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Oral Answers to Questions
(12 months ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)
The Ministry of Defence continues to process ARAP applications at pace, thanks to the recruitment of more caseworkers and improved systems and processes. In the first four months of 2023 we issued more than 12,200 eligibility decisions. We aim to process all outstanding initial applications by August 2023.
Steve McCabe
I have recently written to the Minister about a family still trapped in Afghanistan, whose case, I was told in January, was being processed by the MOD, but this is about more than a constituency case. The standing of our armed services is affected, and scandals such as the pilot threatened with Rwanda do not help. Does the Minister recognise that the shambles over our treatment of Afghan refugees is damaging the reputation of our military, with obvious implications for future operations?
James Heappey
I certainly do not recognise the connection that the hon. Gentleman has made. The offer made through ARAP, the scheme to bring to the UK Afghans who served alongside the UK armed forces and whose lives are now at risk as a consequence, is being honoured and continues to be a major line of effort by the MOD. We have had hundreds of thousands of applications, the vast majority of which have come from people who either served in the Afghan national forces—while their effort was heroic, they were never who ARAP was aimed at—or never had anything to do with the UK armed forces at all. Their desperation to leave their country is understandable, but the ARAP scheme is what it was always set up to be, the evacuation of those who served alongside the UK armed forces, and the MOD continues to put a lot of effort into delivering that. We will complete the processing of applications by this summer.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend the Minister accept that, while people who served with our armed forces are at grave risk within Afghanistan, they are not out of danger even when they cross the border into Pakistan? If they cross the border without papers, they could well be sent back. What pressure are we putting on the Pakistani authorities to ensure that no one who served with British forces is sent back to a terrible fate while we are processing their applications?
James Heappey
My right hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the Pakistan Government for the co-operation they have shown in helping us to deliver ARAP. We are not encouraging people to cross the border illegally, and the Pakistan Government have given us a number of windows in which to bring people across legitimately. The consular section at our high commission in Islamabad has grown to support those who are in Pakistan waiting for their onward transportation to the UK. However, my right hon. Friend has raised specific cases with me in the past, and if he knows of people who are at risk or are being pursued in a way that I do not think is in our agreement with the Pakistan Government, I stand ready to take up those cases with them through our high commission.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
The national maritime security strategy details the Government’s approach to maritime security. The MOD funds direct operational activity that contributes to maritime security, including the continuous at-sea deterrent, oceanic surveillance and maritime domain awareness capabilities. Additionally, the MOD supports the Joint Maritime Security Centre, a multi-agency organisation that supports wider maritime security throughout the UK marine area, including Scotland.
Patrick Grady
I am not entirely sure that that is the advert for the broad shoulders and strength of the Union that the Secretary of State would like to think it is. Can he confirm—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but we cannot have conversations going on with those in the Box.
Patrick Grady
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Can the Secretary of State confirm that there is not a single armoured surface ship permanently based in Scotland right now? How exactly does that enhance our maritime security, protect our undersea cables and offshore infrastructure, or make Russia feel any less emboldened about sailing into UK waters?
Mr Wallace
First, some of the most formidable subsurface boats in the world are based at Faslane. That does make the Russians calculate. Of course, the SNP wants to get rid of that, make tens of thousands of people redundant and fantasise about what that will do. Secondly, a warship is best used at sea, not at port. That is how to deter Russia. Tying it up alongside, empty, no doubt as part of the Scottish “navy” under an independent Scotland, will hardly frighten anyone.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
The Defence Secretary is right, of course, that for strong maritime security, we need our Navy ships at sea, not in dock for repairs. For the last two years, he has been telling us that we are
“on track to deliver more days at sea for ships.”
Yet in last year’s data, eight of the Navy’s active warships never went to sea at all, and the new Prince of Wales carrier has, since it entered service, spent just 267 days at sea and 411 days in dock for repeated repairs. Why is he still failing to get more of our ships at sea more of the time to keep Britain safe?
Mr Wallace
First, it is very normal for a third of a fleet to be alongside for maintenance, deep maintenance and, indeed, preparation to sail and training—that is not unusual. Secondly, the claim that I made was that we would get more days at sea off the Navy, rather than days alongside, and that is indeed the case. If the right hon. Gentleman is talking about more ships and more days at sea, he makes the point that there are maybe not enough ships at sea at the same time, which is exactly why I commissioned the propulsion improvement process to get the Type 45s—made under his Government—actually back out to sea rather than tied alongside. We have now completed three—one at Cammell Laird in Merseyside, one at Portsmouth, and a second at Cammell Laird—with tremendous success. They will be out and more available.
The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the aircraft carrier. I am responsible for a lot of things, but it was not me who commissioned the build the design of the aircraft carriers that we have to rectify; it was the Labour party.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
In the last seven years, the Ministry of Defence has invested more than £936 million in service family accommodation improvements. Currently, just under 97% of the MOD SFA meets or exceeds the Government’s decent homes standard. Only those properties are allocated to service families.
Christian Wakeford
Over the last couple of years, I have been fortunate enough to visit bases across the UK and speak to many servicemen and servicewomen. The recurring theme is that accommodation is beyond poor. Having seen family accommodation at first hand, with cracks and mould on the walls of bedrooms, I have to agree. The Minister responded to an urgent question on this topic on 20 December, so what has his Department done since then to improve this awful situation for our heroes and their families?
James Cartlidge
We all want to see our armed forces service personnel living in good-quality accommodation. The key to that is investment, of course, which is why I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise and welcome the huge investment that we have put into that space: £936 million in the last seven years, as I said, including £185 million in 2022-23 alone, and I can confirm that we are investing at least a further £1.8 billion over the next 10 years.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
I welcome the investment that has been put in over the last seven years, which my hon. Friend the Minister mentions, but he is of course dealing with a backlog from the last 20 years. Will he visit RAF Odiham in my constituency to see some of the problems caused by poor contractors and to discuss solutions with the service families there?
James Cartlidge
I would be more than happy to visit—this is an important issue. I recognise the challenges. It is a complex issue that has built up over many years, as my right hon. Friend says, but we are putting the investment in place and are determined to deal with it.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
In March, Labour launched Homes Fit for Heroes, our campaign to highlight the failings of defence housing for service personnel. One member of the armed forces who has served for more than two decades told us that they feel pushed to leave the Army because their house is in such a state of disrepair that they described it as “unfit to live in”. The Government could have solved that crisis over the past 13 years if they had wanted to, but it is getting worse and worse, with personnel leaving because of poor housing. Will this problem be fixed before the next general election, or will the Minister leave it to the next Labour Government to clean up this Tory mess?
James Cartlidge
It is a pleasure to engage with the Labour Defence Front Bench for the first time. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman does not welcome the significant investment that we have put in place. Of course, we recognise that we have had long-standing issues with mould and so on. I emphasise that the maintenance backlog from December is now down by 75%. He might want to reflect on the fact that his party’s Government oversaw private finance initiative contracts for service properties in Bristol, Bath and Portsmouth, which, I can confirm, had a cost of £25,000 per home whether or not they were occupied.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)
We continue to deliver a range of services to our veterans and their families. That includes pension and compensation payments, and tailored support through our Veterans Welfare Service and Defence Transition Services. We are also pressing ahead with our £40 million transformation programme, which will digitise old, paper-based practices, improving processes and creating a single entry point for pensions and compensation by the end of 2024.
Janet Daby
The number of claims leading to financial compensation through the armed forces compensation scheme has dropped from 65% to 47% since 2011-12, while rejections have risen from 24% to 41%. Can the Minister say why that is, and how do he and Veterans UK plan to address the issue?
James Heappey
The digitisation programme I referred to in my initial response to the hon. Lady’s question will make a big difference; in fact, the early evidence is that that is the case. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs recently visited Veterans UK and was hugely encouraged by what he saw. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families, who sends his apologies, Mr Speaker, for not being able to be here today, is on this issue very closely. Whatever the failings of the past, the transformation process should lead to significantly better outcomes.
Chris Elmore
The Minister will know that 14% of veterans in England and Wales are female. In a recent survey, 23% of those veterans said they had suffered sexual harassment in the armed forces, and a further 23% said they had been subject to emotional bullying. That has significantly contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder cases among female veterans. Will the Minister set out what the Government are doing to ensure that these veterans get the best support they can and that they get it while they are serving, so that we can both encourage more women to join the armed forces and meet the Government’s target of 30% of the armed forces being female in the next five years?
James Heappey
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising such an important issue, which gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) on the Defence Committee and while she was a Minister in the Department. This is an issue that the Department is working on. The Defence Secretary has made it a priority that we address any remaining issues around the culture in our armed forces. As the hon. Gentleman noted in his question, we need to make sure that that extends to the support we offer female veterans as well.
Alex Cunningham
Further to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), Ministers will be aware of the series of articles in The Independent campaigning for asylum protection for veteran Afghan pilots and others who fought with the British forces in Afghanistan at great personal, mental and physical cost. Will the Minister confirm once and for all that these veterans will have their asylum applications processed quickly and that not one of them will be deported to Rwanda or anywhere else?
James Heappey
The hon. Gentleman is referring to a veteran of the Afghan national security forces rather than the UK security forces. As I said in response to the original question on ARAP, the terms of ARAP were, from the very beginning, about those who worked with the UK armed forces in direct support of our role in Afghanistan, not the entirety of the Afghan national security forces. In the case the hon. Gentleman refers to, the gentleman applied only on 9 April. We are looking at whether there are any special circumstances under which his application could be approved but, in principle, as a member of the Afghan national security forces, rather than somebody who worked alongside the British armed forces, he would not automatically be in scope.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
There is one group of veterans to whom a terrible injustice was done many years ago, namely LGBTQ+ soldiers, sailors and airmen from before 2001 who lost their rank, who were dismissed and who lost their pensions—to this day, none of that has been restored. The Government have appointed Lord Etherton to look into this matter and to try to right some of those wrongs. When will his report be brought before the House? Will there be an oral statement on the matter so that we can cross-examine Ministers on it? Is the Minister confident that he will now find a way of righting these dreadful wrongs?
James Heappey
I personally agree very much with the sentiments of my hon. Friend’s question. The way that gay people were treated during their service in the armed forces at an earlier time does not reflect the values of the modern British armed forces. The review will be here soon, I am told, and we will make sure that its lessons are learned and adopted by the Department.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
Today is 15 May, the day that Captain Robert Nairac from 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards was taken by the IRA and murdered. His murderers are still walking free and we do not know the truth. Does the Minister acknowledge that those who served on Operation Banner need to know the truth about what happened to Captain Robert Nairac? The veterans’ groups in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), led by David Brocklehurst, who sadly was killed on Monday in a road traffic accident, need the support of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), as we go forward. We have the success of peace in Northern Ireland, but it is no peace when we do not know who murdered Captain Nairac.
James Heappey
I, too, read over the weekend that the anniversary of the death of Captain Nairac was today. His case is a particularly barbaric one. There is a great deal of work going into the legacy of the troubles and how investigations should or should not be progressed. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs leads on that. I know he will have heard the question that my right hon. Friend has asked today, and I am sure he will want to pick up the issues with him in due course.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend update the House on the progress of the roll-out of veterans ID cards, which I understand is due to be completed by Remembrance Day this year?
James Heappey
I have no reason to believe that my hon. Friend’s expectations are inaccurate, but I will make sure that the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) writes to him, in case that is not the case.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the last serviceman being stood down from national service, and I express our thanks to all those who served. The headline findings of the five-year review of the armed forces compensation scheme found the process overly burdensome and even distressing. I have heard many complaints about the scheme from veterans and their families, as I am sure have Ministers. With the Government missing their own casework targets, delaying action on the scheme is not good enough, as it continues to let down our armed forces community. Can I press the Minister on when we will see the final report of the review? Can he confirm that meaningful improvements will be made to the scheme before summer recess?
James Heappey
As I have said in response to earlier questions, around £40 million is being invested in the ongoing transformation process to digitise the existing paper-based processes and records, and that will be transformative. These are hundreds of thousands of records kept largely on paper, which makes them extraordinary difficult to process and has caused all of the delays that the hon. Lady rightly mentions. Since the new online digital claims service was launched through the gov.uk website, the service has been available to service personnel and veterans. The new service has been well received and already accounts for 50% of all new injury and illness claims being made.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
Defence was pivotal in the success of the wider Government effort to evacuate British passport holders and other eligible persons from Sudan. A range of UK military assets and capabilities were deployed in our response, resulting in the evacuation of more than 2,400 people—the longest and largest evacuation of any western nation from Sudan.
Edward Timpson
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. A constituent of mine was holed up in a Khartoum corridor with a French family for days, unable to receive email or WhatsApp instructions from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office due to the power outages. My office was having to relay updates to his distressed family. Mercifully, he was airlifted out by the French armée de l’air. I recognise the complex and challenging nature of the evacuation, but what can His Majesty’s Government do to help improve awareness of and communications with stranded British citizens in potentially unstable states to enable our armed forces to mount efficient and effective airlifts in the future?
Mr Wallace
My hon. and learned Friend raises an important point, but not an easy issue to solve. In Sudan, we were seeing less than single digit percentage coverage of or access to the internet at any one time, in the middle of effectively a civil war, as it was then. For Defence, it is an easier thing to solve, as we bring our own communications with us. When 16 Air Assault Brigade deployed, we managed to bring a limited amount of capability so that we could try to communicate with British citizens. For the main part, the Foreign Office has primacy in this area. We will always stand by to help it with that advice, but I also advise that travellers look at advice before they travel. Indeed, we have to find a way through that challenge in a communications-denied space, but it is not straightforward or easy.
Mrs Drummond
I have been seeing some of the amazing work that the Royal Air Force does through my membership of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the RAF on the work it did in Sudan, evacuating more than 2,500 people from over 24 countries under very dangerous circumstances? Will he also inform the House which other stakeholders made that a success, so that we can recognise their work and thank them as well?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the RAF. To fly into an airfield with unsure conditions, often in the dark and without much of an advance recce is some achievement. If you remember, Mr Speaker, we also saw the RAF do that in the large evacuation of Kabul. Alongside the RAF, a specialist unit from 16 Air Assault Brigade flew in and helped to fix the runway, which, of course, was not used to the level of demand placed on it; only Britain had that ability. That allowed a better relationship with the Sudanese armed forces and enabled the longer-term evacuation to continue. That is an example of the breadth of experience our armed forces carry.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Three of the four Atlas aircraft used in the evacuation of British nationals from Sudan are reported to have developed faults, two thirds of the incoming fleet are listed as unavailable and there remains no clarity that the fleet can perform the niche functions that our Special Air Service and Special Boat Service need. Has the Secretary of State not made a mistake in pressing ahead with ditching the Hercules fleet in their favour?
Mr Wallace
I have heard these tired arguments that what we need to do is keep the Herc and get rid of the A400. The A400 outperforms the Herc in most areas. It has a longer ranger and a bigger capacity, and it can land in the same area; in fact, it can land in a shorter distance. In the massive evacuation of Kabul, one A400 had a fault for six hours and managed to continue on its course. The A400 is performing. The migration to special forces and other capabilities is on track, with jumps having been done from it and other parts. The simple reality is that the A400 outperforms the Hercules, and its availability was extremely successful. The Hercules accounts for only 10% of the fleet, and the overall fleet for lift is now the biggest it has been for 50 years.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I join the Secretary of State in congratulating our armed forces on their role in Sudan, as in Afghanistan. However, there is a problem: in Afghanistan and Sudan—but also during covid, when lots of our citizens were stranded around the world—while the Ministry of Defence was up for early action, the Foreign Office was not. Can we have a stronger role for the MOD in the machinery of government, so that we get the can-do attitude of the MOD, rather than the can’t-do attitude of the Foreign Office?
Mr Wallace
I can do, by helping the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the resilience of the whole of government is supported by the MOD. There are definitely lessons to be learned, and I will ensure that they are taken away and shared across Government.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
The UK scores highly in the global rankings for defence exports, which create jobs and prosperity across the country, building the industrial resilience and capacity we need for our national security. Through the defence and security industrial strategy, we and the industry are strengthening our position by diversifying our exports and target markets, and by collaborating more closely.
Paul Holmes
I welcome the Department’s announcement that both Germany and the United Kingdom will work together on the development of advanced armour-piercing tank ammunition. Given that these new rounds will be able to be fired from both British and German tanks, supporting compatibility within NATO, what export potential does this new capability have?
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is right to highlight this important collaboration with one of our major allies. Enhanced kinetic energy munitions are a key part of the Challenger 3 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks programmes, and will deliver battle-winning capabilities to UK and German armed forces. I am confident that their advanced performance will be recognised as world-leading, and their export potential to NATO and other allies will be promoted by the MOD, as ever in close partnership with the Department for Business and Trade.
Marco Longhi
I congratulate the Defence Secretary and all Ministers past and present who may have played their part in securing the £1.9 billion export deal with Poland for missiles. Does he agree that significantly strengthening our defence and security relationship with Brazil can increase exports to that country, too?
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right to celebrate a great British success story. The MBDA British-designed common anti-air modular missile is the latest-generation air defence system in service with the Royal Navy and British Army; it can engage targets up to 25 km away and is capable of hitting a tennis ball-sized object travelling beyond the speed of sound. It is already deployed in Poland to protect its airspace following Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine. We work closely with the Department for Business and Trade in supporting Energy UK’s export campaign through dedicated teams. This network is supporting delivery of numerous CAMM campaigns, and I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we have a positive defence relationship with Brazil: he makes a very good point, and the MOD continues to work with the Brazilian Ministry of Defence and armed forces on how we and UK industry can support their equipment capability shortfalls and development requirements.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
I recently accompanied Prime Minister Albanese to Barrow-in-Furness, where the next generation of AUKUS nuclear submarines will be built for the Royal Navy—a testament to our joint commitment. This multi-decade undertaking will create thousands of jobs in the UK, delivering on the Prime Minister’s priority to grow the economy, and demonstrating the experience and skill that is embodied in British industry.
Henry Smith
I welcome the Australian Government’s decision to design their submarines on the SSN-AUKUS model, and I understand that Australian Prime Minister Albanese was in Barrow recently to see that work. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the benefits of AUKUS and the design being made in this country to the supply chain across the United Kingdom?
Mr Wallace
Building complicated machines such as submarines has the benefit of a long and broad supply chain. The AUKUS model will be truly collaborative: while based on a UK submersible ship nuclear replacement, I expect it over time to be built by Australian hands and with United States skills and supply chains, which will provide opportunities to both countries, alongside ourselves. That is good news for British industry, for skills in places such as Barrow-in-Furness, and for our alliances with Australia and the United States.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his response to that question. I visited Australia last year and saw the great work that the Australians are undertaking on AUKUS; it is a great national endeavour. Is he confident that in the UK the Department for Business and Trade and others realise that if we are to get the benefit of this exciting project, we need that national endeavour here, especially on skills and technology across Government?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Gentleman will know that getting sign-off on a project such as this involves engagement across Government, including getting the Treasury’s buy-in. Once that has been locked in, we can progress. I am confident that the whole of Government stand behind the project, which is important not just to regenerate places such as Cumbria and the north-west but to lock in the skills base that we need for our future. This is a very exciting project. It will be building long after the right hon. Gentleman and I have probably left this House, in many decades to come. Britain has been at this game—nuclear submarines—for 70 years, and it is not something that one commits to and then backs out of. We expect Australia, alongside the United States and ourselves, to be doing this for a very long time to the benefit of British jobs.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the new Minister, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), to his place; I got on with all his predecessors and I look forward to our exchanges in future. As has been said, the AUKUS agreement is a game changer not only for our forces but for British industry. The Government have promised a jobs bonanza for generations to come in places such as Derby, Barrow-in-Furness and Devonport in the constituency of my fellow shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). Will the promise be underwritten by contractual guarantees to ensure that future generations are trained in the skills that we need for this vital programme?
Mr Wallace
It is already underwritten by contractual guarantees. In Barrow-in-Furness, BAE is recruiting for 11,000 to 17,000 jobs. Derby is investing for the next generation of reactor, and that is starting. The key point about AUKUS is that it not only gets a commitment from the Treasury and the Government for the British replacement of the Astute class but locks in the potential of the Australian supply chain and working together collaboratively on skills in both countries. That process is already under way, with £2 billion recently unlocked to start building the infrastructure needed in both Derby and BAE in Barrow, and that will continue. This is further down the path than the beginning, but the real work starts now.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
The Dreadnought submarine programme remains within overall budget and on track for the first of class, HMS Dreadnought, to enter service in the early 2030s. As the programme is in its preliminary phases, it is too early to provide cost estimates for the replacement warhead programme.
Neale Hanvey
The financial cost of weapons of mass destruction is one thing; the potential human cost from radiation leaks is quite another. On 7 November last year, I raised concerns from a whistleblower about a serious radiation breach at Coulport on Loch Long. The Secretary of State promised that he would provide a detailed written response. Despite my persistence, six months later I have still not had a reply, other than a leak to the media saying:
“The alleged radiation incident referred to…did not”
take place. Will the Secretary of State confirm today from the Dispatch Box whether HMNB Clyde staff were moved from building 201 in Coulport to building 41 elsewhere due to a serious radiation breach?
James Cartlidge
Obviously, I will have to look into the matter and will write to the hon. Gentleman further. I would make one point. He talked about the other costs. If I may, while the SNP has a merely quirky position of unilateral nuclear disarmament but supposedly remaining in NATO, the position of the Alba party is both nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO. What would be the cost of that policy? In the light of the current situation where Russia has invaded Ukraine, what would happen if we were to announce our withdrawal from NATO?
Mr Speaker
Order. That was a long answer, which did not really answer the question. What I am more concerned about is that there has not been a reply to a letter that was put in six months ago. Can somebody check that? I am bothered about MPs getting replies from Ministers, not scoring points.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
Mr Speaker, I will endeavour to ensure that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) gets a reply, and to find out why it has taken so long. It is too long, if that has been the case. Maybe we put it in the camper van.
The UK and international partners committed to providing the capabilities that Ukraine requires, including training, artillery, air defence and armoured vehicles, and to driving further international donations to resolve the war. However, the Ukrainian people should not be forced into concessions. To ensure that Ukraine is in the best possible position to negotiate, the UK and its partners will continue to provide military and economic support, apply sanctions and increase international pressure on Russia.
Dr Evans
NATO’s key strategic concept is that of ensuring the collective defence of its members. The best way to do that is to secure peace in Ukraine, but, given Russian aggression, I support the UK and NATO in their work. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the likelihood of securing peace and, failing that, the defensive capabilities of the alliance should a war escalate?
Mr Wallace
NATO has done a lot of work—not only from February last year when the invasion started—to ensure that it is ready and to use that readiness to deter Russia on NATO’s borders. That is incredibly important. To date, we have not seen any deliberate strikes into a NATO country by Russia. While we have seen deeply provocative events in the Black sea, Russia has so far been respecting those NATO borders.
The most important thing is to ensure that President Putin realises he cannot win this war in Ukraine. His brutality is having the opposite effect—it has driven two new nations into NATO—and the west, including the United Kingdom and Germany, as I saw in an announcement, is stepping up more and more to ensure that Ukraine has success on the battlefield so that it can negotiate, if it wishes, from a position of strength.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
We on the Opposition side stand firmly behind and support Ukraine. However, Ukraine is depleting our military stockpiles, and the Government seem to be acting too slowly to replenish them. What progress has the Secretary Of State made on a stockpile strategy? What talks has he had with NATO allies about their replenishment plans to ensure the most effective sequencing of replenishment?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes an important point that is common not just to the United Kingdom but across Europe. Ukraine has woken everyone up to issues such as ammunition stocks. The first challenge was to wake up that supply chain. Many of the orders we had placed were filled, and the supply chain went on to do something else. We have now placed orders for new NLAWs. Let us remember the anti-tank weapons and new anti-aircraft missiles from Thales in Northern Ireland in conjunction with our Swedish and, I think, Finnish colleagues. We are in the process of, hopefully, awarding a contract to replenish 155 mm shells. At the same time, I have worked across the international community to make sure that we stimulate those supply chains and to make sure that Ukraine does, as well.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome President Zelensky’s visit to the UK. Clearly, a warm relationship is developing between the President and our Prime Minister. We have a proud track record of being the first to provide those NLAWs, and of providing training on Salisbury plain, those main battle tanks and the long-range weapons systems. What next? Perhaps fast jets.
There is much talk of a counter-offensive, but I want to ask the Secretary of State about the comments of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group. He openly criticised President Putin for the absence of ammunition and battlefield tactics. Is the Secretary of State concerned that if the counter-offensive is successful and terrain is gained, Putin will turn ugly and resort to non-conventional chemical and biological weapons, as he did in Syria?
Mr Wallace
We always have to be on our guard about the behaviours of the Russian military and President Putin. As my right hon. Friend rightly comments, the use of chemical weapons in Syria was another turning point, as was the use of chemical weapons here on the streets of the United Kingdom in the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury. We are on our guard. The international community regularly communicates. We stand ready with NATO. We have increased our readiness and we have started to increase investment in our capabilities. That is all important, but my right hon. Friend is right that we must be on our guard about what happens next.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Figures show that NATO allies in partner countries have provided Ukraine with more than 98% of the combat vehicles promised. What steps are Ministers taking to ensure that Ukraine continues to see high levels of support from NATO?
Mr Wallace
NATO allies regularly meet alongside other international partners at Ramstein in Germany, at a US-chaired donation conference, which builds on my first international conferences. It is a regular drumbeat to keep up on that. As hon. Members can tell, President Zelenskyy and members of his Government are regular visitors to international communities to keep that momentum going. Britain is at the forefront of that momentum and will continue to be. Our determination is to see it through.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
We are driving the delivery of capability to the frontline. When requirements, budget and risk are clear, we have proven our ability to deliver. The majority of our programmes are on or ahead of time and budget. The Ministry of Defence has set out an affordable 10-year equipment plan to ensure that our armed forces are being given what they need, while living within our means.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
I heard what the Secretary of State said about Atlas. He has previously given me a commitment that there will be no loss of capability, but today, Deborah Haynes at Sky News is reporting that the UK will be left dangerously exposed when the C-130J is cut next month. That comes amid concerns that its successor, the Atlas A400M, has yet to be cleared to perform the niche but mission-critical functions of the C-130J. Will the Minister give an absolute assurance that our defence procurement system will ensure no loss of operational capability?
James Cartlidge
I am more than happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. There is a great deal of affection for the Hercules, but to go back to what the Secretary of State said about the recent performance in the important operation in Sudan, the largest number of evacuees that the Hercules carried out from Sudan was 143. The largest number in an A400M was about 100 more than that.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Continuity, focus and a relentless grip on detail are the hallmarks of a competent defence procurement Minister. In less than a year, we are on our fourth defence procurement Minister, so we do not have the continuity bit nailed down. Will the new Minister reassure the House of his competence by enlightening us of the most challenging defence procurement issue on his desk this week?
James Cartlidge
I look to my left and my right and I see continuity. I am grateful to follow in the steps of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who did a sterling job. To give one example, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) mentioned the issue of replenishment. I recently had the privilege of visiting British troops training Ukrainian forces, as referred to by the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). We have to remember, it is not just that we are training 15,000 personnel to go back out to Ukraine and defend their homeland; every time they go we are giving them high-quality kit. There are lessons to learn from what has happened in Ukraine, but we should be incredibly proud of that effort. We have procured at pace, gifted in kind and ensured that Ukraine has been able to sustain its fight to this day.
Dave Doogan
Well, that’s crystal clear. One of the things the Minister said when talking about Ukraine, in answer to my question about procurement, was about replenishment. He will know, even in his short tenure in the job, that small and medium-sized enterprises are the lifeblood of any military-industrial complex. Can he explain why, in answer to my parliamentary question a couple of weeks ago asking if the Ministry of Defence would attend a public sector meet-the-buyer event in Edinburgh, which is attended by other UK Government Departments, the MOD—a £50 billion-resourced organisation—cited a lack of resource as the reason it could not attend? Is that a special kind of indifference that is reserved for Scotland?
James Cartlidge
Of course not. I am happy to look into that. I want to assure the hon. Gentleman that the latest figures show that the proportion that the MOD spends with SMEs has increased from 19.3% in 2018-19 to 23% in 2021. I ran an SME before coming to this place—it was not a defence SME but I know how important they are. They give us creativity and innovation, and I want to work with them and the primes in delivering the British defence industry, because we see that as a key part of our own defence capability.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
The UK, our allies and partners are continuing to respond decisively to support Ukraine as the conflict evolves. We have trained over 15,000 recruits and provided £2.4 billion of support, including artillery ammunition, as well as leading the world on the gifting of vital capabilities, such as multiple-launch rocket systems, Challenger 2 tanks and now Storm Shadow missiles.
Jason McCartney
I again congratulate my right hon. Friend on the announcement of the delivery of long-range Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine. I am proud that the UK has been able to provide this vital capability to the Ukrainians ahead of their long-expected counter-offensive. Given that the Ukrainians will need all the support they can get for that, can he reassure me that the second spending round of the international fund for Ukraine is proceeding at pace? When might we expect to see contracts placed with the remaining £300 million?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend will be glad to know that the second spending round was launched last month. It is seeking expressions of interest in a phased approach, beginning with the needs for air defence, long-range strike and mobility support, and it is open to huge numbers of SMEs to apply for funding. Submissions are being assessed right now and more requirements will be launched in the coming weeks. Successful companies will be chosen by the UK, alongside our IFU partners, and contracting will begin as soon as possible.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
I place on record my thanks to all the members of our armed forces who contributed to the coronation parade. It was a remarkable day in the history of the nation. It was both an immense privilege and a solemn responsibility for the Ministry of Defence and our armed forces to fulfil. I thank them once again for contributing in an exemplary way and with such extraordinary personal commitment and dedication, while also meeting all other operational requirements. We are immensely proud of them all and privileged to belong to the defence community.
Catherine McKinnell
I echo the Secretary of State’s comments in their entirety. The visit by President Zelensky today highlights how vital a collective approach is to our national defence and security. To that end, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that we have security and defence agreements in place with our nearest allies in Europe, in response to Russian aggression?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we get our strength through coalition and our alliances, and NATO is the most successful military alliance the world has seen. In addition, I led the way in ensuring that countries that were not covered by NATO at the time—Sweden and Finland—signed together a mutual defence pack about two years ago, when no one thought that they would now be joining NATO. We encourage nations to join NATO and to apply using the open-door policy; at the same time, we seek to help other nations to join using memorandums of understanding and other agreements, to try to bolster that enabling alliance.
Mr Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
Mr Wallace
I can. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, as the strategy will be the responsibility of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. I will be happy to provide him with further details.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
We welcome President Zelensky’s visit and the extra military aid announced today. The invasion of Ukraine has reinforced the importance of strong deterrence and Army numbers. While NATO is responding by increasing its high-readiness force to 300,000, the Defence Secretary is still set on cutting the British Army to its smallest size since Napoleon. Will he halt the cuts in next month’s defence Command Paper?
Mr Wallace
I have been really clear that this is not a numbers game; it is about making sure that, whatever the size of our armed forces, we have a completely well-equipped and well looked-after workforce. If we simply go on a numbers game, without the appropriate funding—and I have heard no commitments from the Labour party—we will go back to a world that I served in, under Governments of both parties, where we had numbers on paper and on parade grounds, but hollow forces. I will not repeat that. I will make sure that whatever we have is fully equipped and fully 360. That is the real lesson of Ukraine.
John Healey
Labour has argued for over two years for a halt to these cuts. Despite the Secretary of State’s bluster, the truth is that he has failed to get the new money for defence, apart from for nuclear and for stockpiles. Why will he not just admit it? Far from responding to the threats that Britain faces, he is cutting the Army to cut costs.
Mr Wallace
This is like “Through the Looking Glass”, Mr Speaker. The reality is that as Defence Secretary I have achieved an increase of over £24 billion, both in resource departmental expenditure limit, in parts, and also in capital spend. It is important that the House understands that the world and the battlefield are changing. If we simply go to a numbers game, we will head back to a first world war. What we need is to learn the lessons and equip and support people properly. I have still not heard from the Opposition a single mention of their defence budget. Reversing the cuts, of course, will cost billions of pounds. I have heard nothing so far.
Mr Speaker
I do not think they have any responsibility today, so let us go to Dr Luke Evans.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his presidential duties at the Hinckley branch of the Royal British Legion—my own branch in Burnham-on-sea will just about let me make the tea. He is absolutely right to draw attention to the fantastic work of veterans breakfast clubs. The Government have supported those through the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. I know that that support is as well received in his constituency as it is in mine, where there is an excellent club in Glastonbury.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Mr Wallace
Right from the start, the United Kingdom has been at the forefront of ensuring that the supplies get into the country as soon as possible, basing people not only in the international donor co-ordination cell in Germany—there are over 70 military personnel there—but in neighbouring countries, to ensure the logistics of getting supplies to reach places in time. We are still managing to commit to that pace.
As President Zelensky has said, some countries have made pledges but part of the delay has been in their getting equipment ready to donate. Ours is already in—our 12 Challengers are already in the country. We will make sure that we keep monitoring the situation and pushing as fast as possible.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
James Heappey
The Labour Mayor of London is also expanding the ultra low emission zone charge, which will affect thousands of armed forces personnel who are based in the outer boroughs. I suspect that our Opposition colleagues will have heard of this impact on their cost of living, and will be earnestly encouraging their Mayor to ensure that free travel is extended to armed forces personnel who are not travelling in uniform.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Mr Wallace
The Supreme Allied Commander Europe recently issued his regional plans, which extend to 3,000 pages of detailed proposals for the defence of Europe. From that will stem a donation conference at which all the member states will present their contributions to the plans. Within that, we will develop the new force model that will contribute to the new force structure of NATO. Once we have got through that period of the next few months, we will be able to tell the House exactly what we have put forward, how ready it is, and whether it meets the ask of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Mr Wallace
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. What a birthday.
My right hon. Friend is entirely right. I have not yet seen the draft, and I have asked to see it as well as the final report so that, on the basis of what I have seen with my own eyes, I can decide whether or not it is appropriate to change it. I have been told, after raising the issue recently, that its arrival is imminent, and it is extremely important to ensure that it does reach me. My right hon. Friend has a real point here: namely, that I am not in the business of shielding people from their errors; I am interested in learning lessons.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend has raised an issue that is important not only to our part of the world but to the whole United Kingdom: the ability to deliver a sovereign capability. I recently went to Japan, where I signed another agreement with my Japanese and Italian counterparts. The global combat air programme, or GCAP—Tempest to us—is incredibly important for jobs in the north-west. It is already moving into the design phase, and we will then start to deal with the question of the political balance—of how much work is shared among the partners. However, there is a strong Government commitment to take this forward. We expect to see test flights before 2030, and we hope that the project will progress strongly for all our sakes.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
James Heappey
I understand that my hon. Friend recently met the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), to discuss this matter. Defence service personnel have more access to dentistry than would be expected by the general population. When people are awaiting dental care ahead of deployment, their care is prioritised. As for the wider issue relating to dental provision for service families, my hon. Friend has made an important point, and I will ensure that it is conveyed to Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care. It does, of course, involve armed forces covenant issues.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
It was good to hear that the Appledore shipyard in Devon will see the construction of modules for the three support ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, as announced last November. It has been reported in the press in the last week that shipyards belonging to our ally, Poland, will construct blocks of hull for the Type 31 frigates, with final assembly to be carried out at Rosyth. What parts of the Type 31 will be built in Poland, and what value will that amount to?
Mr Wallace
My understanding is that the smallest part—[Interruption.]—1% will be built in Poland. That is of course Babcock’s decision, made under the original contract, but overall this will be completed in Rosyth and I have already been up there to visit. I am also delighted that, for example, the contract model we put together for the fleet solid support ship has enabled places such as Appledore to get work. It is important that we keep all our yards busy and that they do not just go from feast to famine.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
James Cartlidge
Wales plays an integral part in all aspects of the UK’s defence policy, with a number of the MOD’s major suppliers and small and medium-sized enterprises having a presence there. In 2021, for example, the MOD awarded a £110 million contract to the Raytheon UK plant in north Wales, which is providing the RAF with one of the world’s most modern and capable intelligence-gathering assets. We are also working with the Welsh Government and the Defence Electronics and Components Agency to create an advanced technology research centre at MOD Sealand. The centre will develop cutting-edge sovereign capability to support international collaboration, job sustainment and skills retention while meeting our changing defence requirements.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
I would like to thank the PCS union and the staff at Defence Business Services for their work on negotiating important wins for disabled and non-mobile staff, who have been offered flexible and hybrid working as a reasonable adjustment. Not forcing staff to move without their agreement, along with the creation of a voluntary release package, is a positive step. Can the Secretary of State commit to ongoing negotiations with PCS and the Liverpool staff to keep their terms under review, to ensure that staff are given the support necessary to keep their jobs under reasonable conditions?
James Cartlidge
I am glad that the hon. Lady recognises that these have been constructive negotiations. She mentioned the offer of flexible working and, as she knows, there have to date been no compulsory redundancies. I would just stress that, even with the £30 million cost of the new site, there will be a total £40 million saving, so this is good value for taxpayers as well as a good deal for the workforce.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
I welcome the new Minister to his place. It was great of him to make his first visit to Carterton recently, where we discussed the upgrading of existing MOD housing and the purchase of new housing. I look forward to discussing that with him further following the Defence sub-Committee report that will be produced shortly. He also saw the large brownfield site known as REEMA North, where MOD housing has been demolished and not yet replaced because the money has not been found to do it. We always talk about prioritising brownfield land. This is a prime site where housing is much needed but the money has not yet been found. Will he work with me to ensure that we not only use this brownfield land but protect West Oxfordshire’s land supply and give the RAF the homes that it needs?
James Cartlidge
I very much enjoyed my visit to Brize Norton. It was actually my second visit after Abbey Wood. Just to be clear, we remain fully committed to the development of new housing for service personnel at the REEMA site. We are in discussions with industry partners to facilitate this, but given the time that has elapsed, I am happy to continue to engage with my hon. Friend, who I know is a champion of his local service personnel, many of whom serve in the RAF. I am more than happy to stay engaged with him.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
In March, 8,000 Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme families were given eviction notices from their hotel accommodation by the Home Office. What assurances can we hear from Defence Ministers that these people will not become homeless?
Mr Wallace
I can only talk on behalf of the ARAP cohort of people in the hotels. In the beginning of the process, over half went straight into the community and found places with family or friends. On the ones in hotels, the ARAP lodgers are different from those in the general asylum scheme. They can claim benefits, including housing benefit, and they can work immediately when they arrive. It is time that we found a way of getting them out of the hotels and into the community so that they can start working. They have that ability, and that is the way they can integrate into society and get on their own two feet. At the time, it was right that we took a stand that some of those people had been there for a long time. It is time to move out and use the rights that they have, coming here under ARAP.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I have been led to believe that the issue facing HMS Prince of Wales has been an almost incredible complacency on engineering tolerances in the shaft. Is there any financial recourse to the manufacturer in getting the Prince of Wales operational again?
Mr Wallace
From the initial reports I have read, the misalignment of the shaft is around 0.8 mm or 1 mm—a tiny amount that, of course, can make a huge difference at sea. We are examining the liabilities and who should cough up for that. The good news is that, overall, it has not delayed the Prince of Wales’s work-up. We took advantage of some of the maintenance periods to put in pre-planned maintenance and I think she will be back on track and on time to deliver her capability.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I recently met Elizabeth Wilson, a school pupil who is also a Member of the Hull Youth Parliament and the daughter of armed forces personnel. She is campaigning to establish an armed forces champion in every school to assist pupils with transition and to provide peer-to-peer support. What additional support can the Minister give this young entrepreneur on that project?
Mr Wallace
I would be very happy to meet that young entrepreneur with the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. That excellent idea would plug in perfectly with the local authority forces champions, with their local education remit. That is a really good idea.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
I share my condolences with the family of David Brocklehurst. He will be a massive loss to the Abbots Langley veterans association, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) said.
May I, through the Front-Bench team, thank the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs for recently visiting Watford to meet veterans, including the Abbots Langley group, to hear about the fantastic initiatives in Watford, including Luther Blissett OBE’s Forces United initiative?
Mr Wallace
Our veterans are very important to the fabric of society, and it is important that this country is the best place in the world to be a veteran. This Government have been on the right track in delivering that. Yes, there are some things around the veterans card and services, but the agreement of many parts of Government to support the armed forces covenant is the right direction, and we are going from strength to strength.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
In 1969, 74 US personnel perished after the USS Frank E. Evans sank. Two Royal Navy personnel from my constituency were present and they have just been invited to a commemoration, but they are struggling to get there. Can a Minister meet me to look at options to help them get there?
Mr Wallace
I will be delighted to try to do that, either personally or through the Veterans Minister.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
The Minister will know that I have constituents in substandard military accommodation at Sandhurst. When they asked for help under the Pinnacle Service Families contract over Christmas, it did not turn up. Will he use the relative lull of the summer months to plan ahead with the contractors to make sure we do not have another problem at Christmas?
Mr Wallace
I have already met the contractors and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, and the good news is that maintenance issues that were around at Christmas have been cut by 75%. That is continuing in the right direction, but my hon. Friend is right: the key is to plan ahead for next winter. That is what we are getting on with at the moment. I am determined to hold these contractors to account.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
HMS Prince of Wales currently lies in Rosyth for repairs and I hear it has been cannibalised for spare parts. Will this £3 billion asset be back on full operational duties by the end of the year?
Mr Wallace
Yes, by the autumn. It is perfectly normal for ships to take ship stores from each other. HMS Prince of Wales is not being cannibalised because it is off to be mothballed. The ship will be back in full service in the autumn.
Points of Order
(12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the past few days, there have been media reports by Sam Coates of Sky TV and David Collins of The Sunday Times about the complaint to Cleveland police by its own police and crime commissioner, Steve Turner. He was standing to be a councillor on 4 May while remaining as PCC and lost that election after a number of recounts. Prior to the poll, he complained about a leaflet that was distributed in the ward in which he was standing and, as a result, Cleveland police officers attended at the homes of each of the three Labour activists involved in its production, telling one of them that the leaflet had “upset Steve”. Following their interrogations and a week-long inquiry, the police concluded that there was no case to answer.
Nazir Afzal, the former senior prosecutor and former chief executive of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said that Mr Turner appeared to have received special treatment by the police and:
“The perception is that he abused his power in this case”.
The PCC code explicitly says:
“The Commissioner will not use the resources of the office for personal benefit…The resources will not be used improperly for political purposes, including party political purposes”.
We on this side have called for an urgent investigation, but I seek your guidance as to whether you have received any confirmation from the Government that such an inquiry will be held and a statement will be made to the House about these matters.
Mr Speaker
First, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving notice of his point of order. I have not received any notice about a statement on the matter he has raised.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Today’s Financial Times contains a major exposé on the questionable business dealings of the Tees Mayor, which, among other things, have seen vast public-owned assets transferred—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I want to hear this point of order. If somebody doesn’t, please leave.
Alex Cunningham
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am talking about the questionable business dealings of the Tees Mayor, which, among other things, have seen vast public-owned assets transferred to two local businessmen. Secrecy is central to everyone’s concerns about what is happening on Teesside, where there is a total lack of transparency about public assets worth hundreds of millions of pounds. We have even seen the National Audit Office demand that the Mayor corrects his claims that it has given his dealings a clean bill of health. Are you aware of any plans for a statement on this serious issue, so that we can be reassured that Ministers know what is going on and hear of any plans to end the secret activities on Teesside, so that they do not adversely impact any investors’ plans for the area and protect the public interest?
Mr Speaker
First, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving notice of his point of order. I have received no notice of a statement on this matter, but I am sure that, as with the previous point of order, it will not be left at that and that he will continue, in different endeavours, to ensure that it is heard in a different way.
Bill Presented
Nakba Commemoration Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Layla Moran presented a Bill to make provision about the commemoration of the Nakba; to require the Secretary of State to encourage and facilitate annual commemoration of the Nakba; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 November, and to be printed (Bill 306).
Victims and Prisoners Bill
Monday 15th May 2023
(12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Victims and Prisoners Bill 2022-23 View all Victims and Prisoners Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Some years ago, shortly before I entered Parliament, I was stood in the Crown court at Birmingham, having been instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute five men accused of rape. It was alleged that they had groomed two young girls from Telford aged 15 and 16 and abducted them to Birmingham, where they subjected them to a weekend of degrading and humiliating sexual attacks, offering them up to their friends to do with as they pleased. What made the case even more chilling was that it was clear that the victims had been targeted because of their troubled backgrounds and sometimes challenging behaviour when interacting with authority figures such as the police. The defendants had made a cynical calculation that, if the girls ever did complain, they were unlikely to be believed. Well, they were believed. The jury got the measure of what had really gone on. After a fair trial, presided over by an independent judge, the defendants were all convicted of rape, robust sentences were passed and justice was done.
I mention that at the beginning of this Second Reading debate because it provided me, and I hope now the House, with a powerful example of how supporting victims can make a decisive impact on outcomes. In that case, it was only because all the moving parts of the system came together to support those vulnerable girls to give their best evidence that a just outcome was delivered: conscientious police officers liaised sensitively with the young women to help them record their accounts; compassionate CPS lawyers and caseworkers applied for special measures to assist the victims to give evidence in court; and victim support staff worked hard during the tense days of the trial to assist victims with information and updates.
Here is the central point: all those agencies recognised that, in order to deliver justice, victims must be treated not as mere spectators of the criminal justice system, but as core participants in it. That is the mission of this Government and of this Bill. It will boost victims’ entitlements; make victims’ voices heard, including following a major incident like the tragedy of Grenfell or Hillsborough; and deliver further safeguards to protect the public.
As the House will know, my predecessor met brave victims such as: little Tony Hudgell, who was so badly abused by his birth parents that he almost died; Denise Fergus and Ralph Bulger, whose two-year-old son James’s murder shocked the nation; and Farah Naz, the aunt of Zara Aleena, who was tragically sexually assaulted and murdered last year. I want to pay tribute to them. Through their personal grief they have, none the less, found the strength to strengthen the system for others. We owe them a profound debt of gratitude. Their pain and their anguish spurs us on to strengthen public protection and to make sure every victim of crime is properly supported.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for introducing the Bill. As an MP, I have heard so many complaints from victims that no one is listening to them. Can he assure me that victims really will come first in the Bill?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. That is exactly the point. If victims are to be not spectators but participants, from the moment of complaint they must be listened to by the officer on the case, the CPS prosecutor and the prosecutor at court. Being listened to is a critical part of victims’ confidence in the criminal justice system.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?
Alex Chalk
Can I just make a bit of progress?
Before I return to the key elements I mentioned a few moments ago, I want to set out a little context. Hugely important work has taken place over recent years—this may perhaps answer some of the hon. Lady’s questions—to ensure that many of the standards achieved for those victims in Birmingham are now demanded as a matter of course. What it means in simple terms is this: no longer is it considered perfectly normal for a victim of a violent robbery to report their statement to the police, only to hear nothing until a curt instruction out of the blue to attend trial in a week’s time. The 2020 victims code requires that they be kept updated. Gone are the days when it was thought completely reasonable for a victim to arrive at court, give evidence and then have to rely on the media to find out whether the defendant had been convicted. The 2020 code requires that they are told the outcome of the case and given an explanation of the sentence if the defendant is convicted.
Alex Chalk
I will come to the hon. Lady in one moment.
The revised victims code, published in 2020, contains many additional entitlements. For example, right 7 is a victim’s entitlement to make a personal statement to tell the court how the crime has affected them, so that it can be considered when sentencing the offender; right 8 is the entitlement to be offered appropriate help before the trial and, where possible, to meet the prosecutor before giving evidence; and right 9 is the entitlement to be given information about the outcome of the case and any appeals.
Stephanie Peacock
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. My constituent Johnny Wood feels he has been let down by every part of the justice system after his sister was killed by four men with 100 convictions between them who were driving an HGV lorry. The legislation does not address non-compliance with the victims code, so can the right hon. Gentleman tell Johnny and the House how it will make a meaningful change for victims?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that important case on behalf of her constituent. I will develop those points in due course, but let me make a core point first. We have gone from creating the important victims’ entitlements in the code to wanting to ensure that they have a profile, a prominence and an accountability, so that if things go wrong—and from time to time things will go wrong; that happens in any system—people can be truly held to account, and where agencies are failing that is made plain for all to see.
We have also strengthened the system of special measures, completing a national roll-out of pre-recorded examination and cross-examination for victims of rape and sexual offences. That spares them the ordeal of giving evidence in a live trial and having to stand in the same room as their alleged attacker. Really importantly, there has been the introduction of more independent sexual and domestic abuse advisers. These are specialists trained to support vulnerable victims through the justice process. From just the odd pilot scheme pre-2010, there are now over 700 working up and down the country to support victims, and we are rolling out 300 more. It is all part of an unprecedented investment in victim and witness support services, quadrupling 2010 levels.
That is the context. The difference between a decade ago and now is stark. Following those crucial advances, we are now taking steps to secure the entitlements and raise yet further the standards we expect the criminal justice system to deliver for victims. First, the Bill will enshrine the key principles of the victims code in law and provide a framework for the code in regulations, centred around the 12 key entitlements that victims can expect. That will ensure that the good practice I mentioned earlier, which has taken root in many courts and CPS offices around the country, becomes standard practice. The Bill will give these entitlements the profile, the prominence and the weight they deserve and ensure that they cannot be watered down by future Governments. It will place agencies within the criminal justice system, including chief constables, the CPS, British Transport police and others, under a new duty to make victims aware of the code so that every victim knows what they are entitled to.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about what was enshrined in the code, which he said happened in 2020. In 2021—I have just checked the date on my phone—I found out that somebody had been convicted of harassing and threatening me. I found out about it in The Guardian, so the code was certainly not enshrined in that particular courtroom in Birmingham, which I mention as he is leaning on Birmingham courtrooms. What right would I have in this Bill to any recourse and what would happen to the people who failed to inform me?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady should not have found out in a newspaper. She should have been kept updated and informed. If she would like to come to speak to me about that, I will find out what went wrong in that case. On her specific point, what I think is exciting and heartening about the Bill is that it contains a duty on the Secretary of State and police and crime commissioners not just to promote awareness of the code—important though that is—but to promote compliance. If there is not compliance, there is also a duty, effectively, to publish that, so that it is plain for everyone to see. The local PCC will be publishing that, which means that the hon. Lady can get some accountability. I reiterate that if she wants to come to speak to me, she must not hesitate to do so. In fact, knowing her, I know that she would not hesitate to speak.
Several hon. Members rose—
Alex Chalk
Let me make a little progress.
As I indicated, the Bill will make sure that everyone knows what they are entitled to and it sends a clear signal to the system about the service that victims should be receiving. Secondly, as I suggested, the Bill will ensure stronger oversight by placing a new duty on police and crime commissioners and criminal justice bodies to monitor compliance with the code, to provide the public and this Parliament with a clear picture of how victims across the country are being treated. Ministers will have the power to direct the inspection of justice agencies that are failing victims to help drive improvements using best practice from those agencies that are succeeding.
Thirdly, the Bill will place a duty on specific authorities to respond publicly to the recommendations of the Victims’ Commissioner and introduce a requirement for an annual report to be laid before Parliament. That will shine a spotlight on how the system is working and ensure that we have the transparency needed to drive change.
Fourthly, the Bill will provide better support for victims. It will help to ensure that critical support services are targeted where they are most needed by introducing a new joint statutory duty on police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities to co-operate and work together when commissioning support services for victims of domestic and sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. The family of Declan Curran, who tragically took his life, pre-trial, aged just 13, wanted me to stress in this debate the importance of child victims of sexual abuse and their inclusion in clause 2, the victims code, and how they should be able to access comprehensive psychological services without any delay. This must not be seen as interference in the evidence of the trial, with victims’ evidence being recorded at the time of the crime. Will that be fully included in the Bill without delay?
Alex Chalk
It is incredibly important that child victims receive the support that they need, and that should not be a bar to their giving a video-recorded piece of evidence, for example, so that they can participate in that trial as well. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the particulars. The general principle is this: if child victims, who are victims within the ambit of the Bill, need that support, they should get it.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Can the Lord Chancellor provide the House with slightly more detail on the commissioning functions? He has rightly touched on police and crime commissioners, ICBs, the duty of care and the duty of co-operation. In many walks of life, that co-operation completely fails and, basically, victims are on the receiving end of institutional state failure. It would give the House some confidence if he were able to explain how this will work.
Alex Chalk
I begin by thanking my right hon. Friend for her stalwart commitment to the rights of victims. I venture to suggest that no one in this House has done more to stand up for victims. She is absolutely right; there are plenty of organisations who have a duty in that regard—police and crime commissioners are one, but there are plenty of other providers. We want to ensure that the duty of co-operation means that there will not be duplication in some areas and deserts, as it were, in others. The aim is to ensure that across the piece, if someone needs to make sure that there is sufficient support for rape victims, for example, that that support is provided and there is no potential duplication between what the hospital might be doing and what the PCC might be doing. That is a statutory requirement to co-operate—not a “nice to have”, but a direct requirement. That is the difference.
I have already spoken about the importance of ISVAs and IDVAs. They do exceptional work, and we want to strengthen their role further by introducing national guidance to increase awareness of what they do and to promote consistency.
I can also tell the House that we will bring forward an amendment in Committee to block unnecessary and intrusive third party material requests in rape and sexual assault investigations. I know that routine police requests for therapy notes or other personal records can be incredibly distressing for victims, who can feel as though they are the ones under scrutiny. Some may even be deterred from seeking support for fear of their personal records being shared. Our Bill will make sure that those requests are made only when strictly necessary for the purposes of a fair trial.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Many of us welcomed this Bill and hoped it would transform and revolutionise the response, but it fails in several areas. We have heard about the duty of co-operation and collaboration, but there is to be no new funding to allow that to happen and to allow duty holders to commission new services to make the collaboration effective. How would the Government overcome that, and will they consider doing that in future?
Alex Chalk
I welcome the hon. Lady’s overall enthusiasm for the Bill. On that specific point, one of the things I am proud of is that funding for victim services has quadrupled over the past 13 years or so. It is a very significant increase. The money that goes to PCCs, for example, has significantly increased—I think it is more than £60 million or so—but there is additional money that goes directly to charities, such as the Gloucestershire Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre in my own constituency, which is directly funded. That funding has increased.
By the way, I should also note that during covid, when people were genuinely worried that those victim support services might fall over and collapse, the funding went in to sustain them during those very dark times. There is more money, and that is precisely why we want the duty of collaboration to ensure that those taxpayer pounds go as far as they can.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for the measures he has brought through on third party disclosures. Could he, though, give a message to the survivors in my constituency and across the country who have been deterred from coming forward by that knowledge, and to those whose cases have collapsed because of their fear of that information getting into the public domain? What message does he have for them?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady does an important public service in raising that point and I thank her for doing so. Let the message go out from this Chamber: “Do not be put off coming forward, giving your evidence and reporting allegations of serious sexual harm because of concerns about therapy notes. Get the therapy support that you need.” I want that message to go out loud and clear.
We are going to change the law to make it crystal clear that there will be no routine access to therapy notes; there will be access only when it is absolutely necessary and proportionate, and not by the defence, but principally in the very rare circumstances where a prosecutor needs to look at it. The message goes out that victims should come forward and co-operate with the criminal justice system, if they can.
Part 2 of the Bill provides better support for victims and the bereaved after major disasters such as terror attacks. The House will recall the awful events at Hillsborough and the most recent fire at Grenfell Tower, as well as the Manchester Arena bombing. The impact of those terrible tragedies is still felt to this day, especially by the families and friends of the victims. I know there is consensus on both sides of the House that survivors and families of victims caught up in such disasters must be given every support. No one should be left to feel their way in the dark as they grieve.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), the noble Lord Wills and many others for their tireless campaigning on the issue. Indeed, one of the most moving debates that I have ever had the privilege of listening to was one to which the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood contributed on this topic.
The Bill will introduce the UK’s first ever independent public advocate—an advocate to give a voice to those who have too often felt voiceless. The IPA will be a strong advocate for victims, the bereaved and whole communities affected. It will allow us to hear everyone, including those who, in the darkest moments of their grief, may understandably find it impossible to speak up for themselves and their legitimate concerns.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Alex Chalk
I will just develop the point and then of course I will let the right hon. Lady come in.
From the earliest days after a disaster, the IPA will work on behalf of victims. It will be a crucial conduit between them and key public authorities, and it will focus resolutely on what survivors and the bereaved actually need, not just what others in authority might assume they need. The IPA will also help victims and the bereaved to navigate complex processes that most people would find deeply stressful and upsetting, such as investigations, inquests and public inquiries. On a practical level, it will give victims, the bereaved and the affected community a robust way of engaging the public authorities and Government—for example, by asking the coroner or the police for more information about inquests and investigations, or by pressing local government and central Government on their policies for victims.
Maria Eagle
I welcome the right hon. and learned Gentleman to his new role. I wonder whether he will be open to the idea—from those of us who have been working on this for some time—of strengthening the provisions in the Bill to improve them?
Alex Chalk
In preparation for today’s debate, I read the right hon. Lady’s Bill and have considered it with care. Of course, I am open to further discussions with her; she has lived and breathed this issue for a long time, and it is absolutely right that I consider those points. I think that there are—well, let us leave it at that and discuss those matters in due course.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend to his role as Lord Chancellor. I have been listening very carefully to what he has said in relation to suggestions made in all quarters of this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) recently proposed an excellent ten-minute rule Bill calling for tougher rules on the ability of sex offenders to change their names. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Victims and Prisoners Bill is a perfect opportunity to bring in tougher rules, and that they should apply not only to changes of name but to changes of legal sex?
Alex Chalk
There is real and clear merit in what my right hon. Friend says. Plainly, we cannot have a situation in which people can, at the stroke of a pen, evade liability for their abhorrent crimes. I look forward to discussing that important matter with him and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) in due course.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State is making a powerful case on the role of a public advocate, which many of us support. We recognise that there may be more than one victim when traumatic events happen, so does he accept that it is right that the Bill also deals with strengthening support? In my community, a 16-year-old boy was murdered 10 days ago. The entire school community is traumatised. Getting them support, and recognising that his friends, as well as his family, are victims in this instance, is critical. Will he meet me and other campaigners to discuss that issue?
Alex Chalk
How could I not? I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady on that important issue.
Let me turn now to the measures on prisoners and parole—part 3 of the Bill. The first duty of any Government is to protect the public, including from those who have betrayed trust, robbed innocence and shattered lives. Victims want to know that the person who has harmed them, their families and friends will not inflict that pain on anyone else. Indeed, I heard that strong message from Denise Fergus when I spoke with her recently. One thing that I found profoundly moving is that, notwithstanding her own private grief, one of her principal motivations is to ensure that others do not suffer in the same way.
Overwhelmingly, the Parole Board does its difficult job well, taking care to scrutinise the cases coming before it for release decisions. Over 99% of prisoners authorised for release by the Parole Board do not go on to commit a so-called serious further offence, but occasionally things go wrong, and when they do, the implications for public confidence can be very grave. John Worboys, the black cab rapist, and Colin Pitchfork, who raped two schoolgirls, were both assessed as being safe to leave prison, only for Colin Pitchfork to have to be recalled shortly afterwards and the Worboys decision to be overturned on appeal. Such cases are rare, but they are unacceptable. The public must have confidence that murderers, rapists and terrorists will be kept behind bars for as long as necessary to keep the public safe.
We have already made changes to improve safety and increase transparency. The most serious offenders now face robust tests to prove they are safe to move into open prisons, and some parole hearings can now take place in public so that victims and the public can see with their own eyes how decisions are made and why.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his well-deserved appointment. My constituents Matt and Carole Gould have campaigned long and hard on the tragic murder of their daughter some years ago. They are concerned that, when the murderer is released from prison after an all too short 12 and a half years, he will be allowed to return to the village he came from and that they will bump into him in the street. Will my right hon. and learned Friend advise me what normal practice would be in keeping murderers away from the victim’s relatives? Is there not an argument that, in rural areas such as mine, the distance should be further than it would perhaps be in an urban area?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that deeply upsetting and troubling case and for liaising with his constituents. Although I do not know the specifics of any licence conditions, it is overwhelmingly likely that those conditions would take into account precisely the point he raises. If family are living nearby, it is usual for licence conditions to indicate an exclusion zone, and that could be expanded to meet issues of justice and safety. Those are matters that the relevant authorities will be taking close cognisance of.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
On parole reform, will the factor determining whether someone is in the top-tier cohort always be the offence or offences committed, or will other factors sometimes be taken into consideration? With regard to top-tier offences, will Ministers have the power to add to or change the list of offences that put someone in the top tier?
Alex Chalk
I will come to those points in a moment, but it is broadly to do with the offences.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Applications can now be made for Parole Board hearings to be held in public, but as Gwynedd resident Rhiannon Bragg learned, they can be refused. She feels strongly that if the hearing for the perpetrator who stalked her and held her at gunpoint overnight was heard in public, it would help her as a victim—she would not face him in a private context, face to face, and the hearing would be covered in the public domain through the press. Will the Minister consider this issue?
Alex Chalk
There is now a power for hearings to be held in public, but it depends on the facts of the individual case. It will be important to weigh up what is in the interests of justice, but that of course also includes what is in the interests of the victim—indeed, that is a pre-eminent consideration. These decisions are necessarily fact-specific, and the Parole Board has to consider them on the facts before it. However, the hon. Lady makes a powerful point, which I am sure the Parole Board will want to take into account in relation to the facts of that particular case.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Alex Chalk
I will make a bit of progress and then I will of course come to the right hon. Gentleman.
As I indicated, the Bill takes steps to strengthen the system further. First, it will make public protection the pre-eminent factor in deciding which prisoners are safe for release, by introducing a codified release test in law. Secondly, it will impose a new safeguard— a new check and balance—in respect of the top tier of the most serious offenders, drawn from murderers, rapists, child killers and terrorists. In those cases where there is a Parole Board recommendation to release a prisoner, the Bill will allow the Secretary of State to intervene on behalf of the public to stay that release and enable Ministers to take a second look. That oversight will act as a further safeguard in the most serious cases that particularly affect public confidence. Plainly, of course, to preserve fairness in the system that ministerial intervention must be amenable to independent review, and the Bill properly safeguards that right.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his well-deserved promotion. I have recently been contacted by a constituent who discovered the murdered bodies of her sister and baby niece. She is a volunteer with a national charity called Support after Murder and Manslaughter. It has given me a list of concerns, which I would like to give to the Minister separately. However, the charity states that the Secretary of State will be able to make this parole decision, which will then be subject to appeal, but the victims will not have a voice at either stage—they will not be able to do impact presentations. Will the Minister look at this point again, because the victims feel that they are being excluded?
Alex Chalk
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that important matter on behalf of his constituents. The interests and rights of victims are absolutely at the heart of this proposal, because—this shone out from a conversation I had only today— some victims who are concerned about whether a prisoner gets released are of course concerned about what has happened to their family, but they are also worried about what might happen to others. That is why having public confidence in the safety consideration is so important. I will be happy to discuss my right hon. Friend’s points with him, but I emphasise that the rights of victims and the protection of the public are at the heart of this important measure.
Mr Carmichael
The volume and nature of the interventions on the Secretary of State show the difficulty of this area of law. While the changes to parole are welcome, is there not a danger that they will increase further the treatment of those who are currently in the system and those who are still in the prison system—somewhere in the region of 3,000 people—more than 10 years after we abolished sentences of imprisonment for public protection? The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who I see in his place, has called for a review. Sir John Major did the same recently. Would this Bill not be an opportunity to deal with that?
Alex Chalk
It is important to consider these things separately, but the right hon. Gentleman identifies something that is a stain on our justice system. The IPP system should never have happened. Trying to take the politics out of it, I sort of understand why it was proposed, but it was a bad idea. It was a big mistake, and it has left us with a difficult issue. I am considering carefully what the Justice Committee has to say about it, and I will be saying more about it in due course. It is important to treat that separately from the position I am talking about here, which is that in those most serious cases where the Parole Board has directed release, it is right that on behalf of the public the Secretary of State should have a second look, even if that is then susceptible to an independent review thereafter. It is a slightly separate issue, but I take the points that he makes.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
I am pleased to see my right hon. and learned Friend in his place. On the issue of the powers taken in this Bill for a referral to the Secretary of State, in the Justice Committee we heard evidence of other routes for the Secretary of State to intervene: through reconsideration, which has been in place for four years, and through set aside, which is a power that the Secretary of State has taken more recently. That has the added benefit of including victims within the process. Can he just set out what it is that the Bill is trying to achieve that those routes cannot in ensuring that ministerial oversight?
Alex Chalk
There is a very important distinction. When the Secretary of State considers those most serious cases, he will look at this issue of safety for the public. That is not whether, for example, the Parole Board has acted in such a way as to not be susceptible to judicial review; it is a much wider consideration so that the public can be satisfied not just that the Parole Board considered safety, but that the Secretary of State did, too, and that is an important second check. That matters, because in these most serious cases, public confidence is hanging on the single thread of the Parole Board. We want to make sure that an additional thread goes into that structure, so that the public recognise that there has been that second pair of eyes. Plainly, Ministers cannot over-politicise this process, which is why there must be an opportunity to have an independent review of the Secretary of State’s decision. That will allow us overall to have a much more vigorous and robust process that stands up for victims, but is also mindful of the rule of law.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir Robert Neill
I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, whom I warmly welcome to his place, for giving way. Can I just follow up the point made by my fellow Justice Committee member, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson)? There are passages in the Bill where, in carrying out that legitimate policy objective—I do not disagree with the Secretary of State on that legitimacy—in certain circumstances, as it is currently drafted, he may be asked to put his finding of fact and his opinion in the place of that of the parole board that actually heard the evidence. Could I therefore ask him to look very carefully at the evidence the Committee received—it is tagged to the Bill on the Order Paper—and find a more effective way to achieve his objective that is legally robust but fair, but does not place him and his successors in the very difficult position of trying to rehear facts at second hand, as opposed to taking the role of those who heard the initial evidence?
Alex Chalk
May I thank my hon. Friend, and say that I have read every word of that important evidence to the Committee? I thank him for the time he took to provide that additional scrutiny, which I found extremely helpful. He is absolutely right that the check and balance is a sensible one, but plainly it has to be operational. We have to be able to deliver it, and we have to be able to do so in a sufficiently timely fashion, ensuring that a decision is not offending against article 5 and so on, but also that all parties have certainty about what is actually going to happen. I hope he will be reassured by my saying that I am looking very closely at the operational aspects of this provision to ensure that it does what is intended, and provides that check and balance, while being deliverable and of course being consistent with the rule of law. If I may, I will now press on, because I know others want to speak.
Thirdly, we are already recruiting more ex-police officers to the Parole Board. Now we will ensure that individuals with law enforcement backgrounds can be included on panels considering the release of the most serious criminals. Their first-hand experience of assessing risk will bring additional expertise to parole hearings.
This Bill will also prohibit prisoners subject to a whole-life order from being able to marry or form a civil partnership in custody, subject to an exemption in truly exceptional circumstances. The rationale for this is simple. Those most dangerous and cruel criminals—the ones who have shattered lives and robbed others of their chance of happiness and a family life—should not be able to taunt victims and their families by enjoying that for themselves. It is simply unconscionable, yet as the law stands, prison governors cannot reject a prisoner’s application to marry unless it creates a security risk for the prison, however horrific their crime. Our changes will prevent whole-life prisoners from marrying or forming a civil partnership in prison or other places of detention. That is nothing less than basic fairness.
Jess Phillips
I could not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman more. What I would also ask is that people in that situation, especially those who murder their wife and the mother of their children, should also have their parental rights taken away. Why is that not in the Bill?
Alex Chalk
As the hon. Lady knows, we have discussed these issues at some length in a different context, and she should know that I am ready to continue that conversation.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
This is a really excellent piece of legislation, and I congratulate the Secretary of State and his team on everything they are doing, but I could not miss this opportunity of raising the issue of the intergenerational impact of female imprisonment. As the Lord Chancellor knows, women make up just 4% of the prison population, yet two thirds of them have dependent children. Because they are so few, they are generally placed much further away from home and have much less access to some rehabilitative facilities than their male counterparts. That imprisonment can have a devastating impact on the children, so in many cases the children of women in prisons are victims themselves. There has been some fantastic work across the country by organisations such as Hope Street, run by One Small Thing, which I know the Prisons Minister—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds)—has recently visited. Does the Secretary of State not feel that this Bill would have been an ideal opportunity to try to address that?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. She mentions Hope Street, and the Nelson Trust, which I have visited, does excellent work in this regard. I think we do always have to remember that the job of Government is to ensure that the decision of the court can be upheld.
In other words, a court will of course consider the evidence from the prosecution at a sentencing hearing about what has taken place, will hear a plea in mitigation about the impact on the defendant of incarceration—including the impact on friends and children, their future and so on—and will then reach a decision based on all those matters about the correct sentence. So while I do not seek to downplay any of the really important points my hon. Friend mentioned, we need to do our bit within the criminal justice system to give effect to the order of the court, but to ensure it is done in a way that is humane and understands that there are family considerations.
We want prisoners to serve their time, but to be rehabilitated, and one of the critical ways of being rehabilitated is to ensure that family relationships endure. That is why there has been so much investment in courts in areas such technology to ensure prisoners can keep in contact with the outside, so that when they leave having repaid their debt to society they are in a position to pick up those important relationships.
In closing, I want to put on record my thanks to all who have helped to shape this Bill, in particular the victims who shared their stories and contributed to our consultation. I also pay tribute to my predecessors my right hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) and for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) for the parts they have played in advancing this Bill.
These measures will help ensure that every victim, from the Telford teenagers I mentioned to the elderly victim of confidence fraud, secures the service from our justice system that they deserve. From the moment of report to the moment of conviction, and indeed beyond if required, victims’ interests must be paramount. That is how justice is done, and I commend this Bill to the House.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his appointment. I am sure all of us, in all parts of the House, wish him well, because victims need him to succeed. That is particularly the case when we realise that every year one in five people in the United Kingdom become a victim of crime: their freedom is assaulted; they are left feeling angry, fearful and sometimes even helpless.
Our system of justice, once a beacon to the world, should give victims of crime the ability to seek redress for what they have suffered. Victims deserve to be at the heart of the criminal justice system. Those who have wronged them deserve to be prosecuted and held to account in open court. Criminals should face punishment for the harm they have done.
Justice is a cornerstone of any modern and democratic society, the very foundation of law and order. Justice demands respect for the rules that govern the fair functioning of our society. But after 13 years of Conservative government, our justice system is broken. The Conservatives have let victims down time and again. Prosecution and charge rates are now so low that it is no exaggeration to say the Conservatives have effectively decriminalised many serious crimes. Only 6% of burglaries and 4% of robberies come to trial. Victims of car crime are told to report incidents online, and only rarely is there ever a police officer to follow up. Fraud is growing exponentially, with online scammers threatening people’s entire life savings, yet the previous Conservative Chancellor dismisses fraud as not an everyday worry.
Most shocking of all is the fact that fewer than two in every 100 reported rapes result in a prosecution and the average wait for a rape trial, for those very few that ever reach court, is now over three years for the first time ever. A three-year wait for a rape trial is devastating for victims, but under this Government three-year waits are the norm, not the exception.
I was contacted by the father of a 16-year-old girl who had been waiting two years for her attacker to face trial. Just four days before the trial was due to begin, his daughter was told it had been postponed for a further nine months. Just imagine how it must feel for a teenage girl who has survived such a horrific crime, and who had the bravery to stand up and report the attack, to then have to wait years and years for her attacker to face justice.
This weekend new research from the Labour party found that delays had become so bad that six out of 10 rape victims now drop their cases. They are left in absolute despair as their attackers remain loose on the streets. While Ministers routinely dismiss the reality of what they have created, the number of outstanding rape cases has almost doubled over the past year alone, and we must remember that over 98% of reported rapes never result in a prosecution anyway. The legacy of this Conservative Government is victims left facing the longest trail delays on record, which is an absolute disgrace.
But the criminal justice crisis extends way beyond the courts. The Government broke the probation system with a botched privatisation followed by a panicked renationalisation. Under the Conservatives, every week on average one murder and two rapes are committed by offenders who are supposed to be under supervision, but the probation service has never recovered from the wrecking ball that the Conservatives took to it. Some parts of the service still carry 40% vacancy rates. Probation officers are not routinely given full information about an offender’s full history when they are asked to risk assess them on release. That was how Jordan McSweeney’s risk rating was so catastrophically mis-assessed before he was released and targeted Zara Aleena in one of the most shocking and brutal murders of recent years.
Victims have a right to believe that offenders convicted in court of crimes that deserve a custodial sentence will be locked up—but they cannot under this Government, because they have run out of prison cells. The previous Justice Secretary wrote to judges telling them to avoid locking convicts up. Inside our prisons, violence and drug abuse are raging out of control. Drug and alcohol use in prisons has skyrocketed by more than 400% since 2010, and staff assaults have more than doubled. Instead of offenders being rehabilitated behind bars—that is what the Secretary of State just said he wants to see—they leave prison fired up by violence and high on drugs, posing an even greater threat to the public. Eight out of 10 crimes are committed by someone who has offended before—those are Ministry of Justice statistics. Under the Conservatives, the broken system is not stopping criminals; it is breeding them. If we do not stop criminals, we create more victims. It is a vicious cycle that leaves the law-abiding majority feeling weak and victims feeling abandoned.
Since 2014, convicted offenders have been sentenced to 16 million hours of unpaid work in community sentences that they were never made to carry out. That is a quite staggering failure. What message do the Government think that sends to offenders and their victims? It says: the system does not care. It tells low level offenders that they can get away with it, so they progress to committing more serious crimes. They have learned that they can get away with crime with no consequences under a Government who have gone soft on criminals. Under this Government, crime is not prevented, criminals are not punished and victims are not protected. No wonder victims feel abandoned when so many crimes, from antisocial behaviour to violent sexual assault, go unpunished.
It is eight years and eight Justice Secretaries since the Conservatives first promised new legislation to support victims. For all of that time, Labour has been telling them to act. Now—finally—we have a Bill, but I am afraid that it is a wasted opportunity because it fails in so many ways to rebalance the scales of justice and make a real difference for victims. The Bill lets down rape survivors. It offers no specialist legal advice or advocacy that will help them to navigate the justice system.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
On the hon. Member’s point about victims of rape who have been let down, does he consider that the Bill could protect child victims of rape from alleged child perpetrators where both the victim and the accused are due to attend the same school?
Steve Reed
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. He makes an important point. That is one of so many important ways in which the Bill could do more for victims. I hope that we will get the chance to make some changes to it and strengthen it as it passes through Committee and during the rest of its journey before it becomes an Act of Parliament.
Labour will table an amendment offering free legal advice for rape survivors. We want to ensure that survivors are supported every single step of the way from first reporting a rape at a police station right through to trial. It cannot be right that so many rape survivors describe their experience in court as so traumatising that it feels like they are the ones who are on trial. Labour has been calling for some time now for the protection of third-party material, such as counselling or therapy records, for rape and sexual violence victims. It is welcome that the Government are proposing some changes on that, but victims want more detail, and we will seek that as the Bill progresses. We need to support victims of crime throughout the justice system if we want to reduce victim dropout rates, which deny them justice and let criminals get away with their crimes.
There has, quite rightly, been a great deal of attention in recent years on victims of state failure that have led to major tragedies: Hillsborough, Grenfell and the Manchester Arena to name just three. Tragically, the Bill lets them down, too. Victims of major tragedies deserve the same legal representation as the authorities that fail them in the first place, but that does not happen, and the Bill does not put it right. Labour stands unequivocally with the families and survivors of those tragedies. Giving them proper legal representation is not only a matter of justice for them but helps the system learn from when went wrong, so that future tragedies can be prevented.
We will table amendments to establish a fully independent legal advocate accountable to families, as the Hillsborough families and campaigners have demanded; an advocate with the power to access documents and data not only to expose the full extent of failure but to prevent the possibility of cover-ups, such as those that denied families justice immediately after Hillsborough.
The Bill also lets down victims of antisocial behaviour. Those crimes can leave communities feeling broken and powerless, and lead to a spiral of social and economic decline that we should not tolerate. Whether it is gangs trashing local buildings, offenders intimidating local residents or selfish individuals dumping their rubbish on local streets and green spaces, we must support the law-abiding majority who deserve to feel proud of where they live.
Sarah Champion
Does my hon. Friend agree that not only does the Bill let down victims of antisocial behaviour, but its definition of a victim actively excludes them?
Steve Reed
As is so frequently the case, my hon. Friend makes an important and apt point. I hope that we will have opportunities to amend the Bill as it passes through Parliament. Victims of antisocial behaviour are victims of crime just as much as anybody else.
Labour wants to support victims of antisocial behaviour so that they can choose their own representatives to sit on community payback boards, where they can choose the unpaid work that offenders carry out to put right the wrong that they have done. Victims need to see justice carried out, as part of a functioning criminal justice system. To end the scandal of so many community sentences never carried out under the Conservatives, we would give victims the power they need to make sure that every sentence handed down by the courts is carried out in the community. Justice seen is justice done.
One of the most damaging experiences for any victim who reports crime is the years spent waiting for that case to come to trial, yet the Bill does nothing to cut the court backlog that warps the justice system under the Conservatives. Cases collapse as witnesses forget key details. Victims give up and criminals get away with it. This Government care so little that they have allowed the court backlog to reach record levels.
Ministers will routinely stand at the Dispatch Box and blame the pandemic, but that is just an attempt to cover up their failure. Court backlogs were already escalating to record levels before anyone had heard of covid-19. If the Government cared, they would do something, but there is nothing in the Bill to speed up justice for victims. Maria is a young woman who was subjected to multiple attacks by a serial rapist. She reported the crimes in March 2019, but had to wait three years and seven months for her case to come to trial. The pressure on her grew so intolerable that Maria attempted to end her own life, leaving her with life-changing physical injuries. That is abhorrent. Victims are sick and tired of hearing about failure on this scale while this Government refuse to take responsibility.
It is essential for victims that we speed up justice, but only Labour has a plan for that. We will double the number of Crown prosecutors to speed up trials. We will introduce specialist rape courts to fast-track cases through the system, to put criminals behind bars and get the wheels of justice turning again.
Sarah Champion
I am sure my hon. Friend welcomes the section 28 measures that came in recently, which allow pre-recorded information to be submitted and take a lot of trauma out of the sometimes hostile environment in which victims find themselves. However, from my experience, their use depends on the judge’s understanding and granting of them. Will the Bill contain anything to prevent that postcode lottery?
Steve Reed
Once again, my hon. Friend raises an important point that needs to be taken into account fully, not just as the Bill progresses but as we review the different forms of giving evidence that can make the experience of a rape survivor much easier, which makes it less likely that a case is dropped or collapses and that an attacker gets away with it.
In recent months, victims of the most horrific crimes have faced the insult of convicted criminals refusing to turn up in court to face sentencing in person. We have called on the Government to act on that and they have repeatedly said that they will, yet they have done nothing while killers, rapists and terrorists pick and choose whether they turn up to face the consequences of their crimes. Just imagine how the families of Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena felt when the brutal men who had killed their loved ones refused to come to court to be sentenced. It is grossly offensive to victims and their families to let criminals have that hold over them at such a difficult and traumatic moment. It is disappointing that that is not part of the Bill, and I hope the Government will reconsider. If they will not act, the next Labour Government will. We will give judges the power to force offenders to stand in the dock, in open court, while they are sentenced, and we will do that because victims deserve nothing less.
With the Victims and Prisoners Bill finally coming before Parliament today, disappointingly there is still no Victims’ Commissioner in place. The Government have left the post vacant for six months now, and there is still no sign of a new appointment, which sends a message to victims about the Government’s intentions. I hope the new Secretary of State will be able to speed up that process. Whoever is eventually appointed, the Bill does nothing to strengthen the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner, which, at the very least, should include the necessary powers to enforce the victims code in full and to lay an annual report before Parliament. That would help immensely in holding the Government to account and amplify victims’ voices. I hope this too is something the Government might reconsider in Committee.
Victims will have serious concerns about some of the Government’s proposed parole reforms. It is essential that the Government should not politicise decisions that should be based on robust professional experience that keeps the public safe. Where the parole board has not been working effectively enough, the answer is to strengthen it, not to undermine it. While I am sure that the current Justice Secretary is reasonable, not all his predecessors have been. We need processes that work effectively and protect the public, whoever is in that post. There have been parole decisions that raised legitimate concern and there is clearly a need for appropriate intervention by a Justice Secretary without unduly politicising the whole system. We will return to that issue in Committee.
To conclude, the first duty of any Government is to protect the safety of citizens. The current state of the criminal justice system shows how badly the Government have failed in that duty. They have repeatedly let criminals off and let victims down. In many ways, this is a victims Bill in name only. Labour will seek to strengthen the Bill and rebalance the scales of justice in favour of victims and the law-abiding majority. We want to strengthen the Bill to speed up justice, to offer rape survivors the free legal support they need and deserve, and to give victims of antisocial behaviour a voice and the power they need to make community sentences really work. Our aim is to prevent crime, punish criminals and protect victims. That is what the public and, above all, victims expect a functioning justice system to do.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I start by warmly welcoming my right hon. and learned Friend to his position, to which nobody in this House is better suited. I know that he will fulfil it in the most distinguished manner; he comes to the position of Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor with a background in our criminal justice system that is second to none and a reputation at the Bar for scrupulous fairness and integrity.
My right hon. and learned Friend and I both used to deal in the same kind of work and we are both still in contact with many who work in the criminal justice system. His reputation as both prosecutor and defender was impeccable. It is right that the House should know that, and it is important because it means that he will know the importance of going on the evidence and of acting on a fair, rational and ultimately humane basis. The best prosecutors are the fairest and the most humane, and he was a very good prosecutor. I hope he will bring those attributes to the role of Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor.
My right hon. and learned Friend was also an active and distinguished member of the Justice Committee. I hope he will remember some of the work we did together. I am delighted to see another former Justice Committee member in the form of the Attorney General, who is sitting on the Treasury Bench as well. I feel a little like Banquo—not on the Treasury Bench, but the father of Law Officers. I am proud of having worked with both of them.
I turn to the Bill, which is an admirable place for the Secretary of State to make his debut. It is a bit dangerous to make classical allusions, but the Bill is a bit like Caesar’s view of Gaul—divided into three parts—and one can come to different judgments about those different parts.
Let me start with part 1, which relates to victims. It is welcome. It fulfils a manifesto commitment of our party, and I am glad to see it there. The Justice Committee very much appreciated the opportunity the Government gave us for pre-legislative scrutiny of part 1. That was helpful and I hope the Government found it so. We also welcome the fact that the Government accepted a number of our recommendations—in particular the inclusion of bereaved families specifically as victims in the Bill, the strengthening of the role of Victims’ Commissioner, and the statutory obligation on statutory agencies to make victims aware of the contents of the code.
Those are important steps forward, although, with respect, I think that more could be done. I particularly thank the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), for his constructive and full engagement with the Committee throughout the pre-legislative scrutiny. It was a good example of how such scrutiny can help the process. I might come back to that point in relation to other parts of the Bill.
I think that more could be done in some areas, but I nonetheless welcome the Bill. I suggest that we look at a couple of areas that the Select Committee picked up as the Bill goes forward. There are more areas as well. One is that although it is right to put the code on a statutory basis, there is a gap at the moment. If we give individuals legal rights, it is important to give them proper means of enforcing those rights and a proper remedy for their breach or for when there is non-compliance from the agencies charged with delivering those rights. At the moment, specificity is still lacking in that regard. As the Secretary of State knows, if we give somebody a right we must give them a remedy—that is basic sound law. At the moment, the clarity about the remedy is lacking. I hope that we can consider that as we go forward.
There is also an important point, which the Justice Committee report referred to, about victims of antisocial behaviour that does not end up being charged as a crime, for whatever reason. There would be no harm at all in adopting a more generous and broad approach on that issue, and I hope the Government will consider that. Our evidence on both points I have mentioned was pretty strong. Subject to that, however, this is a good part of the Bill, and I hope that we can work constructively across the House to improve some aspects of it.
Part 2, which deals with the appointment of an independent public advocate, is an addition that I broadly welcome. I know that there are those who will say that it does not go far enough, and I accept that. The Committee did not have a chance to look at it in detail, although we did hear some evidence connected with it in relation to other inquiries—notably from the Right Rev. James Jones, who did such fantastic work on the Hillsborough inquiry. I think there is something helpful to be learnt from that evidence. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), my fellow Committee member, for her exceptional work in relation to the Hillsborough disaster, and the work that has followed from that. Those in the House and beyond are in her debt.
While I think that the appointment of the independent public advocate will be valuable, I hope we can look at some other issues, in particular the scope of the scheme—the areas into which the advocate might be able to go—and the question of equality of arms for bereaved families at inquests when the actions of a state body are in question and that state body will inevitably be represented, at public expense, by lawyers, while the bereaved families are not. I hope that, for the sake of fairness, the Secretary of State will think again about that. Equality of arms is a concept with which both he and I are very familiar, and this strikes me as a gap in the system that it would not be onerous, in the overall scheme of things, to remedy.
Part 3 deals with prisoners and parole. Here I am afraid I must adopt a slightly different tone, because this is a rather less welcome addition to the Bill. That is not because the policy objective is wrong. As the Secretary of State said, it is clearly right and proper for the public to have confidence in our parole system, and that means there must be both a robust test of the grounds on which a prisoner can be released from sentence or moved to open conditions, and a robust system of ensuring that the test is applied. I think that the difficulty has been in the detail thereafter, and that may be reflected in the fact that this part of the Bill was not subject to any pre-legislative scrutiny. The Justice Committee wrote to the then Secretary of State offering to provide such scrutiny, but the offer was declined. I also note that the evidence we heard from the Parole Board only last week indicated only the most perfunctory engagement with the board itself. There was no face-to-face engagement; there was, I think, one meeting and a notification, effectively, after the event.
The Secretary of State, who has seen the transcript of that evidence session, will know that the Parole Board is a serious and expert body of people. As he rightly said, the vast majority of cases deliver results because people do not reoffend. It is perhaps surprising that a little more attention was not paid to the views of the board or, indeed, those of many other people working in the criminal justice system. The absence of outside consultation with almost anyone with knowledge of the system weakens the credibility of part 3.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
In his role as Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Gentleman has done some remarkable work on the Bill, and I pay tribute to him and his Committee. I was stunned, although not surprised, to hear that there had been no consultation with either him or the Committee on part 3. I am also not aware of any consultation with the broader non-governmental organisations, campaigners, charities and survivors. Is he aware of any such scrutiny?
Sir Robert Neill
The short answer is that none has come to my attention or that of the Committee. We did endeavour to secure a range of views, particularly from practitioners in the field. It is helpful to hear such views, and I therefore hope that as the Bill proceeds, the Secretary of State and his Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), will, as fair-minded people, find opportunities to take them on board.
What we want is a system that is robust, because that is critical, but also—as the Secretary of State said—a system that is operationally effective. One of my main concerns is that the evidence we did receive suggested, in respect of nearly all the principal aspects of part 3, that there were serious question marks over how operationally effective it would be. This is a classic case of where Committee improvements ought to be made, and I hope the Government will move to do that.
I want briefly to flag up some of those areas. The current test is a very short one of some 20 words, but it is robust. Essentially it says that the protection of the public comes first, and that is what we want to achieve anyway. It is expanded somewhat by a non-exhaustive number of other matters that can be taken into account. There is nothing wrong in that, but I hope that it does not make the test unduly complicated. It is also worth remembering that there is sometimes a misunderstanding, particularly in media reporting, in relation to the work of the Parole Board. That comes in two forms. First, as the Secretary of State said, in 99% of cases people released on parole do not reoffend, and that context is important. Secondly, there is a suggestion of some kind of balancing test, but that is not the case.
It is clear from the evidence that since the case of Knight in about 2017, the Parole Board very properly changed its guidance to reflect the primacy of the protection of the public test. I think there is an element in this part of the Bill of trying to solve a problem that does not exist and therefore a risk of over-engineering the system, which we might not need. So let us look again at the best way to do the test. There is nothing wrong with changing it, and perhaps nothing wrong with expanding it, but are we sure that we are getting this right?
The next matter is the way in which the Secretary of State will, from time to time, step in and review. There is nothing wrong with a review but I have two concerns about the way it is done. In certain cases set out in the Bill, it will be necessary, if the Secretary of State chooses to carry out those powers, to intervene and substitute the Secretary of State’s decision, including on the facts, for those of the board, which will have heard first-hand evidence. The Secretary of State is not in a position to hear first-hand evidence, so he would have to rely on a provision that enables a person to be appointed to interview the applicant for parole and then report to the Secretary of State. I do not think the Secretary of State would normally feel happy acting on hearsay in such circumstances, because at the end of the day it is second-hand evidence and he would have to substitute his judgment for that of those who had heard first-hand evidence. I am not sure that is a fair or satisfactory way of resolving that problem.
The second concern relates to the very proper means of review. As the Secretary of State rightly said, there has to be an independent review, but at the moment the suggestion is that, among other things, this could go to the upper chamber. I would ask him to reflect on the appropriateness of the upper chamber. Logically, the element within the upper chamber that would hear these cases is the upper tribunal. The upper tribunal, as a logical part of that, would be the administrative chamber, which is essentially there to deal with points of law; it is not a fact-finding body.
The route of application to appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision has two grounds. One is the normal ground of public law and judicial review—involving unreasonableness, for example—and that is fine. The administrative chamber no doubt deals with those kinds of things. This also includes an appeal on the merits, and it has to, to make it ECHR-compliant, but this would involve a rehearing, and the upper chamber has no experience of re-hearing the merits. So this route of appeal does not seem to be right or practical.
Another point to remember is that there is no requirement for leave in this route. If someone appeals to the upper tribunal on the ground of legal deficiency, such as unreasonableness, they have to get leave. If they apply on the ground that the Secretary of State got it wrong on the merits, they do not have to get leave at all and they can have a rehearing, so everyone who feels aggrieved at the Secretary of State’s decision will apply on the ground that they want to challenge the merits and therefore have a rehearing. The number of unmeritorious appeals will therefore greatly increase, which is hardly the objective of this piece of legislation. It would also put these matters into a chamber that—with absolute respect to those who sit in the administrative chamber—is not geared up to hear evidence to do rehearings. It is going to the wrong place, so I hope we at least reflect on a better means of achieving that end.
The same goes for the Secretary of State’s powers to intervene and rehear. Would it not be better simply to toughen the current power of redetermination? Surely asking for a case to be reconsidered by a differently constituted panel would be a more practical way forward. There are practical and sensible things that could be done, but unfortunately they were not picked up by the Bill’s drafting, perhaps because nobody who knows much about it was asked.
Clauses 42 to 44 disapply section 3 of the Human Rights Act for the purposes of these hearings. Whatever one’s view of the Human Rights Act, there is no evidence that this is a problem in such cases. In fact, the evidence we heard from practitioners, from both sides, is that it can be helpful to have to have regard to section 3 in these hearings. These clauses seem to be trying to solve a problem that does not exist, and I wonder whether we really need them. It is perfectly possible to have a robust system that still complies with section 3. This is a needless distraction that sends the wrong signal about a certain desire to pick unnecessary fights, which I know is not the current Secretary of State’s approach.
Clause 46 addresses the Parole Board’s composition and the appointment of board members. It is perfectly legitimate to have more people with law and order experience, which could be included as a category, but we must be careful to make sure there is no suggestion that the Secretary of State can say that a particular class of person should sit on a panel for a particular type of hearing, as that would go beyond independence. There is strong case law from our domestic courts, never mind elsewhere, to say that the Parole Board carries out a judicial function and therefore must have a proper degree of judicial independence. There is a risk that the clause, as currently drafted, offends against that.
The final issue that arises is with the power to dismiss the chair of the Parole Board. There is already a protocol for removing a chair of the Parole Board who loses the Secretary of State’s confidence, and it was exercised after the Worboys case—I think it is called the Mostyn protocol. Why do we need an extra statutory power when we already have a way to do it? Establishing a statutory power creates another problem, because clause 47 says that the chair of the Parole Board shall not sit on any panels of the Parole Board. When we heard evidence, no one could work out why, but it has subsequently been suggested to me that it would be interfering with judicial independence to remove a chair who is sitting on a panel.
Perhaps the answer is not to have the needless power to remove a chair, because we can see the illogicality: if we want a Secretary of State to be able to remove the chair of the Parole Board, we have to make sure they are not carrying out any judicial functions, because otherwise the Secretary of State would be interfering with judicial independence. But we already have a means of removing a chair of the Parole Board, and it works, so why go down this rabbit hole?
My observations on part 3 are intended to be helpful and constructive, and I am sure the Secretary of State and the Minister will take them on board.
The Victims and Prisoners Bill makes no mention of the continuing injustice, as the Secretary of State rightly said—the blot and stain on our judicial landscape—facing a particular class of prisoner: those imprisoned for public protection. The House recognised that indeterminate sentences had failed and so abolished them, but not retrospectively. An increasing number of people on open-ended sentences, which Parliament has abolished, are being recalled. People have no hope of their sentence coming to an end and, because they are also potentially subject to a life licence, more people have been recalled than are serving their original sentence. Something has gone badly wrong here, which is doubtless why Lord Blunkett, the creator of the sentence, said, “This has gone wrong and needs to be changed.” It is also why Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and not someone generally regarded as a soft touch in sentencing matters, said, “The only logical way to resolve this is to have a resentencing exercise.”
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I speak as an old boy of the Justice Committee. I do not want to rehearse the debate we had only a few weeks ago, but there seems to be some reticence among those on both Front Benches about the proposals the hon. Gentleman put forward through the Select Committee; they seem to think that they would result in the large-scale release of dangerous prisoners. Could he emphasise exactly what the Select Committee was proposing: a panel of experts carefully preparing a way forward on resentencing that balances public protection and the rights of the victims, with securing justice? That has the wholehearted support of organisations on the frontline, including the Prison Officers Association, the probation officers, the courts staff and, as he said, the former Home Secretary and the Supreme Court judge. This needs to be addressed now. If we do not use this Bill to introduce such a measure, we will lose the opportunity, possibly for another number of years.
Sir Robert Neill
The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right and I agree with him. We are in a hopeless situation at the moment and there has been a misunderstanding. The Select Committee took careful evidence and made a number of recommendations, not purely on resentencing, but on a number of other practical measures that may be taken to improve the way in which IPP prisoners are dealt with in the system. Frankly, at the moment, they are set up to fail. They have to go on courses, which they are told about only a few weeks before their parole hearing and the course waiting list is two years in some places, we are told. They may be in a prison where the courses do not exist or are not available. They are then on permanent licence, where they can be recalled at any time. There is scope to have that removed after 10 years. We can see no evidence as to why the period should not be five years, rather than 10. If somebody has shown willing and gone straight for five years, there is no evidence to suggest that going on for 10 makes any difference to the reoffending rate. So why do that? Why set people up to fail?
On the resentencing exercise, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, we were not at all seeking to say, “Everybody will be resentenced immediately. Everybody will be released immediately.” Having acted in some cases that involved sentences of this kind, I know that some people will always remain very dangerous. There are some people who, by the nature of the index offence, will remain in prison for a long time and the determinate sentence that they ultimately receive under our scheme may be a very long one. So the idea that that approach opens the doors is wrong. What it does do is give certainty to everybody and give hope. Tragically, I was informed that, in the four weeks after the former Secretary of State rejected the entirely of the serious recommendations of the Select Committee, three IPP prisoners took their own lives. I hope that there was no connection there, but it does not say much for the sensitivity with which this has been handled in the past. I know that that is not the view of this Secretary of State, who is a deeply humane man and will want to do justice by this.
The resentencing exercise is not something that can be done quickly. It would require an expert panel of people, including lawyers, to say how best to do it and to work it through. I beg the Secretary of State to think again about using this opportunity. I have had a clause drafted that would give effect to the Select Committee’s recommendation. I would much prefer it if the Government said, “We will pre-empt that and bring forward our own proposals to set up an expert panel.” That may take some time and it may not come into effect for a period, but it would at least give people hope that something serious was being done, that work was being followed up and that there was a willingness to look at the matter again; I would have thought that that was only fair. Equally, it cannot be fair that soon some people will have served longer than the maximum sentence for the offence of which they were convicted. That cannot be just. This is not being soft. It is just being fair and just and that is part of the balance of the system.
I commend the good parts of the Bill to the House, and commend the Secretary of State to the House and to the legal fraternity, who respect him highly. In considering those outstanding matters, I ask him to apply exactly the same test as he and I, and any other advocate worth their salt, have set to juries day in, day out: try the case on the evidence, go on the evidence and apply your mind fairly and dispassionately. That is the right approach. If he does that, we will come to some changes in the Bill.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, on which I also sit. I agreed with much of what he said, particularly in respect of part 3 and some of the weaknesses in part 1, but I will begin with part 2. I suppose people would expect me to do that, given that it is about the independent public advocate, which I have been campaigning on and have had views about in this House for many years.
I welcome, again, the new Secretary of State to his place, despite the fact that having a whirlwind of appointments and eight Justice Secretaries in eight years does sometimes leave certain potential issues with continuity and ensuring that things happen in a sensible way, apart from the differences in approach and personality that one might come across. I know he cares about this particular issue. He responded to the Backbench Business debate—he made reference to it in his remarks—that I managed to secure following the final collapse of the Hillsborough criminal trials. That is some time ago now. There has been no reason since then—apart from perhaps turbulence in the Government, I say gently—for not dealing with this. The final collapse of the criminal trials was the last impediment to dealing with the recommendations in Bishop James Jones’s 2017 report, “The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power” in which he was asked to come up with—and did come up with—recommendations to learn the lessons of Hillsborough.
Bishop Jones was asked and commissioned to do that by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), whom I am pleased to commend for the work and effort she put in over the years when she had responsibility for dealing with the aftermath of Hillsborough. She developed a real understanding of some of these issues. The Secretary of State will be talking to various predecessors—people who have done his job and others who relate to it—and he could do a lot worse than sit down with the right hon. Lady. I am not trying to organise his diary—or hers, which would probably be more difficult—but she has a real insight from his side of the House into some of these issues. I recommend, if he gets the chance, that he sits down with her.
When the right hon. and learned Gentleman replied to the debate after the collapse of the last of the criminal trials arising out of the circumstances of Hillsborough, which is over 18 months ago now, he did promise, after being asked by me, to get out the response to Bishop James’s 2017 report by last Christmas; that was his hope. That has slipped for various reasons. The latest we have been told by Ministers on the Floor of the House is that it will be published in its full glory by this spring. I just say to him that we are nearly into summer and we still have not seen sight or sound of the response. I have read the Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s report into coroners. We were told that many of its recommendations would be dealt with in the overarching response to Bishop James’s report into the lessons to be learnt from Hillsborough. There are some outstanding recommendations, on which the Select Committee had what I would call a straight bat response from the Government. Perhaps they too can be dealt with when that response is completed.
I welcome very much the Government’s intent to legislate and the fact that part 2 is in the Bill. I would have preferred a stand-alone Bill, but that is neither here nor there. The fact that there are clauses in the Bill that relate to establishing an independent public advocate is very welcome; better late than never. The whole purpose of the independent public advocate is not to just add a further hoop for families to jump through, or a further stage that families need to go through at the beginning of the process. It is to stop the aftermath of public disasters going so badly wrong, as the aftermath of Hillsborough did.
It is more than 34 years since that disaster happened. We all remember that it was televised—there are hours and hours of film of that disaster. It is not as if it happened in secret and that what had really gone on had to be winkled out; it was televised live at the time. It cannot be right that it should have taken such a long time for those families to have properly acknowledged what happened to their loved ones, and for the very many thousands of traumatised survivors who witnessed that horror—they were not just from Liverpool, because there were two teams playing in that semi-final—to have properly acknowledged what happened. For that to have gone on for so long, with any controversy at all about what happened, when Lord Justice Taylor, within three months of the original disaster, set out in his interim report substantially correctly, although not totally correctly, the full causes and reasons, shows how badly things can go wrong in public disasters when there are interested parties who try to deflect the blame, and when state organisations, whether it be the police or others, try to make sure that their reputation is not trashed by responsibility being pinned on them and are willing to do anything and use any amount of resource to blame somebody else. That is what happened. So it is no surprise that things can go badly awry.
One could just say that Hillsborough was a terrible example, and it was. The circumstances of every disaster are different, but there are common elements. One common element is that, where state-funded organisations —the arms of the state—are involved, they appear to think that their reputation matters more than the truth. They appear to think that any amount of budget that they have over the years can and ought to be used to defend that reputation, and they often appear to think that it is perfectly alright to blame the victims, to blame others—to blame anybody but themselves. That is what we have to stop.
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend has been an amazing campaigner on this, but does she agree that one of the commonalities between Hillsborough, Orgreave and child sexual exploitation in Rotherham was South Yorkshire police, so when these patterns are formed, the Government need to do something to step in?
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct. Where that does happen, if there is no accountability for what goes wrong, especially where there is venality—which there was at Orgreave and which was shown again at Hillsborough by South Yorkshire police— and if there is no reckoning, that kind of behaviour will not be corrected. One value of making sure that the aftermath of disasters does not go so terribly wrong is that one can keep organisations that may be tempted to behave in that way on the straight and narrow. I remember that, after the King’s Cross fire, the person responsible for London Regional Transport, who was found to be responsible for the cover-up that happened, was sacked. That then makes a big difference to the way in which the organisations involved deal with the aftermath of a disaster.
The whole purpose of having an independent public advocate is to try to ensure that, in the aftermath of such disasters, things do not go wrong. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State has re-read my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill, because I know he will have read it before. I have been introducing the Bill in this House since 2016, and it has been introduced in the House of Lords by my friend the noble Lord Wills. My Bill proposes what finally worked for Hillsborough—the Hillsborough independent panel. It was a non-legal process, because almost all the legal processes and cases failed, but it was used to shine a light of transparency on what actually happened and to stop cover-ups. If the cover-up at Hillsborough could have been stopped from the beginning, we would not be 34 years down the line trying to untangle all of the intervening processes. The Hillsborough independent panel would not have had to look at millions of documents; it could have looked at far fewer if it had been doing its work within, say, two or three years.
In addition, any organisation seeking to use its powers and its people to organise cover-ups would know that the rock was going to be lifted up, that a torch was going to be shone upon what was under it and that it would not get away with the kind of cover-ups openly organised by South Yorkshire Police after Hillsborough to subvert the findings of the public inquiry, the Taylor Interim Report, which clearly blamed the police, made remarks about the way the police have behaved and said that they should not have behaved like that.
The police then set about simply using the inquests to change the impression of the interim report—and didn’t they succeed in that? From then on, no legal process worked until the Hillsborough independent panel, 23 years later, was able to get a full acceptance of the truth by close examination of documents. If we had the power to do that effectively at an early stage in the aftermath of disasters, it would save millions of pounds and prevent things from going wrong for years and budgets from being reduced and diverted into looking at legal proceedings.
We see some of the same things happening elsewhere. Grenfell has already been going on for too long without a proper understanding of precisely what happened, who was to blame and what went wrong. I have constituents who lost a child in the Manchester Arena bombing; even with the inquests and the inquiry put together to run concurrently, it has still been over five years since the bombing. These processes can extend for many years.
There will unfortunately be more disasters. Although we can try to minimise their occurrence, they are by their nature events that go wrong in combination, in a way that means terrible things happen. However, if we have a way to stop their aftermath going as wrong as those of some of the disasters over the years, we will not only be doing a real service to the victims and survivors of those disasters, who have got quite enough to be dealing with having lost their loved ones, but saving a lot of money in the end for the state.
The investigations into Hillsborough over the years have cost millions upon millions of pounds. The budget of any public advocate would be a lot lower than that and, if they were able to stop things going wrong, we would be doing ourselves a favour. I value very much the fact that provisions are now published and the Secretary of State is intent upon legislating, but there are two main reasons why the Government proposals will not work as my Bill intends.
The Government proposals deny agency to bereaved families in calling the advocate into action. One of the things anybody who is bereaved in a public disaster will say is that they stop being an ordinary person out of the public limelight and, at a time when they are having to cope with the grief of losing a loved one, suddenly the spotlight of the entire nation is upon them and their family as they try to grieve. Things are done to the family; things are set up outwith their capacity to arrange them, such as the inquest, to which they are often not party so they certainly do not get legal aid, and the inquiry, at which perhaps they might not necessarily get representation. All those things happen around them while they are in a fog of grief, wondering what is going on. They feel powerless; they feel “done-to”. They do not feel that they have any capacity to influence or be a part of what is happening, or to speak any kind of truth to any kind of power. They often feel like spare parts, third parties, not involved. Yet the families of a disaster are the most deeply involved, because they have lost the most, so it is tremendously important to give them collective agency to decide that the advocate should be involved, rather than saying, “Oh, and here is another thing we are going to do for you and give to you, whether you want it or not, and you will not have any part in deciding.” My Bill does that; the Secretary of State’s proposals do not.
There also has to be a power to be not just a sign-poster. I do not object to the provisions in the Bill enabling the advocate to help, signpost and do those kinds of things for bereaved families—that can be helpful—but it cannot be only that. I know that the Hillsborough families had people trying to signpost them to things, and that did not work with what was going on at that time in respect of that particular disaster. The point of the proposals in my Bill, which are not currently in the Government Bill, is to enable the advocate to establish a Hillsborough panel-type arrangement to guarantee transparency, ensuring that the advocate is therefore a data controller and has the documentation that they need. It should be an awful lot less than the Hillsborough independent panel had to collect, because not as much time will have passed and one would expect it to be done at an earlier stage in the aftermath of any disaster.
If amendments enabling the advocate to be a data controller and to establish an independent panel were accepted, giving the families agency to decide for themselves whether they want the involvement of the public advocate, that would enable the provision to do what I want it to do—prevent the aftermath of disasters from going so disastrously wrong for bereaved families. I have dealt with a number of these kinds of issues in my constituency over the 26 years that I have been a Member of this House—I feel old enough—and if we were able to do that, we could prevent things from going wrong and would not therefore have any instances whereby, 34 years later, we in this Chamber are still discussing what went on, as we do with what happened at Hillsborough in 1989. We should not have to do that. Those families should have peace, but they still do not have it.
I believe very strongly that, if we can prevent that kind of thing from happening to other families who are, through no fault of their own, caught up in disasters that they did not want to be caught up in, resulting in bereavement and pain, we would do the whole country a service. That would help a small number of people, it would not cost that much, and it would save a lot of public money over time, but the provisions, as currently drafted, will not be effective enough to do that.
I see the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) in his place. I also had meetings with him about these provisions, and he was very helpful. I hope that the Secretary of State will keep an open mind and will think that we are all on the same side. We want something effective to be done; we do not want to add some kind of process that will not make things better enough, thereby missing an opportunity to make things better than they are.
I do not care who legislates for that. If it is a Labour Government, I will nag them just as much as I have been discussing it with Conservative Ministers, of whom I have met an awful lot over the past few years—many of them are in the Chamber now, in fact. I hope that, between us all, we can take this forward, because it would be a cheap way of ensuring that we save a lot of public money over time, and would really help the families of those who are needlessly and through no fault of their own caught up in future public disasters—we hope that they will be few, but disasters happen. It would provide the Hillsborough families with the comfort of knowing that the horrendous experience they have gone through over 34-plus years will not be suffered by anyone else unlucky enough to be caught up in a public disaster.
Now is our chance to tackle this issue, so I ask the Secretary of State please not to defend every word of the current drafting and to have a more open mind about what we can achieve. There is a real opportunity for us, cross party, to make a big difference to the lives of a small number of people who will have enough to deal with when their family gets caught up in a disaster and they lose somebody. We can really make a difference, and I hope the Secretary of State will be open to doing so. I am perfectly happy to talk to him and to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), about how best to do that. We need this legislation now. Let us make sure we are better prepared if another disaster happens.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), and I will come on to the independent public advocate shortly. We have been in touch about the issue in the past; there is a great deal to say about it, and I agree with so much that the right hon. Lady said.
I am delighted that a victims Bill is finally here for us all on Second Reading. I am also delighted to see the Lord Chancellor in his place, and I welcome and congratulate him. I would like to thank the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who has been so constructive on victim engagement, which I have found refreshing. I have spent a great deal of time in government speaking to individual victims, and the Minister of State—like all right hon. and hon. Members—will recognise the importance of doing that and of learning the lessons so that we can be better legislators and give those victims a voice and strong representation.
I feel like I have been speaking about getting a victims Bill for some time—back in 2011, I proposed a ten-minute rule Bill—and we have also seen manifesto commitments from the Conservative party and other parties, so the day is long overdue. In the debate so far, we have heard frustrations about how the Bill has been drafted, what it covers and what it does not cover—I will touch on that as well—but, importantly, it is here at long last and it could be a really important piece of legislation. There is no doubt that it will be amended, but it is clear from the debate thus far that there is much to unite us on behalf of victims. We can work cross-party on so many aspects, and we should seek to do that.
I pay tribute to everyone who has been involved in the Bill and the pre-legislative scrutiny. I pay particular tribute to victims. I have spent days, weeks and months with victims, and I would do that all over again, because we in this House have a duty to them to represent them, and also to recognise the pain and suffering they have gone through and how we can bring about institutional change on their behalf. Many organisations representing victims have campaigned hard, and I worked with many of them in my time as Home Secretary. I was also once chair of the all-party parliamentary group for victims and witnesses.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who chaired the Justice Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill. I also pay tribute, for their work as former Secretaries of State for Justice, to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), who walked in just at the right moment to hear some important parts of the debate, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab). I have had the privilege of working with them both on behalf of victims as well as on so many other aspects of Government legislation, including policing, crime, courts and sentencing—the things that actually do bring about change.
We recognise that this legislation is needed to provide more rights and support for victims. They are human beings who are trying to navigate their way around the system of the state, and I have already mentioned institutional state failure, which I think will become a dominant theme in this debate and, I suspect, in Committee. It is important that we recognise that, because our duty is to redress the imbalance in the criminal justice system, where too often the needs of victims are forgotten, neglected, ignored or even just bypassed through process and bureaucracy. There is a ton of that in the system.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her kind words. It indeed was a pleasure to work closely with her and Home Office colleagues, meeting victims, dealing with their problems and individual cases, and being forceful about the agenda we wanted to pursue. Does she agree that in clause 15 of the Bill, which relates to guidance for independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers, we are now in law recognising the invaluable work that these experts do? It is shown, particularly in sexual violence cases, that the input of an ISVA will often make the difference between a case going forward and a case collapsing.
Priti Patel
I completely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. There is always more that we can do in this area, and there will be lessons we can learn from professionals and professional practitioners, and I believe they should be engaged and listened to. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has already mentioned that in relation to part 3 of the Bill, and we must constantly learn, because we have all been shocked and horrified by the cases of victims—I will highlight some in the course of this debate—the types of crimes they have been subjected to and their treatment by the institutions of the state and the criminal justice system. That needs remedy, and we have the opportunity now to bring serious redress.
That redress will not be judged by words or pieces of paper; it is the implementation that matters. I have always focused a lot on delivery in government, and redress is about practical implementation. The Bill could be the game-changer in improving public confidence in the criminal justice system. All of us—this is not partisan—want that. We all want to ensure access to justice and that justice takes place in a swift and timely way. The improvement of services and support for victims of crimes must be a priority.
Progress has been made. One area to highlight from my time at the Home Office, was the work that we did collectively—because it was both parties—through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which provided much more focus on practical support and services to victims. We should always put victims first and target resources to deliver the right outcomes and support services, including enshrining more rights in law, which is absolutely right.
We have also seen police and crime commissioners’ role being much more focused—and there is more we can do in this area—on supporting victims of crime, which the Lord Chancellor mentioned in his opening remarks. Working collaboratively across statutory services is important. I want to give a positive plug to some of my colleagues who are police and crime commissioners. Roger Hirst, the police, fire and crime commissioner for Essex, is outstanding. He has put a strong focus in his police and crime plan on supporting victims. He is an excellent commissioner, and my constituents across the county of Essex can absolutely see the changes that plan is bringing, supported by our chief constable, B. J. Harrington. Last week I met Alison Hernandez, the outstanding police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, who is working with Victim Support. I spent many hours, weeks and months working with Victim Support when I chaired the all-party parliamentary group. There are first-hand experiences that we can learn about from those practitioners and bring into statute and practice, empowering parts of our statutory services, including these key roles, and that is vital.
The current code of practice for victims needs updating as the Bill progresses through the House, because we need to test the statutory provisions relating to the code. I want to see, learn and understand how they can be operationalised for delivery purposes. I want us to avoid the whole concept of a postcode lottery, where some parts of the country do better than others. We should be looking to drive consistency in outcomes and ensure that we have the right frameworks in place for accountability. Where the state fails, there should be sanctions, and I will come on to that shortly in relation to the independent public advocate. I would also like stronger assurance—not just further assurance, but stronger assurance—about the delivery of the code and how that will work.
Will Ministers in due course publish the proposed draft code, or highlight areas in the current code where they would like to see directional changes, because we need to get the balance right for victims? To ensure that the rights of victims are enforceable, a balance is needed between rights and the measures enshrined in statute, so that we are better off in terms of outcomes. That is where a number of victims charities and organisations supporting domestic abuse victims and survivors all have a great deal of knowledge and expertise. Ensuring a much stronger victim-centric approach to the criminal justice system is vital to drive the right outcomes. On that point, clause 6 rightly focuses on criminal justice bodies raising awareness of the code but does not include provisions directly to raise awareness among staff and the providers they may commission. I have no doubt that that will come under greater scrutiny in Committee.
On clause 1(2), which refers to victims being affected by criminal conduct, we want assurances that victims of antisocial behaviour will also be afforded some of the rights and protections under the Bill and the code. The lines between criminal conduct and antisocial behaviour are too often blurred. I hear what the Labour party says about antisocial behaviour—we all agree about this—but we must be crystal clear about the definition and its application within the criminal justice system. Antisocial behaviour blights lives and communities—that is a fact—and the perpetrators need to be held to account within the criminal justice system. That is in effect what we are trying to do, but we need to make sure that the current code is not weak in this area and that we have the relevant join-up in the system.
On victim impact statements, the Bill and the code need to examine how we ensure that the voice of victims is heard in the courts. At the opening of the debate an example was given of a victim who was unable to provide such a statement. That is sometimes because the police, the CPS and the courts make decisions that do not focus on the victims, and that is where we must get the right balance between victims and offenders. I am afraid that the process can often act fast for offenders with complete disregard to the victims—for example, in cases of theft or burglary, where quick disposal and, if I may say so, lenient sentences are prioritised over providing sentences that reflect the severity of offending and the impact on victims.
As an example, one of Britain’s most prolific offenders—responsible for hundreds of offences, including crimes against my constituents—was let off by the courts, let back into the community on a form of rehabilitation scheme, and given housing and access to services, but still went on to reoffend. The victims were not aware or informed until they saw this case in the media, and they were absolutely appalled. Their views of the impact of the offending on them had not been sought or heard, and they were completely ignored and dismissed. The Bill is an opportunity to shine a light on that area.
Another area where victims have been let down, and where we could provide improvement and a greater voice for victims, is compensation. There may be scope to amend the Bill in relation to compensation for the victims of crime. The courts have powers to issue compensation orders, which compel offenders to pay for their crimes and give recompense to their victims. However, sometimes —in fact, too often—these provisions are inconsistently applied. When there were the riots in 2011 which caused millions of pounds-worth of damage, I asked questions to the then Justice Secretary about the number of compensation orders issued and the data was not available. I suspect Members across the House have many individual cases in their constituencies, and I have many too and have been to my regional Crown Prosecution Service where I am afraid orders have not been followed through and there has been a huge sense of injustice. Back in 2011 many businesses and companies were left picking up the cost, but for individuals these crimes can be life-changing, severe and horrific, and the failure to enforce these orders can lead to devastating impacts.
A former constituent of mine was blinded by an abusive ex-partner, impacting on her ability to work. Not only did her partner get away with a short sentence and was let out before the halfway point, but no compensation order was imposed upon him. My constituent was left blinded in one eye; that has changed her life and she is a mother. I have spent a great deal of time with her over the years and it is a harrowing case. Sadly, she is a victim of our system and there will be many other similar cases.
I hope that during the passage of this Bill we can give light to such cases and examine how we can represent those victims in a much better way and ensure they are not let down by the courts or the CPS. I have spent many hours with our regional CPS on this; we need to find better ways to support individuals.
The subject of the independent public advocate has rightly already had a comprehensive hearing in this debate both from the Lord Chancellor and colleagues, and I pay tribute to all colleagues across the House. When I was Home Secretary I spent many harrowing hours with the families of the Hillsborough disaster, but, if I may say so, they were also deeply fulfilling hours when I was hearing from them. Bishop James Jones is a remarkable individual and his report is moving and very thoughtful. He has put forward great solutions with the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood and the former Prime Minister my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who spent a great deal of time with me. I also worked with other Ministers to understand the role of the IPA and push forward its establishment.
I welcome the provisions in part 2 of the Bill and the establishment of the IPA to support victims of major incidents. The tragedies of Hillsborough have been well aired in this House, but there are so many lessons to learn; the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood touched on all aspects of this and I do not disagree with her at all. The history of Hillsborough is littered with institutional state failure. State institutions have let down those families. I have heard so many comments through the discussions I have had with representatives, the families and Bishop James Jones about issues from cover-up and collusion to state-sponsored denial and the role of South Yorkshire police. The history of this is appalling.
There are other tragedies, too. We have recently received the Manchester Arena bombing reports. I set up that public inquiry and every single aspect of it was devastating and harrowing. I have also met many family members, including children, mothers, dads, uncles and grandparents. I genuinely think we can do much more as a Government and just by changing our laws to bring parity to the justice system to give them voice. That is very important.
I saw that with the Grenfell families as well. There is nothing more harrowing than going to meet them in the area where they used to live—their own community—and hearing about the injustices they have suffered. I pay tribute to all those families for their relentless campaigning: they are campaigning for good reasons and to give voice to their suffering because they do not want others to experience the tragic circumstances they have faced.
During my time at the Home Office we looked at this issue and the role of an IPA sitting alongside the “duty of candour”, which I absolutely support as it will help to rebalance the system. The duty of candour would bring so much to light. It would shine a spotlight and completely change and safeguard individuals’ ability to give evidence at public inquiries, and really ensure that voices are listened to. That is needed, because there is an imbalance in the system, with victims and families who are seeking trust, truth, assurances and answers facing what I can only describe as the machinery of the state. They just feel intimidated. As we have heard, they are told that they are signposted, but it is either totally inadequate or the wrong kind of signposting. That machinery of the state is often tooled up with expertise, lawyers and unlimited resources while they are grappling for resources, so they cannot get access to justice.
I have an example from my own constituency in Essex, where an inquiry is taking place into the deaths of mental health in-patients between 2000 and 2020. We are dealing with incredibly disturbing and harrowing cases, but families have faced frustrations over many years in seeking answers. I believe that an independent public advocate would help them. I have been pushing for that on their behalf and recently had discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. However, I genuinely believe that this could be a breakthrough moment—perhaps we can bring about the right changes through amendments in Committee—where we can all work together to learn from the harrowing experiences and tragic deaths that have taken place to make for an effective, independent public advocate role and give it the independence that it needs.
I do not want to dwell on part 3—it has already been given an airing—but I will touch on the point made by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). There seem to be endless state failures in dealing with offenders. I have already spoken about institutional state failures on behalf of victims, but there must be a stronger and better way to deal with offenders who have been let down, perhaps through successive legislation and their rehabilitation. We have a cycle or revolving door of repeat offenders and offending, and I am afraid that sometimes judges and the courts are failing to send offenders to prison. There is a panoply of issues that we need to look at.
The public and the victims of crime expect offenders to be sent to prison to serve their sentences. But, at the same time, we see how often that does not happen and how offenders go through a cycle that does not address any of their offending, while the costs for the state continue to go up and up. This part of the Bill needs to be looked at. I believe in firm and fair sentences and have always been of that persuasion, but—we know, because we have all seen examples of it in our casework—we cannot have victims finding out about offenders being back in their neighbourhoods indirectly. All sorts of problems then take place in the community. So, areas of part 3 do need to be addressed.
The Bill is obviously long overdue. It could be a groundbreaking piece of legislation to address so many of the criminal justice system’s inadequacies, including the historical adequacies when it comes to giving voice to victims of all sorts of crimes. Crime is an awful thing for anyone to experience, but given the severity of the types of crime, we owe it to all the victims of crimes ranging from the Hillsborough disaster to terrorist events, domestic abuse and rape, to ensure that the Bill gives them representation, rights and access to the criminal justice system and deals with those anomalies and imbalances. I hope that we can all work constructively across the House to achieve that.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to speak on Second Reading. I commend right hon. and hon. Members for the contributions that we have heard so far. This House is undoubtedly at its best when we engage in serious debate free from tribal engagement.
My contribution is largely based on the experiences of the family of my constituent Michael O’Leary, who was murdered in what was described by prosecutors as a “carefully planned execution” in January 2020. His body was desecrated in an attempt to hide the crime. The key bit of evidence that secured the guilty verdict was only obtained in March 2020 when a search of the murderer’s property found tissue matter that matched Mr O’Leary’s DNA—a piece of the small intestine—in an oil barrel. I cannot imagine the suffering involved for the family, not only having lost a loved one in such a manner, but having been deprived of the opportunity to process their grief through burial of the body. Mr O’Leary’s son Wayne said that families face a “lifetime of unanswered questions.”
Following the murder trial, my constituents have campaigned for a new offence of desecration or concealment of a body, dubbed Helen’s law 2. Helen’s law, which was adopted in the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Act 2020, means that an individual guilty of murder would not be eligible for parole if they refuse to reveal the location of a victim. I pay tribute to Helen McCourt’s family, and all the other families. Helen’s law 2 aims to increase punishment for those guilty of desecration or concealment, or in the very least to amend sentencing guidelines to reflect the extra suffering imposed on the families of victims. We await progress on the campaign.
I understand that there are complexities, but I hope that the UK Government continue to seek a way forward, considering that, unfortunately, these sorts of heinous crimes are becoming more common. I can certainly say that in the experience of my constituents, the additional suffering of knowing what was done to their loved one after he was murdered is beyond comprehension.
Following discussions with my constituents, I would like to take the opportunity to raise their views on the Bill. Victims’ families are concerned that a Bill on victims’ rights has been brought forward even though the Victims’ Commissioner post has been vacant since last September, following the resignation of Dame Vera Baird. Upon her resignation, Dame Vera said that she was disappointed by the lack of engagement from the Government in relation to her concerns about the Bill as the primary voice of victims. The resignation letter is quite damning, with the former commissioner accusing the Government of “downgrading” victims’ concerns. I am sure that Ministers appreciate families’ concerns that a Bill has been brought forward without a key advocate on their behalf being in post.
The Bill obviously concerns a very emotive subject for families. Changing the title from the Victims Bill to the Victims and Prisoners Bill is, in itself, offensive to them. Families believe that a victims Bill should stand on its own—a point made by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle).
From a Welsh perspective, there is concern that the key parts of the Bill refer to England only. I am sure that that is only a drafting error, but both clauses 12 and 14 refer to police authorities in England alone. I suspect that the four Welsh police authorities should be included.
Victims’ campaigners are concerned that the rights set out in the Bill are not legally enforceable. The former Victims’ Commissioner pointed out in her response to the Bill that there is no accountability mechanism if a criminal justice partner does not deliver on those rights, and no right of recourse for families. Perhaps the Government are concerned about the extra cost that may be incurred as a result of any enforceable rights, but without a right of recourse it could be argued that the Bill’s content on victims is aspirational—a point made by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill).
The former commissioner, Dame Vera, argues that the Bill should seek to emulate the Australian model. Policies pioneered in the state of Victoria provide a formal role for victims within criminal justice proceedings, leading to a cultural shift from, according to Dame Vera,
“agencies viewing victims as peripheral to their function – bystanders to proceedings – to a core and valued constituent part of the justice system.”
I am no expert, but strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner role would be one way forward. From what I can see, the Victims’ Commissioner performs an advocacy role at present. In Wales, the Welsh Language Commissioner has specific regulatory functions and powers, which include setting standards in the public sector and deciding on complaints and investigations. Following investigations, the commissioner has the power to initiate enforcement action. Strengthening the Bill in that manner would give the Victims’ Commissioner real teeth and would empower victims.
Under part 3, the new powers proposed will allow the Secretary of State to make Parole Board decisions on the release of prisoners. Families are concerned that they will not have the opportunity to make a victim impact statement or be included in licensing decisions, as is currently the case—a point made by the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel). Furthermore, families are concerned that they will not have a voice during the appeals stage, as prisoners would surely contest a decision by the Secretary of State to keep them incarcerated. They will further lose their rights to make a victim impact statement or contribute towards licensing decisions at this stage—a point made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).
The prisoners section of the Bill was not part of the original consultation; therefore. its removal should be considered. Campaigners believe that a second consultation should have been considered before the latest draft was published. Campaign groups raise concerns that the scope of the Bill is not wide enough to include other rights for victims. As I stated, it is vital that rights must be considered while putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, such as through free transcripts of trials involving loved ones. Campaigners tell me that a bereaved family were recently quoted £14,000 in costs for the transcript of a 17-day trial. Clearly, that is prohibitive.
The Human Rights Act 1998 is referred to only in part 3. That is upsetting to victims and bereaved families, as it implies that human rights apply only to prisoners and not victims. That further exacerbates the imbalances of power that they believe exist between victims and offenders. Before the Bill proceeds to Committee, I hope that Ministers will increase engagement with victims groups and bring forward necessary amendments to alleviate their concerns.
Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I warmly welcome the Bill, and in advance I thank the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who I know, together with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, will engage thoroughly with all the issues raised. I thank the Justice Committee for an excellent piece of pre-legislative scrutiny; my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) who chairs the Committee does a great job for us all.
The Bill is complex and covers a great deal, from prisoners and parole to victims of major incidents. We have heard a lot about those two issues already. I will turn my remarks firmly to victims of crime—the first part of the Bill—particularly with regards to the victims code. This is a hugely important piece of legislation for victims. I believe that we have a strong justice system only if it is a deterrent that, yes, provides punishment, but also recognises and supports victims. Otherwise, we risk falling short. To be the victim of crime is not only devastating but can be incredibly disorienting. Attempting to navigate the complex criminal justice system as a layperson is not easy. The perpetrator has numerous agencies telling them what they can and cannot do. Certainly, that has been the way in the past. Largely, victims have been left to navigate life post crime themselves.
I am sure that the House will not mind me saying that quite recently I was a victim of crime, which led to a successful conviction of harassment by my local Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire. I was listening to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips); I would not want to comment on what she said, but I cannot commend Wessex Crown Prosecution Service highly enough. Unlike the hon. Lady, I was kept thoroughly informed at every step. I will not comment too much on it because, unfortunately, the individual has transgressed and is before the courts again, but it is important to make the point that the CPS in Wessex got it right. It might not get it right all the time, but when it does, it is important for victims. I hope that the Crown Prosecution Service in the hon. Lady’s constituency takes a leaf out of the books in my area.
The 2020 code of practice was a good start and put some important principles in place. What is great about the Bill is that it takes them forward and puts them on a statutory footing. It seems perverse that the justice system could be better explained to perpetrators than to victims. The Bill will help equalise that disparity, by putting the victims code on a statutory footing, making what victims can and should expect even clearer than before.
An important part of the Bill is putting a duty on relevant bodies to raise awareness of the victims code with victims, which will make a big impact and be greatly welcomed. The victims code is a detailed document containing the important rights that victims can expect, but it is of little use if people do not know it exists, so it is right that those with responsibility for aspects of the code can make it clear to victims how they can use it.
We know that services working in isolation miss problems and opportunities for support, which is why I also welcome the Bill’s focus on co-ordinating services across relevant bodies and strengthening local services. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s recent report, “A patchwork of provision”, showed that the level of service and support that victims can reliably expect is not uniform across the country and depends greatly on where they live. I welcome the consistency that the Bill shows. We need to ensure we get that consistency across the whole United Kingdom, wherever people live.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) talked about the role of police and crime commissioners in getting local consistency embedded in our constituencies. I am pleased that my local police and crime commissioner, Donna Jones, has put in place similar initiatives to those mentioned by my right hon. Friend, as well as delivering, well ahead of time, an extra 600 police officers in our county. My police and crime commissioner is consulting on a victims hub—the consultation is ongoing—so that victims will know how to get the support that the Bill wants to ensure is available to them. Having quicker and tailored access to support services will be an important step forward in my own constituency. I urge anybody who is able to take part in the consultation to do so; it runs until Monday 21 May.
I add my support to the Bill’s provisions with regard to IDVAs and ISVAs. Indeed, I held a roundtable on Friday on the importance of tackling domestic abuse. We discussed the amazing work done by a number of different organisations in my constituency in ensuring that victims are well aware of the support available, and the hugely important role of IDVAs and ISVAs, particularly when cases come to court, which was underlined by my local police commander. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister help me to ensure that those expert individuals will in future be able to stay with victims in court? That issue was raised with me at the roundtable.
Having someone independent of the police present in the immediate aftermath of a crime can be crucial, but making sure they continue to be involved, when a case comes to court, can help with some of the problems that exist for victims because of the great deal of time it can take for relevant evidence and individuals to be brought to court. IDVAs and ISVAs are often the only people involved whose sole focus is the victim. As much as individual police officers regularly go out of their way to care for victims of crime, the reality is that police priorities will mean that sometimes their focus goes elsewhere.
I highlight to the Minister the section of the Bill about support for victims, because the victims code may go further than he thinks. In addition, I have raised the issue of the role of non-disclosure agreements with him on a number of occasions. They can cover up crimes, particularly those in the workplace and those that disproportionately impact women, such as sexual harassment or other forms of abuse in the workplace.
When it comes to non-disclosure agreements and sexual harassment in the workplace, the Government have been working on strengthening support for victims for a great deal of time. The Government have backed universities in banning the use of non-disclosure agreements to cover up misconduct, and they are looking at how they could go further in stopping non-disclosure agreements from being used inappropriately. Unfortunately, it is increasingly common practice for non-disclosure clauses to be included in settlement agreements, although it is perfectly possible to settle without them.
When victims of misconduct—often sexual misconduct and usually women—make allegations, an all too frequent response is a settlement in which an employer can see allegations dropped in return for a non-disclosure agreement that will stop the victim from speaking out, sometimes lawfully and sometimes not so much. No matter what, victims feeling that they cannot speak out cannot be what we want to see in this place.
An employee can feel trapped. When I chaired the Women and Equalities Committee, we published at least two reports on the impact on victims of non-disclosure agreements and we heard first-hand evidence that people felt not only that they could not speak out about their experience, but that it made them feel even worse and re-victimised. Sometimes, I am sure in error, legal counsel could put a non-disclosure agreement into a contract or severance agreement, but more often that is done by human resources departments, which probably take something offline and give it to an individual to sign. That means that a person who has experienced significant wrongdoing in the workplace can feel that they cannot speak out.
I hope the Minister might want to look at how the Victims and Prisoners Bill could take the excellent work that the Government have done with universities, calling out the appalling impact of non-disclosure agreements, a stage further. I am sure he is not surprised that I want to thank Zelda Perkins for the work that she has done through the organisation she has set up, Can’t Buy My Silence. She is continuing to campaign hard to stop non-disclosure agreements being used in the way they were against her and her colleagues, when she was unable to speak out about Harvey Weinstein and the appalling way that he treated a number of women in his organisation. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister is listening closely to how we could use this excellent Bill to take further the Government’s work on victim support and outlawing the misuse of non-disclosure agreements.
I was pleased to support the then Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), in launching the university pledge to stop the use of non-disclosure agreements in universities. I strongly supported the subsequent ban through the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. I call on the Government to expand the ban on NDAs from educational settings to other workplaces through the victims code in the Bill. In the not-too-distant future, I hope the Minister will have some meetings with me to see how we can ensure that the very real impact that the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham had on universities can have a broader impact. That will ensure we protect many more victims, over and above those he was envisaging in his first draft of the Bill.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). I fully back her calls; as the Bill goes into Committee, I am sure we will work across the House to improve some elements it.
I find myself in the unenviable position of being ready to critique quite a bit of the Bill—not necessarily because of what is in it, but because of what is not in it. I say “unenviable” because without doubt the Secretary of State, who is not currently in his place, and the Minister have open ears for the things being said in this Chamber. The Secretary of State alluded to my contact with him over the weekend; I found him to be incredibly helpful about some difficult cases, specifically around the family court. I suppose I might focus my attention and ire about what is missing on the previous Secretary of State rather than the current one, who has been in post for a couple of weeks and I am not entirely sure has had the time to properly put himself into the Bill. I look forward to seeing that happen as we go through Committee.
We all agree that we do not want victims of crime to be left in terrible situations. We do not want there to be a postcode lottery or people who have suffered crimes not to get justice in this country—I do not doubt that for a second when it comes to the vast majority of people in this House. Unfortunately, however, when politics intervenes I sometimes see a huge amount of headline and very little frontline going on. Some of the things missing from the Bill need to be put into it, to make some of the Prime Minister’s words mean something more than a cracking headline in the Express. We have to work to get that to be the case. I will go over some of the things that should be included to make the Prime Minister good on some of his words.
I very much hope that sexual exploitation is not a wedge issue, but one that we would all focus on getting right. Recently, the Prime Minister talked about there being an element of charge around the duty to report in cases of sexual exploitation. If people fail on their watch as professionals to act collectively to report cases of sexual exploitation or any form of child abuse, they should be subject to a standard that they have to live by. The issue has been consulted on three times in the last 10 years—why on earth is it not in the Bill? The Prime Minister took to various plinths and said that he wanted it to happen. “Crack on!” would be my advice.
Nothing was released on the day the Prime Minister went out to talk about sexual exploitation, following years of many different inquiries from all over the country and amazing work by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). Why is none of it reflected in the Bill? Why is there nothing about children living in unregulated accommodation or about powers to change how we deal with the sexual exploitation of British children? I feel that there are huge gaps when it comes to things we have been promised—merely headline, rather than frontline.
The other area that is everybody’s favourite wedge issue —one that the Prime Minister certainly wants to lean on constantly—is the idea of specialist women-only services, which have become the absolute tour de force of a thing that people want to defend. Let me say what is happening across our country because of a commissioning environment created over the last decade. Specialist women-only services have given way to generic services that could offer a lower contract price in local authority areas. Nothing in the Bill says what specialist women’s services are—women do not even get a mention. Nothing in the Bill says what a specialist sexual violence or domestic abuse service is.
I am not talking about a Johnny-come-lately, “We noticed that people care about domestic abuse so we’ll set up a random domestic abuse charity and make it for everybody.” In the last 10 years, the commissioning environment created in local authorities, and police and crime commissioners, have seen specialist women-only domestic abuse services being told that they absolutely have to see men and will lose their contracts if they do not. Why on earth would we not just commission specialist men’s services if that is what we wanted? We want specialist LGBT services in this space, so why on earth would we not have a strategy to commission them?
What is happening in the broader area that I represent—not my constituency per se—is that contracts are given to generic housing associations or broader victims’ charities. I have a case of a woman who has been taken to eight multi-agency risk assessment conferences; she has been risk-assessed as being at high risk of harm and death eight times. Yet the same agency—apparently a specialist domestic abuse service; one I had never heard of—is also now supporting the perpetrator, who is claiming to be a victim of domestic abuse. It is completely and utterly dangerous to provide that kind of “specialist” service.
If the Prime Minister cared to make more of a headline out of the argument about women-only spaces, the Bill could make it incredibly clear what we mean by specialist women-only domestic and sexual violence services. I implore the Minister to make that happen. There is nothing that says what a specialist agency is. Even the duty to collaborate—honestly, I have heard so many serious case or domestic homicide reviews that say that people did not collaborate! It is not true: people do collaborate, but no one acts. This is about action. People talk to each other all the time. Agencies are constantly passing things on one to another, but people have to actually act and feel empowered to do something with the information.
The Secretary of State, a man I deeply like and respect, said a number of things earlier. The general patter in this place would make it seem that there are independent domestic abuse and independent sexual violence advisers everywhere, as far as the eye can see. That is laughable—in the area where I live, the wait for one at the moment would be at least a year, and they are rationed according to whether someone has come forward to the police. When I did the job, that was absolutely not the case—the victim did not have to be in an active process of police complaint to get access to an ISVA service, but that is exactly what is happening now across our country. The idea that IDAAs and ISVAs are everywhere or that there is anywhere near enough of them is for the birds.
The Secretary of State also said that of course young people should be able to access therapeutic support, to which I say, “Chance would be a fine thing!” I have tried to refer somebody who has been sexually exploited and is suffering from very severe suicide ideation to child and adolescent mental health services, for example. I have then been told that the assessment process will take two and a half years. It is great that the third-party thing that many in the House have campaigned for has come into force. Now let us get some counsellors for people to go to, so that there are some notes to go by. That might be an idea.
Many of us will have seen the letter today from Charlie Webster, a friend of many of us in this Chamber, and the story of her friend Katie who took her life after not being able to overcome the trauma of her situation. That is the reality on the ground.
Dame Maria Miller
I hear what the hon. Lady is saying about the availability of ISVAs in her area and about their only being connected with police cases, but should she not push back against that? There are three ISVAs in my local hospital, and they are certainly not connected with crimes; they would be called on by the staff in the emergency department as needed.
Jess Phillips
In fact, my area was the first in the west midlands to have ISVAs in a hospital, the Queen Elizabeth. I was one of the commissioners. What I want to see in a Bill such as this is not just a duty to collaborate, but a duty to commission. Every local authority area in the country, and every health provider, whether it is a public health provider, a mental health provider, an independent board, or whatever the bloody hell we call them this week—PCCs, PCGs—I apologise for swearing, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Let us just rewind to “whatever”.
Jess Phillips
Whatever we call them this week, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The vast majority of those bodies do not commission a single support service anywhere in the country to deal with sexual or domestic abuse. In the constituencies of nearly all those who are in the Chamber today, there will be a sexual health service with no ISVAs. How is it possible to run a special sexual health service without them? The worst offender, though, is mental health services. It is unimaginable that there should be mental health services in this country that do not have specific mental health provision for victims of trauma such as sexual violence or a lifelong experience of abuse and victimisation, but most of them do not.
There may well be more ISVAs funded from the centre than there have been previously, but those funded by local authorities and police forces throughout the country have been decimated. We give with one hand and take away with another. The decimation of local authority budgets over many years has undermined victims’ services to the point where specialisms no longer really matter, and there is a race to the bottom in lots of commissioning. I would want the Bill to reflect what specialism actually means, rather than just listening to people caring about it when it makes for good headlines—that is absolutely no criticism of anyone who is in the Chamber at the moment.
I want to make two more points specifically about things that are missing from the Bill, and what we in the Labour party will be pushing for. One, which I mentioned to the Secretary of State earlier, is Jade’s law. The Bill massively misses an opportunity in some areas—well, all areas—of the family court, which is diabolical for victims of crime, to the point where I think it is the worst part of our justice system with regard to those victims. There is a specific opportunity to say that, if someone has been sent to prison for the murder or manslaughter—so many of these cases go for manslaughter, but let us say the killing—of the other parent, they should never be entitled to parental responsibility. If I were to go out into the street and tell people that a father who had murdered a mother is allowed to decide whether the child could go to counselling, for example, they would think I was a mad, swivel-eyed feminist. However, that is the law of the land in our country and we have to do something to end that ridiculous injustice.
The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), did a fine and decent service to everyone in the Chamber with his critique of part 3. I look forward to the conversations in Committee, but I think it important to say now that this was always meant to be the victims Bill, and it has been subverted somewhat to become the victims and prisoners Bill.
We have already had conversations about Hillsborough and unfair arms with regard to legal aid and support. Currently, part 3 provides the opportunity for appeal and review, and I am not sure that anyone would argue with that, but what comes alongside the appeal and review is a lengthy process that victims—for example, mothers of murdered daughters and fathers of murdered sons—have to go through without a penny piece of support, or anything extra, but there is money to support the perpetrators. The only allocation of actual funding in this document is for the prisoners bit, not the victims bit.
That is not what the House has been pushing for 10 years. That is not what we asked for and it is not what we should have got. I look forward very much to working with the Ministers to make the Bill considerably better than it is now, as we would all want.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), with the experiences and perspectives that she always brings to matters such as this, and her ability to convey to the House the views of many people who do not feel that they have a voice in a way that makes them feel that they do indeed have a voice here.
The mere fact of the Bill’s introduction sends a clear message of intent to be on the side of victims of crime, especially as my good friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State—my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)—are in charge of it. It was welcome to hear the Secretary of State say that victims should not feel that they are just spectators, but should be aware that they are participants and at the heart of the criminal justice system. I also note the excellent work by the Justice Committee, chaired by another good friend who is not currently present, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). Back in January, the Committee published the Government’s response to its pre-legislative scrutiny report on the draft Victims Bill. It is welcome that the Government have accepted 20 of the Committee’s recommendations, which strengthen both the Bill and work in this area overall.
The Bill can be broken down into three broad areas: victims of crime, victims of major incidents, and measures relating to prisoners and parole. Every crime has a victim, be it a person, a company, wider society or the taxpayer. Being described as a victim inherently covers a wide range of situations, from seeing something that one has worked hard to acquire or make destroyed or stolen, to serious sexual or violent attacks that can leave a person and his or her loved ones with an impact which lasts a lifetime. There will also be victims who are unaware that what happened to them was an offence, having been groomed or brainwashed into thinking that what was being or had been done to them was acceptable, and only realising when they talk to someone else, or many years later, that what happened was not just wrong but criminal. I am therefore pleased that clause 1 will establish a statutory definition of “victim”, helping to clarify who is being referred to.
I also welcome the move to include bereaved families, children who have witnessed domestic abuse and children born of rape in the definition of a victim, following the pre-legislative scrutiny. Those who lose a loved one as a result of another’s deliberate or negligent act will be victims for the rest of their lives, so it is right that they are included. Similarly, children born of rape who discover their heritage will need a unique form of support which reflects the fact that they too are victims of crime.
Alongside the definition of a victim, it is welcome to see the principles of the victims code enshrined in law, and a duty placed on criminal justice bodies with police and crime commissioners to review their compliance and raise awareness of the code. I note that the code will not be in legislation; that is logical, because it allows it to be flexible and adapt to needs rather than being rigidly set in statute. It would be interesting to hear some reflections on how it will be developed and implemented, and how the House, and Parliament more widely, will be involved in the process.
It was welcome to see Devon and Cornwall’s police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, in Parliament last week to launch a new website to help victims of crime. The new website, which is just one doorway to getting help, is aimed at helping victims to access the care and support that they need, and provides a single route for all victims, regardless of whether they have reported the crime. It was especially good to talk to the representatives of Victim Support who also attended the event. As the Minister may know, they are working in partnership with Alison’s office to deliver services to victims in a landmark 10-year contract, the largest contract of this type outside London. The partnership has a budget of £3.42 million for this financial year, and during 2021-22, a total of 41,112 people were supported through the pathway, with over 11,000 more people referred to therapeutic services than in the previous year. It is welcome to see this type of work being done, as it is vital that delivery at local level should match aspirations at national level. That is why the commitment to require a criminal justice inspectorate to undertake joint inspections on victims’ issues when directed to do so is also welcome.
That said, it will be interesting to hear the Minister say a bit more about how he will ensure that services for victims at local level are tailored to meet the requirements of each victim’s circumstances, rather than being a set process, which might feel to some like a tick-box exercise that does not respond to the nature of the crime. Speaking from my own experience, I had a phone call from my local police force to find out how distressed I was about paint being thrown at my office front door. That might be appropriate in that instance, but I would hope that people who had suffered crimes that had a greater impact on them personally would get a slightly different experience. How will the Minister ensure that this is not just a process that is done to meet a national standard, and that it will actually respond to the severity of the impact on the victim?
Going through the courts can be a major challenge for victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse, so I welcome the introduction of guidance on independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers. These roles can make a crucial difference when a victim has to relive the most difficult and traumatic time of their life and to keep going to ensure that justice is done. Ensuring that those advisers are there to provide support when needed is absolutely vital. I also very much welcome the indicated amendment on third party disclosure. We should always remember that it is the accused who is on trial, not their victim. That should be reflected throughout the process the victim faces when reporting an offence.
I welcome the move to simplify the process for victims of crime to make complaints to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman by removing the need to go through an MP where their complaint relates to their experience as a victim. Members across the House will always be happy to help a victim who wants to go to the ombudsman, but this aspect of the process can feel like a tick-box exercise as few would refuse a genuine request from a constituent for a referral. I would, however, be keen to ensure that local MPs are still sighted of the outcomes when a report on a complaint is produced, especially if it has implications beyond the individual case for how victims are supported within our constituencies.
The second part of the Bill covers support for the victims of major incidents. The origin of these changes is the appalling treatment of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster and their families, and the systematic failures of the justice system that they experienced. A series of failings led to a tragedy that saw 97 football fans lose their lives in a disaster that was both foreseeable and preventable. Those who have heard me talk on this subject before will know that many of the Coventry City fans who attended the semi-final against Leeds in 1987 were all too aware of Hillsborough’s shortcomings, including a near crush that acted as an ominous sign of what was to come two years later.
As we know, rather than getting support, sympathy and justice, the Liverpool fans and their families faced a disgraceful mix of lies, smears and cover-ups, many of which were orchestrated by the very people who were supposed to enforce the law. All these things were being done by those seeking to avoid their responsibility for what had happened, and while doing so, they could take advantage of representation and resources that were simply not available to their victims. As was touched on earlier, there was a complete inequality of arms when they were making their case.
It is therefore welcome that part 2 of the Bill provides the Justice Secretary with the power to appoint public advocates to support bereaved families and victims of major incidents. Legislating for this independent public advocate is needed and, I have to say, long-awaited. I understand the model would be that advocates would be appointed if there was an incident, rather than holding a permanent position, and that they would be able to provide support in the immediate aftermath of an incident as well as assisting victims while any police or coroners investigations, inquests or public inquiries took place. It would be helpful, though, to provide as much clarity as possible about what the thresholds for these appointments will be and how Ministers will discharge this.
Understandably, particularly given the experiences of the Hillsborough families, there will be nervousness if it appears that advocates might not be appointed in cases where victims and their families have been impacted, although I appreciate that a set of strict rules could prove to be too rigid and have the opposite effect of not seeing an appointment where one was needed. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s reflections on how we can ensure that the victim’s voice is paramount in making their demands and that, by the creation of this role, they will never again see the ridiculous inequality of arms where families are trying to represent themselves while their own taxes are being used to throw at them every argument, defence and excuse in the book by those trying to avoid being held liable for their mistakes.
The third part of the Bill covers changes relating to prisoners and parole. Having been responsible for the General Register Office during my time in the Home Office, I welcome the move to prohibit prisoners serving a whole life order from entering into a marriage or civil partnership. Those who receive these sentences have committed the most heinous crimes and they should not be able to enjoy an event that they have almost certainly robbed their victim of the opportunity to share with their loved ones. We also have to question their motives in looking to marry and the motives of those who wish to marry them. This is a matter of public confidence in the criminal justice system. It is about preventing the most serious offenders from mocking their victims’ families by holding such an event while in custody.
I agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley that it is ridiculous that someone can retain parental responsibility when they have actively taken away the other parent. I hope that the Government are listening carefully to some of these thoughts, and I share some of the comments made by Opposition Members on this. If I walked out on the street and said that a father who had murdered the mother should retain parental responsibility, few would see that as a logical, sensible or desirable outcome. It would be a bizarre one, given the reason behind it. I am sure that this is something we will revisit at a later stage of the Bill.
I also welcome the moves to clarify the meaning and application of the current statutory release test to ensure that minimising risk and public protection are at the core of decision making when determining whether to release a prisoner, rather than the balancing exercise approach articulated by the courts. The protection of the public should always be first when reviewing whether an offender is ready to be released and it is right that this is being changed.
I also welcome the intention to create a new top tier cohort of offenders: those convicted of the most serious offences who, if recommended by the Parole Board for release, will be subject to a new ministerial power to review their case. As outlined by the Secretary of State, the Bill creates a power for him, having reviewed a top tier case, to refuse to release the prisoner if necessary for public protection. This is not about arbitrary political power, as the measures clearly create a new route of appeal to the upper tribunal if the prisoner wants to challenge the Secretary of State’s decision to block their release, yet it is right that someone who is accountable to the public and to Parliament takes the final decision in relation to cases where the public’s faith in our criminal justice system may be on the line more broadly, as we have seen in some cases recently. It also makes eminent sense to require the Parole Board to include members with a background in law enforcement to help parole panels to make better decisions in assessing risk.
There are a couple of areas where I hope we can go further. One that has already been touched on is the ability of convicted sex offenders to change their name. Currently, sex offenders can change their name by deed poll and, in a bizarre loophole, the offender is the one responsible for notifying the relevant authorities of the change. This can render the child sex offender disclosure scheme, otherwise known as Sarah’s law, and the domestic violence disclosure scheme, known as Clare’s law, ineffective. Research carried out by the Safeguarding Alliance has shown that thousands of offenders are being lost from the system, posing a risk to victims and the vulnerable. I therefore wholeheartedly supported the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), and I very much hope that this Bill will allow progress to be made in this area. As I have indicated, it is bizarre that that loophole still exists, and it is time we shut it down.
A second area is spiking, which affects people across society. Prolific sex offenders are able to get away with their offences because spiking means that victims may not be aware of the offences being committed. I appreciate that the 1861 law provides options for prosecution, yet it is clearly far from sufficient. A growing number of Members believe it is time to create a specific offence, one designed for mid-21st-century offenders, rather than for those who purchased poisons from a Victorian apothecary. Any move that can be made in this area would be welcome, and I suspect the Government will face increasing pressure to make one.
I am conscious that there is a lot to cover in this Bill, and I could go on for longer than my current record set on a Friday, but I will draw my remarks to a close to ensure that others have a chance to set out their thoughts. The Bill is a welcome move both to support victims and to protect the public. It makes a clear commitment to support people who have been through the worst moment of their life, and to help people who have lost loved ones in disasters to get the advocacy they need to get answers and justice. There will inevitably be debates about details and aspects on which there may be a will to go further, but those are reasons for the Bill to pass its Second Reading this evening.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is with profound sadness that I express my devastation at the recent murder of my constituent Suma Begum. My thoughts are with all Suma’s loved ones at this most difficult and painful time.
As a survivor of domestic abuse, and as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and abuse, I will be concentrating my remarks accordingly. I am afraid that I share the concerns about whether the Bill will, in fact, strengthen victims’ rights. The Justice Committee said the draft Bill “does not appear” to do any more than existing legislation. Specialist domestic abuse organisations argue
“there is a long way to go before this Bill can truly make a difference”.
Even the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales has called the Bill “disappointing.” Indeed, it is very disappointing that the Government have failed to take on board such concerns and all the Justice Committee’s recommendations to strengthen the Bill. The End Violence Against Women coalition has argued that, despite the sector’s long list of priorities for the Bill, it instead delivers immense powers for the Justice Secretary to intervene in the parole process.
Despite the steps forward and the widely welcomed Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the truth is that it is extremely difficult for survivors of domestic abuse and other crimes to come forward. As a survivor, I know this from first-hand experience. The stigma, the structural and systemic bias against us, and the use of the courts and the law to threaten and silence us—never mind the trauma of the abuse itself—all too often seem insurmountable. In particular, evidence shows that black, minoritised and migrant groups are disproportionately victims of violence against women and girls, yet they also experience poorer outcomes in access to justice and support.
I know how threats of defamation and libel cases seek to shut us up, but this is not unique to my experience. We know of the libel cases in which wealthy men have sought to protect their reputation from women who accuse them of abuse. It is therefore clear that we need a comprehensive approach that provides support and consideration at every stage of the criminal justice system and, crucially, beyond. If the Bill is truly to centre on victims, it must provide rape survivors with independent legal advice and safeguards to protect them from excessive police requests for personal data.
I would also like to see a complete firewall between the police and immigration enforcement, ending the sharing of data that leaves those with insecure immigration status unable to seek justice and at risk of further victimisation. That demand has been made for decades, and it was also recommended by the Justice Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny.
Lawfare, the practice of abusers misusing the court system to maintain power and control over their former or current partners, sometimes called vexatious or abusive litigation—in other words, stalking through the courts—needs to be tackled. The House will know that, two years after being elected as the UK’s first hijab-wearing MP, I had to endure an eight-day trial, instigated by a complaint from my ex-husband’s brother-in-law, which brutally forced me to talk about painful and private experiences. The action was taken by my local council, on which my ex-husband was a serving councillor at the time.
Although I was found to be innocent of all charges, I fear that the ordeal of the trial will haunt me for the rest of my life. The matter of domestic abuse was used against me by the prosecution, which argued that the abuse was a motive for the alleged crimes. Raj Chada, the criminal defence partner at Hodge Jones & Allen who represented me, argues:
“Prosecutors and investigators need to better understand and consider how victims of coercive control and domestic abuse behave and how they are treated by the criminal justice system.”
It is commonly assumed that a woman should just leave, and then all her problems will be over, but this is far from the reality for many. It goes on and on, and the wall of institutional gaslighting is chilling, which is why I am working with MPs from all parties to call for a duty of care to be placed on employers and political parties to ensure that survivors of domestic abuse are not exposed to further harassment. This must recognise that post-separation control and harassment is itself a form of domestic abuse and can occur long after a relationship or marriage has ended, with different tactics of abuse being used.
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and it is important to recognise that domestic abuse can have a severe and lasting impact on mental health and that survivors often find it difficult to access the support they need. I will be closely following developments on counselling notes. Victims of coercive control who go through court proceedings may find their counselling notes being used by a perpetrator to further the abuse and harassment post separation.
IDVAs have been mentioned a lot in this debate and, where they are funded and available, they can be crucial, as I know from first-hand experience. Women’s Aid and others have raised concerns about the proposal to create a statutory definition of an IDVA. I urge the Government to hold discussions with specialist domestic abuse services as soon as possible to address this issue. My understanding is that a statutory definition is intended to create consistency, but IDVAs should be allowed a degree of flexibility in how they carry out their role, given that they could be sitting in a courtroom with one victim and dealing with multiple stakeholders and partners to support another. It needs to be taken into account that, for victims of domestic abuse, no two cases are the same. My case was unique in that I had to go through court proceedings while holding public office, and the support of my IDVA was crucial.
Funding is crucial to this debate. The funding crisis in support for those experiencing domestic abuse continues to put many at risk, and it means that too many are unable to access vital services. The Bill currently places a duty on key agencies, but it does not attach funding. Any expansion in victim support services, which already face unmanageable referral levels and caseloads, needs funding.
More action and funding are urgently needed. In the UK, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner, and 49% of these women are killed less than a month after separation. This is unacceptable, but it is also preventable. This Bill is too little and, with great solemnity, I fear it is too late for so many.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
That was a very sobering speech from the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum). It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this important debate. I was a member of the Justice Committee for a considerable period of the pre-legislative scrutiny, although I was not involved in the approval of the Committee’s report. I had moved on by then, but I think it relevant to mention that I had the privilege of listening to many of those who gave evidence to the Committee at that time, including many victims who bravely relived some of their experiences. I should briefly declare other interests, in that I was previously involved with victims during my 12 years as a magistrate, including time on the Sentencing Council. In that role, the needs and requirements of victims were always very much in our minds. I have also served on the boards of the Youth Justice Board and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.
That considerable experience across the criminal justice system prompted me in my maiden speech to say that I wanted to focus on putting victims right at the heart of the criminal justice system, and this Bill takes a big step towards doing that. It enshrines the principles of the victims code in law; it places a duty on PCCs to review their compliance; and it imposes a requirement on criminal justice bodies to raise awareness of the victims code. Each of those is significant in its own right, but together they have the potential to transform victims’ experience of the criminal justice system for the better.
The core provision of the legislation, to put the principles of the victims code on a statutory footing, has rightly been universally welcomed. We cannot underestimate the importance of setting out in law the services that should be provided to victims of crime. That, in turn, should dramatically improve compliance with the code. A report by the charity Victim Support found that currently
“as many as six in ten victims do not receive their entitlements under the Victims’ Code”.
It says that that can leave them feeling anxious, unsafe and frustrated. My own experience as a magistrate is that the process of hearings, trials and sentencing can be extremely difficult to navigate for victims of crime. Once in the courtroom, the terminology used by lawyers and the judiciary can be both complicated and challenging. All too often, victims feel as though they are the least important person in the room, notwithstanding the considerable efforts of the volunteers who make up the witness service in the court. Placing the code on a statutory footing, with much firmer requirements on compliance, holds out the prospect of a tremendous improvement in victims’ experiences.
One area where I am slightly disappointed, however, is that the victims code and, by extension, this legislation, do not require any specific action by the judiciary. I fully respect the need for a separation of powers, but I firmly believe that magistrates and judges can do much more to enhance the experience of victims. I would hope that that might be considered in future legislation.
I am pleased to see that a duty will be placed on PCCs to keep under review how the criminal justice bodies are complying with the victims code in their police area. The PCC for Thames Valley, Matt Barber, has welcomed this formal responsibility being placed upon him, and I know he will carry it out diligently across Buckinghamshire and the wider police area for which he is responsible.
Given the undoubted health impacts, whether physical or psychological, on victims of crime, the new duty for integrated care boards to collaborate with local authorities and PCCs when commissioning certain support services is important. My own experience, stemming from many meetings at local and national level, is that the NHS does not always regard involvement in the criminal justice system with the priority one might hope. Integrated care boards are still new and finding their feet; the one serving my constituency is already a cause of some concern, so I will be carefully monitoring its compliance with this new duty. However, the principle of the new duty is sound indeed.
The requirement to respond to recommendations made by the Victims’ Commissioner is another positive step, and will help keep to the forefront the needs of those who have so often been forgotten. Likewise, I strongly welcome the prospect of Ministers directing joint thematic inspections to assess the experience and treatment of victims throughout the entire criminal justice process. That has the potential for good practice to be shared, and it strikes me that that could be especially useful in developing further restorative justice schemes, which are extremely successful when they are implemented.
Having a code is good, but only if victims know about it; all too often, people do not get the service to which they are entitled because they are not aware of their rights or the services that exist to help them. So the duty in this legislation on specified bodies to promote awareness of the code is very welcome. I trust that experts in communications will be deployed to make sure the information is understandable, meaningful and appropriately disseminated; it is not good enough to have just jargon or just to put this information on a website that no one knows about.
Let me say a few words about part 2 of the Bill and the appointment of independent public advocates for the victims of major incidents. In doing so, I pay tribute, as many right hon. and hon. Members have, to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for her unstinting work. As I have mentioned in this House previously, I was a student at Sheffield University at the time of the Hillsborough disaster, and a friend of mine lost his life in that tragedy. Events since have been inexcusable and unforgivable, and the introduction of an independent public advocate will, we hope, prevent any such outrages of cover-up from occurring again. I am pleased that the Government have committed to working with families of victims of Hillsborough and of other disasters to get the detail of the advocate scheme right. I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who is on the Treasury Bench now, have indicated their openness to speak further with the right hon. Lady, who is undoubtedly expert in this arena.
I do have some sympathy with the view of the Law Society that legal aid should at least be considered to be provided to victims in cases where an independent legal advocate has been appointed. Of course, funding can never be unlimited, but it is important that there is an equality of arms so that victims are properly represented at every stage of an inquiry. In short, we need to ensure that victims’ voices are truly heard in the aftermath of such dreadful events.
Moving on to part 3 and parole, I understand the Government’s rationale for the changes that are proposed, and absolutely appreciate the concerns about public protection that have prompted the legislation, but I have my own concerns about the potential implications on the prison system and prospects for the rehabilitation of offenders. Many right hon. and hon. Members have made other points about the more general principles. I know from my very short time in the Ministry of Justice that prison capacity is extremely tight. My successor, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) has been to this House to describe actions he is rightly taking in response to that. The impact assessment for this part of the Bill predicts that, on the central scenario, an additional 640 new prison places will be needed over the next 10 years as a direct result of the implementation of the new parole clauses. Those are spaces we do not currently have in the prison estate. The impact assessment states:
“To accommodate a large increase in demand for prison places, we would have to consider demand reduction elsewhere in the system.”
To put it more bluntly, some other people would not be sent to prison.
I am very much in favour of taking a root and branch look at who is sentenced to custody, as I believe we have scope to make far better use of technology through electronic GPS tagging, for example. That could facilitate the introduction of a form of house custody in a comprehensive sentence such as the intensive control and rehabilitation order that was proposed jointly by the Centre for Social Justice and myself several years ago. I believe that that would both improve outcomes for offenders and reduce costs to the Exchequer. It is worth noting that house arrest was mentioned in the Government’s White Paper on sentencing, in 2020 or 2021, I believe, which was introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). Disappointingly, it has not received further attention since. I would be interested to learn from this Minister whether there might be progress on that at some future point.
It is not just a question of space in prison from the changes to parole that we must consider. Again, the impact assessment paints a concerning picture when it states:
“Non-releases and a reduced licence period could disrupt offenders’ and family relationships and reduce rehabilitation in the community, potentially leading to higher reoffending due to less post-custody rehabilitation activity from the probation service.”
Consequently, I hope the Government more broadly will consider the implications of these clauses, not least His Majesty’s Treasury. Increased funding for prisons and probation is rarely popular, but it is essential if we are to provide accommodation that is fit for purpose, as well as being able to recruit and retain enough prison and probation officers to ensure that there is a genuine prospect of achieving the rehabilitation of the prisoners in their charge. I hasten to add that this would not be money for nothing.
We know that about 80% of those currently receiving cautions or convictions have offended before. We also know from the MOJ’s own figures that the economic and social cost of reoffending in England and Wales is approximately £18 billion a year. So, if we can improve rehabilitation in our prisons and in our probation service, that will cut crime and cut cost.
Just before I close, I will quickly mention additional ways where I believe victims could be helped by legislation. One such way would be to change the rules on sharing data between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. At the moment, police officers waste untold hours redacting information before it is sent to the CPS for review. I am not talking about disclosure at a later stage; I am talking about that very first stage. Although the Attorney General’s office has provided helpful advice and guidance to police forces, which should reduce the workload somewhat—it is showing some signs of doing so—I am definitely still hearing feedback that there is the potential for the Government to go further and scrap what is an unnecessary administrative burden. That would mean more time for police to do what they do best: catch criminals and help victims get justice.
To conclude, the Bill is extremely welcome. It makes it absolutely clear that victims are being taken more seriously than ever before. I look forward to contributing further as it passes through this House.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I am pleased that we are finally debating the long-awaited victims Bill today. Since I was elected almost two years ago, the victims Bill has been just one of a very long list of so-called Government priorities that have been delayed and delayed. That delay has meant thousands of victims will not have received the support or exercised the rights they should have been able to. As we have heard from across the House, the Government have come forward with a Bill that is only half-baked. What has taken them so long to produce such a flimsy Bill that will not, in its current form, deliver its stated aims?
First, why have the Government not included victims of one of the most damaging and victim-centred issues faced by so many people every day: antisocial behaviour? In Batley and Spen we have seen, as is the case in many other communities across the country, huge spikes in antisocial behaviour in recent years. Whether it is inconsiderate or dangerous parking, modified motorbikes screeching through neighbourhoods at all hours, abuse directed at bus drivers and shopkeepers, setting off fireworks or fires, the vandalising of community facilities or fly-tipping, all of which the Government somehow treat as low-level nuisances, these are the things that are blighting our communities and terrifying residents. They are increasingly unaddressed and out of control, with little or no support for those affected.
In the current Bill, victims of those behaviours are not recognised. They are not given the same rights as other victims and they will continue not to be taken seriously in the criminal justice system. Without treating antisocial behaviour with the seriousness it needs, our communities, including Batley and Spen, will continue to see the increase in lawlessness that is damaging our towns, villages and neighbourhoods. We cannot underestimate the impact of this so-called low-level activity. It damages property and terrifies people, and it means that residents feel afraid to walk their streets alone. They are certainly not seeing any justice that reassures them their neighbourhood is safe and, as my constituents tell me, there is nothing low level about that. I therefore strongly urge the Government to reconsider their approach to antisocial behaviour in the Bill, and recognise the damage it does to people and communities across the country.
Secondly, as has been discussed, the Bill does not have the teeth to deliver meaningful change. As the Justice Committee set out in its report, simply stating the victims code in legislation will not by itself ensure that victims receive the justice they deserve. Where are the measures to ensure that victims are aware of their rights? Who is checking that police forces and the CPS are carefully going through the victims code with victims to ensure they take up all the measures available to them? And, most importantly, where is the resourcing to give police forces the staff and time they will require to afford each case the attention it deserves?
I am very fortunate to have a strong working relationship with West Yorkshire police, and in particular the Batley and Spen neighbourhood policing team. Of the cases we discuss, the major barrier to ensuring that victims are supported, involved in the process and able to see justice being delivered is not legislation, but police time and resources. And let us remember that the new police officers that the Government like to boast about barely replace the police officers we have lost over the last 13 years. So until we properly resource our police forces, this legislation will be unable to function in the way the Government hope it will.
Finally, I would like to discuss victims of domestic abuse and rape. Victims of these crimes are perhaps the most let down by the criminal justice system. Less than 1% of reported rapes lead to a conviction. That is a horrifying statistic that should alarm us all. Colleagues will have seen the open letter sent to the Justice Secretary by the charity Rape Crisis and Charlie Webster, who, along with her friend Katie, was a teenage victim of sexual abuse over many years. Katie, as has been referred to already, tragically went on to take her own life. On the radio today, Charlie spoke about the disconnect between victims, the justice system and the Government. Jayne Butler, the CEO of Rape Crisis, said:
“I want to see a Victims Bill that gives victims and survivors what Katie and Charlie never had. If the government truly wishes to make a difference with this bill, it must provide the funding needed to support it.”
The demand for the services of Rape Crisis has gone up by 38% in the last year. Without the resourcing and wider reform of the criminal justice system, the Bill will prove meaningless. Without providing any new funding for victim support services, the Bill will fail to deliver meaningful change for survivors of domestic abuse, as the charity Refuge has stated. Independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers are fantastic, but I share the concerns of others on the importance of solidifying those positions and ensuring consistency of provision across the country.
Furthermore, I agree that it is horrifying that a victim’s counselling notes can be accessed to form part of a defence if a case of rape does go to trial. That should not be acceptable in any circumstances. It undermines the aims of the Bill to protect victims and it may well lead to a decrease in the reporting of cases of rape, which is already shockingly low. I will therefore be supporting amendments in Committee to address that and to provide victims with the protections they need in the criminal justice system.
In conclusion, I am pleased that we finally have before us a framework that can be built on to ensure that victims receive the rights and protections they deserve. However, in its current state the Bill is too flimsy, excludes too many victims and fails to address the underlying issue in our criminal justice system: the underfunding and under-resourcing of our police forces and courts system. I therefore urge Members to back our amendments in Committee to strengthen the Bill, which has the potential to deliver the long-overdue, meaningful change that victims of crime deserve.
Kate Kniveton (Burton) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of the Bill. I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving support and services for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. I want to speak in relation to part 1, and specifically how it affects those who have been victims of those crimes.
The impact of domestic abuse is staggering. I know what affect it had on my own life. Nationally, in the last year alone, over 2 million people were affected by domestic abuse and every year more than 100 people are killed as a result of it. However, despite those grim statistics, support for victims of domestic abuse remains inconsistent and often unavailable, particularly for those facing multiple disadvantages. Being in an abusive relationship is a terrifying and lonely place, and it is not easy to ask for help. The mapping work conducted by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s office shows us that there is much more to do to ensure that survivors receive the support and care they need and want.
The Government have taken important steps to improve our response to domestic abuse and I welcome that the Bill will put the principles of the victims code into law, but we need to ensure that the available support is what victims want and need. So much of this is crisis-related, and of course getting people to safety is hugely important, but what about after that? When the survivors of domestic abuse are often left traumatised and financially and emotionally broken, where is the counselling? What about the advocates to help them protect their children from their abusers, and battle through the endless challenges where they must recount their experiences time and again?
Even for those survivors who want to access some form of community-based service that is currently available, fewer than half have been able to access the support they want. Only 35% find it straightforward to access this help. The findings in the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report, “A Patchwork of Provision”, make for stark reading, and I urge all Members to read it. Surely we can do better than this. We have made great progress under this Government, but I hope that we can push to help more people access the support that they need.
It is very clear that the specialist domestic abuse sector is stretched and underfunded. If we are serious about wanting to make tangible changes for victims, we need to invest more in community-based support services to help those services provide that support. The economic case is clear: Women’s Aid find that investing a minimum of £427 million per year to fund specialist domestic abuse services across England could save the public purse as much as £23 billion a year.
However, it is not just the support available to victims that is the problem; there must be fundamental change in our criminal justice process to support victims of rape and sexual abuse. Five out of six women who are raped do not report it, and for men, it is four out of five. Knowing how poor our justice outcomes are for survivors, why would anyone choose to put themselves through this level of intense scrutiny and have their credibility called into question when the chance of prosecution is so low? It takes tremendous bravery and courage to do this, and it is hard to even begin to think about it when a victim’s initial focus is on the immediate safety and wellbeing of their family. Victims and survivors must have access to specialist legal advice and representation to support them to ensure that their rights are not undermined and disregarded.
In closing, I welcome this important Bill but urge the Government to recognise the urgent need for increased investment in services that support survivors of domestic abuse. It is imperative that we provide comprehensive and accessible resources to empower those affected by these crimes, ensuring their safety. If the necessary funding is not available then perhaps we need to explore alternative avenues, such as pursuing financial penalties against those found guilty of abusive and violent behaviour. If we hold perpetrators to account for their actions through both legal and financial means, we send a strong message that domestic abuse and violence will not be tolerated in our society, and that the Government truly are on the side of victims.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
In 2013, I first met Claire Waxman. She is now the Victims’ Commissioner for London, but then she was a survivor looking to bring forward a victims Bill. She did this to prevent the horror that she went through befalling any other survivor, and I pay huge credit to her for doing that. She worked at the time with Elfyn Llwyd, the former Plaid Cymru MP —having stumbled over his name, I will not even attempt to pronounce his constituency. He first brought this forward as a ten-minute rule Bill in 2014. In 2015, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) presented it as a private Member’s Bill, which was then, rightly, adopted by the then Government.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I am grateful for the opportunity to name my predecessor, Elfyn Llwyd, who was very successful in bringing through the legislation. He worked closely with Harry Fletcher, who was formerly the assistant general secretary of NAPO, and Members from all parties across the House to that effect.
Sarah Champion
I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for putting that on the record and naming the former right hon. Gentleman, which I made such a poor attempt of doing.
I raised the private Member’s Bill because it was adopted by the Government eight years ago. This Bill is eight years in the making, and yet, despite endless consultations and excellent pre-legislative scrutiny, the Government have still failed to produce legislation that will genuinely improve victims’ experiences within, and external to, the criminal justice system. It pains me, as I know it does Members across the House, that this could be a missed opportunity.
I pay tribute to the civil servants and, indeed, the Minister for all their work on the victims code. That is what the Bill effectively makes statute. Its aim is to improve the support for victims and enshrine their rights into law. I pay huge credit to all the victims, the survivors, the charities and the campaigners for shining a spotlight on the inequalities in our current justice system. It is because of them that we are here today.
Not only does the Bill lack the teeth needed to enforce those rights, but, perversely—I use that word deliberately—the scope has been broadened to include prisoners’ release and give sweeping powers to the Secretary of State, raising human rights concerns, especially as we found out today that those provisions have not been properly consulted on or scrutinised. Personally, I find it an insult to victims and survivors that their one opportunity to have a Bill recognising the inequalities and hurdles that they face has been saddled together, in perpetuity, with the persecutors—the very people who made them victims. That sticks in my throat. I also find it challenging that the Government feel safe to put forward financial considerations for those prisoners—those perpetrators—but there is no money in the Bill to meet the needs of the victims. I really hope that the Minister is able to change that. I hope that that is an oversight, because it cannot be otherwise, so let us change that.
I am concerned that the addition of prisoners will minimise the much-needed attention that we have to give to strengthening the measures relating to victims and their needs. What is more, this comes at a time when the role of the Victims’ Commissioner remains vacant. The role is vital for providing a voice for victims across the country, yet the Government have not replaced Dame Vera Baird since September, leaving a huge gap in the scrutiny of this Bill.
Let me focus on some of the positives. I am grateful—genuinely grateful—that the Bill has finally been introduced. I am delighted that the Minister has today announced that new measures will be added to the Bill to tackle police requests for unnecessary and disproportionate third-party material. This is particularly common for rape and sexual assault victims, including the constituent whose counselling notes were investigated by the police and shared with the prosecution and defence teams. That approach perpetuates a culture of victim blaming and re-traumatises victims, resulting in even more cases dropping out of the system at a time when we need to see many more being brought.
I thank my constituent wholeheartedly for her work on that and congratulate Rape Crisis England and Wales on all its excellent campaigning to get the issue addressed. We must now ensure that the amendment to the Bill goes far enough to create a presumption against the use of that type of material and rebuilds victims’ trust in the criminal justice system.
It is particularly welcome that there is progress on the definition of a victim in the Bill and I thank the Justice Committee for all its work on that. I also take this moment to acknowledge the extraordinary work of my former constituent, Sammy Woodhouse. Her dedication has led to the recognition of children born of rape as victims in this legislation. That is a huge difference and significant progress. We must all applaud her and others who brought that forward.
However, the definition of a victim in the Bill is limited to those who engage with the justice system, which means that the majority of victims of crime are not covered by the legislation. The Government’s “Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy” in 2021 noted that only 7% of victims and survivors informed the police at the time of the offence, and only 18% told the police at any time—they would not be included in the Bill. The most recent crime survey for England and Wales reported that only 41% of crime is reported to the police at all—those victims would not be covered in the Bill. The Bill excludes victims who have not reported their perpetrator, or who choose not to report their perpetrator, or whose case has not yet received a charge or conviction. Not least, it would exclude the majority of victims of antisocial behaviour. I ask the Minister to look again at ensuring that all victims can access the support they need, when they need it, no matter the context they face.
My overarching concern with the Bill is the severe lack of accountability and consequence if the victims code is not followed. Victim Support found that as many as six in 10 victims do not currently receive their rights under the victims code. Systemic issues are causing a lack of implementation. I ask the Minister to consider what measures in the Bill will make the code any more enforceable than it already is—because at the moment there is no enforcement. How will the Government ensure that victims are aware of the code and able to challenge non-compliance with it?
Reviews of compliance with the code by elected local police bodies are a step in the right direction but, again, there are no consequences if the code is not being upheld. We must also ensure that that mechanism does not deepen pre-existing regional inequalities. We need to see measures in the Bill to ensure effective monitoring of how well all victims’ rights are being upheld.
There is overwhelming consensus from charities, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Women’s Aid, that a national oversight mechanism must be established to monitor the commissioning of support services, particularly for those with protected characteristics. It is also vital that staff at criminal justice agencies are trained to have an in-depth understanding of the victims code.
The introduction of the definition of child sexual exploitation has been transformational for policing, support services and the courts. We now need to see the same for adult sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation, to ensure that victims can be identified and supported rather than criminalised.
Clause 12 introduces a duty to collaborate on victim support, which is welcome, but it could go much further. I join the London Victims’ Commissioner and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner in calling for a joint strategic needs assessment and a duty to meet victims’ needs under the assessment, with the necessary funding being provided. The measures must also ensure that agencies are joined up, so that victims are aware of any parole decisions—unlike the experience of many of my constituents of bumping into their perpetrators in the community, having not being formally informed of their release.
I will give the House two examples, both of which happened within the last 18 months and within six months of each other. Two survivors of multiple child rape found out by accident that their abusers had been given the right to go to open prison and the right to come home at weekends. They had no opportunity to give a victim statement in the parole hearings, there was no safeguarding and there were no support systems in place for them. All I got, when I had to raise it on the Floor of this House because I could not get any other attention to it, was two written apologies and being told, “Oops, the system failed them.” Yes, we know—but it should not have, and there should be consequences for that.
Furthermore, charities are concerned that clause 12 does not include funding to resource the duty to collaborate and that it may place additional burdens on existing staff. Will the Minister please confirm funding for the specific co-ordinated roles to enable clause 12 to be effective?
The Bill is an opportunity to be ambitious about victim support, particularly for children, and it must provide a direction and core aims for the collaboration between those agencies. There are currently too many faults with the criminal justice system that are letting victims down. The Bill must also embed independent legal advice for victims, so that they can have support to understand and challenge disclosure decisions.
Clause 15 on ISVA and IDVA guidance is welcome, but Women’s Aid states that defining solely those roles risks creating a one-size-fits-all approach to victims’ needs. We also need to provide explicit guidance on community-based support services, especially for domestic violence, as well as on the vital roles of stalking advocates and children’s independent sexual violence advisers, or CHISVAs. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has shown that stalking victims who were not supported by advocates had a one in 1,000 chance of their perpetrator’s being convicted, compared with one in four if they had a stalking advocate.
The Minister is aware that I desperately want to see the issue of registered sex offenders changing their names, without the knowledge of the police, being addressed. I thank the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for raising that matter earlier. He was the first Minister that I discussed it with when he was Immigration Minister, because offenders are changing their names and then getting a clean passport and clean driver’s licence, so they can then get a clean Disclosure and Barring Service check. I thank him for raising that again. That loophole causes irreparable harm to victims and survivors, and further harm to others by allowing those offenders to reoffend. It makes a mockery of our identity-based safeguarding system. We need to see that loophole closed. I know the Minister agrees with me, so I ask him to work with us on that, please.
Finally, I am disappointed that the Government delayed their response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. I urge the Minister to tell us in his speech when the final Government response will be published, as this Bill provides the perfect opportunity to adopt its recommendations into law. I will be tabling amendments to ensure that all those gaps and failures are addressed; I hope to work with the Ministers and those on the shadow Front Bench in a cross-party way to put victims’ rights, voices and best interests at the heart of the Bill. This is not about politics; it is about fixing a broken system so that victims and survivors are not let down again.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and indeed to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton). We have heard some outstanding speeches in this debate on a huge range of issues, but for someone to speak of their own personal experiences of the criminal justice system, to try to empower others and to recreate that system so that it is better for other victims, is an incredibly difficult thing to do. To do so without losing her emotions takes great strength, so I pay tribute to my colleague, and I am very proud to be sat alongside her. I am sure there are many other people in this House and across the country who pay tribute to her for what she has said, for all she has been through and for how brilliantly she handles herself.
The speeches in this debate have been fantastic on a whole range of issues. I think the general emphasis is that this Bill is a welcome step in the right direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) outlined why enshrining the victims code in law is such an important aspect of the Bill. He did a great job of setting that out, so I will not try to repeat it.
I will, however, step back and say that the criminal justice system is a multifaceted beast that many people struggle to understand at the best of times, and when someone’s experience of it is difficult or not optimal, it can be incredibly disheartening. We have touched in a roundabout way in this debate on what it feels like to be a victim, but I am not sure we have really got to the heart of the strength it takes for someone to step forward and talk about what has happened to them, how difficult it is to repeat their experiences over and over again, or the strength that it takes to pursue justice.
I think that we have to see that in the broader scheme of things. We must entirely uphold innocent until proven guilty and maintain that central tenet of our legal system—something that is increasingly difficult in an age in which we are so connected and can comment on everything so quickly, through social media or just in passing. Equally, however, we need a criminal justice system that puts individuals at its heart. Those who have been victims need to be heard and to feel that they have faith in that system and that that system has faith in them.
The various statements, urgent questions and scandals we have sat through in this House, involving the Metropolitan police and others, are incredibly disheartening for many people sitting at home. It is also disheartening for many Members of this House. It is a blow to the criminal justice system when people in my own communities across the Bolsover constituency complain about not seeing police, or are victims of antisocial behaviour and low-level crime, and do not feel that the police take them seriously. That is a blow to the criminal justice system. When the papers report that sentences do not seem proportionate to the crimes committed, that is a blow to the criminal justice system and our faith in it. For those who go through the criminal justice system as victims, the level of bureaucracy and the impersonal nature of that process can so often be a blow to the criminal justice system and our faith in it.
It is nice to be standing here today putting victims forward and rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of those whom it is meant to serve. A frustration for so many of us in this House is that it feels as if prisoners have a huge number of rights and are protected in many ways. Victims are often seen as almost inconvenient witnesses in the system, rather than the people against whom crimes have been committed.
The other bit that has so often caused an issue with the criminal justice system and our faith in it is the premature release of prisoners—that has been such a blow. Again, the Bill takes some welcome steps on the parole system. I disagree mildly with the hon. Member for Rotherham about combining the two things. I am not sure that victims of what we class “top-tier crimes” will find it difficult that there is now ministerial oversight of the potential release of prisoners. I think that, rather than combining the two, that would actually be a strength for victims, but I am sure that we will disagree over a cup of coffee at some other point.
Before I move on to the parole changes, I will mention covid-19, which undoubtedly had a huge impact on so many elements of our public services, particularly the health service. The criminal justice system certainly felt the impact of covid in a big way—not being able to gather in large groups obviously affected it—and we have explored the many ways in which we can try to catch up on the backlog. I do not think that it is fair to say that the system is continuing to fail; there has been a great effort to try to catch up on that backlog. I welcome the changes to the parole system, particularly in the release tests and the right to apply to attend a parole hearing, which is an important step—I am almost staggered that it was not there before.
The general theme of the speeches today has been that this is a good start but we could and probably should go further, so I suspect the Minister will be somewhat busy when the Bill reaches Committee. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) about the need for an individual approach to victims, not a tick-box approach—that is incredibly important. We should not see this as a one-size-fits-all approach. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) about antisocial behaviour, which is the scourge of so many working-class communities. To feel scared in your own home is a horrible experience; to feel like the streets are not yours is a horrible experience. Those people are victims and should be recognised as such. Ahead of the debate, I read the Victim Support briefing, which calls for the Bill to recognise victims of persistent antisocial behaviour. I strongly agree.
The Minister will have anticipated my next point—mostly because it has already been mentioned. I did not arrange for my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) to mention my ten-minute rule Bill on banning sex offenders from changing their names, but I had a decent bet on the hon. Member for Rotherham mentioning it. I may have pushed the stalking laws to their limits as I have followed the Minister around the estate for the past few weeks trying to persuade him that such a measure needs to be included in this Bill. He has been incredibly patient, as have Home Office Ministers.
My main reading ahead of the debate was “Trapped”, a book by a remarkable woman called Della Wright, whom the hon. Member for Rotherham and I have met. Della was here in the House of Commons last Thursday. She has worked alongside the Safeguarding Alliance, and has waived her right to anonymity so that she can campaign for what we have now dubbed “Della’s law”. If the Minister reads “Trapped”—I have already given a copy to the Minister for Safeguarding, and I am happy to purchase him a copy as well—he will see what it is like to be a victim when the system simply does not work for you. There are so many disheartening moments in that book. I think that every single Member of this House hates it when systems do not work for our constituents. So often, that is the point at which only their Member of Parliament is left to assist them.
Unfortunately, Della’s case is one of being failed for years and years, but she still has the strength to pursue justice. She talks throughout the last few chapters of the book about her experience of trying to go through the court process when she does not feel believed; when she gets notices of something happening at the last minute; when she simply does not understand what is happening with her case and how disheartening that is. Ultimately, the thing that drives her work now, and that will give her a sense of justice, is ensuring that sex offenders do not have the right to change their name. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay outlined how easy that is for them to do, and the hon. Member for Rotherham and I have made the same argument on a number of occasions. The perverse thing is that Della’s case was delayed in going to court because her offender, who was already in prison, changed his name. That meant that all of the documents for the case were in the wrong name, so Della had to relive the same experience six months later. It cannot be right that victims are failed in that way.
I was drawn to clauses 48 to 50, which prevent prisoners serving a whole-life sentence from marrying in prison. I thought to myself, “That is a proportionate response to a select group of people.” It sounds ever so much like the argument that I made in my ten-minute rule Bill earlier this year: that those who are on the sex offenders register should not be allowed to change their names. That is in the victims’ interests and it is proportionate, and it would be deserved even if it were only for Della, but there are hundreds if not thousands of victims up and down the country who have suffered because of that issue.
I say to the Minister that the Bill is a massive step in the right direction. It is absolutely right that we recognise victims, give them more support and enshrine those rights in legislation, but there is room for improvement, and although I am not sure that the criminal justice system can be fixed overnight simply by legislating, a wider cultural change is absolutely necessary.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a genuine pleasure to take part in the debate, which is increasingly becoming an example of this place at its best. We are all sharing our own experiences and concerns. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton); to the esteemed expert, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion); to my hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who are no longer in their places; and to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), who spoke before me.
We all bring with us a determination because, having waited so long for a piece of legislation that was explicitly about victims and their experiences, we really want to get it right. After all, for many of us, that is our day-to-day work as MPs. We all remember the first time that we read those emails, had that phone call or met that resident, and the meetings in which you feel a burning sense of injustice by the end of the conversation—tears flow, and you and your team need to take some time out to recover from what you have heard. It is privilege to meet the people we meet as MPs, because we cannot understand how they have been able to carry on, let alone champion such causes.
I have to say I was a little frustrated by some of the earlier conversation. It felt so much—I hesitate to use this phrase—like victim blaming, because we talk about wanting victims to fit our systems. The victims I have had the privilege to work with as an MP for 13 years are no wallflowers; they are people who have been wronged, and they need to be recognised as people who have none the less done their damnedest to speak up for themselves or for somebody they love who has had a traumatic experience. I agree with the hon. Member for Bolsover about the Casey report, and I fear there are issues within the CPS too. Therefore, when we look at this legislation, we are looking not to find ways to make more victims come forward, but to recognise that, for too long, the systems and institutions we had set up supposedly to speak for these people have been found wanting, and they need to change.
Let me try to add something different to the Minister’s inbox, although I agree with many of the points that have been raised cross-party. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham that this is absolutely a cross-party thing. I want to raise five points—I know that a list of five might seem frightening, but I promise to be quick—about what it is to be a victim; when something happens to a family member overseas; third-party harassment; the legal rights of victims; and the issue of IDVAs, ISVAs and advocates more generally.
Let me start with the concept of what a victim is. The Minister is hearing loud and clear from many of us our concern that setting out that a victim is only somebody who engages with the justice system might make sense in a process way, but it does not make sense in a person way—it does not make sense for the people we deal with. It would preclude people who experience antisocial behaviour, which is a blight on the lives of everybody in our communities. That often fills up a huge amount of our inboxes, and understandably so, as people tear their hair out over the fact that behaviour that stops them living their lives is not being addressed.
Another area where we need to be clearer about victims and victimisation is what happens when traumatic events happen to communities, and I note that we are recognising that now in the concept of a public advocate. We are long overdue a public advocate, and I pay tribute again to my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who is not here, for what she said; it was incredibly powerful, and it is absolutely right that we have public advocates. If we recognise that the trauma that comes from a severe crime can ripple through somewhere, it is right that we do not say that it is only when people speak up that we recognise that impact.
In my community, four people were raped—one of them was murdered—and I think about the impact that that had on the community. We fought for eight years for justice for Michelle Samaraweera. Her killer was not found until we fought and fought for him to be brought back from India. I think about the community at Kelmscott school, which lost one of its 16-year-old members 10 days ago. That community is grieving and traumatised, and we need to get it help and support. That is something we want to be able to build in from the start, because it helps the investigative process, but it also helps to address what has happened. That is absolutely critical.
It is absolutely welcome that we have talked about an advocate in major investigations, but there is a risk that we end up with a very narrow definition of a victim within a local community, which would be to the detriment of understanding how crimes affect people. I am pleased the Secretary of State said he would sit down with me and some of the campaigners and others working with the traumatised, victimised communities dealing with this epidemic of youth violence. There is merit, particularly when we are talking about serious harm, in taking a victim-led approach and in understanding that communities can be victims of crimes and how that might then influence the work we do.
The second area I would urge the Minister to think again about and that I would add to his inbox is when people are victims of crimes overseas and particularly when murders happen overseas. I have a phenomenal woman in my community called Sharon Matthews, whose beautiful son Tyrell was murdered brutally in Malia in 2013. We are still seeking to secure justice against the killers, and I can say “killers” because they were convicted in a Greek court, although they are here in the United Kingdom and have reoffended, so another family have lost a family member. Sharon faced a system that did not understand how to help her, and anybody who has ever dealt with a case involving someone who has been murdered or faced serious violence overseas, whether or not they were on holiday, will know how frustrating it is to deal with a different legal system and about the importance or otherwise of the victim in different jurisdictions. They will also know that that inconsistency is an injustice.
Let me be clear about some of the challenges that we have faced in supporting Sharon and her family through this. There was the idea that there would be a cap on the financial support available to the family. If someone is trying to get over to a foreign country to be at a trial, that is clearly a problem. There was no support for the witnesses to travel and give evidence. There was no support for us when we were trying to get video evidence involved to manage the costs. There was a horrific situation last year when, yet again in a retrial situation, the victim’s family and the witnesses were in the same hotel as the perpetrators’ families—clearly, a high-risk scenario. [Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Bolsover is shocked. Nobody was thinking about that family as victims, because this had all happened out of sight.
The victim in this instance was British, as are the perpetrators. A wider challenge for me in looking at the legislation is how we hold the police and the CPS to account when things to do with overseas violence lead to a possible risk here in the UK. Sharon’s case has been an absolute testament to her, as a mother, turning her grief into a determination to achieve justice for Tyrell, and she will always have my support in that fight.
I am absolutely shocked at how victims of crimes are treated. At one point Sharon was told she was not the victim, because the victim was Tyrell and therefore she was not entitled to any support. We have to change that because, sadly, this is an increasingly common experience. She got a letter—my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham touched on something similar—from the court saying that her son’s killer had been allowed to go on holiday, even though he had been convicted of a knife crime. Because they had decided to suspend his sentence for two weeks he could go on that lovely holiday, where he was then part of killing Tyrell. That is just one chink of the injustice that she has faced simply because the crime took place overseas. Again, the victims code and Victim’s Commissioner need to understand these issues.
The third issue I want to raise is third-party harassment —I have recently experienced this myself—and organisations using third-party organisations to harass victims of crime. We see this particularly in domestic abuse courts. We see this with the family courts. My hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse and for Birmingham, Yardley powerfully set out the need to act. The idea that somebody would kill the mother of their children and then have access is incredible. It does not have to be about death. If we prove that someone is involved in domestic abuse, this does not have to go through other courts, so that they can be re-victimised time and time again through third-party organisations.
My own experience was with the use of social services to try to target and harass. Again, that is a loophole where there is no criminal offence that can be used to protect safeguarding and make sure that we stop those people who use these institutions to try and target people, or indeed to join up those experiences. When I challenged the police about my experience and the fact that they wanted to use a community resolution, I was told that it would be nice if, as a victim, I agreed with what they wanted to do, but it did not matter. There has to be a process whereby the victim’s voice is heard, and heard loudly, and that voice must be supported wherever a perpetrator might use a different institution to cause harm, particularly if they use third-party institutions for malice.
Fourthly, there is the issue of legal protections. It is a welcome win to recognise that asking for someone’s medical records should be allowed only in very exceptional, very specific circumstances. At this point, I would not be doing her justice if I did not call for Claire Waxman not only to be recognised as the Victims’ Commissioner but, frankly, to be knighted for the work she has done. She shows so clearly the power of having somebody to hold organisations to account, but she has found that extremely frustrating. Her own work on compliance showed that only 11% of victims were being made aware of their right to criminal injury compensation, and only 25% knew of the victims code at all. Claire’s work shows us powerfully why this cannot just be about the idea that, somehow, sunlight is a disinfectant—that, somehow, if we publish data about who is not supporting victims and who is not doing what we would ask of them—that will be enough to lead to change. The honest truth is that we have had the evidence—indeed, MPs’ casework provides the evidence.
We have all dealt with these challenges for years and years. So I join others in this place in asking Ministers to go further and to give teeth to this legislation, and not just to have publications. They should bring back the independent victims champions and make them a requirement for all police and crime commissioners, as Claire has so powerfully advocated, but also give those agencies real powers to hold people to account not just in a generic sense but in a specific sense. The sad truth is that we know how difficult that will be even if there are powers.
We have to give the Victims’ Commissioners the ability to do something. There have to be legally defined rights. There has to be a system to tackle non-compliance that goes further than just a spreadsheet and a dataset. We are all sick of seeing those letters of apology and of having those meetings where people say, “Let us try to learn the lessons”, when we can see those lessons happening time and time again.
Finally, I join everybody who is a fan of what IDVAs and ISVAs can do, and I have seen it in many cases. Sadly, she is not in her place, but I wish to draw something to the attention of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). I am pleased for her that she has such coverage of IDVAs and ISVAs, but the SafeLives survey shows that in only 74% of areas in this country do we have enough people doing those roles. I agree that we risk inadvertently restricting what they can cover. I pay tribute to and thank Laura Richards, who did huge amounts of work bringing forward the domestic abuse, stalking and harassment risk assessment and making the arguments around stalking and the stalking register. We need to go much further in understanding how that crime is being prosecuted.
IDVAs and ISVAs show the role of direct day-to-day advocacy, particularly when dealing with a crime where there are vulnerable people. I ask the Minister to think about this. When it comes to violence outside the home and people at risk of gang violence, we have seen how difficult it is to get people to be able to give evidence and to come forward. The lesson from IDVAs and ISVAs is that we should be rolling out systems of advocacy to help those vulnerable victims and to give people someone to guide them through that process on a range of crimes. We are dealing with an epidemic of youth crime. I can think of many cases in my local community where witnesses and victims have been terrified to come forward and terrified to go to court. They are often seen as potential perpetrators in their own right and not given that advocacy. I urge the Minister, rather than restricting what role an IDVA or ISVA plays, to think about independent advocates generally and how we might be able to use them to make sure that we get the prosecutions, the support for courts and the joining up of services that people need.
I also put on record my support for what was said by the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). I note that the Corston review was in 2007. That gave us huge lessons about what we could do to reform prisons to support the very few women in prisons and to deal with the issues that might lead to women ending up in prisons. That review is long overdue implementation. I also support what the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said about NDAs.
There is so much here that could be done, because there is so much that needs to be done. I hope that the Minister will take in good spirit many of us adding to his inbox and wanting to see those things happen. We fear it may not be just another eight or nine years before we get a Bill to get it right; if we do not get this right, there may not be another one within our lifetimes. We have those conversations in our community with those people dealing with crime, those people who are survivors and those people who are grieving, and across this House we owe it to every one of them to do what it takes to get it right. The Minister will have my support if he does that, but he will also have my challenge if he does not.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Before I start my speech, may I take a moment to pay tribute and respect to Lord Peter Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, who sadly passed away this weekend? Members may know that he was the Member for Cities of London and Westminster for 25 years from 1977 to 2001, and in that time he was a Cabinet Minister in the Thatcher and Major Governments, Northern Ireland Secretary and National Heritage Secretary. I send my condolences to his widow Lindsay and the family.
It is a privilege to speak on Second Reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Victims should and must have confidence in the criminal justice system, from making an allegation to the police investigation, court case, conviction and all the way through to the parole stage. After all, we know that a victim’s experience of the criminal justice system does not stop after the perpetrator has been found guilty. I praise the Lord Chancellor and the Minister for listening to victims, survivors and their families and bringing forward this legislation, which enshrines victims’ rights in law.
Rightly, part 1 of the Bill seeks to improve positive outcomes and provide that much needed support for victims at every level. As it stands, it does that by enshrining the key principles underpinning the victims code in law, simplifying support during and after the criminal justice system process, strengthening the Victims’ Commissioner’s role and introducing a joint statutory duty on PCCs, integrated care boards and local authorities to work together when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violence.
Those things are all welcome, but I gently ask the Minister to consider what survivors such as the broadcaster Charlie Webster and the London’s victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman are highlighting, specifically their campaign to give teeth to the victims code and ensure that there are proper resources in place for survivors and those supporting them. The Minister will remember from when he and I sat in Westminster City Council’s cabinet—he in charge of adult social services; me in charge of children’s social services—that Governments are very good at providing local authorities with statutory duties, but it is important that funding comes with that. The Victims and Prisoners Bill will strengthen the defined rights to drive the cultural change needed to improve the treatment of victims in the criminal justice system.
I have read the letter that Charlie has written to the Secretary of State, which highlights the death of her very close friend Katie, the victim of sexual abuse. I pay tribute to the work that Charlie has done in this arena. Charlie is a constituent of mine, and I first met her when we were both volunteering during the covid pandemic. She told me about her experience as a victim of domestic abuse and sexual abuse, and I was proud to sit on the Domestic Abuse Bill Committee and see through an amendment for which she had lobbied—those who know Charlie will know she is very good at lobbying—to ensure that children were included as victims of domestic abuse.
Charlie’s letter and Claire Waxman’s campaign show that this is evidence-led legislation responding to the lived experience of victims. It gives legally enforceable rights to justice and support. With their personal understanding, they know the needs and requirements to improve the system. As the Bill progresses through Parliament, will the Minister or the Secretary of State meet me and Charlie to hear more about her experience and her campaign, which makes some astute recommendations regarding long-term funding for victim support services?
I turn briefly to part 2 of the Bill. Expanding provisions for support to those affected by major incidents is welcome. Many colleagues in the Chamber today have highlighted the horrendous experiences of the Hillsborough victims and families. My constituency, the Cities of London and Westminster, has sadly through the years seen its own share of major incidents from the 7/7 bombings, the 2017 Westminster bridge terrorist attack to, most recently, the 2021 Fishmongers’ Hall attack. London has hundreds of victims, survivors and their families who have often felt left on the sidelines of support. We had the public inquiry for the Manchester Arena bombings recently, and I found the testimony from many victims and surviving family members moving, and I pay tribute to their bravery. I hope that the Bill reflects on that powerful testimony.
I have a great deal of sympathy with creating an independent and appropriately resourced advocate for victims of major incidents, because when a victim dies, the crime does not die with them. Often if the victim has been killed, it is their surviving family who continue with the lifelong consequences of the perpetrator’s actions. It is incredibly important that when we consider victims, we consider the families, too. The same principle applies when we consider parole.
Part 3 of the Bill includes proposals to provide the Justice Secretary with powers regarding granting release to certain individuals who fall into the top tier of serious cases. I note in particular the support of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) for Carrie Johnson in her campaign to prevent the killer of Joanna Simpson from being allowed his automatic release from prison after serving only half his sentence. When looking to improve the Parole Board process, one group that must not be ignored is the victim’s surviving family. I have been struck in researching this Bill by just how many families, like Joanna’s mother, Diana Parkes, and her children—have been neglected during the Parole Board process. They should have more of a say, so I welcome the Bill’s introduction of the right for families to apply to attend a parole hearing.
I am very aware that this is a complex issue and one that will benefit from debate, but I believe we need to nuance this. After all, no one crime is the same and no one victim’s experience is the same, so making sure there is a sympathetic approach, with appropriate powers in place for the Justice Secretary and the Parole Board so that they can deliver for all those affected by a top-tier crime, will be critical to the success of this Bill. That said, I certainly welcome the Bill as a whole and, of course, the measures that will go a significant way to change a victim’s experience.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Like the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), I would like to send my condolences to the family of Peter Brooke.
It is a privilege to speak on Second Reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. There really is a feeling in this Chamber that is very unfamiliar to me, but also very pleasing, which is the sense of victims needing to be at the forefront of the Bill. I do hope that, in Committee, the significant changes that are needed will indeed be made.
Some 1.5 million violent incidents took place in the year ending March 2022. There has been a fundamental loss of faith in the criminal justice system by victims of rape and sexual abuse. Indeed, five in six women who are raped do not report it, along with four in five men. This Bill really does need to increase victims’ confidence, and the confidence of the public, that victims will indeed get justice. Victims from all backgrounds need justice, and I refer to the nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010. In particular, I want to speak about young women, women and people of colour, because they are mainly the people who have spoken to me about their injustice and being victims in these types of situations.
Victims need justice, but they also need emotional support. A victim from my constituency—a woman—was kidnapped at knifepoint and raped well over a year ago, but she is still waiting for therapy. She is also worried about where she is going to be living when the abuser is eventually released from prison. Victims need a holistic sense of support, which includes support from victim support agencies, but also for housing. Although the organisation that supported her, called Athena, was able to offer some initial therapy, it was only for a set period of time and really was not enough, so much more funding and concentration is needed in looking at this.
On prisoners, the prison system is being let down by the Government, and the Government are letting down victims and, indeed, the public. I say this because the Prison Service is in crisis. We know that because prison officers are difficult to recruit and difficult to retain, along with the fact that a dispute about the high pension age is causing prison officers to leave early. Prison officers are doing their best, and I thank them for all the work they do, but the rehabilitation of prisoners is challenging. Because prison officers are not there, training is not able to take place. There are often delays in the reports that need to be done by prison officers, and prisoners are often kept in their cell for up to 22 hours. This needs to change.
Earlier this year, the Justice Committee, of which I am a member, published a report about prisoners struggling to cope with mental health issues. There are various other issues, and I do hope that the Minister will pay close attention to all the Justice Committee’s work on prison and prison officers and on victims.
I recently spoke to a young person who was in a young offenders institution. His release date was at the end of January, but his release was delayed because suitable accommodation cannot be found for him. That means he has spent three months longer in the young offenders institution, when he should have been put in accommodation with the public. That is a concern, because how many other young people or prisoners is this happening to, and how many more delays are taking place at a cost to the public purse?
As we know, this Bill is split into three parts. My right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) spoke with conviction and passion about the public advocate provision. There is really nothing further for me to say on this, but I want to put on the record that the proposed advocate is welcome, but should be fully independent and accountable to families.
On part 1, I support the intention of clauses 1 to 21, because victims must be supported. Another teenager recently shared a horrific story with me. She went to the police station to report a rape, but she was speaking to a male officer, so she already felt self-conscious and intimidated, and it was very difficult conversation. What was even worse was that the police officer went on to ask, “What were you wearing at the time?” It implied it was her fault, and that should not be happening. At all levels of the criminal justice system, we need to make sure that victims are supported in a compassionate, caring and sensitive way, but one that gets the information needed.
The constituent who was kidnapped, raped and threatened with a knife made a statement at the police station, but she was also held at the police counter, and this was deeply traumatising for her and extremely difficult and painful. I therefore support measures to enable victims to escalate complaints about their treatment. However, I am sceptical about how certain measures will work in practice. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), set out well the issues with just having a victims code. The victims code needs to be enforced and there need to be consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) also mentioned that eloquently.
I would welcome the Government listening to and considering Labour’s plan to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, such as by offering free legal advice and other advice to rape survivors, along with giving victims of antisocial behaviour a voice. That is a huge issue across our nation, and as we have heard in the Chamber, people who experience antisocial behaviour really need to know they are being viewed as victims and are getting the crucial support they need. I impress on the Government again to look at a holistic approach to victims. They really do need more than just prosecutions; they may need support and services for themselves.
Clauses 46 and 47 provide the Justice Secretary with powers to change the Parole Board rules, and I again refer to the Justice Committee evidence on this. So much that came out was about scrutinising the changes that the Secretary of State for Justice was proposing, and there are real issues coming out of this—not only the cost, but the time this will take—that are very concerning.
The issue of IPP legacy prisoners needs to be addressed, not ignored. No one should be in the state of no hope —it causes mental health issues, self-harm and, indeed, suicide—but that is what many IPP prisoners have felt and experienced.
Finally, we must all treat people how we would wish to be treated—fairly, with respect and with justice. Let us hope that the Government can achieve that with this Bill.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I, too, welcome the introduction of this Bill in so far as it enshrines victims’ rights in law. Reference has already been made to my predecessor Elfyn Llwyd and the legislation he worked on about stalking and coercive control. I also welcome the move to reduce the material the police may request of victims, although I would bring the House’s attention to section 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which said that evidence should be requested only when relevant. We need to be very careful about the detail of what may be requested in case it can still be used by defence lawyers in court in ways that suit them, not the victims.
I am disappointed, if not surprised, to see that the Welsh Government have stated that there has been a lack of consultation by the UK Government prior to the publication of the Bill, even though it appears that the Bill touches on areas of devolved competence. In particular, I suspect that it will interact with legislation such as the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015. It most likely will also impact on the approach of commissioning services in Wales, including the Welsh Government’s current plans for sustainable commissioning, so I seek an assurance from the Minister that the implications for Welsh legislation and victims in Wales will be given thorough consideration in Committee if that did not happen at pre-legislative scrutiny.
Victims have consistently been overlooked in the justice system in Wales, and this has been exacerbated by the massive programme of court closures in Wales, where over 20 Crown courts and magistrates courts have closed since 2010. This has reduced the ability of victims to get to court, especially in rural parts of Wales where public transport is poor. I am also told that some victims are reluctant to travel to court if they have to use public transport because they then face the possibility of meeting the person who made them victims.
There are, however, examples of good practice of commissioning victims’ services in Wales, such as the Goleudy service in the Dyfed-Powys Police force area. It is a holistic victim support service, established by Plaid Cymru police and crime commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn, that offers practical and emotional assistance for victims of crime. However, the fractured nature of commissioning services means that services such as Goleudy are not available to everyone, as provision and access to victim support varies wildly across Wales.
The resignation of Dame Vera Baird, the Victims’ Commissioner, last September highlighted how far down the priority list victims have fallen. What she said is significant. She said that the
“downgrading of victims’ interests in the Government’s priorities, along with the side-lining of the Victims’ Commissioner’s office…make clear to me that there is nothing to be gained for victims by my staying in post”.
It is also worth noting that in April the chief executive for the office of the Victims’ Commissioner announced that she, too, would be standing down next month.
The Bill makes specific reference to services in London but is silent on Wales and devolution, despite many of the victim support services being devolved. That cannot be right. Given the comments of the Victims’ Commissioner, the lack of engagement with the devolved Government in Wales on the Bill, and what we already know about the jagged edge of justice in Wales, I believe it is time for us to establish the role and office of a victims’ commissioner for Wales to lead on creating a consistent service across Wales and to champion the voice of victims in the changing landscape of legislation and devolution. A victims’ commissioner for Wales is vital for linking up victim support services with the justice system and making it accountable to the people of Wales, in co-ordination with services such as health and communities, which are of course already devolved.
The flow of services needs to be streamlined. As Victim Support said in evidence to the Thomas commission on justice in Wales, we must not “re-victimise” victims by telling them they have to tell their story several times over to several agencies. A one-stop shop for victims is similar to the idea of “victim care hubs” as advocated by the Victims’ Commissioner for London, and similar to the Goleudy model to which I referred earlier.
The Justice Committee concluded that the draft Victims Bill published by the UK Government would not fully secure the rights of victims, and many of its recommendations have not been adopted by the Government. I urge the Government to revisit some of the Justice Committee’s recommendations in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill, including recommendations to address sustainable funding for community-based victim support services.
Welsh Women’s Aid also told me that the penalties in the Bill for non-compliance with the victims code are toothless, and that clause 5 needs to be reworked with stronger sanctions so that criminal justice agencies are incentivised to uphold the rights of victims.
There are concerns that the Bill’s requirement for data sharing between services may put at risk migrant victims whose immigration status is insecure. Wales is a nation of sanctuary and the Bill should acknowledge this. There is also no reference to access to services for those with no recourse to public funds. There is also a lack of direct reference to specialist support available for child witnesses and victims.
Finally, I turn to part 3 of the Bill. The Prison Reform Trust says that part 3 raises significant constitutional questions regarding judicial independence and the UK’s compliance with human rights obligations. As co-chair of the justice unions parliamentary group, I also note that Napo, the probation staff union, is against any attempts to undermine the independence of the Parole Board or politicise the decisions of the board.
What the Government could have done with part 3 instead was bring forward changes to parole that would benefit victims and strengthen their rights. I welcome the Government’s decision to enable some Parole Board hearings to be held in public from last year onwards, but I urge them to look at the issue again to see what can be done to give victims greater say in the decision to enable a hearing to take place publicly. This is in relation to Rhiannon Bragg of Gwynedd, who campaigned for the parole hearing of her perpetrator to be held in public, only for the chair of the Parole Board for England and Wales to rule that Bragg’s perpetrator’s mental health issues could be exacerbated by a public hearing. That was after the Ministry of Justice accidentally sent Ms Bragg’s stalker intimate details of the anguish he had caused her and her family because of his horrifying actions—it sent her medical details to prison. It should be possible for a public hearing to be held if that would be in the interests of the victim, and that could be included in the Bill. The Bill’s title puts victims before prisoners, but that is not reflected by Parole Board measures at present.
In conclusion, I support the majority of the Bill’s aims, but it must be improved upon to ensure that it is strengthened to cover all victims and support services, and that compliance and enforcement of the victims code is maintained. Overall in Wales we would be better served with our own commissioner and the ability to align services properly, placing victims at the heart of the system, and I will do my best to make sure this place appreciates that Wales has a different legislature and all that implies.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
It is a privilege to follow so many great speeches in this debate.
I personally do not love the word “victim”: it makes some of us feel as though we have neon signs above our heads, flashing away and marking us out as weak, naive or stupid enough to have ignored the signs that led us to be treated so badly. I wince whenever I read that description of myself, despite knowing that it was not stupidity or weakness and that actually anyone could find themselves in a similar situation.
There are many women who grow up with only this expectation of relationships, not even imagining anything better for themselves. The privilege I had is that I knew that I did not deserve it or had to just accept it—that it was totally wrong and had to stop. Being in this place, having been plucked out of a previously ordinary life of low-paid work, single parenthood and constantly juggling money around, gave me the new tools to recognise that I did not have to put up with living my life in constant fear. I found the confidence and courage to say “No”, but before living this extraordinary life I know I would not have done. I would have carried on feeling isolated and invisible, and I know that finding a way out would have been infinitely harder.
As MPs, we regularly meet or hear from non-governmental organisations and charities that centre on victims or deal in the business of domestic abuse, but in ordinary everyday life people living in that situation have to first come to the realisation that their constant fear is not okay. Then they have to decide that it is not okay for them, and then to fully realise and accept that they deserve better. That part is the hardest.
I have colleagues and friends here and professional briefings that reminded me of that constantly. Despite not discussing my own personal home life much, the logos of those NGOs were always in my inbox. MPs wore badges. These issues were talked about and debated, but not in most people’s homes. We have to break through to those who need us and make sure as legislators that these processes are as easy and stress-free as we can make them, and currently they absolutely are not.
I know that as MPs we want to encourage all victims to come forward to report rape, domestic abuse or stalking, and we want to reassure them that they will be listened to and helped and justice will be served. But can any Member here today look their constituents in the eye and promise that the current horrendous delays and the experience of handing over the intimate details of their lives for brutal and crass scrutiny, and to be regurgitated all over newspapers, is going to be worth it?
The Bill comes too late for me. I know that and that is something that I will never be able to do for myself. The prospect is unbearable, frankly. But I have been able to put myself and my life back together, although of course there will always be broken and missing pieces.
The Bill’s aims are to be welcomed, but we also need to see real and tangible changes, rather than simply hear a wish list put forward by both sides of the Chamber. We need first and foremost to listen to victims and experts delivering services on the ground, such as the Centre for Women’s Justice, Dr Karen Ingala Smith, Aurora New Dawn and many others who have been helping victims for a long time, and who centre women and prioritise their needs. They know as professionals that, as Dr Karen Ingala Smith said:
“A trauma-informed safe space creates space for action and recovery from violence and abuse and places the woman victim-survivor in control and in the centre.”
That is why it is essential for women to be able to access recovery spaces free from men. I am afraid that that must also include those who may no longer identify as men, in accordance with the Equality Act 2010. I refer to services such as Beira’s Place in Edinburgh.
Women who have experienced rape and male violent abuse will re-experience that trauma in the presence of biological men, whether it is considered kind to say so or not. That must always be something that we can say without fear of being cancelled or essentially constructively dismissed from our roles, whether in the sector or in politics. Likewise, men who have experienced domestic abuse or violence from a female perpetrator must also be able to heal and rebuild their lives in a setting free from women, if that is right for them, and receive specialist care.
Let us please use the Bill to make positive changes to improve the experiences of victims who need protection, support and justice. Let us ensure that it is worth victims coming forward, that they have safe and protective services, spaces and refuges if they need them and that they are not simply having to relive their trauma over and over again.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
At the outset, I would like to say that the Liberal Democrats are of course pleased that we are debating the Bill. It has been a long time coming. As we have heard from across the Chamber, it has taken a good number of years to reach this point. On Second Reading, it is right that we are focused on the positives. It is great that it is here, but let us also focus on how we can make it better and what is missing ahead of Committee. I noted in the Secretary of State’s opening remarks that he knows of one amendment that he is tabling. I hope that that is the first of very many from him and the Government and that they will be open to listening to those across the House, because it has been a consensus-driven debate. Many people have been working on the issue for many years and there is a lot of expertise in the Chamber.
However, certain things that are wrong with the Bill need to be highlighted. For example, it does not give specific provisions for victims of burglaries, fraud or antisocial behaviour. My inbox is full of constituents who are keen that those are specifically mentioned because they are concerned that they will be considered too low-level to be dealt with. I dare say that that is linked hand in glove with a perception that law and order is not taken seriously right now. In Thames Valley, for example, 174 crimes remain uninvestigated every single day, let alone whether the police will come and investigate, whether any charges will be brought, or whether the case will be heard in court. Too many people feel let down by the criminal justice system. It seems complex, alienating and ineffective. The Bill is a missed opportunity to tackle some of those issues.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill’s founding aims of improving end-to-end support for victims of crime and amplifying victims’ voices in the criminal justice system. In particular, we are pleased to see the victims code setting out the minimum level of service that victims can expect from criminal justice agencies enshrined in law. However, we question how much it will change the victim experience in practice.
The Justice Committee said that this is not strong enough to deliver the cultural change needed in the treatment of victims in the criminal justice system. Even clauses related to the victims code enshrine just four broad overarching principles in primary legislation, rather than a comprehensive set of standards with legal purpose. That code, as we have heard, is not legally enforceable. I hope that Ministers have heard loud and clear in the debate how important the House feels that point is. It is all very well having a code but, when it goes wrong, what is the recourse? I am sorry, but a newspaper headline saying, “x people and x agencies found that the code was not abided by” is not going to cut it. We can do better than that and Parliament’s clear will is that we should. I hope that the Minister takes that on board; that was mentioned in so many speeches.
Funding is almost just as much a cause for concern. I listened carefully to the Secretary of State when he said that funding has increased. That is great and everyone of course welcomes that. However, I urge him to look not at how much it has increased by from a low baseline, but at what is needed to deliver what we all want. Ultimately, we want people to feel that victims are properly supported in the system. Let us listen to, for example, survivors of domestic abuse. Women’s Aid Federation England estimates that adequate sustainable funding for specialist community-based services would cost £238 million a year. Eighty-five per cent. of frontline workers surveyed in a report by the domestic violence charity Refuge said that their service was being impacted by insufficient funding. So for real change to take place, by all means, say what has increased, but also look at what is needed. That is the shortfall that I am sure all of us in the Chamber are more interested in. Is it actually delivering what we hope it is?
In various speeches, there has been reference to having to start early with young people to make them aware of their rights. I highlight the campaign of my constituent, Faustine Petron, who came to see me in a village hall when I was doing my summer village tour. She has started a campaign called “Make it mandatory”. She set that up as a survivor of domestic abuse with nine friends, who recognise that, as young people in the school system, they had no idea about their rights, consensual relationships or any space for them to discuss that. I appreciate that that is for the Department of Education, but I sincerely hope that the Ministry of Justice will converse with the Department for Education on what can be taught in schools, particularly on the rights under the victims code that will be enshrined in law. That would be very much in line with what Faustine and her brave survivor campaigners would want.
The last thing that I will talk about specifically, which again came from my surgery—this all comes from us, as MPs, talking to our constituents—is non-disclosure agreements. I was approached by young women at Oxford University who had been effectively silenced by their colleges because, following incidents of rape and sexual abuse, they were asked to sign gagging clauses from their colleges. They were sold to them at the time as, “This is for your protection.” I cannot begin to describe the effect that that had on these young women. It stopped one of them talking to her GP. The clause said, “If you break this clause, you are going to lose the right to study at this university.” It was not explained that she could talk to her parents or to her GP. It is just nonsensical. That was not an isolated incident; young woman after young woman came to me from different colleges, and it soon became obvious that it was a pattern of behaviour. They then linked up with other campaigns across the country and realised that there was a pattern of behaviour at universities.
The issue was picked up, quite rightly, by the Government. I think that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) tabled an amendment and the Government accepted it. Now, non-disclosure agreements are banned in universities, but they are allowed everywhere else: charities, businesses and political parties. We know that they happen in political parties, as they have been reported. They should not be happening at all in those specific cases. If Ministers want to know more about this issue, I have a Bill ready that mirrors the wording that was passed in legislatures in Canada—this has happened before.
The point is that non-disclosure agreements should not be banned in one type of institution in this country—the Government have conceded that ground—yet still be allowed in other institutions and organisations. We can put that right in this Bill. I pay credit to the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel); when I met her as Home Secretary, she said that this Bill might well be the vehicle for us to do that. The campaign has broad cross-party support. It came from constituents, who raised it in the first place. It has been in various manifestos for the best part of a decade. I urge the Secretary of State and the Minister to engage with the campaign. We have spent a long time working on it. It is time that the voices of victims are amplified. At the very least, can we make sure that they are no longer silenced?
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
First of all, I pay tribute to all those who have spoken in this important debate. We have heard powerful speeches and personal testimonies from those who have shared their extensive knowledge and experiences of how the criminal justice system has failed victims. I pay particular tribute to those who have spoken about their personal experiences: my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who is not in her place, and the hon. Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who both spoke powerfully.
We heard from the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), who lost a friend in the Hillsborough disaster; the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) paid tribute to Peter Brooke, and I extend my condolences to his family and friends. We heard the strong voices of my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and for Lewisham East (Janet Daby)—strong women speaking powerfully for the victims they represent and speak out for. I look forward to working with them as the Bill progresses. I hope the Government will listen to their proposals in Committee.
It is great finally to be here after so many years as the Government bring forward the victims Bill—I am sorry, my mistake: the Victims and Prisoners Bill. The Government almost succeeded in delivering what was promised, but they could not quite let victims be the sole purpose of the Bill—they now share the stage with prisoners. I fully support much of what the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), eloquently said in his powerful speech: adding in that part with no pre-legislative scrutiny, engagement or consultation with the sector is reckless, to say the least, and belittles the Bill for victims.
It has taken us eight years and eight Justice Secretaries to get to this point. I appreciate that the Government have been a little preoccupied with tanking the economy and forcing people to choose between heating and eating, but victims should never have dropped so far down the list of this Government’s priorities. The Bill is weak, has no teeth and is a colossal missed opportunity to introduce the vital change desperately needed to protect victims. We have heard today that everyone on the Opposition Benches knows that, as does everyone on the Government Benches.
Only last Friday, I was at the victim support hub in my constituency, answering calls on their 24-hour helpline. The line was inundated with calls. The staff there do incredible work, but it is clear that victims repeatedly return to that service because they are not supported throughout the justice process. I saw the real human impact of the criminal justice system on its knees—a direct result of 13 years of successive Tory Governments.
Let us look at what that has led to: almost half the courts across the country have closed; the court backlog stands at 63,000 cases; over a third of victims said they would not report a crime again; fewer than two in 100 reported rapes lead to a charge; for those that do lead to a charge, there is an average wait of three years for the case to be heard; nearly two thirds of rape survivors drop out of the system; antisocial behaviour victims are denied support because of the Government’s refusal to acknowledge them as victims; and the Victims’ Commissioner role has been vacant since September last year, allowing the Government to avoid scrutiny entirely throughout the Bill’s introduction.
But that is all fine, because now we have this ground- breaking Bill to address all those issues, and we have a Government plan to tackle the court backlog, increase charges for rape perpetrators, and ensure victims’ rights are upheld and supported throughout the system. However, none of that is in the Bill. As it stands, the Bill is a tick-box exercise for the Government, allowing them to say they tried. Currently, there are no defined rights for victims, the Bill states only that agencies “should” comply with the four overarching principles of the victims code, and the Government have failed to address the issue of non-compliance with the code. How is the code enforceable? Where is the accountability when it is not upheld?
One survivor who I spoke to was raped as a teenager. Sophie was not told about her entitlement to an ISVA for eight months after she reported the crime to the police. After two torturous years of uncertainty and neglect, she finally had her day in court, but she said she felt as if she was treated like a criminal on the stand, while being forced to look at a picture of the perpetrator that caused her to have a panic attack, reliving her trauma. The witness assistant, trying her best, told Sophie to “pull herself together”, but there is absolutely nothing in the Bill that would have improved Sophie’s experience. Without an enforceable victims code, it is nothing but words on a page.
Survivors such as Sophie are not the only victims who will suffer if the Bill in its current form is passed. The families of the victims of the disasters at Hillsborough, Grenfell and Manchester Arena will have nothing more than a Conservative puppet if the Government go ahead with their proposed idea of an independent advocate. The role of public advocate needs to be filled by a fully independent, permanent figure who is accountable to families and survivors. I pay tribute to the campaigners who are continuing to work towards that, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood who made a powerful argument, clearly and robustly, in her speech. Labour would introduce a robust Hillsborough law and ensure those families who have endured so much would see justice delivered and not denied.
Labour’s plan would ensure that victims of rape are fully supported, providing free legal advice to rape survivors. One victim I spoke to, Molly, was raped at a party by a boy she believed was her friend. When she reported it to the police, she was treated like a suspect, and subjected to questions about her clothes, alcohol consumption and sex life, all while traumatised from the night before. Nothing in the Bill will change what happened to Molly, but free independent legal advice would have helped her feel supported through one of the scariest things she would ever do. When five in six women who have been raped do not report it to the police and prosecution rates are at an historic low, free legal advice is essential to protect the victim, and also to ensure that those rapists are caught and charged.
We welcome today’s Government announcement on stopping the use of third party material in a court case. Labour has been calling for the past year for the protection of third party material, such as counselling records for rape and sexual violence victims, so I am glad that the Government have finally listened and introduced that, and heeded our calls on the issue. But how many victims would have been saved the torment and how many sexual predators would have been imprisoned if the Government had listened to us sooner? We have yet to see the Government’s policy detail, and the thresholds remain unclear. I look forward to scrutinising the proposal in Committee.
Labour will recognise the devastating toll it takes when someone feels unsafe in their own home and will recognise victims of antisocial behaviour for what they are—victims. My own constituent, Sarah, came to me having suffered a miscarriage due to the stress she had undergone from repeated antisocial behaviour against her home. It was that traumatic. She was singled out and targeted. How can the Government say that Sarah is not a victim? That issue must not be omitted from the Bill.
Unlike Government Members, we believe independent scrutiny to be a vital part of democracy, so we will strengthen the Victims’ Commissioner role—in fact, we will have a Victims’ Commissioner in the first place. We will grant them the necessary powers to enforce the victims code and lay an annual report before Parliament. The Government would have to respond to the report within the allotted timeframes, in contrast to their current practice. I understand that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner is still waiting for a response to their “Safety before status” report three months after the deadline.
Finally, campaigners such as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who tabled his own victims Bill way back in 2016, and London’s Victims’ Commissioner Claire Waxman, have campaigned for a victims Bill for a decade and more. This legislation is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact meaningful change that will improve the lives of thousands who have experienced some of the worst crimes imaginable. However, this weak Victims and Prisoners Bill catastrophically fails to do that. Victims such as Sophie, Molly, Sarah and many more we have heard about today, who have to relive their trauma every day while trying to move on with their lives, will not find comfort in the Bill. The Bill must truly place victims at the heart of the criminal justice system and not simply pay lip service.
We will not seek to divide the House on Second Reading, but we want an extended and more robust version of the Bill, preferably with our proposed changes placed in statute during the Committee. The human cost of the Government’s callous neglect of the criminal justice system cannot be understated. The Government have a genuine opportunity here, and victims across the country are watching.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the Minister, I want to say how important it is for those who have participated in a debate to get back into the Chamber in good time to hear the wind-ups. If nobody came back, Opposition Front Benchers would be speaking to an empty Chamber and the Minister might well be in the same position. Some who participated are still not here, and I hope that the message will be passed back that it is really important for Members to get back in good time. If they do not do so, it is discourteous to the Front Benchers.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to deliver the closing speech in this Second Reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. I give my genuine and sincere thanks to right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House for their thoughtful contributions. The tone, by and large—with the exception of Opposition Front Benchers—has been measured, thoughtful and considered. Actually, given the nature of the issues, the debate has been remarkably non-party political.
Let me start by paying tribute to previous Lord Chancellors who have worked on the Bill—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis)—and, indeed, paying tribute to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), for the work that he did on the Bill in his previous incarnation in the Ministry of Justice. I will turn in due course to the speeches made by Members today, but first I want to pay a particular tribute to all the victims, and victims’ families, who have talked to us, worked with us, told us their stories and helped to shape the Bill. Despite their own personal tragedies, they have worked tirelessly to improve the system for others, and we are incredibly grateful to them.
As we heard earlier from my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, this is a crucial Bill, and as one who was victims Minister between 2018 and 2019 and is now in that post once again, I must say that it is a particular privilege for me—as it is for my right hon. and learned Friend and others—to hear from victims who have come to see us to tell us about their experiences so that we can understand them just a little bit better. They come with bravery and relive very traumatic events in their lives to share them with us, and it is extremely humbling when we have those conversations. I see that the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), is now sitting on the Front Bench; I know that he took a close interest in this issue when he was in the Ministry of Justice.
The Bill makes good on three long-standing manifesto commitments—three promises that the Government made to the British people. First, we promised to introduce a victims’ law, and we are fulfilling that commitment. For instance, we are enshrining the principles of the victims code in law so that victims, as well as every agency in the criminal justice system, are in no doubt about the service that victims should receive. Secondly, we promised to introduce an independent public advocate to support survivors and the bereaved after major disasters. We seek never again to see victims suffer as the Hillsborough families have, as the Grenfell families have, and as families have following the Manchester arena bombings. Thirdly, we promised to strengthen the parole system so that public protection would be the pre-eminent factor in every decision about whom it is safe to release.
As my right hon. Friend said at the beginning of the debate, if justice is to be delivered, victims must be treated not as mere spectators of the criminal justice system, but as core participants in it. That is the mission of this Government and the mission of this Bill. Huge progress has been made over the last decade for victims: that progress includes boosting the ranks of our police officers to tackle crime and bring criminals to justice, locking up the most dangerous criminals for longer as a result of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, improving the response to rape and domestic abuse victims through the End-to-End Rape review and our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, unparalleled investment in victim and witness support—we are more than quadrupling the 2009 levels of funding to support victims—and introducing a clearer, strengthened victims code. However, we rightly committed ourselves to doing more, and today we are doing more. The Bill will boost victims’ entitlements, bring greater oversight, amplify victims’ voices, and deliver further safeguards to protect the public.
Edward Argar
I will, very briefly. There are a number of colleagues to whom I want to respond.
Sarah Champion
I recognise and truly respect the work that the Minister did in his last role as victims Minister. Will he tell us whether he will fight to secure the necessary funding for all the measures that he is proposing and those that are already in legislation, because it is not there right now?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady and I have worked together in the past, and I thank her for her intervention. I will come to the subject of funding in a moment, because it was mentioned by a number of other Members in this context.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Select Committee, for his work in respect of the Bill and for his typically thoughtful and forthright expression of his views on behalf of his Committee. Those who worked with me on both sides of the House on the Health and Care Act 2022 will know that I am always willing to engage with and genuinely listen to colleagues during the Committee and Report stages of legislation, as, indeed, is my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. That does not mean we will always be able to agree with everything, but we will engage, and we hope to make it a genuine engagement.
We have heard some sincerely held views expressed today. In respect of the independent public advocate, I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and indeed to Lord Wills, whom I have met, as well as the other colleagues across this Chamber who have engaged with these issues. I had the privilege of meeting the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood along with the shadow Lord Chancellor and other Members recently to discuss the independent public advocate. What has emerged from the debate today, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), is a general desire to make part 2 of the Bill work for the victims and their families and to ensure that, while disasters may sadly occur again, no one has to go through what those victims and families went through.
The right hon. Lady was very clear with me about the importance of agency and empowerment. She was also clear about the context and about how those victims and those families who had lost loved ones had come to this point and what they had experienced, as well as the need for them to trust in the process and the concerns they had about when the state or powerful organisations seek to use their power to conceal or to make their lives much harder in getting to the truth. I understand where she is coming from, and my commitment and that of the Lord Chancellor is to work with her and other colleagues to see whether we can reach a point where everyone is content with part 2 of this legislation.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) spoke powerfully, and I am grateful for her kind words. She has played a huge role on behalf of victims and those who want to see crime tackled and criminals brought to justice. I look forward to working closely with her as this legislation progresses. She rightly highlighted the importance of police and crime commissioners, a number of whom I have met recently, including Matthew Barber, Lisa Townsend and Donna Jones, and Sophie Linden, the Deputy Mayor of London. They do a fantastic job.
One of the issues that hon. and right hon. Members have raised is whether a victim chooses to report a crime and the impact that can have. I am happy to reassure the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) that whether or not someone chooses to report a crime, they will still be able to benefit from the victims code, and the clauses in this legislation that link to it will read across. I hope that gives her some reassurance. That point was raised by other Members as well. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) raised the issue of NDAs. Without prejudice to the scope of this legislation and where we might land, I am always happy to meet my right hon. Friend and the hon. Lady.
Hon. and right hon. Members have highlighted a number of areas today where they would like to see the legislation go further in some cases and perhaps go less far in others. The only caveat I would gently add relates to scope. Some of the things they wish to push for may well be in scope, and I suspect that those who end up on the Bill Committee—I am looking at the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who I suspect I might see sitting across the Committee room—will wish to explore them, but I just caution that there might be some areas that, just through the nature of scope, will not be able to be debated. It is important for those watching our proceedings to understand that the nature of scope is determined by what is already in the Bill.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke touched on ISVAs and IDVAs, as did a number of other hon. and right hon. Members including the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. Last Thursday I had the privilege of speaking at the national ISVA conference and of meeting a number of them. There was strong support for guidance around their role, although I appreciate that the sector has mixed views on this. We are explicitly not seeking to create a hierarchy of support services but rather to recognise the professional role that ISVAs and ISDAs undertake and to help to bring greater consistency to it and greater awareness of their work across the criminal justice system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) comes to this debate with a huge amount of experience of the criminal justice system. He spoke thoughtfully and he knows of what he speaks. He also served as a Minister in the Department. His comments on part 3 were measured, and I will always carefully consider what he says. He touched on the requirements on the judiciary, and I gently caution that we are limited—quite rightly, given the separation of powers—in what we can and cannot tell the judiciary to do, but I suspect the Judicial Office will be following these proceedings carefully.
Edward Argar
I will make a little progress, as I want to speak for roughly the same amount of time as the shadow Minister, to be fair to her.
The hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), for Rotherham, for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton), all spoke movingly, powerfully and personally about their interactions with the criminal justice system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Burton spoke movingly about her experience of domestic abuse, and the whole House will admire the courage shown by all Members who spoke in such very personal terms. The hon. Member for Canterbury, in particular, demonstrated a huge amount of courage in giving a powerful and emotional speech, and she spoke for many who perhaps do not have the ability to speak for themselves in conveying what she did. She touched on third-party material, as did a number of hon. and right hon. Members, and that is one reason why I welcome the additional step we have announced today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who was my ward colleague on Westminster City Council for a while, invited me to meet Charlie Webster. I know Charlie from my previous incarnation in the Department, when we visited a number of services together. I am always happy to meet Charlie, and my office may already be trying to arrange a meeting. My hon. Friend also touched on her support for the IPA, which I very much welcome.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) and the hon. Member for Rotherham touched on the recent debate, and my hon. Friend’s ten-minute rule Bill, on prisoners changing their name. I hope to be able to meet my hon. Friend very soon to discuss the matter, and if the hon. Lady wishes to attend that meeting, I am always happy to see her, as I was when last we worked together.
Like the hon. Member for Rotherham, I pay tribute to Claire Waxman, with whom I have worked very closely in both my previous and my current role in the Department. The hon. Lady also mentioned Sammy Woodhouse, and I believe I engaged with her on the issues raised by Sammy last time I was in the Department and, like her, I am pleased to see the progress we have made in this space.
The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) was typically thoughtful, but I gently say to her that we have engaged throughout with the Welsh Government on the victim provisions. Indeed, back in early December, I believe my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton received a letter from Mark Drakeford thanking him for the close engagement with the Welsh Government on this Bill, and we will continue to engage on the newer provisions, such as the IPA. As with the Health and Care Act 2022, I am happy to engage with Welsh Government Ministers.
Finally, the hon. Member for Walthamstow asked for clarification on the definition of a victim. I hope I have given her some reassurance that, whether or not a crime is reported, an individual can still come into the orbit of the victims code. One thing she uniquely mentioned, which I will look at with her if she wishes, is the overseas angle. I am always happy to engage with her, and this time it is not about the private finance initiative in hospitals.
Sir Julian Lewis
Among the long list of points the Minister addressed, I did not hear the one about murderers who refuse to appear in person in court to face their accusers and their sentencing. Does he think that that would be within the scope of this Bill?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. My understanding is that that would probably not be within the scope of this legislation, but he will have seen that the previous and current Lord Chancellors have been clear in their determination to explore legislative options to address exactly that issue.
I very much look forward to engaging across the Committee Room with the shadow Minister and indeed with all those on the Committee, because genuinely important views have been expressed today, from particularly personal perspectives and with particular angles on elements of this legislation. That has been underpinned by a determination on both sides of this Chamber to make this work and a commitment to making the Bill an effective piece of legislation. I approach it in that spirit, as I hope the Opposition will.
As I bring the debate to a close, I say again that victims are not bystanders. Their views and experience matter greatly. They deserve to be treated with respect, compassion and dignity at every turn in the criminal justice system. It is only with their engagement and immense bravery in coming forward that we can bring criminals to justice and make our streets safer. That is why we have acted. That is why the Bill will put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, where they belong, so that every victim’s voice is heard, every victim gets the support they need and every victim is empowered to seek the justice they deserve. This is about giving victims, and the British public, confidence that the parole system will keep them safe. We will ensure that they are listened to. We will ensure that justice is done. We will work to ensure that more criminals are caught and brought to justice, which is why we are delivering today on our manifesto promises to bring this legislation before the House. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
VICTIMS AND PRISONERS BILL: PROGRAMME
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Victims and Prisoners Bill:
Committal
1, The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 13 July 2023.
3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Consideration and Third Reading
4. Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.
Other proceedings
7. Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Jacob Young.)
Question agreed to.
Victims and Prisoners 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 Victims and Prisoners Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State, and
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Jacob Young.)
Question agreed to.
Victims and Prisoners Bill: Carry Over
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 80A(1)(a)),
That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Victims and Prisoners Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.—(Jacob Young.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Health Inequalities: North-west London
(12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
As Public Health England said in 2017:
“Everyone should have the same opportunity to lead a healthy life, no matter where they live or who they are.”
In reality, someone’s socioeconomic and environmental circumstances will determine that. Health inequalities are about not just clinical disease, but wellbeing and a complex cycle of interacting factors. Income, education, housing, environment, experience of discrimination and “sharp-elbowedness” are all unevenly distributed among the population and the playing field is far from level.
The Government have been widely condemned by the British Medical Association, numerous pressure groups, royal colleges and professors for their U-turn on their 2021 commitment to publish a White Paper on health disparities. The ex-deputy director of health inequalities at the Department of Health, David Buck, is now at the King’s Fund. He called it
“the latest example of repeated political failure to tackle the widening inequalities that leave thousands of people suffering and dying earlier than they need to.”
In talking about north-west London, I am referring to the health administration definition of that area. That comprises suburban Ealing, Brent, Hillingdon, Harrow and Hounslow, and the more inner-city areas of Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham. At first sight, they look to be an affluent chunk of both the capital and the country, with a population of 2 million-plus. On closer inspection, however, the eight boroughs covered by the integrated care board contain huge discrepancies, both within and between, in life expectancy, ethnicity, income and multiple determinants behind headline health issues. Big ones locally include diabetes, cardiovascular, maternity and mental health services—all factors identified by the integrated care board’s decent “addressing inequalities” strategy last year.
So what’s class got to do with it, as Tina Turner might have said? Well, the answer is a lot. Average income in Ealing Broadway is £49,100, which is above the national average. However, if you get off Crossrail five minutes later at Southall, it drops to below £30,000. That is £20,000 down in a couple of tube stops. A man in Chiswick will, on average, live for over 82 years. That is 5.8 years longer than in neighbouring south Acton. One is in W4 and the other is in W3. And if anyone has a serious mental health condition, we have to subtract 15 to 20 years from those totals.
Demographically, north-west London has a young population. There are worryingly long waits for child and adolescent mental health services appointments. Every parent knows how children were affected by lockdowns, whether mentally, in lost learning or socialisation. The population is young, but it is ageing. In the ICB, 13.1% of people are over 65. That is forecast to climb, putting a strain on council budgets for adult social care and dementia services. My own late mother, who is looking down somewhere from above, was a dementia sufferer, so I know all too well about that condition. If we add to all those factors Brexit, the cost of living crisis, the aftershocks of long covid and the long waiting lists that have grown since, our cradle-to-grave health service locally is under pressure like never before. Medical staff at the sharp end are in danger of burnout and stress. What I want to say to the Minister is that political intervention can help to solve that and address all those problems.
North-west London is ethnically diverse and that is seen in the disproportionality. For example, 164,435 people in north-west London live with diabetes. Forty-three per cent. of those registered are Asian British, 24% are the population at large. Ditto heart disease: 30% of registered patients are Asian British, 24% are the general population. In the eight boroughs, 18,000-plus people have serious mental health problems. The black British community represent over twice the number of registered mental health patients: 17%, compared with the wider population, at 8%. On cancer, which saw off my late father, who is looking down from somewhere, the white community make up 61% of cancer patients, but 42% of the whole population and prevalence is strongly linked to age.
Poorer finances lead to stress, which, in turn, can lead to the take-up of unhealthy behaviours, such as smoking, and a drop in the take-up of healthy leisure activities. It is a vicious cycle, with happiness and loneliness also in the mix. So what can be done? I have a series of lessons for the Minister. They are things that are fixable, and would be easy wins for the Government and for the country.
First, if we pay people fairly, we will have a contented workforce. That includes those in health and social care who we somehow expect to be superhuman. We have seen junior doctors, paramedics and, for the first time ever, nurses out on strike, when, not that long ago, all of them were hailed as heroes. It was a common sight to see those rainbow drawings with, “Thank you NHS”, pasted up around our streets. We have clapped for carers, but the poorly paid adult care sector, which covers private companies through to council provision, is non-unionised and too disorganised, with too many zero-hour contracts for its workers to be able even to withdraw their labour.
I emailed the title of this debate, “Health Inequalities: North-west London”, to a few people, including a very respected retired consultant at Ealing Hospital. His answer was, “I never needed to supplement my NHS income with private work in my day, but I understand that a lot of the younger generation do”. Again, that shows how this question can be interpreted differently by different people. It should not have to be that NHS employees have to bump up their wages through other means.
Secondly, councils should be sufficiently resourced. Ealing has developed a great healthy lives strategy, and even a racial equality commission following what happened to George Floyd, thanks to Councillors Josh Blacker and Aysha Raza. However, £6 out of every £10 that the borough had in 2010 has gone in local government cuts. It is facing a rising population and is expected to do more and more with less and less, because public health has been added to its brief. That means that corners are cut. Some boroughs, for example, have stopped smoking cessation services. Although smoking in the population has declined, it is still the biggest avoidable risky lifestyle factor everywhere.
The third lesson is to stop reaching for facile “solutionism” and the target culture, which can have perverse outcomes: for example, if one vows to reduce waiting lists and then there is no treatment available at the other end. There is the unintended consequence of patient choice at the eye department at Central Middlesex Hospital. I visited there and was told that private providers cream off some of the easy cataract work—the typical patients are majority-white elderly patients. They are opting to do so because they can, leaving the NHS with unaffordably big bills, plus all the complex procedures—the patients are commonly BAME people—for things such as glaucoma and diabetic eye disease. So the NHS is left with all the difficult stuff. It also means that junior doctors training in hospital are not able to start on the easy stuff. The profile of their training is getting skewed, which needs to be addressed. It is an unintended consequence. We should be under no illusions that backlogs were present before covid.
The fourth lesson is to go out to communities and housing estates. Both Ealing and Camden have an HIV bus and a diabetes bus that go into the estates. That is better than expecting those hard-to-reach populations to come to the hospitals.
The fifth lesson is to listen to the person at the frontline, not just the man from the Ministry. London has a GP crisis, which needs addressing. That should be done by consulting the GPs rather than by imposing solutions in the face of their rising workload and shrunken workforce. One local practice in Ealing had architect costings and planning permission to renovate their premises to bring it up to scratch to accommodate the rise in their patient numbers—from 3,000 to 9000 in a decade. However, under current regulation, although the practice is at capacity, it is not allowed to refuse anyone and NHS Estates says it cannot pay the rent. One partner there said:
“Frankly, there is no estates strategy, we’re just being asked to ‘suck it up’ at full capacity until reaching breaking point… In the meantime, our landlord could serve us notice at any time, putting nearly 10k patients at risk.”
Point six is to look at the profile of disease and trials and recognise that the woman in the white coat can know better than the man in the grey suit. Dr Christiana Dinah, NHS consultant ophthalmologist of those aforementioned vision-threatening conditions in Ealing, Brent and Harrow, conducts award-winning research, but she has a problem in that the BAME population are under-represented in the clinical trials. If only the white well come forward, that gives an incomplete picture, and it jeopardises the chances of the results being applicable and the treatments effective in all the target populations. There is work that could be done there.
We have seen local services withdrawn, including maternity, paediatrics, stroke and mental health beds gone from Ealing. I am familiar with the bureaucrat’s argument that people do not need a facility at the end of their street if there is a much bigger and better one slightly further away, but even if we accept that, let us remember that when facilities get “consolidated”—that is the language—it is no good if there is no public transport to get there, and conduct mandatory mapping.
My penultimate message is to stop blaming individuals, as Government messaging sometimes tends to sound as though it is doing. We are the most obese nation in western Europe, and Sir Simon Stevens once said that obesity threatens to bankrupt the NHS, yet the official rhetoric presupposes that that is a choice. If someone is time and cash-poor, feeding multiple mouths and working multiple jobs, the ultra-processed, high fat, sugar and salt, unhealthy choice tends to be the most convenient and the cheapest. We could look at incentivising buying organic and fresh food, so that the healthy choice becomes the easy choice, and we could do so by taxing and pricing, as we have seen with the sugar tax and, historically, the decline in smoking due to the tax regime.
Lastly, we could recognise the joined-up nature of policy intervention. A mixed-ability comprehensive school that I was at the other day, which not long ago was in the “requires improvement” category, noticed such a glut of obesity among pupils post lockdown that it now provides a free breakfast for all, a free Chromebook for all and voluntary basketball at 7.30 am. The take-up on all three has been enormous. It is expensive, the head said, but it is worth it: the school is out of special measures and even has record successful Oxbridge acceptances. Sadiq Khan’s free school meals for all primary pupils from next year is another visionary and bold scheme. It sounds a bit Oliver Twist, but I say, “More please, Minister!”, so that we can do it nationally.
In short, I would say, “Be unafraid—be very unafraid—of intervention.” Health inequalities arise from overlapping factors, from commercial to cultural, but also from politics and policy. Covid-19 illustrated how disadvantaged communities experienced proportionally higher morbidity and mortality, but before coronavirus hit, who would ever have thought that the Government would foot the nation’s wage bill while we were all locked up for months on end, or preside over the biggest ever mass vaccination programme? We can do things when we put our mind to it, and the pandemic was meant to be a reset moment, was it not?
In this country, we are mostly all—to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen—born in the NHS, but divergence starts at birth. It is a scary sign of rampant inflation that baby milk is now theft-alarmed in supermarkets. Professor Michael Marmot recently stated in the i newspaper that a proper start in life is so fundamental that the powdered formula should be free on prescription for those forced to shoplift it. It is an idea; I do not think it has been taken up by any political party, but it is a thinking-outside-the-box solution.
Another issue we could address, at the other end of the life cycle, is loneliness, which stereotypically, but not exclusively, affects the elderly, and is said to be as bad for health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Let us think of ways around it. Apparently, loneliness is even worse and more isolating for BAME communities, despite the stereotype about them living in extended families. The north-west London data shows that it is really bad there, but it is bad everywhere.
Although the Government have attributed unprecedented food and fuel prices to Putin, in reality the perma-crisis that we inhabit flows from political choices—more than a decade of austerity and the chronic underfunding of public services starved of cash by Cameron and Osborne—but we are beyond that now. To repeat myself, strategising should not equal stigmatising people and implying that they are the problem.
When we drill down, it is difficult to find issues that do not contribute to health outcomes. I do an advice surgery every week, and people come and show me pictures of mould and damp. At the end of last year, I think mould was, for the first time, mentioned on a death certificate, and air quality has been identified on a death certificate as well. Well-designed quality and affordable housing directly impacts on physical and mental health, as does access to green spaces and play spaces.
We have longer than we thought because it is not yet 10 o’clock. I do not know if anyone else saw, but there was half a page in a Murdoch newspaper today attacking little old me in connection with a proposed housing scheme in Ealing that is not going ahead now. It is quite a bizarre article—a whole half-page rant about me—and I did not know that it was coming. Everyone here knows that MPs do not decide housing applications or policy, but in that particular developer-led scheme, the private developer pulled out because it would not pay for the post-Grenfell fire safety measures that are now law—it did not want to foot the bill for that. As a west London MP in a borough neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea, I think that, after that enormous and avoidable loss of life, we should never scrimp on fire safety.
Anyway, I said that I was going to conclude. I did not even get to the removal of maternity functions of Ealing Hospital in Southall, or the fact that pre-term deaths in pregnancy are experienced four times as much by black mums as by the population at large, and that poorer communities living by main roads breathe more polluted air—plus, in north-west London we have Heathrow airport, which is ever hungry to expand despite the climate crisis. I did not get on to any of that because the debate could have gone on and on, but I will say that acting on health inequalities improves lives and livelihoods, cuts costs to the NHS, to the benefit of wider society, prosperity and the economy, and it would save the Exchequer billions in lost productivity through long-term sickness.
We should be bold. We should act and think beyond eye-catching short-term targets aligned to electoral cycles —me in particular, as I have seen so many snap elections in my lifetime; it does not work to think in terms of normal electoral cycles any more. Let us think more long term and be honest with people, not treat them like idiots. Let us take a multi-pronged approach to levelling up—the Government’s watchword. In the meantime, if anyone has any clue about where the £350 million per week that was promised on the side of the Brexit bus is, please inform our local NHS folk. I took a wide range of soundings to come up with this content, but no one says that they have seen that money.
I look forward to the Minister’s response—I know that he is a good man. I do not think it beyond the wit of man to do this. We can do it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
Well, how to follow that? I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for securing this important debate and for her wide-ranging speech. It was so wide ranging that I think I will struggle to follow or match it, but I will do my best. It was a speech with everything from Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen to loneliness and ethnic minority participation in clinical trials. Let me try and structure my response by starting with the health service, working back to primary care, and then addressing public health.
The first and most central thing is, of course, to have a high standard of healthcare. That is why, between 2010, when we came into office, and the end of this Parliament, we will have increased spending on healthcare by 42%, even when adjusted for inflation. That has enabled us to hire about 37,000 more NHS doctors than there were in 2010, and 52,000 extra nurses. That is a huge increase in resource and people, enabling us to start hacking through the covid backlog. We have already eliminated the two-year waits and have very nearly eliminated the 78-week waits. We are now moving on to eliminate shorter waits as we work through and cut the NHS waiting lists.
Of course, that is downstream—that is secondary care, hospitals and treating disease—and we all agree that the name of the game is to try to prevent disease and to treat things upstream, which is why we made further investments in primary care last week. In general practice, we have about 2,000 more doctors than we had in 2019 and about 25,000 more other clinicians. Compared with 2017, total spend on general practice is nearly a fifth higher. So more resource is going into that primary care.
We also see primary care doing more than ever. GPs are doing about 10% more appointments every month than they were before the pandemic, in 2019. That is the equivalent of about 20 extra appointments per practice per working day, which is a huge increase in output. That is partly because of the extra resource and partly because GPs are working extremely hard, and I pay tribute to everyone in general practice for doing that. That activity in general practice is a big part of the prevention story, helping people to stay healthy and to stay out of hospital.
However, as the hon. Lady alluded to, a lot of health is about the social determinants of health and about getting further upstream and tackling the underlying causes of the disparities that she talked about with great passion and understanding. Taken together, the public health grant, the drugs grant and the Start for Life grant will grow by about 5% in real terms after inflation over the next two years, enabling us to do more, particularly on problems such as drug dependency and drug addiction, which are particularly serious across all of London.
Part one is to have the funding there for those streams, but we have also been making major institutional changes to public health. We have set goals to increase healthy life expectancy and to the narrow gaps between different parts of the country. We have created the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and we and the NHS have created the Core20PLUS5 framework, which is a way of thinking about and tackling disparities. We have also put a new duty on integrated care boards to have due regard to disparities and to try to tackle them.
In quite specific ways, we have been taking action—this is of course relevant to north-west London—to tackle the problems of particular ethnic minority groups. In particular, we have been driving up vaccine uptake, particularly in groups where there is a degree of hesitancy, through targeted advertising and outreach to faith groups and local community groups, and I pay tribute to everyone who has been involved in that in the NHS.
We have been tackling the challenges thrown up by energy, which I will come back to, and by social housing—the hon. Lady was quite right to raise that issue in relation to west London. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for the vigorous action he is taking to tackle some of these challenges through the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and extending the decent homes standard to the private sector, and the action he is taking to make developers pay to clean up the mess they have caused and to make sure we never have a Grenfell again.
So action is being taken across a wide range of areas. Let me just delve into a few of them in the time remaining. On drugs, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care are investing about £900 million extra in the drugs strategy, which will grow local authority funding for treatment by about 40% between 2021 and 2024-25, and create about 50,000 extra places in treatment. As well as that investment in more treatment for people with drug addictions, we are increasing access to naloxone, which helps treat overdoses, and looking at spreading new technologies and new treatments, such as slow-release buvidal. When I visited a health centre in Brixton I saw the effect that some of these new drugs can have on improving treatment for those who have serious drug dependencies.
However, again on the point about getting upstream, our Start for Life programme is a major investment in new and expanded family hubs in about 75 local authorities. Its universal offer in those areas combines peer support for breastfeeding, help for those who are difficult to help and lots of face-to-face support with issues such as mental health. Right from the very start, as the hon. Lady mentioned, this is about trying to improve the disparities that emerge at an early stage.
Across the course of life we are taking action to prevent some of the most important major conditions, and our major conditions paper, which succeeds the health disparities White Paper will say more about this. The NHS long-term plan already announced the ambition to prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases by 2029. We supplied about 220,000 blood pressure monitors to those with high blood pressure. We are modernising and updating the NHS health check and creating a digital version. We have already pretty much got back to pre-pandemic levels of health check. We will be setting out more about the prevention of these major conditions in that forthcoming paper.
Dr Huq
The Minister is giving a constructive response with a lot of numbers in it. Is there a date for the major conditions strategy? I have asked him before and we have sparred on this question. At the time of the health disparities White Paper, the Secretary of State at the time—just two Secretaries of State ago—said that we should level up health as well as levelling up economically. The strategy does feel like a watering down, and it is yet to see the light of day. Do we know when it is coming out?
Neil O’Brien
There is not actually a date for that paper yet, but it will be out relatively shortly. We are tackling the major conditions because these health disparities that we are all concerned about are not mediated by magic; they are mediated by physical things that happen. First among them is probably smoking.
Smoking rates are highest in the poorest places, and that is a powerful driver of all of these other major health problems. I am proud to say that we have the lowest rate of smoking on record in England—just 13%, down from 21% in 2010—and that has happened because we have doubled duty on cigarettes and introduced the minimum excise tax on the cheapest cigarettes, and we have recently announced measures to go further. We are offering a million smokers help to “Swap to stop”, as they say, by giving them free vape kits, because that is so much less harmful, and we will also be introducing a financial incentive to quit, worth about £400, for all women who are pregnant and smoking. A shocking number of people still smoke in pregnancy, particularly in areas of higher deprivation. That builds on some of the things that the NHS is already doing, including the roll-out of carbon monoxide testing for people who are pregnant and smoke, and some of the innovative things that have been done at a local level.
The other big way that these health inequalities are mediated is through obesity. There are much higher rates of obesity in poorer places, for the reasons that the hon. Lady set out. She already mentioned some of the things. She talked about the so-called sugar tax—the soft drinks industry levy, as not a single person ever calls it—which has cut average sugar content in affected drinks by about 46% since we brought it in. We have introduced calorie labelling for out-of-home food in cafés and restaurants, and brought in location restrictions for less healthy food from October 2022. We are bringing in an advertising watershed in 2025. We spend about £150 million a year on healthy food schemes, such as school fruit and veg, nursery milk, Healthy Start and so on. We spend about £330 million a year on school sport and the PE premium. Through the youth investment fund, we are spending about £300 million on 300 new facilities for youth activities. We are also investing about £20 million a year on the national child measurement programme, which is all about trying to note these problems at an early stage and nip them in the bud.
In the hon. Lady’s speech, she talked about the challenges thrown up by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the effect that has had on the cost of living. Again, we are taking decisive action. We are spending about £55 billion to help households and businesses with their energy bills, which is among the highest and most generous support plans in Europe, paying about half of people’s bills over the winter. On top of that, we have action directly to help with the cost of living for people who are less well off, including the £900 cost of living payment for about 8 million poorer households and the largest ever increase to the national living wage for 2 million workers. In total, we are spending about £26 billion on cost of living support next year. We are taking action on energy, but also at the same time taking further action both to improve the quality of rented and social housing through the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and to invest more in energy efficiency so that people’s homes are cheaper to heat.
I have tried to tackle some of the subjects that the hon. Lady raised in her speech, which I thought was really interesting to listen to and covered many subjects. I will not be able to tick all of them off this evening, but it was a pleasure to hear about some of her thoughts and ideas, and a pleasure to commend to the House some of the action we are taking.
Question put and agreed to.
Non-Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment Application Scheme Pass-through Requirement Regulations 2023
(12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Non-Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment Application Scheme Pass-through Requirement Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023, No. 428).
It is a great pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. The regulations were laid before the House on 17 April 2023. Their purpose is to ensure that benefits from applications to the non-domestic alternative fuel payment are passed through to end consumers.
The Government delivered critical support to households, businesses and other non-domestic consumers in response to the unprecedented rise in energy prices. We brought forward emergency legislation and moved at pace to deliver a range of schemes to disburse financial support appropriately. Those schemes include the energy bill relief scheme, which provided a discount on non-domestic consumers’ gas and electricity bills.
The non-domestic alternative fuel payment scheme serves a crucial purpose in ensuring that businesses and organisations that are not on the gas grid, but instead rely on alternative fuels for heating, are not left behind and that they receive a comparable level of support to users who are on the gas grid and have received support for their gas usage. Eligible businesses and organisations are entitled to a payment of £150. In the vast majority of cases, consumers will have already received that £150 through the electricity supply accounts registered at qualifying properties. In addition to the basic £150 payment, we are providing a top-up payment to businesses and organisations consuming a very high volume of kerosene heating oil. The top-up payments start at £750.
An application service was opened on 20 March so that eligible non-domestic customers could claim a top-up payment. Additionally, we provided an application process for businesses and organisations to apply for the basic £150 payment in the limited circumstances where they would not have received it through electricity suppliers—for example, for alternative fuel users who do not have an electricity supplier and therefore could not receive a payment through that route.
Previously, we have introduced regulations to ensure that where the £150 payment was paid to an intermediary through its electricity supplier, the intermediary would be obligated to pass the financial benefit on to the end user. Those regulations were laid in February and were debated by this House in March.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
The explanatory memorandum states that intermediaries should pass on the payment and “must” follow the regulations in calculating the pass-through amount. The next paragraph, 7.8, states that if they do not pass through the whole amount,
“they must demonstrate to the end user that the amount they are passing on is just and reasonable”.
How much discretion is there to decide what a reasonable amount is? If it came to a civil debt, referred to in paragraph 7.11, would the court have any role in deciding whether the calculation was fair? I am trying to understand how that will work in practice.
Amanda Solloway
I believe that the right hon. Gentleman pre-empts what I am about to come on to.
The regulations extend the principle of the earlier regulations. They ensure that payments made following an application are subject to the same obligation to pass the financial benefit on to the end user. They also adopt the approach taken by the earlier regulations for this scheme, and for other energy schemes such as the energy bills support scheme and the energy bill relief scheme.
Let me explain exactly how these pass-through regulations work. They make it mandatory for inter-mediaries to pass through the financial benefit of the scheme to end users. That is needed because in some cases payments may be made to an intermediary and not to the end user of the energy. We need to ensure that payments can be passed on to the end user in a way that is fair.
An end user is an individual, business or organisation that consumes energy and pays for that energy usage through their intermediary—for example, their landlord. That includes a wide range of different arrangements. For example, a tenant may pay their landlord a service charge, or they may pay all-inclusive rent, but they are ultimately paying for the energy consumed at a non-domestic property, so it is only right that they benefit from our support schemes.
As with the other energy price support schemes, the regulations require that support be passed on in a “just and reasonable” way. The regulations were drafted in this way to account for the many kinds of relationships between an intermediary and an end user. If we took a narrow definition of “just and reasonable”, we could run the risk of inadvertently excluding intermediaries from the pass-through requirements. The regulations also accommodate scenarios where intermediaries have multiple end users to pass the support on to, and they make it clear when and how intermediaries should communicate with end users regarding the benefit being passed on.
Our approach to enforcement is consistent with the pass-through regulations for the £150 payment through electricity suppliers, and those for other energy schemes, such as the energy bills support scheme in Great Britain. If an intermediary does not pass on the benefit to a user who is entitled to it, the user will be able to pursue recovery of the benefit through civil proceedings. Should a court rule in the end user’s favour, they would be entitled to the payment plus interest, which is set at 2% above the Bank of England’s base rate.
Hilary Benn
Having given the Committee the benefit of her explanation, will the Minister give way again?
Hilary Benn
I am grateful. If it comes to a civil debt being taken to court, would the court have the ability to decide for itself whether the amount that had been passed through was “just and reasonable”? In other words, could it look at the regulations, interpret them and say, “Actually, intermediary, I don’t think you’ve calculated this correctly, and therefore we are going to award a different amount”?
Amanda Solloway
The right hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. The whole premise of the regulations is to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and that we are passing on the benefits to all the people who should be receiving them. If he would like, I am happy to write with a fuller explanation.
The regulations require intermediaries to provide information to end users. For example, intermediaries must inform end users of the amount of scheme benefit that has been received, the amount that has been passed on and the remedies available to the end user. I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for its comments on the enforcement of this requirement. Again, our approach is consistent with that taken in the earlier pass-through regulations for this scheme and the other energy schemes.
With respect to the requirement to pass on information, it is important to reiterate our view that there would be insufficient incentive for end users to make use of an enforcement mechanism, given the time and administrative burden involved in doing so. For this reason, the regulations do not provide a specific enforcement mechanism in relation to the obligation on intermediaries to provide information to the end user. Nevertheless, we consider that there remains value in retaining the requirement in the instrument, on the basis that we expect intermediaries to comply. This is aided by the Government’s publication of guidance on the gov.uk website to ensure that requirements are clear to all parties. The guidance includes template letters to support end users such as tenants, who can use them to contact their landlords should they be concerned about the application of the pass-through requirements.
The regulations are vital to ensure that the support reaches the people it is designed to help. They are essential to the effectiveness of the non-domestic alternative fuel payment across the United Kingdom, and they will ensure that intermediaries pass on the support to the non-domestic energy customers who are most vulnerable to high energy costs. With those reasons in mind, I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
What the Minister says about the regulations is all good stuff in terms of the need to ensure that high users of kerosene in off-grid industrial and commercial settings get the benefit of £150 and, indeed, of a top-up, as the Minister mentioned, in recognition of the high fuel costs that they are experiencing.
This is, I hope, the last in a dizzying catalogue of secondary legislation, all of which the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), and I sat here scrutinising over a long period to try to get right the regulations related to all the different areas under consideration for payments. In this instance, we are considering pass-through requirements. The principle that we should require pass-through in circumstances where an intermediary receives a payment and the end user of the kerosene, in this instance, may not get it because they are not the primary person or organisation to whom the payment goes, is very important as far as the overall legislation is concerned. When we last met to discuss regulations of this sort, I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether they were the last ones. Apparently that was not the case, but I hope these regulations are the last ones. After all, the scheme is pretty much over and done with, but we are still trying to legislate to ensure that we get it right.
As I say, the regulations are well and good—except, as the Minister pointed out, and indeed as the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments pointed out in relation to another SI, they rather fall down because no one actually has to do anything about them. We have a substantial piece of legislation to try to make sure that people get their money. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central acutely pointed out, the intermediary has to write to the end user of the kerosene, in this instance, to tell them that £150 may be coming their way and, if they are not going to get the full amount—there may be reasons for that, due to administration and other costs incurred by the intermediary—what proportion of it might come their way, and that has to be just and reasonable. However, as the Joint Committee pointed out, in law, the intermediary does not actually have to do any of that. It can simply sit on its hands and not tell the end user that they are entitled to £150 and that a portion of it, or otherwise, will come their way. The intermediary can just say nothing and the law will not come after it, because there is no strict liability in the regulations to make anyone do anything.
Yes, there is a theoretical remedy: as with pretty much anything else, if the end user does not get their £150, they can try to recover it as a civil debt through the courts. But, frankly, if someone does not even know they have £150 coming their way because they have not been told in the first place, it is rather difficult for them to take legal action to get hold of it. The intermediary has no legal liability to tell the end user that £150 should be coming their way. Indeed, there is no Government register of those intermediaries that should be passing on the money, so there is no real way of bottoming this out as far as intermediaries are concerned.
The Government have said in response to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments that—as the Minister outlined, if I may paraphrase—all this strict liability, for the size of the problem before us, would be an awful faff, and the scheme is coming to an end more or less anyway, so it might be disproportionate. The other odd thing they say, as the explanatory memorandum sets out, is:
“Furthermore, it is considered important to ensure consistency across the pass-through regulations relating to the energy support schemes.”
That means: “We have not done it in other pass-through regulations, so we are not going to do it now. None of them has strict legal liability involved, and they all have that very inadequate, virtually non-existent way of getting any sort of remedy for the £150, so at least we are consistent.” That is not a very good way of going about such things.
The Opposition will not oppose the regulations, because it is important for people get their pass-through money if possible. However, the judgment made by the Government is, in effect, to say that it is useful to have incomplete requirements to do various things such as notification, because most people will probably do it, and it is important that they are there as guidance for how to do it. That may well be true, but a number of people might desperately need the money, as the Minister said, but miss out for various reasons. It is not always the case that the people who are intermediaries—perhaps not in this case, but in a number of others, such as park home owners—are necessarily the most completely upright, careful and judicious operators in their organisations. I can see the temptation for some people to say, “Right, we’re not going to have anything to do with this. Nothing much will happen to us, so it’s probably worth our while not to do anything, because we will probably save more money than we might conceivably expend in one or two small legal cases.”
Overall, I do not think that this has been a glorious way to respond to the points made by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. I am not sure that the decision simply to ignore what the Joint Committee said is ultimately supportable, but I hope that the regulations work well and that the people involved get their £150 and their top-up for kerosene. The regulations are well intentioned, given that they are about ensuring that that happens, and we are absolutely with the Government in that desire, but I wonder whether the Minister intends simply to leave the issue or might she possibly have a look, once things are under way, to see if there is a potential problem in the lack of strict legal liability that we think there is at the moment? She may come back to the House at some stage to say either, “Well, it turns out there wasn’t a problem,” or, alternatively, “Hmm, there was a bit of a problem, so how can we get it better next time?”
Amanda Solloway
I thank the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and the hon. Member for Southampton, Test for their remarks and contributions. I can give my assurance that the Government have been looking at all the schemes and endeavouring to ensure that they are fair and equitable for all. That is the reason for the regulations.
The regulations are necessary to provide that the support of the non-domestic alternative fuel payment scheme, following an application, reaches the businesses and organisations that need it, as we all agree. The £150 payments delivered through electricity suppliers represent the main part of the scheme, but the top-up payment for higher uses of kerosene heating oil plays a crucial role in ensuring that high users of kerosene are able to meet their energy costs at this time of inflated prices.
The top-up payments start at £750 for properties consuming 10,000 litres annually, but they are uncapped and progress upwards in line with the volume of kerosene consumed. The payments support a wide range of non-domestic customers, such as businesses, schools, hospitals and churches, that are not connected to the gas grid. The support is crucial to ensuring that they receive a comparable level of support to users that are on the gas grid. We opened the application process for the top-up payment in March. We additionally opened application routes for the small number of customers that could not receive the £150 payment from an electricity supplier. We are now processing payment as quickly as possible.
The previous pass-through regulations established a set of obligations on intermediaries receiving the basic £150 payment through an electricity supplier to ensure that that support is passed on appropriately to the end users. These regulations rightly ensure that the top-up payments are subject to the same requirements and that end users are protected appropriately. Additionally, they will ensure that the protection is extended to the small number of users that needed to apply for the basic £150 payment.
We are mindful of comments received about these regulations and previous pass-through regulations, but it is important that the non-domestic alternative fuel payment is delivered consistently as a coherent scheme. As the regulations cover only a small part of a wider scheme that is in place already, it is right that we have maintained the approach followed in the previous pass-through regulations for the scheme. We will continue to update and publicise our guidance on the gov.uk website to ensure that end users and intermediaries understand their rights and obligations. We will also continue to seek views and feedback from those impacted by the regulations, as well as key delivery partners. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023, No. 440).
I am pleased to be here in place of the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), who is travelling.
The regulations amend the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The statutory instrument was laid on 20 April 2023 under powers provided by the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 and contains measures on which we have co-ordinated with our international partners to increase the pressure on Putin for waging an illegal and brutal war against Ukraine. The measures place further constraints on Putin’s war machine and Russia’s economy, thereby adding further force to the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever faced.
The instrument delivers on the UK Government’s commitment to ban the export of all items that have been used by Russian forces on the battlefield to date. It builds on extensive bans in previous legislation by widening export prohibitions to include additional aircraft and vehicle parts, radio and other electronic equipment, biotechnology assets and 3D printing machinery. The second tranche of measures in the legislation prohibits the important of nearly 150 additional types of goods that generate export revenue for the Russian economy. The instrument captures products as diverse as cigars, wood, tools and machinery. The third tranche of new restrictions covers the import of iron and steel products, including metal from Russia that has been processed in third countries.
The additional sanctions underline the UK’s leadership role on Russian trade sanctions. They will inflict further economic damage and constrain Putin’s ability to equip and fund his illegal war. The measures were applied from 21 April 2023, with the exception of the prohibition on iron and steel products processes in third countries, which will enter into force on 30 September 2023—the same date as the EU’s equivalent ban.
Before I finish my opening remarks, let me take this opportunity to update the House on a separate sanctions measure that was announced in April 2022. After careful consideration, the Government have decided not to proceed with a cap on funds held by Russian nationals in UK bank accounts. Having considered that policy option, we have concluded that carefully targeted sanctions against high net worth supporters and beneficiaries of Putin’s regime is a more effective way to achieve our objective. The decision follows careful scrutiny of the policy by relevant officials across Government and in consultation with industry, and is in line with our objective of ensuring that our sanctions are targeted and effective.
As this latest package of sanctions demonstrates, we will continue to impose hard-hitting sanctions against the Russian state and its supporters. This package alone adds a further £280 million-worth of exports and around £145 million-worth of imports to our prohibited list. As with all our sanctions, the latest package has been developed in co-ordination with our international partners. We will continue to work with them to identify and address any gaps or loopholes that emerge in our sanctions regime.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The Minister talks about loopholes; will he confirm whether it is correct that the stated origin of petroleum is determined by where it is refined? Given that oil and gas products are sold on the international market, is he entirely confident that Russian oil and gas that is refined elsewhere is not finding its way into the UK and thereby avoiding the sanctions?
Leo Docherty
We are fully seized of the need for constant vigilance in that regard, because we would of course want to prevent any attempt by the Russian regime to circumnavigate sanctions.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister for that interim response, but it does not quite answer the question that I posed, which was about whether the declared origin of petroleum products is determined by where it is refined. We may believe, or it may be on the ticket, that petroleum has come from a perfectly legitimate source when it has not. It would be helpful if the Minister could outline the Government’s strategies to ensure that the sanctions that we are putting in place are effective.
Leo Docherty
I do not want to give an inaccurate answer on behalf of the Minister of State, so I will ask her to write to the hon. Gentleman, but I am totally seized of the importance of that question.
To conclude, these latest measures demonstrate our determination to target those who participate in or facilitate Putin’s illegal war of choice. Sanctions continue to work. Russia is increasingly isolated and cut off from western markets, services and supply chains. Key sectors of the Russian economy have fallen off a cliff and its economic outlook is very bleak indeed. The UK Government will use sanctions to ratchet up the military and economic pressure on Russia until Putin ends his brutal invasion of Ukraine. We welcome the clear and continued cross-party support for this course of action. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank the Minister for setting out the details of the latest expansion in the UK’s sanctions. As the coming Ukrainian offensive nears, Russia’s illegal and barbarous actions are clearer than ever. It was very welcome to see President Zelensky in the UK today, visiting Chequers. I hope that will translate into further concrete, ongoing support from the Government. We also welcomed the UK Government’s announcement to the House of Commons last Thursday that further technical and hardware aid would allow Ukraine to prosper in its dealings and defend itself as robustly as possible.
In that vein, and before we go into details pertaining to the sanctions, I want to ask the Minister how the Government plan to use the fourth summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe. It is an opportunity to push for greater international support for Ukraine and bring about the further consensus that we must galvanise across our continent. Although we have seen committed support from many of our partners across Europe, we must always seek leadership opportunities to give voice to Ukraine’s continued plight and to ensure that the continent’s focus remains on the heinous crimes being committed against the Ukrainian people.
Labour has made clear that, should there be a change of Government, we will remain unshakeably committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty, nationhood and people, as well as to our allies, partners and NATO against the attempts of Putin, or any other demagogue, to dislocate the global rules-based order. The UK’s sanctions regime is one of the most critical weapons in our arsenal to achieve that, knowing as we do that, over the years, Russian oligarchs have had rather a picnic when they have been based in London.
There are two measures being debated tonight. I will deal with the first in detail. The Minister mentioned the second, on the question of whether individuals should be allowed to have £50,000 or more in their bank accounts when they are from the Russian Federation. Labour does not support the measure, and we will seek opportunities in Parliament to make that debate better known and to make our voice clear on that. It is weak, and it is allowing rich oligarchs to get away with putting £50,000 in their bank accounts without any questions being asked. Under the “know your client” obligations that banks are meant to adhere to, that would strengthen our—
The Chair
Order. I blame the Minister for opening up on that subject, but that is not within the scope of our debate. It is perfectly legitimate to respond to the Minister, but I would be grateful if we could move on shortly.
Leo Docherty
It was just a tangential issue that we thought it was helpful to clarify.
Catherine West
Thank you so much, Sir Gary, for that clarification. That was my initial impression: the officials were so kind as to provide a briefing to the Opposition and it was my understanding that that matter was coming forward at a later date. Therefore, we can leave the debate and the vote on that matter of principle—
Catherine West
I see the Minister nodding, which is positive, because I am sure that Members would not like to have that jumped on to them at the last minute.
To revert to the original reason for our being here this evening, I am pleased to see measures being debated about the sustained export of commodities to Russia. No sanctions regime worth its salt could countenance that, so my first question for the Minister is: why has it taken so long for this measure to be brought before the Committee? The exportation of aircraft parts, radio equipment and biotechnology, among other key items, goes against the spirit of our regime and could have been a contributing factor in sustaining Russian offensives and in their destructive impact on Ukraine. I understand that such measures take time to fine-tune and are a constant work in progress, but we are well over a year into this harrowing conflict and we were, until April, still exporting biotechnological materials and vehicle parts to the Russian Federation. My second question, therefore, is this. What is the total value of the equipment that is now covered by the new measures and has been exported to Russia since February 2022, and were the Government monitoring the rate of those exports prior to 21 April 2023, when those measures came into effect?
Labour is committed to supporting the Government in expanding the UK’s sanctions regime, but time and again we come to Committees such as this to debate measures that, frankly, should have come into effect much sooner than a year and two months into this egregious conflict. I have a great appreciation for the work of the sanctions taskforce in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and for the staff of the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, but has further consideration been given by the Government and Ministers to questions about staffing levels and resourcing to ensure that critical measures such as these are brought in sooner rather than later, to ensure that the Russian war machine is sapped of resources more rapidly and more totally?
It is welcome that the Government will expand the sanctions regime in respect of the acquisition, supply and delivery of these goods and related financial, technical and brokering services, and Labour will of course support them. It is also welcome to see an expansion of existing prohibitions on importing iron and steel products. Concerns have been raised time and again that sanctions in this area are too weak and open to evasion. That is why I am profoundly concerned that this specific expansion will not come into force until the end of September. A similar statutory instrument, which I was delighted to cover for the shadow Minister for Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), gave a bit too much notice to others that a sanction was coming in. Can the Minister account for why there seems to be an enduring series of delays with regulations such as these and across our regime? Oligarchs and those across Russia’s political class are not sitting idly by, waiting for their vast wealth to evaporate; they are seeking out ways to capitalise on the delays. I fear that the pace at which the Government are moving is only maximising what those people can retain in the long term.
I would now like to discuss oil and hydrocarbons. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North made a very important point about how oil and hydrocarbons can be processed in third countries and then exported, even though they originated in the Russian Federation. Will the Minister clarify this? Does he think that we have a tight enough sanction to ensure that no profit returns to the federation to feed the war machine?
On 3 February, a general licence was issued by OFSI that
“permits the supply or delivery by ship of Russian crude oil and oil products, as well as provision of associated services, so long as the price paid for Russian oil or oil products is at or below the price cap”
of “$60 per barrel”. Under this licence, a person may also
“supply or deliver Russian oil by ship from a place in Russia to a third country or from one third country to another third country provided that the Unit Price of the Russian oil concerned is at or below the Price Cap.”
OFSI also states:
“A service provider may provide relevant services to any person provided that the unit price of the Russian oil being supplied or delivered by ship from a place in Russia to a third country or from one third country to another third country is at or below the Price Cap.”
Will the Minister outline the motivation behind that general licence, given that we should be aspiring to end the proliferation of Russian oil across the world rather than encouraging it?
Secondly, how is the Minister ensuring that OFSI rigorously and assiduously enforces the price cap, and how many infringements have been collected? What monitoring is happening of the UK’s role in the international oil market? Today, it seems there could be further cause for concern. The Minister might correct me, as the notice for this SI has been quite short, but the amendment to chapter 4I states that regulation 46Z6 will be omitted. That of course concerns the prohibition on the supply and delivery of Russian oil products. Will the Minister please clarify the purpose of that omission? At first glance, it appears that it would remove the prohibition on the supply and delivery of Russian oil, but I am sure that that is a drafting error. Perhaps the Minister could provide an assurance that the change has a purely technical or drafting purpose. I reached out to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for clarification on that point in advance of the Committee, and I am not sure whether this is up to date.
As I am sure we can all agree, oil is the bloodstream of Putin’s war machine. As long as the UK continues to make inexplicable exemptions and grant implausible licences, it will continue to flow freely. We know that countries in Russia’s geopolitical neighbourhood are purchasing tens of billions in oil products, and it seems entirely confounding and unacceptable that a drop of that oil should reach the UK, but that is what is happening because often it slips through various other sanctions arrangements. I look forward to the Minister providing much needed clarity and I urge colleagues across the FCDO to consider that the integrity of our sanctions regime really is on the line.
I would like to raise an issue that I know my hon. Friend the shadow Europe Minister has relayed to the Minister on several occasions, which is the question of cryptocurrencies. My hon. Friend brought to the attention of the Minister two entities that the US Treasury sanctioned in August last year—TornadoCash and Blender. Those cryptocurrency mixers have been used to launder billions and obfuscate the proceeds from illicit cyber activity by scrambling the origin of transactions.
The Chair
Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but there is no reference to cryptocurrency at all in the regulations we are discussing. Will she be very brief on this point?
Catherine West
Thank you, Sir Gary. I will conclude by saying that this is an opportunity to remind the Minister of what is left out of the sanctions regime. It is extraordinary that there is nothing on cryptocurrency in any of our sanctions to date, even though the US, our close ally, includes it.
In conclusion, I am sure the Minister will be unsurprised that I want to cover the issue of asset seizures and sequestration for the purposes of supporting the reconstruction of Ukraine, but I know that you, Sir Gary, will be very cross with me if I continue to raise matters that are not directly relevant. However, you will also understand and remember from when you were an Opposition Member that one can use these opportunities to slip in some more references to important matters.
The reconstruction of Ukraine, if the war ended today, is predicted to cost hundreds of billions, if not more than £1 trillion. De-mining alone could take decades, so I will not continue in that vein.
Catherine West
I just want to mention that we are pushing the Government on that.
Finally, what conversations has the Minister had with his counterparts in the Ministry of Justice about proxies and how we can bring an end to the practice of others—for example, oligarchs—using different bank accounts to hide and obfuscate the location of assets? Will he comment on that, given that that is his brief, and will he give a hint as to how he thinks such measures might come forward in future months as we seek to strengthen the sanctions regime?
Putin’s atrocious and illegal assault on Ukraine’s nationhood and its people shows no sign of abating. We must use the financial tools available to us to hold the Russian Federation to account. The Labour party continues to stand with Ukraine, and ultimately the Government can rely on us to go even further, even more quickly, in the sanctions regime.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The third party supports every opportunity that we can take to apply leverage to the Russian Government to cease and desist their illegal war and occupation in Ukraine, so we are relaxed about supporting the proposals in the statutory instrument, but I have three brief observations. First, like others I wonder why, given that the invasion happened on 24 February last year and the war has escalated to its present level, it has taken nearly 15 months for us to debate these measures. Secondly, with regard to iron and steel there will be a delay of another three and a half months before the measures come into effect; why is that?
Thirdly, throughout the section on revenue-generating goods, there is repeated reference to the fact that it is a defence against breaking the law if the respondent can demonstrate that they did not know that it was in operation. Normally, ignorance of the law is no defence against committing a crime, so I wonder why it has been felt necessary to state it not once but in every relevant regulation. If there is a reason for it, that is all well and good, but I am concerned that it could be used as a loophole. As the regulations are implemented, will the Department monitor the number of instances in which that defence is cited? If it is being used egregiously, we will need to take action to tighten it up.
Barry Gardiner
Does the hon. Gentleman, like me, want to push the question slightly further and ask the Minister whether any contracts were known to be in the pipeline that might have resulted in the legislation being delayed in the way that the hon. Gentleman just outlined, or indeed whether any contracts are now in the pipeline in relation to steel products that would make it convenient to have a delay in the legislation? Does he think that it would be sensible for the Minister to write to us to give reassurance on those points?
Tommy Sheppard
I concur with those observations and ask the Minister to respond. I can give a personal example: I am currently very much engaged in supporting the refurbishment of the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh, which is a very big project. The price has escalated for a number of reasons, one of which is that the contractors are no longer using Russian steel, which was in the original proposals. That has led to a price increase. Given that that is happening in the real world, there must presumably be other contractors engaged who are not so concerned to demonstrate their action against Russian suppliers and the Russian Government. That is presumably why the regulations are necessary, but my point stands about the need to evaluate and monitor the number of times when ignorance is cited as a defence.
Leo Docherty
At the outset, I confirm that I will happily write to the hon. Members for Brent North and for Edinburgh East with regard to the specific question on steel contracts, to clarify that 100%. I thank all colleagues for their support of the statutory instrument. The Government are grateful for the cross-party support for our approach to this issue. We continue to lead on sanctions. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to Zelensky’s presence at Chequers today, which was another good sign of our close and tremendous support for Ukrainians in their hour of need, and I confirm that we will continue to lead on sanctions.
The regulations before us indicate not that we are slow in prohibiting certain things, but that sanctions evolve. Often it is in response to the operational landscape that certain parts and technologies that were hitherto not considered operationally or militarily important become apparent. When they do, we evolve our sanctions regime. That is why there is an iterative approach to our sanctions.
The hon. Lady asked a good question about enforcement. Of course, as part of our continued commitment to evolving and enforcing our sanctions, we are pleased to have announced a new economic deterrence initiative as part of our integrated review refresh. That consists of up to £50 million over two years to improve our sanctions implementation and enforcement. A lot of that funding is going into personnel to ensure that we get it right. I think that offers reassurance.
The hon. Lady asked a good question about hydro-carbons circumvention. I would be very pleased to ask the Minister of State to write to her to outline our approach to the oil cap and the issue of circumvention —and, of course, also on the role of OFSI.
We should be confident that we are in the lead and that our sanctions are biting. We have sanctioned more than 1,500 individuals and entities, which puts us right at the front of the pack in comparison with the EU and the US. Our sanctions have had a massive financial impact on the Russian economy. For example, the global assets of Russian banks that we have frozen amount to £960 billion, so the impact is very significant.
I am grateful for the support of colleagues today. The regulations are the latest addition to our package of sanctions, and we are committed to keeping up the pressure for as long as it takes. As the Prime Minister laid out when he met President Zelensky this morning, we stand firm and resolute alongside the people of Ukraine until they prevail. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Planning permission for telecommunication telegraph pole installation
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Food Labelling and Allergies
(12 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petitions 585304 and 589716, relating to food labelling and support for people with allergies.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the petitioners for their campaign; I know that they are here today. Together, the petitions have received over 33,000 signatures. The first petition states:
“The Government should appoint an Allergy Tsar to act as a champion for people with allergies to ensure they receive appropriate support and joined up health care to prevent avoidable deaths”.
The second petition, on Owen’s law, asks for a change in the law around labelling in UK restaurants. It has three parts. First, it asks that restaurants
“put all information about allergens in their food on the face of the main menu so customers have full visibility on what they're ordering.”
Secondly, it requires servers to
“initiate a discussion with customers about allergies on all occasions”.
Finally, it states that there should be a register for all anaphylaxis deaths.
Those are the petitions, and I will discuss why the petitioners are asking for these measures. Sadly, they have suffered unbearable losses. Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died in 2016 after eating a baguette that did not have a complete list of ingredients. The baguette contained sesame seeds, to which Natasha was allergic. That caused her to suffer an allergic reaction, which resulted in her death. She was only 15—so young. Natasha’s parents Tanya and Nadim have already been successful in their campaign for Natasha’s law, which enforces a requirement for all pre-packed sandwiches to contain a list of ingredients and which became law in October 2021.
The second petition was started by Owen Carey’s sister Emma. Owen suffered from multiple allergies all his life and was used to ordering meals for his restricted diet. In April 2017, he ordered a chicken burger at a restaurant. He explained his allergies to the server; with no other information available, he was assured that he was safe. However, the chicken was marinated in buttermilk, to which Owen was very allergic. He knew instantly that something was wrong. He had a massive reaction and, after 45 minutes, collapsed and died. He died celebrating his 18th birthday—again, so young. They were both young people with their entire life ahead of them. We can all clearly see why Natasha and Owen’s families want to stop anyone else going through this.
I spoke to the families of Natasha and Owen so that they could explain to me in their own words exactly what they are trying to achieve. I am grateful to them for that. It appears that both petitions go hand in hand. The petitioners believe that if we had a tsar, they would have a champion who could work with families who have suffered bereavement and with charities that want to help, along with frontline staff, proprietors, supply chain businesses, the Food Standards Agency and all Government Departments that share an interest. It is a straightforward ask.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The FSA has highlighted the fact that while young people are more likely to experience a food allergy, they are less likely to tell a café or restaurant about it, especially if they have eaten there before. Does the hon. Member agree that we must empower young people to speak up about their allergies and make businesses aware of the importance of proactively asking customers about their potential allergies?
Nick Fletcher
The hon. Member is exactly right. I was forwarded a list of many people who have fallen foul of that, and they always seem to be so young. I will definitely come on to what the hon. Member has mentioned.
The second petition seems relatively simple, too. How difficult can it be to put on a menu what allergens are in each piece of food? In fact there is already a law requiring that, but it falls short by requiring it “by any means”, which often means that allergen information is missed by those who need it most. The petitioners say that the law needs tightening up, but they are flexible in their ask: they say that allergens must be stated on the face of the menu, but that could be in paper format or electronic. For a server to make sure that a discussion is had seems another simple ask, and a list of the sad losses could be dealt with through the coroner’s office.
But as with many things in life, it is not quite as simple as all that. The industry is huge. Billions of pounds are spent each year on food from outlets of varying sizes. We have all been to a local caff or McDonald’s; some of us have been fortunate enough to go to some rather expensive restaurants in hotels with branches around the world. Then there are those in the middle, the squeezed small and medium-sized enterprises. Therein lies the problem: the variation among outlets and what and how they serve.
Fast food chains give a specification to their suppliers of the ingredients that their food is to contain, with no variations—that is what they ask for and that is what they get. But other outlets, big and small, often get swaps when they order their ingredients, pretty much like when we get an online supermarket delivery. A local caff may be able to cope with that, with a good proprietor keeping a check on what they are sent and very few menu changes throughout the year, if any. It may not be too much of a problem for them, but the large restaurants and some of the independents with fast-moving kitchens may struggle.
We have all seen a chef with 40 covers to do bellowing in someone’s ear, pots and pans everywhere, hot kitchens with hot atmospheres, young people trying to learn their trade, and impatient customers breathing down a server’s neck. These are high-pressure situations, often in open kitchens, and these people are all trying to make a living. Mistakes will happen.
Then there are menu changes. Many restaurants change their menu frequently to add to the customer experience. They have to offer a variety to keep it fresh, and hopefully in season too, but every change brings a problem—another allergy list and another place for an error to occur. It is not as easy as one first thought.
Margaret Ferrier
Data from 2022 published by the FSA shows that when dealing with a risk of food allergies, smaller manufacturers will focus on the physical separation and secure storage of ingredients. In comparison, medium-sized manufacturers will take further steps such as cleaning between production runs and managing the packaging, labels and transport of products. Does the hon. Member agree that businesses of all sizes should have access to personalised guidance on how they can improve their allergy awareness in risk assessment?
Nick Fletcher
I will be coming on to that point, but I believe that an allergy tsar, which the first petition asks for, will be able to bring those concerns together. That would help the industry immensely.
There are companies out there such as Control Catering that want to work with the Food Standards Agency and the industry to create a single source of truth. They want to work with manufacturers so that all data is seamlessly passed to the end user, the customer or diner. The petitioners believe that that is a sensible idea, as we have over 50,000 products across a huge supply chain going to many different outlets and 60 million-plus people across this land. The British Institute of Innkeeping and Hospitality Allergen Support UK feel it is sensible, too, but apparently the FSA is slow to respond when contacted about it. The industry believes that unless we have a joined-up approach, we could end up putting forward legislation that has the best intentions but turns out to be completely unworkable. I know that there is much more that the petitioners would have me say, but I must move on in the hope that other MPs will add their thoughts on the complexity of the issue.
The second part of Owen’s law would be for all servers to start a discussion with customers about allergies so that customers do not have to ask. My own experience is that that is happening anyway. However, I am fortunate enough to be able to answer no, so I am unsure how deep the conversation goes if the answer is yes. Stakeholders feel that training is required for all servers, but I understand that the industry suffers from a high turnover of staff, so that is not an easy task.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for introducing this important debate. There is very often a high turnover of staff in the hospitality trade, but does he agree that technology such as electronic forms and QR codes might help? Even though staff members might work in a restaurant for only a couple of months at a time, such technology would enable them to quickly check when asked what ingredients are in the food they are serving.
Nick Fletcher
The hon. Member is right. As we move forward in the digital age, we will be able to put options on menus that the server can discuss with the diners and things like that. Maybe the conversation should always be instigated, but if the answer is yes and the server is not adequately trained, they should be assisted by a person with higher authority or even the chef. Again, that may be difficult to implement, but a conversation must take place with an outcome that protects anyone who suffers with allergies.
Before I move on from this point, though, let me say that I believe that there is a responsibility on people who suffer with allergies to make that known. They must play their part. I know many are young, but I am a firm believer in personal responsibility and we must give the catering industry a chance. We must help it to help us if the system is not quite working as it should. All of us who are fortunate enough not to suffer should support those who do by being patient, by showing a caring attitude when ordering our food with guests and, if it is our child who suffers, maybe even by ordering what they order. That would help our children and the restaurateur, and it would show some skin in the game. If we want change, we should be prepared to bear a little cost ourselves and to make ourselves a little uncomfortable for the cause. The state cannot and should not be the answer to everything. We should all play our part.
Finally, Owen’s law asks that we maintain a list of all people who have died from anaphylactic shock. It would not necessarily be for the public domain or even name where the tragedy occurred, but it would be recorded to make the Government and all stakeholders aware of the size of the problem and to aid work on prevention as well as a cure. Professor Adam Fox believes that there should also be a list of near misses. Near misses are recorded in the construction industry; they should be recorded here, too. If we know the size of the problem, it may focus our attention on why there is a problem. Why are 40% of the population suffering with some kind of allergy? To me, that is the real question.
We can now see why the petitioners believe that the introduction of a tsar could help with the second petition’s aim of instigating Owen’s law. They believe that if we do nothing, we will see more tragedies, and if the industry simply states, “All our food may contain certain ingredients,” people with hypersensitivity will stay away. Some stakeholders believe that if we move too quickly with poor regulation, we will damage the industry and no doubt close businesses. So do we do nothing? Well, the petitioners and the industry at large agree that there should be a change, and appointing a tsar who could lead on solutions may just do that. It may help to bring forward legislation or ideas that will not only save lives, but save an industry that is battling on many fronts simply to stay afloat. I look forward to listening to what colleagues and the Minister have to say.
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
What we are talking about today matters a great deal to a great many people. Millions across the country suffer from some allergic condition: it is estimated that 44% of adults and 50% of children in the UK have one or more allergic disorders. While the prevalence, severity and complexity of allergies have increased on a global scale over the past 60 years, UK rates are among the highest in the world. There is a modern-day epidemic in allergy. I therefore very much welcome both petitions: one to appoint an allergy tsar as a champion for people living with allergies and the other in support of Owen’s law, a change in the law around allergy labelling in UK restaurants. I congratulate the organisers. Literally tens of thousands of people are mobilising and demanding a change both in public health and in corporate responsibility for labelling policy.
Why do we need an allergy tsar? No single person has overall responsibility for the wellbeing of allergy sufferers in the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England or anywhere else in Government. There are no clear lines of accountability in relation to the overall NHS provision of allergy care. An allergy tsar would act as a champion for people living with allergies. As the national lead, the tsar would ensure that adults and children with allergies received appropriate support to prevent avoidable death and ill health. The lack of a national lead has been raised time and again by coroners at the inquests of those who have tragically died following severe allergic reactions. The need for an allergy tsar is supported by the National Allergy Strategy Group and across the allergy community.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I pose this question because my hon. Friend is an expert in the subject. There have been calls for a national allergy tsar for a long time. Does he understand why the Government are resistant to them?
Jon Cruddas
I will come on to that point. There have been 20 years of reports that agree about a common platform for policy change, and there is a unanimity across the community. It is bewildering that over the past 20 years, Governments have not responded in a proactive way, although over the past 18 months there have been a few changes, which I will come to later.
The need for an allergy tsar is supported by the National Allergy Strategy Group. In addition, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and the NASG are asking the Government to better support people with allergies through, first, an expert advisory group for allergy, which would actively support the growth and delivery of high-quality, comprehensive and geographically diverse allergy provision, and secondly a national allergy action plan.
Margaret Ferrier
A lack of societal awareness around food allergies is dangerous. For example, 600,000 people in the UK have coeliac disease, but there is a misconception that people choose to eat gluten-free food for its health and cosmetic benefits. Does the hon. Member agree that more needs to be done to ensure that the UK public are aware of the definition and dangers of different food allergies?
Jon Cruddas
I agree. I would suggest that that is part of the lack of an overall strategy and of key responsibilities at national level for making people aware about the differences and the public health needs across all our communities in every constituency that we represent here in Parliament.
The second part of the proposal is a national allergy action plan, which would join up GP and hospital allergy services, increase the number of specialist allergy clinics, train more specialist allergy doctors and consultants and provide mandatory training in allergies for all GPs. Owen Carey’s family want a change in the law to compel restaurants to state the allergens in their dishes, specifically on the face of main menus. That would build on Natasha’s law, which dealt with the ingredients and allergy listings on pre-packaged takeaway foods. Natasha’s law left an uneven situation in which people who buy pre-packaged foods have more protection than those who eat in restaurants, which is what the family are keen to sort out.
The family are also campaigning for better training for waiting staff, for more thorough and certified allergy and first-aid training and, as we have heard, for the proper recording of and a national register for anaphylaxis deaths. Those are all very sensible suggestions. Businesses are also responding: in March 2023, the bosses of 11 leading UK businesses, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s, called for clearer rules on food labelling following recent tragic and preventable deaths.
As for the general context, the figures speak for themselves. One third of the UK population, or 20 million people, are living with an allergic condition, and 5 million have a condition severe enough to require specialist care. Fatal and near-fatal reactions have increased over recent years. There has been a 615% increase in hospital admissions relating to allergic disease during the past 20 years. More than 200,000 people require the prescription of emergency adrenalin because of the severity of their allergic condition. Each year, births add 43,000 new cases of child allergy to the population in need. The figures are extraordinary.
What is so frustrating—touching on what my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) raised a few minutes ago—is that over the past two decades a series of reports have consistently demonstrated the prevalence of allergic diseases, the patient needs and the lack of UK service provision. The list of reports includes two Royal College of Physicians reports, in 2003 and 2010, on allergy: the unmet need. We had the 2004 House of Commons Health Committee report on the provision of allergy services, as well as the 2007 House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report on allergy. In autumn 2021, the all-party parliamentary group on allergy and the National Allergy Strategy Group published “Meeting the challenges of the National Allergy Crisis”.
All the reports have consistently highlighted how allergy remains poorly managed across the NHS because of a lack of training and expertise. All have recommended significant improvement in specialist services as well as improved knowledge and awareness in primary care. They have all talked about a national allergy action plan and the need for a national lead person responsible for allergy services—an allergy tsar. Yet in truth, very little has happened in 20 years. Change is long overdue.
Beyond the statistics, we are talking about a growing number of people living with allergic disease. Their condition can have significant and negative impacts on their lives and those of their families. It is frightening and restrictive to live with a condition that can cause a severe or life-threatening reaction at any time.
The reports that I mentioned, spanning 20 years, have all agreed on four key recommendations for change: a national plan for allergy, which would involve making allergy a priority and investing in a national plan led by a designated Department head, a national tsar; specialist care, which would involve expanding the specialist workforce as a priority; in primary care, ensuring that all GPs and other healthcare professionals have knowledge of allergic diseases; and, in terms of commissioning, ensuring that local commissioners understand the allergy needs of their population.
As I mentioned, I want to acknowledge some progress over the last year. The previous care and mental health Minister—the right hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who is now Secretary of State for Education—demonstrated real commitment in this area, and since 2021 we have established a work programme and an ongoing dialogue between civil servants and representatives from the NASG to support the development of a national plan. I hope that that work continues. It should be the right of every allergy sufferer to receive a quality standard of care, and every sufferer should be able to be confident about the food that they consume in restaurants, as is the case under the arrangements that successfully operate in other countries, such as the Irish Republic.
In December 2022, the Food Standards Agency executive said that as a result of the need to respond to the deadline imposed by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, it had to delay its planned work on Owen’s law. Supporting the petition this afternoon will, we hope, put pressure on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to force the FSA to prioritise its work on Owen’s law before another person dies unnecessarily.
I congratulate all the organisers of both petitions and urge the Government to respond favourably to them, because lives literally depend on it. Government action is important, and I hope that the Government can back both petitions this afternoon.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
It is good of you to call me so early, Sir Graham. I was really keen to make a contribution to today’s important debate, the subject of which was ably laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher). Congratulations to the many people who signed the first petition: 13,000, as my hon. Friend said. I think the second highest number of people who signed it live in the Winchester constituency, and I will explain why that was the case.
This is a subject that I am interested in, not only because I chair the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee and am a former Public Health Minister and who has sat many times in the seat where the Minister is today, but because I am the constituency MP of Emma, who is here today and whose lovely brother Owen gives his name to part of today’s debate—one of the petitions—and, of course, to the Owen’s law campaign. The House will wish to note that I met up with Emma on Friday in Winchester and heard a bit about her little brother, the tragic circumstances in which he lost his life and the brilliant campaign that she and the family have put together in his memory. They have hotfooted it from Manchester, where they were on the “BBC Breakfast” sofa this morning, so it is really great to have them here in the Public Gallery today.
As I have said a number of times in this Chamber, the Health and Social Care Committee recently launched a major new inquiry into prevention of ill health. It is a subject that I am passionate about, and it is one of my top priorities as Chair. Obviously, prevention covers a huge range of topics, and that is one of the reasons why we decided to theme the inquiry around 10 key workstreams, which we will be exploring over the remainder of this year and probably into next. A high number of the submissions that we received to our initial call for evidence were related to food. Although perhaps more obvious topics spring to mind when talking about food and prevention, such as the obesity agenda, it is important that we do not lose sight of how crucial preventive work is when supporting people with food allergies and intolerances. Today’s debate on the two e-petitions perfectly illustrates that point.
Owen’s sad death at the age of just 18 gave rise to the campaign for Owen’s law, and we have also heard about Natasha. These were simply avoidable deaths. They really could have been prevented if better information about allergens had been available. I agree with the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) about levelling that playing field—he put that very well. To avoid other families suffering the same awful loss that Owen and Natasha’s families have experienced, it is essential that the Government look at what more can be done to pull together all the work carried out over many years, to ensure that people with allergies have the information they need to make informed decisions about what they can and cannot eat.
I was encouraged to see in the Government’s response to the petition on Owen’s law that the Food Standards Agency met the Carey family to discuss their proposals, and that the agency committed to working with the Department to consider how to improve the provision of information to people with food hypersensitivity. That response, however, was issued back in 2021, so I hope that the Minister will provide us with an update on how that work is progressing.
Alongside improving the provision of information about allergens, it is important, as we have heard, that research continues into food allergies, so that there is an improved understanding of how to prevent complications relating to those allergies in the future. Ministers should look to the work proposed by Professor Adam Fox at the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology. I was encouraged to see in the Government’s response to the second e-petition that the National Institute for Health and Care Research has allocated more than £2 million for research into food allergies over the preceding five years. Again, however, that response dates from 2021, so I hope we can have an update today.
I understand that the Food Standards Agency will discuss the changes proposed under Owen’s law at its June board meeting, which is very good news. Will the Minister ensure that the strength of feeling in the House today is fed to the FSA ahead of that meeting? Specifically—and specifics are important here—we are talking about regulation 5 of the Food Information Regulations 2014, which simply obliges restaurants to provide allergy information accurately “by any means”. That could mean anything—it could mean just a passing verbal reference. In short, the Owen’s law campaign wants to change the words “by any means” and to oblige restaurants to write that vital information on the menu. That is critical for the reasons we have discussed. Many people do not want to discuss their allergies and personal health circumstances when they are going for a birthday meal. That is not unreasonable.
I trust the Minister will agree that it is essential we make progress in this area, and do so fast. The hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham talked about the work that has gone on over a decade or more. I say to the Minister that the bottom line is that the music stops when they sit in that chair. I have been in that chair, and it is a wonderful job—the best job in Government. It gives the Minister a great opportunity. He must grab it. As we have heard, the architecture for Owen’s law is already in place in the Republic of Ireland, so will the Minister promise the House that he will look at that example and learn from it?
We need to see changes in law, regulations, guidance and industry practices, as well as in research into allergies. I will not repeat every ask of the campaign, because my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley did that when opening the debate. We intend to keep working until we get progress on this issue. I promise, as Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, that I will put my weight behind the issue, and the Committee will look at it.
Owen had a range of allergies and, although he was just 18, he had become well versed in managing them. With school lunches, trips and holidays, I heard they had to work so hard to manage them. Owen did not have to die, but he did because he went out for a meal to celebrate his 18th birthday. I asked his big sister on Friday what she thought Owen would be doing today—he would be 23 years old. Emma said she thought he would be somewhere in Wales—the family’s spiritual home—probably on the Gower beaches where his brother Daniel, who is also here today, taught him to surf. He was due to go to Swansea University, and Emma thinks he most definitely would be working in something clever, probably tech or computing, living an outdoors life to the fullest and playing that guitar he loved so much. He cannot do any of that now and that is a tragedy, but we can do something to ensure that his death and Natasha’s were not in vain and to ensure that others do not end up in the same position.
There is a saying that I often like to refer to in this place—I used to have it on my desk when I had the Minister’s job—and that is, “For a moment like this.” That sentence can be completed with anything you like. For a moment like this, we are in Parliament—please let us seize the opportunity.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for opening the debate and all those who signed both petitions. I express my support for the appointment of an allergy tsar to act as a champion for allergy sufferers.
Last year, I was contacted by a then eight-year-old constituent who shared with me the harrowing experience she had had following an allergic reaction. She had been baking with her grandparents and ended up consuming what doctors suspect might have been trace amounts of either pistachio or cashew nut. The reaction led to her being rushed to hospital in an ambulance terrified and, in her own words, thinking she might die. Thankfully, my constituent was able to receive treatment in time, but her parents have told me how they have had to become food manufacturing detectives to keep their daughter safe. They routinely contact food companies directly to understand the company’s cross-contamination policies, which then allows them to make informed decisions on what food they give her. Surely, in today’s Britain, parents should not have to play detective to keep their children safe.
While there is a legal requirement to label products that contain any of the 14 most common allergens, such a requirement is sadly lacking when it comes to precautionary labelling on the risks of cross-contamination. That means there remains significant variation in whether and how food companies provide that information. Some companies that clean machinery between manufacturing different food products decide not to include precautionary labelling at all, despite the risk of cross-contamination from trace amounts of allergens. Where companies do provide such information, the way in which it is shared can vary drastically, including the location of labels on the packaging and the phraseology used. This lack of consistency can lead to confusion, as the Food Standards Agency identified in its report published last summer. Most importantly, it can lead to sufferers or their parents missing critical information that could help them decide whether a particular food is safe.
My constituents have also raised with me the fact that where there are warnings about nuts in particular, they are almost always generic, with statements such as “This product may contain nuts.” In some cases, where sufferers are allergic to some types of nuts but not others, the lack of detail means that large amounts of food products that otherwise might be suitable for them are automatically ruled out. As the Food Standards Agency report makes clear, this much-needed change is supported by industry. It says that food businesses
“want a standardised approach, with clear requirements that provide certainty and a level playing field, giving confidence that their risk assessments protect consumers.”
I therefore urge the Government to appoint an allergy tsar and to take action on precautionary labelling, to ensure that allergy sufferers are able to make informed decisions about what they eat and to reduce the risk that they will expose themselves to potentially deadly allergens.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on leading this debate.
Paul Carey, Owen’s dad, is my constituent. His son was lost when he ate a burger that had been soaked in buttermilk, to which he was highly allergic. Minister, I will be repeating what has been said already, so that it hits home. Owen knew about his allergies, and he explained them to the server, who did not know that the burgers had been soaked in buttermilk. Owen died at the London Eye, which is just over the river from Parliament. That is why I think it is particularly brave for my constituent and his family to come to this debate. I thank them for that, and I thank them for their tireless campaigning to stop another parent going through what they have gone through.
Many restaurants, including small outlets in my constituency, already have allergy information on their menus. I thank them for that. I call on other places to do the same now, before a change in the law. Quite simply, it could save a customer’s life—a customer who could come back time and again because they feel confident in the information provided without having to ask for it or to rely on a server who may not have the full information. That works already. The Republic of Ireland implemented a change to its law in 2014. The Food Standards Agency has already done a fact-finding mission to better understand how that law works in practice. It is doing a workshop next month to go through its findings. It would not need to be a big change in legislation. Food businesses already need to make allergy information available. Putting it on the face of menus would stop those with allergies having to ask for it.
I call on the Minister and the Government to make that a priority and to make that change to the law now. I am sure the whole House would back that minor change, which would incur very little cost to the public purse. I also ask the Government to look at how the training of service staff can be improved so that they ask customers about allergies, and so that they know about allergens and what to do if someone has an allergic reaction.
I have relations and members of staff who have allergies of one sort or another. Minister, it is time we took action. I look to the Minister in his reply to confirm that he will tell us when his Department plans to implement Owen’s law.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, in such an important debate. I will echo the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), and others. Through relatively small changes to how the NHS is organised and to legislation, this dramatic change would both improve and save the lives of millions, so I hope we will hear something positive from the Minister.
I also thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), who opened the debate, for his comments about Natasha Ednan-Laperouse and her family, and for the sensitive and compassionate way in which he dealt with that tragic death. Natasha’s family are my constituents, and we have heard that Natasha died at the age of just 15 from eating an inadequately labelled Pret a Manger sandwich.
The afternoon I spent with Nadim, Natasha’s father, will stay with me for the rest of my life. He described his experience of how she went from enjoying a happy holiday—getting ready to go out, the excitement of getting ready to fly, taking the precautions she normally did as someone who knew about her allergies, in this case to sesame—to end in her awful death. I do not want to draw that out today, though.
I am very pleased to see Natasha’s mother Tanya here today. I feel huge sympathy and compassion for the family, but also huge admiration for them and everything they have done to commemorate Natasha’s life, going far beyond what many people have done to ensure that the lives of others are improved. Not only have they set up the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, which we have heard about, but they pioneered Natasha’s law, which came into effect in 2021. It requires food businesses to include full ingredient labelling on foods that are pre-packed for direct sale. Natasha’s law filled an important gap in food legislation and food safety, and Owen’s law would do exactly the same in another respect. His family are here today, and I praise them for having courage and pursuing this matter. I hope that because of the efforts made by these families, we will see a positive response.
Although we have taken those important steps forward, there is still a lot of work to do, hence the petitions and the debates today and last week in this Chamber. The petitions received a very high number of signatures, and some of the highest numbers were among my constituents. That shows how a case such as Natasha’s can have a profound impact on not just a family, but a whole community.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) for securing last week’s debate marking Allergy Awareness Week and for his speech today. I looked carefully at the Minister’s reply, which I will come back to in more detail in a moment, from the debate last Thursday. I read nothing about steps towards appointing an allergy tsar in that response, which is unfortunate because that is something that the allergy community tell us is needed to keep people safe and to keep research moving forward.
As we heard in both debates, allergies in the UK are on the rise. About one in three people have an allergy-related disorder, and over the past 20 years there has been a more than 600% increase in hospital admissions due to allergic diseases. It is not just the numbers of allergy sufferers that are escalating, but the severity of the symptoms. Over 200,000 people in the UK require emergency adrenalin on prescription to manage their allergy.
The very real and ever-present risk of death from an allergic reaction is an ongoing trauma for families and parents of young children who have an allergy condition. As we have heard, about 50% of our child population now live with an allergic condition. Many of our schools have rightly become nut-free zones, due to the numbers of children who would be at risk if someone brought in a nut-based food in their lunchbox. Children go to school with medication bags including EpiPens and adrenaline, in case the worst happens. We should not underestimate the distress and anxiety that that can cause a child, who must learn from a very early age the consequences that can come from eating the wrong thing.
The weight of that on a child is really quite unfathomable, yet we have nobody in the Department of Health and Social Care or NHS England who is responsible for a strategy to tackle allergies. We know that this is a growing problem and research is desperately needed, but to ensure that allergic conditions get the focus they need, someone must be appointed to champion the issue. Given the current state of the NHS, we all understand that resources are stretched, but if the Government committed to an allergy lead, along with funding, they would allow someone to take ownership of the matter and drive forward a strategy to improve the lives of those with allergies.
If I may, I will give a brief, or at least recent, history and timeline of the lack of progress made towards appointing an allergy tsar. Back in January 2020, an inquest was held into the death of another young person who tragically died as a consequence of an allergy: Shante Turay-Thomas. Following the inquest, Emma Turay, Shante’s mother, said:
“Nothing will ever bring our beautiful Shante back to us but what has kept me going throughout this process is knowing that she would want me to get answers and make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to anyone else…The coroner highlighted the fact that no one person in NHS England or the Department of Health is responsible for allergies, and it is quite clear we need an allergy tsar to co-ordinate and implement steps to prevent others from suffering avoidable deaths like Shante’s.”
It is interesting that we still do not have access to a compendium of prevention of future deaths reports. We rely on individual reports, which are very important, but if coroners’ reports were better organised, this issue would have much greater public attention. In Shante’s case, the coroner’s report said:
“there is no person with named accountability for allergy services and allergy provision at NHS England or the Department of Health as a whole”.
The response from the then Minister for Social Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), was:
“Although there is no single, named individual with oversight for all aspects of allergy policy, individuals and teams work closely together in the Department on all aspects of policy relating to allergies.”
The inadequacy of that response led to the petitions being launched and to the call by tens of thousands of people for the Government to appoint an allergy tsar to act as a champion for people with allergies and ensure they receive appropriate support and joined-up healthcare, and so prevent avoidable death and ill health.
In June 2022, following those events, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation met a new Health Minister, who showed an interest and assured the foundation that meetings were ongoing with the National Allergy Strategy Group and my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham. Three months later, because of the carousel of Prime Ministers turning, the Health Minister was demoted to a different Department and the momentum was lost, notwithstanding the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who was then the shadow Health Minister, tabled an amendment to the Health and Care Bill to create an allergy tsar. Although the Government refused to accept the amendment, the then Health Minister promised to raise the issue with NHS England.
There is a constant expectation that something is going to be done, and then it is dashed, either because of inaction by a particular Minister or because the Minister has simply moved on. Time and again, progress has stalled because of the musical chairs—the many Prime Ministers and the sacking, promotion and demotion of Ministers—and the allergy community has been left waiting patiently for the matter of an allergy tsar to be taken seriously once more.
This reminds me of the long battles we fought to have inquiries into Hillsborough and the contaminated blood scandal. Ministers constantly promise things, or at least say they will look into things, and then they move on and we are suddenly back to square one. I hope the Minister will give us positive news today, not just warm words, and that he will tell us about tangible steps he will take to appoint a lead person for allergies as soon as practicable.
I have not heard anybody coherently argue against the merits of having an allergy tsar, which is why I posed the question I did to my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham. An allergy tsar would be dedicated to and focused on the development of research into cures for allergies, and tasked with ensuring specialist allergy clinics and services up and down the UK. They would be a dedicated lead who works with the Government to implement mandatory reporting on all anaphylaxis events presented to hospital to support comprehensive investigations of fatal and near-fatal anaphylaxis events, and a champion and advocate for those who live with allergic conditions and need more specialist practitioners in their corner.
There is a lot more that I could say, but I will concentrate on two questions that I would like the Minister to answer. First, in relation to the appointment of an allergy tsar, may I remind the Minister what his colleague the Minister for Social Care said in responding to the debate last Thursday? She said:
“There have been calls over recent years—I have heard them echoed today—for stronger leadership on allergy. I am pleased to take this opportunity to outline the allergy leadership that we already have in place. In October 2022, Dr Claire Bethune was appointed national speciality adviser for specialised immunology and allergy. Dr Bethune chairs the NHS England clinical reference group that provides clinical advice and leadership on the specialised immunology services, and advises on how specialised services can best be delivered.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 264WH.]
That is not good enough. That is somebody who has a partial role—a part-time role—who may well do a good job in their own field, but who is not an allergy tsar. It is not a single person who is taking overriding responsibility for allergy.
Let me briefly give a few reasons why an allergy tsar is essential. The debate and the concern about the lack of a national lead on allergy has been going on for 20 years. During that time, clinical outcomes have barely improved, but the number of hospitalisations has tripled. An adviser who specialises in immunology and who simply chairs the existing clinical reference group does not meet the requirements for a national allergy lead. Allergy is currently managed by too many different professional groups. The immunologists do not see it as a priority and are more pathology-focused or laboratory-focused rather than clinically focused. That means that different specialties manage allergy disorders differently.
There is not a strong appreciation that allergy leads to severe symptoms that sometimes lead to death, for example through anaphylaxis or asthma. Allergy is too often trivialised and passed down to primary care practitioners, who are inadequately trained and over-committed in other areas. Allergy is equated with mild disease, but even hay fever has a much greater impact on those affected by it than is appreciated. It would be far better to have a national lead who could also be a clinical lead and who is an expert in managing allergic disease. Training in clinical allergy is minimal, whether for specialist clinicians or for primary care practitioners. We need special efforts to build this specialty. Finally, deaths from anaphylaxis are appreciably lower in those countries with a joined-up clinical allergy service, and in such countries population knowledge about allergy is more highly developed. The case for why we should have an allergy tsar is overwhelming and I would like a clear answer from the Minister today. I do not want a restatement of the current position, because the current position is clearly inadequate.
The second question for the Minister is whether he or one of his colleagues, ideally the Secretary of State, would meet the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and other interested and expert parties. I ask for that meeting for three reasons. The first is that people at the foundation have personal experience, which to their great pain they have shared publicly, and they have a great deal to offer to the Government and to the NHS in explaining the needs of people with allergy.
The second reason is that the foundation and these other organisations have expertise. I have already indicated that the work done by the foundation since her death really puts the Government to shame. It is not just about the passage of Natasha’s law. The foundation also launched a £2.5 million Natasha clinical trial across six British university hospital sites, seeking to prove that everyday food products could be used in NHS settings as a cheap alternative to expensive pharmaceuticals, to provide oral immunotherapy treatment for children and young people. It has also funded bursaries over four years for students and healthcare professionals at the University of Southampton on the internationally recognised allergy master’s degree and PhD courses at this world-leading allergy research centre. The foundation also organised the global allergy symposium in September last year, which was hosted by the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles, at Dumfries House in Scotland, home of the Prince’s Foundation, to discuss allergy and the environment, which was attended by 16 of the world’s leading allergy scientists. That is the work of one family—one foundation. What have the Government done during that time to compare to it?
The third reason why a meeting is necessary is that we have waited too long. I have talked about the musical chairs of Ministers coming and going. The time is long overdue for a Minister to sit down and talk seriously to the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and other interested parties, and to confront the issue. I would love to hear the Minister say that the Government are going forward with an allergy tsar. If he will not say that, I ask him to say that he will sit down and seriously listen in detail—he can do so far better than others in this room can—to the reasons why an allergy tsar is needed. Lives have been lost, and lives are at stake. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the Minister’s response today can make a huge difference to how we go forward on the issue.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Graham. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee for bringing forward this vital debate. I pay tribute to Owen’s and Natasha’s families and to all the people who have come to the debate. I thank them for coming here, because I know how painful it must be for them. I also thank the many thousands who signed the petition.
Owen should have turned 24 last month. This should have been a time of joy and celebration for him and his family. Instead, because of a tragic and preventable failing, he died less than 300 metres from this building. Diagnosed with severe food allergies at just six months, Owen was always careful to manage his allergies and avoid triggering a reaction. On the day that Owen passed, he took the time to inform the waiting staff of his allergies, but because of a miscommunication the information was not passed to the kitchen. That led to his consumption of a chicken burger that had been marinated in buttermilk. Despite the presence of one of the most common allergens, dairy, the information was given only in the small print on the back of the menu, not alongside the product listing. That is in line with regulation 5 of the Food Information Regulations 2014, which requires restaurants to collate allergen information but allows the information to be delivered “by any means”. The regulations do not go far enough to inform customers about what allergens might be a part of their meal. Instead, the onus is unfairly placed on those with allergies to inform their servers. That cannot be right.
Since Owen’s untimely death, his family have campaigned tirelessly for a common-sense change to the legislation, so that it reads “on the face of a menu” instead of “by any means”. That would be much like the vegan and VE vegetarian symbols displayed alongside vegetarian and vegan products in restaurants. I praise the restaurants that acted unilaterally to display allergen information prominently on their menus. That is a straightforward step that could save lives.
The number of people with allergies in the UK has steadily risen, and an estimated one in three people are affected. Owen’s law would benefit the millions of people in the UK who are allergic to a food product or who care for someone who is. Those who suffer with even a mild allergy know the detrimental impact that it can have on their quality of life, the stress caused by social interactions in unfamiliar places, the diligence it takes to analyse everything that they purchase and consume, and the constant worry that their allergy might progress and get worse with little or no warning. It is no wonder that those who are diagnosed with an allergy are more likely also to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety.
At the inquest into Owen’s death, the coroner found that a lack of data collection regarding anaphylactic reactions contributed to a failure to learn from these tragedies. I am pleased that some progress has been made on this front with the establishment of the UK anaphylaxis registry in 2021, but we need to do more to support people with allergies. The past 20 years have seen minimal investment in NHS allergy services, and I support calls for an allergy tsar to advocate on behalf of those with allergies, alongside an increased number of allergen clinics. We cannot eliminate allergens entirely, but one thing we can do is advocate Owen’s law, which would build on Natasha’s law and ensure that allergen information is displayed alongside food products in restaurants so that the proper information is provided in the most accessible manner.
I beg the Minister to ensure that action is taken. No one here has disagreed today; everyone has been in favour of more resources being deployed in this area and of having a tsar who runs a proper strategy and has the proper financial resources to research why so many people are allergic to various products. Let us change the legislation. The Minister has the opportunity to stop many more parents having to face the unthinkable and lose a child or family member. These deaths can absolutely be avoided with the right services and legislation in place.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), who opened the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. It is an extremely important and very poignant debate for many here today and for people across the United Kingdom who have been affected by allergies and inadequate labelling and service provision, which have led to the tragic deaths that have been relayed by Members today. I thank the families for the work that they have done and will continue to do in this space until the allergy tsar is appointed—a proposal that has been supported by everybody who has spoken so far.
The hon. Member set the scene perfectly. He asked for the allergy tsar to be appointed to address the important issues that have been raised, and he highlighted why it is so vital that menus are explicit. The point was also made that although people can have a discussion about their health-related issues at the dinner table, it is perhaps something that not everybody feels comfortable doing. That is exactly why it is so important that menus are explicit and that the issue is taken forward with prominence.
The hon. Member spoke about the numbers of people affected and why it is so important that we have accurate data, which includes not only those who have been impacted, but the near miss cases. Only with accurate data can we understand the scale of the issue and the prevention measures that are needed. He highlighted some of the difficulties for the trade in implementing the changes needed, but, my goodness, when young people’s lives are at stake, it is vital that those changes are made and that we work together with industry to ensure that they happen.
I also thank the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who highlighted that this is a corporate responsibility across Government and that we have been waiting for 20 years, which is far too long, with far too many lives lost in the interim. We must make sure that the strategy comes together, that the tsar is appointed and that Government implement the policies that are so desperately needed.
The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said that Owen’s law has already progressed in the Republic of Ireland. That is very important because it shows that despite the difficulties outlined at the start, this can be done and progress can be made. This proposal therefore has to be implemented pragmatically. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) described her constituent’s near miss case very eloquently, saying that that is why it is so important that we have a standardised approach.
The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) spoke eloquently on behalf of her constituents, as she continually does in this House. She raised the case of Owen and spoke of the support she has given to the family. She has also ensured that constituents’ concerns are heard at the highest level. She called it an absolute priority, and asked the Government for changes to be made in law.
There were some very good interventions from the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), who is no longer in her place, particularly about the Food Standards Agency having been too slow to react. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) spoke at length, reinforcing the need for the tsar to be put in place. His point that the clinical outcomes have not improved was so important: whatever has been done so far has perhaps made progress, but it is just not enough and is not making a difference clinically. He underlined the point that the current position is therefore inadequate. Finally, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) said—this sums up the debate—that common-sense changes are needed, that we must work together and that no one has disagreed.
I would like to reinforce the asks that have been made of the Minister. I also think that much more testing should be available for allergies. I remember being tested, and the nurse saying to me, “Do you have any allergies, Lisa?” I said no, and I was so shocked when my arm started coming up with lots of little red spots and I was told that indeed I had quite a few allergies. We need to make sure that everybody can have that diagnosis and testing so that there are not accidental cases in which people may not even be aware that they have allergies.
As has been said, training for staff in the hospitality sector and others is so vital in this case. The other thing that I am very interested in is the digital, technological advancements that we are making. I would like to hear from the Minister—he can write to me if he does not have this information today; that would be perfect—about the blockchain digital technology that I have heard can be applied to food labelling and distribution. That technological advancement might help us to move forward in this case. Finally, I echo everybody’s words and call on the Minister to please appoint an allergy tsar, because we will be saving very many people’s lives.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I am grateful to be responding to the debate on behalf of the shadow Health and Social Care team this afternoon.
I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for his opening contribution and the compelling way in which he put the case to the House. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) for their contributions, as well as the hon. Members for Winchester (Steve Brine), for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) and for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green), and the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who spoke for the SNP.
I begin by recognising the courage of Tanya and Emma, who are observing us from the Gallery. I know the etiquette is not to refer to the Gallery, but as we have heard, Tanya’s 15-year-old daughter Natasha died of anaphylaxis after unknowingly consuming sesame in 2016, and Emma’s daughter Shante died after a severe allergic reaction to hazelnut in September 2018. To both of you, I say: I cannot even begin to comprehend the loss that you have both suffered. We are incredibly grateful to be joined by you today, and I pay tribute to the exceptional work that you are doing via the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation. Thanks to the efforts of yourselves and others, full ingredient and allergen labelling on pre-packaged food for sale was introduced in October 2021—something that Members on all sides of the House agree is a vital step in the right direction.
But as has been rightly pointed out, there is still a very long way to go. The UK is now in the top three in the world for the highest incidence of allergies, with hospital admissions for food-induced anaphylaxis tripling over the last 20 years. The largest increase has been seen in children under 15, among whom there has been, on average, a 6.9% annual increase in admissions with a serious allergic reaction. Across all allergy sufferers, 20% live with a severe, debilitating form of their condition. The case for action could not be clearer.
We are here today to respond to two petitions. The first relates to Owen’s law, named after Owen Carey, and I pay tribute to Tanya and Emma. I also pay tribute to Paul, Emma and Owen’s family, who are in the Public Gallery. As we have heard, Owen was an 18-year-old who tragically died after eating a chicken burger marinated in buttermilk, to which he was allergic. Despite checking the menu and making his allergies clear to the server, Owen collapsed 45 minutes after his meal and could not be resuscitated. I know that the Food Standards Agency is considering what steps to take to increase the accuracy of allergen information on non-pre-packed food, but I would be grateful if the Minister provided an update on the development of Owen’s law and on what recent discussions he has had with the FSA on this vital issue.
The second petition calls for a specific allergy tsar, for which Members of different parties, but particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, have put the case so diligently. As the coroner highlighted following Shante’s death in 2018,
“there is no person with named accountability for allergy services and allergy provision at NHS England or the Department of Health as a whole.”
That is unfathomable, and this runs the
“risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken.”
That warning was repeated recently by the coroner Heidi Connor following the death of Alexandra Briess in 2021. We have now had two senior coroners making a similar recommendation to the Government that someone —whether we want to call them a tsar, a lead or just someone with named accountability—should be appointed to take responsibility for allergy services in England. I would therefore appreciate it if the Minister outlined what assessment his Department has made or is making about introducing an allergy lead within NHS England or the Department of Health and Social Care, particularly in the light of the powerful interventions that we have heard from patients, bereaved families and coroners and in all the contributions to today’s debate.
The other point on which I would like to press the Minister is NHS service provision. Failings in care for allergic disease have been allowed to fester for far too long. My fear is that with the NHS under increasing stress in terms of waiting times, waiting lists and staff vacancies, the problem may well get worse, not better. What steps is the Minister taking to address the acute problems for allergy sufferers? The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation says that with many GPs not receiving training in allergies, with primary and secondary care services being disjointed and with a shortage of allergy specialists across the UK, there is a postcode lottery of care that is costing lives. That is being compounded by a lack of information, with more than half of integrated care boards not currently holding data relating to allergy disease and treatment. That is not acceptable. I hope the Minister agrees that we need rapid progress in the delivery of allergy care and the monitoring of prevalence and treatment.
Finally, on research, what steps are the Government taking to support potentially game-changing treatments for many allergy sufferers? I am sure that the Minister will agree that we want to see a world in which allergy diseases are eradicated. Members across the Chamber would greatly appreciate any update on research in the field. We all want improvements in allergy care and support for those living with allergic diseases. We owe it to Tanya, Emma, Natasha, Shante, Owen, Alexandra and all the families who have lost loved ones because of avoidable and treatable allergic reactions. I sincerely hope that today’s debate will instigate a step change and that together we can work towards a future in which allergies are cured and those living with allergic disease are properly supported.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for introducing this debate and for doing an excellent job of setting out the issues, and I thank all hon. Members who contributed. I found myself making copious notes; there was a lot for me to take away and work on. I also thank the thousands of individuals who signed the petitions that triggered this debate, which show the strength of the desire and the demand to improve treatment for those who suffer from allergies. Above all, I thank the victims’ families and friends who are here in the Public Gallery. I am terribly sorry for your loss; it was awful to hear about. I pay tribute to you and thank you on behalf of the Government for all the work that you have already done to improve safety and make sure that others do not suffer in the way you have suffered.
I will set out some of the work that is under way on different aspects of the issue in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Food Standards Agency. Food businesses are all under the same legal obligation to provide information at the point of sale indicating the presence of the 14 major allergens. Natasha’s law, which the Government introduced in 2021, requires all pre-packed direct-sale food such as grab-and-go sandwiches to have a label that shows the ingredients and allergens. That is important in helping people with allergies to feel confident that they are choosing safe food.
There are about 2.6 million people with food hypersensitivities in the UK. As hon. Members have pointed out, that number is rising. It includes people with food allergies, intolerances and conditions such as coeliac disease, which my mother suffers from, so I have some sense of the challenges facing people with that condition. The Food Standards Agency is working to address the needs of those consumers so that they can make safe and informed choices about the food they buy. For people with a potentially life-threatening reaction to certain foods, that trust is much more important.
The Carey family are already driving awareness on the issues that people with life-threatening allergies face. The FSA has met the Carey family several times in the past few years and it recognises the positive impact that the Owen’s law campaign is having. We need to consider changes to the law carefully to ensure that there are better safety outcomes for allergen sufferers and to avoid unintended consequences for consumers.
As hon. Members have mentioned, a workshop is taking place at the start of June with the families and others to look at how we can go further. To answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), the FSA team have been over to Ireland to look at its law and study how it is working. I am not in a position to make an announcement today, but I am struck by the fact that everyone involved agrees that there is room to do better. Nothing is off the table at this point.
There are a number of issues relating to improving labelling for people with serious allergies. They are not arguments against doing anything; they are just issues that we must grapple with as we work out how to make progress. One is how we avoid potentially dangerous out-of-date information on menus, particularly for smaller restaurants, which change their ingredients more frequently. We cannot have false reassurance. When I worked in a Chinese restaurant, I was often sent out to a supermarket to find ingredients on the day, and that would often change what was in what we were serving up. Small businesses absolutely cannot have out-of-date information on menus.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
Will the Minister explain how some small outlets in my constituency list the allergens on their menus when, as he says, doing so is an obstacle?
Neil O’Brien
To reiterate what I said at the start of my remarks, I am mentioning some of the issues that we have to solve, not presenting them as insuperable obstacles to doing what a lot of people are calling for.
Another challenge that we have to grapple with, and are grappling with, is how to avoid some smaller businesses taking away a lot of choices for people with allergies by simply labelling too many items as containing allergens. Such businesses may have small kitchens that work with lots of different products and multiple allergens. We cannot take away lots of choices for people with allergies; we want them to have the freedom of choice that everyone expects to enjoy, but to have safety at the same time.
Dr Cameron
The Minister is making some good points, but on his last point, even if some outlets are being over-cautious, surely it is more sensible to be over-cautious than to put people’s lives at risk.
Neil O’Brien
That is a perfectly reasonable point. Of course, safety has to come first; I am merely laying out some of the challenges that we are grappling with as we think about Owen’s law and how we go further.
Even as we work on these issues and think about how we go further in providing information, we are getting on with improving training and knowledge for people in the food industry. Since September 2020, 380,000 people have signed up for allergy training through the FSA, which is a huge improvement in the provision of information and the correct treatment of people with severe allergies. Over the past 22 years, the FSA has invested about £22 million into researching these issues. Its scientific and social research, which improves the understanding of the views of those who are affected, of food businesses and of other key stakeholders, underpins our approach. To underline what I said a few moments ago, although I am not making an announcement today, nothing is off the table. We continue to look at and work on these issues at pace.
Let me turn to some other issues that have been raised in the debate. We have heard the calls for an allergy tsar, a form of leadership to advocate on behalf of those with serious allergies and their families. We already have parts of that leadership role in place, although, to address the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), that responsibility is not squarely on one individual’s shoulders. We will look closely at the proposal and at how we get to a more joined-up approach. The hon. Member asked directly whether I would meet with expert groups and those representing families who have been affected. The answer is yes, absolutely. I am extremely keen to meet and learn from those who have done lots of work on the subject.
It is worth setting out a bit about how the current NHS England operation works and what it is doing, although I recognise that that operation is not what those who are campaigning for a single joined-up tsar are asking for. In NHS England, there is a clinical reference group chaired by the national specialty adviser, Dr Claire Bethune. The group provides clinical advice and leadership on specialised immunology and allergy services. Its members include clinicians, commissioners, public health experts and patient and public voice members to try to capture the insights of those who are most affected by the issues. The members use their combined knowledge and expertise to advise NHS England on the optimal arrangements for the commissioning of specialised services. That advice includes the development of national standards in the form of service specifications and policies. As hon. Members know, those are tremendously important in defining what NHS services must be available.
The CRG is in the process of commencing a review of the current service specification for specialised allergy services. The output of that review will be an updated specification that makes reference to up-to-date guidance and takes account of the very latest evidence to clearly define the standards of care for commissioned specialised services, including transition into adult services.
The CRG is just one tool that we have at our disposal to address the multifaceted challenges that people with allergies face. Officials across Government are working with the National Allergy Strategy Group to consider how we can work more effectively together through things like an expert advisory group for allergy. The arguments that I have heard today will strike a chord with many people listening across the country. I am certain that it is right that we continue the conversation about how to work in a more joined-up way in future.
On ensuring that we have the right mix of staff to support people with allergies, in recent years there has been a 100% fill rate for doctors going into the two most relevant training pathways, allergy and immunology. NHS England will continue to identify priorities for investment in this space, in line with the expressed service priorities of the NHS across all medical specialties and the wider workforce. That work will be complemented by the forthcoming long-term workforce plan that we have commissioned NHS England to develop for the next 15 years, which we have committed to publishing shortly. It will include projections for the number of doctors, nurses and other professionals that will be needed in five, 10 and 15 years’ time, taking full account of improvements in productivity and the need for particular specialisms and skilled people to deal with things like immunology and allergy.
Most people with an allergy can be cared for in primary care settings, with services planned and commissioned by their local ICB. Specialised allergy services, however, are also provided for patients with the most severe allergic conditions, or those who have common allergic conditions for which conventional management has failed or for whom specialised treatments are required. In the current financial year, 2023-24, those services are jointly commissioned by NHS England specialised commissioning integrated care boards, in line with the published service specification.
All patients have access to those specialised services. Specialised services are required to be compliant with the service specification, including the need to have physicians, dieticians and nurses who are specially trained in allergy or have had long specialist expertise in the practice of allergy management and have up-to-date, continuing professional experience. All that work is serving to improve the lives of millions of people who have been affected to a greater or lesser degree by allergy.
There is clearly much more that remains to be done. The Government and those who have personal experience and great expertise working together will be central to driving forward continuing improvements, building on the work that has already been done and the changes that have been made. In future, we want to work closely with those who are most affected to improve the care and service provision for those who have serious allergies, so that they can live full, meaningful and safe lives.
Nick Fletcher
I hope the petitioners believe that they have heard a good debate today. We have heard an awful lot from people who understand this subject. They all want to help to bring everything together and ensure that the incidents and tragedies that have happened to the petitioners do not happen again. It seems to me that there is a lot of work going on, but in many cases it is siloed working, and a tsar would be able to bring it together. We could pick up the pace with that and prevent tragedies like those we have discussed from happening again.
One of the easiest things that restaurants could do would be to say that all their menus may contain something. Although that would cover them in some ways, it would take choice away for a lot of people. We need to get ahead of the issue. We need to look at it and see what we can do so that there is as much choice for everybody, and everybody can dine and eat safely. I believe that a tsar is probably the best way forward to start with. I appreciate the Minister acknowledging that there is an issue there; he has made copious amounts of notes to take away and work through with his Department.
I refer back to the part about personal responsibility. Obviously there is still work to be done, so to ensure that tragedies do not happen we must all work together to support and help individuals who we know suffer and ensure that those questions get asked if somebody forgets to say something. It is not something that should be ridiculed; it is massively important to people. We have a duty to look after everybody in society while we get food labelling to the place where it should be. May I finish by thanking the petitioners for all their work, hon. Members for contributing—I appreciate it, and I am sure it is appreciated by the petitioners—and the Minister for his comments?
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petitions 585304 and 589716, relating to food labelling and support for people with allergies.
Written Statements
Switzerland Trade Negotiations Launch
(12 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
Today the Department for Business and Trade will launch negotiations for an enhanced and upgraded free trade agreement (FTA) with Switzerland, with the first round of negotiations to be held in London this May.
In line with the Government’s commitments to transparency and scrutiny, more information on these negotiations will be published and placed in the House Libraries. This will include:
The strategic case for an upgraded UK-Switzerland trade agreement.
Our objectives for the negotiations.
A scoping assessment, providing a preliminary economic assessment of the potential impact of the agreement.
A summary of the responses to the call for input on trade with Switzerland held in April 2022. This took views from consumers, businesses, and other interested stakeholders across the UK on their priorities for enhancing our existing trading relationship with Switzerland.
Switzerland is already one of the UK’s most important trading partners and a key market for UK businesses of all sizes. Total trade between the UK and Switzerland has quadrupled over the last 20 years to reach £52.8 billion in 2022. Switzerland is the UK’s 10th largest trading partner worldwide and our second largest non-EU trading partner in services.
Building on our long history of close relations and shared values, an enhanced UK-Switzerland FTA will modernise and improve on our current agreement, signed in February 2019. This is a continuity deal based on a more than 50-year-old agreement between Switzerland and the EU and does not contain any commitments on services, investment or digital trade, despite these accounting for roughly half of our economic relationship.
A new agreement presents opportunities to secure long-term certainty on current arrangements and upgrade these to boost bilateral trade and investment. It will benefit crucial UK sectors such as financial and professional services, as well as businesses exporting digitally delivered services. It is also an opportunity to reduce or remove burdensome tariffs and quotas on agricultural goods. In terms of mobility, we will seek to provide long-term certainty, building on the outcomes of the recently extended services mobility agreement.
The UK and Switzerland’s shared values also provide potential for greater co-operation in areas of mutual interest that trade can support, such as innovative research and development, and on our shared ambitions for tackling climate change. Negotiations provide an opportunity for both sides to defend free trade and showcase the best of European co-operation, demonstrating what two like-minded European nations can achieve outside of the European Union.
A comprehensive agreement with Switzerland is a key part of the UK’s strategy to secure advanced modern agreements with new international partners and upgrade existing continuity agreements to better suit the UK economy. It will provide opportunities for businesses big and small across the UK, unlocking trade and investment and opening up new exciting opportunities for growth in all regions.
The Government remain clear that any deal with Switzerland will be in the best interests of the British people and the UK economy. We will not compromise on our high environmental and labour protections, public health, animal welfare and food standards, and we will maintain our right to regulate in the public interest. We are also clear that during these negotiations the NHS and the services it provides are not on the table.
The Government will continue to keep Parliament updated as negotiations progress, including close engagement with the relevant parliamentary Committees.
[HCWS770]
Student Loan Interest Rate Caps
(12 months ago)
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The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Education, Baroness Barran, has made the following statement:
The Government announced on 13 June 2022 that the student loan interest rate would be set at a maximum of 7.3% between 1 September 2022 and 31 August 2023, in line with the forecast prevailing market rates. The Government confirmed that should the actual prevailing market rate turn out to be lower than forecast, a further cap would be implemented to reduce student loan interest rates accordingly.
Reflecting a lower than forecast prevailing market rate across the academic year 2023-24, the maximum interest rates for all plan 2 (undergraduate) and plan 3 (postgraduate) loans have been:
6.3% between 1 September 2022 to 30 November 2022;
6.5% between 1 December 2022 and 28 February 2023; and
6.9% between 1 March 2023 and 31 May 2023.
I am now announcing a further cap: from 1 June 2023 to 31 August 2023 the maximum interest rate will be 7.1% for all plan 2 and plan 3 loans, reflecting the most recent prevailing market rate. For the first time, this cap will also apply to plan 5 (undergraduate) loans, which become available from 1 August. The temporary cap is a reduction compared to the 7.3% maximum rate announced in June.
We will confirm student loan interest rates to apply from 1 September 2023 closer to the time.
[HCWS769]
Public Service Pensions: Cost Control Mechanism and the Reformed Scheme Only Design
(12 months ago)
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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The Government have today published a policy statement on the cost control mechanism (CCM) in public service pensions titled “Public Service Pensions—the Cost Control Mechanism and the Reformed Scheme Only Design”.
Following recommendations from the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission (IPSPC) in 2011, the CCM was introduced into the valuation process for the reformed public service pension schemes in the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 following consultation with member representatives. It was designed to ensure a fair balance of risk regarding the cost of providing defined-benefit (DB) public service pensions between members and the taxpayer. If, when the CCM is tested, scheme costs have increased or decreased by more than a specified percentage of pensionable pay compared to a target cost, then member benefits—and/or member contributions—in the relevant scheme are adjusted to bring costs back to target.
Following a review by the Government Actuary and a full public consultation process, the Government confirmed in October 2021 that it would implement three reforms to the CCM in time for the 2020 valuations:
Reformed scheme only design;
Wider 3% cost corridor; and
Economic check.
The policy statement published today provides further details on how the reformed scheme only design will operate from the 2020 valuations onwards, in particular with regard to those pension scheme members in scope of the remedy for the McCloud litigation.
“Reformed schemes” in this context mean the public service pension schemes introduced as part of reforms following the IPSPC review, from 2015 for most public service pension schemes and from 2014 for the local government pension scheme for England and Wales. The reformed scheme only design means that the CCM will only consider past and future service in the reformed schemes, with legacy scheme costs excluded from the mechanism. This will lead to a more stable CCM and ensure consistency between the set of benefits being assessed and the set of benefits potentially being adjusted, thereby ensuring fairness for both taxpayers and scheme members.
However, pension scheme members of most schemes in scope of the McCloud remedy will have a choice between benefits in respect of their service from 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 to be calculated on the basis of the reformed scheme or the previous, legacy public service pension scheme. The policy statement confirms that all service on or before 31 March 2015—31 March 2014 for the local government pension scheme in England and Wales—will be excluded from the CCM as this service is exclusively in the legacy schemes. All service from 1 April 2022 onwards will be included in the CCM, as this service will be exclusively in the reformed schemes. In particular, the statement provides details of how service during the McCloud remedy period—1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022 for most schemes—will be treated under the reformed scheme only design and concludes that McCloud remedy costs will not have a material impact on the CCM from the 2020 valuations onwards.
The full policy statement can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-service-pensions-cost-control-mechanism-and-the-reformed-scheme-only-design
A copy has been placed in the Libraries of the House.
[HCWS771]
Launch of Community Ownership Fund Round 3 Prospectus
(12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)
Last Friday I announced that the £150 million community ownership fund, which will launch its third bidding round on 31 May 2023, has published a new prospectus detailing positive changes to the eligibility requirements of the programme. The new prospectus can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-ownership-fund-prospectus.
A summary of the key changes to the eligibility requirements for the relaunch of the fund include:
Increasing the amount of funding all projects can bid for from £250,000 to £1 million;
Reducing the match funding requirement; where previously the community ownership fund would contribute up to 50% of total capital funds required, it will now contribute up to 80% of the total capital funds required, with applicants required to raise the other 20% from other sources of funding. Projects in areas of the greatest need will only need to raise 10%; and
Allowing parish councils—and their equivalent town and community councils—to apply in the same way that community groups do now.
These changes will allow more assets to be saved across the UK and will come in from round 3 onwards.
Coupled with support from the fund’s development support provider, who will provide assistance with developing project business plans, organisational governance and financial planning, and potential access to small revenue grants to secure specialist support. These measures will help support as many community groups as possible to save their treasured local assets, ensuring that important parts of our social fabric, such as pubs, sports clubs, theatres, and post office buildings, continue to play a central role in towns and villages across the UK. These changes are explained in full in the updated prospectus available on www.gov.uk.
The community ownership fund is already supporting almost 100 projects across the UK such as the Leigh Spinners Mill in Greater Manchester; the Queen’s Ballroom in Blaenau Gwent, Wales; St Columb’s Hall in Derry City and Strabane, Northern Ireland; and the UK’s most remote pub, The Old Forge, in the Scottish Highlands. These projects are already making a genuine difference to their communities. I look forward to supporting many more small but mighty local assets across the United Kingdom, levelling up the places we love and cherish.
Interested groups can submit an expression of interest form to start their application process at any time. The fund will be running until March 2025, so there is plenty of opportunity for interested groups to apply to take over invaluable community assets and to run them as businesses—by the community, for the community.
[HCWS768]
Ukraine: Ceasefire
(12 months ago)
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Lord Balfe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to assist the realisation of a ceasefire followed by negotiations in the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, on today’s visit of His Excellency President Zelensky, the UK remains steadfast in its support for Ukraine’s brave defence against Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion. Ukraine and its partners seek a just and lasting peace for Ukraine, which affirms its territorial integrity and sovereignty and provides stability for the global community. However, if Russia is serious about advancing the prospects for peace, it must immediately cease attacks against Ukraine, withdraw its forces from the entirety of the country, and commit to meaningful negotiations.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, this war has now been going on for a year, and it is getting worse. We have started to see incidents within the Russian Federation’s borders. Unless someone makes some effort soon to get peace talks going, we are going to head into a tragedy. Is it not the job of His Majesty’s Government, as a member of the P5, to start taking the initiative for peace, instead of constantly fanning war?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I refute my noble friend’s assertion. We do not fan war. The aggressor is Russia. As my noble friend knows, Russia is also a P5 member. It is about time Russia stood up to its responsibility as a P5 member. We want peace; the Ukrainians want peace. Does Russia want peace? We want the answer.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, do the Government agree that Russia should be forced to pay for the damage, both human and material, that it has caused? What options are being considered?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord raises a very important question about the devastation that has taken over Ukraine: cities damaged, lives destroyed, lives taken. Of course, it is important that we look at the full context, and that is why I am delighted that the United Kingdom will be hosting this year’s Ukraine Recovery Conference. As part of that, we will engage the private sector to see how we rebuild. Of course, Russia’s accountability is at the forefront of our minds, including that those who have perpetrated this war will be held accountable.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, if one is looking for a tragedy, one can find it in the daily life of the citizens of Ukraine. It is a rather curious way in which to describe it. This is not a day to discuss a ceasefire; we know that the President is in town—at Chequers, rather—and that his issue is precisely how much more aid we can give to support the counteroffensive. That should be the focus, certainly of the Government—I am sure that it will be—but also of those of us in this House who support the Government and their policy. I will ask the Minister to clear up one ambiguity. There is, from time to time, speculation about the fact that the United Kingdom might give RAF Typhoons. The fact of the matter is that the Typhoon is not a suitable aircraft for what is required. We have obligations on the Quick Reaction Alert, in the Falklands and to NATO. We do not have an aircraft of the type that is required; nor do we have sufficient of the aircraft that we have already.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the entirety of the noble Lord’s opening statement. It is a mark of the unity we have seen in your Lordships’ House and in the other place on this important element. That must stay firm, particularly in the light of continuing Russian aggression. On the noble Lord’s second point, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister committed in February that we would train Ukrainian pilots. The aircraft of choice remains the F16, but the noble Lord may have followed, as part of the announcement we put out today, that we will commence an elementary flying phase for cohorts of Ukrainian pilots. Of course, we work hand in hand with our allies to ensure that the Ukrainians are fully equipped with the defence they need to stand up to this war of aggression.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, has my noble friend noticed that the Chinese are seeking to play an increasingly active part in possible peacemaking in Ukraine? What is the Government’s view on that?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said, we welcome all initiatives to bring about lasting peace, but we are equally clear that the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine must be maintained and sustained in any peace agreement that is reached.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I reiterate the Opposition’s full support for the Government in providing military, economic and diplomatic support to Ukraine, but one thing is absolutely clear: the negotiating table will be open to the Russians only if they are responding to the sort of pressure—particularly the economic pressure—that we put on them. I know we will debate sanctions tomorrow, but what are we doing to ensure that the sanctions we are imposing act as a real deterrent to others so that people can see there is no profit in this war for them? Can we not promote our actions a bit more ably?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I totally concur with the noble Lord. I thank him once again for both his support from the Front Bench and that of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition for the Government’s position. That is important: whether we talk of the Liberal Democrat Benches, the Labour Benches, the Government Benches or indeed the Cross Benches, the unity of purpose and action in standing up with and for Ukraine is very clear.
The noble Lord raises the important issue of sanctions. I agree with him. We need to articulate more clearly. Let us be absolutely clear: every sanction has within it—[Interruption.] I welcome those sound effects, which, I believe, amplify the voice of this Chamber. Every sanction the United Kingdom applies in this respect has a carve-out for humanitarian support. We have articulated that. On Saturday, I was pleased to receive an invitation and attend as part of His Majesty’s Government a meeting with our European partners and those in the Indo-Pacific. I was delighted that, as part of one of these sessions, we were addressed by Foreign Minister Kuleba from Ukraine, who underlined the importance of unity not just within Europe but elsewhere in the world.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the support being offered to Ukraine, including the training of pilots, but the truth is that we have had a hard enough time over the past few years training our own pilots with the capacity we have. Have the Government finally learned the lesson that we need to retain sufficient military capacity and resilience in our own country if we are to be secure in the years ahead? This is something they have signally failed to do in recent years.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the valuable insights of the noble and gallant Lord, and I assure him that we are doing just that by ensuring that we replenish any support we are giving to Ukraine in terms of ammunition, missiles and other equipment, because the first responsibility of the Government is the security of our own nation.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
How many Challenger tanks have we supplied to the Ukrainians and what are we doing about the special ammunition they will require?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Without going into the details of the full deployment, we are working very closely with not just the Ukrainians but our other key partners to ensure that not only do they receive the equipment, including tanks, that they need, but they receive full training and, importantly, the munitions they need to fulfil their obligation to defend their nation.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, last weekend, speaking publicly, the former head of MI6 said that President Putin’s strategy in Ukraine is one of attrition—“to wait it out”. With the possibility of a more isolationist United States post the presidential election, my suspicion is that Putin is measuring as much by western electoral cycles as by more conventional military metrics. So what discussions are we having with our allies about a diplomatic framework that could bring this conflict to an end; in particular, about the nature of the security guarantees that will be offered to Ukraine to ensure a lasting, equitable peace?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I have in part already answered the noble Lord’s second question. We welcome all peace initiatives and anything leading towards that. The grain deal was a good example of working with international partners, including the UN, but we are seeing that there is a reluctance on the part of Russia even to sign off a valuable lifeline in terms of grain. In terms of electoral cycles, the real strength of democracy is illustrated here, in the US and elsewhere across Europe. The unity of purpose and action is shared by parties of different political spectrums. The message going out to Mr Putin is that he may think the electoral cycle may deter the United Kingdom or the United States, but it will not.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, is it not up to the Ukrainians to decide whether there should be a ceasefire and whether negotiations should start? Given the current situation, where Germany, the UK, France and Italy are helping with additional military aid, maybe this time is not now because maybe now we could finally defeat Russia.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Of course, I agree with my noble friend. It has been the long-standing position of His Majesty’s Government that ultimately it is for Ukraine to determine and to be at the negotiation table, and as a friend and partner of Ukraine, we will stand with the decision that the Ukrainian Government take.
Ukraine Recovery Conference
(12 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
To ask His Majesty’s Government what their priorities are for the Ukraine Recovery Conference taking place in London in June to support Ukraine’s economic and social stabilisation and recovery from the effects of war, and how they intend to ensure that it is a success.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the United Kingdom is proud to co-host the Ukraine Recovery Conference with the Government of Ukraine. Preparations for the conference are in collaboration with our Ukrainian colleagues, and the event will focus on the role of the private sector in supporting recovery and reconstruction. It will provide a platform for the Government of Ukraine to set out their reform efforts, particularly in relation to the business environment, and for international partners to signal their ongoing support and commitment to Ukraine.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that update, and commend the Government on co-hosting this conference and on all they are doing to support Ukraine. A significant amount of further support can come from the proceeds of the sale of Chelsea Football Club, some £2.3 billion, due to be given to a charitable foundation to help the victims of this conflict in Ukraine and elsewhere. I appreciate that this is a very complex process, but it has been around a year since the sale. Can my noble friend the Minister tell me whether the funds will be released in time for the recovery conference and confirm which Minister is responsible for making progress on getting this money to those who need it?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
On my noble friend’s second question—and I thank her for her strong support of the Government’s position—ultimately His Majesty’s Treasury will lead on this issue. The proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC are frozen in a UK bank account, as she said. Humanitarian experts outside government are responsible for the highly complex process of establishing a foundation to manage and distribute the proceeds. I take on board her suggestion about the importance of perhaps moving forward on this at the time of the conference. I cannot give a specific assurance at this time, but I will share her concerns and suggestions with my colleagues at the Treasury.
Lord Peach (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that we must not repeat the mistakes we made in the recovery and reconstruction phase in Iraq and that we must now, with the Ukrainians, focus on recovery and reconstruction as part of their war effort? As we heard in answer to an earlier question, it appears that Mr Putin, the President of Russia, is preparing for a long war; we must do the same. Does the Minister accept that the Ukrainian people’s sacrifice means that they deserve full attention to be given to recovery and reconstruction?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The insights provided by the noble and gallant Lord are most welcome. We need to capture and leverage the insights and experience of your Lordships’ House to ensure that our Ukrainian friends get a clear and unequivocal message: we stand with you in all sectors. The Ukraine Recovery Conference, which we are hosting in London, is an opportunity for not just government or parliamentarians but the private sector to ensure that the required money can help now to start rebuilding the lives of Ukrainians around the whole of Ukraine. There are things happening in parallel with this, but I assure the noble and gallant Lord that we are fully focused on this important priority as well.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the efforts of the Government and the conference but, as my noble friend Lord Anderson said during the earlier Question, there is an opportunity here to ensure that the Russian state pays as well. We know that substantial Russian state assets have been seized. Will the Minister and the Government work in co-operation with our allies to ensure that this money can be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I have already alluded to the importance of accountability. The noble Lord will have seen the co-operation that we have had on the issue of justice for those who are ultimately accountable, and the strong relationship that we have with the International Criminal Court. All this underlines our primary view—in common with our partners—that Russia is ultimately accountable. On the specific issue raised by the noble Lord, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, we are of course in discussion with our partners to ensure that those to be held accountable are fully versed with the fact that they will be held accountable for the recovery. Notwithstanding that, I am sure the noble Lord will agree with me that it is important that we also undertake initiatives such as the recovery conference to ensure that the private sector is ready now to meet our obligations in addressing the needs of the whole of Ukraine.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches and then we will hear from my noble friend.
Baroness Northover (LD)
I thank the noble Baroness. Reconstruction in Ukraine, which counts as ODA, will clearly be vital, but is the Minister aware of current estimates that, in 2022, almost 30% of the UK’s aid budget was used to support Ukrainian refugees? Given the pressures of conflict, climate change, food crises and migration, will our aid budget increase, or will the Government—as the Australians do—count support for Ukraine as outside the aid budget?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, we stand very clearly in support of meeting whatever requirements Ukraine has; that guarantee has been given by successive Prime Ministers, including my right honourable friend Boris Johnson. The current Prime Minister has reiterated it in his meetings with President Zelensky. The Ukraine conference is ultimately about supporting reconstruction efforts but it will include our humanitarian efforts. I hear what the noble Baroness says on the importance of the use of ODA and financing. While I cannot speculate on what might happen in the future, we are very clear that we stand ready to support the humanitarian needs and requirements of Ukraine fully as well.
Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, on top of the onerous requirements for civilian reconstruction of Ukraine, there will be the serious matter of dealing with the most battle-hardened army in Europe? It is a matter that the British Armed Forces would be very accomplished in helping with. Will my noble friend raise this matter in preparation for the civilian reconstruction, so that we are able to deal with what will be a very serious security situation?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My noble friend shares a very valuable insight, and I assure him that I will do just that. We will work closely with all our key partners on the very points that he has raised. We fully support Ukraine in all aspects of its recovery, including its military capabilities.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, does the Minister realise that recovery is going to be a major task, almost equivalent to the Marshall plan after the Second World War, and that therefore a great deal of effort is going to have to be put into ensuring that? Does he see the fourth summit of the Council of Europe as an opportunity to discuss this further, as well as discussing further military support for Ukraine to get all 46 countries of the Council of Europe behind both the current military effort and the reconstruction effort? I thank him for ensuring that the United Kingdom will be represented at that fourth Council of Europe summit at the very highest level with the attendance of the Prime Minister.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I record our thanks for the vital work done by Members of this House at the Council of Europe. The noble Lord is correct that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will attend the Council of Europe meeting tomorrow. He will participate directly on the issue of Ukraine, and we will work with our key partners. My attendance at the meeting with our Indo-Pacific partners as well as member states of the European Union also underlines the focus that we put on Ukraine. I will be taking over the baton, if I can put it that way, from the Prime Minister on Wednesday to ensure that the United Kingdom is represented at the Council of Europe fully and that our views are shared with our key partners.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, has the Minister seen the estimate that as much as £1 trillion will be required for the reconstruction of Ukraine, on the scale and size of something like the Marshall aid programme? To return to the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, has he also seen that the money that has been moved into secret trusts by oligarchs in this country, in one case alone, amounts to more than £3 billion? Will he support, and encourage his noble friends to support, the amendment that was considered in Committee on the economic crime Bill, which enjoyed all-party support and would ensure that that money could then be deployed for the reconstruction of Ukraine?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the noble Lord’s valuable efforts on this issue and many more. I can share with him that we are looking at all ways, means and mechanisms to ensure that all money can be utilised, but we must ensure that we do so according to law, as I alluded to in the response I gave to my noble friend Lady Sugg. I recognise the importance attached by your Lordships’ House to ensuring that we can expedite some of these areas to ensure that the financing is in place. That is why I come back to the objective and sole purpose of the recovery conference, which is to include all parties, including, importantly, the private sector. We of course recognise the bill for recovery in Ukraine, and that is why we will host this conference side by side with the Ukrainians. We have wide attendance. We have been working through the G7, and that will be reflected in some of the outcomes of that important conference.
Automotive Manufacturing Sector: Support
(12 months ago)
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Lord Woodley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what is their investment strategy to support the automotive manufacturing sector in the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Johnson of Lainston) (Con)
Our automotive industry has a long and proud history. We are determined to build on our heritage, and to secure international investment in the technologies of the future to position the UK as one of the best locations in the world to manufacture electric vehicles. That will include aspects such as the automotive transformation fund, our Advanced Propulsion Centre, UKRI, our critical minerals strategy, our overall global trade strategy, UKEF and, on top of that, the specific investment opportunities that I, my team and colleagues from the Department for Business and Trade are working on assiduously.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, in my opinion, what appears to be missing here is a proper government strategy for the automotive sector as part of a much wider industrial strategy. The House will be well aware that the EU’s Green Deal industrial plan is in place, with tens of billions of euros in manufacturing grants topped up by literally hundreds of billions in loans to companies, while the US is investing over $2 trillion in its advanced manufacturing, energy and clean technology efforts. We have already fallen behind our competitors, according to my contacts at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, who tell me that we are at a tipping point. Does the Minister therefore agree that what we need now is a truly tripartite industrial strategy council, with the Government, companies and trade unions working together, and that it should be placed on a statutory footing—as called for only this weekend, ironically, by Labour?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his continued engagement on this important matter, which I know he holds dear to his heart, as do I. My department will work continually with all parties to ensure that we have the right amount of investment in our future industries. Please make no mistake about it: the creation of an EV industry in this country and the importance of the automotive sector is paramount to our long-term strategy, and to the success and prosperity of this great nation.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, in looking at what the Government are doing to support the manufacturing industry, I ask: are they satisfied with the way in which industrialists and entrepreneurs see it at the moment? There was a call by James Dyson at the weekend, saying that there is not sufficient liaison. If he does not feel that the Government are on the side of industry in this country, that is very disturbing. What are the Government doing to put this right?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that comment but I do not necessarily see those figures in the facts that I look at. Look at the investments into life sciences, into fintech, into start-ups and venture: we lead the world, second only to the United States. On unicorns, which are an important measure of the sort of R&D that Sir James Dyson is talking about, if your Lordships took a hot-air balloon up over this great nation and looked down, you would see herds of unicorns thundering across our green and pleasant land, the sunlight glinting off their horns. But if your balloon drifted over the channel to the continent, you would see single unicorns, their ribs showing, tethered to a stake and munching dry grass. Our brains are our best defence, and the facts speak for themselves.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I remind your Lordships’ House that unicorns are mythical beings. I will return to the point of discussion: there is a lack of urgency and of scale. We are at a watershed; if the investments are not made very soon, they will never be made because they will have been made somewhere else. France is investing about €10 billion in automotive electrification and Germany about €7 billion. When will the Government understand the nature of the international competition that we face and put in place the scale and urgency that we need to get this done?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
As I have expressed, the importance of investing in this area remains paramount. We have the automotive transformation fund, which is over £850 million, and the Faraday challenge. I have listed some other important aspects that the Government are focusing on. This has led to important investment, including into Pensana, Jaguar Land Rover, Mahindra & Mahindra, Motherson Group, TVS and the Hinduja Group, and a whole new range of investments into hydrogen-powered buses, which is a great success flag for Northern Ireland.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, my first car, which I loved, was a British-made MG Midget in racing green. It is very sad that we are now at a point where unless the UK Government develop a credible automotive industrial strategy, Britain will soon have no automotive industry and the memory-making cars that come with it. We have world-class British automotive designers, internationally renowned British engineers and a skilled and hard-working British workforce. What plans do the Government have to utilise these assets to improve productivity, invest in research and innovation and ultimately transform the sector as it moves away from petrol and diesel?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for telling us about his car history. My first car was a Fiat Regata; I doubt that anyone in this House has ever driven one of those, and I would not necessarily advise it. It is important to look at some of the other aspects of where we are investing and have been successful in this country, and to trumpet the successes and triumphant elements of our car industry. Formula 1 is a very good example of that: two-thirds of the Formula 1 teams are effectively located here and the technology is developed here. There is our luxury car industry, where Bentley has recently announced £2.5 billion for further investment. We lead the world in luxury cars including, I am pleased to say, the rebirth and renewal of the important brand of Lotus. I met those in its owning company a few days ago and heard of their commitment to investing in this country, because we have the expertise to do the design, development and, ultimately, manufacture.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, the Science and Technology Committee’s report published in November 2022 was concerned about the UK’s capacity for electric vehicle battery production. It now comes to pass that Britishvolt, one of our biggest possible producers of electric vehicle batteries, has failed. What effect will this have on our automotive industry, as we have no other UK production of batteries?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I believe that the outcome has been relatively satisfactory, with the purchase of Britishvolt by Recharge Industries, which I have met on several occasions to ensure that it is committed to investing in this country. It will make non-vehicular batteries to begin with but has reassured me that it will ultimately make batteries that can be used in EVs. It is not true that we do not have prospects. As we know in this House, there has been £1 billion of investment in the Sunderland plant for Envision to allow us to make electric vehicles made by Nissan.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, further to the answer the Minister gave a moment ago, when he gazes down on the country from his hot-air balloon, can he tell us where the gigafactory for the manufacture of electric batteries, on which the future automotive industry of this country is going to depend, will be?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I have tried to cover the key areas where we are investing significantly alongside industry to build our EV industry. We have several important pools of capital. I have not mentioned UKEF, which has through various loan schemes also supported our existing and future manufacturers. On top of that, through the Faraday challenge we are investing very heavily in R&D, because innovation will drive the technological change that will give us these opportunities in the future.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Has my noble friend noticed that Honda, which has given up manufacturing in this country, now proposes to import a low-cost EV made in China? Many are forecasting a tidal wave of lower-cost EVs from China as its industry expands at an amazing rate. Is our strategy robust enough to take account of that and of the devastating effect of the Inflation Reduction Act in America, which is sucking a lot of investment in automotive components and manufacture away from this country? Are we ready for these two blows?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
We clearly import cars and run a global economy. I would like to raise to the House the importance of our trade deals. They will allow us, through the new rules of origin opportunities under CPTPP and so on, to make more cars with mixed-use components. I congratulate our Secretary of State, who is in Switzerland today to further this post-Brexit vision of Britain.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, given that the future of the motor sector will be related to electric cars, can the Minister address the inconsistency in the rates of VAT exercised with regard to the electricity in private households and that available at public charging points? For those who do not have the benefit of a private drive and the ability to charge cars by their own homes, can the Government move towards an equalisation of these charges?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
My Lords, as always, I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising important points, and this debate continues. However, we are investing £381 million to ensure that we have the right number of points around the country so that people can have the infrastructure they need to run their electric vehicles and make this vital transition to a zero-carbon future.
Global Britain: Traffic
(12 months ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect on the success of their ‘Global Britain’ initiative that, for a second year in a row, the Inrix Global Traffic Scorecard has found London to have the highest traffic delay times of any city in the world.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, the balance of transport choices in London, including the relative importance given to car traffic, is a matter for the mayor and Transport for London. However, with the opening of the Elizabeth line last year, London’s reputation for efficient and modern transport has been demonstrated globally, an achievement for which many, including the noble Lord, can share credit.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, with bicycle lanes that have not increased the uptake of bicycling as a mode of transport, with ULEZ extended to parts of London that neither need nor want it, and with a Labour-run local authority now tendering out its speeding enforcement to unsleeping robots to maximise its revenue, does my noble friend the Minister not realise that people are at the end of their tethers and expect the Government to act to defend them from these depredations?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My noble friend is asking me to withdraw from the devolution agreement for London. We have no plans to do that, and I encourage Londoners to hold the mayor to account.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on what the Government have done to get more bicycle lanes and footpaths since Covid. The problem is that so many people are getting fed up with car drivers and cycle lanes are now very full. Can the Minister say whether she has any plans to increase the number of cycle lanes in London or anywhere else?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Minister has no plans, because it is not up to the Minister to have those plans; it is up to the Mayor of London. The Mayor of London continues to invest in cycling and walking—that is his choice. The Government remain committed to cycling and walking as natural choices for the shortest journeys.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, there are many parts of London where 20 miles per hour zones have not yet been implemented by local authorities. There is good evidence from areas that have introduced them that they work very well in making the traffic flow more smoothly in areas of high congestion. Do the Government intend to encourage local authorities across Britain to look at this solution to congestion and delays?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As the noble Baroness well knows, the Department for Transport does not operate roads other than the major motorways. It is for the local authorities operating those roads, having consulted local people, to make those decisions, including the introduction of 20 miles per hour speed zones.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it must have been an absolute miracle with divine intervention that enabled the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury to get a speeding ticket in central London? Is my noble friend Lord Moylan not right that this is a desperate situation? Whatever happened to the policy of lane rentals that was meant to charge contractors for taking up the space of roads while making alterations? It was meant to give them an incentive to complete works on time and to get rid of the spectacle we see all the time of roadworks with nobody there—including nobody working over the weekend—causing absolute chaos for the people of London.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for moving that question on. Lane rental schemes are a key part of the challenge of making sure that roadworks are taken down as soon as possible. In London, 69% of the TfL route network—the bit operated by the Mayor of London—is currently covered by lane rental schemes. I encourage all local transport authorities to look carefully at lane rental schemes, as they really can help to get roadworks finished on time.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, despite the funding announced in the Budget, the Government have still slashed pothole funding by almost a quarter in real terms since 2020, and cuts to local government funding leave councils unable to meet this gap from other funds. Does the Minister believe that the millions of potholes which remain unfilled, including those on cycle ways—we have 45 kilometres of them in Stevenage—contribute to traffic delays across the UK?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Government are investing £8 billion over the next two years in all types of road enhancements and improvements, including £200 million for maintenance and potholes.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Is my noble friend the Minister comfortable that London is now rated the most congested city in the world? Is she equally comfortable that our major retailers in the West End are suffering in relation to trade from people coming into our country? Finally, even the City of London, the centre of finance, is itself complaining that this is affecting the City badly.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I think there is a slight question of clarification here. The data that my noble friend cites actually misses out several cities in the world. Lagos’s traffic is 10 times worse than London’s, and in Seoul it is twice as bad—so London is not the worst. However, what we have to understand, and what the Government understand, is that one needs a mixed economy for transport. Of course, car usage is important, but particularly in London, where excellent public transport is available, we need to make sure that we use that more. I note that traffic is back to 100% of pre-pandemic levels, but the Tube remains persistently below them. I think that the Mayor of London should be doing more to get people back on the Tube.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, it is quite clear that London’s traffic is grinding to a halt; I drive in it regularly. I have talked to the people doing work on my house, doing boilers—brickies, and this sort of thing. They say that they can achieve only two tasks a day rather than three, and this has a real economic impact on their lives and on this city of ours. It is a disgrace, and something must be done to speed it up and allow a freer flow of traffic.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I absolutely encourage the noble Lord to speak to his friend and colleague who currently holds the mayoralty for London. It is up to him to think about how that balance is achieved. I agree that there are challenges with regard to economic activity for those people who need to use the roads, and that is why the balance of transport is so important—and I believe that more can be done.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I entirely welcome what the Minister has said about the high quality of public transport in Greater London. A similar quality for the north of England—an Elizabeth line between Manchester and Leeds, for example—would transform the economy of the north. Is that among the Government’s priorities for a long-term strategy for levelling up in the country?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
That is slightly beyond the scope of the Question. Obviously, the Government are committed to the integrated rail plan for the north, and the noble Lord will know that we are investing £5.7 billion under the CRSTS for sustainable transport schemes in many of our major cities.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Is my noble friend aware that many of us look back with fond nostalgia to the days when London had one mayor living in the Mansion House? Would not it be a very good idea if we looked again at the whole idea of giving so much power to such an incompetent man and instead had a proper London authority? Bring back the old days!
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, sometimes it is impossible to go back to the old days, and this Government have no ambition to withdraw from the devolution settlements that are in place.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I invite the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and other Members of your Lordships’ House to join us on the annual bike ride of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling on 13 June so that Members of your Lordships’ House can see that getting out of cars and on to bikes cuts congestion, is good for health and the environment, and a much quicker way to get around London.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
That is excellent free advertising for the noble Lord, and I am sure that many in your Lordships’ House will join him.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I think that the Minister in an earlier answer told the House that the Government had set aside £200 million for the repair of potholes. I assume that that is across the whole country. If it is not—and she is shaking her head—could she tell the House what estimate the Government have made of the cost per pothole?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I shall write to the noble Baroness with further clarification of my remarks, because the £200 million is in addition to other funding and, unfortunately, I do not have that figure with me today.
Lord Haselhurst (Con)
My Lords, on the basis of the evidence that we have so far of the effect of the Elizabeth line on the traffic flow through London, should we not now be dusting off the papers about the possibility of a Crossrail 2? It should not be forgotten.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, there are many competing demands on the Government’s resources. Certainly, Crossrail 2 would have its benefits, but we need to look at that in the context of other projects that might come to pass.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Monday 15th May 2023
(12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 View all Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 117-II Second marshalled list for Report - (15 May 2023)
16:57 - Division on Amendment 2 - Ayes: 245 / Noes: 154 - Amendment 2 agreed.
18:44 - Division on Amendment 15 - Ayes: 222 / Noes: 154 - Amendment 15 agreed.
Lord Callanan
“(1) Legislation listed in Schedule (Sunset of subordinate legislation and retained direct EU legislation) is revoked at the end of 2023, to the extent specified there.(1A) In that Schedule—(a) Part 1 lists subordinate legislation;(b) Part 2 lists retained direct EU legislation.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides that the legislation to be revoked by Clause 1 is the legislation listed in the Minister’s new Schedule.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, we have listened to the concerns of this House and today we are tabling a number of amendments to modify the first three clauses of the Bill.
Amendment 1 provides that the sunset in Clause 1 will be updated with a revocation schedule. This schedule will list retained EU law that will be revoked on 31 December this year. The revocation schedule includes around 600 pieces of legislation provided from departments across government and spans a huge number of policy areas. This will provide the legal clarity and certainty that many Members called for in Committee. The revocation schedule will provide certainty by listing exactly which pieces of REUL will be revoked at the end of the year. One of the main advantages of the schedule is the ability to efficiently and cleanly remove superfluous legislation without taking up disproportionate amounts of parliamentary time. It will thus allow us to remove legislation inherited from the EU that the UK no longer requires in an efficient and transparent way by the end of the year.
Retained EU law not included in the schedule will still be stripped of EU interpretive effects after 31 December 2023 and therefore assimilated into domestic legislation as per Clauses 4 to 7. This means we will still be removing the effects of general principles of EU law as an aid to interpretation, ceasing the application of supremacy and repealing directly effective EU rights so that they no longer have any effect in relation to these provisions. Consequently, nothing on our domestic statute book will be considered as retained EU law and the special status of retained EU law in the UK will come to an end.
Amendment 5 serves to remove subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 1 and insert a power for a relevant national authority to exclude legislation from revocation. This amendment ensures that we retain a limited preservation power in the Bill to enable Ministers and devolved authorities to preserve specific retained EU law so far as it would otherwise be revoked under Clause 1. The devolved authorities will therefore be able to exercise this power to preserve legislation so far as it is within their devolved competence. This power will be time-limited; it cannot be used beyond 31 October this year. These amendments set out the operation and principle of the schedule’s approach. I look forward to discussing the content of the schedule in our debates on Wednesday.
Amendment 68 provides that the preservation power inserted by Amendment 5 will be subject to the draft affirmative procedure. In effect, this means that any preservation SI laid would need to be actively supported by both Houses of Parliament. This will ensure that, should a piece of legislation need to be preserved from the schedule list, this could be done only if there was broad approval across both Houses, avoiding the risk that this power is overused or not properly scrutinised if enacted.
Amendment 13 removes Clause 3, which contains the sunset extension power. Following the removal of the sunset in Clause 1 and the introduction of a revocation schedule, an extension power to the sunset is no longer needed and, by extension, neither is the clause as a whole.
I turn to the other amendment that I am supporting, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. I had every intention of laying this very amendment given Amendment 1, but the noble Baroness beat me to the punch on this occasion with her Amendment 9, which removes Clause 2 from the Bill. This clause contains all exceptions to the sunset. Much like Amendment 13, this is a consequential amendment; Clause 2 will no longer be needed given the introduction of a revocation schedule. Removing redundant clauses to enable the effective operation of the Government’s schedule makes sense. As such, I agree with this amendment and will support it. I beg to move.
Amendment 2 (to Amendment 1)
Lord Hope of Craighead
“(1B) Subsection (1) will only take effect if—(a) the legislation listed in Schedule (Sunset of subordinate legislation and retained direct EU legislation) has been referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses, and(b) a period of at least 30 days has elapsed after that referral, not including any period during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or either House is adjourned for more than four days.(1C) If the Joint Committee, after considering any legislation included in this Schedule, finds that the revocation of any item of legislation represents a substantial change to current UK law, a Minister of the Crown must arrange for the revocation of such legislation to be debated on the floor of each House and voted on before the date in subsection (1).(1D) If the revocation of any legislation is not approved by both Houses before the date in subsection (1), it is retained.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment to the amendment in the name of Lord Callanan provides for the Schedule of retained EU law which is to be revoked to be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses for sifting so that, in the case of those which represent a significant change from the preceding retained EU law, Parliament will be enabled to differ from the Executive and express its own view as to their contents.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I think it will start our debate if I speak to Amendment 2 at this stage. That amendment, of course, is in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.
I do not need to take up time by speaking to Amendments 10, 11 and 12 in this group—which are also in my name, and to which the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Humphreys, have added their names. The issues raised in Amendments 10 and 12 are no longer live in view of the removal of the sunset provision from Clause 1 and the Government’s proposal that Clause 3 should be deleted. This is also the case regarding the need to postpone the sunset date in the case of legislation relevant to common frameworks, which Amendment 11 seeks to do—although others of your Lordships may have something to say about this. Amendment 4 relates to a provision which the Government are proposing to remove from the Bill, so I do not need to say anything about that either. That leaves me with Amendment 2, to which I do wish to speak.
I am sure that I am not alone in welcoming government Amendments 1, 5, 12 and 68. This really is a victory for common sense. It was obvious to many of us in this House, especially those in touch with the devolved Administrations, that the scheme laid down in the Bill was never going to work within the time given to it. I reject the suggestion that the reason this is now being acknowledged is because of a failure of effort by civil servants. The fact is that however hard to civil servants tried, there was a real problem about getting the job done across all parts of the United Kingdom. There was always going to be a risk that work under the pressure of time would give rise to errors. Any error in this field, such as the removal of regulations that require or authorise the spending of money, could have grave consequences that could be hard to reverse. Care is needed, and that takes time. The devolved Administrations are in a particular difficulty. Their post-devolution regulations are not and cannot be listed on the dashboard; their legislative timetables are not equipped for the task within the timescale. That is the reality.
The Secretary of State deserves to be commended for the steps she has taken, but there remains a very significant gap which my amendments in this group—and in groups 3 and 6—are designed to address. This is that there is no provision for parliamentary scrutiny in the proper sense of those words. It is the greatest of ironies that taking back control over our laws—which is what Brexit was all about—has resulted in handing back this control to Ministers and civil servants, and not to Parliament. The parliamentary scrutiny over what they are doing is not there, other than in the most superficial way, as our power over delegated legislation is so limited. This has been described as an unprecedented transfer from Parliament to the Executive.
I think that all of us who were present at Second Reading can recall how strongly my noble and learned friend Lord Judge—whose absence I regret—felt about this subject. I am sure he would not object to my reminding your Lordships of what he said. It was short and to the point; it directed attention to what he thought was really happening. With his tongue firmly in his cheek, he said that he had received a letter by special messenger called “Restoring Parliamentary control”. It went over the key provisions of this Bill, one by one, and ended with this assertion:
“By agreeing to all these separate surrenders, Parliament will have taken back control. We trust you agree”.—[Official Report, 6/2/23; col. 1001.]
My Amendment 2 is based on amendments that were put down for Committee by my noble and learned friend Lord Judge, and my noble friend Lord Lisvane, who I am glad to see in his place. They provide for the referral of the list in the schedule to a Joint Committee of both Houses. In the event that the committee finds that the revocation of any item of legislation represents a substantial change of the law, it provides for that revocation to be debated on the Floor of each House and voted on.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
The trigger point in the amendment is quite a narrow one: “substantial change”. Has the noble and learned Lord contemplated enlarging the power of the committee to require it to be put to the House if there was other substantial reason?
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, “substantial change” probably accommodates what the noble Lord was thinking about. I am following a formula which the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, thought was appropriate, bearing in mind that there are limits to the extent to which this House can lay down procedures for the other place.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 8. Before I do so, and in the interest of brevity, I entirely associate myself with the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, because he encapsulated many of the ongoing concerns of the amendments in this group.
To a large extent Amendment 8 is redundant now that I support the amendments to delete Clause 2 that are consequential on the government amendments—I take the opportunity to congratulate my noble friend Lord Callanan and indeed the Secretary of State on having the good sense to table the amendments which the Government are moving in this group.
On government Amendment 1 and the others my noble friend referred to, can he say on what basis the secondary legislation and retained direct EU legislation contained in Schedule 1 have been chosen and what consultation the Government have undertaken to determine the contents of that list?
Briefly on my Amendment 8, I am grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for helping me draft the amendment and for the briefing I received from it in that regard. What the amendment has identified remains an issue with one category of legislation that is not covered by other amendments in the group. The purpose of Amendment 8 was to ensure that any retained EU law which is not identified as such until after the sunset date is excepted from the sunset provisions in Clause 1. The review of REUL was announced by my noble friend Lord Frost, looking at the UK Government retained EU law dashboard from Tableau Public, as referred to at paragraph 13 of the Explanatory Notes, which states that the Government are now
“in the position to ensure REUL can be revoked, replaced, restated, updated and removed or amended to reduce burdens”.
I support entirely the opportunity given to us today to do that.
However, the Bill intends to go further to facilitate the review and provides that it should be carried out by the end of 2023. Given that we now know there are almost 5,000 pieces of retained EU law, as identified in the EU law dashboard, the Government must confirm whether the most recent Explanatory Note is correct or whether they expect the number to rise again.
I refer to the briefing I received from the FSA—the Food Standards Agency—which itemised in an extremely helpful tableau the reasons why it supports those pieces of legislation included in Schedule 1. However, the FSA says:
“We have had long-standing ambitions to reform the food and feed regulatory system and we welcome the opportunity to focus our attention on this. We recognise that meaningful reform must include consultation with the food industry, consumers and stakeholders, and I look forward to working with you”.
So the question I put to my noble friend is: have the Government allowed sufficient time to ensure that the consultation that the Food Standards Agency wishes to conduct will be permitted to take place by the time Royal Assent is achieved?
My final question to the Minister is: if such a category comes to light within the three categories that have been identified as forming the retained EU law that forms the subject of the Bill after the Bill leaves this place and obtains Royal Assent, what opportunities are there to revisit that to ensure that that category is included the sunset clause, or can we assume that it will continue in existence in its current form, as currently on the statute book?
Lord Lisvane (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his kind reference to what I said in Committee and subsequently. In order to set the mind of the noble Viscount at rest, I suggest that the wording relating to the Joint Committee in Amendment 2 is entirely correct.
It is a very bad idea to try to regulate parliamentary proceedings by means of statute, and it very often ends in tears or worse. In this case, should Amendment 2 survive into the final version of the Bill presented for assent, it will be for the Houses to set up a Joint Committee. That Joint Committee, following the ancient practice that the interpretation of the orders of reference of the committee are a matter for that committee, will take a view on what constitutes “substantial”, so there will be a certain amount of flexibility available at that point. It will also not be justiciable, because the operation of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights would prevent a court second-guessing what the committee decided.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for giving way, and I hate to cross swords with him on this matter, but the trigger point of “substantial change” is quite narrow. My noble friend Lady McIntosh spoke about lack of consultation, or inadequate consultation. That might surely be a reason for using the trigger power.
Lord Lisvane (CB)
I absolutely agree and, as the noble Viscount has made clear, a number of things could be interpreted as of sufficient gravity to trigger, we hope, the powers in the Bill, then the Act, and it would be for the Joint Committee to decide—as a number of committees of your Lordships’ House already decide—that the lack of consultation is a serious flaw in the bringing forward of proposals for, for example, delegated legislation. So I hope I have set the noble Viscount’s mind at rest, but I am happy to talk to him outside the Chamber if further reassurance is required.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I ask noble Lords who support Amendment 2 how it is that they now wish to involve Parliament and our democracy in getting rid of these laws when they were perfectly happy to see them imposed in a wholly anti-democratic process. I describe it as such because all the laws which the Government now wisely wish to cancel were proposed in secret in the European Commission. Their national interest was then negotiated in secret in the Committee of Permanent Representatives, after which they were signed off in the European Council and Parliament, which could not change them. Our Select Committees could indeed scrutinise a tiny sample of them, or even recommend them for debate in the Commons or Lords, but, once those debates, which could not change them, had taken place, they became our law. So why do the proposers and friends of Amendment 2 now wish to subject the process of their abolition to our democratic processes? And, talking of which, what do they say about the fact that the Bill has already been through the Commons?
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I want to make a single point. In his opening remarks, the Minister referred to the affirmative procedure as though it is a perfectly satisfactory way of dealing with these very substantial ministerial powers to deal with retained European law. As a former member of the Delegated Powers Committee, I want to say that that is absolutely not the case. Under the affirmative procedure, Parliament has no power to amend any proposals coming from Ministers. It is therefore absolutely essential that this House approves Amendment 2 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and others. I very much hope that it does so.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am sure that the House will approve Amendment 2. I am not sure that the noble Baroness grasped the point I was trying to make, so, if I may, I will finish it.
I accept that the Government were in danger of biting off more than they could chew with their original proposals but those now seem eminently achievable, especially if our civil servants rise to the occasion in identifying the EU laws that we might want to retain—very few, I submit, so the effort should not exhaust them too much. But perhaps the Daily Telegraph was right in its headline on 10 May, which read:
“Whitehall ‘blob’ thwarts bonfire of Brexit laws”.
I support the whole Government wholeheartedly in their endeavours.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
May I clarify something? In his initial remarks, the noble Lord suggested that the problems he believes this Bill is designed to address stem from the fact that laws were imposed on this country. Whether or not one agrees with that statement, his proposal is that laws were imposed on this country without parliamentary scrutiny, and therefore without democratic accountability. If one accepts that that is the case, how is it then right to perpetuate that wrong by trying to get rid of those laws through a process that is itself without parliamentary scrutiny? The amendments are trying to impose parliamentary scrutiny; indeed, one of the reasons for our departure from the EU was to take back control to our Parliament, which is what these amendments seek to do.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, in following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, said, let me say that we had that debate at Second Reading; it was exhaustive and the noble Lord’s argument was, I think, properly demolished.
I welcome the Government’s amendment. The Minister will know that I have been a fairly regular critic of the Government. I am afraid that I have to quote back to him now a letter that he kindly wrote on 5 April to the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee—I declare my interest as chair of that committee—because it will illustrate the scale and speed at which the Government have moved here. We had asked a raft of detailed questions and sought further clarity. This is what the Minister said,
“the sunset clause is the backbone of the Bill. It lays the groundwork for an ambitious and efficient overhaul of all REUL. The sunset date is the quickest and most effective way to end REUL as a legal category and will incentivise genuine … reform in a way that works best for the whole of the UK”.
That really does illustrate how far the Government have moved on this. The Bill has lost its backbone—but we must remember that it was described as “hyper-skeletal” by one of our scrutiny committees, so there was not much backbone to be lost.
I think we all welcome the fact that, if the Government have had the courage and common sense to renege on this issue, it will not be much of a loss. Most importantly, they have removed the critical risk that we reiterated time and again throughout Committee. They have not removed all the risk, not by any means—we need much more clarity on the processes going forward and on the use to which ministerial powers may be put, which will come in later amendments—but the risk of chaotic, accidental, fatal mistakes being made and not being able to be recovered has been removed.
Regulations designed to protect people from harm and protect their rights were threatened with going over a cliff edge. I pick up the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that among those that might be lost is the web of interrelated regulations that enable common frameworks to function across the whole of the UK, balancing our need for harmony across the union with the necessity of divergence.
One of the good outcomes of the Bill is that those of us who laboured for three years in the vineyard of common frameworks, which were very far apart in the landscape, will finally have our moment in the sun when it is recognised how important they are for the future and health of the union. That has come about through the Bill with the hundreds of regulations that underpin the common frameworks.
I have some questions on this point—
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have one clarification for the noble Baroness. The point was made that this is not a Second Reading, but it has also been recognised that the amendments to the original Bill are substantial. The difficulty I have is how we hold this Bill to account when it is different from the Bill that we were holding to account. In many ways, it has been gutted, and we have had four days to assess it. I am not suggesting lots of Second Reading speeches; I simply wanted to reflect, as the noble Baroness already has, that this is a big change to the Bill. How do we deal with that in this discussion?
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
I apologise for interrupting the noble Baroness, but I remind the whole House that, as we are on Report, there cannot be any interruptions apart from material descriptions of various features.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord. It is a measure of the speed with which the Bill has gone through every stage that these questions should be raised in the first place, but I leave it to the Government to reply.
I also wish to pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, about whose fault it is that this process has been so slow. I was appalled by the comments of a previous leader of the House of Commons; I thought he traduced civil servants who cannot answer for themselves. In our committee, we have seen these officials working day and night, against the clock, to make some sense of a process which has simply not been sensible. To suggest that they have somehow been subversive, deliberately slow or incompetent is a real slur on the professionalism of officials and of the Civil Service. I hope that every Member of this House agrees with that.
My question to the Minister is this. I am grateful for what has been achieved, but I look at that list of 600 and am reminded of the 600 people going into the valley of death, bravely being sacrificed. There are some in this list that refer to common frameworks—for example, safety of food and emissions. There is no apparent reason why they are in there and I do not know how many there are. On behalf of our committee, I would like a list which tells us—
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
I am out of date already. That is excellent; I am very grateful and withdraw my question. I am delighted the Government have been so responsive.
My final point is on parliamentary control. I will certainly be supporting the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. It identifies two key risks. The Government have agreed in principle to a sifting mechanism, and it makes no sense for this batch of amendments to be left out of that sifting mechanism for the very reasons which the noble and learned Lord put and which I am now putting to the House: there are still elements of this list which require explanation, transparency and understanding. I would like the opportunity to see that process in place, as it affects these first regulations. This is a modest proposal and it is perfectly reasonable that the Government should do that.
There is also the much larger and more powerful question of parliamentary control. We have had very dramatic language from the two scrutiny committees of the House and we debated this at length in Committee. The case has been partially conceded, but by no means wholly. It once again reveals the limitations we face with secondary legislation and the way that primary legislation has been stripped out. It is essential that this batch goes before the sifting committee, in good faith, so that we can test the process and see whether it works and is fit for purpose for the more complex ones that will come later. I agree with the amendment.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments to which I have added my name, Amendments 2 and 4. Like my noble friend the Minister, we campaigned to leave the EU and we found that people decided to leave for a number of different reasons. One of those reasons was the resentment people felt that laws were being passed in Europe and delivered to us here, and we had no say on them whatever. I very much echo the words of my noble friend Lady Altmann.
We scrutinised this legislation. I was on an EU scrutiny committee and we wrote a number of reports, some of which were somewhat hostile about the legislation going through, and of course, they made absolutely no difference whatever. Therefore, if we had said to the people on the doorstep who were concerned that they had no say on much of the legislation coming on to our statute book, and over which Parliament had no say, “Well, we have a great plan: we are going to bypass Parliament almost completely”—
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
I greatly enjoyed serving jointly with the noble Lord on the EU Select Committee. I point out that I was woken up three times on a Sunday evening by Delors asking me what the House of Lords European Union Select Committee had meant by a particular report on a particular piece of legislation. These reports were not a waste of time.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
I slightly wonder what effect they had on the statute book. The legislation went through, nothing was amended, nothing was voted down—it could not be, under the EU accession treaty—so, if you do not achieve any change in the legislation, I am not sure you can claim any great credit for having done anything to it. So I do not really accept that. This is one of the problems, and people did find it very frustrating that they had no say over what EU legislation went through.
We have passed over the making of our legislation from an unelected Commission in the EU to the Executive. Who are the Executive? The Executive are made up of Ministers, and civil servants who, in my view, will have much more influence over what happens to this legislation than Ministers will. The Civil Service used to be regarded as a Rolls-Royce. I am not absolutely sure that definition would apply today; it looks rather like an old banger in need of a serious MOT. Let us face it, the Civil Service has not done well in trying to locate retained EU law. It was given endless opportunities to dig this stuff out, and what happened? Virtually nothing, until panic set in when this Bill was being debated.
It is the job of departments to know what legislation they have. This applies not only to EU law but to all law, and one has been given the impression over the past few months that they have absolutely no idea whatever what is on the statute book. Are these the right people to whom to pass all responsibility for EU law, without Parliament having any say? The answer is of course no. Parliament has to regain control of the legislative process. We have to make sure that Parliament decides what happens to this legislation, and that is why I am supporting Amendments 2 and 4 and subsequent amendments. I hope your Lordships will follow me through the Division Lobby.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, in what he said. My only passing thought is to award my noble friend, for his intervention, the “name-dropping of the week” prize.
I am not enthusiastic about disagreeing with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, because I know from listening to him many times that he is a great supporter of the rights of your Lordships’ House to amend legislation, scrutinise what is before us and ensure that its powers are not somehow elided with those of the other place. However, this did bring me back to something that happened earlier in my life. For a period, I had one of those unusual characters, a senior clerk of great wisdom, in my barristers’ chambers. When I was a Member of the other place, he used to say to me as I left chambers, “You’re off to do your bit for democracy, are you?” That was a sort of pessimistic adieu as I left the office. When I became a Member of your Lordships’ House, he used to issue me with the optimistic adieu, “So you’re off to save democracy, are you?” That seems very apposite in relation to this debate. Indeed, what that great senior clerk, now sadly deceased, used to say to me really gives the answer to the extraordinary statement of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, which we heard expressed by others in another debate just last week: that if the House of Commons decides to pass something, we should just roll over and take it as we lie in that supine position. That, of course, is not what we do in your Lordships’ House.
I ask the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, what is to be lost by accepting Amendment 2? Even if it is a bit of an ad maiorem argument, what particular attention has he paid to the fact that my very distinguished noble and learned friends Lord Hope, who has moved Amendment 2 today, and Lord Judge—who unfortunately is unwell; otherwise, he would have been in a similar position today—have been the great movers behind this attempt to introduce an element of parliamentary scrutiny that has been drafted with great critical faculty, as opposed to requiring us to look at a long list and treat it as though it had some special wisdom in itself? For those reasons, if my noble and learned friend asks for the opinion of this House on Amendment 2, I—and I am sure many others who take a perhaps legalistic, but proportionately legalistic, viewpoint—will support him in the Lobby.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 14 in my name, to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Altmann, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, have added their names.
I broadly welcome the government amendments tabled on 10 May but continue to be concerned about the ongoing lack of parliamentary scrutiny. While it is welcome that the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 and the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017 are not listed in the Government’s extensive list of statutory instruments to be deleted this year, this does not indicate whether at some future point these two SIs will not be brought forward for deletion without any parliamentary scrutiny.
Several Members of your Lordships’ House have spoken passionately and repeatedly about the need to improve water quality across all areas, especially, as we approach the warmer weather, through the Bathing Water Regulations. The noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, has raised the issue of British surfers being forced to leave the country to pursue their sport in Spain due to the appalling level of pollution in and around our coastal waters caused by sewage overflows. While this subject is extremely important, I do not intend to expand the debate, given that both your Lordships and the Minister have heard all the arguments and evidence on previous occasions. That evidence has not changed. However, I am looking for a firm assurance from the Minister that both these statutory instruments will be retained on the statute book. This will ensure that our children and others can feel a degree of confidence when they swim in our coastal waters and inland lakes that they will not be damaged by an unpleasant environment and that their health will be preserved. I look forward to a positive response, and hope that I and others can be satisfied that the Government support the view of those for whom this is a vital issue.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I have a very brief observation about Amendment 2, which I support and seems to have this other great advantage. Statutory instruments are largely drawn by officials and are not subject to great scrutiny by Ministers. That is my experience. Indeed, if noble Lords look at the schedule they will see a large number of statutory instruments. I very much doubt that Ministers have crawled over them in detail. If the trigger is exercised in accordance with the provisions of Amendment 2, Ministers will have to become engaged. It is much more likely at that point that you would get a proper response to the concerns expressed by the committee. That is an additional advantage that I would pray in aid.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, in case anyone is thinking of voting against Amendment 2—even the Minister—it is worth remembering that Jacob Rees-Mogg said today that this Government gerrymandered the ID vote because they want to corrupt the voting system here in Britain. They wanted a government advantage from the voter ID and they found that they did not have it. We cannot trust this Government on any level on any issue, so Amendment 2 is vital.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I put my name to this amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I will address the question—or possibly accusation—from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, head-on: I voted for Brexit, because I support policies designed to give the UK more freedom to operate in the world without the inhibitions that came with our membership of the European Union.
One of the reasons for my voting for Brexit was that I wanted to make some attempt to reduce what I saw as the marginalisation of the UK Parliament—that it was, under the system then prevailing, more or less reduced to a cipher, as my noble friend Lord Hamilton pointed out. My noble friend the Minister has made some significant changes. I, like other Members of the House, thank him for that. A lot has happened in the last few days and it might be that I have not understood fully what he is proposing and its implications, but as I read it at present it does not seem significantly to enhance Parliament’s power.
I have one more reason why the House needs to be extremely careful about this matter. We are entering a brave new world in which, for better or for worse, we have greater control over our legislative process. This Bill could create a dangerous precedent as to how, in this brave new world, the Executive feel able to treat the legislature—the two Houses of Parliament.
For the rest of my remarks, I will briefly probe a little deeper the thinking behind the Government’s approach and the level of parliamentary scrutiny of and involvement in the Bill. One of my last tasks before I handed over the chairmanship of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral at the end of January was to sign off the committee’s report on this Bill, which the House may recall was entitled Losing Control?: The Implications for Parliament of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. The Government are required to provide a response to the recommendations made in reports from your Lordships’ House, and they have done so. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend and his officials for the extensive and detailed 10-page reply. However, it is dated 10 May—last Wednesday—so again, if I have not been able to absorb the full implications of what he is saying, I stand ready to be corrected when he comes to reply.
There are two specific points that I would like to draw to the House’s attention. The first is in paragraph 31 of our report and touches on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. We lay out a reason as to why, even if
“a definitive list of the relevant law were eventually compiled in time”,
the House would be insufficiently informed unless something was said about the “individual piece” of legislation; to produce a list is not the same.
The Government’s response was:
“The Schedule approach means that a definitive list of REUL to be sunset has, in fact, been compiled. This Schedule is subject to parliamentary debate and approval”.
My concern is that the House approving the schedule—the long list of 600 or so SIs—is affording only the most tangential level of parliamentary involvement and approval. Do I assume that in giving my approval to the schedule I am automatically endorsing every one of the constituent SIs, or do the Government intend to bring forward an explanatory note on the reason for including each individual regulation on the schedule, many of which I agree are probably quite trivial, to be considered by both Houses? Without this, Parliament has no real understanding of what it is approving, and it is this uncertainty that makes the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, so important.
My second and final point relates to the recommendation made in paragraph 33. Our report said:
“It is generally acknowledged that the scrutiny of secondary legislation falls very far short of the scrutiny afforded primary legislation. Downgrading the status of direct principal retained EU legislation so that it can be amended by ‘ordinary powers to amend secondary legislation’ … means therefore a corresponding downgrading of effective parliamentary scrutiny. Suggesting that this will have the advantage of saving parliamentary time does not make the Government’s justification for this change any more persuasive. It is a matter for Parliament to decide how it should use its time”.
The Government’s response is:
“The Government disagrees that the scrutiny of secondary legislation falls short of the scrutiny of primary legislation. The scrutiny procedures for secondary legislation are long standing and are endorsed by Parliament during the passage of legislation”.
I find this continuing government assertion that the scrutiny of secondary legislation is equivalent to that of primary legislation astonishing—jaw-dropping, to be frank. My noble friend’s letter says that the scrutiny procedures for secondary legislation are long-standing, and he is right, but those long-standing procedures were designed for an earlier age when Governments used secondary legislation for what it says on the tin: to deal with issues of secondary importance and avoid gumming up the legislative machine. But successive Governments have used secondary legislation to pass into law—law that applies to every one of us—decisions too important to be left to secondary procedures with their “take it or leave it” unamendable approach. As I have said before, if the Government want to take a little they have to give a little, and so far the Government appear unable or unwilling to do this.
My concluding remarks are these: Parliament will stop this continuing shift in the balance of power towards the Executive and away from the legislature only by constantly explaining how fundamental to the health of our system of government it is, no matter how difficult, embarrassing or controversial it may be to do so. That is why it is essential that the House supports the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for explaining so fully his amendment to the Bill. I am slightly saddened on two counts. First, I wish the list he provided in the schedule was a little more ambitious and extensive in the number of regulations and rules included. Secondly, I am saddened by the response of some Members of your Lordships’ House.
I particularly oppose Amendment 2. The idea that there is an initial committee is hardly more than camouflage, because the committee is charged with putting any but the most negligible changes to both Houses.
The subsequent requirement in the amendment that a majority of both Houses has to approve the removal gives, in effect, the power of veto to an unelected Chamber, in a way that goes contrary to the constitutional arrangements of a democratic country whose voters explicitly chose withdrawal from the EU and its laws, at the referendum and again in 2019. They voted overwhelmingly for a government pledge to carry out that mandate. The Executive have a mandate—a direct mandate—from the electorate to end EU law. That mandate must be respected, and must be respected by this House.
A much more extensive arrangement was put to the House of Commons, which passed at Second Reading by over 60 votes. I am very concerned that this House will, yet again, obstruct the will of the people, expressed in 2016—
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I am sorry, my Lords, but it was clearly expressed, and it was expressed again in 2019. A mandate was given to the Executive to remove EU laws; it was not given to this Chamber to hold it up.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I doubt very much whether the will of the people was to remove the rights of working people. I doubt very much whether those who voted for Brexit voted to remove the rights and entitlements that they had inherited from EU law.
I too support the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. Last Wednesday, 10 May, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, referred a moment ago, was a busy day for the Government. On that day, in the other place, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade made a Written Statement about this Bill, pointing out that amendments would be tabled to it. At the end of the Statement, she said:
“As part of this drive for deregulation, today I can announce that we will make improvements to employment law which could help save businesses around £1 billion a year, while safeguarding the rights of workers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/23; col. 16WS.]
And she gave some indication of what those changes might be.
On that same day, the Department for Business and Trade also published a booklet called Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy. From the last couple of pages of that we learn what is in the Government’s mind: first, the requirement under the working time regulations to keep records of hours worked is to be removed. How businesses and their workers will be able to ensure compliance with the remainder of the regulations was not explained. Secondly, eight days of UK holiday are to be added to the 20 days of EU holiday for workers; but, it appears, this may result in economic loss, as the days allowed by the EU are paid on a different, higher basis than the UK days. Thirdly, rolled up-holiday pay—a technicality of employment law—is to be permitted, but the effect is to remove what was introduced as a protection for workers. Fourthly, the obligation to consult over redundancies is to be removed for small businesses.
Those changes are not very great, although they may be significant for some. In the vast number of amendments to this Bill that have been tabled—in particular, the 600 pieces of EU-derived legislation identified by the Government for removal or partial removal—I have looked at where those weakened employment rights are to be found. They are not there. The reason they are not there is that they will be introduced by statutory instrument after the Bill has become law.
We in Parliament need the chance to scrutinise what will otherwise be a constant stream of statutory instruments removing and weakening workers’ employment rights and health and safety at work rights. That is why I support the important amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, as a committed Brexiteer I was a strong supporter of this Bill, and it will not surprise noble Lords that my initial reaction to last week’s announcement of the amendments that my noble friend has so ably just introduced was a big disappointment. It would have been a marvellous achievement had we achieved by the end of this year an understanding of what to do with retained EU law—in terms of retaining it, modifying it or repealing it—but in my heart of hearts I never actually thought we would get to that position, so I completely accept on pragmatic grounds that what my noble friend has brought forward today is the right thing to do, and I fully support that.
I completely understand what lies behind the sentiments expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, in his amendment, supported by other noble Lords who have spoken, but I think that noble Lords have missed the big picture here. There were problems with the existing Bill, such as not knowing exactly which bits of retained EU law were going to be included, because that number seemed to have a shape-shifting quality and it was very unsatisfactory for parliamentarians to legislate with a lack of certainty. It was also troubling that large swathes of law could have just disappeared from the statute book without any parliamentary intervention whatever. In addition, there was the possibility of a tsunami of statutory instruments modifying EU law by the end of the year, which would have put our procedures under great strain, whatever sifting or other mechanisms were put in place to ameliorate it. So the Government have made significant changes with the amendments that my noble friend has brought forward today. If the noble Lords put it in that context, they will see that the Government have been very responsive to the issues that have been raised by noble Lords during the passage of the Bill, and I hope they will not let the best be the enemy of the good with the amendments that they have tabled.
With the absence of the sunsetting, we have another problem: how do we know that we are ever going to finish the task of examining, and deciding what to do with, retained EU law? We have 600 laws in the new schedule, but we know nothing about what is going to happen to the other pieces of retained EU law. That is why I have tabled an amendment, which we will not reach until Wednesday, asking for some form of reporting by the Government so that at least we keep under scrutiny the nature of that process. I hope that between now and our next Report day—
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, there are references—for example, in Clause 16—to a sunsetting date, so there are parts of the Bill that retain sunsetting and it has not entirely been departed from. I see the value of sunsetting and I am in favour of reforming our rules book, but it would be a mistake to think that we were taking the brake off completely; that is not the way the Bill is constructed.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, I think the main substance of sunsetting has been removed by the amendments put forward by my noble friend because we do not reach a cliff edge at the end of this year, or such a later date as might have been put in place, for the whole of retained EU law to disappear if it had not been dealt with. That is the issue that I was referring to.
Perhaps I could just complete what I was saying. I hope that between now and our next day on Report we can have some constructive dialogue with my noble friend the Minister about how we can have some kind of process, information sources, or whatever, to ensure that what we have lost with these amendments—which is ensuring that we deal with the whole of retained EU law—can be salvaged.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, it is not my intention to detain the House for long, because I think the House wants to move to a decision, but I will make one point about what might be described as the big picture. Today’s debate takes its place in the long history of debates about Europe and will be interesting to read afterwards. However, about a couple of weeks ago—I forget exactly how long ago it was—we had a short debate in this Chamber on the state of parliamentary democracy. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, replied to it as the Minister. We did not have enough time, but it was a useful debate to have. I suggest to the House only that the sense expressed during that debate, that over a long period Parliament has lost power to the Executive and that what we need is to reclaim power for Parliament over the Executive, is best encapsulated by Amendment 2 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I very much hope that the House passes it.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 16, tabled in my name alongside those of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. and the noble Lords, Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lord Collins of Highbury. I declare an interest as president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, RoSPA. I am sure I speak on behalf of many Peers from across the House in expressing relief at the U-turn. It is testament to the House, as well as to organisations such as RoSPA, that swathes of life-saving health and safety legislation are saved from the REUL bonfire.
Health and safety impacts every area of our lives and it is not limited to certain sectors. I hope the debate around the specifics of the Bill has shone a light on the need for a holistic approach when addressing these issues. The House will have heard me say before that the UK is a global beacon for safety. Thanks to the Minister’s amendment, I am hugely reassured and say that this continues to be the case.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, very briefly, I too added my name to Amendment 16, so well introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. I simply remind the House that, when we remove legislation and regulations, it can have unintended consequences. There is evidence that accidents happen. For example, if we abandon working time directives and regulations, when people are overtired their accidents can be fatal—and there have been fatal accidents. Let us not lose sight of the clear evidence of harms when regulations are no longer in place, because lost lives cannot be reclaimed or replaced. The amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, provides a check mechanism for Parliament to look at regulations and allow scrutiny before things are abandoned. Therefore, although I do not anticipate Amendment 16 being pressed to a vote, I strongly support Amendment 2.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I will speak—briefly, I hope—to the Government’s Amendment 1. I direct your Lordships back to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who is absolutely right: this Bill, in its current position on the Order Paper, is substantially different from the Bill that was considered by the House of Commons and at Second Reading by this House. If we are to properly scrutinise and analyse the Bill, and have proper oversight of it, we have to be cognisant of that fact.
Notwithstanding the comments of my noble friend the Deputy Chief Whip, where else are we going to acknowledge the very substantial and significant change that has come as a result of the Government’s announcement last week? It is a reasonable point to make. If this were any other Bill—any other potentially epoch-making primary legislation—your Lordships would be up in arms about the fact that we are rushing through on Report the Government’s amendment to Clause 1, which effectively rips up the Government’s policy on the Bill.
I defer to no one in my admiration for my noble friend Lord Callanan, the Minister. I worked with him in DExEU in the run-up to Article 50 and the TCA. He is one of the most gifted Minsters. He has obviously had a very difficult time in your Lordships’ House, putting a viewpoint that has not always been universally popular.
However, the wider context is very important, as put forward by my noble friend Lady Noakes. The Prime Minister did say that in his first 100 days as PM we would review or repeal post-Brexit EU laws. Indeed, that bastion of blue in tooth and claw Conservatism, the Independent newspaper, described the government retreat as a course of action that
“turns the logic of the bill on its head”.
I do not underestimate the task that we as a Government—or this House and the Government—gave to civil servants. In fact, the agency Thomson Reuters estimated in 2017 that 52,741 laws were introduced in the UK as a result of EU legislation between 1990 and 2017. Many of them of course were worthwhile and much needed, but many were about protecting boondoggle schemes, market distortions, oligopolistic behaviour and were designed to ossify market dominance, restrict the need for innovation and lock out more agile and dynamic competitors.
Notwithstanding that, I welcome the Government’s sincere endeavours to both review the regulations and to deregulate more broadly. But we have seen that 52,000 shrink to 600. Most EU laws will remain on the statute book, seven and a half years after in the EU referendum we decided to take back control and trust our own elected politicians rather than a foreign legal entity—in this case the European Court of Justice.
Ministers pray in aid the capacity and capability—or not—of civil servants to scrutinise, prioritise and audit so much of our retained corpus of EU law. But I saw, in my role as a special adviser in the run-up to the TCA and the Article 50 process, that with firm and principled political direction and drive, so much more could have been achieved with vision rather than capitulation.
In fairness, it is not solely the responsibility of this Administration. I concede in all fairness—it would be churlish not to—that the previous Johnson Administration could and should have legislated for a Bill in 2021 rather than last autumn. The Government have resiled from a well-understood political commitment, which voters supported with a strong mandate, and which passed, as my noble friend Lady Lawlor said, in January in the Commons.
No one ever voted for these proposals. The Government have picked a side: big business, senior civil servants, special interests, well-remunerated lobbyists and the ex-Mandarin cohorts ably represented in this House. Leave was the biggest vote in British electoral history, but that counts for nothing as opposed to the pearl-clutching vapours of big business, self-interest and shareholder value dressed up as defending parliamentary sovereignty and concern for “significant uncertainty”. Whither the vision of self-government, independence, democratic renewal and sovereignty of June 2016? Instead, we have the cold pragmatism and cynicism of a technocratic elite.
This has not been handled well by the Government. I refer in particular to the lack of proper scrutiny by the European Scrutiny Committee in the other place, and the failure of the Minister to properly attend to those issues.
I will finish by making reference to Schedule 1. We are offered the mere scraps from the table with the new schedule. It is not so much a bonfire of regulations but a damp, fizzing Catherine wheel. There is no fundamental interest in that schedule in the governance of our country.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I will have my say; plenty of people have had a say on the other side.
The disillusionment of people who supported Brexit in good faith is bad for democracy. People are beginning to ask, “Does democracy work?”
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, I will move the House away from the Bay of Biscay and back to this Bill. I tabled Amendment 7, that Clause 1 should not be retained, but I will not move it in view of the radical changes that the Government have brought to the Bill. I therefore easily support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on his Amendment 2. However, I do so with a substantial caveat: that whatever decisions are made by way of advice from the Joint Committee. We must remember that the Joint Committee’s central role is to decide whether the item of legislation before it will bring about a substantial change to current UK law, although the Joint Committee will also bring other considerations.
Important as that is, this is only part of our duty; indeed, our duty is to the whole of the Bill and to the whole of the new schedule before Schedule 1. The Minister referred to 600 specified pieces of EU law, which are represented in the long list represented in the long list before Schedule 1. I have done the arithmetic—even though my arithmetic has never been quite perfect—and the total is 928. We have a responsibility for every one of those 928 EU measures.
I ask your Lordships to concentrate on our wider responsibility, such as whether there is a need to revoke a particular piece of legislation. Is it causing any harm? There are a number of other tests which your Lordships should apply, but which will not fall under the remit of the Joint Committee. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the six sets of Habitat (Salt-Marsh) Regulations stretching over pages 24 and 25 of the Marshalled List. The question, for which we have a responsibility to answer, is: are they defective? If so, how?
Lord Hacking (Lab)
I got a prompt from beneath me that we are discussing this on Wednesday. I will not go into further detail; I just wanted to bring your Lordships’ attention to one example out of the 928 EU measures which fall under the new schedule before Schedule 1. The same test could easily be applied to the Civil Aviation (Safety of Third Country Aircraft) Regulations, which is on line 177 of page 27 of the Marshalled List. We have wider responsibilities, and we should exercise our influence over them during the passage of the Bill.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, I am happy to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, and I agree with both his points. I have the strong impression, having read through the list of titles, that the great bulk of the legislation to be eradicated, listed on the 57 pages of the new schedule, is in fact defunct and can perfectly reasonably be removed. That is the impression that I get—but that is from reading the titles. I cannot remember the details even of the particular pieces of law that I was involved in drafting, and there are a few of them here. We have a duty to establish a sensible procedure. It could be that there are unintended consequences. I strongly support Amendment 1, the government amendment, but a necessary corollary to that amendment is that we must pass Amendments 2 and 4.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the changes that the Government have brought forward, but I also think that the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is one that the Government should very seriously consider, and I shall support it later on this evening—and I shall support it for a simple reason. The question as to whether or not we leave the European Union has been settled. I was on a different side to my noble friend Lord Hamilton—I believed that we should remain in—but I accept that that debate has gone and that I lost it. We now have to move on, and we must find a way in which to give the House of Commons and the House of Lords a say over the legislation that is going to replace it.
The sad story of this Bill so far is that we were told that there were 3,000 pieces of legislation, then it was 4,000 pieces—and we now have 900 pieces that can be got rid of very quickly. One thing that is changing dramatically is how a lot of detailed changes have to be made at pace, and it is not always going to be the case that there will be time for primary legislation going through both Houses of Parliament. That is why we need to adapt ourselves to a very different mode of doing regulations. Some of the regulations are technical and the House will not necessarily want to take a particular view but, when they are of a more practical nature, I think that there should be a Joint Committee of both Houses that says to the Government: “Hold on, let’s discuss this”. That is what happened when we had the initial withdrawal Bill and, in a way, the proposals that have been put forward today are mirror images of those particular ways forward.
The changes that the Minister has brought forward, which are very welcome, came very late in the day, and nobody really knew what was happening until late last week—and we are debating them here this afternoon. So I very much hope that the amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, will give the Government time to reflect and see that they have nothing to fear from a Joint Committee of both Houses looking at these matters. After all, if the Government have a majority, it will probably have one on that committee as well—and that is a sensible way forward, giving that parliamentary accountability that we all wish to see.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I would like to focus my probing on Amendment 1—
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has spoken once in this debate, and the good book says that it is one opportunity at Report.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I think that I have been encouraged to go ahead. Is that appropriate?
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, very briefly, the case for what we are doing was put best by the noble Lord, Lord King, former Governor of the Bank of England. He said that there was a case for remaining in the EU to retain some influence, albeit small, over European legislation and there was a case for leaving to enable us to revise EU laws. There was no case for leaving and not using our opportunity to revise those laws.
A paradox arose in previous stages whereby those who, apparently with no problems at all, had allowed laws to be passed with little or no say by Parliament for 44 years became, overnight, welcome champions of full parliamentary process. Those on the pro-Brexit side of the campaign found themselves in the difficult position of arguing for rather streamlined and inadequate processes of parliamentary scrutiny, partly because there was a trade-off: there was a case for taking more time to maximise the thoroughness of scrutiny and a case for seeking speedy completion of the process to minimise uncertainty.
Amendment 2 gives us the opportunity for a degree of more thorough parliamentary scrutiny, which I think both sides welcome, but I would like an assurance from the Government that it will not prolong uncertainty for too long. The fewer the measures in the schedule, the more measures are outside it and could be liable to a process of reform or even removal over a longer period, therefore prolonging uncertainty. I would like to know before Wednesday why the some 2,000 laws that the Civil Service did not know existed have not been put in the schedule. If no one knew that they were there, what harm can there be in removing at least some of them?
More seriously, part of the process of this Bill is surely to enable us to transform legislation that we retain on the statute book into a more common-law process, more suited to Britain and our procedures. I would like some assurance that that will happen and an explanation of why, given that in most common-law countries there is little or no product legislation—they must be of merchandisable quality, safe and not harmful, but the law does not specify how or why they are made, in the way that the EU rules that we inherited do, largely for protectionist reasons—there is no removal of product legislation in this schedule. Surely it would be possible and bring us into line with much of the world.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, this has been a very extensive debate. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, mentioned churlishness in a different context; it would be very churlish for these Benches not to welcome the government amendments in this group and the fact that the Minister has co-signed Amendment 9 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman.
We owe the Minister a debt of gratitude. All through the grinding Committee, he stuck poker-faced to the party line, but then it seems he sprang into action; he took the spirit of what he heard in your Lordships’ House and, using his not inconsiderable powers of persuasion on the Secretary of State, he ensured that the whole government position flipped by 180 degrees. We need to thank him for listening to your Lordships in Committee.
We heard some concern about what is in the new schedule, which we will debate on Wednesday. Some of us received at 2.40 pm some explanation as to why particular regulations were put in. Clearly, that was late—we should have had it a lot earlier—but Amendment 2 takes the place of our having to work through the night on that spreadsheet. Should the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, seek the opinion of the House, we on these Benches will support him. Part of the road can be travelled with this group, as long as the noble and learned Lord’s amendment is included.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, it has been a bit of a saga getting to where we are, but it is incredibly welcome that Ministers have tabled the amendments before us today. This means that we do not need to debate my Amendment 6, which would have had a similar effect to the Government’s amendments. I also welcome the Government’s acceptance of my Amendment 9, which deletes Clause 2.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I find myself standing here bathed in sunlight; I am not sure whether that is a sign.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I do not require the noble Lord’s advice on this.
I will start with Amendment 2 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, which requires that legislation listed in the revocation schedule be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses and be considered by the committee for a period of at least 30 sitting days. Should the Joint Committee consider that the revocation of the legislation listed would substantially alter UK law, a Minister of the Crown must ensure that the revocation be debated and voted on by both Houses prior to 31 December.
I start by reassuring noble Lords that it is the Government’s view that this amendment is unnecessary. Every piece of retained EU law in the schedule has been thoroughly reviewed, and will be reviewed and debated alongside Amendment 64, which has been tabled. I am confident that the changes to Clause 1 that we have introduced have alleviated the substantial concerns raised by Members across this House during the passage of the Bill and provided the legal clarity and certainty that has been called for.
Although I know that a number of noble Lords have not yet had the chance to see it, today we have published an extensive schedule explainer—again, responding to the concerns that many Members have raised; officials have been working hard on this all weekend—which explains, line by line, why each of the, in total, 587 pieces of legislation has been deemed suitable for inclusion on the schedule. That has been sent to every Member in advance of the debate on Wednesday. I hope that this will alleviate the concerns raised in this debate, including by my noble friend Lord Hodgson and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and other noble Lords, about the amount of information that has now been made publicly available.
In addition, the preservation power in Clause 1 will enable relevant national authorities to preserve legislation on the revocation schedule where they deem it necessary and where the relevant procedures and timescales have been adhered to. This provides a proportionate safeguard against unforeseen consequences of legislation listed on the schedule being revoked. The purpose of our amendment is to provide that legal certainty and clarity as efficiently as possible. To require yet further referrals and debates, and approvals to the list which can be scrutinised during the Bill’s passage, is unnecessary.
On Amendment 4, I have introduced changes to the Bill that I hope will reassure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead—I think they have done—that his proposed changes to the functioning of the Bill are not necessary. Indeed, the revocation schedule I have laid guarantees that only a set amount of retained EU law will be revoked, which is clearly set out in the Bill. This is very similar to the mechanism proposed in this amendment that would see instruments or provisions expressly listed in a ministerial Statement. However, for a number of reasons, I believe that my proposed revocation schedule is better equipped to deliver this amendment’s desired outcome.
For similar reasons I am opposed to Amendment 6. This amendment would introduce changes to Clause 1 that are reflective of those already introduced by the Government. Indeed, the revocation schedule in Amendments 1 and 5 seeks to accomplish similar goals to Amendment 6 but in a more comprehensive way. This amendment would require a list to be compiled in order to be revoked and would open the door for multiple such lists being laid over the coming months. Again, the proposed revocation schedule is already drafted, has been vetted and is ready, and I believe it is a more appropriate solution. Finally, the amendment has unclear timelines and does not offer as much certainty as the revocation schedule, which is clear about when the revocation of pieces of retained EU law would occur and works in step with other timings in the Bill, such as the expiry of the powers on 23 June 2026.
I was going to refer to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, but he said that he will not press it.
Amendment 8 attempts to exempt any pieces of legislation from the sunset should they be identified after the end of 2023. As I already outlined, this amendment is now unnecessary.
Amendments 10, 11 and 12 all concern the devolved Administrations and their preservation power in what was Clause 3. However, given that under my proposal Clauses 1 and 2 have been removed from the Bill and a revocation schedule has replaced the sunset, these three amendments are defunct and we ask that they are not pressed.
Amendment 16 seeks to oblige the Secretary of State to publish a health and safety impact assessment for any retained EU law which is to be revoked, at least 90 days before the revocation. All legislation listed on the revocation schedule has been considered by the relevant departments and checked by the relevant teams. As such, a health and safety impact assessment is not needed, given the depth of the work that has already been carried out.
We have introduced this Bill to help us realise the opportunities of Brexit. I reassure my noble friend Lord Jackson and other noble Lords that the Government remain committed to a reform programme. Legislation that has been identified on this schedule had already been identified and would have been allowed to sunset anyway. We are still committed to making the opportunities of the reform programme, and we retain the ambition and fundamental purpose behind this work.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment and that other noble Lords will not press theirs and will support the government amendments.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Before my noble friend sits down, will he respond to my question about sufficient consultation time being allowed? The Food Standards Agency has accepted all the legislation that relates to it which falls in the revocation schedule to which my noble friend referred, subject to sufficient time for consultation. Can my noble friend say, hand on heart, that, by the time the Bill is concluded, there will be enough time for consultation before the schedule applies?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I have seen the letter from the Food Standards Agency to which my noble friend refers. The schedule is published and we have now published the explainer, so people can see what is on it. The vast majority of legislation published on the schedule is unnecessary and redundant, and can be safely revoked.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, I listened very carefully but I did not hear what he had to say about Amendment 14 and the reassurances I was seeking.
Lord Callanan (Con)
Can the noble Baroness remind me what her Amendment 14 is about, please?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The directives she seeks an explanation on are not listed on the revocation schedule. Therefore, they continue to be in operation. They will be subject to a reform programme, but that is a question she will need to direct towards the Secretary of State at Defra.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I have listened very carefully to what the Minister said. I have not seen the additional information which has apparently been circulated to some Members of this House, and I think many Members have no idea what it contains. That makes my point for me: proper parliamentary scrutiny is essential. That is what my amendment is all about and, with great respect to the Minister, I do not think he has really answered that point of principle. Having moved Amendment 2, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, this amendment relates to the remaining sunsetting clauses. It is important to state at the outset that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said in moving his Amendment 2, a number of sunset clauses revert. I also take the opportunity to seek clarification regarding something my noble friend Lord Callanan said, as Minister in charge of the Bill: that under Amendment 14, all existing water directives and regulations will remain in place. I press him for an assurance that all those statutory instruments, regulations, assimilated law, retained EU law—whatever we are going to call them—that relate to Defra, which I understand are the bulk of all the retained law that was passed following the EU withdrawal agreement, will by default remain on the statute book. Is that going to happen automatically, or is my noble friend saying that statutory instruments will have to be put forward by Defra, following the passage of the Bill, on which we will subsequently vote? I would like my noble friend to address at the outset of his concluding remarks on this little group of amendments what exactly the legal position is, for our better understanding.
In preparing the amendments in this group, Amendments 3, 36, 38, 42, 43 and 44, I am immensely grateful to Michael Clancy and the Law Society of Scotland, who share the concerns that I have about the remaining sunset clauses and the impact they will have in this regard, as they relate to the Bill going forward. The purpose of Amendment 3 is to give greater clarity about the extension, and to extend the date from that proposed in the Bill, the end of 2023, to 11:59 pm on 31 December 2028. There is serious concern about the proposed statutory deadline being the end of 2023 as, for reasons that pertain also to the debate we had on the first group, it does not appear to allow sufficient time to enable a review of all the remaining European law to be completed properly, following what I would deem to be proper consultation with the devolved Administrations and all the relevant interested parties, including the UK parliamentary and devolved legislation committees.
I would argue that the additional time is needed to enable a more thoughtful and comprehensive approach to amending or repealing the remaining REUL under the Bill. I believe that the choice of date should be made on the application of good legislative practice, including considered analysis of the legislation involved and consultation with those who will be affected by the variation or revocation proposed by the regulations in question. Therefore, the later date I have set out in Amendment 3 would allow that to happen. It would enable better law to be passed, and I believe that Parliament is here to make good laws, not laws to which we have to return later. I hope my noble friend will look favourably on that. Does he believe in all honesty that there is sufficient time for this?
In his reply to me when I tabled a similar amendment in Committee, my noble friend stated that it would not be a cliff edge:
“Firstly, the 2023 sunset date was chosen because it is the quickest and most efficient way to enact retained EU law reform. It will allow us to swiftly remove retained EU laws that are no longer appropriate and are not in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers”.—[Official Report, 28/2/23; col. 232.]
Having dispensed with the sunset clause in the government amendments we have adopted or are about to adopt, there is a good argument for pushing back the sunset clause, as I set out in Amendment 3.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister will recognise, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has taken a close part in all our discussions throughout the Bill’s passage. She has been wholly consistent in arguing that we, or the country, should be given more time to fully process its contents. I hope my Front Bench will support her.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I wish I could support my noble friend but I am afraid I cannot. She shows a total misunderstanding of the way in which bureaucratic minds work: if you extend a deadline, they do nothing until they are approaching it. All that happens is that you prolong the whole thing. Let us face it, we would not be considering the whole business of how many laws we should be retaining or binning if there had not been a sunset clause in the original drafting of the Bill. That concentrated minds in Whitehall and got them to start finding out how much legislation they have. I think some of them were quite surprised how much there was. I certainly cannot support this amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
I welcome that 500 of the regulations will be dealt with on Wednesday with a view to them being revoked, but what worries me is that there must be at least another 3,000. What will happen to them? At what point, if ever, will this House have an opportunity to comment on them?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Thank you; I did not get up because I thought the Opposition Front Bench was going to speak. I reject Amendments 3, 36, 38 and 42 to 44, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh.
I will deal with the point raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and give an explanation to my noble friend Lord Hamilton. A notion seems to be springing up that the Government and departments somehow did not know what legislation they actually had responsibility for. They knew very well what legislation they had; what was sometimes unclear was whether that legislation was as a result of an EU obligation and therefore was retained EU law. This was because, over the 40-odd years of our membership, different Governments had different policies. Only a small part of EU legislation was introduced through the so-called Section 2(2) pipeline of the European Communities Act. If it is those regulations, that is very obvious—people know where that has come from—but Governments often did not want to say that legislation was introduced as a result of an EU obligation. It was therefore introduced under various instruments, under either domestic legislation or normal domestic secondary legislation. Therefore, the difficulty that departments faced was identifying what was an EU obligation. It is not that they did not know what legislation they were responsible for, were somehow finding legislation down the back of the sofa or anything else. That has been the issue: the definition of what was retained EU law. I hope that explanation is helpful.
Amendment 3 seeks to change the sunset date, pushing it back to the end of 2028. Given the amendments to the Bill that we have already discussed and the significant changes to the operation of the sunset, I hope my noble friend recognises that it is therefore not necessary to also change the sunset date. The current scope of the sunset in Clause 1 will no longer be relevant, as it will be replaced with a schedule to the Bill. The schedule will list retained EU law that departments have identified for removal. This is the only legislation that will be revoked on 31 December 2023.
Similarly, Amendments 36 and 38 seek to change the date of the powers to restate under Clauses 13 and 14. Amendment 36 would mean that Clause 13 was capable of acting on retained EU law until 31 December 2028. Pieces of retained EU law that are not included in the revocation schedule will, of course, not be revoked on 31 December 2023, but they will be stripped of their EU interpretative effects and assimilated in domestic legislation.
Consequently, those pieces of legislation will no longer be retained EU law. They will be assimilated law as part of the normal law of the United Kingdom, and the status of retained EU law on the UK statute book will come to an end. There will be no more REUL after 31 December. As retained EU law will end as a legal category at the end of this year, it is right that this power, which is capable of acting only on REUL, expires then. I am not clear why my noble friend wants to extend the sunset date of a power that will no longer be required.
Amendment 38 seeks to change the date on which the power to restate assimilated law under Clause 14 will expire from 23 June 2026 to 31 December 2028. It is in my view entirely right and appropriate that this power should be available for a time-limited window up to 23 June 2026. This is consistent with the powers to revoke or replace in Clause 16. I am confident that the time window currently set out in Clause 14 will provide sufficient time for the power to be exercised on all the necessary legislation.
Amendment 42 changes the date on which the powers to revoke or replace within Clause 16 are capable of acting on REUL from 23 June 2026 to 31 December 2028. Similarly, Amendment 43 changes the date that the powers to revoke or replace can act on assimilated law to 31 December 2028. Amendment 44 changes the date in Clause 16(11) from the end of 2023 to the end of 2028 so that the references to retained EU law in Clause 16(8) can be read as a reference to assimilated law until 31 December 2028. Again, this group of amendments is no longer necessary due to the revocation schedule. There is more than adequate time for the use of the powers on assimilated law within the timescales provided for in the Bill. The powers to revoke or replace will enable UK and devolved Ministers to remove those regulations that are no longer fit for purpose and replace them with regulations that are more tailored to the UK within a timely manner, and the Government are committed to achieving these much-needed reforms by 2026. That is why the powers are restricted in their use and available only for a time-limited window, up to 23 June 2026. I hope that, with the explanations I have been able to provide, my noble friend will withdraw her amendment.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
Before the Minister sits down, can he explain assimilated law? The present position—it is clearly shown in the schedule—is that either the European provision turns up as a statutory instrument or it is referred to precisely by the regulation number of the EEC or EU regulations. How are we going to find this assimilated law?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord is confusing two things. The schedule is the retained EU law that we are proposing to allow to be revoked on 31 December this year. Assimilated law will be that retained EU law, stripped of its interpretive effects, that will remain on the statute book. We will end the special category of retained EU law that has existed because of our membership of the European Union. The noble Lord is confusing two things. The items listed in the schedule will disappear, and the rest, which is not revoked, will become assimilated law. The powers that remain can act on that law to change or modify it. That will be subject to approval by Parliament through the normal process.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
How do we identify the assimilated law on our statute book?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The dashboard lists all the pieces of retained EU law that have been identified; the schedule lists those that are being revoked.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, while I am extremely grateful to my noble friend, I think he has made a bit of an own goal because I think it is still the case that the dashboard is simply not comprehensive. My concern, and I think that of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and others, is that there are a number of items of EU law that are simply not on the dashboard. As we speak today, I am unclear about what the legal status of the dashboard is.
What I do take comfort from, based on what I understand my noble friend to have said, is that, if, for example, there is a piece of Defra retained EU law that does not appear in the revocation schedule on which we are going to vote, it will remain on the statute book and, even more importantly, it cannot be amended. So it can neither be revoked nor amended. If that is not the case, I would ask my noble friend to rise to the Dispatch Box and explain where I am wrong.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I have explained this, but I will do so again. The powers to modify, change or update the assimilated law remain in the proposals. Obviously, the measures that are in the schedule will be revoked, but there are powers to modify, or restate. To take an example, interpretive effects are being abolished and, in some pieces of legislation, that will require minor changes to that legislation, to update it, because of the removal of interpretive effects. The policy intent will stay the same, but it is possible that some minor changes will be required, which is why the Government need this power. So the noble Baroness is partially correct to say that existing measures that are not being revoked will become part of assimilated law; but the Government do have the power to modify or change them.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am not sure that that is entirely clear, but I have pressed the point as much as I can at this stage. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Callanan
“(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to anything specified in regulations made by a relevant national authority.(4) No regulations may be made under subsection (3) after 31 October 2023.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment leaves out subsections (3) and (4), in consequence of the Minister’s amendment at page 1, line 4, and inserts a power for a relevant national authority to exclude legislation listed in the Schedule from revocation under this Clause.
Member’s explanatory statement
This is related to the amendment in the name of Baroness Chapman of Darlington to replace Clause 1.
Lord Callanan
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment leaves out clause 3 (extension of sunset under clause 1).
Lord Hope of Craighead
“Revocation of retained EU rights, powers, liabilities etc(1) Any rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures retained by section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 are revoked at the end of 2023 in accordance with subsections (2) to (4).(2) A responsible Minister of a relevant national authority may make a statement before the end of October 2023 to, as the case may be, each House of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru or the Northern Ireland Assembly, identifying any rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies or procedures that the relevant national authority has decided not to restate, reproduce or replace before the end of 2023 and that it wishes to be revoked at the end of 2023.(3) If both Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru or the Northern Ireland Assembly, as the case may be, resolve that a right, power, liability, obligation, restriction, remedy or procedure identified in the statement referred to in subsection (2) be retained, it is not to be revoked under subsection (4) at the end of 2023.(4) If, and to the extent that, no such resolution referred to in subsection (3) has been made before the end of 2023, the rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures identified in the statement referred to in subsection (2) are revoked with effect from the end of 2023.(5) Any right, power, liability, obligation, restriction, remedy or procedure that is revoked by virtue of this section is not recognised or available in domestic law at or after the end of 2023 (and, accordingly, is not to be enforced, allowed or followed).”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment, which is modelled on the amendment to Clause 1 in the name of Lord Hope of Craighead, is to enable Parliament and the devolved legislatures, not the Executive, to have the final decision as to whether or not rights, powers, liabilities &c. retained by section 4 of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 should be revoked at the end of 2023.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to two amendments in this group: Amendment 15, which I am moving, and Amendment 76, which comes later in the Marshalled List; I shall explain what that is about. One or two ancillary amendments—Amendments 69, 73 and 74—are related to Amendment 76.
This group seeks to develop further the application to this Bill of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Amendment 15 is in the name of the noble Lord, Anderson of Ipswich. I added my name to it, as did the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord McLoughlin. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is not here today, so I am moving Amendment 15 on his behalf.
Amendment 15 is directed to Clause 4, which is headed “Sunset of retained EU rights, powers, liabilities etc”. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that this is an example of a sunset that is still in the Bill and which we are not disputing should remain in the Bill. It provides, first, that
“Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 … is repealed at the end of 2023”.
It then provides that
“anything which, immediately before the end of 2023, is retained EU law by virtue of that section is not recognised or available in domestic law at or after that time (and, accordingly, is not to be enforced, allowed or followed)”.
The purpose of Amendment 15 is to provide a mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny of subsection (2). There could be a great deal of law hidden behind the clause which we cannot understand or see. Therefore, it should be fully investigated by the relevant committee. The mechanism that we propose in Amendment 15 is that the law that would be affected by Clause 4(2) must be identified by the making of a Statement to Parliament before the end of October, which would then provide a basis for the matter to be debated in both Houses. The purpose of the amendment is simply to close a gap that might otherwise remain in the need for effective scrutiny.
I shall not take up time by reading out the whole of Amendment 15 as your Lordships can see what is there, but the explanatory statement says that it is modelled on the amendment to Clause 1, in my name, which has just been agreed by your Lordships,
“to enable Parliament and the devolved legislatures, not the Executive, to have the final decision as to whether or not rights, powers, liabilities … should be revoked at the end of 2023”.
I think that is all I need to say about Amendment 15. I do not want to take up further time by adding more to what I have said.
Amendment 76 in my name, along with—as I have said—those of the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton, Lord McLoughlin, and Lord Anderson, is very important because it is directed to the very heart of the Bill; this lies beyond the schedule that we will be looking at and beyond Clause 4, to which I have just been referring. It is directed to Clauses 13, 14 and 16.
I remind your Lordships that Clause 13 is headed “Power to restate retained EU law”. Clause 14 is headed “Power to restate assimilated law or reproduce sunsetted retained EU rights, powers, liabilities etc”, and Clause 16 is described as “Powers to revoke or replace”. These are extremely important powers that, as the Bill stands, are to be exercised by statutory instrument, not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which is what we are seeking to do.
I do not wish to go over the arguments that we have debated so fully today, beyond emphasising that these are very far-reaching powers that will result in a complete rewriting of much of the law that we have kept on our departure from the EU. We do not dispute the need to do that—there has been a good deal of reference already today to the importance and indeed necessity of carrying out these exercises—but our point is that that cannot be left entirely to Ministers and civil servants without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Amendment 76 is once again based on an amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, in Committee. It would provide for any instruments made under these three clauses to be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses for scrutiny. Again, if that committee found that the regulations represented a substantial change to the preceding EU law or that sufficient public consultation had not been carried out, a Minister of the Crown would have to arrange for the instrument to be debated on the Floor of each House. It is contemplated that the Houses may agree to amendments, whether or not proposed by the Joint Committee.
Of course, the Minister may come up with a better scheme for subjecting those regulations to effective public scrutiny, but this is the best that, with the assistance of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, we have been able to devise. We have tried to keep the procedure as quick and simple as possible without disturbing the sunsetting provisions in the clauses and we are reasonably sure, on the advice of the noble Lord, that our proposal will meet these requirements.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
Could the noble and learned Lord deal more fully with the amendment provision? It is a most interesting provision because hitherto my understanding has always been that statutory instruments cannot be amended. What is proposed in new paragraph 8A(3) in Amendment 76 is a power to amend a statutory instrument. I would like to know—
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, could I ask my noble friend to turn around and address the House?
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I am so sorry. Being rather deaf, I have to listen to what the noble and learned Lord is saying by turning towards him. I apologise. I would like to know—[Laughter] I am doing it again. I would like to know what the procedure is. Is it precedented, or is it a new concept that the House is being asked to contemplate—namely, the power to amend statutory instruments?
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, the amendment, which I invite the noble Viscount to look at more closely, is carefully worded. All we say is that if any amendments to the regulations are agreed to—we have to be extremely careful in our proposal because we cannot direct what a Joint Committee of both Houses is going to do, which is a matter for it—we suggest that the committee may feel it appropriate to recommend that amendments should be laid. That is a matter for the Joint Committee. We are not giving a power ourselves but handing it over to the Joint Committee, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, will confirm.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I am sorry to press the noble and learned Lord—while looking straight at your Lordships’ House—but is the concept that there will then be on the Order Paper proposed amendments to the statutory instrument, or will there be an informal recommendation by the Select Committee? Those are not the same things. I would be very pleased if they were a power to amend statutory instruments, and I would really like to know what procedure is contemplated.
Lord Lisvane (CB)
It is with a certain amount of trepidation that I seek to answer the question. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, will correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it the idea is that the amendments—which might come from the Joint Committee or from another source, as foreseen in sub-paragraph (3) in the amendment—would come forward and could be to put to either House or both Houses as Motions that a certain order should be laid in a form so amended. If that Motion was agreed to—it is a sidestep procedurally because it is not acting on the text of the order itself—and the will of either House was that there should be such amendments then it would be for Ministers to re-lay the order, taking those amendments and the decision of the House or Houses into account.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. I think the noble Viscount will appreciate that we have to deal with this very carefully. On the other hand, I think he will agree that, given the nature of the task being carried out, it would be extremely unfortunate if a flaw were spotted and nothing could be done about it. We are trying to suggest a mechanism by which something that is agreed by the Joint Committee, and indeed by both Houses as necessary, should be capable of being done. I hope I may leave it at that. This is a carefully drafted amendment that is doing its best to address an extremely important and, in some respects, quite delicate task.
When the time comes, if necessary, I shall seek the opinion of the House on Amendment 76. For the time being, because we have before us Amendment 15, that will be my position too, if necessary, when Amendment 15 is called.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, we have had two significant amendments proposed by the noble and learned Lord. I have Amendments 73 and 74 in this group, which are small and technical but significant in the way in which they try to enhance the scrutiny provisions that underlie the noble and learned Lord’s two amendments, which I entirely support. I will not repeat my reasons because I would be largely rehearsing the arguments that I made an hour and a half ago.
It is generally anticipated, though not certain, that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee will be one of the bodies appointed to carry out some scrutiny of the regulations, as and when this particular part of the Bill comes into force. The Bill as drafted envisages a period of 10 working days for a report to be produced by the SLSC that would then come before the House, and the House would make its mind up about its view of that report on the instrument. The Government use the example—the dreaded precedent—of the 10-day period provided under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. In the SLSC report that I referred to earlier, we proposed that the period should be extended from 10 days to 15. We said in paragraph 58:
“We know from our own experience in scrutinising proposed negatives under the 2018 Act that, depending on the day of the week on which a proposed negative has been laid, meeting that 10-day deadline could be challenging”.
Under the Bill, the regulations to be scrutinised are of an entirely different level of policy implication, importance and significance. This view and the proposal for a five-day extension—by no means a huge length of time—have been endorsed by the Hansard Society, which Members of the House will be aware is an academic expert in matters of parliamentary procedure.
In Committee on this Bill on 8 March, at col. 876, my noble friend, having heard the debate on these amendments, was kind enough to offer to go away and reflect. I have no doubt that he did his level best, but I fear that he was rebuffed because the Government said in their response to the SLSC report of 10 May:
“Having considered this carefully and in particular how the existing 10 day sifting practice works, the Government remains of the view that a 10 day sifting period is sufficient for SIs laid using the powers in the Retained EU Law Bill … The retained EU Law programme is a similar challenge”—
to 2018—
“but it is no more complex or demanding”.
I have just two points on that. First, to describe this Bill as no more complex and demanding, compared to that of 2018, is, I am afraid, plain wrong. It is a much more significant piece of legislation than the 2018 Act. Secondly, the members of the SLSC do not come to this view ex cathedra. We think about it, but we also talk and take into account the views of the highly experienced and dedicated staff, who produce excellent reports which come before your Lordships’ House every week.
To conclude, I suppose I could just about have got my mind around my noble friend’s view that it should be 10 days after all when we were under the cosh of the 31 December drop-dead end date. We do not have that now, so the time pressure that was otherwise going to be imposed has now been released and reviewed. I urge my noble friend to go back to the chateau behind the lines and ask the general commanding to think again. If the Government do not think again, it will be yet another example of how they appear intent on marginalising Parliament at every single opportunity.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, if I might briefly comment on the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, about amendments—
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, the guidance in the Companion states that, on Report, Members are asked to make their reflections once.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
But I asked a question; I did not make a speech before. The question is one that I want to emphasise now.
Time and time again, this House has had to address the ability of Parliament to amend statutory instruments. The explanation given by the noble and learned Lord, and by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, makes it plain that on the question of amendments, we have to rely entirely on the good faith and discretion of the Minister. What in fact was being said by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane—I am grateful to him—is that the House, by a Motion, can express a view but the ability to change the statutory instrument depends on—
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I think my noble friend is actually making a statement.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
I am making a speech, not a statement. I do not think I know the difference between the two. I was making a contribution in the debate.
What the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord have demonstrated is that the ability to amend statutory instruments is dependent upon the discretion of the Secretary of State. I have long taken the view, and I hope your Lordships would agree that, especially when you have so many statutory instruments, this House should be able to amend them—
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My noble friend is making a statement. He is not asking a question, and we should let others get on with their one speech.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, these are rather strange goings-on.
From these Benches, we support all the amendments in this group and I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for introducing them. If he chooses to test the opinion of this House, we will support him on Amendment 15 and, later, on Amendment 76.
Rather like group 5, which we will come to later and is about the powers of courts, this group is about trying to introduce some legal stability and certainty into what has been a bumpy process for this Bill. One could say that the Bill is no way to run a whelk-stall. As my noble friend Lord Fox said, we did get some explanations for the measures to be revoked in the schedule, but it was only just before—or just after—we started to debate Clause 1, and we only got the amendments to the Bill four days ago. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster, and any effort to introduce some certainty and predictability is to be welcomed.
I will speak exclusively to Amendment 15, which is very important. The Government may be retaining a lot more EU law, but they have insisted—indeed, the Minister keeps repeating that they are proud of this—on playing fast and loose with the way that retained EU law will be interpreted, such as ending the much misrepresented supremacy of EU law and the general principles which guide it, as well as EU rights, which this amendment is particularly about. It is quite a mystery as to how the retained law is to be interpreted.
No one, least of all the Government, knows what the impact of this abolition will have on legal certainty and continuity. Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg’s flippant response that “life is uncertain” was typically unhelpful. Can the Minister tell us what assessment the Government have made of the loss of any interpretive effects in the measures to be revoked? What effect will abolishing any interpretive effects in the revoked list have on laws which are retained and assimilated? Are the Government going to put interpretative effects back into SIs on amended, restated, retained and assimilated law, and how will that work? I hesitate to say that it could come back by the backdoor because, quite honestly, any retention could well be helpful to lawyers, the courts and so on. At the moment, we just do not know and are in considerable uncertainty about what the Government’s regulatory intentions are.
We know from Clause 16, which we will come to later, that the Government do not want to increase regulatory burdens. Some of us are a little wary of their definition of burden. According to the smarter regulation document of last week and the consultation on employment law, which I think came out on Friday, it includes the burden of recording working hours, which is odd, and calculating holiday pay. All of that could have a considerable impact on quite a lot of people.
The Government also want regulators to have a growth duty, to
“prioritise growth alongside … their core functions, such as protecting consumers or our natural environment”.
Indeed, they have cited Ofwat, Ofgem and Ofcom in this context. Some of us are a bit concerned that, particularly in the water industry, regulators have already given too much leeway to water companies’ growth, particularly in dividends and bosses’ pay—though perhaps not so much in sewage treatment capacity. There is quite a lot of concern about how all these regulatory intentions, which we are finding in statements and consultation documents, fit the professed commitment to maintain higher standards—I think the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, mentioned this earlier. But if higher standards are kept, particularly those which derive from EU law, how are they going to be interpreted? Some clarity from the Government would be very desirable this afternoon.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 15 and 76. Amendment 76 is in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. This, of course, is what puts meat on the bones of the whole business of restoring parliamentary sovereignty. It is very important that we get back the sovereignty of Parliament, and this is a great opportunity to do it.
There has been a steady erosion, as my noble friend Lord Hodgson has commented, in which statutory instruments are being used to a greater extent. This merely moves power from Parliament to the bureaucracy of this country. This is not a situation that any of us should welcome. If we want to restore our democracy, we should have a Joint Committee of both Houses to look at this legislation. It is very important that we concentrate on the future of this country and of our Parliament and start to restore some of its influence in the world today.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 73 and 74, to which I added my name. I will preface my remarks with a brief comment about the attempts by the Government Front Bench to curtail people’s right to ask questions of other Members during speeches this afternoon. That is most unfortunate and particularly ironic in a debate that is pivoting on the issue of the powers of Parliament to scrutinise legislation. I hope that the Government Front Bench will think again about that line of action.
I welcome the Government’s concessions in the Bill, but I still want to remark on the length of time it took them to wake up to the inevitable—the realisation that the Bill was impossible to implement and requires fundamental change. I am deeply grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for taking that message from this House to the Government. At the same time, having woken up to the need for change, the Government have now given us an impossible timescale in which to consider the 600 pieces of legislation they have identified—we have 48 hours from now. This remains a very flawed Bill, therefore, and represents a major accumulation of power in the hands of the Executive. That is power seized from both this Parliament and, despite important government concessions, the devolved Administrations.
The amendments to which I have added my name are of the most minor nature. Indeed, in Committee the Minister gave us cause to hope that the Government might look positively on such a change. They are minor—an extension from 10 to 15 days for the committees to look at this legislation—but they are nevertheless important because, without that minor change, the sifting of legislation will present a major hurdle.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in his speech on the first group of amendments. That report was called Losing Control?. I am delighted to now be a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is in his place. These minor amendments ask simply for Parliament to be given time to do its job. The Government have accepted that their initial Bill was impractical in its timescale. They now need to accept the lessons of that and, even at this point, to accept this minor change.
This Government have broken new boundaries by producing increasingly skeletal Bills and relying heavily on secondary legislation to flesh out the real meaning of their legislation. SIs are not immune to error. The Home Office recently accumulated a record of having to withdraw one in five of its SIs and remake them. That is not a record of perfect legislation. The Government need to accept that they make mistakes.
We have government by SI now, but the rules and procedures for scrutiny of SIs are locked in the past when primary legislation was much more detailed. If we are to be forced to work this way, procedures must change or there will be major legislative errors. I support the amendments put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and so ably explained by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, as a good, practical way of dealing with the new approach to legislation.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I would like to offer a brief comment on Amendment 76 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. Like many Members of your Lordships’ House, I find the way in which we deal with the increasing amount of secondary legislation fundamentally unsatisfactory. I pay tribute to the work done by my noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blencathra and their respective committees last year, and to the important debate held in your Lordships’ House.
We should move towards re-examining how we handle secondary legislation going forward. However, I do not think that the right way forward is to produce one amendment in one Bill and try to say that it answers the problem. I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, because of his tremendous experience in the other place. But let us not pretend it is easy to find a good solution that will work with both Houses and produce the right degree of additional scrutiny without completely holding up the Government’s secondary legislation programme.
We should take time—I hope the Government will find time—to work between both Houses to find good, practical solutions going forward, but we should not legislate in haste in this Bill. We have secondary legislation procedures that have served us pretty well for a long time. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, referred to needing to deal with flaws in secondary legislation. They can already be dealt with; they do not need any special apparatus to do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the procedure whereby statutory instruments are withdrawn when flaws are pointed out. That is a part of our existing procedure, and it works perfectly well. Let us not pretend it is so broken that we have to invent a special procedure for the Bill.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, my name appears on Amendments 15 and 76, spoken to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. Following what my noble friend Lady Noakes has just said, I say: if not now, when?
It is clear from this debate so far that we sometimes feel that somehow all this European legislation was forced on us and we never wanted it. The simple fact is that we would have had to legislate for a lot of it ourselves. Actually, what happened was that sometimes it was gold-plated—not by Europe but by us. One thing we must be careful not to see happen now is future regulations coming forward and being gold-plated without Ministers necessarily realising what has possibly happened.
I have been fortunate in serving as a Secretary of State. I must admit: I cannot say that, when officials came to me and said that we would take something through on delegated powers, I said, “Well, I must really examine every last word of that particular piece of legislation”.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
Yes, of course, shame—absolutely a shame. I completely accept what my noble friend is saying. It is a shame and a disgrace, but sometimes you get such a number of regulations coming forward that you might just let them believe what you are saying because you know you are not going to have to defend it in Parliament. That is something that I think my noble friend Lord Hamilton said a few moments ago. It will make a Government more responsive if they feel they have to defend it on the Floor of either the House of Commons or your Lordships’ House.
That is why we have had several debates, including, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, the earlier debate as a result of the Delegated Powers Committee—which I now chair following my noble friend Lord Blencathra—and the committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Hodgson. It is a way to make sure that the Government are more accountable to the elected House as well as to your Lordships’ House, where we can also sometimes ask, “Has A or B been thought of?”. That is very much why I hope the Government will consider this in due course. As I said, the overall changes made to the Bill already are very welcome, but the number of changes, and the speed with which they have been made, makes us question, rightly, how well thought out the Bill was in the first instance.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. His historical point is completely correct: the period of maximum EU legislation was during the delivery of the single market programme, which was based on the Cockfield White Paper and the agreement between Prime Minister Thatcher and President Delors. That legislation came through mainly in the early 1990s, and some of it is in the schedule—it has probably been overtaken by something else. It is simply not true that it was all imposed on us.
I support Amendment 76, which is essential. I can explain my reasoning by reminding the House of what Clause 16 says. It is a bit presidential; one might almost say “dictatorial”. Clause 16(2) says:
“A relevant national authority may by regulations revoke any secondary retained EU law and replace it with such provision as the relevant national authority considers to be appropriate and to achieve the same or similar objectives”.
In the phrase “considers to be appropriate”, “appropriate” is a very presidential word rather than a parliamentary word. Okay, there is still the saving caveat that it has
“to achieve the same or similar objectives”,
but here comes Clause 16(3), which uses almost exactly the same wording:
“A relevant national authority may by regulations revoke any secondary retained EU law and make such alternative provision as the relevant national authority considers appropriate”.
Here there is no saving caveat about achieving the same or similar objectives, so under Clause 16 the Executive may, by regulations, do whatever they well choose. That seems to me to make it absolutely essential to have the parliamentary scrutiny for Clauses 13, 14 and 16 that would be delivered by the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, is certainly correct that no legislation was forced on the UK by the EU. Indeed, many Ministers from all parties were happy to take advantage of laws made in Brussels, which they sometimes even suggested, by coming back to the UK and reading out the legal text from the EU Commission—and then, if there was any objection, they blamed the EU. But what was removed from that equation was the scrutiny and accountability of the electorate. They were the people who were told that they could not change the law; it was ring-fenced away from them. That is what voters rejected in 2016.
I will be clear on what this Bill is all about by quoting the European Commission, because I know that so many noble Lords trust it and not me. In October 2021 the EU Commission stated, in relation to a dispute with Poland:
“EU law has primacy over national law, including constitutional provisions … All rulings by the European Court of Justice are binding on all Member States’ authorities, including national courts”.
That is no longer the case for the UK, and we are now trying to untangle how we deal with that.
In relation to the Bill, it is, in my opinion, not the case that Brexit was an act of reclaiming sovereignty, a blueprint for saying exactly what laws we would keep or retain, or a means of just getting rid of EU law as an end in itself, as it were. Rather, it was about putting the responsibility for choosing which laws to prioritise, reform or even improve in the hands of the Government and Parliament, who are answerable to the British people—the electorate. I have listened carefully to a lot of the very thoughtful amendments put forward to try to ensure that too much power is not put in the hands of the Executive or Whitehall, as opposed to an accountable Parliament, but I get anxious about how the arguments are posed sometimes, so I will query some of the amendments in this group.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Indeed, so that is true. For once noble Lords are agreeing with me: this House is not representative of the feelings of the British public. Therefore, the Joint Committees of Parliament, which include many from this House, who are hostile to what the British public voted to do in the past—
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I am simply asking whether that is the solution to resolving the problems that we face in terms of our disentanglement from the European Union’s lawmaking.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, could she tell us, then, what Bill is the ideal Bill to bring an end to the constant use of statutory instruments?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for intervening again, but the rules found in the Companion are very clear about speaking once on Report.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 15 is modelled on the amendment proposed earlier to Clause 1. As noble Lords who have put the amendment have said, this is to enable Parliament, not the Executive, to have the final decision. It may seem strange that I oppose that, but I do oppose it, because it makes the assumption that, in general, EU rights, powers and liabilities should remain after our withdrawal, unless a specific decision is taken in each case to remove them. On the contrary, the decision at the referendum, confirmed in 2019, was to leave the EU and leave behind its rights, powers and liabilities. Moreover, the House of Commons has voted in favour of Clauses 4(1) and 4(2).
Rather than a defence of parliamentary power, about which noble Lords have spoken very eloquently, this will or may appear a rear-guard action to retain binding links with the EU system of law, despite the decision. To repeat again what I said on the amendment to Clause 1, a direct mandate was given to the Executive to end that legal system, and it is not for this House to obstruct that mandate any longer.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I shall say a brief word. Having taken over from my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts of chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I would like to support his words and the words of my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, with regard to Amendments 73 and 74.
As we have heard, under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 the committee was charged with an additional function—the scrutiny of what are called proposed negative instruments laid under the new sifting mechanism. The committee had 10 days to report on those proposed instruments and, to the immense credit of the committee and of the talent of the staff concerned, it rose to that considerable challenge of meeting a demanding deadline under the leadership of my noble friend. But this was not an easy matter. In its report on the Bill, the committee warned that the task of sifting would be even more challenging under this Bill because of the potential significance and complexity of the instruments to be sifted.
During the debate in Committee, in which I participated in support of my noble friend, the Minister gave us some hope that he understood the persuasiveness of the case for extending the scrutiny period. Sadly, that was not to be, and the Government in their response to the committee’s report on the Bill said that they did not accept the need for the period to be extended. This is very disappointing indeed. As I said in Committee, the committee would not expect to use the full 15 days for every proposed negative instrument—far from it. What is being asked for is an extension of the deadline in recognition of the fact that the Bill has the potential for generating more complex and far-reaching policy changes through instruments subject to the sifting mechanism than the 2018 Act has.
I warned my noble friend the Minister that when he got back to the department, after his warm words in support of my noble friend and other noble Lords who participated, people would tell him that it was impossible, because it would set a terrible precedent—and I think that that is probably what happened. I would ask him just to think again, because I do not think that it sets a precedent at all; it is a unique occasion. If the Government are to demonstrate their support for effective parliamentary scrutiny—and, in particular, effective use of the sifting mechanism—I would urge him to think again and accept these amendments.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, this has again been a lively debate. The Government’s concession on Amendment 1 ensures that the bulk of retained EU law will remain on the statute book as assimilated law at least for a while, but there are no moves in the Government’s amendments to change the Bill’s proposal for the Executive to sunset retained EU rights, powers and liabilities. Amendment 15, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, would ensure that it is Parliament rather than the Executive that will have the final say over whether those rights, powers and liabilities should be revoked at the end of the year. That is very important and that is why we will support that amendment, if it is put to the vote.
I turn to Amendment 76. Speaking in the Commons last week, after the Government had announced their plans in the press and, latterly, to the Commons, the Secretary of State said that
“the Bill provides business certainty and legal certainty”.
It does not provide either of those. Despite the U-turn on sunsetting, the Bill still retains those powers that will enable Ministers to amend retained EU law, now assimilated law, by statutory instrument when they deem it to be appropriate. As the Secretary of State also said last week:
“Most importantly, it gives us the space to focus on the reform programme”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/23; col. 447.]
So all the thousands of pieces of legislation that are assimilated automatically by this amended Bill can be revoked or reformed with almost no opportunity for debate or amendment in this crucial legislation.
As we have heard, this represents a huge gathering of power to the Executive. Amendment 76 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, ensures that any SIs the Government propose to make using this power are referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses for scrutiny. If the Joint Committee finds that a significant change to the law is proposed, then the SI must be debated on the Floor of each House. This is what Parliament is here to do. There is also a provision to ensure that amendments to such SIs can be agreed by both Houses. We had a lively debate in three corners of the House about that. When the time comes, these Benches will support this amendment.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, I am very struck by the change in tone in this House. For years, we were told that the EU was an association of nations and that it was some abstruse, recondite obsession of Eurosceptics to claim otherwise; now we are told that it is a massive Jenga set and that, if we take anything out, the whole structure will come tumbling down because it is so deeply embedded in our domestic law. For years, we were told that we had extraordinary Rolls-Royce civil servants and that we were the best country at implementing everything; now it is suddenly beyond them to repeal the same things within a reasonable deadline. For years, we were told that parliamentary sovereignty was a 19th-century hang-up of interest only to eccentrics; suddenly—I welcome this—it has become a deep concern on both sides of the Chamber.
In accepting the previous debates in this House, the Government have done their best to reach a balance. They must implement the decision and have done so in a way that takes account of the objections raised on all sides by your Lordships. They deserve rather more recognition than they are getting this afternoon.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, to pick up that point, we have heard in every debate a recognition that the Government have moved, which has been very important and welcome.
Some people want to continue a debate about Brexit. These amendments are not about that. That is why I totally support the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Hodgson, who have previously participated in debates in this House on the nature of secondary legislation and how it has increased, and how it empowers the Executive. This is a unique situation; we have established the principle in the first group but, if we are to make changes—revise, reform and revoke—how will we ensure that the people with the responsibility to legislate have the responsibility properly to scrutinise and amend if necessary? People jump up and down and ask whether this is the right place to have a debate about secondary legislation. I am not too bothered about that. I am concerned about outcomes. Parliament should have the opportunity properly to scrutinise the changes and powers in this legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, have offered us a process in this Bill for those changes to be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has pushed me on numerous occasions, particularly when we debated his committee’s report, on whether a future Government would adopt this for statutory instruments. I cannot make that commitment, but I know that, if we adopt Amendment 76, it will establish a practice that people might see is beneficial for future arrangements. We can have a win-win situation. This debate is not about Brexit. It is about who has responsibility to legislate in this country. It is not the Government; it is our duty. That is why we should support Amendments 76 and 15.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 15 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, effectively seeks to delay a vital part of the Government’s retained EU law reform programme whereby EU rights, obligations and remedies saved by Section 4 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 will cease to apply in the UK after 31 December 2023. The matters saved by Section 4 consist largely of rights, obligations and remedies developed in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Many of these overlap with rights already well established by domestic law in this country, and those overlaps can cause confusion.
Where the UK and devolved Governments consider that there is a need to codify any specific rights that may otherwise cease to apply, this can be done under the Bill’s powers. These codified rights will be placed on a sustainable UK footing, providing certainty and therefore safeguarding and enhancing them in domestic statute. The Bill is ending the current situation whereby citizens must rely in some cases on an unclear category of law and complex legal glosses to enforce their rights. Sadly, the proposed amendment seeks to perpetuate this situation, which the Government consider unacceptable. I hope the noble and learned Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Amendments 69, 76, 73 and 74 relate to Schedule 4 and parliamentary scrutiny. Amendments 73 and 74, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, relate to the sifting procedure and seek to extend the period during which committees of this House and the House of Commons can make a recommendation about the relevant scrutiny procedure for regulations made under Clauses 13, 14 and 16. Specifically, these amendments seek to change the time limit under which both Houses can make recommendations on the appropriate procedure to be used when an instrument is laid and subject to the sifting procedure.
As the provision is drafted, relevant committees of this House and the Commons have a period of 10 sitting days to make recommendations on the appropriate scrutiny procedures. This starts on the first day on which both Houses are sitting after the instrument has been laid. If the period of 10 sitting days does not cover the same dates for both Houses, the end date of the relevant period will be the later of the two dates. Amendment 73 extends the number of sitting days in the period from 10 to 15 for the House of Commons, while Amendment 74 does the same for this House.
As I have been reminded by a number of noble Lords, particularly my noble friends Lord Hodgson and Lord Hunt, I committed in Committee to review the 10-day scrutiny period for sifting. I engaged in extensive discussions not just in the department but with the business managers about whether a 10-day sifting period was sufficient. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson intimated, I was not successful in persuading them. The Government’s position remains that a 10-day sifting procedure is sufficient for SIs laid under the powers in the Bill.
It is also worth pointing out that we had that debate under the old provisions of the Bill. Under the new schedule approach, the total volume of statutory instruments to be delivered via the reform programme has been significantly reduced. My noble friend’s concern that there was not enough time to consider them properly will have been to some extent allayed, given the previously very large volume of SIs.
From previous experience, the 10-day period worked quite well during the programme of SIs for EU exit and is in line with the sifting procedures and legislation introduced under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. I have some confidence that it will continue to work well in this scenario. Therefore, I am afraid the Government do not consider it necessary to extend the time limit within which an instrument is scrutinised as part of the sifting procedure.
I turn now to Amendments 69 and 76 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. These amendments put a somewhat novel scrutiny procedure in place for the powers under Clauses 13, 14 and 16. Specifically, Amendment 69 removes the requirement for certain regulations made under those clauses to be subject to the affirmative procedure. In consequence of this, Ministers would be left with a choice between the negative or affirmative procedures, with the former subject to the sifting procedure.
Amendment 76 imposes this novel and untested scrutiny requirement on regulations made. This takes the form of an enhanced sifting procedure—not dissimilar to the super-affirmative procedure—under which Parliament may make amendments to a proposed instrument. The Government believe that the purpose of this Bill is to ensure that we have the right regulations in place which are right for the whole of the UK. The House can be assured that the Government will ensure that any significant retained EU law reforms will receive the appropriate level of scrutiny by the relevant legislatures and will be subject to all of the usual processes for consultation and impact assessment. However, we also believe that we have to ensure that the limited amount of parliamentary time that is available is used most appropriately and most effectively. Requiring that the powers be subject to additional scrutiny is neither appropriate nor necessary in this case.
The sifting procedure that we suggested was purposely drafted as a safeguarding measure for these powers. The sifting procedure will give the UK Parliament the opportunity to take an active role in the development of this legislation. It is a tried and tested method of parliamentary scrutiny which delivers—in my view—good results for everyone and does draw on the expertise of our various parliamentary committees. Requiring that legislation to be subject to novel, untried, untested and onerous scrutiny, such as this enhanced sifting mechanism would—in my view—not be an effective use of parliamentary time. It would result in delaying departments delivering their REUL reform programmes and would delay the Bill in delivering its objective of bringing about much-needed REUL reform. For all those reasons, the Government cannot support Amendments 69, 76, 73 and 74.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the course of this debate. I do not want to go over the arguments again. On the criticisms the Minister has made about my two amendments, I have only two points to make.
First, I think he said that the purpose of Amendment 15 was to delay the process that Clause 4 is talking about. That is simply not true. We have kept within the timetable that Clause 4 itself lays down. As I made clear, the aim throughout our amendments is to try to achieve what is required as quickly as possible. The sunset date in Clause 4 remains, according to our amendment. So, to say that we are delaying anything is, with great respect, not the case.
Secondly, to describe Amendment 76 as novel and untested is not a criticism that meets the situation. We are dealing with an entirely new situation where we are having to redesign an enormous quantity of EU law which we have inherited. Of course, the system we have devised is new because we are dealing with something we have never encountered before. That itself is no answer to the point that we were making throughout: parliamentary scrutiny is essential. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, drew attention to provisions in Clause 16 which absolutely emphasise the essential nature of that. So I move Amendment 15 and, if it is not agreed to, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Hope of Craighead
“(6A) The Scottish Ministers may by regulations make provision amending an enactment that is within devolved competence in consequence of the name of a thing being changed by subsection (1).(6B) The Welsh Ministers may by regulations make provision amending an enactment that is within devolved competence in consequence of the name of a thing being changed by subsection (1).(6C) A Northern Ireland department may by regulations make provision amending an enactment that is within devolved competence in consequence of the name of a thing being changed by subsection (1).”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment gives the Scottish and Welsh Ministers and a Northern Ireland Department a power, equivalent to the power of Ministers of the Crown in Clause 7(6), to amend legislation in consequence of the change in terminology from ‘retained EU law’ to ‘assimilated law’ made by Clause 7.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
I am sorry; it falls to me to introduce this group—again.
This is about devolution. One of the concerns about the Bill as drafted is that it does not pay proper attention to the devolution settlements as regards Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to the key principle of respect and co-operation that underpins those settlements. I have several amendments in this group to which I wish to speak, as briefly as possible: Amendments 17, 35, 37, 39, 72A and 75.
Amendment 17 seeks to extend the regulation-making power under Clause 20 that is referred to in Clause 7 to Ministers in each of the three devolved Administrations. I seek clarification from the Minister as to whether this point is already met by government Amendments 57 to 60, which, among other things, extend the power in Clause 20 to make regulations to the devolved Authorities. If that is the case, I am very grateful and may not press this amendment.
Amendments 35, 37 and 39 seek to ensure that the consent of the relevant devolved legislatures is sought before a Minister of the Crown can make regulations under Clauses 13, 14 and 16 where the provisions fall within devolved competence. The principle that lies behind these amendments is very simple: respect and co-operation is key to the effective operation of the devolution settlements, and that is what these amendments seek to give effect to.
Amendment 75, to which Amendment 72A is related, seeks to apply the same principle to the powers given to a Minister of the Crown acting alone under Part 3 of Schedule 4. These powers should be exercised in devolved areas, only with the consent of Scottish or Welsh Ministers or a Northern Ireland department, as the case may be. These amendments are not intended to delay matters; they simply seek to obtain the proper respect for the devolved Administrations which is the essence of the devolved settlements.
I am open to correction; it may be that the government amendments meet what I am seeking. However, if they do not go far enough, I invite the Minister to give further thought to my amendments. I beg to move.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 39, and I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Hope for the way in which he has introduced this group.
The problem, basically, is that Westminster seems to be trying to make laws that cover devolved matters, which cuts across the democratic mandate of devolved Ministers and legislatures. The consent process has to be in the Bill, and I can see that Amendment 75 would be speedier than Amendment 39, to which I have put my name. I very much hope that the Government will be able to tell us that they accept Amendment 75 or that their amendments will do exactly what that amendment states, as that will be a faster process, from Minister to Minister, rather than having to go through the whole process of debate. However, I do not think that agreements behind the scenes and reassurances that this will be sorted out later will be adequate.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I speak to Amendments 41 and 46 in my name. These amendments would ensure that a substantial policy change in human rights, equality and environmental protection in Northern Ireland may not be effected by the exercise of delegated powers. Given the ongoing lack of a functioning Executive and sitting Assembly, this raises serious concerns about the implementation of the Bill in Northern Ireland, and the amendments in my name would add a helpful safeguard in these challenging circumstances. Therefore, to be brief, I ask the Minister to give careful consideration to, and accept, the amendments as a means of ensuring that the devolution settlement in Northern Ireland is protected and that issues of equality and human rights and environmental considerations are all protected, as required under the Good Friday agreement.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to amendments in this group tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, to which I have added my name, and I thank him for introducing the amendments so clearly and comprehensively.
I am grateful to the noble Lord the Minister—or perhaps to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe—for the concessions the Government have brought to Report. The Bill is in a better state than when we first debated it at Second Reading, and many of the House’s concerns have been addressed, but there remain some significant issues pertaining to the Bill on which I hope that the Minister will look favourably.
The amendments deal with obtaining the consent of the devolved legislatures to the making of regulations that fall within their devolved competence, and equivalence of powers for Ministers where the provisions of regulations again fall within the devolved competence of the legislatures. It is clear that these amendments do not seek additional powers for the devolved legislatures; they merely secure those powers that the legislatures already have—powers devolved to them by this Parliament but which the Bill ignores or chooses to overlook.
One of my main concerns about the Bill in its original form was that it usurped the powers of this Parliament and those of the devolved legislatures, and this view was echoed across the House. In Committee, I was heartened to hear strong and powerful speeches from those on Benches across the House in support of the devolved Administrations and legislatures, and I thank those who spoke for their support.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, reflected my view when she said—and I hope my précis of her comments does her justice—that she might not necessarily support a political party in power in a devolved legislature, but that her focus and support was on the legislature itself. I think that reflects the view of many in this House, and certainly those on these Benches.
In his letter to us, the Minister said that he had listened to the House and, in fairness, he has—to an extent. I hope he is still in listening mode and, as I said earlier, will be able to look favourably on these amendments.
Finally, as this will be my last contribution in debates on the Bill, I express my gratitude to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, for the part he has played in its progress and improvement. His leadership, knowledge of constitutional and devolved matters, forensic legal analysis of the Bill, and tenacity have made a massive contribution and have led us to where we are today. We have an improved Bill, and it can be improved further by the Minister accepting the noble and learned Lord’s amendments. In the event of him wishing to press any of them to a vote, he will have the support of these Benches.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, not having taken part in earlier stages, I will say no more than a sentence to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for proposing this amendment and to agree with the previous speakers about devolved powers.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and other noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, to all the extensive and useful debates we had in Committee, and—this is important—for the useful engagement that has taken place on the devolutionary aspects of the Bill.
The Government have listened carefully to the concerns raised both in the debates in Parliament and by the devolved Governments and have tabled the government amendments in this group in response. Amendments 52 and 53 extend the power to make consequential provision under Clause 20 for the devolved authorities. Amendment 58 extends the power to make transitional, transitory and savings provisions under Clause 23 to the devolved authorities. These amendments will make the consequential power and the power to make transitional, transitory and savings provisions concurrent powers. This will enable UK Ministers and the devolved Governments—or both acting jointly—to exercise the powers in devolved areas.
The remaining government amendments, Amendments 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72 and 77, are consequential. They will remove the requirement for the devolved Governments to request the UK Government to make such changes on their behalf. Furthermore, these amendments will align these powers with the other powers in the Bill, which are also conferred concurrently on the devolved Governments.
I hope that noble Lords will agree that this is a meaningful change to the Bill that demonstrates the UK Government’s commitment to working collaboratively with the devolved Governments—which we talked about in Committee—and ensuring that the Bill works for all parts of the UK. Amendment 71 is a further technical amendment that I think everybody is happy with.
Amendment 17, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is to Clause 7. As we have now extended the power to make consequential provision under Clause 20 on devolved authorities, he is right that it is no longer necessary.
I turn to Amendments 35, 37, 39 and 75, which relate to powers under Clauses 13, 14 and 16 and Schedule 4. Amendment 35 requires that the power to restate REUL cannot be used to restate it in areas of devolved competence unless the relevant parliament has provided legislative consent for the retained EU law to be restated. Amendments 37 and 39 place similar requirements on the power to restate under Clause 14, and on the powers to revoke or replace under Clause 16.
In essence, these amendments would carve out regulation within areas of devolved competence in the absence of legislative consent. As has been said, Amendment 75 similarly seeks to impose a requirement for a Minister of the Crown to seek legislative consent when using the powers on legislation within areas of devolved legislative competence. These amendments are unnecessary. The UK Government are committed to ensuring that the provisions in the Bill, including its powers, are consistent with the devolution settlements and work for all parts of the UK. Indeed, the majority of the powers in the Bill are conferred concurrently on the devolved Governments, which will enable them to make active decisions regarding their retained EU law.
It is not necessary to limit the use of the powers within areas of devolved legislative competence by requiring UK Ministers to obtain legislative consent. Rest assured, the concurrent nature of the powers is not intended to affect the devolution settlements, nor to influence decision-making in devolved Governments. Rather, it is intended to reduce additional resource pressure on the devolved Governments by enabling the UK Government to legislate on behalf of a devolved Government where they do not intend to take a different position.
Let me move on and address Amendments 41 and 46, eloquently spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. Her amendments would restrict the exercise of the powers to revoke or replace and the power to update. They require that any replacement instruments could not effect substantial policy change relating to human rights, equality or environmental protection that has effect in Northern Ireland. The Government intend to maintain the UK’s leading role in the promotion and protection of human rights, equality, the rule of law and environmental protections. We are proud of our long and diverse history of freedoms. The Government do not intend to undermine our hard-won human rights, equality and environmental legislation through the exercise of these powers. I should perhaps add that we are committed to ensuring the UK’s compliance with our international obligations, such as our human rights obligations. I therefore do not judge that the proposed restrictions to this clause are necessary.
Amendment 61 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is no longer necessary in the light of the amendments that the Government have tabled in relation to Clause 23.
Finally, I turn to the noble and learned Lord’s latest amendment, Amendment 72A. It relates to Amendment 76, which we discussed in the previous grouping and which seeks to insert a new paragraph in Schedule 4 to the Bill. As Amendment 76 has fallen away, this amendment is now redundant.
Let me say that we have come a long way on this part of the Bill, as has been acknowledged on all sides. For all the reasons I have outlined, I ask that these amendments be withdrawn or not pressed.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in this debate; I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, for her very kind words.
I listened carefully to what the Minister said. I am grateful for her assurance that Amendment 17 is not required; that was my impression, so it is nice to have confirmation of that from her.
As far as the other amendments are concerned, I take the point that increasing pressure on resources is something that we should try to avoid. I see the value of joint working, which is really what the Minister described to us in her reply. I recognise that the Government have gone a long way in their amendments in this group, for which I am extremely grateful; I am sure that all others who care about devolution would say the same.
I will not press the amendments, but I hope that the message is still powerfully in the mind of the Government that continued co-operation and easing of the pressures round about to achieve a consensus across the board is the way to proceed if we possibly can. I think that the signs behind the scenes are that that can be achieved. I am grateful for that. For that reason, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Hope of Craighead
Member's explanatory statement
Inserted paragraph (b), which this amendment seeks to remove, could undermine legal certainty and risk bringing the judiciary into the political arena.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, this is an entirely different group. Amendment 18 deals with the provisions relating to the role of the courts in reforming our law in the light of our withdrawal from the European Union.
This group contains various amendments in my name, which fall into two parts. Both relate to the provisions of Clause 8, which is designed to deal with the subject matter that I just mentioned. The first part—Amendments 18 to 29—is concerned with the role that the courts will play in reforming our domestic case law as we depart from retained EU case law. The second part—Amendments 30 to 34—is concerned with the role of the Lord Advocate in the making of references to the courts on points of law regarding retained case law. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has kindly added his name to my amendments in the first group but, for reasons that I can well understand, he has not gone that far in relation to my amendments about the Lord Advocate.
I can be very brief about the first group because the Minister has now added his name to two of my amendments in it, for which I am grateful; these are Amendments 24 and 27. He has also added two consequential amendments of his own.
My amendments were designed to do two things. The first was to simplify the work of the courts in this potentially difficult area and preserve legal certainty. The second was to give the courts a discretion to decline to accept a reference by a lower court or tribunal on retained case law in place of the obligation to do so, which is what the Bill currently provides. The obligation was an obstacle to efficiency in the running of the courts. It never made sense for the senior courts to be so encumbered by worthless or unnecessary references as to be unable to conduct their business in the way they would wish to do.
I am very pleased that the Government have now accepted that the senior courts should have that discretion and that, in the Bill as currently drafted, “must” should be changed to “may”. It means that good sense has prevailed and that the courts will not have to accept a reference on points that have already been decided or would be better dealt with under another reference that is already pending or one that has no reasonable prospect of success. That is extremely helpful; I know that, for his part, the President of the UK Supreme Court is also grateful to Ministers for making that concession.
The Minister has not gone as far as I would have liked on my other amendments, but I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, if I can put it that way, so I will not press those amendments.
As for the second group, relating to the role of the Lord Advocate, the Lord Advocate has written to the Secretary of State more than once to explain her concerns, which I have tried to capture in my amendments. She is seeking parity with the UK law officers in the exercise of the functions to which this clause refers. Her point is that her role is not thought to be a political one in furtherance of Scottish government policy; nor should it be thought that she exercises her role collectively with the Scottish Ministers. She values her independence, which is crucial to the position that she occupies as the senior law officer in Scotland.
I do not think that it would assist the House if I were to develop these arguments further now, but I would be grateful if the Minister would undertake to ask the Secretary of State to look at this issue once again, one more time, so that a proper balance can be achieved. I beg to move.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I will be brief. I lend the support of these Benches to the important amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. They might seem perhaps a little specialised, but they are extremely important. There might not be any intention to press any of these amendments to a vote, but I do hope that the Government will see their way to taking on board more than they have already in the two amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan.
These amendments are about trying to remove threats to legal certainty and therefore to increase legal certainty, respecting the courts and their ability to run their business efficiently and removing the peril of the court being asked to venture into political and policy matters. We know about the flak to which the courts have been exposed—including, it has to be said, not being defended by the person in government who should have defended them.
It therefore seems perverse that the Bill, as drafted, would increase the likelihood of the courts being exposed to being hanged, drawn and quartered, as we have seen on the front pages of certain newspapers at various times. So there is a desire to get more predictability and certainty into the law, and more discretion for the courts to run themselves as they see fit and not have to do things that would get them into shark-infested waters. So, even though it seems that these important amendments will not be determined by the House today, I hope that the Government will reflect before Third Reading and see the wisdom behind them.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I am sorry to speak out of turn, but I entirely support all the amendments in this group. In particular, I endorse the plea of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on the status of the Lord Advocate. Could the Minister clarify, either at this opportunity or at a later stage of the Bill, the points that the noble and learned Lord made, because it would not be acceptable for the Lord Advocate to be treated differently from any other law officer in the land?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)
My Lords, in view of the fact that the most important and contentious amendment to the Bill, which has been moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is fully agreed and accepted by the Government, and that other amendments are not being moved—although I will deal with the Lord Advocate point—with your Lordships’ permission, I will take this quite shortly, especially having regard to the clock. But that in no way underestimates the importance of the issues we are debating.
First, the Government are extremely grateful to the judiciary and other stakeholders for drawing our attention to the issue of “may” rather than “must”. I am extremely grateful for the dignified and discreet way in which those matters have been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. The central point that the courts should have the relevant discretion is accepted and, as I say, the Government are pleased to adopt the amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope.
As to the remaining amendments in the group, the Government share the desire of the House that the role of the courts should be as simple as possible. We do not consider that the way the Bill is currently drafted drags the courts into some kind of political controversy. I am not able to give the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the undertaking she seeks that we shall further consider those amendments. Of course, nothing is ever ruled out, but it would be wrong for me to say that it is currently the Government’s intention to propose further amendments to the Bill. I can go into this in more detail one by one and perhaps, if the noble Baroness has a moment, I can explain the Government’s position bilaterally. I am very much in the hands of the House but, as these amendments are not actually being moved, I do not feel that it is right to take up time explaining why the Government take the position that we do. However, the Government’s door is always open to discuss particular points with any noble Lord.
I simply say that the tradition of common law has enabled the law to evolve over centuries, while preserving a reasonable degree of predictability. That technique is well known in the United Kingdom and I have no doubt that it will continue to be honed and progressed in the future.
As to the specific amendments on the powers of the Lord Advocate, I confess to some diffidence in the face of the pre-eminence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on Scots law and other matters. At present, the Government do not feel that we should accept the proposed amendments. Amendments 30, 32, 33 and 34 would allow the Lord Advocate to intervene in any case, irrespective of whether the issue was a devolved matter under Scottish legislation or a reserved matter in which the relevant competence is exclusively that of the United Kingdom. That is our understanding of the effect of the amendments. The Government’s position is simply that that change would be constitutionally inappropriate. In our view, references and interventions by the Lord Advocate, a Minister in the Scottish Government, are quite properly restricted to legislative matters within the devolved competence of the Scottish Government. That is the Government’s position on that broad issue.
Finally, Amendment 31 would none the less give the Lord Advocate intervention powers not only in Scottish legislation, which is what the Act is about, but also for certain retained functions of the Lord Advocate. Here I very much bow to others’ more detailed knowledge of what exactly these retained functions are. The Government’s understanding is that they relate mainly to the prosecutorial functions, since it is the Lord Advocate who is ultimately responsible for criminal prosecutions in Scotland. The nearest analogy outside Scotland is arguably to the DPP for England and Wales or the DPP for Northern Ireland.
The Government therefore respectfully oppose this amendment since, first, no similar powers are conferred on the DPPs in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Secondly, the devolved powers to intervene in relation to the devolved law officers are limited to legislation, as exhaustively defined in the case of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and there does not seem to be any clear reason for treating Scotland differently from the other devolved Administrations.
Thirdly, and again the Government are open to correction, it is difficult to see how, in practice, the amendment might bite in any practical way. Fourthly, any blurring of the line beyond the scope of devolved legislation, as defined in the Bill, is not shown, in the Government’s view, to be sufficiently justified and would be outside the scheme of the Act. So, essentially for those reasons, the Government will not be able to accept the amendments in relation to the Lord Advocate and I respectfully ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, not to press his amendments in that regard.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his careful reply. On the point that we are agreed upon, the change of the word “must” to “may” may seem a very minor change, but words matter a great deal and it is a very significant change indeed. That is why I express gratitude to the Minister and, on his behalf, the gratitude of the president of the court for accepting that change, because it makes a great deal of difference to the court and the way in which it can organise its business. It can be relied upon, I think, to exercise its functions under the Bill to the fullest degree in seeking to achieve the aim, which is, as speedily as possible, a return to our own system of law from what we have inherited from the European Union.
As for the retained functions of the Lord Advocate, the word “retained” is really referring to pre-devolution functions. The Minister is quite right that the principal function of the Lord Advocate before devolution, which is retained, is the right to continue the whole responsibility of conducting criminal prosecutions in Scotland. There is something that he has missed out: it is perhaps not very significant, but investigation of deaths is also a function of the Lord Advocate which is retained.
I think all I can say is that I appreciate the thought that has been given to the Lord Advocate’s request. Of course, she is disappointed that the view has been taken that everything she is asking for cannot be given to her and we will just have to see how the system works out. Of course, it is all a matter of making references to the court. No doubt, in the course of argument, things may be presented which the court can consider if they are on the fringes of what is described in the Bill, or the Act as it becomes.
Words matter: again, the court will look at the reference and see whether it is something that it can accommodate within the wording of the legislation. So, I am grateful to the Minister for his careful reply and the thought that has been given to it and I will not press those amendments. For the reasons I have given, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 18.
Lord Hope of Craighead
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to preserve the court’s discretion to refuse to accept a reference, which is a necessary safeguard against abuse.
Lord Bellamy
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment at page 7, line 39.
Lord Hope of Craighead
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to preserve the court’s discretion to refuse to accept a reference, which is a necessary safeguard against abuse.
Lord Bellamy
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment at page 8, line 3.
Ukraine
(12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Government for their Statement last week in the other place and for the opportunity to take it here today. As the House knows, His Majesty’s Official Opposition fully support the Government in the action they are taking to support Ukraine in its fight with Russia. We fully recognise that this is all our battle, a battle to maintain the international rules-based order, and that such aggression cannot and will not be tolerated.
Is not one of the greatest misjudgments that Putin made that Europe would not stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, would not support Ukraine against this illegal Russian attack and, even if we did, that support would only be limited and for the short term? So, it was good to see the solidarity that President Zelensky has had, particularly this weekend in Italy and from France. But does the Minister agree that it was particularly good to see Germany promising an additional €2.7 million in military aid, and the German Defence Minister saying that it would provide help for
“as long as it takes”?
On collaboration, will the Minister update us on any recent discussions there have been with the United States and on its view of where we are at the present time?
On last week’s announcement, we support the announcement of the new military equipment, such as Storm Shadow. On Storm Shadow, can the Minister confirm that Ukraine has all the necessary planes to launch these weapons, given that, as we all know, they are air launched? Last week, President Zelensky said:
“Not everything has arrived yet … We are expecting armoured vehicles”.
Can the Minister update the Chamber as to whether all the promised equipment, including armoured vehicles, has now been delivered? I understand the Defence Minister said he was going to write to the shadow Defence Minister: is there any update on that?
We read in the media today that further weapons have been promised as a result of the welcome meeting today between the Prime Minister and President Zelensky at Chequers. Can the Minister confirm what these new promised weapons are, and what other agreements were discussed and made at Chequers today? How many long-range attack drones, for example, are to be sent, and are there air defence missiles in sufficient numbers to defend against Russia’s unrelenting and indiscriminate attacks?
Is it not important for us all to emphasise that these are defensive weapons, weapons developed to help Ukraine recover lost sovereign territory, not an attack on Russia itself? Of course, we support the announcements I just mentioned on drones and air defence weapons made today by the Prime Minister, but I just seek further clarity from the Minister this evening.
On fighter jets, can the Minister tell us when the announced training of Ukrainian pilots on western fighter jets will commence, and how many pilots we expect to train? We read today in the media, and indeed from the various press releases from No. 10, that the Prime Minister
“has promised to spearhead an international effort to secure fighter jets for Ukraine”.
Can the Minister explain which countries this means, and how he intends to do this? In other words, the Prime Minister has announced a so-called “jets coalition”. Can the Minister give us some more detail, particularly on any timescale and the types of jets we are talking about?
The Minister will also know of the role that the Wagner Group is playing in the war in Ukraine. What plans do the Government have to proscribe it, particularly as the Defence Secretary said that the Wagner Group
“does pose a threat to the United Kingdom and her allies, either directly or indirectly”?—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/23; col. 478]
Finally, the will of the Ukrainian people has been immense and, frankly, inspirational. The Defence Secretary reminded us that it is day 442 of the conflict, with almost 8 million refugees and 6 million people internally forced from their homes. Some 23,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded, with 6,000 children appallingly sent to so-called re-education camps. We need of course to provide the military aid that is needed and to do so, as we are doing, proportionately and sensibly, but, alongside that, does the Minister agree that we must continue to support the Ukrainian men, women and children who are also on the front line with all the help that they need?
President Putin chose to invade Ukraine and its sovereign territory. He must continue to know that we in the West, with the UK at the forefront, will continue to stand for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We should stand by the people of Ukraine and continue to support them as they defend their country. As I say, their fight is our fight.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, from these Benches, as so often when we discuss Ukraine or other defence matters, I endorse wholeheartedly everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. Therefore, rather than re-iterating the questions he has raised, I will ask a few more about what is going on on the ground in Ukraine.
Like the noble Lord, I obviously welcome this Statement, and we endorse what His Majesty’s Government have been doing in terms of support for Ukraine. It was very clear when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister how far the United Kingdom supported Ukraine and stood shoulder to shoulder. It was not immediately clear that that was followed through, and I think that today it has become very clear that Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister really does understand the importance of supporting Ukraine to the largest extent possible.
The Secretary of State for Defence has said on numerous occasions that the Statements he makes are deemed to be “proportionate”. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain to the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has asked, what precisely is being offered today and what more His Majesty’s Government expect to do. I initially had this Statement as a “check against delivery” document which had a nice little bit in red which said, in square brackets, “blank for announcement”. The announcement is covered in Hansard, but even Hansard from last Thursday has been overtaken by the discussions today, so I think the House would welcome an understanding of what is happening in terms of drones and long-range missiles.
I particularly wanted to ask what discussions His Majesty’s Government may be having, not just with NATO partners but within the UN, about some of the war crimes being perpetrated. The Secretary of State’s Statement talked about the casualties, but also various war crimes. In particular, one of the issues that we have seen in Syria, and which we are seeing again now in Ukraine, is the bombardment of healthcare facilities. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the actions of Russia in this regard, and to what extent is it possible to already begin to make a case? Those victims—innocent children and others who are in hospital facilities—really need to be looked at as a matter of urgency. Clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker said, we also support the men on the front line and the women and children who may be at home, but that wanton attack on healthcare facilities is unspeakable. Equally, there have been attacks on energy facilities and nuclear power facilities, and I wonder what activity His Majesty’s Government are undertaking to support Ukraine in making sure its infrastructure is secure. Beyond the military hardware and the training, are His Majesty’s Government are able to provide additional support on the ground in that regard—we obviously know about the humanitarian aid.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I conclude by supporting the work that has been done by His Majesty’s Government and our service personnel in helping train the Ukrainians.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for the tenor of their remarks. I welcome their support. I think one of the most important demonstrations of this political unanimity is evidenced by the response of the noble Baroness, the noble Lord and their counterparts in the other place. I think that sends a powerful message from the UK that Putin has to understand—the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, made the point—that we are not just absolutely joined together in the UK but are playing our role with our allies and partners; it is that aggregate effect which is having such a detrimental impact on Putin’s illegal war.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, praised Germany. I absolutely agree with that; it is a very welcome augmentation of all the help that has been given. I think the noble Lord asked me specifically about recent discussions between the UK and the United States. I cannot comment on specific detail, but I can say that we are regularly in communication and, of course, at the various international fora because we have the G7 imminently approaching. Of course, there will be further discussions with the US there.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about Storm Shadow, which is an air launch capability, and whether Ukraine has sufficient planes to mount that. My understanding is that it has. I cannot comment specifically on operational activity, but I would seek to reassure the Chamber that that capability is up, ready and capable of action with immediate effect.
The noble Lord asked a specific question which I think his colleague in the other place, the right honourable John Healey, asked, about whether all armoured vehicles have been delivered. I know that a lot of them have been delivered, but I do not have the precise details, so I will undertake to write to noble Lords once I am aware of the content of the response being delivered by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
There were some specific questions about the nature of what was announced today. Today was indeed a very exciting day for the United Kingdom and, I hope, for President Zelensky. Once again, we commend President Zelensky for his unflagging dedication to his country and his unflagging energy and tireless efforts to continue to beat the drum, to go around potential donors and try to make them aware, as acutely as he can, of what the need is and how immediately that has to be responded to. I think today was a case in point.
Of the further provisions that were announced today, these are air defence missiles and unmanned aerial systems; that includes hundreds of new long-range attack drones. I have a little more specific information about that. The unmanned aerial systems will improve the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s ability to find targets, to improve accuracy of artillery fire, to resupply AFU personnel operating across the front lines and to disrupt Russian logistics and command nodes.
I understand that the longer-range attack drones will deliver a kinetic effect comparable to an artillery shell, but they will extend the range at which Ukraine can target and disrupt Russian activity. In a sense, that complements what is a pretty mighty weapon in the form of Storm Shadow. Your Lordships will be aware that that has a very pronounced lethality effect. That is precisely why we think that is what Ukraine needs now to deal with this relentless onslaught by the Russian forces as they seek to prosecute their illegal occupation.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, sought clarification that all of these armaments and different types of weaponry being made available by the United Kingdom to Ukraine are clearly donated for defensive purposes. They are. Indeed, there is nothing provocative about this. The United Kingdom is absolutely clear: our responsibility is to help Ukraine to defend itself. That has been our consistent approach to all this. Of course, this illegal war could end tomorrow if Russia agreed to stop it and to withdraw from its illegal occupation.
The noble Lord had a question about the training on the fighter jets. I have some information on that. I am given to understand that, this summer, we will commence an elementary flying phase for cohorts of Ukrainian pilots to learn basic training. As your Lordships will understand, the plane we are now talking about is the F16. That is not part of the UK’s capability, but apparently we are able to adapt the programme used by UK pilots to provide Ukrainians with piloting skills that they can apply to a different kind of aircraft. That training goes hand in hand with UK efforts, which are continuing, to work with other countries on providing F16 jets, which are now declared to be Ukraine’s fighter jet of choice. As to more specific information about the training programme, I can only undertake to investigate further; if I learn more I will undertake to inform your Lordships.
The noble Lord specifically raised the Wagner Group, which we all agree is a brutal and repugnant organisation. If the Government are considering proscribing any organisation, they do not comment on whether that is under consideration. However, I can say to your Lordships that significant measures have already been taken against the Wagner Group; that includes sanctioning Yevgeny Prigozhin and his family, and Dmitry Utkin, who are leading personnel within the Wagner Group. We are very clear about our desire to do everything we can to disable the Wagner Group. As I said, it is an entirely repugnant organisation, and your Lordships will be aware of the at times appalling conduct in which it has engaged.
The noble Lord asked specifically about the help we have been able to give on the humanitarian front, and specifically about how we are helping Ukraine to look to the future. It is very important, and signifies a note of optimism, that people are thinking about the future. The UK has been a leading bilateral humanitarian donor, with a £220 million package of humanitarian aid. We have also given a significant amount—about £75 million—of fiscal support grant and a £100 million grant to support Ukraine’s energy security reforms. Importantly, with our Ukrainian friends we will co-host the 2023 Ukraine recovery conference in June. We plan to mobilise public and private finance to ensure that Ukraine gets the vital reconstruction investment that it needs.
I might just mention that current UK recovery activity is focused on immediate needs, such as demining and the restoration of essential infrastructure and services. That includes support for the Halo Trust, which has demined more than 55,000 square metres of land, and a £10 million aid package to help Ukrainian Railways to repair damaged rail infrastructure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about war crimes and quite rightly raised the absolutely disgraceful and atrocious bombardment by Russian forces of innocent civilian facilities, whether that is dwelling houses of individuals or healthcare facilities, all of which is appalling and completely unacceptable. As she will be aware, we have been doing everything we can to support the International Criminal Court in the pursuit of its important work. I think we are all very clear that war crimes have been committed. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for arrest and we are supporting it. Interestingly, alongside the United States and the European Union, we have established the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group in support of Ukraine’s domestic war crimes prosecutions.
The final point that was raised related to an important observation by the noble Baroness about the Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Ben Wallace, making proportionate Statements. I am absolutely clear and he has been at pains to articulate, as he did when he was dealing with the Statement in the other place, that all of this is about giving a proportionate response to enable Ukraine to defend itself in answer to brutal, absolutely objectionable and appalling behaviour by the illegal invading Russian forces.
I hope I have managed to deal with the principal points raised, but if there is anything I have omitted I shall undertake to write.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is correct to say that today is an important day. The whole House supports President Zelensky in his trip around some of the key European partners over the last few days. I myself saw for the first time ever helicopters landing live on the lawn at Chequers. I do not know whether other Members noticed it; I do not think I have ever seen that before. However, I want to ask just one question about Storm Shadow, to which the Minister referred. As I understand it, this missile has a longer range than others previously provided by us to Ukraine. Without getting into operational matters, I want the Minister to reassure the House that some understanding or arrangement has been made with Ukraine that absolutely minimises any risk that one of these missiles supplied by us should land on sovereign Russian territory.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I assure the noble Viscount that we have agreed mechanisms in place to ensure that these weapons will be used within Ukrainian territory to disrupt Russia’s ability to strike Ukrainian civilians and critical national infrastructure, and to relieve pressure on Ukraine’s front lines. It might be helpful for him to know that this capability is subject to the missile technology control regime. On that basis, we have in place a Government-to-Government assurance with Ukraine to facilitate the transfer.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, clearly, the whole House is behind the support that the Government are showing for the Government of Ukraine against the illegal attack from Russia. But clearly, the more that we are at the forefront of that, the more likely it is that we may be subject to some form of retaliation, whether explicitly or by grey zone means, to which it would be difficult to attribute the reasons concerned. For example, as we know from the past year or so, there has been interest from Russian submarines in the undersea cables that come into this country, and there have been issues around the pipelines. All of these things go on all of the time. Could the Minister give us some reassurance, without going into too much detail, as to the measures we are taking to deal with possible activities, potentially on a deniable basis, against us as a result of the support we are showing for Ukraine?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The noble Lord poses an important question. Regarding recent activity, he is correct that Russian ships were operating in the North Sea. The Ministry of Defence constantly monitors activity within UK waters and the economic exclusion zone to counter and deter detected threats, and British warships frequently patrol and shadow foreign vessels throughout the UK marine area. Royal Navy vessels are routed through the North Sea where possible on increased surveillance of offshore oil and gas installations. In addition to our effective armed surface fleet, we also have multirole ocean surveillance vessels. HMS “Scott” is currently in service and operating, and very recently we made an off-the-shelf purchase to acquire at speed a new multirole ocean surveillance vessel, recently named RFA “Proteus”. It is currently being readied for operational activity, so I hope I can reassure your Lordships that we are vigilant about that threat.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
Like others, I congratulate the Government on all the support they are giving to Ukraine. My noble friend touched on war crimes. There has been much sexual violence perpetrated by Russian troops. The UK has been at the forefront of the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative. Are we helping Ukraine with documenting war crimes so that eventually, people can be held to account for them? Also, we are not hearing much from the women of Ukraine at the moment. Like many wars, this war is looking solely masculine, but we all know that women and children are disproportionately affected. Will we be helping to ensure that women participate in any peace talks that take place and that they are included in any plans for reconstructing and rebuilding Ukraine, which I imagine will be discussed at the upcoming Ukraine recovery conference here in London next month?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The UK is very conscious of the atrocities which have been perpetrated by Russian forces in Ukraine. We respond to that as best we can with a mixture of humanitarian aid, some of which I have already described. For example, we have given very significant donations of medical support to Ukraine. My noble friend makes an important point about the role of women in Ukraine. Ms Zelenska has been an admirable advocate for the position of women in Ukraine. I do not think any of us will forget her eloquent address to parliamentarians when she came to visit us, and I think we were all moved by what she had to say. She described graphically the situation to which my noble friend refers. Undoubtedly, as we try to construct a programme of recovery activity, women in Ukraine will have an extremely important role to play, and I hope that many of them will feel they can be involved and included. Perhaps what my noble friend perceives as a low profile by Ukrainian women is simply attributable to their fundamental desire to keep themselves and their children safe, to keep as far as possible out of danger and to ensure that they simply can survive from one day to the next. Our sympathy goes out to all the women in that plight, who are, against all odds, showing such courageous and stoic leadership in looking after their families.
Lord Hussain (LD)
I agree with everything that has been said. Many countries are supporting the Russian economy even through this war, and that includes purchasing Russian oil. Some of those countries we know very well. They are good friends of Britain as well, including India. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to persuade India not to purchase Russian oil while the war in Ukraine is going on?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The United Kingdom was instrumental in getting an oil price cap placed on Russian oil, so oil prices have fallen significantly for Russia, apparently lowering its energy revenues by more than 25%. We as a country always advocate that people should not be supporting the illegal invasion of Ukraine and that they should be looking at every activity in which they engage to work out whether it supports Russia or not. We are aware that the effect of sanctions on Russia and the Russian economy has been significant, such that Russia is in recession. Russia’s GDP declined by 2% to 3% in 2022, and forecasts suggest that it will fall a further 1.5% in 2023, which is apparently the longest recession for more than 25 years. There is evidence that Russia is being starved of the key western goods and technology it requires, and we are seeing that in its inability to produce modern equipment and up-to-date technology. It seems that its larder is bare in that respect.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I can help the Minister regarding her response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson. During my visit to Kyiv last November, I heard some interesting reports from the EU mission that female police officers were stepping into those roles when male police officers had gone off to fight. The EU had been supplying them with appropriately fitted bullet-proof vests and other safety materials. Does the Minister know whether we have been giving any support along those lines? I entirely understand if she would like to write to me on that. That could be an obvious and positive way of encouraging the use of female police officers and female involvement in the justice system as a way forward.
I am pleased to see that the Statement contains a paragraph on the important and pressing issue of the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Reuters reported a couple of days ago that the IAEA chief was planning to take to the UN Security Council a proposed deal which it was hoped both Ukraine and Russia would sign, in an attempt to keep the largest nuclear power plant in Europe safe. Can the Minister tell me anything about that? Are the Government prepared to provide any support that might be useful, because the obvious problem will be how to monitor the situation and see what is happening on the ground? The Ukrainian atomic energy agency has expressed concern about the loss of staff. Are the Government prepared to offer any help they can in that area?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her interesting observation following her visit to Ukraine. She illustrates a poignant example of the importance of Ukrainian women’s contribution to the resistance to what is happening in their country. I was not aware of the situation she described. I will investigate whether any of the humanitarian aid we are providing can specifically assist women who are taking up these roles because their male counterparts are at the front fighting the Russian invasion.
On the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the situation is concerning. We have made it clear that Russia should withdraw its forces and return full control of the plant to Ukraine, so we support all efforts to reduce the risks to the plant and we commend the IAEA’s work to ensure security there. If any progress can be made within the United Nations forum to achieve a safer environment for the power plant, that is certainly to be encouraged and commended.
Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row (Con)
My Lords, despite the subject, it is a rare pleasure to see such unity across your Lordships’ House and in the other place on a goal. I thank the Minister for her ongoing transparency, to the best of her abilities, and for answering the questions from all sides of the House on this initiative. I urge the Government to do as much as they can to maintain information and transparency to the media and the public, in order to ensure that the public remain on side at this important time, after 16 months.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank my noble friend. There are probably two prisms through which to look at this. One is that, just as the MoD, for example, has been fastidious but helpful in disclosing intelligence—which has certainly countered a lot of Russian misinformation and propaganda—the evidence we are getting is that the conduit of social media that we use is now reaching a pretty large audience. I very much hope that this has altered the dynamic. There was a very unequal balance in which disinformation and misinformation were predominant. I hope that we are neutralising that now and that a much more honest impression is being gleaned, particularly by people in Russia, about what their Government are doing.
The mirror effect is that people in this country understand what is happening and that it is wrong. Consider the millions who watched the Eurovision Song Contest and then learned that, during the Ukrainian contribution, the hometown of the two Ukrainian singers was being bombarded by Russian onslaught. People will have found that absolutely nauseating. It is, frankly, indicative of the bullying brutalism of Putin’s attack in Ukraine.
There is a clear understanding in the United Kingdom that something bad and wrong has happened, and we are doing everything we can with friends and allies to resist that and help Ukraine to defend itself. With a very popular medium such as the Eurovision Song Contest, members of the United Kingdom public will have got the message clearly: while two creative artists were doing what they do—singing and entertaining—Putin was arranging to bomb their hometown. They will be appalled by that and will say, “Anything you can do to counter and address that evil, do it”.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
Monday 15th May 2023
(12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 View all Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 117-II Second marshalled list for Report - (15 May 2023)
21:20 - Division on Amendment 48 - Ayes: 142 / Noes: 132 - Amendment 48 agreed.
21:48 - Division on Amendment 50 - Ayes: 130 / Noes: 131 - Amendment 50 disagreed.
Lord Hope of Craighead
“(3A) The power of a relevant national authority to make regulations under subsections (1), (2) and (3) is subject to the provisions of Part 3 of Schedule 4.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to enable Parliament and the devolved legislatures to overrule the Executive and express their own view as to the contents of regulations that are to be made under this section.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, this quite short group of amendments is concerned with Clause 16. It is a very worrying clause, for various reasons. My amendment seeks to tie the power of the relevant national authority to exercise the regulation-making power under this clause to the provisions of Part 3 of Schedule 4.
My Amendment 76, which we have already discussed, relates to Part 3 of Schedule 4. The point is to make sure that the regulation-making power is subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That is true not only of the UK Parliament; it applies also to the Senedd in Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Scottish decision has been that the power should remain with Ministers, and that is a matter that can be left to them.
The really important point is to make sure that the regulation power is subject to Amendment 76, which I am seeking to make on Wednesday. I do not think I need to say any more about this because the more important amendment is Clause 16 stand part. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, will make clear the position regarding the defects in the clause that gave rise to her amendment. She will do that far better than me so I shall simply leave it at that. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I have Amendment 41A in this group. We discussed this issue in Committee. I said, “If the Government want to go down the route of keeping in Clause 16(5), why don’t they promise the same about the environment?” After all, the Government made the same set of promises regarding environmental legislation—that they would not do anything to damage the protection that the current regulations offered—while here in Clause 16(5) they are saying they will not do anything to increase the regulatory burden.
The Government wisely said they did not want to put in the Bill the promise that they would not damage environmental regulation. I had rather hoped that meant they would take out Clause 16(5), because to my mind that subsection offers nothing but uncertainty. How is it to be interpreted by the courts if the Government propose to use the clause and someone challenges its use in the courts, saying, “This subsection says ‘in relation to a particular subject area’. Has that been reasonably chosen and correctly defined? What is the overall effect of the changes?”? They will have to look at every piece of legislation that has passed in relation to that particular subject area. How are they to be weighed up? There is no mechanism here providing for them to be weighed.
The courts are going to be asked how one bit of legislation should be weighed against another with regard to the changes that it makes and the regulatory burden. How do you weigh one bit of regulatory burden against another if one bit of regulation imposes something on one group and the next regulation imposes something on another? How do you weigh those two things together? It seems to be asking the absolute impossible. It means that any bit of legislation passed under Clause 16 will be open to all sorts of challenges in the courts, and there will be no way of knowing what the outcome will be, because nothing in this subsection, or elsewhere in the clause, tells you how to parse it. So I hope the Government will see the good sense they had when they chose not to adopt my suggestion of doing this for environmental legislation and take Clause 16(5) and (6) out of the Bill.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I agree with the entirety of Amendment 41A from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, while agreeing with only half his reasoning. I entirely agree that, as we discussed at length in Committee, this is essentially impossible to calculate and creates a great deal of legal uncertainty. Where I disagree with him is that I would very much like to have seen non-regression clauses for the environment, public health, workers’ rights and a whole range of other things in the Bill.
Practically, what we are doing with the clause at the moment, if it is implemented, is creating a guaranteed regression of workers’ rights, food standards and environmental standards. If we do not have regulation of business, we will certainly see at least some cowboy businesses taking advantage of a reduction in regulation. That of course will not be in the interests of businesses that want to do the right thing on the environment, public health or workers’ rights.
I spent a great deal of time during the passage of the Environment Act and the Agriculture Act arguing for non-regression clauses. What the Government are currently giving us is a guaranteed regression clause, and that really should not be acceptable.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as the proposer of Amendment 45, which is also in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I feel a terrible weight resting on my shoulders as a result of the preface from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, because this is the amendment that seeks to remove Clause 16 and I fear that I am not going to reach the billing that he gave us.
Over the course of this session, we have heard numerous arguments about the way in which the Bill more and more removes Parliament from the process of revocation and reform. I am not going to rehearse all those arguments again, because your Lordships have heard them both on Report and in Committee. Clause 16 is one of the key parts of the machinery in the Bill to govern how retained EU law can be reformed. There is an argument for removing the clause altogether, but I have bowed to the spirit of scrutiny rather than total oblivion and, as such, I do not intend to move the amendment.
As we have already heard in advance from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the provision that causes most concern is Clause 16(5), which mandates the nature of any reform of REUL to be deregulation—and deregulation only. The point the noble Lord made is about how we measure the sum of regulation. There was all sorts of debate in Committee. Is it the total of the changes across a group of amendments or a section of amendments? Is it each amendment by itself? These questions were never satisfactorily answered in Committee, so perhaps during Report the Minister can tell us how the amount of regulation will be measured. In other words, can one increase in regulation be balanced by two decreases in regulation through adjacent provisions, for example? We have not had answers to that.
Essentially, the spirit of the Bill is that there can be no increase in the “burden”—according to the Bill—caused by this reformed retained EU law. Clause 16(10) defines burden, with its paragraph (b) including “administrative inconvenience”, but one person’s administrative inconvenience is another’s life-saving safety measure. It depends on which direction you look at it. Clause 16(10)(d) includes
“an obstacle to efficiency, productivity or profitability”
as a burden. Again, what may seem an obstacle to one group may be existentially important to another.
As I said, I am not aiming to push this amendment to a vote. We are seeing amendments that are putting some safeguards in place. The noble Lord mentioned Amendment 76, which we anticipate. I am anticipating Amendment 48 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, where we will talk about non-regression, and Amendment 50, which will come up shortly. These are other important pieces to put in place to try to draw the majority of the sting from Clause 16.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
Clause 16 has always been the most offensive clause in the Bill because it was giving excessive power to the Executive and no power to Parliament. But on the horse, if I may put it that way, of the amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, who really has provided enormous assistance to us during the passage of the Bill, and knowing therefore that the assimilated law to which we are now directed will also be subject to the provisions to which he has already succeeded—twice over now—in getting the acceptance of the House, we are protected. Because of our protection under the noble and learned Lord’s amendments, I am happy with this amendment not being moved. I joined the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and my noble friend Lady Chapman of Darlington in signing it but, on the basis only of the work that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has provided, I am prepared to join the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in not moving this amendment.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the comments that have been made. It might make sense if I start with Amendment 45, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which would remove this clause from the Bill altogether. I am very glad that he will not move it; I think that is the right approach.
The powers to revoke or replace are needed to enable the Government to overhaul EU laws in secondary legislation across different sectors of the economy. We know that some of them are outdated or unduly burdensome. Better and simpler regulation, perhaps with less complex bureaucracy, can increase productivity growth, which has been slow and a huge problem for our economy. It can also help enterprise and assist SMEs, which suffer more than anyone else from red tape.
We worked together in this House on the Procurement Bill, which was an important step in getting rid of retained EU law and helping small business. We can do so much more without losing necessary protections. I speak as someone who has worked in business; businesses are always being blamed for liking regulation, but there are changes that we can make.
The REUL dashboard has identified over 4,800 pieces of retained EU law across 16 departments. Some will be repealed by the revocation schedule, as we have heard today; others reflect—I think this is important—international obligations, which will remain in place. There are many areas where reform can be beneficial and bring about the post-Brexit boost that we have promised. However, the Government’s retained EU law substance review in 2021 highlighted a distinct lack of subordinate legislation-making powers to remove retained EU law from the UK statute book, because in the past we have relied on Brussels for regulatory powers to drive change. It is now vital that we have a power capable of acting on wide-ranging retained EU law across different policy areas.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, as I am sure are others who have spoken in this debate, for her careful reply to the points that have been made. There is no doubt that the wording of Clause 16 gives rise to concern, particularly the width of subsections (2) and (3), and, according to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, subsection (5). One cannot rule out the possibility of judicial challenge because, while primary legislation is not justiciable, delegated legislation is. I find it difficult to predict what a court would make of subsection (5) for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has given.
As for subsections (2) and (3), my Amendment 76 would remove much of the concerns. What I was offering was a package. In a way, Amendment 76 remains: it will still be there whatever happens to Amendment 40; the protection we are seeking to provide will be available there. Without taking up more of your Lordships’ time, I thank the Minister for her reply and seek leave to withdraw Amendment 40.
The Earl of Caithness
“(3) In subsection (1)(b), developments in scientific understanding must be identified based upon regular reviews of the scientific evidence.(4) When undertaking a review of scientific evidence referred to in subsection (3), the relevant national authority must consider the methodological quality of the evidence, in terms of the extent to which all aspects of a study's design, data collection protocols and statistical analysis can be shown to protect against systematic bias, non-systematic bias, and inferential error.(5) Where regulations under subsection (1) constitute environmental law, the review of scientific evidence must also consider whether the evidence takes a sufficiently wide view of the ecological impacts.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is to ensure that future regulations will be based on a proper assessment of the best science available.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, we move from powers to revoke or replace to powers to update. I am very grateful for the support that I have got from the noble Baronesses, Lady Willis of Summertown and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on this amendment. I express the apologies of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, who was in your Lordships’ House earlier this afternoon but has had to go back to Oxford. She did very well to come up here for the time that she did, given the timetabling of the debate today.
There has been increasing concern that aspects of environmental policy have been and are being formulated based on evidence that is questionable in its methodology and therefore reliability. Our amendment seeks to remedy that by ensuring that future regulations will be based on a proper assessment of the best scientific evidence—and not only that, but the evidence needs to be assessed using standardised approaches to ensure robust outcomes.
Our proposed new subsection (3) would require regular reviews of the scientific evidence. There has been a lot of specious talk about the Government resiling on European standards on environmental laws, as if they were an unimprovable factor as enacted. Much more worrying, surely, is the automatic adherence to what is law without question, setting more concrete rules that damage the environment.
Back in 2004, a Cabinet Office paper stated that
“policy-makers need to understand the value of evidence, become more informed as to what evidence is available … and critically be able to appraise it”.
Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who I am delighted to see in his place, in one of our debates on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, stated that
“scientists do not absolutely agree on everything”.
He went on to say that
“when there is a centre of gravity of opinion, there are always outliers. Sometimes those outliers turn out to be right and there are transformations”.—[Official Report, 25/1/23; cols. 221-23.]
A good example of a recent transformation are the outcomes of interim results from a 20-year study by York University into moorland management, which the Government must take note of and study carefully. Policy must reflect broader approaches to conservation and be a living entity that can change as our knowledge of both ecological processes and individual contexts changes.
There is another point to make, which is that research must be allowed to continue. Recently, I read an example where the precautionary principle was being used as a reason to block research. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust wished to undertake research to provide more evidence but was refused permission to burn very tiny experimental plots on EU-designated sites because Natural England could not give consent, as the current habitat directive gives no exemption for experimental work or any sort of de minimis rules. In my view, the argument is both circular and not proportionate. Does my noble friend the Minister—I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord Benyon answering this debate—believe that there should be a presumption that scientific research is permitted? If not, how do we reduce the scientific uncertainty about sites or issues in question, and how can the Government legislate properly?
Proposed new subsection (4) asks that the quality of the scientific evidence is considered and based on standard principles. Not all scientific evidence is the same in quality or validity, and therefore reliability, which is important if directly impacting on decision-making. A standardised protocol would give confidence to all stakeholders involved, including the authors, and prevent unreliable evidence being given due weight, resulting in unintended impacts and wasted effort. For example, Natural England guidance on how to systematically review evidence recommends categorising the different types of study from 1, the strongest scientific studies based on meta-analysis and randomised control trials, to 4—the weakest, as based on expert opinion. This and its evidence standard underpin its approach of putting the best available science at the core of its decision-making. Will that approach be followed throughout government?
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
My Lords, I must inform that House that, if Amendment 48 is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendment 49 due to pre-emption.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to the cross-party Amendment 48 in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Hayman of Ullock, and the noble Lord, Lord Duncan of Springbank. As always, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; he gave me a namecheck in his speech which I hope to add to my CV, so that for my next job application I can say, “As quoted by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness”.
I support in large part what he said about the importance of rigorous scientific evidence to underpin policy—he referred to the environment, but I would say more broadly. I will add a note of caution from my personal experience. As many noble Lords will know, I was responsible for instigating the randomised badger culling trials, the so-called “Krebs trials”, which were meant definitively to determine whether killing badgers was a good way of controlling bovine tuberculosis. The trial was probably the largest ecological experiment ever done in this country; it did produce results, but it did not settle the arguments or the policy. So science has an important role to play, and I support the noble Earl’s amendment, but we must recognise that political decisions come in as well.
I turn now to Amendment 48. I want to keep it brief so I will say what it is not and what it is. It is not an attempt to block any change. It is also not an alternative to the earlier proposals that came from my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead to involve Parliament in future decisions. It is not either of those. It supports the Government in their declared ambitions for the environment and for food. In doing so, it also ensures that the Government make good decisions rather than bad decisions. The amendment is about protecting the environment and consumer interests in relation to food.
These two areas—food and environment—are crucial to the REUL Bill, as between them they account for approximately half of the 4,900 regulations that come under REUL according to the current dashboard. At its board meeting in December 2022, the Food Standards Agency noted 800 items related to food and feed. The REUL dashboard reports about 1,700 items related to Defra, most of which concern environmental protection. These two areas are also crucial because of public concern. You have to think only of sewage in rivers, outbreaks of food-borne illness or GM foods to realise that these areas—environment and food—resonate with the public. These two areas also attracted a great deal of debate from your Lordships in Committee.
The amendment that I have proposed has three elements: first, non-regression—which we have already heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Any future changes, according to Amendment 48, should not reduce or water down current levels of environmental protection or food safety standards. Nor should they contravene any international agreements to which the UK has committed.
My second point is expert input. This resonates with the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. Regulations should not be changed without consulting the relevant experts. These should include the Office for Environmental Protection, the Food Standards Agency and their cognate bodies in Scotland.
The third element is transparency. The amendment would require the Government to publish a report showing how any changes do not reduce environmental or food protections and what advice was received from the experts consulted. As a further transparency measure, the amendment also requires the Food Standards Agency, together with Food Standards Scotland, to report on the impact of any changes resulting from the implementation of this Bill on food safety and other consumer interests in relation to food.
The proposals in these three areas—non-regression, expert advice and transparency—are totally in line with the Government’s own commitments. They have said over and over again that they do not want to weaken environmental protection or compromise food safety and standards. The noble Lord, Lord Benyon, who I am delighted to see is going to respond to this grouping, has himself said that on more than one occasion in your Lordships’ House. This amendment simply formalises these commitments in the Bill. As we heard earlier, Clauses 13, 14, 16 and 17 leave Ministers a great deal of discretionary power. While, of course, we totally trust current Ministers to keep their word, who knows who will be in charge in future? This amendment will ensure that, in the future, Governments will build on the good work that has been done up to now and the promises that have been made.
Outside this House, who supports this amendment? Let me give noble Lords some examples. I asked the Food and Drink Federation whether it supported the food parts of this amendment. The FDF, with more than 1,000 members ranging from global brands to innovative start-ups, represents the UK’s largest manufacturing sector. It says in writing that it is happy to be quoted as supporting this amendment. If the Government wish to be business friendly—and I have heard that said—here is a good place to start: accept an amendment that has the weight of nearly half a million jobs behind it.
Equally, non-regression of environmental protections is supported by the Government’s statutory advisers, the Office for Environmental Protection and the Climate Change Committee, which both said in recent written statements that it is important that the REUL Bill includes a non-regression clause.
The amendment applies to the whole of the UK, and in that context it is noteworthy that the Scottish Government have also written to express their support for Amendment 48.
I hope that in this brief introduction I have said enough to convince your Lordships that this amendment is sensible, proportionate and fully supportive of the Government’s declared commitments on the environment and food. Indeed, I cannot see why on earth the Government would not accept it, and I very much look forward to the Minister agreeing with me. However, if that agreement is not forthcoming, and recognising from Committee that there was widespread support from across the House for the areas of environmental and food protections, I will wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I have the third amendment in this group, Amendment 49. Colleagues will have detected that there is a considerable overlap with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and I was proposing to withdraw my amendment formally in favour of his. He has moved that very ably, and therefore I need not repeat most of the arguments he made.
It is very important, now we have the Joint Committee procedure and all the other changes that the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, have built into the Bill, that we give some guidance as to how they are to proceed. In relation to issues of the environment and food, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, would make it clear how in part they are to receive guidance on carrying out that function.
I will add just one point to the considerations your Lordships have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. These areas are very important for our trade agreements. Environmental standards increasingly appear in our trade agreements, particularly with the EU but with other countries as well. Therefore, any regression of those standards needs to be clear not just from an environmental but from a trade point of view. It is absolutely clear that this must be the case for food. We have an important food manufacturing and agricultural industry, which needs to ensure that the standards to which it produces are the same as or equivalent to those of our trading partners. If that is not the case, some of our best trade agreements will be precarious. The references to international standards and international bodies of advice are very important for the proposed Joint Committee to follow. I therefore hope that those considerations can be taken into account by the House and that the Government will accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am very uncertain how the wording of this amendment works. Is a regulation the whole package of regulations that is submitted to this House or each individual regulation? If a regulation makes changes so that an old provision is swept away and the new one replaces it, that sweeping away of an old provision is a diminution, but there does not appear to be a mechanism for balancing it with the better regulation that follows. If a regulation benefits one species but hurts another, how is that dealt with here? If we protect badgers more so that there are fewer hedgehogs, I do not see how the wording works. Most of all, it seems that if the Government want to keep Clause 16(5) they must want this too, so I shall support the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because that is exactly the point I was going to begin on. If you are to keep Clause 16(5), you absolutely need to have this. As my noble friend Lord Fox says, the importance of this amendment is that it takes the sting out of Clause 16. If we want to protect the environment for the future, and our food standards, as was so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, this amendment is absolutely fundamental.
I do not want to add much more to what the noble Lord said, because he introduced it so expertly, but we on these Benches would add one other reason why we support it. It is critical that the public have confidence in environmental legislation, particularly at a time like now. If they see the Government not prepared to sign up to a non-regression clause—which is, as has been said, what the Minister says they want—they will be left with questions. We need them to be reassured that our environment is in the best possible hands, and the only way the Government can prove that in the Bill is to allow this non-regression clause.
Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con)
My Lords, I realise that the hour is late and I do not intend to detain your Lordships long. I speak to Amendment 48. It is a cross-party amendment and this morning, when I began to consider this, I typed up some notes, which I have—but I do not have my glasses and I typed in a font far too small. I feel I am now a speaking metaphor for what the amendment represents. We have to be careful that we are looking not just at the fuzziness of the whole issue but at the detail. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, ably set out why it is important.
This is a non-regression amendment. We are where we are right now, and we are content with that—if anything, we should be going further, but let there be no step backwards. The important statements in this amendment are very clear: let us accept what we are able to achieve, look at the international standards by which we must be judged and consider how to do that correctly.
I am pleased to see the Minister before us. It is not my intention or desire to vote against the Government, but these things occasionally happen. I think he can give us some words of comfort this evening about how we might help us to be able to understand the non-regression element of each of the matters we have touched on so far.
I will speak no further, other than simply to say that the amendment establishes and stabilises what we are about. We are a nation with clear ambition in this area, and we have done good work. Let us not let that be lost; let us not regress.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, having attached my name to Amendment 47 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, I shall make just a couple of points on that. I stress Amendment 48, to which the Green group would have attached our names had there been space, and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that this is writing into the Bill what the Government tell us again and again, as they have for years, they want to achieve. It is simply delivering the Government’s expressed desire.
I want to make just three points on Amendment 47. There is some important terminology, with which I suspect the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, may have had something to do. That refers to the methodological quality of the evidence. There is increasing awareness in the scientific community of the need to look at the problem of publication bias: the probability that a scientific study is published is not independent of its results. That is just one way in which we have real problems with the methodology of what has been published and the Government have considered in the past, to which the amendment is to some degree addressed.
Proposed new subsection (5) mentions
“a sufficiently wide view of the ecological impacts”.
I will take a case study of this. Scientists are increasingly concerned about the combined cocktail impact of pesticides, plastics and pharmaceuticals together in the environment. I point the Minister to a European report by the CHEM Trust, Chemical Cocktails: The Neglected Threat of Toxic Mixtures and How to Fix It and, independently occurring, a launch this month in the UK of a report from the Wildlife and Countryside Link with the Rivers Trust and UK Youth for Nature, Chemical Cocktails: How Can We Reduce the Toxic Burden on Our Rivers? The scientific view taking that overall wide ecological view is increasingly being recognised as crucial, and massively understudied.
The final point I want to make is that Amendment 47 is reflective of something that I am increasingly finding: groups of scientists—including established scientists whom you might expect that have a very good route into the Government—are coming to me and saying, “Please advise us on how we can get through to the Government to make sure that our scientific advice and discoveries are acted on”. There is real feeling in the scientific community that there has been a breakdown in communication and consideration from the Government in terms of the current science. This amendment seeks to address those issues.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I shall be very brief. I just want to give particular support to Amendment 48, to which I have added my name. We cannot allow the Bill to weaken environmental and food safety standards. We know that Defra has by far the largest share of affected regulations of any department, so the Bill really will have significant implications for environment and food safety law-making unless it is done well.
I will not repeat the reasons why we need these amendments, but what has come across very clearly is the fact that there is widespread and strong support for the environmental non-regression principle.
Importantly, Amendment 48 would give transparency but also legal substance to the warm words of the Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned. On day 2 of Committee, the Minister said that the Government are committed to maintaining high environmental standards and that he wanted
“to see … standards improve in future”.—[Official Report, 28/2/23; col. 208.]
I absolutely believe that is the case but, as a matter of law, the Bill provides no assurances or protections and cannot bind the hands of future Ministers. It is absolutely critical that these assurances and protections are in place in the Bill because, without a non-regression principle in law, they simply are not there.
On that basis, if the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, wishes to test the opinion of the House, he will have our support.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for a really interesting debate. Before I begin to address the amendments in this grouping, I say that I know that there was some discussion earlier today regarding Defra’s plans for water quality, particularly the Bathing Water Regulations and the water framework directive. I take this opportunity to reassure noble Lords that neither of these pieces of REUL is on the schedule to this Bill and Defra has no intention of repealing either of these pieces of important legislation. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, raised this issue, and I absolutely give them that assurance.
Under this Government, we have only strengthened our legislation on water quality. In April, we published our new integrated plan for water, which marks a step change in how we manage our waters. It looks at both water quality and water resources together. We completely understand people’s concerns about our rivers, lakes and seas and the pressures that they face. This plan is our response. In the plan, we set out how we will streamline our water policy and legal framework; this includes the water framework directive 2017. We consider that there are opportunities to improve the regulatory system through reviewing the implementation of the water environment regulations 2017 in order to improve water outcomes on the ground while retaining our goal to restore 75% of water bodies to good ecological status.
I turn to Amendment 47, moved by my noble friend Lord Caithness. This amendment would introduce specific statutory requirements on Ministers when deciding what updates may be appropriate under the power to update in Clause 17 in the light of scientific developments. The amendment would also require that, where Ministers intend to exercise the power on legislation relating to environmental law, the review of scientific evidence must consider whether the evidence accounts for the ecological impacts. I say this to my noble friend: the power has purposely been drafted in this way both to allow for broad technical updates and to ensure that it captures the wide range of REUL across a variety of policy areas. We cannot predict the nature of scientific developments or technological changes to which REUL may be subject, nor the changes that might be appropriate in those instances in future.
I totally agree with my noble friend’s point about outliers. As he said, we had this debate during the passage of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. I constantly challenge the scientific advice that I receive in Defra to make sure that we are not creating the opposite of diversity or a sort of monogamous view of scientific progress. Outliers are the best challenge to that occasional tendency to be too absorbed in one particular group of views. This has been very eloquently described by notable international conservationists such as Allan Savory. That ability to have only research that is peer-reviewed sometimes requires those commissioning science to look more broadly. That is what we try to do, and I assure my noble friend that his points are well received. However, I gently suggest that placing statutory requirements on Ministers in the use of this power, including the requirement for scientific updates to be based on the latest evidence, is simply not necessary.
First, public bodies are already under public law duties to act reasonably and to consider relevant factors in decision-making. Secondly, Ministers will need to be reasonable and consider the relevant scientific evidence when evaluating whether updates, and what updates, may be appropriate. Provided a Minister acts reasonably and considers the relevant factors, it is ultimately for them to decide what is considered an appropriate amendment in light of a change in technology or development in scientific understanding.
The UK is a world leader in environmental protection and, in reviewing our REUL, we want to ensure that environmental law is fit for purpose and able to drive improved environmental outcomes. Furthermore, this Government have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that we will uphold our environmental protections. We remain committed to our ambitious plans set out in the net zero strategy, the Environment Act and the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, which sets out the comprehensive action we will take to reverse the tragic decline in species abundance, achieve our net-zero goals and deliver cleaner air and water. The provisions in the Bill will not alter that. I therefore suggest that the requirements of this amendment are not necessary.
The proposed new clauses in Amendments 48 and 49, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Whitty, respectively, establish a number of conditions relating to environmental protections and food standards that Ministers must meet when intending to use the powers under Clauses 13, 14, 16 and 17. They include satisfying a range of conditions in the amendments so that environmental and consumer protections relating to food safety and labelling will be maintained and that the proposed new regulations do not conflict with a specific list of existing international environmental agreements. They also introduce a new procedural requirement which Ministers must meet to be eligible to exercise the powers. This includes seeking advice from relevant stakeholders and publishing a report addressing specific points concerning environmental and consumer protections for the new regulations.
Amendment 48 seeks to insert a new subsection into Section 4 of the Food Standards Act 1999, introducing a requirement for the Food Standards Agency to include in its annual report an assessment of the impact of the delegated powers on areas of concern to consumers relating to food, under that section of that Act. These new and broad-ranging provisions would have a severe impact on the Government’s ability to use the Bill to legislate and deliver on our environmental and food goals, due to the resource-intensive nature of the conditions proposed.
Moreover, the list of relevant international obligations set out in the amendment is far from comprehensive and would become rapidly outdated in the context of ever-evolving international legislation. The delegated powers in the Bill are not intended to undermine the UK’s already high food standards, nor will they impact the UK’s status as a world leader in environmental protection. Indeed, this Government are committed to promoting robust food standards nationally and internationally, so we can continue to protect consumer interests, facilitate international trade—a very good point made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—and ensure that consumers can have confidence in the food they buy. The UK has world-leading standards of food safety and quality, backed by a rigorous and effective legislative framework.
Under the Food Standards Act 1999, the FSA already has as its core statutory function the objective of protecting public health from risks that may arise in connection with the consumption of food, including risks caused by the way it is produced or supplied, and protecting the interests of consumers in relation to food. The Bill and the powers in it do not change that. Accordingly, the FSA would already have to consider the effect on public health of any legislation that it would ask the relevant Minister in its sponsor department, the Department of Health and Social Care, to make in relation to food before that legislation would have effect. Alongside this, Defra maintains a well-established set of relationships with the agrifood sector, broadly aimed at upholding the sustainability, productivity and resilience of the sector. This includes representation, from farm to fork, of around 150 major food and drink companies and trade associations, as well as a range of industry CEOs and senior figures, to discuss strategic opportunities and challenges facing the agrifood chain.
We also want to ensure that, in reviewing our REUL, environment legislation is fit for purpose and able to drive our positive environmental outcomes. I take the point very eloquently made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, but this is much more than warm words: we have written into law our environmental protections, our ambitions for reversing the decline of species and, in very strict food legislation, on the health of food.
The REUL that we are revoking as part of the schedule to the Bill is obsolete, expired, duplicated or no longer relevant to the UK. It is not required to uphold environmental protection. For example, around half of fisheries REUL can be removed as it is no longer relevant, has expired or relates to areas we do not fish in. For example, I am sure all noble Lords will agree that REUL setting fishing opportunities for anchovy in the Bay of Biscay for the 2011-12 fishing season, which has now expired and is no longer applicable in the UK, is pointless to have on our statute book. Therefore, the proposed conditions on food standards and environmental protections are simply unnecessary. The reforms these powers will enable are vital to allow the UK to drive genuine reform and seize the opportunities our new status allows.
I enjoyed being on the same side as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on previous legislation. I hope that my attempt at honeyed words might have got him onside, but we will have to see how that goes. There are two reasons, by and large, why Governments resist these kinds of amendments: first, they are not necessary—there is already law to provide for the measures the amendments seek—and secondly, they are too burdensome. For these two amendments, I submit, both those factors come into effect: they are not necessary and they are too burdensome, so I ask that they not be pressed.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who took part on my amendment, and those from the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Whitty, because we have had a very useful debate. I strongly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, that the public must have confidence in our environmental laws. That is the basis of how we should go forward, and I think the Minister tried hard to reassure us that that was the case. I need to read exactly what he said; he said some helpful things in reply to my amendment. I just wish that the other Ministers in Defra took exactly the same view as he did with regard not only to regulations but new legislation. However, I am grateful for what he said, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)
My Lords, if Amendment 48 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 49 for reasons of pre-emption.
Amendment 48
Lord Krebs
“Environmental protection and food standards(1) Regulations may not be made by a relevant national authority under section 13, 14, 16 or 17 unless the relevant national authority is satisfied that the regulations do not—(a) reduce the level of environmental protection arising from the EU retained law to which the provision relates;(b) reduce the level of protection of consumers in relation to the safety, composition or labelling of food arising from the EU retained law to which the provision relates;(c) conflict with any relevant international environmental agreements to which the United Kingdom is party.(2) Prior to making any provision to which this section applies, the relevant national authority must—(a) seek advice from persons who are independent of the authority and have relevant expertise,(b) seek advice from, as appropriate, the Office for Environmental Protection, Environmental Standards Scotland, a devolved environmental governance body or another person exercising similar functions, the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, and(c) publish a report setting out—(i) how the provision does not reduce the level of environmental or consumer protection in accordance with subsection (1), and(ii) how the authority has taken into account the advice from the persons referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection.(3) In section 4 (annual and other reports) of the Food Standards Act 1999, after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) The report prepared under subsection (1) must include a detailed assessment, drawn up after seeking advice from such other persons or bodies with relevant expertise as the Agency considers appropriate, of the impact of the implementation of sections 13, 14, 16 and 17 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 in the areas of food safety, composition, and labelling and other relevant areas of concern to consumers related to food.”(4) In this section “relevant international environmental agreements” means—(a) the UNECE Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters (Aarhus, 25 June 1998);(b) the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern, 1979);(c) the UN Convention on Biodiversity (Rio, 1992);(d) the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (Bonn, 1979);(e) the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (1992);(f) the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar, 1971).”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause creates additional conditions to be satisfied before the powers in Clauses 13, 14, 16 or 17 can be exercised where the subject matter of their exercise concerns law relating to environmental protection or food standards. It would also require the Government to seek the advice of the relevant independent expert statutory bodies, and the Food Standards Agency to include in its annual report to Parliament an assessment of the impact of the implementation of these provisions in areas of concern to consumers related to food.
Lord Collins of Highbury
“Workers’ protection and employment rights(1) Regulations may not be made by a relevant national authority under section 13, 14, 16 or 17 unless the relevant national authority is satisfied that the regulations do not—(a) reduce the level of protection for workers arising from the EU retained law to which the provision relates;(b) conflict with any relevant international labour agreements to which the United Kingdom is party.(2) Prior to making any provision to which this section applies, the relevant national authority must—(a) seek advice from persons who are independent of the authority and have relevant expertise,(b) seek advice from, as appropriate, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and relevant trade unions, and(c) publish a report setting out—(i) how the provision does not reduce the level of protection for workers in accordance with subsection (1), and(ii) how the authority has taken into account the advice from the persons referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection.(3) In this section “relevant international labour agreements” means—(a) the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement,(b) any Convention of the International Labour Organization ratified by the United Kingdom, and(c) any provision of the European Social Charter 1961 accepted by the United Kingdom.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause creates additional conditions to be satisfied before the powers in Clauses 13, 14, 16 or 17 can be exercised where the subject matter of their exercise concerns law relating to protection of workers. It would also require the Government to seek the advice of the relevant independent expert statutory bodies.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I will not detain the House too long. In this amendment we have tried to reflect the structure that we have just agreed in relation to the environment. This is not about blocking change. The Minister said that we are in danger of creating immutable legislation. That is not the case. We are in a unique situation here in terms of regulations that are going to be changed in a way that does not have the same sort of parliamentary scrutiny as primary legislation. That is the difference. It is unique, and therefore it needs a proper, unique response to it in terms of the three elements on which the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, focused.
The first of course is non-regression. We should understand the ambitions of this Government in relation to workers’ rights. I have heard from Ministers throughout this Bill and also in other debates that they are committed to defend and extend workers’ rights. I think we need that ambition to be translated into proper processes and procedures in relation to the unique circumstances where regulations can be removed, revoked or revised simply by Ministers producing statutory instruments.
The other element, which again the noble Lord, Lord Krebs pointed out in relation to the environment, is proper consultation. If changes are envisaged, how do we consult the appropriate bodies? We have a government agency that has huge experience in terms of regulations and codes of practice that ought to be properly consulted in relation to any changes, and of course we have stakeholders in terms of employers and unions. And by the way, this is not a debate about whether one should support workers or employers. Everyone wants proper standards. Employers themselves want proper standards. When we come to the international agreements that this Government have signed up to, in particular trade agreements, that level playing field is going to be a really important element in maintaining those agreements and extending them, so there is a very strong economic case for supporting this amendment.
We also need to ensure that trust and confidence are put back into the system. We hear Ministers suggesting that somehow regulations are a burden on employers, but sometimes those burdens are the thing that can provide and guarantee the level playing field that we have argued for and supported.
We talk about the ambition of this Government but we are still waiting for the long-awaited employment Bill, which I hope at some stage we will see brought forward. This is about ensuring that we do not turn the clock back—that we maintain the proper standards. As a shadow spokesman for foreign affairs, I work with government Ministers in defending and advancing the rights of workers across the globe. We are the strongest advocate of that, so the one thing that we should not do is turn our backs on workers at this moment in time. If Brexit is to mean anything, it should be about putting rights back into this Parliament and making sure that workers are not at the end of the queue but very much at the front. I beg to move.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendment 50, as well as Amendment 51, which bears my name. Amendment 51 is an elaboration of Amendment 50, so I will speak only to Amendment 50. I endorse everything that my noble friend Lord Collins has said. The object of Amendment 50 is, as it states in proposed new subsection (1)(a), to prevent the reduction of
“the level of protection for workers”.
As my noble friend said, this is not simply to protect workers but to protect good employers from being undercut by bad employers. It speaks of the level of protection for workers, in respect not just of employment rights but of health and safety at work rights.
In spite of the warm words of the Government and the promises of an employment Bill over the last three or four years, there is a suspicion that the Government will try to take advantage of Brexit to undermine and water down workers’ rights. That fear is not helped by the fact that, last week, on 10 May, as I mentioned earlier today, the Department for Business and Trade published its booklet, Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy. This contains no less than four proposals to water down the Working Time Regulations and Section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which guarantees the right of workers to be consulted when collective redundancies are proposed.
The proposals to water down those rights are not contained in the Bill, as they could have been among the 928 proposals in the schedule. They are yet to come, in the form of statutory instruments that we have not seen, cannot examine and, when it comes to it—notwithstanding the excellent amendments from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, earlier on—may have difficulty in seeking to amend. The purpose of Amendment 50, and indeed Amendment 51, is to ensure that workers’ rights are not watered down and that the obligations contained in Articles 387(2) and 399(5) of the trade and co-operation agreement, against regression, are honoured.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, my name is on both of these amendments and I am happy to support them both. The proposers will be pleased to know that I do not intend to speak for long, because I have heard two excellent speeches that set out the reasons why supporting these amendments is important.
The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, talked about the danger of back-door watering down of legislation. It may not be this Government; once this is in statute, it could be any Government going forward. We do not necessarily have to distrust the people we see before us—I personally do not—but we do not know who in future will be able to use these measures.
If the Government want to water down workers’ conditions, that should be done through primary legislation, straight up, and negotiated and scrutinised properly. It should not be put through the backdoor, which could happen here. Throughout the process of the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has said over and over again that it is not the Government’s intention to water down workers’ rights. By supporting Amendment 50, the Government can make sure that they are absolutely as good as their word.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, one of the worst objections that I had when I was a Member of the European Parliament was to the doctrine of the occupied field—the idea that you could never withdraw from a field in which you had once legislated. So the acquis communautaire can only ever grow; it could go only in in one direction. You could call it a ratchet, a one-way street or, as its supporters did, a bicycle that has to go forward, but the objection was fundamentally the same: it lifted certain issues out of the democratic field and made them immune to the political process.
For what it is worth, I have never had much time for the idea that our workers’ rights come from the EU—the EU did not travel back in time and pass Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act 1970 or Neville Chamberlain’s Holidays with Pay Act 1938—but, whatever view you take of it, these are precisely the sorts of issues that ought to be determined by our national democratic mechanisms and procedures. You can take the view, as the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Hendy, did, that this is wonderful, helps employers and all the rest of it, which is a perfectly respectable position, or you can take the view that there comes a point where too many workers’ rights means fewer workers—but surely that is a debate that ought to be had here and in another place, not something that is effectively made invulnerable to the ballot box.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
It is nice to be popular so that we can all go home. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for his Amendment 50, and I am glad to be debating with him again.
The amendment would place a number of conditions relating to workers’ rights that UK Ministers or devolved authorities would have to meet when intending to use the powers under Clauses 13, 14, 16 and 17 on retained EU law. That includes satisfying themselves that workers’ protections and employment rights would be maintained and that proposed new regulations would not conflict with existing international labour agreements.
The new clause would also introduce a new procedural requirement that Ministers would have to follow in order to be eligible to exercise the power. That includes seeking advice from relevant stakeholders, including ACAS and relevant trade unions, as well as publishing a report addressing specific points around workers’ rights and employment protections for the new regulations. The new clause would significantly delay and impact opportunities to review and reform any retained EU law, which might have an impact on working regulations.
I should say straightaway, as my noble friend Lord Callanan already has, that this Government have no intention of abandoning our strong record on workers’ rights, and nor are the delegated powers intended to undermine the UK’s high standards on workers’ rights.
Our high standards were never dependent on our membership of the EU. Indeed, the UK provides for stronger protections for workers. We have one of the highest minimum wages in Europe. Moreover, UK workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of annual leave compared with the EU requirement of four weeks, and we provide a year of maternity leave while the EU minimum maternity leave is just 14 weeks. Furthermore, on 10 May the Secretary of State committed to strengthening employment law, saving businesses around £1 billion a year from the reform of certain EU labour laws while safeguarding the rights of workers. These proposals do not remove rights or change entitlements but instead remove unnecessary bureaucracy in the way that these rights or entitlements operate, allowing business to benefit from the additional freedoms that we have through Brexit. The proposed conditions on workers’ rights in the amendment are unnecessary, frankly, and would lead to a parallel call for provisions in other important regulatory areas to be excluded from vital reforms, thus undermining the whole purpose of Clause 16, which I stress is time limited.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the simple fact is that we should legislate through this Parliament and not through the mechanism that this Bill provides for. That is why we need these guarantees. I beg to test the opinion of the House.