Westminster Hall

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

Tuesday 7 March 2023

[Geraint Davies in the Chair]

Decarbonising Rural Transport

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

09:30

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered decarbonising rural transport.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, which is so important to those of us who live in rural constituencies like mine.

Transport is the United Kingdom’s highest-emitting sector and is responsible for a quarter of our emissions. If we want to achieve net zero by 2050, we need to reduce emissions from our cars, vans and lorries, but we also need to recognise that rural transport is different from urban, and that reliance on cars is so much higher in rural areas. Therefore, we need to include rurality as a factor in more decisions on how we move to decarbonise our transportation.

Public transport is limited in rural Britain, and given the sparsity of population, expanding it along the lines of transport in our towns and cities is not, in general, financially viable, or even welcome—for example, sending enormous buses through tiny country lanes—but we must find ways to extend routes, provide smaller vehicles or car shares, and reintroduce train lines, especially where there has been large growth in housing, such as between Bideford and Barnstaple in my constituency of North Devon.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

East Sussex County Council has an excellent bus service improvement plan, one of whose objectives is progressively to support operators to increase the number of zero-emission buses used on the network and to upgrade diesel buses to Euro 6 standard as part of the drive to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2050.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to fulfil that objective, further Government funding opportunities will be required to introduce battery electric buses or hydrogen fuel cell buses, and for retrofitting to Euro 6 specification, and that decarbonisation of rural transport should not be restricted to local buses but should include trains? Does she further agree that the extension of HS1 from Ashford to Rye, Hastings and Bexhill, which will decarbonise and make the journey faster, is essential?

[Selaine Saxby]

My hon. Friend is entirely right that all of us in rural constituencies have plans that we need our councils to deliver to facilitate the decarbonisation of our rural transport network. The challenge we face is that, unfortunately, there is not always the funding to support those fantastic rural transport schemes, although I hope the Minister will reassure us on that point. I will come to some of my own suggestions for the bus network in Devon.

Active travel is an opportunity for some, but the distances involved in rural commuting by bike mean that it is not always an option for everyone. In my constituency of North Devon, 2.4% of work journeys are made by bike, which is a surprisingly high percentage for such a rural area, but realistically, active travel is unlikely to replace huge numbers of car journeys unless it is integrated into a wider transport solution.

I will return to the opportunities to tackle the issues of public transport and active travel, but we need to be realistic: rural Britain will continue to rely on its cars for the foreseeable future.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Limited public transport options in rural communities mean that, as the hon. Lady says, many residents depend on their car for everything—getting to work, going to the doctor, seeing family and friends. Does she agree that any strategy to decarbonise rural transport needs to improve connectivity so that social isolation is not inadvertently increased?

[Selaine Saxby]

I agree entirely that there are so many more challenges around rural connectivity. If we are to continue to rely on our cars, we need to decarbonise them, but the roll-out of electric charging points in rural Britain lags behind that in towns, and when the distances we travel per day are so much greater, investing in an electric vehicle is a far harder decision to take.

Only 1.5% of North Devon residents have gone fully electric, compared with 2.1% nationally. I have a hybrid, as the majority of electric vehicles would not get me to Westminster each week, and I am not sure I would ever get to Exmoor in my constituency and back home as there are no charging points where I live. The nearest one is 5 miles away. To plug in at home, I would need to lay my own cable down 20 feet of path every evening, and I am not sure my schedule accommodates that.

While the Transport Minister is here, I want to highlight the appalling state of the roads in Devon. I am fully aware that we have the longest road network in the United Kingdom by 2,000 miles and that the council is working flat out to try to repair the proliferation of potholes that we have seen this winter. Not only has the weather contributed but we need to recognise that in rural Britain we have enormous farm vehicles on tiny lanes and we therefore create even more potholes, yet our council is not assigned long-term funding solutions to tackle them.

The short-term approach to funding, with inadequate rural weighting, makes the cost of repairing each pothole far higher. At this time, Devon is moving teams off scheduled roadworks as we cannot take on full-time highways teams due to the uncertainty around long-term funding. I hope that the Minister will be able to take that away and see what more can be done to address the entirely unacceptable state of our roads. If there were an Ofsted inspection of roads, I suspect we would go into special measures, yet the current funding mechanism contributes to that. The damage that potholes do to vehicles is also hugely expensive to motorists and the council, which is no doubt reimbursing a growing number of inconvenienced motorists with damaged tyres. And it deters people from switching to active travel solutions because of the potential risk of falling due to a pothole.

I spend a lot of time in this place talking about connectivity, often the communication kind, but our transport connections are vital. The lack of decarbonised public transport is impacting on decarbonising our travel.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing a really important debate. When it comes to decarbonising public transport, bus use is massively important in rural communities like hers and mine. I am sure she will agree with me that the Government’s £2 cap on bus fares is a positive thing and it is positive that it has been extended to June, but even more positive would be to extend it beyond that. But it is of no use whatever if someone lives in a community where there is no bus service. When I think about places in my own community such as the Cartmel peninsula and areas in Cumbria such as the Eden valley, there is a lack of options when it comes to bus services—far too few or none at all—so it would make sense to give local authorities like the new Westmorland and Furness Council the power to start and run their own bus services to fill in the gaps and people could spend their £2 on bus services that actually exist.

[Selaine Saxby]

I agree with the hon. Member. There is so much more that could be done. With so many of these rural transport issues, we need local solutions and for local communities to be able to share their best practice, because there are some great local bus solutions up and down the country. I have a remote district council that is detached from the county council, which is where highways sits. How do we join up those pieces? More could be done to come up with innovative solutions, which already exist in places, but are not universally available. Indeed, bus travel in my constituency is not universally available, let alone decarbonised, and that makes things as basic as getting to school both expensive and problematic.

Our bus company, which I recently met, notes that people are tending to make fewer trips than they did before the pandemic and also tending to make shorter and more local journeys as opposed to long-distance trips on a daily basis. Public transport providers have had to adapt to that, but our communities still rightfully expect the same connections to exist as they did before the pandemic, or even new connections to be developed as society has changed.

Broadly in my constituency the patronage has recovered to about 80% to 90% of pre-pandemic levels, but with concessionary journeys recovering only to around 70%. That recovery creates a challenge in rural settings where margins were stretched or non-existent before the pandemic. Funding needs to respect rurality and the higher costs of operating the routes. That could be done through paying bus service operator grants on a mile or kilometre basis as opposed to per litre of fuel to cover costs. I am assured that the industry wishes to engage with the Department on those points so that a longer-term settlement can be reached to support rural services on a longer-term basis as opposed to the current cycle of short-term funding that we are in, even though that funding is greatly appreciated.

The current Get Around for £2 is fabulous. In my constituency people can do a fantastic trip from Barnstaple to Lynton for just £2—a full 26 miles—or get to Exeter on the bus for £2. In normal times, to get from Ilfracombe, which has recently lost its last bank, to Barnstaple for the nearest branch, is two to three times more than the current £2 rate. We need to find a way to facilitate access to services for remote rural communities. In other communities, such as Woolacombe, employers provide buses for their teams to get to work, because there are no public transport options.

In the peak of the tourist season, overlaid with parking challenges and air pollution, huge queues of visitors and locals try to get to our beautiful beaches. Although the availability of public transport is my primary concern, decarbonisation of it is an entirely different matter, as rural bus journeys are significantly longer than urban ones. Capital investment in suitable vehicles is by definition going to be higher in rural Britain.

I recently spoke here about introducing a rail link from Barnstaple to Bideford. We also unsuccessfully submitted an inquiry into putting in a light rail link from Braunton to Barnstaple. Time and again, those projects do not progress; one cannot help but think that our rurality and population sparsity are factors. I hope that the Department for Transport will continue its positive work in active travel, with the latest round of funding of £200 million including rurality as a factor for the first time.

The previous cycling Minister visited north Devon’s iconic Tarka trail. Completing a stretch of that trail would see the north and south coasts of Devon fully connected. The project was ranked second out of six submitted by Devon County Council. The council team met the Minister to explain their frustration at having the five Exeter-based projects succeed, yet the second highest priority project rejected. I am delighted that rurality is now being considered following the Minister’s visit, and that the Tarka trail project is now being resubmitted. I hope that Active Travel England and the Department will look favourably upon it, and take further steps to enable more active travel solutions come to fruition in rural Britain.

Large counties such as Devon, with big urban centres and an enormous rural hinterland, need different approaches for those two elements. As a community, we would benefit hugely from electric bikes, which can undertake longer, hillier journeys and enable people who may not be able to cycle so far on a traditional bike to do so. Again, electric bike hire facilities are available at transport hubs in Exeter but not Barnstaple.

To begin to decarbonise our transport network, we need to look to transport hubs, where active travel can potentially be the first or last mile. To do that, our buses and trains should be better at taking bikes, hubs should have better bike storage and there should be electric vehicle chargers, if travellers are connecting to buses or trains, alongside public toilets.

[Tim Farron]

I am taking advantage of the hon. Lady’s generosity, for which I am grateful. I am in full agreement with what she says about transport hubs, where there can be electric bikes, non-electric bikes, and bus and rail interchanges. In our community, we have several railway lines: Settle to Carlisle, the Furness line, the Lakes line and the main line. My great concern is that we stand to lose railway station ticket offices at Grange, Appleby and Windermere. Would those not be great places to have hubs? Is that not a good argument to ensure we maintain fully-staffed railway stations in rural communities?

[Selaine Saxby]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is important to look at rurality in how we deal with all infrastructure developments. I know that my own ticket office in Barnstaple has concerns. I have only one trainline, so his constituency is particularly well connected. We need to recognise that, where there is a sparse population, ticket offices are working less than in a busy town centre. We need to be more innovative in our approach, to ensure that residents who do not use trains so often can comfortably use the train station and transport hubs.

I was coming on to say that facilities such as public toilets are a vital part of transport hubs. Barnstaple’s bus station toilets have not reopened since March 2020. If we are serious about encouraging public transport usage and decarbonising our transport, we need to recognise that longer journeys, with longer waits between buses and trains, require these additional facilities to be present, particularly for our older residents. The lack of hubs that are safe, warm and have the right facilities makes using public transport far harder in locations such as North Devon at this time.

Far too many routes in rural Britain are single-carriageway, 60-mile-an-hour roads. If we are to tackle that head-on, to facilitate safer cycling and walking on those roads, we need additional paths to be constructed to facilitate things such as safe school journeys on foot or bike. Although today’s debate focuses on decarbonisation, we could also consider the health benefits of an active travel mode to work or school, which often seem to be somewhat neglected.

I recognise that, as was mentioned earlier, there are examples across the UK of great rural transport schemes. However, as with so many matters around rurality, as discussed in the debate that I led on levelling up rural Britain, it is harder for these examples of best practice to be shared between councils and communities. I hope that as we move towards decarbonising our transportation, more support is given to overstretched councils to share best practice and roll out solutions to rural as well as urban Britain and find funding solutions that give councils the ability to deliver a decarbonisation plan that reflects rurality, alongside an acceptance that the costs per capita will differ. In areas reliant on their tourists, the population swells enormously in the summer, which, again, is rarely reflected in funding settlements or even the calculation of carbon pollution.

Rural Britain deserves to see its transport decarbonised. Our productivity is reduced because of the poor transport links. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister has plans in his Department to ensure that rurality is rapidly included in future funding announcements and that there are long-term settlements lying ahead—it was so warmly welcomed to have rurality mentioned in the current round of active travel funding—because we all want to level up and decarbonise transport in rural Britain.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind any hon. Members wanting to speak that they should bob if they have not done so. Thank you so much. I will ask Jim Shannon to speak next.

09:47

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I think the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) is first, Mr Davies.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

You were first on the list, Jim.

[Jim Shannon]

Well, may I say how pleased I am?

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

This is the first time you have been called first, I know.

[Jim Shannon]

To be first on the list—my goodness. I am almost in a state of shock. Mr Davies, you are very kind. Thank you for giving me the chance to contribute. Others will contribute as well.

I thank the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for leading today’s debate and setting the scene so well. She is right. The examples from her constituency are replicated across all the other constituencies represented here. Those hon. Members who have intervened so far have given an indication of the same issues.

As someone who represents a rural constituency, I have stated before that it is imperative that there is sustainable and economical transport for our constituents who live out in the countryside. I am very fortunate in that I have lived in the countryside all my life. I am very pleased to do so. I love the green fields; I do not like the concrete—that is no secret. That is why London does not really appeal to me as a place where I would want to live—there is not enough greenery around me to enjoy. But that is a choice that I have and that I have been able to make over the years.

We have seen the expansion of “green” transport to protect and preserve our atmosphere and environment, and we must continue to do this as time goes on. The hon. Lady outlined that. The issue must be addressed not only in England but UK-wide to ensure that we are consistent and equal in our efforts to decarbonise rural transport. I realise that the Minister is responsible only for England, but my comments will be on Northern Ireland, as they always are, and what we have done there.

Electric car charging points are few and far between. In rural areas, we have few or no charging points; they are always concentrated, as it is probably right that they should be, in towns—in my constituency, it is the towns of Newtownards and Comber. There are not enough charging points; I realise that. Central Government here have taken a decision to support the Northern Ireland Assembly and, with that process in mind, have allocated money to ensure that charging points are available across my constituency as well. There is an issue not with the number of charging points but with the time it takes to charge a car. The hon. Member for North Devon talked about needing 20 feet of cable to charge her car. Wherever there is a charging point, it is also important to have enough charging connections. I am not in any way influenced to buy an electric car, but my sons have done so; they are moving with the times, while their father may not be anxious to do that. My point is that we need charging points and enough connections. If it takes six hours to charge a car, as some people have indicated to me, then that tells me that we need more connections.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Transitioning the country from petrol to electric vehicles requires extensive work that needs to be done by 2030. The Government have already acknowledged that poor grid connectivity in rural areas could be a real problem when it comes to the charging infrastructure. Does the hon. Member agree that the current reliance on the private sector to decide on charge point locations and the lack of central policy around that could create a barrier to reaching the target?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her wise and salient words. In Newtownards for example, people can charge their electric cars at the shopping centre, but if they want to go elsewhere in the town, they cannot charge their cars. Councils have a key role in prioritising charging points and, as the hon. Lady said, we must not depend on private companies, who may put charging points only in places that are advantageous to them. I am not saying such companies do not have a role, but the issue needs to be looked at more widely and in greater depth.

I am pleased to record a recent development by Wrightbus, whose headquarters are in Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley); indeed, my hon. Friend talked about this last week at Transport questions in the main Chamber. Wrightbus has secured a major order to supply 117 zero-emission buses across England, thanks to an investment of £25.3 million by the Government. That is an example of the many things that the Government are doing.

Operated by First Bus, the buses will be rolled out across Yorkshire, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampshire, and will enable passengers to enjoy greener, cleaner journeys. Therefore there is a strategy and we, in Northern Ireland, are very much part of that. The new buses will be manufactured by Wrightbus in Ballymena, supporting hundreds of new high-skilled jobs to help level up and grow the economy. Some of those workers live in my constituency of Strangford and travel to the Wrightbus headquarters for their work, so there is a spin-off in jobs, opportunity and economic advantage.

The new additional funding brings the vision of a net zero transport network one step closer to reality. The double-decker battery electric buses are 44% more efficient grid to wheel, saving energy costs and carbon. That is another example of how we are moving forward. The fact that the buses are manufactured in Ballymena means that the whole United Kingdom has the chance to benefit from that advantage, and hopefully other companies will be able to do the same.

The funding is an additional investment from the zero-emission buses regional area scheme, which was launched in 2021 to allow local transport authorities to bid for funding for zero-emission buses and supporting infrastructure. The Government have a policy that is working. Obviously it is a first stage, but I believe the policy will be able to go a lot further.

While it is a welcome and much-needed step, it goes back to my point that this needs to be a UK-wide measure. As the buses are manufactured in Northern Ireland, it would be fantastic for the Northern Ireland economy if some of the buses could be administered across the Province. We manufacture and sell the buses across the United Kingdom, but unfortunately we do not have much take-up back home, but I know Translink, our bus company, has purchased some.

The Secretary of State for Transport met Wrightbus representatives to discuss the success and stated that it would help level up transport across the country, yet the funding has been awarded only to places in England. While I respect the fact that infrastructure and transport are devolved matters, there needs to be greater communication between Westminster and the devolved Governments in relation to nationwide levelling up. I support the Government’s levelling-up policy. I think they have taken giant leaps to make levelling up happen, and this is such an example.

We need ideas for decarbonising public transport in more rural areas, where the population is more dispersed. As others have said, we do not have the continuity or regularity of buses that we should have in rural communities in order to incentivise people to leave their cars and use buses. We in the countryside—especially where I live in the Ards peninsula; indeed, in the whole of the Ards peninsula—depend on our cars, whether they are diesel, petrol or, in my son’s case, electric.

It will always be challenging and expensive to provide the decarbonisation of public transport, but many residents have brought to my attention that some rural buses routes are extremely limited anyway, and I want to put that on the record. There is hope that installing hydrogen buses in rural areas will further discourage people from using cars, which is certainly the intention. People with cars can jump in them and go—they do not have to wait for a bus to come along—but others are probably in a position where they can do that. The use of hydrogen buses and other approaches tend to focus on densely populated urban areas, as there may be a critical mass of people to support public transport services, so it is great to see some Government commitment and willingness to ensure that efforts are made to decarbonise our rural communities too.

I hope that the Minister can join me in congratulating Wrightbus, take the comments of Members from across the House into consideration, and ensure that there is equal opportunity for rural decarbonisation across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

09:56

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for securing the debate. I think we all agree that this is a really important topic, and it is good to have the opportunity to air the issues.

I am sure we are all aware that domestic transport is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. The Department for Transport’s 2022 statistical estimates report that cars emit more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than trains and coaches, for the obvious reason that trains and coaches convey more people, so maximising the number of people in a vehicle for each journey is a really important part of meeting our emissions targets. The example that the Department gives is a long-distance one: on a journey between London and Glasgow, the average petrol car emits over four times more CO₂ than the equivalent journey by coach for each person, or 3.3 times more CO₂ per passenger than an electric car, once it has been taken into account that we do not generate all our electricity in a totally green way.

In rural areas, it is proving really difficult to get such efficiencies and cut the greenhouse gases that we emit because of the high level of dependency on private cars, which are mostly non-electric. Our bus services are already very poor and have been driven to the verge of extinction by the covid pandemic, and it is well documented that usage has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In Shropshire, services have continued to be cut since 2020 because they are no longer considered commercially viable. Obviously, we are not just talking about the tiny hamlets where everyone accepts it would be uneconomical and unsuitable for a large bus to trundle through; market towns of under 20,000 or 30,000 people are suffering as well.

North Shropshire has five market towns with fewer than 20,000 people, which contain about half the population of the area. There are also a significant number of larger villages that sit on main roads, and they are all pretty poorly served. There is only one bus service running in the whole county on a Sunday, and the weekday and Saturday services have been reduced, with early and end-of-day services being cut back. Even some Saturday services are at risk: the service from Shrewsbury to Market Drayton in my constituency, and on to Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent, is at risk of being axed on a Saturday. It has been given an interim stay of execution by Shropshire Council, but given that the council has missed on the bus back better funding and money from its bus improvement plan as part of the levelling-up bid, it is now looking to make cuts of at least £150 million over the next three years, and I fear for route’s future. As the hon. Member for North Devon said, we need to take into account that Government grants for public transport in rural areas are more expensive than grants for urban areas. We need to accept that and consider whether the need requires them.

[Selaine Saxby]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, far too often, our rural bus routes are the first thing that is threatened when our large rural councils face funding pressures?

[Helen Morgan]

Yes, I agree. We have absolutely seen that in North Shropshire and across the rest of the county. It is causing us a number of different issues, in addition to those of climate emissions. Already in my constituency, it is no longer possible to access one of our two key hospitals in Telford from Oswestry without changing services at least twice. There is no direct public transport service at all between Market Drayton, a town of around 12,000 people, and the sizeable town of Telford, where there are all sorts of extra services that people might want to access.

The impact of those poor and continually reducing services is twofold. First, a private car is a necessary part of life in the countryside or in one of the smaller towns, and many households have to find the money for at least two if the adults in those households work in separate directions. Once they have forked out for a private car and accepted the expense of running it, they are less likely to use the available public transport, so we are in a downward spiral of cuts to public transport as it becomes more and more uneconomic.

[Jim Shannon]

It is not just those who have one or two cars in their households; it is their families and where they work. By and large, if someone wants a job in my constituency, they have to travel to Newtownards or Belfast. Then, there are the extra complications of employment and getting access at the right time for shift work, and buses are probably not on at that time. So there are other complications for people who live in the countryside.

[Helen Morgan]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman and am just about to come on to that.

[Jim Shannon]

I just set it up for the hon. Lady.

[Helen Morgan]

Yes. Secondly, if someone cannot access a car because they are young, are prevented from driving by their health or simply cannot afford to run one, they become stranded on the island of where they live. They cannot sign up to a college course, they cannot commit to a job outside the area and, in many cases, they cannot access what is becoming increasingly centralised healthcare provision without calling on endless favours from friends and family or using private cars instead.

The lack of a usable service not only means we emit far more greenhouse gases than we used to or, more accurately, than we need to, but there is a social and economic cost. For instance, the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen, near Oswestry in North Shropshire, is a top-class orthopaedic hospital with a dedicated veterans’ centre that takes patients from all over the country. We are extremely proud of it. Recently, however, the hospital is struggling to recruit and retain its staff and one of the factors in that is the lack of a bus service back into Oswestry for those working early or late shifts because those end-of-day services have been axed from the route. More widely, the issue is driving young people from our towns, increasing the proportion of elderly residents, and harming the economic vibrance of the high streets.

How can we reverse that in an area where the council is spending 85% of its budget on social care and where bus services have been so badly depleted that the remaining routes are uneconomic? At this point, I should also mention the importance of active travel. For an increasingly elderly population, in an area where rural roads are single carriageway with quite fast speeds, it is probably not sensible to suggest that those people should be cycling every day between the market towns, which are some distance away from each other.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The focus on active travel is sensible, because it has both an environmental and health benefit. However, there are many reasons that is not a suitable focus for rural communities when it comes to decarbonisation. Does the hon. Member share my concern that while the Government’s active travel strategy seems to acknowledge that, they have yet to set out any further specific guidance?

[Helen Morgan]

I think that is a fair point. Active travel has a role to play in towns, but it is concerning that we are not investing in public transport to move people around in rural areas. We need some clarity on that.

Going back to cycling and walking, many shorter journeys within towns can be made easier on a bike or on foot if there is a sensible network of crossings and dropped kerbs. In towns such as North Shropshire’s, which are largely medieval market towns, it would clearly be difficult to add a big network of cycle lanes into the narrow roads. During covid, councils were very quick to reimagine the way vehicles flowed around the town, making a pedestrian-friendly space workable at a fast pace. It would be good to see those councils being encouraged to continue to find practical ways of allowing people to move more easily around the centre of our towns. Removing the need for even a proportion of short car journeys, even if only on days when the weather is good, would surely have an impact on car emissions and—as the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) just pointed out—improves the health and wellbeing of anyone who decides to walk and cycle a little more.

Returning to the thorny issue of public transport, I am afraid that national intervention is probably needed. I welcome the restoring your railways scheme; North Shropshire has a great bid in for the Oswestry to Gobowen line, with an important stop at the hospital, and I take this opportunity to plug that bid. However, railway stations are not accessible for everyone. There is not really access for all where there is no step-free access to the railway station, which is another big problem in rural constituencies. At Whitchurch in my constituency, people cannot access the southbound platform, so despite the fact that there is actually a pretty good public transport service into Shrewsbury and beyond, on the main line to Crewe and Manchester, if someone has trouble with steps or has a lot of heavy baggage or a pushchair, they will turn again to their private car.

We are on the list for the Access for All plan. We have made our bid, which I hope will be successful, but it takes years and years to come through. If we are trying to get to net zero by 2050, the Access for All process really does need to be speeded up and, let’s face it, most places do not have a railway station or a railway line. Many of those stations have been axed from rural market towns and would be totally uneconomic to reinstate, particularly as those towns largely have housing estates over the former track, so we need to have a nationally led bus strategy that addresses people getting out of their cars and on to buses.

What would that look like? I am open-minded about demand-led travel and the technology that enables it, and it may well be part of the solution to improve connectivity and public transport in the more rural parts of Britain, and to integrate that with other parts of the network. We see elements of that with some of the voluntary schemes that are in place—the dial-a-ride, North Salop Wheelers-type schemes that help to get elderly and more vulnerable people out of their houses and into the towns on market days. However, those schemes are volunteer-run by nature, which is not necessarily sustainable. Demand-led travel might be part of the solution, but in areas where the population is sparse and the benefits of lift sharing and journey planning might be more limited, we still need a proper investigation into the relative benefits of demand-led travel and a good look at reliable, clock-face services for smaller market towns and the feed-in services from their surrounding villages.

We do, of course, need to talk about the types of buses—the fact that they do not all need to be huge, and that in future, they probably need to be electric or hydrogen-fuelled—but I will not elaborate on that point, because it has already been made. We should also accept that in small villages, there will always be a need for the private car, and we need to continue to incentivise the roll-out of electric cars. Public charging points are, therefore, really important. We are only just beginning to see the roll-out of public charging points in North Shropshire, but the capacity of the electricity infrastructure to cope with the additional demand on the rural grid is absolutely critical. I urge the Minister to consider not only the number of points, but the ability of the underlying energy infrastructure to support what is going to be an increasing electricity load, particularly in rural areas.

Overall, I support empowering local councils to develop their own public transport plans within the framework of a national strategy to find the solution that serves their area best. Empowering means funding and supporting those councils with the expertise they need to deliver a better future for rural transport, and funding them to tackle the additional rural distances is a critical factor. The rural economy, just like the climate, is approaching a tipping point, so we need a radical approach to public transport that can help tip both things in the right direction.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

10:09

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Davies; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating it.

The hon. Member opened the debate very well, setting out a number of issues that are the same across pretty much all rural areas in the UK. As she said, many of the solutions for our towns and cities simply would not suit a rural setting or be as efficient. She mentioned a lack of electric vehicle chargers and the reinstatement of rail lines. She also welcomed the Government’s £200 million active travel budget and plans, although that pales into insignificance compared with the Scottish Government’s investment in active travel, as I will set out.

The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) mentioned zero-emission buses and the requirement for further Government support. I could not agree more, and I will touch on that later. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) made an excellent point about social isolation, and how we need to be careful that rural decarbonisation solutions do not entrench those issues or make them worse. She also made a salient point about capacity issues in our rural electricity grid.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)— I call him the hon. Member for Strangford and Westminster Hall West—gave an excellent speech, as usual. My biggest surprise was that he said he liked something green; that may also be a surprise to some people watching, certainly in Scotland. He mentioned the time it takes to charge a car. In a recent debate in this place, we spoke about the charging issues in Northern Ireland. As an EV owner myself, I would have been unlikely to make the switch if I lived in Northern Ireland, such is the paucity of public chargers over there. He also mentioned the importance of the UK Government’s ZEBRA—zero-emission bus regional areas—scheme, and obviously he has Wrightbus in Northern Ireland. The implementation of that scheme is frankly shocking, but I will touch on that later.

The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) made an excellent point about the issues with recruitment and retention for all sorts of businesses and services in rural areas because of the lack of connectivity and public transport. That does not help with the brain drain of young people leaving rural areas to go to cities and large towns. She also spoke about the lack of rural rail services in North Shropshire and elsewhere, which leads me to my own remarks.

Scotland has led the way on transport innovation over the years, and our track record on rail decarbonisation is yet another example of that. The world’s first electric railway locomotive was powered by batteries and invented in Scotland. It was designed by Robert Davidson of Aberdeen and first tested on the Glasgow to Edinburgh line. If we fast-forward over a century, one of the first battery trains to be used in regular passenger service was deployed on the Aberdeen to Ballater line. It is powered by clean, renewable electricity provided by the hydro board.

Today, the Bo’ness and Kinneil railway is seeing testing of a class 314 train formerly used as a workhorse on the Strathclyde lines. It has been converted to hydrogen-fuelled operation, and it is being put through its paces by the University of St Andrews, Transport Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and Ballard Motive Solutions. That kind of innovation is one part of the deployment of investment and policy decisions that make Scotland a leader in the decarbonisation of rural transport.

The reopening of Reston station in the Scottish Borders is another such example, with £20 million of investment from the Scottish Government accompanied by £3 million from Scottish Borders Council. That investment will improve bus links to and from the station, making it a hub for an area of the east borders that has been poorly served by public transport. Reston itself is a village with only a few hundred souls, but the integrated transport package introduced by local and national Government has turned it into a major transport centre, giving access to major cities on both sides of the border to a population that was previously either poorly served or not served at all by links beyond the local area.

The Scottish Borders were hit harder than most areas by the post-war retrenchment in rail. Peebles, Eyemouth, Kelso, Duns, Hawick, Selkirk and Melrose—I am starting to sound like a Bill McLaren rugby commentary—were all linked by rail to the wider country and the world. However, post-war mistakes in rail management across the UK, and the Beeching axe, left the borders with no rail links at all for 40 years, until the Scottish Government reopened the Borders railway in 2015. That new route is among the first in line for the next tranche of electrification on Scotland’s railways. After 40 years of isolation from the rest of this island’s rail network, the borders are seeing a bonanza in rail, integrated public transport and decarbonisation, which is surely unmatched by any comparable rural area on these islands.

The Scottish Borders are just one example of how decarbonisation is not constrained to our urban areas. We have seen the Invernet service, which provides commuter rail in the Inverness area, as well as the opening of the Inverness Airport railway station. Reopening the station at Beauly, which has a population of just over 1,000, generated more than 50,000 passenger journeys a year pre covid.

In the north-east, we have seen a step change in rail provision with the full introduction of the Aberdeen Crossrail, which connects Inverurie to Montrose via Aberdeen with regular fast services. Those communities will benefit still further from the rolling programme of electrification in Scotland, with main routes to the central belt, as well as the Inverness to Aberdeen route, becoming wired. The programme will also electrify the Glasgow to Dumfries route—indeed, part of it is being electrified as we speak—giving a huge boost to rural communities along its length. It will also give us scope to look again at the rural stations closed by the Beeching axe and at how we can apply the lessons learned from the Reston reopening to another area in the south of Scotland.

By 2045, every rail line in Scotland bar the West Highland and Far North lines, and the Girvan to Stranraer line, will be fully electrified. That is quite an achievement in a country where modernisation was ignored by this place for decades, until devolution and the Scottish Parliament came along. Clearly, 100% electrification would be preferable, but the economic reality is that electrification cannot always be justified in rural areas. However, that must not mean that more sparsely populated locales miss out on decarbonisation, and lines without full electrification will see the roll-out of innovative and game-changing trains such as battery electric and, potentially, hydrogen trains.

It is not just our rail network that is being transformed through funding from the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland. Fully 20% of the funding and buses on the road as a result of the first round of ScotZEB—the Scottish zero-emission bus challenge fund—went to operators in rural areas, from Campbeltown to Lockerbie and Aberdeenshire to Dumfries and Galloway.

In addition, Loganair has set a target to have a fully zero-emission fleet of aircraft serving Scotland’s islands and rural communities by 2040. Orkney is the hotbed for trials of electric and hydrogen-fuelled planes, with the islands expected to see the first scheduled zero-emission services as it becomes feasible to start rolling out the technology for passenger service. Those air links are a lifeline for the communities they serve, and making them net zero will play a crucial role in Scotland’s journey to being a net zero country by 2045. All this is evidence that decarbonisation is not just about urban and suburban travel; with the right strategy and package of investments, we can push modal shift in rural areas too.

Rural Scotland is also powering ahead in decarbonising private transport. Among the local authorities with the highest per capita penetration of public charge points are Orkney, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Argyll and Bute, Highland, Shetland, and Dumfries and Galloway. Most of the time in those areas, there is no alternative to private motors, so we want to support infrastructure to ensure that EVs are a practical solution. All those areas have seen a massive increase in public chargers over the past few years; since 2019, their numbers have more than doubled in Orkney and increased by 177% in Argyll and Bute. They are also up 194% in Highland, marrying up with the A9 electric highway, which links the highlands and the central belt. If we are serious about rolling out chargers to the level needed to hit our targets to phase out petrol and diesel cars, the number in rural Scotland needs to continue to increase at its current rate. The Scottish Government have shown the way, and it is for others—particularly the DFT—to learn from their lead.

I cannot let pass an opportunity to highlight Scotland’s transformational active travel budget, which will reach £320 million—10% of Scotland’s entire travel budget—by the end of this Parliament. Bear in mind that that is in a country one tenth the size of that served by the DFT, whose £200 million budget was heralded—no offence to the hon. Member for North Devon. That £320 million investment will upgrade our network for walking and wheeling across the country and, in particular, give extra opportunities for integration with the rest of the public transport network. It is game-changing. I urge the DFT to match that commitment, rather than throwing yet more money into the bottomless pit that is Greater London transport spending.

Scotland is showing that rural decarbonisation can be achieved if the will is there. Making integrated transport a key policy objective, as well as relatively modest investment, can produce huge dividends for communities that were previously isolated from the public transport network. We know that in rural communities there will always be a need for cars in a way that simply is not the case in more urban areas, but providing alternatives to private transport when it is practical to do so and ensuring that the investment is targeted in the right places can help to drive modal shift and drive down emissions, and provide a more sustainable transport system across the board into the bargain.

As I have done many times before, I commend to the Minister the work that the Scottish Government are doing and invite him to study closely what is happening in Scotland, so that the UK Government can follow Scotland’s lead and apply the lessons to rural communities here in England. The UK Government’s reluctance to invest appropriately in this area—as with so many other areas—limits Scotland’s ability to go even further even faster, and it is time for the DFT and the UK Government to get their collective finger out on these issues.

10:20

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and to speak for the Opposition in a Westminster Hall debate for the very first time.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. The hon. Member’s opening remarks underscored the importance of decarbonising our transport, especially in our rural communities, and the contributions from Members throughout have demonstrated why we need to take urgent action in this area. Indeed, decarbonising our transport sector is one of the most pressing challenges to overcome if we are to meet our net zero goals.

I am proud to represent the Wakefield constituency, which has both the city of Wakefield and a large rural community, with villages such as Netherton, Middlestown, Durkar, Hall Green and Woolley. I know first hand the challenges those areas have in accessing transport, and I understand that many of the solutions that work in cities may well not work as well in rural communities.

I will address a number of the various transport sectors that Members have referred to, but I will start with active travel, which is a sure-fire way of improving air quality, reducing congestion, improving physical health and, of course, lowering carbon emissions. Research shows that the benefit to cost ratio of investments in walking and cycling are estimated at 5.62:1.

However, one of the biggest barriers to active travel, especially in our rural communities, is safety. A recent survey found, unsurprisingly, that most people prefer to cycle where it is safe, and the same can be said for walking. Improving real and perceived safety is an effective way of encouraging more people to walk and cycle, and the Government and local councils must do what they can to improve routes and roads to facilitate that.

The Government really need to step up. In 2017, the Department for Transport provided guidance for local authorities to develop local cycling and walking infrastructure plans, but there was no funding available for that. I am pleased that many rural authorities have developed such a plan. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) recently asked a parliamentary question to find out how many councils had developed one, and the answer was just 78, which is only around a quarter of all local authorities. That is simply not good enough and the Government must do more to ensure that rural areas have these plans in place.

Another example is the Government’s consultation on personal safety measures on streets in England, which specifically covered rural streets, to seek views on how street design, maintenance and operation could be improved to make people feel safer. The consultation closed in August 2021, yet 19 months on the Government have not responded. I hope that the Minister will be able to shed some light on that.

As the hon. Member for North Devon said, many people in rural communities are very dependent on cars, and we must continue to encourage the transition to electric vehicles. We have some good momentum as we transfer away from petrol and diesel cars to electric vehicles. That is one of the primary ways to decarbonise our transport. The RAC estimates that there are now 712,000 zero-emission electric cars on our roads, along with more than 400,000 plug-in hybrids.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right that charging points are few and far between in rural areas. However, people might not think that, given what the Government talk about. The latest figures show that we have just 37,055 public chargers in the UK at the moment. Rural communities are lagging far behind.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very valid point. As we make the transition towards electric vehicles and electric heating, there is a big issue about grid capacity and resilience in rural areas; I just do not believe that it will cope at the moment. The Government have enabled challenger companies to the traditional distribution network operators—they are called independent distribution network operators—to bring in their own infrastructure. The issue in rural areas is that metal pylons for electricity transmission are extremely controversial. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is going to happen very quickly and that, as we push the transition, decisions will have to be made about where to locate the infrastructure? We have to work with local communities, and in rural areas we need to work on the basis that the infrastructure needs to go underground.

[Simon Lightwood]

The hon. Member makes a valid point, and if the Government are serious about installing 300,000 charging points, they need to redouble their efforts. At this rate, we would not get to even 100,000 by the date they have set. Monthly installations would need to rise by 288% to meet that ambition.

[Gavin Newlands]

Just before the intervention from the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), the hon. Gentleman mentioned that rural areas are missing out in terms of the charging network. I made the point in my speech that in Scotland that is not the case. The areas with the highest penetration of public charge points per capita are Orkney, the Western Isles, Argyll and Bute, Highland, Shetland, and Dumfries and Galloway. That is because the driver was Scottish Government public investment. Down here, the UK Government have relied on private investment. Does the hon. Gentleman think that is why rural areas in England do not have the connectivity that Scotland has?

[Simon Lightwood]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point, and I share his concerns about the Government’s focus in achieving their targets. Obviously, this is a pressing matter for our rural communities, which are being underserved, and if drivers cannot access charging points, they will be far less likely to make the transition to electric.

In London, there are 131 charging points per 100,000 of the population, but in the south-west region the figure is a third of that—44 per 100,000. The hon. Member for Strangford will be interested to hear that the figure is only 19 per 100,000 in Northern Ireland. Indeed, more charging points were installed here in Westminster in the previous quarter than in any English region outside London. The Government must urgently come up with a plan for how they will drastically speed up the roll-out, especially in rural communities, otherwise the campaign to get people to transition their vehicles will be undermined completely.

As the shadow Minister covering buses, it would be remiss of me not to mention the vital role that the sector is playing in decarbonising our transport. That is especially the case in rural areas, where buses can be a lifeline for many, especially the elderly—connecting people with friends and family, and getting people to work, hospital or school.

As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) said, getting to hospital appointments is really important, but the rural bus network is desperately struggling, and cuts in Government funding have hampered rural routes, leaving behind a patchy network that cannot get people from A to B. I have seen that in my constituency, where several services have been cut altogether and others run at a reduced frequency. One service, which is the only bus covering a village of about 500 people, runs only until 5 pm. Another village service runs only three buses a day.

People cannot get to work, cannot get to the shops and cannot attend hospital appointments with services like that, and they are left having to depend on taxis or the car when the bus does not turn up. That is creating what the charity CPRE calls transport deserts, whereby public transport is severely limited, which stops people being able to do basics such as shopping or meeting friends. In 2020, CPRE found that 56% of small rural towns had become transport deserts or were at risk of becoming a transport desert. I imagine that figure will have risen since then.

In recent years, local authorities have had to step in to support many rural bus services that have become commercially unviable, but reductions in their funding have meant that many routes have been lost. That is why Labour’s plans for franchising could help many rural communities and give them greater certainty over the routes they have. I continue to urge the Government to look at the proposal in more detail.

Furthermore, buses need to be transitioned from diesel. The Government announced that they would deliver 4,000 zero-emission buses in this Parliament, but, as I pointed out during Transport questions in the Chamber last week, only 341 have been ordered and just six are on our roads. At that rate, it will take 23 years to meet the Government’s target. Many bus operators serving rural routes will be relying on Government grants to decarbonise their fleets, so the lack of progress with the scheme is hampering the business planning process and efforts to push forward with bus company investments.

I am pleased that we have had the opportunity to debate this important issue. It is clear that our rural communities want to play a part in the clean transport revolution, but they need more support to do so. Whether we are talking about buses, cycling, walking or cars, there are opportunities for decarbonisation, but rural areas are lagging behind. The Government must match their rhetoric with a proper plan to deliver what they have promised, so that we can see those zero-emission buses on our roads, have enough electric charging points to encourage people to transition, and encourage people to cycle and walk more. The Government must get their act together, and quickly; otherwise, it will be our rural villages and towns that suffer the most.

10:30

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

What a delight it is to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this debate on decarbonising rural transport. I am very aware of this issue as a constituency MP; in Hereford and South Herefordshire, we have many of the issues that have been described. I do not mean to disappoint my hon. Friend at the outset, but I am not going to make Treasury policy here and, least of all, as a former Financial Secretary to the Treasury, a few weeks before a Budget. Nevertheless, a wide range of issues have been raised and it is important to engage with them all.

As my hon. Friend rightly noted, buses are at the centre of the public transport network, but even more so in rural areas than in many urban areas. I and colleagues recognise their important role in providing sustainable transport options and independence to people who live in the countryside. They also have an essential role to play in achieving net zero by 2050 and in creating the cleaner and healthier places to live that we all aspire to have.

On decarbonisation, I am sure that my hon. Friend will join me in celebrating Devon’s recent success in joining the Government-funded ADEPT Live Labs 2 programme for decarbonising local roads in the UK. I am delighted that Devon will carry out a carbon-negative project on the A382, including the Jetty Marsh link road. That is part of a suite of corridor and place-based interventions, trialling, testing and showcasing applications in connection with the Wessex partnership, an exciting project that will be provided with more than £12 million for the three-year programme.

As colleagues will know, the national bus strategy was published in March 2021, with the long-term aim of making buses more frequent and reliable, easier to understand and use, and better co-ordinated and cheaper. The strategy asked all local transport authorities to develop a bus service improvement plan, setting out how they would improve services. It also stated that local transport plans must be clear on

“how interventions across local transport modes will drive decarbonisation in their area.”

I am delighted that Devon received £14.1 million in BSIP funding, £1.87 million of which is being targeted at bus priority measures that will benefit routes into Barnstaple and to North Devon District Hospital. I was also delighted to hear about GWR’s work in my hon. Friend’s constituency, where a bus-branch line has been introduced between Barnstaple and Lynton and Lynmouth, co-ordinating bus and rail timetables to offer a more integrated travel experience for passengers. I hope that there will be more to come in the following year.

The bus strategy makes it clear that the needs of rural transport users should be given equal consideration to those of users in urban areas. However, I recognise that it can be challenging to provide conventional bus services for rural areas, which have widely dispersed populations and consequent travel patterns that are hard to cover effectively. That is why demand-responsive services, which have been discussed today, can be used in some places to meet their needs, and work is under way to assess whether that can be more effective than traditional public transport solutions.

Colleagues will be aware of the £20 million rural mobility fund, which supports 17 innovative demand-led minibus trials in rural areas. They use app-based technologies so that passengers can book a journey through their smartphone, and intelligent software then works out the right route to pick up and drop off passengers, given the demand. The Department has made sure that the services use accessible minibuses and can still be booked through a website or with a phone call so that no one is excluded from using them.

As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) pointed out, demand-responsive services are not the perfect solution to every challenge. Other schemes need to be trialled, and have been, but have proven not to be sustainable. A balance needs to be struck between providing a useful service that is responsive and frequent and running too much mileage cost-ineffectively, with too few passengers. That is why it is so important that each scheme should participate in a detailed monitoring and evaluation process, so that the Department can learn about the most effective approaches.

Some of the pilots use zero-emission vehicles. The scheme in Essex has been electrified since day one, providing a zero-emission demand-responsive service to rural areas around Braintree, and Surrey County Council has started to roll out its electric minibus route on its Mole Valley connect service.

On buses more broadly, colleagues will know that, in 2020, we committed to introducing 4,000 zero-emission buses and, ultimately, to achieving an all zero-emission bus fleet. It is nice to hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly supporting the superb achievements of Wrightbus in Northern Ireland with regard to not just electrification, but its work on the Hydroliner, using hydrogen technology.

The approach to zero-emission buses will support our climate ambitions, improve transport for local communities and support green jobs across the country. Since 2020, the Government have funded an estimated 3,452 zero-emission buses across the UK, some 1,400 of which have been supported by funding from the zero-emission bus regional areas, which has rightly been highlighted. Great progress has been made, with more than 500 buses ordered so far under the ZEBRA scheme, including 117 electric buses that have been ordered for four different local authorities, as announced in the House last week.

Buses are not the only zero-emission vehicles on our roads. It is right to think about the question of zero-emission vehicles more widely, as well as the charging infrastructure network, mentioned by several colleagues, that needs to be as accessible, affordable and secure in rural areas as elsewhere. Last March, the Government published their electric vehicle infrastructure strategy, which set out plans to accelerate the roll-out of the network. We expect at least 300,000 public charge points to be installed across the UK by 2030. There are already over 37,000 open-access public chargers on UK roads, with more than 600 new chargers added to our road network each month on average, and public charging devices have more than tripled in the past four years. That is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of charge points in homes and workplaces. We believe that we are on track to meet local expectations.

[Gavin Newlands]

I like the Minister’s comments on the ZEBRA scheme, even though it has been an utter shambles from start to finish. Scotland has more zero-emission buses on the road in a country that is a tenth of the size.

On chargers, the Government launched Project Rapid, and the Labour Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), mentioned the number of chargers in the UK. Scotland already has 73% more rapid chargers per head than the rest of the UK. In the last quarter of last year, the number increased by nearly 15%, more than double the rate at which England increased its rapid chargers—the east and west midlands rate was 4.3%, Yorkshire was 5% and the south-east was 3.3%. Project Rapid needs to change its name, does it not?

[Jesse Norman]

There is no doubt that the question of how we get lots of rapid chargers into motorway service areas and other parts of the trunk network is complex, because it requires long-term solutions based on translating large amounts of electricity through distribution network operators and the national grid into those areas. I was slightly surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman bragging about the Scottish Government’s achievements. He may want to look at the Daily Business published in August last year, which said that Scotland was “bottom” of the EV charging league for growth and described that as

“an embarrassing blow to the country that hosted the COP26”.

The hon. Gentleman should look not just at the number that have been installed, which perhaps is not surprising given the level of income per head that Scotland receives under the Barnett formula. If my county of Herefordshire was miraculously and sadly disentangled from its current place and floated north to abut on to Scotland, the rate of funding per head would go up by over £2,000, so perhaps it is not so surprising that the funding settlement is different and that has different effects. The Scottish record is not one to be proud of as regards the growth of charge points, and he may want to look again at the numbers he described.

We have also been looking at public and industry funding to support local authorities with the roll-out of charge points. Just last month, we announced a further £56 million of public industry funding. In Devon, there are currently 442 public charge points, of which over 100 are rapid and above, which is pretty much in line with the UK average per person and possibly even slightly higher in relation to rapid charging. That is a good start, but there is plenty still to do.

[Helen Morgan]

I reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) about grid capacity. Rural areas are being asked to look at replacing a lot of oil-fired boilers with electric alternatives, and obviously, we need to address electric charging points, but grid capacity is a fundamental restraining problem in rural areas. What are the Minister’s thoughts on how improvements to that infrastructure can be speeded up?

[Jesse Norman]

It is important to put this into perspective. One advantage of rural areas is that, in many cases, more so than in urban areas, people have driveways or accessible areas where they can put in charging points. Of course, domestic charging points are growing rapidly—vastly faster, as one might expect through private investment, than in the last year or two. It is a rapidly escalating curve, and rural areas have a great advantage over urban areas when it comes to charging electric vehicles. Rural areas will also benefit as improvements in technology increase vehicle range and reduce costs and range anxiety. It is a picture that we have reason to be optimistic about without in any sense being complacent about the need to continue to make rapid progress.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I want to reiterate my initial intervention on the Labour Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), and the point made by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. The concern is that the grid as it is will not accommodate everybody charging their cars at home; it will not cope. It would require significant extra infrastructure to transmit the electricity into rural areas. If we did that, we would put pylons everywhere and that becomes controversial. One solution in the United States is to use transport corridors—roads and rail—and go underground along those routes, which can be far more cost-effective. Of course, going underground is far more expensive than overground pylons.

There needs to be strategic thinking. These issues are devolved in Wales. Planning matters are devolved, as they are in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but there needs to be co-ordination and some thinking about how we can create the resilience and capacity for rural areas without desecrating them.

[Jesse Norman]

I completely agree with the hon. Member that any solution needs to respect the beauty and integrity of the area concerned. That is absolutely right, and I thank him for his suggestion, which I believe has received some consideration, but I will check with my officials.

There is a wider point. Of course, the demands on the grid are changing over time, but we have been given no reason to think that they are unsustainable. The attraction of much modern technology is that it allows much more load balancing in the timing of when cars are charged. We expect that to be a valuable source of strength and stability in the grid as we go forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon is a passionate advocate for active travel. She knows that the Department published the second cycling and walking investment strategy in the summer of last year, which includes new and updated objectives, such as increased levels of walking, including walking to school and doubling the levels of cycling. We expect to invest over £850 million in active travel between 2020 and 2023, which is a record amount of funding. As she knows, last month we announced an active travel fund of £200 million to improve walking and cycling routes and to boost local usage and economic development.

The benefits are not just economic, as has been rightly highlighted. There are also the benefits of air quality and improved health, and they play a vital role in decarbonisation. Funding is important, and we have talked about that, but it is only one part of the solution in rural areas. We also need to support increased capability in delivery, and that is why the Government are providing Devon County Council with capability funding to support the development of its county-wide rural trail—its cycling and walking infrastructure plan.

I was delighted to open the offices of Active Travel England in York a few weeks ago with Chris Boardman, our national active travel commissioner, and Danny Williams, the chief executive. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon will know from her APPG, those are people of the highest quality and the ATE is a very important development—indeed, a milestone—in how we think about the adequate and highly effective provision of active travel infrastructure and standards.

There is a mixed picture in terms of need, but not a mixed picture in terms of the commitment, energy and drive that we are trying to bring to the entire portfolio across the range of the different interventions and modes in the cause of decarbonising our country and our economy.

10:45

[Selaine Saxby]

It has been a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I thank the Minister for his response and for his Department’s recognition of rurality, because it is the first time that a Department has focused on that in its funding decision. I very much hope that with him at the helm, it can do more in some other areas that we have touched on this morning, because I know that the constituents I represent care deeply about their environment and are really passionate about being able to decarbonise their transport networks. For that to happen, it is important to find rural solutions that work and deliver better value for money. Although I fully respect that the Minister could not possibly comment on things going on in the Treasury ahead of the Budget, I hope that he might have a quiet word to say that a longer-term funding solution would deliver far better value for money in areas such as rural transportation.

I want to reiterate points from colleagues, which perhaps the Minister could pass on. I did not focus too much on the grid, because it is not in his portfolio, but I fully agree with hon. Members’ comments that the grid is a real concern if we are to deliver an electric transport solution. The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) talked about hubs and the number of bus changes that people have to make on longer journeys in rural Britain. Although I warmly welcome the Minister’s observation on services to the hospital in Barnstaple, most of those services involve a change at Barnstaple bus station, where the toilets are still closed. As we look to rural solutions, we need to find better ways to ensure that such hubs work. I know that, like me, he is passionate about active travel, but we all accept that we will not do all our journeys in rural Britain on a bicycle. However, we could do the opening or closing mile of those journeys on one if our hubs worked better.

I thank hon. Members for their time and participation, and I particularly thank the Minister for his response.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered decarbonising rural transport.

10:46

Sitting suspended.

Post-16 Education: Bolsover

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

11:00

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention with 30-minute debates.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered post-16 education in Bolsover constituency.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am sure by now that the Government are well aware of my campaign to bring post-16 education back to the Bolsover constituency. I am delighted that the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) is responding. I know that this is not necessarily his area in the Department. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb), who has heard me make this argument on many occasions. I have been fortunate to have meetings with the Secretary of State to raise this important issue, and I welcome the opportunity again to set out the reasons why this is such a vital endeavour.

This issue is close to my heart. I have spoken previously about the importance of a good education and the effect it has had on my life. It is during those years that our lives are shaped. I was fortunate to become the person that I am at sixth form: I made friends for life; I discovered my love of economics and politics; I was able to come out and be happy as an individual; and when I lost my mum, I was looked after by my teachers at sixth form, who became like family. I want that experience to be shared by those in Bolsover, so that they can live their lives to the full. Just as I owe that to the fantastic mentoring I received at school, we all owe it to the next generation of students, so that they may have the best opportunities in life.

I grew up in Doncaster—an area with very similar demographics and skill prospects as Bolsover. I know at first hand the difference a quality education can have on young people, and the opportunities it opens. I know the effect that bringing post-16 education back to Bolsover will have on the hardworking students there. The Redhill Academy Trust, which runs The Bolsover School in my constituency, has submitted an application for a sixth form to be based in Bolsover town. I wholeheartedly support that application, and was more than happy to contribute to the bid and provide support wherever possible.

For a long time, my constituency failed to receive the investment it deserves. Children are feeling the impact of that on their educational opportunities. Countless parents have told me that they want their child to have a better education than they were able to receive. Currently, just 21% of people in Bolsover have a degree level or higher qualification, compared with 42.8% nationally; and 9% of people in my constituency hold no formal qualification at all. Bolsover is ranked as the most deprived area in Derbyshire, according to the combined indices of deprivation. It has the highest rate of child poverty in Derbyshire, and the lowest gross disposable household income in the county.

Levelling up is vital to my constituents, which means investment in housing, infrastructure and high-skilled jobs, and ensuring that we have a skilled population, underpinned by an ambition to capitalise on the opportunities available to them. I welcome the Government’s ongoing plans to do that, but if we want to ensure that Bolsover has the long-term prospects necessary to create a real shift towards a brighter future, the key will be improving educational opportunities for the current and next generations of students. Three main factors are driving the need for a new post-16 education provider in Bolsover: the lack of existing provisions within a reasonable distance; the over-subscription of existing schools; and the lack of choice for students wanting to pursue an academic form of education.

My constituency currently has no further education providers. Students at The Bolsover School have three options for post-16 education that are within one hour via public transport; two are rated as “requires improvement” and the third is over-subscribed. The need for a quality post-16 alternative that is accessible to the residents of my constituency’s towns and villages is one of the most common concerns raised by local parents. I am well aware of the issue and am fortunate to have spent time as a governor at The Bolsover School. In May last year, I mentioned in the main Chamber an email that I received from a concerned constituent, which I think is worth repeating:

“There is no 6th form available at The Bolsover School and so pupils wishing to do A levels have an expensive bus ride in order to get anywhere. For instance it costs around £650 a year if your child is successful to get a place at St Mary’s High School in Chesterfield and the choice of courses at Chesterfield college are quite limited.”

That is just one example from hundreds of parents who have spoken to me in person or contacted my office to outline their concerns about the lack of post-16 provision in the constituency.

Netherthorpe School, the closest sixth-form provider for students living in Bolsover, is currently over-subscribed by 251 pupils. So what do the committed and passionate pupils of Bolsover do? Well, a third travel from Bolsover for up to an hour and 33 minutes—not including the time it takes to get to and from the bus stop, and waiting for the next bus—to go to Tupton Hall School, a sixth form that is also part of the Redhill Academy Trust. The children of Bolsover should not need to travel this immense distance just to seek the education they so desperately want and deserve. Those pupils lose a minimum of three hours and six minutes every single day. That time would be far better spent on additional education or partaking in after school curricula; after school activities are an incredibly important part of the education experience, and every child should have the opportunity to get involved in them.

Ten of the 13 major settlements in the north of my constituency—including Glapwell, Langwith, Palterton, Scarcliffe and Shirebrook—would be better served by the creation of a new sixth form in Bolsover. I have received a lot of correspondence from parents who are concerned about the price of sending their children to school. Taking away that cost is an important and tangible benefit of opening a sixth form in Bolsover that Ministers take into consideration when discussing current free school bids, and it is particularly important when it comes to the proposed location of the Bolsover sixth form. The catchment area would cater for a greater than average number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, with an estimated 32% entitled to free school meals compared to 22% nationally. Some 16% of pupils will have special educational needs compared to 12.6% nationally, and 36% access the pupil premium. This is a real opportunity to support those who are most in need of support.

The Redhill Academy Trust also has a fantastic record of ensuring that its students are well prepared for higher education; 71% of post-16 graduates from the Redhill Academy Trust progressed to university, compared to the national and local authority average of 52%. This proposal will increase the number of disadvantaged students going to university.

There is no solution other than to tackle the issues of capacity and travel times. The free school bid explains that although most pupils attending the sixth form would come directly from The Bolsover School, the catchment area would also include the majority of north Derbyshire and parts of Nottinghamshire, which, as the Government will know, are both educational investment areas. Crucially, it will also include the Heritage School in Clowne, Shirebrook Academy and the surrounding villages, all of which are in desperate need of greater education provision and would directly benefit from a sixth form in Bolsover.

The current issue of capacity will not ease in the coming years. Bolsover District Council has identified Bolsover North, Clowne and Whitwell as the three strategic sites for its preferred spatial strategy—all in prime distance for a new sixth form. To accommodate growth in the region, these areas have already begun to see greater investment in housing and, sometimes, infrastructure. Over the coming years, we should expect to see 1,800 additional dwellings in Clowne Garden Village and 1,000 in Bolsover North, as well as another 700 in sites across Bolsover town and 600 at Brookvale in Shirebrook. There will be another 500 dwellings at the former Whitwell colliery site and 300 houses on the former Creswell colliery site. Those must all be taken into consideration.

I hope that I have set out the quite clear and desperate need for additional post-16 provision in Bolsover. I will touch briefly on why a sixth form is the right type of educational setting to resolve the issue. Children in Bolsover are suffering from a severe lack of choice when it comes to the type of education they want to pursue. While I understand—indeed, greatly support—the push for more technical education across the UK, I urge the Government to carefully consider that in these circumstances, what the children of Bolsover require right now is the greater provision of academic education.

When deciding to apply for a free school in Bolsover, the Redhill Academy Trust chose to make it a sixth form with very good reason: there is excess demand for a local sixth form. In 2020-21, only 23% of students at The Bolsover School went on to study at a sixth form or sixth-form college, compared to the English average of 52%. These figures are reflected in the other secondary schools in my constituency, but we should be careful not to infer from that figure that less than a quarter of students from the school want to attend an academic education. We have already seen that students are willing to travel great distances to very competitive and over-subscribed schools to get the education they want and deserve, and those who cannot afford to do so are limited in their options and prospects. This education relies on children getting one of the very competitive school places and parents being able to afford the associated costs. As noted in the free school bid, travel times and costs are the main barriers to post-16 education in Bolsover. Those barriers can and should be removed.

Also highlighted in the free school bid is an outlook for the future of jobs in Bolsover. A high number of jobs locally are at risk because of automation, and there remains a high proportion of low-skilled and low-earning jobs, with high rates of long-term unemployment. That seriously needs to be addressed.

The east midlands is home to fantastic firms, such as Rolls-Royce and its small nuclear reactor production plant in Derby, and the UK Atomic Energy Authority with its fusion energy site in West Burton. Both are working hard to make the east midlands a global centre for green technology. We have an opportunity to ensure that the future workforce can capitalise on that and benefit from future investment in the sectors. The way to do that is to promote the provision of important subjects, such as computer science, physics, chemistry, maths and further maths—all key education areas for the proposed sixth form in Bolsover, and all currently under-subscribed locally.

To briefly quote the bid, the Bolsover sixth form would

“improve outcomes for young people in the region and help strengthen Derbyshire's and Nottinghamshire's economies, as both areas are known for their manufacturing and engineering sectors, as well as recently their investment into low carbon technologies.”

That does not mean that a sixth form in Bolsover would not also supply technical education. In fact, the Redhill Academy Trust is working closely with the University of Derby to ensure that the skills provided will be aligned with the university’s drive to improve both technical and academic education in the region.

Supporting the Redhill Academy Trust’s application for a sixth form in Bolsover, the absolutely brilliant Professor Kathryn Mitchell, vice-chancellor of the University of Derby, has stated:

“The University of Derby is delighted to support the application for the Sixth Form at The Bolsover School. The ambition of the school to serve its community with high quality academic and technical qualifications is both exciting for their young people and essential for the vibrancy of the regional economy.

The University of Derby is delighted to be a central partner in enhancing the school to explore and deliver T levels and pathways to apprenticeships—something which we have a strong track record in, with the recent opening of the Nuclear Skills Academy in partnership with Rolls-Royce and our commitment to Nursing apprenticeships.

If we are to address the chronic skills shortages that currently exist within the United Kingdom, developing, in partnership, a pipeline of talented young people who are equipped with the skills for tomorrow is essential for both national and regional prosperity.”

The Government will no doubt be aware of my passion for this cause, but I am not the only person who is passionate about it. Alex Dale, the cabinet member for education at Derbyshire County Council, summarised the The Bolsover School’s bid fantastically when he spoke in support of it. He set out the political will to get this across the line:

“It is absolutely clear that there is very strong public and political support for securing a 6th form provision in Bolsover. Not only will a new provision remove barriers for those who already have a desire to study A-levels, but it will also no doubt inspire more young people to take up A-levels and go on to university than might otherwise have been the case.

In 2021, the Conservatives were re-elected to run Derbyshire County Council with the largest majority we have ever secured, winning over 2/3s of the seats on the Council—including 4, for the first time ever, within the Bolsover constituency.

Our manifesto included a commitment that we would offer ‘support for the campaign for a Sixth Form in the Bolsover District to raise aspirations and ensure continuing education is an option for all’. It is absolutely clear therefore that there is a strong political mandate for making this happen.”

There is clear support from students, parents, teachers and school governance for the provision of a sixth form. The people want it. There is support for it. Frankly, the Government have the easy job of simply saying yes to the application. To make that easier, I will touch on why this bid should be so attractive to the Government.

If the Government remain committed to levelling up long-forgotten areas such as Bolsover, accepting this bid will prove it. If the Government wish to remain on track to meet their net zero commitments and their ambition to turn the UK into a world leader in green technology, approving this bid will ensure that there are the necessary skills to make that happen. If the Government want to close the skills gap between the most advantaged and least fortunate in this country, there is no better way to do that than by investing in our children’s education, approving this bid. and bringing a sixth form to Bolsover. I could go on, but I think I have made my point.

Redhill Academy Trust summarised the need for a new sixth form in Bolsover in its application:

“We believe that there is a great need for the new Sixth Form in Bolsover, due to poor public transport routes, the lack of good academic places at other local providers and the need to improve KS5”—

key stage 5—

“outcomes for young people in the town.”

I fail to see how anybody can object to addressing those key issues, but we must now wait for the Government to confirm whether they will take this opportunity and give the children of Bolsover the education that they deserve. Until then, I will of course continue to badger every Minister unfortunate enough to pass me in the corridors of this great place.

11:19

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

It is an honour to serve under you, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), not just on securing this debate, but on being such an incredible champion of education and skills in his constituency. He is known widely in the House of Commons for championing causes, and the people of Bolsover are without doubt lucky to have him as their representative. He spoke movingly about how education was a ladder of opportunity for him, and I absolutely understand that he wants a ladder of opportunity for every child in his constituency.

It is only right that we focus on ensuring that every young person has access to high-quality post-16 education and training options so that they can reach their full potential and gain the skills that employers need. I know that my hon. Friend has met the Minister—Baroness Barran—and the Secretary of State for Education, and I believe he has had other ministerial meetings along the way, so today’s debate is very timely. I will talk generally about education and skills in his constituency before coming to the specific issue that he mentioned.

The Government have an ambitious plan to transform post-16 education and training, so that people can develop the skills needed to get good jobs and ensure national productivity. My hon. Friend spoke passionately about vocational and technical education; he knows that there are a wide range of opportunities through T-levels, apprenticeships and higher technical qualifications, as well as traditional A-level routes. T-levels are particularly rigorous post-16 technical qualifications that will pave the way for young people to access skilled employment, higher apprenticeships or further study, and I hope that many learners in Bolsover take up those opportunities.

There are 16 T-level subjects being taught around the country, and a growing number of new T-level students will start their courses in September. I am pleased to say that from September 2023, four colleges within travelling distance of Bolsover will provide T-levels. Chesterfield College, which is around 7 miles away, will offer T-levels in construction, education, digital and health. Additionally, new employer-led institutes of technology will offer higher-level technical education to help close the skill gaps in key areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The University of Derby is the lead partner in an institute of technology proposal, and the future IOT and its partners will be able to consider expanding into the Bolsover area or other cold spots if that is deemed appropriate.

I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the delivery of high-quality provision at further education colleges local to the Bolsover constituency. Each of the three colleges is assessed as good by Ofsted, and they have developed strong partnerships with both local and national employers. Chesterfield College and West Nottinghamshire College offer a broad curriculum from entry level to higher education, including apprenticeships and A-levels.

My hon. Friend mentioned the education investment areas, including Derbyshire. These are the local authorities in England in which attainment is weakest, as well as local authorities that contain an opportunity area or have been identified as having high potential for rapid improvement. As an EIA, Derbyshire will benefit from access to the £86 million in trust capacity funding that is being targeted at education investment areas over the next three years, and to the levelling-up premium, which offers tax-free payments of up to £3,000 per year to maths, physics, chemistry and computing teachers. There is also £150 million for extending the Connect the Classroom programme, which upgrades schools that fall below our wi-fi and connectivity standards.

My hon. Friend acknowledged that young people have the choice to follow an academic programme of study at a nearby school sixth form; the majority of those pupils choose to study at one of three local schools, all of which were judged by Ofsted to have good sixth-form provision. I absolutely acknowledge his support for the new 16-to-19 free school in his constituency of Bolsover. The current mainstream application round will approve up to 15 new schools, and will focus on the areas with the greatest need. Although I am unable to discuss the specifics of the application—as he rightly mentioned, these decisions are being made by Minister Barran—I can assure him that all the applications received are being considered very carefully.

I wholeheartedly commend my hon. Friend for his continued support for a 16-to-19 free school in his constituency, and for ensuring that young people in Bolsover have access to high-quality academic provision. I was pleased to hear of his support, and of his engagement with the proposers, the Redhill Academy Trust, which, as he mentioned, is a multi-academy trust in Bolsover. He also mentioned the support from his council, a local cabinet member and the university. That message will be heard loud and clear.

It is right that young people in Bolsover should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. The Government’s priority is to ensure a range of high-quality post-16 education options. Opening new free schools is one of the Government’s policies. We must achieve that aim for all young people, whatever their background and wherever they live. The application is progressing through the published process, as my hon. Friend knows. I can assure him that it is being carefully considered against the published criteria for setting up new schools. We expect the Secretary of State to announce the successful applications later this year.

I will ensure that Minister Barran sees the brilliant case that my hon. Friend has made and sees the Hansard report of this debate. I have no doubt that he will have further meetings with Education Ministers to discuss these issues. I commend his continued commitment to improving outcomes in his constituency, and his desire to see 16-to-19 provision in Bolsover. As Skills Minister, I am passionate about technical and vocational education, but as he rightly said, people want academic education as well. That is very important, and we want parity of esteem. He spoke very powerfully about that.

My hon. Friend has raised important concerns. He spoke about transport problems and made the point about bus journeys. Although it may be said that the journey is half an hour or whatever, it can actually be much longer, because pupils have to get to the bus stop. They then rely on the buses. In my area, Harlow, bus routes for students have sadly been cut, so I have a clear understanding of these issues.

To conclude, the Department for Education remains committed to ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality post-16 opportunities, so that they can fulfil their potential, no matter where they live. I again congratulate my hon. Friend on the powerful case he has made.

Question put and agreed to.

11:28

Sitting suspended.

Civil Service Pay

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard in the Chair]

11:09

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the civil service pay remit and the future of pay negotiations.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard, in this extremely important debate. This is my second Westminster Hall debate on public sector pay and the threat of industrial action as a result of the Government’s decisions in recent months. As we approach Budget day, I want to use the debate to drill down into one area of public sector pay: the civil service.

The civil service employs around half a million people across the UK, ranging from Whitehall mandarins to work coaches in the Department for Work and Pensions and prison officers in the Ministry of Justice. Those people carry out absolutely vital services, and I believe that the long-term trajectory of pay settlements in the civil service exposes the Government’s intentions and the Conservative approach more generally. The civil service pay remit is a political imposition by the Government on the incomes of hundreds of thousands of employees, and the effect of the past 13 years of civil service pay remit decisions has been to create a crisis in civil service pay. What we are witnessing is clearly an intentional and systematic downgrading of the remuneration of work in the civil service. Without doubt, it is part of a Conservative agenda to shrink the state, shrink the share of the economy allocated to public spending, and shrink the share of the economy that rewards labour costs.

The UK civil service has had the lowest pay increases in the public sector since the election of the coalition Government. Analysis of the reduction in civil service pay suggests that salaries have fallen by between 12% and a staggering 23% in real terms at each grade of the civil service since 2010. The Public and Commercial Services Union has said that this year’s pay remit means that members are missing out on at least £2,800 this year, and research by the Prospect trade union has revealed that since 2010-11 a civil servant on a median wage has lost around £10,500, which is staggering.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Some 49.7%, or nearly half, of civil servants earn less than £30,000. Many are struggling with the impact of rising inflation and living costs, and rising travel costs to reach work. Does she share my concern that the continued undervaluing of the civil service will lead to officials leaving and a worrying potential exodus of experience and expertise?

[Beth Winter]

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution, and I will come on to recruitment and retention later.

There have been pay freezes and pay caps over the last 13 years. The situation has worsened in the past 12 months because of high rates of inflation and the lower allowance in the civil service compared with other public sector settlements. Civil servants had a paltry 2% pay rise imposed on them in the past year, which is more than 10% below the retail price index at its peak and almost 10% below the consumer prices index.

Civil servants, teachers and nurses have all suffered under the Conservatives’ low-pay agenda, and have all received a completely unacceptable and avoidable real-terms pay cut. The extent of the Conservative Government’s low-pay agenda is laid bare by the high number of civil service staff in receipt of the minimum wage. It is an absolute travesty that over a quarter of DWP staff are paid so little that the national living wage floor increase this April will push their salaries up. It is worth noting that when many Departments contract work, they insist that people get paid at least the real living wage as determined by the Living Wage Foundation, yet the civil service itself point blank refuses to guarantee to pay civil servants at least the real living wage.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and emphasising that point. Does she share my concern, and that of many others, that the statistics she has just quoted are the reason for an increasing number of civil servants using food banks in order to survive week by week?

[Beth Winter]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution and I fully agree. I will come later to the stark figures on the use of food banks by civil service staff.

As I said, the past 13 years of pay freezes and pay caps have slashed the value of civil service pay. There is also the current civil service pay remit process, which is completely unacceptable. The FDA union describes the current system as “entirely flawed and incoherent” and as one that completely fails to allow for a strategic approach to pay, reward or meaningful negotiations.

Repeated pay cuts cannot simply be imposed without industrial disputes. Pay needs a negotiation between employers and employees. The current civil service pay remit process does not even offer the façade of employee involvement through the trade unions that even the increasingly discredited public sector pay review bodies are meant to offer. The end of national pay bargaining in the civil service by the Thatcher and Major Governments and the introduction of departmental and agency-delegated responsibility for setting pay continued the Tory ideological attack on the powers of the trade unions.

In the “Continuity and Change” White Paper, John Major’s Tory Government set out how, previously,

“centralised pay systems covered groups of staff whatever department they worked in, with settlements negotiated nationally between the Treasury and the unions.”

Even the claim that pay is delegated is a fallacy. Pay continues to be determined centrally. Ministers can, and do, still determine pay in these different bargaining units. That is evidenced by George Osborne’s imposition of a two-year pay freeze in the civil service, which he did without permission from the delegated bargaining areas. He was allowed to do that. That has been the approach for the past 30 years. It now applies to more than 200 bargaining units across the civil service, from the DWP to the National Museum of Wales. It is not logical, practical or cost-effective, and is certainly not fair. The fragmentation of the pay system has been described by the former Minister for the Cabinet Office, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), in his evidence to the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs as the “balkanisation” of pay. I would like to hear whether the Minister agrees with that comment.

What is the cost to the Government, both in finance and efficiency, given the duplication of human resource process, of changes to payroll procedures across so many units? It is just not cost-effective. Although civil service Departments essentially follow the same grading structure, the salaries paid at different levels by different Departments mean increasing disparities, resulting in significant inequalities. There has been an entrenchment of inequalities that existed in the 1990s, and an opening up of new gaps that did not even exist then. The PCS union has argued that as a result there has been an entrenchment of historic gender and ethnicity pay caps, and the development of pay differentials across Departments for the same grades. That includes women being paid less than men, and the pay process has not allowed them to break out of that. Last year, Civil Service World reported how the civil service’s median gender pay gap had widened for the first time in six years, with a gender gap in average hourly earnings of 11.3%. In most cases, where large median pay gaps exist, it is because there is a higher proportion of men in senior and more highly paid roles, or of women in more junior roles. The PCS has argued that, as civil servants are increasingly being co-located into regional hubs organised by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and by the Government Property Agency, the difference in pay between staff at the same grades is becoming increasingly apparent—so much so that the PCS has said that it is preparing to begin large-scale equal pay challenges, bringing cases on behalf of women in one bargaining unit against men in another.

Ethnicity pay gaps are also a significant cause for concern. Black members of staff are disproportionately employed in lower paid areas of the civil service. Only this morning, we heard shocking evidence of racism in the Cabinet Office from trade unions giving evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Regional inequalities have also been identified. For example, a median civil servant at administration assistant or officer level at the Ministry of Defence earns just over £20,000, whereas their equivalent in the Welsh Government earns around £24,500, nearly as much as the median executive officer, a grade higher, at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The evidence clearly shows that the pay structures across the civil service are unequal, dysfunctional, broken and in urgent need of reform. The situation hinders the delivery of an efficient service, so the transfer of staff between Departments is complicated in the absence of a uniform and fair pay system, while the unfair pay differentials create obstacles to achieving effective joint working within or between Departments. As others have mentioned, poor pay and terms and conditions within the civil service are also resulting in recruitment and retention problems, which, in turn, are also very costly for the Government.

Analysis by the Institute for Government reveals that turnover in the civil service is the highest it has been for a decade, and that the recruitment and retention of highly skilled staff is a particular cause for concern. It stated:

“The National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee, Ministers and civil servants have described how a lack of specialist skills in areas from digital to finance has contributed to delays, cost overruns or policy and operational failures.”

Research commissioned by Prospect and the FDA this year concluded that in order to ensure that the civil service can recruit and retain the high numbers of staff required, it is essential that the Government urgently address the poor levels of civil service pay. That is all having a significant detrimental impact on staff.

In PACAC this morning, we discussed the civil service people’s survey and we heard shocking evidence of harassment, bullying, discrimination and racism in the civil service. I will just quote some startling figures from a recent PCS survey of its members: 85% said that the cost of living crisis has impacted their mental and physical health; over half fear losing their home; 40% say that they have used credit to pay for essential shopping; and almost a fifth say that they have missed work because of their inability to afford transport or fuel. As the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) has said, 40,000 are using food banks, and 47,000 people are claiming universal credit because pay is so low. That is totally unacceptable and that is why civil service staff have been driven—forced—to take industrial action.

Nobody makes the decision to take industrial action lightly; it is very much a last resort. It is not a choice but a necessity that has been forced on civil service staff. Since December, PCS has been engaged in a series of targeted industrial action across many Departments, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the DWP and Border Force. That is why we will see over 130,000 civil servants take strike action on Budget day next week in an attempt to make this Government listen and improve their offer. PCS is not alone. The poor pay outcomes have also led the Prospect union to ballot its members and they have also overwhelmingly voted for industrial action. Even the fast-streamers organised by the FDA have voted for industrial action.

I am very conscious that some Government Members have sought many a time to assert that rising wages cause inflation by creating a wage spiral. I am confident that the Minister is aware that that does not stand up to scrutiny. Research by James Meadway for the General Federation of Trade Unions, cited in a recent pamphlet, said:

“Whatever it is that is driving inflation in the UK, it is not high wages. Wages have been low for a long time and are now falling very fast.”

Independent analysis commissioned from Incomes Data Research by Prospect and the FDA argues that,

“public sector pay rises might only lead to an increase in inflation if they at least matched or were higher than current rates of inflation, and then only if private sector employers followed suit, and then only if these employers then decided to deliberately pass on this aspect of increasing costs directly to consumers in the form of price rises.”

If the Government truly believe that they do not have the resources to fund the pay rise, they need to make it clear they will end some of the tax inequalities that continue to let the wealthiest off the hook and will introduce a new measure of wealth taxation.

Previously, I have highlighted what such measures might include, including the equalisation of the rate of capital gains tax with income tax, which, in a single measure, would raise up to £14 billion. The money is there; it is a political choice not to use it. The Government can afford to pay civil servants, all public sector workers and everybody who has been forced to strike a decent wage.

I will move to a conclusion. There are a number of issues that need addressing and I would welcome the Minister’s response to them. We need an audit of pay differentials impacting gender and ethnicity across Departments, an audit of pay differentials at the same employment grades across Departments, a grouping of agencies around their main Government Departments to harmonise pay arrangements and an acceptance of the need for pay remits that move the civil service towards national pay rates, which will establish moving floors at different grades and the safeguarding of differentials between grades. That should be a step on the way to the re-establishment of a national pay bargaining process that ends the refusal to negotiate with trade unions.

Indeed, Labour’s deputy leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), and her predecessor on the employment rights brief, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), have set out that fair pay agreements will be negotiated through sectoral collective bargaining, reversing the decades-long decline in collective bargaining coverage. I am not asserting that that is a manifesto commitment to national pay bargaining for the civil service, but it is clear evidence of the direction in which the party intends to move. I refer people to the Labour party’s excellent “ A New Deal for Working People” employment rights Green Paper for more information.

Such an approach is essential in order to tackle the problems of insecurity, inequality, discrimination, enforcement, low pay and the raft of other issues that I outlined in my speech. Urgent action is also required, with the Government’s commitment to hold constructive talks with PCS to resolve the current dispute. In next week’s Budget announcement, we need a revision of the 2022-23 civil service pay remit that reflects an understanding that a 10% rise and a living wage of at least £15 an hour are wholly affordable—wholly in this Government’s grasp—and do not require a reduction in service provision. We need a reformed pay bargaining process for the civil service and across the public sector, and an end to the Tory low-pay agenda of holding down public sector pay. Diolch yn fawr, Mr Pritchard.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob if they wish to speak, just to help the Chair—I think you all are, thank you. I call Chris Stephens.

14:50

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly my position as chair of the PCS parliamentary group. I thought I would do that, Mr Pritchard, because we usually hear shouts from the Conservative Benches about the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but I notice that those Members are on strike today. No one from the Conservative Back Benches is here to take part.

Who are the heroes of the pandemic? I would suggest that among those heroes are those who worked in the civil service, such as those who were in the Department for Work and Pensions when there was an explosion of universal credit claims that had to be processed and of people to be paid on time. It was those people who made sure that universal credit payments were paid on time, helping those in need. The heroes of the pandemic include those who worked in HMRC, who had to make sure that businesses, including small businesses, received furlough payments to help ensure that the economic wheels were turning. They include those in the civil service who put together the rules and regulations to update the public on what to do and how to comply with covid regulations, to ensure that the public were safe and protected.

As such, what is astonishing about this debate—as the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), who secured the debate, has outlined—is that the civil service seems to be treated worst of all across the public sector. Frankly, that is a disgrace. I want to concentrate on the economic case for giving civil servants and other public sector workers a real-terms pay rise. I note that in his demands for the Budget, my good friend the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), the leader of the SNP group, has said that we must have pay rises that match inflation. It is not public sector pay that increases inflation: it is prices. Food inflation is currently around 13%, yet we are offering some public sector workers 2% or 3%: that is not going to help them feed their families, and it is not going to help them going forward. We need to look very seriously at this situation.

The Conservative Government keep telling us that they are the party of efficiency and small government, yet they allow a situation in which there are over 200 separate pay negotiations across the civil service for those who work for the Westminster Government. The fact that so many different pay negotiations are being carried out across the civil service is something that you really could not make up. If the Conservative Government allow that situation to develop going forward, they are opening themselves up to equal pay claims, and I hope the Minister will tell us how they are going to cut the number of pay negotiations. There should be one set of pay negotiations covering those who work for the Westminster Government.

I know that many colleagues want in, Mr Pritchard, so the final point I will make is this: if people are talking, they are not walking. Far too often, we hear Government Members blaming society’s problems on not just refugees, as we heard in the main Chamber earlier, but trade unions. “It is the trade unions’ fault that we have so many societal problems at the moment”—what a risible argument! If the Government keep pursuing that level of tactic and introducing such rubbish legislation, such as the so-called minimum service levels legislation, it is only going to intensify the situation and make it worse. I want to hear from the Government how they are actually going to sit around the table and enter into meaningful negotiations like other Administrations do, including the Scottish Government.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I will have to enforce an informal time limit of five minutes.

14:55

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) have comprehensively covered most of the issues. There is little to say, apart from maybe the Minister saying, “I give up and we’ll go and sort this out.” I also declare an interest as a member of the PCS parliamentary group. There is no financial relationship as such; it is not even affiliated with the Labour party, although I keep trying.

I want to get across to the Minister what the Government need to face up to. In recent years, the Government have come for civil servants’ pensions. They lost in court over that, but they have not even addressed the legal judgment. In addition, they cut their redundancy payments, and now they are insulting them with a 2% pay offer. As the hon. Member for Glasgow South West said, these are the people who worked throughout the pandemic, and were applauded by Government Ministers for what they did. I remember the then Chancellor applauding HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions staff for the role that they played, many of them working from home. And then they get the insult of a 2% pay increase. It is no wonder that, for the first time in civil service history, there will be 100,000 civil servants on strike in a week’s time.

The Government rely on the myth that it is nothing to do with them, and all to do with the Departments that are negotiating. That myth has been exposed time and time again. The pay remit is set by central Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley said, the Government hide behind ludicrous pay structures. Having 200 individual units is not just inefficient but completely counterproductive. The result is that the civil service is demoralised, and it is failing to retain and recruit in many sectors. At the same time, I never expected public servants to be paid such low real pay. We have seen the issues with food banks, and some workers not even being able to afford the transport costs to get to work. Collectively, as a Parliament, we are the employers. Parliament holds Government to account; we all have to shoulder a responsibility. The Government have to recognise just how serious the situation is. They cannot underestimate the depth of anger that is out there among civil servants, their families and their communities.

The Government have hidden behind the high cost of settling at inflation-proofing; they themselves have used the mythical figure of £28 billion. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has already said that there is 4% to 5% within the Government’s existing budget structures for 2022-23, so the cost to get to inflation-proofing may be more like £15 billion to £17 billion. I will not go into detail, but others have pointed out how much the Government will get back in tax, national insurance contributions and so on. As a result of that, we are talking about single figures in terms of the cost to ensure that civil servants are inflation-proofed. The Bank of England destroyed the argument that this causes inflation in some way. Some 80% of the inflationary factors are external, and not to do with pay. The Government cannot argue that wages are causing inflation when they have been held down for 13 years. As others have said, they are now between 12% and 23% lower.

Finally, we need an inflation-proofing offer immediately so we can avoid the industrial action that is taking place. We want a reform of collective pay bargaining structures so we can get away from the current ludicrous system and back to collective bargaining itself. I think that in the future, all pay settlements across the whole economy should minimally be based on inflation-proofing, so that people are not impoverished as a result of pay settlements imposed upon them by the Government.

14:59

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I disclose an interest: my father was a civil servant. He was in charge of economic development at the Welsh Office and was instrumental in getting the DVLA to come to Swansea, which I represent.

The Government have treated the DVLA appallingly, particularly during the pandemic, when something like 500 people caught covid at the Swansea centre. Even though the unions and the management agreed a policy to mitigate risk that allowed more people to stay at home, the then Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), intervened and pulled it off the table, forcing a strike. That was a taste of things to come: the Government have provoked unnecessary strikes across the board and failed to negotiate in order to create a political atmosphere in which they can say to the electorate, “It’s the strikers versus the people. Who are you going to vote for?” It is completely cynical and counterproductive.

In Swansea and many parts of the country that have very poor communities—Swansea was a recipient of EU structural funding—people have not had proper pay increases. We know about inflation. According to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, food inflation is at something like 17%. People have been given an offer of 2%, so it is no surprise that they have been provoked. Those public servants are one of Britain’s greatest achievements. They provide neutral support and advice to Ministers, and public services to the people.

Of course, the inflation was to a certain extent provoked by the Ukraine war, but it is interesting that energy inflation in Britain is much higher than it is in the rest of Europe, which is much more exposed to Russian gas. We have seen the fuel companies’ massive profiteering; those windfall profits should be properly taxed.

In addition, food price inflation has been pushed by retailers’ and food producers’ profiteering. During the pandemic, because farmers could not sell their products to the hospitality sector, which was closed, the retail sector took advantage by pumping up prices while costs were going down, doubling their profits. Again, in theory, they should face a windfall tax. Profiteering, the Ukraine war and Brexit, which of course added 6% to inflation, have pumped up costs for people who have faced 13 years of pay freezes. It is no surprise, therefore, that something like 40,000 of them are relying on food banks.

We want a proper negotiation. People know that there is not an unlimited amount of money, but treating them like dirt and pushing them on to their knees is a recipe for making them rise up and strike. That is completely unnecessary; we want to move forward.

People in the civil service accept that they earn a little less because they are public servants and their heart is in the right place, but they are being driven to take action. We have a tight labour market because there is not freedom of movement. We have had reckless covid management, so tens of thousands of people have long covid and are not as productive. The Government resist allowing civil servants to work from home, as we saw in the DVLA. We should support people in work, invest in them, allow them to work from home and provide wi-fi clouds to make them more productive.

I look forward to a growing economy in which we invest in a growing future, rather than a hobbled economy in which we kick people who are already down. We need a strategic approach to this problem, and I very much look forward to a Labour Government, as we have in Wales, who talk to the unions and people in work in partnership, so we can grow together in the knowledge that we all face constraints. We need to do that in an adult way, rather than with a bullying approach that provokes strikes and poverty.

15:03

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter)—I hope that is the right way of pronouncing her constituency; I am definitely improving—on securing the debate. My constituency borders Belfast, so I have a large number of constituents employed in the civil service. This debate therefore is especially relevant to me.

I have been in this world a wee while. When I was in school, which was not yesterday, most of my friends leaving school sought jobs in the civil service. It offered job progression for many, and people had those jobs for life.

Today, life has changed. People change their jobs much more than they ever did. The problem that I see —others have said this, and I want to confirm it—is that people with civil service jobs come to me in the office in need of genuine help because they have financial difficulties or are using food banks. They sometimes come to me and say, “Jim, I’m under a bit of pressure with my mortgage. Can you approach the mortgage people and see if we can get a bit of space?” They want to make their payments—it is not that they do not want to—but they are having difficulty trying to manage them.

After a lengthy time of small increments and pay freezes, junior and senior civil servants were offered a pay increase of 2% in March 2022, with Departments having the flexibility to pay up to 3% in certain circumstances. By comparison, pay awards of 4% to 5% have been agreed in the public sector following industrial action, while the private sector has agreed awards of over 6%. I am not saying that the private sector should not do that, but if it can do it, civil servants should be given the same.

Overall, the median salary in the civil service has risen by 3% since 2010—less than the median real-terms changes at each individual grade. This is being driven by the increased seniority of the civil service. I read an interesting article, which said:

“While it is likely that at least some of this is a genuine change in composition, it is also likely that some civil servants are being promoted to boost their salaries, to stop them from leaving the civil service and to manage morale, rather than because their skill-set and responsibilities demand it. These promotions are likely to be focused in the middle grades, where there are more roles people can be promoted into than at senior levels. And it is harder to promote a junior official in an administrative, operational role because of the different responsibilities at the EO level.”

It is important to make that public and put it on the record, because that is what is happening to civil servants. They are not getting the pay rises that they justifiably should; instead, they are being moved about and given higher grades. That might help in the short term, but it does not really help them at all.

It is clear that in-house tinkering to try to meet the needs of the workforce has reached its limit, and Ministers must recognise this and begin to find a way forward to meet the need. Being a civil servant used to be known as a job for life—it was when I was a young boy—but staff increasingly feel overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. What a disappointment that is. Some civil servants are left feeling that, because they are not in as bad a financial position as those in retail, they should not complain. There is almost a guilt complex among some of them as well, but the fact is that to have happy, efficient staff, our civil service must lead the way.

To have staff who are not invested in doing the bare minimum but who are thankful for a decent job, we need to restore pride in their work and increase job satisfaction, which comes with the recognition that a decent pay rise takes on board, and I support staff in their aim on this. I am aware that working in the civil service has its advantages, such as decent annual leave, sick pay and maternity pay. These perks have carried people through for many years, but staff are now concerned about how they will stay warm on their days off at home. Given that they cannot afford to go on holidays either, it is clear that the perks are not enough to make people stick at it.

The fact is that those in decent jobs are precluded from the help that comes with universal credit or other benefit streams. Their children do not get free school meals and they are at risk of losing child benefit, despite the fact that they are under more financial pressure than when the child benefit threshold was set in 2013. The price of public transport and parking is up, and all bills have risen, yet their wages have not even tried to compete. There is only so much that a “job for life” means if that life is not of a decent quality. I say with great respect and honesty to the Minister that I join my colleagues on this side of the Chamber in asking for change and for reasonable adjustments to help civil servants to have a normal life like everybody else.

15:08

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) on securing the debate.

I pay tribute to the unions that are working tirelessly on behalf of their members in their fight to secure fair deals on pay. Many Wirral West residents work in the civil service and a number of them—members of the PCS—have written to me in recent weeks. They have expressed their frustration and dismay that the civil service pay remit for 2022-23 limited pay increases to just 2% to 3%. They have also rightly pointed that, at the time, this

“represented a significant, real-terms pay cut given that inflation was already running at around 9%”.

We must also remember that the pay remit for 2022-23 has been set against a backdrop of a decade of real-terms pay cuts. According to PCS, as a result of pay being frozen and capped, the living standards of many of its members have fallen by about 20% in real terms in the last decade. The average PCS member is worse off by £2,300 a year since 2011.  When the remit was announced in March last year, PCS was right to describe it as

“an insult to PCS members who helped to keep the country running during the pandemic”.

As I wrote in an email to the Chancellor just last week, the rhetoric of Ministers has not always recognised the dedication of civil servants, many of whom are still dealing with the impact of the covid-19 crisis, including those dealing with backlogs in the Home Office and criminal courts.

The PCS survey results are shocking, with 18% of members admitting to missing work because they cannot afford transport or fuel to get there; 37% of respondents saying that they are looking for a job outside the civil service and considering a career change for the good of their health; and 85% of members saying that the cost of living crisis has affected their physical or mental health. Shockingly, figures also suggest that 40% of PCS members are using food banks, and 47% are claiming universal credit because their pay is so low. It is therefore incredibly disappointing that the Government have ruled out a resettlement of the pay offer for the current financial year.

PCS is calling for a 10% pay uplift, an end to the pensions overpayment of 2%—which it says costs civil servants an average of £500 a year—and guarantees on the protection of the existing compensation scheme terms and job security. Constituents who have written to me have been clear that they

“would much prefer a negotiated settlement with the employer than to have to take…industrial action, particularly at a time when the cost of living is as high as it is.”

As we have seen elsewhere in the public sector, the Government’s refusal to pay workers the fair wage they deserve has left them feeling that they have no choice other than to go on strike to get their message across.

When it comes to pay remit guidance for 2023-24, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said that it will be put together

“in the context of higher inflation”,

and that he would

“expect some of that to be recognised in the sort of pay settlement”

that the Government are able to give civil servants. Nevertheless, he has tempered expectations, suggesting that civil servants will be left disappointed once again by the Government.

That is not good enough. The Government must ensure that civil servants receive the fair pay rise that they deserve. The Government’s attack on the rights of working people is wholly unacceptable, with the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill leaving some civil servants, as well as workers in key sectors, potentially at risk of losing their jobs as a result of industrial action agreed in a democratic ballot. That is very draconian indeed. It is a pernicious piece of legislation and it must be withdrawn immediately.

Will the Minister also address the issue of job cuts in the civil service? Last May, the Government announced that there would be 91,000 job cuts in the civil service within three years. The Prime Minister initially scrapped those plans when he came to office, but there were reports recently that there are still likely to be significant job cuts in the civil service, although no numbers have been confirmed yet. The Government should not need reminding that job cuts in the civil service would be detrimental to the quality and availability of the public services on which we all rely. As Amy Leversidge, the assistant general secretary of the FDA union said during a recent meeting of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Government

“cannot expect everything that was delivered with over 400,000 civil servants to be done with 91,000 less.”

Will the Minister commit to protecting jobs in the civil service? Will he revisit the 2022-23 civil service pay settlement in the light of the cost of living crisis and rising inflation? Finally, will he give a reassurance that hard-working civil servants will receive the pay and conditions they deserve in the next financial year?

15:13

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) for securing this important debate and for so evocatively laying bare in her opening remarks the scale of the crisis facing the civil service.

In recent days, Conservative Members have dedicated much of their energy contriving to impugn the conduct of the former second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office. However, I have noticed with interest the lengths to which many of them have gone to make clear, regardless of their views of Sue Gray, the high esteem in which they hold the civil service. As the Paymaster General himself echoed in his remarks to the House yesterday, this nation’s civil servants are diligent and hard-working, and display the utmost integrity in the exercise of their duty. The question facing Conservative Members, and which I hope the Minister will address in a moment’s time, is: why should civil servants be denied the fair and long-overdue pay rise that will allow them to keep their heads above water during the most precipitous collapse in living standards in a generation?

The Government are impotent without the civil service, and nowhere was that more clearly demonstrated than during the height of the pandemic. That global health crisis necessitated the most radical expansion of state involvement in the lives of ordinary people since at least the second world war. Furloughed workers needed to get paid, businesses needed financial support, and the health service required additional resources on an unprecedented scale.

Notwithstanding the Government’s many failings during those dark days, not a single one of our successes in the fight against covid—including the vaccine roll-out—would ever have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the civil service. And yet, in November last year, those same workers were told by the Government that they deserved a measly pay rise of just 2% during a period of record inflation, when food prices have risen by more than 16% and October’s mini-Budget catastrophe sent mortgage rates and rents soaring. That is an insult. All of that comes after over a decade in which a public sector squeeze has seen pay fall at every grade of the civil service by between 12% and 23% in real terms.

Let us be very clear about what that squeeze has meant for those working in the civil service. Of all PCS members surveyed, 85% said that the cost of living crisis has impacted their physical and mental health, over half are worried about losing their homes, and nearly one in 10 have been forced to resort to food bank use. One constituent recently wrote to me to say that they felt at their wits’ end. Another asked for assistance in dealing with the payday lenders they had been forced to turn to in order to make ends meet, while another said that the challenge of keeping up with mortgage payments had left them feeling like a prisoner in their own home. We should not be surprised that a third of all respondents to the PCS survey said they were looking to leave the civil service entirely, and that a career change would do good for their mental health.

Next week, as the Chancellor delivers his Budget, more than 100,000 PCS members will be on picket lines across the country to tell this Government that enough is enough. I will be proud to stand with them as they do so. It is time for this Government to realise that this country cannot survive without its public servants, and those public servants cannot survive on warm words alone. In the national interest, I urge the Minister to get around the table and negotiate the fair pay rise that our civil servants so rightly deserve.

15:17

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), who is a good friend, for securing this important debate, and for her excellent speech. I hope I have pronounced her constituency right, or she will kill me.

Although I have no formal interests to declare, I am a proud member of the PCS parliamentary group. I stand in full solidarity with the civil service in Liverpool, West Derby, and across the country, who are taking industrial action as a last resort over their pay, pensions and job security. It was an absolute privilege to stand with civil servants on an historic day at the PCS picket line in Whitehall last month, with quite a number of colleagues from this side of the House. It is a position they should never have been put in.

Workers in the civil service have not had a real-terms pay rise for over 11 years. Salaries have fallen by between 12% and 23% in real terms at each grade since 2010. There would be an uproar among MPs if that happened to them. There has been a sustained pay cut—a disgraceful pay injustice that has resulted in the loss of at least £2,800 a year in pay to individual civil servants. The pay structures across the civil service are fragmented into over 200 bargaining units, a system that the FDA trade union has rightly described as “dysfunctional and broken”.

That broken system has resulted not only in low pay but in wide variations of pay across the service, equal pay issues and a gender pay gap, as well as a recruitment and retention crisis. On top of that, civil servants have been overpaying pension contributions by £500 a year since 2019. The situation is grim.

This Government’s decade of brutal and unrelenting austerity has cut our public services to the bone and forced people who deliver those services into abject poverty. One in six people in my constituency are missing meals or going without food, and that includes many civil servants. In a PCS survey of its members, 35% of respondents said that they had skipped meals because they had no food, 18% that they have had to miss work because they cannot afford transport or fuel to get there, 85% that the cost of living crisis has affected their physical and mental health, and 52% that they are worried about losing their homes as bills and inflation rocket. Forty thousand civil servants are estimated to be regular users of food banks—I have seen that myself in the pantries that we run in Liverpool—and 47,000 are claiming universal credit because the pay is so low.

Let us just reflect on those statistics. The very people we trust to ensure that the social security system works for those in need are now being driven into hunger because of the poverty pay they receive. That encapsulates 13 years of Tory rule, which has driven many members of our public sector staff into poverty. Political choices are being made that have caused so much harm and misery to our communities. I have heard Members say, “Enough is enough,” quite a lot, certainly earlier on in the Chamber for the immigration statement. Let us use those words today to frame this economic injustice for all our loyal public servants; and let us hope the Minister uses them when we talk about that economic injustice.

The Government’s derisory 2% pay offer for 2022-23 is an absolute insult to those civil servants and their families. Inflation is over five times as high, and food inflation is around nine times as high. Trade unions representing staff, including fast streamers, are now taking industrial action as a last resort. One-hundred thousand civil servants will take strike action on Budget day next Wednesday: a day that the Government could use—if they had the political will and leadership, Minister —to announce an inflation-proof pay rise for public sector workers to avoid the strikes.

On Friday, I received a disappointing response from the Minister for the Cabinet Office to my letter raising the issues that I have raised in this debate. In that correspondence, he said that he would

“like to take this opportunity to reiterate…our gratitude for the exceptional commitment Civil Servants and public servants have shown in supporting essential public service delivery during this challenging time.”

Yet, further on in the letter he says that he recognises that the current civil service pay uplift

“will be below current levels of inflation.”

Warm words mean absolutely nothing to civil service staff in West Derby and across the country, who are not being paid enough to live off. I am also extremely disappointed that the Minister for the Cabinet Office appeared to suggest in that letter that pay restraint is somehow linked to getting inflation under control. The FDA’s independent analysis debunks the Government’s claim that public sector pay awards cause inflation. Inflation cannot be caused directly by public sector wage rises, and there is no evidence that this can occur indirectly.

I and my constituents are dismayed by the Minister for the Cabinet Office’s correspondence, and I am appalled by the Government’s overall approach to public sector pay disputes. Rather than taking the mature and robust step of offering an acceptable settlement on pay, terms and conditions, the Government have instead taken the reactionary step of ramping up anti-strike rhetoric and placing regressive legislation against industrial action on the statute book. That is not leadership when it is needed. We must be better than this. Those loyal public sector workers deserve the Minister’s action and support. We urge the Minister today to listen to the demands of civil service staff and their trade unions, and to provide them with pay justice and improved conditions. They and our nation deserve nothing less.

15:23

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I appreciate you chairing this afternoon’s debate, Mr Pritchard. We have been particularly raucous and difficult to control, so congratulations on taking on that most difficult role this afternoon.

I also thank the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) for taking forward this incredibly important debate. I was going to start by discussing the question she asked yesterday in Department for Work and Pensions questions—to which the Secretary of State responded by tacitly acknowledging that more than a quarter of DWP staff are paid so little that the minimum wage increase in April will lift their salaries. How have we reached a situation where they are so poorly valued and so poorly paid that they are not even paid the real living wage? They are simply paid the Government’s pretendy living wage.

Given that such a high percentage of them claim universal credit, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) has just stated, how is that cost-effective for the Government, never mind anything else? If people are paid so little that they need other Government funding to allow them even the most basic standards of life, something is going wrong. As so many Members have said, these are people who worked day in, day out during the course of the pandemic. They worked so hard to ensure that others were able to access the vital public services that we all need and that became incredibly important—far more important than before the pandemic—for so many. People were putting themselves at risk by travelling and working during lockdowns and the pandemic. It is a travesty that those people have been undervalued to such an extent.

Comments have also been made about gender-based discrimination and job cuts, and the fact that the Government expect people to do more work for less pay. Nobody wants to do more work for less pay. We should value the folk who deliver the most vital public services. During sittings of the Procurement Bill Committee, which some Members here attended, we tried to ensure that the Government would write a real living wage into procurement contracts. It is important that the real living wage is paid. When we write procurement contracts it is important that that is a requirement on external contractors or companies, but it should also be required of all public services.

We are doing everything we can in Scotland. Ensuring that people such as those working in adult social care are paid the real living wage is resulting in a significant increase in the number of people being paid an amount on which it is possible for them to live. That also reduces reliance on the benefits system and ensures that people have dignity and can avoid having to go to food banks to provide basic services for their families.

The Minister might talk about the amount of money that the Government have given to people for electricity and gas bills, but it is not enough. People are still struggling. The money given to support people with energy costs does not fully cover the increased costs, and that is not to mention the 17.1% inflationary increase in the cost of food. The highest increase is for the most basic food, yet we cannot avoid buying pasta, potatoes and rice.

The Government need to step up. They need to properly negotiate with trade unions. Nobody wants to take industrial action. It is not the case that trade unionists hate work. They have been forced into this situation because of the UK Government’s unwillingness to negotiate. In Scotland we have negotiated pay deals far more successfully. We have experienced strikes in Scotland, but we have constantly been round the table talking. We have been able to make much higher pay offers despite the fact that we have a legal requirement to have a balanced budget. We do not have the same flexibility as the UK Westminster Government on budgets. They can pay people by making in-year changes to budgets. We cannot do that in Scotland, yet we have prioritised pay because we recognise how important our public sector workers are. We recognise how vital the services that they provide are, so we are doing everything that we can to make the best possible pay offers.

Job cuts have been mentioned, but we are trying to ensure that people are not asked to do more work for less pay. We are putting in other provisions as well to ensure that we have enough staff. Obviously, we are hampered in that by Brexit.

In spite of a decade of real-terms pay cuts and the lack of flexibility in the Scottish budget, we will keep on fighting for a better and fairer Scotland. On Thursday, the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) accused me of using the need for a balanced budget in Scotland as a convenient scenario. It is not convenient! It is incredibly inconvenient that Scotland has to have a balanced budget and that we cannot therefore make the offers we would like to make and provide people with cost of living uplifts. We have been arguing for decades for independence for Scotland so that we do not have to work within this framework and so that we have the ability to make our own choices about spending and about the money that we have as a Government to spend. The UK Government’s continued cuts to the budget mean that our budget is less and we do not have the power or the flexibility to sort out that situation.

This debate has been incredibly interesting because Conservative Back Benchers have not come to the debate to provide their input. Do they not think that DWP staff are important? Do they not think that Home Office staff and DVLA staff are important? Do they not think that they should be coming out to bat for their constituents and providing that level of support? We are not asking for anything excessive. We are asking simply for the Government to look at inflation-level increases. That is not a completely crazy idea. It would allow people to have the dignity to support themselves and, as I have said a couple of times, not to find themselves entangled in the benefits system, where they are having to claim universal credit. People do not want to be in that system, but when the Government are not paying them enough and when Government Members are standing up in Parliament, as they did yesterday, and doing everything they can to smear the name of the civil service, we will have a situation where those dedicated public servants will be saying, “Enough is enough. We are not continuing to work for this Conservative Government, who continually undervalue us and refuse to negotiate reasonable pay uplifts.”

15:31

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Pritchard. I, too, pay a big tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) for securing this really important debate. Her passionate opening remarks highlighted why we are having the debate. I want to go back to some of the points that she highlighted.

In the recent survey conducted by the PCS union, 85% of its members said that the cost of living crisis had had a big impact on their mental and physical health. If people are not in a fit position to go to work, how are they supposed to carry out even the basic functions that they are employed to do? When we talk about people using food banks, some Members of this House basically say that that is incorrect, but the figures do not lie: 40,000 of that union’s members say that they are using food banks. That should shame us. Those are staff members, people in work and with a salary, having to rely on food banks. That should not be happening in 2023. Of those PCS members, 18% said that they had missed work because of their inability to afford transport or fuel—the energy companies and fuel companies are making record profits but not passing the benefit down to people who are filling up at the petrol stations—and 40% said that they had had to use credit for essential shopping. We saw what happened a few years ago with the rise of loan companies and loan sharks. If we are not careful, the number of people who have to rely on credit for the basic necessities—for basic bills—will creep up. That is what is happening to people who are in work. In-work poverty should not be happening.

Many hon. Members have highlighted issues across their constituencies, and I think about my own constituency, just over the bridge, where a significant number of civil servants live. Many Members have highlighted how hard our civil servants worked during the pandemic. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted the fact that, if we are honest, a job in the civil service is no longer a job for life. I will be honest: when I graduated, I applied for the fast stream, but I failed at the first hurdle and I thought that that was the end of my career. A number of people who have worked in the civil service feel that they have no career progression. Their pay is stagnating, and they are leaving. He is right; it is no longer a job for life.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) highlighted the fact that the 2% increase is an insult—nothing more—because inflation is skyrocketing and the cost of everything is going up for our civil servants. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) highlighted the really big issue that civil servants are having to rely on food banks. I totally agree with him that the situation is grim. To repeat his words, we are forcing people into abject poverty because they are having to choose. That should not be happening. I also agree with the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) that as a result of what the Government are proposing and the fact that they are not negotiating, fewer people will be doing more work for less pay. That should not be happening, either.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) raised the issues with the DVLA, which we all remember, and the shameful way in which the former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), handled that situation, with hard-working staff not being treated right. These issues are happening while the Government refuse to negotiate with our civil servants. If we look back to the pandemic, civil servants kept the country going and on its feet, whether by putting emergency measures in place, adjusting to new realities or taking on the mammoth task of dealing with so many different schemes, including furlough. Let us be honest: even now, those civil servants are still working to clear up backlog Britain. We have all seen that backlog in our casework, whether it is with the Home Office, the DVLA or passports. The civil servants are still working to clear it up, and trying to fix the problems of the past 12 years that have been caused by the Government’s mismanagement.

Our public services are at breaking point. That is not the fault of the hard-working public sector staff; it is the fault of the Government, who have failed and let down our valued institutions—the Government who do not value our staff, and who have failed to recruit and retain staff across the public sector. We are now in a situation where civil servants feel that they have no choice but to go on strike. Like many people, they are seeing their bills and the cost of food rise. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North mentioned pasta, potatoes and rice; whenever I get updates from the food banks in my constituency, those are the key items that they want people to drop off. Those basic items are now so expensive, and the truth is that civil servants’ pay is not keeping up with those increases. The Government are more determined to scapegoat workers and avoid fixing a mess that they created than they are to get around the table and negotiate, including in the civil service.

We cannot expect the civil service to be attractive to external employees when civil servants are expected to withstand threats to their jobs. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) highlighted the fact that just over a year ago, the Government threatened to cut 91,000 jobs across the civil service. That caused endless sleepless nights for those who were worried about the future of their jobs. Thankfully, those plans have been shelved, but given the merry-go-round of Ministers that we have had, how can anyone joining the civil service now be sure that that proposal will not come up again? That uncertainty and real-terms pay cuts are hindering the civil service’s ability to retain and recruit staff. Too often, that results in the false economy of having to rely on external contractors and consultants within the civil service. Year after year, public money is being spent on external consultants, rather than attracting the knowledge that we need in-house and training people to have that knowledge. We have simply outsourced the pay rise that our civil servants need to keep up with the cost of living to the profits of consulting firms. That is a horrific waste of money, resulting directly from 12 years of Government neglect and ideology-driven pay decisions.

When we consider civil service pay, we must look at its impact on equality. There are around half a million civil servants, who are responsible for delivering vast amounts of our public services. It is critical that our civil service is representative of our society as a whole, but we cannot expect it to be representative when pay across the civil service is unequal. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley mentioned the shocking issues that PACAC explored around racism in the civil service—I hope the Minister and his colleagues will be looking at that—and the shocking fact that the gender pay gap in the civil service increased drastically in 2022, with the median pay gap increasing by almost 70% in just one year. We cannot tackle inequality in society if inequality is entrenched in our civil service.

One point I would like the Minister to come back on is whether he agrees with the Women and Equalities Committee, which reported last year on the ethnicity pay gap—another key issue within the civil service. Does he agree that the first step in addressing the pay disparity is to ensure that ethnicity pay gap reporting is mandatory? I urge him to outline the measures he is taking to address the pay gap in the civil service.

The Government have a responsibility to ensure our public services are run well and our public sector workers are treated fairly. The next Labour Government’s mission will be to grow our economy, ensure that we have high-quality public services and ensure that our workers have better pay and conditions. Labour’s new deal for working people looks to deliver on this mission for the civil service and across society. The cost of living crisis is driving our civil servants to breaking point. It must be a priority for the Government to get to grips with this crisis and ensure that working people do not continue to suffer. Working people need a fair deal. The Government must get around the table to ensure that our public services are not ravaged by the outcomes of 12 years of Conservative failure and mismanagement.

15:40

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) on securing the debate, as I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues. I am sure the Chancellor will have heard her remarks. The Government are obviously in the process of preparing for the Budget in the very near future.

At the outset, I want to join all Members in recognising the extraordinary hard work and dedication of the civil service. I cannot accept the remarks made—admittedly, as an aside—by the hon. Members for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) about how the Government are in some way scapegoating civil servants. That is absolutely not the case. It was not the case in the urgent question in the House yesterday. Obviously, a lot of people in the Cabinet Office are sad about what has happened over the past few days, but that in no way detracts from our huge respect for our exceptional civil servants, on whom we rely every single day. It is important for me to put that on the record.

As right hon. and hon. Members will undoubtedly be aware, civil service pay is determined by separate processes for delegated grades—typically grade 6 and below—and the senior civil service. For delegated grades, the Cabinet Office publishes the pay remit guidance annually. The guidance is a cost control document setting out the parameters of average awards in a pay remit year for Departments. For the senior civil service, the Senior Salaries Review Body makes independent recommendations to the Government based on evidence provided by the Government and data from recognised trade unions and the labour market.

In the 2021 spending review, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the end of the temporary pay pause in the public sector, including the civil service, starting from the year 2022-23, throughout the duration of the spending review period to 2024-25. The strong recovery in the economy and labour market at that time allowed us to return to a normal pay setting process. Again, right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that new challenges then emerged. We are operating now in a very different economic environment. Higher than expected global energy and goods prices have already led to unavoidable increases in the cost of living in the UK, and the repercussions of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine have added considerably to those pressures.

Last year, the civil service pay remit guidance allowed Departments to make awards of up to 3%, which we absolutely recognise is below inflation. The Government of course recognise the significant strain that cost of living pressures are putting on everyone, including civil servants, and this Government have been helping with energy support and other cost of living payments for the most vulnerable.

[Chris Stephens]

The Minister mentioned the pay remit guidance. For clarity, can he confirm that the pay remit guidance is one document—that there is only one piece of pay remit guidance? If so, why are there 200 sets of negotiations across Westminster Government Departments?

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that I will come to that point very soon.

As everyone will, I hope, appreciate, the Government put fiscal responsibility at the very centre of our policy, and we are taking appropriate steps to manage inflation. Obviously, at the moment, it is not public sector wages that are driving inflation. Many factors are driving inflation. Inflation is besetting our closest friends and competitors around the world; it is an international problem. However, if we were to take the advice of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and others, we would find ourselves in trouble.

The Governor of the Bank of England and its chief economist have both said that inflation-matching pay rises in the public sector can spill over into higher pay across the economy, and that would make the fight against inflation even more challenging. That is why halving inflation is the top of the Prime Minister’s five immediate priorities, alongside growing the economy, reducing national debt, getting the NHS backlog down and stopping small boats crossing the channel. Our focus is on pay for 2023-24.

[John McDonnell]

It is difficult to see how a reasonable settlement below the rate of inflation—for example, the fire brigade settlement of 7%, with backdating and 5% for next year—could in any way offend against the Bank of England Governor’s comments. Have the Government even considered an offer of that sort to the civil service?

[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman is a former shadow Chancellor. He will appreciate that the higher the pay settlement, the slower the rate of decline in inflation is likely to be. [Laughter.] He laughs; I hope he has realised how the numbers work.

[John McDonnell]

This is unique in economic history in this country. We are arguing that a pay award below the rate of inflation is still inflationary. I have never heard that one before, and I think we should record it for posterity.

[Alex Burghart]

I know the right hon. Gentleman is new to this House, and I am delighted to be able to tell him that the minutes of this debate will indeed be recorded for posterity. He will understand that the sooner the speed of inflation comes down to a manageable level, the sooner we can return to growth in the economy. The sooner the whole economy benefits, the sooner public services will benefit. He proposed an inflation-matching pay rise, but that would certainly not help bring down inflation, and he knows that. It is very easy to propose things from the Labour Back Benches that sound good, but that are impractical and damaging. The Government have to take fiscally responsible decisions.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden), said in a recent PACAC evidence session that considerations for the pay settlement this year will, of course, be done in the context of higher inflation, but that

“we have to be cognisant of wider pressures on the public finances, which ultimately can be paid for only by higher taxes, by increased borrowing or by savings elsewhere in the Government…Ministers have to take difficult decisions.”

[Geraint Davies]

The Minister is making the case for a balanced approach. The Chancellor’s objective is to halve inflation this year, from 10% to 5%, so prices will have risen 15% over two years. Given that, what would be a reasonable and balanced pay award to civil servants over those two years, in the Minister’s view?

[Alex Burghart]

Those conversations are ongoing, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware. It is not within my remit to speculate on that.

[Geraint Davies]

But not 2%.

[Alex Burghart]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s point.

Salaries for junior grades in the civil service remain comparable with private or public sector equivalents. Many civil servants also benefit from defined benefit schemes, where employers contribute around 27% of earnings. In contrast, most private sector employees receive defined contribution pensions, which are dependent on investment performance, and where employer contributions are typically around half those in the public sector.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, pay arrangements for civil servants below the senior civil service are delegated to Departments as separate employers. That has been the case since 1996, and was not a position overturned by the previous Labour Government. The annual pay remit guidance sets out the financial parameters within which civil service Departments can determine pay awards for their staff. Negotiations take place between organisations and trade unions. The Cabinet Office does not negotiate or consult on pay or changes to terms and conditions outside the civil service management code. Ultimately, it is for Departments to decide on their pay awards and how they are structured, in the light of their own budgets and priorities, and to negotiate with their trade unions.

There are many merits to the delegated model, as the last Labour Government recognised. Civil service Departments deal with many different, complex issues. That means it is really important that Departments continue to have the flexibility to tailor their own pay and grading arrangements to enable them to recruit, retain and reward the hard-working civil servants who deliver for them.

Pay remit guidance also allows Departments to seek further flexibility for a pay award above the headline range for pay awards. That has enabled some Departments to make higher awards to their staff in return for productivity and efficiency gains, or to reform terms and conditions of employment, in order to deliver transformational reform. That has been demonstrated in pay deals at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Justice in recent years.

We continue to explore opportunities for greater coherence for reward in future years in support of civil service challenges and priorities, which is where the work of cross-Government professions and functions have a particularly valuable role to play. The Minister for the Cabinet Office met with some of the main civil service unions on 12 January to listen to their representations on pay, as part of an exchange of information to inform pay for 2023-24. That is supported by continuing dialogue at official level.

The Government remain committed to holding discussions about pay for 2023-24. We want to work constructively with the civil service trade unions as the Government consider the pay remit guidance, the delegated grades and the evidence to the Senior Salaries Review Body on senior civil service pay. I am confident that when we announce the 2023-24 civil service pay remit guidance, we will continue to strike the balance between appropriate reward and the need to live within our means as a nation.

[Chris Stephens]

The Minister has confirmed that there is one pay remit guidance. Do the Government have any plans to cut the numbers of negotiations? There are currently more than 200 across Westminster Government Departments.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard me say that we consider there to be many advantages to this model.

The purpose of Westminster Hall debates is for the Minister to come and listen to what colleagues in the House have to say. It was interesting, listening to the hon. Member for Vauxhall, to hear that a lot of the positions from the Labour Back Benches do not necessarily accord with the position of the Labour Front Bench. I wonder whether one of the things that is happening in this Westminster Hall debate is an internal debate within the Labour party being aired in public. There was no position from the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson on collective bargaining, on the pay offer, or on PCS strike actions.

[Florence Eshalomi]

On this side of the House, we will make sure that we negotiate—sit around the table and address the concerns. It is not for me to say, “This is what we will offer.” It is about sitting down with the unions, outlining the concerns and then coming to a decision.

[Alex Burghart]

I respect the hon. Lady’s position. However, that is not the position that many of her colleagues have taken here today. It is important that the Labour party comes to an agreed position before the next election. If it does not, we will be sure to remind the public that the Labour party does not have a position on this, whereas the Government do.

15:53

[Beth Winter]

I am wondering if the Members on this side of this room are living in a parallel universe to the Minister, given that he did not address any of the points we raised in any substantive way. I will follow up my questions and comments and those of others in writing to the Minister; I hope I can get a more comprehensive response.

We have heard today about what the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) called the heroes of the pandemic: our public servants. And yet, they have had the lowest pay increase in the public sector since the advent of the coalition Government back in 2010. The civil service staff are demoralised, angry, frustrated and desperate. They are suffering extreme hardship, using food banks and unable to afford to go to work.

You have not addressed any of the real hardships that they are facing, which have been caused directly by your policies and your low pay agenda. A civil service member of staff contacted me yesterday and described themselves as, “The poor relations who feel totally overlooked by society.” You have it in your gift to redress this—to address the problems that these workers face. On behalf of the PCS parliamentary group, we formally invite you to join PCS members on the picket line next week to listen to the real-life experiences of PCS members. If you are not going it for the staff who are suffering, do it for yourself. It is not efficient—

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Lady to address her remarks through the Chair, rather than using “you”. The Minister is responding on behalf of the Government.

[Alex Burghart]

I hope you’ll be there, Mr Pritchard; you’ve been invited.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I am neutral. I remind the hon. Member to address her remarks through the Chair. The Minister is here representing the Government rather than as an individual.

[Beth Winter]

I just wish that people could tell how passionate I and others feel about this.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Indeed, there are a lot of passionate feelings on both sides of this debate.

[John McDonnell]

There was a flippant remark from the Minister with regard to meeting PCS members. I just remind him that PCS members in my constituency—two Border Control staff—died during the pandemic because of covid. They sacrificed their lives keeping this country safe.

[Alex Burghart]

On a point of order, Mr Pritchard. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that there was no flippant remark about PCS whatsoever. [Interruption.] There was no flippant remark whatsoever. The record will state that all I said was that you had been invited to join the picket line, Mr Pritchard. That is not a flippant remark about PCS.

[John McDonnell]

This is a serious debate about people living in poverty.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Alex Burghart]

It was not a flippant remark about PCS. The right hon. Gentleman knows that it was not.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister is entitled to put his point of order—although it is not a point of order. However, it has been put on the record by our excellent Hansard colleagues here. We go back to Beth Winter for the last three minutes of the debate.

[Beth Winter]

May I ask, through the Chair, whether the Minister will agree to attend the picket line to listen to the real-life experiences of so many thousands of civil service staff? As I began to say, if the Government are not going to address these issues for the people who are suffering, surely they will do so, because it is in their own interests. The overwhelming evidence shows that the current system is not efficient. It is not cost-effective and it will not address the cost of living crisis—

[John McDonnell]

Could my hon. Friend give way to the Minister so that he can respond and confirm whether he is coming to meet the PCS members next week?

[Beth Winter]

I certainly would like to give way.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

The Minister can choose to respond or not, because he has concluded his remarks. If he wants to intervene, he can, but it is entirely down to him. The hon. Member who moved the motion can continue for the last minute and then allow me to put the Question, or can talk out her own time, which will mean the Question is not put. She can make that decision. [Interruption.] Order. The right hon. Gentleman should know, as he has been here for a very, very long time. I have been very patient with him.

[John McDonnell]

Too long.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Whether or not the right hon. Gentleman thinks he has been here too long is entirely a matter for him. He will come to order, thank you.

[Beth Winter]

It is my strongly held opinion that it is in everybody’s interest that people across the public sector are given an inflation-proof pay rise. I urge the Government to follow the lead of the Welsh and Scottish Governments and enter into proper negotiations with the civil service to address the horrendous situation that people are experiencing.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the civil service pay remit and the future of pay negotiations.

Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Relevant Documents: First Report of the Transport Committee, Session 2021-22, Zero emission vehicles, HC 27 and the Government response, HC 759.]

16:00

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I will call Stephen Hammond to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. As the hon. Gentleman knows, in 30-minute debates he does not get a one-minute wind-up at the end.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. We had an important hour and a half debate on electric vehicle charging in this place less than two weeks ago, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine). It was a wide-ranging debate and we touched on a number of issues, but today I want to define it slightly more tightly and look at a couple of issues in a bit more detail. I recognise that there is a risk of repetition, but this is an extraordinarily important matter for this country to get right.

Although the country and the Government are making huge progress—the Government are leading the world, to a great extent, with the UK’s net zero target of 2050 and the phasing out of the internal combustion engine by the beginning of the 2030s—it is hugely important that they set aspirations and lead other nations.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this debate. There just are not enough electric charging points across the whole of the United Kingdom. As a result, constituents are unwilling or unable to buy electric cars, which take eight hours to charge fully. The latest figures indicate that there are now more than 90 vehicles per rapid charging point. Does he agree that it is crucial that conversations are had with Departments in the devolved Governments and other countries to enable them to align with the rest of the UK in electric vehicle charging points?

[Stephen Hammond]

I will later refer to the barriers to greater electric vehicle uptake, which include accessibility and the number of on and off-street charging points. There are great regional disparities across the United Kingdom in the number of charging points per 1,000 people. There are great differences between London, Scotland and the rest of the world. I am sure colleagues from more rural areas will talk about access to charging points and about local councils’ ability to allow people to use on-street and off-street parking, which sometimes prohibits the movement from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles.

Transport represents 27% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and road transport is somewhat over 85% of that. We should not underestimate the progress that has been made. There are now 39,000 charging points across the UK and about 1,135,000 plug-in vehicles. But, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, the price of those vehicles and the lack of access to charging points prevent uptake. There is also a lack of a second-hand market—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the relatively recent development of the electric vehicle—which would mean more widespread availability and help the movement to electric vehicles.

Production levels of electric vehicles, which were greater two years ago than they are now, means that although there are 1,135,000 vehicles at the moment, the progress of uptake is slower than we would have expected, given the culture behind electric and hybrid.

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

My hon. Friend rightly made the point about access. Havant Borough Council has installed several fast electric vehicle charging points in partnership with a private sector contractor. Does he agree that local authorities, particularly those in coastal and rural areas, have a key role to play in expanding EV charging infrastructure and that others should follow the example of my local council, and will he say more about that in his later remarks?

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that a number of councils are exemplars for charging, but a number of other councils are lagging behind the good example of Havant. I will come to that issue, because one of my key asks is for the Minister to consider what pressure the Department is prepared to put on local councils. I mentioned that we have seen some movement on electric cars, but there are barriers. Perhaps the biggest is accessing charging points and the infrastructure that is available. We have a target of 300,000 charging points by 2030, but we currently have fewer than 39,000. We therefore need a compound increase of 33% over the next seven or eight years to make that a reality. Unless we do more, that target looks challenging.

There are also issues with accessing on-street charging points, of which there is a limited number. We need to change the culture, and part of that is that, although there are huge numbers of funds and suppliers, far too many people think only the public sector should provide charging points. That is wrong. Also, if someone who lives on a road with a limited number of charging points gets home at six or seven in the evening and someone is charging their car, and if it is not a rapid charging point, it will take anywhere between four and eight hours to charge that car. I challenge my colleagues here to say who is going to get up at two o’clock in the morning and move their car so that the charging point becomes available, and who else is going to get up and move their car to that charging point.

We need to make more on-street charging points available. We also need to make some of those on-street charging points accessible to households that are unlikely to be near places where the public installation of on-street charging can happen. I will make the case in a few moments that local byelaws should be changed so that that can become a reality for many people, particularly those in rural areas.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I am sure the Minister will respond to in detail in a moment. On rural charging for electric vehicles, it strikes me that in very rural areas, such as many parts of Suffolk in my constituency, the only solution is to make the availability of home charging for each and every household economically viable. Even in a village, it can still be one or 1.5 miles from one end to the other in terms of connectivity. Will he speak more about home charging and what he thinks the Government should do to promote it, particularly in rural areas?

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that I will make some remarks on that issue and particularly on what can be done. He is right: according to the RAC, the cost of home charging for a rapid vehicle is about 13p per kWh, yet those who use public chargers have seen a 91% increase to something like just over £3 per kWh. That is quite a big discrepancy. Although we have seen progress on on-street charging, the reality of home charging is important.

I want to make some key asks of the Government, some of which will involve direct Government intervention and some of which will involve Government pressure on local authorities to set targets. My first direct ask of the Government is a lobbying point for the Budget. As my right hon. Friend the Minister will know, there is currently a huge discrepancy between the VAT charged when people charge electric vehicles away from home and that charged when people charge them at home. The VAT on public charging is currently 20%, so the inequality between home charging and away-from-home charging is a major impediment. Will the Government look, not only in the forthcoming Budget but in future Budgets, at equalising the VAT rates for on-street away-from-home charging and home charging?

There also needs to be a change in the planning presumptions. We all agree that we need more on-street and on-site parking in terms of retail leisure parks and new in-town developments. The presumption should now be that any and all development comes with the right infrastructure that will allow a far greater number of not only charging points but rapid charging points for electric vehicles. That requires the Government to put some pressure on local authorities, or my right hon. Friend the Minister to work with his colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to change the planning presumption.

Currently, local authorities are responsible for deciding the locations in their area and securing funding for the delivery of on-street parking. The clear problem at the moment is that only 28% of local authorities have complied with the requirement to have an electric vehicle charging strategy. As I have said, even fewer are working with the large number of infrastructure funds and the providers of funds that would happily work in public-private partnership to work out the number of charging points that can be easily delivered in one year. Some local authorities have made huge progress on that—for example, under its previous Conservative leadership, Wandsworth worked with a major supplier to deliver a huge increase in on-street parking.

Local authorities need to have a strategy and to commit to work with the people who can supply the funding, so one of my asks of the Government is that, with the Department for Transport and DLUHC working together, they put some pressure on authorities to have such a plan in place. We should be pretty clear about what those plans cover: they should cover, as I said, the change in planning presumption and commit to an increase in on-street capacity.

The plans should contain another commitment. Let me address directly the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). All too often, local byelaws prevent home charging. We allow a huge number of utility companies to put wires and pipes across streets, and they do so safely; one of the great local campaigns I have run in my area is to change a local byelaw to allow people to run cables safely across pavements. It could easily be done, via either cable gullies or other protective measures, to allow people to home-charge who do not have access either to off-street parking—because they do not have their own driveway—or to on-street public facilities. A simple change in the byelaw could easily be applied. There are of course safety challenges and public liability challenges, but the reality is that we let utility companies do it every day of the week, all over the country, and a simple change in byelaws would allow a huge number of extra people to access charging infrastructure.

I am trying to set out how, if we want to make the movement to electric vehicles a reality, there are some things in respect of which we as a country need to change the presumption and the DFT and colleagues in DLUHC need to change the culture. I have set out a number of asks for the Government. Changing the byelaws and planning permission is a relatively simple thing they could work on.

Finally, the Government need to think carefully about the 300,000 target. I accept that it is ambitious and difficult to achieve; however, in the second half of this decade, as the culture among vehicle owners moves more rapidly as price barriers are removed and production levels go up, it may well be that the target of 300,000 public charge points is simply inadequate. I ask the Government to commit to looking at that internally in the Department, and to make a written public statement on the need to be more flexible with the target and possibly to increase it.

I said that I would try to concentrate my remarks because we had a wide-ranging debate less than two weeks ago on the expansion of infrastructure, including in respect of home infrastructure, off-street parking, on-street parking in residential areas and on-site parking in non-residential areas. Removing the barriers to the expansion of those facilities would dramatically increase the opportunity for more people to switch to electric vehicles. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

16:16

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard, not least because you are a man educated in Hereford. It is a pleasure to respond to the interesting comments made by my dear hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond). I congratulate him on the indefatigable way in which he has pressed this issue in this Chamber and in the House of Commons over the years on behalf of his constituents in Wimbledon. He is absolutely right that the issue is important and has wider repercussions. I thank other colleagues who have made interventions in the debate.

It is interesting that this debate follows not just the debate that my hon. Friend mentioned, which took place a few weeks ago, but this morning’s 90-minute debate on rural decarbonisation, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). That is testament to the level of concern and interest among our colleagues in the House.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon knows, the Government are committed to achieving their climate change obligations. Decarbonising transport is a key part of that. I hope we will make some important announcements fairly shortly about the zero emission vehicle mandate, which will be a massive driver of investment in new charge points and new electric vehicles. We are doing that not only to help to decarbonise the atmosphere but to improve air quality and the quality of life in our towns and cities, while supporting a sustainable path of economic growth. We are committed to phasing out the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, and to ensuring that all new cars and vans are zero emission by 2035. We have already put in something like £2 billion to support the transition process.

As part of that process, almost a year ago the Government published their landmark electric vehicle infrastructure strategy, which comprehensively set out their vision and commitments in this policy area. In particular, the strategy put in place an expectation of around 300,000 public charge points—not just charge points, as my hon. Friend said, but public charge points. That is important because sitting alongside that are hundreds of thousands of charge points being put into private premises through the normal process of investment that goes alongside the purchase of electric vehicles. That may happen under a previously funded scheme or come as part of the package of buying the vehicle or via a number of other methods. Even that 300,000 is just a part of the overall picture. My hon. Friend is right to flag the ambition inherent in the target. As technology changes, as the market becomes more competitive and as the zero emission vehicle mandate kicks in, we expect that target to come into view.

[Alan Mak]

The Minister will know that throughout history the use of technology has accelerated when there is greater interoperability, common standards and open protocols. Does he feel that is an important aspect of our race to increase the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in this country?

[Jesse Norman]

Yes. I do not think there is any doubt about that, and my hon. Friend is right that that has been the pattern in the past. Of course, one cannot just regard technology as a panacea. Technology will improve, and it will stimulate competition and increase growth at certain rates, but one has to be careful as to what the rate is. There is a moment in all market development at which markets go from being a collection of competing standards and potential franchises to becoming a standardised, all-embracing place in which different rivals can compete. That is what we are seeing with charging. We are seeing individual networks yielding over time to networks that can be accessed using credit cards, for example, in a network-neutral way. The Department is supporting that.

It is worth pointing out that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon highlighted, local authorities are going to be and will remain a central part of the nearer-to-home provision for charging, and possibly the nearer-to-business provision. What there will be less of in some areas is rapid charging on the public strategic road network, because that has different demands and is being handled in a slightly different way.

On 21 February, the Government announced an additional £56 million in public industry funding to support the local electric vehicle infrastructure programme, which includes a capability pilot designed to improve local authorities’ capacity to commission and implement the infrastructure, recognising the concern that there was not necessarily a completely consistent picture of expertise or capability on the local authority network. In turn, that capability will enable what my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon rightly pressed the Government on. He asked whether we will continue to incentivise, encourage and press local authorities to do more; of course, we can do that as their capabilities improve.

[Stephen Hammond]

My right hon. Friend the Minister is clearly right about what the Government should be pressing local authorities to do. Given that they are giving additional funding for the capacity for local authorities to outline their strategy, might it not be good and sensible for the Government to ensure that there is a timeline for when local authorities should have strategies in place?

[Jesse Norman]

We can look to the incentives provided by public funding and public pressure, and pressure from car owners, to drive that process. I would not rule out a more engaged attitude towards local authorities. Indeed, I have met plenty of local authorities in the relatively short time I have been in this job, precisely because I regard charge point infrastructure provision as a very serious issue. It is one that involves not only the charge point operators and the electricity providers but the local authorities themselves, as the providers of infrastructure. I take on board my hon. Friend’s point. The funding I have described sits alongside funding already being provided through the on-street residential charge point scheme.

I have talked a little about rapid charging; I do not need to spend too much more time on that. It does not directly affect the situation. Members will be aware that the current situation is that a driver is never more than 25 miles away from a rapid charge point. We need to increase and accelerate the level of charge points we have put in and we have a commitment to do so, to around 6,000 ultra-rapid devices by 2035.

[Stephen Hammond]

My right hon. Friend is incredibly generous to give way again. I made a glaring omission in my remarks. Although he rightly says that rapid charging points are perhaps the next follow-on, the reality is that rapid charging points are hugely important for commercial vehicle transition to electric vehicles, including in respect of taxi cabs and others. I had some remarks to make about that but somehow missed them out. We speak a lot about domestic vehicles, but we need to recognise the transition in commercial activity as well.

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend is right to make that adjustment. I assumed that, given the confines of a Westminster Hall debate, he was compressing an otherwise comprehensive speech into a narrower compass, and rightly so.

Given the time available, let me pick up on a couple of things before I have to sit down. To strengthen consumer confidence, the Government will lay legislation in the coming months to reduce charging anxiety still further. To address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), that legislation will mandate open data; 99% reliability across each rapid charging network; a 24/7 helpline for when something might go wrong; contactless and payment roaming; and a pricing network to improve and increase transparency. That will improve competition rivalry and therefore investment. We have also made significant further investment.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked about changing planning permissions for developments. He is not in his place, but I should say that last year the Government implemented legislation to require new builds and buildings undergoing renovations to install charging points for domestic and non-domestic vehicles during construction. Part of the solution is not just further public investment alongside the rapidly escalating private investment; it is also about better regulation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon asked about the Budget and VAT on charging. As a former Financial Secretary to the Treasury I remind him that, as he will know, I will be skinned if I attempt to commit the Government on this issue, least of all in respect of tax policy a few days before a fiscal event. But I am sure it is on the public record and it will be well noted in No. 1 Horse Guards.

My hon. Friend talked about pressure on local authorities with regard to long-term plans. It is right that good local authorities think about longer-term plans. Not all the infrastructure originally installed was long term in its inspiration; it was an early technology that has since been superseded. I think local authorities are getting better. We have plans to assist local government in thinking about gullies, which are a useful long-term way to providing for on-street charging that will make a big difference.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) asked about home charging in rural areas. He is right that such areas suffer particular drawbacks, but they have the advantage that there tends to be more available parking space there for people who buy electric vehicles. We would expect to see that as we see more longevity improvements in technology, but that then requires people to be able to charge. That capability is increasingly provided as part of the commercial package of buying a vehicle. As we see technology and competition take over, we can expect the price of vehicles to fall over time. I believe that the problem my hon. Friend raised will start to address itself over and above the considerable investments that we are already making.

Question put and agreed to.

Ukrainian Holodomor and the War in Ukraine

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

16:26

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Ukrainian Holodomor and the war in Ukraine.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I know that this is an issue that you will be interested in, as you chaired the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine for a while.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Just for the record, I no longer chair the APPG on Ukraine. I am completely neutral.

[Mrs Latham]

This debate takes place at a terrible and opportune moment. Ninety years ago, in the spring of 1933, millions of Ukrainians were starved to death as part of a campaign of terror and forced hunger that was implemented by the Soviet leadership in Moscow. Last month I joined Derby’s Ukrainian community to commemorate those who lost their lives, and two weeks ago we marked the first anniversary of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukrainian territory—this time with military force, but once again with the aim of exterminating the nation of Ukraine. Today I will set out the case for the UK Government and Parliament to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide, and I will highlight some of the similarities with what is happening today, and the dangers of failing to recognise war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide.

I was part of the APPG on Ukraine delegation that recently visited Kyiv, and I see in the Chamber some of my colleagues who joined me. While we were there, the links between Soviet politics in the 1930s and the Russian aggression today were startlingly evident. We saw proof of the Russian attacks on Ukrainian nationhood and identity that are taking place today, and also visited the memorial to the millions of Ukrainians who were callously killed by Stalin in 1932 and 1933.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I visited the Holodomor memorial with the hon. Lady, who is leading the debate brilliantly, and I have no doubt that the Holodomor was a genocide. A number of genocides are unrecognised by the UK Government. The Holodomor is a prime example, but there is also Armenia, West Papua and the Rohingya. Should there not be a better and quicker process for the British Government to recognise genocides, particularly historical genocides?

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because I will come on to what our Government have said in the past. It is important, because the people who were subjected to the genocide, and many of the people who were there and survived, are no longer alive, so it is incredibly difficult to go to court and prove anything from that time.

In June 2013, just after the 80th anniversary of the Holodomor, I first led a debate in this House calling for the UK Government to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide. I tried again in November 2017, but we have just marked the 90th anniversary this year and there is still no official recognition by the Government. I hope that today will prove third time lucky, and that there will be no need for a similar debate on the same subject in 10 years’ time, when it will be 100 years since the Holodomor took place.

“Holodomor” is a Ukrainian word that means “to inflict death by hunger”. However, the term now refers to the entire Stalinist campaign to eliminate the Ukrainian nation, which culminated in the forced famine of 1932 and 1933, killing millions of Ukrainians. The exact number is not known, because the Soviet Union refused to allow reporting of the famine, but it is estimated that 7 million, and maybe as many as 10 million, died in Ukraine, with many more deaths in neighbouring Soviet states. The Holodomor was a policy designed to eliminate the Ukrainian rural farmer population, who were the embodiment and spirit of Ukrainian culture and nationhood.

To understand the Holodomor, it is important to keep in mind the context of that period. In 1922, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was proclaimed, Soviet Ukraine was part of it, after being invaded by the Bolsheviks following the Russian revolution. Although Soviet Ukraine theoretically retained some domestic control, in reality all decisions were made by the Soviet leadership in Moscow. The Communist party of Ukraine’s membership was less than 20% Ukrainian, so the Bolsheviks had very little support. Initially, from 1923, the Communist party took steps to appease the local population, including encouraging the Ukrainian language and culture and encouraging Ukrainians to join the party. However, by the end of the 1920s, Stalin had taken over as party leader and imposed a new revolution from above, which included banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, arresting the clergy, and arresting, deporting and executing Ukrainian nationalists and the cultural elite. Intellectuals, writers and artists committed suicide rather than be deported to Russia.

At the same time, the Stalinist Government was embarking on rapid industrialisation, and the cost fell most heavily on the Ukrainian rural classes. Wholesale agricultural collectivisation took place from 1929. Wealthy peasants, known as kulaks, had their property taken away and faced further sanction. By the mid-1930s, 100,000 such families had been deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. In response to resistance in 1932 and 1933, Stalin’s Government imposed impossibly high grain requisition quotas, which had to be satisfied before any grain could be kept by the local population. In 1932, not a single Ukrainian village met the quota threshold assigned to it. Anyone who kept grain destined for Russia was executed by firing squad. Special police roamed the countryside searching homes and summarily executing those who were found to have stored food. Moscow refused to provide any relief. In fact, at that exact time, Moscow was exporting more than a million tonnes of grain to the west. Callously and cruelly, Stalin shut Ukraine’s eastern border, preventing Ukrainians from fleeing to Russia.

These conditions led to the most horrific situation for the people of Ukraine. Men, women and children starved to death in their villages. This was not a famine; there was enough grain, even with a below average harvest in Ukraine, to comfortably feed the entire population. The grain was exported to Russia, and Ukrainians were prevented from escaping. Again, this was not a naturally occurring famine. This was murder by starvation.

At the height of the famine, 25,000 people died every day of starvation, including children too small to feed themselves, who were reliant on their parents. Some people tried to commit suicide to escape the horror of starving to death. Those who refused to steal or leave died of hunger. Those who tried to steal were shot. Those who tried to leave were returned to their villages to face the same impossible choice. Villages turned to cannibalism to survive. The dead were unburied and the sick untended. These are difficult details to hear, but it is crucial that we appreciate the scale of the Holodomor. There is a large Ukrainian community in Derbyshire. In my meetings with them over the last decade, they have asked me to persist with my efforts to seek recognition of the Holodomor as a genocide.

Raphael Lemkin was an academic and lawyer who coined the term genocide. Lemkin was born in Poland and studied at the University of Lviv in modern-day Ukraine. He defined genocide—a new word coined to denote an old practice. Genocide literally means the killing of a race. Lemkin was influential in the drafting of the genocide convention, an international treaty that criminalises genocide and has been unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Article II of the convention defines genocide as

“acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

That specifically includes killing members of the group and imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group. The Holodomor was a genocide.

On the last two occasions that I have brought this debate forward, the relevant Minister has informed the House that His Majesty’s Government will recognise an event as a genocide only once it has been recognised as such by a court. I am no lawyer, but I think it is very clear from the definition that I have set out and the history that I provided that Stalin did set out to destroy, in whole or in part, a national group—the Ukrainians. He did so by killing some, and imposing living conditions —starvation—intended to destroy the group. The fact that millions died from starvation due to Stalin’s policy when Ukraine was not in the grasp of a famine is indicative of that.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for calling for this debate. I visited the Holodomor memorial with other MPs last year. As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) is outlining, the denial and downplaying of the Holodomor is very damaging, and is having real-world impacts right now in modern-day Ukraine. Twenty-three countries have decided to go ahead and declare the Holodomor a genocide. They include Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland and even the European Parliament. Does the hon. Member agree that this is an important time to stop denying this, and to declare the Holodomor a genocide?

[Mrs Latham]

Yes. I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. That is absolutely why this debate is so important—because we cannot deny the genocide any longer. It has to be recognised by this Government, because we will be—we are—an outlier.

Stalin set out to destroy the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians were not in the grasp of famine. He deported the cultural elite and suppressed Ukrainian culture, and there was the breaking of the rural communities. Stalin’s closure of the borders and refusal to send aid, despite selling millions of tonnes of grain to the west, are yet further proof. His desire to end Ukrainian identity is absolutely clear, and Soviet actions in the aftermath of the Holodomor—decimated villages were resettled with ethnically Russian communities—are conclusive.

Raphael Lemkin put the matter very clearly in a speech at the 20th commemoration of the Holodomor in New York City in 1953. He described the Holodomor as

“perhaps the classic example of Soviet genocide, its longest and broadest experiment in Russification—the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.”

He recognised that there were no attempts at “complete annihilation”, as had taken place in the holocaust. However, his most powerful quote is as follows:

“And yet, if the Soviet program succeeds completely, if the intelligentsia, the priests and the peasants can be eliminated, Ukraine will be as dead as if every Ukrainian were killed, for it will have lost that part of it which has kept and developed its culture, its beliefs, its common ideas, which have guided it and given it a soul, which, in short, made it a nation rather than a mass of people.”

The Lemkin quote sets out very clearly why the Holodomor amounts to a genocide. It also leads me on perfectly to another reason why today’s debate is so important. Those words, delivered by him 70 years ago, resonate with us today. Ukraine is once again threatened by Russian expansionism. Thankfully, Stalin failed, and the culture, beliefs and common ideas, the very soul of Ukraine, survived. On countless occasions in the last year, we have paid tribute in this House to the spirit and soul of the Ukrainian people in their battle against Putin.

The UK Government should always recognise crimes against humanity, including genocide, wherever they happen. In my last debate on this subject, it was suggested to me that official international recognition is less important than the memory of these events in defeating genocide. I do not agree. In my experience of serving on the Select Committee on International Development, I have visited both Rwanda and Bosnia, and have seen the peace processes that followed the Rwanda genocide and the Srebrenica massacre. Those have both been recognised as genocides by the UK Government, and that matters to the people. In any case, the Holodomor is now 90 years ago. Although my local Ukrainian community is brilliant at arranging annual commemorations and campaigning on this issue, the Holodomor is now almost out of human living memory. International recognition is absolutely crucial for local communities, and it is no surprise that the Ukrainian Government have welcomed a host of countries’ recognising the Holodomor as a genocide.

Recognition matters to the other side, too. In October 2022, when Russian forces took Mariupol, they tore down the Holodomor memorial, saying that it represented disinformation at the state level. It is clearly important to both the victims and the perpetrators when such an event is formally recognised.

That brings me on to my second point about recognition. I said that the Government should always recognise genocide when it occurs, and that is true, but in this case there is an even more obvious reason to do so. Ukraine is threatened again, and its strongest allies around the world are standing up and supporting it. That is why the delegation went a couple of weeks ago to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian nation and say, “We support you.”

As the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) said, Canada, Ireland, Australia and many other countries have long recognised the Holodomor as a genocide. In May 2022, the US Congress passed a resolution recognising the Holodomor as a genocide and condemning Soviet policies that prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid and people from escaping. There are clear overtones of what is happening in current times. Germany, Romania and Moldova recognised the Holodomor as recently as November 2022, so we are fast becoming an international outlier by refusing to acknowledge the suffering of the Ukrainian people at the hands of the Soviets in the 1930s, while at the same time supporting them in their fight today.

In the war on Ukraine, as I heard during my visit, Russians have been accused of crimes against humanity. We saw evidence of that. We saw the piled-up, burned-out, shot-at cars of people who were trying to escape the Russians. Civilians were slaughtered as part of what Russia is doing to Ukraine. We must give confidence to the Ukrainian Government and the international legal order that the UK Government and Parliament will not stand for abuses of human rights and war crimes. We can do that by recognising where genocide took place. Indeed, that may be important in the future. I raised this matter with the Foreign Secretary in the House in February, and he noted that Putin has himself said

“that his intention is to eradicate the whole concept of Ukraine.”—[Official Report, 20 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 60.]

If that is not genocide, I do not know what is.

A final reason why it is important officially to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide is because of our Ukrainian communities in the UK. Since February 2022, thanks to the generosity of the British people, those communities have increased exponentially in size. I know from my experience in Derbyshire that it would mean a huge amount to Ukrainians in the UK if we were able to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide. I met a family on Friday who said, “Please, get the Government to recognise it. It would mean so much to the people of Ukraine.”

I therefore have two asks of the Minister. First and most importantly, will he please reconsider the official Government position that a genocide will be recognised only after a court has adjudicated on it, given the evidence that I set out, and the unique circumstances? In the light of the war in Ukraine, we need to show our support for our allies; we need to show Putin that attempts to eradicate the Ukrainian people will not be tolerated. If the US, Germany, Canada, Australia and Ukraine can recognise the genocide, we can and should, too, particularly if it can have an impact on the war.

Secondly, if His Majesty’s Government are unable to break their policy and recognise the Holodomor—I hope I am wrong about that—would the Minister be willing to arrange a debate on the issue, and a meaningful vote on it on the Floor of the House, so that the UK Parliament can at least can show its support for Ukraine, and designate the Holodomor a genocide?

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask for a parliamentary debate, which would show that there is a lot of sympathy for officially designating the Holodomor a genocide. She may be aware that the European Parliament voted to do so by 507 votes; only 12 voted against. That sent a powerful signal to Ukraine that the European Parliament was behind it.

[Mrs Latham]

It is a powerful signal to send and we should not be found lacking; we should send that powerful signal. Even Derby City Council has recognised that the Holodomor is a genocide. We have a plaque in Derby city centre that was supported by the whole council, and all the Ukrainians living in the area came to celebrate when we unveiled it. If all these other people can do it, I do not understand why the Government cannot.

The Holodomor was an atrocious, calculated murder of millions of Ukrainians designed to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Today, Putin is using a military invasion, which has exactly the same objective. In Kyiv, we went to the Holodomor Museum, and interestingly, all the exhibits have been taken away to protect them, but there are photographs of them because people are so concerned about Putin coming forward and creating yet another genocide. Now is the time to acknowledge the Holodomor as a genocide: to provide a warning to Putin that crimes against humanity will not be tolerated in Ukraine and that the UK stands squarely behind Ukraine in its defence of its sovereignty and its people’s rights.

16:51

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this debate; she was my colleague on the delegation that went out to Kyiv two weeks ago. It is also a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), with whom I shared the van journey from London to Lviv as part of that convoy.

It is right that we reflect on the Holodomor and its role in history. It was a dark time in Ukraine’s history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire rightly pointed out. Millions of people starved to death, not because there was a natural disaster or some blight that swept through the land, but because of a calculated policy decision. It was part of a general attempt to destroy the Ukrainian people and their identity and to make them subservient to the state based in Moscow, at the time led by Joseph Stalin. It is that core that resonates so firmly in today’s situation.

History is a battleground in Ukraine. It is clear from President Putin’s statements that he wants people to believe that Ukraine is just a political construct of the 1990s and that there is no history and identity, and not something that separates people from being part of Russia. It is part of his clear view that the Soviet Union should be back together, with him, of course, as its dictator. This is not a man who wants to create any form of democracy or respect for rights in the nations and lands that he wishes and seeks to control.

That is why this debate is so timely. It is not just a historical exercise. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, the events are still within living memory. It is about fighting back today—when it is highly relevant—against the narrative that the lands of Ukraine are an extension of Russia, which they most certainly are not. Ukrainians are a historic people with their own language, culture and identity, which they literally fight every day to defend.

It was good to be out in Ukraine and to see the commitment there to standing firm, as well as the gratitude for the support. The reality is that Ukraine would not survive and be fighting today were it not for us and other nations and democracies giving them, and continuing to give them, the tools to do that job. We must not allow the fact that a year has passed to be a reason to slacken off our support. It is vital that that continues, especially as we see the Russian attacks continue, in particular around Bakhmut.

There are echoes of history and what Stalin did in some of the footage that has come out this week. We should be under no illusion: the Russian Federation is no respecter of international law on either aggression or human rights—or, for that matter, the most basic rules of warfare when it comes to those taken as prisoners of war. It is clear that it has very little respect for any international norms. Again, that is why it is so vital that, as a nation that believes in and respects the international rules-based order, we are there supporting Ukraine and making that contribution.

It is apt that we are having this debate, and that we talk about recognising the Holodomor for what it was. It was a calculated attempt to wipe out a nation and turn its lands to a different perspective. It was what we would call, in more modern terminology, ethnic cleansing in the effort by Joseph Stalin to dominate and assimilate a whole area within the empire that he had formed at that time. Given the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, it is timely now to respect this piece of history and to make it clear what it was. We also make clear our absolute condemnation of what happened then and our resolve to ensure that the Ukrainian nation today survives and flourishes.

16:56

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this important debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on his powerful speech. I, too, was on the delegation to Kyiv last week and went to the Holodomor memorial with hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who intervened earlier.

There is no doubt, and complete consensus among historians, that the Holodomor famine happened. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire pointed out, the scale of it is under dispute, but it was clearly a famine, clearly man-made and clearly a deliberate act by Stalin. It was not just starvation, but an attempt, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay said, to wipe out the Ukrainian nation. It was an attempt to Russify the whole area. Russia deliberately targeted Ukrainian culture—trying to wipe it out—and the Ukrainian elites. By all historical definitions of genocide, it was clearly a genocide. It was an attempt to ethnically cleanse Ukraine.

That is so important because if we do not confront and accept the tragedies of history, we are doomed to repeat them. Throughout its history, Ukraine has been in a fight for its survival against Russia. There is a pattern of behaviour where Russia has tried to simply wipe out Ukraine as a nation. It tried to do it 90 years ago with the Holodomor massacre, and it is clearly trying to do the same now. Unless we understand and appreciate the historical context, we do not realise the significance of what is happening now.

When we were in Kyiv, we discussed the Russia abductions of Ukrainian children with various human rights groups. The Russians are stealing and abducting Ukrainian children, taking them into Russia and Russifying them—forcing them to sing Russian songs, speak Russian and everything else. There could be no clearer example of attempted ethnic cleansing. It is on a small scale at the moment, but it is absolutely horrifying. Unless we realise that this is about Ukraine’s cultural survival and its survival as a nation, what Russia is doing with Ukrainian children simply does not make sense.

I fully support giving greater recognition to the Holodomor as a genocide. As we have heard, many other countries, including many of our closest allies, have done so. It has been recognised as a genocide by the United States Senate, Germany and many EU countries, including Ireland, Poland and Romania, the EU Parliament, Australia, Canada and Brazil. The Ukrainian people clearly want us to do this—there is no doubt. We discussed it with various Ukrainian leaders, and it would mean a huge amount to them politically. They are very grateful that we give Ukraine all this military support, and they would not have the success that they are having on the battlefield without it, but it would mean so much to them—more in terms of moral support—if we recognised the Holodomor as a massacre. The fight that they are having is really a continuation of a fight that has been going on for a century.

I urge the Government to think about what they can do to consider the Holodomor as a genocide. I appreciate that the Government have constraints: we cannot recognise everything as a genocide that people want recognised as a genocide, and the formal position is that it must be recognised in court. Perhaps there are other ways. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire said, we could have a meaningful vote in Parliament about it, and I would certainly support that.

I will end with this observation. I found visiting the Holodomor memorial incredibly moving, and I am talking not just about the horrific photos about the famine and the stories of the extraordinary suffering, but about the fact that we did so in a situation where all the exhibits had to be replaced by photographs, because the Ukrainians were really worried that the Russians would succeed in doing this again. That is obviously completely unacceptable, and it shows us the reality that this is not some distant historical event from 90 years ago; the Ukrainians are fighting a similar sort of battle now. I urge the Government to do what they can to give as much support as possible to Ukraine by recognising the Holodomor as a genocide.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

We move on to the Front Benchers.

17:00

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. Like others, I begin by sincerely commending the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) not just for her efforts to secure this debate, but for her long-standing interest in and advocacy for the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian people, for which she was recognised by President Zelensky. I believe that she and I were honoured on the same day back in 2019, as she is a fellow recipient of Ukraine’s order of merit, and like me, I am sure she holds that dear.

Millions of people were killed in one of Europe’s most heinous crimes, which happened in Ukraine in the 1930s. To my amazement, very few people know all that much about it. Until maybe six or seven years ago, I would have included myself among such people. However, because of such things as the work of the Holodomor Museum in Kyiv and the work of Ukrainian diasporas all around the world, including in this country, more and more people are understanding the true horrors of what took place.

Like other Members who have spoken, I have visited the museum in Kyiv a number of times. On my last visit there in September last year, I was with a friend of mine, who I am sure is known to many in this Chamber—Alyona Shkrum, a member of the Verkhovna Rada. She pointed out to me in the books and registers the members of her family—she can trace them back a long time—who are listed, and that really brings it home. When people go to that small museum, they see a small, solemn and sacred space, which—unfortunately but understandably, as other Members have pointed out—has had to be emptied somewhat just in case the Russians succeeded in taking Kyiv. Thankfully, that never happened.

I will outline two pieces of work that have brought the issue of the Holodomor to the masses. One is a 2019 film, “Mr Jones”, which I am sure the Labour Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), will come back to, as a proud Welshman. As well as watching that film, which is an excellent modern depiction of what truly went on, we should not forget the heroic work of Gareth Jones in exposing, or trying to expose, what was really happening at the time, much to the annoyance of many, including the Government here.

I will also mention the excellent, highly detailed and grim book written by the inimitable Anne Applebaum, “Red Famine”. Anyone who reads the detail of that book will learn more about the cruelty of what really went on during the Holodomor. As has been mentioned, there were forced deportations, killings by firing squads and death forced upon people through starvation. Trying to stay alive was indeed a death sentence for millions.

As others have said, we have seen echoes of that in the modern conflict, not least by the Russians trying to use grain as a weapon of war—not just against people in Ukraine, but against people in some of the poorest parts of the world. Just as the Holodomor was indeed a genocide that should be recognised by the Government, we are seeing those patterns come back again today, because the attempt to suppress and even deny Ukrainian statehood, culture and institutions, as well as the country’s language, history, art and people, is central to the prosecution of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Like others, although I want to see the genocide recognised by the Government, I fully appreciate the constraints within which the Minister has to operate, but I am left wondering what else we can do as a Parliament, and what else we can do in our communities, to draw attention to one of Europe’s darkest crimes. I am bound to mention that I was pleased a few years ago, under the former Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, to see the unveiling of a new Holodomor memorial in Edinburgh.

I will end with a few words from Ukraine’s national poet and patriot, Taras Shevchenko. Although he died many years before the Holodomor came into existence, his work and poetry provides Ukrainians—indeed, all Europeans—with an understanding of the freedom that Ukrainians are currently dying for. In his poem “The Days Go By”, he said:

“It’s terrible to lie in chains,

To rot in dungeon deep,

But it’s still worse, when you are free

To sleep, and sleep, and sleep.”

I am proud of the support that this country’s Government have given to Ukraine. I am pleased that there is such phenomenal cross-party support for Ukraine—it is perhaps the only issue that enjoys such strong cross-party support—and we are not asleep. Ukraine is still fighting for its freedom, and essential to that modern freedom is recognising what happened to it under the Stalin regime, so I would like to see the Government recognise the Holodomor as a genocide. Short of that, this Parliament should act to do so, and we should ensure that the horrors of those years are known by more people not just in this country, but elsewhere across Europe, so that it truly never happens again.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

I call the shadow Minister.

17:07

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Pritchard, and I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for bringing this issue to the House. I thank all colleagues who have participated for their insightful, powerful and considered remarks on this truly appalling moment in Ukraine’s history, and for linking it to the terrible events that we see today. I hope that the Minister can respond to the sincere questions that have been raised by all Members present.

I am not allowed to refer to the Gallery, but we have been joined in Parliament today by Lesia Zaburanna, who is a Member of the Rada. She has been speaking to many of us—

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Under a recent ruling, you can refer to somebody in the Gallery, and I am sure the hon. Member would not wish to miss that opportunity.

[Stephen Doughty]

I will not miss that opportunity. I am delighted that Ms Zaburanna joins us in the Gallery for this debate. She is a Member of Parliament for Kyiv and has been here speaking to Members across the House. I am sure that today’s proceedings and the meetings that we have had with colleagues have shown her that the UK’s resolve and commitment to Ukraine has never been stronger; indeed, it exists on a cross-party basis across the House.

As we passed a tragic milestone last month, we must all continue to reflect on the immense suffering that Ukraine has endured, as well as the remarkable courage and resilience of its people and the progress that they have made in driving Russia back. It is clearer than ever that Putin must be defeated in Ukraine, and we must continue to stand full square behind Ukraine, to strengthen Ukraine’s hand on the battlefield, to support relief and reconstruction, to deliver justice, to maintain western unity, to isolate Putin and to undermine Russia’s barbaric war effort.

We were all incredibly moved by President Zelensky’s speech to us in Westminster Hall just a few weeks ago. As I say regularly in these debates, the Government will continue to have Labour’s full support in confronting the threat that Russia poses to the whole of Europe and the whole world, and in holding it to account for the terrible things it has done in Ukraine.

This debate has brought home the fact that today’s illegal, unconscionable war comes after a history of Ukraine being subjected to immense brutality, especially in the terrible events of the Holodomor, one of the most atrocious instances of man-made famine in European history, which culminated in the deaths of millions of people. I have also visited the museum and memorial in Kyiv just a few months ago—many Members have referred to it. It is incredibly moving. Everybody should see it to recognise the reality of what happened to the Ukrainian people.

Stalin’s role in catalysing enforced, man-made, widespread starvation in 1932 and 1933 understandably, and rightly, lives on in the Ukrainian national psyche. The barbarism we saw 90 years ago carries as much salience today as it ever has, particularly given what we have seen since.

The personal stories are the most harrowing. A congressional commission that took evidence in the late 1980s heard from an individual who grew up in the village of Stavyshche, who spoke of watching people dig into empty gardens with bare hands, in a desperate bid to find anything to eat; of witnessing people bloated from extreme malnutrition collapse on the road one by one; and, of course, of the mass graves. It is a tragedy that we again see mass graves in Ukraine. We have witnessed and heard the terrible stories of atrocities being committed.

As with the war today, there was a clear perpetrator behind the famine. Stalin’s motivation to transform and mould the Ukrainian nation in his own image, at any cost, is mirrored in Putin’s warped, imperialist world view today, the consequences of which continue to devastate the lives of Ukrainians. Putin’s misguided and perverse attempts to wipe Ukrainian identity are the most recent manifestation of Russia’s penchant for interference, subjugation, war and atrocities.

This debate carries particular weight for me as a Welsh MP. The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) mentioned Gareth Jones. Much of what we know about the Holodomor is because of the bravery of that one Welshman. He was born a few miles away from my constituency, in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, in 1905. After witnessing the horrible consequences of Stalin’s tyranny first hand, he detailed those consequences. He wrote:

“I walked along through villages and 12 collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, “There is no bread. We are dying.”…In the train a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. I flung a crust of bread which I had been eating from my own supply into a spittoon. A peasant fellow-passenger fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw an orange peel into the same spittoon and the peasant again grabbed and devoured it. The Communist subsided.”

Jones defied Soviet attempts to censor him and reported the truth of the Holodomor to millions. Yet the Kremlin of course continued to deny the existence of the famine. The mendacious campaign that tried to silence Gareth could not.

The parallels with today are striking. Journalists, correspondents and reporters from many countries, not least Ukraine itself, are putting themselves in danger to expose the true extent of Russia’s barbarism. They are absolutely integral to thwarting Putin’s concerted information war and to bringing justice in terms of investigating war crimes and atrocities.

I have a few questions for the Minister. Today in Parliament, we have been talking about the crime of aggression and war crimes. I understand that the Government have now opted to join a working group on holding Putin to account for the crime of aggression. Could the Minister say a little more on the progress of that group?

We have seen concerted attempts by Russia to lie about food supplies to the rest of the world. In a dreadful parallel to the way it used food as a weapon of war in the Holodomor, it is now doing so with the rest of the world. Despite the grain deal, it continues to frustrate. What can the Minister say about what we are doing to tell the world the truth about Russia’s continued interference with world food supplies from Ukraine, including on the mining of Ukrainian agricultural land?

Finally, what can the Minister say about the crucial attempts that are going to be needed to rebuild Ukraine, its agricultural capacity, its ability to thrive, and its economy in the future? What are we doing to seize assets, not just freeze them? What steps are the Government further taking, given the cross-party consensus on the issue and the need to generate more resources for reconstruction?

Historically and today, the price that Ukrainians have had to pay for their freedom is immense. The events of 90 years ago are an anguishing reminder of the consequences when tyranny runs without constraint and imperialism without restriction. We must stand united in this House against it.

17:14

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and to all colleagues for their contributions; my hon. Friend’s contribution was moving and thoughtful. I also appreciated the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster); he spoke of the echoes of history, which was particularly relevant. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) also spoke of his experiences on the delegation. I am very grateful to them for bringing their collective experience to the attention of colleagues today.

I was also grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for his contribution. He referred to the work of Gareth Jones—I am sure many people will be pleased to know that they can watch that film, which will no doubt be of interest—and the terrific scholarship of Anne Applebaum. I was touched that he quoted the national poet, which I thought was particularly apposite. As ever, I was very grateful to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for his continued support for our collective resolve to support our Ukrainian friends in their efforts to liberate their territory and maintain their sovereignty. I join him in warmly welcoming our colleague from Ukraine—it is very good to see her in the Gallery, and I hope she has found this debate of interest.

Turning to the specific questions asked by the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, which I welcome, I can confirm that we are indeed in the G7’s core group of nations looking at what additional mechanism might be required to work alongside the International Criminal Court when it comes to countering crimes in Ukraine. That work is in progress, but we will keep the House updated and informed; it is something we are leaning into, because we need to acknowledge that not everything will be able to be covered off by the ICC. When it comes to the appalling disinformation spread by Putin’s regime, particularly with regard to the global south, we are doing a lot of work to counter that disinformation and promote the Black sea grain initiative, ensuring that there is an ongoing flow and that people know that the vast majority of it is ending up in the global south—it is not just for western European nations.

Quite rightly, the hon. Gentleman talked about our collective efforts to help Ukraine rebuild itself. As he will know, we are very pleased to be hosting the next reconstruction conference in London in June, at the invitation of our Ukrainian friends and alongside them. That is the successor to the Lugano conference held by the Swiss last year, and it will be a very important moment to map out how private capital, particularly, will be able to find itself in Ukraine, helping the reconstruction effort. The hon. Gentleman asked a pertinent question about seizing frozen assets. That is something that we continue to look at; clearly, there are very significant frozen assets in the UK—some £19 billion, £2 billion of which are Russian state assets. We continue to look at that issue, because we know it is of urgent pertinence and relevance to the justified efforts of the Ukrainians to rebuild their society.

Turning to the subject of the Holodomor, we have heard today in moving terms how 90 years ago, millions of men, women and children lost their lives in that forced, deliberate famine, victims of Stalin’s brutal regime. Of course, it is an echo from history today, because Ukrainians are again suffering from terror fomented in Moscow at the hands of Putin’s brutal regime, so I pay tribute to those who keep alive the memory of the Holodomor and its victims—we must never forget them. Of course, the Prime Minister visited Kyiv in November and lit a candle at the memorial for those victims. I was pleased that colleagues recounted their own experience of doing a similar thing, because today we stand firm in our support of the Ukrainians amid growing evidence of appalling atrocities committed during this outrageous and illegal war. As I have indicated, we are actively supporting Ukraine to investigate and prosecute those responsible, as well as the investigation by the ICC. We will continue to exert institutional effort and resource, empowering Ukrainians to ensure that there is a very clear line and operational strand of accountability.

Turning directly to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, of course, I entirely understand why colleagues have today called for the Government to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide. In response to her first question, I say gently that it is a long-standing policy of the Government that any judgment on whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a competent court, rather than Governments or non-judicial bodies. Our long-standing approach provides a clear, impartial and independent measure for the determination of whether genocide has occurred. Of course, I know that is not what she wants to hear, but let me be clear that in no way does that detract from our recognition of the Holodomor as an appalling tragedy, its importance in the history of Ukraine and Europe, and the contemporary pertinence. My hon. Friend asked whether there might be a debate on the Floor of the House and a meaningful vote. That is a matter for the Leader of the House, but I know my hon. Friend will not be backwards in coming forward to seek out that opportunity. I thank her sincerely for raising these issues in this forum, not least because it affords us an opportunity to reflect on recent events.

We should remember that, since 2014, thousands have been killed by Putin’s forces. Since the full-scale invasion, over 50% of Ukraine’s pre-war population—21 million—have needed humanitarian assistance either inside or outside Ukraine. We should remember the scale of the impact and, of course, it draws parallels with the 1930s. Russian forces have attacked Ukrainian hospitals, schools and energy supplies, leaving cities in ruins. In areas of Ukraine liberated from Russian forces, the Russians leave behind mass graves, as well as evidence of rape and torture on an unimaginable scale.

Ultimately, one man is responsible for the devastation left in the wake of Russia’s forces. Putin’s invasion was unprovoked and illegal. He has started a war he cannot win. It is our judgment that his army is on the defensive. Ukraine’s heroic armed forces have recaptured thousands of square miles. We are proud to continue to work with our allies to ensure that Ukraine gets the support it needs to win this war, secure a lasting peaceand bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and atrocities in accordance with international law.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) raised an important point about the terrible reports we have all heard of the forced deportation of children and the separation of families in an attempt to Russify them to deny them their Ukrainian heritage. Again, there are all sorts of awful parallels with the impact on children during the Holodomor. Will the Minister say a little about our current assessment and what we are doing to bring those responsible to account?

[Leo Docherty]

I will, gladly. We are working with the Ukrainians to invest energy and resource to build capacity for them to record these crimes, so that there is a trail of accountability; so Karim Khan and the International Criminal Court can hold these people to account. That is not least for its deterrent effect, so I welcome the hon. Member’s question.

I will not recount at length the suite of military, humanitarian and economic support we are giving, but it totals nearly £4 billion. We continue to be the largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States. Importantly, we will keep this going. We expect to spend £2.4 billion on military support for Ukraine this financial year and have committed to £2.3 billion or more of support next financial year. That is important to note because this will be a matter of resolve, and we must send a clear signal that our resolve is not failing. In terms of economic and humanitarian support, we are proud that we are providing more than £1.6 billion in non-military assistance. Clearly, Putin is now completely diplomatically isolated. Sanctions are beginning to bite. We have co-ordinated sanctions with our international allies to impose a huge cost, freezing a combined £275 billion of Russian assets. So our response is having effect.

When it comes to war crimes, there are some important next steps. We are supporting the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine to help it investigate, as I have referred to, and set itself up to prosecute alleged war crimes. Colleagues should know that the Justice Secretary will host a major international meeting later this month to support war crime investigations by the ICC. So that important strand of work will progress. I have already mentioned our support and hosting of the recovery conference, which is hugely important.

To conclude, we have heard a moving evocation of the fact that the Holodomor and its modern parallel are two of the darkest chapters in Ukraine’s history. Our stance is that any determination on genocide must be made by the courts. That does not distract from our recognition of the Holodomor as the most appalling tragedy—one that resonates today in the face of renewed Russian aggression. The UK is supporting our heroic Ukrainian friends to fight back, and it is our honour to do so. That includes supporting Ukraine’s judicial system and the ICC to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes.

When President Zelensky addressed both Houses, a short distance from where we are today, he said “Freedom will win.” We know that that desire, and the desire for justice to prevail, unites the entire House.

17:25

[Mrs Latham]

I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this debate, especially those who came a couple of weeks ago to see Ukraine. I am incredibly disappointed, yet again, by the Minister. He said that this is what we always do; we do not recognise genocide retrospectively. We could do; we could change our view. The Foreign Office could change its view as to how it recognises a genocide. It is not just an unfortunate event; it is millions of people who were slaughtered by famine. They were not slaughtered with a gun or a knife; they were slaughtered by starvation to death. Surely, in this day and age, this Government should be able to change what we have always done before, and recognise the Holodomor as a genocide.

The Holodomor was the most horrific thing. It is so important to Ukrainians in this country and around the world for us to recognise it. I am absolutely devastated that the Minister has said no more than we have heard before. I feel completely let down, as I am sure other Ukrainian descendants feel, when this Government still say, “Oh, it was unfortunate. Yes, it is really sad, but it’s not a genocide, because we don’t recognise those sorts of things.” It is ridiculous. I plead with the Minister to go back to the Foreign Office and say that it is about time we changed our attitude and recognised the Holodomor in Ukraine as a genocide.

Question put and agreed to. 

Resolved, 

That this House has considered the Ukrainian Holodomor and the war in Ukraine. 

5.27 pm 

Sitting adjourned.