will know, it is the company that is putting in the super sewer. That scheme, which would never have happened without the Government’s support, is a tremendous model which I believe will be copied elsewhere and will make a significant difference. However, where Thames Water has contravened its permit, it will be held to account.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Earlier this month, along with some other Members, I received an email from Pennon Group, which owns South West Water, stating:
“we wanted to provide you with the most recent information so that you are able to have an informed debate”.
Does the Minister agree that what should inform our debate is the experience of our constituents, who are seeing their bills rise and sewage flood our waterways, and does she agree that water companies should be focusing on delivering a quality service to bill payers rather than quality lobbying of politicians?
Rebecca Pow
South West Water is a one-star company. It is one of the worst-performing water companies. I have had its representatives in a number of times to look at its performance, and it has a clear plan of action for its trajectory to improve. We must hold its feet to the fire in that regard. Let me also say, however, that our friends the Liberal Democrats have been spreading an awful lot of misinformation about this issue—particularly in the south-west, where I come from—and independent fact-checkers have often found many of their claims to be false.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her responses to all the questions.
Given the increased pressure on the water system as a result of the increase in the number of power showers and spa-type waterfall showers—as well as the increase in the number of homes, which I consider to be another critical factor in what is happening—it is clear that our current infrastructure is not up to scratch. How will the Minister ensure that we do not sacrifice the balance between quality, as developers who are under financial pressure owing to the cost of living are looking for cheaper options, and the bare minimum where permissible?
Rebecca Pow
The hon. Gentleman has broadened the debate by talking about the water supply issue as a whole. The Government are looking closely at the issue of water efficiency, because we must ensure that we use water wisely. We have consulted on mandatory water efficiency labelling. If we use water efficiently in our homes, with the help of the correct gadgets and the correct legislation from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, we will use water better, and there could potentially be a beneficial impact on our bills. We must always think about the costs to bill payers, and about enabling them always to have the clean and plentiful water that they deserve.
Voter Identification
(1 year, 2 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.
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Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities if he will make a statement on the roll-out of voter identification.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)
Democracy is precious. The United Kingdom’s electoral system has a hard-earned reputation for transparency and integrity, and that needs regular review and, where appropriate, enhancement to ensure that it works today just as it did in the past.
One of the most basic principles of voting is that the people who cast their votes are eligible to do so. The introduction of voter identification at polling stations from May will be another lock in ensuring that the integrity of our democracy is protected for the long term. Nor is this anything new: voter identification has been in place in Northern Ireland for nearly 20 years. As for elections in Great Britain, this Government stood on a manifesto that said we would introduce it, won on the basis of doing so, introduced legislation to fulfil that commitment, and are now delivering on that promise. We will not shirk our responsibilities to protect the integrity of the ballot box.
According to Government research, about 98% of the electorate already have an accepted voter ID, whether it is a passport, a driving licence or one of nearly 20 other eligible types of identification. That includes, for some, expired identification, in order to maximise participation. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people already have what they need to fulfil this new protection at the ballot box. For those who do not, the Government have made available a voter authority certificate, which can be applied for today. It is free of charge and can be issued to everyone who wants it in readiness for May. To date, more than 21,000 applications have been made. Hon. Members will likely have seen—as have I, along with many millions of others—the extensive communications campaigns now under way, run by the Electoral Commission and, at a local level, by individual councils. Those will continue all the way up to May.
There are few tasks more important in public life than maintaining the trust of the British public in our electoral institutions and our electoral processes. A huge amount of work is under way, and that will continue until May. I am grateful to officials, to the Electoral Commission and to councils up and down the land for the work that they are doing. We are taking action to strengthen the integrity of those institutions and processes and to protect the sanctity of the vote. It is now incumbent on all Members—having had the debate and having resolved to do this last year—to send a collective clear signal that this change is important to protect the integrity of the ballot box, and that we should all get ready for this to happen in May.
Helen Morgan
For months and months, Members on the Opposition side of the House have fought the Government’s voter ID plans tooth and nail. We have warned that this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, at an exorbitant cost to the taxpayer, and that it is a thinly veiled attempt to make it far more difficult for people to vote.
This morning I was appalled to read new statistics relating to the Government’s botched roll-out of voter ID, revealing that of the estimated 2 million people who will now need a new form of ID—a voter authority certificate—in order to vote, just 1% have applied for it. And of that tiny number—not even 21,000—a tiny minority are older people or young people, groups who we were warned risked being disenfranchised under these new plans. We are just 10 weeks away from the local elections. Safeguarding our democracy and the fundamental right to vote should be the priority of any responsible Government.
I therefore urge the Minister to answer the following questions. What are the Government going to do to fix this? In particular, how are they going to target groups who have limited access to the internet to ensure that they do not lose out? What engagement will take place with local authorities and what support will be provided? It seems absurd that local authorities might have to pay the cost of the Government’s botched roll-out of voter ID.
Will the Minister commit to, at the very least, pausing this year’s roll-out? He will be aware of the Electoral Commission’s analysis that this roll-out means that the May elections cannot be run in a
“fully secure, accessible and workable”
manner. Will the Government expand the list of acceptable forms of ID so that fewer people have to apply for a local authority certificate? Many Members were rightly concerned when it was revealed last autumn that some forms of student ID were not included in the list. Do the Government have any handle on the level of awareness among the general public regarding the need to bring ID with them to vote in May? I would say that the Government were sleepwalking into a disaster, but I am afraid that, to me, this looks a little more cynical.
Lee Rowley
We are clearly going to have a discussion today in which hon. Members have every right, should they wish, to use quite outrageous rhetoric in relation to this basic, fundamental change to ensure that we protect the integrity of the ballot box. I would encourage them to think carefully about how they approach this during the urgent question.
To answer the hon. Lady’s questions specifically, I need to take on this notion that there are 2 million people who need voter ID. That is absolutely not correct and I hope that hon. Members will stop reiterating it. Of those 2 million people—which is an estimate—a large number will not have elections in their area this year. Secondly, of that group, a number will choose not to vote, much as we would like them to do so. They may have chosen never to vote, and although we would encourage them to do so, that is ultimately the purpose of a democracy: people have a right to vote and a right not to vote. We are seeking to encourage them to vote and seeking to guarantee that integrity. There may also have been a choice for people to change to postal votes. We are continuing to work to encourage take-up where it is necessary, but it is fundamentally incorrect for hon. Members in this House to suggest that some form of target is being missed.
The hon. Lady also asked what we were going to do to target groups. We are already doing that. We have engaged on multiple levels at multiple times with those who could be hard to reach, and we will continue to do that all the way up until May. It is not correct that local authorities are paying the cost, as she suggested. New burdens funding has been paid and there will be a true-up process afterwards to ensure that people are not out of pocket. The list of means of identification that the hon. Lady asked to be expanded already had more than 20 on it, including passports and driving licences. As I said in my initial response, that includes some instances where expiration had happened. I would encourage the Liberal Democrats and other hon. Members to understand that we are seeking to ensure that the sanctity of the ballot box can be protected, and I wish that they would support these reasonable and proportionate measures to do that.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Personation and multiple voting by individuals is notoriously hard to prove, which is one of the reasons that very few people get prosecuted. But we know it goes on, so does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to safeguard the validity of voting, it is vital that people can substantiate who they are when they go to vote?
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
“Personation at the polling station will be made much more difficult by the requirement for all voters to provide a specified form of photographic identification.”—[Official Report, 10 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 739.]
Those are not my words but those of the Labour Minister who introduced photographic identification in Northern Ireland in 2003.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The implementation of a voter identification scheme has always been a solution in search of a problem. We are more likely to be struck by lightning 54 times than to be queueing behind a person committing vote fraud at a polling station. Nevertheless, for their own purposes, the Government chose to force through voter ID legislation this time last year.
For months, those who administer and monitor our elections—the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Local Government Association, the Electoral Commission—all warned the Government that there was not enough time to safely implement the scheme for May or for those without ID to get a voter authority certificate. The Minister disregarded this expert advice and pushed ahead anyway, and the complacency that we have heard today is breathtaking.
I am sorry if the 2 million figure is such a problem for the Minister, but the reality is that the applications that have been made represent just over 1% of those who will need this. At the current rate of sign-up, it will take a decade to get credentials to everyone who needs them, but there are only 72 days to polling day. We are risking widespread disenfranchisement. When is the Minister going to wake up and act to prevent these voter ID requirements from locking huge numbers of people out of our democracy at the next election?
Lee Rowley
The hon. Gentleman continues to perpetuate the myth that this is some form of suppression. He is absolutely incorrect. Putting aside party political views, we have a responsibility in this place to make sure that we are temperate with our language, particularly when it relates to something as important as the ballot box. [Interruption.] He chunters that I should listen to the experts, but if this urgent question had not been granted—although I am grateful for this opportunity to respond to it—I would have been in a meeting right now with the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Local Government Association and the Electoral Commission, to continue my regular interactions about making sure that this works.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Given that under the existing system people have to fill in a registration form in order to vote in an election, why should it be more difficult for people who have shown themselves capable of registering to vote to bring along a piece of identification when they come to exercise that right?
Lee Rowley
My right hon. Friend is right. An estimated 98% of people already have this ID and, as I have indicated, we are providing additional ID for the people who choose to vote but do not have ID at the moment, so that we can ensure that May is as successful as it can be.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
If the proposal for voter ID is such a sensible and necessary requirement, as the Minister claims, can he tell us why fewer types of ID are to be acceptable for voting than the post office will accept for collecting a parcel? It would seem that there is some gerrymandering going on. Some types of student ID and Oyster cards for the under-30s will not be accepted, but Oyster cards for the over-60s will be accepted. How does the Minister explain that? If the Government are disenfranchising young people, how many would they see as a success in that regard? Does he also accept that what we are now seeing would be objected to in some of the more regressive US states?
Lee Rowley
Voter ID is a policy that has been implemented by many countries across the world. It is pretty standard, including in parts of the European Union, which the hon. Gentleman’s party is keen to get back into. In 2010, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe carried out a review of the elections in the United Kingdom at that point and it was clear that there was a weakness in our system around ensuring that identification was provided. I would gently encourage the hon. Gentleman to come off the talking points and to look at what is actually the case. An example in question is the Oyster card point, which continues to be raised by Members in this House. It is extremely simple to answer that question. Members should go and look at the eligibility for 18-year-old Oyster cards and at the eligibility for 60+ Oyster cards. They are different. The eligibility for the 60+ card involves significantly more requirements, including a passport or a driving licence. Of course it will be the case when we try to expand the level of identification that can be used, as we try to ensure that people can take it to the ballot box, that we are going to say yes in some instances and no in others, if that eligibility is different.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
The proof is in the pudding. We had a successful pilot in Swindon where the turnout was up. Would the Minister agree that for each of those on the long list of my many Labour opponents over the years, in their respective selection meetings, their members required voter ID? If it is good enough for them, surely it is good enough for all of us.
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is right. That was also the case in the recent Wakefield by-election, where I believe the Labour candidate was selected on the basis of photographic ID. What is good enough for the Labour party should be good enough to secure the integrity and sanctity of our ballot box more widely.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
If I go to the polling station at the local government election, I can produce my passport, which I do not normally carry, or my driving licence. If I do not have either, I could produce my pensioner’s travel pass issued by South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. However, if I were a young person—
Mr Betts
I thank my hon. Friend. If I were a young person with a travel pass issued by the same authority, I could not produce it at the polling station. Quite simply, what do the Government have against young people? Why are they discriminating against them? Why are they finding every reason to disqualify their forms of ID? Is it because the Government do not expect that many young people will vote for them?
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to my near constituency neighbour for his question. No, it is absolutely not the case that we are discriminating against anybody. We want maximum participation in elections, and we want to ensure the integrity of the ballot box. I gently draw his attention to the Government research that found that younger people are more likely than the general population to hold a form of voter ID. His logic does not apply.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
As we have heard, constituency Labour party meetings regularly request voter ID. I therefore challenge Labour Members to put their money where their mouth is and waive those requirements, if they are so confident that voter ID is not needed. Will the Minister remind the House of this programme’s success in Northern Ireland not only in tackling fraud but in increasing voter confidence?
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There has been voter ID in Northern Ireland for 20 years, and it has run successfully. There is absolutely no reason why that will not be the case in the United Kingdom as a whole.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I agree with the Minister that the integrity of our democracy is incredibly important, but I suggest that the best way to strengthen security at the ballot box is to increase turnout, which would reduce voter fraud.
Two million people do not hold valid ID, and will not hold it in May. I remind the Minister that access to photo ID is a luxury and, in a cost of living crisis, the reality is that many of our constituents cannot afford the luxury of paying £82 for a passport or around £40 for a driving licence. They are being priced out of the ballot box. I urge him to look again at the list. After the May elections, will he make a statement to the House outlining what actually happened and how many people were turned away?
Lee Rowley
One of our reasons for offering a free voter authority certificate, which 21,000 people have already taken up, is to address precisely that question.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Picking up a parcel, borrowing a library book and voting in internal Labour party elections are all activities for which photo ID is required. Does the Minister agree that this battle, this argument, has already been won? Opposition Members would do better to ensure free and fair elections by encouraging photo ID sign-up in communities that do not have it.
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we are focusing on making sure that people are aware of this change and vote in a way that reflects the change so that May is successful. There is a huge amount of work to do to secure the integrity of the ballot box for the long term.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The Government were warned that their voter ID scheme would disenfranchise many people, and specifically disabled people. The Royal National Institute of Blind People’s tracker survey found that 13% of blind and partially sighted people have no photographic ID. We know that not much additional resource is going into local authorities, so would it not make sense for the Government to invest significantly in making voting accessible and inclusive for everybody, including blind and partially sighted people?
Lee Rowley
The hon. Lady takes a keen interest in this area, and she will be aware that we are making changes to encourage blind and partially sighted people to get more involved in the electoral process and at the ballot box in May, which is one of the reasons I met the Royal National Institute of Blind People on 8 February. I will continue to meet all organisations representing these areas to ensure that this works as well as it is able to in May.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Many people who do not carry ID tend to be in already marginalised demographics, and now they will be disenfranchised. The Tories are “trying to gerrymander”. I do not always agree with the editor of The Spectator, but he is right on this occasion, is he not?
Lee Rowley
No, he is not, for the reasons I have provided. Many countries around the world have voter ID to ensure the integrity of the ballot box, and I encourage the Labour party and the hon. Lady to encourage their constituents to get involved. It will be happening.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Rather than rail against a very sensible measure to improve the integrity of elections, would Opposition parties not do better to focus on supporting councils and the Electoral Commission to encourage people to check what identification is needed and, if they do not have it, to get the free voter authority certificate, which is readily available?
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Now is the time to ensure the successful delivery of this policy. Work is under way in the Department, the Electoral Commission and councils, and it is for all parties in this place to ensure that the people who vote for them are aware of the change of responsibilities coming in May, to ensure that they continue to do so.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
This Tory Government always lecture us about wanting to deregulate and not interfere in the freedoms and liberties of individuals as they go about their daily lives. All the independent research indicates that voter ID will disadvantage people who are least likely to vote Tory. What is it that attracted the Minister to this measure?
Lee Rowley
It is safeguarding the integrity of the ballot box for the long term, which the Labour party seemed to care about when it was in government in 2010. Its lack of care right now demonstrates its lack of interest in going into government in future.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much. He probably knows what I will say but, having had voter ID for more than 20 years, it has become second nature in Northern Ireland. Free photographic ID is provided and can be used to fly to the UK mainland or to purchase age-restricted products. It is a simple process that can be facilitated with a simple form and photograph. It has cut down on fraud, and I stand behind the principle of one person, one vote, which it protects. Does the Minister agree that the free provision of electoral ID is an essential component of any legislation?
Lee Rowley
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who is one of the few people in this place with experience of voter ID. I encourage the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats to listen to what he says about its long-term success in Northern Ireland.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Seventy-two days out from the elections, the electorate do not know that they need to carry voter ID. It is one thing to say that people who are used to doing it will continue to carry voter ID, but people who do not know about it will not carry voter ID. Will the Minister set out everything he will be doing to communicate what each electorate will have to do between now and the election to get this ID?
Lee Rowley
The Electoral Commission, which undertakes regular advertising in advance of elections, has been engaged to do this, and its campaign began in early January and will continue until May. The polling cards going out to every household that votes will carry a clear message to indicate what is happening. We have provided individual budgets so that local authorities can reach out to make sure that their communities are aware of the coming change.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
The census shows that 40% of people in Wales do not have a passport, compared with 2.9% in Westminster. We will have no experience of voter ID in Wales until May 2024, so how on earth will the Minister assess any potential and entirely unintentional voter suppression in Wales, given that we might have a general election before then?
Lee Rowley
The research indicates that 98% of people across the United Kingdom have ID. Where there is a gap, I encourage those who are concerned to make sure that their electorate are aware of the coming change and to highlight the point of that change, which is to ensure the integrity of the ballot box for the long term.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
A total of 505 people over 75 years of age have applied for the Government’s voter ID document in the past month—that is fewer than the number of MPs in this House. Young people, too, are disproportionately disadvantaged. Will the Minister reflect on the fact that what he is taking part in is an erosion of a fundamental British freedom, a fundamental British civil liberty: the right to vote freely? We are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be impersonated at the ballot box.
Lee Rowley
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has managed to get in material for his usual social media clip. The reality is that we are trying to ensure the integrity of the ballot box for the long term. Ninety eight per cent. of people have access to ID. We will continue to work right up until May to ensure that those who do not have ID, but who want it, have it for the May elections.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The turnover of voters in my Glasgow Central constituency is significant, due to a large student population and the housing mix in the city, which makes turnover high in general. Can the Minister explain how people will understand the requirements for voter ID in Westminster elections, when there are different franchises and different elections? The challenge for many of us when campaigning in elections is in getting people registered at all. Surely it will be the case that people will turn up on the day expecting to vote, but will not be able to do so.
Lee Rowley
The hon. Lady makes the important point that there are differences in how elections are run in some of the devolved Administrations, but that is nothing new. I say to her gently that her Administration are consulting on a proposal to greater vary how elections are run within the United Kingdom, and I encourage her to talk to the devolved Administrations about that. We will continue to do what we have outlined, which is to highlight the change to make as many people as possible aware of it and to encourage people to ensure that they can still vote, and vote in a way that is protected and has integrity.
Nick Smith
Just 1% of those who are eligible have signed up to the voter ID scheme. It will take 10 years to issue the new ID to those who need it, but, with local elections just 10 weeks away, would it not make more sense to go back to the drawing board? The Government must come up with plans to boost voter turnout, not suppress it.
Lee Rowley
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). It is incorrect to perpetuate this 2 million number. A number of those people do not have elections this year. Ultimately, it will be down to people to decide whether they wish to get a voter authority certificate. I encourage them to do so. I hope that they will do so, but, ultimately, it is the choice of an engaged citizenry how to do that. We will continue to highlight and advertise this change to those people up to May and beyond.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I am proud to represent young people in my constituency and also the students at Oxford University and at Oxford Brookes. One of them wrote to me, saying:
“It is outrageous that the over-60s Oyster card will be considered valid ID, but the 18-30 card will not. This is clearly an attack on young people and will disproportionately impact their ability to vote.”
The fact is—we all know this—that younger people are less likely to vote. We encourage them to do so at every opportunity, but, because they are transient, many do not know whether they will be in one constituency or another. What are the Minister’s plans to target young people in particular so that they can make sure that they are not disenfranchised? Can he seriously stand there and say with a straight face that this has nothing to do with the fact that most of them will not be voting Tory?
Lee Rowley
When I was a student in the hon. Lady’s constituency, one thing I was told by tutors at my college was to look at the detail. The detail on the Oyster card for 18-year-olds is different from that on the over-60s Oyster card. That is identified on the website, and I encourage the Liberal Democrats to look at it.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
My Liverpool, Riverside constituency has some of the most disadvantaged wards in the country and many of my constituents, particularly young people and black people, will not have access to valid ID. The Minister has spoken about the integrity and sanctity of the ballot box. Can he explain how many cases of fraud have been identified, and will he commit to undertake a review after the May elections?
Lee Rowley
On the hon. Lady’s final point, absolutely we will review what happens in May. We have already committed to that both in this place and elsewhere. We want to learn from the experience, just as Labour wanted to learn from the engagement at the introduction of this scheme in Northern Ireland in 2003. We will absolutely do that, but if the hon. Lady has concerns about reaching out to communities in Liverpool, I encourage her to speak to her council, which has been given additional money to undertake communications to do that very job.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I now ask constituents when I knock on doors whether they know about producing voter ID, and so far this year not one has known about the requirement and not one has been in favour of it. Voter turnout depends on familiarity with where we go to vote and what we do. Low turnout is a much more serious problem for our democracy than the de minimis level of fraud. Does the Minister think that turnout will go up or down as a result of these measures?
Lee Rowley
As the hon. Gentleman has highlighted, we all want high turnout. We all want the maximum number of people who can vote to do so. That is one reason why in other parts of the Elections Act 2022, we are extending the franchise. This is part of a broad group of measures that seek to protect the integrity and sanctity of the ballot box while ensuring that as many people who wish to vote can do so.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
What does the Minister think the overlap will be between those least likely to have the requisite ID and those least likely to vote for the Conservative party?
Lee Rowley
I think that I have already answered that question, but I encourage the hon. Gentleman, in readiness for the elections that will take place in his area in the future, to spend his time highlighting to his constituents how we are protecting the sanctity of the vote, rather than making cheap shots such as that.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
As of today, just 118 people have applied for the voter authority certificate in Cheshire West and Chester. I urge the Minister to apply some common sense to this. We have had debates on the principle of this, but can we pause the roll-out to ensure that we have integrity of the franchise for all?
Lee Rowley
As the hon. Gentleman outlines, it is important that we have integrity of the ballot box. I have explained multiple times why this is an important initiative to ensure that. If he has concerns about what is happening in Cheshire West and Chester, I encourage him to take it up with the leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council, who has been given additional money to make sure that they communicate with those in hard-to-reach areas so that the May elections are successful.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The Government’s website says that to apply for voter authority certificates, people need a recent digital photo of themselves. Even if applying by post, people will need access to a printer so that they can print off the form. This really misses the point that many people, especially elderly people and those on low pay, do not have access to a computer. It is also estimated that more than 3 million over-65s have no access to the internet, and more than 7 million adults have very poor literacy skills. How will the Government make sure that those with poor literacy and digital skills and those with no access to a computer or the internet will be able to exercise their basic and fundamental right to vote in elections?
Lee Rowley
There is no requirement for a person to be computer literate or to go through online processes to acquire a voter authority certificate. Alternative processes are available and have been used, and I have data on them. We want to make sure that those who do not have computer can still have a voter authority certificate should they want to have one.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows that many council seats are currently decided by a handful of votes. Does he accept that, inevitably, there will be a change in how a number of seats are won or lost and that, in turn, the control of particular councils will be determined by a handful of votes in a number of seats? Does he anticipate that the Government will have to go to court charged with voter suppression and an intentional corruption of our democracy, because people will simply forget to bring their voter ID—it is not that they do not have it—and that will change the outcome? Those people will say that they had forgotten their ID, that they would have voted for X or Y, but they did not, and that will be the margin that determines the future of that council, which is a disgrace.
Lee Rowley
Many council seats have been decided on a very small number of votes in Northern Ireland for 20 years. The change brought in by the Labour party in 2003 requiring voter identification in that country is now being applied elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I gently ask the hon. Gentleman, when there are next elections in his area, to encourage his constituents to recognise that voter ID is here, and it is here in order to protect the sanctity of the ballot box.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Introducing further barriers to voting is like shadow boxing a phantom foe. The Government’s changes threaten to disenfranchise millions and place an administrative burden on local authority staff. It was reported yesterday that fewer than 1,300 people aged under 25 have registered for the new paperwork. Can the Minister explain why it is okay for members of the Conservative party to elect the Prime Minister via an online ballot, while ordinary people face voter restrictions when they go to their local polling station?
Lee Rowley
One of the principles of liberalism, which Liberal Democrats often forget, is equality before the law. Equality before the law requires processes to ensure integrity. I gently highlight to him a quote from the former hon. Member for Montgomeryshire in 2001, when he spoke on this subject on behalf of the Liberal Democrats:
“we accept the need for a Bill…The Liberal Democrats also welcome the Government’s intention to introduce an electoral identity card”. —[Official Report, 10 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 706.]
What has changed?
Raid of BBC Offices in India
(1 year, 2 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
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to make a statement on the raid of BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai, and allegations of tax evasion following the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
I am grateful to my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for raising this urgent question, and appreciate his interest in the recent news that India’s Income Tax Department has conducted what has been described as a survey on the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. That began on 14 February, and finished after three days, on 16 February.
As everyone in this House will be aware, the BBC is quite rightly operationally and editorially independent from His Majesty’s Government. While I cannot comment on the allegations made by India’s Income Tax Department, the BBC has said that it is supporting its staff in its Indian offices and co-operating with the Indian authorities to resolve this matter as soon as possible. Respect for the rule of law is an essential element of an effective democracy, as are an independent media and freedom of speech. They make countries stronger and more resilient. That is why we regularly engage with and support different parts of India’s media. For example, the annual south Asia journalism fellowship programme, under the flagship Chevening brand, includes over 60 Indian alumni.
As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has previously said, the UK regards India as an important international partner, and His Majesty’s Government are investing heavily in strengthening our ties. Our broad and deep relationship, guided by the comprehensive strategic partnership and the 2030 road map for India-UK future relations, allows us to discuss a wide range of issues in a constructive manner with the Government of India. We continue to follow the matter closely.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for his response, but I want to develop the question. Let us be clear that this was a deliberate act of intimidation following the release of an unflattering documentary about the country’s leader. Since its release, there has been a concerted effort to prevent the documentary from screening in India. Take-down notices issued to Twitter and YouTube have resulted in an India-wide ban of the documentary on those platforms. There has been suppression of the freedom of expression of the media and journalists.
When students from universities across the country have tried to organise screenings of the documentary on university campuses, dozens have been arrested, while others face internet blackouts through power cuts. As the raids on the BBC offices commenced, the Bharatiya Janata party spokesperson issued a statement that said:
“The BBC indulges in anti-India propaganda. India is a country which gives an opportunity to every organisation as long as you do not spew venom”.
As has been said:
“These raids have all the appearance of a reprisal against the BBC…They have come at a time when independent media are being hounded more and more, and when pluralism is shrinking in India”.
Not my words, but the assessment of Reporters Without Borders—strong words indeed. In the past six years, claims of financial irregularities and tax evasion have been used as justification for shutting down more than 14,000 media outlets and non-governmental organisations doing great work in India. They include such household names as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and Oxfam. That has had a chilling effect on journalists, human rights advocates and religious minorities.
The raids happened seven days ago. Since then—I say this respectfully—there has been silence from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. No Government statements have been issued, and it has taken an urgent question to encourage the Government to condemn this blatant attack on press freedoms. Alarmingly, the raids happened hours after the Government signed a trade deal with India. That has led to allegations that the silence from the Government is due to the proximity of the raids to that deal. In conclusion, can the Minister tell me and the House whether the Government intend to summon the Indian high commissioner, so that his counterparts can raise the issue with him?
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I noted a bit of coughing going on, which will give him a clue to a few things.
The hon. Gentleman raised important points. The UK’s support for media freedom is well known. Media freedom and freedom of speech are essential elements of robust democracies. As I said in my opening remarks, I cannot comment on the specifics of the allegations, because the BBC is co-operating with the Indian authorities on the matter, and as the BBC has said, this is an ongoing investigation and it would be inappropriate for it to comment further.
The hon. Gentleman made important points about the implications for NGOs and faith-based organisations. He knows that we continue to work with them on the ground. That is an important issue for him, and certainly for me.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I have often drawn the attention of the House to the very important work done by the BBC Monitoring service. Does not this extremely worrying raid on the BBC, in a country as advanced and potentially well disposed towards this country as India, once again illustrate the importance of not placing too much reliance on sources in countries on which we are reporting, because there is always the potential for action to be taken against local sources? Services such as Monitoring should have strong representation in this country, to guard against disturbing events of the sort that we have seen.
David Rutley
I thank my right hon. Friend for his thoughts on these matters. He has been consistent on these issues. I highlight that we believe that the BBC plays an important role. The FCDO funds services in 12 languages, including four Indian languages: Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu. It will continue to do so, because it is important to ensure that our voice—and an independent voice, through the BBC—is heard throughout the world.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
India has a rich heritage and is rightly proud of its place as the world’s largest democracy. However, in a democracy with true media freedoms, criticism cannot be shut down unnecessarily and freedom of expression must be protected at all costs. Last week’s raids on the BBC in India are therefore deeply worrying, regardless of the official narrative on why they took place. The BBC is a globally respected broadcaster, rightly renowned for its high-quality, trustworthy reporting. It should be free to report and operate without intimidation. We Opposition Members are particularly worried about reports that BBC staff were forced to stay in their offices overnight, and have faced lengthy questioning. In any democracy, the media must have the ability to criticise and scrutinise political leaders without fear of repercussions. That clearly applies in this situation. I therefore ask the Minister what discussions he has had with both the BBC World Service and his Indian counterpart regarding the welfare of BBC staff who have been questioned, and what steps he is taking to protect the BBC World Service from intimidation. It would send a deeply worrying message to BBC staff around the world should the Government not make their position on the protection of the BBC’s trustworthy and valuable reporting absolutely clear to the House today.
David Rutley
The hon. Gentleman makes important points. It is because of our broad and deep relationship with India that we are able to discuss a wide range of issues in a constructive manner with its Government. As part of those conversations, this issue has been raised and we continue to monitor the situation. He asks important questions about the BBC staff. The BBC said in its statement that it is supporting its staff; obviously welfare is a priority, and consular support is also available if requested. We continue to monitor the situation. He also raises the importance of media freedom. We absolutely support that, which is why we have agreed a package of funding for the BBC World Service. With that, the FCDO also has additional funding to help with key languages.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is important to understand that the BBC is not an arm of the British Government—in fact it is frequently critical of His Majesty’s Government. Clearly that is something that resounds around the world, that people believe the BBC is actually representative of the Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that, wherever it operates, the BBC operates within the law and within the appropriate tax rules? Will he confirm that the income tax authorities in India have been investigating the BBC for seven years?
David Rutley
The BBC does have an independent voice and editorial capability, and that is vital. As I said earlier, and as my hon. Friend can read from the BBC, it continues to be involved in the ongoing investigation. The BBC has said it is not appropriate for it to comment further at this point, but it is an ongoing investigation that the BBC is actively engaged in.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
The SNP condemns this alarming attack on the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. The BBC World Service is a renowned and respected news outlet. For decades it has shone a light on global affairs, including human rights abuses and undemocratic practices. What we have not heard from the Minister is details of the diplomatic steps the FCDO has taken and will continue to take to convey its opposition to these raids in the strongest terms and to safeguard those BBC journalists affected. Human rights abuses, discrimination and governmental scapegoating against India’s religious minorities are well documented. Political transparency and freedom of press are essential, but the BJP seems content to violate those principles. Does the Minister agree that additional funding is now necessary to ensure that the BBC World Service’s independent and unbiased radio broadcasts in Hindi are not cut? Given these appalling raids, will the FCDO reconsider its approach to negotiations on the release of Jagtar Singh Johal, for whom the softly-softly approach does not seem to be working?
David Rutley
The hon. Gentleman makes important points about freedom of religion or belief. That is key, and I know it is at the heart of much of what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said in his opening remarks. The SNP spokesperson also talks about funding. As I said in answer to a previous question, the Government have put a package of funding together for the World Service, and the FCDO has provided funding particularly for those four languages I highlighted earlier, because we believe it is vital for the BBC to have that independent voice and to have the reassurance that it can carry on its work.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
We in the UK are very proud of our press freedoms and, indeed, are accustomed to having the BBC and other reputable outlets hold the UK Government, the Prime Minister and Opposition parties to account in a devastating manner. That is why many of us were so concerned that India, a nation with which we have shared values of democracy and press freedoms, decided to conduct a raid on the BBC offices after the airing of a documentary critical of the Indian Prime Minister’s actions. Exactly what conversations has the Minister had with his Indian counterpart to ensure that journalists can undertake their work without fear or favour?
David Rutley
As I highlighted earlier, we have wide-ranging conversations with the Indian Government because of our broad and deep relationship. These issues have absolutely been raised as part of those conversations.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I am a great fan of the BBC. It strides on the world stage and is revered by its listeners across the world. I would say the BBC is known for its honesty, which is integral to democracy. Some of the great democracies in this world will surely see this news with some trepidation. Will His Majesty’s Government give consideration, if necessary, to contacting the United States and other democracies to put pressure on India and say that this is unacceptable behaviour?
David Rutley
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and the passion with which he made his comments. I am not able to comment on the specifics of the allegations in the ongoing investigation. The BBC is continuing to co-operate with the Indian authorities.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The recent actions against the BBC by the Modi Government represent yet another example of disregard for human rights. Back in 2020, the BJP Government froze the accounts of Amnesty International and its offices were forced to close. There are many other examples of the prosecution of minority groups. When will this Government publicly acknowledge the curbing of freedom of expression that is resulting in diminishing democracy in India?
David Rutley
As I have highlighted, freedom of religion or belief is vital for this Government. It is a key principle, as is freedom of media. The hon. Gentleman will know that we had a fantastic conference here in the UK last summer to promote freedom of religion or belief. We condemn any instances of discrimination because of religion and will continue to do so across the world. We have those conversations with the Indian Government, and we are able to do so because of the depth and breadth of the relationship.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this urgent question. With these raids we see an example of the increasing politicisation of the Indian justice system, along with a hostile attitude towards an independent media. Does the Minister agree that that politicisation and mediatisation of the Indian republic’s judicial system is a matter of real concern for British citizens who might find themselves subject to it—for example, my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal?
David Rutley
We need to ensure that our views on media freedom are communicated clearly with other Governments. We have those conversations not only with the Government of India, but across the world. We think these are very important principles and, as I said, they are essential elements for robust democracies.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I understand why the Foreign Office does not want to comment on this particular investigation, but the Minister will well know that this is not the first time that the authorities in India have undertaken such investigations into media organisations that are critical of the current Government. However, I do not think that stops the Government expressing a view, as the Minister just did, about the importance of media freedom in relation to the attempts to ban the viewing of the documentary. When we read that a spokesperson for the BJP actually described the BBC as the “most corrupt” organisation in the world, is it not incumbent upon the Government to stand up for the BBC and its integrity?
David Rutley
We stand up for the BBC. We fund the BBC. We think the BBC World Service is vital. We want the BBC to have that editorial freedom. It criticises us, it criticises the Labour party, and it has that freedom that we believe is so important. That freedom is key, and we want to be able to communicate its importance to our friends across the world, including the Government in India.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the Minister for answering the urgent question.
Plymouth Shootings
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before we come to the statement, I wish to make it clear that, given the issues of national importance raised by the wider implications of the case before us, I am waiving the sub judice resolution regarding any outstanding proceedings.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement about the shootings in Plymouth in August 2021.
On 12 August 2021 in Keyham, Plymouth, Jake Davison shot and killed five people, wounded two others and took his own life. The deceased victims were the perpetrator’s mother, Maxine Davison, 51; three-year-old Sophie Martyn and her father Lee Martyn, 43; Stephen Washington, 59; and Kate Shepherd, 66. This was a truly horrific incident and a tragic loss of life.
The jury to the inquest into those deaths returned their findings of unlawful killings yesterday afternoon. Our thoughts and prayers go out once again to the families and friends of the victims, and to the whole community in Keyham. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) for his tireless campaigning since the tragedy on behalf of the Keyham community and the families.
It is anticipated that the coroner will shortly issue a prevention of future deaths report in which further recommendations are likely to be made. If, as expected, the Home Office receives such a report, we will substantively respond to it—as well as to the recommendations made by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which has conducted an investigation into the shootings, and to a separate inquiry by the Scottish Affairs Committee—within 60 days of receiving it.
The Government keep firearms licensing under review to safeguard against abuse and prevent risk to public safety. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings in Plymouth, the then Home Secretary asked all police forces to urgently review their firearms licensing practices. The review found that, collectively, a total of 6,434 firearms and shotgun licences were surrendered, seized, revoked or refused over the previous 12-month period across England, Wales and Scotland. Of those licences, a total of 908 were subsequently returned or reissued following further checks or appeals decided by the courts. As a result of the review of returned licences, the original decision was overturned in eight cases and the licences have been re-surrendered or revoked. I hope that those findings provide reassurance that the police have put in place robust processes for issuing and reviewing firearms and shotgun licences.
That does not mean that there is any complacency following those awful events. Strengthened controls were subsequently issued through statutory guidance in October 2021—a few months after this awful incident—so that the police make sure that people are medically fit to receive a licence and that full medical checks have been undertaken, which, of course, did not happen in this case. A new digital marker system to flag firearms owners to GPs is also currently being introduced.
The statutory guidance draws on previous lessons learned and will ensure better consistency across police firearms licensing departments. It means that that no one will be given a firearms licence unless their doctor has expressly confirmed to the police whether they have any relevant medical conditions, including in relation to their mental health. The statutory guidance makes it clear that police can now undertake a wide range of checks to assess a person’s suitability depending on the individual case, including social media checks, financial checks, interviews with and background checks on relatives or associates, and checks relating to domestic violence or public protection units.
The College of Policing has refreshed its authorised professional practice on firearms licensing. A consultation was launched about a month ago, on 12 January, and it will conclude on 10 March. I encourage Members to respond to that consultation. His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire & rescue services has announced that it will be undertaking a thematic review of forces’ arrangements in respect of firearms licensing in 2024-25.
Devon and Cornwall police have assured the IOPC that changes have been made following its recent recommendations, but depending on what the coroner recommends shortly, I am currently minded to ask the inspectorate to look specifically at the arrangements that Devon and Cornwall have in place for firearms licensing and to confirm their suitability. The Home Office is also currently taking forward a review of fees that can be charged for firearms licences or certificates by police forces—we expect to consult later this year—to make sure that forces have enough resources to conduct those important checks.
We must ensure that our controls on firearms are as robust as possible, and that we learn the lessons from the tragic deaths in Keyham and in Scotland. We therefore await with keen interest the coroner’s anticipated prevention of future deaths report. As I have said, we will respond to that report, to the recent report by the Scottish Affairs Committee following the shootings in Skye, and to the IOPC report within 60 days of receiving the last of those three reports, which will be the coroner’s report. We will respond substantively to the recommendations in all three.
I commit today that any further changes needed to protect the public will be made. I commend this statement to the House.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.
Today we mourn Sophie Martyn, who was only three, Lee Martyn, Stephen Washington, Kate Shepherd and Maxine Davison. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) for his work. I know that he has been affected very deeply, as has his community.
The juror’s conclusions are searing and the IOPC report damning. There was “catastrophic failure” at Devon and Cornwall police in the individual decisions taken, in the appalling lack of supervision, training and oversight, and in the rules themselves. There is no automatic right to bear arms in this country; there is no right to be given the benefit of the doubt.
After Dunblane, firearms units were to be given as much training and guidance as possible, yet Devon and Cornwall police had no formal training for two decades. The firearms licensing supervisor told the court that he had done a two-day training course in 1998 but nothing else until 2020. How could it possibly be that the person in charge of deciding whether someone was safe with a gun was not even trained on how to use the risk manual? That casual approach to risk was dangerous and proved to be fatally flawed.
The last HMIC inspection on firearms was eight years ago in 2015. I am glad that the Minister has told us that the next one will be completed in 2024-25, but why do we need to wait a year? Can it not be brought forward? The 2015 inspection raised concerns that police force practice on licensing was inconsistent, but the public consultation on statutory guidance started only in 2019. The Government failed to respond to the consultation. Jake Davison used his licensed weapon to kill five people in 2021. Since the Keyham shooting, Devon and Cornwall police now reject 6% of gun applications, but the national average across England is only 3%. It is terrifying to think that other pump-action shotguns could be in the wrong hands.
Jake Davison’s child and teenage history should have triggered far more questions and expert advice. There was information about him that was never revealed. The mental health marker is finally being introduced, but it is in statutory guidance rather than a legal duty, and experts have raised concerns about the new system. Is the Minister aware of those concerns, and is he satisfied with the new marker? What are the Government’s plans to ensure that there is a proactive approach to risk management on firearms licensing? How will the Minister ensure that statutory guidance is followed by police forces and that they are held to account on it?
Jake Davison was an incel. The online radicalisation of young men has been overlooked for far too long. In the past year, there were 77 referrals to Prevent for incel, and 154 referrals for potentially planning or thinking about a school massacre. Will the Minister explain whether there is a flag on Prevent systems to notify the police if someone referred to Prevent has a gun licence? What action are the Government taking to tackle misogynist extremism, because their watering down of the Online Safety Bill means that misogynists and incel gangs will continue to proliferate online? The current counter-extremism strategy is eight years out of date. When will the Government update the strategy? Why does the Minister not accept the IOPC’s recommendations in full? I understand he is waiting 60 days for other pieces of work to be concluded, but he could accept the IOPC’s sensible recommendations in full today.
The new chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police has called for legislation on firearms licensing. Does the Minister agree? We are alert to concerns about pump-action shotguns in homes. What is the Home Office view on that? Labour in government will initiate a review of gun licensing laws. We must learn the lessons so that what happened in Keyham can never happen again. Nothing else will do.
Chris Philp
I thank the shadow Minister for her comments and her questions. I will try and answer as many as I can, but I am sure we will discuss this again in the future.
On the HMICFRS thematic inspection, that is programmed as I set out. The point I made about Devon and Cornwall specifically is that, subject to the coroner’s recommendations, I will be asking them to do that inspection a lot sooner—essentially I will be asking whether they are willing to do it immediately—to make sure of the assurances that Devon and Cornwall have given to the IOPC that they have indeed already implemented all the recommendations. That is something that needs to happen straight away and, subject to the coroner’s report and what that might have to say about it, I will be writing to HMICFRS on that basis shortly.
On concerns about the new markers being placed on files, I commit that our response to the three reports will address the need for a proactive approach to risk management and for legislation in this area. It is important to respond to all three together, rather than piecemeal, and I do not think 60 days is too long to wait for that. I have been clear with colleagues that we need to respond substantively within 60 days of the coroner’s report, which is expected shortly.
I completely agree with the shadow Minister’s point that people with Davison’s background should not receive firearms licences. Indeed, under the laws in place at the time, he should not have received a firearms licence. The IOPC in its recent report identified two or three individuals within the Devon and Cornwall force who the IOPC considered guilty of misconduct by wrongly authorising the issue of that licence, which Davison should never have received, even under the regulations as they stood in 2018 and in 2020.
In relation to the question about radicalisation, if someone has been referred into Prevent, and there is any substantive evidence of radicalisation, it is reasonable that that should be known to the police in making decisions about firearms licences. I will undertake to confirm that that is the case. If it is not the case, I will see what steps can be taken to ensure there is a link between the Prevent database and checks performed by firearms officers.
There is a lot of material to cover. The substantive response that the Government will bring forward in approximately two months’ time will answer all the questions and more, and no doubt there will be a statement to the House on the occasion of presenting that.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
May I welcome the Minister’s suggestion that there be an IOPC investigation of Devon and Cornwall’s operation of firearm regulations? I think I am right in saying that they have the largest number of licences within their territory. If they have not been getting it right, we need some reassurance that they are. I also welcome the Minister’s underlining of the fact that this particular person should not have received his firearms back even under the existing regulations. It was a misapplication of those regulations that resulted in the situation we find ourselves in.
Having said that, I am sure the Minister will accept—he will have had the same experience as me—that firearms legislation is in fact an accretion of policies over the years, and it has become a bit of a thicket for us all to navigate. We should have a look at some kind of review overall, and in particular at the critical role the medical profession play in general community safety. What more does the Minister think we can do to impress upon that profession the duty they have, not just to the community more widely, but to the wider body of those who shoot and operate firearms for work purposes or leisure purposes? The profession should not stand in the way of that process. We often found medics who would refuse to issue certification to people or would charge excessive fees for certification, and who were therefore not fully participating in the system. Given that this case proves the crucial nature of their assessment to all our safety, what more does the Minister think we can do to impress that on the medical profession?
Chris Philp
When my right hon. Friend was in this role, I know he met the families of the victims. I completely agree with his points about the medical profession. I echo his call for the medical profession to be proactive when approached by the police in relation to firearms licences and to make full disclosures in consultation with their patients. Where they see a flag that is of concern to them, they should proactively contact the police. As this tragic case shows, there can be devastating consequences for the public where somebody who should not have a gun has one. There is an ethical and moral duty on the medical profession that they owe to society as a whole, as well as to their patient as an individual. I strongly urge GPs and other medical professionals to keep that wider moral duty firmly in mind and to co-operate with the police on these issues.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I am angry and our community is angry. We are still hurting and grieving for those we lost, but also feeling for those who were shot and survived. Confidence in Devon and Cornwall police has been badly shaken by the catalogue of catastrophic failures that led up to this tragedy. We have been failed locally by our police, but nationally we are also being failed by gun laws that need to be brought up to date. The families of the victims and those who survived want to see changes: a review of gun laws to bring them up to date and to make them 21st-century; an urgent review of gun licensing, which has failed us badly, and not just in Devon and Cornwall but for every gun licensing authority in the country; a ban on keeping pump-action weapons in someone’s home with exceptions for farmers and pest controllers; a national incel strategy to deal with this growing toxic problem; training for firearms officers nationwide; and, importantly, full cost recovery, so that the police have the resources to process applications properly. Will the Minister agree to meet me and the families so that they can impress upon him the strength of their loss, but also the strength and determination in Plymouth to make sure there will be comprehensive changes to our gun laws to ensure that no other community anywhere in the country will have to go through what we have in Plymouth?
Chris Philp
I will meet the hon. Member and the families of the victims, as I think my predecessor has done, to listen to their concerns directly and to make sure their voice is heard in government. He raised a number of points in his question. As I said to the shadow Minister, the response we intend to produce shortly should address the points that he outlined. Clearly the families may have points that they would like to add that we can take into account, so I suggest we have that meeting in the next month or so, so that their views can feed in to the comprehensive response I have described. We intend to consult on the specific question of fees and ensuring full cost recovery so that police forces get the money it costs them to run these licensing arrangements over the summer or early autumn as quickly as possible. I can make that commitment now.
Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
I pay my own tribute to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who has done outstanding work on this issue since this appalling event in 2021. I thank the Minister for his statement, and for the support that the Home Office has given to the people of Plymouth in the aftermath of this tragedy. I welcome the review that the Minister has talked about today, but I ask him not to close his mind to a thorough review of the law in relation to firearms. I take the point that some of that law is quite ancient, and needs to be brought together and looked at in the light of internet influences, as well as medical conditions.
Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker—thank you for being kind to me—can I ask whether the Minister has seen the excellent report produced by Plymouth’s violence against women and girls commission, which tries to tackle some of these wider cultural issues from the bottom up? Has he seen it, and will he commend Plymouth City Council on continuing to take that work forward?
Chris Philp
I echo my hon. Friend’s tribute to the families of the victims, who have shown extraordinary bravery in the way they have handled this situation and advocated for change during what have obviously been very difficult circumstances for them. We will obviously consider any recommended changes to the law that may follow from the three reports we are going to be considering.
I am aware of the excellent work led by Plymouth City Councillor Rebecca Smith on a VAWG strategy designed to combat these kinds of issues. When my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) was Minister for Safeguarding, she visited Plymouth together with Councillor Smith to discuss her excellent report, and I commend the approach that Councillor Smith has developed in Plymouth to other local authorities around the country.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
My thoughts, of course, are with the families and the victims, and I commend the sterling work that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) has done on this issue.
I wrote to one of the Minister’s predecessors, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), in 2020, asking for medical markers to be put on records and for there to be a review of fees, both the fees that GPs were charging and those that police forces were able to charge. The correspondence I got back said that work was being done on the issue, but clearly work was not done on it quick enough. What is important is not just the 60 days in which the Minister will respond but having some indication of a timetable of implementation for some of these changes, particularly a statutory footing for that medical marker. I am worried that, unless that marker is statutory and it is part of the NHS contract that GPs have to report it, enforcement will be weak.
Chris Philp
I cannot speak for my predecessor, but on the point about urgency, a number of steps have already been taken. The updated authorised professional practice guidance from the College of Policing is out for consultation now; that consultation started in January, and will close in March. Updated statutory guidance was issued in October 2021 ensuring that there must be medical checks in every single case.
On the point about medical markers, those markers are being fully rolled out as we speak, so that is in hand. As I said, I can commit to a consultation on the question of fees over the summer or in early autumn, with the objective of ensuring full cost recovery. Regarding the response to the recommendations, I think that 60 days following the coroner’s report is a good timetable for a response. That will obviously contain a proposed implementation timetable, but the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and others can be assured that I want to get any changes needed—I am sure there will be changes—implemented as a matter of urgency, for obvious reasons.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend looks to review the licensing arrangements for Devon and Cornwall police, can he ensure that those arrangements accurately reflect the vast rural area that the force covers? We have already heard that the area has a high level of gun ownership, linked to those remote farms that require them for work, and there is concern that there is already a backlog in the renewals system and that the area’s rurality is not adequately reflected in the resources that the force receives.
Chris Philp
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Obviously, Devon and Cornwall is a large geographical area. I understand that more resources are now being deployed into firearms licensing by Devon and Cornwall police, partly following this awful incident, but partly because there are quite large backlogs in Devon and Cornwall specifically for firearms licensing. However, notwithstanding the rurality of Devon and Cornwall, or indeed many other parts of the country, we cannot have different or lower standards anywhere. I know that that was not what my hon. Friend was suggesting, but we need to make sure that standards are high everywhere across the country.
In relation to the resource question more generally, there is an intention to consult shortly on the police funding formula. One of the inputs into that consultation will be rurality, so that adequate resources are given to more rural forces to reflect the additional costs that they very often face.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The inquest concluded that the shootings in Plymouth resulted from a “catastrophic failure”. The responsibility lies entirely with the murderer—I do not want to repeat his name—but the firearms licensing department was not given the resources that it needed. The police and crime commissioner in Devon and Cornwall has admitted as much, and has said that
“I have made significant funding available to improve the Devon and Cornwall Police’s firearms licensing department”
—this, obviously, since the inquest. What conversations has the Minister had with the police and crime commissioner in Devon and Cornwall about those findings, and what additional changes would he like to see in the oversight of Devon and Cornwall police?
Chris Philp
I have had extensive discussions on the question of firearms licensing, both inside the Home Office and with policing, including PCCs. As I said in answer to the previous question, following this awful incident, extra resources have now been dedicated to firearms licensing inside Devon and Cornwall, and of course, police forces up and down the country will have record numbers of police officers by the end of next month.
As for changes to practice, I would like to receive the third of those three reports—the first being the Scottish Affairs Committee report, the second being the IOPC report, and the third being the anticipated coroner’s prevention of future deaths report—and respond to their recommendations in the round within 60 days, as I have committed to already. I would expect a number of changes to be proposed in response to those recommendations, applying not just to Devon and Cornwall but to policing more widely. As I also said earlier, the IOPC has already made specific recommendations directed at Devon and Cornwall. Devon and Cornwall police have assured the IOPC that those proposed changes have been implemented, but I am minded to ask HMIC to check up specifically on that shortly.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I pay tribute to the whole community of Keyham, and particularly to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on his work on this since it happened. There are three Cornish MPs in the Chamber today, but I know that I speak for all six of us and for everybody west of the Tamar. He will know that we stand shoulder to shoulder with his community, throughout this ordeal and going forward.
It was good to see the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police, Will Kerr—although recently appointed—apologise for the force’s failings and take accountability for what has happened. He has called for legislation in this area. I echo what everybody has said about the medical markers and making sure that we have the right balance in legislation, but is there an opportunity to consider a national unit to standardise licensing, processing and decision making, in order to help local police forces with their resources?
Chris Philp
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Nationally consistent standards are extremely important: we need to make sure that standards are equally high across the entire country. That is part of the reason why the College of Policing is currently consulting on updated authorised professional practice to make sure those standards are clear, and if further changes are necessary, they will obviously be introduced.
The other point that is very important is to make sure that the College of Policing also introduces standardised training—I think the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), referred to that point in her questions—and that is also in hand, in order to make sure that everybody up and down the country has received proper training. That was clearly a failing in Devon and Cornwall, and we need to make sure it does not happen again anywhere.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Today will be a difficult day for the community in Keyham, and my thoughts are with them, but I am not reassured by the Government’s response, particularly around mental health but also for victims of domestic violence and their former partners. I have a constituent who is in hiding right now because her former partner has had his firearms returned to him. What reassurance can the Minister give that this incident will be the last, and that my constituent will also be safe?
Chris Philp
Everyone’s constituents, including the hon. Lady’s, are entitled to feel safe. As the shadow Minister said, firearms licences are not a right, and it is important that we think very carefully before issuing anyone with such a licence. As I said, we will respond comprehensively to the recommendations in these three reports. I know that that will include consideration of domestic abuse and domestic violence, which are clearly indicators of substantially increased risk, and I would be happy to discuss those recommendations as soon as they come out with the hon. Lady and her constituent if she would like to do so.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Is it correct, as has been reported, that in this tragic case, the murderer’s mother appealed to the police to remove the returned firearm from him and was ignored? If that is true, is it not also the case that no change in any licensing system will be able to compensate for that level of bungling incompetence?
Chris Philp
I am afraid to say that very bad decisions—in fact, wrong decisions—were made in this case. As the former policing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) said, the wrong decisions were taken under the guidance in force both in 2018, when the licence was first granted, and two or three years later, when the gun was confiscated and then returned. The IOPC has said that very clearly, and it has said that two or three officers of Devon and Cornwall police made the wrong decision at the time. My right hon. Friend is right to say that a change of guidance would not have helped, because the wrong decisions were made under the guidance at the time. However, we need to make sure that the guidance is robust and comprehensive and that training is comprehensive. It is with those purposes in mind that we will respond to the three reports in 60 days or so.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Minister for the statement.
Sun Protection Products (Value Added Tax)
Tuesday 21st February 2023
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Sun Protection Products (Value Added Tax) Bill 2022-23 View all Sun Protection Products (Value Added Tax) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to exempt sun protection products from VAT; and for connected purposes.
I declare from the outset a deeply personal interest in the area in which I am trying to legislate; in fact, it is a deeply personal interest for myself and two of the co-sponsors of the Bill. The point is simply this: if sunscreen products are more affordable, our constituents will be more likely to buy them, use them and protect their skin. We know from market research that our constituents and families across our constituencies are being priced out of buying sunscreen products—a point explained to me just on Friday past, when I visited two primary schools in East Dunbartonshire. One of the headteachers told me with exasperation that after long weekends off towards the summer, her pupils—my constituents—are returning with sunburn. The Government will inevitably bring this down to money, especially if the Bill passes to the next stage, but the facts are undeniable. Less than half a percent of revenue generated by the Treasury from value added tax comes from sunscreen products—£40 million out of £256 billion.
I would caution the Government not to ignore the serious risk that skin cancer poses, but I would also ask them to consider whether they want to go down the dangerous path of ignoring the voice of survivors, particularly when the survivors are Members of this House trying to create a positive change when it comes to how the wider population view skin cancer. It is life-threatening, not something to belittle, and the UK Government should and could be leading the way on this.
We know that unprotected sun exposure causes skin cancer, and we know that sunscreen is an essential part of protecting us from this exposure, so it should be uncontroversial to state that these products must be made as accessible and affordable as possible. Armed with this information, we have a responsibility to ensure that our constituents are aware of the risks of unprotected sun exposure and the necessity of sunscreen to prevent cancer. This should not be a controversial idea, and for the most part it is not. The Bill has received support from several organisations, retailers and Members across the House, so I have been surprised at the Government’s resistance to it thus far, although I am sure they will not deny an opportunity to see a Bill with significant benefits to our constituents pass in this House.
Every year, 16,000 people across the UK are diagnosed with melanoma and it kills 2,300 people, making it the fifth most common cancer across these isles. Cancer Research UK has found that getting sunburn just once every two years can triple someone’s risk of melanoma. Sunscreen can help to prevent these melanomas—that is a fact—yet skin cancer is too often forgotten about in political conversation. This lack of conversation is dangerous, as 90% of melanoma cases are preventable with adequate sun protection, meaning that we could save 2,000 lives a year if we were to successfully introduce measures that encouraged widespread sunscreen use.
To clarify, VAT Burn seeks a VAT exemption for sunscreen products that are factor 30 or above, with a four-star UVA—ultraviolet A—protection rating, and marketed exclusively as sun protection products. The Bill does not encompass cosmetic or make-up products that may contain a sun protection factor. It is only effective and necessary sunscreen products that I and my co-sponsors seek to make VAT-exempt. It is a relatively narrow selection of products that accounts for only 0.03% of VAT revenue, so this proposal barely makes a dent in Government revenue, especially when compared with the massive benefits that could come from it.
As I said, skin cancer prevention is often overlooked. It is a known fact that smoking greatly increases the risk of lung cancer, and we can compare that with skin cancer and unprotected sun exposure. Across these four nations, we have taken significant steps to prevent smoking by banning it in restaurants and bars and, most relevantly, reducing the VAT on smoking cessation products to 5%. That includes over-the-counter products such as nicotine patches and gum. No similar steps have been taken to encourage the prevention of melanoma. Surely the Government cannot argue that smoking cessation products are more necessary to public health than sunscreen. Both serve very similar functions of preventing cancer, and sunscreen products are necessary for the whole family, making the extra financial burden of VAT that bit more damaging.
The VAT Burn Bill is not an assault on Government income from value added tax; it is but a tiny sacrifice in VAT revenue that could save lives and save money down the line. The saving of lives is very possible, given that 90% of cases are preventable. If we make prevention that much more accessible and affordable, and make people that much more aware, we can prevent many of these cases, which will save lives, most importantly, and save the NHS time, effort and money in diagnosis and treatment.
I acknowledge that in the past, VAT exemptions have not always produced savings for consumers—our constituents. That is why I have built in a pledge for retailers and producers to ensure that the VAT exemption translates directly into savings for our constituents when they buy sunscreen products. I can confirm that Morrisons has already agreed to the pledge, and Tesco already absorbs the VAT on sunscreen products, so I feel confident that if the Government accept the proposal behind the Bill, it will result in sunscreen becoming far more affordable for our constituents.
Many occupations across the UK require prolonged exposure to the sun, so we must acknowledge that this is also a workers issue. Too many people are exposed to the sun for prolonged periods as a result of their work, greatly increasing their risk of melanoma. Organisations such as Police Scotland provide sunscreen for officers who face this exposure at work. If we were to make sunscreen that bit more affordable, more organisations and businesses could take that step towards protecting their workers outside.
A successful awareness campaign matters, too—one that puts the risks of sun exposure at the forefront of public health conversations, so that more employers are encouraged to consider providing better sun protection for their workers. I am proposing that, hand in hand with this VAT reduction, the Government launch a skin protection awareness campaign akin to Australia’s “Slip, Slop, Slap” campaign, because combining greater accessibility of sun protection products with greater awareness is the best chance we have of reducing melanomas and saving lives. Just 0.03% of VAT income is not worth the human cost of melanoma, and if we make sunscreen more affordable and widely discussed, we can save some of the 2,000 lives that are lost each year.
We are in not only a cost of living crisis but a climate crisis, which means that sun protection products are becoming less affordable but more necessary. I hope that, having raised this issue, the Minister will not only be sympathetic to my aims, but responsive. Knowing the importance of VAT burn yet refusing to take action is something that I cannot accept and that the public should not have to accept. I call on the Government to listen carefully to the points I have raised and to consider them not as a political or economic issue, but as an essential public health policy. I am sure that the Minister will say that I am talking to the wrong Department, but this issue is intrinsically linked to the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care.
We must give skin cancer prevention the attention it deserves because that can make a difference. The battle against melanoma is not futile; in 90% of cases it is one we can win. We know how to win, so we need to do everything we can to equip the public with the essential protections that they need so that we can win this battle.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Amy Callaghan, Sir Chris Bryant, Maggie Throup, Jim Shannon, Ian Blackford, Caroline Lucas, Charlotte Nichols, Mrs Pauline Latham, Mhairi Black, David Linden, Patricia Gibson and Dr Philippa Whitford present the Bill.
Amy Callaghan accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed (Bill 248).
Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill
Tuesday 21st February 2023
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Social Security (Additional Payments) Act 2023 View all Social Security (Additional Payments) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
A hallmark of a civilised society is that it looks after the most vulnerable and those who are most in need. That lies at the centre of this Bill. The House will be aware of the challenges that inflation has presented to millions of our fellow citizens up and down the country—inflation that was there before the Ukraine-Russia conflict but that has been substantially exacerbated by it.
As a newly appointed Secretary of State, some of the first actions that I took were to increase and uprate pensions by 10.1%, to respect and uphold the triple lock, to increase benefits by 10.1% and to increase the benefit cap by the same percentage. Those actions, along with measures such as the increase in the national living wage by more than 9%, which will come into effect in April, have done a great deal to underscore this Government’s approach to looking after those who are most in need.
In 2022 alone, 30 million support payments were made by my Department. Eight million low-income households received £650. Eight million pensioners received a £300 payment along with their winter fuel payment, and 6 million disabled people received a payment of £150. That was alongside various other measures from the recent past, such as the reduction in the taper rate for universal credit, which provided 1.7 million families with, on average, an additional £1,000 per year.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
There is a substantial lag between the announcement of the uprating and April when it will be brought in. What steps can be taken to reduce that lag so that people benefit earlier?
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a series of payments were made last year right up until the autumn. The energy price guarantee and various other payments of which he will be aware will help millions of our fellow citizens come through what is a difficult period. The household support fund administered by local authorities is available, particularly for those who have not benefited from the assistance that I am setting out.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The third iteration of the household support fund has come through. I went down to the Hinckley hub to see how people there were getting on. They expressed their thanks to the Government for this important fund. They have the accountability to be able to give funding to people in extreme circumstances when they need it. It is not heavily red-taped and regulated, so they can use it how they see best to help their clients. Is that something that the Department for Work and Pensions will take forward?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I am pleased to hear his personal experience of the measure. He is right to point out that there is great flexibility in how it can be administered by local authorities. We place a particular emphasis on making sure that that assistance goes to those who may not have benefited from the measures I am outlining, but who are still in need.
In addition to the taper, we recognise that pensioners need additional support where it is appropriate. My Department has thrown itself into promoting the uptake of pension credit. The Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), did such sterling work as the Pensions Minister and, more recently, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), has promoted pension credit with such vigour on social media and radio that there has been a 73% increase in applications for pension credit compared with this time last year.
My Department has an excellent record on unemployment. Disabled employment is up by 1.3 million since 2017. We have arrived at our target for the employment of disabled people a full five years earlier than originally planned.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I just wonder whether the Secretary of State would like to comment on the disability employment gap.
Mel Stride
As the hon. Lady will know, the disability employment gap is a key measure on which we are focused. It has more recently increased a little, which I think is the point that she is alluding to, but generally, prior to that it was on a downward trend. The Department is very focused on making sure that we get it as low as we possibly can.
In the last year we also had the energy price guarantee, which ensured that average energy bills came in at £2,500 on average, and £400 off energy bills directly paid to bill payers. In England, we had the council tax discounts for bands A to D. We had two further extensions to the household support fund, as was just referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). For the devolved Administrations, there have been Barnett consequentials of £1.5 billion since October 2021. I am very proud of our record and the wide package that has already been deployed, which is valued at £37 billion.
That brings me to this year, when we intend to go still further. As the Prime Minister has stated, one of our key aims as a Government is to reduce inflation by 50% by the end of this year. I am confident that we will achieve that, but we recognise that, despite the relief that that will provide to millions up and down the country, we need to provide further support payments. There will be three payments totalling £900 for around 8 million low-income households. Like last year, there will be a £300 payment alongside the winter fuel payment of £300 to pensioners, and a £150 payment to disabled people. The delivery of the support for pensioners will be via regulation and is not the subject of the Bill, but the other payments will be delivered through this legislation.
The Bill sets out the basis of qualification for the payments and who makes the payments, whether that is me and the DWP or His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the case of, for example, tax credits. It makes provision as to how the timing of the payments will be set out and it exempts the payments from charges to taxation. It sets out the arrangements that will ensure that data can be transferred and shared between my Department and HMRC, so that all the payments run smoothly and we avoid duplication and minimise fraud.
Sir Stephen Timms
As I understand it, the eligibility for the payments is based on being in receipt of benefit—at least 1p—in a specific month. There will be people who, for example, are paid every four weeks instead of every month and may get two payments in a particular month, so they do not get any benefit in that month. Would it not work better to base eligibility on a two-month period to reduce the likelihood of that problem arising?
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman raises a valid point and we looked at instances where anomalies can occur in what is known in the legislation as the “qualifying period”. The reality is that we cannot iron out all the possible hard edges, but we did break the payments into three for this financial year, rather than the two that we had last year, so that in the event that the circumstances he described were to occur, there would at least be other periods in which someone could qualify. There is also the household support fund, which has already been referred to and is for just the kind of circumstances that he described.
Dr Luke Evans
I am glad that the Secretary of State has looked at how to break up the payments. Will he ensure that people who find themselves with an anomaly can swiftly speak to someone to make sure that such issues are resolved quickly? When someone is struggling with their finances, one of the biggest sources of heartache and stress can be trying to get some of these payments.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically excellent point. Anybody will be able to go on to the gov.uk website for further information, and we will have additional resources in place to ensure that people are manning telephones to answer the type of queries that he and the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), have raised.
The Government are on the side of the most needy. We demonstrated that first in the pandemic, through the furlough scheme and the support that we provided for businesses; and secondly, as I have outlined, with the £36 billion of direct payments last year to support those most in need. As I have set out, this Bill will bring forward yet further support in the coming year to help millions.
The Government will always stand alongside those most in need; the Bill is yet another example of just that. Let the record show that this Government, more than any other, understand that the hallmark of a civilised society is that it looks after those most in need.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
We will not divide the House this afternoon, because it is clear that our constituents need extra support. Families, poorer people and pensioners in our communities need help and support not simply because of the inflationary impact of the world unlocking from covid and the spikes in wholesale gas prices on the back of Putin’s heinous invasion of Ukraine, but because for 12 years—coming up to 13 years—we have seen mediocre economic growth under Conservative Governments and a failure to make our economy more productive or sustainably raise living standards.
After five Conservative Prime Ministers, six Conservative Chancellors and nine Conservative Work and Pensions Secretaries, families have been asked to endure the most brutal cuts and freezes to social security that have rendered out-of-work benefits at their lowest level for 30 years. Children have been punished by the pernicious two-child limit and there has been a 25% cut in the value of child benefit. Of course, universal credit was cut by £20—
Jonathan Ashworth
Mr Bumptious needs to calm down. That is the reality of the policies that he supports, which have put more children into poverty on his watch as a Work and Pensions Minister.
Those policies meant that poorer working families entered the crisis with less resilience, less protection and less to fall back on than they otherwise would have. Before the pandemic, the lowest-income households were four times as likely to have no savings as the highest-income households. Today, we face a situation where not only child poverty has increased in relative terms under the Government, but child destitution—where children’s families do not have the means to properly heat their homes, put food on the table, buy toiletries or even provide a decent bed to sleep in at night—is now at half a million. In all our constituencies, demand for food banks has exploded, and there are now also bedding banks, baby banks and even 13,000 so-called warm banks where the vulnerable gather so they do not need to shiver in their homes.
We have all heard stories from our constituencies, such as at the Wesley Hall food bank in my constituency, of fresh food being turned down because mothers in work cannot afford the electricity bill associated with keeping the fridge running. We have heard stories of families saying no to fresh vegetables, because they cannot afford to boil them on the cooker hob. We have heard stories of pensioners using tea lights to try in vain to heat tins of beans.
None of that, by the way, is because people cannot add up or run a household budget, as some headline-chasing Tory MPs lecture us—not the Secretary of State, I concede, but some of his colleagues. In my constituency, the poorest people are some of the best at arithmetic. They go up and down the supermarket aisles, constantly adding up the cost of everything and taking items out of their basket to avoid the indignity of having insufficient funds available when they get to the checkout.
People are turning to food banks because, after 13 years, wages have become so inadequate, housing costs so severe, childcare bills so impossible, social security cuts so deep, and debts chased by the DWP so crushing that, combined with the price of shopping and energy bills going up, families simply cannot afford to survive on the income that they have. The safety net is now so threadbare that in food bank Britain, hunger, the cold and the constant dread of the bailiffs have become a way of life. That should not be a way to live.
Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics reported that 21.9 million people are spending less on food and essentials because of the increase in the cost of living. It said that 50% of disabled people and 50% of parents with a dependent child are cutting back. That is reality of the crisis and of the dismal, devastating poverty that many of our constituents face.
Let me deal with the specific measures that the Government are proposing. First, the Secretary of State rightly mentioned the inflation-proofing of benefits this year, although it is not in the Bill. We welcome that and we pushed him on it—as did, in fairness, many hon. Members on both sides of the House. To be frank, to have done anything else would have been unconscionable. He did not outline, however, that the Government are again freezing the housing allowance rates and the cap on childcare allowances in universal credit. We will see whether that changes in the Budget; I understand that the Government may be looking at that. If they make that change, we will welcome it as another example of them pinching one of our policies—I look forward to it. However, the impact of not inflation-proofing some of these allowances will be to hold families further in poverty.
Secondly—though not in the Bill, but again connected to it and mentioned by the Secretary of State—there are the energy price cap and the universal energy bills support scheme. However, the £400 discount on energy bills of course ends from April, and the Government are reducing the generosity of the energy cap from April, costing the average household an extra £500 on their energy bills. So there we have £900 extra on energy bills that households will have to find. Talk about giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Of course, not every household has been covered by the energy cap—
Jonathan Ashworth
Let me just finish this point.
Not every household has been covered by the energy cap because, for example, the thousands of people who live in social housing with district heating schemes were not covered by the energy cap. That means that some of the very poorest people, social tenants and private renters, many of whom are on the means-tested benefits that are the subject of this debate, are facing increases in their energy bills this April of sometimes even as high as 400%. It means that residents on the St Matthews estate, the St Peters estate and the St Marks estate in Leicester—places where there is already deep hardship and deprivation—could see huge increases in their gas bills, because the Conservative Government refused to include district heating in the energy price cap. That omission will push many more children into poverty in Leicester, London and across the country.
I give way to my fellow Leicestershire MP.
Jonathan Ashworth
My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) has outlined how we would impose a windfall tax to maintain an energy price cap in place, and the hon. Member knows that full well.
The Government’s answer to rising energy bills, rising food prices and inflation outstripping wages is the Bill before us. Of course, the £900 in itself is welcome, and we concede that it is more than last year, but it is again a flat payment for disabled people and pensioners at a time when inflation has been running at 10%, so in real terms the payments this year are worth less than last year’s for pensioners and disabled people.
The point about this being a flat payment was put to the Secretary of State’s predecessor last year, and there are still a number of problems that we raised last year and that we hoped would have been rectified this year. The point is that the cost of living payment does not distinguish between large families and single-person households. The payment is the same regardless of household size, even though we know that larger households have higher spending needs—particularly those with children—which is why universal credit payments are higher for couples than for single people, and children are recognised in that system. In fact, larger households with children are likely to have 50% higher energy costs. All in all, that means that a couple with children will be £400 worse off, even after the cost of living payment.
There are also cliff edges involved with the cost of living payment being tied to receipt of means-tested benefits, meaning that somebody who earns just £1 above the limit could lose out on £900. This is at a time when the Government are saying they want to incentivise people to increase their hours or move into well-paid work to lift them off receiving universal credit, yet they have built into the system for next year a disincentive, even though they are telling people they will have to go for more interviews with their work coaches or face their benefits being cut. That is why the Treasury Committee recommended that to reduce the cliff edge, the DWP should consider spreading out the payments into more than the three payments and looking to look at a tapering scheme if they do this again. Perhaps the Minister, in summing up, could offer us her opinions on that Treasury Committee report.
Thirdly, and this is again related to the interaction of means-tested benefits, there is the point made by the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms). Households with a nil award for their UC could, because of the way in which UC is calculated, lose out. The Secretary of State said that the Government have tried to iron out some of these harder edges, but they could not iron out all of them. Is he really telling us, “Computer says no”? Surely, he can look at that again. This problem impacted about a million households last year with the cost of living payment, 7,000 of which were impacted because they were sanctioned at the time. Are we really saying that many families could be impoverished because of the cold bureaucracy of the universal credit IT system?
Again, as with last year, not all low-income households will be eligible. Resolution Foundation analysis has found that four in 10 of the poorest fifth of households—2.4 million households—do not receive means-tested benefits, so they are ineligible for the cost of living payment. Very similar points were made in the relevant debate last year, and it is disappointing that many of the points that were put from across the House have not been rectified in this Bill. The justification from the then Secretary of State last year was that the Government needed to get on with it quickly, and we accepted that justification, so it is just a shame that they have not been able to find solutions this year.
None the less, we are not going to divide the House. The cost of living payments are welcome as far as they go, but let us be clear that they are not a long-term solution to years of social security freezes and cuts or to a systematic failure to grow our economy inclusively, make our economy more productive and sustainably raise living standards. They are not a solution for the thousands of families who rely on district heating schemes in many cities, such as London or my own Leicester constituency. Today, we are living in food bank Britain, with more children in poverty. Tory politicians can tell Britain’s families just to live on 30p dinners, but this is set to be the worst Parliament on record for living standards and all of our constituents know it.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I think I agree with nearly everything in the two Front-Bench speeches. There is not a lot to add, except really to welcome the Bill and welcome the additional support that the Government have provided. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do, and it is essential for people with the least that they get these extra supports while energy bills and other inflationary costs remain as high as they are. I have a few observations to make on the Bill, but that should not really take away from the fact that the Government have actually come to the right conclusion. Making this support available is by far the most important decision, and everything else is probably nit-picking around the detail.
However, I would agree with some of the observations of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). Perhaps it would be helpful if the Minister, when she sums up, explained whether the Government did look at temporarily increasing universal credit, rather than rerunning the new benefit three times again this year. That would have allowed for a higher basic payment, which would then taper off for households on a higher income, so those with the very least would have got more than £900 and those with the most would have got a bit less than £900. That would probably have given more help to those households that are going to struggle most with the fact that they are going to get £300 less support this year—if we take into account the energy bills support and the reverse running of council tax we had last year—and be faced with, on average, £500 higher energy bills. It would be useful to know if that was considered, if it was not technically possible and the system could not cope with it, or if there were other good reasons why we preferred the three roughly £300 payments rather than having smoothed that over the year and used the tapering system.
Those of us who did—and do—support universal credit, did so on the basis that having a tapering benefit linked to income is the best way of doing it, because it avoids cliff edges. It stops people having unfortunate behavioural ideas, such as, “If I take the extra hours this month, I’ll lose my £300, so I’d best not do that; I might wait till next month,” or, “Ought I to drop out of a job, or try to somehow reduce my income to get that payment.” I accept that having three payments of £300 is better than a one-off payment of £900, but if we really believe in all the advances of universal credit being linked to income with tapering to avoid cliff edges, we should use it in a time of crisis as well as in a normal situation.
We know from the pandemic that we can very quickly flex the amount of UC, because we did it in about five weeks, so I cannot see a problem with that. That might not be so easy for tax credits and other benefits and we might have wanted one system that works for everything here. If the Minister says that is the reason, perhaps we can understand it, but now that we have had some time—we have had a year of this crisis—we might have produced a slightly more effective solution.
We also know that for the households with the least, getting lump-sum payments is not always best, because if they struggle with budgeting, they might not understand that they have £300 more this month that they will not have next month or for winter. Smoothing those payments through every month might help them ensure they have the money in place for when energy bills will be highest, which I suspect will not be when they get their April payment this year. I accept, however, that there is no perfect solution and that this solution is better than doing nothing.
I also want to reiterate a point made by the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and the shadow spokesman, the right hon. Member for Leicester South. They said—in the debate last year, I think—that needing to have received a UC sum in the assessment month before the payment prevented a large amount of people from getting a payment, not through any fault of their own or because they have got more money, but just because the way they receive their payments from their employer accidentally dropped them out.
A relatively simple solution would be to tweak two words in the Bill and say that if someone has received 1p in either of the two assessment periods before each staging point then they get the £300. That would add one word and one letter to the Bill and would fix the problem for the vast majority of cases. If someone happens to be paid four-weekly and they have two payments in one period, that would fix it; if they happened to have had a bonus once and it hit in one period, that would fix it because presumably they would not have had it for two successive months—and if they did have it for two successive months it is probably fair enough to assume they are now earning more than we thought they would be. That would be a simple change to consider in Committee, which I think will be on the Floor of the House so perhaps we can all get to vote on it—I suspect relatively shortly. I urge the Government to seriously think about making a simple change such as that, which would smooth out one of the rough edges quite easily.
The Secretary of State said that there will be a helpline, but this is primary legislation, and if someone has not received a penny in that month, there is no discretion for the Department to give them the £300, or the £301 or £299; it cannot do so because the Bill says it cannot—they have not received a penny, so they cannot have it. So there is no way of fixing that retrospectively; it needs to be fixed at this stage.
With those observations, I sincerely welcome the Bill, which will provide significant support for people in Amber Valley, who are struggling with high inflation and high energy bills. I repeat my request from the uprating debate, however: I urge the Government to keep the situation under review so that if it worsens and we need to help people more during the year we can come back and do that. It would not be too hard to add a fourth payment if we needed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I am grateful for the opportunity to outline my party’s position on this Bill and express our support for the broad thrust of what it seeks to achieve. To that end, as with His Majesty’s official Opposition, we will not oppose it on Second Reading, but I do believe that the Bill before the House today gives us an opportunity to consider some of the wider issues relating to our social security net and the desperately needed repairs which should be undertaken, but which, sadly, this Bill fails to address.
As I have said countless times before, Members on the Government Benches, and indeed all of us in this place, talk about the cost of living crisis as a recent phenomenon, or a new thing which happens to impede the lives of our constituents, but actually it is not. The cost of living crisis is the cumulative impact of 12 years of austerity policies, mixed with a cocktail of economic scarring from covid-19, and compounded yet further by Russia’s outrageous invasion of Ukraine. But that is precisely why I wish this Bill went further: to support better those who are the most vulnerable financially, the kind of folks I see at my Friday surgeries at Baillieston, Easterhouse, Parkhead and Cranhill.
The harsh yet inescapable reality is that many of the structural problems that the very poorest in our society face are the result of a policy framework put in place by this British Government: policies like the benefit cap, the two-child policy and cuts to universal credit, to name just a few. It is not good enough for Ministers to bring forward substandard legislation to the House which merely tinkers around the edges but will not deal with the source of the poverty that hinders so many of the poorest people who I represent.
We know how dire things are not because of anecdotes and the odd horrifying surgery testimony, but because of indisputable research from the likes of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Resolution Foundation. The Resolution Foundation has made it clear that the poorest 10th of households experienced an inflation rate of 11.7%, and Office for National Statistics data shows that food and drink inflation is running at some of the highest rates since the 1970s, with the price of bread, milk and basic essentials soaring up in price by almost 17% in a year. Data from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that more than 7 million households on these islands have been going without essentials such as meals, heating and showers this winter. This is the sixth richest economy in the world and on these islands people are going without meals, heating and showers—just let that sink in, and think about how that compares with our chat about global Britain. These eye-wateringly high levels of inflation are disproportionately hurting the poorest in our constituencies, which in turn puts yet more pressure on public and third sector agencies which are already at breaking point; I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a director of Cranhill Development Trust.
We can and must do more to protect the most vulnerable. That is why the one-off cost of living payments are only a temporary fix and it is clear that permanent solutions are desperately needed. That is why when this Bill goes into Committee next Monday, I will be seeking to bring forward amendments to improve it—for example to the punitive sanctions regime, which currently means cost of living payments cannot be paid to those who are sanctioned. I have to tell the Secretary of State that those who are sanctioned are not immune to the cost of living crisis, and yet currently under the Bill those who have been sanctioned will not get the cost of living payment.
It is deeply concerning to see the DWP announcing that more people are going to risk having their vital universal credit payments sanctioned. For example, the average earnings threshold for UC rose and will affect up to 120,000 more folks. A further 600,000 people who are already working for up to 35 hours each week will be targeted later this year. There is clear and indisputable evidence that sanctions do not work either in getting people into sustainable work or in getting them to increase their hours or earnings; we heard about that recently at the Work and Pensions Committee. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies recently reported, these types of policy produce
“fiscal savings indistinguishable from zero”,
yet conditionality subjects people to untold anxiety and harm. Rather than offering one-off payments to shore up the incomes of struggling families, the British Government should focus on reversing the damaging policies that are impacting on the most vulnerable.
My party stands by our calls to Ministers to reinstate the uplift to universal credit, and indeed to increase it by £25 a week and extend it to all means-tested legacy benefits, as well as ending the benefit cap and the two-child limit. We know, for example, that disabled people are far more likely to live in poverty than non-disabled people, and are particularly vulnerable to the rising cost of living—a point that Ministers have repeatedly ignored to the detriment of my disabled constituents. Likewise, 86% of households trapped by the benefit cap are families, often headed by single mothers. It is the job of Government to support families, not subject them to further hardship. I completely agree with John Dickie of Child Poverty Action Group Scotland who calls for this “cruel and irrational” benefit cap to be scrapped at source by the UK Government as a matter of utmost urgency
The continued refusal by Ministers to fix the extensive and well documented problems with universal credit is unacceptable and it is unequivocally subjecting vulnerable people to additional unnecessary hardship. A recent report from the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe found that the level of support provided under universal credit was a key contributing factor to child poverty. The report stated that policies such as the two-child limit and benefit cap
“restrict the amount of benefits a household can receive, regardless of their specific needs, and thereby continue to exacerbate child poverty.”
That is the Council of Europe saying that the UK Government’s policies exacerbate child poverty, and that is the fundamental problem here. The Bill tinkers around the edges with temporary fixes, however welcome, but it fails to deal with the root causes of the poverty that the Government are inflicting on their own citizens.
Meanwhile, in Scotland my colleagues in the SNP Scottish Government continue to do everything within their limited powers and fixed budgets to ensure Scottish people and communities are supported through this crisis as far as possible. In line with the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecasts, Scotland’s Government are set to invest £5.2 billion in benefits expenditure in 2023-24, providing support to more than 1 million people. Indeed, in 2027-28, that is forecast to increase to £7.3 billion—money that will go directly to people who need it most and to support people to live independent lives. But the Scottish Government are doing all this with both hands tied behind their back, because every additional £1 that my colleagues in Holyrood spend on measures to help with rising costs and the mitigation of Tory cuts must be funded from reductions elsewhere, given their largely fixed budget and limited fiscal powers. We do not have the bedroom tax in Scotland because we spend huge amounts of money on discretionary housing payments to try to nullify the impact of that tax, but that comes at the expense of the education budget, the health budget, the transport budget, the justice budget and so on. Members in this House have failed to confront the fact that devolution was never meant to be a sticking plaster for detrimental decisions made here.
Despite repeated requests, the Chancellor has thus far failed to provide any extra assistance to help Scotland’s Government manage this year’s budget. With every passing day that the British Government fail to use their reserved powers to adequately tackle the cost of living and its long-term impact, they demonstrate that independence is the only way for Scotland to boost incomes and build the fairer society that so many people in my community strive to see. The simple truth is that Westminster is not working and it is time for Scottish independence.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I rise to support this enabling Bill, which will enable the payment of additional cost of living support for many millions of the poorest in society. Before I go into the detail of the proposals, it will be useful to set the debate into context, which is of course that the best welfare, where it is accessible, is access to a job. We know the obvious financial implications of being in employment, but there are equally important mental health benefits.
Debbie Abrahams
Can the hon. Gentleman explain then why 4.2 million people in work are in poverty and six out of 10 people in a low-paid job will still be in a low-paid job 10 years later?
Jerome Mayhew
I am not saying that employment of any description is the silver bullet. We have phased movement under universal credit, because it is a tapering benefit from unemployment through additional support from Government that diminishes as pay rates increase. Most hon. Members would accept that that is the right approach, but I also accept that the hon. Lady rightly drew attention earlier to the disability employment gap. Although I recognise the recent unwelcome upward tick in that, the direction of travel and the long-term trend is downward, which I wholeheartedly welcome.
In my constituency of Broadland, the universal credit claimant rate is only 2%. Bearing in mind that a percentage of those will be in employment, in my part of the country at least we benefit from full functional employment. It is a feather in the Government’s cap that the national average universal credit claimant rate is just 3.6%; we see that in particular when we look at youth unemployment. In Broadland, the rate among the 18 to 24-year-old cohort—who are often hard to employ and most quickly affected by economic downturn—is just 3.6%, whereas nationally it is 4.6%. It is worth taking a moment to make some international comparisons. In France, the rate of unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds is more than 20%, and the equivalent figure for Spain is about 35%. Something is happening in the United Kingdom that is not happening on the European mainland. My submission is that it is because Conservative policies are leading to fuller employment, particularly in those cohorts that have traditionally found it harder to gain and retain employment. That is down to the brave decisions of this and former Conservative Administrations in creating a dynamic labour market that has allowed and encouraged employment and, yes, the ability to reduce the employment count for employers. That has led to fuller employment in this country than there has been in areas that are perhaps more unionised, where once someone is in the club their job is protected but that comes at the cost of the young and the poorest.
The Government have been right to focus on a dynamic labour market, in addition to direct Government support in schemes such as the £2 billion kickstart scheme, which worked so well in the aftermath of the pandemic, and the restart scheme. It cost an eye-watering £2.9 billion, but UC claimants of nine months or more got additional focus from their Jobcentre Plus work coaches to help them step back into employment, countering the terrible drain on the country and the individual cost to people’s lives of long-term unemployment.
On work coaches, this Government have doubled their number in 2021, increasing it by 13,500. I have seen these work coaches at work in my constituency, at the Jobcentre Plus in Fakenham. I pay particular tribute to all the staff members there, who have a huge amount of enthusiasm and expertise, and are going the extra mile day in, day out to get the long-term unemployed in my area into jobs. The total number of UC claimants in Broadland is 1,130. They are not all long-term unemployed, but, in a period of full employment, we just need an extra bit of help to get that hardcore group into the jobs, which are available. The additional work coaches are exactly the right way to go, which is bearing fruit.
The apprenticeship schemes are also being supported and encouraged by the Government. Members from around the House will recall that two weeks ago it was National Apprenticeship Week. To celebrate that and encourage its further uptake, I visited a business in my constituency, Ben Burgess, which many in the east will recognise as agricultural machinery suppliers of great repute. At any one time, the company has about 30 apprenticeships, which, typically, start at the age of 16. The apprentices get taken through training both on the job and at a national training facility in the midlands, where they have university-style education as well as on-the-job training in their place of employment. They come out of that scheme with a machinery technician qualification, a job and a career, leading to a really fulfilling lifestyle. That is exactly the kind of thing that the Government should be and are supporting.
I cannot move on from this area of my speech without a little plug for my jobs fair, which is taking place at Taverham High School on 10 March. It is one of a series that I have been holding and will continue to hold. My first one was in Fakenham, in the aftermath of the covid pandemic, when my assumption was that we would have a tidal wave of unemployment. The estimate at the time was that we would have 12% unemployment. I set in place a jobs fair to try to solve that problem, but because of the incredible intervention of the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, we did not have 12% unemployment. The Government put their arms around the economy, supported people in their jobs and the potential crisis did not materialise.
On the detail of the proposed legislation, I fully support the uplift in the national living wage by 9.7%, taking it to £10.42 an hour, and not just for those whose employment is at the national living wage. As a former employer, I know very well that the national living wage is the base upon which many, many layers of employment judge their own job offers. We have created the conditions where there is full functional employment in the vast majority of the country, so employers are having to compete for staff. One way—it is not the only way—to compete is on pay. As the national living wage base rises, the gradated competition in pay rises as well, and that has a really beneficial effect.
David Linden
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the Budget submissions from both the CBI and the TUC. It is not often that they both sing from the same hymn sheet, but one key theme they complain and raise concerns about is staffing shortages. I accept that the national living wage is one factor, but does he also accept the concerns of both the CBI and the TUC that the Government have a problem with staffing issues, which cannot necessarily be helped by something like Brexit?
Jerome Mayhew
I am really grateful to the hon. Member for making that intervention, because we had a similar discussion in an earlier debate and he gives me the opportunity to say what I kicked myself for not saying last time. As a former employer, if one has access to—let us call it this—unlimited cheap labour then there is no incentive to increase productivity or invest in further plant and machinery. As a result, we have what he was also complaining about, which is the low productivity conundrum. On access to labour, I recall him saying in an earlier intervention a couple of weeks ago that in Scotland the problem is not having too many people, but an exodus of people from Scotland. I just wonder what is the difference between Conservative-run England, where people in their hundreds of thousands are seeking to come into this country, and SNP-run Scotland, where they are leaving in their tens of thousands?
David Linden
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am hopefully allowing him to sit down and think about that just a little bit more. That might help him.
The reality is that immigration policy is controlled by the United Kingdom Government. The Scottish Government and huge swathes of civic society have said that our problem has never been emigration, but immigration. We are looking to get more people to come to live and work in Scotland. It is the UK Government and the Home Office who make that more difficult. On Friday, I had an asylum seeker at my surgery, somebody who is incredibly well qualified and who has something he wants to offer this country, but because of a decision taken in 2002 by the Labour Government he is restricted from working here. He wants to work in Scotland, but he cannot do so because of an intransigent UK immigration policy. That is the reality of our immigration problems. It is not some mini-tartan issue that he might want to dress it up as.
Jerome Mayhew
This probably strays a little far from the topic of the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, which is not about immigration policy, but I note in passing that if the hon. Gentleman wants to encourage people to work in his country, having a supertax on employment is probably not the best way to go about it.
Cost of living inflation hits working families too, so I welcome the £900 cost of living payments that will benefit fully 8 million families, as well as the disability payment of £150 to help with the higher cost of equipment needs. That will also benefit some 6 million people. If a job is the best form of welfare, then reducing inflation is the best way to tackle the cost of living crisis. My commendation to the Minister is that we should stick to our guns that reducing inflation during the course of this year, halving it as the Prime Minister has promised to do, is absolutely the right way to do it. The Bank of England currently predicts that inflation will dip below 4% by the end of this year, so that, overwhelmingly, is the best way to deal with these longer-term problems—not one-off payments which seek to address a symptom rather than dealing with the cause. While it is necessary to address the symptoms in the way the Bill does, I am grateful to the Government for also dealing with the cause of the cost of living crisis—inflation resulting from Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine—because that is the long-term solution to these problems.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Although no one will oppose the Bill today, it is important to put it in the context of what many of our constituents are experiencing at the moment, because it does mean that they will bear a significantly greater burden.
Last year the household energy cap was £2,500, and people on means-tested benefits received £650 plus the £400 universal payment. This year the cap will be £3,000, and yes, people on means-tested benefits will receive £900, but the universal payment is not being renewed, which means that they will suffer a 45% increase in their cost burden. For households that are not entitled to means-tested support, the average household energy bill will rise again by at least 43%. So although we will not be voting against the Bill today and will support the benefits to be distributed by the Government, there will, as I have said, be a significant increase in the burden for many of our constituents.
According to National Energy Action, in October 2021 there were 4.5 million households in fuel poverty, in October 2022 the figure was 6.7 million, and by April 2023 it will have risen to 8.4 million, which means that about one in three households will be in fuel poverty. The Bill will not relieve that fuel poverty. Of those 8.4 million households, 1.8 million will be carers, 5.9 million will be low-income and financially vulnerable households, 3.6 million will be people with a disability, and 1.6 million will be households in off-gas homes—as some Conservative Members have mentioned in other debates. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), this poverty is due to the fact that, for a considerable time, social security support has not kept up with either the cost of living or the rise in earnings.
I am pleased that some benefits will rise by 10.1%, but in recent decades they have fallen in real terms. I supported the triple lock, which I considered to be an excellent policy, but that was in the context of the breaking of the earnings link by Mrs Thatcher, which I opposed in the 1980s. If the earnings link had been retained, pensions would be £50 a week higher. However, it did not apply only to the state pension; it also applied to carer’s allowance. A group of carers whom I have been meeting over the last year have explained their own financial plight. If the earnings link had been retained, carer’s allowance would be almost double what it is today. With those protections, there would be fewer households in poverty and fewer dependent on the benefits that the Bill will provide. The time has come, I think, when we need to consider the advantages of applying the triple lock to all benefits in future, thus protecting people from poverty and hopefully lifting some of them out of poverty as well.
However, the origins of the current fuel poverty are not just our immediate problems with the Ukrainian war and what has happened post covid. It stemmed from the policies of Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s and the asset-stripping of our country, particularly in respect of energy and the subsequent introduction of a weak market-protecting form of regulation. Today we have Ofgem, a regulator that I and many others believe serves the interests of the companies, not the consumers. The energy companies have made excess profits, and I fully support the call from the Labour Front Bench to extend the welfare tax, because it cannot be right that we have an energy system in which companies are raking in massive profits and another 1.7 million households will be condemned to fuel poverty from April.
In addition to supporting the £900 proposed today, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) suggested that he would be tabling amendments in Committee. I would suggest that he table an amendment that doubles the scale of support that is being provided today. The cost of providing the £900 is £7.2 billion, but the Chancellor has today been given an extra £30 billion in headroom from the outturn with regard to debt, so doubling the support provided as an emergency measure to lift people out of poverty could easily be accommodated.
I would also like to back the proposal from the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said last August in the negotiations with the energy companies for lower prices that those companies that could not meet the lower prices would be given equity loans up to and including taking them into full public ownership if necessary. In that way, we would protect consumers facing fuel poverty as well as protecting them by operating energy companies in the public interest, not in the interest of their shareholders.
We are spending billions of pounds on bailing out families who are being ripped off while protecting the profits of the companies that are ripping them off, and I think there is a better way. The better way is to support the extension of the windfall tax, to ensure that we cap prices at a rate that is affordable to people, to provide greater assistance to those most in need and to provide equity loans for those companies that cannot deliver. In that way, we might be able to lay the foundations for a fuller debate about how we reform our social security system.
I agree with the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), in that I have consistently argued that we should tackle poverty by enabling people to go to work, but that work must be paid at a level that will lift people out of poverty. The tragedy for me is that I did not believe we would reach this era and have 4 million children in poverty, with two thirds of those children in families where someone is at work. I think that says something about the way in which we distribute the rewards of work in our society. Some of the people who work the hardest in some of the most difficult jobs have tragic levels of low pay. We will be voting to enable this Bill to go through, but so much more has to be done to tackle poverty in our society, and there is an opportunity to improve this legislation in the coming weeks to enable at least some people to heat their homes in this coming period.
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of this legislation. I warmly welcome the extra cost of living measures that it provides, which will benefit my constituents in Guildford and Cranleigh and in our villages. Colleagues across the House have mentioned the context in which we are debating these necessary measures, which is that we are facing tough economic headwinds because of global energy and food supply shocks resulting from the appalling Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Chancellor was right to take tough but necessary decisions in the autumn statement and subsequently, in order to put our public finances on a sustainable path while ensuring that those in need are supported. An inflation rate not seen since the early 1980s, fuelled by the rise in energy and food prices, has had a disproportionate impact on lower income households across the country, and I know that the Chancellor will do all he can to ensure that they are supported through this challenging period until inflation is back at a sustainable level. This Government understand the current pressure and are taking unprecedented steps to protect households from the rising cost of living, spending almost £70 billion to help households through to 2024.
Although my Guildford constituency is thought of as an affluent area, I know from my surgeries, from my inbox and from speaking to residents on the doorstep that there are many who, over the past few months, have faced rising bills with great anxiety. However, they are always incredibly grateful for the important financial help provided by this Government.
As this Government and Prime Minister work diligently to halve inflation by the end of this year and to ease the pressure of price rises on families, we must support those facing challenges in the here and now, but we also know that economic growth is what gives people financial security. The Prime Minister is right to make growth one of his five key priorities.
This Bill will support more than 8 million families across the country, including almost 7,000 families in Guildford, with at least £900-worth of cost of living payments split into three instalments. These payments, the first of which will be received at the end of April, followed by payments in October 2023 and February 2024, will go to households on means-tested benefits.
Debbie Abrahams
Will the hon. Lady comment on the adequacy of social security, including the additional payments in this Bill, given that 4.2 million people in work, many of whom receive support, are still in poverty?
Angela Richardson
The hon. Lady is right to ask that question, but across these many measures, the Government are having to work within quite constrained parameters. I know that the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will be looking at it as we head into the next fiscal event. It is right that we are providing this extensive support, but we also have the equal challenge of making sure we get inflation down so that people are able to use their funds more effectively, rather than being hit by the very high food and energy prices we have discussed.
In addition to the 8 million families supported with further payments, more than 6.5 million people in receipt of disability payments, including 6,300 in Guildford, will receive £150 to help tackle the rising cost of equipment. I urge struggling households and families in my constituency to check the Government’s website to see what support they are able to access. My office is always on hand to guide constituents towards the appropriate support channels.
This Bill is part of the Government’s wider package of measures to ease the cost of living, which will be worth £26 billion in 2023-24. I welcome the fact that pensioners who are entitled to the winter fuel payment will receive an extra £300 this winter, providing certainty to many households through to spring 2024. I urge all pensioners to check their eligibility for pension credit so that they can unlock these cost of living payments.
I also welcome the announcement of an extension to the household support fund, including more than £10 million of extra funding for Surrey, which will help local authorities to support the most vulnerable households. In the period from October 2022 to March 2023, Surrey County Council used its allocated funding from the household support fund to enable the continued provision of food vouchers during the October, December and February school holidays; to provide energy support to care leavers; to place additional funding into the Surrey crisis fund; to give money to food banks and community fridges; to provide payments to families with disabled children; and to give funds to charities that work with vulnerable and less well served communities. The remaining funds will be distributed by borough councils to households identified as financially struggling.
It is important to think back to covid and this past winter, to understand that it was right that the Government gave money directly to councils that know which are their most vulnerable families and can get support directly to them.
In recent months, the Government have: put in place the largest cash increase in the national living wage, to £10.42 an hour, benefiting 2 million workers; announced the uprating of benefits, with the state pension and the benefit cap increasing by 10.1% from April; and delivered the energy price guarantee, protecting households from sky-high energy bills caused by Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine, which represents one of the largest support packages in Europe.
The cost of living payments being introduced today will go some way in easing the rising costs facing families and those on disability benefits, but, in the longer term, we must combat the challenge of inflation. This Government’s plan to halve inflation by the end of 2023 will benefit everyone across the country, including my constituents in Guildford, Cranleigh and our villages. I am confident that this Government will continue to support those who are in need, and I welcome the steps that are being taken here today.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
These continue to be some of the hardest times in recent living memory for so many of our fellow citizens. Few have been entirely immune. Millions are struggling, but for far too many, these hard times have brought them close to, or even into, destitution.
Given the importance of energy prices to the cost of living crisis, the fall in the price of wholesale gas futures over recent months is immensely welcome, but let us not imagine that this crisis is about to come to an end. Forecasts consistently suggest that this is, at best, the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end, not least as consumers face a rise in their costs as the energy price guarantee gap is raised this year, with no continuing energy bills support scheme to cushion the blow.
The Resolution Foundation estimates that working-age household incomes have fallen by an average of 3% this year, but will fall by an average of 4% next year—the biggest single fall since 1975. As food inflation hits 16.7%, food banks, such as those run by the Trussell Trust and the Independent Food Aid Network, are overwhelmed by demand. This week, IFAN said:
“Our fasted growing client group are working people on low wages who cannot make ends meet.”
We have had references today from several Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), about the rise of in-work poverty. IFAN went on to say:
“The majority have always managed on a low income.”
It said that they
“know how to budget and to live frugally, but, with costs rising, there simply isn’t enough money in their pockets. It’s soul destroying.”
This weekend, we heard that the Co-op store group has resorted to putting packets of formula milk behind the counter as a security measure, as though they were precious stones in a Mayfair jeweller’s. We have seen the impact of these price rises devastating families and pensioners. We have seen that a quarter of people on means tested benefits now report food insecurity, even with the special payments that were made last year—that compares with just 4% in food insecurity before covid. We have seen how costs have risen this year, driven by energy costs, but we have seen them being felt in the weekly food shop just as acutely.
We understand how much of this is attributable to factors beyond our control. We know that the catastrophic shocks that the economy experienced, first from covid and then from the energy price spike, were felt most severely by those least able to withstand them. As we debated just two weeks ago in this House, most working age benefits where uprating was not fixed by statute were not fully uprated over a period of seven years from 2013 to 2020, with nominal increases limited to 1%. or with rates frozen altogether.
Child benefit, which was uprated only once between 2010 and 2019, lost a fifth of its value between 2010 and 2022. The value of jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance fell by 12.5% in real terms. The value of universal credit, the Government’s flagship benefit, fell by 12% in value between 2013 and 2022.
However, the extreme vulnerability experienced by so many of our fellow citizens is not just because of what has happened within the social security system. It is because of sluggish wage growth and the failure to protect workers in insecure employment. It is because of the failure to prepare this country for energy price rises by investing in home insulation and renewable energy, or by extending the energy price guarantee into the summer when prices may actually be falling. It is because of the failure to build new homes—especially affordable homes—and to protect those who are being hit by spiralling private sector rents. It is because of over a decade’s neglect of the childcare sector, which is seeing providers fold, costs escalate and too many parents forced to consider whether work is even a realistic option in the face of their childcare bills.
Of course, we do not oppose the payments; they are welcome so far as they go, but one-off provision of that kind is not, and can never be, the answer to the deep cost of living crisis stalking the country, with in-work poverty at record levels and destitution wrecking the physical and mental health of far too many people. Emergency responses, inevitably somewhat rough and ready, are never going to be able to take into account the full range of individual circumstances, not least household size, which determines additional need. In this short but important debate, we have also had reference to how people with nil awards are treated, the impact of cliff edges on incomes, and anomalies linked to qualifying periods.
The additional payments policy, a flat-rate payment triggered simply by whether people are in receipt of means-tested benefits, is cruder than it needs to be. When this was discussed last year, it would not have been beyond the capability of Government to take into account actual household size in setting entitlements, or to sort out some of the other anomalies—all of which were debated when we discussed special payments a few months ago. Let us speed this essential help to households in need, of which there are so many, but let us not pretend that this is the very best that could have been done.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I begin by thanking all those who have contributed to this debate, which has been, as the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said, short but important. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said, the Bill legislates for two key elements of the £26 billion package of further support announced by the Chancellor in November. It builds on last year’s £37 billion package of support to help with the cost of living, and demonstrates our continued commitment to ensuring that people continue to get the help that they need throughout these challenging times.
The Bill plays a vital role in ensuring that, over the next financial year, we can continue to help the most vulnerable to cope with the increased cost of living brought about by global pressures. We look forward to and welcome continued support from hon. Members across the House, including from Front Benchers, to ensure that the legislation progresses quickly. That ensures that we can begin to make the first payments to those people on means-tested benefits in the spring.
The focus of the debate is on the provisions in the Bill that will give additional support of up to £900 to households on means-tested benefits, and on the separate payment of £150 for people on disability extra costs benefits. The Secretary of State already noted that last year we successfully, at unparalleled pace, delivered tens of millions of payments to people across the UK. That was in addition to our normal benefit processing operations. I pay tribute to my officials at the Department for Work and Pensions and all the civil service teams across Government who worked tirelessly to ensure that happened.
We were able to achieve that delivery because we deliberately kept the eligibility criteria for the payments as simple as possible. Let me respond to hon. Members who asked why. We were keen to avoid introducing complexity, which could ultimately lead to delays and unacceptable levels of error or fraud.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
I applaud the additional benefits, but how can my constituents in Watford find out about them? Will there be a communications campaign?
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend, who is standing up as ever for his constituents. There is a cost of living website, there will be details on gov.uk and of course there is the benefits calculator on gov.uk. Those who are entitled will not need to do anything, because payment will be made to them. I hope that reiterates the point. There will be a rounded communications campaign on that. In fact, I made a video just this morning. I hope that is helpful—I promise the video was on this issue.
The key principle that has guided our approach to the Bill this time is to make those further payments to millions of vulnerable people over the coming year. Keeping the rules simple means that people on a qualifying benefit will receive the cost of living payment. That is why we are introducing the Bill. I reassure hon. Members across the House, including on the Opposition Benches, that we did take our time to look at addressing some of the hard edges. Ultimately, we concluded that introducing any significant policy changes would risk delaying payments to millions of people and introducing unacceptable levels of fraud and error. I will go into detail on that shortly, if I may.
We will be delivering the means-tested cost of living payments in three separate payments in 2023-24, as discussed, reducing the chances of someone’s missing out altogether. For those who miss out on a cost of living payment, and for others who may need further support with the costs of essentials on top of our statutory provision, we are extending the household support fund throughout the next financial year. The details have been confirmed today.
The extension allows local authorities in England to continue to provide discretionary support with the cost of essentials, particularly energy and food. The devolved Administrations will receive consequential funding, as usual, to spend at their discretion and with their expert local knowledge—[Interruption.] Sorry, I thought someone was interrupting there. The household support fund guidance and outlines have been released today. It is our expectation that local authorities will prioritise those in particular need and consider supporting those who may, through no fault of their own, have missed out on those cost of living payments but nevertheless are in need.
There have been a number of contributions to the debate and I will to try to respond to some of the points made in turn. The right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) talked about the energy price cap. He welcomed our uprating, which is significant. I remind him that childcare on universal credit is more generous than on legacy benefits and the way we have drawn the household support fund will cover many of the points he raised; I hope he will have a chance to look at those interventions. The personalised support with the Help to Claim service, working with the supporting families programme from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, will help the families with complex needs that the right hon. Gentleman spoke about.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) called this “substandard legislation”, which I take severe issue with, but he took the opportunity to make wider points about social security and talked about the “punitive sanctions regime”. I think we will always beg to differ on that. I make the point very strongly that this is a reserved matter. We are delighted to be making the payments for Scotland and today providing the Barnett consequentials in relation to the household support fund and further assistance—[Interruption.] I am sure he cannot resist intervening, so I will let him.
David Linden
Indeed not. I very much enjoyed being told to eat my cereal today. On the question of sanctions, how many people in Mid Sussex tell the Minister how wonderful the sanctions regime is? It is clearly increasing.
Mims Davies
I will come onto the point about sanctions shortly. I know there is confusion among those on the Opposition Benches about whether they support sanctions, but this is about a safety net; it is about progressing and supporting people and helping them to go forward. In reality, when people are sanctioned, it does not just happen. There are processes to go through where work coaches try to engage and support people. If people are disconnected and they fail to attend, that is why they are sanctioned, which is often the reason they then re-engage, talk to their work coach and get involved with what is going on. That helps us to get under the skin of what is holding them back, and I think that is important. I assume from his question that there is a fundamental disagreement, but I will not hold it against him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) very kindly turned the focus on to employment. Having been Employment Minister for three years, how can I resist responding to that? A dynamic labour market is important, including the work around furlough, the plan for jobs, and the kickstart and restart schemes—I designed many of those programmes, so it is always nice to have a compliment. In reality, our talented new work coaches—those who we found, recruited and brought into the DWP because of the impact of the pandemic—have been transformational. The other side of this debate is important—it is jobs, it is livelihoods, it is careers, it is opportunities, and it is making sure that people, when at their most vulnerable, know that they have that safety net. I wish my hon. Friend good luck with his jobs fair on 10 March. I have my second in Burgess Hill—this is a great opportunity to mention it.
The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) spoke up for his constituents and their fuel requirements. Of course, the energy price guarantee will be key to protecting customers and our constituents, and the household support fund will be a key driver as well. It is absolutely right to focus on our constituents. I have worked very strongly on the household support fund to complement this piece of legislation, working with the Local Government Association, to ensure that we support everyone who comes to us in any situation. I was pleased to hear him talk about the rewards of work and why they matter too. We know that it is more than just a pay packet that we are looking for.
My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) spoke about households being squeezed, the cost of living website, and, of course, the fact that the help-to-claim service is there and that all constituencies—no matter how leafy and lovely they may seem—have pockets of challenge. It is absolutely right that we act when we see the impact of a global squeeze. That is absolutely the mark of what we stand for at the DWP. There is the £10 million going to Surrey, and the almost £10 million going to West Sussex just next door to my constituency. What has come out of this and the work that we have done during covid? It is our work with local authorities, which I must commend for stepping up and doing a magnificent job in helping people. They know where those pockets of support are needed. I thank those local offices.
I will quickly whip through some of the challenges made about the legislation. On the adequacy point, inflation is forecast to remain high over the next few months, meaning that many people will need this additional support, but it is important to remember that these payments are just one element announced by the Chancellor back in November. The broader uprating will make a difference.
On the points about housing support, I am working with colleagues at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on quality and provision. My party strongly continues to focus on opening up the benefits and freedom of home ownership and all that it gives. The 2020 local housing allowance rates were raised to the 30th percentile—a significant investment of £30 billion—and we have since maintained that increase. Of course, we know that housing costs are incredibly challenging, particularly for renters. That is something that we are working on and taking forward in through the housing taskforce.
Debbie Abrahams
Can the Minister say to what extent the measures in the Bill will replace or add to the £34 billion that has been taken out of support for working-age people since 2010?
Mims Davies
I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but it is not necessarily this Bill that will answer the challenges that some of our constituents face. It deals with issues that they face in skills, progression and other areas that have been holding them back. Tax credits, for example, quite often trap people in 16-hour contracts when they would be much better off moving on to universal credit and taking more hours, training and opportunities. I say to anybody listening: “Take the opportunities to see what is out there.”
The hon. Member for Glasgow East talked about the disability cost of living payments in the Bill. They are not disability benefits themselves, but rather payments relating to the cost of living increases that a disabled person may face. I hope that answers his point. I have covered some of the issues regarding Scotland, so I will move on swiftly, if I may.
In regard to the point from my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) about the 1p payment, we successfully delivered tens of millions of payments in 2022 by keeping the rules simple. That included a simple and clear rule that the person must have been entitled to a payment of at least 1p, as he pointed out. That ensures that those with other income sources are not eligible for means-tested benefits and are not included, nor are suspended benefit claims that include risk of fraud.
I reiterate the point around the household support fund and the three payments. They hopefully mean that if people have fluctuating payments, they have a chance to be eligible once again. That was pointed out by the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), who is not in his place, in terms of how we address those hard edges. Extending the eligibility dates would involve making more payments to those who had permanently increased their earnings, and that is the challenge. That is not the intention of the cost of living payments, which are deliberately targeted at those on the lowest incomes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley also mentioned making more payments, and I would like to address that these payments are being made outside our usual benefit processing systems, using our ad hoc payment system. That system has a limit on the number of payments it can make each day, and it can only make one type of payment at one time. That means a team of specialists have to extract and clean the data to make the payments. Having three means-tested cost of living payments and a single disability cost of living payment balances the spread of support throughout the year, but it does not compromise the core benefit delivery, and I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s questions.
I will just quickly answer the question on larger families and then conclude. In regard to how we look at supporting larger families, as I hopefully have outlined, families on means-tested benefits will benefit from our planned uprating of 10.1% from April, meaning that families subject to the benefit cap will also see an increase of 10.1%. In reality, for families who need additional help, we are extending the support through the household support fund. Again, that is linked to the issues around the ad hoc payment system.
I think I have covered most of the points in the debate, but I just quickly mention the sanctions point and reiterate my earlier point to the hon. Member for Glasgow East that sanctioned claimants who re-engage will be supported.
I will conclude, because I feel that people are desperate to be in the Lobbies. This Government demonstrate our commitment to supporting those in the greatest need and going through the greatest challenge with the increased cost of living. It is vital that we move ahead quickly with the legislation, so that we can begin to make those first payments in the spring. I look forward to further discussion as the Bill proceeds through its next stages, and I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading
(2) Proceedings in Committee and any proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
(3) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
(4) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(5) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Mike Wood.)
Question agreed to.
SOCIAL SECURITY (ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS) (NO. 2) BILL (MONEY)
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(1) a sum not exceeding £301 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of a day (the “first qualifying day”) not later than 30 April 2023, to–
(a) universal credit or state pension credit,
(b) an income-based jobseeker’s allowance, an income-related employment and support allowance or income support, or
(c) working tax credit or child tax credit;
(2) a sum not exceeding £300 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of a day (the “second qualifying day”) after the first qualifying day but not later than 31 October 2023, to a benefit mentioned in paragraph (1);
(3) a sum not exceeding £299 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of a day after the second qualifying day but not later than 29 February 2024, to a benefit mentioned in paragraph (1);
(4) a sum not exceeding £150 to anyone who is entitled, in respect of a day not later than 30 June 2023, to–
(a) a disability living allowance,
(b) a personal independence payment,
(c) an attendance allowance or a constant attendance allowance,
(d) an adult or child disability payment,
(e) an armed forces independence payment, or
(f) a mobility supplement.—(Mike Wood.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Scottish Affairs Committee
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
16:31 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 383 / Noes: 37 - Question accordingly agreed to.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I congratulate the Chair of the Selection Committee, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), on moving the motion. In rising to oppose it, there is nothing that is personal towards the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), from the Liberal Democrats. She is hugely talented, and I look forward to her playing a constructive role on behalf of the independence negotiations for a future independent Scotland—I know that, deep down, she is incredibly passionate about that.
Fundamentally, the motion is about the fact that the British Labour party is unable to fulfil its obligations to this House. There are 196 British Labour party MPs in this House of Commons. They have two spaces on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, and for weeks and months, members of that Committee from the British Labour party have been unable even to attend it. Because Labour has been unable to fulfil its roles on the Scottish Affairs Committee—a Committee, let us not forget, that was used by the previous Member for Glasgow South West, Ian Davidson, to conduct all sorts of sham reports into separation; that Committee was the instrument that Labour used to try to batter the SNP Government—we now find ourselves in a situation where the Labour party is so pathetic, so weak, and so unable to stand up and have any interest in Scotland that it is giving seats away left, right and centre to the Liberal Democrats.
We are often told—indeed, we were told on Sunday, when the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) made one of his rare trips north to Scotland—that the path to a Labour Government runs through Scotland. This motion shows that Labour cannot get a path to a Labour Government when it will not even turn up and start laying the path. It is on that basis that I now look forward to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) explaining from the Dispatch Box why, with 196 MPs, Labour cannot find more than one to take part in the Scottish Affairs Select Committee.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I start by thanking my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) for their hard work and dedication on the Scottish Affairs Committee.
The right of political parties to nominate Members for Select Committees is based on the composition of the House. The nominations we are discussing today are Labour’s to make, and we are making them: one for my hon. Friend, the brilliant new Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), and the other for the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). It is no secret that we currently only have one Member in Scotland—for now—and he is not able to sit on the Committee due to his role in the shadow Cabinet, so just as the SNP has called for, we have nominated another Scottish Member to serve on the Select Committee.
Just because on this occasion, much to the evident dislike of SNP Members, that Member is a Liberal Democrat and not from the SNP, that does not make it okay for the SNP to start playing parliamentary games, wasting everyone’s time. One would think they had something else going on that they want to distract attention from—whatever could that be? From their actions today, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be surprised to learn this, but I will refresh the memories of SNP Members: we previously gave a place to the SNP.
David Linden
Why don’t we make a deal? We could let Labour have the two places; they could even give one to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who is kind of a member of the Labour party. Why don’t they give it to him?
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention because it gives me the opportunity to reiterate that they are our places to nominate, and we are nominating the Members we wish to be on the Committee. As I said, we have previously nominated someone from the SNP. Is this not just another case of the SNP focusing on the wrong priorities? [Interruption.] With the Scottish NHS on the brink, their country in a cost of living crisis—[Interruption.] They are making a lot of noise. There are thousands of people in Scotland forced to choose between heating and eating, yet the SNP is focusing on a row over who sits where down here. The people of Scotland, I presume, would like to see their SNP Government focusing on recovery or growing and strengthening the economy, dealing with the issues in public services and addressing the crisis in our NHS.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
How does the hon. Lady know what the people of Scotland really think, especially when the two Labour members were not even participating in the Scottish Affairs Committee?
Thangam Debbonaire
I have to correct the hon. Gentleman. The Labour party has a lot of Members in the Scottish Parliament. We have more support every day, and we know, from listening to the people of Scotland, that they would like a Government who are listening, dealing with the crisis in the NHS in Scotland, dealing with the public sector and investing to create the green jobs of the future in Scotland. If the SNP will not, Labour will, and I am sure that the people of Scotland watching today can see just what their Westminster representatives are up to.
Question put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
David Linden
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I confirm that we have forced this to a Division to allow Labour and Conservative Members to go into the same Lobby together?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
That is not a point of order for the Chair.
School Sport Facilities: Reopening
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to bring this issue to the Floor of the House and to be able to discuss opportunities to open up school sports facilities to the wider community. It is an issue very close to my heart as a self-confessed sports fanatic, hockey coach, occasional football referee, parent of kids involved in grassroots football and someone whose original ambition was to be a PE teacher. I cannot overstate how important I think sport, and particularly grassroots and community sport, is to our physical and mental health, to the development and growth of our young people, and to our social fabric and our general wellbeing.
The role sport plays and the value of it in the education and development of the next generation have, quite frankly, always been undervalued by Governments of all stripes. While the health benefits of physical activity are obvious, it also plays a major role in academic achievement and careers. Dundee University has shown an increase in academic performance by students who participated in more exercise than their peers, and this is something that can be scientifically measured: it is a real thing. If I wanted to get technical, I could even talk about how other studies have shown that regular exercise leads to better levels of concentration and better memory, but the real point that sport adds value across the board when it comes to developing young people is an important one. I consistently reiterate in this place that I think it is really important.
We also know that sport not only helps to develop the academic potential of a young person. Sport, particularly team games, helps to encourage the social development of young people and often provides that first instance of teamwork for many kids. All of us who have played sport know about the highs and lows it brings and the character building that comes from those experiences of determination, competitive spirit and overcoming challenges. These experiences help to make our young people more resilient and better able to deal with the rest of their lives.
The most disadvantaged communities also tend to be the least active, and they also tend to have the least access to sports facilities, so this is a levelling-up mission too, which is really important. As I keep saying, this is really important. We need to help more people to access facilities and to access sport. There is a lot to that, and I could bang on for ever. We recently had a debate here, with the Minister for Sport—the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—on the Front Bench, about sport in schools and communities, so I am not going to reiterate all of that. However, as we have an Education Minister here, and I am very grateful for her time, I will flag again that the PE and sport premium is really important. I know it is being discussed, because teachers are regularly contacting me to ask if it can be finalised and sorted.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Football Association has raised concerns that school sport premium funding is often announced very late in the academic year, and therefore schools struggle to make plans on how to use that, often laying off staff who they then have to re-employ. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Department for Education and the Treasury should perhaps agree that settlement for two or three years so that planning, provision and people can be put in place?
Ben Bradley
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We all know about the recent economic challenges around long-term planning, but the sooner we can have longer-term security around staffing the better. I would make the same point about the Department of Health and Social Care funding stream for school games organisers. They are in the same boat; if the funding is not confirmed soon, they will have to lay people off and then start again. The cost of that is unnecessary and burdensome for schools.
This evening I want to focus on school facilities, however. One way to increase access to sports facilities across the country is by ensuring that schools are able to open their sports facilities for public use. We are investing in new sports centres, and lots of levelling-up funds and other funds have recently come forward for new facilities, including Warsop leisure and health centre in my constituency. That is really positive, and means that, thanks to this Government, we will finally replace the old, dilapidated leisure centre that the Mansfield independent-led council closed around four years ago. That is great; I have campaigned on it and have been keen to secure it, and I am really pleased we are going to be able to do it this year. But when I look across the road from the leisure centre, I see a school sports field with football pitches, a multi-use games area, a basketball court, tennis courts and school sports facilities that are already there. It is fortunate that in Warsop some of them—not all—are open to the wider community, but when I first came to Parliament five years ago I was shocked to find that the general public were not able to access 45% of the sports facilities in state-funded schools; almost half provide no public access at all.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that for some of the indoor facilities, particularly swimming pools but also gyms, the problem might be that the exorbitant cost of heating at present prevents the school from doing something, because it will cost them money even if they charge for use of their facilities?
Ben Bradley
I was not planning to go through everything we discussed in the previous sports debate, but we talked at length about that issue, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the cost of running sports facilities, in particular swimming pools, is hugely challenging at present. The business energy support does not tackle that; it does not specifically help or offer that support for leisure facilities, and I have asked Ministers to look at that. I know my right hon. Friend has spoken about that, too. It would be great to see support come forward for such facilities, making them more accessible and affordable.
In light of that, the proportion of facilities that the public cannot access will be even higher than 45% now. I can think of multiple large secondary schools even in my constituency that have recently removed that access to sports facilities for communities because of additional costs post-covid; the commercial viability of running centres reduced because customers disappeared during covid, making them a drain on school budgets.
To give an example, Manor Academy in Mansfield Woodhouse closed its sports centre for community use post-covid. That is understandable; I am not going to point fingers at the school, because I understand why it feels that it should direct its funds towards the academics and the students, and that it is not its job to subsidise community leisure provision—it was losing money on it. I sympathise with that, therefore, and I am not here to assign blame, but we are 18 months on now, and still multiple football pitches, a hockey pitch—the only hockey pitch in Mansfield—an indoor sports hall and other facilities remain inaccessible.
As that hockey pitch remains closed, the hockey club remains effectively homeless. I have been trying to broker a solution between councils, the academy trust and North Notts Hockey Club, but it has been a real slog and has taken 18 months now. I think we are getting there, and I am hopeful that when we meet again in a few weeks we will have a solution to take forward, but, as I will discuss, the challenges and bureaucracy around trying to pull that together have been very difficult, and it should not be so hard when on the surface all partners involved want to make that happen.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech highlighting an important issue. Does he agree that it might be helpful if the Department for Education’s model lease for academies included a requirement that, where it can be done at no cost to the school, those taxpayer-funded sports facilities should be available for community use when not in use by the school?
Ben Bradley
That is certainly an option. Where taxpayers are funding those facilities, they should be able to use them. In cases such as Manor Academy, where schools do not feel able to do that, they could give the facilities back. Let the community or the district leisure trust run them—whoever is willing to open them up. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point.
What we have ended up with is, arguably, the best sports facilities in the Woodhouse area, which supported countless grass roots clubs, being there and visible—people know them and used to play on them—but not available. Meanwhile, we are short of hockey pitches—we have none—and of rugby and football pitches. All the major venues are full across the area—across the whole county in fact. I get grassroots clubs coming to me all the time seeking more capacity, particularly for football, although every school has a massive flat field that lots of people could play football on, if they were available.
Although we all think sport is very important, it is rarely the top priority in times of covid, cost of living, health and other crises—everything is a crisis—for any of the organisations such as schools, councils and Government, so it never makes it to the top of the to-do list. That is something that I am trying to shift in my own organisation, to make sure that provision for community sports services is top of its agenda. All the prevention stuff means that the council does not have to step in and sort everybody out later. Sports facilities are a real part of that, and I am asking the Minister to try to help me shift the dial in government. It is an issue that falls across Departments, and is never top of anybody’s list. We all talk about it, but we need to shift the dial.
The example at Manor Academy represents a missed opportunity to give a significant boost to grassroots sports, to meet some of that need, and obviously to access all the positive implications that has for the community, such as improved physical and mental health. In many cases, facilities already exist. Surely, common sense dictates that it would be quicker and cheaper to simply open up existing facilities than to build new ones, especially with the rising costs of capital projects. A small amount of infrastructure in terms of admin support for bookings would be enough at some sites; others might need advice on managing liability and insurance, and wading through the bureaucracy, which would allow clubs to take on management of facilities at weekends. Some sites might need a small amount of capital funding for a portacabin for some changing rooms separate to the school buildings, or gates and access arrangements might need to be sorted. Those things are not unachievable, but they can seem very difficult when partners need to be brought together to work towards that goal and wade through the legal stuff and everything else.
When clubs have some certainty for the long term, they can attract the funding for improvements from existing routes, such as Sport England, the Football Foundation or the county council’s local community fund. Some of that can be managed locally, and I volunteer my own council to manage it or pilot that administration if we can access support to ensure that we have the staff capacity up front. It does not need Government to do it, in that sense, but the Government’s help is needed to set the clear direction of travel. That could be by changing lease agreements to make sure that taxpayer-funded facilities are available to taxpayers, or by offering the capacity to get started—a bit of upfront support, with the proviso that the schemes have to become self-sustaining in the long term. Many of them could be, but they need an initial outlay on making them fit for purpose and managing administration, such as booking systems. In many cases it would be self-funding, but it needs support to get going. Given that it is a levelling-up outcome, as I have said, with disadvantaged communities often having least access, and that levelling up funds may be returned in coming months as rising costs make projects unviable—I have no doubt that we will see councils saying that they can no longer deliver some schemes— perhaps some of those funds could be repurposed to help with this.
Secondly, the Government need to be clear that they expect everyone to facilitate this—as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) suggested—and be permissive when it comes to navigating the bureaucracy. Even though partners want to work together, the biggest barrier is the system—the perceived safeguarding implications for schools even on a weekend when nobody is there; legal teams stressing about insurance and who has liability if someone falls over; and local planners rejecting permissions for even the simplest things such as using sites for slightly different hours. We need to be clear with schools. Some do not see it as their job, understandably, others do not have capacity and others just will not help to get it going. It requires lots of partners to pull together in the same direction and all prioritise it at the same time, so it sometimes feels as though it is not doable. It should not take two years to sort a solution for Manor sports centre. The Government need to be clear, and to demand that taxpayer-funded facilities are available for taxpayers to use and that partners and stakeholders should facilitate that use and not put barriers in the way.
I have heard about an Opening School Facilities programme, but I cannot point to a practical example of where this has happened—I wonder whether the Minister can tell me about that. I have heard of pilot schemes to try to facilitate administration and bookings, as I have described. I spoke to the last but one sports Minister about those pilots, but I have not heard of any outcome or of what the next steps are. If Ministers want to help my council with some initial capacity, I will happily work with Government to get this up and running in Nottinghamshire and prove the case. Officials in the Department will, no doubt, point to some open process of pilot projects or whatever, but I am standing here volunteering, so if someone needs to pick a next step and give it a go, they should tell me what it is and I will work with Government to make that happen.
I hope the Minister can update me on what is happening with these programmes, particularly in the light of the new sports strategy—I know that that is not in her Department, but I understand that it will include plans on accessing facilities for grassroots sport. What is the next step in making this happen and ensuring that the sports facilities in our communities are not mothballed and are not unavailable for use, but are actually there for the community? How can I take that forward and ensure that Mansfield residents have full access to all the wonderful community spaces that they have often previously enjoyed but cannot now as they are locked away? I look forward to her comments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) has secured this debate to cover the important topic of reopening school sports facilities. I know he has been a long-standing, passionate campaigner in this area and has been speaking about it ever since he came into Parliament. The wellbeing of children, both mental and physical, is a priority for this Government, and we know that schools have a critical role to play. Mental health and physical health are inextricably linked, and the value of participating in sport and doing regular exercise is well known—we all see that all the time. It is important that children understand that good physical health contributes to good mental wellbeing. Sport and physical activity are an essential part of a healthy and happy life, which benefits us as individuals and makes sure that we can stay healthy in our older age.
Sport also has the power to bring communities closer together, increasing engagement between different people and helping to tackle issues such as loneliness. I am passionate about community spaces and I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments on that. It is wonderful that members of the community can take part in different things on school premises, because we get a general sense of engagement and togetherness.
Sir Robert Goodwill
My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield was talking about state schools, aided schools and academies. Does the Minister recognise that many independent schools recognise their responsibility to the wider community and have people coming to use their facilities? Does she further agree that Labour’s curmudgeonly plan to charge VAT on those schools might jeopardise that very community-minded spirit that many independent schools have?
Claire Coutinho
I thank my right hon. Friend for that, and he is of course right in what he says; I have seen lots of examples of independent schools being real hubs in their communities and bringing lots of people together. I also have a personal viewpoint on this, because a lot of independent schools are specialist schools and are providing amazing provision to children with special educational needs—I have seen some of them in action.
We know that covid-19 restricted the amount of sport that schools could offer during and after the school day. It is important that we help not just to get things back on track, but to lay the groundwork for going further and increasing physical activity and participation in sport. The chief medical officers recommend that children should take part in 60 minutes of physical activity a day. The latest annual data from the “Active Lives Children and Young People” survey, released in December, has been encouraging. It shows that the proportion of children who are active has increased by 2.6% compared with the previous academic year, bringing activity levels back in line with the pre-pandemic numbers.
Fundamental to an active community is having sufficient sports facilities of the right quality. That is why the Government are investing £230 million between 2022 and 2025 in improving community sports facilities across all four home nations.
Munira Wilson
The Minister was making a point about children’s participation in sport, particularly in schools. Does she share my concern that over the past 10 years some 40,000 hours of physical education have been lost in secondary schools? Will she update the House on what her Department’s progress is in delivering the commitment the Prime Minister made to the Lionesses last year, after their spectacular win in the Euros, to have two hours of PE per week as a minimum in every school across the country and to involve Ofsted in inspecting sport in schools?
Claire Coutinho
The Prime Minister and many other people in the Government are passionate about children’s access to PE. I will come on to some of the sport strategies we are looking at and set them out in further detail.
The Government also support physical activity and sport outside the school term. The £200 million a year we are spending on the holiday activities and food programme, which is delivered by local authorities in England, has been a tremendous way to increase access. Some of the figures I have looked at on children accessing holiday activities who have never done anything like that before are really quite heartwarming.
Alongside community facilities, facilities on school sites represent an important resource for pupils and their families. Although schools may need support with the logistics of opening up their facilities—my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield spoke to some of them—the phase 3 funding we have set out will allow them to ensure that their facilities are more easily accessible to families, other community users and local clubs, while remaining secure. Since October 2019, the Department for Education has provided £11.7 million to schools to support them to make best use of their sports facilities beyond the core school day and to start to reopen them after the pandemic.
In phase 2 of the Opening School Facilities programme, over 280,000 young people were supported to take part in over 60 types of extracurricular sports and physical activities, including traditional sports such as football and tennis, and new activities such as BMX and skateboarding. The Department will also be providing further investment support to schools to open their sports facilities in the evening, at weekends and during the holidays by funding phase 3 of the programme with up to £57 million over three years. As well as providing practical support and advice, phase 3 will also support schools to create new partnerships with national governing bodies and local sport providers to broaden the extracurricular opportunities available to their pupils, as well as providing a benefit to the wider community.
With that, I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in today’s debate, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, who I know will continue to press on this issue.
Ben Bradley
Before the Minister sits down, will she allow me to highlight a point about extracurricular sport? I am really grateful for the update, because I was not aware of the detail of the Opening School Facilities programme. It sounds really positive. I recently met the Schools Minister to talk about trying to get sportspeople into schools and into teaching. We spoke with my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) about the Professional Footballers Association and trying to get academy footballers into primary teaching. So often, it is the people with that experience who will then stay after school and run sports in communities. My hon. Friend gave examples of people who run the holiday activities fund programme because of their coaching background. I urge the Minister to have a look at that scheme, and to encourage the Department to bring it forward. Opportunities to get sportspeople into schools will really help us to deliver on that kind of provision as well.
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend. I would be delighted to look at that scheme and see what more we can do. The teachers I have met who come from a sporting background bring, as he says, so much enthusiasm to their role.
Question put and agreed.