Deputy Speaker’s Statement
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I wish to inform the House that Mr Speaker has received a letter from the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), informing Mr Speaker of his resignation as Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The Chair is therefore now vacant. Mr Speaker will announce arrangements for the election of a new Chair in due course.
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 year ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
You will notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am not the Secretary of State. He sends his apologies as he is currently travelling back from the G7 in Japan, but we will endeavour to do a reasonable job in his absence.
Pre-1997, as the hon. Gentleman knows, occupational pension defined-benefit schemes were not required to be indexed. I emphasise that defined-contribution schemes, which most people are on today, are also, obviously, not required to be indexed.
Justin Madders
As we know, inflation is racing ahead at the moment, and more and more pensioners who are members of occupational pension schemes with pre-1997 service that has not been index linked, and those who are part of the Pension Protection Fund, are noticing the difference. Will the Department carry out an audit of how many people are being affected by those rules, and by how much?
Laura Trott
Those rules were in place for a large period of the last Labour Government, and if Labour Members were interested in changing them, I suggest they should have done so at the time.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
We have comprehensive support in place to help Department for Work and Pensions claimants to secure, stay and succeed in work, including in-work progression, youth hubs and targeted support for people of all ages. In addition, there is a comprehensive package in the Budget to assist each and every one.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Minister for his response. My constituents in Vauxhall have seen food prices go up by nearly 20%, their household bills go through the roof, and their already high rents going up, in some cases by up to 16.5%. That is while real-terms pay has been falling for 18 months. How does the Minister propose to give workers in Vauxhall, and those on benefits, a real pay rise?
Guy Opperman
A whole host of things are being done on in-work progression. More importantly, vacancies have fallen for nine successive quarters, employment is up, the claimant count is down, economic inactivity has fallen, and disability employment is up. All those things are helping the hon. Lady’s constituents, and all other constituents up and down the country.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I strongly support the efforts that my hon. Friend is making to boost in-work progression. After all, the original vision behind universal credit was to see more people on benefits earning more and increasing their income over time. Does he agree that one key to the success of this, alongside tailored and relevant training, is better contracts? Research seems to show that a claimant on a permanent contract does significantly better with in-work progression than those on zero-hours or temporary contracts.
Guy Opperman
My right hon. Friend makes a number of very good points. He is a former Secretary of State in this Department, and has great wisdom on this issue. The main thing that the Department is doing is providing the in-work progression offer, which assists people who are in work and trying to progress to greater hours and full-time work. We are also fully in support of greater training, whether through sector-based work academies or the skills bootcamps, to allow people to have permanent long-term contracts, and enable them to thrive and survive in a better way.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Department’s recently published research on sanctions, including those relating to in-work conditionality, show that sanctions have a negative impact on claimant earnings. How will the Minister take account of those findings in setting future sanctions policy?
Guy Opperman
We want to encourage claimants to comply with reasonable requirements, which are set and agreed with their work coach in the claimant commitment. That will continue on an ongoing basis, and I see no change to that.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
Our recent White Paper sets out our ambitions to create a better experience for disabled people when applying for, and receiving, health and disability benefits. Our proposals will transform support, so more disabled people can start, stay and succeed in work.
Theresa Villiers
A disabled constituent who came to my advice surgery recently described the many hurdles she had to go through to get welfare support. She felt stigmatised by the whole process and was subjected to really frustrating delays, so I am keen to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing to reform assessments and improve the way the benefits system works to help disabled people get the support they need without it feeling like a battle.
Tom Pursglove
I really appreciate my right hon. Friend highlighting the concerns raised with her by her constituent. I know she supports the fundamental change we are determined to bring about, whereby we will focus more on what people can do. We will remove what is a structural barrier to work: the impediment that means people feel prevented from trying work because of the fear that if it does not work out they will lose their entitlement and have to go back through a re-application and reassessment processes. I hope she will welcome the steps we are taking, for example to link expert assessors with particular conditions to help us to get decisions right first time, as well as the commitment we have made to reduce the assessment burden more generally.
Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The experiences of the constituent of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) are, unfortunately, far too common. The assessments disabled people go through often go badly wrong and the great majority of appeals against refusal succeed. It all causes immense and unnecessary anxiety for disabled people. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions recommended that all assessments should be recorded to help put things right. The assessment providers all support that recommendation. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that he will give that recommendation very serious and sympathetic consideration?
Tom Pursglove
I am always grateful for the opportunity to hear from the Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee. It is important to recognise that both the Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and I are set to appear before the Committee next week. What I will not do this afternoon is make specific commitments, but I can say—I have said this regularly now, including in the many conversations we have had with disabled people and various stakeholders that we want to work constructively to get the reforms right. This is the biggest set of welfare reforms for over a decade, so I am very willing to consider all views about how we can improve processes. Of course, people are able to make recordings of assessments at the moment, but we should look at that. I am very willing to do that, and to come back to the Committee formally.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
On a recent call with stakeholders in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department revealed that only 11 individuals had so far been included in the severe disability test group, which, as the Minister knows, is aimed at simplifying the application process for those with the most severe disabilities and health conditions. Worryingly, there also appears to be very little clarity about the definition of severe disability. Despite that, the Department signalled that it was preparing to further roll out the group. Can the Minister confirm today whether that number is correct, provide further information on which individuals qualify, and confirm when the Department will start the roll-out?
Tom Pursglove
What I am certainly very willing to do is to provide further detail to the shadow Minister, separate from this afternoon’s proceedings. I am absolutely clear that the severe disability group has an important role to play, recognising the challenging conditions people have and that, for many, those conditions will not improve. I am keen to reduce the reassessment burden on people wherever we can, streamline processes, and ensure that people feel properly supported and properly cared for during the course of those processes. That is the right step to take. I am determined that we get this right. Exactly as I said just now, I want to work collaboratively and constructively as we move forward with the White Paper reforms. We have made commitments to test and trial various things, and we will get on and do that.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
In 2022, there were 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty than in 2010.
Holly Lynch
Mr Brooke from my constituency is nearly 70. He contacted me when his application for pension credit was rejected on the basis that he is £2.55 over the threshold, which rules him out of not only pension credit but any other associated benefit. Mr Brooke signed off his letter to me saying:
“I just can’t afford to live. Yours, Truly Broken”.
What are this Government doing to help people such as Mr Brooke in that incredibly difficult position?
Laura Trott
I appreciate the hon. Lady’s raising that case. I encourage her—I am sure she has already—to check whether her constituent would be eligible for housing benefit in her constituency. That is not necessarily linked to pension credit, although it automatically passports. We are doing other things to support pensioners in those situations—the pensioner cost of living payment was received by 8 million pensioner households over the winter, and will be repeated this year.
Patricia Gibson
The UK already has the lowest state pension as a proportion of pre-retirement wages in north-west Europe. Independent Age has highlighted that 5% of pensioner couples and 19% of single pensioners have no source of income other than state pension or any associated potential benefits. Will the Minister finally take action to address pensioner poverty and shockingly low state pensions relative to most of Europe?
Laura Trott
We challenge those figures, as the hon. Lady knows. I point her to the record increase in state pension that we have just introduced—10.1% for both the state pension and pension credit. That will make a real difference to pensioner poverty levels, alongside the cost of living payments that are going out this year—£900 for pensioners on pension credit and £300 for all pensioner households.
Samantha Dixon
Two weeks ago I visited West Cheshire Foodbank in my constituency, where volunteers told me that for the first time a couple who were both pensioners had turned up in tears because they could not afford the cost of living and the basics. The Government have failed to fix the issues with pension credit uptake, with over a third of those entitled not claiming. Given that there are 400,000 more pensioners in poverty today than when Labour left office, why should the pensioners forced to visit the food bank in Chester trust a Government who have repeatedly let them down?
Laura Trott
I am sorry to hear about the pensioners involved. If they are eligible for pension credit and not claiming, I assume the hon. Lady is helping them. As a Department we are happy to give any assistance to those individuals. We are doing all we can to boost pension credit uptake. There was a campaign before Christmas, which I am sure she was part of, to get people to claim the cost of living payment, which we will repeat this year. We saw a 177% increase in claims just before Christmas. There will also be the pension credit week of action for the summer on 12 to 16 June, which I hope many hon. Members will take part in.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Ministers agitated for us all to get involved in the campaign to extend the uptake of pension credit. Has the Minister any innovative plans that will make it easier for us to do so, such as toolkits and the like?
Laura Trott
Absolutely. I am also looking at what more we can do to use data from housing benefit and from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to make it easier to target people for a claim. Working together, we can make a real difference in the number of pension credit claimants in this country.
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
The Government’s 50-plus plan and our offer to help older workers return to work are being rolled out. That includes more intensive tailored support for eligible jobseekers, 37 full-time 50-plus champions, delivery of the mid-life MOT in jobcentres, online and with the private sector pilot project, and multiple older worker job fairs up and down the country.
Angela Richardson
I thank the Secretary of State, who I know cannot be here today, for his visit to a mid-life MOT session for the over-50s at the brilliant jobcentre in Guildford. I was incredibly impressed with everyone I saw participating in that session. Will the Minister join me in welcoming this Government’s belief that no one is ever too old to retrain and start a new career?
Guy Opperman
In common with anybody who is over 40, which I confess to, I think we should support all older workers in whatever shape or form—I certainly want to do so. I particularly recommend the Guildford jobs fair for older workers that is taking place in May, which I know my hon. Friend will try to support and which her constituents should go along to as well.
Bob Blackman
I declare an interest in the issue of older workers.
In addition to encouraging people who are 50-plus to get into work, it is also important that employers understand that such people have immense experience and capability to add to their organisations. What more is the Minister going to do to ensure that companies, and all sorts of employers, take the opportunity to employ older workers, as they can provide great benefit to their firms?
Guy Opperman
I promised my hon. Friend I would not mention the 6-1 drubbing that his beloved Spurs received from Newcastle United yesterday, albeit that Spurs are obviously looking for a 50-plus manager of quality to go forward.
More seriously, there has been much that employers are doing. I know my hon. Friend’s two local jobcentres in Harrow East are working together with Stanmore College and local employers to try to drive forward older workers.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Almost 700,000 women over 50 are currently on long-term sick leave. Many are recorded as having depression or anxiety, with no consideration being given to the menopause as the primary factor. What consideration has been given to offering menopause awareness training to occupational health specialists, to enable them to better support women back into work?
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady raises a serious and important point. She will know that the Department has appointed Helen Tomlinson as its first ever menopause employment champion, and we are working on persuading employers to develop menopause-friendly policies. I know the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), is particularly working on this issue and will be delighted to work with the hon. Lady to address this very important point.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Like the Minister, the closest I can get to 40 is No. 40, where I live.
Helping over-50s to get back into some form of employment allows them to boost their savings and increase their quality of life in retirement. I know the Minister is keen to engage with people in Northern Ireland, so what discussions has he had with the Department for Communities at the Northern Ireland Assembly, so that those who have ability, talent and energy can find employment? There are many opportunities to do just that.
Guy Opperman
I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman says. He knows I am attempting to visit Northern Ireland on 15 May, subject to Whips and slips and all that fun and games. The point has duly been noted, I am sure. The simple point is that we are engaging with the team in Northern Ireland as much as we possibly can, and trying to roll out the good work we are doing on the mainland as much as possible in Northern Ireland. I will engage with him further, hopefully when I come to see him in May.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that this Government are committed to supporting over-50s, including those in Ynys Môn, into work? Will he join me in thanking Tony Potter and the brilliant Anglesey DWP team, who are working with me to host a jobs fair for over-50s in Holyhead town hall soon?
Guy Opperman
Diolch, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend was kind enough to host me in Llangefni only a couple of weeks ago, when I met Mr Potter and all the DWP team working on the island. They are doing a fantastic job. We should be very proud of the work they are doing to address both mainstream employment and older-worker employment. I am sorry I cannot be at the jobs fair for older workers that she is hosting, but I encourage everyone on the island to go along to that.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
The health transformation programme is modernising the entire personal independence payments service, including the application process, to improve the claimant experience and ensure the service meets the needs of claimants over the longer term.
Mark Pawsey
I thank the Minister for his answer, but my constituent Gary Thacker was diagnosed with autism later in life and, despite the assistance of a friend, it took him many hours to complete his PIP form. I know the Minister has introduced a variety of formal methods of assistance, which are provided by organisations such as Citizens Advice, but Mr Thacker was unaware of those. What steps is the Minister’s Department taking to make sure applicants know about the levels of support that are available?
Tom Pursglove
It is fair to say that the Department offers support according to ability and according to need. For the very vulnerable and in exceptional cases, we are able to refer claimants not only to visiting officers, but to the forms completion service. If my hon. Friend provides me with more details about his case, I will be happy to take a look, but I hope I can reassure him by saying that we are looking to digitalise the personal independence payment journey. That is currently in testing; it should help to provide greater signposting within the processes and towards other support for which people may be eligible, which I think is really welcome. I hope that he will welcome it, too.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
In February, a survey carried out by the charity Mind and Censuswide found that 66% of people with a mental health issue who had experience of the benefits assessment system discovered that it made their mental health worse. The majority of negative decisions that make it to a tribunal are eventually overturned. When does the Minister expect an improvement in decision making and in the impact on people’s mental health?
Tom Pursglove
I certainly think that journey times are an important factor. We want to provide certainty as quickly as possible in relation to people’s claims. Waiting times for PIP claims have come down very considerably, and the PIP journey is certainly shorter than in the pre-pandemic period. As I have said, I genuinely believe that there is a significant opportunity, through the reforms that we are introducing in the White Paper, to focus on quality decision making. Reducing the assessment burden will help us to get decisions right the first time, as will matching people who have particular conditions with assessors with the right expertise.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister’s proposal to essentially collapse the work capability assessment into the PIP assessment means that up to 1 million people who have fluctuating health conditions, or who may be recovering from treatment, could lose out on up to £350 a month. That is causing considerable distress, and it will not actually get anyone back to work now. Why does he not adopt instead the policy that we have put forward, which is supported by the Centre for Social Justice: to change the work capability assessment rules and offer an “into work guarantee” for those with no work requirements? Is he content to leave 700,000 sick and disabled people who want to work blocked from journeying into work?
Tom Pursglove
No. What this Government are doing is making sure that we support people into work. We are removing the structural impediment to getting into the workplace. We believe that scrapping the work capability assessment is the right thing to do; we have had many debates about the issue in this House over the years, and we think that we are responding properly to the feedback we received on the Green Paper proposals. There was a strong message that people wanted to see that happening, and we will get on and deliver it. We will focus on quality decision making and on making sure that people are transitionally protected. There may, for example, be people not currently claiming the PIP who will be entitled to it; I would always encourage people to access the benefits to which they are entitled.
I must say that it is rather surprising to hear the shadow Secretary of State’s comments today, given what one newspaper has written:
“Disability benefits changes: Labour pledges to scrap reforms but shadow minister holds back details”.
Where are Labour’s plans?
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I can certainly assure the House that SNP Members will not be trumpeting ideas advocated by right-wing think-tanks such as the Centre for Social Justice.
The health and disability White Paper introduces a new universal credit health element, with eligibility through PIP that could be far more restrictive than work capability assessments. Indeed, the Tories’ new in-work progression offer will inevitably mean exposure to sanctions for disabled people. Given that the Department’s own published report, which it tried to keep under wraps for many years, shows what we knew all along—that sanctions do not work—why will the Minister not finally do the right thing and just scrap them?
Tom Pursglove
May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his marathon time yesterday? He put in an impressive effort. I know the training, commitment and dedication that go into running a marathon, so I congratulate him on it.
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the Centre for Social Justice. I think that these are genuinely common-sense reforms that reflect the feedback that we received from disabled people and from their representative bodies. We will work with them to make sure that we get this right. Replacing the work capability assessment is the right thing to do, recognising that we want to concentrate more on what people can do than on what they cannot do, and doing so on a tailored, individual basis.
Of course we know that more than 20% of disabled people could start work within the next two years, and that they want to do so and, with the right support, would. We think that the right way of dealing with that, and supporting that employment, is to work constructively with them on plans which work, meeting their circumstances and needs. That is what the Budget announcements were all about. There is good practice out there, and we want to extend it.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
The DWP does not assess the reasons why families may use food banks, but we do understand the pressures that they face as a result of the cost of living, and have therefore increased benefits by 10.1% this month. That is in addition to the increase in the national living wage to £10.42 an hour, and the provision of more than £11 billion in cost of living payments.
Gerald Jones
Food banks in my constituency and across the country are struggling to deal with demand. More than 40% of people using them are in work, and they are used by one in six children whose families receive universal credit. Meanwhile, the local housing allowance remains frozen and the five-week wait for universal credit is increasing debt. All those factors contributed to the reason why one of the food banks in my constituency nearly closed its doors last week, namely that it had no food to give out. Can the Minister tell me what else the Government will do to support families? It seems that there is very little understanding of the scale of the problem that the country is facing, let alone a willingness to do something about it.
Mims Davies
Let me draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the household support fund, which will provide an additional £50 million to help families in Wales through difficult times. The hon. Gentleman’s constituents who are in need will also be pleased to know that the next stage of the cost of living payments will begin tomorrow, with £301 being paid to households between then and 17 May. The DWP will be issuing further communications about those payments.
We have heard today about social tariffs and other ways in which people can obtain support and reduce their bills. The Help for Households website, which I commend to everyone, provides information about assistance with childcare, travel, energy and household costs, and about income support. It will help the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and, indeed, all our constituents.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister has just said that the DWP did not assess the reasons for which people are using food banks. Perhaps she will go back to her private office after this and ask her officials to look into whether people are using them because the Government cut universal credit by £20 a week, and cut it in real terms last year. Perhaps she could ask her officials whether it is because the DWP is taking deductions from universal credit payments every week. Perhaps she could ask the DWP if it is because earnings are worth less than they were in 2007. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether it is because the Government have raised the taxes on working people. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether it is because the Government crashed the economy and sent mortgages and rents through the roof. Perhaps she could ask the DWP whether more people are using food banks because that is the price of 13 years of economic failure.
Mims Davies
May I remind the hon. Gentleman of Labour’s 10p tax rate, and the fact that we have doubled tax-free allowances? [Interruption.] Food banks are important. They are independent charitable organisations where people in local communities can support each other. [Interruption.] This is a great example of the generosity of spirit in our communities. [Interruption.] If this mattered to the hon. Gentleman, perhaps he would listen to my response rather than chuntering from the Front Bench.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that we take the issue of food security very seriously. That is why we added the internationally used food security questions to the “Family Resources Survey: financial year 2019 to 2020”. The new statistics on usage will help the Government to understand more about the characteristics of the people who are most in need, and we will continue to do what we pledged to do and are proving to do in supporting the most vulnerable.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
This Government believe that work is the best route out of poverty for families and we are supporting parents to progress, to stay in work and to be better off. That was shown in our spring Budget, which will deliver an ambitious package of measures, across Government, to support people to enter into work, increase their working hours and extend their working lives. We have also raised benefits and benefit cap levels by 10.1% and we are providing those further cost of living payments, which commence tomorrow.
Hywel Williams
Have the two-child limit and the benefit cap increased child poverty?
Mims Davies
The reality of the policy that the hon. Gentleman mentions is about fairness for the taxpayers who support the most vulnerable and making sure that we have a welfare and benefit system that works. We will spend around £276 billion through the welfare system in 2023-24, including £124 billion on people of working age. I would again point people towards the cost of living website and the benefits calculator on gov.uk and I would ask him to note that the benefit cap was raised this year as well.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
Unpaid carers can play a vital role in supporting disabled people to live active lives, including through working when they are able to do so. The White Paper sets out how we will create a better experience for disabled people, people with health conditions and their carers when applying for and receiving health and disability benefits.
Dr Evans
I am grateful for the Minister’s answers, because carers are integral to looking after people up and down the country, especially with an ageing population who are living longer and with more frequent and difficult disabilities. Will he make sure that they are at the centre of the White Paper, because if this policy is to succeed, we need to support our unpaid carers.
Tom Pursglove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The insight and experience of carers and their feedback were invaluable through the Green Paper process in helping us to come up with our final White Paper proposals. As we move forward into the implementation stage, it is key that we continue to sustain that engagement and focus on meeting the aspirations of carers and the disabled people they care for. I also want to look at this issue from the other end of the telescope, in looking at what more we can do to support those with caring responsibilities to access employment if they want to do so, because from a health and wellbeing perspective, there is real value for them in that too.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
The jobcentres across Rother Valley have been doing some amazing work to fill local vacancies and bring greater employment to the local area. Our Budget package of enhanced care support for working parents and investment in people with disabilities and long-term health conditions will make a massive difference, on top of the sector-based work academies and skills boot camps that are available for further training.
Alexander Stafford
I thank the Minister for that answer. Obviously, jobs are one of the most important ways of getting people out of poverty and growing household incomes. That is why I held three job fairs last year and sent a leaflet round to every constituent telling them how to get job opportunities in Rother Valley. Another job fair is coming up next month, aimed at older people and young people coming into employment, and I would be grateful if the Minister could come along. Getting older people over the age of 50 and younger people who are just leaving school into jobs is incredibly important. What further steps are this Government taking to ensure that younger people and older people have great job opportunities?
Guy Opperman
I think my hon. Friend has the record for the most job fairs and doing the greatest amount of work I know with the local DWP. He is doing a fantastic job as a doughty champion for Rother Valley and I support the work he is doing. There is no doubt that, whether it is through the youth hubs making a massive difference to younger workers, the older persons’ jobs fairs being held up and down the country or the hundreds of jobs fairs that have been held since the Budget last year, we are massively driving things forward to ensure that in Rother Valley and across the wider country we have much greater employment.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
No assessment has been made of the adequacy of PIP for people with disabilities. PIP is intended to provide a contribution towards paying for the additional costs faced by disabled people. Individuals then have a choice and flexibility in prioritising according to their needs.
Wera Hobhouse
A report by the Work and Pensions Committee found that people experience “psychological distress” due to the health assessment required as part of the PIP application process. Many of my Bath constituents feel the process does not reflect their needs and are concerned about the lack of support—some of those issues were covered by earlier questions. The Government have promised to trial the use of specialist assessors with knowledge of specific health conditions. Can the Minister please clarify which conditions are covered and how the assessors are being trained?
Tom Pursglove
When we are able, we will set out more detail of the relevant conditions and the approach we will take in delivering on this commitment. I raised the issue in my conversations with officials this morning, because I am keen to progress this as quickly as possible. I see real benefit and value in matching assessors with specialisms to people with particular conditions. It is clear from the feedback that people believe this will make a significant difference. Along the lines I set out earlier, we want to reduce PIP journey times as much as feasibly possible, and I want to make sure that we get more decisions right first time and that we focus on quality, which is precisely what the reforms will do. We will share further detail with the House when we are able to do so.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I have a bedbound constituent who relies on food banks and is unable to do basic tasks such as getting herself dressed and collecting food. She has two young children who are happy to take on these tasks, yet she has been told that her PIP assessment will take four months. How can the Minister justify families having to rely on food banks while they wait for a PIP assessment? What will he do to change this?
Tom Pursglove
Again, I refer to my earlier remarks on the steps we are taking to improve PIP journey times as far as possible. I am keen for the hon. Lady to share the details with me so that I can ask officials to look at this specific case. I want people to have certainty on their PIP claim as quickly as possible, as people require this important help. I would always encourage people to apply for PIP if they believe they might be eligible. If she provides me with those details, I will gladly look at them as a priority.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
This month, pensioners received the largest ever cash increase to the state pension and pension credit. In addition, all pensioner households will receive a £300 cost of living payment. The Government are committed to helping pensioners with the cost of living.
Kevin Foster
I thank the Minister for her answer. One of the best ways to help pensioners with the cost of living is to ensure that everyone claims the pension credit to which they are entitled. What work is she doing to engage with the high street banks on their more vulnerable customers who are over the state pension age, both to identify those who might be missing out and to facilitate applications for pension credit, which can make a vital difference?
Laura Trott
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the vital role that high street banks play in interacting with vulnerable pensioners and vulnerable customers. Organisations such as Virgin Money and HSBC have worked to promote pension credit uptake. I will be working with them and a variety of other stakeholders as we build up to the cost of living payment deadline on 19 May and the inaugural DWP pension credit awareness week on 12 to 16 June.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Pension credit continues to be a serious issue, with £1.7 billion going unclaimed each year. Will the Minister introduce an effective strategy in the coming year, perhaps following some of the initiatives we see in Scotland, to make sure everyone gets what they are entitled to in these very difficult times?
Laura Trott
The Department for Work and Pensions is straining every sinew because this is incredibly important to us, and to me. We need to make sure we are doing all we can to reach those vulnerable customers. We have done a nationwide advertising campaign, which the hon. Gentleman may have seen. We are doing a lot in the build-up to 19 May, and I want to work with everyone in the House to make sure we use Members of Parliament as much as possible to reach out to vulnerable pensioners in our constituencies.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
The price of food is rising by 30%, yet the Government are continuing to fail pensioners at this very difficult time: nearly 200,000 women in their 80s have been underpaid for years because of errors at the DWP; hundreds of thousands of pensioners are missing out on pension credit, as we have heard; and when pensioners do get their pension credit application in, it can take up to three months for officials in the Department to process a claim. When will the Government finally tackle this appalling pattern of failure?
Laura Trott
Labour put up pensions by 75p. We put them up by nearly £20. We are doing all that we can to support pensioners, and they know that we have got their backs.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
Disability employment advisers have expertise on how to help disabled jobseekers into work and build work coach skills to help these claimants. That is in addition to broader support, including our increased work coach support, the Work and Health programme and intensive, personalised employment support.
Marsha De Cordova
Successive Tory Governments have failed to reduce the multiple barriers facing disabled people entering work. Research by Sense has found that disabled jobseekers say that they do not have the support and equipment they need to look for work, and it is vital that every jobcentre across this country is accessible and has essential pieces of assistive technology so that disabled people can find and apply for work. If this Government want to finally get serious about reducing the disability employment gap, which remains at about 30%, will they commit today to a jobcentre assistive technology fund to support disabled people to look for work?
Tom Pursglove
I categorically reject the initial point made in the hon. Lady’s question. The fact is that this Government set a target of getting 1 million more disabled people into work and we met it five years early, but now we must go further. That is precisely why we have brought forward the reforms in the White Paper, which we genuinely believe will remove that structural barrier to work. We will have the packages of support alongside this, which I believe people will want to engage with, because they are aspirational and want to enter the workplace. We will never ask people to do anything that is not appropriate for them. We will work on an individualised, case-by-case basis to support customers. Of course, it is absolutely right that we make sure that our services are as accessible as possible, and that is the whole thrust of the reform. The health model officers are helping us to test what works, and we will continue to work along those lines. I hope she will want to work with me, in the spirit of partnership, to make this a success.
Nigel Mills
One frustration for disabled people occurs when they have an assessment that identifies what support or adaptations they need in order to go into work and then that support is never actually available or employers cannot provide it. Is there some source of optimism to be found in the funds and the changes announced in the spring Budget that support will be lined up in advance, so that people can take a job when one is offered to them?
Tom Pursglove
It is really welcome that the whole of Government are focused on what more we can do to support disabled people and people with health conditions into work, if that is appropriate for them. That was reflected in the commitments that the Chancellor made on the Work Well programme and on universal support. Of course, we are also introducing additional work coach time into jobcentres, the latest tranche of which will go live this week in another third of jobcentres. Those are really important steps forward. Alongside initiatives such as Access to Work and Disability Confident, we have the opportunity to transform matters in our society to make our workplaces more inclusive and, on a tailored, individualised basis, not only to support people into a role, but to help them retain it.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The DWP uses private company Maximus to assess benefit eligibility for a number of people in the claims process. That includes responsibility for deciding on former mineworkers’ entitlement to industrial disablement benefits. What training and qualification requirements are there for Maximus assessors making these potentially life-changing decisions that affect so many of my constituents?
Tom Pursglove
Continual quality assurance processes are in place that monitor and keep tabs on the quality of the decisions made by any of the assessment providers that work with the Department. Of course, we always keep that under constant review. If there are specific issues that the hon. Lady is keen for Ministers to look at, I would be very happy to do that. She knows that I am always willing to work collaboratively and constructively along those lines. If there is feedback about areas where she or her constituents feel that improvements could be made, including on responsiveness, I would be happy to look at that. I also go back to the point I made about the reforms earlier, where, for example, the work we are doing to try to match expert assessors with conditions will really help to improve people’s confidence in decision making, as well as build capacity and performance.
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
Normally, the Secretary of State would make a statement at this stage, but, on behalf of the whole ministerial team, I will say just two things. First, overall, measures from the Department for Work and Pensions in the Budget represent an investment of £3.5 billion over five years to boost workforce participation. That includes: £2 billion of investment in support for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions on top of the Health and Disability White Paper; £900 million investment in support for parents; £70 million investment in support for the over-50s; and £485 million investment in support for unemployed people and people on universal credit and working fewer than full-time hours.
Secondly, DWP Ministers had the great honour of working with the amazing Len Goodman, who sadly passed away over the weekend. The pension credit video that he filmed with me last summer for the annual Pension Credit Awareness Day in June was the most successful piece of communications that we have ever done on this issue and massively boosted pension credit applications. I can tell the House that, throughout the day’s filming, he was kind, immensely professional, totally polite and a delight to work with, and he still had all the dance moves even at his age. He will be sadly missed by this House and by his many fans around the country. Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to his family.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am sure the whole House will join the Minister and others in remembering with fondness Len Goodman and in sending our good wishes to his family and friends.
Amy Callaghan
I thank the Minister for his answer. On Thursday, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) visited One Parent Families Scotland. The young single parents we met were outraged and upset about the young parent penalty, as they are receiving less universal credit than older parents. Does the Minister care to explain why he feels that younger parents are worth less than those who are over 25?
Guy Opperman
We do not feel that in any way whatsoever. I will write to the hon. Lady setting out the legal and statutory basis behind the policy.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate of the join-up between health and work, and work as a determinant of better health outcomes for people. It is important to note that a number of jobcentres and Health Model Offices have work coaches working with GP surgeries to provide employment support to customers with health conditions. That is a valuable approach, and we are determined that the Work Well partnerships programme that was announced in the Budget will build on this to design an integrated approach to work and health with that proper join-up on the ground reflective and responsive to local needs. I shall take on board his observation as we look to shape that.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
We on the Labour Benches join you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the Minister in the tribute to Len Goodman, and we think of all his loved ones today. He was not just a national treasure, but someone who helped to put money in pensioners’ pockets, which is where it belongs.
The local elections are next week, so people will be thinking of the fortunes of their towns or cities. In many places, unemployment is not low, as the Minister has said, but high. In Blackpool, for example, one constituency has unemployment at an excruciating 8%. What about that chronic poor performance should be rewarded at the ballot box next week?
Guy Opperman
We all know that unemployment is always higher when the Labour party leaves office. The hon. Lady might care to listen to a few key points: vacancies have fallen for nine successive quarters; employment is up; payroll employment is at a record high; claimant count is down; economic inactivity has fallen; disability employment is up by 1.3 million over the past five years; and, as for Blackpool, massive work is being done there. She will be aware of the intervention by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which has been working very hard across Government to transform the fortunes of Blackpool, with record investment—something that definitely did not happen when Labour was in Government.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
Local charities play an important role in providing support in our communities. I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency later this month to see what Combat2Coffee can do to support veterans and their families, and I hope to take a keen interest in Tools with a Mission too, if possible.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
When he appeared before the Select Committee in November, the Secretary of State said that,
“the more transparency there is, the better. It informs public debate and allows a feedback loop for the Department. It is all part of holding us to account and that is extremely important”.
In light of that and in the spirit of the Department’s new approach to transparency, can the Minister provide me with figures on how many DWP staff are themselves reliant on universal credit?
Mims Davies
I know the hon. Gentleman takes a particular interest in transparency. I work strongly on the Department’s behalf, with the Minister in the Lords, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with a response.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Guy Opperman
We are doing huge amounts of work to encourage over-50s employment. My hon. Friend refers to the pledge, and we encourage all employers up and down the country to sign up, to participate in the mid-life MOT, to embrace older workers’ fairs and generally to accept that older workers have a great deal to offer.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
Some 5,260 women in Liverpool, West Derby have been affected by the changes made to the women’s state pension age, and many have contacted me about the devastating impact it has had on their lives. What consideration has the Minister given to early-day motion 1040 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth), which calls for an alternative dispute resolution process, including representatives of the 3.8 million women affected, to address the injustices they have been through?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
The hon. Gentleman will know that state pension age equalisation has been the policy of successive Governments since 1995.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Tom Pursglove
I am hugely appreciative of my hon. Friend, who is a passionate advocate of Disability Confident. I would hope that local authorities would want to engage with the scheme and set the example that they would like to see businesses and other organisations in their communities follow. I know he has good conversations on this question with Councillor David Thomas, the leader of the Conservative group, who I hope may be in a position in a few weeks’ time to help set the standard in the Torbay area and blaze a trail for Disability Confident at Torbay Council.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Laura Trott
We have massively increased the number of people working on that at the moment. We are undertaking work against scams, we are prioritising cases in which the recipient is alive, and we will try to get that done by the end of the year. I am accelerating that as much as I can. I am very aware that it is a problem.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Laura Trott
I thank my hon. Friend for all that he is doing to encourage pension credit take-up in Crawley. The Government have undertaken a sustained communications campaign to raise awareness of pension credit and promote its take-up. The latest stats release at the start of the year shows a substantial rise in the number of claims.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
My constituent had a brain injury 20 years ago and was receiving personal independence payment for care and mobility support. A recent review said that there was no change to his condition, but somehow the decision has been made to stop his benefits. The Minister has already indicated that he is considering this matter, but will he meet me to discuss that particular case?
Tom Pursglove
I am always very happy to meet colleagues from across the House to discuss such issues, and this circumstance is no different.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
Mims Davies
Enforcement action is used as a last resort when a parent is failing to pay their maintenance payments and other action has failed. Home detention is a powerful deterrent and, as such, we would expect usage to be low—perhaps less than 10 cases a year on average. I know that my hon. Friend focuses on this matter. The Child Maintenance Service continues to explore how existing powers can be used to encourage compliant behaviours and facilitate constructive relationships between parents to ensure that, importantly, financial support reaches the children for whom they are responsible.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
A new Work and Pensions Committee report on the health assessments for disability benefits such as PIP and employment support allowance has found that “issues or errors” in the DWP health assessment system have, in some ways, contributed to the deaths of claimants. What assurances can the Minister give the House that those issues and errors will not continue to kill our disabled constituents?
Tom Pursglove
We take those matters incredibly seriously, which is why we have internal process reviews in the Department to look at them. We have serious case panels constituted by senior leaders from within the Department, and the independent case examiner, for example. Where there are issues and learning that must be taken on board, that must always happen. This is structured through that. We will look very carefully and closely at the Select Committee report, and we will, of course, respond appropriately in the normal way. The hon. Gentleman can be absolutely assured that these processes must always be looked at carefully, and that any learning is taken on board and acted on.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Guy Opperman
The apprenticeship levy has been a fantastic success, but as Employment Minister, I am conscious that there is widespread concern among small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly smaller businesses, that there should be greater flexibility going forward, building on what we are already doing. I am very happy to meet my right hon. Friend and Ministers in the Departments that control the policy to discuss any improvements.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On 19 April last year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission informed the Government that it was issuing a section 23 agreement against them under the Equality Act 2006, in response to serious concerns regarding discrimination against sick and disabled people. Twelve months on, that agreement still has not been reached. When will it be reached and why has it taken so long?
Tom Pursglove
I cannot give the hon. Lady a definitive conclusion date, but what I can say is that we have entered into a phase of advanced discussions with the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We will come forward with further detail as soon as we are able to do that, and the process will be concluded in the proper way.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work to his place. I look forward to working closely with him on the review into autism and employment, which we have embarked upon this very month. What further measures will the Government take to close the appalling gap in employment, such that only two in 10 adults with autism are currently in work?
Tom Pursglove
It is fair to say that we have had a good debate this afternoon about the whole host of initiatives that we as a Government are determined to take forward to shift the dial and make meaningful improvements to support more disabled people and people with health conditions into work, and autism is no different. I am delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend has agreed to take on this review on behalf of the Government. I look forward to his bringing forward recommendations, suggested areas for improvement and initiatives that we might want to embark on, focusing on knowledge and responsiveness, seizing the opportunity for workplaces to unlock the talent that undoubtedly exists out there, and helping to improve people’s lives for the better.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
For the final topical question, I call Stewart Malcolm McDonald.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The use and abuse of unpaid work trials continues to grow, despite the Government’s guidance published a couple of years ago urging employers not to use them. Given that the guidance clearly is not cutting through, will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss what legislation might look like?
Guy Opperman
I am not sure I totally accept the premise of the hon. Member’s argument, but if he writes to me with the details of what he is asserting, I will certainly consider it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
That concludes questions, so we now come to the urgent question. I will pause for a moment to allow the turmoil of people leaving to settle down, but I would be grateful if Members left quickly and quietly.
List of Ministers’ Interests and Ministerial Code
(1 year ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the register of ministerial interests and the ministerial code.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I am pleased to confirm that the latest list of Ministers’ interests was published last week on 19 April by the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, Sir Laurie Magnus. The list has been deposited in the Library of the House and is also available online on gov.uk.
I note that the hon. Lady’s question talks of a register of ministerial interests. I am afraid that I must point out, for the sake of clarity, that that is not an accurate term. It is important that I provide a little explanation about the list, what it contains and the role it performs. The ministerial code makes it clear that
“Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.”
It is their personal responsibility
“to decide whether and what action is needed to avoid a conflict or the perception of a conflict, taking account of advice received from their Permanent Secretary and the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ interests.”
On appointment, each Minister makes a declaration of all interests. They remain under an obligation to keep that declaration up to date throughout their time in office. Ministers are encouraged to make the fullest possible disclosure relating to themselves, their spouses and partners, and close family members, even where matters may not necessarily be relevant. The information supplied is then reviewed and advised upon by their permanent secretary and also by the independent adviser. Where needed, steps are taken to avoid or mitigate any potential conflicts of interest. That is the process by which Ministers’ interests are managed. It is thorough and ongoing, and it provides individual advice to all Ministers that reflects their circumstances and responsibilities.
Twice a year, a list is published, covering those interests that are judged by the independent adviser to be relevant to each Minister’s portfolio. The list is not a register. It is designed to be read alongside the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which is maintained by this House, and the register of Members’ interests that operates in the other place. For that reason, the list does not generally duplicate the information that is available in the registers.
The independent adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, makes it clear in his introduction to the list published last week that it would not be appropriate for all the information gathered as part of the ministerial interests process to be made public. He states that such a move would
“represent an excessive degree of intrusion into the private affairs of ministers that would be unreasonable, particularly in respect of”
hon. Members’ families. I am sure hon. Members will understand that the system is designed to gather the fullest amount of information, provided in confidence, so that the most effective advice can be given.
All Ministers of the Crown uphold the system that I have described. That is true for all Ministers, from the Prime Minister, who has been clear that all his interests have been declared in the usual way, all the way down to, and including, an assistant Whip. In the latest list, the independent adviser highlights the importance of Ministers and their permanent secretaries remaining alert in the context of their respective portfolios if Ministers’ interests change. That is, of course, right. Importantly, though, Sir Laurie Magnus provides his opinion as independent adviser on Ministers’ interests that
“any actual, potential and perceived conflicts have been, or are in the process of being, resolved”.
Wendy Chamberlain
When he was appointed, the Prime Minister promised that he would govern with integrity. He went inside No. 10 and his first act was to appoint Ministers. Of that cohort, three have now departed in controversy, including two in relation to allegations of bullying.
One thing the Prime Minister did not do at that time was publish an updated list of ministerial interests. It was finally released last week, 320 days after the last publication. That list does not include the interests of Ministers from the past year who have either been dismissed or resigned, such as the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). That means that, on my count, there are almost 120 missing registrations from that period. Nor is there any setting out of what is referred to by the ethics adviser in his introduction to the list as
“actual, potential and perceived conflicts”
that are
“in the process of being…resolved”.
I hope the Minister can give more clarity on that situation.
Will the Minister accept the ethics adviser’s statement that a Minister’s interests are only clear when reading the ministerial list and the MPs’ register together? That is difficult to do, with one being published monthly and the other twice a year, or—as we have found—much less frequently. Members rightly disclose their interests regularly, because transparency is essential. The Leader of the House promised swift action to strengthen the system and agreed to consider more regular reporting. The publication last week suggests that she has failed in that effort to provide more transparency, so will the Government end this undemocratic two-tier system and bring publication forward to every 28 days, and will they publish the missing interests of former Ministers? It is absurd to think that had the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), resigned just three days earlier, we would never have been told what his interests were during his time as Justice Secretary.
Registration of ministerial interests is a key principle of the ministerial code; so, too, are behavioural standards. Last week, the former Deputy Prime Minister was found to have bullied civil servants in line with the definition under the code. According to the independent report, he acted in a way that was “intimidating” and
“involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates”,
but Ministers have remained silent. Will the Government therefore publish any advice the Prime Minister was given on conduct before appointing the former Deputy Prime Minister? Is it the view of the Government that the former Deputy Prime Minister did breach the ministerial code? Will the Minister affirm that there is a duty on Ministers under the code to uphold the impartiality of the civil service, and will he accordingly affirm that impartiality today? Finally, does he acknowledge that the Government’s silence is deeply damaging and demoralising for hard-working officials?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will be aware that Sir Laurie Magnus, who took up his post in December, has said that he will return to the regular cycle of publications. This list is his—he has oversight of it. It would be wrong if the Government were to interfere in that process, and we will obviously continue to engage fully with him to make sure that the list is up to date and reflects the ongoing interests of Ministers, so that the system can operate effectively.
On the point that the hon. Lady makes about the former Deputy Prime Minister, she will know from listening to previous statements and debates in this House that no formal allegations were made against my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) before the Prime Minister appointed him. The moment those formal allegations were made, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister agreed that there should be an independent investigation. Adam Tolley KC conducted his investigation, and the Deputy Prime Minister then resigned.
On the hon. Lady’s point about civil service impartiality, of course we accept and respect civil service impartiality. It is one of the things that makes government work so effectively in this country.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The Minister will agree that there is much more openness and transparency now than 13 years ago. Through him, can I put it to the Prime Minister that Sir Laurie Magnus should be asked each year whether he would like to write a public letter to the Prime Minster on how the system is working, and any changes or improvements he would like to see made?
Alex Burghart
I thank the Father of the House for his long view on these things, and I am sure that Sir Laurie will have heard his remarks.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker for granting this urgent question. Last week, the Prime Minister saw a third senior Minister resign in disgrace, jumping because he was not pushed. Can the Minister confirm that the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), did break the ministerial code? Did the Government know of or approve his statements blaming the victims, which appeared before the official findings of the report? Can the Minister say whether he agrees with the brave victims who came forward for that report, or with the former Deputy Prime Minister himself, that unacceptable bullying and misconduct took place? Does he think that the former Deputy Prime Minister should apologise to victims?
We also saw the list of ministerial interests miraculously appear just minutes before Prime Minister’s questions. Can the Minister say whether the Prime Minister declared his financial interest in Koru Kids as a Minister and as Chancellor before he became Prime Minister? Will the Minister meet his own commitment to more regular updates of the ministerial interests list and put it on the same basis as the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which is published fortnightly while the House is sitting? The Ministers’ list seems to be annual. Will the Prime Minister finally introduce an independent adviser with the power to launch their own investigations? Have all the recommendations of the Boardman review been implemented? How many of the recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life report have been implemented? A recent audit by Spotlight on Corruption revealed that, 18 months after both reviews were published, just 7% of the recommendations have been implemented.
While the Government have been preoccupied with yet more Tory psychodrama, working people are still battling the worst cost of living crisis for a generation. Labour is focused on cutting the cost of living, cutting crime and cutting waiting lists with our long-term plan to give Britain its future back. Has not this past week proved beyond doubt that it is time for a Government laser-focused on delivering for Britain, instead of one mired in misconduct?
Alex Burghart
I will take the hon. Lady’s questions in reverse. This Government are absolutely committed to tackling the cost of living crisis. It is because of that that the Prime Minister’s No. 1 preoccupation is ensuring that inflation comes down. Without inflation coming down, we cannot have growth, and without growth we cannot have more money for our public services. The Labour party would do very well to support us in that endeavour, otherwise we will fall into exactly the same trap that it fell into in the 1970s, where unions chase pay, pay chases inflation and the economy cannot grow for 10 years.
On the point that the hon. Lady made about the Prime Minister’s declarations, I draw her attention to the remarks made by the previous independent adviser Lord Geidt, who said that the Prime Minister had been “assiduous” in declaring all his relevant ministerial interests in all his roles. The Prime Minister personally asked Lord Geidt to look into that, and Lord Geidt was satisfied, as, it must be said, is Laurie Magnus likewise. On her remarks about the former Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), I draw her attention to the fact that in his letter to the Prime Minister last week, the Deputy Prime Minister said:
“I am genuinely sorry for any stress or offence that officials felt”.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I call the Chair of the Select Committee.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
It surely cannot be beyond the wit of man, notwithstanding the constitutional differences between Members of Parliament and members of the Government, that some form of co-operation might not be devised by talking to one another. Might I make the suggestion to my hon. Friend, who is one of the ablest Ministers in the Cabinet Office, that he would be just the person to reach out in such circumstances, so that some degree of co-operation and co-ordination on this issue might be found?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend is an assiduous student of the constitution, the workings of this place and the Cabinet Office, and he will know that, while it is very important that we have separate lists, it is also within the remit of anybody who wishes to pick up those two separate reports—the list and the register—to compare them and to draw their conclusions, as necessary.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
We have ministerial declarations—interests list—that are updated not timeously, if they are updated at all. Will the Minister ensure that all ministerial declarations are published, not just those of Ministers who happen to have been sitting in the hot seat when the music stopped? We have Ministers and the Prime Minister announcing policy to the press first on a regular basis. The Prime Minister has lost numerous Ministers as a result of code breaches and there are various investigations ongoing. It seems that Ministers are happy to carry on erring until the point—beyond the point, in fact—that they are caught and until the point that the investigation finally reports and they finally choose to resign. What is the point in having a ministerial code if Ministers do not abide by either the letter or the spirit of that code, and continually breach it?
Alex Burghart
I think the hon. Lady is arguing for no due process. The moment that formal allegations were made against the former Deputy Prime Minister, both he and the Prime Minister decided it would be necessary to call an independent investigation into the Deputy Prime Minister’s conduct. That was conducted by a leading KC and, following the conclusion, the Deputy Prime Minister resigned. The alternative would have been to have no investigation at all—no independent assessment—and in our opinion that would have been wrong.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
How swiftly will the Government act to reduce the time in which complaints about ministerial behaviour can be made?
Alex Burghart
My right hon. Friend is a lover of brevity, and the truth is that he will have seen in the Prime Minister’s letter to the former Deputy Prime Minister that it is necessary to make sure any
“shortcomings in the historic process”
are addressed. He has asked the Cabinet Office to look at that and we intend to do so swiftly.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
But the system that we came into this Parliament with only works if the Prime Minister has integrity and he does not keep ignoring the adviser on ministerial interests and the reports that they come up with into things like bullying by Cabinet Ministers. The fact is that we have had two of those advisers resign because their reports were not followed, and that has led to the ministerial list of interests being unavailable to the public for many, many months and many, many more changes of Government. That is completely unsatisfactory. Does the Minister not therefore agree that we need a much more rigorous, transparent system that does not rely on the honour of Prime Ministers, which can now no longer be counted upon?
Alex Burghart
I hope that the hon. Lady was not suggesting that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was dishonourable, because I think that would have been out of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, I am sure she will appreciate that the former independent adviser Lord Geidt said that the Prime Minister had been “assiduous” in his reporting. The report—the list— published by Sir Laurie Magnus just a few days ago suggests that he has been likewise in this return, as have all Ministers, and that wherever any perceived conflicts of interest have been found, they are being dealt with.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I want to just make absolutely certain that nothing has been said that ought not to have been said. I totally trust the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) not to have said anything that she should not have said, but just let me make it clear to the House as a whole that, when we are discussing a sensitive subject such as this in particular, moderation is important and that reputations are important. I am sure the hon. Lady was indeed moderate in her use of words, as the Minister has been. I just want to make sure everybody else is.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
The ministerial code is, of course, there to regulate the broader aspects of ministerial behaviour, not just financial interests—that tends to be the issue that the House gets really concerned about, but actually it is the broader behaviours that are more important. Given that we have had such a turbulent 18 months with regard to the code, will my hon. Friend, or the Prime Minister, consider rebooting it and focus on exactly the values that we expect of Ministers? Specifically, could I invite him to clarify that the ministerial code is very important when Ministers are deploying their operational responsibilities?
Alex Burghart
The ministerial code is obviously a bedrock of the way the Government operate and, on my hon. Friend’s point about operations, she is right. One reason the code exists is in order to give guidance to Ministers in that regard.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Of course the Minister is defending the status quo—that’s his job—but I gently suggest that the whole system of the ministerial code is now bust. It does not fit with the parliamentary code of conduct. There are lesser rules for Ministers than there are for ordinary Back-Bench MPs. The new list, which was published only last week, is already an inaccurate list of Ministers, let alone a list of ministerial interests. It seems bizarre that a Minister would declare something to their Department and to the adviser, who would then say, “Oh yes, but we’re not going to bother telling the public about that.” Surely the time has come to have a new system for the whole ministerial code that is truly independent, so that the Prime Minister does not make the ultimate decision, others make an independent decision on when there has been a breach of the code, and we unite the two codes—the ministerial code and the code of conduct—because all Ministers have to be members of one or other House.
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman is a powerful advocate for the approach he has outlined. On his point about examples of declarations of interest that might be made to a permanent secretary that may not be relevant—[Interruption.] If he gives me a moment, I will come to an example. For example, a Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs may declare that their brother-in-law works in a company producing electric car parts in their declaration of interest form. That will be considered by the permanent secretary and the independent adviser. That may not be included in the published list, on the ground that it would be unlikely to present a conflict in relation to a DEFRA portfolio. It also would not be relevant to the register of the Minister’s parliamentary interests. If the Minister then moved to the Department for Transport, the Department for Business and Trade, or the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the interest would become more relevant and would be much more likely to be published in a list. I use that lengthy and exciting example to outline to the hon. Gentleman that the two things are not the same. The list and the register are different and are there for different reasons. They operate in different ways and consequently have different rules pertaining to them.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
If we are serious about supporting and defending the independence and sagacity of our senior civil servants—I certainly am and I know my hon. Friend is—their advice on whether something should be in the public domain or not should surely be enough. Otherwise, it is a direct challenge to the authority of those senior civil servants to whom a Minister is making a declaration. Does the Minister agree with that? Does he also agree that the clue is in the title—a blind trust is just that?
Alex Burghart
Absolutely. A blind trust must be a blind trust. On my hon. Friend’s point about the integrity of official advice to Ministers, absolutely, our system requires officials to be able to give advice candidly and freely, safe in the knowledge that it will not routinely be disclosed.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
In our Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report into the Greensill affair, we suggested:
“The Government should outline the range of sanctions and indicative examples of breaches to which they might apply. Without this, the suspicion is that the only determinant of the level of sanction will be political expediency.”
In the discussions with the Deputy Prime Minister last week, was he offered a range of sanctions with regard to the breach of the ministerial code before he resigned?
Alex Burghart
I was not party to those discussions, so I am unable to say.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The transparency provided by the list is important, which is why I welcome its publication. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the Opposition should follow the Government’s lead on transparency, and publish details of all meetings and contacts that they had with senior civil servant Sue Gray before her appointment as Labour party chief of staff?
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
When the new, latest Prime Minister took charge, he promised integrity, professionalism and accountability, but after yet more sleaze and scandal was exposed by investigative journalists, and just minutes before Prime Minister’s questions, the register of interests was miraculously updated to include shares in Koru Kids which is owned by the Prime Minister’s wife, who would end up benefiting significantly from her husband’s policy changes. So, does the Minister not agree—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I warned Members earlier to be careful about what they say on this sensitive subject. There are certain matters which are sub judice or quasi-sub judice.
Madam Deputy Speaker
My honourable helper here tells me that they are under investigation. When I said quasi-sub judice, that is what I meant, but I suppose I should not have said it all in Latin. I will say it in English: under investigation. I would be grateful if the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) would be general in his question.
Mr Dhesi
Thank you for that advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does the Minister not agree that we now have a Prime Minister who has to be forced—compelled, if not embarrassed—into showing any sort of transparency?
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
When Sir Laurie Magnus gave evidence to PACAC on the compliance of Ministers with the ministerial code, he said:
“I think you have to rely on their honesty, their compliance with the seven principles of public life and their recognising that if they are to have the privilege of a ministerial position, they have to comply with the expected standards.”
What can we do in this place when they do not?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman, I am sure, as a member of PACAC, will have read Sir Laurie Magnus’s list, published last week, in which he outlines that Ministers are doing what they are expected to do and that permanent secretaries are helping them to do so.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
There are so many loopholes in the regulatory system for all the codes of conduct, but in that of the ministerial code in particular. The so-called Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests is anything but independent, and unable to initiate their own investigations or to decide on what sanctions are appropriate. When will the Government adopt my Elected Representatives (Codes of Conduct) Bill, which I introduced at the beginning of the year to close the existing loopholes?
Alex Burghart
With all due respect to the hon. Lady, it is completely the case that the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests is independent. He is independent and he conducts his duties accordingly in that role.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The problem the Minister has is that there is a pattern with the Prime Minister: he has already been fined for not wearing a seatbelt and for breaching covid rules, and he is currently being investigated over allegations about his registering of interests. Now, in an unprecedented move, it has been reported that the investigation has been widened because of allegations that it was discussed in public. Can the Minister explain why this Prime Minister, sadly much like his predecessor but one, seems to be—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I made it very, very clear in the past five minutes that questions were to be general and not refer to the investigation. I said it loudly and clearly. If the hon. Lady wants to ask a very brief general question, she may do so.
Patricia Gibson
Madam Deputy Speaker, I apologise. I tried to make my comments general by simply talking about allegations. I was talking about allegations, not about any investigation.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Let us make this absolutely clear. An allegation made in public in this House is a very serious matter and it has consequences. I will give the hon. Lady one more chance to ask a brief general question.
Patricia Gibson
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was simply going to ask the Minister if he can explain why he thinks the Prime Minister seems so accident prone when it comes to running his Government?
Alex Burghart
The Prime Minister is doing an excellent job of delivering on the people’s priorities. Scottish National party Members want to be very careful before picking up rocks in their glasshouse.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
We had the fast track for covid contracts, where people did not have to be a Conservative party member or donor—but it didn’t half help—to get a contract. We have had Ministers having to resign over various misconducts. We have had gaps in their declarations of interest, and now we have this investigation into the Prime Minister. That is a fact: that is happening. Does the Minister not think it is time that we had an independent ethics investigator who could look into these matters? Regardless of who is in government, the public’s view is that these things bring down our politics. Should we not all work together to clean it up and make sure that there is an independent investigator with power to independently investigate?
Alex Burghart
We have an independent adviser and a ministerial code. This Government are delivering on the Prime Minister’s commitment to integrity and professionalism.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for his clarification and the answers that he is trying to deliver. Will he further outline whether clear guidance will be issued on what constitutes a conflict of interest and how far that extends, to ensure that this House does not continue to consider these matters with the current greyness?
Alex Burghart
I refer the hon. Gentleman to Sir Laurie Magnus’s report and list published last week. The process by which it is decided what conflicts Ministers might have is in conjunction with ministerial declarations, the permanent secretary and the independent adviser.
Sir Chris Bryant
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for what you said earlier. It is important for the Standards Committee and the commissioner to be able to do their work that we do not refer—preferably anywhere but certainly not in the Chamber—to ongoing investigations by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I am pleased that he has made that point of order. It requires no answer from me other than to agree. Members ought to act honourably when they speak in the House—and everywhere—and not try to get as close as possible to saying something that they should not say. They ought to have a higher standard than that in the drafting of their questions, speeches and responses.
Sudan
(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make this further statement to the House about the situation in Sudan on behalf of the Government and the Foreign Secretary, who is attending the funeral of a close family member.
Ten days ago, fierce fighting broke out in Khartoum. It has since spread to Omdurman, Darfur and other Sudanese cities. As Members of the House will know, a violent power struggle is ongoing between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The situation in Sudan is extremely grave. More than 427 people have been killed, including five aid workers, and over 3,700 people have been injured. Before this violence began, the humanitarian situation in Sudan was already deteriorating. We now estimate that approximately 16 million people—a third of the Sudanese population—are in need of humanitarian assistance. These numbers, I regret to inform the House, are likely to rise significantly.
Although the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces announced a 72-hour ceasefire from 0500 hours London time on 21 April to the mark the holy festival of Eid, it did not hold. Given the rapidly deteriorating security situation, the Government took the difficult decision to evacuate all British embassy staff and their dependants to fulfil our duty as their employer to protect our staff. This highly complex operation was completed yesterday. The operation involved more than 1,200 personnel from 16 Air Assault Brigade, the Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force. I know the House will join me in commending the brilliant work of our colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, as well as the bravery of our servicemen and women for completing the operation successfully, in extremely dangerous circumstances.
I also pay tribute to our international partners for their ongoing co-operation in aligning our rescue responses, and I express my admiration for the work of the crisis centre in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where more than 200 officials are working 24/7 and seamlessly across Government to co-ordinate the UK response.
The safety and security of British nationals continues to be our utmost priority. Our ability to support British nationals has not been impacted by the relocation of British embassy staff. The evacuated team will continue to operate from a neighbouring country, alongside the Foreign Office in London, which is working throughout the day and night to support British nationals and push for a ceasefire in Sudan.
We are asking all British nationals in Sudan to register their presence with us. The roughly 2,000 British nationals registered with us already are being sent, sometimes with great difficulty, at least daily updates by text and email. This step helps enable us to remain in contact with them while we find a safe passage from Sudan. Movement around the capital remains extremely dangerous and no evacuation option comes without grave risk to life. Khartoum airport is out of action. Energy supplies are disrupted. Food and water are becoming increasingly scarce. Internet and telephone networks are becoming difficult to access. We continue to advise all British nationals in Sudan to stay indoors wherever possible. We recognise that circumstances will vary in different locations across Sudan, so we are now asking British nationals to exercise their own judgment about their circumstances, including whether to relocate, but they do so at their own risk.
Ending the violence is the single most important action we can take to guarantee the safety of British nationals and everyone in Sudan. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Defence and I have been in continuous contact with allies and key regional partners since the outbreak of violence to agree a joint approach to both evacuation and de-escalation of violence. Over the weekend, the Prime Minister spoke to his counterparts, including Egyptian President Sisi and the President of Djibouti. The Foreign Secretary was in contact with the Kenyan President, the US Secretary of State and the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Sweden, Turkey, Cyprus and the European Union High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy. The Defence Secretary engaged with counterparts in Djibouti, the United States, France and Egypt. I have spoken to the African Union and the Prime Minister in exile of Sudan, upon whom so many hopes rested. Further escalation of this conflict, particularly if it spills over into neighbouring countries, would be disastrous. As we continue to make clear, there must be a genuine and lasting ceasefire.
We undertake to keep the House informed as the situation develops. Today, all MPs will receive a second “Dear colleague” letter from the Foreign Secretary and me. This will hopefully help to answer a number of frequently asked questions to assist right hon. and hon. Members in supporting their constituents.
I will continue to be in close contact with the House and provide updates where possible in the coming days. I commend this statement to the House.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for keeping me informed over the weekend. The shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), is returning from Kenya this evening; he continues to discuss developments with African leaders there.
I join the Minister in paying tribute to the bravery and professionalism of our armed forces involved in the operation to evacuate British diplomats and their families from Sudan. On behalf of the Labour party, I thank the 1,200 UK personnel involved in that very difficult mission, including those from 16 Air Assault Brigade, the Royal Marines and the RAF.
Our relief at the success of the mission does not alleviate our concern for the several thousand British nationals who are still trapped in Sudan amid growing violence. Many will be frightened and desperate to leave, but uncertain of their next move and of the assistance that the Government will be able to offer. What they need to hear is a clear plan for how and when the Government will support those who are still in danger and communicate with them.
While we maintain the unified international pressure for a permanent ceasefire, we are clear that the Government should be evacuating as many British nationals as possible, as quickly as possible. None of us is any doubt as to the complexity of the task or the difficulty of the situation on the ground, yet we know that our partner countries have evacuated significant numbers of their nationals already: 700 have been evacuated by France and Germany, 500 by Indonesia, 350 by Jordan, 150 each by Italy and Saudi Arabia, and 100 by Spain. African partners, including Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, are also planning action, and France included UK nationals in its airlift. We thank it for that, but it raises some serious questions.
Can the Minister address why partner countries have been able to evacuate sizeable numbers of their nationals so far, as well as diplomats and their dependants, but the UK has not? Can he confirm whether the Government have evacuated any UK nationals who were not employees of the embassy or their dependants? Can he confirm how many UK nationals have been evacuated by our international partners? Were the embassy staff able to complete a full and proper shutdown, including dealing with any sensitive material? Given the communication difficulties, how can we effectively co-ordinate a second phase of the evacuation?
Naturally, questions will be asked about whether the Government have learned the lessons of the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal. We need to understand why the international community and the UK Government as Security Council penholder were seemingly wrong-footed by a conflict that we know was a clear and recognised risk. Can the Government give us a current assessment of Wagner’s role in supporting the RSF?
The immediate priority, however, must be to give our nationals a way to escape violence that is not of their making. We should remember that this conflict is not of the Sudanese people’s making, either; the responsibility for it lies squarely with a few generals who are putting personal interests and ambition above the lives of fellow citizens. The resistance committees are organising mutual aid despite terrible risks. People fleeing Khartoum by road are being sheltered and supported in the villages they pass. People who only want peace, justice and democracy are showing again their solidarity and extraordinary resilience.
Will the Minister detail the steps that the UK will be taking with partners to address the looming humanitarian crisis that this conflict is driving? The international community, including all our partners, needs to send a clear and united message. The generals cannot secure any future that they would want through violence. The fighting needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Lady very much for her comments, particularly about the work of the armed forces. She is entirely right about the bravery with which they executed this operation so well, and about its incredible difficulty.
The hon. Lady asked about the British nationals who are trapped in Khartoum and in Sudan more widely, and I can tell her that we are looking at every single possible option for extracting them. She acknowledged that this had been a complex area, and I can only say to her that it certainly was.
The hon. Lady referred to our partner countries. As we know, when the French were seeking to evacuate their diplomats and some people from the wider French Government platform, to whom she referred, they were shot at as they came out through the embassy gateway, and I understand that a member of their special forces is gravely ill.
The hon. Lady asked why the UK diplomats were evacuated. That was because we believed they were in extreme danger. Fighting was taking place on both sides of the embassy, which was why the Government decided that it was essential to bring them out. We have a duty to all British citizens, of course, but we have a particular duty of care to our own staff and diplomats.
The hon. Lady asked about the destruction of material, and I can tell her that there was time for all the normal procedures to be adopted in that respect. She asked about our role as the penholder at the United Nations. As she will know, we have already called a meeting and will call further meetings as appropriate, and we are discharging our duties as penholder in every possible way.
The hon. Lady mentioned the comparison with Afghanistan, and asked whether we had learned lessons. We most certainly have learned lessons from Afghanistan, but the position in Sudan is completely different. First, in Afghanistan there were British troops on the ground; there are no British troops on the ground in Khartoum, or in Sudan as a whole. Secondly, in Afghanistan the airport was open and working, whereas the airport in Khartoum is entirely out of action. Thirdly, there was a permissive environment in Afghanistan. We had the permission of the Taliban to take people out. There is no such permissive environment in Sudan and its capital city.
Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the humanitarian crisis. She is right: humanitarian workers have been shot at, five of them have been killed, and, prudently, those involved in the humanitarian effort are withdrawing their people. This is a total and absolute nightmare of a crisis, in which 60 million people are already short of food and support, and—as the hon. Lady implied—it will only get worse unless there is a ceasefire and the generals lay down their arms and ensure that their troops go back to barracks.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I echo the thanks that have been expressed to the staff from the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence who evacuated our diplomats and their families.
The central tenet of the contract between British nationals and their Government, or indeed the nation state, is trust, and at this point trust is being stretched: trust that we will evacuate those people and convey them to a place of safety when they are in need. I recognise the complexity and risk, I recognise that we have thousands of nationals in Sudan while others have just hundreds, and I recognise there is reportedly a military reconnaissance team on the ground—perhaps the Minister can confirm that—but I urge my right hon. Friend, who is very honourable, to get our people home, because that is what the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence train our people to do.
If, however, we are following the United States policy of non-evacuation or limited evacuation, we must have the moral courage to tell our British nationals that that is the case, because they are running out of food, water, electricity and internet signal, and some are killing their pets because they know that they can no longer feed them. We have a duty to empower them with the information that they need in order to make the right decisions for themselves and their families, but I urge the Minister to accept that time is running out and we need to do the evacuation now.
Mr Mitchell
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her comments, and I am grateful to her for thanking the crisis centre, which is working night and day. I can assure her that while the United States made it clear that it was taking its diplomats out in the early operation that both it and we conducted, it has also made it clear that, as things stand, it is not planning to take any of its citizens out. We have not made that clear. Indeed, we made it clear that we are working at all levels to try to ensure that we can do so. We are looking at every single conceivable option, and we will—as my hon. Friend has suggested—do everything we possibly can to help in every way we can.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
It is very welcome to have our civil servants evacuated, and all credit goes to the men and women in uniform who delivered that operation, but the political decision to evacuate an embassy in these circumstances should be neither complex nor lengthy, so the Government might wish to cease congratulating themselves on that, especially as, in terms of deploying our military professionals to support ordinary citizens trapped in Sudan, the UK is trailing as usual, just as it did at the start of the covid crisis. When other nations stepped up to repatriate their people, as is expected in such circumstances, the UK dithered and mithered.
Can the Minister explain to the House the root cause of this unfathomable inertia? Is there a tension between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence? If so, is the Foreign Office saying go and the MOD saying no, or is it the other way around? The official UK Government advice is that a ceasefire is the answer to this crisis, but what comfort is that to the thousands of UK nationals still on the ground? We might as well tell them to hold their breath while they wait for the food and water to run out.
Meanwhile, this weekend France evacuated 388 citizens, including Dutch citizens; Germany airlifted 101 citizens to Jordan; Italy and Spain have evacuated their citizens and those of Argentina, Colombia, Portugal, Poland, Mexico, Venezuela and Sudan; Turkey has evacuated 640, including people from Azerbaijan, Japan, China, Mexico and Yemen; and Ireland, without a tactical airlifter to its name, has evacuated Irish nationals and is evacuating 140 more today. What it is to have friends in the world. On Radio 4 this morning, the Minister said that UK nationals in Sudan would be frustrated. They are terrified, not frustrated. He also said no fewer than three times that if UK nationals chose to flee independently, they would do so at their own risk, which rather exposes Foreign Office priorities in this crisis. The risk assessment taken by Ministers advises UK nationals to stay put. Did they factor in any assessment of access to food and water, of failing sanitation or of escalating violence making future evacuations even harder?
Mr Mitchell
I do not agree with the early part of the hon. Gentleman’s comments. This was done because diplomats were specifically being targeted. He will have seen that the European Union representative was held up at gunpoint, and I have already mentioned that the British embassy was caught between the two sides in this. This was extremely dangerous, and I have already mentioned what happened to the French. It was the decision that our diplomats were in extreme jeopardy that led to the operation I have described.
As I said earlier, we of course have a duty of care to all our citizens. That is why we are doing everything possible, within the art of the possible, to bring them home, but we have a specific duty of care to our staff and our diplomats. Because of the extreme danger they were in, the Prime Minister took the decision to launch the operation that was fortunately so successful.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I too welcome the statement and pay tribute to our military for executing this evacuation of our embassy personnel, but as has been said, that duty of care must now extend to British passport holders who are still caught up in Sudan, including my constituent Rita Abdel-Raman, who went to visit her father and is now caught up in what is going on. I am grateful for the communication with the Minister over the weekend but I hope he recognises that while the capital, Khartoum, is very dangerous, the rest of that vast country is desolate. If we add together the elite forces of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, that formidable elite force could mimic what the United Nations is doing in using and protecting a land corridor to get thousands of expats and internationals from the capital to Port Sudan and to safety. When the Minister considers the options, will he consider that as a possibility?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend is a distinguished former soldier and he understands the difficulties that we face on the ground. I can tell him that there is no reason to regard any of Sudan as safe. He will have seen what is happening, for example, in Darfur, where the RSF is a successor body to the Janjaweed who wrought such havoc in what President George Bush described at the time as a genocide. My right hon. Friend will therefore understand that, when speaking about safety, that is not an easy concept, but the option he mentioned—indeed, every option—is being carefully considered and we will resolve those options and move on them just as soon as we possibly can.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate our armed forces, which have done an amazing job so far, and commend the work of our diplomats. The Minister has said that there are 2,000 British citizens in Sudan, but does he think the number is more like 4,000, as has been cited elsewhere? What is the best figure he can put to the number of British citizens in Sudan?
My memory of the Afghanistan situation is that MPs’ communication with Ministers was a complete and utter shambles. Some of us, particularly on the Opposition side of the House, felt that we had a very difficult time trying to get proper advice for our constituents. Will the Minister make sure that the second letter, which is meant to be coming to all of us, has a clearly identifiable number that we can ring and an email address to which we can send things? Having to communicate with lots of Departments ends up being a complete and utter mess for everybody.
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The number of people who have replied to the Foreign Office’s request for information and registered themselves is of the order of 2,000. There is public speculation that there are about 4,000 British nationals and dual nationals—a person with a British passport is effectively in the same category.
I know the hon. Gentleman will expect me to say that lessons have, indeed, been learned from what happened in Afghanistan. The second “Dear colleague” letter, which I hope is in his inbox—if it is not, it will be shortly—sets out exactly how to get hold of the Foreign Office. We hope the word “shambles” will not be applied to our seamless work across Government to make sure we achieve the aims that are common on both sides of the House.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank everyone in the FCDO, the MOD and our armed forces. I have visited Khartoum and absolutely understand how difficult and dangerous any evacuation is and could be. The violent fighting was started by General Hemedti’s RSF, which is really worrying, especially considering its historical links with Wagner. I have met General Hemedti, and I will never forget the overwhelming sense of evil. The longer the violence continues, the more that people will face acute shortages of food and water, which could precipitate even more violence. Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether any food is getting into Khartoum?
Mr Mitchell
I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments. She knows Sudan extremely well, and the whole House will have heard what she says about General Hemedti. She is right to fasten on the fact that humanitarian relief is enormously needed but, because humanitarian workers have been attacked and five have been murdered, the whole issue of supply is extremely difficult and, as of now, very little food is getting into Khartoum. We are acutely aware of this, and it is yet another reason why we are pressing with our international and regional friends and partners, through the United Nations and its agencies, for an urgent ceasefire that holds—none of the ceasefires has yet held—so that the humanitarian issues, and all the other issues, can be addressed.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
My constituent Jennifer McLellan and her four young children, aged between two and 15, are currently hiding in Khartoum. Yesterday Jennifer reported a significant lull in the fighting just as other foreign nationals were being airlifted out of the city by their Governments. She wants to know whether that lull was coincidental or whether the UK has missed a critical window in which to get its nationals out. She has been back in touch in the last couple of hours, having heard rumours that the Royal Navy could be heading to Port Sudan. She wants to know whether those rumours are true. In the absence of consular staff, how will she and her family, and others, be evacuated from Khartoum to Port Sudan?
Mr Mitchell
I cannot comment on rumours about the Royal Navy and Port Sudan. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman’s constituent and her family should make sure that they are registered with the Foreign Office. We will keep in touch and everyone should be receiving at least one communication per day. I am advised that today the internet has been only 2% available and so there are real issues with that, but we will do everything we can. He talks about a lull in the fighting yesterday. The Turks had a convoy with three muster points and when they were seeking to congregate their people there, two of those muster points were shot up. So the situation is extremely dangerous and it would not be possible to say that at any point yesterday, or on any of the days since this awful event took place, Khartoum was in any way safe.
Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
It is always a tricky decision whether to evacuate staff. I have always felt that the Foreign Office has been a little too keen to evacuate staff rather than protect British citizens, but the EU embassy was shot at and it is directly opposite the UK compound, which shows a clear and present danger to our embassy. My question follows on from the one from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). Will the Minister be more specific about numbers, including on the 2,000 figure? How many dual nationals and how many mono nationals are we talking about? Although we will treat the dual nationals equally, will the Sudanese Government treat them similarly? How many of those people actually want to stay? In previous situations, dual nationals have often been safer and have wanted to stay hunkered down with their families and second communities.
Mr Mitchell
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I assure him, having spent quite a lot of time with the men and women who are manning the crisis centre at the Foreign Office, that it would be wrong to suggest that their concern was for evacuating staff and not the wider public. The absolute commitment from the Foreign Office is to do everything we can for all those caught in this way, although, as I have mentioned, we have a special duty in respect of our own staff. He asked me to be more specific about numbers. I think I have been quite specific, but let me say that the published figures are about 400 for mono nationals and about 4,000 for dual citizens. He will appreciate that if someone has a British passport, they would expect to be treated in the same way whichever group they belong to. As for how many people want to leave Sudan, as I said, the Foreign Office has received registered communications from 2,000.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
May I associate myself with the comments made by the Minister and the shadow Minister about the professionalism and bravery of those members of our armed forces who have been involved with this operation? I know from my own time at PJHQ—permanent joint headquarters—that non-combatant evacuation operations can be particularly complex, so well done to everybody who has been involved. As we have heard from the Minister, the situation on the ground is that 2,000 British nationals are registered with the FCDO, potentially out of a total of 4,000. Given that Sudanese telecommunications are collapsing, can the Minister set out a bit more about what his Department is doing to explore contact with those British nationals who do not have access to either a reliable phone signal or the internet?
Mr Mitchell
First, I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his comments, which come from very considerable experience. When I say that the published figure for dual nationals is 4,000, we may be talking about more or less than that—I am only giving him the published figure. On how we communicate with people in very difficult circumstances, we are indeed extremely resourceful, but he himself set out the limitations for what is possible. We work within those, but I hope we do so creatively.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I, too, congratulate our armed forces on their success thus far. At a more strategic level, given that the removal of Bashir was key to stemming the threat of Islamist extremism in the region, what conversations has my right hon. Friend had with colleagues in like-minded countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to ensure that whatever the political outcome is in Sudan, it does not rekindle the threat of Islamist extremism, which would have an impact on regional security and, potentially, our own?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend, the former Defence Secretary, is absolutely right in what he says. There is a real danger of the cross-border spread of terrorism that he describes. He asked me specifically about conversations with the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I can assure him that those conversations go on at all levels of Government, and, indeed, went on over the weekend.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
When the Minister came to the House last week, I asked him what reassurance he could give to those Sudanese nationals who are already here in the UK. This morning, I got an email from my constituent, Mohamed, who applied for asylum 16 months ago because he was being persecuted in Sudan. He is still waiting for some kind of decision from the Home Office, so can the Minister speak to his colleagues to offer some reassurance to those who have sought sanctuary here that they will not be returned to a country in conflict?
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Lady for her comment. I do indeed recall what she said last week. I will refer the matter that she has raised to the Home Office, but I can assure her that no one will be sent home to Sudan at the moment.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
May I add my thanks to all those involved in this crisis?
Last week, I thought that the Minister rather swerved my question when I asked how much the overseas development assistance budget had been reduced in Sudan, so I looked online and saw that, starting at the beginning of the 2021-22 financial year, it had virtually disappeared. Does the Minister, who was in the same Lobby as me when we voted on 0.7%, continue to believe that spending in these fragile and conflict-afflicted countries is a really powerful way of preventing conflict across the region?
Mr Mitchell
I would never purposefully try to swerve my hon. Friend’s questions. She and I were indeed in the same Lobby, and I just point out to her that collective responsibility, as I have mentioned to the House previously, is not retrospective. In respect of the funding in Sudan, she will know that the one area of the budget where there is a degree of flexibility, even in these straitened times, is in the humanitarian area. Clearly, what is happening in Sudan now will inform the decisions that we make in that respect.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
May I, on behalf of the Democratic Unionists, commend our armed forces for their significant efforts in what is a most challenging and complex situation? I invite the Minister to recognise that it may be a stretch to suggest that having no diplomatic or military footprint in Sudan has no effect on our ability to rescue and evacuate British citizens. Having listened to a Northern Ireland resident last Wednesday who was doing an interview ensconced in his basement with his family in Sudan, highlighting that he was having to siphon water from a tap in his neighbour’s home and had little recourse to food at that point, how do we assure him that he has not just been left alone?
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Member for his comments about the armed forces. As I mentioned in the statement, we do not think that our diplomatic reach is diminished in these circumstances by diplomats being withdrawn. That is because, when they were holed up in great jeopardy in Khartoum, they were not able to operate, and most of the work was being done from the crisis centre in London, and that is the position today. I can tell him that our teams in surrounding states are moving to the point where they can help anyone who comes in across the border, and the diplomatic mission that was resident in Khartoum will be relocating shortly to a neighbouring country.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
According to the Ministry of Defence, the Sudanese armed forces have been reasonably helpful on evacuation issues, but surely the best possible protection for any future evacuation would be under the auspices of the United Nations where blue berets still count for a lot. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government are in the closest contact with the UN to see whether that extra degree of protection can be obtained for any future extraction operation?
Mr Mitchell
I can assure my right hon. Friend that not only is the role of the UN under constant examination, to be progressed in any way we possibly can, but that, as Britain holds the pen—in the jargon of these things—at the UN on Sudan, we are leading the efforts to ensure that all possible opportunities through the United Nations are pursued.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
With a large Sudanese community in Westminster, it is no surprise that I have a number of constituents currently trapped, terrified, in Khartoum. I must tell the Minister that at least one of them says that he has registered but has yet to hear anything from the Foreign Office. I appreciate the difficulties with the internet and I recognise that the Minister might not want to be too specific about what the future communications might be as the hours and days unfold. However, can he tell us whether he will be able to advise MPs such as me, and my constituents, that they will receive guidance on how any future evacuation plans will be communicated to them, so they are not left in this interim period worried that the minute the internet goes down, they are totally abandoned?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is entirely right about the importance of communication. I hope my second “Dear Colleague” letter will be of assistance to her and her office in handling those extremely difficult cases. On the communications difficulties she cited, which I mentioned in response to other hon. Members, we are looking at all possible ways of delivering guidance. I hope we are extremely creative in working out ways of doing so, but she may rest assured that the full intellect and abilities of the Foreign Office are engaged in exactly that.
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
There was already a significant humanitarian issue in east Africa, which I know the Government have been working to help to address, but this situation will significantly increase the humanitarian pressures on the region as well as being potentially disastrous for the people of Sudan. Can the Minister set out what resources we already have in east Africa dealing with humanitarian issues, and what ability we have to scale them up to meet the inevitable challenge that will follow this dreadful conflict?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend is right about the scale of issues that we face in east Africa, with something like 72 million people already in need of substantial help because of them. What is happening in Sudan will make that infinitely worse, not least because there are 16 million people who, before this awful crisis struck, were profoundly food insecure and in need of assistance. We will scale up when there is a ceasefire and we are able to do so, as he will understand. The United Nations agencies, which are extremely good at moving quickly to do that when the opportunity arises, will certainly come into play, with organisations such as the World Food Programme and many others, but he will realise that the indubitable requirement is that there should be a ceasefire so that they can operate on the ground. As I have said, five humanitarian workers have been murdered during the last week.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
I add my congratulations to those involved in this NEO, or non-combatant evacuation operation, and I would like to pursue the question from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) a little further. The British Government have supported many Governments in developing countries over the years with education in the civil oversight of defence, which includes educating senior military personnel in developing countries as part of our programme of defence diplomacy. Last year, a Liberal Democrat question served to find that no training has been provided by the MOD to counterparts in Sudan since 2020 because it would be regarded as military aid. Does the Minister think that education of the civil oversight of defence is worth categorising separately from military aid in those cases where a partner Government might be considering receiving it?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting case. Of course, through the pooled funding arrangements that we have, often that sort of work with the military can take place. I can tell him why he got that answer about Sudan last year: because all our efforts were bent towards trying to support the peace process and the negotiations that were going on to achieve a return to civilian rule. Sadly, all that is now very much on the back foot. But the aim, if we can get a ceasefire, is that those political negotiations should start so that there can be a civilian Government in Sudan.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The Government advise nationals in difficulties to stay indoors, but what if they run out of food, what if there is no power, water or other utilities, or what if there is fire in the local area? What is the advice and message of hope for them then?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The only advice that we can give through the Foreign Office—the only advice—is to stay indoors, because of all the reasons that I have given during the statement about the jeopardy on the streets outside. We have changed the advice today to say that although we think that people should undoubtedly remain indoors if they can, if they do not, it is at their own risk. But they must make their decisions on the ground. Of course, there are those who know the situation around where they live extremely well and may well be able to exercise their judgment, but they do so at their own risk.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I also pay tribute to the hard-working staff at the crisis centre. Last night, a constituent’s father, who had been shot at by armed militia in Khartoum, was evacuated thanks to the generosity of the French armed forces. My office spoke to his family this morning, and they are overwhelmed with grief. They said:
“While Dad has managed to get out of the country down to sheer luck, one of our friends remains in his apartment, just three buildings down from where Dad was. The information trickling down from the UK government remains minimal, and the announcement of European countries evacuating citizens makes this even tougher.”
Given reports that more than 4,000 British nationals could be in Sudan facing great danger, will the Minister update us on how many FCDO staff are currently responding to the current crisis, and why does the UK appear to have been slower in helping our citizens who are caught up in this grave danger?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady will know that we were, along with the Americans, the first to intervene in terms of any extraction whatever. She asks how many civil servants are engaged. The crisis centre has 200 staff working there. They are working on shift, but they have been working throughout the night and day, every day, more or less since this started a week ago.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
May I ask a particular question that might have a more general application? My young constituent, aged 24, has taken refuge in a central official building in Khartoum, along with a great many others, but her passport has been locked up in the building of her non-governmental organisation, which is now locked and sealed. Will the Minister therefore ensure that when any evacuation eventually occurs, some kind of official travel documents are available for those who do not have theirs with them?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Obviously, it is essential that his constituent does their best to contact the Foreign Office team so that we are able to make a note of what he says. I thank him very much for informing us about that specific problem.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The proposition that war and conflict do not happen during high days and holy days is a ridiculous one. Therefore, because of woefully inadequate intelligence on the ground it seems—maybe the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the British ambassador to Sudan decided to go on holiday. Can the Minister confirm whether that is true, and if so, who was in charge on the ground?
Mr Mitchell
The ambassador is entitled to return to the UK either on diplomatic business or, indeed, on leave if that is appropriate. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the second most senior person in the embassy in Khartoum—the development director—was in post when the disaster struck.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Given that there can be no guarantee of de-escalation, can my right hon. Friend confirm that Cobra is meeting regularly and urgently to consider all evacuation options and will be prepared to take risks in evacuating, using the strength of the UK armed forces if needed?
Mr Mitchell
I can indeed confirm what my hon. Friend asks. Cobra is meeting as we speak. It has met six times so far—five times chaired by the Prime Minister—and that includes one Cobra that we attended at 3.15 am on Saturday.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
May I extend my thanks to the armed forces and everyone involved in trying to resolve this crisis? I am still a little unclear, from what the Minister has said, about what the plan is. I appreciate that he cannot provide operational details that might put people at risk, but will he at least give a step-by-step outline of, for example, what the plan is for international relations on a ceasefire or an evacuation that should be being planned?
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Member very much for her comments about the armed forces. She asked me what the plan is; my answer is very clear. There is a wide range of options—I hope fully comprehensive—that are being pursued with vigour, for every possible opportunity and circumstance. As soon as we are able to say more than that, we will of course tell the House.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
May I join other hon. and right hon. Members in congratulating our armed forces on their very successful operation over the weekend? A significant number of NHS doctors come from Sudan, and I understand from a consultant at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in my constituency that around 50 of those doctors from various locations in the country are currently trapped in or near Khartoum. I thank my right hon. Friend for the advice that his staff at the FCDO, and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), provided at the weekend, at the earlier stage of this process, to me and my constituent who works there. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent upon those fighting in Sudan to do all that is necessary to enable those who wish to leave to do so? It is incumbent upon them to call a ceasefire and then to provide safe passage.
Mr Mitchell
I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said, particularly about the doctors he mentioned. The position in respect of humanitarian law is extremely clear, and it is clear that humanitarian law is being breached on all occasions in Sudan, so he is right to make that point. I also thank him for what he said about the armed forces. Just because the operation was an outstanding success, we should not forget the brave men and women who put their lives on the line and put themselves in harm’s way to protect the British cohort in Khartoum.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I have constituents who are trapped in Khartoum. They are NHS doctors, their colleagues are gravely worried for them, and they are stuck with two very small children. I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said today. He said that there is a grave risk to life, that food and water are scarce, that the internet is sparse, and that people may wish to relocate at their own risk, but that that is very risky and that they have to exercise their own judgment. None of those statements is of any practical help to my constituents, who need concrete support to get them and their children out of this perilously dangerous situation. What more can he tell us about the practical efforts being made to ensure food and water supplies on the ground? What more can he tell us, that our constituents can take some comfort from, about the efforts being made to get people back? Nothing that I have heard today has given me any comfort that my constituents should hope to be back home where they belong any time soon.
Mr Mitchell
I completely understand the frustration that the hon. Lady and particularly her constituents will feel at these events. I have to be absolutely frank with the House and ensure that no one is misled: the position is extremely difficult. As I have outlined in both my statement and my answers to questions, we operate within the art of the possible, but she may rest assured that we will do everything we can, and are doing everything we can—and have been doing so since the start of this crisis—to ensure that her constituents get home safely.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Just as it was with the repatriation of British nationals during the covid pandemic, so it seems that once again we are well behind the curve compared with other countries. The thousands of British nationals still stranded in Sudan will now be facing food and water shortages, along with other dangers to their lives, but according to media reports, it is apparent that both the ambassador and the deputy ambassador were out of Sudan as early as 14 April. Can the Minister confirm if that is correct, and if so, why was there no senior leadership present to help the British nationals in Sudan when they most needed them?
Mr Mitchell
I do not think there is a particular comparison with the covid pandemic. This is a very different situation; indeed, it is very different from the situation in Afghanistan, as I explained to the House a little earlier.
The hon. Gentleman outlines what he will understand is an exceedingly complex and difficult situation. On the issue of staffing, the ambassador was indeed out of the country, and the deputy head of mission was not the second most senior person in the embassy; that was the development director, as I explained in answer to an earlier question.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
To echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), I have been contacted by a constituent of mine who is gravely concerned for her family members who are stuck in Khartoum, including her great-grandchildren, the youngest of whom is approaching three years of age. As the Minister said in his statement, food and water are becoming increasingly scarce. I get the complexity of the situation, but what are we doing specifically to get food and water to those people who are doing as they were requested to do and staying in their houses?
Mr Mitchell
Once again, I hope that the “Dear colleague” letter will be of assistance in informing the hon. Gentleman’s constituents on these matters. On food and water, the position is deteriorating even more because the humanitarian workers are not able to carry out their normal activities, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that we are operating within the art of the possible. Therefore, what we have to do is to make sure that all options are explored as rapidly as possible, so that we can bring help to those people who are caught up in the dreadful jeopardy that he has so eloquently described.
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Minister has very kindly set out the arrangements in the crisis centre run by the FCDO. It is clear from listening to colleagues across the House that the FCDO and Members of Parliament are going to be inundated with requests for help, so will the Minister consider stepping up and adding further support to the crisis centre? It clearly seems to be needed.
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is right to identify the considerable amount of work that is being done through, and by, the crisis centre. As I mentioned earlier, there are 200 people engaged in that work, working night and day. I assure her unequivocally that if any more people are required, we will provide them.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Minister for his statement.
Point of Order
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise that I have not given you notice of this point of order, which follows on from Work and Pensions questions, at which I asked the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work why it has been 12 months since the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued a section 23 agreement to the Department for Work and Pensions for breaches and discrimination against disabled claimants. This shows that the Government have been unlawful, yet we still have not had a reply and an agreement has not been reached. How can I get the Government to produce a reply that complies with the Equality Act 2010 and restores confidence that the Act will be followed by all organisations, including this Government?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. She did not say what response the Minister gave during questions; she might like to do so.
Debbie Abrahams
The Minister said exactly the same thing that Ministers, including the Secretary of State, have said to me over the past 12 months: “It is being looked into. We are meeting with them.” There has been no clarity about when that agreement will be completed, which gives licence to any business or organisation—to anyone—to break the law, because the Government are not following their own laws.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification. She is a very experienced Member of this House, and I am sure that she will be aware of the various routes that she can continue to pursue, whether through oral or written questions. In the meantime, she has made clear her disquiet about the amount of time it is taking for this to be responded to. I look to the Treasury Bench; the Whip, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), is nodding his head, so I am sure he is going to feed back the fact that the hon. Lady has raised this issue, and I am sure she will continue to do so. She will, I am sure, have an opportunity later this week to raise it again—in business questions, perhaps—but we will feed back that it has been a matter of some concern.
Non-Domestic Rating Bill
Monday 24th April 2023
(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Non-Domestic Rating Act 2023 View all Non-Domestic Rating Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Victoria Atkins)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House may have spotted that I am not in as full voice as I normally like to be. I promise that is not because I have been participating in the activities that I understand are going on outside in Parliament Square. I hope the House will understand if I do not take quite the number of interventions that I generally like to when opening a debate.
I believe that all of us across the House recognise how important business rates are to council budgets and the funding of core services. This year alone, business rates are set to raise more than £20 billion to fund vital services, from adult and children’s social care to refuse collection. However, business owners have raised concerns about the impact of this tax on their ability to stay competitive. That is why the Government have delivered and will continue to deliver on our commitment to reform business rates.
In the autumn statement, we announced substantial immediate support to help businesses adapt to the 2023 business rates revaluation. Today, we take another major step forward, turning our attention towards longer-term reform with the Non-Domestic Rating Bill. It will ensure a business rates system that is more flexible, transparent and fair.
Before I set out what the Bill delivers, I remind the House of the steps we have already taken to improve the business rates system. From April 2023, we have updated all rateable values for non-domestic properties, reflecting changes in the property market. The revaluation ensured a fairer distribution of bills between online and physical retail. On average, bricks-and-mortar retailers saw decreases of around 20%, but we did not stop there.
In the autumn statement, we announced a support package worth almost £14 billion over the next five years to support businesses. We have frozen the business rates multiplier this year—a £9.3 billion tax cut over the next five years—we have increased the retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme from 50% to 75%, supporting around 230,000 properties, and we have removed unpopular downwards caps from the transitional relief scheme, ensuring that businesses immediately see the benefit of falling bills.
Turning to the Bill, business owners have been clear that a more frequent revaluation cycle would be extremely helpful. In place of the current five-yearly cycle, the Bill will implement a three-yearly cycle. The most recent revaluation took effect from this April, so the next will take place in 2026 and it will happen every three years thereafter. I understand that colleagues will ask, “Hang on a minute. Why every three years, rather than annually or every two years?”. The reason is that this single measure is a significant shake-up of the business rates system. An initial three-yearly cycle ensures that the Valuation Office Agency has the capacity to deliver these important reforms. I reassure the House that we will of course keep the system under review, with the aim of going even further if we can.
We are implementing a new duty for ratepayers to provide the VOA with information that supports valuation. That will be submitted through a new, simple online service. It brings business rates in line with wider tax practice, and it is a crucial first step towards going further on the frequency of revaluations in the future. We will make the valuation process clearer by increasing the transparency of the VOA’s work. The VOA has already delivered some improvements, but the Bill will allow it to go even further and provide more accessible information to ratepayers on how individual valuations have been reached.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The Minister is speaking about the Valuation Office Agency, which gave evidence to the Treasury Committee last week. It reassured us that it was ready for these changes and on track for its computer system changes. Is that consistent with what she has been told?
Victoria Atkins
Yes, it is. Indeed, the VOA is very keen to get moving with this because, while it does a good job under the current system, it understands the difficulties that less frequent revaluations have posed for businesses, particularly given recent history with the pandemic. This is very much part of trying to sew the system together even more tightly, so that the VOA is able to fulfil its obligations to ratepayers.
We are going to clarify what sort of changes or events should lead to changes in rateable values between revaluations, with reforms to material changes of circumstances. Another key reform involves rethinking the way that the two multipliers or tax rates are calculated. We are making the recent practice of uprating the multipliers by the consumer prices index a permanent feature. Defaulting to this lower measure of inflation will help businesses struggling with rising costs. The Bill will also allow the Government to adjust either multiplier to a rate lower than inflation, and to prescribe which properties pay the lower or smaller multiplier, keeping business support adaptable to the fast-moving fiscal environment.
The key driver for all of these changes is to help businesses grow, and in so doing we want to remove barriers to investment and to incentivise growth. We are therefore creating an entirely new 100% relief for ratepayers making eligible improvements to their property. They will not face higher bills as a result of those investments for 12 months. I know that that is something for which businesses, and indeed colleagues, have been asking for some time. We will also enshrine in law the 100% relief for low-carbon heat networks that have their own rates bill. That is something we recently brought in with the support of local authorities, and it has been warmly welcomed by the business community.
The Bill shows that the Government are honouring our promise to British businesses that we will be there for them no matter what, so that they can continue to innovate, expand and thrive in a globally competitive economy. In the last six months, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced almost £14 billion of support to the business rates system, and now through the Bill we are going even further. The Bill creates a modern system that can adapt to the ebb and flow of market tides. It delivers a fairer system that provides greater transparency for ratepayers and a business-friendly system that helps, not hinders, growth and rewards companies that invest. I commend it to the House.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
There is no getting around it: this has been an incredibly tough time for businesses across the UK. There was the pandemic, of course, but before and after it, they have had this Government’s mismanagement of Brexit to contend with, the Government’s failure to manage rising energy costs, the highest inflation for a generation and the unforgivable mess of the Government’s mini-Budget in October.
With this Bill reaching its Second Reading still inadequate in many areas, business owners are concerned about what further challenges await them. While businesses have welcomed some elements of this legislation, it is clear across the board that supportive measures such as improvement relief are being delivered far too late. The most glaring omission from the Bill continues to be the lack of any substantial improvements to our outdated, dysfunctional business rates system. Labour is committed to scrapping business rates root and branch, but the Government continue to tinker around the edges, buying time with short-term measures, rather than addressing the depth of the problems they have caused.
The last thing businesses need is more short-term sticking-plaster fixes. Maybe they are waiting for a Labour Government in the next 18 months to come and fix it for good. Our proposed reforms to business rates are what small and medium-sized enterprises have spent years lobbying for. All of us will know a high street that was prosperous 15 years ago and is now in miserable decline, along with libraries, nurseries and leisure centres. The Tories’ commitment to austerity policies has led to the death of a devastating number of high street businesses. They sat by and watched business after business go bust and the hearts of our high streets gutted. Office for National Statistics figures show that, even at the height of the recession, business deaths under the last Labour Government never rose above 277,000. In stark contrast, this Tory Government oversaw a staggering peak of 331,000 business deaths in 2017—years before the pandemic, before the war and any other factors that they may try to draw on.
While the Tories tread water, Labour has a plan for British business. We will support entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into reality. We will ensure that bricks and mortar businesses stay on our high street by making their tax contributions proportionate. Labour will make online tech giants finally pay their fair share of tax—something the Conservatives have never had the will to do. By raising the digital services tax paid by the likes of Amazon, we will be able to raise the threshold for small business rates relief, helping more homegrown small and medium-sized businesses to thrive in our retail sector. Sadly, among other common-sense reforms suggested by Labour, the Tories have refused to provide short-term support through raising the threshold for small business rates relief this financial year. Our estimates suggest that raising the threshold to £25,000 would save our high streets more than £1 billion. Instead, SMEs will continue to wade through bills and fight for their survival. Corner shops and cash and carries are essential staples of our neighbourhood and many families rely on them to meet daily need.
Although some measures in the Bill have been welcomed by small shop owners, worry continues over the administrative burdens of meeting the new “duty to notify” requirements. The Association of Convenience Stores told me that, despite representations to Ministers, its concerns about clause 13 have not been addressed. Forcing ratepayers to submit taxpayer reference numbers to the Valuation Office Agency will create more work for all retailers, but have a particular impact on convenience store chains. Has the Minister considered the difficulties facing businesses in that situation: those that may need to spend more to safely report sensitive tax information for multiple sites? There are also valid fears that fines will be incurred through small businesses not knowing when or what to update the VOA with regarding changes to their premises. Can the Minister update me on what consultations the Government are conducting to bring clarity to that process?
The Shopkeepers’ Campaign rightly notes that the clause allowing fines for retailers to notify the VOA within 60 days represents a “stealth tax”. Surely Ministers do not intend to find new ways to make small businesses worse off. Can they please commit to reviewing that policy?
Many convenience stores are owned and frequented by first, second and third generation migrant communities and those on lower incomes. Have Ministers carried out an equality impact assessment of the unintended consequences that these costs will have on the owners and, therefore, their customers? I would be grateful to know whether any such assessment has also investigated regional differences in the impact of the Bill. Recent analysis by Savills estate agents found strong disparity between the new rateable value for city centre retail units and those in small towns. Surely the Government are not proposing yet more policy that will make a mockery of their central promise to level up.
The hospitality sector was at the sharp end of the pandemic restrictions and slow economic recovery. Most recently, it has suffered a severe workforce shortage due to post-Brexit limitations on migrant workers. UKHospitality has joined other business advocacy groups in questioning the new proposals regarding expanding the VOA’s remit and powers. What is the Minister’s response to businesses facing extensive administrative time and costs to provide the VOA with more information than it reasonably requires? We welcome the commitment to revaluate rates more frequently, but every three years is still not enough to keep up with the sudden changes that businesses can experience during economic turmoil. A Labour Government will introduce annual revaluations, delivering the up-to-date monitoring and support that businesses are crying out for.
As I have raised with the Minister before, there is still no explanation from the Government on how they will support local authorities that have the huge task of processing tens of thousands of new business rate forms. Local authorities, as we all know and appreciate, are already understaffed and under-resourced. I do not need to remind the Minister that councils still do not have a long-term sustainable funding model, so each year brings more financial insecurity than the last. With yet another new administrative responsibility dumped on their desks, how does the Minister expect councils to be able to afford the time and staffing to adjust? Have the Government conducted any sort of consultation with local authority leaders to assist with the burden?
We will not be voting against the Bill today. We know some improvements have been made and we will work towards further improvements in the next stages. What will not change between this version of the Bill and the next is that Labour remains the party of business. We are committed to ensuring that every business, every entrepreneur, every high street, every worker and every customer gets what they need from government to live well and see our economy thrive in return.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
I would like to focus my remarks on our retail sector. The last few years have seen an acceleration in shop closures and job losses. The Centre for Retail Research found that more than 17,000 shops closed in 2022, equivalent to 47 a day and the highest total in five years. More than 5% of retail staff lost their jobs last year through insolvencies and store closures arising from rationalisation.
Retail, especially independent shops, is hugely important in beautiful Hastings and Rye, where over 30% of the local economy depends on the hospitality and tourism sectors. I know many local outlets have ceased to trade, and the town centre in Hastings is punctuated with empty or shuttered shop windows. Even key areas such as Robertson Street, which has seen something of a revival since the pandemic, now has prominent outlets closed and empty. Sadly, some businesses we lost were Hastings institutions, such as the fishmongers in Queens Arcade, which had been there for more than half a century. Others include the large Argos near Breeds Place, which remained empty for several years prior to the pandemic, and big names such as Game, in Priory Meadow. Several cafés across the town have also closed.
It would be unfair to say that all those business closures relate to the business rates system. Some are due to an increase in rent, on top of the increase in supply chain and energy costs caused by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but I have no doubt that business rates is a significant contributory factor to many business closures across the country. The business rates system has become disconnected from the realities of modern retail and retail real estate, which is why I am pleased the Government have decided to modernise it.
There are several positive measures in the Bill which will help our retail sector. A more frequent cycle of three years for revaluations will allow changes in economic conditions to feed through more rapidly into businesses’ liabilities. As long-term changes in the economy continue to manifest, accelerated by the aftermath of the pandemic, that will ensure the business rates system is more agile and responsive to change, while also improving fairness for ratepayers. However, it has been argued that annual revaluations would be most ideal, ensuring a highly responsive and up-to-date system. Perhaps the Minister can explain a bit more about that in her response.
The digitalising business rates project will, I hope, modernise the business rates system, improve the targeting of rates relief, generate better data for central Government and local government and help to improve business rates compliance. Measures to support de-carbonisation and investment, including a relief for low-carbon heat networks and a new improvement relief, will ensure that, from April 2024, ratepayers will not see an increase in their rates bill for 12 months from qualifying improvements made to their property. That is important because businesses that improve their properties should not be penalised for it.
However, I have some concerns that the Bill does not go far enough to help small businesses. The move to the three-yearly valuations has a cost to the ratepayer. The Valuation Office Agency has imposed a corresponding duty to notify, which requires ratepayers to inform it of any changes made to a property within 60 days of the change. This new duty represents a significant administrative burden for businesses, particularly the small ones. Whenever a change is made to the property, the occupier must inform the VOA within 60 days, or be met, it seems, with punitive fines.
The VOA’s job is to determine a property’s rateable value. It appears that the imposition of the new duty is simply the VOA asking the ratepayer to do its job for it. Many small businesses will struggle with that additional burden. Perhaps most concerning is the lack of a corresponding duty for the VOA to respond to ratepayers’ requests. Although the ratepayer must notify the VOA within 60 days—with the threat of financial sanctions—the VOA may respond to the ratepayer at its leisure. That hardly seems fair.
I am concerned that the uniform business rate multiplier has risen to 51p, which is a significant increase from the 43p that it stood at on its introduction in 1990—admittedly, that is quite a long time ago. Although freezing the UBR is welcome, it is temporary and contrary to our promise in the 2019 Conservative manifesto to cut the burden of tax on businesses by reducing business rates. The Bill means there may be annual increases in the UBR by linking it to the consumer prices index. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain a bit more about that. We need to keep in mind that in 2019 voters were promised reduced business rates bills on SMEs. Can the Minister outline what has been done to lower the UBR? Can she explain how linking the UBR to inflation through the consumer prices index will help to reduce the tax burden on businesses?
Overall, the Bill is welcome as a positive step in the right direction. We must do all we can to protect our retail sector. The Conservative party is always the party for small businesses. I would like a business rates system that flexes with profit rather than one based on the value of a property—that would be fairer.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I have been looking forward to this legislation, partly because I am passionate about any measures that will revive the fortunes of the high street in North Shropshire’s historic and beautiful market towns, and partly because, from my previous role as an accountant and financial controller, I have first-hand experience of dealing with the business rates system.
Businesses are facing tough conditions. Every ingredient, nut and bolt and widget purchased is more expensive. Many businesses are finding it impossible to pass on those additional costs to consumers. On top of that, energy costs have been historically high. Many businesses were forced to sign up to fixed-price energy contracts when prices were stratospheric. The Government left those businesses facing a cliff edge when support was withdrawn at the beginning of this month. Many pubs, cafés and restaurants have seen a 90% cut in Government help. In my constituency, they are reporting to me that they are looking at closure. Businesses have it really tough right now and they need a break. They need a Government who will
“cut the burden of tax on business by reducing business rates…via a fundamental review of the system.”
Those are not my words but the commitment that the Conservatives made in their 2019 manifesto.
The Bill before us today is a disappointment. It tinkers around the edge of an outdated tax that does not work for the modern economy. Our high street shops are competing with online retailers that do not have the same overheads as the physical shops that form the backbone of our communities’ common spaces. Business rates increase those costs further, making it even harder to compete. The Treasury Committee’s 2019 report, “Impact of business rates on business” confirmed that view.
In market towns such as Oswestry in my constituency, the smaller independent stores benefit from small business rates relief. They are not paying anything, so more frequent revaluations will not help them because they pay nothing in the first place. The opportunity was to make the difference for the larger retailers—the anchor tenants and the drivers of footfall that are needed to bring people back to town centres in person. I think that opportunity has been missed.
Turning to the detail of the Bill, there are some steps in the right direction. The increase in the frequency of revaluations, from every five years to every three years, is clearly welcome. It is also right to enable businesses to use business rates improvement relief to encourage businesses to improve and upgrade their properties. We would hope that the relief might encourage businesses to look towards ways in which they can embrace decarbonisation.
It also seems sensible to link business rates to a unique taxpayer reference. The provisions around notification of completion of works look to be a welcome measure to reduce the possibility of fraud in relation to buildings being removed from the rating list while being refurbished. From experience, that struck me as a potential weak spot for fraud, so that measure is welcome.
However, I want to expand on the onerous nature of placing a responsibility on businesses to keep the Valuation Office Agency informed about market value and changes to the lease or ownership. Businesses already receive a notification to inform the Valuation Office Agency when something material changes at a premises—primarily, ownership or the registration of a lease—and they must provide detailed information to confirm that the rating value is still appropriate. Moving to an annual notification, even in the event of no change, would mean yet another form to fill in for the beleaguered financial controller, with whom I have huge sympathy, who is already bogged down in seemingly endless monthly and quarterly ONS returns, on top of their monthly and quarterly financial reporting requirements. It is estimated that around 700,000 small businesses that currently do not pay rates at all will be included in this annual form-filling exercise, with significant penalties in place if they get it wrong.
Speaking from my own experience, the VOA is not quick to decide and respond when changes are notified. I spent a year persuading the VOA to put a new office building on the rating register and to record other alternations to a mixed-use site, including inviting the officers on a personal visit to assess the site at first hand. This was after the pandemic restrictions had been removed. Changes in case manager, records lost, confusion, and lack of interaction between the valuation for business rates and council tax meant that it was an administrative nightmare, as well as a business planning nightmare.
Businesses need to know what their rates liability is going to be. Cash-flow planning is critical to staying afloat, particularly at a time when businesses are struggling with soaring energy costs and rocketing inflation. Businesses cannot do that if they do not know what their rates bill will be; we should remember that the rates bill is backdated to the point circumstances change, not to the point that the Valuation Office Agency makes its decision.
I am extremely nervous about imposing a further administrative burden on small and medium-sized businesses, complete with harsh fines and penalties, when there is no acknowledgement of the importance of a swift response from the VOA. Surely some timetable could be put in place, at least for interim assessments, to help businesses to plan. I would be grateful if the Minister could consider corresponding reliefs or an appeals system, with remedies provided, when the VOA has taken an unreasonable amount of time to reach a decision, or got its decision wrong or in a state that requires challenge.
The current business rates system is broken. The Federation of Small Businesses said:
“these changes do not amount to the fundamental overhaul the system needs, to reduce the chilling impact of a regressive tax that you pay before even earning a penny in turnover, let alone profit.”
Fundamentally, Liberal Democrats disagree with business rates. They are harmful to high streets and our wider economy, and the current framework is a huge burden for small businesses. They tax productive business investment in structures and equipment, rather than taxing profits and land value.
The Liberal Democrats would abolish the broken business rates system and replace it with a commercial landowner levy. That levy would be paid initially by the landlords of commercial properties, not the businesses occupying them, and it would feature annual revaluations, which Netherlands has proved are possible administratively. It would tax only the land value of commercial sites, not productive investment. Removing buildings, utilities and other physical capital from taxation would boost business investment, in turn increasing productivity and wages.
Liberal Democrat plans would improve our high streets by boosting investment and helping shops that struggle. None of that will be achieved by today’s Bill.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Bill is welcome as it was a 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment to carry out a fundamental review of business rates, the final report for which was published alongside the 2021 autumn Budget.
I support the Bill generally, but I have two concerns. First, the Bill should be seen not as the endgame but as the start of the process to radically reform business rates. The ultimate objective should be to reduce the uniform business rate multiplier to something in the order of 30p in the pound; to carry out annual revaluations; to abolish the multitude of complicated reliefs; and to digitalise the Valuation Office Agency. If we do so, business rates will be reduced to an affordable level, the system will be put on a long-term and more easily understood footing and we shall be able to get on with so-called levelling up—removing barriers that impede regional growth. That will enable businesses to know where they stand and to make long-term investment decisions. The message I continually get from the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce, which carries out quarterly economic surveys, is that the No. 1 concern for businesses in Suffolk is always business rates.
My second worry is that the Bill will increase rather than ease the bureaucratic and administrative burden on businesses. I urge the Government to introduce amendments to prevent that. I shall set out my concerns in more detail later.
Before I came to this place, I was a chartered surveyor; I did not specialise in business rates, but I carried out appeals from time to time. Business rates are a tax with certain inherent advantages for the Treasury: they yield approximately £25 billion per annum, they are relatively easy to collect and they are difficult to avoid. However, if the system is not administered properly, they can have a significant negative impact on businesses generally, on specific sectors—we have heard about the challenges facing hospitality and retail—and on local economies.
Business rates are in effect a tax on existence rather than on profitability, so it is important that they be kept as low as possible. High business rates not only discourage occupation, but disincentivise investment in innovation, improvement and expansion—and if you will forgive a quick commercial interlude while I am on that subject, Madam Deputy Speaker, I must congratulate PCE Automation of Beccles, which has just received the King’s award for enterprise in recognition of excellence in innovation.
At a time of high inflation, high utility costs and stubbornly high rents, business rates are a fixed cost that occupiers cannot escape. The Chancellor made some significant and welcome announcements in his autumn statement, including the revaluation that is now coming into effect, the reform of the transitional relief scheme and the freezing of the uniform business rates multiplier. The Bill provides the necessary legislative framework for some of those changes and for others that arise from the Government’s review, as well as making some minor legislative adjustments and correcting some anomalies. I shall not go through the Bill’s provisions in detail at this stage, but I repeat that I applaud the Chancellor for the undertakings that he made in November, which are much needed in these challenging times. As I say, however, the Bill must be seen as the start, not the conclusion, of the process of radical reform.
It is also necessary to guard against some unintended consequences. As drafted, the Bill will add to the regulatory burden on businesses at a time when we should be seeking to ease and reduce it. The new duty to notify set out in clause 13, which the VOA has justified as necessary to facilitate the move to a review every three years, will result in a mountain of paperwork for ratepayers. Businesses will now have to notify the VOA of any changes to their properties within 60 days, or find themselves facing punitive fines or even imprisonment. It is not right for us to expect businesses which are already facing an extraordinarily challenging regulatory environment to put up with that.
This obligation was formerly the VOA’s, but has now been transferred to the ratepayer. The VOA has no corresponding obligation, and is able to respond to requests for information at its leisure. Ideally, the duty to notify should be removed from the Bill in its entirety, but if the Government wish to impose this new duty, they must do so with the principle of reciprocation in mind. The VOA must have a corresponding duty to respond within 60 days, giving the ratepayers rebates on their business rates bills equivalent to the penalties imposed on them if there is a failure to respond within that time.
My second concern relates to clause 14, which proposes changes in the circumstances in which rateable values may be altered outside the regular cycle of revaluations. I am concerned about the consequences of this clause, and I believe that it should be removed. Let me explain the background. A “material change in circumstances” allows ratepayers recourse to pursue relief on their business rates bills when factors outside their control have an impact on their ability to do business and to operate. To my mind, that is logical natural justice, but the VOA seems to dislike the paperwork associated with these claims, as is evidenced by its mass rejection of 400,000 covid-related appeals. It appears that to prevent the repetition of such circumstances, it is now proposed to exempt any Government legislation as qualifying grounds for a challenge. In practice, this means that the Government would be able to act with impunity and enact policies that could hamper businesses without allowing them the legal recourse to challenge them. That is fundamentally unjust.
As I have mentioned, the move to three-yearly revaluations should not be the endgame, but should be a stepping stone towards annual revaluations. The advantage of that approach is that there would no longer be a need for the current complex system of reliefs; businesses would in effect be paying a tax that moved with the market, and that would lead to greater long-term certainty which would then encourage private sector investment. At first glance, annual revaluations might seem too complicated and challenging, but, as we have heard, such a system operates in the Netherlands, and there is no reason why we should not have it here.
It is regrettable that, for many businesses, discussions and negotiations with the VOA are conducted in accordance with the philosophy of “one rule for us and another for them”. The proposed duty to notify embeds this sentiment still further. It must be removed, and the system must become more transparent. The VOA’s processes are notoriously opaque, and leave many ratepayers scratching their heads when they receive their revaluation figures. As it stands, a business’s only recourse when it comes to understanding its rateable value is to go through the VOA’s complex “check, challenge and appeal” process, which many feel is deliberately designed to discourage people from—dare I say it—peering behind the curtain.
The Bill, as currently drafted, does provide the VOA with the power to give more information to ratepayers, but only at its discretion, if it considers it “reasonable to do so”. This provision is set out in clause 10, but it is vague and undefined, and some might say that it provides the VOA with the ability to reveal information to no one while appearing to be forthcoming. If clause 13 requires businesses to provide reams of information to the VOA, it is only right that it should reciprocate. Ratepayers must be given the option to understand the process that defines the tax that they will be paying for the next three years, and to reasonably expect an answer within 60 days of submitting their request, thereby mirroring the duty to notify.
My final concern relates to another unintended consequence of the duty to notify, as currently drafted in the Bill, which is the wave of predatory, unqualified and unscrupulous rating advisers that I fear it may spawn. The ramifications of financial advice, whether good or bad, can be huge for individuals and businesses. Most financial advisers in most settings require a licence to give advice from a sanctioning body. One therefore has to ask why this does not also apply to rating advisers.
Helen Morgan
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. On his point about advice, financial controllers are inundated daily by people cold calling them and offering to challenge their rates bills. They have no idea who they are, yet they take a cut of any saving that might be made. This indicates two things to me: first, that the system is not fit for purpose; and secondly, that the rating values are inadequate in the first place. Does he agree with me on those points?
Peter Aldous
I agree with the hon. Lady. This is a specialist area of valuation. When I was practising as a chartered surveyor, I quite often got called in because the client, the business owner, had gone down the line of paying money upfront to someone who had sent them a circular—they may have paid them £1,000 or £2,000—and that person had suddenly disappeared. I often got called in to try to sort out that type of situation.
At the current time, with the publication of the new rating list, thousands of businesses are being flooded by solicitations from charlatan rating advisers who are taking advantage of the confusion created by the complicated rating system. There is a significant risk that many businesses, particularly SMEs, will have neither the understanding nor the capacity to meet the duty to notify. They will increasingly fall prey to such bad advice, and this could have a devastating impact. The Government should therefore consider some sort of licensing to protect businesses from the scourge of cowboys looking to take advantage of the duty to notify.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to hear that I have now reached my conclusion. Taking into account that we have been awaiting legislation on the reform of business rates for the whole of the 13 years that I have been an MP, this legislation is indeed welcome. For too long we have been carrying out reviews and searching for holy grail solutions that involve the abolition of business rates, but my personal view is that those do not exist. As I have said, the Chancellor should be commended for the positive announcements he made in his autumn statement, some of which are included in this Bill. The Bill should be viewed as a step in the right direction. However, as currently drafted, it contains a number of false steps that are likely to have unintended consequences. It is also vital to recognise that this is not the end of the reform of business rates, but it is the end of the beginning. I am happy to support the Bill this afternoon, but it has defects that need to be addressed as it progresses through this and the other place, and I hope that the Government will take on board the concerns that I and my colleagues across the Chamber have highlighted.
James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)
As we have heard today, this Bill makes a number of changes to the system of business rates, with most of these changes arising from the Government’s business rates review, which was first announced in March 2020. My colleagues and I will not oppose the Bill today, as any support it offers to businesses is welcome. However, as we know, some business organisations are concerned that the Bill will increase the overall administrative burden on businesses, and I will address that point in a moment.
First, it is worth putting this package of measures in the context of Government promises on businesses rates in recent years. The review that led to many of these measures was first launched by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor at the Budget of March 2020. He called this project a
“fundamental review…of the long-term future of business rates.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2020; Vol. 673, c. 281.]
When the final report was published alongside the autumn Budget of October 2021, however, the verdict was clear. As the British Retail Consortium concluded at the time, it
“falls far short of the truly fundamental reform that is needed and was promised in the government’s 2019 manifesto.”
The truth is that the changes before us, now more than three years in the making, miss the opportunity to begin replacing the current system of business rates with one that understands the needs of British businesses and that is fit for the modern day.
What is more, right now, we know that many smaller businesses, particularly those on high streets, that are already struggling after the pandemic and a difficult winter of high energy bills are worried about the impact of the current revaluation, which is why we called for an immediate cut in business rates for small firms this year by raising the threshold for small business rates relief in 2023-24. This would be funded by an increase in the rate of the digital services tax that is charged on the global revenues of global tech giants. We were disappointed that the Government failed to adopt our plans, although we welcome their having heeded our call to ensure that firms are immediately given any discount they are owed through the current revaluation, thanks to the Bill’s changes to transitional relief.
It is clear, however, that businesses need a Government who are ready to go further. In the Government’s own press release on the Bill, a quote from the British Retail Consortium’s chief executive makes it clear that
“the job is not done.”
That is, of course, right, and members of the Government may well accept that the job is not done but, after 13 years in power, how much longer can Conservative Members get away with the excuse that they have not yet got round to the urgent and fundamental reforms our country needs?
We know that fundamental reform is needed, which is why Labour has said that if we win the next general election, we will replace the business rates system with one that shifts the burden of tax away from the high street and on to online giants, that moves towards annual revaluations and that truly supports entrepreneurship. Businesses across the country want the Government to transform the system of business rates to meet the needs of the modern economy, which is what Labour will do in power.
There are measures in the Bill that we hope will give at least some support to struggling businesses. As I mentioned, we have been calling on the Government to remove downward caps on transitional relief, so we welcome the measures in the Bill to make that so. We are also glad to see the revaluation cycle being moved to every three years, rather than every five years, although we are concerned that the Government have kicked the prospect of annual revaluations far into the long grass.
The importance of annual revaluations was, again, made clear in the Government’s own press release on the Bill, in a quote from the chief executive of the British Property Federation, who made it clear that her organisation
“would like to see Government continuing to strive towards even more frequent revaluations in due course.”
We are therefore concerned that, in the final report of the business rates review, the Government said only that they will
“consider the case for…annual revaluations…in the longer-term.”
We do not have to read between the lines very hard to conclude that annual revaluations are off the table under this Government.
Furthermore, alongside the reservations that many businesses and their representative bodies hold about how the Government’s reforms do not go far enough, we know that others, such as the Shopkeepers’ Campaign, have raised important concerns that the Bill will increase the overall administrative burden on businesses. As we have heard, the Bill introduces a new legal duty on business rate payers to provide annual confirmation of the information held on their property and to inform the Valuation Office Agency of any changes made to the property within 60 days of the change or face a fine.
The new requirements will have an impact on business rate payers and on the billing authorities—indeed, the impacts are referred to in the information and impact note on the new duty, published by the Treasury and the VOA. I wish to press the Minister on two points in particular on the impact of the new duty. First, the note makes it clear that the average annual cost for each ratepayer will more than double as a result of the new duty and that in the first year the cost for each ratepayer of complying with the new system will be more than three times that of doing so under the current system. Will he confirm whether that is correct? The note goes on to accept that the 309 billing authorities in England with responsibility for business rates will be impacted by the measures too, but it says that the
“costs are yet to be quantified.”
Will the Minister confirm when the Government will publish the detail of what those costs are? I look forward to hearing his response to those points in his closing remarks.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), the shadow local government Minister, and I have made clear, we will not be opposing this Bill today. However, although any support for businesses that are struggling may be welcome, it is clear that promises of fundamental reform of the business rates system under this Government are gone. As businesses and their representative bodies have been making clear, even as we debate the Bill, much more needs to be done. Yet it is also clear that after 13 years of economic failure, and with a party now chronically divided by infighting, the Conservatives are incapable of delivering the reform that businesses need. Our country needs a new Government, who are ready to replace business rates with a system fit for the future, ready to work hand in hand with British businesses to succeed, and ready to get our economy growing in every part of the country, making everyone better off.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)
It is a pleasure to close this short but constructive debate on the future of the business rates system. As we have heard, our consumer habits are changing faster than ever before and with that come challenges for high-street businesses. The Government have conducted a review of business rates, as promised, and now, through this Bill, we will continue to reform them to better meet the needs of our economy, while sustaining vital taxpayer subsidy for local government.
In the time available, I wish to address some of today’s contributions. I was grateful for the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), who raised the important issue of smaller businesses and those in the hospitality and retail sector. I know, as do many of us across the Chamber, that there have been challenges in the past few years. I have seen that in my constituency, as will every Member in their constituency. That is precisely why the combination of what the Government have outlined in the autumn statement and in this Bill seeks to support businesses that are smaller or in those sectors, along with a wider group of businesses from across the economy. We are talking about 75% relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses; the removal of downward caps so that there is immediate relief when business rates reduce; and more than £14 billion-worth of relief. I hope that that goes some way to assuaging her concern.
My hon. Friend also rightly raised the issue of annualised revaluations, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), the Opposition Front-Benchers and the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), outlined when opening the debate, we absolutely want to see more frequent revaluations. That is exactly why we have brought forward the proposals to move from a five-year revaluation cycle to a three-year one. We think that is a big step forward in making business rates more effective and closer to the businesses that pay them. We also recognise that this will take time and we need to do it in steps. As has been outlined by colleagues, we will continue to look at it and we hope we will be able to make further progress in the years ahead. The British Retail Consortium was mentioned in a number of speeches. Organisations such as the BRC have welcomed this approach, and I hope that Members from across the House will welcome the move to a three-year revaluation cycle.
Hon. Members have raised a point about data. It is always challenging to make the decision about where to request data and where to require it, and how to get the right balance between ensuring that the tax system is effective—we need data in order to make sure of that—and not creating an undue burden on businesses.
The purpose behind the collection of this data is to ensure both that we have the best information possible to make decisions in the future and that we balance proportionately the information that we collect to make sure that the tax is collected in the right way. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney that, with regard to the administrative questions, we are committed to a soft launch of the collection of this data. We will not activate the compliance regime until we are satisfied that it works, and we will be piloting it further with a range of users. We accept that we need to get this right, but the principles behind ensuring that we have the most up-to-date system, which requires data to achieve, are sound. It will be through the pilot and the review process, following the Bill hopefully becoming law, that we will be able to review the changes to make sure that they work for businesses in the best way possible.
Briefly, my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney also touched on clause 14, which recognises the particular challenge visible during covid. Of course everybody in this House will have hoped that highly unusual and atypical events such as covid could never happen, but because they have, it is incumbent on us all in this place to make sure that we have considered the situation should—hopefully it will never happen—such atypical events happen again in the future. We are trying through clause 14 to recognise that such things may happen, while hoping that they never will. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his constructive comments. He says that the Bill is a step in the right direction, and we agree. I hope that my comments now have reassured him about those other steps that he is not yet sure about.
The hon. Member for North Shropshire made a number of important points about the burden of business rates, about ensuring that they are proportionate, and about the challenge of taxation in general. She is absolutely right to do so, but it would have made more sense had the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), not been out on the airwaves just a few days ago committing himself to spending more money, which the country does not have, and which taxes such as this have to pay for. There is a consistency problem with the Liberal Democrats. For those of us who are not in the Liberal Democrats, we recognise that consistency is something that they have never shown.
Finally, I welcome the fact that those on the Opposition Front Bench will not be opposing the Bill tonight. I also welcome their generally constructive comments, and I hope that I have been able to answer them, but—there is always a but with the Opposition Front Bench—the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) suggested that we were waiting for a Labour Government to fix this issue. The question is what the fix would be, because we have put forward a plan that ensures relief for businesses up and down the land. Was she talking about the fix of 2021, when the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) was going to scrap business rates? Is it the fix a few days later, after 2021, when it was to significantly change business rates, but not to scrap them? Or is it the fix of 2022 when business rates were to be modernised but without any clarity as to how that would happen. The Labour party says what it needs to say, but it has no plan on issues such as this.
In front of us today is a Bill that improves and modernises our business rates and makes them more efficient and effective, on top of £14 billion of relief for all businessmen and women and all businesses across the country. It makes sure that those rates are as effective and efficient as they can be and that businesses in this country thrive in the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Non-Domestic Rating Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Non-Domestic Rating Bill:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and on Third Reading
(2) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after their commencement.
(3) Any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion four hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
(4) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(5) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Non-Domestic Rating Bill (Money)
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Non-Domestic Rating Bill (Ways and Means)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise:
(1) the payment of sums to the Secretary of State in respect of non-domestic rating,
(2) the payment of those and other sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Question agreed to.
Public Order Bill
Monday 24th April 2023
(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Public Order Act 2023 View all Public Order Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 24 April 2023 - (24 Apr 2023)
18:27 - The House divided: - Ayes: 270 / Noes: 200 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
I beg to move,
That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 6H and 6J.
The Public Order Bill is about giving the police the tools they need to tackle the highly disruptive protest tactics we have seen in recent months, and indeed today, which have blocked ambulances, delayed passengers making important journeys, prevented children from getting to school and patients from getting to hospital, and at times held the capital city to ransom. I do not wish to detain the House for any longer than necessary, because we have debated this Bill numerous times in recent months and it has undoubtedly been given the scrutiny the British people want and expect. It is time for that delay to end and for this Bill to become law.
The other place has once more voted to amend clause 11, the power to stop and search without suspicion—although it is worth saying that that power can only be used if a police officer reasonably believes that certain protest-related offences will happen in the very near future, so it is not a power that can be used wholly arbitrarily. It is most disappointing to see that vote after this elected Chamber disagreed with their Lordships in their last amendments.
As my noble colleague explained in the other place, it is our view that the changes are unnecessary. First, a legal framework already exists for all stop-and-search powers. Under section 3.8 of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code A, the code of practice for powers to stop and search, police officers have to give their name or identification number, the police station to which they are attached and grounds for every single stop and search, essentially replicating the proposal in their Lordships’ motion 6H. Those criteria are covered in the GOWISELY mnemonic drilled into every police officer.
Secondly, it is our view that the requirement for police forces to establish a charter on the use of powers would cause unnecessary burdens on police forces and officers, something the Opposition have been concerned about throughout this Bill’s passage. Plenty of long-established safeguards already exist for stop-and-search powers. Additionally, we have supported the National Police Chiefs’ Council in its publication of national guidance on the use of body-worn video, which includes encouraging forces to share footage with external scrutiny groups to support transparency and reflective practice and learning.
On reporting on the use of stop-and-search powers, I would like to reassure the House that the Home Office already publishes an annual statistical bulletin, which outlines in detail the information gathered during each stop-and-search incident. That reporting will be conducted for the use of the new stop-and-search powers, both suspicion-led and suspicionless.
Finally, on publishing a statement giving reasons for the use of powers, as the Government reiterated in the other place, we recognise that communication on the use of these powers is a fundamental element of building trust and confidence between a force and the community it serves. The majority of forces, including the Metropolitan Police Service, already communicate their section 60 authorisations, and I know that communities appreciate knowing the details of the geographical area, time limits and justification for the authorisation. Those forces will continue that practice for these new powers.
Nevertheless, as the noble Lord Sharpe of Epsom committed to in the other place, the Government will amend PACE code A to require that, where it is operationally practical to do so, forces must communicate the extent of the area authorised for the suspicionless stop and search, the duration of an order and the reasons for that order. This Government commit to the spirit of what their Lordships are asking for, in their proposed new subsection (9D) of clause 11, through amendments to PACE code A. We will also amend PACE code A to place data collection within the legislative framework. It will include a breakdown of both suspicion-led and suspicionless searches cross referenced with protected characteristics such as age, sex and ethnicity.
I hope that those clear commitments—made in this House and in the other place, and reiterated here today—will satisfy hon. Members. Making changes to PACE code A is the right way to address those issues. The amendments to PACE code A will ensure consistency across all stop-and-search powers and allow for a full and robust consultation with external stakeholders, providing the right balance between tackling disruptive protesters and protecting the rights of each citizen where the powers are used. For those reasons, I hope that the House will agree with the Home Secretary in respectfully disagreeing with their Lordships’ amendments 6H and 6J.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
I rise to speak against the Government’s motion to disagree with Lords amendments 6H and 6J, which we support.
The amendments seek to do two things: first, to instruct officers to give their name, badge number and reason for stopping anyone they search under the new suspicionless stop-and-search powers, and secondly, to compel all police forces to set up a charter—which they would have to consult on, publish and independently evaluate—on the use of their suspicionless stop-and-search powers. To be clear, the amendments have nothing to do with patients not getting to hospital; nothing to do with blocking roads; nothing to do with whether stop and search without suspicion actually takes place. They are to do with the manner in which suspicionless stop and search is conducted.
The amendments are direct recommendations from Louise Casey’s report—although she would go further and apply them to all stop and searches. Baroness Casey’s review of the standards of behaviour and internal culture of the Metropolitan Police Service is a 300-page tour de force. The Home secretary welcomed the review and said:
“Accepting Baroness Casey’s findings is not incompatible with supporting the institution of policing and the vast majority of brave men and women who uphold the highest professional standards.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 165.]
The Prime Minister said:
“There needs to be a change in culture and leadership, and I know that the new Metropolitan commissioner will no doubt reflect on the findings of Louise’s report, but is already making changes and that's right, because what was happening before is simply shocking and unacceptable.”
He is right. Officers right across the Met are desperate to see those improvements put in place and action taken to rebuild the confidence of Londoners.
Labour tabled Lords amendments 6H and 6J to clause 11 to help put into legislation some of the improvements recommended by Baroness Casey, and it is very disappointing and surprising that the Government have tabled a motion to disagree. Clause 11 brings wide-ranging powers for the police to stop and search anyone in the vicinity of a protest, including anyone who happens to be walking through the area. The Government’s proposals risk further damaging the delicate relationship between the police and the public by significantly expanding stop-and-search powers to a protest context.
We agree that stop and search is a really important tool. The Minister has said on many occasions that stop and search is important for looking for weapons, and of course, we absolutely support that. We support suspicionless stop and searches—or section 60s—when serious violence, or terrorism, has occurred. But it is important to reflect that we are talking about using the suspicionless stop-and-search power not for terrorism or serious violence, but for protests—it is about searching for glue, a padlock, a microphone or a speaker. That will not have been agreed by the chief superintendent but by an inspector, because the Government rejected our amendment to make that change. Really, clause 11 should have been removed from the Bill, but we are not here to debate whether we should have suspicionless stop and search because that debate has concluded. Today, we are debating sensible, important changes to the Government’s clause to insert some safeguards into a wide-ranging power and mitigate some of its potential adverse impacts.
Chris Philp
Why do the Opposition object to implementing some of the key elements of the Lords amendments in PACE code A, where most regulations relating to this issue already sit? They can be updated relatively easily if necessary, so is not PACE code A the right place to do this? In relation to Louise Casey’s recommendation, she did not specify that these changes should happen in primary legislation. We are doing these things, just in PACE code A.
Sarah Jones
My understanding is that the agreement to include some aspects of the amendments in PACE code A does not go the whole way towards what we are suggesting in this legislation. The attitude from the Government—that plenty of long-established safeguards already exist, as the Minister said at the start of his contribution—is wrong. We have lots of regulations in PACE code A and other places that are clearly not always adhered to. Louise Casey has identified this as a problem, she has made a suggestion and we suggest putting it in the Bill, which I think is a reasonable response.
We know that stop and searches can go wrong when there is a communication failure from the officers carrying out the search. We welcome the changes announced in the Lords, although we do not know exactly what the changes to PACE code A will be, or how or when they will happen. Our colleagues in the other place tried to add points about communication into the Bill and suggested increasing the seniority of the officer allowing a suspicionless stop and search, but both amendments were rejected. Baroness Casey suggests as a minimum that Met officers should be required to give their name, their shoulder number, the grounds for the stop and a receipt confirming the details of the stop. Lords motion A1 built on Louise Casey’s recommendations and attempted to add them to the legislation.
It is worth remembering that a recent report by Crest Advisory examining the experience of black communities nationally of stop and search found that 77% of black adults support the use of stop and search in relation to suspicion of carrying a weapon, but that less than half of those who have been stopped and searched felt that the police had communicated well with them or explained what would happen.
It would be helpful to understand whether the Minister agrees with Baroness Casey’s recommendations in full and, if he does not, whether he thinks she is wrong or believes that something else should be done instead. The Casey report was devastating, and Ministers have so far been unable to offer any solutions to make the reforms we need in policing. Here is an opportunity for the Minister to signal the Government’s intent to make those reforms. We have heard the warnings from former police officers that some of the powers in the Bill risk diminishing trust in public institutions. The Peel principles on policing by consent said that
“the police are the public and the public are the police”.
The Home Secretary said in her statement to the House on the Casey review:
“When it comes to changing the law or introducing any frameworks that are necessary, we in the Home Office will do that”.—[Official Report, 21 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 167.]
Here is a chance for the Home Secretary to keep her word. It will not change anything in terms of who can be stopped; it will just make the process more transparent and better for everyone. On the 30th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, wouldn’t that be a good thing to do? I urge Members across the House to back the Lords amendments and reject the Government’s motion tonight.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I find myself, I am afraid, in agreement with the Opposition spokesperson. I also support the Casey recommendations, based as they were on a horrifying report about the behaviour of the Met over the years. Let us be clear: no Government of any persuasion have managed to get the Met to behave—and not just the Met; other police forces, too—in a manner that is acceptable to the public, bearing in mind that there have been Governments of both orientations since Stephen Lawrence.
The second point I would make very quickly is that when the Home Secretary in 2010—my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), for those who do not remember—limited stop and search, she did not do so out of an excess of liberal sympathy. She did so because, at that point in time, stop and search was being used in such a way that it caused serious race relations problems in several parts of the country. That was because stop and search was largely targeted at stopping violence, and at that point—it may well still be true today—the perpetrators of knife crime and the victims of knife crime mostly came from minority communities. Although minority communities themselves were not happy about the operation of the system, they understood why it was there. That was a different order of magnitude from using suspicionless stop and search to control demonstrations.
Don’t get me wrong: I think that we should have some fairly fierce legislation—which we do have now—for dealing with people who deliberately destroy the lives of the public, or uproot and disrupt the lives of the public. I am a great believer in the right of demonstration, but I do not think it should go beyond a certain level. That is why I support the Lords amendment to put this provision on the face of the Bill.
To respond to the Minister’s question to the Opposition spokeswoman, we should turn the question on its head: why should it not be on the face of the Bill? After all, that would broadcast in clear terms what we want to happen. We want the police to behave in a respectful and careful manner when they use this power. Indeed, I am slightly surprised that the Lords amendments did not also include making sure that video footage from the body cameras was available, including to the lawyers of the people who were stopped and searched after the event, if need be.
I think this is a worthwhile amendment. As has been said, I think it is very much in line with the Casey report, and we as a Government have to set our minds to ensuring that every recommendation of the Casey report is put in place and to returning the Metropolitan police and other police forces to the level of public respect that we wish they had now.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I, too, rise to speak in support of the Lords amendments. These are amendments about suspicionless stop and search, and we need to draw a breath and remind ourselves that suspicionless stop and search really is a significant power. It is a hugely invasive, intrusive and arbitrary police tactic that causes incredible inconvenience for those who are impacted, and that is something that has not seemed to register at all with the Government throughout the entire process of discussing clause 11.
From the Casey report, we also know of the hugely significant impact that these powers can have on black and minority ethnic communities in particular, so it is plain wrong to be pressing on when trust has been undermined by a series of horrendous stories, particularly regarding the Metropolitan police, but far from exclusively. Nobody in this Chamber is saying that suspicionless stop and search powers are never, ever appropriate, but there must be serious justifications for them. Of course, there are serious justifications when it comes to terrorism or serious violence, but the powers in the Bill apply in circumstances that do not come remotely close to justifying their use. In some circumstances, we are talking about an inspector having a suspicion that somebody somewhere might commit a public nuisance. That is absolutely no basis for setting up a suspicionless stop and search regime, so this is an appallingly inappropriate expansion of such powers at a time when Casey has called for a reset of practice with regard to them.
As such, we support these Lords amendments. The arguments in favour of them have been set out comprehensively in the last two speeches that we have heard. If anything, the amendments are very limited and do not go anywhere near far enough, but they are just about better than nothing, and they may provide some reassurance for those who are going to be at the sharp end of such searches. We therefore support them and disagree with the Government motion.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I return to trust, which is the basis of policing by consent. We need trust in the police, not just so that when people pick up the phone they get assistance, but from an intelligence perspective as well. One concern that I have had consistently throughout the debate on the Bill is that, in eroding that trust, we will fail to get the intelligence that we need in order to prevent some of the offences that the Government are attempting to stop via the Bill.
The Minister has pointed out the additions to the PACE code, but I wonder whether, if those in the other place had not persisted in their course in relation to suspicionless stop and search, we would have got that climbdown from the Government. I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that we need this provision on the face of the Bill. The reality is that when we look separately at section 60 searches—again, this is from the Casey report—it does not appear that a sudden surge in use had any effect on the underlying trend.
I have deep concerns that if the Government are successful in disagreeing with the Lords amendments today, which I suspect they might be, we will miss the opportunity of the Casey report and, several years from now, we will be standing in this place debating the fact that—we told the House so—stop and search does not work.
Chris Philp
I do not want to rehearse at great length points I have made previously, but I reiterate in response to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), that the Government believe that these powers, which are to be used in limited circumstances, are necessary pre-emptively to prevent people who are going equipped to disrupt the day-to-day lives of fellow citizens, whether it is with equipment to allow them to lock on to pieces of critical national infrastructure, to glue themselves to roads or to climb up gantries and attach themselves to equipment over the M25. They go equipped—it is an intentional, planned activity—and there are occasions when it will be necessary for the police to conduct stop and searches where they reasonably believe that a crime may be committed, even when no suspicion attaches to a particular individual.
I reiterate my point that the substance or key points of the amendments either are covered or will be covered by PACE code A. In relation to Lords amendment 6H, as I said, the officer giving their name and their badge number, the details of the stop they consider relevant and the grounds for the search are already covered by paragraph 3.8 of PACE code A. It is in there already, and officers do it already. In relation to issuing a statement giving the reasons for these particular powers, we will make sure that PACE code A sets that out even more clearly. The amendments have either been implemented already, or we are committed to implementing their substance and spirit using PACE code A.
Why are we using PACE code A, rather than putting the amendments in the Bill? First, it is for consistency. These sorts of conditions are set already in PACE code A, and we want to be consistent with how things operate already. Furthermore, when setting out guidelines, it is generally better to use instruments such as PACE code A or regulations, because where changes or updates are needed, it is much easier to do that by amending secondary legislation, guidelines or codes of practice, rather than by going back and amending primary legislation, which can happen only infrequently.
Those are the reasons we have taken the approach we are taking. There is a good rationale for that, and I therefore urge the House to join the Home Secretary in respectfully disagreeing with their lordships on Lords amendments 6H and 6J.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendments 6H and 6J.
Mental Health Support: Wirral
(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I thank the Speaker, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to raise a number of issues relating to mental health care in the Wirral. I thank my constituents, a number of whom have come to see me to share their experience, which is why I requested this debate. I also thank the many community groups across the Wirral that do incredible work to support people with mental health conditions to try to change and improve our borough, to make it a better, more supportive place for all our mental health.
As I said, the need for this debate has arisen because more and more constituents have come to see me in recent years about mental health challenges. I assume that that is common to many of us across the House. More commonly, constituents come to see me about something else, but in the process of the discussion about whatever the problem is—be it social security, education or their life at work—it has come to light that they have an unmet mental health need. I have asked them about the support and care available to them through our NHS, and it has become apparent that the services provided through our NHS in the Wirral—and I am sure across the country—are not sufficient.
It is difficult to unpick this issue sometimes because the shame and stigma that still exist around mental health mean that we are much less likely to hear from our constituents about their mental health problems. Yet if there is a problem with getting through the front door of A&E at Arrowe Park Hospital, I will hear about it almost immediately. If there is a problem with cancer waiting times, or hips and knees treatment, I am convinced that I would know about that. I worry that the problems with mental health treatment services in this country are not brought to our constituency surgeries in the same way. That made me want to have this debate—to shine a light on what is happening.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early in her speech. I recently met a number of local school leaders in my constituency, who are concerned about children having gone through covid, not having the opportunity to play out, to be with their friends and to have regular schooling in the way that children normally do; not being able to play outside, do homework together and have sleepovers—all those bonding situations that are important in childhood. They are concerned about the mental health of their pupils. Does she agree that we need the Government to step up to the challenge, provide more sports for schools and follow Labour’s lead by committing to specialist support for mental health issues in every single school?
Alison McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for making that point. We could have another Adjournment debate on mental health support services for children and the role that education should play. I will not focus on children and young people today, but I share her concerns and I thank her for putting them on the record.
When trying to find out more about exactly what is going on in the Wirral, it was pretty frustrating and challenging to get clarity on mental health waiting times. That is a big inequality with physical health, partly because our traditional way of measuring waiting times in the NHS is referral to a consultant for treatment. But in mental health, the big focus is on services in which someone, hopefully, will not need to see a consultant. Expanding access to talking therapies, which were previously known as the improving access to psychological therapies service, is not about getting a referral to see a consultant, so I do not think there is the same political eye on mental health waiting times. Will the Minister say what plans the Government have to structurally change that and to try to figure out a way for us to track mental health waiting times more effectively? As constituency MPs, we need to be much more aware of what services are being provided to our constituents and in what timeframe.
I mentioned the NHS focus on talking therapies and the IAPT service. Having prepared for the debate, the Minister may know that unfortunately in the Wirral we have a significant backlog in waiting times for the IAPT service. Through asking questions, I have discovered a significant failure against one of the key measures. As of December 2022, the
“number of individuals accessing IAPT services as a percentage of prevalence in the borough”
was just less than 10%, but the national target is 25%. In my view, that is a big failure. It represents a significant number of people who ought to be accessing talking therapies who are not. What more can the Minister tell me about the oversight that central Government have of that?
The talking therapies staff in the Wirral are brilliant. Having inherited the backlog as a new provider, they have worked incredibly hard to try to get on top of the situation. They are doing significant and important work, but the delays have big consequences for my constituents. Some people who have come to my constituency surgeries have experienced challenging situations but not had the kind of support they needed.
Looking at the figures from NHS Cheshire and Merseyside more closely shows that unfortunately the issues get worse. Within the talking therapies service, the waiting time for the more significant level of counselling support can be up to eight to nine months, and there are nearly 700 people waiting for that counselling support. If I needed counselling and I was told that the waiting time was nine months, I would be really desperate. How is anybody supposed to deal with that wait, when they already know that they need help and support to face a life challenge? That is not fair. If the waiting time related to physical rather than mental health, I think a lot more attention would be paid to it.
Unfortunately, things are even worse in the Wirral. We know that early intervention is important, but the backlog and what was historically going on within our talking therapies service has been mirrored in the community mental health scheme. I have spoken to constituents whose loved ones have experienced significant mental health problems, and they have asked me what is going on with our community mental health team. Unfortunately, there are long waits there, too.
This is really problematic because those people may have experienced in-patient care and may need support after that. The aim may even be to prevent in-patient care. Those people should be supported in the community, but there is an average wait of 11 weeks. I worry that that situation will escalate. We know that we have real problems across our NHS, whether that is access to A&E or other parts of primary care. If people with a mental health condition are not supported as would be expected and given the care they need to improve their situation, they will end up in crisis. That is just how it is, and it will mean a knock-on for our A&E staff. It is a really frustrating situation, and I ask the Minister what the Government’s plans are for resolving it. Do they have a strategy that could support improvement in the Wirral?
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, we could have the same debate all over again—I will not suggest we do so tonight, because our staff may be hoping for a bit of an early night—about services for children and young people. Waiting times for them in the Wirral and across the rest of the country are really bad. The consequences of not getting support early are often worse for children and young people, who may be realising for the first time that they have a mental health condition. We need a strategy from the Government that includes children and young people, for all the reasons that I am sure the Minister is well aware of.
The gaps in performance and the poor quality of service across the Wirral and, I am sure, across the rest of the country are exacerbating inequality. Somebody who realises how long the wait on the NHS is for talking therapies or counselling, and who is in a well-paid or well-supported job may be able to access support almost immediately through their work plan, particularly if their job comes with an employee assistance programme. That is a good thing, because those people need help, but someone in a less secure job—on a zero-hours contract, perhaps, or on the minimum wage, as many social care staff and other key workers are—cannot access that support, so the situation is exacerbating inequality in our borough. I could say as much again about the structural causes of mental ill health, poor employment, poverty and other things, but I am sure the Minister is as concerned as I am about the exacerbation of structural inequality.
Margaret Greenwood
The Royal College of Psychiatrists published a report last year on the number of patients who are receiving support out of area, sometimes hundreds of miles from home. Anecdotally, I have heard about that happening in the Wirral. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about that? May I press the Minister today for an assurance that the Government will tackle the issue as a matter of urgency?
Alison McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that intervention, which I am sure the Minister has heard and will respond to.
There are three points on which I would really appreciate a response from the Minister. Having met providers of the talking therapies service and having listened to a whole host of professionals and constituents, I have come to the conclusion that one simple thing is needed to improve our mental health service in the Wirral: we need more staff. We need more people in primary care, especially because it will help to free up our secondary and specialist care. We have to get to people early. At the moment there is a false economy: people cannot be seen when they first present themselves to their GP, so their conditions end up getting worse. We need much more community mental health care in the Wirral. I would love to hear from the Minister what the workforce plan is. How can we get people into counselling and therapeutic roles, so we can get them quickly into a place where they can tackle the problems that people face?
We also need much smarter targets. As I have said to the Minister, I have found it exasperating how hard it is to work out what is going on. I know that targets can sometimes create a perverse culture, and we do not want to impose targets that are unhelpful, but it should be a basic feature of our NHS that people who need care are able to know roughly how long they will wait, and that we as politicians are able to judge whether that is appropriate. That is what we do, as constituency MPs, when it comes to every other aspect of the NHS. I am simply asking the Minister for smarter and more visible targets which will help us to improve the quality of mental health support in the Wirral. As I said earlier, most people do not need to see a consultant, so I do not think that the traditional way of doing things in the NHS works. Can we not have a simpler, basic access-to-service mental health target that will work?
Finally, let me say something about staff targets in respect of treatments and pathways. The Wirral is a very innovative place for mental health care. We are doing great things with social prescribing, which I invite the Minister to investigate if she does not know about them already. We have developed new partnerships with a host of organisations, targeting young people in particular, and considering how we can use the voluntary and community sectors in much better ways. The Minister may be aware of “Open Door”, which has delivered some particularly innovative ways of providing peer-to-peer support. Thinking more about the different kinds of support that are available, how they can help and how they can be delivered in the most cost-efficient way possible is, in my view, an urgent job of analysis for the Department, and I would love to hear more from the Minister about the Government’s plans for putting the various different treatments and pathways in place.
Ultimately, it comes down to this simple fact about the Wirral: we are not where we should be when it comes to giving people access to support. We need more counselling, and we need more therapeutic staff. I am keen to work with the Minister to try to deliver that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this important debate. I am always pleased to have the opportunity to talk about the progress that we are making with mental health services, not only locally but throughout England.
Mental health affects us all, and for those of us who experience poor mental health, its impacts can be detrimental to the ability to live well, thrive and achieve personal goals. That is why improving mental health outcomes, particularly for those who experience worse outcomes than the general population, is a top priority for me and, in particular, for the Government. As the hon. Lady said, mental health still has some way to go before it is put on a par with physical health in terms of expectations, help, support and treatment, but we are making progress, in the Wirral and across the country.
The NHS long-term plan commits an additional £2.3 billion a year to the expansion and transformation of mental health services in England by 2024, which means that that 2 million more people will be able to receive NHS-funded mental health support than were able to receive it in 2018-19. For instance, we will have invested nearly £1 billion every year in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illnesses by the end of the current financial year, which will give 370,000 adults with such illnesses—including older adults—more choice and control over their care and support.
Let us not be under any illusion. We have seen a tsunami of referrals as older adults, children and young people have sought help and asked to be referred. In a way we have been successful in breaking some of the taboos and stereotypes related to mental health, which means that people are willing to come forward and ask for help, but our challenge now is to ensure that the services are able to meet that growing demand.
The hon. Lady mentioned targets as a way of being able to give people an indication of how long they should be waiting. Until fairly recently, mental health did not involve any waiting time standards, but we have introduced targets for children and young people with eating disorders. Let me give an example to illustrate the sheer scale of the current demand. The number of children and young people entering urgent treatment for eating disorders has increased by 11% in the last two years, and in the previous year it increased by 73%. A record number of people now need help, and our challenge is to provide the services that will provide it.
NHS England is currently consulting on the introduction of five new access waiting time standards for mental health services, which we hope will address some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Lady. They include introducing a target for urgent referral to a community-based mental health crisis service that patients across all ages should be seen within 24 hours of referral. For very urgent referrals to a community-based mental health crisis service, a patient should be seen within four hours of referral across all ages. Patients referred from A&E should be seen face to face within one hour by a mental health liaison or equivalent children and young people’s service. Children, young people and their families presenting to community-based mental health services should start to receive care within four weeks. Those are the standards we are trying to introduce, and I will commit to updating the House on the progress we are making, because the standards in the Wirral that the hon. Lady has talked about in her speech are the standards that we would like to see across the country.
Alison McGovern
All those targets are about emergencies, which is important, but I hope that the Government will also be looking at targets for non-urgent care, because that is the way we prevent people from getting to the urgent bit in the first place.
Maria Caulfield
I absolutely agree and I will come on to talk about some of the work we are doing in that space in a moment.
We know that the number of children and young people experiencing mental health problems is rising, and that many of them risk continuing to experience mental health problems throughout their life as a result. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which is why there is a further £79 million to address the impact of covid on children’s and young people’s mental health. That has allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services in order to support them as early as possible.
One of the most exciting things we are doing relates to getting in at an earlier stage, as the hon. Lady has just suggested, and talking about mental health rather than just talking about mental illness. This involves our programme of mental health support teams that have been rolled out in schools and colleges. As of spring last year, there were 287 mental health support teams in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country. The type of support they are able to provide to the young people and the teachers in those schools means that children who need help through early intervention can be signposted to it and that those with more complex needs can get into the system a lot quicker.
Our challenge now is to roll that out across all schools, and we are hoping to be able to do that as quickly as possible. In the hon. Lady’s patch, there are 25 mental health support teams in place or planned in the area covering Cheshire and Merseyside, four of which are in the Wirral. I am hoping that she will start to see them being rolled out and that she will feel they make a difference. Mental health support teams now cover 26% of pupils a year earlier than originally planned, but we fully recognise that that is still a long way off 100%.
We know that there is more to do in terms of capital investment in mental health services so that local communities can have the infrastructure to see people earlier, rather than waiting until they are in crisis and need to be seen in A&E or in-patient facilities. That is why recently we provided £150 million of capital investment to be rolled over in the next two years via NHS England. From that fund, £408,000 is being invested in improvements in NHS 111 and crisis line infrastructure at the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, to try to start that process of getting early intervention to people as quickly as possible.
The hon. Lady has pointed out that waiting times for some mental health services are longer than we would like, and I am happy to put my hands up and admit that that is the case. I can assure her that both locally and nationally we are doing all we can to ensure that people are getting the support they need as quickly as possible. Her local foundation trust has implemented a series of measures to help reduce those waiting times, and the number of young people waiting for appointments has been reduced by 68% since March last year. Her trust has also recruited 13.4 whole-time equivalent roles and made provision for additional sessions of consultant psychiatry. Again, there is lots more to do, but we are starting to make inroads into some of those long waits.
I have already pointed out that NHS England is consulting on five new waiting time standards, and I will update the House as soon I have the information on when they are likely to be rolled out in practice. It is also important to note that many patients with mental health needs also suffer poorer physical health outcomes, which is why we announced in January that mental health will be part of the major conditions strategy so that we deal with both issues for people who are struggling with mental illness.
It is important that we talk about the local issues in Cheshire, Merseyside and the Wirral, and the hon. Lady’s local integrated care board is currently undertaking a transformation programme within its mental health services. I understand from NHS England that local services in the Wirral are establishing a community model of mental health as part of their long-term plan ambition, with the aim of removing the gap between primary and secondary mental health services.
We want people to be seen much earlier when they go into crisis. Nationally, we are already seeing fewer people turning up to A&E because crisis teams are able to see them in the community much quicker and much earlier, with better outcomes for managing their symptoms. Talking Together Wirral has achieved the national target of 50% recovering through talking services since January 2023, and the Every Mind Matters website enables people to self-refer to talking therapies. We are doing quite well in getting first appointments, but our challenge is where people need further sessions, which is often where the long waits occur. I reassure the hon. Lady that we want to make it as easy as possible for people to self-refer into the system and, locally, the Wirral is starting to recover the waiting times for such services, but of course I am happy to work with her to see what more can be done.
The hon. Lady mentioned the fantastic, proactive work of her local health system. Cafe Create is a pilot programme launched in April 2022 as a joint commissioning venture between health services and Wirral Borough Council, and it provides an informal place for young people at risk of mental health crisis to drop in and access support from professionals and peers, counselling and drug and alcohol support. We want to support more programmes like that.
The myHappymind programme is rolling out in the Wirral, reaching 22 primary schools by the end of last year. Plans, including a business case, are now in place to bring the programme to every primary school in the Wirral by 2024, and I am happy to work with the hon. Lady on that because it is important to establish in every school that mental health is on a par with physical health. We teach young people and children about the importance of a good diet and exercise, and it is equally important to teach them about what mental wellbeing looks like and when to reach out for help.
There is a lot of work to do, and I do not dismiss in any way the hon. Lady’s point about the significant number of people who want help and the sometimes long waits to access services, but we are making progress on trying to deal with the large number of cases coming forward and on supporting local communities such as the Wirral to roll out services.
I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. Lady of our commitment to improving mental health services, to introducing some of the standards she mentioned—I take her point that it needs to be about more than just urgent care standards—and to supporting local communities to address crises in the community rather than waiting for a person to need admission, sectioning or in-patient care. I hope we will be able to demonstrate the progress we have made.
Let me touch on one final point about staff. We have an ambition to recruit 27,000 more mental health workers and we are on track to meet that. That covers a wide range of mental health practitioners, from mental health nurses to psychiatrists, counsellors and psychologists. They are working in a wide range of roles, and I wish to reassure the hon. Lady that we are on track to meet that target. It is the key to providing these extra services; without the staff, we will not be able to provide the services we need. I hope I will be able to update the House fairly soon on further work we are doing, not only on recruitment, but on the retention of our fantastic staff, who do a really hard job. When we hear news about the health service being under pressure, we often hear about accident and emergency, intensive care units and hospital beds, but mental health workers do some of the hardest jobs in health and social care, and I pay tribute to them
I hope that I have reassured the hon. Lady that we are working hard. I absolutely identify with the points she has made and look forward to working with her to improve mental health services in the Wirral.
Question put and agreed to.