House of Commons
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Prayers
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Oral Answers to Questions
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)
This Government want to ensure that farmers and food producers get a fair price for their products by tackling unfairness that exists in food supply chains. We are currently pursuing contractual reform in the dairy and pork sectors and we have a new review of the egg sector. This will ensure resilience and fair supply chains across the country.
Christine Jardine
My constituents in Edinburgh West, like so many others across the country, are finding it increasingly difficult to source affordable nutritious food. The situation has been made worse by flooding in Scotland and by international pressures such as the war in Ukraine, energy prices and Brexit. There are enterprises such as Lauriston Farm in my community that can provide good local food. What are the Government doing to support projects such as those and to offset the impact on our food producers of the recent flooding?
John Lamont
I recognise the points that the hon. Lady makes about the pressures on the food supply chain. The UK Government are closely monitoring the impact on the agricultural sector of the flooding caused by storms and we are working with the Environment Agency to resolve that. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs can provide financial assistance to the farming sector to cover uninsurable losses incurred as a result of exceptional flooding by activating the farming recovery fund. I would encourage the hon. Lady to contact the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), the excellent new water Minister at DEFRA, for more information.
Mr Speaker
I now come to the Shadow Minister and welcome him to his position.
Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to be here, although I have to say that there was not particularly stiff competition for the role from Scotland.
Inflation might be slowly coming down, but food inflation in Scotland still stands at more than 10%, forcing families to choose between being able to eat or heat their home, or, given the increasing levels of destitution, neither. Thousands of people in Scotland are turning to food banks not as a one-off last resort but as a means of getting by week after week. It is clear that both our Governments should be working together much better to tackle this, so what specific steps will the Minister take to work with the Scottish Government and the food industry to ensure that food prices do not continue to rise at unaffordable rates? Does he really believe that the autumn statement will give families any confidence that the Government understand how difficult it is for people in Scotland right now?
John Lamont
I welcome the hon. Member to his new position. I recognise the points he makes about stiff competition, but nonetheless I very much welcome him.
This Government are absolutely committed to tackling the rising prices that households are facing, which is why the Prime Minister has an absolute focus on reducing the levels of inflation, but the hon. Member is right to say that both Governments should be working together to alleviate pressures on household budgets. This Government have demonstrated that through the huge support that has been put in place to support households with energy prices, and through other measures to ensure that financial help is in place to support hard-pressed households.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)
The United Kingdom Government continue to provide significant support to the national post office network, adding up to more than £2.4 billion over the last 10 years. This funding enabled 98% of individuals in rural areas to live within three miles of their nearest post office in 2022, with the overall network as large today as it has been for five years.
Jamie Stone
Our rural branches of the post office are at the very core, the very heart, of our rural communities. At present, His Majesty’s Government provide certain services to the public via the post office network. Does the Minister agree that it would be a good notion to encourage the Scottish Government to go down the same route and provide as many services as possible in that way, thus ensuring the future of those branches?
John Lamont
I agree with the hon. Member. I recognise the vital importance of post offices for constituents in rural communities such as his own and also in my own constituency in the Scottish Borders. It is of course for the Scottish Government to assess how to make their services available to people across Scotland, considering accessibility as well as value for money for the taxpayer. However, I would be happy to facilitate a meeting with my colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade to see what further encouragement we could give the Scottish Government to use the post office network for the delivery of their services.
Richard Foord
Scotland has seen the closure of 40 post offices in the past two years, yet as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) pointed out, the communities that still have post offices are losing access to Government services, particularly in rural areas. Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency services are due to cease being available at post offices from the end of next March. What conversations has the Minister had with the Department for Business and Trade about keeping DVLA services available from post offices?
John Lamont
I should start by correcting the hon. Gentleman in that the post office network is not in decline. More post offices have been opened than closed over the past year. We do see fluctuations in different parts of the country, with many postmasters running a franchise business in their own right. Many face the same challenges as other high street businesses. The DVLA and the Post Office extended their contract until 31 March 2024. The post office network operates commercially at arm’s length from the Government and is responsible for taking decisions on commercial matters such as the DVLA contract.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
With devolved powers, the Scottish Government can tailor policy in areas such as health, education and justice, as well as in tax and welfare through additional powers in the Scotland Act 2016. The UK Government are working with local government and local partners to deliver on their needs and wishes. That is real devolution in action.
Chris Law
Climate change talks at COP28 begin tomorrow, and one of the most important issues to be agreed is the climate loss and damage fund. The Secretary of State will know that Scotland has led the way on that, becoming the first country in the global north to pledge financial support to address loss and damage, but he and his Conservative colleagues are intent on limiting the Scottish Government’s international engagement. Can he tell me why he wants to silence Scotland’s voice and prevent us from providing that global leadership?
Mr Jack
It is very straightforward. We understand that there will be environmental engagement overseas by the Scottish Government, and that is a devolved matter. What we have tried get a grip on is the Scottish Government travelling overseas, meeting Ministers, discussing reserved areas such as constitutional affairs and foreign affairs, and straying away from the portfolio of matters that are devolved to them. That is our position.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
It is obvious that in order to cement a sense of economic resilience Scotland requires a population growth strategy, but the devolution settlement, unfit as it is, will not come anywhere near that, and the Government continue to set their face against it. Can the Secretary of State explain why?
Mr Jack
If the Scottish Government want more people to settle in Scotland—and immigration is at a record high—they need to build more housing, have lower taxes and better public services, and make Scotland more attractive to people.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that the SNP-Green Scottish Government continue to use the devolution settlement as a platform to pursue constitutional grievances? In reality, would not achieving the best outcome for the people of Scotland and our constituents mean the two Governments working together on a project, for example the A75? If the Governments work together, that will actually be delivered.
Mr Jack
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. The A75, along with the A77, came up as a vital route in the Union connectivity review by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill—Sir Peter Hendy as he was at the time. We are finally working with the Scottish Government, and the UK Government are funding a feasibility study for the upgrade of the A75. I am delighted that progress is being made.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Is it not the case that the Scottish Government have consistently strayed outside the limits of the devolution settlements, so it is very difficult to take the SNP seriously as a defender of devolution when it has so little respect for the current settlement?
Mr Jack
My hon. Friend is right. Everyone forgets that the Scottish Government get up every day and go to work to destroy devolution and the United Kingdom. The defenders of devolution and the strengtheners of the United Kingdom are this Government.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks) not only on his vast—and fast—promotion to the shadow Front Bench but on the 20.4% swing from the SNP that brought him the by-election victory.
The announcement of the closure of the refinery at Grangemouth is a hammer blow. Too many communities are still living with the devastation of being left behind after coalmine closures in the 1980s. That must not be allowed to happen again. Grangemouth’s owner is buying football clubs and investing in plants elsewhere, while the workers lose out. The Prime Minister has decided that a culture war on the environment trumps getting the UK into the global green energy race by backing Labour’s green energy superpower plans. The devolution settlement demands that both Governments work together, but they certainly do not. What discussions is the Secretary of State having with the Scottish Government to protect jobs at Grangemouth? What impact will the closure have on the Acorn carbon capture and storage project?
Mr Jack
First of all, it is a very worrying time for those whose jobs are at risk at the Grangemouth refinery. This morning, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), and a Minister from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero met Neil Gray from the Scottish Government, and yesterday my hon. Friend had a meeting with the local authority. Work is going on. It is ironic that the Scottish Government want to shut down oil and gas, because when that happens, people suddenly realise the need to manage a transition and take us gradually to net zero while protecting people’s livelihoods.
On Acorn and the Scottish cluster, I have spoken to the chief executive of Storegga, which is pulling the project together. He told me that the refinery closing has little impact on its project, because Grangemouth was supplying the blue hydrogen to the refinery and others, and the emissions from that were being put into the North sea.
Ian Murray
It is the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament next year—one of the Labour party’s proudest achievements. However, recently it has been riven by failure and scandal, from one in seven on NHS waiting lists to ferries, iPads and camper vans. Much has been made about the dual role of the Government-appointed Lord Advocate, who sits in the Scottish Cabinet while presiding over prosecutions in Scotland. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Scottish Government about Anas Sarwar’s idea to split the dual role of Scotland’s top law officer, to maintain the separation of powers between the Government and the judiciary?
Mr Jack
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Director of Public Prosecutions in England is appointed by a panel, which removes the risk of perceived interference by Government. Many learned friends have expressed their concerns to me about the structure in Scotland and the closeness between the judiciary and the Government, and I find their concerns understandable. It is vital that the public perception is that the prosecution service is very independent from Government.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that his mission to constrain and bypass the Scottish Parliament has been an absolute disaster for devolution. Relationships across the UK have never been as such a low level. Will he acknowledge that his version of aggressive Unionism has utterly failed? As he is leaving his office, will he pledge to abandon it entirely?
Mr Jack
I am not entirely sure what I have done that has been a failure, to be honest. This Government protect devolution and the settlement. If he is referring to the section 35 order that I used, that was in the Scotland Act 1998 and was voted for at the time by SNP MPs. It is there to protect devolution when a devolved Administration legislates on Great Britain or UK matters.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
The UK Government have no intention of devolving legislative competence for employment rights to the Scottish Parliament. Employers and employees benefit hugely from a single, simple system where employment rights are the same across Great Britain, whether in Derby or Dundee. We do not see any benefit from changing that arrangement.
Martyn Day
Devolution of employment law is supported by the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Trades Union Congress, workers’ rights groups, a majority in the Scottish Parliament and the public. It would benefit workers by having their Governments compete to give them better rights and preventing a race to the bottom. What is not to like? Why will the Secretary of State’s Government not consider it?
Mr Jack
I refer the hon. Gentleman to my original answer. We believe it is right to have a simple system that works across the United Kingdom, whether one is in Derby or Dundee.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that to have different employment laws either side of the border of the two nations would be a mistake, because it would increase the regulatory burden on companies and deprive British companies of our excellent tribunal system?
Mr Jack
I completely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, who absolutely makes the right arguments.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
The United Kingdom Government have introduced a single, flexible immigration system that works in the interest of the whole United Kingdom. A separate visa system would create an economic migration border between Scotland and the rest of the UK, which would be harmful for employers and far less attractive for workers.
Douglas Chapman
Last week, the CBI conference raised the serious issue of a lack of people to do vital jobs that we need filling, especially in hospitality and food production. Both the Fraser of Allander Institute and the highlands MSP Kate Forbes have suggested localised worker visa solutions to boost the economy. Why is the Secretary of State not listening to those smart voices, and why is he not acting in the best interests of the Scottish economy?
Mr Jack
Because we have a specific Scottish occupation list for shortages, which gives us flexibility. The salary rate is set at £20,960. We believe that the best way is for stakeholder bodies to make representations to the Home Office to add to the shortage occupation list.
Brendan O’Hara
Five years ago, the Migration Advisory Committee said that the current system was failing remote communities. Recently published figures show that my Argyll and Bute constituency is suffering further depopulation, with the town of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute particularly badly affected. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Government still insist that the current system delivers for all parts of the UK. Will the Secretary of State explain how a one-size-fits-all policy, simultaneous catering for the vastly different needs of densely populated urban areas and Argyll and Bute, can deliver equally for both?
Mr Jack
Argyll and Bute is a beautiful part of the United Kingdom, but what it lacks is infrastructure, public services and affordable housing, because the Scottish Government have failed in all those areas. What it also has, with the rest of Scotland, is the problem of being the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom. That is the problem the Scottish Government have to address.
Deidre Brock
The UK Government said that post-Brexit domestic employment would fill labour gaps, but the executive director of UKHospitality Scotland has said that the gaps left by excluding EU workers have not been filled, leaving huge numbers of specialist vacancies, such as for chefs and managers. When will this Government accept reality and stop destroying Scotland’s economy in the name of a purist Brexit ideology?
Mr Jack
I think the hon. Lady lives in a parallel universe. We have the highest net migration to the UK since records began, far higher than when we were in the EU. As I say, if we want to attract people to Scotland, we must stop making it the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Secretary of State has correctly identified that there are some who want to use immigration policy to enforce a hard border between England and Scotland as part of their aim to break up the Union. Does he agree, and in his assessment did he identify, that we need to ensure that immigration policy is not used as an alternative to offering the rewarding packages that key workers deserve?
Mr Jack
Absolutely. We are one United Kingdom. We have no physical border. It is important that we treat immigration equally across the whole United Kingdom and give everyone equal opportunity.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Let me be clear: we are talking about the administration of work permits for people from overseas who wish to work in Scotland on a temporary basis. Just about everyone thinks it would be better administered in Scotland, but the Secretary of State insists that it should be centralised by his Government in Westminster. His argument would be plausible if the UK demonstrated that it is managing the migration service well but, given the catastrophe that is the UK immigration system, when will he wake up and realise this would be better done in Scotland, by the people who live there?
Mr Jack
I point the hon. Gentleman to the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. That is 45,000 people, with the ability to flex it up to 55,000. Those people come to work in a flexible system across the United Kingdom, and it has proved to be a huge success.
Tommy Sheppard
The Secretary of State is standing against everyone. He is standing against experts, against academics, against representatives of industry and even against the people of Scotland, only 28% of whom think immigration is too high. More than six in 10 think more immigration would benefit the country. When is he going to stop being the Secretary of State against Scotland and be the Secretary of State for Scotland?
Mr Jack
It is good that the hon. Gentleman’s lines are written by Mike Russell. That is an old one, and not a very good one.
The reality is that Scotland is the most taxed part of the United Kingdom, which is not attractive for people to work there. We have the highest ever net migration. If the Scottish Government focus more on good public services, good infrastructure and lower taxation, hopefully those high net migration figures will see more people settle in Scotland.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage is a vital component of our journey to net zero. The Acorn project represents a huge opportunity for the north-east of Scotland. As would be expected for any multi-billion pound project, due diligence must now be followed.
Neale Hanvey
Under Westminster rule, Bathgate, Linwood, Methil and Irvine are all no more. Grangemouth now risks being added to that sorry list, and with it the hope of its developing carbon technologies. The Minister is quick to attack a Scottish Government with limited powers, but responsibility for the robbery and ruination of Scotland’s energy sector, and the continued denial of substantial funding for carbon capture, rests squarely with the UK Government. What is his office doing to protect energy sector jobs and livelihoods in Scotland, and what is his Department’s excuse for utterly failing the people of Scotland?
John Lamont
I had the pleasure of meeting the Cabinet Secretary from the Scottish Government this morning, together with the leader of Falkirk Council, to discuss the situation at Grangemouth. The Scottish Government and the UK Government are working together, hand in hand, to protect as many jobs as possible. The Scottish cluster is expected to include at least one project located in Grangemouth, which is welcome news.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)
I very much welcome this question, which is timely in National Tree Week. Reforestation is a crucial way for us all to reduce carbon emissions and improve biodiversity across the country. Although this policy is devolved, the UK Government continue to work with the devolved Administrations to deliver UK-wide change in tree planting and establishment.
Selaine Saxby
Conifers, which are the main species planted for productive forestry, account for just under half the area of UK woodland. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should now be a UK-wide target for 60% of new planting to be productive forestry, allowing Scotland to lead the way in delivering a secure supply of raw materials to support British manufacturing and construction?
John Lamont
I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent question. There are high ambitions across the United Kingdom to increase forestry planting. I agree that we must secure a steady supply of the raw materials needed to support Britain’s construction and manufacturing industries.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Last week—[Interruption.] I do not normally get such a cheer.
Last week, the Government announced that there will be a new national park and a new national forest in England. Do the Scottish Government, or the Minister, have any intention of doing something similar for Scotland?
John Lamont
There are great ambitions for an additional national park in Scotland, and my Scottish Conservative colleagues are pushing very hard for that. If the hon. Gentleman needs more information, he should please write to me. I will respond with the required detail.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
The UK Government work tirelessly to promote Scottish interests around the world through our extensive diplomatic network, forging business links, and generating trade and investment. Our response to the Scottish Affairs Committee’s recent inquiry on Scotland’s international promotion highlights the extensive efforts we undertake to achieve this.
Mark Menzies
As one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, it is always my pleasure to be championing British business overseas. From whisky to satellites, Scotland is home to some of the UK’s most important exports. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what work the Scotland Office is doing to support these important sectors in the international market?
Mr Jack
First, I thank my hon. Friend for his service as a trade envoy, and tell him that last month I had the pleasure of travelling to Vietnam to boost Scotland’s trade interests and celebrate diplomatic links. Vietnam already offers huge opportunities for Scottish businesses and in the light of the UK’s recent joining of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—that is easy for you to say, Mr Speaker— I am keen to highlight further trading opportunities for Scottish businesses in the Indo-Pacific region.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Will the Secretary of State clarify what he was saying earlier and whether he thinks it is legitimate for Scottish Government Ministers to be able to travel overseas to promote the work of the Scottish Government?
Mr Jack
I have always been very clear that Scottish Government Ministers can go overseas to promote areas that are devolved, but the reserved areas, such as the constitution and foreign affairs, are a matter for the UK Government and those Ministers should not be using our embassies and consulates to promote their plans for separation, or their different views on the middle east or anything else.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, let me remind Members of an important courtesy that we should all observe: giving notice to colleagues if we are visiting their constituencies on official business. Colleagues in Lancashire ought to think about that when they are going to others’ constituencies and let people know when they are doing so—I believe that did not happen on this occasion. I have heard of a number of examples in other areas of this discourteous way of behaving towards colleagues, which is not acceptable. I would rather we did not have to deal with such matters by points of order, so please try to give notice before visiting each other’s constituencies.
I also say to everybody that temperate and moderate language is what I want in this Chamber. Let us now move on to PMQs.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak)
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have other such meetings later today.
Gavin Newlands
Last year, Scotland exported 19 trillion Wh of electricity, worth £4 billion, to the UK grid, yet not only do Scottish generators pay the highest grid connection charges in Europe, but Scots pay among the highest standing charges while London’s are by far the lowest. Our heating and lighting is switched on a lot earlier and off a lot later than the south of England’s. Should Scottish households be forced to shiver in the dark this winter to subsidise the richest part of the UK?
The Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman will know, standing charges are a matter for Ofgem, the independent regulator. Last week, it launched a consultation asking for views about standing charges. He will know that because of geographic factors, the UK Government already provide an annual cross-subsidy worth £60 to a typical household in Scotland, but on top of that we are providing considerable support to everyone across the UK with their energy bills this year.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. My thoughts and the thoughts of the whole House will be with Abigail.
As I have said before, we support Israel’s right to defend itself, to go after Hamas and to free hostages, to deter further incursions and to strengthen its security for the long term. We welcome the extension to the agreement to pause fighting, increase humanitarian aid and release further hostages. Negotiations are ongoing and highly sensitive, but this has been a welcome first positive step. We will continue to hold Iran to account for any further escalation from these groups, as well as continuing to work with partners to disrupt and deter Iran’s destabilising activities in the middle east.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
In an effort to hide from his failures, the Prime Minister spent this week arguing about an ancient relic that only a tiny minority of the British public have any interest in—but that’s enough about the Tory party. In 2019, they all promised the country that they would control immigration, saying “numbers will come down” and
“the British people will be in control”.
How is it going?
The Prime Minister
Let me be crystal clear. The levels of migration are far too high and I am determined to bring them back down to sustainable levels. That is why we have asked the Migration Advisory Committee to review certain elements of the system. We are reviewing those findings and will bring forward next steps. Earlier this year, we announced the toughest action ever taken to reduce legal migration. The effects of that action are yet to be felt, but will impact 150,000 student dependants. Forecasts show that migration is likely to drop as a result. Up until this moment, all we have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman on this topic is a secret backroom deal with the EU that would see an additional 100,000 migrants here every year.
Keir Starmer
Never mind the British Museum—it is the Prime Minister who has obviously lost his marbles. The Greek Prime Minister came to London to meet him: a fellow NATO member, an economic ally and one of our most important partners in tackling illegal immigration. Instead of using that meeting to discuss those serious issues, the Prime Minister tried to humiliate him and cancelled at the last minute. Why such small politics, Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister
Of course we are always happy to discuss important topics of substance with our allies, like tackling illegal migration or strengthening our security, but when it was clear that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss substantive issues for the future but to grandstand and relitigate issues of the past, it was not appropriate. Furthermore, specific commitments and assurances on that topic were made to this country and then broken. It may seem alien to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but in my view, when people make commitments, they should keep them.
Keir Starmer
I discussed the economy, security and immigration with the Greek Prime Minister. I also told him we would not change the law regarding the marbles—it is not that difficult. The reality is simple: the Prime Minister has no plan on boat crossings and migration is at a record high. His policy is that companies can pay workers from abroad 20% less than British workers and that has contributed to those record high immigration levels, has it not?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about the boat crossings but has failed to notice that illegal boat crossings are down by a third this year, thanks to all the actions we have taken, which he opposed every single time they were raised. No one will be surprised that he is backing an EU country over Britain. Just last week, he was asked which song best sums up the Labour party. What did he come up with? He showed his true colours and chose “Ode to Joy”—literally the anthem of the European Union. He will back Brussels over Britain every single time.
Keir Starmer
Let me get this straight: the Prime Minister is now saying that meeting the Prime Minister of Greece is somehow supporting the EU, instead of discussing serious issues. He has just dug further into that hole that he has made for himself. Rather than dealing with the facts, he is prosecuting his one-man war on reality, and that reality is stuck. Under this Government, a bricklayer from overseas can be paid £2,500 less than somebody who is already here, a plasterer £3,000 less, and an engineer £6,000 less. The list goes on. It is absurd. Labour would scrap his perverse wage-cutting policy. Why will he not do so?
The Prime Minister
As I have said, we have taken significant measures and will bring forward more. Indeed, as the Office for National Statistics itself said, more recent estimates indicate a slowing of immigration as a result of the things that we are doing. But I am surprised to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman now taking this new position. I have a quote here from a pushy young shadow Immigration Minister, who said to this House—I directly quote this person—that limits on skilled migrants are
“a form of economic vandalism”.—[Official Report, 7 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 19WH.]
Who could possibly have taken such a bizarre position only to U-turn? It will come as no surprise to anybody that it was him.
Keir Starmer
There is only one party that has lost control of the borders, and its Members are sitting right there. This is a Government who are not just in turmoil, but in open revolt. The Immigration Minister thinks that the Prime Minister is failing because, apparently, nobody will listen to his secret plan. The former Home Secretary thinks that he is failing because of his “magical thinking”. The current Home Secretary thinks that he is failing. He even took time out of his busy schedule of insulting people in the north-east to admit that he agrees with Labour. The Prime Minister seems to be the only person on the Tory Benches without his own personal immigration plan. Clearly, his own side do not have any faith in him. Why should the public?
The Prime Minister
It is really a bit rich to hear about this from someone who described all immigration law as “racist”, and who literally said that it was a mistake to control immigration. We have taken steps and we will take further steps, which is why recent estimates show that immigration is slowing. It is why, next year, the immigration health surcharge will increase by more than two thirds. It is why immigration fees are going up by up to 35%. One of his own Front-Bench team said that having a target is not sensible. It is no surprise to have people like that, because, while we are taking all these measures that he opposes, this is the person who stood on a platform and promised to defend free movement.
Keir Starmer
On this Government’s watch, migration has just trebled, and the Prime Minister is giving the House a lecture about targets. He is lost in la-la land. There can be few experiences more haunting for Conservative Members than hearing this Prime Minister claim that he is going to sort out a problem. First, he said that he would get NHS waiting lists down; they went up. Unabashed by that, he said that he would get control of immigration; it has gone up. Following that experience, he turned his hand to bringing taxes down. And, would you believe it, the tax burden is now going to be higher than ever. It is ironic that he has suddenly taken such a keen interest in Greek culture when he has clearly become the man with the reverse Midas touch: everything he touches turns to—perhaps the Home Secretary can help me out—rubbish. [Interruption.] We might have to check the tape again, Mr Speaker.
Will the Prime Minister do the country a favour and warn us what he is planning next, so that we can prepare ourselves for the disaster that will inevitably follow?
The Prime Minister
At the beginning of the year, we said that we would halve inflation and this Government have delivered, easing the burden of the cost of living for families everywhere. We know about the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s plans—all the way through that, what did he do? He backed inflationary pay rises and talked about welfare—no controls for welfare—and about borrowing £28 billion a year that would just make the situation worse. He mentioned tax: just this past week, we have delivered the biggest tax cuts since the 1980s for millions of people and businesses, and increased pensions and benefits. And this week, we secured £30 billion of new investment for this country. So he can keep trying to talk—
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say to the shadow Foreign Secretary—[Interruption.] Order. Just a little bit quieter, please. I want to hear.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The Prime Minister
We will not tolerate anti-Muslim hatred in any form, and expect it to be dealt with wherever it occurs. I actually recently met Tell MAMA, a service that provides support to victims of anti-Muslim hatred, which we have in fact supported with over £6 million of funding since its inception. We are in regular dialogue with it. We have also doubled the funding for protective security measures through the protective security for mosques scheme, and we will continue to do everything we can to keep our Muslim community safe.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
In good news for kids in Aberdeen this morning, it was snowing; when they looked out of the kitchen window, they would have been filled with delight. But many of their parents who looked out of the kitchen window this morning would have been filled with dread—dread from knowing that they simply cannot afford to pay their energy bills. In that context, does the Prime Minister regret offering no financial mechanism whatever for families this winter?
The Prime Minister
It is simply not right to say that there is not support for families this winter—there has been considerable support this year for energy bills. This winter, pensioner households, for example, will receive up to £300 alongside their winter fuel payment. They are some of the most vulnerable households, and it is right that they get that support at a difficult time.
Stephen Flynn
I appreciate that it is difficult for the Prime Minister to empathise when he quite clearly cannot understand, but to be clear to him and, indeed, the whole House: this is not a matter of energy production. Scotland produces six times more gas than we consume and around two thirds of our electricity already comes from renewable resources. This is a consequence of decades of failed energy policy here in Westminster. Those of us on the Scottish National party Benches believe that Scotland’s energy wealth and energy resource should benefit the people of Scotland. Why doesn’t he?
The Prime Minister
The entire energy grid infrastructure in this country is integrated, which brings benefits to people in every part of our United Kingdom. When it comes to supporting people with energy bills, earlier this year we increased benefits to the highest rate on record. It is why we provided cost of living payments worth £900 on top of regular support. It was right not to wait until the last moment to give people that support; we gave it to them earlier this year so that they would have the security they need going into winter—as I said, on top of the money for pensioners. When there are cold snaps, we have cold weather payments that kick in and the warm home discount, which provides an extra £150 to the most vulnerable households. All that is the most considerable action taken by any Government to help people with their energy bills.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for continuing to champion the new hospital in Kettering. We are absolutely committed to delivering the scheme for Kettering General Hospital. As my hon. Friend will be aware, the new energy centre is vital to the delivery of the new hospital, and we expect that work to begin in the first quarter of next year. The new hospital programme is working closely with the trust to ensure that the plans are deliverable.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Three years ago, the Government made a commitment to 40 new hospitals and significant upgrades to hospitals in most need, but today many schemes are badly delayed. The Royal Berkshire—stuck at the development stage, with not a single pound transferred for construction. Harrogate District Hospital—still waiting on £20 million for urgent upgrades after reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was discovered. There are 25 more such schemes. Will the Prime Minister explain why his Government are happy to let patients, doctors and nurses suffer for years in such unfit and unsafe conditions?
The Prime Minister
We are delivering 40 hospitals by 2030. Good progress is already being made, and that programme is being backed by over £20 billion of investment. Three schemes are already open, two are opening this year, and 16 are in construction, or work has begun to prepare the site. It is absolutely right, though, that within that we prioritise RAAC hospitals. That required a reprioritisation, but that was the appropriate thing to do to ensure safety. Patients and staff are already benefiting from some of the improvements that we have made, which come on top of the largest capital programme for the NHS in its history, rolling out community diagnostic centres, urgent treatment centres and surgical hubs right across the country.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right that all customers, wherever they live, should have appropriate access to banking and cash services. That is why we have legislated to protect access to cash, and the Financial Conduct Authority has issued guidance that seeks to ensure that branch closure decisions treat customers fairly. I know that there has been an assessment of access to cash in her area, and the financial services sector will provide a new cash deposit service for her community. Also, everyone can access the post office for regular banking services.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Of course the Government must do more to continue preventing cancer deaths in our country. That is why we are focused on fighting cancer on all fronts—prevention, diagnosis, treatment, research and funding. Crucially, cancer is now being diagnosed at an earlier stage more often, with survival rates improving across all types of cancer, including the most common cancers, and through our treatment record we are rolling out community diagnostic centres everywhere to ensure that we can reach those people as quickly as possible.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Can I thank you, Mr Speaker, on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS, for hosting today’s reception to honour the incredible contribution that Sir Elton John has made to the fight against AIDS? I very much welcome today’s announcement of further funding for HIV and hepatitis B and C opt-out testing in hospital emergency departments as a critical step in fighting those diseases. I ask the Prime Minister to join me, and I am sure the whole House, in praising Sir Elton and his AIDS foundation for pioneering this work.
The Prime Minister
Sir Elton John has been a powerful voice for change in the UK and the world. Through the brilliant work of his foundation he has raised awareness of HIV, reduced stigma and saved lives. I am very pleased that that will be celebrated tonight at the HIV and AIDS all-party parliamentary group event. Ahead of World AIDS Day on Friday, I would also like to reaffirm this Government’s commitment to ending new transmissions within England by 2030. I know my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will have more to say at tonight’s event about the expansion of our recent pilot initiative on screening.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I am incredibly sorry to hear about Pearl. My thoughts and, I know, those of the whole House will be with Gemma and Paul. I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets a meeting with the relevant Minister on the legislation as quickly as possible.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
We know the Labour party has an aversion to white van man, but does the Prime Minister share my concerns that, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph today, Labour-run Westminster Council is increasing parking charges for small electric vehicles by up to 1,800%, demonstrating that it does not support small businesses or tackling climate change?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to raise those concerns. It seems that Labour in London is yet again penalising hard-working people. First we had the ultra low emission zone, and now it seems Labour is hiking parking charges on white van drivers and small businesses. I join her in urging the Labour-run Westminster Council to rethink those damaging proposals.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady knows, there is an ongoing inquiry into covid. It is right that that is followed and I look forward to providing my own evidence. If she had taken the time to read the evidence submitted to the inquiry, she would have seen that the person she mentioned, the chief scientific adviser, confirmed that he did not hear me say that—and that is because I did not.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
That 1.3 million migrants over a period of two years is a catastrophe for Britain is obvious to everyone apart from guilt-ridden bourgeois liberals and greed-driven globalists. Given that the same kind of people are stymieing the Prime Minister’s “stop the boats” campaign, will he bring urgent measures forward to deal with legal migration, and will he ensure that the Bill he has promised is in exactly the form recommended by his own Immigration Minister?
The Prime Minister
I am pleased to have my right hon. Friend’s advice and support on all on our measures to tackle legal and illegal migration. As I said, we are reviewing the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee and we will be bringing forward measures on top of the very significant restrictions that we have already announced on student dependants. When it comes to stopping illegal migration, I have been crystal clear that we will bring forward legislation that makes it unequivocally the case that Rwanda is safe and there will be no more ability of our domestic courts to block flights to Rwanda. That is what our legislation will ensure.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
No child should grow up in poverty. That is why I am pleased that, because of the measures we have taken, 1.7 million fewer people are living in poverty today than in 2010. I would also say to the hon. Lady that it is crystal clear that children growing up in workless households are four or five times more likely to be in poverty. That is what the facts say; that is why our efforts are on getting people into work and ensuring that work pays. The actions in the autumn statement to raise the national living wage to record levels and provide a significant tax cut will do an extraordinary amount to continue lifting children out of poverty.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for welcoming my constituent John Farringdon to Parliament this morning. At 110 years of age, John is among my more experienced constituents, and I know that he would want me to ask the Prime Minister to join us in thanking the staff of Cubbington Mill care home for looking after him so well. May I also ask my right hon. Friend to try to find a moment or two to speak to John when he comes to Downing Street this afternoon? It may be a useful conversation for those who are obsessed with the opinion polls, as John, I think it is fair to say, has some experience in surviving against the odds.
The Prime Minister
I very much hope that I have a chance to meet John later on. I join my right hon. and learned Friend in paying tribute to John’s care home for the incredible care that it provides. It is great that John is here and I am sure that everyone will enjoy meeting him later today.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent for her long service in the health service. I assure him that we are doing everything we can to ensure the safe passage of British nationals out of Gaza. I will ensure that the Foreign Office gets in touch with him. All British nationals who have been registered with the Foreign Office have had significant interaction, and we have successfully ensured the safe passage of well over 200 people already. We will continue to do everything we can for those who remain, and I will ensure that we are in touch with the hon. Gentleman and his constituent.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
Thanks to this Conservative Government, the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch has received nearly £19 million of investment, and we are boosting training places at the Three Counties Medical School. Does the Prime Minister agree that this is the perfect time to back my campaign to bring back services, so that local mums can once again give birth in their home town and all children can be seen at the hospital, no matter the illness they are experiencing?
The Prime Minister
I know that my hon. Friend campaigns passionately for the delivery of first-class healthcare for her constituents. Like her, I welcome the investment that the Alexandra Hospital has had in recent years in a range of different services. She will know that reconfigurations of services are, of course, clinically led local decisions following the appropriate engagement with patients and stakeholders, but I know that she will continue to make her case on behalf of her community.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I have already made statements on this matter, but crucially, of course, we ensure the safety of all communities in our country. That is the first duty of government, and we will continue to do that, not just for the Sikh community but for every community here in the UK.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
With both the Office for Budget Responsibility and the ONS confirming that the British economy is now substantially larger than they estimated even a few months ago, does my right hon. Friend agree that the economy has once again proven the detractors wrong and, because unemployment is a corrosive social evil, will he do all he can to ensure that we retain record employment?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. A year ago, not just the OBR but the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD were all predicting that we would fall into a recession this year, but thanks to the actions of this Government and this Chancellor, we have grown the economy. We saw that momentum carry on just in the past week with Nissan’s announcement of record investment in its new plant in Sunderland, safeguarding the future of thousands of jobs in the north-east and ensuring the transition to electric vehicles. We also saw it in the summit we hosted, which attracted £30 billion of new investment into the UK. As my hon. Friend said, crucially, that investment will support thousands and thousands of jobs in our country.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
The UK Government are investing in Wales, with record investment in electrification of the north Wales line and record investment in communities up and down the country. It is important to recognise that just recently, the UK Government invested hundreds of millions of pounds to safeguard thousands of jobs at Tata Steel. The Welsh Government have had access to the largest set of Barnett consequentials on record over the past couple of years, and have the resources they need.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
Thanks to this Conservative Government, the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke will see over £200 million to fix our broken roads, the reopening of the Stoke to Leek line, and over £30 million to bus back better by introducing fairer fares and smarter routes to better connect our communities. However, residents who have a free bus pass are being denied the use of it before 9.30 am by Labour-run Stoke-on-Trent City Council, meaning that people cannot get to their GP appointments or to work. Will the Prime Minister back my campaign to end that unfair policy, which is being imposed on my residents?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of high-quality bus services. That is why we have capped the cost of travelling on buses at £2 until the end of 2024 as a result of our decision on HS2, and why we have supported councils with £1 billion of funding. I urge all councils to ensure that people see the benefit of that investment, and I wholeheartedly back my hon. Friend’s campaign.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady knows, healthcare is devolved, but we will look for every opportunity to improve patient care and reduce waiting lists in England. That is what we are doing in developing new technology that has a proven track record of bringing down waiting lists and improving the optimisation and efficiency of how theatres are scheduled. That is the type of thing we need to do to ensure that patients get the care they need, and that we can get efficiency in the NHS.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
The increasing proliferation of AI-generated disinformation and deepfakes poses a clear and present danger not only to our democratic process, but to the administration of justice itself. What further steps will my right hon. Friend take, following the Bletchley summit, to strengthen our domestic law when it comes to this threat to democracy, and to take international action to provide the guardrails that I believe are essential if we are to maintain integrity in the administration of justice?
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for all the work he has done in this incredibly important area. He is right that we need to have guardrails around the successful exploitation of this technology, which is why the Online Safety Act 2023 gives the regulator significant new powers to regulate the content on social media companies, including some of the ones that he mentioned. We are also working internationally, following on from the summit, to ensure that we can all get the benefits of this technology, but in the process safeguard our democracy, which is so crucial to the functioning of our country.
COP28
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if she will provide an update on the UK Government’s commitments in relation to COP28.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
I am glad to come to the House to discuss this important subject today. The upcoming COP hosted by the United Arab Emirates is an important moment in the climate crisis. Amid record temperatures and emissions, the first comprehensive stocktake of progress against the Paris agreement at COP28 will show that the world is badly off-track. We have made significant progress through the Paris agreement, with temperature projections shifting from 4°C before Paris to between 2.4°C and 2.7°C after Glasgow through nationally determined contribution commitments, but we know that that is not enough.
In Glasgow, we cemented the goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5°C as our north star. That has been carried forward by the UAE presidency. The latest science and the impacts we are seeing, even at 1.1°C, show us why. A top priority for the United Kingdom is to leave COP28 with a clear road map towards keeping 1.5°C in reach from the global stocktake. The UK heads to COP28 with a record at home and internationally that we can be proud of. The Prime Minister recently affirmed our commitment to net zero and set out our new approach to get there. At home, we have decarbonised faster than any other major economy—by 48% since 1990. Looking forward, our 2030 target requires the largest reduction in emissions of any major economy.
Two years on from Glasgow, the need to accelerate action is more urgent than ever. The world needs to decarbonise more than five times faster than we have done in the last two decades. At COP28, we want to see progress against five areas: ambitious new commitments and action, including a pathway to keep 1.5°C within reach from the global stocktake; scaling up clean energy through commitments to triple renewables, double energy efficiency and move beyond fossil fuels; progress on finance reform, delivering $100 billion for developing economies; building resilience to climate impacts, including by doubling adaptation finance and establishing a loss and damage fund; and, finally, progress on restoring nature. Action to deliver net zero is not just a matter of doing the right thing by avoiding harm; it is crucial to our security and prosperity here in the UK now and in the future.
The global net zero transition could be worth £1 trillion to UK businesses between 2021 and 2030. UK businesses are in the vanguard in recognising the opportunity. More than two thirds of FTSE 100 companies, and thousands of small businesses, have pledged to reduce their emissions in line with the 1.5°C goal under the Race to Zero campaign. More than half the signatories to that campaign are from the United Kingdom. Net zero is already an engine for growth and revitalisation of formerly deindustrialised areas in the United Kingdom. At COP28 we need to show progress in delivering the historic agreement that we landed in Glasgow, and we must use our UK expertise to scale green finance.
Caroline Lucas
I thank the Minister for her response. COP28 will be the most consequential climate summit since COP21 in Paris, yet we are way off track. The UN’s recent emissions gap report warns that current pledges under the Paris agreement would see temperature rises of between 2.5°C and 2.9°C this century. Ministers are fond of saying that the UK has the most ambitious nationally determined contribution for 2030 of any major economy, yet the Minister will also be aware of the Climate Change Committee’s recent assessment that
“the UK is unlikely to meet its NDC”.
That is not least because the committee calculates that just 28% of the required emission reductions for 2030 are covered by credible Government plans. She will know that targets without plans are cheap. What concrete plans do the Government have to urgently close that gap? Does she agree that we must see an ambitious outcome from the global stocktake, with significantly strengthened 2030 NDCs and new economy-wide targets by 2025 that see the richest countries going further and faster?
Does the Minister share my outrage over reports that the UAE plans to use its role as COP28 president to secure oil and gas deals? What assessment has she made of the impact of that on trust in the negotiations? Will she explain why the UK is pushing for the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, rather than of fossil fuels in their entirety? Does she recognise the view of the High Ambition Coalition, which says that we cannot use abatement technologies to “green-light” fossil fuel expansion? How will she ensure that any agreement that includes language on abatement has real teeth, delivers real cuts in fossil fuel production, and does not simply allow for the continuation of business as usual?
The Minister will know that a properly resourced and operational loss and damage finance fund must be a litmus test for success at COP28, but there are reports that the Government will be contributing to that fund from their existing climate finance pot. Does she agree that we cannot tackle ever-increasing challenges from an ever-depleting pot of money? What plans do the Government have for new and additional finance? What innovative sources of finance are they looking at? What assessment have they made of the impact of the UK’s reclassification of climate finance on climate vulnerable countries? If the Government are serious about leading by example, will they finally reverse the greenlighting of the obscene Rosebank oilfield?
Amanda Solloway
I reiterate that the Government take this issue incredibly seriously, and there are two ways of demonstrating that: the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who usually deals with such issues, is at COP28 and ready for the conference; and we now have a distinct Department for this issue, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We know that we are leaders in the field. I take this issue seriously, not just for the people of the United Kingdom, but for the planet as a whole. Thinking about my granddaughter, we really do have a commitment to ensuring that we are doing everything that we can.
Mr Speaker
I call Dr Thérèse Coffey. [Interruption.] Order. Ms Lucas, I have given you an urgent question. If you have a problem—
Mr Speaker
Please. The Minister will answer as she sees fit. I am sure that at the end you will want to raise a point of order. That is the time—you cannot have a second bite of the cherry. I went out of my way to ensure that this issue was covered, so please—I am sure other Members will ask questions, and it is up to the Minister how she answers them. I am not responsible for that.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this second opportunity for the House to discuss COP28. At the debate on 16 November, when the Government granted a full day’s debate, only three Back Benchers spoke—me, and the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon). There was not a sign of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is now complaining about the responses to her questions. By the way, the debate on 16 November finished early because of how few people spoke.
Does my hon. Friend agree that “vote blue, go green” is the best way to deliver net zero? Does she recognise that nature-based solutions are vital to achieve net zero? Does this not just show again that the Green party is all talk and absolutely no action?
Amanda Solloway
As I have said, it is incredibly important that we head towards our commitments. Between 1990 and 2021, we cut UK emissions by 48% while growing the economy. I agree with my right hon. Friend that if we trust this Government to deliver, we will ensure we are heading on the right path. The other thing to mention is that net zero is an engine for growth and the revitalisation of formerly industrialised areas of the UK. Cutting emissions is important not just for the climate, but for our economy.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The UN has warned that the world is on course for a catastrophic 2.8°C of warming, in part because promises made at COP26 and COP27 have not been fulfilled. We are running out of last chances. We know what we need to do and we know how to do it, but where is the sense of urgency? The Prime Minister was shamed into attending COP last year. I would have thought he would be ashamed to be there this year, after his climate climbdown last month derailed momentum at exactly the wrong time. The world needs climate leadership.
Does the Minister think it is acceptable for the Prime Minister to sabotage the UK’s history of climate leadership with his cynical backtracking on net zero? Labour will be going to COP with a message that the UK can be a climate leader again and that, in doing so, we will cut energy bills and boost energy independence at home, which this Government have conspicuously failed to do. Labour will put the UK back in a position of leadership and establish a clean power alliance. We will pledge to issue no new oil, gas or coal licences and set an example with our mission for clean power by 2030. What example does it set if the current UK Government ignore the science and global consensus on fossil fuels, especially when the Energy Secretary admits that her policy will not even cut bills?
Labour will also be working for multilateral development bank reform to help developing countries access capital, as well as championing the UK as the future green finance capital of the world, with mandatory 1.5°C-aligned transition plans for FTSE 100 companies and financial institutions. Can the Minister tell me what the Government will be doing to advance that agenda?
There is so much more that the UK can and must do to reduce emissions and deliver energy security, to cut energy bills and to back British industry. With Labour, Britain would lead the world at COP. Labour is ready to lead; is the Minister?
Amanda Solloway
As I have mentioned, we do take this issue incredibly seriously. If I think about some of the facts, as the hon. Member rightly mentioned, at the G20 the Prime Minister announced $2 billion to the green climate fund. That is the biggest single funding commitment that the UK has made to help the world tackle climate change. Half of that contribution will go to adaptation. We are committed, and that is why we have a presence at COP28. The House will see that senior members of the UK Government are there, as well as King Charles.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
This country has one of the strongest records in the world on reducing emissions, not least given our very successful COP26 summit in Glasgow. What progress is being made on delivering the historic commitment to tackling deforestation made by the leaders at that summit?
Amanda Solloway
I pay tribute to the work that my right hon. Friend has done on this subject. I will need to get back to her with the exact figures on deforestation, if I may. One of the things that the UK Government are doing at COP28 is making sure that we hit the five key areas of progress: finance, global stocktake, mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage—and, within that, nature.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The UK Government’s series of U-turns on net zero targets has put our ability to meet them at risk. The Scottish Government are committed to meeting our more ambitious targets, but Europe and the United States are leading the way as this place lags behind, in turn holding Scotland back. Can the Minister confirm whether the new Foreign Secretary, who famously decided to “cut the green crap”, will be attending COP26? That move cost UK households £2.5 billion in extra energy costs.
Amanda Solloway
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are committed to ensuring we hit all those targets. As of September 2022, more than 130 countries, accounting for around 85% of global emissions and more than 90% of global GDP, were covered by net zero commitments. We are committed to making sure that we hit those targets, and that is demonstrated by our attendance at COP28 and the measures we are taking to ensure we meet the climate challenges.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Government’s “Mobilising green investment” strategy, published in March, set out that we need $1 trillion a year in green finance by 2030. What are the Government’s ambitions at COP28 to agree funding anywhere close to that level? What more can we do to get our private sector and pension schemes to contribute to that?
Amanda Solloway
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We will have those discussions over the two weeks of COP28. We are trying to ensure that we hit all the global targets, too. I am sure that those conversations will come up, and we can have a discussion on them later.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
The Minister can talk the talk, but it is action that counts. Businesses across every sector, as well as experts in the field, have reacted with horror to this Government’s backsliding and roll-backs on climate action and net zero. In fact, Aviva’s chief executive, Amanda Blanc, said that the Government were putting our climate goals as a country “under threat” and therefore jobs, growth and investment at risk. Does the Minister recognise the damage that is doing both at home and to our global standing?
Amanda Solloway
One of the things that this Government are committed to is ensuring that we have skills in place and that the economy is going in the right direction. We are proud of our record, and our commitment to making sure we get to net zero is demonstrated in all the things we have been doing. We are international leaders—world leaders—in our commitment to ensuring that we hit those targets.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I welcome that two of the 34 new landscape recovery schemes are in west Cornwall and on Scilly, and I credit the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Farm Cornwall, the Duchy, other organisations and in particular the landowners for their incredible work to achieve that. At previous climate change conferences, specifically the Paris summit, we agreed to fix our leaky homes. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can accelerate that effort, especially for low-income families?
Amanda Solloway
I know what a champion my hon. Friend is for his constituents. I will of course meet him, although perhaps a meeting with the relevant Minister would be more appropriate. We are committed to making sure that we have that extra security. That is why we are making such an investment in working towards energy security, while at the same time working towards net zero.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The UK was a leader in offshore wind development but is now falling seriously behind. Costs to offshore wind developers have increased by as much as 40%. The recent offshore wind auction failure will have cost the UK 5 GW of new renewable energy, and that was entirely predictable. How will the Prime Minister be able to look in the eye the leaders of countries that are suffering most from the impact of climate change and say, “The UK does everything it can”?
Amanda Solloway
First, we are world leaders on offshore energy. That is one of our commitments, but we do not just rest on our laurels and think about offshore wind; we are also looking at other ways to generate electricity, which is much needed, including fusion and small modular reactors. The hon. Lady suggests we are not taking into account where we should be going on energy, but we are world leaders and we are ensuring that we have an impact on our futures.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I am looking forward to going to COP as one of the members of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. Last week the Committee went to see the world’s first green hydrogen neighbourhood project in Fife in Scotland. Local people were given the choice to switch to innovative clean green hydrogen heating and nearly half of them have taken that choice. Does the Minister agree that one of the biggest challenges to achieving next zero is achieving that consumer change, and that this is why it is so important that we offer consumers innovation and choice rather than the top-down “tax and ban” approach that the Opposition so often promote?
Amanda Solloway
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is about education; ensuring that people are educated and thinking about how we use our future energy. However, it is also incumbent on us to ensure that we offer choices, which is why we are committed to offshore and to making sure that we are investing in science and technology and getting all of that technology available, thus making energy available in lots of different forms.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
After the last COP, the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, assured the House that there would be no funding whatsoever from British sources for fossil fuel developments anywhere in the world. Since then, the UK Government have announced their own fossil fuel developments with oil and gas extraction, so how on earth does the Minister expect to be taken seriously at COP when Britain itself is investing more in fossil fuels and then lecturing the rest of the world that they should not do so? Can she assure us that this COP is not just going to be an exercise in greenwash with a sideshow of oil dealing, and that it is going to be a serious attempt to deal with the serious, fundamental issues that this planet faces?
Amanda Solloway
Yes, UK production is declining. When we think about oil and gas, it is important that we think about having a balanced approach and making sure that we keep our supply going as it should. One of the things we are committed to is making sure that, on balance, we also have other options available. It is important to remember that, from an economic point of view, the jobs that are created are really important, from an oil and gas point of view, and of course that will be invested in green energy as well, so it is a cyclical thing to make sure that we are investing in our future.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
Having spent a year in the Energy Department, it has been an absolute pleasure to see how civil servants, businesses, the public and, indeed, Ministers are at the forefront of ensuring that the UK is the major economy that has decarbonised furthest and fastest in the world. We account for only 1% of emissions. We have the biggest offshore wind farm in the world, as well as the second biggest and the third biggest. We have more solar panels than France. We really are leading the way. So when we go to COP, we need to make sure that others see that there is an advantage in doing this and join us on that journey. What will the Minister’s message be at COP to make sure that the world joins us on this journey?
Amanda Solloway
I thank my hon. Friend for making those points. He has worked closely with the Department and seen at first hand the work that we have been doing, and it is good to hear that reiterated in the House. One of the things that we are looking for is success at COP28, and success would be making sure that we are supporting those five measures but also progressing and making sure that we have a commitment to the world’s future and making a greener climate.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Government are going into these global climate talks having announced new North sea oil and gas fields. If every country copied this Government’s approach of squeezing out every last drop of oil and gas, we would risk extreme global temperature rises of 3°C. Every respected climate body has warned of the dangers of this approach, so at the climate talks why should any other country listen to this Government when their policies are not compatible with the UK’s own climate commitments?
Amanda Solloway
Of course we are committed to doing other things as well, which is what I am reiterating. We have a commitment to making sure that we learn from research and development, and that we are looking at offshore wind, but we also need to be realistic, which is why we are looking at oil and gas. It will have an impact on the economy and it will help towards a greener economy because of the investment that will be made through the oil and gas finance.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
Climate change is the single biggest threat to humanity, and I will be looking forward to attending COP28 myself. I am pleased that it is taking place in the middle east, given the need to transition away from fossil fuels. We seem to forget our own history, because it was us—in Persia, in Mesopotamia and on the Arab peninsula—that got the middle east on to the road of oil and gas exploration. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are able to get our CO2 emissions down today because of the offshore wind farms in the English channel, and that those are the result of a lot of investment from the United Arab Emirates?
Amanda Solloway
It is always a great pleasure to listen to my right hon. Friend, who reminds us of the history and of how we got to this point. However, we need to acknowledge all the good things that we are doing, and I reiterate that we are looking at ensuring sure that we have a secure energy future.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Is it not just a little bit embarrassing that as Ministers head to the Gulf for COP, the European Marine Energy Centre in my constituency is having to consult on downsizing and restructuring because the Minister’s colleagues in the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have been unable to provide the three-year funding stream that they had previously undertaken to provide? Will she speak to her colleagues in DLUHC to ensure that some certainty on that money can be given, and that the centre can continue its genuinely world-leading work on the development of marine renewable energy?
Amanda Solloway
That is obviously not my Department, but I would be happy to take that away and facilitate a meeting, or indeed have a meeting myself.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
New research by Ulster University finds that over 60% of homes in Northern Ireland will need to be retrofitted if we are to have a chance of meeting our net zero targets, and that at the current rate of retrofitting we have no chance of meeting our 2030 goals. Does the Minister believe that the support available to providers, such as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and housing associations across the region, is adequate to allow them to tackle the climate breakdown and fuel poverty? Further, knowing the impact of climate change on the poorest countries in the world, will the Government finally make real the loss and damage fund to help those most affected to adapt and mitigate, and will she ensure that that fund is new money and not just a raid on existing pressed aid budgets?
Amanda Solloway
With the hon. Lady’s permission, I would prefer to write to her, because parts of those questions are slightly outside my remit. However, I reiterate that one of the things we are determined to do is tackle fuel poverty. That is one of the reasons why we have a commitment to do this. Also, there is a lot of support that people can get, and I would encourage everybody to get what they are entitled to.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
I have some great green innovators in my constituency, but it has been heartbreaking speaking to them over the last few months about the impact that the Government’s supposed reset on net zero is having on their businesses. They include new fuel cell producers, green aviation leaders, companies providing key supply chain parts to the car industry and renewable energy companies. Their businesses may be different, but the story is the same. The lack of action from the Government is making it harder for them to get investment, harder for them to create jobs and harder for them to bring growth to Mid Bedfordshire. My constituents ultimately saw through the Government’s shallow positioning on this issue, hearteningly for me, but it is unfortunate that this issue continues to hang over their prospects. How can we show leadership on this issue at COP28 at a time when the Government cannot even get out of the way of people looking to bring growth to my constituents?
Amanda Solloway
This Government have demonstrated a commitment to investment in all these areas. Particularly from a science and technology point of view, I know that UK Trade and Investment has immense commitment and gives out support for this. But there are many things that we have been doing. We have not just been investing in R&D from a science point of view. What we are doing is investing in offshore wind, in alternative fuel and in all those things that will enable us to get to where we need to be.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
In the UK, heating homes accounts for 14% of carbon emissions, and in England our homes produce more emissions than cars do. That is not only costing the environment in the future; it is also costing taxpayers now. A decade ago, the then Prime Minister Cameron’s “green crap” riddance resulted in uninsulated lofts and in cavity walls being left unfilled. Given that that decision is now adding billions in additional costs to taxpayers and making it harder to meet the 2030 decarbonisation target, can the Minister ask the Foreign Secretary whether he regrets it?
Amanda Solloway
We are investing in making sure that homes are insulated and energy efficient. It is worth pointing out that between 1990 and 2021 the UK cut emissions by 48%, while growing the economy by more than 70%. I can, of course, pass on the hon. Gentleman’s message to the Foreign Secretary.
Points of Order
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would appreciate any advice you can give me on a matter of great interest and concern to my constituents. It relates to the attitude of National Highways officials in the north-west office. A freedom of information request revealed several emails that, in my view, show a worrying lack of candour and transparency in National Highways’ dealings with me in relation to the replacement of a footbridge on a major road in my constituency. In particular, I have been accused of “whipping up a frenzy” among my constituents in relation to that important safety matter—I am doing my job, not whipping up a frenzy. Any advice from you would be welcome.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. I certainly agree that he, or any other Member, should not be criticised for pursuing issues of concern to their constituents. The hon. Gentleman has put his concerns on the record, and I believe the Minister may wish to make a quick point.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) was kind enough to notify me of his intention to make a point of order and I have already begun the process of looking into it. It is fair to say that he is a friend of mine, although I know that many will hold that against him. He is merely doing his job, and I will make sure that that continues.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I was about to say that the hon. Gentleman might want to consider raising the issue with Ministers, but that has already happened. I am grateful to the Minister, and I am sure that the issue will be considered between the two of them.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was very grateful to Mr Speaker for granting my urgent question, but do you have any advice on what can be done when a Minister simply refuses to answer a single question and essentially abuses the procedures of the House? I asked 12 questions in good faith. The Minister was on her feet for 49 seconds, during which time we learned that the Secretary of State is at COP, that there is a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and that the Minister’s granddaughter cares a lot about the planet. That is all very fascinating but it did not answer a single one of my questions. How can we do our jobs as Members holding the Government to account when Ministers can stand at the Dispatch Box for 49 seconds and not answer a single question on an issue deemed worthy of an urgent question?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order, but I am not responsible for the answers given by Ministers. I believe the Minister would like to say something.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believed that I had answered most of the questions the hon. Lady asked in my opening remarks. My understanding was that I was to give a short response. If there is anything I have not responded to, I am happy to respond in writing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) made the important point that there have been previous debates on this issue, and I suggest that if the hon. Lady had turned up to those debates, she would have been able to have a fuller—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I thank the Minister for that response. Both the hon. Lady and the Minister have put their views on the record. I am sure that there will be further opportunities after the summit for the issues to be discussed.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I do not want to prolong this exchange, but I will allow a very brief point.
Caroline Lucas
On the point made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and just now by the Minister, they will know that there is one person representing my party and I cannot be in two places at once—I am working on it! There are 350 Conservative Members, and just one Back Bencher was at the debate last week. I suggest that they look at getting their own house in order before criticising this side.
Madam Deputy Speaker
This is getting way beyond anything resembling a point of order, so we should move on swiftly.
Bill Presented
Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Kemi Badenoch, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Oliver Dowden, Secretary James Cleverly, Secretary Grant Shapps, Secretary Alex Chalk, Secretary Michelle Donelan, Secretary Michael Gove, Secretary Mel Stride and Secretary Alister Jack, presented a Bill to provide for the payment out of money provided by Parliament of expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State under, or in connection with, schemes or other arrangements to compensate persons affected by the Horizon system and in respect of other matters identified in legal proceedings relating to the Horizon system.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 16) with explanatory notes (Bill 16-EN).
Data Protection and Digital Information Bill
Wednesday 29th November 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Data Protection and Digital Information Bill 2022-23 View all Data Protection and Digital Information Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 29 November 2023 - large print - (29 Nov 2023)
13:24 - The House divided: - Ayes: 209 / Noes: 275 - Question accordingly negatived.
16:45 - The House divided: - Ayes: 200 / Noes: 276 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 37 / Noes: 279 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:12 - The House divided: - Ayes: 195 / Noes: 273 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:25 - The House divided: - Ayes: 198 / Noes: 275 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:37 - The House divided: - Ayes: 194 / Noes: 275 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:49 - The House divided: - Ayes: 274 / Noes: 52 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:05 - The House divided: - Ayes: 269 / Noes: 31 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Mr Speaker has selected the recommittal motion in the name of Sir Chris Bryant. I call him to move the motion.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That the Bill be re-committed to a Public Bill Committee.
First, I wish to briefly refer to the death yesterday morning of my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Rhondda, Allan Rogers. I know that many Members found him a good colleague to work with, and I believe that he spent many hours on the Channel Tunnel Act 1987. I sometimes think that the people who do such Bills on behalf of all of us deserve a medal. I am sure the whole House sends its best regards and deepest condolences to his family.
Our core job as Members of Parliament is the scrutiny of legislation, teasing out whether a proposal will do what it says, whether it is necessary and proportionate, and whether it has public support. The Government have had total control of the Order Paper since 1902, so we can do that job properly only if the Government get their act together and play ball. That is what enables the line-by-line consideration of the laws that bind us. It is what makes us a functioning democracy. We need to send the Bill back to Committee because we simply cannot do that job properly today.
Let us recall how we got here. A first version of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill was introduced by the previous Member for Mid Bedfordshire on 18 July 2022. It was such a mess that it never even made it to Second Reading. Nadine Dorries was sacked in September last year, and six months later the Bill was sacked as well, to be replaced by a new and improved No. 2 Bill, which had its Second Reading on 17 April and completed its Committee stage on 24 May. That was 190 days ago.
I do not know what has prompted all the delay. Was it the general chaos in Government? Perhaps the Government do not fully understand the term “with immediate effect”. I like the Minister, and I have known and worked with him on many different issues for many years. I had a meeting with him and his officials on Thursday 16 November. He told me then that on Report the Government would table only a few minor and technical amendments to the Bill, which he hoped everyone would be able to agree fairly easily.
On the last available day, 182 days after Committee, the Government brought out 240 amendments. Some are indeed minor and technical, but many are very significant. They strike to the heart of the independence of the new Information Commission, they alter the rights of the public in making subject access requests, and they amend our system in a way that may or may not enhance our data adequacy with the US and the European Union and therefore British businesses’ ability to rely on UK legislation to trade overseas. In some instances, they give very extensive new powers to Ministers, and they introduce completely new topics that have never been previously mooted, debated or scrutinised by Parliament in relation to this Bill, which already has more baubles on it than the proverbial Christmas tree. The end result is that we have 156 pages of amendments to consider today in a single debate.
Yes, we could have tabled amendments to the Government amendments, but they would not have been selectable, and we would not have been able to vote on them. So the way the Government have acted, whether knowingly, recklessly or incompetently, means that the Commons cannot carry out line-by-line consideration of what will amount to more than 90 pages of new laws, 38 new clauses and two new schedules, one of which is 19 pages long. Some measures will barely get a minute’s consideration today. That is not scrutiny; it is a blank cheque.
Yesterday, I made a generous offer to the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who is sitting on the Front Bench and whom I also like. We recognise that some of the issues need to be addressed, so we said: “Recommit the Bill so we can help you get this right in the Commons, and we will commit to have it out of Committee in a fortnight. It could go to the Lords with all parties’ support by Christmas.”
Let me repeat: this is no way to scrutinise a Bill, particularly one that gives the Government sweeping powers and limits the rights of our fellow citizens, the public. Sadly, it is part of a growing trend, but “legislate at speed, repent at leisure” should not be our motto. Some will say something that is commonly said these days: “Let it go through to the Lords so they can amend it.” But I am sick of abdicating responsibility for getting legislation right. It is our responsibility. We should not send Bills through that are, at best, half-considered. We are the elected representatives. We cannot just pass the parcel to the Lords. We need to do our job properly. We cannot do that today without recommitting the Bill.
The Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure (Sir John Whittingdale)
I begin by joining the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) in expressing the condolences of the House to his predecessor, Allan Rogers. He served as a Member of Parliament during my first nine years in this place. I remember him as an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament, and I am sure we all share the sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman.
It is a pleasure to return to the Dispatch Box to lead the House through Report stage of the Bill. We spent considerable time discussing it in Committee, but the hon. Gentleman was not in his post at that time. I welcome him to his position. He may regret that he missed out on Committee stage, which makes him keen to return to it today.
The Bill is an essential piece of legislation that will update the UK’s data laws, making them among the most effective in the world. We scrutinised it in depth in Committee. The hon. Gentleman is right that the Government have tabled a number of amendments for the House to consider today, and he has done the same. The vast majority are technical, and the number sounds large because a lot are consequential on original amendments. One or two address new aspects, and I will be happy to speak to those as we go through them during this afternoon’s debate. Nevertheless, they represent important additions to the Bill.
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who is sitting next to me, has drawn the House’s attention to the fact that amending the Bill to allow the Department for Work and Pensions access to financial data will make a significant contribution to identifying fraud. I would have thought that the Opposition would welcome that. It is not a new measure; it was contained in the fraud plan that the Government published back in May 2022. The Government have been examining that measure, and we have always made it clear that we would bring it forward at an appropriate parliamentary time when a vehicle was available. This is a data Bill, and the measure is specific to it. We estimate that it will result in a saving to the taxpayer of around £500 million by the end of 2028-29. I am surprised that the Opposition should question that.
As I said, the Bill has been considered at length in Committee. It is important that we consider it on Report, in order that it achieve the next stage of its progress through Parliament. On that basis, I reject the motion.
Question put.
Sir John Whittingdale
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 48—Processing of personal data revealing political opinions.
Government new clause 7—Searches in response to data subjects’ requests.
Government new clause 8—Notices from the Information Commissioner.
Government new clause 9—Court procedure in connection with subject access requests.
Government new clause 10—Approval of a supplementary code.
Government new clause 11—Designation of a supplementary code.
Government new clause 12—List of recognised supplementary codes.
Government new clause 13—Change to conditions for approval or designation.
Government new clause 14—Revision of a recognised supplementary code.
Government new clause 15—Applications for approval and re-approval.
Government new clause 16—Fees for approval, re-approval and continued approval.
Government new clause 17—Request for withdrawal of approval.
Government new clause 18—Removal of designation.
Government new clause 19—Registration of additional services.
Government new clause 20—Supplementary notes.
Government new clause 21—Addition of services to supplementary notes.
Government new clause 22—Duty to remove services from the DVS register.
Government new clause 23—Duty to remove supplementary notes from the DVS register.
Government new clause 24—Duty to remove services from supplementary notes.
Government new clause 25—Index of defined terms for Part 2.
Government new clause 26—Powers relating to verification of identity or status.
Government new clause 27—Interface bodies.
Government new clause 28—The FCA and financial services interfaces.
Government new clause 29—The FCA and financial services interfaces: supplementary.
Government new clause 30—The FCA and financial services interfaces: penalties and levies.
Government new clause 31—Liability and damages.
Government new clause 32—Other data provision.
Government new clause 33—Duty to notify the Commissioner of personal data breach: time periods.
Government new clause 34—Power to require information for social security purposes.
Government new clause 35—Retention of information by providers of internet services in connection with death of child.
Government new clause 36—Retention of biometric data and recordable offences.
Government new clause 37—Retention of pseudonymised biometric data.
Government new clause 38—Retention of biometric data from INTERPOL.
Government new clause 39—National Underground Asset Register.
Government new clause 40—Information in relation to apparatus.
Government new clause 41—Pre-commencement consultation.
Government new clause 42—Transfer of certain functions of Secretary of State.
New clause 1—Processing of data in relation to a case-file prepared by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision—
“(1) The 2018 Act is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) In the 2018 Act, after section 40 insert—
“40A Processing of data in relation to a case-file prepared by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision
(1) This section applies to a set of processing operations consisting of the preparation of a case-file by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision, the making of a charging decision by the Crown Prosecution Service, and the return of the case-file by the Crown Prosecution Service to the police service after a charging decision has been made.
(2) The police service is not obliged to comply with the first data protection principle except insofar as that principle requires processing to be fair, or the third data protection principle, in preparing a case-file for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.
(3) The Crown Prosecution Service is not obliged to comply with the first data protection principle except insofar as that principle requires processing to be fair, or the third data protection principle, in making a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service.
(4) If the Crown Prosecution Service decides that a charge will not be pursued when it makes a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service it must take all steps reasonably required to destroy and delete all copies of the case-file in its possession.
(5) If the Crown Prosecution Service decides that a charge will be pursued when it makes a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service it must return the case-file to the police service and take all steps reasonably required to destroy and delete all copies of the case-file in its possession.
(6) Where the Crown Prosecution Service decides that a charge will be pursued when it makes a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service and returns the case-file to the police service under subsection (5), the police service must comply with the first data protection principle and the third data protection principle in relation to any subsequent processing of the data contained in the case-file.
(7) For the purposes of this section—
(a) The police service means—
(i) constabulary maintained by virtue of an enactment, or
(ii) subject to section 126 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (prison staff not to be regarded as in police service), any other service whose members have the powers or privileges of a constable.
(b) The preparation of, or preparing, a case-file by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision includes the submission of the file.
(c) A case-file includes all information obtained by the police service for the purpose of preparing a case-file for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.””
This new clause adjusts Section 40 of the Data Protection Act 2018 to exempt the police service and the Crown Prosecution Service from the first and third data protection principles contained within the 2018 Act so that they can share unredacted data with one another when making a charging decision.
New clause 2—Common standards and timeline for implementation—
“(1) Within one month of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must by regulations require those appointed as decision-makers to create, publish and update as required open and common standards for access to customer data and business data.
(2) Standards created by virtue of subsection (1) must be interoperable with those created as a consequence of Part 2 of the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017, made by the Competition and Markets Authority.
(3) Regulations under section 66 and 68 must ensure interoperability of customer data and business data with standards created by virtue of subsection (1).
(4) Within one month of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a list of the sectors to which regulations under section 66 and section 68 will apply within three years of the passage of the Act, and the date by which those regulations will take effect in each case.”
This new clause, which is intended to be placed in Part 3 (Customer data and business data) of the Bill, would require interoperability across all sectors of the economy in smart data standards, including the Open Banking standards already in effect, and the publication of a timeline for implementation.
New clause 3—Provision about representation of data subjects—
“(1) Section 190 of the Data Protection Act 2018 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1), leave out “After the report under section 189(1) is laid before Parliament, the Secretary of State may” and insert “The Secretary of State must, within three months of the passage of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024,”.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to exercise powers under s190 DPA2018 to allow organisations to raise data breach complaints on behalf of data subjects generally, in the absence of a particular subject who wishes to bring forward a claim about misuse of their own personal data.
New clause 4—Review of notification of changes of circumstances legislation—
“(1) The Secretary of State must commission a review of the operation of the Social Security (Notification of Changes of Circumstances) Regulations 2010.
(2) In conducting the review, the designated reviewer must—
(a) consider the current operation and effectiveness of the legislation;
(b) identify any gaps in its operation and provisions;
(c) consider and publish recommendations as to how the scope of the legislation could be expanded to include non-public sector, voluntary and private sector holders of personal data.
(3) In undertaking the review, the reviewer must consult—
(a) specialists in data sharing;
(b) people and organisations who campaign for the interests of people affected by the legislation;
(c) people and organisations who use the legislation;
(d) any other persons and organisations the review considers appropriate.
(4) The Secretary of State must lay a report of the review before each House of Parliament within six months of this Act coming into force.”
This new clause requires a review of the operation of the “Tell Us Once” programme, which seeks to provide simpler mechanisms for citizens to pass information regarding births and deaths to government, and consideration of whether the progress of “Tell Us Once” could be extended to non-public sector holders of data.
New clause 5—Definition of “biometric data”—
“Article 9 of the UK GDPR is amended by the omission, in paragraph 1, of the words “for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person”.”
This new clause would amend the UK General Data Protection Regulation to extend the protections currently in place for biometric data for identification to include biometric data for the purpose of classification.
New clause 43—Right to use non-digital verification services—
“(1) This section applies when an organisation—
(a) requires an individual to use a verification service, and
(b) uses a digital verification service for that purpose.
(2) The organisation—
(a) must make a non-digital alternative method of verification available to any individual required to use a verification service, and
(b) must provide information about digital and non-digital methods of verification to those individuals before verification is required.”
This new clause, which is intended for insertion into Part 2 of the Bill (Digital verification services), creates the right for data subjects to use non-digital identity verification services as an alternative to digital verification services, thereby preventing digital verification from becoming mandatory in certain settings.
New clause 44—Transfer of functions to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office—
“The functions of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner are transferred to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.”
New clause 45—Interoperability of data and collection of comparable healthcare statistics across the UK—
“(1) The Health and Social Care Act 2012 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 250, insert the following section—
“250A Interoperability of data and collection of comparable healthcare statistics across the UK
(1) The Secretary of State must prepare and publish an information standard specifying binding data interoperability requirements which apply across the whole of the United Kingdom.
(2) An information standard prepared and published under this section—
(a) must include guidance about the implementation of the standard;
(b) may apply to any public body which exercises functions in connection with the provision of health services anywhere in the United Kingdom.
(3) A public body to which an information standard prepared and published under this section applies must have regard to the standard.
(4) The Secretary of State must report to Parliament each year on progress on the implementation of an information standard prepared in accordance with this section.
(5) For the purposes of this section—
“health services” has the same meaning as in section 250 of this Act, except that for “in England” there is substituted “anywhere in the United Kingdom”, and “the health service” in parts of the United Kingdom other than England has the meaning given by the relevant statute of that part of the United Kingdom;
“public body” has the same meaning as in section 250 of this Act.”
(3) In section 254 (Powers to direct NHS England to establish information systems), after subsection (2), insert—
“(2A) The Secretary of State must give a direction under subsection (1) directing NHS England to collect and publish information about healthcare performance and outcomes in all parts of the United Kingdom in a way which enables comparison between different parts of the United Kingdom.
(2B) Before giving a direction by virtue of subsection (2A), the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the bodies responsible for the collection and publication of official statistics in each part of the United Kingdom,
(b) Scottish Ministers,
(c) Welsh Ministers, and
(d) Northern Ireland departments.
(2C) The Secretary of State may not give a direction by virtue of subsection (2A) unless a copy of the direction has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament.
(2D) Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and Northern Ireland departments must arrange for the information relating to the health services for which they have responsibility described in the direction given by virtue of subsection (2A) to be made available to NHS England in accordance with the direction.
(2E) For the purposes of a direction given by virtue of subsection (2A), the definition of “health and social care body” given in section 259(11) applies as if for “England” there were substituted “the United Kingdom”.””
New clause 46—Assessment of impact of Act on EU adequacy—
“(1) Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must carry out an assessment of the impact of the Act on EU adequacy, and lay a report of that assessment before both Houses of Parliament.
(2) The report must assess the impact on—
(a) data risk, and
(b) small and medium-sized businesses.
(3) The report must quantify the impact of the Act in financial terms.”
New clause 47—Review of the impact of the Act on anonymisation and the identifiability of data subjects—
“(1) Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament the report of an assessment of the impact of the measures in the Act on anonymisation and the identifiability of data subjects.
(2) The report must include a comparison between the rights afforded to data subjects under this Act with those afforded to data subjects by the EU General Data Protection Regulation.”
Amendment 278, in clause 5, page 6, line 15, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c).
This amendment and Amendment 279 would remove the power for the Secretary of State to create pre-defined and pre-authorised “recognised legitimate interests”, for data processing. Instead, the current test would continue to apply in which personal data can only be processed in pursuit of a legitimate interest, as balanced with individual rights and freedoms.
Amendment 279, page 6, line 23, leave out subsections (4), (5) and (6).
See explanatory statement to Amendment 278.
Amendment 230, page 7, leave out lines 1 and 2 and insert—
“8. The Secretary of State may not make regulations under paragraph 6 unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before both Houses of Parliament for the 60-day period.
8A. The Secretary of State must consider any representations made during the 60-day period in respect of anything in the draft regulations laid under paragraph 8.
8B. If, after the end of the 60-day period, the Secretary of State wishes to proceed to make the regulations, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the regulations (incorporating any changes the Secretary of State considers appropriate pursuant to paragraph 8A).
8C. Draft regulations laid under paragraph 8B must, before the end of the 40-day period, have been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
8D. In this Article—
“the 40-day period” means the period of 40 days beginning on the day on which the draft regulations mentioned in paragraph 8 are laid before Parliament (or, if it is not laid before each House of Parliament on the same day, the later of the days on which it is laid);
“the 60-day period” means the period of 60 days beginning on the day on which the draft regulations mentioned in paragraph 8B are laid before Parliament (or, if it is not laid before each House of Parliament on the same day, the later of the days on which it is laid).
8E. When calculating the 40-day period or the 60-day period for the purposes of paragraph 8D, ignore any period during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than 4 days.”
This amendment would make regulations made in respect of recognised legitimate interest subject to a super-affirmative Parliamentary procedure.
Amendment 11, page 7, line 12, at end insert—
““internal administrative purposes” , in relation to special category data, means the conditions set out for lawful processing in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.”
This amendment clarifies that the processing of special category data in employment must follow established principles for reasonable processing, as defined by paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
Government amendment 252.
Amendment 222, page 10, line 8, leave out clause 8.
Amendment 3, in clause 8, page 10, leave out line 31.
This amendment would mean that the resources available to the controller could not be taken into account when determining whether a request is vexatious or excessive.
Amendment 2, page 11, line 34, at end insert—
“(6A) When informing the data subject of the reasons for not taking action on the request in accordance with subsection (6), the controller must provide evidence of why the request has been treated as vexatious or excessive.”
This amendment would require the data controller to provide evidence of why a request has been considered vexatious or excessive if the controller is refusing to take action on the request.
Government amendment 17.
Amendment 223, page 15, line 22, leave out clause 10.
Amendment 224, page 18, line 7, leave out clause 12.
Amendment 236, in clause 12, page 18, line 21, at end insert—
“(c) a data subject is an identified or identifiable individual who is affected by a significant decision, irrespective of the direct presence of their personal data in the decision-making process.”
This amendment would clarify that a “data subject” includes identifiable individuals who are subject to data-based and automated decision-making, whether or not their personal data is directly present in the decision-making process.
Amendment 232, page 19, line 12, leave out “solely” and insert “predominantly”.
This amendment would mean safeguards for data subjects’ rights, freedoms and legitimate interests would have to be in place in cases where a significant decision in relation to a data subject was taken based predominantly, rather than solely, on automated processing.
Amendment 5, page 19, line 12, after “solely” insert “or partly”.
This amendment would mean that the protections provided for by the new Article 22C would apply where a decision is based either solely or partly on automated processing, not only where it is based solely on such processing.
Amendment 233, page 19, line 18, at end insert
“including the reasons for the processing.”
This amendment would require data controllers to provide the data subject with the reasons for the processing of their data in cases where a significant decision in relation to a data subject was taken based on automated processing.
Amendment 225, page 19, line 18, at end insert—
“(aa) require the controller to inform the data subject when a decision described in paragraph 1 has been taken in relation to the data subject;”.
Amendment 221, page 20, line 3, at end insert—
“7. When exercising the power to make regulations under this Article, the Secretary
of State must have regard to the following statement of principles:
Digital information principles at work
1. People should have access to a fair, inclusive and trustworthy digital environment
at work.
2. Algorithmic systems should be designed and used to achieve better outcomes:
to make work better, not worse, and not for surveillance. Workers and their
representatives should be involved in this process.
3. People should be protected from unsafe, unaccountable and ineffective
algorithmic systems at work. Impacts on individuals and groups must be assessed
in advance and monitored, with reasonable and proportionate steps taken.
4. Algorithmic systems should not harm workers’ mental or physical health, or
integrity.
5. Workers and their representatives should always know when an algorithmic
system is being used, how and why it is being used, and what impacts it may
have on them or their work.
6. Workers and their representatives should be involved in meaningful consultation
before and during use of an algorithmic system that may significantly impact
work or people.
7. Workers should have control over their own data and digital information collected
about them at work.
8. Workers and their representatives should always have an opportunity for human
contact, review and redress when an algorithmic system is used at work where
it may significantly impact work or people. This includes a right to a written
explanation when a decision is made.
9. Workers and their representatives should be able to use their data and digital
technologies for contact and association to improve work quality and conditions.
10. Workers should be supported to build the information, literacy and skills needed
to fulfil their capabilities through work transitions.”
This amendment would insert into new Article 22D of the UK GDPR a requirement for the Secretary of State to have regard to the statement of digital information principles at work when making regulations about automated decision-making.
Amendment 4, in clause 15, page 25, line 4, at end insert
“(including in the cases specified in sub-paragraphs (a) to (c) of paragraph 3 of Article 35)”.
This amendment, together with Amendment 1, would provide a definition of what constitutes “high risk processing” for the purposes of applying Articles 27A, 27B and 27C, which require data controllers to designate, and specify the duties of, a “senior responsible individual” with responsibility for such processing.
Government amendments 18 to 44.
Amendment 12, in page 32, line 7, leave out clause 17.
This amendment keeps the current requirement on police in the Data Protection Act 2018 to justify why they have accessed an individual’s personal data.
Amendment 1, in clause 18, page 32, line 18, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
“(c) omit paragraph 2,
(ca) in paragraph 3—
(i) for “data protection” substitute “high risk processing”,
(ii) in sub-paragraph (a), for “natural persons” substitute “individuals”,
(iii) in sub-paragraph (a) for “natural person” substitute “individual” in both places where it occurs,
(cb) omit paragraphs 4 and 5,”.
This amendment would leave paragraph 3 of Article 35 of the UK GDPR in place (with amendments reflecting amendments made by the Bill elsewhere in the Article), thereby ensuring that there is a definition of “high risk processing” on the face of the Regulation.
Amendment 226, page 39, line 38, leave out clause 26.
Amendment 227, page 43, line 2, leave out clause 27.
Amendment 228, page 46, line 32, leave out clause 28.
Government amendment 45.
Amendment 235, page 57, line 29, leave out clause 34.
This amendment would leave in place the existing regime, which refers to “manifestly unfounded” or excessive requests to the Information Commissioner, rather than the proposed change to “vexatious” or excessive requests.
Government amendments 46 and 47.
Amendment 237, in clause 48, page 77, line 4, leave out “individual” and insert “person”.
This amendment and Amendments 238 to 240 are intended to enable the digital verification services covered by the Bill to include verification of organisations as well as individuals.
Amendment 238, page 77, line 5, leave out “individual” and insert “person”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 237.
Amendment 239, page 77, line 6, leave out “individual” and insert “person”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 237.
Amendment 240, page 77, line 7, leave out “individual” and insert “person”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 237.
Amendment 241, page 77, line 8, at end insert (on new line)—
“and the facts which may be so ascertained, verified or confirmed may include the fact that an individual has a claimed connection with a legal person.”
This amendment would ensure that the verification services covered by the Bill will include verification that an individual has a claimed connection with a legal person.
Government amendments 48 to 50.
Amendment 280, in clause 49, page 77, line 13, at end insert—
“(2A) The DVS trust framework must include a description of how the provision of digital verification services is expected to uphold the Identity Assurance Principles.
(2B) Schedule (Identity Assurance Principles) describes each Identity Assurance Principle and its effect.”
Amendment 281, page 77, line 13, at end insert—
“(2A) The DVS trust framework must allow valid attributes to be protected by zero-knowledge proof and other decentralised technologies, without restriction upon how and by whom those proofs may be held or processed.”
Government amendments 51 to 66.
Amendment 248, in clause 52, page 79, line 7, at end insert—
“(1A) A determination under subsection (1) may specify an amount which is tiered to the size of the person and its role as specified in the DVS trust framework.”
This amendment would enable fees for application for registration in the DVS register to be determined on the basis of the size and role of the organisation applying to be registered.
Amendment 243, page 79, line 8, after “may”, insert “not”.
This amendment would provide that the fee for application for registration in the DVS register could not exceed the administrative costs of determining the application.
Government amendment 67.
Amendment 244, page 79, line 13, after “may”, insert “not”.
This amendment would provide that the fee for continued registration in the DVS register could not exceed the administrative costs of that registration.
Government amendment 68.
Amendment 245, page 79, line 21, at end insert—
“(10) The fees payable under this section must be reviewed every two years by the National Audit Office.”
This amendment would provide that the fees payable for DVS registration must be reviewed every two years by the NAO.
Government amendments 69 to 77.
Amendment 247, in clause 54, page 80, line 38, after “person”, insert “or by other parties”.
This amendment would enable others, for example independent experts, to make representations about a decision to remove a person from the DVS register, as well as the person themselves.
Amendment 246, page 81, line 7, at end insert—
“(11) The Secretary of State may not exercise the power granted by subsection (1) until the Secretary of State has consulted on proposals for how a decision to remove a person from the DVS register will be reached, including—
(a) how information will be collected from persons impacted by a decision to remove the person from the register, and from others;
(b) how complaints will be managed;
(c) how evidence will be reviewed;
(d) what the burden of proof will be on which a decision will be based.”
This amendment would provide that the power to remove a person from the DVS register could not be exercised until the Secretary of State had consulted on the detail of how a decision to remove would be reached.
Government amendments 78 to 80.
Amendment 249, in clause 62, page 86, line 17, at end insert—
“(3A) A notice under this section must give the recipient of the notice an opportunity to consult the Secretary of State on the content of the notice before providing the information required by the notice.”
This amendment would provide an option for consultation between the Secretary of State and the recipient of an information notice before the information required by the notice has to be provided.
Government amendment 81.
Amendment 242, in clause 63, page 87, line 21, leave out “may” and insert “must”.
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make arrangements for a person to exercise the Secretary of State’s functions under this Part of the Bill, so that an independent regulator would perform the relevant functions and not the Secretary of State.
Amendment 250, in clause 64, page 87, line 34, at end insert—
“(1A) A report under subsection (1) must include a report on any arrangements made under section 63 for a third party to exercise functions under this Part.”
This amendment would require information about arrangements for a third party to exercise functions under this Part of the Bill to be included in the annual reports on the operation of the Part.
Government amendments 82 to 196.
Amendment 6, in clause 83, page 107, leave out from line 26 to the end of line 34 on page 108.
This amendment would leave out the proposed new regulation 6B of the PEC Regulations, which would enable consent to be given, or an objection to be made, to cookies automatically.
Amendment 217, page 109, line 20, leave out clause 86.
This amendment would leave out the clause which would enable the sending of direct marketing electronic mail on a “soft opt-in” basis.
Amendment 218, page 110, line 1, leave out clause 87.
This amendment would remove the clause which would enable direct marketing for the purposes of democratic engagement. See also Amendment 220.
Government amendments 253 to 255.
Amendment 219, page 111, line 6, leave out clause 88.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 218.
Government amendments 256 to 265.
Amendment 7, in clause 89, page 114, line 12, at end insert—
“(2A) A provider of a public electronic communications service or network is not required to intercept or examine the content of any communication in order to comply with their duty under this regulation.”
This amendment would clarify that a public electronic communications service or network is not required to intercept or examine the content of any communication in order to comply with their duty to notify the Commissioner of unlawful direct marketing.
Amendment 8, page 117, line 3, at end insert—
“(5) In regulation 1—
(a) at the start, insert “(1)”;
(b) after “shall”, insert “save for regulation 26A”;
(c) at end, insert—
“(2) Regulation 26A comes into force six months after the Commissioner has published guidance under regulation 26C (Guidance in relation to regulation 26A).””
This amendment would provide for the new regulation 26A, Duty to notify Commissioner of unlawful direct marketing, not to come into force until six months after the Commissioner has published guidance in relation to that duty.
Government amendment 197.
Amendment 251, in clause 101, page 127, line 3, leave out “and deaths” and insert “, deaths and deed polls”.
This amendment would require deed poll information to be kept to the same standard as records of births and deaths.
Amendment 9, page 127, line 24, at end insert—
“(2A) After section 25, insert—
“25A Review of form in which registers are to be kept
(1) The Secretary of State must commission a review of the provisions of this Act and of related legislation, with a view to the creation of a single digital register of births and deaths.
(2) The review must consider and make recommendations on the effect of the creation of a single digital register on—
(a) fraud,
(b) data collection, and
(c) ease of registration.
(3) The Secretary of State must lay a report of the review before each House of Parliament within six months of this section coming into force.””
This amendment would insert a new section into the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 requiring a review of relevant legislation, with consideration of creating a single digital register for registered births and registered deaths and recommendations on the effects of such a change on reducing fraud, improving data collection and streamlining digital registration.
Government amendment 198.
Amendment 229, in clause 112, page 135, line 8, leave out subsections (2) and (3).
Amendment 10, in clause 113, page 136, line 35, leave out
“which allows or confirms the unique identification of that individual”.
This amendment would amend the definition of “biometric data” for the purpose of the oversight of law enforcement biometrics databases so as to extend the protections currently in place for biometric data for identification to include biometric data for the purpose of classification.
Government amendments 199 to 207.
Government new schedule 1—Power to require information for social security purposes.
Government new schedule 2—National Underground Asset Register: monetary penalties.
New schedule 3—Identity Assurance Principles—
“Part 1
Definitions
1 These Principles are limited to the processing of Identity Assurance Data (IdA Data) in an Identity Assurance Service (e.g. establishing and verifying identity of a Service User; conducting a transaction that uses a user identity; maintaining audit requirements in relation a transaction associated with the use of a service that needs identity verification etc.). They do not cover, for example, any data used to deliver a service, or to measure its quality.
2 In the context of the application of the Identity Assurance Principles to an Identity Assurance Service, “Identity Assurance Data” (“IdA Data”) means any recorded information that is connected with a “Service User” including—
“Audit Data.” This includes any recorded information that is connected with any log or audit associated with an Identity Assurance Service.
“General Data.” This means any other recorded information which is not personal data, audit data or relationship data, but is still connected with a “Service User”.
“Personal Data.” This takes its meaning from the Data Protection Act 2018 or subsequent legislation (e.g. any recorded information that relates to a “Service User” who is also an identified or identifiable living individual).
“Relationship Data.” This means any recorded information that describes (or infers) a relationship between a “Service User”, “Identity Provider” or “Service Provider” with another “Service User”, “Identity Provider” or “Service Provider” and includes any cookie or program whose purpose is to supply a means through which relationship data are collected.
3 Other terms used in relation to the Principles are defined as follows—
“save-line2Identity Assurance Service.” This includes relevant applications of the technology (e.g. hardware, software, database, documentation) in the possession or control of any “Service User”, “Identity Provider” or “Service Provider” that is used to facilitate identity assurance activities; it also includes any IdA Data processed by that technology or by an Identity Provider or by a Service Provider in the context of the Service; and any IdA Data processed by the underlying infrastructure for the purpose of delivering the IdA service or associated billing, management, audit and fraud prevention.
“Identity Provider.” This means the certified individual or certified organisation that provides an Identity Assurance Service (e.g. establishing an identity, verification of identity); it includes any agent of a certified Identity Provider that processes IdA data in connection with that Identity Assurance Service.
“Participant.” This means any “Identity Provider”, “Service Provider” or “Service User” in an Identity Assurance Service. A “Participant” includes any agent by definition.
“Processing.” In the context of IdA data means “collecting, using, disclosing, retaining, transmitting, copying, comparing, corroborating, correlating, aggregating, accessing” the data and includes any other operation performed on IdA data.
“Provider.” Includes both “Identity Provider” and/or “Service Provider”.
“Service Provider.” This means the certified individual or certified organisation that provides a service that uses an Identity Provider in order to verify identity of the Service User; it includes any agent of the Service Provider that processes IdA data from an Identity Assurance Service.
“Service User.” This means the person (i.e. an organisation (incorporated or not)) or an individual (dead or alive) who has established (or is establishing) an identity with an Identity Provider; it includes an agent (e.g. a solicitor, family member) who acts on behalf of a Service User with proper authority (e.g. a public guardian, or a Director of a company, or someone who possesses power of attorney). The person may be living or deceased (the identity may still need to be used once its owner is dead, for example by an executor).
“Third Party.” This means any person (i.e. any organisation or individual) who is not a “Participant” (e.g. the police or a Regulator).
Part 2
The Nine Identity Assurance Principles
Any exemptions from these Principles must be specified via the “Exceptional Circumstances Principle”. (See Principle 9).
1 User Control Principle
Statement of Principle: “I can exercise control over identity assurance activities affecting me and these can only take place if I consent or approve them.”
1.1 An Identity Provider or Service Provider must ensure any collection, use or disclosure of IdA data in, or from, an Identity Assurance Service is approved by each particular Service User who is connected with the IdA data.
1.2 There should be no compulsion to use the Identity Assurance Service and Service Providers should offer alternative mechanisms to access their services. Failing to do so would undermine the consensual nature of the service.
2 Transparency Principle
Statement of Principle: “Identity assurance can only take place in ways I understand and when I am fully informed.”
2.1 Each Identity Provider or Service Provider must be able to justify to Service Users why their IdA data are processed. Ensuring transparency of activity and effective oversight through auditing and other activities inspires public trust and confidence in how their details are used.
2.2 Each Service User must be offered a clear description about the processing of IdA data in advance of any processing. Identity Providers must be transparent with users about their particular models for service provision.
2.3 The information provided includes a clear explanation of why any specific information has to be provided by the Service User (e.g. in order that a particular level of identity assurance can be obtained) and identifies any obligation on the part of the Service User (e.g. in relation to the User’s role in securing his/her own identity information).
2.4 The Service User will be able to identify which Service Provider they are using at any given time.
2.5 Any subsequent and significant change to the processing arrangements that have been previously described to a Service User requires the prior consent or approval of that Service User before it comes into effect.
2.6 All procedures, including those involved with security, should be made publicly available at the appropriate time, unless such transparency presents a security or privacy risk. For example, the standards of encryption can be identified without jeopardy to the encryption keys being used.
3 Multiplicity Principle
Statement of Principle: “I can use and choose as many different identifiers or identity providers as I want to.”
3.1 A Service User is free to use any number of identifiers that each uniquely identifies the individual or business concerned.
3.2 A Service User can use any of his identities established with an Identity Provider with any Service Provider.
3.3 A Service User shall not be obliged to use any Identity Provider or Service Provider not chosen by that Service User; however, a Service Provider can require the Service User to provide a specific level of Identity Assurance, appropriate to the Service User’s request to a Service Provider.
3.4 A Service User can choose any number of Identity Providers and where possible can choose between Service Providers in order to meet his or her diverse needs. Where a Service User chooses to register with more than one Identity Provider, Identity Providers and Service Providers must not link the Service User’s different accounts or gain information about their use of other Providers.
3.5 A Service User can terminate, suspend or change Identity Provider and where possible can choose between Service Providers at any time.
3.6 A Service Provider does not know the identity of the Identity Provider used by a Service User to verify an identity in relation to a specific service. The Service Provider knows that the Identity Provider can be trusted because the Identity Provider has been certified, as set out in GPG43 – Requirements for Secure Delivery of Online Public Services (RSDOPS).
4 Data Minimisation Principle
Statement of Principle: “My interactions only use the minimum data necessary to meet my needs.”
4.1 Identity Assurance should only be used where a need has been established and only to the appropriate minimum level of assurance.
4.2 Identity Assurance data processed by an Identity Provider or a Service Provider to facilitate a request of a Service User must be the minimum necessary in order to fulfil that request in a secure and auditable manner.
4.3 When a Service User stops using a particular Identity Provider, their data should be deleted. Data should be retained only where required for specific targeted fraud, security or other criminal investigation purposes.
5 Data Quality Principle
Statement of Principle: “My interactions only use the minimum data necessary to meet my needs.”
5.1 Service Providers should enable Service Users (or authorised persons, such as the holder of a Power of Attorney) to be able to update their own personal data, at a time at their choosing, free of charge and in a simple and easy manner.
5.2 Identity Providers and Service Providers must take account of the appropriate level of identity assurance required before allowing any updating of personal data.
6 Service User Access and Portability Principle
Statement of Principle: “I have to be provided with copies of all of my data on request; I can move/remove my data whenever I want.”
6.1 Each Identity Provider or Service Provider must allow, promptly, on request and free of charge, each Service User access to any IdA data that relates to that Service User.
6.2 It shall be unlawful to make it a condition of doing anything in relation to a Service User to request or require that Service User to request IdA data.
6.3 The Service User must be able to require an Identity Provider to transfer his personal data, to a second Identity Provider in a standard electronic format, free of charge and without impediment or delay.
7 Certification Principle
Statement of Principle: “I can have confidence in the Identity Assurance Service because all the participants have to be certified against common governance requirements.”
7.1 As a baseline control, all Identity Providers and Service Providers will be certified against a shared standard. This is one important way of building trust and confidence in the service.
7.2 As part of the certification process, Identity Providers and Service Providers are obliged to co-operate with the independent Third Party and accept their impartial determination and to ensure that contractual arrangements—
• reinforce the application of the Identity Assurance Principles
• contain a reference to the independent Third Party as a mechanism for dispute resolution.
7.3 In the context of personal data, certification procedures include the use of Privacy Impact Assessments, Security Risk Assessments, Privacy by Design concepts and, in the context of information security, a commitment to using appropriate technical measures (e.g. encryption) and ever improving security management. Wherever possible, such certification processes and security procedures reliant on technical devices should be made publicly available at the appropriate time.
7.4 All Identity Providers and Service Providers will take all reasonable steps to ensure that a Third Party cannot capture IdA data that confirms (or infers) the existence of relationship between any Participant. No relationships between parties or records should be established without the consent of the Service User.
7.5 Certification can be revoked if there is significant non-compliance with any Identity Assurance Principle.
8 Dispute Resolution Principle
Statement of Principle: “If I have a dispute, I can go to an independent Third Party for a resolution.”
8.1 A Service User who, after a reasonable time, cannot, or is unable, to resolve a complaint or problem directly with an Identity Provider or Service Provider can call upon an independent Third Party to seek resolution of the issue. This could happen for example where there is a disagreement between the Service User and the Identity Provider about the accuracy of data.
8.2 The independent Third Party can resolve the same or similar complaints affecting a group of Service Users.
8.3 The independent Third Party can co-operate with other regulators in order to resolve problems and can raise relevant issues of importance concerning the Identity Assurance Service.
8.4 An adjudication/recommendation of the independent Third Party should be published. The independent Third Party must operate transparently, but detailed case histories should only be published subject to appropriate review and consent.
8.5 There can be more than one independent Third Party.
8.6 The independent Third Party can recommend changes to standards or certification procedures or that an Identity Provider or Service Provider should lose their certification.
9 Exceptional Circumstances Principle
Statement of Principle: “Any exception has to be approved by Parliament and is subject to independent scrutiny.”
9.1 Any exemption from the application of any of the above Principles to IdA data shall only be lawful if it is linked to a statutory framework that legitimises all Identity Assurance Services, or an Identity Assurance Service in the context of a specific service. In the absence of such a legal framework then alternative measures must be taken to ensure, transparency, scrutiny and accountability for any exceptions.
9.2 Any exemption from the application of any of the above Principles that relates to the processing of personal data must also be necessary and justifiable in terms of one of the criteria in Article 8(2) of the European Convention of Human Rights: namely in the interests of national security; public safety or the economic well-being of the country; for the prevention of disorder or crime; for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
9.3 Any subsequent processing of personal data by any Third Party who has obtained such data in exceptional circumstances (as identified by Article 8(2) above) must be the minimum necessary to achieve that (or another) exceptional circumstance.
9.4 Any exceptional circumstance involving the processing of personal data must be subject to a Privacy Impact Assessment by all relevant “data controllers” (where “data controller” takes its meaning from the Data Protection Act).
9.5 Any exemption from the application of any of the above Principles in relation to IdA data shall remain subject to the Dispute Resolution Principle.”
Amendment 220, in schedule 1, page 141, leave out from line 21 to the end of line 36 on page 144.
This amendment would remove from the new Annex 1 of the UK GDPR provisions which would enable direct marketing for the purposes of democratic engagement. See also Amendment 218.
Government amendments 266 to 277.
Government amendments 208 to 211.
Amendment 15, in schedule 5, page 154, line 2, at end insert—
“(g) the views of the Information Commission on suitability of international transfer of data to the country or organisation.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to seek the views of the Information Commission on whether a country or organisation has met the data protection test for international data transfer.
Amendment 14, page 154, line 25, at end insert—
“5. In relation to special category data, the Information Commissioner must assess whether the data protection test is met for data transfer to a third country or international organisation.”
This amendment requires the Information Commission to assess suitability for international transfer of special category data to a third country or international organisation.
Amendment 13, page 154, line 30, leave out “ongoing” and insert “annual”.
This amendment mandates that a country’s suitability for international transfer of data is monitored on an annual basis.
Amendment 16, in schedule 6, page 162, line 36, at end insert—
“(g) the views of the Information Commission on suitability of international transfer of data to the country or organisation.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to seek the views of the Information Commission on whether a country or organisation has met the data protection test for international data transfer in relation to law enforcement processing.
Government amendment 212.
Amendment 231, in schedule 13, page 202, line 33, at end insert—
“(2A) A person may not be appointed under sub-paragraph (2) unless the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee of the House of Commons has endorsed the proposed appointment.”
This amendment would ensure that non-executive members of the Information Commission may not be appointed unless the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has endorsed the Secretary of State’s proposed appointee.
Government amendments 213 to 216.
Sir John Whittingdale
The current one-size-fits-all, top-down approach to data protection that we inherited from the European Union has led to public confusion, which has impeded the effective use of personal data to drive growth and competition, and to support key innovations. The Bill seizes on a post-Brexit opportunity to build on our existing foundations and create an innovative, flexible and risk-based data protection regime. This bespoke model will unlock the immense possibilities of data use to improve the lives of everyone in the UK, and help make the UK the most innovative society in the world through science and technology.
I want to make it absolutely clear that the Bill will continue to maintain the highest standards of data protection that the British people rightly expect, but it will also help those who use our data to make our lives healthier, safer and more prosperous. That is because we have convened industry leaders and experts to co-design the Bill at every step of the way. We have held numerous roundtables with both industry experts in the field and campaigning groups. The outcome, I believe, is that the legislation will ensure our regulation reflects the way real people live their lives and run their businesses.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early. Oxford West and Abingdon has a huge number of spin-offs and scientific businesses that have expressed concern that any material deviation on standards, particularly European Union data adequacy, would entangle them in more red tape, rather than remove it. He says he has spoken to industry leaders. Have he and his Department assessed the risk of any deviation? Is there any associated cost to businesses from any potential deviation? Who is going to bear that cost?
Sir John Whittingdale
I share the hon. Lady’s appreciation of the importance of data adequacy with the European Union. It is not the case that we have to replicate every aspect of GDPR to be assessed as adequate by the European Union for the purposes of data exchange. Indeed, a number of other countries have data adequacy, even though they do not have precisely the same framework of data protection legislation.
In drawing up the measures in the Bill, we have been very clear that we do not wish to put data adequacy at risk, and we are confident that nothing in the Bill does so. That is not only my view; it is the view of the expert witnesses who gave evidence in Committee. It is also the view of the Information Commissioner, who has been closely involved in all the measures before us today. I recognise the concern, but I do not believe it has any grounds.
Layla Moran
The Minister says, “We do not wish”. Is that a guarantee from the Dispatch Box that there will be absolutely no deviation that causes a material difference for businesses on EU data adequacy? Can he give that guarantee?
Sir John Whittingdale
I can guarantee that there is nothing in the Government’s proposals that we believe puts data adequacy at risk. That is not just our view; it is the view of all those we have consulted, including the Information Commissioner. He was previously the information commissioner in New Zealand, which has its own data protection laws but is, nevertheless, recognised as adequate by the EU. He is very familiar with the process required to achieve and keep data adequacy, and it is his view, as well as ours, that the Bill achieves that objective.
We believe the Government amendments will strengthen the fundamental elements of the Bill and reflect the Government’s commitment to unleashing the power of data across our economy and society. I have already thanked all the external stakeholders who have worked with us to ensure that the Bill functions at its best. Taken together, we believe these amendments will benefit the economy by £10.6 billion over the next 10 years. That is more than double the estimated impact of the Bill when it was introduced in the spring.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that no services will rely on digital identity checks?
Sir John Whittingdale
I will come on to that, because we have tabled a few amendments on digital verification and the accreditation of digital identity.
We are proposing a voluntary framework. We believe that using digital identity has many advantages, and those will become greater as the technology improves, but there is no compulsory or mandatory element to the use of digital identity. I understand why the hon. Lady raises that point, and I am happy to give her that assurance.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
Before my right hon. Friend moves on to the specifics of the Government amendments, may I ask him about something they do not yet cover? The Bill does not address the availability of data to researchers so that they can assist in the process of, for example, identifying patterns in online safety. He will know that there was considerable discussion of this during the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023, when a succession of Ministers said that we might return to the subject in this Bill. Will he update the House on how that is going? When might we expect to see amendments to deal with this important area?
Sir John Whittingdale
It is true that we do not have Government amendments to that effect, but it is a central part of the Bill that we have already debated in Committee. Making data more available to researchers is, indeed, an objective of the Bill, and I share my right hon. and learned Friend’s view that it will produce great value. If he thinks more needs to be done in specific areas, I would be very happy to talk to him further or to respond in writing.
Sir Chris Bryant
Broadly speaking, we support this measure. What negotiations and discussions has the Minister had about red notices under Interpol and the abuse of them, for instance by the Russian state? We have concerns about decent people being maltreated by the Russian state through the use of red notices. Are those concerns conflicted by the measure that the Government are introducing?
Sir John Whittingdale
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I strongly share his view about the need to act against abuse of legal procedures by the Russian state. As he will appreciate, this aspect of the Bill emanated from the Home Office. However, I have no doubt that my colleagues in the Home Office will have heard the perfectly valid point he makes. I hope that they will be able to provide him with further information about it, and I will draw the matter to their attention.
I wish to say just a few more words about the biometric material received from our international partners, as a tool in protecting the public from harm. Sometimes, counter-terrorism police receive biometrics from international partners with identifiable information. Under current laws, they are not allowed to retain these biometrics unless they were taken in the past three years. That can make it harder for our counter-terrorism police to carry out their job effectively. That is why we are making changes to allow the police to take proactive steps to pseudonymise biometric data received from international partners—obviously, that means holding the material without including information that identifies the person—and hold indefinitely under existing provisions in the Counter-Terrorism Act information that identifies the person it relates to. Again, those changes have been requested by counter-terrorism police and will support them to better protect the British public.
The national underground asset register, or NUAR, is a digital map that will improve both the efficiency and safety of underground works, by providing secure access to privately and publicly owned location data about the pipes and cables beneath our feet. This will underpin the Government’s priority to get the economy growing by expediting projects such as new roads, new houses and broadband roll-out—the hon. Gentleman and I also share a considerable interest in that.
The NUAR will bring together valuable data from more than 700 public and private sector organisations about the location of underground utilities assets. This will deliver £490 million per year of economic growth, through increased efficiency, reduced asset strikes and reduced disruptions for citizens and businesses. Once operational, the running of the register will be funded by those who benefit most. The Government’s amendments include powers to, through regulations, levy charges on apparatus owners and request relevant information. The introduction of reasonable charges payable by those who benefit from the service, rather than the taxpayer, will ensure that the NUAR is a sustainable service for the future. Other amendments will ensure that there is the ability to realise the full potential of this data for other high-value uses, while respecting the rights of asset owners.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Is any consideration given to the fact that that information could be used by bad actors? If people are able to find out where particular cables or pipes are, they also have the ability to find weakness in the system, which could have implications for us all.
Sir John Whittingdale
I understand the hon. Lady’s point. There would need to be a legitimate purpose for accessing such information and I am happy to supply her with further detail about precisely how that works.
The hon. Lady intervenes at an appropriate point, because I was about to say that the provision will allow the National Underground Asset Register service to operate in England and Wales. We intend to bring forward equivalent provisions as the Bill progresses in the other House, subject to the usual agreements, to allow the service to operate in Northern Ireland, but the Scottish Road Works Commissioner currently maintains its own register. It has helped us in the development of the NUAR, so the hon. Lady may like to talk to the Scottish Road Works Commissioner on that point.
I turn to the use of data for the purposes of democratic engagement, which is an issue of considerable interest to Members of the House. The Bill includes provisions to facilitate the responsible use of personal data by elected representatives, registered political parties and others for the purposes of “democratic engagement”. We have tabled further related amendments for consideration today, including adding a fuller definition of what constitutes “democratic engagement activities” to help the reader understand that term wherever it appears in the legislation.
The amendments provide for former MPs to continue to process personal data following a successful recall petition, to enable them to complete urgent casework or hand over casework to a successor, as they do following the Dissolution of Parliament. For consistency, related amendments are made to the definitions used in provisions relating to direct marketing for the purposes of democratic engagement.
Finally, hon. Members may be aware that the Data Protection Act 2018 currently permits registered political parties to process sensitive political opinions data without consent for the purposes of their political activities. The exemption does not however currently apply to elected representatives, candidates, recall petitioners and permitted participants in referendums. The amendment addresses that anomaly and allows those individuals to benefit from the same exemption as registered political parties.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Is the Minister prepared to look at how the proposals in the Bill and the amendments align with relevant legislation passed in the Scottish Government? A number of framework Bills to govern the operation of potential future referendums on a variety of subjects have been passed, particularly the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020. It is important that there is alignment with the definitions used in the Bill, such as that for “a permitted participant”. Will he commit to looking at that and, if necessary, make changes to the Bill at a later stage in its progress, in discussion with the Scottish Government?
Sir John Whittingdale
I am happy to look at that, as the hon. Gentleman suggests. I hope the changes we are making to the Bill will provide greater legal certainty for MPs and others who undertake the processing of personal data for the purposes of democratic engagement.
The Bill starts and ends with reducing burdens on businesses and, above all, on small businesses, which account for over 99% of UK firms. In the future, organisations will need to keep records of their processing activities only when those activities are likely to result in a high risk to individuals. Some organisations have queried whether that means they will have to keep records in relation to all their activities if only some of their processing activities are high risk. That is not the Government’s intention. To maximise the benefits to business and other organisations, the amendments make it absolutely clear that organisations have to keep records only in relation to their high-risk processing activities.
The Online Safety Act 2023 took crucial steps to shield our children, and it is also important that we support grieving families who are seeking answers after tragic events where a child has taken their own life, by removing obstacles to accessing social media information that could be relevant to the coroner’s investigations.
Layla Moran
We welcome such measures, but is the Minister aware of the case of Breck Bednar, who was groomed and then murdered? His family is campaigning not just for new clause 35 but for measures that go further. In that case, the coroner would have wanted access to Breck’s online life but, as it currently stands, new clause 35 does not provide what the family needs without a change to widen the scope of the amendment to the Online Safety Act. Will the Minister look at that? I think it will just require a tweak in some of the wording.
Sir John Whittingdale
I understand the concerns of the hon. Lady. We want to do all that we can to support the bereaved parents of children who have lost their lives. As it stands, the amendment will require Ofcom, following notification from a coroner, to issue information notices to specified providers of online services, requiring them to hold data they may have relating to a deceased child’s use of online services, in circumstances where the coroner suspects the child has taken their own life, which could later be required by a coroner as relevant to an inquest.
We will continue to work with bereaved families and Members of the other place who have raised concerns. During the passage of the Online Safety Act, my noble colleague Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay made it clear that we are aware of the importance of data preservation to bereaved parents, coroners and others involved in investigations. It is very important that we get this right. I hear what the hon. Lady says and give her an assurance that we will continue to work across Government, with the Ministry of Justice and others, in ensuring that we do so.
The hon. Member for Rhondda made reference to proposed new schedule 1, relating to improving our ability to identify and tackle fraud in the welfare system. I am grateful for the support of the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove). In 2022-23, the Department for Work and Pensions overpaid £8.3 billion in fraud and error. A major area of loss is the under-declaration of financial assets, which we cannot currently tackle through existing powers. Given the need to address the scale of fraud and error in the welfare system, we need to modernise and strengthen the legal framework, to allow the Department for Work and Pensions to keep pace with change and stand up to future fraud challenges.
As I indicated earlier, the fraud plan, published in 2022, contains a provision outlining the DWP’s intention to bring forward new powers that would boost access to data held by third parties. The amendment will enable the DWP to access data held by third parties at scale where the information signals potential fraud or error. That will allow the DWP to detect fraud and error more proactively and protect taxpayers’ money from falling into the hands of fraudsters.
Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
My reading of the proposed new schedule is that it gives the Department the power to look into the bank accounts of people claiming the state pension. Am I right about that?
Sir John Whittingdale
The purpose of the proposed new schedule is narrowly focused. It will ensure that where benefit claimants may also have considerable financial assets, that is flagged with the DWP for further examination, but it does not allow people to go through the contents of people’s bank accounts. It is an alarm system where financial institutions that hold accounts of benefit claimants can match those against financial assets, so where it appears fraud might be taking place, they can refer that to the Department.
Sir John Whittingdale
I am surprised that the Opposition regard this as something to question. Obviously, they are entitled to seek further information, but I would hope that they share the wish to identify where fraud is taking place and take action against it. This is about claimants of benefits, including universal credit—
Sir John Whittingdale
The state pension will not currently be an area of focus for the use of these powers.
Sir Chris Bryant
The House of Commons Library makes it absolutely clear that the Bill, if taken forward in the way that the Government are proposing at the moment, does allow the Government to look at people in receipt of state pensions. That is the case, is it not?
Sir John Whittingdale
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is not the case that the DWP intends to focus on the state pension—and that is confirmed by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby. This is specifically about ensuring that means-related benefit claimants are eligible for the benefits for which they are currently claiming. In doing that, the identification and the avoidance of fraud will save the taxpayer a considerable amount of money.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I think everybody in the House understands the importance of getting this right. We all want to stop fraud in the state system. That being said, this is the only time that I am aware of where the state seeks the right to put people under surveillance without prior suspicion, and therefore such a power has to be restricted very carefully indeed. As we are not going to have time to debate this properly today, is my right hon. Friend open to having further discussion on this issue when the Bill goes to the Lords, so that we can seek further restrictions? I do not mean to undermine the effectiveness of the action; I just want to make it more targeted.
Sir John Whittingdale
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his contribution, and I share his principled concern that the powers of the state should be limited to those that are absolutely necessary. Those who are in receipt of benefits funded by the taxpayer have an obligation to meet the terms of those benefits, and this provision is one way of ensuring that they do so. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby has already said that he would be very happy to discuss this matter with my right hon. Friend further, and I am happy to do the same if that is helpful to him.
Sir Stephen Timms
Can the Minister give us an example of the circumstances in which the Department would need to look into the bank accounts of people claiming state pensions in order to tackle the fraud problem? Why is the state pension within the scope of this amendment?
Sir John Whittingdale
All I can say to the right hon. Gentleman is that the Government have made it clear that there is no intention to focus on claimants of the state pension. That is an undertaking that has been given. I am sure that Ministers from the DWP would be happy to give further evidence to the right hon. Gentleman, who may well wish to look at this further in his Committee.
Finally, I wish to touch on the framework around smart data, which is contained in part 3 of the Bill. The smart data powers will extend the Government’s ability to introduce smart data schemes, building on the success of open banking, which is the UK’s most developed data sharing scheme, with more than 7 million active users. The amendments will support the Government’s ability to meet their commitment, first, to provide open banking with a long-term regulatory framework, and, secondly, to establish an open data scheme for road fuel prices. It will also more generally strengthen the toolkit available to Government to deliver future smart data schemes.
The amendments ensure that the range of data and activities essential to smart data schemes are better captured and more accurately defined. That includes types of financial data and payment activities that are integral to open banking. The amendments, as I say, are complicated and technical and therefore I will not go into further detail.
Sir John Whittingdale
I will give way to my hon. Friend as I know that he has taken a particular interest, and is very knowledgeable, in this area.
John Penrose
The Minister is very kind. I just wanted to pick up on his last point about smart data. He is right to say that the provisions are incredibly important and potentially extremely valuable to the economy. Can he just clarify a couple of points? I want to be clear on Government new clause 27 about interface bodies. Does that apply to the kinds of new data standards that will be required under smart data? If it does, can he please clarify how he will make sure that we do not end up with multiple different standards for each sector of our economy? It is absolutely in everybody’s interests that the standards are interoperable and, to the greatest possible extent, common between sectors so that they can talk to each other?
Sir John Whittingdale
I do have a note on interface bodies, which I am happy to include for the benefit of my hon. Friend. However, he will be aware that this is a technical and complicated area. If he wants to pursue a further discussion, I would of course be happy to oblige. I can tell him that the amendments will ensure that smart data schemes can replicate and build on the open banking model by allowing the Government to require interface bodies to be set up by members of the scheme. Interface bodies will play a similar role to that of the open banking implementation entity, developing common standards on arrangements for data sharing. Learning from the lessons and successes of the open banking regime, regulations will be able to specify the responsibilities and requirements for interface bodies and ensure appropriate accountability to regulators. I hope that that goes some way to addressing the point that he makes, but I would be happy to discuss it further with him in due course.
I believe these amendments will generally improve the functioning of the Bill and address some specific concerns that I have identified. On that basis, I commend them to the House.
Sir Chris Bryant
As I am feeling generous, I shall start with the nice bits where we agree with the Government. First, we completely agree with the changes to the Information Commissioner’s Office, strengthening the ICO’s enforcement powers, restructuring the ICO and providing a clearer framework of objectives. As the Minister knows, we have always been keen to strengthen the independence of the ICO and we were concerned that the Government were taking new interventionist powers—that is quite a theme in this Bill—in clause 33, so we welcome Government amendment 45, which achieves a much better balance between democratic oversight and ICO independence, so we thank the Minister for that.
Labour also welcomes part 2 of the Bill, as amended in Committee, establishing a digital verification framework. My concern, however, is that the Government have underestimated the sheer technicality of such an endeavour, hence the last-minute requirement for tens of Government amendments to this part of the Bill, which I note the Minister keeps on referring to as being very technical and therefore best to be debated in another place at another time with officials present. Under Government amendment 52, for example, different rules will be established for different digital verification services, and I am not quite sure whether that will stand the test of the House of Lords.
We warmly welcome and support part 3 of the Bill, which has just been referred to by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and the Minister, and its provisions on smart data. Indeed, we and many industry specialists have been urging the Government to go much faster in this particular area. The potential for introducing smart data schemes is vast, empowering consumers to make financial decisions that better suit them, enabling innovation and delivering better products and services. Most notably, that has already happened in relation to financial services. Many people will not know that that is what they are using when they use a software that is accessing several different bank accounts, but that is what they are doing.
In the autumn statement, the Government pledged to kickstart a smart data big bang. One area where smart data has been most effective is in open finance—it is right that we expand these provisions into new areas to have a greater social impact—but, to quote the Financial Conduct Authority, it should be implemented there
“in a proportionate phased manner, ideally driven by consideration of credible consumer propositions and use-cases.”
Furthermore, the FCA does not think that a big bang approach to open finance is feasible or desirable. Nevertheless, many of the Government amendments to the suite of smart data provisions are technical, and indicate a move in the right direction. In particular, we hope that, with smart data enabling greater access by consumers to information about green options and net zero, we will be able to help the whole of the UK to move towards net zero.
I want to say a few words on part 4, on cookies and nuisance calls. We share a lot of the Government’s intentions on tackling those issues and the births and deaths register. As a former registrar, I would like to see tombstoning—the process of fraudulently adopting for oneself the name of a child who has died—brought to an end. That practice is enabled partly because the deaths register does not actually register the death of an individual named on the births register, which I hope will at some point be possible.
Despite the Government’s having sat on the Bill for almost 18 months, with extensive consultations, drafts, amendments and carry-over motions, there are still big practical holes in these measures that need to be addressed. Labour supports the Government’s ambitions to tackle nuisance calls, which are a blight on people’s lives—we all know that. However, I fear that clause 89, which establishes a duty to notify the ICO of unlawful direct marketing, will make little or no difference without the addition of Labour amendments 7 and 8, which would implement those obligations on electronic communications companies when the guidance from the ICO on their practical application has been clearly established. As the Bill stands, that is little more than wishful thinking.
Unfortunately, the story is the same on tackling cookies. We have a bunch of half-baked measures that simply do not deliver as the public will expect them to and the Government would like them to. We all support reducing cookie fatigue; I am sure that every hon. Member happily clicks “Accept all” whenever cookies comes up—[Interruption.] Well, some Members are much more assiduous than I am in that regard. But the wise Members of the House know perfectly well that the problem is that it undermines the whole purpose of cookies. We all support tackling it because clicking a new cookie banner every time we load a web page is a waste of everybody’s time and is deeply annoying.
However, the Government’s proposed regulation 6B gives the Secretary of State a blank cheque to make provisions as they see fit, without proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is why we are unhappy with it and have tabled amendment 6, which would remove those powers from the Bill as they are simply not ready to enter the statute book. Yet again I make the point that the Bill repeatedly and regularly gives new powers to the Secretary of State. Sure, they would be implemented by secondary legislation—but as we all know, secondary legislation is unamendable and therefore subject to much less scrutiny. These are areas in which the state is taking significant powers over the public and private individuals.
Let me deal with some of the Labour party’s amendments. First, I take subject access requests. The Government have repeatedly been in the wrong place on those, I am afraid, ever since the introduction of the first iteration of the DPDI Bill under Nadine Dorries, when they tried to charge people for access to their own data. Fortunately, that has now gone the way of Nadine Dorries. [Interruption.] I note that the Minister smiled at that point. We still have concerns about the Government’s plans to change the thresholds for refusing subject access requests from “manifestly unfounded or excessive” to “vexatious or excessive”. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, Reset, the TUC and Which? have all outlined their opposition to the change, which threatens to hollow out what the Government themselves admit is a “critical transparency mechanism”.
We have tabled two simple amendments. Amendment 2 would establish an obligation on any data controller refusing a subject access request to provide evidence of why a request has been considered vexatious or excessive. Organisations should not be allowed to just declare that a request is vexatious or excessive and so ascribe a motive to the data subject in order to refuse to provide their data, perhaps simply because of the inconvenience to the organisation.
The Government will try to tell me that safeguards are in place and that the data subject can make appropriate complaints to the organisation and the ICO if they believe that their request has been wrongly refused. But if we take the provisions set out in clause 9 to extend the time limits on subject access requests, add the advantage for companies of dither and delay when considering procedural complaints, and then add the additional burden on a data subject of having to seek out the ICO and produce evidence and an explanation of their request as well as the alleged misapplication of the vexatious or excessive standard, we see that people could easily be waiting years and years before having the right to access their own data. I cannot believe that, in the end, that is in the interests of good government or that it is really what the Government want.
Despite public opposition to the measures, the Government are also now going further by introducing at this stage amendments that further water down subject access request protections. Government new clauses 7 and 9, which the Minister did not refer to—in fact, he only mentioned, I think, a bare tenth of the amendments he wants us to agree this afternoon—limit a data subject’s entitlement to their own data to the controller’s ability to conduct a “reasonable and proportionate” search. But what is reasonable and proportionate? Who determines what has been a reasonable and proportionate search? The new clauses drive a coach and horses through the rights of people to access their own data and to know who is doing what with their information. That is why Labour does not support the changes.
I come to one of the most important issues for us: high-risk processing, which, as the term suggests, is of most concern when it comes to the rights of individuals. I was pleased but perplexed to see that the Government tabled amendments to new clause 30 that added further clarity about the changed provisions to record keeping for the purposes of high-risk processing. I was pleased because it is right that safeguards should be in place when data processing is deemed to be of high risk, but I was perplexed because the Government do not define high-risk processing in the Bill—in fact, they have removed the existing standard for high-risk processing from existing GDPR, thereby leaving a legislative lacuna for the ICO to fill in. That should not be up to the ICO. I know that the ICO himself thinks that it should not be up to him, but a matter for primary legislation.
Our amendment 1 retains a statutory definition of high-risk processing as recommended by the ICO in his response to the Bill, published in May. He said:
“the detail in Article 35 (3) was a helpful and clear legislative backstop.”
That is why he supports what we are suggesting. Our amendment 4 would also clarify those individual rights even further, by again providing the necessary definition of what constitutes high risk, within the new provisions concerning the responsibilities of senior responsible individuals for data processing set out in clause 15.
I turn to automated decision making, which has the potential to deliver increasingly personalised and efficient services, to increase productivity, and to reduce administrative hurdles. While most of the world is making it harder to make decisions exclusively using ADM, clause 12 in the Bill extends the potential for automated decision making in the UK. Yet countless research projects have shown that automated decision making and machine decision making are not as impartial or blind as they sound. Algorithms can harbour and enhance inbuilt prejudices and injustices. Of course we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the technology will not be implemented or that we can legislate it out of use; we should be smart about ADM and try to unlock its potential while mitigating its potential dangers. Where people’s livelihoods are at risk or where decisions are going to have a significant impact, it is essential that extra protections are in place allowing individuals to contest decisions and secure human review as a fundamental backstop.
Our amendment 5 strikes a better balance by extending the safeguarding provisions to include significant decisions that are based both partly and solely on automated processing; I am very hopeful that the Government will accept our amendment. That means greater safeguards for anybody subject to an automated decision-making process, however that decision is made. It cannot just be a matter of “the computer says no.”
I think the Minister is slightly surprised that we are concerned about democratic engagement, but I will explain. The Bill introduces several changes to electoral practices under the guise of what the Government call “democratic engagement”, most notably through clauses 86 and 87. The former means that any political party or elected representative could engage in direct marketing relying on a soft opt-in procedure, while clause 87 allows the Secretary of State to make any future exemptions and changes to direct marketing rules for the very unspecified purposes of “democratic engagement”.
The Ada Lovelace Institute and the Internet Advertising Bureau have raised concerns about that, and in Committee Labour asked the Minister what the Government had in mind. He rather gave the game away when he wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), to whom I pay tribute for the way she took the Bill through the Committee:
“A future government may want to encourage democratic engagement in the run up to an election by temporarily ‘switching off’ some of the direct marketing rules.”
Switching off the rules ahead of an election—does anyone else smell a rat?
Sir Chris Bryant
He does not—great.
Finally, new schedule 1 would grant the Secretary of State the power to require banks or other financial institutions to provide the bank account data—unspecified—of any recipient of benefits to identify
“cases which merit further consideration to establish whether relevant benefits are being paid or have been paid in accordance with the enactments and rules of law relating to those benefits.”
It is a very broad and, I would argue, poorly delineated power. My understanding from the Commons Library, although I note that the Minister was unable to answer the question properly, is that it includes the bank accounts of anyone in the UK in receipt, or having been in receipt, of state pension, universal credit, working tax credit, child tax credit, child benefit, pension credit, jobseeker’s allowance or personal independence payment.
The Minister says that the Government do not intend to go down some of those routes at the moment, but why, in that case, are they seeking that power? They could have come to us with a much more tightly written piece of legislation, and we would have been able to help them draft it properly. The proposed new schedule would mean that millions of bank accounts could be trawled without the Department for Work and Pensions, as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) referred to, even suspecting anything untoward before it asked for the information. The 19-page new schedule, which was tabled on the last day for consideration, would grant powers to the Government without our having any opportunity to scrutinise it line by line, assess its implications or hear evidence from expert witnesses.
We should of course be tackling fraud. The Government have completely lost control of fraud in recent years, with benefit fraud and error skyrocketing to £8.3 billion in the last financial year. The Minister seemed to think that it was a good thing that he could cite that figure. The year before, it was even higher—a record £8.7 billion. On the Conservative party’s watch, the percentage of benefit expenditure lost to fraud has more than trebled since Labour was last in power.
Let me be absolutely clear: Labour will pursue the fraudsters, the conmen and the claimants who try to take money from the public purse fraudulently or illegally. That includes those who have defrauded the taxpayer over personal protective equipment contracts, or have not declared their full income to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. My constituents in the Rhondda know that defrauding the taxpayer is one of the worst forms of theft. It is theft from all of us. It undermines confidence in the system that so many rely on. It angers people when they abide by the rules and they see others swinging the lead and getting away with it.
I back 100% any attempt to tackle fraud in the system, and we will work with the Government to get the legislation right, but this is not the way to do it, because it is not proper scrutiny. The Minister with responsibility for this matter, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, who is present in the Chamber, is not even speaking in the debate. The Government are asking us to take a lot on trust, as we saw from the questions put earlier to the Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure, so I have some more questions for him that I hope he will be able to answer.
As I understand it, the Government did a test project on this in 2017—all of six years ago—so what on earth have they been doing all this while? When was the new schedule first drafted, and why did the Minister not mention it in the discussions that he and I had two weeks ago? How many bank accounts does it potentially apply to? The Government already have powers to seek bank details where they suspect fraud, so precisely how will the new power be used? I have been told that the Government will not use the power until 2027. Is that right? If so, how on earth did they come to the figure of a £600 million saving—that was the figure that they gave yesterday, but I note that the Minister said £500 million earlier—in the first five years?
What will the cost be to the banks and financial institutions? What kind of information will the Government seek? Will it include details of where people have shopped, banked or travelled, or what they have spent their money on? The Government say that they will introduce a set of criteria specifying the power. When will that be introduced, how wide in scope will it be, what assessments will accompany it, and will it be subject to parliamentary scrutiny?
There is clearly significant potential to use data to identify fraud and error. That is something that Labour is determined to do, but it is vital that new measures are used fairly and proportionately. The Department for Work and Pensions says that its ability to test for unfair impacts across protected characteristics is limited, and the National Audit Office has also warned that machine learning risks bias towards certain vulnerable people or groups with protected characteristics. Without proper safeguards in place, the changes could have significant adverse effects on the most vulnerable people in society.
On behalf of the whole Labour party, I reiterate the offer that I made to the Government yesterday. We need to get this right. We will work with Ministers to get it right, and I very much hope that we can organise meetings after today, if the Bill passes, to ensure that the debates in the Lords are well informed and that we get to a much better understanding of what the Government intend and how we can get this right. If we get it wrong, we will undermine trust in the whole data system and in Government.
Broadly speaking, Labour supports the changes in the Bill that give greater clarity and flexibility to researchers, tech platforms and public service providers, with common-sense changes to data protection where it is overly rigid, but the Government do not need to water down essential protections for data subjects to do that. Our amendments set out clearly where we diverge from the Government and how Labour would do things differently.
By maintaining subject access request protections, establishing a definition of high-risk processing on the face of the Bill, and defending the public from automated decision making that encroaches too significantly on people’s lives, a Bill with Labour’s amendments would unlock the new potential for data that improves public services, protects workers from data power imbalances and delivers cutting-edge scientific research, while also building trust for consumers and citizens. That is the data protection regime the UK needs and that is the protection a Labour Government would have delivered.
Mr David Davis
Before I speak to my new clause, I want to address one or two of the things that the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), just raised. By not accepting his motion to recommit the Bill to a Committee, we have in effect delegated large parts of the work on this important Bill to the House of Lords. I say directly to the Whip on the Treasury Bench that, when the Bill comes back to the Commons in ping-pong, I recommend that the Whips Office allows considerable time for us to debate the changes that the Lords makes. At the end of the day, this House is responsible to our constituents and these issues will have a direct impact on them, so we ought to have a strong say over what is done with respect to this Bill.
New clause 43 in my name is entitled “Right to use non-digital verification services”. Digitisation has had tremendous benefits for society. Administrative tasks that once took weeks or even years can now be done in seconds, thanks to technology, but that technology has come with considerable risks as well as problems of access. The internet is an equaliser in many ways; I can access websites and services in East Yorkshire in the same way that we do here. I can send and receive money, contact friends and family, organise families, do work, and do all sorts of other things that we could not once do.
However, the reality is more nuanced. Some people lack the technological literacy or simply the hardware to get online and make the most of what is out there—think of elderly people, the homeless and those living on the breadline. As with many things, those groups risk being left behind by the onward march of technology through no fault of their own. Indeed, some people do not want to go fully online. Many people who are perfectly au fait with the latest gadgets are none the less deeply concerned about the security of their data, and who can blame them?
My bank account has been accessed from Israel in the past. My online emails have been broken into during political battles of one sort or another. These things are risky. I hope nobody in the Chamber has forgotten the Edward Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency and GCHQ, which revealed a vast network of covert surveillance and data gathering by Government agencies from ordinary online activity, and the sharing of private information without consent. More recently, we have heard how Government agencies monitored people’s social media posts during the pandemic, and data trading by private companies is an enormous and lucrative industry.
What is more, as time passes and the rise of artificial intelligence takes hold, the ability to make use of central databases is becoming formidable. It is beyond imagination, so people are properly cautious about what data they share and how they share it. For some people—this is where the issue is directly relevant to this Bill—that caution will mean avoiding the use of digital identity verification, and for others that digital verification is simply inaccessible. The Bill therefore creates two serious problems by its underlying assumptions.
Already it is becoming extremely difficult for people to live anything approaching a normal life if they are not fully wired into the online network. If they cannot even verify who they are without that access, what are they supposed to do? That is why I want to create a right to offline verification and, in effect, offline identification. We saw earlier this year what can happen when someone is excluded from basic services, with the planned closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account. That case was not related to identification, but it made clear how much of an impact such exclusion can have on someone’s life. Those who cannot or do not wish to verify their identity digitally could end up in the same position as Farage and many others who have seen their access to banking restricted for unfair reasons.
The rise of online banking, although a great convenience for many, must not mean certain others being left out. We are talking about fairly fundamental rights here. Those people who, by inclination or otherwise, find it preferable or easier to stick to old-fashioned ways must not be excluded from society. My amendment would require that all services requiring identity verification offer a non-digital alternative, ensuring that everyone, regardless of who they are, will have the same access.
Patrick Grady
It is difficult to know where to start. The Minister described this as a Brexit opportunities Bill. Of course, Brexit was supposed to be about this place taking back control. It was to be the triumph of parliamentary sovereignty over faceless Brussels bureaucrats, the end of red tape and regulations, and the beginning of a glorious new era of freedom unencumbered by all those complicated European Union rules and requirements that did silly things like keeping people safe and protecting their human rights.
Yet here we are with 200 pages of new rules and regulations and a further 160 pages of amendments. This time last week, the amendment paper was 10 pages long; today it is 15 times that and there is barely any time for any kind of proper scrutiny. Is this what Brexit was for: to hand the Government yet more sweeping powers to regulate and legislate without any meaningful oversight in this place? To create additional burdens on businesses and public services, just for the sake of being different from the European Union? The answer to those questions is probably yes.
I will speak briefly to the SNP amendments, but I will also consider some of the most concerning Government propositions being shoehorned in at the last minute in the hope that no one will notice. How else are we supposed to treat Government new schedule 1? The Minister is trying to present it as benign, or even helpful, as if it had been the Government’s intention all along to grant the DWP powers to go snooping around in people’s bank accounts, but if it has been so long in coming, as he said, why is it being added to the Bill only now? Why was it not in the original draft, or even brought to Committee, where there could at least have been detailed scrutiny or the opportunity to table further amendments?
Of course there should be action to tackle benefit fraud—we all agree on that—but the DWP already has powers, under section 109B of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, to issue a notice to banks to share bank account information provided that they have reasonable grounds to believe that an identified, particular person has committed, or intends to commit, a benefit offence. In other words, where there is suspicion of fraud, the DWP can undertake checks on a claimant’s account. Incidentally, there should also be action to tackle tax evasion and tax fraud. The Government evidently do not require from the Bill any new powers in that area, so we can only assume that they are satisfied that they have all the powers they need and that everything possible is being done to ensure that everybody pays the tax that they owe.
The powers in new schedule 1 go much further than the powers that the DWP already has. By their own admission, the Government will allow the DWP to carry out—proactively, regularly, at scale and on a speculative basis—checks on the bank accounts and finances of claimants. The new schedule provides little in the way of safeguards or reassurances for people who may be subject to such checks. The Secretary of State said that
“only a minimum amount of data will be accessed and only in instances which show a potential risk of fraud and error”.
In that case, why is the power needed at all, given that the Government already have the power to investigate where there is suspicion of fraud? And how can only “a minimum amount” of data be accessed when the Government say in the same breath that they want to be able to carry out those checks proactively and at scale.
Carol Monaghan
My hon. Friend probably shares my concern that we are moving into a new era in which the bank account details of people claiming with the DWP must be shared as a matter of course. That is the only reason I can see for such sweeping amendments, which will impact on so many people.
Patrick Grady
There is a huge risk. It is clear that the Government’s starting point is very often to avoid giving people the social security and welfare support that they might need to live a dignified life. We know that the approach in Scotland is incredibly different.
That is the thing: as with so much of this Bill, there is a good chance that minority groups or people with protected characteristics will find themselves most at risk of those checks and of coming under the proactive suspicion of the DWP. As we said when moving the committal motion, we have not had time to seek properly to interrogate that point. In his attempts to answer interventions, the Minister kind of demonstrated why scrutiny has been so inadequate. At the same time, the Government’s own Back Benchers, including the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) and others, are tabling quite thoughtful amendments—that is never a great sign for a Government. The Government should not be afraid of the kinds of safeguards and protections that they are proposing.
The SNP amendments look to remove the most dangerous and damaging aspects of the Bill—or, at the very least, to amend them slightly. Our new clause 44 and amendment 229 would have the effect of transferring the powers of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. That should not be all that controversial. Professor William Webster, a director of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy, has warned that the Bill, as it stands, does not provide adequate mechanisms for the governance and oversight of surveillance cameras. The amendment would ensure that oversight is retained, the use of CCTV continues to be regulated, and public confidence in such technologies is strengthened, not eroded. CCTV is becoming more pervasive in the modern world—not least with the rise of video doorbells and similar devices that people can use in their own personal circumstances—so it is concerning that the Government are seeking to weaken rather than strengthen protections in that area.
The SNP’s amendment 222 would leave out clause 8, and our amendment 223 would leave out clause 10, removing the Government’s attempts to crack down on subject access requests. The effect of those clauses might, in the Government’s mind, remove red tape from businesses and other data-controlling organisations, but it would do so at the cost of individuals’ access to their own personal data. That is typified by the creation of a new and worryingly vague criterion of “vexatious or excessive” as grounds to refuse a subject access request. Although that might make life easier for data controllers, it will ultimately place restrictions on data subjects’ ability to access what is, we must remember, their data. There have been attempts—not just throughout Committee stage, but even today from the Opposition—to clarify exactly the thresholds for “vexatious and excessive” requests. The Government have been unable to answer, so those clauses should not be allowed to stand.
Amendment 224 also seeks to leave out clause 12, expressing the concerns of many stakeholders about the expansion in scope of automated decision making, alongside an erosion of existing protections against automated decision making. The Ada Lovelace Institute states that:
“Against an already-poor landscape of redress and accountability in cases of AI harms, the Bill’s changes will further erode the safeguards provided by underlying regulation.”
There is already significant and public concern about AI and its increasingly pervasive impact.
Clause 12 fails to offer adequate protections against automated decision making. An individual may grant consent for the processing of their data—indeed, they might have no choice but to do so—but that does not mean that they will fully understand or appreciates how that data will be processed or, importantly, how decisions will be made. At the very least, the Government should accept our amendment 225, which would require the controller to inform the data subject when an automated decision has been taken in relation to the data subject. I suspect, however, that that is unlikely—just as it is unlikely that the Government will accept Labour amendments 2 and 5, which we are happy to support—so I hope the House will have a chance to express its view on clause 12 as a whole later on.
The SNP’s amendments 226, 227 and 228 would have the effect of removing clauses 26, 27 and 28 respectively. Those clauses give the Home Secretary significant new powers to authorise the police to access personal data, and a power to issue a “national security” certificate telling the police that they do not need to comply with many important data protection laws and rules that they would otherwise have to obey, which would essentially give police immunity should they use personal data in a way that would otherwise be illegal—and they would no longer need to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We have heard no explanation from the Government for why they think that the police should be allowed to break the law and operate under a cover of darkness.
The Bill will also expand what counts as an “intelligence service” for the purposes of data protection law. Again, that would be at the Home Secretary’s discretion, with a power to issue a designation notice allowing law enforcement bodies to take advantage of the more relaxed rules in the Data Protection Act 2018—otherwise designed for the intelligence agencies—whenever they are collaborating with the security services. The Government might argue that that creates a simplified legal framework, but in reality it will hand massive amounts of people’s personal information to the police, including the private communications of people in the UK and information about their health histories, political beliefs, religious beliefs and private lives.
Neither the amended approach to national security certificates nor the new designation notice regime would be reviewable by the courts, and given that there is no duty to report to Parliament, Parliament might never find out how and when the powers have been used. If the Home Secretary said that the police needed to use those increased powers in relation to national security, his word would be final. That includes the power to handle sensitive data in ways that would otherwise, under current legislation, be criminal.
The Home Secretary is responsible for both approving and reviewing designation notices. Only a person who is directly affected by such a notice will be able to challenge it, yet the Home Secretary would have the power to keep the notice secret, meaning that those affected would not even know about it and could not possibly challenge it. Those are expansive broadenings not just of the powers of the secretary of state, but of the police and security services. The Government have not offered any meaningful reassurance about how those powers will be applied or what oversight will exist, which is why our amendments propose scrapping those clauses entirely.
There remain other concerns about many aspects of the Bill. The British Medical Association and the National AIDS Trust have both raised questions about patients’ and workers’ right to privacy. The BMA calls the Bill
“a departure from the existing high standards of data protection for health data”.
We welcome the amendments to that area, particularly amendment 11, tabled by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), which we will be happy to support should it be selected for a vote.
I am afraid that I have to echo the concerns expressed by the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), about new clause 45, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). That clause perhaps has laudable aims, but it is the view of the Scottish National party that it is not for this place to legislate in that way, certainly not without consultation and ideally not without consent from the devolved authorities. We look forward to hearing the hon. Member for Aberconwy make his case, but I do not think we are in a position to support his new clause at this time.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Members who have spoken in this very important debate. I declare an interest: I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on digital identity, so I have a particular interest in the ramifications of data as it relates to identity, but also in wider concepts—some of which we have heard about today—such as artificial intelligence and how our data might be used in the future.
I share quite a lot of the concerns that we have heard from both sides of the House. There is an awful lot more work to be done on the detail of the Bill, thinking about its implications for individuals and businesses; how our systems work and how our public services interact with them; and how our security and police forces interact with our data. I hope that noble Members of the other place will think very hard about those things, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will meet me to discuss some of the detail of the Bill and any useful new clauses or amendments that the Government might introduce in the other place. I completely agree that we do not have much time today to go through all the detail, with a substantial number of new clauses having been added in just the past few days.
I will speak specifically to some of the amendments that stand in my name. Essentially, they are in two groupings: one group deals with the operations of the trust framework for the digital verification service, which I will come back to, and the other general area is the Henry VIII-style powers that the Bill gives to Ministers. Those powers fundamentally alter the balance that has been in place since I was elected as a Member of Parliament in terms of how individuals and their data relate to the state.
On artificial intelligence, we are at a moment in human evolution where the decisions that we make—that scientists, researchers and companies make about how they use data—are absolutely fundamental to the operation of so many areas of our lives. We need to be incredibly careful about what we do to regulate AI and think about how it operates. I am concerned that we have large tech companies whose business model for decades has been nothing other than to use people’s data to create products for their own benefit and that of their shareholders. During the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023, we debated very fully in this House what the implications of the algorithms they develop might be for our children’s health, for example.
I completely agree with the Government that we should be looking for ways to stamp out fraud, and should think about how harms of various kinds are addressed. However, we need to be mindful of the big risk that fears and beliefs that are not necessarily true about different potential harms might lead us to regulate, or to guide the operations of companies and others, in such a way that we create real problems. We are talking about very capable artificial intelligence systems, and also about artificial intelligence systems that claim to be very capable but are inherently flawed. The big tech companies are almost all championing and sponsoring large language models for artificial intelligence systems that are trained on data. Those companies will lobby Ministers all the time, saying, “We want you to enable us to get more and more of people’s data,” because that data is of business value to them.
Given the Henry VIII powers that exist in the Bill, there is a clear and present danger that future Ministers— I would not cast aspersions on the current, eminent occupant of the Front Bench, who is a Wykehamist to boot—may be tempted or persuaded in the wrong direction by the very powerful data-generated interests of those big tech firms. As such, my amendments 278 and 279 are designed to remove from the Bill what the Government are proposing: effectively, that Ministers will have the power to totally recategorise what kinds of data can legitimately be shared with third parties of one kind or another. As I mentioned, that fundamentally changes the balance between individuals and the state.
Through amendment 280 and new schedule 3, I propose that when Ministers implement the trust framework within the digital verification service, that framework should be based on principles that have been accepted for the eight years since I was elected—in particular, those used by the Government in establishing the framework around its Verify online identity service for public services. That framework should be used in the context of the Bill to think about what decision-makers should be taking into account. It is a system of principles that has been through consultation and has been broadly accepted. It is something that the ICO accepts and champions, and it would be entirely right and not at all a divergence from our current system to put those principles in place.
What I would say about the legitimate interest recognition extension—the Henry VIII power—is that there are already indications in the Bill about what will be recategorised. It gives an idea of just how broad the categorisations could be, and therefore how potentially dangerous it will be if that process is not followed or is not correctly framed—for example, in relation to direct marketing. Direct marketing can mean all sorts of things, but it is essentially any type of direct advertising in any mode using personal data to target advertising, and I think it is really dangerous to take such a broad approach to it.
Before companies share data or use data, they should have to think about what the balance is between a legitimate interest and the data rights, privacy rights and all the other rights that people may have in relation to their data. We do not want to give them a loophole or a way out of having to think about that. I am very pro-innovation and pro-efficiency, but I do not believe it is inefficient for companies and users or holders of data to have to make those basic balancing judgments. It is no skin off their nose at all. This should be something we uphold because these interests are vital to our human condition. The last thing we want is an artificial intelligence model—a large language model—making decisions about us, serving us with things based on our personal data and even leaking that personal data.
I highlight that only yesterday or the day before, a new academic report was produced showing that some of the large language models were leaking personal data on which they had been trained, even though the companies say that that is impossible. The researchers had managed to get around the alignment guardrails that these AI companies said they had in place, so we cannot necessarily believe what the big tech companies say the behaviour of these things is going to be. At the end of the day, large language models, which are just about statistics and correlations, cannot tell us why they have done something or anything about the chain of causality behind such a situation, and they inherently get things wrong. Anyone making claims that they are reliable or can be relied on to handle personal data is, I think, completely wrong. I hope that noble Lords and Ladies will think carefully about that matter and re-table amendments similar to mine.
New clause 27 and the following new clauses that the Government have tabled on interface bodies show the extent to which these new systems—and decisions about new systems—and how they interface with different public services and other bodies are totally extensible within the framework of the Bill, without further regard to minorities or to law, except in so far as there may be a case for judicial review by an individual or a company. That really is the only safeguard that there will be under these Henry VIII clauses. The interface body provisions talk about authorised parties being able to share data. We have heard how the cookie system is very bad at the moment at effectively reflecting what individuals’ true preferences might or might not be about their personal data. It is worth highlighting the thoughtful comments we heard earlier about ways in which people can make more of a real-time decision about particular issues that may be relevant to them, but about which they may not have thought at all when they authorised such a decision in a dark or non-thinking moment, often some time before.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I have now to announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the Draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: NHS Ambulance Services and the NHS Patient Transport Service) Regulations 2023. The Ayes were 297 and the Noes were 166, so the Ayes have it.
[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]
Sir Stephen Timms
I rise to speak specifically to Government new clause 34 and connected Government amendments which, as we have been reminded, give Ministers power to inspect the bank accounts of anyone claiming a social security benefit. I think it has been confirmed that that includes child benefit and the state pension, as well as universal credit and all the others. Extremely wide powers are being given to Ministers.
The Minister told us that the measure is expected to save some half a billion pounds over the next five years. I was pleased that the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work was present at the start of the debate, although he is not now in his place and the Department for Work and Pensions is not hearing the concerns expressed about this measure. The Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure told us that the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will not be not speaking in the debate, so we will not hear what the DWP thinks about these concerns.
We have also been told—I had not seen this assurance—that these powers will not be used for a few years. If that is correct, I am completely mystified by why this is being done in such a way. If we had a few years to get these powers in place, why did the Government not wait until there was some appropriate draft legislation that could be properly scrutinised, rather than bringing such measures forward now with zero Commons scrutiny and no opportunity for that to occur? There will no doubt be scrutiny in the other place, but surely a measure of this kind ought to undergo scrutiny in this House.
I chair the Work and Pensions Committee and we have received substantial concerns about this measure, including from Citizens Advice. The Child Poverty Action Group said that
“it shouldn’t be that people have fewer rights, including to privacy, than everyone else in the UK simply because they are on benefits.”
I think that sums up what a lot of people feel, although it appears to be the position that the Government are now taking. It is surprising that the Conservative party is bringing forward such a major expansion of state powers to pry into the affairs of private citizens, and particularly doing so in such a way that we are not able to scrutinise what it is planning. As we have been reminded, the state has long had powers where there were grounds for suspecting that benefit fraud had been committed. The proposal in the Bill is for surveillance where there is absolutely no suspicion at all, which is a substantial expansion of the state’s powers to intrude.
Annabel Denham, deputy comment editor at The Daily Telegraph warned in The Spectator of such a measure handing
“authorities the power to snoop on people’s bank accounts.”
I suspect that the views expressed there are more likely to find support on the Conservative Benches than on the Labour Benches, so I am increasingly puzzled by why the Government think this is an appropriate way to act. I wonder whether the fact that there have been such warnings prompted Ministers into rushing through the measure in this deeply unsatisfactory way, without an opportunity for proper scrutiny, because they thought that if there had been parliamentary scrutiny there would be substantial opposition from the Conservative Benches as well as from the Labour Benches. It is difficult to understand otherwise why it is being done in this way.
As we have been reminded, new clause 34 will give the Government the right to inspect the bank account of anyone who claims a state pension, which is all of us. It will give the Government the right to look into the bank account of every single one of us at some point during our lives, without suspecting that we have ever done anything wrong, and without telling us that they are doing it. The Minister said earlier that the powers of the state should be limited to those absolutely necessary, and I have always understood that to be a principle of the Conservative party. Yet on the power in the new clause to look into the bank account of everybody claiming a state pension, he was unable to give us any reason why the Government should do such a thing, or why they would ever need to look into the bank accounts of people—everybody—claiming a state pension. What on earth would the Government need to do that for? The entitlement to the state pension is not based on income, savings or anything like that, so why would the Government ever wish to do that?
If we cannot think of a reason why the Government would want to do that, why are they now taking the power to enable them to do so? I think that all of us would agree, whatever party we are in, that the powers of the state should be limited to those absolutely necessary. The power in the new clause is definitely not absolutely necessary. Indeed, no one has been able to come up with any reason for why it would ever be used.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
There is something called a production order. If somebody was under investigation for benefit fraud, an application could be made before a court for the production of bank accounts. If it was a matter of suspected fraud, there is already a mechanism available.
Sir Stephen Timms
Yes, there is a clear and long-established right in law for the DWP to look into people’s bank accounts if there is a suspicion of fraud. This power is giving the Department the ability to look into the bank accounts of people where there is no suspicion at all. All of us at some point in our lives claim a social security benefit, and we are giving the Government the power to look into our bank accounts with this measure.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 1 in my name and that of other colleagues. Earlier this year, I met with members of Leicestershire Police Federation, who raised concerns about elements of the Data Protection Act 2018 that were imposing unnecessary and burdensome redaction obligations on police forces. I thank the national Police Federation for its tireless campaigning on this issue, particularly Ben Hudson of Suffolk police, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for all he has done in this area. I thank them for much of the information I will share today.
As I explained in Committee, part 3 of the 2018 Act implemented the law enforcement directive and made provision for data processing by competent authorities, including police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service, for law enforcement purposes. Paragraph (4) of the enforcement directive emphasised that the
“free flow of personal data between competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences…should be facilitated while ensuring a high level of protection of personal data.”
However, part 3 of the 2018 Act contains no provision at all to facilitate the free flow of personal data between the police and the CPS. Instead, it imposes burdensome obligations on the police, requiring them to redact personal data from information transferred to the CPS. Those obligations are only delaying and obstructing the expeditious progress of the criminal justice system and were not even mandated by the law enforcement directive.
The problem has arisen due to chapter 2 of part 3 of the 2018 Act, which sets out six data protection principles that apply to data processing by competent authorities for law enforcement purposes. Section 35(1) states:
“The first data protection principle is that the processing of personal data for any of the law enforcement purposes must be lawful and fair.”
Section 35(2) states:
“The processing of personal data for any of the law enforcement purposes is lawful only if and to the extent that it is based on law and either—
(a) the data subject has given consent to the processing for that purpose, or
(b) the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for that purpose by a competent authority.
The Police Federation has said that it is unlikely that section 35(2)(a) will apply in this context. It has also said that in the case of 35(2)(b), the test of whether the processing is “necessary” is exacting, requiring a competent authority to apply its mind to the proportionality of processing specific items of personal data for the particular law enforcement purpose in question.
Under sections 35(3) to 35(5), where the processing is “sensitive processing”, an even more rigorous test applies, requiring among other things that the processing is
“strictly necessary for the law enforcement purpose”
in question. Section 37 states:
“The third data protection principle is that personal data processed for any of the law enforcement purposes must be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose for which it is processed.”
For the purposes of the 2018 Act, the Crown Prosecution Service and each police force are separate competent authorities and separate data controllers. Therefore, as set out in section 34(3), the CPS and each police force must comply with the data protection principles. A transfer of information by a police force to the CPS amounts to the processing of personal data.
The tests of “necessary” and “strictly necessary” under the first and third data protection principles require a competent authority to identify and consider each and every item of personal data contained within the information that it is intended to process and to consider whether it is necessary for that item of personal data to be processed in the manner intended. The impact of this is that when preparing a case file for a charging decision from the CPS, the police must spend huge amounts of time and resources analysing information that has been gathered by investigating officers in order to identify every item of personal data. They then have to decide whether it is necessary or, in many cases strictly necessary, for the CPS to consider each item of personal data when making its charging decision, and to redact every item of personal data that does not meet that test.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the CPS have produced detailed guidance on this redaction process. It emphasises that the 2018 Act is a legal requirement and that the police and the CPS do not have any special relationship that negates the need to redact and protect personal information. The combination of the requirements of the guidance and of the Act represent a huge amount of administrative work for police officers, resulting in hours of preparing appropriate redactions. Furthermore, such work is inevitably carried out by relatively junior officers who have no particular expertise in data protection, and much of it may never be used by the CPS if the matter is not charged or if the defendant pleads guilty before trial. Nationally, about 25% of cases that are submitted to the CPS are not charged. A significant proportion of that time and money could be saved if the redaction of personal data by the police occurred after, rather than before, a charging decision has been made by the CPS.
The burden that this is placing on police forces was highlighted in the 2022 “Annual Review of Disclosure” by the Attorney General’s Office, which heard evidence from police that
“redaction of material for disclosure is placing a significant pressure on resources”.
It also found that one police force had invested £1 million in a disclosure specialist team solely to deal with redaction. In its report on policing priorities, the Home Affairs Committee stated:
“The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing said this ‘labour-intensive’ process ‘ties up police resources for a protected period of time’, meaning investigations take longer, and possibly adds to the likelihood of victims withdrawing their support for a case. The College noted that the problem has become worse as digital devices such as phones and laptops have developed ever greater storage capacity, meaning there is more data for the police to process and redact. Disparities in digital capabilities across the 43 local forces also exacerbate the problem.”
The report went on to say:
“Lengthy and inefficient redaction processes and protracted investigations are neither effective nor fair on either victims or suspects. The handling of case files needs to comply with data protection laws. However, ensuring that the requirements are proportionate and that forces have the digital capacity to meet such requirements efficiently is an urgent issue that needs addressing. More needs to be done to pilot solutions and get the balance right.”
Furthermore, the Police Federation and the National Police Chiefs’ Council estimate that the cost nationally of the redaction exercise is over £5.6 million per annum. There is no disputing that there is a clear issue here, and I welcome that this has been acknowledged by Ministers I have been engaging with, including the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp); the former Home Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman); and the Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale). Only last week, the latter emphasised to me the Government’s support for reform.
Indeed, the autumn statement last week highlighted the Government’s commitment to boosting public sector productivity by running an ambitious public sector productivity programme with all Departments to reimagine the way public services are delivered. The focus of that will be on
“reducing the amount of time our key frontline workers, including police, doctors, and nurses, spend on administrative tasks”.
That is to ensure that they can spend more time delivering for the public. Arguably, the current process of data redaction is the biggest unnecessary administrative task keeping police officers away from the frontline, so reform needs to be implemented urgently.
My new clause lays out a blueprint for that reform and would insert a proposed new section into the 2018 Act to exempt the police service and the CPS from complying with the first data protection principle—except in so far as that principle requires processing to be fair—or with the third data protection principle when preparing a case file for submission to the CPS for a charging decision, thereby facilitating the free flow of personal data between the police and the CPS. If the CPS decided to charge, the case file would be returned to the police to carry out the redaction exercise before there was any risk of the file being disclosed to any person or body other than the CPS. In the 25% of cases in which the CPS decides not to charge, the unredacted file would simply be deleted by the CPS.
My new clause would have no obvious disadvantages, as the security of the personal data would not be compromised and the necessary redactions would still be undertaken once a charging decision had been made. Furthermore, providing material unredacted to the CPS pre-charge would not impact the timeliness of the process in any way, as the police would still be providing the same material to the CPS as they would have done previously, just unredacted.
I know from my conversations with Ministers that there are a few questions from a number of sources about whether legislative change is the best way to tackle the issues surrounding redaction. To that, the Police Federation has said that
“the hope is that the CPS will set out, within their charging advice, what material they intend to rely upon and, therefore, only the required material will have to be redacted by the police. This would be done in line with the maximum time of service set out within the ‘Better case management handbook Jan 23’, which states that service is required no less than five days before the hearing. So we must accept that there may be a slight delay in the CPS being able to serve their case on the defence at the point of charge. But the time in which it will take police forces to apply for a charging decision to the CPS will be far quicker without the need for redact. Thus, stopping defendants being on bail or under ‘released under investigation’ status for as long as they currently are and victims of crime waiting less time for charging decisions.”
In addition, the Police Federation has highlighted that while auto-redaction software will help to mitigate the current issues, it will not recover all policing capacity in respect of redaction. Officers will still need to review the item to consider what auto-redaction parameters need applying, otherwise police could risk ending up with mass over-redaction, and having to check to ensure nothing has been missed. The real benefit for auto-redaction software will come post-charge, especially if the CPS states exactly what material it intends to use or disclose.
I also appreciate that the Government feel they cannot support my amendment because of three technical legal points, and I would like to summarise the Police Federation’s response to this, based on advice from its leading counsel who are experienced in the field of data protection and privacy.
The Government’s first objection is that there are provisions in the 2018 Act, other than the first and third data protection principles, that
“in effect require the material concerned to be reviewed and redacted”.
The two examples given by the Home Office were the sixth data protection principle and section 44. The sixth data protection principle—data security—does not require case files to be redacted. The same standard of
“appropriate technical or organisational measures”
is required whether case files are redacted before or after the CPS has made a charging decision. The Police Federation’s leading counsel has pointed out that section 44(4) of the Act already contains potentially relevant restrictions on a data subject’s rights. Those restrictions during an investigation would be consistent with an amendment providing for the police to redact any given case file only after the CPS has decided to charge.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
I rise to speak to the six amendments that I have tabled to the Bill. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for selecting amendment 11, which I will press to a vote. It is an extremely important amendment that I hope will unite Members across the House, and I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for confirming his party’s support for it.
Kate Osborne
I thank my hon. Friend for that.
I have been contacted by many people and organisations about issues with the Bill. The British Medical Association and the National AIDS Trust have serious concerns, which I share, about the sharing of healthcare data and the failure to consider the negative impact of losing public trust in how the healthcare system manages data.
The Bill is an opportunity to adapt the UK’s data laws to strengthen accountability and data processing, but it currently fails to do so. It provides multiple Henry VIII powers that will enable future Secretaries of State to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and write their own rules. It undermines the independence of the Information Commissioner’s Office in a way that provides less protection to individuals and gives more power to the Government to restrict and interfere with the role of the commissioner.
The Government’s last-minute amendments to their own Bill, to change the rules on direct marketing in elections and give themselves extensive access to the bank accounts of benefit claimants, risk alienating people even further. I hope the House tells Ministers that it is entirely improper—in fact, it is completely unacceptable—for the Government to make those amendments, which require full parliamentary scrutiny, at this late stage.
We know people already do not trust the Government with NHS health data. The Bill must not erode public trust even more. We have seen concerns about data with GP surgeries and the recent decision to award Palantir the contract for the NHS’s federated data platform. A 2019 YouGov survey showed that only 30% of people trust the Government to use data about them ethically. I imagine that figure is much lower now. How do the Government plan to establish trust with the millions of people on pension credit, state pension, universal credit, child benefit and others whose bank accounts—millions of bank accounts—they will be able to access under the Bill? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) and others have asked, legislative powers already exist where benefit fraud is suspected, so why is the amendment necessary?
My amendment 11 seeks to ensure that special category data, such as that relating to a person’s health, is adequately protected in workplace settings. As the Bill is currently worded, it could allow employers to share an employee’s personal data within their organisation without a justifiable reason. The health data of all workers will be at risk if the amendment falls. We must ensure that employees’ personal data, including health data, is adequately protected in workplace settings and not shared with individuals who do not need to process it.
The National AIDS Trust is concerned that the Bill’s current wording could mean that people’s HIV status can be shared without their consent in the workplace, using the justification that it is “necessary for administrative purposes”. That could put people living with HIV at risk of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. The sharing of individuals’ HIV status can lead to people living with HIV experiencing further discrimination and increase their risk of harassment or even violence.
I am concerned about the removal of checks on the police processing of an individual’s personal data. We must have such checks. The House has heard of previous incidents involving people living with HIV whose HIV status was shared without their consent by police officers, both internally within their police station and in the wider communities they serve. Ensuring that police officers must justify why they have accessed an individual’s personal data is vital for evidence in cases of police misconduct, including where a person’s HIV status is shared inappropriately by the police or when not relevant to an investigation into criminal activity.
The Bill is not robust enough on the transfer of data internationally. We need to ensure that there is a mandated annual review of the data protection test for each country so that the data protection regime is secure, and that people’s personal data, such as their LGBTQ+ identity or HIV status, will not be shared inappropriately. LGBTQ+ identities are criminalised in many countries, and the transfer of personal data to those countries could put an individual, their partner or their family members at real risk of harm.
I have tabled six amendments, which would clarify what an “administrative purpose” is when organisations process employees’ personal data; retain the duty on police forces to justify why they have accessed an individual’s personal data; ensure that third countries’ data protection tests are reviewed annually; and ensure that the Secretary of State seeks the views of the Information Commissioner when assessing other countries’ suitability for the international transfer of data. I urge all Members to vote for amendment 11, and I urge the Government and the other place to take on board all the points raised in today’s debate and in amendments 12 to 16 in my name.
John Penrose
I rise to speak to new clause 2, which, given its low number, everyone will realise I tabled pretty early in the Bill’s passage. It addresses the smart data clauses that sit as a block in the middle of the Bill.
It is wonderful to see the degree of cross-party support for the smart data measures. The shadow Minister’s remarks show that the Labour Front Bench have drunk deeply from the Kool-Aid, in the same way as the rest of us. It is vital that the measures move forward as fast and as safely as possible, because they have huge potential for our economy and our GDP growth. As the Minister rightly said, they seek to build on the undoubted world-leading success of our existing position in open banking.
My new clause is fairly straightforward, and I hope that the Minister will elaborate in his closing remarks on the two further measures that it seeks, which I and a number of other people urged the Secretary of State to take in a letter back in July. To underline the breadth of support for the measures, the letter was signed by the chief data and analytics officer of the NatWest Group, leading figures in the Financial Data and Technology Association, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Ozone API, the director general of the Payments Association, the founder and chief executive of Icebreaker One—who is, incidentally, now also chair of the Smart Data Council—the founder of Open Banking Excellence, and the CEO of the Investing and Saving Alliance. I am making not only a cross-party point, but a point that has widespread support among the very organisations involved in smart data, and particularly the open banking success that we all seek to replicate.
If we are to replicate our success in open banking across other parts of our economy, we need two things to be true. First, we must make sure that all data standards applied in other sectors are interoperable with the data standards that already exist in open banking. The point is that data standards will be different in each sector, because each sector’s data is held in different ways, in different places and by different people, under different foundational legal powers, but they must all converge on a set of standards that means that health data can safely and securely talk to, say, energy data or banking data.
Following on from my earlier intervention, when the Minister was talking about Government new clause 27, if we are to have data standards that allow different bits of data to be exchanged safely and securely, it is essential that we do not end up with siloed standards that do not interoperate and that cannot talk to each other, between the different sectors. Otherwise, we will completely fail to leverage our existing lead in open banking, and we will effectively have to reinvent the wheel from scratch every time we open up a new sector.
I hope that, by the time the Minister responds to the various points raised in this debate, inspiration will have struck and he will be able to confirm that, although we might have different data standards, it is the Government’s intention that those standards will all be interoperable so that we avoid the problem of balkanisation, if I can put it that way. I hope he will be able to provide us with a strong reassurance in that direction.
Sir Chris Bryant
I agree with the hon. Gentleman on this, but quite a lot of steps need to be taken here. For instance, we might need to mandate standards on smart meters in order to be able to take advantage of these measures. We have not been given any kind of plans so far—unless he has seen something.
John Penrose
I wish I had seen something, because then I would be able to pull my amendment or inform the House. I have not seen something, and I think such a plan is essential, not just for Members in the Chamber this afternoon, but for all those investors, business leaders and app developers. That would allow them to work out the critical path, whatever the minimum viable products might be and everything else that is going to be necessary, and by what date, for the sectors they are aiming for. So the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in what he says, and it is vital that if the Minister cannot come up with the timetable this afternoon, he can at least come up with a timetable for the timetable, so that we all know when the thing will be available and the rest of the open banking industry can work out how it is going to become an “open everything” industry and in what order, and by what time.
So this is fairly straightforward. There are promising signs, both in the autumn statement and in the Government’s new clause 27, but further details need to be tied down before they can be genuinely useful. I am assuming, hoping and praying that the Minister will be able to provide some of those reassurances and details when he makes his closing remarks, and I will therefore be able to count this as a probing amendment and push it no further. I am devoutly hoping that he will be able to make that an easier moment for me when he gets to his feet.
Robin Millar
I apologise to right hon. and hon. Members for any confusion that my movements around the Chamber may have created earlier, Mr Deputy Speaker.
New clause 45 is about the comparability and interoperability of health data across the UK. I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), the Opposition spokesman, that I have never been called pregnant before—that is a new description—but I will return to his point shortly in these brief remarks. There are three important reasons worth stating why data comparability is important. The first is that it empowers patients. The publication of standardised outcomes gives patients the ability to make informed choices about their treatment and where they may choose to live. Secondly, it strengthens care through better professional decision making. It allows administrators to manage resources and scientists to make interpretations of the data they receive. Thirdly, comparable data strengthens devolution, administration and policy making in the health sector. Transparent and comparable data is essential for that and ensures that we, as politicians, are accountable to voters for the quality of services in our area.
We could have an academic and philosophical discussion about this, but what brings me to table new clause 45 is the state of healthcare in north Wales. We have a health board that has been in special measures for the best part of eight years, and I have to wonder if that would be the case if the scrutiny of it were greater. One of the intentions of devolution was to foster best practice, but in order for that to happen we need comparability, which has not proved to be the case in the health sector.
For example, NHS Scotland does not publish standard referral to treatment times. Where it does, it does not provide averages and percentiles, but rather the proportion of cases meeting Scotland-only targets. In Wales, RTTs are broadly defined as the time spent waiting between a referral for a procedure and getting that procedure. In England, only consultant-led pathways are reported, but in Wales some non-consultant-led pathways are included, such as direct access diagnostics and allied health professional therapies, such as physiotherapy and osteopathy, which inevitably impact waiting times.
On cancer waiting times, England and Scotland have a target of a test within six weeks. However, there are different numbers of tests—eight north and 15 south of the border—and different measures for when the period ends—until the last test is completed in England or until the report is written up in Scotland. Those who understand health matters will make better sense of what those differences mean, but I simply make the observation that there are differences.
In Wales, the way we deal with cancer waiting times is different. Wales starts its 62-day treatment target from the date the first suspicion is raised by any health provider, whereas in England the 62-day target is from the date a specialist receives an urgent GP referral. Furthermore, in Wales routine referrals reprioritised as “urgent, with suspicion of cancer” are considered to be starting a new clock.
What can be done about this and why does it require legislation? New clause 45 may seem familiar to hon. Members because it was first brought forward as an amendment to the Health and Care Bill in 2022. It was withdrawn with the specific intention of giving the Government the time to develop a collaborative framework for sharing data with the devolved Administrations. I pay tribute to all four Governments, the Office for National Statistics and officials for their work since then.
Notwithstanding that work, on 5 September 2023 Professor Ian Diamond, the UK national statistician, made the following remarks to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee about gathering comparative health data across the devolved Administrations:
“You are entirely right that statistics is a devolved responsibility and therefore the data that are collected for administrative purposes in different parts of the United Kingdom differ. We have found it very difficult recently to collect comparable data for different administrations across the UK on the health service, for example.”
On working more closely with the devolved Administrations’ own statistical authorities, he said:
“We have been working very hard to try to get comparable data. Comparable data are possible in some areas but not in others. Trying to get cancer outcomes—”
as I have just referred to—
“is very difficult because they are collected in different ways… While statistics is devolved, I do not have the ability to ensure that all data are collected in a way that is comparable. We work really hard to make comparable data as best as possible, but at the moment I have to be honest that not all data can be compared.”
Mr Deputy Speaker, new clause 45 was brought forward as a constructive proposal. I believe that it is good for the patients, good for the professionals who work on their healthcare, and good for our own accountability. I do not think that this House would be divided on grounds of compassion or common sense. I thank all those Members who have supported my new clause and urge the Government to legislate on this matter. Today was an opportunity for me to discuss the issues involved, but I shall not be moving my new clause.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
With the leave of the House, I call the Minister to wind up the debate.
Sir John Whittingdale
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I believe that these matters are important, if sometimes very complicated and technical. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) was absolutely right to stress how fundamentally important they are, and they will become more so.
I also thank the shadow Minister for identifying the areas where we are in agreement. We had a good Committee stage with his colleague, the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), where we agreed on the overall objectives of the Bill. It is welcome that the shadow Minister has supported us, particularly on the amendment that we moved this afternoon on the powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office, the provisions relating to digital verification services, and smart data. There were, however, some areas on which we will not agree.
Let me begin by addressing the main amendments that the hon. Gentleman has moved. Amendment 1 relates to high-risk processing. It is the case that one of the main aims of the Bill is to remove some of the UK GDPR’s unnecessary compliance burdens. That is why organisations will be required to designate only senior responsible individuals to carry out risk assessments and keep records of processing when their activities pose high risks to individuals. The amendments that the hon. Gentleman is proposing would reintroduce a prescriptive list of high-risk processing activities drawn from article 35 of the UK GDPR. We find that some of the language in article 35 is unclear and confusing, which is partly why we removed it in the first place. We think organisations should have the ability to make a judgment of risk based on the specific nature, scale and context of their own processing activities. We do not need to provide prescriptive examples of high-risk processing in the legislation, because any list could quickly become out of date. Instead, to help data controllers, clause 18 of the Bill requires the ICO to produce a document with examples of what the commissioner considers to be high-risk processing.
Sir Chris Bryant
But the Minister has already indicated that, basically, he will come forward with exactly the same list as is in the legislation that the Government are amending. All that is happening is that, in the Bill, the Information Commissioner will be doing what the Government or the House could be doing, and this is the one area where the Government disagree with the Information Commissioner.
Sir John Whittingdale
As I say, the Government do not believe that it is necessary to have a prescriptive list in the Bill. We feel that it is better that individuals make a judgment based on their assessment of the risk, with the guidance of the Information Commissioner.
Moving to the shadow Minister’s second amendment, the Government agree that controllers should not be able to refuse a request without proper thought or consideration. That is why the existing responsibilities of controllers to facilitate requests from data subjects as the default has not changed and why the new article 12A also ensures that the burden of proof for a request meeting the vexatious or excessive threshold remains with the controller. The Government believe that is sufficient, and stipulating that evidence must be provided each time a request is refused may not be appropriate in all circumstances and would likely bring further burdens for controllers. On that basis, we oppose that amendment.
On amendment 5, the safeguards set out in reformed article 22 of the UK GDPR ensure that individuals are able to seek human intervention when significant decisions about them are taken solely through automated means with no meaningful human involvement.
Partly automated decisions already involve meaningful human involvement, so there is no need to extend the safeguards in article 22 to all forms of automated decision making. In such instances, other data protection requirements continue to apply and offer relevant protections to data subjects, as set out in the broader UK data protection regime. Those protections include lawfulness, fairness, transparency and accountability.
Sir Stephen Timms
My understanding was that the level of fraud among state pension claims was indeed extremely small. The Minister said earlier that the Government should take powers only where they are absolutely necessary; I think he is now saying that they are not necessary in the case of people claiming a state pension. Is he confident that that bit of this power—to look into the bank account of anybody claiming a state pension—is absolutely necessary?
Sir John Whittingdale
What I am saying is that the Government’s intention is to use the power only when there is clear evidence or suggestion that fraud is taking place on a significant scale. The Government simply want to retain the option to amend that should future evidence emerge; that is why the issue has been left open.
Sir Chris Bryant
The trouble is that this is not about amending. The Government describe the relevant benefits in part 5 of proposed new schedule 3B, within new schedule 1, which is clear that pensions are included. The Minister has effectively said at the Dispatch Box that the Government do not need to tackle fraud in relation to pensions; perhaps it would be a good idea for us to all sit down and have a meeting to work out a more sensible set of measures to tackle fraud where it is necessary, rather than giving unending powers to the Government.
Sir John Whittingdale
I agree, to the extent that levels of fraud in state pensions being currently nearly zero, the power is not needed in that case. However, the Government wish to retain an option should the position change in the future. But I am happy to take the hon. Gentleman up on his request on behalf of my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, with whom he has already engaged. I am sure that the right hon. Member for East Ham will want to examine the issue further in the Work and Pensions Committee, which he chairs. It will undoubtedly also be subject to further discussions in the other place. We are certainly open to further discussion.
The right hon. Member for East Ham also raised the question of commencement. I can tell him that the test and learn phase will begin in 2025, with a steady roll-out to full-scale delivery by 2030. I am sure that he will want to examine these matters further.
The amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) focuses on digital exclusion. The Bill provides for the use of secure and inclusive digital identities across the economy. It does not force businesses or individuals to use them. Individual choice is integral to our approach. As the Bill makes clear, digital verification services can be provided only at the request of the individual. Where people want to use a digital verification service, the Government are committed to ensuring that available products and services are secure and privacy-focused. That is to be achieved through the high standards set out in the trust framework.
The trust framework also outlines how services can improve inclusion, and requires services to publish an annual inclusion monitoring report. There are businesses that operate only in the digital sphere, such as some online banks and energy companies, as I think has been acknowledged. We feel that to oblige them to offer manual document checking would place obligations on businesses that go beyond the Government’s commitment to do only what is necessary to enable the digital market to grow.
On amendment 224 from the Scottish National party, solely automated decision making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on individuals was not entirely prohibited previously under the UK’s data protection legal framework. The rules governing article 22 are confusing and complex, so clause 12 clarifies and simplifies the rules related to solely automated decision making, and will reduce barriers to responsible data use, help to drive innovation, and maintain high standards of data protection. The reforms do not water down any of the protections to data subjects offered under the broader UK data protection regime—that is, UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
On the other amendment tabled by the SNP, amendment 229, effective independent oversight of surveillance camera systems is crucial to public trust. The oversight framework is complex and confusing for the police and public because of substantial duplication between the surveillance camera commissioner functions and the code, which covers police and local authorities in England and Wales only, and the ICO and data protection legislation. The Bill addresses that, following public consultation, through abolishing the surveillance camera commissioner and code.
The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow North would negate that by retaining the code and transferring the surveillance camera commissioner functions to the investigatory powers commissioner. It would also blur the lines between overt and covert surveillance, which the investigatory powers commissioner oversees. Those two types of surveillance have distinct legislation and oversight, mainly because covert surveillance is generally considered to be significantly more intrusive.
On amendment 222, it is important to be clear that the ability to refuse or charge a reasonable fee for a request already exists, and clause 8 does not place new restrictions on reasonable requests from data subjects. The Government believe that it is proportionate to allow controllers to refuse or charge a reasonable fee for vexatious or excessive requests, and a clearer provision enables controllers to focus time and resources on responding to reasonable requests instead.
Amendments 278 and 279, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil, would remove the new lawful ground of recognised legitimate interests, which the Bill will add to article 6 of UK GDPR. Amendment 230 accepts that there is merit in retaining the recognised legitimate interests list, but would make any additions to it subject to a super-affirmative parliamentary procedure. It is true that the Bill removes the need for non-public-sector organisations to do a detailed legitimate interests assessment in relation to a small number of processing activities. Those include activities relating for example to the safeguarding of children, crime prevention and responding to emergencies. We heard from stakeholders that the need to do an assessment and the fear of getting it wrong could sometimes delay or deter those important processing activities from taking place. Future Governments would not be able to add new activities to the list lightly; clause 5 of the Bill already makes it clear that the Secretary of State must carefully consider the rights and interests of people, and in particular the special protection needed for children, before adding anything new to the list. Any new regulations would also need to be approved via the affirmative resolution procedure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil has tabled a large number of other amendments, which are complicated in nature. I have written to him in some detail setting out the Government’s response to each of those, but if he wishes to pursue further any of the points contained therein I would be very happy to have further discussions with him.
I would like to comment on the amendments by several of my colleagues that I wish I was in a position to be able to support. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) has been assiduous in pursuing her point both in the Bill Committee and in this debate. The problem she identifies is without question a very real one, and she set out in some detail how it is massively increasing the burden on the police, which clearly we would wish to reduce wherever possible.
I have had meetings with Home Office Ministers, as my hon. Friend has, and they absolutely identify that problem and share her wish. While we welcome her intent, the problem is that we do not think that her amendment as drafted would achieve her aims of removing the burden of redaction. To do so would require the amendment and exception of more principles than those identified in the amendment. Indeed, it would require the amendment of more laws than just the Data Protection Act 2018.
The Government are absolutely committed to reducing the burden on the police, but it is obviously important that, if we do so, we do it right, and that the solution works comprehensively. We are therefore actively working on ways to better address the issue, including through improved process, new technology, guidance and legislation. I am very happy to continue to work with her on achieving the aim that we all share and so too, I know, are colleagues in the Home Office.
With respect to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), as I indicated, we absolutely share his enthusiasm for smart data and ensuring that the powers within the Bill are implemented in a timely manner, with interoperability at their core. While I agree that we can only fully realise the benefits of smart data schemes if they enable interoperability, different sectors will have different levels of existing digital infrastructure and capability. Thus, we could inadvertently hinder the success of future schemes if we mandated the use of one universal set of standards based, for instance, on those used in open banking.
The Government will ensure that interoperability is central to the development of smart data schemes. To support our thinking, we are working with industry and regulators in the Smart Data Council to identify the technical infrastructure that needs to be replicated. With regard to the timeline—or even the timeline for a timeline—that my hon. Friend asked for, I recognise that it is important to build investor, industry and consumer confidence by outlining the Government’s planned timeline.
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the Chancellor’s comments in the autumn statement, where we set out plans to kick-start the smart data big bang, and our ambition for using those powers across seven sectors. At this stage I am afraid I am not able to accept his amendment, but it is our intention to set out those plans in more detail in the coming months. I know the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and I will be happy to work with him to do so.
The aim of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) was to clarify that, when special category data of employees such as health data is transferred between members of a group of undertakings for internal administrative purposes on grounds of legitimate interests, the conditions and safeguards outlined in schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act should apply to that processing. The Government agree with the sentiment of her amendment, but consider that it is unnecessary. The current legal framework already requires controllers to identify an exemption under article 9 of the UK GDPR if they are processing special category data. Those exemptions are supplemented by the conditions and safeguards outlined in schedule 1. Under those provisions, employers can process special category data where processing is necessary to comply with obligations under employment law. We do not therefore consider the amendment necessary.
Finally, I turn to new clause 45, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). The Government are absolutely committed to improving the availability of comparable UK-wide data. He, too, has been assiduous in promoting that cause, and we are very happy to work with him. We are extremely supportive of the principle underlying his amendment. He is right to point out that people have the right to know the extent of Labour’s failings with the NHS in Wales, as he pointed out, and his new clause sends an important message on our commitment to better data. I can commit to working at pace with him and the UK Statistics Authority to look at ways in which we may be able to implement the intentions of his amendment and bring forward legislative changes following those discussions.
On that basis, I commend the Government amendments to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 6 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
For the benefit of all Members, we are before the knife, so we will have to go through a sequence of procedures. It would help me, the Clerk and the Minister if we had a degree of silence. This will take a little time, and we need to be able to concentrate. Elected representative Candidate for election as an elected representative member of the House of Commons section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 a member of the Senedd article 84(2) of the National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) Order 2007 (S.I. 2007/236) a member of the Scottish Parliament article 80(1) of the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc) Order 2015 (S.S.I. 2015/425) a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied by the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001 (S.I. 2001/2599) an elected member of a local authority within the meaning of section 270(1) of the Local Government Act 1972, namely— (i) in England, a county council, a district council, a London borough council or a parish council; (ii) in Wales, a county council, a county borough council or a community council; section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 an elected mayor of a local authority within the meaning of Part 1A or 2 of the Local Government Act 2000 section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied by the Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/1024) a mayor for the area of a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied by the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 (S.I. 2017/67) a mayor for the area of a combined county authority established under section 9 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied by the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 (S.I. 2017/67) the Mayor of London or an elected member of the London Assembly section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 an elected member of the Common Council of the City of London section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 an elected member of the Council of the Isles of Scilly section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 an elected member of a council constituted under section 2 of the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 an elected member of a district council within the meaning of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 (c. 9 (N.I.)) section 130(3A) of the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962 (c. 14 (N.I.)) (n)a police and crime commissioner article 3 of the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012 (S.I. 2012/1917) Term Provision accredited conformity assessment body section 50(7) approved supplementary code section (Approval of a supplementary code)(6) designated supplementary code section (Designation of a supplementary code)(3) digital verification services section 48(2) the DVS register section 50(2) the DVS trust framework section 49(2)(a) the main code section 49(2)(b) recognised supplementary code section (List of recognised supplementary codes)(2) supplementary code section 49(2)(c) supplementary note section (Supplementary notes)(6)” “the data protection legislation section 236”.”
New Clause 48
Processing of personal data revealing political opinions
“(1) Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018 (special categories of personal data) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (5).
(2) After paragraph 21 insert—
‘Democratic engagement
21A (1) This condition is met where—
(a) the personal data processed is personal data revealing political opinions,
(b) the data subject is aged 14 or over, and
(c) the processing falls within sub-paragraph (2),
subject to the exceptions in sub-paragraphs (3) and (4).
(2) Processing falls within this sub-paragraph if—
(a) the processing—
(i) is carried out by an elected representative or a person acting with the authority of such a representative, and
(ii) is necessary for the purposes of discharging the elected representative’s functions or for the purposes of the elected representative’s democratic engagement activities,
(b) the processing—
(i) is carried out by a registered political party, and
(ii) is necessary for the purposes of the party’s election activities or democratic engagement activities,
(c) the processing—
(i) is carried out by a candidate for election as an elected representative or a person acting with the authority of such a candidate, and
(ii) is necessary for the purposes of the candidate’s campaign for election,
(d) the processing—
(i) is carried out by a permitted participant in relation to a referendum or a person acting with the authority of such a person, and
(ii) is necessary for the purposes of the permitted participant’s campaigning in connection with the referendum, or
(e) the processing—
(i) is carried out by an accredited campaigner in relation to a recall petition or a person acting with the authority of such a person, and
(ii) is necessary for the purposes of the accredited campaigner’s campaigning in connection with the recall petition.
(3) Processing does not meet the condition in sub-paragraph (1) if it is likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress to an individual.
(4) Processing does not meet the condition in sub-paragraph (1) if—
(a) an individual who is the data subject (or one of the data subjects) has given notice in writing to the controller requiring the controller not to process personal data in respect of which the individual is the data subject (and has not given notice in writing withdrawing that requirement),
(b) the notice gave the controller a reasonable period in which to stop processing such data, and
(c) that period has ended.
(5) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)(a) and (b)—
(a) “democratic engagement activities” means activities whose purpose is to support or promote democratic engagement;
(b) “democratic engagement” means engagement by the public, a section of the public or a particular person with, or with an aspect of, an electoral system or other democratic process in the United Kingdom, either generally or in connection with a particular matter, whether by participating in the system or process or engaging with it in another way;
(c) examples of democratic engagement activities include activities whose purpose is—
(i) to promote the registration of individuals as electors;
(ii) to increase the number of electors participating in elections for elected representatives, referendums or processes for recall petitions in which they are entitled to participate;
(iii) to support an elected representative or registered political party in discharging functions, or carrying on other activities, described in sub-paragraph (2)(a) or (b);
(iv) to support a person to become a candidate for election as an elected representative;
(v) to support a campaign or campaigning referred to in sub-paragraph (2)(c), (d) or (e);
(vi) to raise funds to support activities whose purpose is described in sub-paragraphs (i) to (v);
(d) examples of activities that may be democratic engagement activities include—
(i) gathering opinions, whether by carrying out a survey or by other means;
(ii) communicating with electors.
(6) In this paragraph—
“accredited campaigner” has the meaning given in Part 5 of Schedule 3 to the Recall of MPs Act 2015;
“candidate” , in relation to election as an elected representative, has the meaning given by the provision listed in the relevant entry in the second column of the table in sub-paragraph (7);
“elected representative” means a person listed in the first column of the table in sub-paragraph (7) and see also sub-paragraphs (8) to (10);
“election activities” , in relation to a registered political party, means—
(a) campaigning in connection with an election for an elected representative, and
(b) activities whose purpose is to enhance the standing of the party, or of a candidate standing for election in its name, with electors;
“elector” means a person who is entitled to vote in an election for an elected representative or in a referendum;
“permitted participant” has the same meaning as in Part 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (referendums) (see section 105 of that Act);
“recall petition” has the same meaning as in the Recall of MPs Act 2015 (see section 1(2) of that Act);
“referendum” means a referendum or other poll held on one or more questions specified in, or in accordance with, an enactment;
“registered political party” means a person or organisation included in a register maintained under section 23 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000;
“successful” , in relation to a recall petition, has the same meaning as in the Recall of MPs Act 2015 (see section 14 of that Act).
(7) This is the table referred to in the definitions of “candidate” and “elected representative” in sub-paragraph (6)—
(8) For the purposes of the definition of “elected representative” in sub-paragraph (6), a person who is—
(a) a member of the House of Commons immediately before Parliament is dissolved,
(b) a member of the Senedd immediately before Senedd Cymru is dissolved,
(c) a member of the Scottish Parliament immediately before that Parliament is dissolved, or
(d) a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly immediately before that Assembly is dissolved,
is to be treated as if the person were such a member until the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day after the day on which the subsequent general election in relation to that Parliament or Assembly is held.
(9) For the purposes of the definition of “elected representative” in sub-paragraph (6), where a member of the House of Commons’s seat becomes vacant as a result of a successful recall petition, that person is to be treated as if they were a member of the House of Commons until the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day after—
(a) the day on which the resulting by-election is held, or
(b) if earlier, the day on which the next general election in relation to Parliament is held.
(10) For the purposes of the definition of “elected representative” in sub-paragraph (6), a person who is an elected member of the Common Council of the City of London and whose term of office comes to an end at the end of the day preceding the annual Wardmotes is to be treated as if the person were such a member until the end of the fourth day after the day on which those Wardmotes are held.’
(3) Omit paragraph 22 and the italic heading before it.
(4) In paragraph 23 (elected representatives responding to requests)—
(a) leave out sub-paragraphs (3) to (5), and
(b) at the end insert—
‘(6) In this paragraph, “elected representative” has the same meaning as in paragraph 21A.’
(5) In paragraph 24(3) (definition of ‘elected representative’), for ‘23’ substitute ‘21A’.
(6) In section 205(2) of the 2018 Act (general interpretation: periods of time), in paragraph (i), for ‘paragraph 23(4) and (5)’ substitute ‘paragraph 21A(8) to (10)’.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new Clause inserts into Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018 (conditions for processing of special categories of personal data) a condition relating to processing by elected representatives, registered political parties and others of information about an individual’s political opinions for the purposes of democratic engagement activities and campaigning.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 7
Searches in response to data subjects’ requests
“(1) In Article 15 of the UK GDPR (right of access by the data subject)—
(a) after paragraph 1 insert—
‘1A. Under paragraph 1, the data subject is only entitled to such confirmation, personal data and other information as the controller is able to provide based on a reasonable and proportionate search for the personal data and other information described in that paragraph.’, and
(b) in paragraph 3, after ‘processing’ insert ‘to which the data subject is entitled under paragraph 1’.
(2) The 2018 Act is amended in accordance with subsections (3) and (4).
(3) In section 45 (law enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject), after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) Under subsection (1), the data subject is only entitled to such confirmation, personal data and other information as the controller is able to provide based on a reasonable and proportionate search for the personal data and other information described in that subsection.’
(4) In section 94 (intelligence services processing: right of access by the data subject), after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2ZA) Under subsection (1), the data subject is only entitled to such confirmation, personal data and other information as the controller is able to provide based on a reasonable and proportionate search for the personal data and other information described in that subsection.’
(5) The amendments made by this section are to be treated as having come into force on 1 January 2024.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause confirms that, in responding to subject access requests, controllers are only required to undertake reasonable and proportionate searches for personal data and other information.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 8
Notices from the Information Commissioner
“(1) The 2018 Act is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).
(2) Omit section 141 (notices from the Commissioner).
(3) After that section insert—
‘141A Notices from the Commissioner
(1) This section applies in relation to a notice authorised or required by this Act to be given to a person by the Commissioner.
(2) The notice may be given to the person by—
(a) delivering it by hand to a relevant individual,
(b) leaving it at the person’s proper address,
(c) sending it by post to the person at that address, or
(d) sending it by email to the person’s email address.
(3) A “relevant individual” means—
(a) in the case of a notice to an individual, that individual;
(b) in the case of a notice to a body corporate (other than a partnership), an officer of that body;
(c) in the case of a notice to a partnership, a partner in the partnership or a person who has the control or management of the partnership business;
(d) in the case of a notice to an unincorporated body (other than a partnership), a member of its governing body.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (2)(b) and (c), and section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978 (services of documents by post) in its application to those provisions, a person’s proper address is—
(a) in a case where the person has specified an address as one at which the person, or someone acting on the person’s behalf, will accept service of notices or other documents, that address;
(b) in any other case, the address determined in accordance with subsection (5).
(5) The address is—
(a) in a case where the person is a body corporate with a registered office in the United Kingdom, that office;
(b) in a case where paragraph (a) does not apply and the person is a body corporate, partnership or unincorporated body with a principal office in the United Kingdom, that office;
(c) in any other case, an address in the United Kingdom at which the Commissioner believes, on reasonable grounds, that the notice will come to the attention of the person.
(6) A person’s email address is—
(a) an email address published for the time being by that person as an address for contacting that person, or
(b) if there is no such published address, an email address by means of which the Commissioner believes, on reasonable grounds, that the notice will come to the attention of that person.
(7) A notice sent by email is treated as given 48 hours after it was sent, unless the contrary is proved.
(8) In this section “officer”, in relation to a body corporate, means a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body.
(9) This section does not limit other lawful means of giving a notice.’
(4) In Schedule 2 to the Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions Regulations 2016 (S.I. 2016/696) (Commissioner’s enforcement powers), in paragraph 1(b), for ‘141’ substitute ‘141A’.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment adjusts the procedure by which notices can be given by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 2018. In particular, it enables the Information Commissioner to give notices by email without obtaining the consent of the recipient to use that mode of delivery.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 9
Court procedure in connection with subject access requests
“(1) The Data Protection Act 2018 is amended as follows.
(2) For the italic heading before section 180 substitute—
‘Jurisdiction and court procedure’.
(3) After section 180 insert—
‘180A Procedure in connection with subject access requests
(1) This section applies where a court is required to determine whether a data subject is entitled to information by virtue of a right under—
(a) Article 15 of the UK GDPR (right of access by the data subject);
(b) Article 20 of the UK GDPR (right to data portability);
(c) section 45 of this Act (law enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject);
(d) section 94 of this Act (intelligence services processing: right of access by the data subject).
(2) The court may require the controller to make available for inspection by the court so much of the information as is available to the controller.
(3) But, unless and until the question in subsection (1) has been determined in the data subject’s favour, the court may not require the information to be disclosed to the data subject or the data subject’s representatives, whether by discovery (or, in Scotland, recovery) or otherwise.
(4) Where the question in subsection (1) relates to a right under a provision listed in subsection (1)(a), (c) or (d), this section does not confer power on the court to require the controller to carry out a search for information that is more extensive than the reasonable and proportionate search required by that provision.’”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause makes provision about courts’ powers to require information to be provided to them, and to a data subject, when determining whether a data subject is entitled to information under certain provisions of the data protection legislation.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 10
Approval of a supplementary code
“(1) This section applies to a supplementary code whose content is for the time being determined by a person other than the Secretary of State.
(2) The Secretary of State must approve the supplementary code if—
(a) the code meets the conditions set out in the DVS trust framework (so far as relevant),
(b) an application for approval of the code is made which complies with any requirements imposed by a determination under section (Applications for approval and re-approval), and
(c) the applicant pays any fee required to be paid by a determination under section (Fees for approval, re-approval and continued approval)(1).
(3) The Secretary of State must notify an applicant in writing of the outcome of an application for approval.
(4) The Secretary of State may not otherwise approve a supplementary code.
(5) In this Part, an “approved supplementary code” means a supplementary code for the time being approved under this section.
(6) For when a code ceases (or may cease) to be approved under this section, see sections (Change to conditions for approval or designation), (Revision of a recognised supplementary code) and (Request for withdrawal of approval).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment sets out when a supplementary code of someone other than the Secretary of State must be approved by the Secretary of State.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 11
Designation of a supplementary code
“(1) This section applies to a supplementary code whose content is for the time being determined by the Secretary of State.
(2) If the Secretary of State determines that the supplementary code meets the conditions set out in the DVS trust framework (so far as relevant), the Secretary of State may designate the code as one which complies with the conditions.
(3) In this Part, a ‘designated supplementary code’ means a supplementary code for the time being designated under this section.
(4) For when a code ceases (or may cease) to be designated under this section, see sections (Change to conditions for approval or designation), (Revision of a recognised supplementary code) and (Removal of designation).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This enables the Secretary of State to designate a supplementary code of the Secretary of State as one which complies with the conditions set out in the DVS trust framework.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 12
List of recognised supplementary codes
“(1) The Secretary of State must—
(a) maintain a list of recognised supplementary codes, and
(b) make the list publicly available.
(2) For the purposes of this Part, each of the following is a ‘recognised supplementary code’—
(a) an approved supplementary code, and
(b) a designated supplementary code.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment places the Secretary of State under a duty to publish, and keep up to date, a list of supplementary codes that are designated or approved.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 13
Change to conditions for approval or designation
“(1) This section applies if the Secretary of State revises the DVS trust framework so as to change the conditions which must be met for the approval or designation of a supplementary code.
(2) An approved supplementary code which is affected by the change ceases to be an approved supplementary code at the end of the relevant period unless an application for re-approval of the code is made within that period.
(3) Pending determination of an application for re-approval the supplementary code remains an approved supplementary code.
(4) Before the end of the relevant period the Secretary of State must—
(a) review each designated supplementary code which is affected by the change (if any), and
(b) determine whether it meets the conditions as changed.
(5) If, on a review under subsection (4), the Secretary of State determines that a designated supplementary code does not meet the conditions as changed, the code ceases to be a designated supplementary code at the end of the relevant period.
(6) A supplementary code is affected by a change if the change alters, or adds, a condition which is or would be relevant to the supplementary code when deciding whether to approve it under section (Approval of a supplementary code) or designate it under section (Designation of a supplementary code).
(7) In this section “the relevant period” means the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the DVS trust framework containing the change referred to in subsection (1) comes into force.
(8) Section (Approval of a supplementary code) applies to re-approval of a supplementary code as it applies to approval of such a code.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides that when conditions for approval or designation are changed this requires re-approval of an approved supplementary code and, in the case of a designated supplementary code, a re-assessment of whether the code meets the revised conditions.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 14
Revision of a recognised supplementary code
“(1) If an approved supplementary code is revised—
(a) the code before and after the revision are treated as the same code for the purposes of this Part, and
(b) the code ceases to be an approved supplementary code unless subsection (2) or (4) applies.
(2) This subsection applies if the supplementary code, in its revised form, has been approved under section (Approval of a supplementary code).
(3) If subsection (2) applies the approved supplementary code, in its revised form, remains an approved supplementary code.
(4) This subsection applies for so long as—
(a) a decision is pending under section (Approval of a supplementary code) on an application for approval of the supplementary code in its revised form, and
(b) the revisions to the code have not taken effect.
(5) If subsection (4) applies the supplementary code, in its unrevised form, remains an approved supplementary code.
(6) The Secretary of State may revise a designated supplementary code only if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the code, in its revised form, meets the conditions set out in the DVS trust framework (so far as relevant).
(7) If a designated supplementary code is revised, the code before and after the revision are treated as the same code for the purposes of this Part.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment sets out the consequences where there are changes to a recognised supplementary code and, in particular, what needs to be done for the code to remain a recognised supplementary code.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 15
Applications for approval and re-approval
“(1) The Secretary of State may determine—
(a) the form of an application for approval or re-approval under section (Approval of a supplementary code),
(b) the information to be contained in or provided with the application,
(c) the documents to be provided with the application,
(d) the manner in which the application is to be submitted, and
(e) who may make the application.
(2) A determination may make different provision for different purposes.
(3) The Secretary of State must publish a determination.
(4) The Secretary of State may revise a determination.
(5) If the Secretary of State revises a determination the Secretary of State must publish the determination as revised.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment enables the Secretary of State to determine the process for making a valid application for approval of a supplementary code.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 16
Fees for approval, re-approval and continued approval
“(1) The Secretary of State may determine that a person who applies for approval or re-approval of a supplementary code under section (Approval of a supplementary code) must pay a fee to the Secretary of State of an amount specified in the determination.
(2) A determination under subsection (1) may specify an amount which exceeds the administrative costs of determining the application for approval or re-approval.
(3) The Secretary of State may determine that a fee is payable to the Secretary of State, of an amount and at times specified in the determination, in connection with the continued approval of a supplementary code.
(4) A determination under subsection (3)—
(a) may specify an amount which exceeds the administrative costs associated with the continued approval of a supplementary code, and
(b) must specify, or describe, who must pay the fee.
(5) A fee payable under subsection (3) is recoverable summarily (or, in Scotland, recoverable) as a civil debt.
(6) A determination may make different provision for different purposes.
(7) The Secretary of State must publish a determination.
(8) The Secretary of State may revise a determination.
(9) If the Secretary of State revises a determination the Secretary of State must publish the determination as revised.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment enables the Secretary of State to determine that a fee is payable for approval/re-approval/continued approval of a supplementary code and the amount of such a fee.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 17
Request for withdrawal of approval
“(1) The Secretary of State must withdraw approval of a supplementary code if—
(a) the Secretary of State receives a notice requesting the withdrawal of approval of the supplementary code, and
(b) the notice complies with any requirements imposed by a determination under subsection (3).
(2) Before the day on which the approval is withdrawn, the Secretary of State must inform the person who gave the notice of when it will be withdrawn.
(3) The Secretary of State may determine—
(a) the form of a notice,
(b) the information to be contained in or provided with the notice,
(c) the documents to be provided with the notice,
(d) the manner in which the notice is to be submitted,
(e) who may give the notice.
(4) A determination may make different provision for different purposes.
(5) The Secretary of State must publish a determination.
(6) The Secretary of State may revise a determination.
(7) If the Secretary of State revises a determination the Secretary of State must publish the determination as revised.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment enables a supplementary code to be “de-approved”, on request.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 18
Removal of designation
“(1) The Secretary of State may determine to remove the designation of a supplementary code.
(2) A determination must—
(a) be published, and
(b) specify when the designation is to be removed, which must be a time after the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the determination is published.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment enables the Secretary of State to determine that a designated supplementary code should cease to be designated.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 19
Registration of additional services
“(1) Subsection (2) applies if—
(a) a person is registered in the DVS register,
(b) the person applies for their entry in the register to be amended to record additional digital verification services that the person provides in accordance with the main code,
(c) the person holds a certificate from an accredited conformity assessment body certifying that the person provides the additional services in accordance with the main code,
(d) the application complies with any requirements imposed by a determination under section 51, and
(e) the person pays any fee required to be paid by a determination under section 52(1).
(2) The Secretary of State must amend the DVS register to record that the person is also registered in respect of the additional services referred to in subsection (1).
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(c), a certificate is to be ignored if—
(a) it has expired in accordance with its terms,
(b) it has been withdrawn by the body that issued it, or
(c) it is required to be ignored by reason of provision included in the DVS trust framework under 49(10).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides for a person to apply to add services to their entry in the DVS register and requires the Secretary of State to amend the register to record that a person is registered in respect of the additional services.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 20
Supplementary notes
“(1) Subsection (2) applies if—
(a) a person holds a certificate from an accredited conformity assessment body certifying that digital verification services provided by the person are provided in accordance with a recognised supplementary code,
(b) the person applies for a note about one or more of the services to which the certificate relates to be included in the entry relating to that person in the DVS register,
(c) the application complies with any requirements imposed by a determination under section 51, and
(d) the person pays any fee required to be paid by a determination under section 52(1).
(2) The Secretary of State must include a note in the entry relating to the person in the DVS register recording that the person provides, in accordance with the recognised supplementary code referred to in subsection (1), the services in respect of which the person made the application referred to in that subsection.
(3) The Secretary of State may not otherwise include a note described in subsection (2) in the DVS register.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), a certificate is to be ignored if—
(a) it has expired in accordance with its terms,
(b) it has been withdrawn by the body that issued it, or
(c) subsection (5) applies.
(5) This subsection applies if—
(a) the recognised supplementary code to which the certificate relates has been revised since the certificate was issued,
(b) the certificate was issued before the revision to the supplementary code took effect, and
(c) the supplementary code (as revised) provides—
(i) that certificates issued before the time the revision takes effect are required to be ignored, or
(ii) that such certificates are to be ignored from a date, or from the end of a period, specified in the code and that date has passed or that period has elapsed.
(6) In this Part, a note included in the DVS register in accordance with subsection (2) is referred to as a supplementary note.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides for a person to apply for a note to be included in the DVS register that they provide digital verification services in accordance with a recognised supplementary code.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 21
Addition of services to supplementary notes
“(1) Subsection (2) applies if—
(a) a person has a supplementary note included in the DVS register,
(b) the person applies for the note to be amended to record additional digital verification services that the person provides in accordance with a recognised supplementary code,
(c) the person holds a certificate from an accredited conformity assessment body certifying that the person provides the additional services in accordance with the recognised supplementary code referred to in paragraph (b),
(d) the application complies with any requirements imposed by a determination under section 51, and
(e) the person pays any fee required to be paid by a determination under section 52(1).
(2) The Secretary of State must amend the note to record that the person also provides the additional services referred to in subsection (1) in accordance with the recognised supplementary code referred to in that subsection.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(c), a certificate is to be ignored if—
(a) it has expired in accordance with its terms,
(b) it has been withdrawn by the body that issued it, or
(c) subsection (4) applies.
(4) This subsection applies if—
(a) the recognised supplementary code to which the certificate relates has been revised since the certificate was issued,
(b) the certificate was issued before the revision to the supplementary code took effect, and
(c) the supplementary code (as revised) provides—
(i) that certificates issued before the time the revision takes effect are required to be ignored, or
(ii) that such certificates are to be ignored from a date, or from the end of a period, specified in the code and that date has passed or that period has elapsed.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides for a person to add services to their supplementary note in the DVS register and requires the Secretary of State to amend the note to record that a person is registered in respect of the additional services.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 22
Duty to remove services from the DVS register
“(1) Where a person is registered in the DVS register in respect of digital verification services, subsection (2) applies if the person—
(a) asks for the register to be amended so that the person is no longer registered in respect of one or more of those services,
(b) ceases to provide one or more of those services, or
(c) no longer holds a certificate from an accredited conformity assessment body certifying that all of those services are provided in accordance with the main code.
(2) The Secretary of State must amend the register to record that the person is no longer registered in respect of (as the case may be)—
(a) the service or services mentioned in a request described in subsection (1)(a),
(b) the service or services which the person has ceased to provide, or
(c) the service or services for which there is no longer a certificate as described in subsection (1)(c).
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(c), a certificate is to be ignored if—
(a) it has expired in accordance with its terms,
(b) it has been withdrawn by the body that issued it, or
(c) it is required to be ignored by reason of provision included in the DVS trust framework under section 49(10).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment places the Secretary of State under a duty to amend the DVS register, in certain circumstances, to record that a person is no longer registered in respect of certain services.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 23
Duty to remove supplementary notes from the DVS register
“(1) The Secretary of State must remove a supplementary note included in the entry in the DVS register relating to a person if—
(a) the person asks for the note to be removed,
(b) the person ceases to provide all of the digital verification services to which the note relates,
(c) the person no longer holds a certificate from an accredited conformity assessment body certifying that at least one of those digital verification services is provided in accordance with the supplementary code, or
(d) the person continues to hold a certificate described in paragraph (c) but the supplementary code is not a recognised supplementary code.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(c) and (d), a certificate is to be ignored if—
(a) it has expired in accordance with its terms,
(b) it has been withdrawn by the body that issued it, or
(c) subsection (3) applies.
(3) This subsection applies if—
(a) the supplementary code to which the certificate relates has been revised since the certificate was issued,
(b) the certificate was issued before the revision to the supplementary code took effect, and
(c) the supplementary code (as revised) provides—
(i) that certificates issued before the time the revision takes effect are required to be ignored, or
(ii) that such certificates are to be ignored from a date, or from the end of a period, specified in the code and that date has passed or that period has elapsed.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment sets out the circumstances in which the Secretary of State must remove a supplementary note from the DVS register.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 24
Duty to remove services from supplementary notes
“(1) Where a person has a supplementary note included in their entry in the DVS register in respect of digital verification services, subsection (2) applies if the person—
(a) asks for the register to be amended so that the note no longer records one or more of those services,
(b) ceases to provide one or more of the services recorded in the note, or
(c) no longer holds a certificate from an accredited conformity assessment body certifying that all of the services included in the note are provided in accordance with a supplementary code.
(2) The Secretary of State must amend the supplementary note so it no longer records (as the case maA24y be)—
(a) the service or services mentioned in a request described in subsection (1)(a),
(b) the service or services which the person has ceased to provide, or
(c) the service or services for which there is no longer a certificate as described in subsection (1)(c).
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(c), a certificate is to be ignored if—
(a) it has expired in accordance with its terms,
(b) it has been withdrawn by the body that issued it, or
(c) subsection (4) applies.
(4) This subsection applies if—
(a) the supplementary code to which the certificate relates has been revised since the certificate was issued,
(b) the certificate was issued before the revision to the supplementary code took effect, and
(c) the supplementary code (as revised) provides—
(i) that certificates issued before the time the revision takes effect are required to be ignored, or
(ii) that such certificates are to be ignored from a date, or from the end of a period, specified in the code and that date has passed or that period has elapsed.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment places the Secretary of State under a duty to amend a supplementary note on the DVS register relating to a person, in certain circumstances, to remove reference to certain services from the note.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 25
Index of defined terms for Part 2
“The Table below lists provisions that define or otherwise explain terms defined for the purposes of this Part of this Act.
—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides an index of terms which are defined in Part 2.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 26
Powers relating to verification of identity or status
“(1) In section 15 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 (penalty for employing a person subject to immigration control), after subsection (7) insert—
“(8) An order under subsection (3) containing provision described in subsection (7)(a), (b) or (c) may, in particular—
(a) specify a document generated by a DVS-registered person or a DVS-registered person of a specified description;
(b) specify a document which was provided to such a person in order to generate such a document;
(c) specify steps involving the use of services provided by such a person.
(9) In subsection (8), “DVS-registered person” means a person who is registered in the DVS register maintained under Part 2 of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024 (“the DVS register”).
(10) An order under subsection (3) which specifies a description of DVS-registered person may do so by, for example, describing a DVS-registered person whose entry in the DVS register includes a note relating to specified services (see section (Supplementary notes) of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024).”
(2) In section 34 of the Immigration Act 2014 (requirements which may be prescribed for the purposes of provisions about occupying premises under a residential tenancy agreement)—
(a) in subsection (1)—
(i) in paragraph (a), after “occupiers” insert “, a DVS-registered person or a DVS-registered person of a prescribed description”,
(ii) in paragraph (b), after “occupiers” insert “, a DVS-registered person or a DVS-registered person of a prescribed description”, and
(iii) in paragraph (c), at the end insert “, including steps involving the use of services provided by a DVS-registered person or a DVS-registered person of a prescribed description”, and
(b) after that subsection insert—
“(1A) An order prescribing requirements for the purposes of this Chapter which contains provision described in subsection (1)(a) or (b) may, in particular—
(a) prescribe a document generated by a DVS-registered person or a DVS-registered person of a prescribed description;
(b) prescribe a document which was provided to such a person in order to generate such a document.
(1B) In subsections (1) and (1A), “DVS-registered person” means a person who is registered in the DVS register maintained under Part 2 of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024 (“the DVS register”).
(1C) An order prescribing requirements for the purposes of this Chapter which prescribes a description of DVS-registered person may do so by, for example, describing a DVS-registered person whose entry in the DVS register includes a note relating to prescribed services (see section (Supplementary notes) of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024).”
(3) In Schedule 6 to the Immigration Act 2016 (illegal working compliance orders etc), after paragraph 5 insert—
“Prescribed checks and documents
5A (1) Regulations under paragraph 5(6)(b) or (c) may, in particular—
(a) prescribe checks carried out using services provided by a DVS-registered person or a DVS-registered person of a prescribed description;
(b) prescribe documents generated by such a person;
(c) prescribe documents which were provided to such a person in order to generate such documents.
(2) In sub-paragraph (1), “DVS-registered person” means a person who is registered in the DVS register maintained under Part 2 of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024 (“the DVS register”).
(3) Regulations under paragraph 5(6)(b) or (c) which prescribe a description of DVS-registered person may do so by, for example, describing a DVS-registered person whose entry in the DVS register includes a note relating to prescribed services (see section (Supplementary notes) of the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024).””—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment contains amendments of powers to make subordinate legislation so they can be exercised so as to make provision by reference to persons registered in the DVS register established under Part 2 of the Bill.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 27
Interface bodies
“(1) This section is about the provision that regulations under section 66 or 68 may (among other things) contain about bodies with one or more of the following tasks—
(a) establishing a facility or service used, or capable of being used, for providing, publishing or otherwise processing customer data or business data or for taking action described in section 66(3) (an “interface”);
(b) setting standards (“interface standards”), or making other arrangements (“interface arrangements”), for use by other persons when establishing, maintaining or managing an interface;
(c) maintaining or managing an interface, interface standards or interface arrangements.
(2) Such bodies are referred to in this Part as “interface bodies”.
(3) The regulations may—
(a) require a data holder, an authorised person or a third party recipient to set up an interface body;
(b) make provision about the type of body to be set up.
(4) In relation to an interface body (whether or not it is required to be set up by regulations under section 66 or 68), the regulations may—
(a) make provision about the body’s composition and governance;
(b) make provision requiring a data holder, an authorised person or a third party recipient to provide, or arrange for, assistance for the body;
(c) impose other requirements relating to the body on a person required to set it up or to provide, or arrange for, assistance for the body;
(d) make provision requiring the body to carry on all or part of a task described in subsection (1);
(e) make provision requiring the body to do other things in connection with its interface, interface standards or interface arrangements;
(f) make provision about how the body carries out its functions (such as, for example, provision about the body’s objectives or matters to be taken into account by the body);
(g) confer powers on the body for the purpose of monitoring use of its interface, interface standards or interface arrangements (“monitoring powers”) (and see section 71 for provision about enforcement of requirements imposed in exercise of those powers);
(h) make provision for the body to arrange for its monitoring powers to be exercised by another person;
(i) make provision about the rights of persons affected by the exercise of the body’s functions under the regulations, including (among other things)—
(i) provision about the review of decisions made in exercise of those functions;
(ii) provision about appeals to a court or tribunal;
(j) make provision about complaints, including provision requiring the body to implement procedures for the handling of complaints;
(k) make provision enabling or requiring the body to publish, or provide to a specified person, specified documents or information relating to its interface, interface standards or interface arrangements;
(l) make provision enabling or requiring the body to produce guidance about how it proposes to exercise its functions under the regulations, to publish the guidance and to provide copies to specified persons.
(5) The monitoring powers that may be conferred on an interface body include power to require the provision of documents or information (but such powers are subject to the restrictions in section 72 as well as any restrictions included in the regulations).
(6) Examples of facilities or services referred to in subsection (1) include dashboard services, other electronic communications services and application programming interfaces.
(7) In subsection (4)(b) and (c), the references to assistance include actual or contingent financial assistance (such as, for example, a grant, loan, guarantee or indemnity or buying a company’s share capital).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables regulations under Part 3 to make provision about bodies providing facilities or services used for providing, publishing or processing customer data or business data, or setting standards or making other arrangements in connection with such facilities or services.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 28
The FCA and financial services interfaces
“(1) The Treasury may by regulations make provision enabling or requiring the Financial Conduct Authority (“the FCA”) to make rules—
(a) requiring financial services providers described in the regulations to use a prescribed interface, or prescribed interface standards or interface arrangements, when providing or receiving customer data or business data which is required to be provided by or to the financial services provider by data regulations;
(b) requiring persons described in the regulations to use a prescribed interface, or prescribed interface standards or interface arrangements, when the person, in the course of a business, receives, from a financial services provider, customer data or business data which is required to be provided to the person by data regulations;
(c) imposing interface-related requirements on a description of person falling within subsection (2),
and such rules are referred to in this Part as “FCA interface rules”.
(2) The following persons fall within this subsection—
(a) an interface body linked to the financial services sector on which requirements are imposed by regulations made in reliance on section (Interface bodies);
(b) a person required by regulations made in reliance on section (Interface bodies) to set up an interface body linked to the financial services sector;
(c) a person who uses an interface, interface standards or interface arrangements linked to the financial services sector or who is required to do so by data regulations or rules made by virtue of regulations under subsection (1)(a) or (b).
(3) For the purposes of this section, requirements are interface-related if they relate to—
(a) the composition, governance or activities of an interface body linked to the financial services sector,
(b) an interface, interface standards or interface arrangements linked to the financial services sector, or
(c) the use of such an interface, such interface standards or such interface arrangements.
(4) For the purposes of this section—
(a) an interface body is linked to the financial services sector to the extent that its interface, interface standards or interface arrangements are linked to the financial service sector;
(b) interfaces, interface standards and interface arrangements are linked to the financial services sector to the extent that they are used, or intended to be used, by financial services providers (whether or not they are used, or intended to be used, by other persons).
(5) The Treasury may by regulations make provision enabling or requiring the FCA to impose requirements on a person to whom FCA interface rules apply (referred to in this Part as “FCA additional requirements”) where the FCA considers it appropriate to impose the requirement—
(a) in response to a failure, or likely failure, by the person to comply with an FCA interface rule or FCA additional requirement, or
(b) in order to advance a purpose which the FCA is required to advance when exercising functions conferred by regulations under this section (see section (The FCA and financial services interfaces: supplementary)(3)(a)).
(6) Regulations under subsection (5) may, for example, provide for the FCA to impose requirements by giving a notice or direction.
(7) The restrictions in section 72 apply in connection with FCA interface rules and FCA additional requirements as they apply in connection with regulations under this Part.
(8) In section 72 as so applied—
(a) the references in subsections (1)(b) and (8) to an enforcer include the FCA, and
(b) the references in subsections (3) and (4) to data regulations include FCA interface rules and FCA additional requirements.
(9) In this section—
“financial services provider” means a person providing financial services;
“prescribed” means prescribed in FCA interface rules.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause and new clause NC29 enable the Treasury, by regulations, to confer powers on the Financial Conduct Authority to impose requirements (by means of rules or otherwise) on interface bodies used by the financial services sector and on persons participating in, or using facilities and services provided by, such bodies.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 29
The FCA and financial services interfaces: supplementary
“(1) This section is about provision that regulations under section (The FCA and financial services interfaces) may or must (among other things) contain.
(2) The regulations—
(a) may enable or require the FCA to impose interface-related requirements that could be imposed by regulations made in reliance on section (Interface bodies)(4) or (5), but
(b) may not enable or require the FCA to require a person to set up an interface body.
(3) The regulations must—
(a) require the FCA, so far as is reasonably possible, to exercise functions conferred by the regulations in a manner which is compatible with, or which advances, one or more specified purposes;
(b) specify one or more matters to which the FCA must have regard when exercising functions conferred by the regulations;
(c) if they enable or require the FCA to make rules, make provision about the procedure for making rules, including provision requiring such consultation with persons likely to be affected by the rules or representatives of such persons as the FCA considers appropriate.
(4) The regulations may—
(a) require the FCA to carry out an analysis of the costs and benefits that will arise if proposed rules are made or proposed changes are made to rules and make provision about what the analysis must include;
(b) require the FCA to publish rules or changes to rules and to provide copies to specified persons;
(c) make provision about the effect of rules, including provision about circumstances in which rules are void and circumstances in which a person is not to be taken to have contravened a rule;
(d) make provision enabling or requiring the FCA to modify or waive rules as they apply to a particular case;
(e) make provision about the procedure for imposing FCA additional requirements;
(f) make provision enabling or requiring the FCA to produce guidance about how it proposes to exercise its functions under the regulations, to publish the guidance and to provide copies to specified persons.
(5) The regulations may enable or require the FCA to impose the following types of requirement on a person as FCA additional requirements—
(a) a requirement to review the person’s conduct;
(b) a requirement to take remedial action;
(c) a requirement to make redress for loss or damage suffered by others as a result of the person’s conduct.
(6) The regulations may enable or require the FCA to make rules requiring a person falling within section (The FCA and financial services interfaces)(2)(b) or (c) to pay fees to an interface body for the purpose of meeting expenses incurred, or to be incurred, by such a body in performing duties, or exercising powers, imposed or conferred by regulations under this Part or by rules made by virtue of regulations under section (The FCA and financial services interfaces).
(7) Regulations made in reliance on subsection (6)—
(a) may enable rules to provide for the amount of a fee to be an amount which is intended to exceed the cost of the things in respect of which the fee is charged;
(b) must require rules to provide for the amount of a fee to be—
(i) a prescribed amount or an amount determined in accordance with the rules, or
(ii) an amount not exceeding such an amount;
(c) may enable or require rules to provide for the amount, or maximum amount, of a fee to increase at specified times and by—
(i) a prescribed amount or an amount determined in accordance with the rules, or
(ii) an amount not exceeding such an amount;
(d) if they enable rules to enable a person to determine an amount, must require rules to require the person to publish information about the amount and how it is determined;
(e) may enable or require rules to make provision about—
(i) interest on any unpaid amounts;
(ii) the recovery of unpaid amounts.
(8) In this section—
“interface-related” has the meaning given in section (The FCA and financial services interfaces);
“prescribed” means prescribed in FCA interface rules.
(9) The reference in subsection (5)(c) to making redress includes—
(a) paying interest, and
(b) providing redress in the form of a remedy or relief which could not be awarded in legal proceedings.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
See the explanatory statement for new clause NC28.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 30
The FCA and financial services interfaces: penalties and levies
“(1) Subsections (2) and (3) are about the provision that regulations made by the Treasury under this Part providing for the FCA to enforce requirements under FCA interface rules may (among other things) contain in relation to financial penalties.
(2) The regulations may require or enable the FCA—
(a) to set the amount or maximum amount of, or of an increase in, a penalty imposed in respect of failure to comply with a requirement imposed by the FCA in exercise of a power conferred by regulations under section (The FCA and financial services interfaces) (whether imposed by means of FCA interface rules or an FCA additional requirement), or
(b) to set the method for determining such an amount.
(3) Regulations made in reliance on subsection (2)—
(a) must require the FCA to produce and publish a statement of its policy with respect to the amount of the penalties;
(b) may require the policy to include specified matters;
(c) may make provision about the procedure for producing the statement;
(d) may require copies of the statement to be provided to specified persons;
(e) may require the FCA to have regard to a statement published in accordance with the regulations.
(4) The Treasury may by regulations—
(a) impose, or provide for the FCA to impose, a levy on data holders, authorised persons or third party recipients for the purpose of meeting all or part of the expenses incurred, or to be incurred, during a period by the FCA, or by a person acting on the FCA’s behalf, in performing duties, or exercising powers, imposed or conferred on the FCA by regulations under section (The FCA and financial services interfaces), and
(b) make provision about how funds raised by means of the levy must or may be used.
(5) Regulations under subsection (4) may only provide for a levy in respect of expenses of the FCA to be imposed on persons that appear to the Treasury to be capable of being directly affected by the exercise of some or all of the functions conferred on the FCA by regulations under section (The FCA and financial services interfaces).
(6) Section 75(3) and (4) apply in relation to regulations under subsection (4) of this section as they apply in relation to regulations under section 75(1).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables the Treasury, by regulations, to confer power on the Financial Conduct Authority to set the amount of certain penalties. It also enables the Treasury to impose a levy in respect of expenses incurred by that Authority.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 31
Liability in damages
“(1) The Secretary of State or the Treasury may by regulations provide that a person listed in subsection (2) is not liable in damages for anything done or omitted to be done in the exercise of functions conferred by regulations under this Part.
(2) Those persons are—
(a) a public authority;
(b) a member, officer or member of staff of a public authority;
(c) a person who could be held vicariously liable for things done or omitted by a public authority.
(3) Regulations under this section may not—
(a) make provision removing liability for an act or omission which is shown to have been in bad faith, or
(b) make provision so as to prevent an award of damages made in respect of an act or omission on the ground that the act or omission was unlawful as a result of section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998.”— (Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables regulations under Part 3 to provide that certain persons are not liable in damages when exercising functions under such regulations.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 32
Other data provision
“(1) This section is about cases in which subordinate legislation other than regulations under this Part contains provision described in section 66(1) to (3) or 68(1) to (2A) (“other data provision”).
(2) The regulation-making powers under this Part may be exercised so as to make, in connection with the other data provision, any provision that they could be exercised to make as part of, or in connection with, provision made under section 66(1) to (3) or 68(1) to (2A) that is equivalent to the other data provision.
(3) In this Part, references to “data regulations” include regulations made in reliance on subsection (2) to the extent that they make provision described in sections 66 to 70 or (Interface bodies).
(4) In this section, “subordinate legislation” has the same meaning as in the Interpretation Act 1978 (see section 21 of that Act).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables the regulation-making powers under Part 3 to be used to supplement existing subordinate legislation which requires customer data or business data to be provided to customers and others.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 33
Duty to notify the Commissioner of personal data breach: time periods
“(1) In regulation 5A of the PEC Regulations (personal data breach)—
(a) in paragraph (2), after “delay” insert “and, where feasible, not later than 72 hours after having become aware of it”, and
(b) after paragraph (3) insert—
“(3A) Where notification under paragraph (2) is not made within 72 hours, it must be accompanied by reasons for the delay.”
(2) In Article 2 of Commission Regulation (EU) No 611/2013 of 24 June 2013 on the measures applicable to the notification of personal data breaches under Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on privacy and electronic communications (notification to the Information Commissioner)—
(a) in paragraph 2—
(i) in the first subparagraph, for the words from “no” to “feasible” substitute “without undue delay and, where feasible, not later than 72 hours after having becoming aware of it”, and
(ii) in the second subparagraph, after “shall” insert “, subject to paragraph 3,”, and
(b) for paragraph 3 substitute—
“3. To the extent that the information set out in Annex 1 is not available to be included in the notification, it may be provided in phases without undue further delay.””—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This adjusts the period within which the Information Commissioner must be notified of a personal data breach. It also inserts a duty (into the PEC Regulations) to give reasons for not notifying within 72 hours and adjusts the duty (in Commission Regulation (EU) No 611/2013) to provide accompanying information.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 34
Power to require information for social security purposes
“In Schedule (Power to require information for social security purposes)—
(a) Part 1 amends the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to make provision about a power for the Secretary of State to obtain information for social security purposes;
(b) Part 2 amends the Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 to make provision about a power for the Department for Communities to obtain information for such purposes;
(c) Part 3 makes related amendments of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause introduces a new Schedule NS1 which amends social security legislation to make provision about a new power for the Secretary of State or, in Northern Ireland, the Department for Communities, to obtain information for social security purposes.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 35
Retention of information by providers of internet services in connection with death of child
“(1) The Online Safety Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 100 (power to require information)—
(a) omit subsection (7);
(b) after subsection (8) insert—
“(8A) The power to give a notice conferred by subsection (1) does not include power to require processing of personal data that would contravene the data protection legislation (but in determining whether processing of personal data would do so, the duty imposed by the notice is to be taken into account).”
(3) In section 101 (information in connection with investigation into death of child)—
(a) before subsection (1) insert—
“(A1) Subsection (D1) applies if a senior coroner (in England and Wales), a procurator fiscal (in Scotland) or a coroner (in Northern Ireland) (“the investigating authority”)—
(a) notifies OFCOM that—
(i) they are conducting an investigation, or are due to conduct an investigation, in connection with the death of a child, and
(ii) they suspect that the child may have taken their own life, and
(b) provides OFCOM with the details in subsection (B1).
(B1) The details are—
(a) the name of the child who has died,
(b) the child’s date of birth,
(c) any email addresses used by the child (so far as the investigating authority knows), and
(d) if any regulated service has been brought to the attention of the investigating authority as being of interest in connection with the child’s death, the name of the service.
(C1) Where this subsection applies, OFCOM—
(a) must give a notice to the provider of a service within subsection (E1) requiring the provider to ensure the retention of information relating to the use of the service by the child who has died, and
(b) may give a notice to any other relevant person requiring the person to ensure the retention of information relating to the use of a service within subsection (E1) by that child.
(D1) The references in subsection (C1) to ensuring the retention of information relating to the child’s use of a service include taking all reasonable steps, without delay, to prevent the deletion of such information by the routine operation of systems or processes.
(E1) A service is within this subsection if it is—
(a) a regulated service of a kind described in regulations made by the Secretary of State, or
(b) a regulated service notified to OFCOM by the investigating authority as described in subsection (B1)(d).
(F1) A notice under subsection (C1) may require information described in that subsection to be retained only if it is information—
(a) of a kind which OFCOM have power to require under a notice under subsection (1) (see, in particular, subsection (2)(a) to (d)), or
(b) which a person might need to retain to enable the person to provide information in response to a notice under subsection (1) (if such a notice were given).
(G1) OFCOM must share with the investigating authority any information they receive in response to requirements mentioned in section 102(5A)(d) that are included in a notice under subsection (C1).”
(b) in subsection (3), for “power conferred by subsection (1) includes” substitute “powers conferred by this section include”;
(c) after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) The powers to give a notice conferred by this section do not include power to require processing of personal data that would contravene the data protection legislation (but in determining whether processing of personal data would do so, the duty imposed by the notice is to be taken into account).”
(4) In section 102 (information notices)—
(a) in subsection (1), for “101(1)” substitute “101(C1) or (1)”;
(b) in subsection (3)—
(i) after “information notice” insert “under section 100(1) or 101(1)”,
(ii) omit “and” at the end of paragraph (c), and
(iii) after paragraph (c) insert—
“(ca) specify when the information must be provided (which may be on or by a specified date, within a specified period, or at specified intervals), and”;
(c) omit subsection (4);
(d) after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) An information notice under section 101(C1) must—
(a) specify or describe the information to be retained,
(b) specify why OFCOM require the information to be retained,
(c) require the information to be retained for the period of one year beginning with the date of the notice,
(d) require the person to whom the notice is given—
(i) if the child to whom the notice relates used the service in question, to notify OFCOM by a specified date of steps taken to ensure the retention of information;
(ii) if the child did not use the service, or the person does not hold any information of the kind required, to notify OFCOM of that fact by a specified date, and
(e) contain information about the consequences of not complying with the notice.
(5B) If OFCOM give an information notice to a person under section 101(C1), they may, in response to information received from the investigating authority, extend the period for which the person is required to retain information by a maximum period of six months.
(5C) The power conferred by subsection (5B) is exercisable—
(a) by giving the person a notice varying the notice under section 101(C1) and stating the further period for which information must be retained and the reason for the extension;
(b) any number of times.”;
(e) after subsection (9) insert—
“(9A) OFCOM must cancel an information notice under section 101(C1) by notice to the person to whom it was given if advised by the investigating authority that the information in question no longer needs to be retained.”
(f) in subsection (10), after the definition of “information” insert—
““the investigating authority” has the same meaning as in section 101;”.
(5) In section 109 (offences in connection with information notices)—
(a) in subsection (2)(b), for “all reasonable steps” substitute “all of the steps that it was reasonable, and reasonably practicable, to take”;
(b) after subsection (6) insert—
“(6A) A person who is given an information notice under section 101(C1) commits an offence if—
(a) the person deletes or alters, or causes or permits the deletion or alteration of, any information required by the notice to be retained, and
(b) the person’s intention was to prevent the information being available, or (as the case may be) to prevent it being available in unaltered form, for the purposes of any official investigation into the death of the child to whom the notice relates.
(6B) For the purposes of subsection (6A) information has been deleted if it is irrecoverable (however that occurred).”
(6) In section 110 (senior managers’ liability: information offences)—
(a) after subsection (6) insert—
“(6A) An individual named as a senior manager of an entity commits an offence if—
(a) the entity commits an offence under section 109(6A) (deletion etc of information), and
(b) the individual has failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent that offence being committed.”;
(b) in subsection (7), for “or (6)” substitute “, (6) or (6A)”.
(7) In section 113 (penalties for information offences), in subsection (2)—
(a) for “(4) or (5)” substitute “(4), (5) or (6A)”;
(b) for “(5) or (6)” substitute “(5), (6) or (6A)”.
(8) In section 114 (co-operation and disclosure of information: overseas regulators), in subsection (7), omit the definition of “the data protection legislation”.
(9) In section 225 (Parliamentary procedure for regulations), in subsection (10), after paragraph (c) insert—
“(ca) regulations under section 101(E1)(a),”
(10) In section 236(1) (interpretation)—
(a) after the definition of “country” insert—
““the data protection legislation” has the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(9) of that Act);”;
(b) in the definition of “information notice”, for “101(1)” substitute “101(C1) or (1)”.
(11) In section 237 (index of defined terms), after the entry for “CSEA content” insert—
—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause amends the Online Safety Act 2023 to enable OFCOM to give internet service providers a notice requiring them to retain information in connection with an investigation by a coroner (or, in Scotland, procurator fiscal) into the death of a child suspected to have taken their own life. The new clause also creates related offences.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 36
Retention of biometric data and recordable offences
“(1) Part 1 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (powers to gather and share information) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (10).
(2) In section 18A(3) (retention of material: general), after “recordable offence” insert “or recordable-equivalent offence”.
(3) Section 18E (supplementary provision) is amended in accordance with subsections (4) to (10).
(4) In subsection (1), after the definition of “recordable offence” insert—
““recordable-equivalent offence” means an offence under the law of a country or territory outside England and Wales and Northern Ireland where the act constituting the offence would constitute a recordable offence if done in England and Wales or Northern Ireland (whether or not the act constituted such an offence when the person was convicted);”.
(5) In subsection (3), in the words before paragraph (a), after “offence” insert “in England and Wales or Northern Ireland”.
(6) After subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) For the purposes of section 18A, a person is to be treated as having been convicted of an offence in a country or territory outside England and Wales and Northern Ireland if, in respect of such an offence, a court exercising jurisdiction under the law of that country or territory has made a finding equivalent to—
(a) a finding that the person is not guilty by reason of insanity, or
(b) a finding that the person is under a disability and did the act charged against the person in respect of the offence.”
(7) In subsection (6)(a)—
(a) after “convicted” insert “—
(i) ‘”, and
(b) after “offence,” insert “or
(ii) in a country or territory outside England and Wales and Northern Ireland, of a recordable-equivalent offence,”.
(8) In subsection (6)(b)—
(a) omit “of a recordable offence”, and
(b) for “a recordable offence, other than a qualifying offence” substitute “an offence, other than a qualifying offence or qualifying-equivalent offence”.
(9) In subsection (7), for “subsection (6)” substitute “this section”.
(10) After subsection (7) insert—
“(7A) In subsection (6), “qualifying-equivalent offence” means an offence under the law of a country or territory outside England and Wales and Northern Ireland where the act constituting the offence would constitute a qualifying offence if done in England and Wales or Northern Ireland (whether or not the act constituted such an offence when the person was convicted).”
(11) The amendments made by this section apply only in connection with the retention of section 18 material that is or was obtained or acquired by a law enforcement authority—
(a) on or after the commencement day, or
(b) in the period of 3 years ending immediately before the commencement day.
(12) Subsection (13) of this section applies where—
(a) at the beginning of the commencement day, a law enforcement authority has section 18 material which it obtained or acquired in the period of 3 years ending immediately before the commencement day,
(b) at a time before the commencement day (a “pre-commencement time”), the law enforcement authority was required by section 18(4) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 to destroy the material, and
(c) at the pre-commencement time, the law enforcement authority could have retained the material under section 18A of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, as it has effect taking account of the amendments made by subsections (2) to (10) of this section, if those amendments had been in force.
(13) Where this subsection applies—
(a) the law enforcement authority is to be treated as not having been required to destroy the material at the pre-commencement time, but
(b) the material may not be used in evidence against the person to whom the material relates—
(i) in criminal proceedings in England and Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland in relation to an offence where those proceedings, or other criminal proceedings in relation to the person and the offence, were instituted before the commencement day, or
(ii) in criminal proceedings in any other country or territory.
(14) In this section—
“the commencement day” means the day on which this Act is passed;
“law enforcement authority” has the meaning given by section 18E(1) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008;
“section 18 material” has the meaning given by section 18(2) of that Act.
(15) For the purposes of this section, proceedings in relation to an offence are instituted—
(a) in England and Wales, when they are instituted for the purposes of Part 1 of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (see section 15(2) of that Act);
(b) in Northern Ireland, when they are instituted for the purposes of Part 2 of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 (see section 44(1) and (2) of that Act);
(c) in Scotland, when they are instituted for the purposes of Part 3 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (see section 151(1) and (2) of that Act).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables a law enforcement authority to retain fingerprints and DNA profiles where a person has been convicted of an offence equivalent to a recordable offence in a jurisdiction outside England and Wales and Northern Ireland.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 37
Retention of pseudonymised biometric data
“(1) Part 1 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (powers to gather and share information) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (6).
(2) Section 18A (retention of material: general) is amended in accordance with subsections (3) to (5).
(3) In subsection (1), for “subsection (5)” substitute “subsections (4) to (9)”.
(4) In subsection (4)(a), after “relates” insert “(a “pseudonymised form”)”.
(5) After subsection (6) insert—
“(7) Section 18 material which is not a DNA sample may be retained indefinitely by a law enforcement authority if—
(a) the authority obtains or acquires the material directly or indirectly from an overseas law enforcement authority,
(b) the authority obtains or acquires the material in a form which includes information which identifies the person to whom the material relates,
(c) as soon as reasonably practicable after obtaining or acquiring the material, the authority takes the steps necessary for it to hold the material in a pseudonymised form, and
(d) having taken those steps, the law enforcement authority continues to hold the material in a pseudonymised form.
(8) In a case where section 18 material is being retained by a law enforcement authority under subsection (7), if—
(a) the law enforcement authority ceases to hold the material in a pseudonymised form, and
(b) the material relates to a person who has no previous convictions or only one exempt conviction,
the material may be retained by the law enforcement authority until the end of the retention period specified in subsection (9).
(9) The retention period is the period of 3 years beginning with the date on which the law enforcement authority first ceases to hold the material in a pseudonymised form.”
(6) In section 18E(1) (supplementary provision)—
(a) in the definition of “law enforcement authority”, for paragraph (d) substitute—
“(d) an overseas law enforcement authority;”, and
(b) after that definition insert—
““overseas law enforcement authority” means a person formed or existing under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom so far as exercising functions which—
(a) correspond to those of a police force, or
(b) otherwise involve the investigation or prosecution of offences;”.
(7) The amendments made by this section apply only in connection with the retention of section 18 material that is or was obtained or acquired by a law enforcement authority—
(a) on or after the commencement day, or
(b) in the period of 3 years ending immediately before the commencement day.
(8) Subsections (9) to (12) of this section apply where, at the beginning of the commencement day, a law enforcement authority has section 18 material which it obtained or acquired in the period of 3 years ending immediately before the commencement day.
(9) Where the law enforcement authority holds the material in a pseudonymised form at the beginning of the commencement day, the authority is to be treated for the purposes of section 18A(7)(c) and (d) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 as having—
(a) taken the steps necessary for it to hold the material in a pseudonymised form as soon as reasonably practicable after obtaining or acquiring the material, and
(b) continued to hold the material in a pseudonymised form until the commencement day.
(10) Where the law enforcement authority does not hold the material in a pseudonymised form at the beginning of the commencement day, the authority is to be treated for the purposes of section 18A(7)(c) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 as taking the steps necessary for it to hold the material in a pseudonymised form as soon as reasonably practicable after obtaining or acquiring the material if it takes those steps on, or as soon as reasonably practicable after, the commencement day.
(11) Subsection (12) of this section applies where, at a time before the commencement day (a “pre-commencement time”), the law enforcement authority was required by section 18(4) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 to destroy the material but—
(a) at the pre-commencement time, the law enforcement authority could have retained the material under section 18A(7) to (9) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (as inserted by this section) if those provisions had been in force, or
(b) on or after the commencement day, the law enforcement authority may retain the material under those provisions by virtue of subsection (9) or (10) of this section.
(12) Where this subsection applies—
(a) the law enforcement authority is to be treated as not having been required to destroy the material at the pre-commencement time, but
(b) the material may not be used in evidence against the person to whom the material relates—
(i) in criminal proceedings in England and Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland in relation to an offence where those proceedings, or other criminal proceedings in relation to the person and the offence, were instituted before the commencement day, or
(ii) in criminal proceedings in any other country or territory.
(13) In this section—
“the commencement day” , “law enforcement authority” and “section 18 material” have the meaning given in section (Retention of biometric data and recordable offences)(14);
“instituted” , in relation to proceedings, has the meaning given in section (Retention of biometric data and recordable offences)(15);
“in a pseudonymised form” has the meaning given by section 18A(4) and (10) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (as amended or inserted by this section).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables a law enforcement authority to retain fingerprints and DNA profiles where, as soon as reasonably practicable after acquiring or obtaining them, the authority takes the steps necessary for it to hold the material in a form which does not include information which identifies the person to whom the material relates.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 38
Retention of biometric data from INTERPOL
“(1) Part 1 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (powers to gather and share information) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (4).
(2) In section 18(4) (destruction of national security material not subject to existing statutory restrictions), after “18A” insert “, 18AA”.
(3) After section 18A insert—
“18AA Retention of material from INTERPOL
(1) This section applies to section 18 material which is not a DNA sample where the law enforcement authority obtained or acquired the material as part of a request for assistance, or a notification of a threat, sent to the United Kingdom via INTERPOL’s systems.
(2) The law enforcement authority may retain the material until the National Central Bureau informs the authority that the request or notification has been cancelled or withdrawn.
(3) If the law enforcement authority is the National Central Bureau, it may retain the material until it becomes aware that the request or notification has been cancelled or withdrawn.
(4) In this section—
“INTERPOL” means the organisation called the International Criminal Police Organization - INTERPOL;
“the National Central Bureau” means the body appointed for the time being in accordance with INTERPOL’s constitution to serve as the United Kingdom’s National Central Bureau.
(5) The reference in subsection (1) to material obtained or acquired as part of a request or notification includes material obtained or acquired as part of a communication, sent to the United Kingdom via INTERPOL’s systems, correcting, updating or otherwise supplementing the request or notification.
18AB Retention of material from INTERPOL: supplementary
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend section 18AA to make such changes as the Secretary of State considers appropriate in consequence of—
(a) changes to the name of the organisation which, when section 18AA was enacted, was called the International Criminal Police Organization - INTERPOL (“the organisation”),
(b) changes to arrangements made by the organisation which involve fingerprints or DNA profiles being provided to members of the organisation (whether changes to existing arrangements or changes putting in place new arrangements), or
(c) changes to the organisation’s arrangements for liaison between the organisation and its members or between its members.
(2) Regulations under this section are subject to affirmative resolution procedure.”
(4) In section 18BA(5)(a) (retention of further fingerprints), after “18A” insert “, 18AA”.
(5) Section 18AA of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 applies in relation to section 18 material obtained or acquired by a law enforcement authority before the commencement day (as well as material obtained or acquired on or after that day), except where the law enforcement authority was informed, or became aware, as described in subsection (2) or (3) of that section before the commencement day.
(6) Subsection (7) of this section applies where—
(a) at the beginning of the commencement day, a law enforcement authority has section 18 material,
(b) at a time before the commencement day (a “pre-commencement time”), the law enforcement authority was required by section 18(4) of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 to destroy the material, but
(c) at the pre-commencement time, the law enforcement authority could have retained the material under section 18AA of that Act (as inserted by this section) if it had been in force.
(7) Where this subsection applies—
(a) the law enforcement authority is to be treated as not having been required to destroy the material at the pre-commencement time, but
(b) the material may not be used in evidence against the person to whom the material relates—
(i) in criminal proceedings in England and Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland in relation to an offence where those proceedings, or other criminal proceedings in relation to the person and the offence, were instituted before the commencement day, or
(ii) in criminal proceedings in any other country or territory.
(8) In this section—
“the commencement day” , “law enforcement authority” and “section 18 material” have the meaning given in section (Retention of biometric data and recordable offences)(14);
“instituted” , in relation to proceedings, has the meaning given in section (Retention of biometric data and recordable offences)(15).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This new clause enables fingerprints and DNA profiles obtained as part of a request for assistance, or notification of a threat, from INTERPOL and held for national security purposes by a law enforcement authority to be retained until the authority is informed that the request or notification has been withdrawn or cancelled.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 39
National Underground Asset Register
“(1) After section 106 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 insert—
“Part 3A
National Underground Asset Register: England and Wales
The register
106A National Underground Asset Register
(1) The Secretary of State must keep a register of information relating to apparatus in streets in England and Wales.
(2) The register is to be known as the National Underground Asset Register (and is referred to in this Act as “NUAR”).
(3) NUAR must be kept in such form and manner as may be prescribed.
(4) The Secretary of State must make arrangements so as to enable any person who is required, by a provision of Part 3, to enter information into NUAR to have access to NUAR for that purpose.
(5) Regulations under subsection (3) are subject to the negative procedure.
106B Access to information kept in NUAR
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision in connection with making information kept in NUAR available—
(a) under a licence, or
(b) without a licence.
(2) The regulations may (among other things)—
(a) make provision about which information, or descriptions of information, may be made available;
(b) make provision about the descriptions of person to whom information may be made available;
(c) make provision for information to be made available subject to exceptions;
(d) make provision requiring or authorising the Secretary of State to adapt, modify or obscure information before making it available;
(e) make provision authorising all information kept in NUAR to be made available to prescribed descriptions of person under prescribed conditions;
(f) make provision about the purposes for which information may be made available;
(g) make provision about the form and manner in which information may be made available.
(3) The regulations may make provision about licences under which information kept in NUAR is made available, including—
(a) provision about the form of a licence;
(b) provision about the terms and conditions of a licence;
(c) provision for information to be made available under a licence for free or for a fee;
(d) provision about the amount of the fees, including provision for the amount of a fee to be an amount which is intended to exceed the cost of the things in respect of which the fee is charged;
(e) provision about how funds raised by means of fees must or may be used, including provision for funds to be paid to persons who are required, by a provision of Part 3, to enter information into NUAR.
(4) Except as otherwise prescribed and subject to section 106G, processing of information by the Secretary of State in exercise of functions conferred by or under section 106A or this section does not breach—
(a) any obligation of confidence owed by the Secretary of State, or
(b) any other restriction on the processing of information (however imposed).
(5) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.
Requirements for undertakers to pay fees and provide information
106C Fees payable by undertakers in relation to NUAR
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring undertakers having apparatus in a street to pay fees to the Secretary of State for or in connection with the exercise by the Secretary of State of any function conferred by or under this Part.
(2) The regulations may—
(a) specify the amounts of the fees, or the maximum amounts of the fees, or
(b) provide for the amounts of the fees, or the maximum amounts of the fees, to be determined in accordance with the regulations.
(3) In making the regulations the Secretary of State must seek to secure that, so far as possible and taking one year with another, the income from fees matches the expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in, or in connection with, exercising functions conferred by or under this Part (including expenses not directly connected with the keeping of NUAR).
(4) Except where the regulations specify the amounts of the fees—
(a) the amounts of the fees must be specified by the Secretary of State in a statement, and
(b) the Secretary of State must—
(i) publish the statement, and
(ii) lay it before Parliament.
(5) Regulations under subsection (1) may make provision about—
(a) when a fee is to be paid;
(b) the manner in which a fee is to be paid;
(c) the payment of discounted fees;
(d) exceptions to requirements to pay fees;
(e) the refund of all or part of a fee which has been paid.
(6) Before making regulations under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) such representatives of persons likely to be affected by the regulations as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, and
(b) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(7) Subject to the following provisions of this section regulations under subsection (1) are subject to the affirmative procedure.
(8) Regulations under subsection (1) that only make provision of a kind mentioned in subsection (2) are subject to the negative procedure.
(9) But the first regulations under subsection (1) that make provision of a kind mentioned in subsection (2) are subject to the affirmative procedure.
106D Providing information for purposes of regulations under section 106C
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring undertakers having apparatus in a street to provide information to the Secretary of State for either or both of the following purposes—
(a) assisting the Secretary of State in determining the provision that it is appropriate for regulations under section 106C(1) or a statement under section 106C(4) to make;
(b) assisting the Secretary of State in determining whether it is appropriate to make changes to such provision.
(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring undertakers having apparatus in a street to provide information to the Secretary of State for either or both of the following purposes—
(a) ascertaining whether a fee is payable by a person under regulations under section 106C(1);
(b) working out the amount of a fee payable by a person.
(3) Regulations under subsection (1) or (2) may require an undertaker to notify the Secretary of State of any changes to information previously provided under the regulations.
(4) Regulations under subsection (1) or (2) may make provision about—
(a) when information is to be provided (which may be at prescribed intervals);
(b) the form and manner in which information is to be provided;
(c) exceptions to requirements to provide information.
(5) Regulations under subsection (1) or (2) are subject to the negative procedure.
Monetary penalties
106E Monetary penalties
Schedule 5A makes provision about the imposition of penalties in connection with requirements imposed by regulations under sections 106C(1) and 106D(1) and (2).
Exercise of functions by third party
106F Arrangements for third party to exercise functions
(1) The Secretary of State may make arrangements for a prescribed person to exercise a relevant function of the Secretary of State.
(2) More than one person may be prescribed.
(3) Arrangements under this section may—
(a) provide for the Secretary of State to make payments to the person, and
(b) make provision as to the circumstances in which any such payments are to be repaid to the Secretary of State.
(4) In the case of the exercise of a function by a person authorised by arrangements under this section to exercise that function, any reference in this Part or in regulations under this Part to the Secretary of State in connection with that function is to be read as a reference to that person.
(5) Arrangements under this section do not prevent the Secretary of State from exercising a function to which the arrangements relate.
(6) Except as otherwise prescribed and subject to section 106G, the disclosure of information between the Secretary of State and a person in connection with the person’s entering into arrangements under this section or exercise of functions to which such arrangements relate does not breach—
(a) any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure, or
(b) any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).
(7) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.
(8) In this section “relevant function” means any function of the Secretary of State conferred by or under this Part (including the function of charging or recovering fees under section 106C) other than—
(a) a power to make regulations, or
(b) a function under section 106C(4) (specifying of fees etc).
Data protection
106G Data protection
(1) A duty or power to process information that is imposed or conferred by or under this Part does not operate to require or authorise the processing of personal data that would contravene the data protection legislation (but in determining whether processing of personal data would do so, that duty or power is to be taken into account).
(2) In this section—
“the data protection legislation” has the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(9) of that Act);
“personal data” has the same meaning as in that Act (see section 3(2) of that Act).
Supplementary provisions
106H Regulations under this Part
(1) In this Part “prescribed” means prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
(2) Regulations under this Part may make—
(a) different provision for different purposes;
(b) supplementary and incidental provision.
(3) Regulations under this Part are to be made by statutory instrument.
(4) Before making regulations under this Part the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
(5) Where regulations under this Part are subject to “the affirmative procedure” the regulations may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(6) Where regulations under this Part are subject to “the negative procedure” the statutory instrument containing the regulations is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(7) Any provision that may be made in regulations under this Part subject to the negative procedure may be made in regulations subject to the affirmative procedure.
106I Interpretation
(1) In this Part the following terms have the same meaning as in Part 3—
“apparatus” (see sections 89(3) and 105(1));
“in” (in a context referring to apparatus in a street) (see section 105(1));
“street” (see section 48(1) and (2));
“undertaker” (in relation to apparatus or in a context referring to having apparatus in a street) (see sections 48(5) and 89(4)).
(2) In this Part “processing” has the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(4) of that Act) and “process” is to be read accordingly.”
(2) In section 167 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (Crown application)—
(a) after subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) The provisions of Part 3A of this Act (National Underground Asset Register: England and Wales) bind the Crown.”;
(b) in subsection (5), for “(4)” substitute “(4) or (4A)”.
(3) Schedule (National Underground Asset Register: monetary penalties) to this Act inserts Schedule 5A into the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (monetary penalties).”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment inserts Part 3A into the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 which requires, and makes provision in connection with, the keeping of a register of information relating to apparatus in streets (to be called the National Underground Asset Register).
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 40
Information in relation to apparatus
“(1) The New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (6).
(2) For the italic heading before section 79 (records of location of apparatus) substitute “Duties in relation to recording and sharing of information about apparatus”.
(3) In section 79—
(a) for the heading substitute “Information in relation to apparatus”;
(b) in subsection (1), for paragraph (c) substitute—
“(c) being informed of its location under section 80(2),”;
(c) after subsection (1A) (as inserted by section 46(2) of the Traffic Management Act 2004) insert—
“(1B) An undertaker must, except in such cases as may be prescribed, record in relation to every item of apparatus belonging to the undertaker such other information as may be prescribed as soon as reasonably practicable after—
(a) placing the item in the street or altering its position,
(b) inspecting, maintaining, adjusting, repairing, altering or renewing the item,
(c) locating the item in the street in the course of executing any other works, or
(d) receiving any such information in relation to the item under section 80(2).”
(d) omit subsection (3);
(e) in subsection (3A) (as inserted by section 46(4) of the Traffic Management Act 2004)—
(i) for “to (3)” substitute “and (2A)”;
(ii) for “subsection (1)” substitute “this section”;
(f) after subsection (3A) insert—
“(3B) Before the end of the initial upload period an undertaker must enter into NUAR—
(a) all information that is included in the undertaker’s records under subsection (1) on the archive upload date, and
(b) any other information of a prescribed description that is held by the undertaker on that date.
(3C) Where an undertaker records information as required by subsection (1) or (1B), or updates such information, the undertaker must, within a prescribed period, enter the recorded or updated information into NUAR.
(3D) The duty under subsection (3C) does not apply in relation to information recorded or updated before the archive upload date.
(3E) A duty under subsection (3B) or (3C) does not apply in such cases as may be prescribed.
(3F) Information must be entered into NUAR under subsection (3B) or (3C) in such form and manner as may be prescribed.”
(g) in subsection (4)(a), omit “not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale”;
(h) after subsection (6) insert—
“(7) For the purposes of subsection (3B) the Secretary of State must by regulations—
(a) specify a date as “the archive upload date”, and
(b) specify a period beginning with that date as the “initial upload period”.
(8) For the meaning of “NUAR”, see section 106A.”
(4) For section 80 (duty to inform undertakers of location of apparatus) substitute—
“80 Duties to report missing or incorrect information in relation to apparatus
(1) Subsection (2) applies where a person executing works of any description in a street finds an item of apparatus belonging to an undertaker in relation to which prescribed information—
(a) is not entered in NUAR, or
(b) is entered in NUAR but is incorrect.
(2) The person must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to inform the undertaker to whom the item belongs of the missing or incorrect information.
(3) Where a person executing works of any description in a street finds an item of apparatus which does not belong to the person and is unable, after taking such steps as are reasonably practicable, to ascertain to whom the item belongs, the person must—
(a) if the person is an undertaker, enter into NUAR, in such form and manner as may be prescribed, prescribed information in relation to the item;
(b) in any other case, inform the street authority of that information.
(4) Subsections (2) and (3) have effect subject to such exceptions as may be prescribed.
(5) A person who fails to comply with subsection (2) or (3) commits an offence.
(6) A person who commits an offence under subsection (5) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(7) Before making regulations under this section the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) such representatives of persons likely to be affected by the regulations as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, and
(b) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(8) For the meaning of “NUAR”, see section 106A.”
(5) Before section 81 (duty to maintain apparatus) insert—
“Other duties and liabilities of undertakers in relation to apparatus”.
(6) In section 104 (regulations), after subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Before making regulations under section 79 or 80 the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
(1B) Regulations under this Part may make supplementary or incidental provision.”
(7) In consequence of the provision made by subsection (4), omit section 47 of the Traffic Management Act 2004.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment amends the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 so as to impose new duties on undertakers to keep records of, and share information relating to, apparatus in streets; and makes amendments consequential on those changes.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 41
Pre-commencement consultation
“A requirement to consult under a provision inserted into the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 by section (National Underground Asset Register) or (Information in relation to apparatus) may be satisfied by consultation before, as well as consultation after, the provision inserting that provision comes into force.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides that a requirement that the Secretary of State consult under a provision inserted into the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 by the new clauses inserted by Amendments NC39 and NC40 may be satisfied by consultation undertaken before or after the provision inserting that provision comes into force.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 42
Transfer of certain functions to Secretary of State
“(1) The powers to make regulations under section 79(1) and (2) of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, so far as exercisable in relation to Wales, are transferred to the Secretary of State.
(2) The power to make regulations under section 79(1A) of that Act (as inserted by section 46(2) A42of the Traffic Management Act 2004), so far as exercisable in relation to Wales, is transferred to the Secretary of State.
(3) The Street Works (Records) (England) Regulations 2002 (S.I. 2002/3217) have effect as if the reference to England in regulation 1(2) were a reference to England and Wales.
(4) The Street Works (Records) (Wales) Regulations 2005 (S.I. 2005/1812) are revoked.”—(Sir John Whittingdale.)
This amendment provides that certain powers to make regulations under section 79 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, so far as exercisable in relation to Wales, are transferred from the Welsh Ministers to the Secretary of State; and makes provision in relation to regulations already made under those powers.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Clause 5
Lawfulness of processing
Amendment proposed: 11, page 7, line 12, at end insert—
““internal administrative purposes”, in relation to special category data, means the conditions set out for lawful processing in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.”—(Kate Osborne.)
This amendment clarifies that the processing of special category data in employment must follow established principles for reasonable processing, as defined by paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
“(ga)a mayor for the area of a combined county authority established under section 9 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 | section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied by the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 (S.I. 2017/67)” |
“(ga) a mayor for the area of a combined county authority established under section 9 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 | section 118A of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied by the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 (S.I. 2017/67)”. |
Sir John Whittingdale
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
This Bill will deliver tangible benefits to British consumers and businesses alike, which would not have been possible if Britain had still been a member of the European Union. It delivers a more flexible and less burdensome data protection regime that maintains high standards of privacy protection while promoting growth and boosting innovation. It does so with the support of the Information Commissioner, and without jeopardising the UK’s European Union data adequacy.
I would like to thank all Members who contributed during the passage of the Bill, and all those who have helped get it right. I now commend it to the House on its onward passage to the other place.
Sir Chris Bryant
I, too, would like to thank the Clerks for their help. They are always enormously helpful, especially to Opposition Members, and sometimes to Government Members as well. I would like to commend my close friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who took the Bill through Committee for our side. I think the Minister suggested that it was rather more fun having her up against him than me, which was very cruel and unkind of him.
We support the Bill, although I suspect that regulatory divergence is a bit of a chimera, and that regulatory convergence in this field will give UK businesses greater stability and certainty, but that is for another day. I also worry about the extensive powers that Ministers are giving themselves, and the suggestion that they will switch off the rules on direct marketing in the run-up to a general election. Then there is new schedule 1. I repeat the offer I have made several times, which is that we stand ready to knock that into far better shape, whether in meetings we have privately or through our colleagues in the House of Lords. I feel ashamed to say it, but I hope the Lords are able to do the line-by-line scrutiny that we have been prevented from doing today.
Patrick Grady
The Minister said that this Bill would not have been possible without Brexit. I think the expression he was looking for is that this Bill would not have been necessary if it had not been for Brexit. This is yet another example of the Government having to play catch-up and having to get themselves out of the holes they dug themselves into through an ill-thought-out Brexit and driving for the hardest possible exit from the European Union.
That said, I do want to echo the thanks given and the tributes paid to the Bill team, and to the Clerks, who have had to work particularly hard in recent days given the significant number of Government amendments tabled at the last minute. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for her work on Second Reading and in Committee, as well as our research team, especially Josh Simmons-Upton and the many stakeholders who have provided briefings and research, particularly the team at the Public Law Project, who have done excellent work in drawing out some of the most concerning aspects of the Bill. It always concerned me when the briefings came in, entitled “PLP briefing”—I did a doubletake as I thought I was on somebody else’s mailing list.
Although some of what is in the Bill is necessary, particularly following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, much of it represents a further power grab by the Executive and risks doing exactly the opposite of what the Government say they want it to achieve: making life easier for business, and improving public confidence in data handling and the use of artificial intelligence.
The SNP will oppose the Bill, and the Government should take the opportunity to start from scratch with a process that listens to consultation responses and involves genuine and detailed parliamentary scrutiny. If the Bill proceeds to the Lords, it will once again fall to the unelected House to more fully interrogate it. That will no doubt lead to several rounds of ping-pong in due course, almost certainly as a result of amendments both from the Government and from the Opposition or Cross-Benchers in the Upper House. That is sub-optimal, as is the case with so much of what seems to happen down here these days. The sooner Scotland has power over this area, and indeed all aspects of legislation, as an independent country, the better.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Business without Debate
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Ceasefire in Palestine
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
In recent days, we have had a pause in the violence in Palestine. That pause has allowed some aid to get through, and some Israelis and some Palestinians to be released. Instead of people being bombed or shot, maimed or killed, they have been reunited with their families. Nobody could fail to be moved by the scenes of families crying with relief on our television screens, just as nobody could fail to be horrified by the killing of so many thousands of innocent people. My constituents want to see more of the former and no more of the latter. They want to see aid reaching everyone who needs it, and they want to see mothers and fathers on all sides getting their children back.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that the only and quickest route to lasting peace in Palestine is for all sides to support and adhere to full ceasefire; condemns violence against people for simply being Israeli, equally condemns violence against people simply for being Palestinian; mourns the growing death toll of women, men and children and grieves for the thousands more traumatised by what they have witnessed and experienced.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to add its voice to international calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire so that aid can continue to reach Palestinians; bombed out homes, universities and hospitals in Palestine can be rebuilt and the process to finding last peace with a two state solution can begin.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002882]
Refugee Family Reunion Routes: Sudan
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I am grateful to have the opportunity to draw the House’s attention to the catastrophic situation in Sudan and to highlight the circumstances of the people in danger there, some of whom have family members recognised as refugees here in the United Kingdom. I hope to take this time to illustrate how the UK’s family reunion rules make it incredibly difficult for those individuals—most of them children—to join their family members here. Finally, I want to ask the Government to think again about how they apply the family reunion rules, given the horrendous circumstances that those individuals face, and to urge the Minister and his colleagues to think about a new approach to facilitate and support reunion with family members here rather than hindering it, as seems to be the case in too many instances.
I turn, first, to the circumstances in Sudan. What is unfolding there has been described by the United Nations as one of the
“worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history.”
Since fighting broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, more than 9,000 have been killed. Horrific reports of rape and sexual violence continue to emerge, and clashes are increasingly along ethnic lines, particularly in Darfur. Every hour children are killed, injured or abducted. Many hospitals have had to suspend operations; others have been bombed or turned into military bases.
Last month, the Minister for Africa said that the violence there bore
“all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing”.
The fighting that commenced in mid-April has led to more than 1 million people fleeing Sudan altogether to neighbouring Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. Meanwhile, more than 5 million have been forced from their homes, internally displaced within Sudan. Among those displaced are almost 1.5 million refugees and asylum seekers from other countries, who had already had to flee persecution in their home territories to Sudan, particularly Eritrean nationals. More than 6 million people are on the edge of famine, and more than 20 million face acute food insecurity. More than 4 million women and girls face the risk of gender-based violence, with limited or no access to protection services and support.
Against that background, I have had the pleasure of working with the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London—RAMFEL—which has a number of refugee clients here in the UK with family members stuck in Sudan who want to get here. Altogether, RAMFEL represents 14 individuals—a tiny sample of that country—who have been struggling to leave Sudan to join their family here. Seven months on from the start of the most recent conflict, only two have made it here so far. Of those two, one—a child—was successful only after an appeal. Of the 12 who have not yet made it here, all are children under 18. Ten are Eritrean, and two are Sudanese. Of those 12, eight are still in Sudan itself—children in a war zone, facing extreme danger. The other four have made it to neighbouring countries but, as we will see, they are not out of danger yet.
To all reasonable observers, given the circumstances of those children, reunion with their family members in the United Kingdom must be appropriate and the right thing to do. Is it not precisely for such situations that we have family reunion policies at all? Family reunion would provide a safe legal route to the UK, allowing both the individuals here and those coming here to get on with rebuilding their lives. It would remove any temptation to seek assistance from people smugglers—breaking the business model, to borrow that expression. Most fundamentally, those children would be safe.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this debate—that constituency is quite a mouthful, and I hope I pronounced it right. He is at the fore in addressing this issue. In Sudan, 4.3 million people have been displaced, and 1.1 million are living in five neighbouring countries. The British Red Cross has been instrumental in reuniting more than 10,000 displaced people and their families. It can offer support with visa applications if the individual is based in London, Liverpool, Preston or Plymouth, according to its website. Does he agree that it is important to have visa assistance hubs throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with at least one for the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland.
Stuart C. McDonald
The hon. Gentleman makes perfect sense. Organisations such as the Red Cross and RAMFEL, which I have been working with on this topic, are fantastic. The more support we can give them and people across the United Kingdom, the better.
These are precisely the circumstances in which we should have refugee family reunion rules. I regret to report that, unfortunately, the rules and processes are making it harder for these people than it should be. In particular, while UK rules are pretty generous for spouses, partners and children—I acknowledge that—they are more restrictive for other categories of relative, including siblings. Most of the children I am talking about today have lost their parents, and it is an older sibling here in the UK that they are seeking to join.
Furthermore, the rules require enrolment of biometric information before an application will even be looked at. That means the children cannot even get over the starting line, because the visa application centre in Sudan, understandably, had to close after the outbreak of the conflict. If there is no way to safely provide biometric information, surely we should stop asking for it in advance?
I will set out precisely how the application of the family reunion rules and procedures has impacted on the children. I am using pseudonyms to protect the identity of individuals. Sixteen-year-old Adila fled to Sudan to escape persecution in Eritrea, including forced conscription into the army. As a lone 16-year-old girl in a war zone, she clearly faces significant risks. She has already been displaced from Khartoum to a city in eastern Sudan and is struggling severely with her mental health. She seeks family reunion with her older brother, who is a recognised refugee here in the UK. However, hers is one of a number of cases that cannot get off the ground because the Home Office insists she attends a visa application centre to enrol biometric information. The centre in Sudan is closed, so that would mean having to make an irregular and dangerous journey to a neighbouring country to do it there.
I acknowledge that the Home Office does consider applications to defer enrolment of biometric information until the person either arrives at or is at least en route to the UK, so that the application can proceed. But even a cursory look at the relevant policy document shows that it is only in very few circumstances indeed where the Home Office allows that to happen. When 16-year-old Adila asked to defer enrolment, she was refused that application. The Home Office said she had not proved her identity with reasonable certainty and asserted that having crossed one border irregularly—fleeing Eritrea to get to Sudan—she could obviously manage to do so again.
I do not believe that that is a fair approach to take to a 16-year-old girl in Sudan. Allowance has to be made for the fact that Eritrean refugees in Sudan will almost certainly not be able to produce passports. A degree of latitude is therefore required. The idea that because someone fled over a border in fear of persecution, they can just be called on to make another dangerous and irregular journey is in itself a dangerous idea. It rides a coach and horses through the Home Office’s own policy. It would not be worth the paper it is written on. If an unaccompanied 16-year-old girl in a war zone cannot avail herself of the deferral policy, who on earth can?
Seven of the other individuals are in a similar situation. They cannot apply because they are in Sudan and there is no place to go to enrol their biometric information. Even among those who have made it out of Sudan, similar issues can arise. For example, Fatima, a 15-year-old Eritrean girl, had originally made a family application to join her brother in the UK just prior to the outbreak of the war in Sudan. She had got as far as booking an appointment at the visa application centre in Khartoum. That, of course, had to be cancelled when the centre closed after the outbreak of fighting. Fatima ended up trafficked from Khartoum to South Sudan some weeks after the outbreak of war, and was released only on the payment of a ransom. She clearly remains at severe risk of kidnapping, sexual exploitation and all other manners of harm. There is no visa application centre in South Sudan, but again the Home Office refused to defer biometric enrolment.
RAMFEL asked the Home Office if, as an alternative, mobile biometric enrolment could take place—someone would travel to South Sudan from a regional VAC to take the biometrics there. If required, RAMFEL would offer to pay, but even that reasonable offer was refused. I ask the question again: if those circumstances do not merit the deferral of biometric enrolment or other compromise action, what on earth does?
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Is that not the problem with the hostile environment? There are no circumstances; they do not want people to come. It does not matter how dreadful the circumstances are that people are living in. It does not matter that this is the country where they have family members who can make them feel at home and welcome, and help them to start to overcome the trauma they have gone through. The Home Office does not want to know. Computer says no. The door is closed.
Stuart C. McDonald
“Computer says no” is pretty close to the bone. The Home Office has a policy on biometric enrolment, and it sticks rigidly to it even when dramatic circumstances such as those persisting in Sudan mean that a different approach should be taken.
The Home Office can take a different approach, and it has done so in certain circumstances. The Minister would not like it if I made a comparison with Ukraine, and I do not want to do so, but I simply point out that, in those incredible circumstances, the Home Office was able to take a different approach. I am not asking for anything remotely approaching what was done in that situation; I am just asking the Home Office to be a little more deft, a wee bit more responsive, and to think about the considerations that should apply for people applying from Sudan.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that there is a big Sudanese community in Glasgow, and I remember a meeting I had with a number of Sudanese people who made that very point about Ukraine. They said, “We want this country to look after Ukrainians. Of course, it has to look after them; they are going through a terrible war and they are being attacked—but so are our families. What is the difference?” Does my hon. Friend understand how important this debate will be to Sudanese people living in this country? At last, somebody is talking about their pain and cares enough to secure a debate in the House of Commons. I know they really appreciate everything he is trying to do.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks, but the tribute should be paid to RAMFEL and the other organisations out there that do amazing work on behalf of the Sudanese community.
There are people who would make a legitimate argument that there should be some sort of equivalence in the treatment of Ukraine and Sudan, but that is not the case I am making tonight. I am simply saying that the Home Office showed in the case of Ukraine that it was willing to apply different rules, or to apply the same rules differently. It was able to be nimble and to respond accordingly to a grave situation. This, too, is a grave situation and there should be some sort of flexibility in the response.
On this point, the solution is pretty obvious: we need a more generous set of exceptions to the rule that requires biometric information be provided in advance. I am not the only one saying that. The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee recently reported on family migration:
“The Home Office should exercise its discretion to lift or delay the requirement to submit biometrics when this would involve travelling in dangerous conditions or outside the applicant’s country of residence. The Home Office should allow biometrics to be completed on arrival in the UK for a wider range of nationalities in crisis situations.”
That seems to be the compassionate and common-sense thing to do. If the Minister is not willing to go as far as the Committee suggests, surely he must see that the application of the rules in the types of circumstances I have described is gravely unsettling and must be revisited in some form.
I turn next to rules in relation to siblings. Even those who ultimately are able to jump through the first administrative hoop are far from guaranteed success in their family reunion application. Existing rules focus on family reunion for spouses and for children under 18. I have spoken in previous debates about various problems with what I regard as the overly restrictive category of relationships that can benefit from family reunion without further tests applying, but today I will focus on siblings.
Given the situation prevailing in Sudan and neighbouring countries, many children find themselves either orphaned or without any contact with their parents. For these kids, their siblings here in the UK are essentially their only remaining family. That said, if a 15-year-old seeks to join their 20-year-old brother here, they must first pay a fee and a health surcharge, unless they are granted a waiver, which adds an additional hurdle. Then, as well as proving their relationship, they must show that there are exceptional circumstances and that the refusal of their application would result in unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant.
Meeting those tests can be surprisingly difficult. It often seems that the general country situation, however hellish, will never be enough to make a person’s circumstances—even a child’s circumstances—exceptional enough to overcome that hurdle. A person seems to need to be able to show that their circumstances are exceptional, even compared with other individuals in that country—in that warzone. That is a hugely difficult prospect, likely requiring legal advice and lawyers, and it is difficult to obtain the necessary evidence.
Surely the Home Office can be more responsive to the situation on the ground in Sudan. At the very least, could we not have clear guidance that any child living unaccompanied in Sudan should be treated as meeting the necessary tests of exceptionality and harsh consequences, and therefore should, in principle, be allowed to be reunited with a UK-based sibling? Surely that is the bare minimum we can do.
As I said, even if those tests are overcome, the fact that siblings are not considered “core” family members for the purposes of the rules has other consequences. I turn to another case study. Two unaccompanied Eritrean children saw a household member killed. One of the kids was beaten up during the same raid. They submitted applications for family reunion in November 2022, some months before the most recent upsurge in fighting. The applications were originally refused, but an appeal was lodged and the Home Office eventually conceded it. That was welcome, but the Home Office is now insisting on payment of the immigration health surcharge, which, of course, the family simply cannot afford. Surely in such circumstances any fee or health surcharge should be waived.
Finally, I turn to processing times. If one of these kids is somehow in a position to jump through all the hoops I have described, surely the least we will offer is a speedy priority service. The service standard for family reunion applications is 12 weeks, but I am told that many applications take six months to a year. If an appeal is required in order to overturn a refusal—we have just heard about an example of that—the wait can be more than doubled. Family separation will always be painful, but for unaccompanied children in Sudan, and even in some of the neighbouring countries, it is also seriously dangerous. Surely some sort of priority processing has to be given to cases where the applicant is directly in danger.
Another case study involves Wissam, who is 17, and Abdul, who is 14. They applied to join their older brother just before war broke out and had an appointment to enrol their biometrics in Khartoum. That could not happen, as the centre closed down. Struggling to access food and water, and at risk of kidnapping, trafficking or exploitation, the brothers were victims of robbery. Ultimately, they decided to flee again and make a dangerous, irregular journey to Uganda. They now live unaccompanied in cramped conditions and, because of their age and nationality, face regular discrimination in accessing sanitation, including clean water. The 14-year-old is struggling with mental health issues and suffering night terrors because of his experiences in Sudan and on the journey to Uganda. Surely we cannot leave those two brothers, who are now in a position to submit their application, to wait for months and perhaps years. Surely applications have to be given priority in those circumstances.
The Minister will no doubt tell us about the significant number of people who do arrive here in the UK under our family reunion arrangements. I acknowledge that fact and I welcome it. However, it would be totally wrong to say that the system is functioning well; various reports by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration testify to that. Lots of improvements still have to be made. I am not asking for a revolution today, although perhaps I will pursue that further in the months to come. Today, I simply ask that the Home Office accepts that it has to be nimble, to respond and to tweak its rules and processes where circumstances require. The utterly dire circumstances in Sudan surely justify such a response.
In summary, I am asking the Home Office three things. First, I ask it to rethink the requirement for people trapped in Sudan—particularly children—to provide biometrics in advance at a visa application centre. Please look at alternatives, whether waiting until people’s arrival in the UK before requiring biometrics, or some other compromise that does not hold up the consideration of applications.
Secondly, I ask the Home Office, either by tweaking the rules or, perhaps more realistically, by issuing guidance for cases such as those I have described, to make it clear that, as a general rule, children from Sudan seeking to join siblings or other family members in the UK should be treated as meeting the “exceptional” test for the family reunion rules. I would like to think that that would be applied to siblings more generally, but for today’s purposes I make a special case for those seeking to leave Sudan. I also ask the Home Office not to make any such applications subject to fees and health surcharges.
Thirdly, I ask the Home Office to prioritise these applications, in recognition of the dangers that the people making them face. Do not leave them waiting for months. Finally, if possible, seek to work with international organisations and non-governmental organisations to help support safe passage from Sudan, as and when applications are allowed.
I close with a warning, because the danger is that if we do not facilitate their applications, these youngsters will end up seeking to make their own way to the UK, irregularly and dangerously. That brings me to the final case I want to mention, which is that of 16-year-old Daoud, who fled Eritrea to Sudan. In the light of the situation there, he fled again, to South Sudan. With no progress on securing refugee family reunion from there, he took matters into his own hands and started making his way towards the Mediterranean. He is currently arbitrarily detained in Libya. Some might say he made his own choices, but I think we left him with no choice at all.
I do not want to have to come back here in a few months with another Adjournment debate on this subject and to have to provide similar—or even worse—updates on the other children I have mentioned in this debate. I know the Minister cannot make policy on the hoof, but I urge him to speak with officials, to rethink the Home Office strategy in relation to those who are suffering in Sudan, and to ensure that we are doing all we can to facilitate and support family reunion.
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
I thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for securing this Adjournment debate. We share his deep concern about the situation in Sudan and all those affected by it, including those seeking refugee status in the United Kingdom or other safe countries. The Government remain committed to upholding the principle of family reunion by providing a safe and legal route to bring families together through the refugee family reunion policy.
The family reunion route allows individuals with protection status in the UK to sponsor their partner or children to stay with or join them here, provided they formed part of a family unit before the sponsor fled their country of origin to seek protection. While we sympathise greatly with the situation in which many individuals in Sudan find themselves, we do not intend to prioritise refugee family reunion applications from those impacted by the Sudanese conflict, as there are many other individuals in the queue who will be facing broadly comparable situations elsewhere in the world. We want to treat all individuals facing such situations in the same manner and ensure that, where appropriate, they can be supported to a life in the UK in accordance with our rules.
Stuart C. McDonald
I would not necessarily say that people seeking to come here from Sudan because they are in danger there should be prioritised ahead of others who face similar risks elsewhere—a point that the Minister fairly makes—but does the Home Office make any consideration or assessment of risk at all? There are people who apply for refugee family reunion, quite rightly and fairly, who do not face any imminent risk because they are in a relatively safe third country. Surely the fact that people are facing real danger is an added reason to give priority to their family reunion applications. That should be something that the Department considers.
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, which I am happy to take up with my officials. Our policy is one of non-discrimination, so individuals are treated equally, regardless of their country of origin. Obviously, there are a number of places in the world with great danger and we do not choose to rank them in order of priority. However, I can see some merit in what he is saying, so I am happy to give that consideration.
It is important to note that the UK has a very strong record of supporting refugees. Since 2015, we have resettled over half a million people seeking safety, which is among the most generous offerings in our country’s history. The UK ranks highly among other developed countries in that regard. We continue to welcome refugees through our existing global resettlement schemes, including the UK resettlement scheme itself, community sponsorship and the mandate resettlement scheme. Since 2015, we have issued 49,000 family reunion visas to family members of those with protection status, with over half of those visas for children. That figure demonstrates our commitment to refugee family reunion.
We have welcomed Sudanese nationals through both our UK resettlement scheme and the community sponsorship scheme in 2022 and 2023. Between 2015 and 2023, 6,500 Sudanese nationals have been granted visas under refugee family reunion. In the year to September 2023, 618 Sudanese nationals were granted visas under refugee family reunion. The UK is making a significant commitment, although of course the need is very great, as the hon. Gentleman says, due to the situation in Sudan.
We will continue to consider our approach to refugee family reunion in the round rather than on a crisis-by-crisis basis. The UK has no plan at the moment to introduce a designated resettlement scheme for Sudanese refugees. As a general rule, it is important that the UK does not treat migration as the first lever that we pull to try to help people in grave situations in the world.
Generally speaking, the greatest impact that the UK can make, whether that is in Sudan or in other crisis situations, is by using our full diplomatic muscle and our development aid to support people in the region, which is, in fact, the place where the majority of refugees find themselves. Indeed, that happens with respect to the Sudanese situation, where hundreds of thousands of individuals are being supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other organisations in the immediate environs of Sudan. The UK is proud to be supporting those efforts to help those individuals.
I wish to turn more specifically to some of the very valid questions that the hon. Gentleman raised. First, he raised the question of those fleeing conflict zones who find it difficult to provide documents for family reunion purposes. We recognise that this is a challenge for those fleeing their homes and their home countries. Although the onus is on the applicant to show that the relationship is genuine, there are no specific requirements to provide certain types of evidence. We recognise that documentary evidence may not always be available, particularly in countries where there is no functioning administrative authority to issue a passport, a marriage certificate, or a birth certificate. Decision makers should take into consideration evidence from a range of sources, including information provided by their UK family sponsor. Each decision is considered on the balance of probabilities to identify whether there is sufficient evidence to prove that the individuals are related as claimed.
It is important to prevent abuse of the refugee family reunion policy and to safeguard applicants by carefully reviewing their applications where fraudulent documents are submitted, or where there is evidence that the sponsor obtained leave by deception.
With more specific regard to the situation in Sudan, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the visa application centre in Khartoum is closed until further notice. As a result, any passports remaining there are having to be held in secure storage. We are committed to doing everything we can to support people who find themselves affected by that closure and to reopen the centre as soon as it is safe to do so for our staff and their contractors. There are other visa application centres in the wider vicinity of Sudan. I appreciate that the distances are long, and that the journeys can be arduous and, at times, unsafe. We do have visa centres in Cairo and Jeddah, and many people have made use of those in the time since the crisis began.
Stuart C. McDonald
Even among the cases that I spoke about, one or two individuals had made it into a neighbouring country—unfortunately one had made it to South Sudan where there is also not a visa application centre—but surely, particularly in the case of children, it is too much to ask them to make a dangerous journey such as that to supply biometric information. There should be some sort of presumption against the need to provide biometric information, or at least a willingness to consider deferring it before the Home Office even looks at the application.
Robert Jenrick
In most cases, unfortunately, individuals will have to make a journey to leave Sudan, as it is very unlikely that they will fly directly from Sudan. Most of the cases that I have been made aware of as Immigration Minister are of individuals who have made the journey to Cairo or to Jeddah or other neighbouring countries.
Robert Jenrick
Before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, I will reply directly on the biometrics point, which is an important question. Fundamentally, we believe that biometrics are extremely important, because we want to protect the UK’s national security and the safety of our citizens here. Although, of course, we all want to see the best in individuals coming here, particularly in young people and children, there are individuals whom we would not want to enter the United Kingdom. As such, biometrics, in the form of facial image and fingerprints, underpin our immigration system. However, we make exceptions for individuals who find themselves in the most difficult situations.
We published guidance in May 2023, which sets out our approach to handling applicants who claim that it is unsafe to travel from Sudan to a visa application centre in another country to enrol their biometrics—he referred to that situation in his speech. The guidance sets out the circumstances under which UK Visas and Immigration will either predetermine an application or defer the requirement to enrol biometric information until the applicant arrives in the UK, when the applicant has demonstrated their circumstances to be exceptional. In most cases, we require biometrics to be taken as part of the application so that we can conduct the checks on a person’s identity and suitability to come to the UK. It is ultimately the responsibility of the applicant to satisfy the decision maker about their identity.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman can take some comfort from the fact that the guidance gives that flexibility. I hear that he feels that it is being applied too onerously and in a way that is insufficiently sensitive to the situation in Sudan. I am happy to take that away, speak to my officials and, if he has further examples, to put those in front of them so that we can make sure that the guidance is being applied fairly.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful that the Minister is open to having a discussion about this issue. He is right that, ultimately, all these kids will probably have to leave for a neighbouring country for onward travel. However, it is one thing to ask them to leave in the certainty that they will be allowed into the United Kingdom; it is another to ask them to leave and provide biometric information on the off-chance that they might be allowed in at some future point.
One compromise might be to consider the family reunion application without the biometric information; if it is granted, then tell them to come to a neighbouring country and provide the biometric information there. Will the Minister take that away and think about it?
Robert Jenrick
I will be happy to look into that and come back to the hon. Gentleman. We both agree that biometrics are important. We want to ensure that they are compromised only in the most exceptional circumstances so that we can protect national security, but it is important that we show a degree of discretion when people—young people, in particular—find themselves in the hardest of situations. I will be happy to look into the issue and write to him.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned processing time for family reunion applications, and I want to address that directly. In general, UKVI is operating well and is meeting its service standards in all, or almost all, visa categories, but there are delays with respect to family reunion—a point that he and other Members have raised in the past. We acknowledge the need to dedicate more resource to support the safe and legal routes and are reviewing processes to streamline decision making to make it more efficient for applicants.
We recognise that the family members of those with protection status in the UK are particularly vulnerable. When the out-of-country decision making team receives a request for prioritisation from an applicant or their representative, that will be assessed to determine whether the application should be prioritised. As I said in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s previous comment, we do not prioritise in a blanket way because of nationality, but we do give priority to cases involving particularly vulnerable individuals.
Examples of grounds for prioritisation may include applicants or sponsors who have serious medical conditions or terminal illnesses. The list of grounds for prioritisation is non-exhaustive; managers undertake a holistic consideration of the applicant’s circumstances when considering a request for prioritisation. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the cost of refugee family reunion. It is free—no fee it levied, although he did raise some of the allied costs that go with it. We make sure that the route is free for obvious reasons.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about child sponsors. The family reunion policy is intended to allow those granted protection status in the UK to sponsor, pre-flight, immediate family members to join them here. We must avoid creating an incentive for people, particularly children, to leave their families and risk very dangerous journeys, hoping that relatives will be able to join them later. We do, unfortunately, come across examples of that, including through the small boats route, which is among the most perilous of journeys that a child could make.
There are other provisions in the immigration rules that cater for extended family members and, where a valid application does not meet the criteria within our rules, including child sponsors, we consider whether there are compelling compassionate factors that warrant a granting outside the rules. We believe that were children allowed to sponsor parents, that would create a real risk of an incentive for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and risk very hazardous journeys to the UK. That plays into the hands of criminal gangs that exploit vulnerable people, and goes against all our safeguarding responsibilities and instincts. Our policy is not designed to keep child refugees apart from their parents, but in considering any policy we have to think carefully about the wider impact to avoid putting more people unnecessarily into harm’s way.
Finally, I will answer the broader question about refugee resettlement. We have a proud record as a country, having offered half a million people a safe and legal route into the UK. We understand that the scale of disruption and situations around the world mean that so many people find themselves in grave need. Our approach has to be considered very carefully, but we want to continue to work with international organisations, such as the ones that the hon. Member referenced. We have a good relationship with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees through our global resettlement scheme, and earlier in the year, through the Illegal Migration Act 2023, we legislated so that we can introduce further schemes in the future.
I recently launched a consultation in which we asked every local authority in the whole of the United Kingdom to give us their capacity to take refugees on such schemes over the course of the year to come. That consultation is open and I encourage the hon. Member to talk to his local authority and see whether it is taking part in it. We will carefully consider the responses, and if they suggest that there is further capacity across the UK, that will lead us either to extend existing schemes or to create new ones so that the UK can play an even greater and more generous role in the years ahead in helping more people from places such as Sudan to come to the UK.
I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate, and all our colleagues tonight who have listened or contributed. I fully understand the interest in the subject, given the great concern that everyone feels about the situation in Sudan. I hope that I have set out our record and the work that we are doing, and given him some assurances that he and I can work closely together to learn from his experiences, and his evident sincere concern about the issue, to ensure that the scheme is operating as well as it can.
Question put and agreed to.
Deferred Divisions
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. The purpose of the statutory instrument is to provide industry with certainty as it invests in the transition to zero-emission vehicles ahead of the Government’s commitment to end the sale of new non-zero-emission vehicles, cars and vans in 2035. The draft order will be made using powers under the Climate Change Act 2008 to create trading schemes that apply to Great Britain, and to preserve an appropriately scaled version of the current regulations for Northern Ireland. That is because the powers to create trading schemes require the devolved legislatures to each approve the order by affirmative resolution. I am pleased to tell the Committee that this has already happened in Senedd Cymru in Wales, and that approval is expected shortly in the Scottish Parliament.
As the Northern Ireland Assembly is not currently sitting, it is not possible for Northern Ireland to join the trading schemes. It is, however, the firm intent of the UK Government that upon the return of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and should the Assembly choose to pass the required legislation, Northern Ireland will join the trading schemes with the rest of the UK. The Department for Transport will continue to work closely with the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland to support this process.
Decarbonisation of cars and vans is a priority for achieving net zero, since these vehicles alone accounted for 18% of the UK’s total emissions in 2021, and it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the UK economy. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last week, the UK has one of the most innovative economies anywhere in the world, putting us in prime position to leverage our world-leading advanced manufacturing and research and development in the global shift to zero-emission vehicles. To unlock that dynamism, we must approach the transition in a way that allows manufacturers to pursue their strategies but still provides certainty for investors, businesses and families.
That is exactly what a zero-emission vehicle mandate does. It sets ambitious but achievable targets for the percentage of a manufacturer’s cars or vans that should be zero emission each year. Those start at 22% for cars and 10% for vans in 2024 and rise each year to reach 80% for cars and 70% for vans in 2030. Alongside a ZEV mandate, the legislation sets out targets for new non-zero-emission vehicle average carbon dioxide emissions, which will ensure that average emissions do not worsen during the transition, when manufacturers are focusing on zero-emission technology.
Industry overwhelmingly supports this approach. For charge point providers, which have already committed £6 billion to developing UK charging infrastructure, the trajectories give certainty on future demand that gives investors the confidence to think big. Indeed, I met many of them yesterday, and they echoed that. For automotive manufacturers, too, certainty is vital. Product plans can be decided up to a decade in advance. Going zero emission requires the overhaul of factories, and new technologies are pushing the bounds of possibility with every breakthrough.
In this seismic shift and technology transition, clearly setting out how the UK market will develop enables manufacturers to plan for the future and deliver zero-emission vehicles to the UK faster than competitor markets in the EU or North America. Where there is demand, there will also be production. Last week, the Chancellor announced £2 billion of new Government funding to support zero-emission manufacturing in the UK, in addition to the major investments already being secured by the likes of Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors, BMW, Stellantis and Nissan. I am delighted that Nissan announced last week the production in Sunderland of the new electric Juke and Qashqai cars.
This is all part of the Government’s plan to grow the economy and supercharge productivity, with the biggest permanent tax cut in modern British history for businesses, which will now be able to invest for less, boosting investment by £20 billion a year over the next decade. Taken together, these measures will mean thousands of well-paid jobs in communities across the country.
While all manufacturers need to be in the same place by 2035, they are all starting from slightly different positions today. In recognition of that, the flexibilities of banking, borrowing and conversions are included in the draft order. Manufacturers may also trade, allowing over-compliant manufacturers to sell to under-compliant manufacturers at a market-determined price.
The Government recognise that the challenges of decarbonisation are different for the lowest-volume manufacturers, which have an outsized contribution in cutting-edge research and development. A manufacturer that registers fewer than 2,500 cars or vans will not be subject to the zero-emission vehicle targets, but rewarded for any zero-emission vehicles they sell. Manufacturers that register fewer than 1,000 non zero-emission cars or vans will be exempt from the CO2 targets for non-zero-emission vehicles.
Exemptions are also available for registering vehicle types known as special purpose vehicles, which include ambulances, armoured vehicles and wheelchair-accessible vehicles. That means that manufacturers face no barrier to producing non-zero-emission versions of those vehicles while they are still required. To encourage zero-emission models, bonus credits will be awarded for any SPVs registered. The UK is a world leader in the ingenuity it takes to make those specialist vehicle types, particularly wheelchair-accessible vehicles, and the Government are committed to ensuring that that continues. Further investment is expected. As the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders pointed out:
“The automotive industry is investing billions in decarbonisation and recognises the importance of the zero emission vehicle mandate as the single most important measure to deliver net zero.”
This legislation is pragmatic, necessary and vital for the UK to meet its world-leading climate commitments. It is supported by the vast majority of vehicle manufacturers operating in the UK, which have worked alongside the Government to ensure that the legislation can deliver the vehicles needed to decarbonise our national vehicle fleet. It demonstrates the UK’s global leadership in the fight against climate change; the order is the most ambitious legal framework of its kind in any country.
I commend the statutory instrument to the Committee.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Good morning, and thank you very much, Mrs Murray.
Labour supports the introduction of the ZEV mandate. The Minister said much that I can completely agree with. Decarbonising cars and vans is an absolute priority in delivering net zero, as he reiterated throughout his remarks. He set out extremely well the opportunities for the industry in this country. However, there are significant challenges, sadly, of the Government’s own making. I understand that there are problems in the Conservative party with this subject.
I will look at how the ZEV mandate, which we support, can be best rolled out and how the incentives can be used to deliver the agenda that the Minister set out. The confirmation that 80% of new cars and 70% of new vans will be zero emission by 2030 moves the UK towards net zero in cars and vans—that is true. However, the question we should address is how to balance the supply of vehicles, which the mandate sets to manufacturers, with demand from consumers. That is why what the Prime Minister said in September, and the way his party conference speech was trailed in advance again and again, caused so many problems. The change in date from 2030 to 2035 has created a problem for consumer confidence. We therefore support the end of new sales of petrol and diesel cars in 2030, not 2035. In Government, if we are given the responsibility in the coming year, we will revert to 2030 to emphasise the importance of taking the earliest possible steps to decarbonise.
The Prime Minister announced the change in date. After 2030, the remaining 20% in the mandate includes petrol, diesel and hybrids whereas it previously covered only hybrids. However, the problem is that consumers heard, “Don’t worry; you don’t have to switch”. That leaves manufacturers that have already made sizeable investments—the Minister set out the commitment of the industry very well—in zero-emission vehicles with the serious concern that drivers will not buy their electric vehicles because the Prime Minister told them not to worry.
On Monday, Baroness Young spoke to the Lords about the greater environmental awareness of young people and their pester power with parents. In the environment Select Committee, she said that she had asked some whether they were using that pester power to persuade their parents to adopt electric vehicles. What she heard back she described as a bit “shattering”. They had replied:
“There is no point in us trying to influence our parents on this because the Government have just said to them, by slipping the date, ‘Don’t worry, there is no rush. You don’t need to do it now—you can take all the time you like’”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 November 2023; Vol. 834, c. 994.]
In a nutshell, that is our problem: we have this gap between supply and demand.
It took the Government some time to come up with an excuse for why the Prime Minister had delayed the date. That was made by the Transport Secretary, and I do not disagree with the analysis that hybrids are higher-emitting vehicles than had previously been publicly announced—although that had been obvious for some years before that, because of the way people tend to drive them—but it was after the fact. It took the Government some time to consider that the Prime Minister’s announcement had had a chilling effect on consumer and industry confidence.
Let us look at some of what industry said. Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive officer of Energy UK, said of the net zero roll-backs:
“I just came out of a meeting where a chunk of the British economy was assured by ministers that net zero was a top priority and that policy stability was crucial for investors. Now this.”
The Climate Change Committee stated:
“The cancellation of some Net Zero measures is likely to increase both energy bills and motoring costs for households…any undermining of their roll-out will ultimately increase costs”—
that is electric vehicle roll-out. Meanwhile, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has estimated that drivers could face £6 billion in extra costs up to 2035.
The lifetime costs of EVs are already cheaper than those of petrol and diesel cars. By 2030, the up-front costs of EVs were forecast to be at parity with petrol or diesel cars. By delaying, the concern is that the Government are not lowering but raising costs for families.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm what I think I heard him say, which was that if Labour secured a victory at the next general election, it would revert to 2030? Is that correct?
Bill Esterson
That is exactly what we will do. We have been saying it since the Prime Minister announced the delay, so it should come as no surprise to the hon. Gentleman—
Bill Esterson
The Opposition believe in consistency and certainty; sadly, that has not been the case with the Government on this issue. We recognise the importance of certainty to manufacturers and consumers. That is why we will stick to the 2030 end-point for new sales of petrol and diesel.
Used-car sales account for more than 80% of sales, so petrol and diesel will be around for many years to come, but if we are to support our automotive industry—which has made those sizeable investments that the Minister rightly recognised—and to reduce emissions as fast as possible, as the climate science says we must, we have to encourage consumers to make the switch and we must make it attractive for them to do so.
In 2020, the then Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), announced the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars after 2030. He said that it would put the UK at the forefront of the zero-emission vehicle revolution with vehicles built right here in the UK. I agreed with him then, and I still agree with him now. I am concerned that there are Members on the Conservative Benches who do not agree with him.
The current Transport Secretary suggested that there was little environmental impact difference between the 2030 announcement then and the 2035 announcement now. The trouble is that consumers have been put off, as the Office for Budget Responsibility analysis suggested. The OBR said that just 38% of new vehicles sold in the UK in 2027 would be electric, down from the 67% it predicted as recently as March. That is the chilling effect of the Prime Minister’s announcement. The OBR said that the Government deferral of the ZEV mandate to 2035—it is a deferral not of the mandate, but of the sale of new petrol and diesel—is the reason that car buyers are dissuaded from going electric. Whether the detail of the OBR figures is exactly right or not, its point is well made: there has been a decline in consumer demand.
There is no need to take the word of the OBR—that independent body set up by Government—for it, but we can take industry’s word for it. Mike Hawes of the SMMT said that consumers require from Government
“a clear, consistent message, attractive incentives and charging infrastructure that gives confidence rather than anxiety. Confusion and uncertainty will only hold them back.”
I was with him last night at the SMMT annual dinner and he said that consumers need incentives now, not in 11 years’ time. He said that consumers have been told not to rush. The SMMT president—again, last night—described the chaos of moving goalposts in legislation.
Lisa Brankin, the Ford UK chair at the time of the Prime Minister’s announcement, said:
“Three years ago the government announced the UK’s transition to electric new car and van sales from 2030. The auto industry is investing to meet that challenge… Our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three. We need the policy focus trained on bolstering the EV market in the short term and supporting consumers while headwinds are strong: infrastructure remains immature, tariffs loom and cost-of-living is high.”
Stellantis’s press release at the time stated:
“Stellantis is committed to achieve 100% zero-emission new car and van sales in the UK and Europe by 2030. Our range will progressively move towards 100% electric, ahead of”
current “legislation.” It went on:
“Clarity is required from governments on important legislation, especially environmental issues that impact society as a whole.”
ChargeUK stated:
“For many years the UK has been a leader in the transition to the green economy of the future. Government policies have attracted investment to the UK and created well paid, high quality jobs. Members of ChargeUK have committed over £6 billion to roll out EV infrastructure in all parts of the UK at an unprecedented rate, turning on a new public charging point every 20 minutes, creating good, sustainable jobs, supporting the switch to EVs and thereby reducing emissions and improving air quality for all. This has been made possible by a clear commitment from the UK government to decarbonise our economy, with the 2030 phase out date for new petrol and diesel vehicles, 2030 acting as an essential catalyst. In his first speech as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak said ‘I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda’.”
We will not cheer yet. ChargeUK went on:
“Today’s extremely worrying news is not consistent with economic stability or confidence. It will compromise the entire industry, and place jobs and consumer and investor confidence at risk. More importantly, government will penalise individual drivers who are doing the right thing. More and more people are making the transition to electric vehicles, as they have been encouraged to do. They are entitled to expect government to keep its promises and continue to support the roll out of charging infrastructure across the UK. ChargeUK calls on the Prime Minister to confirm that the UK government remains committed to the 2030 phase out date for new petrol and diesel vehicles and to a strong ZEV mandate.”
A Labour Government will make that commitment if the Conservative Government will not.
The Climate Change Committee Chair said at the time:
“The Government not only has a legal obligation to meet its Net Zero 2050 target. It also has a commitment to hit the interim emission reduction targets it has put into law. The Climate Change Committee has an obligation to assess progress towards those targets. In June, we said in our Progress Report that we were less confident in the Government's ability to deliver its 2030 and 2050 commitments than we were a year previously. We need to go away and do the calculations, but today’s announcement is likely to take the UK further away from being able to meet its legal commitments. This, coupled with the recent unsuccessful offshore wind auction, gives us concern. More action is needed, and we await the Government’s new plan for meeting their targets and look forward to receiving their response to our Progress Report, expected at the end of October.”
There we have it from industry and the scientists.
Will the Minister address the concerns raised about what ChargeUK called the potential compromising of the entire industry and the placing of jobs and consumer and investor confidence at risk? How will Ministers ensure that consumers do not delay buying battery electric vehicles as a result of the change in date from 2030 to 2035? Furthermore, when will they publish the regulations for what happens between 2030 and 2035?
The regulations refer to charge point infrastructure. The Government are 10 years behind their stated 2030 date for the roll-out of 30,000 charge points—that is from the latest figures that the Government published. What changes will the Government make to increase the rate of roll-out? That is a key element of securing consumer confidence to buy the electric vehicles being produced as a result of the zero-emission vehicle mandate.
The news from Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover about the investments in gigafactories is very welcome. However, we are still well short of the Faraday Institution calculation of 200 GWh battery capacity required. Again, having this capacity is part of building consumer and manufacturer confidence, which is related to the ZEV mandate. Labour is committed to part-funding the additional capacity. Will the Government match our commitment? The rapid charging fund was announced in March 2020. Will the Government match our commitment to release the fund to secure charging coverage across the country, to deliver consumer confidence?
My questions are all designed to probe how to address the gap between consumer demand and ZEV-mandated manufacturer supply. Drivers need to know that electricity prices will fall. Labour will cut energy bills by making the UK self-sufficient in renewable electricity generation. Will this Government match our ambition? Will they make the case wholeheartedly in public—not just on Government websites hidden away that nobody ever sees—that electric vehicles are an attractive option now, by emphasising that an electric vehicle is much cheaper over its whole life than petrol or diesel?
The Government have announced a change of date, which affects the ability of industry to deliver the mandate we are debating today. Today’s decision does not address the delay to 2035. My final question is this. Labour support today’s statutory instrument, but we will revert to the 2030 target in Government, because we want to give the strongest encouragement to consumers and the strongest support to industry. Will the Government allow a vote in this Session of Parliament on the delay to 2035, so that the mandate we agree this morning has the best chance of being implemented effectively?
Anthony Browne
I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution. I will address all his points, but most were about the change in date from 2030 to 2035 for banning the sale of pure petrol and diesel internal combustion engine cars. I noticed that almost everything the hon. Gentleman quoted from industry was said on the day of the announcement or the day after, before they realised that actually the Government were not changing the zero-emission—
Bill Esterson
I think it is important to correct that point. I quoted what the chief executive and president of the SMMT said last night, which is entirely consistent with what they said at the time. I do not think anything has changed since.
Anthony Browne
I said “almost” everything the hon. Gentleman quoted. The quotes he cited from ChargeUK, for example, and much else, were about this announcement today. There was concern before the industry realised that actually the Government were not changing the zero-emission vehicle mandate, which we are implementing today. This is what gives certainty to industry. Indeed, I was with the chair of ChargeUK yesterday, and lots of charge point operators, who welcomed this legislation. They have £6 billion of investment that they are rolling out for charge points, precisely because of this.
If the hon. Gentleman fully welcomes the order, and wants to know the reason for delaying from 2030 to 2035 the ban on the sale of pure diesel and petrol vehicles, it is because at the time that the 2030 announcement was made, the evidence suggested that hybrid cars performed far more efficiently than pure internal combustion engine cars, whereas the more recent data shows that there is relatively little difference in performance. It cannot, therefore, be justified to ban the sale of one type of car while allowing the hybrid cars. From a consumer point of view, we should let them choose which type of car until 2035.
On a broader point, the hon. Gentleman touched on the carbon budgets. We have had three carbon budgets so far, and we have exceeded every single one of them by about 14%. We are way ahead of schedule and where we said we would be at this point in time. As the hon. Gentleman knows, if we look at our carbon dioxide reductions historically since the benchmark year of 1990, not only are we the leader of all the major European countries, we are the leader of the G7. Our greenhouse gas emission reductions are the greatest of any country in the G20. We are genuinely world leading on this. Looking at our future targets, the UK’s nationally determined contribution is 68%, and the EU’s is 55%. We are going to cut far faster than other countries. That is what gives us the leeway to be flexible on things in quite a minor way to give consumers more choice as we get to net zero. The impact of the announcement in terms of carbon dioxide emissions is about 1% of the total impact of these regulations.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the OBR report and questioned whether it thought we were going to meet the mandate. We are not allowed to show things, but I have the OBR graph here. It has underestimated our electric vehicle roll-out at every single stage. We have surpassed all its forecasts. Its latest forecast shows that it thinks we will meet the mandate and meet 100% zero-emission vehicles by 2035 and 80% by 2030. That is not surprising, because, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, that is what the industry itself is planning anyway. Sixty-seven per cent. of our car market is already committed to being 100% zero emissions by 2030—I think I am right in saying that that includes Ford, Stellantis and Nissan. All major car manufacturers are committed to 100% zero-emission vehicles by 2035. That is the trajectory the industry is on. This instrument gives them the certainty for it, but that is what is happening.
The hon. Gentleman asked when we will publish the details of the amounts on the targets for 2030 to 2035. The Government have mentioned indicative amounts, but we have not legislated for that yet. We will review all this in 2027 and there will be a second review in 2029. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the charge point roll-out. We have now surpassed 50,000 public charge points in the UK, of which one fifth—about 10,000—are rapid charging units. I want to see that go faster, but as I said, when I met the charge point operators yesterday, they were incredibly excited about rolling out incredibly fast. There is a wall of private sector capital—£6 billion. The number of charge points has increased by 45% over the last year compared with the previous year, which is an incredibly rapid roll-out.
Last night, instead of going to the all-party parliamentary beer group, I looked at electric vehicle statistics across Europe, because we are sometimes criticised for how the market has developed in the UK. If we look at the six major countries in Europe, Poland and Italy are at about 4%—we would not expect them to do that much. Spain is a bit higher at 4.7%. France, which we always look at as a great country for doing this sort of thing, is at 15.5%. Germany, the great automotive superpower of Europe, which has great engineers and everything else, have 15.8% electric vehicles. In the UK, 16.1% of our market is electric vehicles. Our electric vehicle market share is the greatest of any major country in Europe. That is a record to be absolutely proud of. This instrument will accelerate that far further.
The hon. Gentleman asked for a vote on the delay to 2035—he will not get that. I cannot commit to that, and we will not do it. I set out the reasons for that. I think I have answered all the points, so I will make my closing remarks.
The order is the most ambitious piece of legislation of its kind in any country anywhere in the world. Indeed, it is the biggest single act this Government are making to reach net zero. It is overwhelmingly supported by industry, which has helped to develop it. It establishes a clear pathway for the decarbonisation of our new car and van fleet. It will encourage vehicle manufacturers to invest in zero-emission vehicle manufacturing in the UK, encourage charge point operators to invest in our infrastructure network, and support jobs and working people as we move to a cleaner economy. I hope the Committee has found the debate informative and short, and that Members will join me, alongside colleagues in Senedd Cymru and in the Scottish Parliament, which have already approved this legislation, in supporting this instrument.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 (Port Examination Code of Practice) Regulations 2023
Draft National Security Act 2023 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) Regulations 2023
Draft National Security Act 2023 (Consequential Amendments of Primary Legislation) Regulations 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 (Port Examination Code of Practice) Regulations 2023.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft National Security Act 2023 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) Regulations 2023 and the draft National Security Act 2023 (Consequential Amendments of Primary Legislation) Regulations 2023.
Tom Tugendhat
It is a pleasure to serve under your extremely efficient chairmanship, Mr Twigg, and to see my very old friend, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central, who is scrutinising my work again in the way that only he can.
All three of these statutory instruments were laid before the House on 16 October, and relate to measures in the National Security Act, which received Royal Assent in July. It is the most significant piece of legislation for tackling the increase in state-based threats to our nation in a century. It brings together vital new measures to protect the British public, modernise counter-espionage laws and address the evolving threat to our national security. In essence, it provides our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies with new and updated tools to do their critical work. It is essential that we bring the powers in the Act into force to protect this country, and these instruments are an important part of making that happen. Once they are approved and come into force, we can also bring into force parts 1 to 3 of the Act. These statutory instruments support the powers created by the primary legislation, and do not create new powers or make changes to primary legislation that has already been agreed by Parliament. They ensure that the legislation can be implemented effectively and proportionately.
The first instrument, the draft National Security Act 2023 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) Regulations 2023, will create a new code of practice governing the video recording of individuals arrested under the Act. Schedule 6 of the Act requires that any interview by a constable of a person detained using the arrest powers in section 27 be video recorded with sound, and that video recording be carried out in accordance with the code of practice. That is the same requirement as for anyone interviewed following an arrest made under equivalent terrorism legislation. The code of practice is based closely on the terrorism equivalent, and provides guidance on how interviews should be conducted, including on the sealing of video recordings, on taking breaks during interviews, and on conducting interviews with deaf people or those who do not understand English.
The second instrument, the draft Counter-terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 (Port Examination Code of Practice) Regulations 2023, updates the code of practice that governs the exercise of the port examination power in schedule 3 of the Act. That power allows accredited counter-terrorism police officers to stop and examine a person at a port or border area to determine whether they are, or have been, involved in malign activity on behalf of a state.
The amendments to the code of practice simply reflect a change made by the National Security Act. It requires a counter-terrorism police officer of at least the rank of superintendent to authorise the retention of copies of confidential business material, instead of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. That change brings the process into line with the equivalent power in terrorism legislation, which has proven effective and avoids undue burdens on the system.
The Government carried out a statutory public consultation on the changes to this code and the creation of the video recordings code between 20 July and 31 August. The majority of consultees acknowledged that the codes were key to ensuring that police officers have clear guidance on their new powers, and that the powers are used in a way that is both fair and proportionate. However, where appropriate, we made further minor changes to meet the concerns of some consultees. For example, following feedback from Police Scotland on the video recording code, we made minor amendments to ensure that it is consistent with Scottish policing practice and procedure. The full response to the consultation can be found on gov.uk.
On the topic of codes of practice, there will be a debate tomorrow in which the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire will discuss another instrument regarding six codes of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 that are created or amended as a consequence of the powers in the National Security Act. I will not go into detail on those codes of practice—that is a matter for my right hon. Friend—but it is worth noting that they too went through a statutory consultation, which can be found on gov.uk.
Finally, the National Security Act 2023 (Consequential Amendments of Primary Legislation) Regulations 2023 makes consequential amendments to primary legislation using the power in section 95 of the National Security Act. While some consequential amendments are made through schedule 18 to the Act, the power in section 95 allows any further amendments to be made as a consequence of the provisions in the National Security Act. Consequential amendments are a customary part of any new legislation, and are required to ensure that existing legislation is up to date and reflects changes brought about by the National Security Act. They are not substantive amendments, but simply consequential to the creation of the National Security Act.
Several amendments concern the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920 and 1939, which the National Security Act replaces and repeals. References to those Acts in other legislation are updated to reference the relevant provisions in the National Security Act or, where appropriate, are repealed entirely. This includes references to the prohibited places regime in the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the preparatory conduct offence under section 7 of the Official Secrets Act 1920, both of which have been updated and replaced by the National Security Act. Other amendments made through this instrument account for other powers and offences created in the National Security Act. For example, amendments to the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 account for search and seizure powers created by schedule 2 to the National Security Act.
I hope I have made it clear that these regulations are simply supportive of primary legislation that has already been agreed by Parliament, and passing them is an important step to bringing that primary legislation into force. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your particularly efficient chairship, Mr Twigg. The Minister has had a busy few days, so it is particularly good to see him. I thank him for the clarity with which he made his opening remarks. He spoke about three statutory instruments, two relating to the National Security Act 2023 and one relating to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. If I may, I will touch on the National Security Act 2023 (Consequential Amendments of Primary Legislation) Regulations 2023 first, before turning very briefly to the other two statutory instruments.
The regulations will amend several pieces of legislation, including the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, to disqualify potential victims of modern slavery and human trafficking from protection if there are
“reasonable grounds to suspect that the person is or has been involved in foreign power threat activity”.
Those under this classification will be on the same legal footing as persons who are on reasonable grounds suspected of terrorism-related activity. We support this, of course, but I would be grateful if the Minister could explain whether it will mean a change to statutory and non-statutory guidance under section 49 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I appreciate that the Minister might not be able to answer that question today, in which case I would be grateful if he would write to me. I would also be most grateful if he could write to me with the answers to the questions I asked in the Delegated Legislation Committee on 14 November. I know he will not have forgotten about them, but he has had a lot on his plate.
Moving on to the National Security Act 2023 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) Regulations 2023, the updated code of practice for video recording with sound of interviews for persons detained under section 27 of the National Security Act 2023 is needed to meet operational requirements. Finally, the Counter-terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 (Port Examination Code of Practice) Regulations 2023 are needed to meet operational requirements; the regulations are closely modelled on schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. Again, we support them. As I have said to the Minister previously, we Opposition Members will continue to work constructively with him and the Government on matters relating to national security, including on forthcoming legislation. I will not detain the Committee any longer.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Briefly, I welcome and support the consultation with Police Scotland and, from what the Minister said, the acknowledgment of what it asked for. I appreciate that one of the statutory instruments did not have a consultation because it is minor, but is there anything more that the Minister could say about the consultation processes for the other two?
Tom Tugendhat
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central for their comments. On the Modern Slavery Act, the amendments are consequential to the primary legislation, so they are entirely in keeping with what was voted through in Parliament. I know the hon. Member for Barnsley Central is aware of that, but I will write to him on the statutory guidance to make the changes clear. I am grateful for his kind words on what I have been up to recently; I will chase up that letter on the last Delegated Legislation Committee, and will make sure that he gets it as soon as possible.
The consultations were carried out in the usual way. There is an open process: we announce that we are looking at an issue, and Members from devolved Administrations, local authorities, policing authorities or whatever bodies are relevant to the consultation are invited to comment. Others can comment as they see fit. Consultation began on 20 July and closed on 31 August. We did not have a huge number of comments, but we had some welcome interactions with Police Scotland and policing authorities in Scotland, which were useful in ensuring that we got the answers right.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT NATIONAL SECURITY ACT 2023 (VIDEO RECORDING WITH SOUND OF INTERVIEWS AND ASSOCIATED CODE OF PRACTICE) REGULATIONS 2023
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft National Security Act 2023 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) Regulations 2023.—(Tom Tudgendhat.)
DRAFT NATIONAL SECURITY ACT 2023 (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS OF PRIMARY LEGISLATION) REGULATIONS 2023
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft National Security Act 2023 (Consequential Amendments of Primary Legislation) Regulations 2023.—(Tom Tugendhat.)
Draft Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Solicitor General (Michael Tomlinson)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2023.
What an absolute pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, riding to our rescue, Ms Vaz; it is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It may disappoint you, Ms Vaz, but I have not prepared a long speech, because this statutory instrument is short and technical. It has two paragraphs and a schedule that, although it is of some length—107 paragraphs—merely amends, in a rather technical way, each mention of “retained EU” law and inserts “assimilated law” in its place.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I note that the explanatory memorandum states that the instrument has no
“significant…impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies”
or
“the public sector.”
As my hon. Friend has just said, all the SI does is substitute “assimilated law” for “retained EU law”. My question simply is this: what is the point?
The Solicitor General
It is an existential question: why are we here? As ever, my hon. Friend is diligent in the way that he considers such matters. He is right. The reason we are here is because the SI amends primary legislation, and whenever an SI amends primary legislation, we have to do it by way of the affirmative procedure. That is why we are here. It is still technical, so I will not delay him or the Committee any further.
The Committee will be pleased to know that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 emphasises the supremacy of our laws as an independent, sovereign nation. The draft regulations are part of the journey, not the complete journey. I commend them to the Committee.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a joy to have you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. You will understand our initial disappointment that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), a legend of north London, could not be with us. We therefore rely on you to help us on the Opposition Benches stand up to the mighty powers of the Executive, knowing that we only have limited resources on the Opposition side.
At the outset of my remarks, I want to praise those on the Opposition Benches who have come in to this Committee to help scrutinise the Government’s efforts in this area: my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester, for Blaydon and for Liverpool, Walton, and on this occasion let me praise my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith too.
Gareth Thomas
That bit hurt, but we have got to get over it. I am genuinely grateful to have the opportunity to discuss the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2023. I confess I initially struggled to find the controversy in this statutory instrument, as it seems to be exclusively concerned with replacing slightly outdated legal phrasing for 107 pieces of primary legislation. From what I understand, all this statutory instrument actually does is bring into effect the use of the phrase “assimilated law” instead of the phrase “retained EU law”.
Michael Fabricant
On a point of order, Ms Vaz. Is repetition in order? The hon. Gentleman is just repeating what I said.
Gareth Thomas
It is rare that the hon. Gentleman has been an inspiration to me, but I can think of one occasion in the past when I have been grateful for his support. It was a very long time ago, but on that one occasion I think he was on the right side of history, being on my side.
Let me continue with my opening remarks. I will paraphrase from the explanatory memorandum, which helpfully sets out at paragraph 7.1 that this statutory instrument does not result in any change in policy, but simply allows a minor change in language to bring about a bit of clarity for business. Given the chaos that the Conservative party has unleashed on the country and the often anti-business agenda of Conservative Members, we on the Opposition side very much welcome any bit of clarity and assistance to business that can be offered. From what we can see, it certainly is not a controversial statutory instrument. On that basis, we will on this occasion not seek to divide the Committee.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
I also applaud the regime change at the heart of this Committee to keep us under way. I have always been conscious that nobody ever criticises a speech for being too short, but today I think I can excel myself. The Scottish National party’s position on this primary legislation is well rehearsed. We deeply regret leaving the European Union, we regret the way it was done, and we regret its consequences, but in tribute to the Minister, I would say that he has proven throughout this process that it is possible to disagree agreeably. We now move on to the nuts and bolts of the consequences of this legislation, and this is a great big textual amendment. It does not repeal or amend the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Senedd’s legislation. Those Parliaments have no objection to this, and are indeed bringing forward their own legislation to make the same textual amendment. They have no objection to it, so on that basis, neitherj do I. I will not divide the Committee either.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Northern Ireland
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has mentioned additional UK Government funding, and an important element of that is levelling-up bids. We on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee note with concern that no Northern Ireland application was successful in the recent third phase. Can he assure me that a sum of funding is being set aside for Northern Ireland projects? If so, can he give us an indication of the likely amount being set aside?
Mr Baker
My right hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the issue. A number of things have been said about this matter that are not the case. The money will be made available in Northern Ireland, and it has been set aside. If memory serves, it is about £15 million, but I would need to double-check—if I am incorrect, I will write to him. The reality is that we need decisions to be taken by a restored Executive, and the Government are keen to work with Northern Ireland Ministers to that end. I am grateful to him for highlighting this point and giving me the opportunity to say that the money will be spent in Northern Ireland.
[Official Report, 22 November 2023, Vol. 741, c. 308.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker):
An error has been identified in the answer I gave to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). The correct answer should have been:
Mr Baker
My right hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the issue. A number of things have been said about this matter that are not the case. The money will be made available in Northern Ireland, and it has been set aside; £30 million has been reserved for Northern Ireland from round 3 of the levelling-up fund. The reality is that we need decisions to be taken by a restored Executive, and the Government are keen to work with Northern Ireland Ministers to that end. I am grateful to him for highlighting this point and giving me the opportunity to say that the money will be spent in Northern Ireland.
Women and Equalities
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Caulfield
The theme of this year’s International Men’s Day is zero male suicide. The latest data we have from the Office for National Statistics tells us that men account for around three quarters of all deaths by suicide. As many Members have said, that is the biggest cause of premature death in men under 35, but middle-aged men are also a significant risk group, and that is why they are a priority group in our recently published suicide prevention strategy. Over 4,500 men die by suicide in England alone every year. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley noted that is 13 deaths a day.
[Official Report, 21 November 2023, Vol. 741, c. 33WH.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield):
An error has been identified in the speech I gave in the debate on International Men’s Day. The correct statement should have been:
Maria Caulfield
The theme of this year’s International Men’s Day is zero male suicide. The latest data we have from the Office for National Statistics tells us that men account for around three quarters of all deaths by suicide. As many Members have said, that is the biggest cause of premature death in men under 35, but middle-aged men are also a significant risk group, and that is why they are a priority group in our recently published suicide prevention strategy. Over 4,500 men died by suicide in England, Scotland and Wales in 2021. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley noted that is 13 deaths a day.
Westminster Hall
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Rural Councils: Funding
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the funding of rural councils.
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in the debate.
There is nothing like a bit of competition between North Dorset and West Dorset. I would like to warmly welcome the Sherborne town clerk, Steve Shield, who is in the Public Gallery and is a finalist in the star council awards that will take place later today. I understand that Shaftesbury is also in those awards, so I wish Sherborne Town Council the best of luck; I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), will make the case for Shaftesbury in a moment.
May I take this opportunity to warmly welcome my hon. Friend to his post as Minister for local government finance? I know that he is well versed in the many issues facing us not just in Dorset but across rural Britain. Many, like me, are pleased to see a Dorset MP in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities who is not purely obsessed with the north and urban areas and who can bring meaningful perspective to rural issues, particularly in the south-west.
Ten million people live in rural England. Those who work in the rural economy can expect to earn on average £2,000 less than those in urban areas. The rural fuel poverty gap is double the national average. Rural people pay on average 20% more council tax per head than those in urban areas. My other constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and I both represent the area with the worst social mobility in the country. I have a secondary school in that area that has been partly closed and another school where a third of the classrooms are in disrepair. We also have significant transport issues and social care challenges—in West Dorset, we have a community where a third of the population is over the age of 65.
My constituents are fed up with turning on the telly to hear levelling-up announcements for urban areas in the midlands and the north and hearing nothing about the rural south-west or rural Britain. They want to know, and have sent me here today to ask why rural hardship is not seen in the same way as urban poverty. They expect to see their representatives make the case to change that. That is why other Members and I are in the Chamber today.
It should be no surprise that rural matters are going up the agenda. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) brought a debate to Westminster Hall about rural services. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for chairing the all-party parliamentary group on rural services and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), the previous Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on all the work that she has done.
I represent West Dorset, which is my home, and I am the sixth generation of a tenant-farming family, and am in the Chamber, almost 10 months on from my last debate, again to champion the cause of millions of people living in rural Britain who want a fairer system of taxation and service provision. Whereas before I focused primarily on the revenue support grant, I am here today to address the funding of rural councils more broadly, and particularly to speak in favour of my own, Dorset Council. That funding is perhaps more important today than it was at the time of the previous debate in January, given that little has changed to improve the situation for rural councils since then. It is nearly a decade since the local government funding formula was locked in. That means it is also a decade since the faulty distribution of the revenue support grant and the corresponding increase in council tax to compensate for the unfair—in my opinion—national distribution of Government resources. As the years have passed, the situation for rural councils, exposed relentlessly to the frozen funding formulas, has deteriorated, and the rural tax burden has increased for millions in England, including my West Dorset constituents.
A recent survey carried out by the County Councils Network and the Society of County Treasurers found that their members face overspending on their budgets by an enormous £600 million per annum. It found that 20 county councils and 17 unitary authorities right across the country will collectively overspend in 2023-24. There is no clear road map for improvement, so those councils are running out of time to find solutions to prevent insolvency. That is one of the reasons why it is important for me to bring this matter to the House.
Against that backdrop, it is a surprise that only one in 10 of those surveyed running well-managed councils are unsure or lack confidence that they will be able to balance their budgets this year—I hasten to remind hon. Members that it is a legal requirement for councils to do so—but without urgent action or reform, that number will increase to four in 10 next year and six in 10 by 2025. That is an unprecedented majority of our rural councils, and the County Councils Network is concerned about whether councils will meet the legal requirements within the next two years.
Why is that the case? What is causing the situation to be so difficult? Why is there an excess burden on rural people? It is due, first, to the formula that dictates the distribution of the revenue support grant from the Government to local authorities; and, secondly, to the corresponding levels of council tax that councils are forced to levy to cover their increasing social and services cost. As the Minister said to the Levelling-up, Housing and Communities Committee earlier this month, the unique characteristics and challenges of each local authority make it difficult to implement a national fix, as they often require bespoke solutions. I fully understand and support that idea.
I have spoken a great deal in this Chamber and on the Floor of the House about the revenue support grant formula and council tax, so I will touch on them only briefly for Members’ information. In 2013-14, we locked in a local government funding formula that distributed an unfairly low proportion of central Government resources and grants to rural councils; today, urban councils receive 38% more in Government-funded spending power per head than rural councils. This year, my local authority, Dorset Council, received just £700,000 from central Government, which accounts for just 0.2% of funding. Although my hon. Friend the Minister, who was on the Back Benches at the time, and I made the case very strongly for Dorset in the local government funding debate, the local council would probably say that other adjustments were made that offset that, so there was little if any net benefit. The rest must be sourced elsewhere—often through the council tax mechanism—or the council will enter an insolvency situation.
As a result, councils in the predominantly rural areas of the country that are overlooked when it comes to Government support must increase the rate of council tax, irrespective of their individual demands on services and demographics. Rural residents across the country pay an average of 20% more council tax. Across the County Councils Network, 68% of funding was received from council tax alone, compared with an average of 56.8%—it is, of course, lower in most urban boroughs. In everyday terms, that means that the typical band D council tax bill for someone living in Dorchester, Sherborne, Bridport or Lyme Regis—or any of the 132 parishes in West Dorset—will be over £2,000 a year.
While focusing on our situation in West Dorset, I should explain why the existing system of rural council funding cannot continue unamended. In West Dorset, a third of residents are over 65. It is a vast geographical territory, covering over 400 square miles of the most beautiful and picturesque part of the country. Although that may sound idyllic, it is tremendously difficult to travel without access to a car or the ability to drive, especially as local public transport options have become more and more restricted. Sixth formers in Dorset— 16 to 19-year-olds—have to pay to get the bus to go to sixth form. Why is that the case, when the Government pump billions into TfL and Londoners get travel for free? That cannot be right.
These three factors—the revenue support grant, council tax and local characteristics—regularly combine to disadvantage rural communities and people, imposing barriers where there need not be any. That can be felt across society. Taking them together, it is fair to say that rural councils continue to be placed under unique pressure.
This has a knock-on effect on households and businesses. We have seen it clearly during the cost of living crisis, where three in four councils, many of them serving rural residents, have increased their council tax by the maximum permitted rate. Accounting for the increase, a typical band-D council tax bill for rural residents is 27.5% higher than that faced by London residents.
It is fair to say that the high rise in energy prices has disproportionately affected rural households and businesses. That is against the backdrop of a rural fuel poverty gap that is already double the national average. In West Dorset, more than half of households are off grid, meaning that they have less access to energy support than people on the mains gas network. This is one of the primary reasons why, when Dorset Council established its household support fund for applications, its funding allocation was gone within a matter of hours.
Business rates are a very topical issue for rural councils. The simple nature of our local economy in West Dorset means that 97% of businesses are small or micro sized. They are not conglomerates; they are not transnational. They are often run by people, perhaps from home or from a small premises at the local trading estate, employing one, two, three, four or five people who are attempting to make a modest living. It means, however, that income derived from retained business rates by the council in West Dorset is 14.5%, whereas Tower Hamlets, for example—to make a comparison with London—receives over 50% from its retained business rates. To put that into financial terms, it is £50.2 million for Dorset, but £176 million for the borough of Tower Hamlets.
We ought not to forget the importance of social care. I recognise that this area is often debated in the Department of Health and Social Care, but the reality is that local government has an important responsibility for delivering social care and services. Residents across the country would be forgiven for overlooking the acronym for adult social care—ASC—on their council tax bill, but rural councils are forced to derive huge amounts of their income from the adult social care precept. In total, people would expect three quarters of the amount they pay in council tax to go towards social care support, simply because older people tend to reside in more rural areas. As I mentioned earlier, a third of our population in West Dorset is over 65, compared with just 10% in some London boroughs. The matter of an ageing population of concern for all rural councils, as rural residents get 13% less per head in social care support overall. That is one of the main drivers for the council tax increase. The matter of social care becomes sharper when we make a comparison between urban and rural. Residents in an average band-E property in West Dorset will pay an annual social care precept of £204.04. For the same property in the borough of Westminster, the precept is a mere £3.20. The difference is absolutely enormous.
The dividends are especially visible in funding for young people’s services and schools. Across Dorset, there is core school funding per pupil of £5,728, which places the council in the upper third of upper-tier local authorities for education spending. Other rural authorities fare just as poorly or even worse. Leicester, Cheshire and Bedfordshire are all ranked in the top 10 upper-tier local authorities for core school funding per pupil. Looking again to the capital for our rural to urban comparison, it is possible to see that London boroughs occupy all 10 of the top 10 spots for core school funding. Islington, Westminster, Camden, Southwark and Hackney all spend over £7,500 per pupil when it comes to education funding. Tower Hamlets is top of the list; it spends £8,122 per pupil. That is 40% more than is spent on a child in education in rural Dorset. That disparity is simply unfair and is not acceptable for those who are being educated in rural Britain.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I am grateful to him for bringing us together on this important topic. On the matter of disparity in funding, does he recognise that, on top of the ludicrously exaggerated funding that London councils get, they each make millions more on parking fines that they are then able to put back into their communities? That is not taken into consideration, so their budgets are inflated beyond even that which we see in the basic figures.
Chris Loder
I wholly agree with my hon. Friend, but it is worse than that. One of my asks for the Minister is to take away and investigate this: it is important that we all note that London is getting £236 million a year more of Government grant than the formula says it should, and that £166 million goes to five London boroughs alone. I very much appreciate that my hon. Friend and neighbour is very new in his ministerial post, and I am not expecting him to answer some of these very tricky questions, but I would appreciate it if he would ask his officials to look into that and gain an understanding of some of these matters, because for those of us representing rural constituents this is simply unacceptable. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) again for her kind intervention.
It is not just education, businesses and social care that this unfairness pervades, but transport too. The stark reality is that urban councils are in the privileged position of spending three and half times more on public transport than rural councils. We can see that demarcation clearly between London and West Dorset; I have given enough comparators to make the point. If anything, it should be the other way around, because of the rural disparity.
Something is not right in the formulas and the understanding of them. We do not have a dedicated or overfunded public body to oversee our transport network in Dorset, as other areas do with Transport for London, Transport for Greater Manchester and so on. In West Dorset, unlike many urban areas, further education students do not receive a free or subsidised travel pass to get to their places of study. Residents are not in the luxurious position of receiving eye-watering grants for public transport in rural Britain, and definitely not in West Dorset. Instead, they have to rely on the good will of community operators to keep running. That is not sustainable; I hope that Transport Ministers will consider that point. It is evident that the disparity in national mechanisms for council funding between rural and urban areas is far-reaching, cross-cutting and very difficult for councils on the wrong side of the formulas.
Almost 10 million people live in rural England. Most hon. Members present represent rural constituencies, and many of us are rural residents ourselves. We want action to address the challenges and financial difficulties that our local councils face. It is important that we see the continuation of the excellent Government work across the board to improve the fairness of this crucial aspect of Government policy—something that I, the Minister and others have been attempting for some time. Primarily, we need fundamental reform of the frozen funding formulas, which in my view constitute a levy that penalises rural residents simply for where they live. That strikes at the heart of fairness, which is not on.
This country has moved a long way in the decade since 2013-14. It is fair to say that the funding formulas and the revenue support grant formula were geared to a very different climate in 2013-14. We know that many things have changed; many have improved and some have got worse. Other models such as the Green Book should also be amended to ensure that fairness is realised. If we continue with rural councils not receiving the fairness that they deserve, county authorities will have no choice but to cut back on some of the services that they have to provide. It is important, and only fair, that I let the Government know that that is not acceptable.
I am pleased that my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset is the Minister for local government finance. He brings a level of understanding and insight from Dorset that I do not think we have seen in that role before. I had the same debate 10 months ago with one of his predecessors, in whose constituency council tax was £800 lower than in the Minister’s and mine. It is a difficult situation for an MP to comprehend unless we see it day to day with our constituents, as the Minister and I both do.
I wish the Minister well in making progress. Rural England is crying out for his help. I look forward to him being the messiah of local government finance. The February debate on local government finance is always an interesting one. I look forward to it and hope that we will have a further conversation then, and much more progress in the meantime.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. As so many Members wish to speak, I will impose a five-minute limit.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on a well-informed and passionate speech. I am going to talk about local government in Scotland, which is a devolved matter but which I believe impinges on what the United Kingdom Government do in England and Wales.
I had the honour of serving twice as a member of the Highland Council. The word “messiah” rang a bell with me, because there is that wonderful chorus from the “Messiah” about “Wonderful, Counsellor”; I always regard it as my personal tune. The Highland Council is the biggest council in the entire United Kingdom. It is 20% larger than Wales. We have 7,000 km of road, 200 schools—the most of any local authority in the UK—and extraordinary diversity, from the conurbation of Inverness to very remote areas with very sparse populations. These bring particular challenges that all rural Members here will recognise: distance, inclement weather and everything else that makes funding those councils much harder.
In my brief contribution today, I want to highlight a cautionary tale. I am sorry that no Scottish National party Members are present, because this is an issue for them and their Government in Scotland. The Scottish Government in their infinite wisdom have seen fit to impose a council tax freeze. For the Highland Council, that means that £108 million of savings will have to be found over the next three years. That is incredibly difficult for my former colleagues, because £108 million represents slightly more than half the annual education budget for the Highland Council—that is how massive it is. I do not envy those good people of all parties: Conservative, Liberal, Labour, independent and, indeed, Scottish nationalist. I do not know how they will do it.
I believe that there is a cautionary tale here for the United Kingdom Government. We talk about what exactly is meant by levelling up. The first point is that this sort of thing happening in the highlands of Scotland or in other parts of rural Scotland amounts to a form of levelling down. Services will be cut, investment will be cut and—this is my message to the Minister—that sits unhappily with the Government’s policy of trying to ensure levelling up. If we have part of the United Kingdom going in the opposite direction, it makes the equation that much harder for the UK Government to square, notwithstanding the good intention and efforts that might lie behind the initiative.
This is my second and last point. When His Majesty’s Treasury agreed the local government settlement as part of the Scottish Government settlement, was the intention that the Scottish Government would take those resources and decide to freeze council tax? I do not believe that that is what any Treasury of any Government of the UK would see as a worthwhile outcome. Will the Minister be kind enough to convey that message back to the Treasury? As and when it looks at the Scottish Government settlement, it might just want to take a good, hard look at what the SNP Government are doing in Scotland and how it is having a direct impact on my constituents—the children, the old people and the people who need carers and social help in my constituency. I want to say on the record that I very, very much resent that.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for giving a great opportunity to speak in support of our local rural areas and councils, and for raising this timely issue.
As we have heard, it does not take an economist to recognise that the pressure on Government Departments to find savings in public spending will mean that local authorities do not get what they need to deliver the services that they want to deliver. In that context, it is more rather than less important to distribute the available resource fairly between different areas. I am here to press the Minister and his Department to ensure that the 2024-25 local government finance settlement is fairer for local authorities. I say that as an MP who represents a remote island community with its own unitary authority, the Council of the Isles of Scilly, which has had discussions with Government Ministers and me for every year I have been an MP to try and resolve their funding challenges.
I also speak as an MP who represents a sparsely populated rural area served by the large unitary authority of Cornwall Council. It is a great delight to be joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) to campaign for this together. I also speak as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on rural services.
I remind the House that urban councils receive 38% more per head in Government-funded spending power than rural councils. As we have heard, rural residents will get 13% less per head in social care support. Rural councils have to increase council tax to balance their budgets, and that means that rural residents now pay on average 20% more in council tax per head. That additional tax on rural residents is a result of Government underfunding over many years. The cost of living in rural areas is higher than in urban areas, and that rural earnings are lower. The cost of service delivery is also higher in rural areas.
The Government have sought to address the disparity. Following a campaign by the Rural Fair Share Campaign and the Rural Services Network, the Government accepted that “such a correction”—so that there is a proper recognition of the additional cost of delivering services in rural areas—“is warranted”. Changes were approved and the formula was changed. The new formula is still, by and large, the one in operation today. The problem is that that uplift to rural council funding has not been realised, because on average 75% of the exemplified gains were lost to authorities as a result of damping and other changes. Damping aims to protect councils from volatile changes, which is understandable, but the Government froze the formula so that it was not changed further. As we have heard, there are London local authorities that receive millions of pounds a year more in grant than the formula says they should.
We were not deterred. With the support of the Rural Services Network, many parliamentarians, including me, convinced the Government that a fair funding review was needed. That was in 2016, soon after I became an MP. The Government then announced a relative needs and resources review, which was intended to ensure a fairer formula for the allocation of Government funding, with a new funding formula in place for the 2020-21 financial year. If that had been delivered as intended and as we expected, we would not be having this discussion today, and the councils we represent would not be facing such difficult decisions about how to spend money not where they want to, but where they need to. The review has been delayed over and over again. It has now been seven years since the review was announced, but the formula has not been changed.
It is time to act. The Minister must deliver fairer funding by applying in full, without damping, the effects of the changes made but not fully implemented to the needs assessment component of the formula that was agreed back in 2013. The Minister must ensure that funding for social care reform proposals uses a formula that recognises a whole range of costs faced by rural councils and care providers. The Minister must also address fairer funding through the completion of the needs and resources review for local government funding in the first 12 months of the next spending review period, and fully implement the changes promised in 2021 for implementation in 2026-27. The Minister must also fight for, defend and maintain the rural service delivery grant.
I recognise that that will not be easy. However, we do not go into government for an easy life, but to correct unfairness and inequality. Our Government believe in levelling up, and I am not aware of a better way to level up than to fairly fund the day-to-day public services that our councils deliver, that our constituents depend on and that they have a right to expect.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. Because of the number of Members who want to speak, any Member who did not notify me that they wanted to speak will not be called.
Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), my neighbour, on securing the debate.
I must first declare an interest as a proudly active Somerset councillor. My colleagues and I at Somerset Council and across local government know how difficult times are for councils right across the country. We must not forget the crucial role that local authorities play. They provide essential frontline services to the residents they serve. To do so, and to survive, they must have the necessary support from central Government. In 2018, when the Prime Minister was Under-Secretary of State for Local Government, he claimed to understand just how important local authorities were, so I have been disappointed that more support has not been forthcoming during his premiership to enable local authorities to deliver services to their communities.
Local authorities need to be able to provide first-rate social care for adults and children. The Conservative former leader of Somerset Council has regularly recognised that adult and children’s social care is broken. He has called for immediate investment by Government in social care. Somerset Council is facing a £100 million black hole in its budget, with a significant overspend in social care. The latest estimates show a £70 million increase in costs for 2024-25. The stark reality is that inaction now will cost lives.
The cost of providing services in rural areas, like the majority of Somerton and Frome, is more than in urban areas, yet rural residents will receive 13% less in spending per head on social care support. As a result of underfunding, rural councils are forced to increase council tax to its highest rate in order to balance their budgets. The system is grossly unfair, as we have heard. An increase of 1% in council tax in a largely rural county like Somerset would bring in only £3.4 million, whereas in Surrey, for example, the figure would be about £8 million.
It is clear that in Somerset the urgent pressures we are facing are in part the fault of the previous Conservative administration, which refused to raise council tax for six years between 2010 and 2017—the longest freeze of any council in the country. That irresponsible move saw a minimum shortfall of £24 million per year, and delivered a total cut to services of £150 million. In the same time, the Government cut council funding by 40% until 2020. Combined, those policies have left it impossible for the council to meet its statutory obligations for funding social care at a time of high inflation, which has forced cuts in services that local people rely on. Somerset Council is also ranked towards the bottom for the Government public health funding that it receives. That is not right, and it is not fair.
We are waiting for the 2024-25 local government finance settlement; I hope that it will be fairer for rural local authorities. As the hon. Member for West Dorset mentioned, the current local government funding formula, which has been largely unchanged since 2013-14, has left rural areas with huge losses, and 75% of the exemplified gains were lost to local authorities due to damping and other changes.
Local government has been waiting for the fair funding review for seven years since its announcement, with several years of delay. If it does not urgently address the issues that rural councils are facing, it is highly likely that many more authorities will go bust and end up issuing section 114 notices. That can and should be avoided, as there are no better bodies to run local services than the people who live in the area that they serve. I hope that the Minister, another neighbour of mine, is listening to the very stark cost of ignoring the bleak reality for local authorities and the communities they serve across the country.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for securing this very important debate. I could waste time setting out the problem that he has made very clear, but what we should be doing is focusing on the solutions. Some 21% of the population—12 million people—live in rural areas. Too often, they are ignored, forgotten and marginalised. What we really need is a proper strategy for rurality. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Minister responsible for rurality across Government Departments?
Today, we seem to be focusing much more on the exact amount that goes to local government, instead of looking across the piece at the totality of money that goes through the funnel of local government for health, education and transport. What we need is an approach that looks at that in the round. The Government have to accept that the original plan in 2010, which effectively tried to shift the balance of funding away from central grants and towards council tax and business rates, is fundamentally flawed. The problem is that it has baked in underfunding, which has just got worse and worse each year.
A courageous Government would recognise the imbalance and do something that sounds almost impossible: cut what we give urban communities. We all know that times are tough. Asking for more for rural without cutting urban ain’t gonna work. It will be a brave but fair move, and this Government are all about fairness.
Devon is in exactly the same position as has been described for Dorset and Somerset, and the fear of a section 114 notice hovers. It paralyses action. It is not right for our communities, because their lived reality is that the life chances of children are considerably reduced. A primary school in my constituency is looking to lay off six teachers—think what that will do. It is a small school, and children in their first proper year of education are predominantly in nappies; one teacher’s full-time job is changing nappies. That cannot be right. Housing is in short supply, and it is not just the challenge from tourism and Airbnb. Even the Campaign to Protect Rural England launched a cry for help last night —a cry for more affordable housing from an unusual ally.
All the flood plans generally look at value for money in large conurbations, and rural communities get forgotten. The flood money is not ringfenced. In the last storm, one of my villages was under metres of water and there was a considerable amount of sewage. There was no money to put the damage right, and there is no money in Devon County Council to put in place a proper flood prevention plan. People in the village live not with carpets but with concrete floors. They say to me, “Anne Marie, there is absolutely no point in carpeting, because we know that when the next flood comes, we’re going to have to replace it, and it just makes the clean-up much harder.” They live on concrete, and that it is a fairly squalid condition to be living in. It is not right.
On transport, we are lucky if we even get a bus going to and from the same village on the same day. Transport is heavily underfunded, and it is yet another Government Department grant that simply is not fit for purpose.
What are we going to do about this? We need a fair deal for the countryside. I saw the Minister nod his head and say, “Actually, it is me who is looking across all these Government Departments,” in which case I very much look forward to him giving us some answers, because we cannot carry on living like this. It is not right, it is not fair and it is not moral. Why should my young constituents living in a rural constituency have worse opportunities and life outcomes, and why should the older people suffer because the social care is simply not there? It is not right, it is not acceptable and something must be done.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is an absolute honour to serve under your stewardship this morning, Mrs Latham. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who made a very good speech. It is great that he introduced this topic for us to coalesce around, although I will say something that right hon. and hon. Members might not like to hear: I have analysed the 6,366 words that the Chancellor used in his autumn statement last week, and not a single one of them was the word “rural”. That might be an accidental and pedantic omission, or it might tell us more than the Chancellor intended. It certainly rings bells with rural communities in Westmorland, who feel ignored and taken for granted.
I want to make two or three quick points about the formula for funding rural councils. First, authorities such as mine are inadequately funded to take account of the number of temporary residents in our communities. Some 227,000 people live in the area administered by Westmorland and Furness Council, and we have something like 20 million visitors to the lakes and dales every year. Some stay overnight, but most come as day visitors. The pressure they put on the roads and other parts of our infrastructure is significant. Every single one of them is welcome, but it seems wrong that we are not in any way compensated, particularly with highways funding, to acknowledge the fact that we are the biggest visitor destination in the country outside London. I congratulate the council on doing its job and making a methodical, good effort to tackle the state of our roads, but it is not fair that it is not funded for the people who visit.
Secondly, others have mentioned sparsity. I have a mere 130 schools in my constituency, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), but they cover a huge area, with many primary schools with fewer than 20 children and many high schools with fewer than 200. Of course it is more expensive to provide services in such dispersed areas, and sparsity is not a sufficient part of the funding formula. All that is against the backdrop of unfair funding for rural councils in general. On average, a person living in a rural community such as mine receives £105 less in central Government funding than their urban counterpart, and pays £104 more in council tax.
I want to make two points about second homes. First, the people who are lucky and well off enough to have a second home in a community such as mine can come and buy a home in Ambleside, Grasmere or Appleby, and they may turn it into a holiday let for a few weeks a year. They can therefore not pay any council tax, and because they are a small business they pay no business tax either. That means that people on very low incomes in Appleby, Kendal, Ambleside, Windermere and so on are subsidising wealthy people to have a second, third, fourth or fifth home in our communities.
I am pleased that the Government have said that they will allow councils to double council tax for second homes. That is good news. Westmorland and Furness Council reckons that will bring in an extra £10 million to help local residents. The council, which plans to start this scheme in April, has done its duty by giving second home owners the necessary 12 months’ notice. My question is: have the Government got their house in order? Will they be permitting councils to double tax on second homes from April 2024? If they fail to do that, will they compensate the councils that were planning to make use of this new and welcome power?
Let us talk briefly about social care. Rural councils get an average of 14% less funding for social care than urban councils. However, in many rural areas—certainly mine—the number of older people who require that care is much greater. The average age of my constituents is 10 years above the national average. Our area also has a complete crisis in affordable housing for both private and social rented homes, with average house prices about 12 times the average wages. So where do the workforce live? As a consequence of the housing crisis and our older population, we have a serious care crisis in our area. Earlier this year, 32% of our hospital beds were occupied by people who were fit to leave hospital but could not receive a care package. Why? Because there are not enough homes for the people who work in social care. We are not paying those people enough money. The Government have made promises before but have failed to act, letting down our old people and our rural communities.
Let us talk briefly about transport poverty, which is a huge issue that we all have in common in our rural communities. The £2 bus fare is very welcome, but it is of no use whatsoever if we have no bus. We need to fund our younger people to get them into further education—sixth forms and apprenticeship posts—but we need to make sure that there are working buses to do that. One reason that is not the case now is that the Government have not devolved the powers that they devolve to urban areas to rural ones. Why will they not allow communities like ours to have full devolution so we can have our own bus companies and fund rural bus services? They will only allow that for urban areas that have a Mayor, and that is disadvantaging rural communities. I hope the Minister will answer that.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on not only the time we worked together at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but his excellent speech. I have learned that we share a lot of characteristics in our different counties, and many of the same concerns.
Suffolk County Council is a well-run council. It has not gone off speculating about property and other crises that other councils have found themselves in. It has also tried to innovate over the years, recognising the financial challenges that the country was left with in 2010 when the last Labour Government were in power. Suffolk Libraries is an example of that innovation. While many other councils around the country were closing libraries, Suffolk took the opportunity to effectively create a community interest company—or a charity, as it is now. That is an even better service than when it was run by the council, so Suffolk is not averse to innovation and bringing the communities in.
However, from some of my discussions with the county council leader, I am concerned that the basic costs are rising, particularly those associated with special educational needs and disabilities. I can think of several children who, per individual, cost about £1 million a year to support. I know that we have to support those children—of course we do—but this should be recognised more strongly in the local government finance settlement.
Another big surge in costs has been from home-to-school transport. As has been said by many, that is really challenging. One of the costs for people living in these wonderful parts of the countryside that we represent is having to travel much further for services, or it costs more for councils to provide the services directly to the local communities. That issue is worrying not just Suffolk County Council but councils right across the country.
The other big issue is the increase in the national living wage. That is welcome—it is in line with the Government’s policy to keep the national living wage in line with two thirds of median earnings—but it needs to be recognised in the support given to councils. The increase is, I think, 9.6% next April. That is a significant increase to the cost of providing services, so I hope that the Government will look at that.
Rural councils have always been innovative because they have had to be, partly because they need to deliver services in a slightly different way. If I think about what happens here in London, Westminster, Wandsworth, and Kensington and Chelsea all share just one waste and recycling centre, and it is very easy for people to get to. That is not true for rural council areas, where people are driving many more miles to use those services. I welcome the funding—for example, the recent pothole funding—that has been given to councils around the country in recognition of the lengths of roads in their areas, but it is the ongoing, daily element that we must keep in mind when we have the local government finance settlement. I hope that we can consider these issues earlier to try to give certainty to officers and councillors on how they will manage in the years ahead.
Councils have been innovative and there have already been mergers. We have merged several of our district councils. East Suffolk is the largest district council in the country, not necessarily by geography but by the number of people represented, and the current administration has benefited from the good stewardship that the Conservative administration had in the past. There is no doubt that the funding formula needs revisiting to reflect the challenges we face. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, who I congratulate on his role, will consider that carefully.
There are other aspects of deregulation that we should consider. Take, for example, community transport projects, where willing volunteers help get people to day clubs or other places like that; we need to take advantage of having left the European Union and deregulate things like extending the rights to drive C1 and D1 vehicles— D1 particularly when it comes to community transport. We can do that. It is within our powers. The Department for Transport says it needs primary powers. If primary legislation is what is needed, then let’s go for it, but I think there are other ways.
Overall, unemployment is much lower in rural areas. That is why the proportion of pupil premium and other factors in the school funding formula do not benefit rural communities, despite the national funding that has been put in place. We need to recognise the challenges we face. I look forward to the Minister giving us some assurances later.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Latham. Local councils are the workforces of our communities. They deliver vital services and aim to create thriving towns and villages for people to live in. This is often very serious work, with decisions being taken by people with great skills behind them, but often the officers and councillors are not very well remunerated for the hard work they put in. The changes they make can have a real and immediate impact on people’s lives. Councils are responsible for everything from bins to social care to potholes. Some people in my part of Devon would say that they need reminding from time to time that they are responsible for filling in the potholes, rather than just being responsible for them—but, in short, they do a lot of very serious and important work.
East Devon District Council and Mid Devon District Council are excellent examples of local councils. They work hard to improve people’s lives. But that work has been—to use a word I have heard Ministers use a lot in recent days—fettered by this Conservative Government. They have presided over a 31% fall in grant income for councils during their time in office. For some councils, the situation is worse. The settlement received by Mid Devon District Council last year was, in real terms, a little less than 50% of what it received in 2015-16.
The Institute for Government found that the biggest impact had been to shire districts, which saw their spending power fall by over 20%. That puts them at the bottom of the league for spending power by type of council. District councillors in Devon tell me that what they need from Government is some certainty about the future. They are often offered only one or two-year settlements, the most recent of which was in July 2022 when the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced a two-year settlement for councils. That was inferior to the multi-year settlements they are after, which would enable medium-term planning.
Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Local authorities could deliver much better road improvements if they had a three or four-year plan and knowledge of what the funding would be, because they could make the money go so much further, and it would reassure a lot of local residents.
Richard Foord
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am hearing—from, for example, the finance lead on my local district council—that because they can only plan one year ahead, they cannot give certainty to providers, such as providers of social care. That is particularly true for councils in Devon that have been forced to make cuts because of funding cuts from central Government. In some parts of the country, we have seen that drive councils to the point of bankruptcy.
Councils are trying to be innovative in how they address these shortfalls and problems and, as I understand it, central Government have been encouraging them to be enterprising in seeking to make money. Some have been successful in that, but we have also seen some shocking failures uncovered in recent documentaries and scandals about solar farms or investments that have flopped.
In my own part of Devon, Mid Devon District Council sought to set up a housing development company—3 Rivers Developments—that is wholly owned by the council. I want my council to be very good at delivering social care and school allocations, and we already rehearsed the fact that it ought to be doing the recycling and filling in the potholes. I do not want it to be learning about how to be a building company because, frankly, we have seen enough building companies struggle to make ends meet; we do not need our councils to be in the same position.
Let me tell Members another anecdote. The former chief executive of East Devon District Council joked with officers and his Mid Devon counterpart that, despite Mid Devon being landlocked, they council ought to put up signs saying, “Beach this way” to enable them to hike up parking charges for the beach—which, frankly, is what enables East Devon District Council to get by right now. I am almost out of time, so my last plea is that the Government consider the fair funding review, which we have heard about from other hon. and right hon. Members. That would address the desperate need for rural councils to receive more money.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for introducing this important debate and congratulate him on the way he expertly presented his case. I represent three local authorities plus a county council. I will focus mainly on Tewkesbury Borough Council and the county council.
Tewkesbury has been a financially responsible borough over many years and has not borrowed, but because it kept its spending low and under control, and kept its council tax low, it now suffers; a 1% increase to Tewkesbury Borough Council’s income is far less than it would be to an authority that already spends a lot more, so it gets penalised for having been a responsible council for so many years.
I am calling not for greater Government spending—the Government are spending an awful lot of money, and arguably too much—but, along with other right hon. and hon. Members, for a fairer allocation of that money. If any Government say that the allocation given to rural areas is correct, why are other areas getting more? Looking at it the other way, if other areas have much higher levels of spending and the Government say that is correct, how can what rural areas receive also be correct?
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
SEND children in Cornwall receive just over half per child what those in Camden receive. How can that possibly be right?
Mr Robertson
It is not right. School funding has been unfair for many years, and that is not just about rural areas. It is down to a complete mismatch in what I think was called the area cost adjustment, which we suffered under for many years, and some areas just do not get the adequate funding or funding comparable with other areas. I am glad to say that my hon. Friend took one of my points, so I will skip on.
In what ways does the underfunding of rural areas manifest itself beyond those we have already discussed? In planning, lower funding means delayed decisions and that some councils and planning authorities are reluctant to turn down inappropriate applications because they simply cannot afford such applications to be taken to appeal. Tewkesbury is the fastest-growing area in the United Kingdom apart from London, so we are not nimbys in any way, but we do need to be able to fund the planning system properly.
Another big problem is coming: I am told that, in Gloucestershire as a whole, up to 200 asylum seekers are to be given a right-to-remain status. At the moment, they are living in hotels, which is of course completely inappropriate for them. They will need to be found housing, but that will cost an awful lot of money. If that is their status, it is correct that they should be found proper accommodation. The decision to grant them that status, which is probably quite right, is for the Government, but money must follow that decision, and we do not see any prospect of that. That is a big worry in our area.
Rural transport has been covered in great detail, so I will not go over all that, but I echo what was said by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) in that the £2 bus fare is absolutely useless if there is no bus. So many areas have seen their bus routes removed. In my village, the bus has been taken away, so if I want to travel to Gloucester or to Cheltenham, as I frequently do, I have to get a car to take me to Tewkesbury town to do so. We are not the only village to have lost our bus; that has happened across the country.
I do not have time to go into the many other details that I was kindly sent by the county council. A real benefit for rural counties would be to put an end to the process of ad hoc competitive bidding for short-term funding and instead to provide longer-term revenue settlements so that they know what they can do and what services they can provide. That is the way forward as they see it. There is no reason why rural areas should be as underfunded as they are. As I said, I am calling not for more Government spending overall but for a fairer allocation.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I am pleased to speak under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for securing the debate.
When my hon. Friend the Minister accepted his position, he might not have realised that he was essentially agreeing to be hunted down by the Member for Rutland and Melton on a weekly basis. On that, I urge him to open his diary—after my speech, of course—and put in a slot for us to have a private discussion about this matter. I thank him for getting his pen out so quickly. Having set out the ground rules of our relationship, I will not repeat many of the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. As we all know, the reality is that it costs a lot more to deliver services in rural areas, and if we are truly to level up the whole country, we need to deal with the funding imbalance.
Rutland County Council and Leicestershire County Council are both severely underfunded. For example, if Leicestershire, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset kindly mentioned, was funded at the same level as Surrey County Council, we would receive an additional £104 million to help the people of Leicestershire. On a similar basis, neighbouring Lincolnshire County Council, which includes Stamford, would receive another £116 million to support its people.
According to Leicestershire County Council, its budget gap is set to grow by £13 million next year and, realistically, could exceed £100 million by 2027-28. Beyond council tax, the east Midlands receives the lowest levels of public investment of any UK region—something that we have to end. I am seeing the repercussions of that low public investment in my constituency. Leicestershire County Council has decided to pull out of the next stage of a bypass. In effect, we will have half a bypass. If the county council had built the north and the south routes when I had secured the money from Government to build the entire bypass, we would not be in this position now. However, due to the fiscal situation that it finds itself in, we will now have just half.
Rutland County Council has been an effective unitary authority for many years and we are very proud of our independence. Indeed, the Minister’s predecessor visited our county regarding this exact topic on my invitation—another invitation will follow—and he found us to be one of the most fiscally responsible and effective councils when we were under Conservative leadership.
However, we are required to raise a shocking 80% of our revenue through taxation, when the national average is just over 60%. That means that for a band D council tax property in Rutland—hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen—the owner pays £2,365. That is the highest in the country, despite the fact that we are in the bottom 10% in the country for social mobility. What does that mean? We receive £331 less per household in Government funding than other councils, we have the highest council tax in the country, and we have some of the worst social mobility.
However, the Minister will be pleased to learn that I have not just come here to tell him that he must fix the problem; I have come with a solution. At the start of the year, I considered how we could bring fairness back to funding. I do not believe that the fair funding review is necessarily feasible, unfortunately, due to the £4 billion cost that it would probably incur, so I considered the most noble of Conservative aims: how do we improve social mobility?
On that basis, I looked, for example, at affluent counties such as ours—Dorset, Rutland and Leicestershire —that look like they do not have deprivation, but actually the pockets of rural poverty within them are something that no MP would ever forget if they saw them, because they are so heartbreaking. We know that it costs far more to deliver services in our areas, but council funding formulas are blind to social mobility, with the Treasury settlement funding assessment targeting only areas with high deprivation.
Adjusting for deprivation, the most socially mobile areas end up with funding allocations that are over 50% higher than the least socially mobile areas. Essentially, if someone is from one of the least socially mobile areas, they receive less funding. Indeed, I have worked out, by going through the figures, that there is actually a penalty, which means that someone’s chances of building themselves up and going where they want are low. I went to Onward and said, “Will you help me work this up into a proposal, to see whether I am mad?” The proposal is not a request for more money; I am asking for us to put social mobility alongside deprivation in funding formulas.
When we do that, we do not see many people lose out. Indeed, the Minister would benefit; his Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Ian Levy), would benefit; the Chair would benefit; and both speakers for the opposition parties who are here today—the hon. Members for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron)—would benefit. This is not a party political solution; this is not about red wall or blue wall. It is about bringing fairness back, and it works. I have met the Chancellor and the Minister’s predecessor and they were both very interested in this proposal. We can do this within the existing fiscal headroom.
By introducing metrics for social mobility, we can target funding at both areas of high deprivation and areas of low social mobility in equal measure, ensuring that we address poverty while also boosting opportunity.
In conclusion, the funding formula has not changed for 10 years; we must change it. Will the Minister kindly meet me and consider our report, which I believe would fundamentally change this situation? I will just repeat this for those listening from the Treasury: I am not asking for more money; I am just asking for fairness and I am bringing forward a solution that will help Rutland and Melton and so many other areas around the country.
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
I now call the spokesman for the official Opposition. Both Front-Benchers have 10 minutes in which to speak. I am very disappointed that the spokesman for the official Opposition was late to this debate. That was a discourtesy to the Member who moved the motion. I hope that he will take that into account for further debates.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mrs Latham. I apologise to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for being slightly late; I was trying to get the printer to spring into action this morning. I congratulate him on securing an important debate on local government funding, and I am delighted to respond to it.
We all know that our councils are at the frontline of public service delivery, improving the lives of millions of people and the places they live, work and holiday throughout the year. They are also often the last line of defence when people fall through the net of other parts of the public sector. We also know that local councils have borne a disproportionate burden of cuts throughout what has been a lost decade of austerity that has seen £15 billion taken from English local government since 2010. Rightly, therefore, communities are anxious for the funding they desperately need. More fundamentally, change is needed in the relationship.
It is worth responding to the debate’s many thoughtful contributions. The hon. Member for West Dorset rightly pointed to the now very fragile nature of local councils. Many are looking at the next year or two and wondering whether they will be able to make ends meet or face insolvency. We have seen some councils already in that position.
There has been a lot of talk about the rural service delivery grant, which has an important role to play, but we need to rewind to the inception of that grant. It was born from the area based grant that was primarily targeted at urban deprived communities to deal with social and economic need. That grant was deleted with a week’s notice by the then coalition Government and was followed by the rural service delivery grant. We saw no new money to deal with the growing need in our society and our economy; there was just a transfer of money from one part of the country to another and from one type of council to another, without there being a proper, balanced assessment of the funding need across the whole of England.
There were many calls for that assessment, and the Minister and I, when we were on the Local Government Association executive together, made the call for an evidence-based approach to how councils are funded. It is not right that we pitch one area against another when, fundamentally, if an old person needs adult social care in any part of England, they ought to get it. If a young person is at risk of abuse, they ought to be protected in every part of England. The same is true of every public service.
The Government’s response in 2014 was to commission a review into the unit costs of service delivery. It was intended to take into account the disproportionate cost in very sparsely populated areas, where it naturally costs more to deliver some types of services. That should have been the evidence base. What we have seen is a gerrymandering of the system throughout the years, whereby the money is always directed for political endeavours. We have seen it with the high streets fund, the levelling-up fund and the rest of it, where the evidence base does not hold up to scrutiny.
Beneath all that, councils are not getting the funding they need to provide even the basic services for the local population.
Alicia Kearns
As a former civil servant, I take issue with the idea that, somehow, civil servants have agreed to a political formula. That is not how it works. Is he really suggesting that Rutland and Melton is a key red wall seat? We received £23 million of levelling-up funding, but I do not remember being at the top of the list of people who needed to be re-elected by being given some kind of handout from the Government. Funding was given on the basis of the best possible applications.
Jim McMahon
The debate is not about the levelling-up fund as much as about the debate around it. It is not for me to highlight which seats are or are not in scope of the target priorities of the Conservative party, but I do say that we need to move on from a system in which we shift around the country a diminishing resource that does not meet the need and when, one year, one council benefits but the next year, it may be disadvantaged. There has to be a funding formula that shows that every community gets the funding it needs and that takes into account the cost of need, the cost of demand and the cost of delivering those services.
We have heard a range of other contributions that I will not go into because of time, after taking that intervention. However, we must all acknowledge that the system we have is unsustainable. Several Members have said that there is no more money than there is in the envelope, and we have to accept that. The public finances are not in a good position. There is no wand that will magic up new money, but just looking at the local government purse without looking at the whole of the public sector would be an error.
We know that councils are best placed to deliver a wide range of services and that they are absolutely best placed for early intervention. We should not just look at local government; we should ask what we can do for worklessness, transport, and health and social care services, where earlier intervention by a local authority overall would cost the taxpayer far less and deliver a better outcome for local communities too.
There is no doubt that residents in local rural communities acutely feel the cuts that are being borne. That casts a unique shadow on our rural communities. We know, too, that there is hardship in those centres in relation to connectivity, schools and transport. It is not the fault of those councils, which are desperately trying to make it all work; in the end, it is about the overall funding settlement not being fit for purpose. We recognise that different councils have bespoke challenges that we need to address, and we have heard about some of those today: rural housing, social care and the cost of delivering services in very remote areas, whether those are schools, bin collections or public transport and their operations.
What does it mean in practice, if we do not get that right? It means, in the end, that the places that people care about and have invested in are ultimately disadvantaged. It means that town centres and village centres are no longer financially viable, and then we see shops being boarded up because the population cannot afford to stay there. Generations have to move further away, because they cannot afford to stay in their local areas.
The fact is that we have seen a lot of change in Government; we have seen a lot of change in ministerial positions and in the Secretary of State, but councils have just carried on going, waiting for a long-term funding settlement that never seems to arrive. The Rural Services Network found that the local government funding settlement for 2023-24 meant that urban councils were receiving 38% more per head from the Government funding formula than rural councils, which equates to about £135 per person. It is not difficult to see how that is arrived at, and the Government have said that they would fix what they have said was a “broken system”. At the Local Government Association conference in July, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said that the system was “out-of-date” and needed “to be fairer”. We agreed with that, and we also accept that we cannot carry on.
We cannot continue to set one area against another. We see absolute deprivation in our rural communities, although it is sometimes quite hidden. If we look behind the net curtains in pretty, picturesque villages, we see people living in absolute desperation, struggling to make ends meet. We only have to walk across the road from Parliament, in one of the richest capitals in the world, to see people living in absolute poverty and desperation, too. Surely a fair funding formula would follow that need wherever it exists and be agile enough to make sure that it roots that need out. That speaks to a wider issue about the power balance. Far too much of the relationship is one of dependency of local government on central Government, and the funding regime massively contributes to that. The idea that councils are pitched against each other in a format like “The Hunger Games” is not a healthy relationship; it is not one of an empowered local government and it is certainly not very efficient, so we need to change it.
We know that the underfunding of our rural councils stunts growth, and Labour is prepared to sow the seeds of transferring power, so that our rural councils can determine their own fate. What should that look like? It is about local communities deciding for themselves what is right for their area; it is not about Ministers and civil servants in Whitehall, who are often miles away from the real impact. More than that, that new-found partnership with rural communities comes from a mission-led Government; a Government with a purpose, and a determination to see that purpose through.
We want our rural communities to have higher growth, to end the cost of living crisis, to have an NHS that is fit for the future, to have community energy where people have a stake in the future and where we all have energy security, and, of course, to have safer streets, with a commitment to have a further 13,000 police officers, many of whom will be deployed in our rural and coastal communities to tackle crime hotspots, where they exist. We also want our rural communities to have more opportunities for young people in schools in our rural communities, and we have heard much about that today and about how, in many ways, that actually goes beyond local government to the classroom, the local GP and to whether there is a bus service in place at all. That is a partnership that councils will have under a Labour Government.
We have heard a lot about Labour’s plans, our mission-led Government and what we want to do. We do not hear as much about a comprehensive plan from the Government, which I hope we hear in the Minister’s response today. It is a matter of fact that after nearly 14 years of austerity, the system is creaking to the point of being broken.
Chris Loder
I thank the hon. Member for his apology for being late; it is accepted. Does he agree that we should not be fooled that Labour cares about rural Britain? Where are they? The Labour Benches are empty. Not one single Labour MP was in this room when I started my debate. I say respectfully to the hon. Gentleman that I have sat here and listened to a lot of what he has had to say, and I am afraid the realities are that the current mechanisms benefit Labour areas far better than they do Conservative, or indeed Liberal Democrat, rural areas. I say respectfully to him that I think some of the points he is making are not well-founded.
Jim McMahon
If I can say so respectfully, that was a slightly cheeky intervention. The hon. Gentleman may well find that the Opposition Benches are populated by far more Labour rural MPs after the election. I also draw his attention to the Co-operative party rural commission report, in which I suspect there is a lot of common ground. Outside of the politics, the back-and-forth, and the rest of it, I find that we agree more than we disagree on the fundamental issues affecting rural and coastal communities at these times.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. Time is limited, so I will try to canter through as much as I can.
A number of colleagues have raised important technical questions, and if I do not address them, please forgive me. I will certainly write to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) and, with his permission, circulate our reply to those who have attended today’s debate. I think that is only fair.
I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) that it was on the proviso of being hunted by her that I accepted this position. That was one of my key asks, and I look forward to the chase. She referenced the work of Onward, and of course I would be more than happy to meet her and the authors of that report to discuss it still further.
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for West Dorset for initiating this debate. Since entering the Commons in 2019, he has spoken with huge passion and knowledge about the challenges and tribulations that face councillors and officers in our rural areas, as well as the opportunities available to them. He and I could dilate for about 14 hours on the challenges facing Dorset; it would be of enormous fascination to us, but less so, I suggest, to the wider House. I know that others also face the issues we face in our county. Whether it is helpful or not, I should say that before becoming an MP I served as a rural district councillor and also county councillor, so I understand at first hand some of the issues discussed today.
I welcome the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), who referenced our joint working on the LGA. It was a shame when he had to step aside from Front-Bench duties; it is great to see him back to full health and I look forward to him shadowing me for many, many years to come.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentioned the great contest between Sherborne and Shaftesbury to take place later this afternoon; all I can say to him is that I am sure that Sherborne will be a graceful runner-up.
Simon Hoare
Let us see.
Let me turn to some of the points that were made in the debate. Although levelling up is often portrayed in the media—and, indeed, sometimes in this place—as being something that is solely about the industrial north and midlands constituencies, it is not. There are strategies in place for coastal and for rural levelling up. As a one nation Conservative, I could support nothing other than that. We have to have policies that are of benefit to all our people, irrespective of where they live.
[James Gray in the Chair]
Simon Hoare
Will my hon. Friend forgive me for not giving way? I am really short of time and want to try to cover as much territory as I can.
Let me turn to some of the principal points. With regard to formula reform, if my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset looks at my last question from the Back Benches to our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and at my contribution to the debate on the King’s Speech, he will recall that I made precisely that point. It is a point that he, I, most people present and others have made throughout our time here: the formula needs reform. My hunch is that we could have done it, and probably would have done it, immediately after the 2019 general election, but along came our old friend covid. As desirable as a fundamental review of the formula would be, I do not believe that trying to ask councillors and their officers, who rose magnificently to the challenge of meeting local demand during the crisis of covid, to turn bandwidth, support and attention towards thinking about solutions to formula questions would have been the right thing to do.
We need to reform the formula, as is recognised, but I suggest to my hon. Friend that now is not the right time. In this settlement, we will have to play the hand of cards we are dealt under the rubric of the formula as it currently exists. I fundamentally agree with the Opposition spokesman and others that this should never be a job of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There are acute and identified needs for service delivery due to geography and sparsity in our rural areas, but there are also acute needs in our urban areas. Deprivation is deprivation; it merely manifests itself in different quantums and different varieties in urban and rural settings.
The Opposition spokesman is absolutely right to say that we do not want some sort of bidding war or competition. Where our people are in need and have a legitimate aspiration for the delivery of quality and reliable services, they should be delivered in a cost-effective way, irrespective of where one lives. If deprivation, poverty and need are blind, so must be those who provide services and the formulas that generate the cash to be able to do so.
We know that rural services are key. We also know, as a matter of indisputable fact, that by definition their delivery costs are higher, partly, although not exclusively, due to both sparsity and geography. [Interruption.] Mr Gray, I have been directing my remarks to Mrs Latham, having not realised that the Chair had changed. My apologies, Sir, if you have taken the Chair and I have transitioned you into something that you did not wish to be.
Simon Hoare
I take the point about the challenges of an ageing population, home-to-school transport and SEND. All have high demands and all have an irrepressible trajectory, which is why it is so important that His Majesty’s Government do not view these things in silos or, indeed, in isolation. It requires collaboration and close working between my Department, the Department for Education, sometimes the Home Office when it comes to police and fire services, and, arguably most importantly, the Department of Health and Social Care as it relates to the delivery of social care for some of the most needy and vulnerable in our communities. I am lucky that the Department and I have an excellent relationship with those Departments. Conversations are ongoing, and we will work as closely as we can—not out of turf warfare or some sort of testosterone-driven competition whereby people say, “My Department is better than yours,” but focused solely and singularly on how best to use taxpayers’ money to help councils to deliver the services they require.
As Members have mentioned, councils have done the most fantastic work in meeting funding challenges. They have shared back-of-house functions and delivered shared services, and combined authorities have come together to create unitaries, as we did in Dorset. As a result of going unitary—it has not been without problems; let us not be false about that—there have been massive savings and no cuts to any of the services that are delivered to our people by Dorset Council. We have to salute the ingenuity of councillors and their officers, who work tirelessly to meet contemporary needs in challenging times.
I have to say to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) that I am sure his constituents will be fantastically interested in what he said: I was perplexed to hear that councils should be precluded from the delivery of housing in their areas. Many councils ask us to allow them to build social rented properties, affordable housing and the like. I noted his comments with interest, and I am sure his constituents will note them with alarm.
As I say, we should not take the concerns in our rural areas personally, because I hear exactly the same calls for additional funding, changes to the formula, other reviews—
James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. I fear that we have come to the end, so I must cut the Minister off mid-flow.
James Gray (in the Chair)
Also, it doesn’t do to argue with the Chair, Minister.
James Gray (in the Chair)
Quite right too.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Prisons in Wales
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered prisons in Wales.
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Cadeirydd—thank you very much, Mr Gray. I am pleased to have secured this debate, which is based on a report by the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University. I sincerely thank colleagues at the university, the justice unions and the probation development group for their contributions. I must put on the record my role as joint chair of the justice unions parliamentary group.
Dr Robert Jones of the Wales Governance Centre has told us time and again that Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe. Nothing has changed in the latest set of figures, and I think that matters. When offenders leave prison, they return to our communities, and the criminal justice system has a duty of care to everyone in those communities to reduce reoffending and ensure that returned ex-offenders are healthier and better able to find work, and that they are released from prison to somewhere with a roof over their heads. Too often—I have come across constituents in this situation—ex-offenders are released to live in tents, cars and vans. I think we know how ineffective that is in helping people to rehabilitate and in the prevention of reoffending.
Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in the UK, in terms of both in-country and home-address rates. In-country means, of course, those who are held within the borders of a country. In September this year, 177 people were held in prison within the borders of Wales for every 100,000 of the population. By contrast, the number is 146 in England and Scotland and 100 in Northern Ireland, so there is a striking difference across the four nations of the United Kingdom. It is also striking that we have the England and Wales jurisdiction; in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the management of justice and offenders is devolved.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Lady for securing this debate. I spoke to her beforehand, and although I know the debate is about the prison system in Wales, she gave some stats for Northern Ireland. I understand what she is going to ask for, so may I, through her, ask the Minister for whatever is done in Wales to be done in Northern Ireland? I know he is always responsive to requests, and it is important that we have co-ordination of legal systems across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Liz Saville Roberts
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I take the opportunity to welcome the Minister to his place. This may well be his first debate, but I imagine we will be debating issues relating to prisons and to Wales, of course, in the future.
I mentioned the in-country rate, because we know that many prisoners from England are present in Wales. I will come back to that. It is also interesting that per 100,000 of the population, there are 151 people with addresses in Wales in prison, whether in Wales or England, compared with 134 in England. That matters. Something is going on in Wales, and the England and Wales way of approaching justice does not reveal it or seem to be solving it.
The average number of people held in the Welsh prison estate—that is, the five prisons of Berwyn, Cardiff, Parc, Swansea and, considered together, Usk and Prescoed—surpassed 5,000 for the first time in 2022. Berwyn almost surpassed 2,000 for the first time, and answers to my written parliamentary questions show that 2,000 is Berwyn’s operational capacity. I know from contacts there that it is not full; it would be, but there are cells that have been trashed and have not been fixed. Those are the sorts of numbers we are talking about.
Such overcrowding brings problems. There are legitimate safety concerns, including problems relating to prescription and illicit drugs, and failures to provide basic medical care. The number of assaults in the first six months of 2023 were higher year on year—
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for securing such an important debate, which concerns an issue that I have spent a lot of time looking at since my election. I have especially looked at the physical and mental health and wellbeing of prisoners. Does she agree that the provision of healthcare to prisoners in Welsh prisons is inadequate, and that that has resulted in a number of avoidable fatalities? I call on the Minister to deal with that; it is a UK issue that affects Welsh prisoners.
Liz Saville Roberts
That is exactly why it is important that we have the data that allows us to scrutinise what is happening in Wales, which appears to be different from what is happening in England. We have higher numbers of prisoners and, as I will return to, not surprisingly, Wales operates in a social policy context that is different from that anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Health, housing and much of the social policy framework have been devolved since 1999. This is not just a constitutional anomaly; it is affecting outcomes for offenders in prisons. I emphasise that that then affects our communities: people return from prison to communities in Wales, and if they return less healthy, less able to work and without a roof over their heads, the likelihood of reoffending appears to be higher, as we see from some of the crime figures.
Staff retention is a significant problem in Berwyn. Staff from other prisons as far afield as Swansea and Hull are sent there to make up for recruitment short- falls. Detached duty, as that is known, is expensive and is not a long-term answer. The officers do not know the prisoners they are working with; it is just a matter of people making up the numbers. That is not a sustainable solution, and unless we draw attention to it we will not find a solution.
Staff also complain of an experience gap, because more experienced staff are exhausted and burnt out. Let us recall that the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers has long said that 68 is too late for officers to retire. We lose people because they cannot take it any more.
Just as Berwyn staff are brought in from everywhere else, so too are the prisoners. Berwyn was meant to serve local populations, including, fairly enough, the north-west of England. We were told that was the intention at the time. However, Berwyn has housed prisoners from 75 English local authorities since it opened in 2017, and 62% of the population came from outside of Wales in 2022. For women, the opposite is true: in December 2022, Welsh women were held in 11 of the 12 women’s prisons in England, and were on average—it would be far further from my constituency—101 miles away from home.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
The situation of women is particularly acute. Until 2018, I think, there was no provision whatsoever, so women from Wales are housed in Staffordshire, Gloucestershire and elsewhere. The principle should be that prison is punishment—the punishment is not being able to leave at the end of the afternoon—but it should not be for punishment. Many women from Wales and their families are suffering a double penalty because they are held so far away.
Liz Saville Roberts
Yes, indeed. Of course, the residential women’s centre in Swansea was first mooted in 2018, but it has yet to arrive. We have concerns about the exact nature of the services: will it effectively be just another prison, or will it be equipped to make a real difference to the lives of women?
Welsh women prisoners are on average 101 miles from home, which makes it difficult for them to maintain contact with families, children and support networks, as well as creating issues related to housing and work upon release. Welsh men struggle with issues including identity, discrimination and access to the Welsh language in jails, and Welsh women have their own distinct set of issues.
As 74% of all women sentenced to immediate custody were given sentences of 12 months or less, and one in five given one month or less, there is a real need to consider these issues and opt for alternatives to custody for low-level, non-violent crimes. When I was in Styal in May, I saw in reception that a woman had been admitted to the prison from Wales on the Friday before a May bank holiday, and was due to be released on the Tuesday. What good was that going to do her, except disrupt her life?
The Welsh Government’s women’s justice blueprint is an attempt to do that but, without the political will of the UK Government, such attempts are doomed to fail. Although the Swansea residential centre is a sweetener from Westminster, there are real concerns that it will become a pathway to conventional custody. Swansea remains, but is far away from home for those in northern areas of Wales, who will still be sent, of course, to Styal near Manchester.
The over-representation of certain groups also underlines the need for alternatives. In Wales, black people represented 3.1% of the prison population in 2022, despite comprising only 0.9% of the general population. Those from a mixed or Asian ethnicity background were also over-represented. The average custodial sentence length, between 2010 and 2022, was 8.5 months longer for black defendants than for those from a white ethnic group.
The link between incarceration and homelessness is difficult to justify, as the BBC alluded to in its recent drama “Time”. Like Orla, the character played by Jodie Whittaker, 423 people were released from Welsh prisons without a fixed address in 2022-23. That is the equivalent—this is striking—of eight people a week. The number of those rough sleeping after release into Welsh probation services more than trebled in a year.
Ruth Jones
The right hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. Regarding the release of people from prison, the prison date is well known. It is known when the prisoner goes in. To have the prison date but not have a proper plan for that person once they are out of prison seems nothing short of criminal itself. Does she agree?
Liz Saville Roberts
That is exactly the point. We hear of people being released on Fridays; it is almost a cliché. We must ask why, if we have so many prisoners from 75 English local authorities, what is the connection between their release from a Welsh prison and the question of homelessness, let alone the homelessness of people with Welsh addresses?
A number of those who had recently begun rough sleeping were still rough sleeping three months after release. Many of those—almost one in five—arriving at our prisons are already homeless. There is an obvious connection with reoffending, or that tragic situation when magistrates talk of putting people back in prison because that is the safest place for them to be. That is a grim indictment of the criminal justice system. Almost a third of prisoners arriving in HMP Swansea in 2022 were homeless. Given that homeless ex-prisoners are significantly more likely to reoffend than those in housing, that cycle urgently needs to be broken.
There is a glimmer of hope: 53% of those managed by Welsh probation services went into settled accommodation immediately following release last year. That compares with 48% in England. However, that is short-lived. The number of Welsh prisoners recalled to prison has increased by 58% compared with 2017. It is evidently necessary for dangerous or non-compliant offenders to be recalled. However, speaking to members of Napo Cymru, the Welsh probation union, I was interested to learn of their fear that the increasing recall numbers are not just related to public safety, which is right and proper. They are also related to an understaffed, under-resourced and overloaded service that turns to recall as a first resort, when it should surely be better equipped to engage and assist people who are struggling to rehabilitate.
That is only compounded by the backlog of court cases: more than 64,000 in England and Wales in September, clogging up prison places. Those on remand numbered 14% of the Welsh prison population in 2022. Strikingly, the figure was 52% in Cardiff—half of the prisoners there were on remand. There is a question to be asked when comparing England’s rate of improvement in Crown court sentencing after covid with the rate of improvement in Wales. Again, that is why we need the data, so we can compare what is done and have proper scrutiny of, and a proper debate on, the state of criminal justice in Wales.
Some Westminster colleagues continue to believe and argue that the system is working well for Wales, but I would urge them to consider the data provided to them this morning. The Wales Governance Centre suggests that its data is a direct challenge, and I honestly suggest it is grounds for a complete overhaul. Repeating that argument year on year does not change that call, because the evidence demands it.
That is not just coming from someone like me from Plaid Cymru. It is a call echoed by those working within prisons and the probation service in Wales. Napo Cymru is calling for the devolution of probation and youth justice, as did Gordon Brown in the report of the Commission on the UK’s Future. A devolved national probation service would allow us to start addressing structural issues in the probation service in Wales, and to focus on crime prevention in the first place. It would allow us to work with offenders to improve their post-release life chances, and would be integrated with areas that are already devolved such as health, housing and social policy. Such devolved services are already working with prison leavers, and are integrated with a wider justice and policing strategy. With focused recourses, that makes logical sense.
I will go a little bit broader, because the criminal justice system is not only within the control of the Ministry of Justice. Criminal justice also involves the police force—that is the entire arc. I must touch on this, because it is striking that in Wales we are now contributing more than Westminster towards our four Welsh police forces. Police funding, between the precept contribution and the Welsh Government-directed funding, despite changes in Home Office funding for 2023-24, is now over half-way devolved. Wales is paying more for its policing than the Home Office is contributing.
That is critical. Devolution is happening because the Welsh Government and Welsh politicians want to see a different direction of spend. We are already paying for it. Plaid Cymru is calling for the full devolution of justice and policing powers. I note that all four police and crime commissioners in Wales—Labour and Plaid Cymru—are calling for the devolution of policing.
To close, research shows that disaggregated data is key to understanding the specific complexities of the justice system in Wales, and to any related policy and strategy. I was glad to have a meeting with Lord Bellamy in February this year to talk about disaggregated data. None the less, it remains the case that much of that information had to be gathered through freedom of information requests. That is a labour-intensive and difficult way to access the basic information necessary for the creation of robust and effective policy.
This is public money. We as politicians should be able to scrutinise this; the public should be able to scrutinise this. What is happening in Wales is different from what is happening in England; we should be able to find the line between what the spend is, whether the spend per head of population in Wales is equivalent to that in England, and what the different outcomes are. As things stand, without disaggregated data, what is actually happening in Wales is effectively being concealed from us by the Government. With every year, the information gleaned by the University of Cardiff through these freedom of information requests becomes irrefutably stronger.
In all honesty, if we were not holding this debate formally, I do not think any of us looking at the state of play in the rest of the nations of the United Kingdom would say that justice will not be devolved to Wales in future—it will. It is a matter of when, it is a matter of how effectively, it is a matter of how we prepare and it is a matter of how we work out the funds to do that. This is not a political issue. Unless the party in power, whether Conservative or Labour, chooses to allow nostalgia for the 1536 Act of Union to override 21st-century pragmatics.
The England and Wales structure is an anomaly when we compare it with the way in which justice is done, not just in Northern Ireland and Scotland, but in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. For some reason, Wales is seen as unfit to do similar. Criminal justice, like crime, happens within a context. The institutions responsible for criminal justice cannot and do not operate in isolation from broader frameworks and institutions of social policy. To state the obvious, these are now almost all devolved in Wales. I await the Minister’s response.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. May I congratulate the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)? It is always a pleasure to serve opposite her in debates, but there is always a degree of trepidation as to whether I will successfully pronounce the name of her constituency. She will recall that in 2018 to 2019, when I was last at the Ministry of Justice, not only did I have responsibility for female offenders and produce the female offender strategy, I was responsible for relationships with the devolved administrations, including Wales. I have a feeling—a vague recollection—that we may even have debated this in the past in my previous incarnation. It was indeed during that time that we put in place the initial building blocks for the Swansea residential women’s centre. I am afraid I rather selfishly got reshuffled to another Department shortly afterwards, but that is now back under my portfolio, so I look forward to discussing it with the right hon. Lady in future, perhaps outwith this Chamber.
I welcome the focus of today’s debate. It is important that we have these opportunities to debate prison, probation and justice in Wales. I am grateful for the significant contributions the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd has made on issues around justice in Wales over a number of years, and I look forward to continuing that discussion with her. In case time becomes short, I will say at the outset that I am very happy to meet the right hon. Lady, if that would be helpful, to discuss the very specific context in Wales around the prison system, probation and justice.
Liz Saville Roberts
Could we discuss the need for segregated data in particular? That is a request that is supposed to come from the Welsh Government. I understand that it has been slow in coming forward, but it is none the less I would be grateful if the issue were taken up.
Edward Argar
When I meet the right hon. Lady, I am very happy for her to suggest what she might like to discuss in that meeting.
Our six prisons in Wales across five sites play a crucial role in our prison estate. They keep the public safe by providing a safe and secure environment that protects the public from serious offenders and reduce crime by helping to break the cycle of reoffending by focusing on proven interventions. The right hon. Lady highlighted proportions—for example, the number of people per 100,000 of the population in prisons in Wales and the large number of local authority areas they come from. However, I gently say that the same is true of prisons in England, because we treat it as one jurisdiction. Prisoners from England serve in Wales and, on occasion, prisoners from Wales serve in England. Her point about those with an address in Wales, and the higher proportion of such people in prison, is important and worthy of further consideration and discussion.
Edward Argar
I will give way one final time, but I do need to make some progress.
Liz Saville Roberts
Moving prisoners between England and Wales creates a cost in Wales, particularly because of health, and there is an additional cost if prisoners remain there. There has never been a discussion on cross-border charging. If we take so many more prisoners into Wales, what does Wales get out of it?
Edward Argar
I will turn to healthcare, local authority support for housing and similar in a moment.
We are clear that those who pose a danger to our society must be locked up, with the worst offenders locked away for as long as it takes to protect the public. However, to continue to put the worst offenders away for longer, we must use prisons better so that there are always sufficient spaces to lock up the most dangerous criminals. That is why, last month, the Lord Chancellor gave our commitment to reforming the justice system so that it keeps the worst of society behind bars for longer, but rehabilitates offenders who will be let out and gives the least high-risk offenders a path away from a life of crime. He set out his intention for tough community sentences rather than short stints in prisons. I have to say that I share the view of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd on that, and it was at the heart of the female offender strategy I wrote back then. I recognise that a very short sentence can often be long enough to destroy the bits of life that are vaguely ordered—a job, family relationships, or the property or flat that is rented—but far too short to make any meaningful impact on tackling the underlying causes of the offending, whether that is substance misuse, mental health issues, trauma or a whole range of other things. The right hon. Lady is right to make that point.
I am pleased to be able to say that prisons in Wales are making a significant contribution to the delivery of our vision. They have achieved some of the strongest results in performance across 117 prisons in England and Wales in 2022-23, with all prisons in Wales rated good or outstanding within the HM Prison and Probation Service performance framework. It is important to highlight the fact that credit is due to the hard-working prison officers and the staff who run these facilities in Wales. I want to put that on record.
The Ministry of Justice has a duty to ensure that Welsh prisons maintain their strong performance ratings and operate in a safe and effective way, with offenders being held in decent and humane conditions. That means making sure that no prison exceeds a safe maximum operating limit, which currently stands at 5,592 as of October 2023 across those six prisons in Wales. The largest Welsh prison, HMP Berwyn, which can house 2,000 inmates, does not have any prisoners held in crowded accommodation, as all double cells have been purposely designed and built to hold two prisoners safely and in decent conditions.
We do recognise, however, that in line with the current pressures across our entire adult male custodial estate, that there are relatively high levels of crowding in some Welsh prisons. That is not specific or unique to Wales. That is why the Lord Chancellor set out the decisive action we are taking to alleviate this in his statement to the House last month. Additionally, I am pleased that we are taking action to improve prison safety and security through a range of measures, including supporting those at risk of violence, helping them to move away from violent behaviours and delivering on investments in security to disrupt the smuggling of contraband, such as drugs, mobile phones and weapons—the sort of things that drive violence in prison and undermine safety.
The right hon. Lady mentioned healthcare provision. That is the responsibility of the Welsh Government and the NHS in Wales, and we have an effective working relationship with them on that. The levels in that, as is the case for prisons in England, are the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. There is always a separation there, we believe that the relationship is a strong one.
The right hon. Lady mentioned that 14% of the population in Welsh prisons is on remand. I would say to her that that is lower than the percentage of the prison population on remand in England and overall across England and Wales, which stands at 15%, but it is in roughly the same space across the country. Different prisons have different percentages, even in England. The remand population has gone up from about 9% of the prison population to about 15% in the past two or three years. It is one of the drivers of capacity challenges across the whole system.
Our prisons in Wales are working hard to rehabilitate offenders, enabling our lowest-risk offenders to turn away from crime and change their ways. The reoffending rate for adult males released from prisons in Wales was 34.7% in 2011. That has dropped to 28.9% in 2021. There is clearly more work to do, but the trajectory is going in the right direction. Wales has been fully committed to delivering the key principles in our strategy to tackle reoffending. Prison and probation colleagues in Wales have worked together to provide an enhanced service to males who receive custodial sentences of less than six months. It includes education skills and a new job-matching service.
HMPPS Wales has successfully introduced employment hubs and prison employment leads in all six prisons and has increased the number of men going into employment on release to 30%. We have innovative housing workshops at HMP Berwyn, rail skills courses at HMP Cardiff, and a vast array of vocational qualifications and training across the estate. For the year ending March 2023, these initiatives have resulted in 29.4% of leavers from our Welsh prisons being employed six months post release, which is an increase from 19% in 2021-22 and higher than the overall national figure of 23.5%. Learning and skills continue to perform well.
On accommodation, the right hon. Lady is right that there is an important partnership with local authorities to deliver on that. Regarding Friday release, yesterday I signed the statutory instrument beginning the commencement of the powers this House passed to stop Friday releases. I am conscious of time, so the last point I would make, as it is central to the point made by the right hon. Lady, is on her call for devolution. I respect the position of her party, but we believe that the single jurisdiction continues to work effectively and is the right approach. I suspect she and I will debate that when we meet.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 28 Repeal: 20th Anniversary
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.
I can’t tell you how glad we are to see you, Mr Sharma. Thank you for stepping into the breach.
Mr Bradshaw
When I became the first openly gay person in Britain to be selected to fight a parliamentary seat more than 27 years ago, my Conservative opponent described being gay as a “sterile, disease-ridden… occupation” and warned that Exeter’s children would be in danger if I won. During that election campaign, the tabloids ran one of their favourite kinds of story at that time, full of concocted outrage about a secondary school teacher in Exeter who was undergoing a sex change. The school was managing the situation perfectly well, but that did not stop my opponent calling for that teacher to be sacked.
When I talk to young people today about that recent history, they look at me aghast. The late 1960s and 1970s, following the decriminalisation of gay sex in 1967, had seen steady improvements in the lives of LGBT people. Prejudice and discrimination persisted, of course, but it was a time of hope and optimism that gave the 18-year-old me the confidence to come out to my friends and family, but there were already stirrings of a backlash as LGBT people began to ask for the same human rights and protections as everyone else. When a tabloid discovered that a school had a book in its library that portrayed parents of the same sex, which by then was the reality for some children, all hell broke loose. Self-appointed family values campaigners, Conservative politicians and much of the media fell over themselves in outrage. They said that that innocuous book promoted homosexuality
“as a normal and acceptable way of life”.
In her 1987 party conference speech, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher claimed that
“children are being cheated of a sound start in life”
due to being
“taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”
During that 1980s moral panic, public attitudes towards LGBT people, which had been improving for decades, went into reverse. In 1983, the proportion of the public who thought that sex between adults of the same sex was always wrong had fallen to 50%, but by 1987 it had gone back up to 64%. The result was section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which banned the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities and the portrayal of it as a “pretended family relationship”.
Section 28 was never actually used to prosecute anyone, but its chilling effect created a culture of shame and silence, and blighted the experience of a generation of young LGBT people. To my party’s shame, Labour did not oppose section 28 at the time, but by 1997, under Tony Blair, we had a manifesto commitment to repeal it.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
The period that my right hon. Friend describes is the period when I was at school, and I am quite ashamed to say that my peer groups and I had fairly homophobic attitudes because of the lack of education. It took us until we went to university in the ’90s, in the period he describes, when the abolition of section 28 was raised, to overcome them. My children, who are at school now, have wonderful attitudes and are very welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people, and in their peer groups have people who have been able to come out at school. They would not have done that when I was at school.
Mr Bradshaw
I completely agree, and I will come on to talk a bit more about that in a second. Our first attempt to repeal section 28 in 2000 was thwarted in the House of Lords, but we eventually got it scrapped in the autumn of 2003—happy anniversary, everyone!
Repealing section 28 was part of a bonfire of discrimination and out-of-date laws applying to LGBT people. In my view, that was among the proudest and historically significant achievements of the Blair-Brown Governments. It included an equal age of consent, civil partnerships, an end to the ban on gays in the military, gay adoption, the ban on discrimination in the provision of goods and services, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010. What is more, those advances were not reversed by the Cameron, May or even Boris Johnson Governments, but in the past year or two there have been worrying signs of a renewed moral panic, fuelled, as in the 1980s, by powerful elements in the media and politicians who should know better, targeted particularly at transgender and non-binary people.
We are not alone. We only have to look at Republican states in America, Orbán’s Hungary or Meloni’s Italy to see LGBT people under sustained attack, but Britain’s fall from equalities leader to laggard has been dramatic. Until 2015, the UK was consistently ranked among the best countries in Europe to be LGBTQ+; this year, we have fallen to 17th.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this critically important debate, not least because I, too, grew up under section 28 and was not able to be open about my sexuality. I was an incredibly repressed, closeted young gay man, and I was not fully able to express that. That did huge amounts of harm to me and my peer group. Does he agree that there has not been backsliding in all parts of the UK? In fact, in Wales, where I grew up and where I am proud to represent a diverse community, we have a fully inclusive relationship and sexuality education curriculum that represents the full breadth and diversity of our communities and society and encourages respect in an age-appropriate and culturally appropriate way.
Mr Bradshaw
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is the difference a Labour Government make. I am sure some of our SNP colleagues will be making the same point about Scotland a little later.
The current Westminster Government have repeatedly broken their long-standing promise to ban the psychological abuse known as conversion therapy; they have abandoned the pledge made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) when she was Prime Minister to reform the gender recognition process; they have used spurious constitutional arguments to block Scotland’s democratically agreed gender recognition reforms; and they have threatened to repeal the Equality Act, in effect, to cancel trans people. Stonewall, our main LGBT charity, which was founded in response to section 28, faces a constant onslaught from the Government and their allies in the press. Unsurprisingly, in this atmosphere, hate crime against LGBT people has rocketed. Britain’s supposedly independent Equality and Human Rights Commission has been packed with political cronies and it is now being investigated by the United Nations. Ministers brief almost every week that they intend to reverse LGBT-inclusive sex and relationship education in schools—their modern-day equivalent of section 28.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Can I say first of all that I understand exactly the need for this debate and for people to make their own choice? However, I do say respectfully—I hope the right hon. Gentleman will understand what I am saying—that there is also a need for parents to have a say in the teaching of their children and what happens to them in school. I say that as a plea. I have had hundreds and hundreds of emails from constituents on this issue. I very much respect the right hon. Gentleman and what he is trying to do, but I just ask for the same consideration to be given to parents and their children.
Mr Bradshaw
I take the hon. Member’s point, but parents already have such powers. I gently make the following point back to him: a significant proportion of young homeless people are LGBT people who have been rejected by their families. While most families are affirming and supportive of their LGBT children, not all families are so, while I take the hon. Member’s point, I make that point back to him. It is the interests of the child that should matter to all of us. Whether we like it or not, some parents have attitudes that actually harm and damage their children, and schools need to be able to manage that in a sensitive and professional way, as I believe the vast majority of schools do at the moment anyway.
The policies reportedly being considered by the Government include banning trans young people from socially transitioning at school, banning them from attending single-sex schools matching their gender, forcing schools to out trans and non-binary young people to their parents, allowing teachers to misgender pupils, and blocking trans children from using bathrooms and changing rooms matching their identity.
Like gay, lesbian and bisexual people, trans and non-binary people have always existed. Gender dysphoria has been an internationally recognised condition for decades. Coming out as trans or non-binary is never easy, and often extremely difficult. That is why, historically, so many trans people have suppressed their gender dysphoria, leading to high levels of mental illness and—all too often—suicide. These children are not a threat to be contained; they should be supported and cared for. What schools need is guidance that will keep all young people, including trans and gender-questioning young people, safe and happy and help them to thrive both in school and beyond.
At an exhibition in the Forum at the University of Exeter to mark the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28, Melissa, a trans woman, writes of its impact on her as a teenager:
“The biggest effect was me not being able to actually figure out that I’m transgender, that what I needed was actually possible, what my life could have been. I almost took my life at that age. If I had been told that it was a thing that you could do and be, and there was a possibility, then that would have saved me an awful lot of pain. It made me determined to bring up my kids in a different way. They do have an inalienable right to be gay, and an inalienable right to be trans, and they know it.”
Section 28 marked the peak of the last great moral panic about LGBT people, which began in the 1980s and collapsed beneath the Labour landslide of 1997. My homophobic opponent’s campaign in Exeter helped me to deliver the biggest swing to Labour in the south-west. As I prepare to retire at the next election, it feels as if we are in danger of going full circle, back to the dark days of the 1980s.
In 2009, David Cameron had the decency to apologise on behalf of the Conservative party for section 28. I beg the Minister not to let his Government repeat the mistakes of the past. It will damage people’s lives, and it will lose them votes.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this important debate. It is with great sadness that I heard the story of his election and the homophobia he experienced. I am pleased to say that I experienced no homophobia when I was selected as an out gay man, which I take as a sign of the progress we have experienced as a society.
I was a child who grew up in the 1980s. Although I was not aware of the political backdrop to the section 28 debate, being out and gay at school was unimaginable at the time. We are here today to mark and celebrate the removal of section 28. While it was never used to prosecute anyone, it sent a signal to the gay community that we were “others”, excluded and not part of normal society. Thankfully, the world has moved on and my party has many out MPs, out parliamentary candidates and out Government Ministers. Being gay in our party is now, thankfully, no longer a barrier to progression.
However, despite the legislation being consigned to the dustbin over two decades ago, there is not a gay Conservative who does not feel disappointment and anger at how we were excluded, and I am thankful that it is gone. Both main political parties have moved our society on through, among other things, the equal age of consent, civil partnerships—I celebrated my own some 15 years ago—equal marriage, progress on tackling HIV, availability of PrEP, the Prime Minister’s recent apology at the Dispatch Box to our LGBT veterans and his acceptance of the recommendations of the Etherton report.
Although I am full of praise for how much my party has achieved, and for parliamentarians who have helped in these struggles, we should be mindful of the challenges we still face: the need for a full ban on conversion practices, the rising tide of homophobic and transphobic attacks, wider access to PrEP and safer sex messaging for young people, and a continued push for greater opt-out HIV testing. The increasing celebration of LGBT people in our society is positive, but we must not forget that dark forces are still present and oppose further progress—dark forces that, shockingly, still wrap themselves in religion.
Having recently travelled to Ghana, where the dreadful anti-LGBT legislation under consideration is driving the LGBT community underground and offers conversion abuse as a get-out-of-jail option, I know there remains much to do around the world. Given that there are over 70 countries in the world where it is illegal to be gay—in some places, it can result in a death sentence—there remains much still to do. This Parliament, with its out and proud gay, lesbian, bi and trans MPs, can and should continue to be a light to others.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this important debate.
Section 28 was repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland—some three years before England—thanks to the Labour party, which was then in power in Scotland. As a Scot, I am very proud that the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, which repealed section 28, was one of the first pieces of legislation enacted by the new Scottish Parliament. What I am not proud of is those who campaigned so viciously against the repeal of section 28, and the politicians who sat on the fence. However, I want to take a moment to applaud those who took such a brave stand, particularly the then Communities Minister, Wendy Alexander MSP, and many of my SNP colleagues who supported the repeal. However, what I want to talk about today is the campaign against the introduction of section 28 back in 1988, in which I played a small part.
When section 28 was first mooted in 1988, I was 21 and at university in Edinburgh.
I had just come out as a lesbian and most of my close friends were lesbians and gay men. There was a really vibrant gay scene in Edinburgh and we had hoped that maybe society was changing. Section 28 dented our optimism, but it did not stop us campaigning vigorously against it. The wonderful Blue Moon café set up by friends of mine at the Lesbian and Gay Centre in Broughton Street in Edinburgh was the hub of our activism and a group was set up called the Scottish Homosexual Action Group, or SHAG for short. It organised rallies and a march in Edinburgh, and buses went to London for the mass demos here. We also went to the big demonstration in Manchester in February 1988. I was proud to attend all those rallies and marches with my then girlfriend; I wonder where she is now.
The Scottish Homosexual Action Group also organised a big event in Edinburgh called the Lark in the Park, which took place in the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens. It was a festival of music and comedy with a political agenda and Sir Ian McKellen, who had just come out in response to the proposal of clause 28, spoke in Princes Street Gardens. That event went on for another couple of years and was the precursor of the first Pride marches in Scotland.
One of the interesting things about the campaign against section 28 back in 1988 was that lesbian feminists played a big role. Many of them had never worked with men before or had not done so for many years. Gay men were sometimes a bit taken aback by all these feisty women, but we worked well together in the end. I want to take a moment to remember that that was going on at the height of the AIDS pandemic when young men, including some of my contemporaries at university, were dying of AIDS. I want to take a moment to remember some of those young men, who had such great promise but who did not make it.
Returning to the involvement of lesbians, many lesbian feminists brought to the fight against section 28 experience of direct action from their campaigns against pornography and violence against women. Some of the lesbians involved had children and they took particular offence at their families being called a “pretended family relationship”. Those who were around at the time, or who have studied the history of the period, will remember the lesbians who abseiled into the House of Lords and who stormed “BBC News” live at 6 pm. I remember I was sitting in my flat with my flatmates watching the news when we saw all these women, who were obviously lesbians, shouting about section 28. One of them even handcuffed herself to Sue Lawley’s chair, which was highly amusing. As my friend Julie Bindel reminded me the other day, lesbians even stormed the Ideal Home exhibition just to remind everyone that, as she said, lesbians make the best families. I mention all that because I fear that lesbian activism is rather frowned upon today, unless it has been approved of in advance by straight people and some men who think they can set our boundaries for us. They cannot and should not try to do so.
I want to remind hon. Members of what section 28 actually said. It prohibited local authorities from “promoting homosexuality” or promoting the teaching of
“the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
It was all about the state clamping down on any support for the idea that it might be normal to be homosexual.
To be homosexual means to be sexually interested in and attracted to members of one’s own sex. That might not always have been popular, but it has been well understood for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Our movement at that time was a movement for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights; the rights of the same-sex attracted. Yes, we had supporters from the trans community, and I particularly remember the wonderful magician Fay Presto, a trans woman who was very involved in the Lark in the Park. However, section 28 was not about an attack on trans people; it was an attack on the same-sex attracted.
When Stonewall was founded in response to section 28, it focused exclusively at that time on same-sex rights. The initials LGBT or LGBTQ were not used until after the CEO Ben Summerskill left in 2014. As a recent survey by my friends at LGB Alliance shows, many lesbians and gays, including myself, do not like being called “queer”. To me, queer is about being bashed. I was queer-bashed in the 1980s and many of my friends have been queer-bashed. I do not accept the word “queer”. If others want to, that is fine, but many of us do not like it.
I want to make it unequivocally clear that I believe in equal rights for everyone and equal rights for trans people, but the protection of gay people is a separate thing. The protection for gay people and trans people that was achieved in the Equality Act 2010 was a triumph for two distinct and different movements that were campaigning separately. If Members want to know whether that is true or not, they can go back to Stonewall’s 2011 guide to the Equality Act for employers, which is 48 pages long and focuses on the rights of the same-sex attracted. It does not use the acronym LGBT. Human rights and equal rights are for everyone but, as my friend Allison Bailey has said, the rights of lesbians and gay men are not dependent on accepting gender identity theory, and many of us do not.
I therefore disagree with the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), for whom I have the utmost respect, that there is an equivalence between the fight against section 28 and the fight that some lesbians and gay men are undertaking to prevent gender identity theory from erasing the notion of same-sex attraction. I know that there is no equivalence between those two fights because, unlike a lot of the people in this room, I was there in 1988; I was out in 1988, and I was part of the struggle against section 28. I know what I was campaigning for; I was campaigning against an attack on the rights of same-sex attracted people, like me, and on our very right to be who we were.
Section 28 meant that many teenage girls were left confused and ashamed of their exclusive sexual attraction to other girls, with no one to talk to about that. I am afraid to say that that is the situation for many young lesbians today. I have been approached by constituents whose daughters are lesbians and have been told at school that, because they are attracted to girls, they must be a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Many young lesbians feel under pressure to deny their exclusive same-sex attraction and are bamboozled by a welter of indefinable niche identities such as bigender, gender queer and demifluid, which overlap and confuse them. The tragedy is that, in both cases—back in section 28 days and now—it is the state that is enforcing an ideology that undermines the rights of the same-sex attracted. Thank goodness we have organisations, like my friends in LGB Alliance, who exist to promote the rights of same-sex attracted people, now that Stonewall have given up on us. The fight against section 28 was a fight against those who wanted to destroy the reality of lesbian and gay lives; they wanted to erase us from contemporary life. That failed, and I really hope that any attempt to do so in contemporary times will fail.
As I have a bit more time than I thought I would, I want to add a few points, picking up on what other people have said. The first is about the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Equality and Human Rights Commission was reaccredited for five years by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions last October. The only reason why Stonewall and others have tried to get this special investigation into the EHRC is that it wrote to the Government asking them to look at the question of protecting the rights of women and of the same-sex attracted. Stonewall is referring the EHRC to the UN because the EHRC will not accept gender identity theory as the defining belief of our times. The EHRC is there to protect the rights of everyone—the rights of all beliefs and none—not just those who believe in gender identity theory. I think it is a real shame that Stonewall’s antagonism towards the EHRC has not been resolved by democratic debate and discussion here, rather than by referring it to the United Nations. I will be astonished if the EHRC loses its A categorisation as a national human rights institution simply for sticking up for the rights of all, rather than for the rights of just one group and for one group’s way of identifying rights.
On the issue of conversion therapy, of course all of us oppose the idea that anyone should be forcibly made to reconsider either their gender identity or their same-sex attraction, but the conversion therapy that worries me most is the one which I have already described: that of young girls who are attracted to other young women or young girls who are uncomfortable with their bodies and uncomfortable with puberty, and who are being told, rather than being lesbians or young women who are just uncomfortable with puberty, that they must be boys trapped in girls’ bodies. That is the conversion therapy that I am really worried about.
On veterans, I was in the House when the apology was made. One of my ex-girlfriends was thrown out of the Royal Military Police—after very distinguished service—for being a lesbian. An apology is one thing, but what the Government really need to do is give these people compensation. Not only did being thrown out cause people terrible distress, but it undermined their employability, and they lost their pensions. I really appeal to the Government to look at the recommendations of the independent review and to start giving compensation to people such as my friend.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing the debate. I also thank him for his words; some of them meant a lot to me, and I am sure they meant a lot to anybody who was watching as well.
My speech will not be a complete response to everything I have heard, and I will probably reserve my response to some things to a later date. I will just make a few short comments, because I am still figuring out how I want to talk about some of these issues and what I want to say. That is because I am in two minds, and I am struggling with the best approach. On the one hand, I value signals and the things the Government and politicians do to set standards and set the tone. Unfortunately, I have witnessed first hand what can happen when these debates become public and become toxic—what can happen when the less than decent people in our society choose to take things from the words that are spoken. I have personally felt what happens when people feel empowered to target people and to go after those they feel are different and vulnerable. It is not pleasant, it is not nice and we should all work to stamp it out, no matter where it is and no matter our political views.
It is also important to have role models. Some hon. Members here today are the first LGBT person to be selected, to be elected or to serve—whatever it is—in their part of the country, and that it is extremely important. I speak to a lot of young people, and it is so important for them to see us simply being there and to know that we are there.
I do think it is a valid point that we should ensure that our set standards and ways of talking about things are rigidly stuck to. To pick up the point the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) made about Wales, he is absolutely right—and I will, hands down, say this every day of the week and twice on Sunday—that the Welsh Labour Government have done some terrific work on LGBT, which I thank them for. However, he should also look at the hate crime numbers in Wales, because although the Government and what is going on in the Senedd might be great, what is going on in the streets and the valleys is not necessarily anywhere near that, and it is certainly a far cry from where we want it to be.
One reason for that is that we have to take the public with us on this journey. While it is important to have role models, to set the standards and to have signals, I value the words that other people say—however hard they sometimes are to receive—because it is important that we know what the public are saying. Members may think what they will about my hon. and right hon. colleagues on the Conservative Benches, but they are nothing if not prolific vote-garnerers. If they say something, take a view and represent a perspective, it is because it is out there. Whether we like something or not, we sometimes have to hear it, listen to it and respond to it in as constructive a way as possible.
I have no qualms, and absolute confidence, that our side of this argument will win out—whether I will be an MP when that happens is probably a lot less likely. It will win out, because the one thing that will always be outed is the truth. The right hon. Member for Exeter is right: we have always been there—homosexuals and trans people have always been there. Whether it is the Romans, the Assyrians or the Babylonians, they are there in the historical texts.
We just need to find a way to talk about the trans issue and gender identity and to get the balance right between what parents might want or feel at the time and what is needed to push society forward. All I can say is this: right now, things are so toxic and so bad that it is an incredibly miserable time for a lot of people out there. We should all reflect on that for a short while. Hopefully—fingers crossed—we can all be in the same Lobby one day getting that ban on conversion therapy and getting this legislation through. We can have the society we know we can have—one that is fair, equal and prosperous.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Sharma. I am very happy to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for bringing it forward and for sharing his own experience. Even though I was an adult at the time and do remember it, it is almost impossible to think that, only 27 years ago, he had the experience that he outlined as a candidate in an election—it is horrific, and it is probably difficult to imagine because it is so horrific. That was not very long ago, and I am grateful that we are not in that place any more; the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) obviously had a very different reality, and we can all applaud that.
We need to think back to how things were and to remember that it would, unfortunately, be very easy to find ourselves in that position again. The right hon. Member for Exeter talked about LGBT people simply asking for the same human rights as others and about how that caused a bit of a furore. Again, that is incredible, and it is difficult for us to comprehend. It is not much to ask, is it, that people should have the human rights that we all take for granted? That, however, is not what happened at the time, and public attitudes went into a swift reverse.
From listening to the other contributions, it seems that quite a lot of us in the Chamber are of a reasonably similar vintage. I have said before that there were no gay people at my school; obviously, there were, but it was not okay for anybody to say that at the time. That is a terrible thing. It is very different now, and my own children have a very different experience at their school. The public outlook, the outlook among young people and the way we talk about these things is very different. Not so long ago, that would have been impossible, and it would have been absolutely out of the question for their experience to have been anybody’s reality.
I think the statistic is that 75% of the public surveyed at the time said that it was “mostly or always wrong” to be gay. That is a pretty astonishing statement for people to be agreeing with in such numbers. We heard about the memorable episode of the storming of the news studio; I was watching the television that night—I was a schoolgirl—and it really did make an impression on me. This issue was not talked about, and we did not hear about it or really know what was going on—but we certainly did after that happened. I am not suggesting that we all go and storm news studios—not just now—but I am pointing out that it was very difficult for people to get into the news agenda and into the media to explain what these changes meant in reality. Again, I suspect that that is quite difficult for us to comprehend now.
We know that section 28 was never used to prosecute anyone, but it none the less caused horrendous harm, but I am worried about the way these issues can still cause people significant harm. I know that the Minister responding is very thoughtful on these issues, and I appreciate that we have travelled a distance, but I worry about some of the issues the right hon. Member for Exeter talked about, such as conversion therapy and gender recognition. It is very unedifying to think that deliberate culture wars and constitutional game playing can sometimes be fostered on some of these issues, which should not be played with like that—people’s lives are affected when politicians behave that way. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) eloquently pointed out that, whoever a person is and whatever their views, it is never acceptable to abuse others. If we take that thought as widely as possible when discussing these issues, we will all be in a better place and better able to make sensible progress.
Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), I am really proud that the repeal of section 28 was one of the first actions of the newly devolved Scottish Parliament. It is incredibly powerful to know that, because at the time we were in a very different place.
I looked at some interesting information from ASLEF, and one of the statements it made really struck me:
“In this 21st century, there was still a piece of legislation that made it illegal for any local authority department—including schools—to say it was okay to be lesbian or gay.”
Members should think about that: that was almost yesterday—it is a really short time since that changed. I also found a quote in the ASLEF information from someone who had been badly impacted. He said that he was made to feel he was “abnormal and inferior” and that he had been left with mental scars that he would carry forever. This issue has had a significant and profound impact on people.
It is important that we have noted that this all happened when the AIDS epidemic was all over the television—I am sure we all remember the public information films. Every single household got one of those “Don’t die of ignorance” leaflets. That all fed in, in a very unfortunate and deliberate way, to the terrible narrative the public were fed, stigmatising people with HIV and AIDS and promoting hatred of people who were gay or lesbian.
Mr Bradshaw
The hon. Lady just touched on an important point, which I omitted from my speech for time reasons. One of the great damages caused by section 28 at the time of the AIDS pandemic was that it prevented schools from giving vital public health information to young people about sexual relationships. That was probably the most heinous impact of it, because it had life and death consequences.
Kirsten Oswald
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The impact that that had, including on the wellbeing of young people, should not be underestimated. There was absolutely no way that schools could possibly deal with homophobic bullying, because they were not able to deal with this issue at all. From whatever angle you look at the wellbeing of young people, there was a huge issue, and its impact continues to this day. We should not pretend that no homophobic bullying goes on now, but we are in a very different climate, and it is at least possible to deal with it. That is profoundly important.
I would like to talk a bit about education and the “Time for Inclusive Education” campaign, which is a very positive education initiative in Scotland. It is vital that all our young people are afforded the opportunity to have proper, appropriate and wide-ranging inclusive education. It is part of who they are, and part of who everyone in the community is, that they will have relationships, and all those relationships need to have a grounding in being safe, being well and looking after one another. If we exclude parts of our young people’s communities from that, we are not doing the right job, because there is no place for homophobia, biphobia, transphobia or any other kind of bigotry in our schools—or anywhere else in society, for that matter. I therefore very much applaud the TIE campaign. I note that the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) talked about his children’s attitudes to LGBT education; we are in a different place, and their world outlook is very different from the outlook he experienced when he was at school. That is very much my experience as well.
Some of the information I saw from the Law Society was very interesting. It was fascinating to look at some of the challenges its members had pointed out in terms of the impact the regulations had on their mental health and their professional development. This issue followed people beyond school and caused significant fear among many people about the impact it could have on their jobs, their family and their friendships, because it enabled the atmosphere to be so toxic. As we look at the way things are now and at how things have moved on, it is certainly to be applauded that we are in a very different place. It is important for all political parties to realise that we need to be clear and to be strong on these issues, and I am very proud of my party for taking a strong line on them. We need to have equality and we need to work for that.
Although we have that progress to be proud of, I do have concerns. Some of the narratives and some of the storm clouds that are gathering should cause us to worry. It is our job in Parliament to speak up and speak out to make sure we do not allow troubling and hateful attitudes to take hold. Although I am pleased with where we are, I would be grateful to hear where the Minister thinks we are. I am also keen to hear where he thinks the Conservative party is going on conversion practices and whether he appreciates the responsibility all of us here have to speak out without fear or favour.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Sharma, for coming to our rescue and saving our debate this afternoon—we very much appreciate that.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this debate marking the 20 years since 18 November 2003, when the repeal of section 28 came into effect. It is very fitting indeed that he should lead the debate: as many Members here will know, and as he referenced in his speech, he was brave enough to stand as an openly gay parliamentary candidate in 1997 and endured a vicious and abusive campaign.
I pay huge tribute to my right hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), Lord Cashman and others who did so much to pioneer gay rights—leading the way, speaking out when it was much more difficult to do so, taking risks and campaigning ceaselessly to create a society in which no one is disadvantaged because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Of course, they are still campaigning.
My right hon. Friend described in detail the build-up of negative views and attacks on gay people in the lead-up to the introduction of section 28. He set out clearly that we are, worryingly, hearing echoes of the section 28 times from the present Conservative Government, leading to fear and prejudice, particularly against trans people. He detailed clearly the tirade of attacks that make things ever more difficult for young trans people.
The hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) described the change we have seen in society, but noted that further action is needed and spoke of the challenges across the globe. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) described her campaigning against section 28 and reminded us of the toll that the HIV/AIDS epidemic took on the gay community. She also reminded us that the Labour Government in Scotland repealed the Scottish equivalent of section 28 three years before the UK Government did.
The hon. Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) mentioned the dangers of toxic speech and its effect on people, including himself, as well as the importance of role models. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), speaking from the Scottish National party Front Bench, mentioned how easy it would be to allow backsliding and how our job is to speak up and not allow hateful attitudes to take hold. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is a good friend, reminded us of the common-sense approach of the Welsh Government, who insist that all children should have fully inclusive LGBT education because that is the society we live in.
On a personal note, celebrating the repeal of section 28 brings back some awkward memories of 30 years ago for me. At the time, I was teaching in a large comprehensive school and in a relationship with another female teacher. Same-sex relationships were little acknowledged, and we knew very few other same-sex couples, so we were already quite isolated. Then, in 1988, the Thatcher Government introduced the homophobic law, section 28, which stipulated that local authorities must not “promote homosexuality” or
“promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
That language was hateful, threatening and intimidating, and I was conscious that the force of the law could be used against me. Back in 1988, there were no anti-discrimination laws that covered a person’s sexual orientation, meaning that they could be fired just for being gay. All of that made it difficult for gay teachers to be open about their sexuality, thus taking away valuable opportunities to provide positive role models for young people. It undoubtedly delayed my own coming out, and I just got into the habit of never mentioning anything at all about my personal life to anyone at work. In fact, it was not until 1995 that I came out to my friends and family, and I was very conscious that, standing for town council in a multi-member ward, I would be putting my fellow Labour candidates in a position of having to defend me. But they were great about it.
Perhaps the worst thing about section 28, and the fear that it instilled in gay teachers like me, was that it made it very difficult to challenge homophobic bullying effectively. At the time, homophobic insults in the classroom were commonplace, thus making the lives of many students a misery. If we had called out those comments as homophobia, we risked being accused of promoting homosexuality. When a pupil made a homophobic remark, I did not want it to go unchallenged, but all I could manage was something feeble, like, “Don’t you think that could be a bit hurtful to some people?”
If the classroom was hard, the staff room was even worse, especially when trying to challenge male teachers exchanging homophobic banter. Some colleagues were already quick to mock me as a lefty feminist, so could I risk the suspicion of being gay, when that could be used against me in my employment? I am ashamed to say that I did let comments go unchallenged. I could and should have spoken up, and I am immensely grateful to all those who were brave, who did speak up and who helped society to become more accepting of LGBT people.
We owe it to today’s young people and the teachers who are delivering LGBT education to give them our full backing and ensure that there is no backsliding in this important step towards creating a genuinely inclusive society. But, of course, it was not just teaching that was affected by section 28. It set back local council initiatives and fomented prejudice and hate, and who knows how much misery, how many additional suicides, how many late diagnoses of HIV and how many additional deaths it led to?
Thankfully, the Labour Governments of 1997 to 2010 faced down fierce opposition and championed LGBT rights, including by repealing section 28. Not only did Labour repeal section 28, with the repeal taking effect on 18 November 2003, but we achieved an equal age of consent; ended the ban on LGBT people serving in our armed forces; ended discrimination against lesbian and gay partners for immigration purposes; created civil partnerships, allowing same-sex couples to have the same rights as married couples; gave LGBT individuals and couples the right to adopt children; awarded statutory rights to fertility treatment on the NHS for lesbians; banned discrimination in the workplace and vocational training; outlawed discrimination in goods and services; included homophobia in the definition of hate crime; brought in the Gender Recognition Act; and brought in the Equality Act.
By 2010, it was encouraging to see a growing acceptance of LGBT issues by the Conservative Government. We were pleased to support their legislation for same-sex marriage, although far too many Conservative Members voted against the Bill, some of whom, it must be said, have since apologised. Sadly, as Opposition Members have already said, LGBT+ people have been badly let down by the recent Conservative Government, who killed off their own LGBT action plan, disbanded their LGBT advisory panel, cancelled their international LGBT conference and have still not honoured the promise to ban the insidious practice of so-called conversion therapy. Instead of standing up for LGBT+ rights and bringing people together, the Conservatives have stoked a culture war and pitted different groups against each other.
Hate crimes against LGBT+ people have soared in the past decade. In 2022-23, almost 30,000 hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity were reported. It is not difficult to see the connection between that shocking increase in hate crime and the bandying about of LGBT-phobic remarks, particularly transphobic remarks, especially by people of influence, including, sadly, Conservative Members.
Hate crime figures are not just statistics. Behind each number is a real person who has been attacked or even killed, and many more who live in fear. Not long ago, I was speaking to a trans woman in my constituency, and this is what she said to me about the debate on the Equality Act that we had in this very room:
“As a transwoman I find the idea of this change to the equalities act terrifying. The change that has been suggested is purely out of contempt and malice.”
Dame Nia Griffith
May I just finish the quote from my constituent? She went on to say:
“I have been a patient with the NHS for my gender affirming care since 2017-18. The soonest I will be offered surgery is still at least 12 months away. Despite being fully transitioned in all but 1 final surgery, this will segregate me and make me vulnerable to violence. This isn’t moving goal posts to protect cisgender women: this is just cruel.
Every time politicians open their mouths to peddle hate to stoke up a culture war, I become more afraid to open my door for fear of the people they have riled up. You do not protect anyone by taking rights away from minorities.”
Joanna Cherry
I take issue with the hon. Lady on that point. I am one of the people who support amending the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex, and it is not because I have any hatred against trans people—it is because I want to ensure the rights of women to safety, dignity and privacy and the right of lesbians and gay men to freedom of association. Does the hon. Lady oppose those rights?
Dame Nia Griffith
As the hon. and learned Member would acknowledge, there is already provision in the Equality Act for specific spaces for biological women, where that was deemed appropriate. She knows that perfectly well. Things like women’s refuges provide one of the obvious examples of a biological single-sex space—
Joanna Cherry
That is not the case. Many once single-sex women’s refuges now have male-bodied individuals in them. That is why some other people have set up women-only spaces. Equally, lesbians are now unable to run lesbian-only events without men insisting on being admitted. As a lesbian, does the hon. Lady not find that concerning?
Dame Nia Griffith
The point is that we know perfectly well that there are one or two extremely far-reaching and far-thinking women’s refuges that have a very inclusive policy, but the vast majority are very aware of the importance of that single-sex space. I think the hon. and learned Member knows that. I am sure she understands why we want to make sure that trans women feel fully included and fully accepted in our society. We can manage to find a way to do that without prejudice and hate and without whipping up hate against each other. I hope she would agree with me on that point.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Order. I think that is enough interventions, and you have already spoken.
Dame Nia Griffith
Thank you. I would like to leave the Minister some time.
I say to the Minister that if the Government have the will, it is not too late for them to act. The Minister, a fellow Welshman and a fellow member of the LGBT community, will be taking the flak, but I am sure he would like to do some of the things we are going to suggest. We would like him to be able to push hard with his colleagues to carry this out. I say to him that it is not too late for the Government to act.
Will the Minister’s Government now make time to bring forward legislation for an outright ban on all forms of so-called gay conversion therapy to protect all LGBT+ people from this abhorrent practice, or agree to give full support and speedy passage to a private Member’s Bill to do the same? Will he also push his Government to move forward on the consultation that they held back in 2018 on the reform of the Gender Recognition Act to modernise the law on gender recognition by removing the futile indignities that people currently have to go through to obtain a gender recognition certificate, which do not contribute to the integrity of the process? Will the Government also do more to tackle LGBT hate crime as a matter of urgency? Finally, and very importantly, will the Government ensure that the rhetoric they use is not in any way homophobic or transphobic? Action on those four fronts would be a fitting tribute to mark 20 years since the repeal of section 28.
The Minister for Equalities (Stuart Andrew)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for securing today’s debate. I listened to what he said about his election campaign with regret and, for what it is worth, I apologise.
Stuart Andrew
Unfortunately, I am. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. We are marking two decades since the repeal of section 28, and even though there have been differing views, the tone of the debate has been respectful. I wish there was more of that when we have debates about this area of policy.
I, too, speak from personal experience as a gay man. The Britain of the ’80s and ’90s is a world away from the Britain we call home today. There is no way I would have come out in school in Anglesey, but it is great when I go round the constituency today and see young people proud of their sexuality and their identity.
I stood for election in Wrexham in 1997. Unfortunately —I have spoken about this before—just before the election campaign I was beaten up, and the press got hold of the story. I remember being frightened to admit that it was a gay bashing, and I tried to hide it. It was only a year later that I had the courage to stand up and say that it was because of my sexuality.
In 1988, when section 28 was introduced, only 11% of the public approved of same-sex relationships. Anti-LGBT sentiment was rife across society, schools and the workplace. LGBT people were all but invisible in the media, and I am sad to say that our politics harboured a great deal of the same prejudices.
The Britain of today is a nation transformed. Our cities, towns and counties annually play host to the colour and sounds of a hundred Pride parades. We are a nation of all kinds of families, of out and proud LGBT pupils and teachers, and of inclusive businesses. Our media, from sport to family programming, not only includes LGBT people but celebrates them. I take pride in the fact that this Parliament is the most LGBT Parliament in the world.
And yet, despite those great strides, the harmful legacy of section 28 lingers on. Through a combination of silence and fear, young LGBT people were denied knowledge of what healthy same-sex relationships looked like. They were denied information about how to keep themselves safe when embarking on future sexual relationships. Perhaps most painfully of all, everyone who was part of the LGBT community was marked as “other”. Teachers prohibited from discussing LGBT issues were themselves stifled and negatively affected by the policy, as we so movingly heard from the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith). Some were forced to remain in the closet for fear of the impact on their careers and others felt they had no choice but to leave education behind altogether.
The bullying of LGBT people all too often went unchallenged because of the chilling effects of section 28. Compounding that problem further was the lack of positive role models for young people. All but a handful of celebrities were closeted, and LGBT people were confined to the fringes of our media. I am glad to say that that has changed for the better in recent years. LGBT characters and stories are prominent across TV, streaming and books, and the impact of such stories on young people can be profound. To see your own journey and hopes reflected back at you in shows such as “Heartstopper” is both comforting and empowering.
But television is no replacement for formal education about healthy, consenting relationships and sex education. As a society, we have long understood that education is empowering and equips our young people with the tools to succeed, but it is vital that we also instil in them our values of tolerance and acceptance. In 2020, the LGBT-inclusive relationships, sex and health education was introduced in England, and in the vote on that a significant majority was in favour: 538 for and only 21 against. Today, primary-age students are taught the reality of modern Britain: that families come in all shapes and sizes. Some children have two mothers, some children have two fathers. This is a reflection of our diverse society, and of the importance of tolerance and respect in binding our nation together.
Stephen Doughty
The Minister is helpfully describing the type of inclusive education that we all want, but does he agree that there is a significant problem with groups—often some religious fundamentalist groups and others—spreading misinformation about what is actually taught in schools? Teachers do an excellent job in ensuring, in an age-appropriate way, that young people understand the inclusive society that we all live in.
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Gentleman is right. We have to make sure that what we are talking about are facts, not descriptions of things that are not happening just to try to advance a fear.
Older students in their final years of secondary education are also taught the importance of healthy relationships and of consent and safe sex, ensuring that all our young people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are given the knowledge they need to keep themselves safe and healthy. As colleagues will be aware, a review of the statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education is under way. The review is looking at whether the coverage of the statutory guidance is right, in terms of ensuring that teaching is safe and age-appropriate, making sure it is based on the facts and seeing whether it can be strengthened on certain topics such as suicide prevention and the dangers of vaping.
We expect to release the draft statutory guidance as soon as possible. It will then be open to a public consultation. Following the consultation, a decision will be made about any new or revised contents to be included in the guidance, including the use of resources and whether any further action would be appropriate, with revised guidance to be published in 2024. It is important that all material is factual and age appropriate.
The UK is concerned by the introduction of any legislation that restricts the teaching of the aforementioned age-appropriate relationship and sexual education. The UK deeply regrets introducing similar discriminatory legislation in the form of section 28 in 1988. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. It is clear that such legislation had a profoundly negative effect on the physical and mental wellbeing of LGBT people, and it was rightly repealed across the UK in 2003. We encourage other countries not to repeat the mistakes of history.
In addition to ensuring that future generations are well equipped with knowledge, we must ensure that they are also safe to be themselves. We believe that no one in this country should be harmed or harassed for who they are. Attempts at so-called conversion therapy or conversion practices to change someone else due to a wrongful belief that a certain identity is preferable are, frankly, abhorrent.
Peter Gibson
The Minister is a huge advocate for our community represented in this debate today. May I put on the record my frustration, anger and disappointment that we have had repeated promises for almost 11 months now? We have heard “nearly”, or “just soon” or “coming around the corner”. We need to see this ban. Many Conservative Members have campaigned vigorously on this issue since we were elected in 2019, and I hope the Minister can say something positive to leave us all with some hope today.
Stuart Andrew
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am just scribbling out the word “soon” and putting—
Stuart Andrew
In due course, indeed. I remain deeply committed to tackling these issues. I hope that that is known. I promise that work is still going on in this really complex area. We will be setting out further details in due course. I know that that is frustrating— I get it—and I am aware that the uncertainty around next steps in this space and how this has been reported in the media and on social media will have been really difficult for some. These sensitive issues must be discussed in a respectful and tolerant way, in line with our shared values. But I do absolutely accept the point that colleagues are making.
Dr Wallis
One of the arguments that has come back when I have lobbying on this is that such a ban or Bill might not be used. In other countries, for example, they have brought in Bills to ban such practices but they have never resulted in prosecution. We have learned today that section 28 never yielded a prosecution either, yet it was an incredibly significant piece of primary legislation. Will the Minister please use what we have learned today as a counter-argument, because although it may not result in many prosecutions, as a signal and a marker for our culture, it is incredibly important, and its value will be felt for generations.
Stuart Andrew
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He will probably not be surprised that I share that view.
It is important that we continue to fund support services that are open to all victims of conversion practices and those at risk, regardless of their background or circumstances. Operated by Galop, the UK’s leading LGBT anti-violence charity, the confidential service combines decades of expertise with patience and empathy. It is open to anyone who is currently or was previously at risk of experiencing conversion practices, and I encourage those affected by such abhorrent practices to contact the service as soon as possible.
More widely, in recent years the Government have taken a number of actions to improve outcomes for LGBT people and to understand past wrongs. As we have already heard today, in July we saw the publication Lord Etherton’s independent review of experiences of LGBT veterans during the ban on LGBT service personnel between 1967 and 2000. The review brought to light the shocking and tragic experiences of many veterans through their personal testimony, and made clear its recommendations for rectifying past wrongs. In July, the Prime Minister made an apology to those veterans and their families, and stated his hope that
“all those affected will be able to feel part of the proud veteran community that has done so much to keep our country safe.”
Those are sentiments that I and all Members present share. Although the Government response to the review is currently being considered, I note that today LGBT service personnel serve their nation proudly in the armed forces, helping to keep us safe during troubling times, and I pay tribute to them.
Joanna Cherry
I made a point earlier about compensation. Yes, LGBT people do serve proudly now, but many people, such as my friend who served proudly before, and lesbians and gay men, were humiliated and thrown out of the Army, and they lost their livelihoods. Are the Government giving active consideration to the recommendation of the review that these people should receive financial compensation?
Stuart Andrew
Like the hon. and learned Lady, I was in the main Chamber when the Defence Secretary made his statement, which he did extremely well. Yes, all the recommendations are being actively considered, and I hope we will be able to provide an update in due course.
As World AIDS Day approaches, it is right that we consider the great strides made and the continued ambition of the Government to end new infections and improve HIV/AIDS outcomes. As the hon. and learned Lady mentioned, it is also right, as this day approaches, that we remember the lives that were so full of promise but which were cut far too short. I am pleased that the Government remain committed to ending new HIV transmissions and HIV/AIDS-related deaths in England by 2030, and our HIV action plan from 2021 sets out how we will achieve our interim ambitions by 2025. As part of that, the NHS committed £20 million to expand the opt-out of HIV testing for emergency services in areas with an extremely high prevalence of HIV, and we look forward to some further announcements, hopefully in the next couple of hours.
As we have heard today, the impact and legacy of section 28, though fading, remains, but we have moved forward in leaps and bounds as a society. Today, LGBT life is visible and celebrated, with our contributions noteworthy and valued. Our young people are provided with the opportunity to learn about who they are and how to be safe as they enter adulthood. Although the question of what to teach and when will always be debated, it is important that that is done in a respectful way and with the inclusion of all our young people foremost in our minds.
Personally, I am driven by the fact that we have come a very long way, with equal marriage, gay men being able to give blood, and IVF treatment, among other things. But I am spurred on by the fact that there is much more to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) said, our society will be much better when it is equitable, fair and prosperous. Today’s debate has shown that, when we treat each other with respect and compassion, we can build that better, fairer and more prosperous society.
Mr Bradshaw
Thank you once again, Mr Sharma, for stepping into the breach, rushing over here to save this important debate. As I said at the beginning, the fact that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities is on the side of the angels has made my job a bit harder, because I could not be as rude about the Government as I would otherwise have been. I think he got the message on a number of points.
I am incredibly reassured to hear what he said about inclusive sex and relationship education and the guidance that the Government keep saying is about to come out, though it still has not. There was a briefing again this week in The Times, saying that it was coming next week, including some very worrying suggestions of what it might contain. To hear from a live Minister that he is absolutely committed to inclusive education and guidance is really important.
At the risk of embarrassing the Minister, it is no secret that he is on the side of the angels but he works for a Secretary of State who, certainly on trans issues, is not in the same place. That is apparently one reason why this guidance has not come forward up until now. Let me make a suggestion through the Minister to his Back Benchers. I know what he wants to do about conversion therapy but, if Ministers cannot agree, I suggest to colleagues that we can help them from the Back Benches. During this Parliament, the Minister should not be surprised to see amendments coming through, with cross-party Back-Bench support, to deliver on conversion therapy and the changes required on hate crime. I hope those amendments will gather as much support as possible from Members of all parties. If the Government are not capable of doing this stuff, they should let Parliament do it for them, in their dying days before the election. At least we will have some legacy to say we achieved in this Session, before, as I hope, we have a change of Government that will deliver on these things.
I will leave it there, Mr Sharma. It has been a constructive debate and a refreshingly civilised one. As we know, in the past some of these issues have caused toxicity in this Chamber and elsewhere. I thank colleagues very much for their contributions and their kind words about my speech. Let us hope that we can move forward with mutual respect to progress to a future where everyone is treated equally and with respect.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.
Hospice Services: South Devon
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered support for hospice services in south Devon.
It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. It is probably worth saying in my introduction why I brought forward this debate. At its root is a subject we often do not want to talk about: the end of life, and death. It can be uncomfortable; there may be people listening to this debate who are facing a difficult illness, whose prognosis is uncertain, or for whom discussion of hospice services brings up memories of the loss of a loved one. This is never a subject we can discuss without doing this, and this effect includes me.
My mother, Linda, passed away in St Luke’s Hospice in Plymouth back in January 2014. This week would have seen my parents mark their golden wedding anniversary. My step-daughter, Anne, was also supported by both a hospice and NHS palliative care services prior to her death. These experiences are why I want to be sure hospice services will be there when they are needed, at what will be the most difficult time in anyone’s life, ensuring that not only the patient is supported, but their whole family is, too.
Debate on hospice services in south Devon must start with mention of the services provided by Rowcroft Hospice in Torquay. Established on 4 May 1982 and located in 23 acres of beautiful gardens, it delivers specialist palliative care, free of charge, to more than 2,500 adult patients each year, across 300 square miles of Torbay and south Devon. It does this 24/7, 365 days a year, with a clinical and professional staff supported by a small army of volunteers who give their time simply with the aim of helping others in need. The hospice is also innovative in its approach to supporting our whole community, having recently launched a new project to support homeless communities across south Devon. Funded by the Masonic Charitable Foundation, the project is a collaborative initiative working in partnership with other charities and organisations that support homeless people in the region, with the goal of improving access to end of life care and palliative care for them.
A debate on hospice services in south Devon should also include a mention of the vital support provided by Children’s Hospice South West, one of the largest children’s hospice organisations in the UK, which provides vital support to children with life-limiting diseases across the whole of the south-west peninsula. The charity, which Eddie Farwell and his late wife founded in 1991, offers care and support to around 600 children from their three hospices located in north Devon, north Somerset and Cornwall. They are currently supporting 29 children from Torquay postcodes, and a further 63 from the EX and PL postcodes, which cover south Devon.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend not only for calling this debate but for his wise speech on an important subject that is often not talked about out in the public. I commend him for his reference to Rowcroft Hospice and the services that are provided across the south-west. He may intend to do so, but I encourage him to ensure that a collaborative approach is also supported by Government funding, and that we can bring Ministers down to see what is going on in the south-west and how our services are actually leading the charge in the UK in terms of high-quality hospice care and supporting those most in need.
Kevin Foster
I always welcome an intervention from my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right that we are seeing leading work. He will be unsurprised to hear that later in my speech I will refer to some of that and invite the Minister to see for herself what is being done.
Hospice services provide vital support to those with life-limiting conditions, but they do face challenges themselves. In terms of their income, a Hospice UK survey in March 2023 revealed that 96% of hospices were budgeting for a deficit. While some of this confirms planning based on the likelihood of receiving bequests from wills, which for obvious reasons cannot be specifically predicted, it reflects the way hospices must continually look for support to maintain their services. There is also strong regional variation in the percentage of statutory funding; to be clear, this is a balance between NHS funding, contract funding and the fundraising income they receive. The variation in the percentage of support provided through statutory funding is significant: for example, in London this accounts for an average of 43% of funding, whereas in the south-west it accounts for just 24%—the lowest overall percentage rate, which it shares with south central and Wales.
The range of statutory funding percentages for individual hospices is worth noting, with 23 getting over 50%, while 85 get less than 32% of their funds from statutory sources. I accept that fundraising abilities vary depending on the community and the type of services, as well as the type of services being contracted, but these figures are very stark in their difference.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and end of life care, the opportunity to highlight the wonderful work that our hospices do is really incredible; we should all take the opportunity to do that.
My hon. Friend mentioned the challenges about funding from statutory sources. I wonder whether he agrees with me that, now that we have the statutory obligation to commission palliative care in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, our integrated care boards need to step up to the plate and properly commission these services universally across the country, ending the postcode lottery.
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for the work that he does as the chair of the APPG. I could not have put it better myself; he is absolutely right that there can be postcode lottery. Also, the variations are quite significant; I accept that some areas may have different types of services and some may have a greater ability to fundraise, but we should certainly seek a level of consistency across the country, to ensure that people have access to that service when they need it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Hospice care is important for us all, but I want to note Horizon House in Belfast, which is a children’s in-patient unit. It is the only service of its kind in Northern Ireland. There are 10 cots and beds available in Horizon House, but it does not have funding for clinical care. Does the hon. Member recognise, as I do, that it is not just about the clinical funding that comes in, but the voluntary and charitable work that volunteers do to make it happen?
Kevin Foster
I must say that that is slightly far away from south Devon, but the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) always manages to find a relevant point in his interventions. The nub of his point is rightly received, although he will, of course, recognise that there is devolution of healthcare responsibilities to Northern Ireland, which makes that slightly different from the responsibilities of the Minister who is here today.
Like other public services, businesses and community organisations, hospices have faced increase costs. For example, Rowcroft Hospice outlined to me that the cost pressures that they face include a 30% increase in total staff costs and a 52% increase in utilities bills, and yet NHS funding—what they receive for contracts—has only increased by 8% in five years.
Alongside these pressures, demand is growing. We should never talk about what I am about to say as if it were a problem: more people are living longer, in good health, well into their 70s, 80s and even 90s. That is the biggest and most positive achievement of modern science, healthcare and public health measures implemented since 1948. It is not a problem, which is how we sometimes talk about it. Many conditions that once cut lives short can now be cured or no longer circulate, yet there remain conditions that are likely to affect us later in life that will require palliative care. According to major study published by BMC Medicine in 2017, if age and sex-specific proportions relating to palliative care remain the same as in 2014, the number of people requiring palliative care will grow by 25% from just over 375,000 to just over 469,000 by 2040, but if the upward trend observed between 2006 and 2014 continues, it will increase by 41.2%, with the biggest drivers being conditions such as dementia and cancer. In south Devon, those estimates would see the demands on Rowcroft Hospice grow from 2,500 patients per year now to over 3,500 by 2040. The pressures outlined above apply not only to those working with adults, but also to children’s hospices where funding from local integrated care boards can be patchy—it actually fell on average between 2021-22 and 2022-23.
I note that the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England have provided vital centrally distributed ring-fenced grants to children’s hospices since 2007. As the Minister will be aware, NHS England initially indicated to hospices that 2023-24 would be the final year of that grant, but I am pleased to note that, after a campaign by the group Together for Short Lives, it has been confirmed that NHS England will be renewing £25 million of funding for children’s hospices in 2024-25. That is excellent news, but I note that it has not yet been confirmed how children’s hospices will receive that funding or how much each of them will receive. I am sure the Minister does not need reminding of the potential impact on vital services if such funding is not available in future. Initial indications from hospices are that they will see a range of services reduced.
It is easy to outline problems in any debate, but there are also great opportunities to provide solutions, the greatest of which could help transform our view of the role of hospice care in south Devon. The Ella’s Gardens project is a transformative vision of what high-quality palliative, nursing and residential care should look like in the middle of this century. At its centre is the construction of a new in-patient unit and the remodelling of the existing hospice building to provide the very best specialist palliative care for generations to come. The proposal is to enhance hospice care for patients and their families by increasing the number of single beds from the current two to 14 to further support the local population and help to meet future demand for specialist palliative care, giving hospice patients and their families even greater independence and choice during those vital moments together. It also aims to enhance the level of care to ensure that patients’ physical, emotional, social, psychological and spiritual needs are being met, while enabling family and friends to stay overnight to be near loved ones.
Rowcroft’s vision is also to build greater financial resilience by reducing the reliance on current income streams such as retail and fundraising. A core part of that is the creation of a 60-bed, purpose-built specialist dementia and complex care nursing home, designed on the leading model of dementia care—I hope I pronounce this correctly—called the Hogeweyk, with six households of 10 residents. Alongside that is a 40-bed assisted living complex, with a proposal that would enable Rowcroft to meet the wider care needs of the local community, as well as providing an invaluable income stream to support the hospice’s ambitions.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for securing the debate. I wish him condolences for his mother and stepdaughter. He talks about physical space. Seaton Hospice at Home currently works out of the Seaton and District Hospital League of Friends, and relies on that physical space. I know that at Rowcroft, four out of five patients are treated at home. Does he agree with me that palliative care nurses, after working with patients, need somewhere to come back together and operate as a team?
Kevin Foster
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point in highlighting hospice at home. The service is growing because many people do not want to be in a hospice or a hospital, and if given the choice, they would rather pass away at home surrounded by their loved ones. My stepdaughter was supported to do that. It is quite an experience when it happens, but it was what she wanted.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a need for those groups to have the type of facilities they require and be supported in that. I accept that, given the sheer area that some hospices cover for that service, they may have to have some form of remote working arrangement for most of the day, but certainly, I see how Rowcroft provides that facility and it works well. There is that balance of the hospice for those who need it and are at that stage in their treatment and care, and the hospice at home to try to give people the choice they deserve at the end of their lives.
The plans have been developed in a way that allows residents to live in a caring, nurturing and vibrant home that supports as much independence, mobility and inclusion as possible. The Ella’s Gardens vision is not just one for patients and families, but one of being a hospice that is part of the community. Rowcroft’s large gardens are open to the public and are a popular community facility. There is never a sense of hiding away or being something that people only talk about when affected by it. The plans therefore include community facilities, a village hall and a day nursery. That creates opportunities for recreational activities and intergenerational connections, effectively making it a facility for the whole community with a unique side to it, and not just a hospice that people only attend if they need to be with a loved one.
Unsurprisingly, the plans have been widely acclaimed across our bay and have already received planning permission from Torbay Council. They could be under way in just over 18 months, providing support to our wider healthcare services, from a formal commission agreement with the integrated care service. The Minister will be pleased to hear that this is not a direct pitch for Government capital funding, although obviously if there were funding available, it would certainly help. That said, I would be delighted to welcome the Minister to Torquay so she can see at first hand the transformation the project will bring, not just to hospice and palliative care but to the future for that kind of care. A future that is about being not just part of the health and care system but at the heart of our community’s life, as well as being there when needed at a time when a loved one is passing away. I hope the Government will see it as a model for the future and one they want to get behind.
Given what I have already outlined, I would appreciate hearing the Minister’s responses to some specific points. As a matter of urgency, will she confirm how much of the £25 million children’s hospice grant each children’s hospice will receive in 2024-25, when they will receive it and how?
What assessment have Ministers made of the impact of integrated care board funding on children’s hospice care, and the risks of withdrawing the ringfenced grant? These services will work across regions; to ensure a more planned approach, will the Government direct ICBs to work with their neighbours on planning and funding children’s hospice and palliative care services?
More widely in the hospice sector, the variation in statutory funding between regions and hospices is stark. What thoughts have the Government had on ensuring a more consistent approach? Some hospice costs, including NHS pay rates, are decided by the Government. Would the Minister consider implementing a funding formula that would allow cost increases that are out of the hospice’s control to be reflected in local service contracts? Given the increase in costs this year, could the Government supply a simple fixed amount per hospice that forecasts a deficit? How do the Government see the future needs of palliative care being met? I am not requesting that hospices be publicly funded; the charity model offers many advantages and flexibilities. However, hospices must have predictability when planning for the future.
There is much more that I could say about the opportunities, challenges and pressures on hospices in South Devon, but I should draw my remarks to a close to allow the Minister adequate time to respond and perhaps take interventions. For families across South Devon, Rowcroft Hospice is a service that is not just valued, but treasured. It is a place where memories are made, conversations had that bring peace after a dispute that now seems petty, family events are held, news is shared and smiles may be raised, even as the end nears. In short, a hospice is a place where life is added to days, when days can no longer be added to life. We need to ensure that Rowcroft continues to be such a place for decades to come.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Before I ask the Minister to respond, I point out that there might soon be votes in the Chamber. There will be multiple votes in the next debate.
The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for securing this debate about hospice care in South Devon. Like many of us, he has personal experience of the wonderful work of hospices. He spoke of his mother Linda and his step-daughter. I remember my grandmother being cared for in a hospice that was also in the south-west, just outside Yeovil. It made such a huge difference to the end of her life, not only for her but for family members like me. I remember going to visit her there. Whether the care is given in the hospice or at home, hospices are so important to our constituents.
Even though the debate was short, we had contributions from other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall). He asked that Ministers come to the south-west to see hospice care for ourselves. Perhaps slightly ironically, today I was meant to be visiting a hospital in Devon, but instead I am responding to this debate. I will reschedule the visit, and will see what more I can do in the area at the same time. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), who is chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and end-of-life care. He does important work lobbying on behalf of the sector in that role. He spoke of the importance of ICBs effectively commissioning end-of-life and palliative care services.
It was wonderful to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); it would not be a Westminster Hall debate without a contribution from him. He spoke of the importance of the work of fundraisers and volunteers in hospices. That clearly applies in Northern Ireland, but it is also important in England. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) referred to hospice care at home, and made the point that although the traditional hospice model involves people being cared for in a hospice building, a significant and increasing proportion of what hospices do involves caring for people in their home.
Taking a step back from the situation in south Devon, thousands of people across the country are receiving palliative and end-of-life care at the moment. We have an ageing population, and many people live with complex health conditions. Around 600,000 people die every year in the UK, so it is a demographic fact that the number of people who will need palliative and end-of-life care is likely to increase in the years ahead. That care is so important; care during the hardest times makes an unquantifiable difference. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay said, it is not necessarily about extra days of life, but adding life to the days. It can make what seems to be unbearable somehow bearable, and it makes a difference not only for the individual being cared for, but for all those around them.
The majority of palliative and end-of-life care is provided by NHS staff and services, but hospices are an important part of our end-of-life and palliative care system; they support over 300,000 people with life-limiting conditions each year, in addition to providing bereavement support. As hon. Members have said, hospices are independent, charitable organisations that generally receive funding not only from statutory sources but, substantially, from communities and charitable donations. That range of funding, and the important role that hospices play in communities, are real strengths. As a Minister with hospices in my portfolio, I strongly support that, and want hospices to continue to play that important role, which gives them such strong local support.
In south Devon, the services reflect the national picture: there are significant NHS palliative and end-of-life services, including a specialist NHS team, community nursing care and a Marie Curie night care service. There is also Rowcroft hospice, which my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay mentioned. Given that my portfolio includes the oversight of dementia care, I was interested to hear about the hospice’s ambitions to develop its services further into dementia care; that sounds like a truly exciting proposal. Department of Health and Social Care officials are due to visit Rowcroft in the coming weeks to find out more, so I look forward to hearing from them. My hon. Friend also invited me down to see it for myself.
My hon. Friend mentioned the role of integrated care boards, which are responsible for commissioning end-of-life and palliative care services to meet the reasonable needs of their local population. In the Health and Care Act 2022, palliative care services were added to the list of services that an ICB must commission to ensure a more consistent national approach, and to support commissioners in prioritising palliative and end-of-life care. Back in July 2022, NHS England published statutory guidance on palliative and end-of-life care to support commissioners with that duty. The guidance refers to the need to ensure sufficient provision of specialist palliative care services and hospice beds, and to ensure future financial sustainability.
On financial sustainability, I acknowledge that, as my hon. Friend mentioned, hospices contend with significant financial pressures, including rising energy costs. Charities, including hospices, have already benefited from the energy bills discount scheme. Furthermore, hospices may be entitled to a reduction in VAT from 20% to 5%, and to exclusion from the main rate of the climate change levy on the energy that they use for non-business purposes, should they meet the scheme criteria.
On the question about the funding for pay uplifts for staff on “Agenda for Change” contracts, as my hon. Friend will know, his hospices are independent, charitable organisations that employ their staff themselves. They have the freedom to set salary rates and other terms and conditions at a level that reflects the skills and experience of their staff. Given the difficult economic context, the Government are providing additional funding on this occasion to support one-off payments to eligible staff employed by non-NHS organisations, where those organisations employ their staff on dynamically linked “Agenda for Change” contracts. Details for hospices that believe themselves to be eligible for that scheme are outlined in guidance published this week by NHS England. I encourage hospices in the south-west—and in fact around the country—to consider whether they are eligible, and to apply for the scheme if they are.
Kevin Foster
I will keep it fairly brief. I welcome some of the comments made. It is worth remembering that while the hospices are independent, paying a nurse or qualified medical personnel less than the NHS would is clearly not going to work. Rowcroft is one of the best sponsors of skilled worker visas, but of course, as the Minister will know, it is obliged to pay the equivalent of the NHS rate if it recruits internationally via that route.
Helen Whately
I cannot say, as I stand here, whether Rowcroft would be eligible for the support that I mentioned, but I would encourage it and others to look at whether that route would help it to address the point raised by my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend spoke about hospice care for children and young people. NHS England recognises the importance of quality palliative and end-of-life care for children and young people; it has already confirmed that the £25 million children’s hospice grant is being renewed for 2024-25. I can assure him that NHS England will communicate details of that funding allocation in the coming weeks; that is far as I can go on that point. I cannot comment on the future of the children’s hospice grant beyond that financial year, but I can pick up briefly on my hon. Friend’s broader question about the future of palliative care. We recognise that demand for it is expected to grow. I reiterate the point about ICBs’ responsibility to plan to meet the needs for the local population’s palliative and end-of-life care.
At the national level, our NHS long-term workforce plan sets out how we will ensure that we have the necessary healthcare workforce for the future. For the first time ever, it looks 15 years ahead. It also recognises that we will need an increasing number of staff in community settings, providing people with care out of hospital and helping people with long-term conditions to live more healthily and independently. The plan recognises that people want to live in their own homes for as long as possible, and we know that many people would much rather die in their home as well.
To sum up, as I watch the clock, I fully agree with my hon. Friend on the important role of hospices in our community in palliative and end-of-life care. I can assure him and other hon. Members that I will continue to work closely with NHS England to ensure that ICBs deliver on their responsibility to commission palliative and end-of-life care in every area of the country. I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation to see the hospice care in his constituency for myself. As I will be rescheduling my Devon visit, I will do my very best to see if I can come his way.
Question put and agreed to
Written Statements
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lionesses Futures Fund
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lucy Frazer)
The Government have today announced they are investing £25 million in 2024-25, complemented with £5 million of additional investment from the Football Association, to create a new Lionesses Futures Fund. This fund is expected to deliver 30 state-of-the-art 3G artificial grass pitches across England, providing gold-standard provision for women and girls.
This funding honours the Lionesses’ win at the UEFA Euro 2022 final and their journey to the final of the FIFA World cup 2023, as well as their efforts to continue to raise the profile of women’s football, both domestically and internationally. It is important to build on these successes to ensure a long-lasting and sustainable future for women’s football in this country.
The Football Foundation, the charitable body responsible for delivering the existing Government (as well as FA and Premier League) investment in grassroots facilities in England, will lead delivery of this new fund. The foundation is applying robust principles to identify sites to benefit from this investment across all of England. The Government will continue to monitor and work closely with the foundation to ensure projects have women’s and girls’ usage at the heart of their plans.
Many of the selected projects—which will be confirmed by the Football Foundation in due course—will have a women and girls-led club at their heart. In total these sites will support an estimated 8,000 unique female players—built around women’s and girls’ priority use, using reserved peak-time slots, women and girls-only evenings and priority booking for women’s and girls’ teams to drive up participation and create pathways for growth.
The decision to focus investment on artificial grass pitches allows for increased hours of playing time as well as a larger variety of playing formats, creating more opportunities for women and girls to get involved at a recreational level. We know that a lack of appropriate and accessible changing facilities is a current barrier to women’s and girls’ participation. With this in mind, each site will also have a new or upgraded changing facility.
The new investment the Government are committing to today builds on our existing investment of over £300 million in grassroots and multi-sport facilities across the UK between 2021 and 2025 (which we deliver in partnership with the Football Associations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). This funding also seeks to increase access for under-represented groups (including women and girls) and ensures that every community has access to the grassroots facilities it needs.
We are in a defining period for women’s football in this country and the Government are committed to honouring the Lionesses and building on their legacy—this investment will transform grassroots access and make sure that high-quality facilities are ready and available when women and girls turn up to play.
[HCWS76]
Childcare Reforms
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
The bold and transformative reforms to childcare that this Government announced at the spring Budget, including the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever made, will help to give children the best start in life and is a core element to our long-term strategy to grow the economy and get people back into work.
By 2027-28, we expect the amount of money we are investing in childcare to have doubled from £4 billion to £8 billion each year. It will give working parents 30 free hours of childcare per week from when their children are nine months old until they start school.
Today’s announcements are a vital next step to deliver our new entitlements for parents, providers, local authorities, and the early years sector in preparation for the first phase of delivery in April 2024.
They include details of when and how eligible working parents of two-year-olds can apply to receive the first 15 hours free childcare for two-year-olds and the significant increases to sector funding to support the successful delivery of the upcoming entitlements.
Early years funding
We have published the new local authority rates funding for 2024-25 alongside the Government’s response to the recent consultation on early years funding.
In 2024-25, we are providing over £400 million additional funding to deliver a significant uplift to the hourly rate paid to local authorities for the entitlements. This includes £67 million of new funding to reflect the 9.8% increase in the national living wage from April 2024, £57 million in recognition of teacher pay and pension costs in 2024, and the £288 million additional funding for 2024-25 announced at spring Budget in March 2023.
The final local hourly funding rates for 2024-25 include an average 4.7% increase for the current three and four-year-old entitlement, from £5.62 in 2023-24 to £5.88 in 2024-25. Average funding rates for two-year-olds will be £8.28 per hour, and rates for under-twos will be £11.22 per hour.
As set out in the Government response to our consultation, there was broad agreement with our proposals relating to funding the entitlements for two-year-olds and under-twos, and we will implement the majority of the proposals included in the consultation. This includes a new national funding formula to distribute entitlement funding for two-year-olds and under-twos, extending the majority of the existing local funding rules to the new entitlements, and extending eligibility for the disability access fund and the early years pupil premium to younger age groups. These proposals will ensure that funding for the early years entitlements are distributed fairly and efficiently, and support delivery of the entitlements across the country. The full consultation response has been published on gov.uk https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/early-years-funding-extension-of-the-entitlements
Full details of the 2024-25 local authority hourly funding rates, including step-by-step tables, have been published on gov.uk https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-2024-to-2025
Childcare entitlement codes
From 2 January, eligible working parents will be able to apply for their 15 hours childcare for their two-year-olds. Parents have until 31 March to apply for a code.
To apply for a childcare code, each parent needs to be working and earning the equivalent of 16 hours a week at national minimum/living wage. This means that each parent needs to earn from just over £9,500 per year to be eligible for 15 hours a week of childcare during term time. Parents must also each earn under £100,000 adjusted net income per year to remain eligible for the entitlement.
More information on the range of childcare support available to parents can be found on the Childcare Choices website, where parents can explore the early education entitlements and other Government help with childcare costs.
Capital funding allocations
We will publish this week the allocations of the £100 million of capital funding for the 2023-24 financial year to support local authorities in delivering the expansion of the 30 hours early years entitlements and our commitment that all parents will be able to access wraparound care from 8 am to 6 pm by 2026.
Local authorities are responsible for mapping supply and demand in their areas to ensure there are sufficient places available locally. They will be expected to work their local private, voluntary and independent providers and schools to introduce or expand childcare provision in their area where there are gaps in provision.
The funding is anticipated to help deliver thousands of new places across the country.
Full details of the allocations, including guidance for local authorities and childcare providers, will be published on gov.uk this week.
Childminder grants
The childminder start-up grant scheme is open for applications from Thursday 30 November. The scheme supports new childminders by providing them with grant funding, worth up to £7.2 million, helping childminders with the cost of setting up their own businesses.
As previously announced, we are offering £600 to new childminders registering with Ofsted, and £1,200 to new childminders registering with a childminder agency, or CMA. Grants to childminders registering with CMAs will be paid in two instalments, with a six-month limit on claiming the second instalment.
Childminders must apply for the grant within two months of registering as a childminder, or within two months of the scheme launching.
The scheme is available to all new childminders who have completed their registration on or after 15 March 2023. Individuals who have previously been registered as childminders and wish to re-register into the sector may also apply for the scheme, but there must be at least a 12-month gap between the date of their previous registration being cancelled and their new registration being finalised.
The scheme will be facilitated by Ecorys UK Ltd, and new childminders can apply on www.gov.uk.
[HCWS78]
Restoring our Natural Heritage
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
Tackling climate change and restoring nature go hand in hand. As we prepare for the next international climate discussion at COP28, today we are delivering a package of measures to steward and restore our natural heritage, connect people with nature and strengthen our global environmental leadership. Together, these measures are a huge step forward in delivering our environmental improvement plan.
From rare British rainforests in our countryside to the trees in our towns and cities, we are investing in nature and ensuring more people can enjoy its benefits. We will work in partnership with businesses, communities and farmers to restore nature across the country.
We know that access to the countryside boosts our wellbeing and the rural economy. Getting out into nature can help our physical and mental wellbeing. Natural England research shows that we could save the NHS more than £2 billion a year if everyone had good access to green space.
Every year there are 270 million visits to national parks and national landscapes—the new name for areas of outstanding natural beauty, in recognition of their importance to the nation—but we need to do more to make sure everyone, especially those unfamiliar with the countryside, has the chance to enjoy it responsibly.
To deliver on our manifesto commitment, we will start the process to designate a new national park. To support existing national parks and national landscapes, the Government will publish the final response to the landscapes review and provide an additional £10 million in the new year to help them achieve more for people and nature. The Government are also making an additional £5 million available this year, for protected landscapes teams to apply for, to improve the water environment in these special places.
To restore nature and support responsible access to the countryside we are:
Taking forward a further 34 new landscape recovery projects, involving over 700 land managers across the country. Together these projects will restore more than 35,000 hectares of peatland, sustainably manage more than 20,000 hectares of woodland, including some temperate rainforest, create over 7,000 hectares of new woodland, and benefit more than 160 protected sites (sites of special scientific interest), alongside the sustainable production of food. The successful round 2 projects will now be awarded a share of around £25 million in development funding to finalise delivery plans, and secure money from private investors through green finance. This builds on the success of the first 22 landscape recovery projects that are already under way, aiming to restore more than 600 km of rivers and targeting the conservation of more than 260 flagship species.
Publishing a plan to recover England’s temperate rainforests, a globally rare and important habitat found in, for example, Cornwall, Devon, and Cumbria.
Creating two new community forests in Tees Valley and Derbyshire—locally led projects planting trees near to where people live and work.
Launching a competition for a second national forest—inspired by the existing national forest in the midlands, this competition will support the creation of a new forest for the nation in England, helping to increase public access to woodlands, boost tree planting, support nature recovery and tackle climate change.
Publishing the woodland access implementation plan to protect, improve and expand access to woodlands, enabling more people to spend time in nature.
Delivering our biodiversity net gain package so new homes improve the local environment.
Giving residents a say on the future of street trees in their neighbourhood, and implementing a new duty to ensure communities are consulted before trees are cut down.
Dedicating £2.5 million of funding to connect more children with nature, building on the success of the Generation Green project. The funding will help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to experience the wonders of our most beautiful landscapes.
These announcements today will build on our environmental leadership and help us to deliver our commitments to protect 30% of land by 2030. We have already created or restored wildlife habitats the size of Dorset and passed the world-leading Environment Act 2021 with long-term targets to restore nature. At COP28, we will once again champion nature as a vital ally to tackle climate change and commit to get more people out into nature.
A full list of the successful projects in the second round of landscape recovery can be found in annex A.
Attachments can be viewed online at:
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-11-29/HCWS77
[HCWS77]
Public Health: Opt-out HIV Testing
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)
The Government remain committed to ending new HIV transmissions within England by 2030. In order to do this successfully, we must identify and treat more of those who are unknowingly living with HIV.
As part of our HIV action plan, NHS England is currently operating a bloodborne virus emergency department opt-out testing programme for HIV and for hepatitis B and C for 34 emergency departments across London, Manchester, Salford, Brighton and Blackpool, focusing on areas with extremely high HIV prevalence (five or more HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59), in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence HIV testing guidance.
This means that anyone aged 16 years and over attending an emergency department in these areas and having a routine blood test will automatically be tested for HIV and for hepatitis B and C, unless they opt-out. Accessible public-facing information about testing, its benefits and how they can opt out allows individuals to make informed choices.
Through their recently published evaluation report, the data from NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) indicate that the existing opt-out testing programme has been highly successful in areas of extremely high HIV prevalence, helping identify over 2,000 cases of bloodborne viruses, including 550 cases of people living with undiagnosed or untreated HIV.
After careful consideration of the available evidence, I am pleased to announce that the Government are committing to new research, commissioned through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, to evaluate the expansion of HIV opt-out testing to a further 46 emergency departments, in areas across England where there is high HIV prevalence (two or more HIV cases per 1,000 residents). Funding will support 12 months of testing for each emergency department, to begin during the next financial year.
We anticipate that this will be an effective way to reach a substantial proportion of the estimated 4,500 people England who are living with HIV but unaware of their status.
We will continue to keep Parliament updated on our progress to meet our 2030 ambitions as set out in our HIV action plan. We also want to thank our partners across the NHS, in NHS England, UKHSA, local government, and the community and voluntary sector, for their work towards ending HIV transmission in England.
[HCWS79]
Grand Committee
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Living in a COVID World: A Long-term Approach to Resilience and Wellbeing (COVID-19 Committee Report)
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho
That this House takes note of the Report from the COVID-19 Committee Living in a COVID World: A Long-term Approach to Resilience and Wellbeing (3rd Report, Session 2021–22, HL Paper 117).
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
My Lords, I will start with some thanks. First, I thank the team that helped us during our committee; it was patient beyond belief, especially with the novice chair. I thank the Whips’ Office for a protracted process of finding a date to debate our various reports; I am delighted that we have managed to do so today. Most importantly, I thank the members of my committee, a few of whom are in the Room, and many wish they could have been. They all contributed with incredible kindness and care to what was and still is a complicated subject.
The central contention in our work is that, because of Covid, the state needed somewhat of a reset. I will return to that theme in my remarks. We felt that, because of the incredible acceleration of some trends and the emergence of others due to Covid, as well as the trends that we saw in sharper relief during Covid, there were multiple angles from which we should rethink our approach to resilience, well-being and long-term planning.
We did many pieces of work in our committee, starting with a large data-gathering exercise. To be completely honest, it had a mixed reception among colleagues, but we were intent on making sure that, at a time when the world was feeling very anxious, we involved the communities of people most affected by what was happening and did not just start from our own perspective here—not in this building or our own home offices but our own views about how people might feel.
We did a huge call for evidence that went out to the world, and 4,000 pieces of evidence were submitted to us. We received everything from poems to pictures, and writing from children, grown-ups and academics. We worked alongside POST, which did some brilliant work for us, looking at some of the academic work emerging during that time. That was one of the first things we attempted to do, and it certainly put us right into the thick of what different communities were feeling about what was happening. We then went on to look at a hybrid world, families and children, and towns and cities, and then wrapped it together in our last piece of work, about the resilience of our entire communities, which we are debating today. I will focus on each of those in turn.
I was a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy for three years, and resilience in our work meant something quite different from what ended up in the work we are discussing today. In that committee, resilience was about the critical national infrastructure—whether we can protect the water system from biochemical attacks and so on. In the Covid-19 Committee, we worked hard thinking about how we can build the muscle of resilience not just in how central government responds to crises but in how communities build stronger links to each other and to central, charitable and faith organisations; how to make sure that we are measuring the right things to build on resilience, looking at not just economic growth but all the factors that impact people’s lives; and how we can think about a different planning cycle. So often, short-term thinking is the enemy of good thinking.
I will take each of those in turn, starting with resilience at a local level. In our call for evidence, we looked at multiple different communities of people and engaged with lots of different peoples’ experiences of what was at that point an extreme lockdown. We were all in lockdown while we were doing the majority of our work. We found a huge number of different things, but what was clear in every one of our evidence sessions —and among pretty much every group of experts we talked to—was that, through Covid, inequalities were being seen, which people had not realised were quite so deep; that inequalities were being exaggerated by Covid, which it had not been appreciated were so deep; and that the trend into more inequalities was accelerating because of Covid; all of which was very alarming. We heard from people who were making the choice, quite literally, between getting data to be able to function in a lockdown and buying food. We heard from people whose children were not learning to speak because they had not seen other people, or who were having to deal with a parent with a deep mental health issue. The stories were countless and very affecting, as noble Lords would imagine. We all felt strongly that, unless we recognise and see for ever the inequalities that we experienced during Covid, we will have done the country a disservice by not paying full attention to them. So, one part of resilience is recognising, understanding and acting upon those inequalities.
Another part of resilience is building social cohesion. We saw again that, in multiple parts of our communities, there were amazing examples of social cohesion and people looking after each other. We are not just talking about standing on the doorstep banging pots and pans for nurses, but real care, filling the gaps where services had had to stop. However, we also saw that there were communities where that was not the case; very often, that was linked to deep deprivation and socioeconomic issues. So, yet again, inequality was affecting both the ability for communities to come together and their resilience.
Something else that we found, which perhaps seems unsurprising now but was a little more novel—and we were perhaps a little more naive about—two or three years ago, was around information flows and how that had affected inequalities and the ability for communities to be resilient. We looked at how communities were getting information, how information spread and how communities were affected by information. One thing that I have reflected on since we finished our work is how, if we were starting the work now, we would certainly be more alarmed by this particular point, as the launch of generative AI has changed the game yet again with regard to the information systems that we all live within. Even two or three years ago, we were concerned by how much the resilience that we are able to build for the country is affected by the information that different people receive. I would therefore be interested to understand the Government’s response and reflections on our positioning of resilience as not just coming from central organisations but being built at a local level and built around these different aspects of inequality, social capital, social cohesion and information flows.
The next thing that we looked at as part of the bigger picture was moving to more of a measure of well-being from welfare. Well-being can be taken in many different ways, and I am sure that there are many in this Room who are more expert than me on the measurements and academic studies around well-being. At the very basic level, we knew that mental health was deeply affected at the time that Covid hit. Now, Covid is estimated to have impacted the mental health of around 8% of the population, costing the economy £100 billion a year— I am sure that noble Lords will agree that they are very significant numbers.
But we went further than looking at just mental health; we considered how the Government were weighing up trying to save lives, save the economy, save the education system, save the health system and save communities—an unenviable task—and what other measures might be useful in that regard. Our very clear position was that we supported the Government’s move to measure well- being and would urge the Government to go further. The Government have made many nudges towards measuring well-being and we had an adviser on our committee, Nancy Hey, who works at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing—effectively a government agency looking at well-being measurements across society—who helped us to navigate this issue.
I shall press the Minister a little as, as I understand it, she can recount the Government’s spending figures around well-being. Money was supposed to apportioned to each department, but it has still not been given to each department. Only £50,000 was to be given to each of 10 departments to have some measurements around well-being, but, unfortunately, this has not yet been distributed and it looks as though what works well centres might have to close because of the lack of propulsion towards better understanding of well-being. This is a shame when it felt as though there was some real cohesion and non-party-political coalescing around well-being and how valuable it could be, especially, I reinforce, when weighing up the unenviable task of saving lives and the economy and the systems that we all operate in alongside that.
We looked at inequalities and well-being and spent time thinking about long-term thinking. The political cycle is no one’s friend, especially in the past two years. We felt very strongly that, in order to be well-equipped against potential future crises, we need more long-term thinking at the centre of government, and that is why I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, is responding to us today. We recommended that there should be somebody in the Cabinet Office looking at long-term thinking and bringing together a multi- disciplinary approach to help departments navigate beyond some of the difficult complexities of their political masters. We appreciate that this is a complex subject, but it is fundamental if we are going to be able to address future crises that we are inevitably going to face.
Those are the three planks on which our work was formed: inequalities, well-being and long-term thinking. On all of them, we believe that refocusing and re- emphasising could help build our national resilience in a new way and help us as we inevitably face future crises.
As I stand here now and look back 18 months to when we finished this last report, I think there are some things that we got pretty right. There was a report just this morning from Ernst & Young and coincidentally the TUC has published a report looking at the interactions between humans and digital in the provision of services. One of the things that we looked at for a long time was how that might play out in future. We said very clearly that we thought technology was not the answer for all services. It was gratifying to see this morning that those reports come out in the same place. I think that in some things we were looking in the right direction. However, in some things I think we slightly underegged the challenges we would end up in. In our towns and cities report, which we are not debating today, we looked at future of the high street and local businesses. I stand here as president of the British Chambers of Commerce and I am somewhat anxious about the number of businesses that will be forced to close their doors over the next year. I am sure many members of the committee heard the upset owner of Wilko, which went bankrupt yesterday, blaming Covid for a lot of its troubles. I think we may have underestimated the impact on our high streets and local businesses of the residual tail of the Covid challenges.
Inevitably, with a committee set up three months into a pandemic looking at its long-term implications there will be some challenges. We were challenged by differing views of how to execute our work—who should be brought into it and different ideas about what the future might hold—but I am 100% certain that we were not in any disagreement about the scale and importance of what we were facing. We had absolute cohesion around four ideas. We saw new inequalities, new trends being created, an acceleration of certain trends and a deepening of others. It is very important that we do not lose sight of that in the face of some of the other things we are looking at now.
I am much struck that we are debating this report alongside the financial statement in the Chamber next door—I quite appreciate that many Members may wish that they were there instead. These issues are completely interrelated, yet it somehow feels as though we have disconnected them. The spending choices being debated in the Chamber are a direct result of some of the decisions made through Covid. It is important to make sure that, as we face the significant headwinds of a rapidly intensifying climate crisis, wars on multiple fronts and a cost of living crisis that people are feeling so keenly, we do not lose sight of the impact that Covid had on many people’s lives in this country.
I look forward to the Minister’s response and reflections on the themes and thoughts in our report.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, I think there may have been a little confusion about the speakers’ list. For the convenience of the Committee, let us hear from the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, next.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, I will say a word of appreciation on my and the whole committee’s behalf to our chair, who went to enormous lengths to try to make sure that we had the resources, time and staff that we needed. As she has done, I thank them as well. This was not an easy time to produce a substantial report. All of us, the country as a whole and the world community faced all sorts of challenges, but I think we produced something that will be useful, as long as we take it and build on it.
We can learn lessons, but the question is whether we learn the right lessons. A couple of days ago, my wife was talking to a friend in our local village, who realised that she probably had Covid. She did a test and the two red stripes came up, so it was absolutely clear. She then said, “What are the rules for what I do?” As a doctor, I would say that in a situation like this the question is not what the rules are but how you do the right thing for your health and that of those around you. If you have Covid, it is absolutely clear: keep yourself away from others, to protect yourself and them. However, the lesson that this friend had learned from the experience of Covid was not that we should take those reasonable precautions but that we should check out the Government’s current rules. Of course, there are no rules at the moment, because they have understandably left that to the side. For me, the importance of that experience was that we must learn not just lessons but the right lessons, as we might end up learning not necessarily the right ones.
One problem with the way we think in situations of existential threat is that we do not weigh up cost-benefit analysis. The parts of your brain that you use in situations of relative stability—quite literally; you can do fMRI studies of this—are those that weigh up cost and benefit, but the parts that you use when under existential threat operate on the basis of rules that you have previously imbibed. They may or may not be suitable to the situation you are in and the challenges you face. This was one of the many problems we faced in this situation that we could generalise to other situations, including current situations of violence and war. In such circumstances, people do not necessarily weigh up the wisest things to do; they react off how they feel and the rules that they have learned previously.
These changes and challenges are a real problem for the way that we govern. For example, there are some suggestions in our report that we should have more devolution in how we operate. As a good liberal, I entirely agree with that proposition, but I do not agree that that solves all the problems or that it is the only thing.
There are many problems in your Lordships’ House occasioned not just by Covid but by some other developments—for example, the development of digital. The speed with which these changes are taking place is something our whole legislative process simply cannot keep up with. If you begin to develop an idea to address some kind of problem with new technology, then you put out a discussion paper, produce some consultations and then start taking it through the parliamentary process and eventually start putting in some regulations, by the time you have done all of that it has all moved on to another problem. There are very real problems with the whole structure and way we operate and govern. We need to find some way of addressing that. This committee’s report adverts to it but does not study it in detail; it was not the committee to produce answers to those questions. If there is a place where those questions ought to be considered, it is in your Lordships’ House, and I hope we have an opportunity to do that.
There are some things that changed at the time quite remarkably and quickly, and for the better. Noble Lords will all recall that it took no time at all to get through a very thick Bill on Covid at the start, with all the things we had to do and make sure of. As we rushed through all of it—obviously there was a time imperative—I went to the clerk at the end of Third Reading and asked how long it was going to take us to get Royal Assent. He said, “Oh, about half an hour”, and I said “How is that possible? She”—because it was she then—“is out at Windsor Castle”. “Ah”, they said, “she’s agreed to sign it digitally”. I thought to myself, outside of Covid, how many decades of discussion it would have taken to do something like that. But Her Majesty simply decided—quite wisely and sensibly, as she often did—to just do it; she did it, and it was absolutely the right thing to do. There have been helpful advances during Covid that might not have happened or would not have happened so quickly had it not been for the exigencies of the circumstances. That was perhaps one of the more delightful examples.
There were some other examples that were not so encouraging and reassuring. There were some things we had to do at the time but have to find a way back from. I will refer to two medical papers and a book. The first is a paper published in the BMJ in 2021 about face-to-face GP consultations. It says:
“The latest NHS England letter to general practices states that face-to-face appointments should be offered at patient request, which is a U-turn on the previous policy of total virtual triage during the pandemic and”—
this is important—
“potentially conflates patient preference and clinical appropriateness”.
Sometimes the patient will want something that is not appropriate, or vice versa. Those two requirements were not reflected in the revised recommendation. In addition, it said that
“the rapid shift to physical closure of surgeries, digital appointments, and virtual or form-based online triage presented challenges for marginalised patient groups, who already face major barriers to accessing primary care”.
Some of you will have heard of a report from the BMJ, reported in various newspapers today, on how it is quite clear that there are major problems and disadvantages. People’s healthcare is not being as well addressed as it ought to be. I think any of us who have tried to make a GP appointment in many areas—not in every area; there is quite a variation—will know that you are having to wait up until midnight to go online because all the appointments are sorted before then. You then have to go through a completely inappropriate questionnaire on all sorts of things, which leads to completely the wrong outcome. We have to understand that some things had to be done in the emergency situation, but we also have to go back and look at them again in the light of the new circumstances and try to see if they are still appropriate—if ever they were.
It must be said that sometimes we have to pay particular attention to the individual requirements of a patient. A book was published shortly after all this called Psychoanalysis and Covidian Life, which I thought was a marvellous title. It had therapists from various parts of the world talking about their experience and their work. There was one very interesting chapter entitled “Where does the analyst live?”, where the psycho- analyst described how she
“continued her work with a very young autistic girl using mobile phones”,
which she would not necessarily have tried to do previously. This form of communication actually made clinical progress much more possible than face-to-face work, because of the nature of this girl’s disorder. It seemed a really interesting example of how real clinical advances actually were able to result from the challenges of Covidian life. So it is not all bad news—there have been positive and good things happening.
But there were also serious downsides, not least in terms of performance of government. For example, there were lots of strategies and papers produced well in advance of all this about all the kinds of things that we should have available—lots of PPE and lots of ways of operating and so on. The problem was that, when we were not in the middle of a pandemic, they were not actually done. They were all agreed and all on paper, and people had responsibilities for them, but they said, “The budget’s tight at the moment, and I just hope it doesn’t happen on my watch”. When eventually the problem did arise, all the strategies had been prepared but had not been implemented. So when we get a response from government that says that it has this plan, this plan and this plan, it is good to hear that there are plans, but it is not enough. How can we be confident that, faced with another pandemic, or one of the many other frightening circumstances that we are likely to face, things are actually in order and not just there on paper? To say “on paper” is a little bit old hat, really—“digitally available”, perhaps one should say.
In that regard, I want to speak to the Government’s response. I find it disappointing, on a number of fronts. To refer to a few of the recommendations, recommendation 5, for example, is about the problems of disinformation, misinformation and people being misled. Quite rightly, it points up that there are rules that need to be adhered to and developed, but nothing is said about the fact that leading public figures sometimes make misrepresentations that confuse people and create problems. There is nothing in it about how public figures need to be responsible in how they react to things. It is not just a question of rules.
In recommendations 7 and 9, we say that there is an importance to having some redundancy of provision in public services—in other words, that hospital beds are not 100% full, or even 98% full because, if you do that and something happens, you get all the problems that you have seen with people being unable to get into hospital because there is no built-in redundancy. I remember that, when my wife and I came into the health service and started working, we were talking with her father, who was a bank manager, and explained about the staffing system—that, at best, we would have 100% of the staff places filled. He said, “That’s crazy. In the bank, we have an extra 15% to 20% of staff, because you always know that some people will be off ill or off training, and some people will be doing other things”. I told him that we did not even have the 100%, never mind 120%. So there needs to be more built-in redundancy. The notion that the highest level of efficiency is making sure that there is absolutely nothing wasted means that, when it comes to a crisis, you have absolutely no possibility of addressing it properly. However, the Government’s response to the recommendation goes through all the things that the Cabinet Office says, and so on. I get the sense with that response, as with a lot of the others, that they were cut and pasted from some other document, because there is absolutely no reference at all to the specific recommendation for redundancy.
Then we come to the question of continuing professional development—for example in recommendations 19 and 20, where the report talks about
“preparing teachers and medical professionals to deliver online”.
So again, from somewhere or other, there are a number of paragraphs in response about the continuing professional development of teachers, but nothing about medical people and nothing about their development online. Again, it just looks as if something has been cut and pasted from somewhere else. This is really not the kind of response that we would hope to get to a report that we took quite a lot of time to prepare, and which many organisations from around the country contributed to.
There are some pieces of progress. The one I would refer to under recommendation 21 is the NHS app, which has been rather good and has made a lot of things available to people. It is, say the Government,
“a simple and secure way for people in England”—
it is quite true that it does not apply to everybody in the United Kingdom—
“to access a range of NHS services”.
People can look up their test results and make appointments, and so on. So that is an advance. It is not that I just want to be critical of everything; if there are areas of progress, let us recognise them and recommend them. However, let us just also understand that our NHS, on which we are so dependent, simply is not working at the moment, and we need to try to address that.
I have already taken up far more time than I ought to have. That is because we felt quite passionate about all this and therefore felt pretty disappointed when the response that we got back from government did not pay attention to the recommendations that we had made.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate today. I was not a member of the Covid-19 Committee, but I congratulate its chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho, and her committee on producing an excellent report to address issues on future resilience and, importantly, the well-being of people post pandemic. I also congratulate the noble Baroness on the brilliant way in which she presented her report.
My very brief comments relate to how the pandemic changed and accelerated the use of digital media in healthcare, with online consultations and treatment being widely used now. Paragraph 74 of the report highlights—as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, mentioned —the lack of training of health professionals in conducting online consultations. The report rightly points to the need for approving and evaluating online health interventions. Your Lordships may have read the report in the Telegraph today, which points out the problems that have occurred because that was not done in the first place.
In paragraph 75, the report alludes to the possible widening of health inequalities. That is an important point, because we know that people from lower socioeconomic groups already have lower life expectancy and spend a fewer number of years that are disease-free compared to people who are better off, and significantly so. As the report points out, the shift to online delivery of healthcare is likely to deepen the inequalities in health outcomes, emphasising further the need for evaluation. It is estimated that nearly 16% of people do not have the means or ability to be able to take part in digital consultations.
In my view, the report rightly recommends the need for training and continuous professional development of healthcare professionals to deliver online healthcare—in fact, I would go further, in that their competency to do so should also be measured and ascertained. I am pleased that the General Medical Council and the royal colleges, particularly the RCGP, are now beginning to establish training courses for doctors for online consultations and their assessment of the courses.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, patients benefited from remote consultations by GPs—we should accept that—and restrictions in travel because of the lockdown benefited older patients, those at risk of infections, patients who were immunocompromised and those patients suffering from long-term conditions. It might not have been the perfect outcome for them, but it was a way to manage the pandemic. The benefits were thought to be so great that it prompted the then Secretary of State, Matt Hancock, to call for all consultations in the future to be remote except in exceptional circumstances —that was rather too forward-thinking and probably inappropriate. Overall, during the pandemic emergency, online consultations were seen to be beneficial. Only later did the unintended consequences of missed cancer diagnoses and increased prescribing of antibiotics become apparent. Antibiotics prescribing went up by nearly 36%, although we are in fact trying to reduce the prescribing of antibiotics. Again, today’s detailed report in newspapers and the BMJ points to that.
Now with the pandemic under some control, it is important to evaluate what this immense change in technology-driven healthcare means, especially for patient outcomes, safety and equity. It is the last that concerns me most. With the arrival of better data, health records and generative AI, some people think that we have arrived at a tipping point in the use of technology in healthcare. As the report rightly points out, the rapid introduction of a data-driven and digital healthcare may not only make deeper the current huge health inequalities that exist but exclude people who are not able to make best use of technology. To mitigate this, the Government need to ensure that policies are in place that take a more inclusive approach to digital healthcare.
There are several key challenges that will need to be addressed, as highlighted by the report by the Health Foundation and the Ada Lovelace Institute. Policies that focus on key challenges include: digital exclusion and access to healthcare; developing clear metrics for monitoring inequalities in health outcomes in data-driven systems; addressing the lack of public confidence in data use and protection; the lack of social context in data, as the report correctly points out; appropriate communication across all healthcare professionals throughout the data pipeline; and much more. A survey of public attitudes to health technology showed that the public are on the whole supportive of it, particularly when technology enables them to manage their conditions better and to connect more easily with the NHS. Currently, that does not happen with GP appointments, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. The public are less happy when technology comes between them and the clinicians. In this context, the report’s recommendations in relation to the patient’s right of access to online healthcare seems appropriate.
A long-term approach to resilience and the well-being of people in vulnerable groups post the pandemic and the rapid introduction of data-driven health system runs the risk of widening inequalities. That is my key worry. The inequalities that already exist in healthcare and outcomes will become worse. To mitigate that requires policies across government departments. I hope the Minister will agree.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. First, it is a pleasure to be participating in an important debate on this report. I thank all those involved in the committee, particularly the chair, for all the work they have done. This report rightly encourages us to increase our understanding of the lessons we can learn from the pandemic and to act on them in having a long-term view of the future.
This is a crucial topic. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, in her view that our electoral system does not naturally lend itself to having a long-term view of the future. I shall focus today on recommendations 1 and 2. They are, in fact, interconnected. Those topics are first, inequalities, following the noble Lord, Lord Patel, particularly in health, and, secondly, community engagement.
Health inequalities have been a focus of many of my contributions in your Lordships’ House, and I welcome the understanding that the report demonstrates of why addressing them is so important. It says:
“The pandemic has shown that national level resilience is undermined by financial inequalities and health inequalities, which are often exacerbated by racial injustice”.
The moral argument for reducing health inequalities is an important one which continues to motivate me. However, the pragmatic argument is also shown here. If we are starkly unequal in our health, we as a society are more vulnerable to health and other challenges that we face. There is also an economic argument: improving the health of a population and reducing inequalities increases the ability of the population to contribute economically.
I do not need to impress on noble Lords the seriousness of the health inequalities we face. The gaping differences in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy persist. The trends in health inequalities were further exacerbated by the pandemic, as already mentioned. The Beyond the Data report, written by Professor Kevin Fenton and Public Health England in 2020, highlighted that during the pandemic some ethnic groups were more likely to be exposed to Covid-19 and, once infected, were more likely to contract a serious infection and die.
In their response to recommendation 1 of the Covid-19 Committee’s report, the Government pointed to the levelling-up White Paper and promised a White Paper on health disparities. I was and remain disappointed that the critical work that has been done on both these pieces of work has not been brought forward. In the absence of this, will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to prioritise reducing health inequalities, especially since the report lays out so well why doing so is key to our preparedness and resilience as a country?
Secondly, the report places a heavy focus on sustained and long-term engagement with communities. This is an extremely welcome and important part of what is required for resilience. Recommendation 2 of the report is a call for
“Renewed efforts to build trusted relationships between the state and all groups within society, including racial and religious groups, young people, disabled people and others”.
In their response to this, the Government said that they are already acting to build trust in local communities. As an example, they said,
“the government established vaccination centres in 50 religious venues, worked with ethnic minority celebrities & influencers”,
and so on. Although I commend the setting up of vaccination clinics in these spaces, this is not a means of gaining trust but the fruit of trust.
After the worst of the pandemic, I convened a health inequalities action group to examine the role that faith groups had played in the pandemic and the role they could play in reducing health inequalities across London in the long term. During the town hall events that were held as part of our work, we heard stories of faith groups stepping in to promote health-seeking behaviour and provide for their communities during the pandemic. We heard that faith leaders hold the trust of their communities, often much more than government or other civic bodies. The Government’s health inequalities strategy, Core20PLUS5, shows us the importance of “plus”, that is, those who are not thought of by or engaged with public services.
There is a faith group in every community. Professor Fenton’s Beyond the Data report explains that faith leaders often have the understanding and trust of their communities. This trust is key. As the adage goes, “Change happens at the speed of trust”. However, in our work on inequalities, we found that since the vaccination centres were set up during the pandemic, the Government are no longer engaging with the health-promoting work that faith groups do and would like to do. The relationship has not been sustained, and I fear that the value of faith leaders is not recognised, certainly in respect of the significant difference that could be made within health inequalities. Faith leaders continue not to be regularly consulted at a local level and the truth is that there is some work to do to equip local leaders and faith leaders with the tools of engagement. It is in these sustained relationships that our interconnectedness and resilience is realised.
I just want to mention social prescribing. This is another key way that faith groups can be involved in the health of our community, especially in light of the report’s emphasis on well-being. There is an understanding of not just physical or mental well-being in many faith groups, but also of our well-being as whole people with social, emotional and spiritual needs, all of which contribute to health and, I believe, the resilience of our communities. At the heart of the report is our understanding of our mutuality and interconnectedness, which is key to our public health and well-being. In the light of this, will the Minister say what efforts the Government are making systematically to engage with faith groups and maintain relationships with them? What assessment have they made of the key role faith groups can and already play in public health?
Before I finish, I would like to mention the nod in the report to the long-term funding of public services. The Government’s response to recommendations 24 and 25 was to highlight the 10-year mental health plan which, at the time, was in consultation. Of course, that is no longer happening, in favour of the major conditions strategy. There also remain a number of questions about the major conditions strategy in the absence of the health disparities White Paper. I also suggest that spending on public health services does not feel like a long-term investment as things stand.
To conclude, I warmly welcome this report and its recommendations. I hope that we will hear from the Minister about the Government’s ongoing response to this and their efforts to build and hold relationships across difference for a more resilient society.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests, which may not at first appear relevant, but I aim to explain exactly why they are. I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and am vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
Since this report was published, back in March 2022, the independent public inquiry chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, has been set up and its work is still in progress. However, while the inquiry chaired by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox was in action, several issues relating to languages began to emerge. By the time the inquiry chaired by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, started, the APPG on modern languages had assembled sufficient evidence and constructive recommendations to make a submission to that inquiry.
What we said in that submission fits perfectly with the approach and conclusions of the report being debated in terms of resilience, well-being and inclusiveness and, indeed, of the Government’s statement in their response that:
“The government puts fairness at the centre of its policies”.
The response also acknowledges that there are barriers faced by different groups. I hope therefore that the Minister, when she replies, will be able to respond positively to the points and recommendations I will be outlining, as well as to the report itself.
I will flag up the language issues which emerged relating to the impact of Covid on three things: health, education and justice. On health, there are three key points. The first is that the absence or delay of provision of public health messaging in languages other than English may have been a contributing factor to the disproportionate levels of infection and death among some black and ethnic minority communities. The 2023 report by the Race Equality Foundation, UCL and Doctors of the World stated that after two years black and minority ethnic groups were still three to five times more likely than white British adults to be unvaccinated. Alarm among health professionals was widespread as early as April 2020, yet there was an apparent lack of preparedness to provide effective translations. There was also a disconnect between what was claimed to be happening and what was observed to be delivered. For example, in June 2020, Public Health England stated that the 119 phone line offered translations in more than 200 languages and that the Covid-19 App was available in 12 languages.
At the same time, however, the Cabinet Office stated that its strategy for communications in other languages was confined to only nine core languages, with some other information in an additional five. Yet a BBC report found that translation of guidance was delayed for weeks, resulting in some multilingual communities such as Bradford reporting severe confusion, with apparent links to risky behaviour, outbreaks and extended lockdown periods.
In October 2020, the Government’s quarterly report on Covid inequalities talked of improving public health communication for so-called hard-to-reach groups, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds, but strangely also included a footnote which said:
“Translation into foreign languages is discouraged except in extraordinary circumstances because it conflicts with the government’s approach to integration”.
It was also unclear whether information in the right languages, or up-to-date information at all, was available via the Migrant Help service to asylum seekers, which was especially problematic because of inherent risk factors such as hygiene in shared accommodation, difficulty in observing social distancing and the high turnover of people in asylum facilities and refugee centres. Advice and information were available in 12 languages in May 2020, but by June none of the updated guidance on symptoms, for example, was available in translation.
There was also a significant disparity between the Government’s response to the needs of British Sign Language users, as compared with the needs of people who speak little or no English. The former are covered by the AIS, the accessible information standard, but the latter are not—I had not heard of the AIS before either. The APPG agrees with the call from Healthwatch England that the AIS should be amended as part of better preparedness and inclusiveness in future emergency responses.
The second health issue concerns the use of public service interpreters and languages services in NHS Test and Trace. Test and trace operated primarily as an English-only service, despite apparent arrangements to make language services available. The National Audit Office reported that no equality assessment had been carried out by June 2020, but that test and trace had stated that its call centres offered a language interpreter service—a claim that was repeated by Ministers in Parliament. In contrast, a Sky News report in June 2020 reported that DHSC claims that translations were available in up to 130 languages were “brazen” and “bizarre”.
Local government appeared to be no more consistent, publishing advice—in English—that non-English speakers should dial 119 or use the Covid app if they needed to contact NHS Test and Trace in another language. The function of test and trace, as I understand it, was meant to be contacting people proactively, so putting the onus on them to contact the service for information in another language was never really likely to be effective.
The third health issue also concerns public service interpreters working in the NHS. Most are freelance and many complained that no one was taking responsibility for providing them with PPE. The Government funded the provision of 250,000 clear face masks for British Sign Language interpreters, but no equivalent provision was made for spoken-word interpreters. In answers to Oral and Written Questions that I asked, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell said, in July 2020, that individual hospitals were responsible for providing the interpreters with PPE, and, in December, he said that GP practices had a similar obligation. Nevertheless, many public service interpreters found that, in practice, they were expected to turn up having procured their own PPE. The APPG believes that if the provision of language services were included in the accessible information standard, which I mentioned earlier, this kind of support and equipment would in future be more easily identified and forthcoming.
I turn briefly to issues in education that had, and continue to have, an adverse impact on the social well-being of individuals and the economic well-being of the UK. Covid severely exacerbated many existing problems with the teaching and learning of modern languages. This is important because language skills have been shown to be linked to better employment prospects, international relations, security, soft power, social inclusion and, yes, even health. In summary, the impact of Covid was, first, to deprive pupils studying for GCSE or A-level in lesser-taught languages at supplementary schools of the opportunity to take their exams and gain their qualifications, because the system introduced due to Covid of centre-assessed grades awarded by mainstream schools did not apply to them. Official guidance was often unhelpful, and many pupils were charged high fees as private candidates instead. This was systematic inequality and discrimination against bilingual children and those with English as an additional language. The Government, Ofqual, awarding bodies and others need to sort this out in advance of any future comparable emergency.
Secondly, the pandemic produced some unclear and damaging messaging on the mainstream curriculum from the DfE. The guidance for schools published in July 2020 included a list of subjects to be taught in primary schools which omitted modern languages despite it being a statutory key stage 2 subject. The APPG almost immediately began to receive reports from stakeholders that schools were using this guidance as a reason to ditch language teaching altogether. By January 2021, one in five primary schools had suspended language teaching, blaming the pandemic. Following clarification from Ministers, languages remained statutory, but it was left to subject associations, unions and teacher groups to reassure teachers. Both schools and universities suffered by being forced to scale back or drop altogether their international experiences, such as exchanges, trips and the year abroad as part of a degree course. Oral exams were scrapped from GCSEs in 2021. Together with the loss of international experience, this reduced the appeal of a language choice at either A-level or university. The pandemic’s impact on language provision disproportionately affected deprived areas. If the Government are serious about levelling up, language teaching would be a good place to start.
Finally, Covid had an adverse impact on the administration of justice, because lockdown measures prompted a large shift towards remote court hearings, which required the use of public service interpreters in virtual proceedings. A series of major reports found significant concerns about the suitability of remote interpreting, including misunderstandings, delays, poorly performing technology and missed verbal and non-verbal cues. The APPG recommends that the MoJ should caution against any systematic trend towards more widespread use of this practice until and unless the right lessons have been learned from the Covid experience. Guidance on best practice has been provided to the MoJ by the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Association of Translation Companies. The same concerns and caution also apply to the suitability of remote interpreting in healthcare settings.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on all these issues.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I shall of course be brief because I am speaking in the gap. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and her committee for producing this report. I congratulate her on it. Unbelievably, it is now two years ago that they finished it, and things have changed since. I might not agree with everything in it, but I will concentrate on what I think is the most important issue. Sadly, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, has yet to reach this in her inquiry—I suspect that she wonders why on earth she ever took on the job.
The most important issue is whether the so-called cure was worse than the disease. Nobody doubts that Covid was an extremely unpleasant disease and that it kills people—but, frankly, not many people under the age of 60 unless they had some underlying health conditions. In the lead-up to March 2020, we heard from Messrs Whitty and Vallance that we needed herd immunity and to shield the elderly, who were vulnerable, and other vulnerable people with underlying health conditions.
As we heard, huge damage has been done to mental health and education—what good did closing all the schools do?—and other health issues were caused, such as undetected cancers. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about some of those. Of course, we now have higher death rates in other fields than we had from Covid.
We have saddled our children and grandchildren with the most enormous debt around their necks for decades to come. We have crashed the UK economy, as I think everybody knows; the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, referred to the cost of living crisis, which is closely related to the failures of policy during the coronavirus pandemic. I should say on behalf of the Government, although I do not always defend them, that the Opposition, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats, were hounding the Government to go further and further.
Lockdown was an absolute disaster. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, mentioned cost-benefit analysis. I had a debate on that to try to get the Government to give us one, but answer came there none. The heart of the matter is whether the Government knew best. I have always felt that the gentleman in Whitehall never knows best. I was derided and insulted for asking that question and for challenging lockdown policies. Therefore, before I sit down, I ask the Minister and anybody else who wishes to answer: who now thinks that lockdown policies were a good idea?
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the committee for a thought-provoking report. My comments will reflect reactions to some of the recommendations within it.
I start with recommendation 1, not just logically because it is at the beginning but also because it is significant. It identifies the importance when looking at health issues of considering both the population and each individual within it. Our state of health at any moment reflects each individual’s life story. It is a combination of their genetic inheritance with socio- economic factors, their professional role—in Covid, certain jobs brought with them a different risk than other jobs—long-term health conditions, the language they speak, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, pointed out, dire lifestyle factors and just a dose of good old-fashioned good or bad luck. All those factors affected each individual’s experience of Covid, and no two individuals had the same experience: both in their literal health experience, whether they were likely to suffer ill health and perhaps even death, and in their experience of lockdown and their professional and personal lives.
Covid hit people differently, and some of those differences turn out to be predictable—not the luck factors, but for some of those other factors we can say, “That tells us that your experience of a particular disease or health outcome will be different”. The report pulled that out and said that socioeconomic factors will have an impact over time, not just for Covid but for other diseases. Now that we have that awareness, it is important that we do not let it slip and just go back to thinking of the population as a whole, because those population-based statistics mask all those critical individual life experiences. We need to plan to minimise population risk and be acutely sensitive to whether we have exaggerated risks within certain segments of the population that could and should be addressed by health and other broader public policies.
The Government’s response talks about the work of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and that is a useful approach. However, it is useful only if it continues this focus on the individual rather than masking those individual outcomes in the broad statistical outcomes that it is seeking. The proof of the learning will be in whether we understand future crises and respond much more quickly to those differential individual risks. I hope the Minister will be able to talk about that.
The second recommendation that jumped out at me as really insightful was recommendation 3, on local capabilities. It is important to reflect on that. I would have said that there was already enough evidence to suggest that we did not make sufficient use of local public health services; we brought everything to the centre very quickly and left people on the ground in public health services feeling that there was no role for them, and we did not take advantage of what they could offer. As we get output from the various inquiries that are going on, we will dig into that some more, particularly on the test and trace programme, which the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, touched on. We have to be really honest about the difference when we brought something centrally and the impact that that had on demotivating local programmes.
The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, talked about the rules and people’s immediate reaction. I thought about that as I reflected on the experience—I do not know whether anyone else had this experience—of people from centralised test and trace ringing up people in your household to tell them about your Covid, which you had already told them about because that is what people do. I learned that the best way to do test and trace was to WhatsApp all the people I knew when I had a positive test result, because that was the quickest way to get to them. Again, 10 days later somebody would phone to tell you something that you had already dealt with. The phrase “common sense” gets bandied around, but people are sensible and those very local responses were often super useful. In some ways, they were disempowered by bringing everything into the centre.
What was telling about the Scottish and Welsh experience was that people were looking to local leaders. That happened to a certain extent with some of the English regions, but it left me thinking about how much more we could have had of that if we had said that there was a role for local council leaders and others and asked them to stand up, be visible and give the advice about WhatsApping all your friends if you got a positive test result. We could have seen the impact of that, rather than getting a call from an impersonal call centre in a language that you did not even understand. As the report highlights, there was a huge opportunity to do so much more through local institutions.
We are now starting to see certain elements of the dysfunction going on in central government. Back in the day, I was a representative in Sheffield from the minority party, because most politicians in Sheffield had been Labour since time immemorial. I found in a local situation that those local loyalties far outweighed party loyalty, and we would work together very effectively. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London talked about faith leaders—there was a real sense that we all had to help Sheffield, whatever our religion or party. It felt to me that we could have drawn on much more of that, but people were disempowered because it was all going back to those press conferences in London and people from there telling you what you should do.
Local knowledge is also critical but was missed. If you want to know where you should put a testing centre which people will find easy to get to, you ask people in the area. There were people sitting here in Whitehall saying, “The testing centre should go there”, because it looks good on the map—but if you asked anyone locally, they would have told you that no one ever wanted to go down that street, for whatever local reason. We missed all those opportunities. I hope the Minister can at least give us some indication that any future planning will be much more sensitive to and take advantage of the fact that we have amazing local structures that can be utilised in such a crisis.
On recommendations 7 and 9 on long-term planning and efficiency, what happened around procurement is a stark example of why that is needed. We saw the best and worst in the pandemic: we saw people pitching in for the public interest, but we also saw blatant profiteering. As the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, pointed out, part of it is the redundancy question. If you have taken everything down to the bone, you have made yourself more vulnerable to those who will come along and sell you something, because you have to buy it at any price. There was no cushion there, and cushions matter if you want to insulate yourself against that kind of situation.
This is also about planning and advance frameworks for procurement and staffing. Whether it is procuring equipment or staffing, this is squarely in the domain of the Cabinet Office and it could be thinking now about how we avoid that, whether it is a health emergency or any other situation where we have an urgent need to procure people and stuff in the public interest. How do we make sure that we do not expose ourselves to that profiteering? I think that I am safe in this environment to use this reference, but there will always be Private Walkers—that famous figure, the spiv from “Dad’s Army”, for those who are not of that generation. There will always be somebody. Since time immemorial, there have always been people who will take advantage, but we can do things to protect ourselves against that. Part of that might be the Cabinet Office thinking about what kind of profit limits would be appropriate. People can make profit, that is fine—we want them to be creative and think of new solutions—but there should be limits to that, which is something that could be thought about ahead of time.
Transparency rules would be helpful. We are told that a lot of those contracts were commercial, so it is now really difficult to unpick that and to understand whether people were profiteering or just charging a fair mark-up, which would have been fine. If they delivered the goods and charged a fair mark-up, we are okay, but if they were putting on an excess mark-up because they knew that they could take advantage, they were being Private Walkers. We need to know that and be able to dig into it. That area is really significant, and I hope that the Minister will be able to say that this is a priority for the Cabinet Office.
The last set of recommendations that jumped out at me are 16 and 17, on online activity generally, and 21 and 22, on digital health in particular. We had a huge, forced learning process. My noble friend Lord Alderdice talked about our late Queen, who also had to learn; she was forced into the situation of learning how to do digital signing. During that crisis, all of us were forced to do things digitally. The technology held up remarkably well, in fact. I was quite surprised—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who has a lot of experience, may have shared my surprise. I thought that we would break the internet with that massive usage, but we did not. However, because the technology held up quite well, in some ways it masked a whole bunch of social questions that we were not asking. The real questions were not necessarily the technological ones, other than for those who did not have access at all. For most people who had access, there were a range of social questions that, in some ways, were much more significant than the technology.
Any parent whose children went through Covid—mine did—will certainly recognise that the impact was significant, even where the technology worked perfectly and even where the schools were good. It was not zero impact. Mine still talk about it; they were not in exam years but it is still relevant to their experience of education today and how they feel about education.
There is also a risk that the debate becomes binary; it is either all offline or all online—whether that is health, education or work. My noble friend Lord Alderdice and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred to GP consultations, and there is almost this sense that we need to move everything online or we need to get everything offline, when the world is much more complicated than that. The reality is that it is about individuals who have individual needs and individual preferences. There will be some children who struggle in school social settings—and always have done. A lot of them were absent from school, and online is a wonderful bonus. I can remember going back and dealing with children who were persistently truant from school, and were truant because they genuinely struggled. Online may be a better solution for those individuals. There are other children who really struggle by not being in school, for whom online is a terrible experience. We need, again, to recognise that. It is hard for those who are delivering education—it is much harder than a single model—but, if we want to respond to people’s needs, we need to think about how we are going to do that.
In the healthcare sector, there are many people who will benefit from virtual wards—another development that has come out of all this—and who would rather be at home than in a hospital setting. There will be others, however, for whom being in hospital is essential—often for socioeconomic factors—and at home they just would not get the care that they need. It is not one size fits all. It is not all virtual or all in hospital; it is about reflecting the individual circumstances. The Government’s response to the report talks about the need for new medical systems to be approved by the MHRA. That is right but, again, the risk is that we focus on the technology. Approving the technology as suitable for home use is one thing, but approving the protocols that decide when you use the technology versus when you use in-person is a whole other set of questions that we need to address.
I am grateful to the committee for a very comprehensive report with so much thought-provoking content. I have touched on a few points but I read the other reports with great interest and will learn a lot from them. If we can learn these lessons, we can be better equipped for future crises of all kinds that we are going to face. It will be deeply disappointing if we hit another crisis and do not do better. There is no excuse for not doing better if we take on board these lessons. I am grateful to the committee for giving us the opportunity to focus on the kind of things that we could do to achieve that better outcome.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, for introducing this important debate. I particularly welcomed the focus of the committee’s report on the need for a reset, as she said, which focuses on resilience, well-being and long-term planning. I certainly share the view that all those things are needed. I hope that the Minister will find today’s debate helpful in looking forward in all those areas. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, for chairing the committee and acknowledge with thanks the contribution of everyone on the committee, including those who are present today. As the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said, this was not an easy time for the committee to be doing its work, so we should pay particular tribute to the members of the committee for that. I shall particularly mention one committee member, my noble friend Lord Elder, who sadly passed away recently. I am sure we all hold him in our thoughts today, and may his memory be for a blessing.
This is an interesting and important report on so many levels, not least because it makes observations and recommendations that I believe are legitimate not just when we are in crisis but when we are in the day to day. Time after time in the Chamber and outside we hear calls—I have made them myself—for joined-up government with the structures and systems to support it. I am therefore very much looking forward to hearing from the Minister, and as she is a Cabinet Office Minister, as I used to be, I will be very interested to hear from her what ongoing assessment is being made of the effectiveness or otherwise of cross-government working because, as she will know, it is only by keeping this under constant review that improvements can be made. As the report says, the pandemic was a wake-up call pointing to the need for a drastic overhaul of the approach to resilience and preparedness to be ready to face future disasters whenever and whatever they may present as.
The report states:
“It is now clear that we will never be entirely free of COVID-19 and that post-pandemic the world will be very different. Instead, we must adapt our lives”.
For some of us, that is easier than it is for others. While much of the country may be living with Covid-19, there are some 2 million people who are living restricted lives or are now in their fourth year of total shielding. Many of them are unable to make antibodies to Covid-19 and therefore the current vaccines do not serve them. This, coupled with their underlying conditions, places them at heightened risk. A recent study showed that while 4% of the population is immunocompromised, 28% of ICU admissions and 25% of deaths come from this section of the population. This is a taking a huge toll, not just on the individuals themselves but on their families, households and communities.
Can the Minister say what steps are being taken to improve the situation for those who are immuno- compromised and what they might look forward to in the future, in particular in terms of vaccinations and the appropriate medications to assist them? Perhaps the Minister could also inform noble Lords about the plans for those who are suffering the debilitating effects of long Covid—another continuing matter for so many.
I note that the Government did not respond to the report as a whole, but only to each individual recommendation. In my view, as other noble Lords have said, the Government were mostly setting out what they believe they are already doing. I feel that was something of a missed opportunity. There are some specifics that I would like to deal with: first, the underpinning issue of resilience and all that goes with it; and, secondly, some of the specific health aspects, which other noble Lords have referred to.
We have learned so much from the past few years about what it means to be a resilient society. I acknowledge that there has been progress since the publication of this report and the government response. I am sure the Minister will be advising us of this. I am glad that there has been progress because I felt somewhat overwhelmed by the sense that there was little appetite in the government response for reflection on the recommendations and for actually wanting to make improvements. Since then, however, we have seen other developments. I welcome the establishment of the Resilience Directorate and the appointment of Mary Jones, who I wish well in her endeavours leading on this.
In addition, the UK Government Resilience Framework promises a direction of travel which incorporates prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, no matter what the disaster. All these were called for in the report, so perhaps there has been some reflection since the Government responded. I am aware that the provision of vital data has also been improved. I ask the Minister: how can the data that is being used by Ministers in times of crisis also be deployed at a local level? The Minister will have heard the calls in this debate and the report for better support to localities. Does the Minister agree that the Government’s assessment of reasonable worst-case scenarios should be shared as a matter of course with local resilience forums? What plans are there for continuing core funding for LRFs?
In an Answer to a Question put to the Minister by my noble friend Lord Harris on 4 September, the noble Baroness confirmed that, in the resilience framework, it is set out that the Government have a “commitment to publishing” annual statements
“to Parliament on civil contingencies risk and performance on resilience”.
The Minister also stated that:
“Both Houses will be updated in due course regarding the timing, form and content of the statement”.
I am not aware that this update has been provided, but perhaps the Minister will confirm whether I am correct and, if so, why it is not yet forthcoming. It was also confirmed in the Answer to that Question that the Government’s intention, which was given by the Deputy Prime Minister,
“is to publish the first statement during this calendar year”.—[Official Report, 4/9/23; col. 195.]
That would happen, with both Houses being given the opportunity to scrutinise it. Clearly, there is not much of the year left. Perhaps the Minister could indicate when the first statement will be published and, if we do not see it this year, the reasons for the delay.
We are discussing this report while the Covid inquiry continues apace. Can the Minister therefore say whether and how this report might be considered alongside it? I pay tribute to all those who have worked tirelessly no matter what the emergency—in this case, the pandemic—from local councils through to the emergency services, NHS workers, carers, civil society and so many more. This begs the question of how their voices will be heard so that their experience and professionalism can inform the future.
I turn to some of the health specifics in the report. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London rightly referred to recommendation 1 and the fact that the government response promised a health disparities White Paper, yet we have been told that that will not happen. Many of us have pushed on this point in the Chamber. The pandemic pulled back the curtain on the fact that there are deep health inequalities in our country. The right reverend Prelate made the very good point that a more equal society strengthens our resilience. In other words, it is not an either/or but a necessity in achieving the required resilience.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, spoke about a different inequality in the provision of information. How can we expect people to work with us and protect themselves, their families and their communities if they do not have access to information simply because it is not available in their language? That seems a real basic.
On health inequalities, as I am sure the Minister is very aware, living well is best captured in health policy by the concept of healthy life expectancy—the amount of time that an average person can expect to live without a major health condition. Evidence shows that the UK is no longer making progress in this regard. The poorest 60 to 64 year-olds have the same level of bad health as the richest 90 year-olds. That is a waste of 30 healthy years for those who are poorer. The impact of poverty on health means that people who live in different parts of the country have very different chances of living well. A girl born and brought up in Blackpool can expect to live well until she is 54, whereas a girl born and brought up in Winchester can expect to live healthily until she is 66. Resilience relies on those health inequalities being dealt with.
On GPs and recommendation 21, the government response is more than somewhat rosy. On access to GPs, the statistics from a recent global study by the Economist show that just one in three in the UK say that they can secure an appointment with their doctor within 24 hours. The global average is 67%—that makes the UK less responsive than Rwanda. Nearly one in five patients in the UK say that they have to wait longer than a week to see their GP. The reality of accessing general practice is not as the Government put it but at an all-time low. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred to media reports on the challenge of remote consultations. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, that it is absolutely not an either/or, but the noble Lord, Lord Patel, raised the right point; some people—the report talks about the very young, those with existing conditions and the elderly—may be more excluded from the benefits of remote access than others. We cannot just ignore that. What work are the Government doing to ensure that remote access brings benefits to all and does not exacerbate inequalities?
I finish by saying that the reform of the Mental Health Act could have been included in the Government’s legislative programme. The committee’s report refers to the importance of well-being and strong mental health, and a revised and strengthened Mental Health Act would have been a tremendous contribution to that. Sadly, the Government missed that opportunity, and it might be that the Minister can shed some light on when we can perhaps see some progress in this regard.
This has been a very valuable debate but, as ever with such reports, perhaps more questions are raised than the Government have hitherto answered. I hope that the Minister will take the debate in the spirit in which it is intended and perhaps use the insight of noble Lords to take us forward and to make us more resilient and prepared and to get us ready in the long term.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I join all those who congratulated the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, on her speech and on the work that she did in chairing this committee. She brings a thoughtfulness and a knowledge of digital way beyond most of us, which has made this report a very special piece of work and has allowed her to pioneer new methods of data-gathering, which I think will be used elsewhere. I thank all noble Lords for their interesting contributions today, despite the rival attraction. It is good to see so many noble Lords here, including the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, who was right to emphasise cost-benefit and the speed of change. My noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie was here earlier.
Of course, two years have elapsed since the report was printed, but the good news is that that means that we can take advantage of what has been achieved since then and celebrate the fact, as we should, that we are no longer tied down by Covid and, in my case at least, that NHS vaccinations for the most vulnerable and elderly groups continue to help in protecting so many of us, especially in this House.
The COVID-19 Committee’s insightful piece of work in its Living in a COVID World: A Long-term Approach to Resilience and Wellbeing report rightly highlights the importance of building resilience to ensure that we are equipped for future crises. That is where I would like to start, not least since it fits in with my responsibilities at the Cabinet Office. We have made substantial progress on resilience. Earlier this year, we debated the UK Government’s new resilience framework which sets out the Government’s plan to strengthen the systems that underpin our response to a range of risks. The Resilience Directorate, in the Cabinet Office, works across government to ensure that the UK is better placed to prepare for, respond to and recover from risks and hazards—extreme weather, terrorism, pandemics and so on. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for her kind words about Mary Jones. We will be publishing an update on resilience shortly—we stand by that promise—and look forward to debating this matter further with the noble Baroness and with other colleagues, such as the expert, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who I was pleased to see in his place earlier.
As part of the commitments made in the resilience framework, we are establishing new ways of identifying and assessing chronic risks to the UK, the continuous challenges facing the UK, generally over a longer timeframe. This complements the national security risk assessment and sets out the most serious acute risks to the UK. The Government’s national risk register, the external version of the classified risk assessment, was published in August. It is specifically aimed at risk professionals and practitioners across society who benefit from having more information about risks. It is the most transparent version yet, which I am pleased about, and it helps to develop a shared understanding of preparedness for risks facing the UK. Our whole-of-society approach, which picks out what several noble Lords have said this evening, is important to building the resilient society that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London emphasised very rightly.
Chapter 2 of the committee’s report outlines the challenges we face, such as the digital and tech revolution, demography and the response to climate change, although it perhaps underplays the economic problems we all face as a result of the enormous cost of seeing Britain through the pandemic. A prosperous economy makes it easier to cope with Covid legacies in health, education and the other areas identified today. Alongside the longer-term forward thinking of the Resilience Directorate, we remain committed to learning from the Covid-19 pandemic, building on the reset mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. Today’s debate has been very helpful.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, was right to commend the work of local communities during the pandemic and their role in resilience. I remember what a brilliant job my local village volunteers did during the pandemic. They delivered drugs and donated food to some of the poorest in our area and prioritising deliveries to those with a safeguarding risk. We must build on that joint endeavour. Although the UK Government have a central role in assessing and planning for risks, the local level is the foundation of the UK’s resilience. The many local resilience forums in England, Scotland and Wales, as well as the emergency preparedness groups in Northern Ireland, play a critical role in bringing together local responders, such as the emergency services, to plan for risks.
It was interesting to be taken back by the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, to all the exchanges on testing, the location of testing sites and the local endeavour that included faith groups. We have learned from those experiences in our planning and the way that we will approach things going forward.
The right reverend Prelate also highlighted the importance of local faith leaders in lots of different ways. The Government recognise the importance of such figures. Indeed, we worked closely with them during the pandemic in developing guidance, using places of work safely and working with a diverse and dispersed network of community champions. Community champions were found to strengthen regional capacities to deal with Covid-19, while the community vaccine champions programme found that religious minority groups aware of CVC-funded activities were significantly more likely to have booster vaccinations.
The pandemic was an unprecedented event that I hope will not be repeated. Everyone had to do their best and often make difficult decisions where there was no blueprint. I was on the Back Benches at the time, but I think the degree of uncertainty in such crises may have faded from memory. All such crises have unexpected features. For example, it was not unreasonable to prepare for a flu epidemic like the one which killed so many, particularly young people, in the 20th century. It is not possible to have a plan for everything, as is rather suggested in the report with the call for a “just in case” model. This would be very expensive and we would be unlikely to get it right, but I agree that we must focus more on prevention and take a more whole- of-society approach to risk management. To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, there has to be some surge capacity. That happened during Covid in many different areas of government. We have to be careful not always to focus on the negative.
Looking back, there will be decisions that we got right but also important lessons to be learned for the future, and that is why we set up the Covid-19 inquiry. My noble friend Lord Robathan questioned the Government’s decision to lock down. The inquiry was commissioned to consider decisions such as that and it will report its conclusions, which we will consider in due course. We need to learn the lessons of Covid in a spirit of transparency and candour, and there are many conflicting views.
Progress on the inquiry is well under way—as we all hear on the radio all the time—and much of the focus is on issues identified in the committee’s report that we are discussing today. Public hearings for module 1 are focused on pandemic preparedness and resilience. Module 2 hearings, going on at the moment, are focused on core decision-making and will conclude on 14 December. Future modules will focus on healthcare systems, vaccines and therapeutics, and government procurement—I note the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Allan. Our new Procurement Act has of course made many changes in the light of the difficulties of Covid, including strengthening the existing legal duties in respect of conflicts of interest and introducing greater transparency requirements, which I think we all welcome.
On levelling up, many of the committee’s recommendations focus on how the Government can and should deliver their commitments to levelling up. Our White Paper published in February 2022 recognised that not every person in every part of the UK shares in the UK’s success, which is why the White Paper outlined 12 ambitious missions to level up the UK, some of which we have touched on today. A number of the recommendations relate to transforming our approach to devolution and giving more power to local government. The White Paper set an objective that every part of England seeking a devolution deal should get one by 2030. In December 2022, we announced five new deals, which will bring devolution to over 51% of the English population. A further four new devolution deals were announced in the Autumn Statement.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, emphasised the significance of well-being. Well-being is an important consideration for the Government when making spending and policy decisions. She raised the issue of funding for well-being; I understand that departments across government have worked with and provided funding to the What Works Centre for Wellbeing and others to date. We will continue to explore how best to measure well-being and deliver improvements across the UK. The Treasury’s Green Book sets out how to appraise policies, programmes and projects and requires all social, economic and environmental benefits and costs to be considered in appraisal. Further, the noble Baroness will be aware of the ONS well-being index and the national well-being dashboard. This intelligent use of data measures well-being across the country in a number of areas and can be a useful tool for practitioners.
Perhaps even more important in this area, however, is the Government’s progress on reducing inflation and promoting growth through measures announced in the Autumn Statement, as this is the best way to support the sustainability of public spending in areas such as well-being. In this year’s local government finance settlement, the most deprived areas will receive 17% more per dwelling than the least deprived areas.
I have not gone through the local government issues; they were dealt with but nobody has raised them today. However, I am happy to talk to people if they want me to. Noble Lords will know that I am always very keen to make sure that local government contributions are appreciated and funded.
On health, the pandemic placed an unprecedented level of demand on NHS services. The NHS has since been provided with record levels of staffing and funding to tackle waiting lists. NHS England achieved its target of virtually eliminating waiting times of two years or more for elective procedures in July 2022, and waits of 18 months have been reduced by over 90% in the last two years. Additionally, as part of the first-ever long-term workforce plan, record numbers of doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare staff will be trained in England, backed by over £2.4 billion of funding for additional education and training places.
On increasing access to healthcare services, the NHS app—which noble Lords mentioned approvingly—and the NHS website are delivering a proactive, personalised digital NHS experience for patients and their carers. This has come on a lot since the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and I worked together on this in the Cabinet Office. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, pointed out, this is not an easy area. As he said, the public are generally supportive of these measures but less happy when technology comes between them and the clinicians. Like him, I believe that online consultations, although useful, can be overdone.
Of course, GP practices are individual businesses with partners. Many are outstanding and some face more challenges. I have certainly seen how the appointments system has been digitalised in recent years. That has freed up GP surgeries. The report today in the Telegraph examined 95 cases; of course, any serious incident of the kind referred to is one too many. However, NHS guidance and clinical training incorporate red-flag symptoms that would prompt a GP or practice staff to move to a face-to-face appointment. Even more importantly, patients also have a right to request a face-to-face appointment whenever they deem it necessary and practices should comply with that, unless there are good reasons to the contrary such as a particularly infectious disease.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London rightly set out the importance of tackling health inequalities. This is one of the 12 missions set out in the levelling-up White Paper. The major conditions strategy, which the Government intend to publish in early 2024, will explore how we can tackle the key drivers of ill health in England to improve healthy life expectancy, as well as reduce pressure on the NHS and reduce ill health and related labour market inactivity. We are also tackling health disparities through interventions such as the NHS’s Core20PLUS5 programme, which focuses on improving physical and mental health outcomes in the poorest 20% of the population.
We know the pandemic has had and will continue to have an impact on mental health and the well-being of many people. That is why we are investing £2.3 billion of additional funding per year by March 2024 compared with 2018. This funding will expand mental health services in England so that 2 million more people can receive NHS-funded mental health support. We are also continuing to roll out mental health support teams in schools and colleges across England.
Probably the most worrying effect of the pandemic has been on schoolchildren and infants. There is a question as to whether we got school closures right. We acted swiftly in helping our children recover from the impact of the pandemic and have made available almost £5 billion for ambitious multiyear programmes to support education recovery. We are training more early years staff in the latest teaching for communication and language, maths and personal and social development. A number of other important interventions were touched on in the report, such as the Nuffield early language intervention programme, which has played an important role in improving reception-age children’s language and communication skills following Covid-19.
Finally, let me turn to digital transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic had one advantage. It ushered in a revolution in digital ways of working for all of us, which would otherwise have taken decades. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, gave us some telling examples—notably changing decades of practice by the late Queen. Schools and public services rose to the challenge remarkably. However, the pandemic brought into stark reality the need to make digital innovation accessible to all.
As the committee found, the nature of digital inclusion is cross-cutting and the onus sits on every government department to support its service users to tackle digital exclusion. We now have a new department, DSIT, focusing more strongly on such matters and much going on elsewhere. Across government, the Cabinet Office is playing its part with the Central Digital and Data Office and our new AI directorate, which is driving the adoption of new technologies in the public sector, making services more accessible and improving productivity and value for money. This is a very important part of the revolution.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, was right to raise the importance of long-term thinking. The Government have clearly made long-term decisions for a brighter future, such as setting up the Covid inquiry to learn lessons from the pandemic, the levelling-up White Paper and the long-term plan laid out by Rishi Sunak in October. Of course, we welcome the recommendations of committees.
I particularly identify the Select Committee on Risk Assessment and Risk Planning, chaired by my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot, which encouraged the Government to think ahead, particularly on resilience. It is a very good example of the influence of critical thinking in this House, as is the report that we are discussing today. Long-term thinking implemented by a cross-departmental approach is also important. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, was saying that. That is why I volunteered, somewhat reluctantly, to take part in this debate, and why her experience in the department is important to the debate. Being able to look right across the board has been a very good aspect of this report and this debate.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for her arresting and wide-ranging speech on the importance of language skills and interpretation in health inequalities and injustice. I completely agree on the importance of languages in schools. It is not an area of mine, but I echo everything that she said. I would add that primary care providers should ensure that patients have access to translation and British Sign Language services as required to support consent, mental capacity and clinical assessments. Primary care providers can request support for reasonable additional costs from their local commissioner, which will assess whether claims for such costs are reasonable and represent value for money. That is an example of where we are thinking about the point that she was making, although her speech was wide-ranging, and I look forward to reviewing it again.
I have tried to answer where I can. Clearly, I do not deal with some of these issues on a daily basis. In particular, I shall have to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, on the issue of the immunocompromised. I say in concluding that we share many of the sentiments of the committee’s report. We agree that the Government and the country must learn lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic. I hope that I have shown that progress is being made on many of the difficult issues that were highlighted by the report. My special thanks to the chair and the committee and to those who gave evidence—many people in very difficult circumstances—as well as to the clerk and to his or her team and noble Lords who took part in the debate today.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. It has been incredibly interesting to hear about some substantial areas of coalition, particularly around health inequalities and disparities. I have been surprised at how many noble Lords have homed in on that issue specifically. Perhaps surprised is the wrong word; I was pleased. As always, they brought such incredible depth of expertise to that topic. I hope that the Government will listen to the expertise that has been displayed today. I was particularly struck by the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on the link between health, language and education and the incredible complexity of getting these issues right in the face of such a crisis, so I thank her very much for her contribution. There were some very powerful words from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London around the effect of place, as well as on the issues of health disparities, economic inequalities and so forth.
As always when I stand in this chamber, I am humbled by the experience of the people in the Room. It is an example of why everybody should have been on this committee. I thank the members here to speak with me today, and I thank the Government for their response.
House of Lords
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Oaths and Affirmations
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Death of a Former Member: Lord Selkirk of Douglas
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, on 28 November. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and friends.
General Elections: Party-political Spending
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Rennard
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for increasing the maximum limit for political parties to spend at general elections.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)
It has been a long time since campaign spending limits were last adjusted for inflation—some have not changed since 2000. This means that as prices rise over time the limits are, in effect, reduced. Parliament anticipated this when the limits were set, which is why the legislation allows for them to be adjusted to account for inflation. The Government have now begun making these adjustments to ensure spending limits are restored in real terms.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, none of the last five Governments has seen fit to increase these spending limits for political parties, so I wonder what was different about this Government? In the last five elections, only one party—the Conservative Party—has come close to spending towards the election expense limit, so why does it now have to be increased by 80%? Which party will benefit? Boris Johnson managed to win the last general election spending £16 million, so why do this Government seem to think that they need to spend up to £36 million to try to be re-elected? What will their donors expect in return for this cash?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, this is not an unusual exercise. In fact, uprating has been done under successive Administrations of all political colours and is done regularly for other matters too. It is provided for in the original legislation passed by this Parliament. By using those powers, we are simply restoring the levels of spending limits that were provided for by Parliament.
Lord Swire (Con)
What is the view of the Government about the allegations that some political parties or political operatives are seeking to lure away existing elected Members of the other place with promises of money? Is that something that the Government will be looking at?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I am not sure of exactly what my noble friend refers to. None the less, it sounds like a serious matter that I would want to speak to him about after this Question.
Lord Watts (Lab)
Given the past scandals of money going into the Tory party over the last few years and influence that has been given to those people as a result, should we not reduce, and not increase, this amount of money?
Baroness Penn (Con)
Perhaps the noble Lord will be reassured that a process of consultation went on in regard to uprating these spending limits. Members of the Parliamentary Parties Panel were first consulted by the Cabinet Office in 2020. Since then, we have uprated the limits for local government elections, which I believe has passed without problem. In September 2022, the Government again wrote to members of the panel. There is a need for change; some of these limits have not changed for over 20 years. We are simply restoring the levels that were previously set out in law by Parliament.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, in relation to the last question, the accusations of providing money in dubious circumstances have applied to all political parties, unfortunately, at one point in recent years or another. I refer my noble friend back to the answer that she gave. She identified that the limits have changed in local government; we are now looking at limits in national elections. Does that not confirm that it is about time that we looked at consolidating all election law so that we do not have to deal with these things in different stages? I am not asking my noble friend to make a commitment to do so, but I ask her to acknowledge and take the message back.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right that the procedure for uprating spending limits has to be done through multiple statutory instruments because different procedures are attached to different limits for different elections. I know that he has been a great advocate for simplifying and consolidating electoral law. I am sure that he will continue to advocate that, and I very much look forward to engaging with him on it.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s rejection of amendments to the National Security Act means that foreign donations can still be made to political parties here in the UK. If the department is going to consider reviewing political financing, does the Minister agree that it is time to end this security loophole to prevent covert foreign donations to political parties?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I believe that as a result of the debates on that Act the Government took forward a commitment to ensure information sharing between the police and other relevant authorities with a view to finding a way to improve that process. The sharing of information could improve the ability of relevant authorities to identify any individuals making or facilitating donations from foreign powers and sanction them. We have a commitment to report back to Parliament next year on that work.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
In recent elections there has been concern on the part of non-political campaigning organisations about the limits on their expenditure. Have the Government reviewed what non-political campaigning groups are able to spend at election time?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I believe that the rules regarding third-party campaigning organisations will also be uprated as part of this work.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, there are a number of proposals for limiting the size of donations. Have the Government taken any issue with that? I have looked at the reports on donations for the first six months of this year, and the three largest donations to the Conservative Party were two individual donations of £5 million and one of £2 million. One was from a British-Egyptian national who was a Minister in a previous Egyptian Government and whose interests appear to be based primarily in Dubai. Another was from someone listed with Companies House as an Indian national— I assume therefore resident in London—whose interests are primarily in Thailand and Indonesia. Is it not time that the Government became much stricter on the size as well as the origins of individual donations?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government have no plans to limit the size of donations made. We have procedures in place to ensure that there is transparency over those donations and, as we are discussing today, spending limits for candidates and parties in elections. That is how we govern the use of money in our political system.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the House and the Minister will forgive me for asking a tangential question. Is it not time that the Government restored the special fund that put those with disabilities on an equal footing in campaigning in a general election?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for acknowledging that it is a slightly tangential question; I may need to write to him with a fuller answer. I remember the establishment of the fund; it was established for very good reasons, so I am happy to take that away and look at it further.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, further to the questions from the Liberal Benches, would they not carry more credibility if their party had not taken £3.5 million from a fraudster who is a fugitive from justice? Any respectable political party would have paid that money back.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, all political parties should seek to abide by the rules and, if they have not, they should definitely return the money that they owe.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, general election spending is funded by big corporations and the rich. They do not actually donate money; they invest—they expect a return. In the interests of transparency, would the Minister consider introducing a law to require political parties to state what returns they have promised and to whom?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I completely reject the premise of the noble Lord’s question. We have transparency in our system so that people can see who donates to political parties. The alternative to donations to political parties is government funding of political parties and campaigning. That is not something that we on these Benches wish to see.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, in view of the influence that the press very often has on elections, will my noble friend the Minister read the admirable article by my noble friend Lord Hague in yesterday’s Times, which indicated that it would not be a service to democracy for one of our notable daily papers and one of our notable weekly magazines to be bought by foreigners?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I always enjoy reading articles by my noble friend and I will undertake to read that one.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, to prove the honesty of the intention of donors and the lack of any self-interest, would it not be a good idea to ask any donors of that sort to disentitle themselves from honours?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, that is an interesting question for all sides of this House. Donors to political parties of all colours make huge contributions to our society—not only to our political parties but to many other good causes. They are often leaders in their fields. We should encourage participation in our democracy and not discourage it.
Nutrition for Growth Summit 2024
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with international counterparts ahead of the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris in 2024.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, the UK works closely with France and other partners to promote the integration of nutrition across multiple sectors and into multilateral programmes to increase financing for nutrition and build momentum ahead of the next nutrition for growth summit. Last week’s global food security summit and last month’s UK-France development dialogue are examples of our continued partnership on global development. We will continue to work with France to ensure that it is a success.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s response, and I agree that we have got some positive action here with the summit, which I attended. But the International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition has published its stock-take report on nutrition, which showed that the cuts to ODA disproportionately affected our spending on nutrition. Of course, we know that nutrition is a multiplier in addressing all the SDGs. So I hope the Minister can reassure us that we will be sticking to our £1.5 billion pledge over eight years. Can he tell us how much of that will be spent on nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programming? Finally, can he reassure us that, in advance of Paris, he will work with civil society and NGOs in preparation for that success? The UK has been a leader in this field and I hope we can return to that situation pretty soon.
Lord Benyon (Con)
On the latter point, I can absolutely assure the noble Lord that we are working very closely with civil society—the International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition is just one example. I can also reassure him that, as a proportion of our various objectives and interventions, we are seeing an increase in health programmes that are nutrition-sensitive and an increase in humanitarian aid that is nutrition-sensitive. Also, in water, sanitation and health, we are increasing the proportion that we give in ODA money to nutrition and also to climate: we have recently doubled our international climate fund spending, and an increased proportion of that is on nutrition. The £1.5 billion is a floor, not a ceiling, and I hope that, when we can return to the higher levels of spending on ODA, the noble Lord will see yet more increases in this important area.
Baroness Northover (LD)
The Minister will be well aware that millions of children still die of acute malnutrition every year. I come back to a specific figure here. When will the Government restore the funding to the global nutrition budget, which they cut by 60% in 2021? When will they do that?
Lord Benyon (Con)
We are reviewing the £1.5 billion next year and we may see increases as a result of that review. Funding for child wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition, is insufficient across the whole world, and unsustainable. Only a quarter of wasted children receive treatment and, while 75% of cases are outside of emergencies, 60% of funding is through unpredictable, short-term humanitarian channels. We have focused a lot of our spending on recent crises and want to make sure that we are also integrating it right across our donor funding streams.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will know that nutrition-sensitive funding is extremely broad. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked what proportion was nutrition-specific funding, which is the most impactful element that will have the most meaningful effect. What proportion of the funding that the Minister outlined is actually nutrition-specific funding on nutrition programmes, rather than the very general funding that is nutrition-sensitive?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I tried to address the point when I responded to the noble Lord who asked the Question. I can give the noble Lord more specific details if he wishes. From 2020 to 2021, the proportion of health programmes that were nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific rose respectively from 20% to 23% and from 23% to 24%. Other areas, for example water, sanitation and hygiene, are crucial, because if children are suffering from other ailments, they cannot possibly start to recover the body weight that they need. That proportion has increased from 17% to 37%, and I am very happy to give the noble Lord more details if he wishes.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
Following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, about overseas aid, is it not better, when considering reinstatement of the 0.7% target, that we look, as the Canadians do, at a project-based system that focuses on the most acute need, which will deliver the best value for our taxpayer funding and will retain strong public support?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I understand the point made by my noble friend and I would refer him to the White Paper that we published last week, which has been widely accepted by those who really understand these issues as a good attempt to try to integrate issues such as nutrition in so many different areas. We have to carry the public with us. Very often, when you ask in a public meeting what percentage people think that we spend on overseas aid, they give you a vastly greater amount than we actually do. We need to explain that it is going to change people’s lives and, hopefully, make economies better, reduce the need for people to migrate and keep stability. There are so many different strands to this, and we need to make that case, which was eloquently made in the White Paper.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, to coincide with last year’s Commonwealth Games, there was also the Commonwealth food futures 2022 summit, to discuss exactly these issues. Can the Minister tell us what other international organisations the Government are working with to ensure that we really improve the nutrition of the very poorest and most needy on this planet?
Lord Benyon (Con)
We think that the nutrition for growth dialogue on an annual basis, holding ourselves to account, is really important. We co-hosted the global food security summit, which was held last week in Lancaster House, with Somalia and the United Arab Emirates. The nutrition for growth proposal is that the next meeting should take place in Paris. We are working very closely with the French on this. My colleague, Andrew Mitchell, has met with them and with the director general, Melinda Bohannon, to try to work out how we can make this next phase really effective. In the short time that I have been in the department, I have seen how transparent we are in the quantities that we give and how we explain it. I hope that noble Lords will look at the White Paper and see how we are working with so many other different parties, particularly civil society, in achieving this.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the good work being done by Gavi on vaccination across the world. However, is he aware that Gavi is now aware of the link between vaccination effectiveness and nutrition in children? Undernourished children do not have as beneficial a response to the vaccination as they should. That is why Gavi has now linked the two things in its campaigning. Will the Government support that?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Baroness says much more eloquently what I was trying to say earlier. If you deal with various other health outcomes, you have a much better chance of getting a sustained improvement, for children in particular. I absolutely agree with what she says and I am very happy to work with Gavi on this.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, following on from the previous question, can the Minister tell the House how the Government do the metrics to ensure that the impacts of the nutrition programmes are as effective as they could be, particularly, for example, in areas of health? Can he give us some indication of how that is done? I have not read the White Paper, admittedly.
Lord Benyon (Con)
The White Paper seeks to set out how we hold ourselves accountable to the amounts of ODA that we give and to which areas. I cannot, particularly in a short moment here—even if I knew it—give the noble Lord the details of the metrics, but I urge him to look at the White Paper and, if he still requires information, I would be very happy to arrange for him to meet officials or to write to him.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister look favourably on the work—and applaud the work—done by non-governmental organisations in the third world in this regard? I had the privilege, with a number of colleagues more than 10 years ago, to travel with Nestlé to see the work it was doing in Africa in regard to the provision of nutrition, water and sanitation. Will he applaud the work that it does, together with Governments, in this regard?
Lord Benyon (Con)
Non-governmental organisations and those who work for them do heroic work in some of the most difficult parts of the world. We recently debated in this House the situation in Sudan and South Sudan. One of the difficulties that we have is getting people on to the ground, getting them visas and getting them safely to places where they can deliver aid. NGOs, faith-based organisations and civil society are absolutely vital for the effective implementation of overseas development aid.
Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Coaker
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to proscribe the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, the Government continue to take the threat of the IRGC very seriously and to condemn its actions. The Government will always consider the full range of powers available—including our robust counterterrorism powers, such as the proscription tool, where appropriate—to address the threat posed by Iran and the IRGC.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, there is a compelling case for proscribing the IRGC. Scotland Yard says that since the start of 2022, Iran has made 15 attempts to kidnap or even kill British and UK-based people. The director-general of MI5 has warned of Tehran projects posing a threat to the UK. Would not such a proscription be in the interests of national security at home and abroad, as well as peace and security in the Middle East, as highlighted by the current conflict? With the USA and the UK’s Countering Extremism Commissioner now calling for the proscription of the IRGC, what possible reason is there for the Government to delay in outlawing a terrorist organisation that threatens security both at home and abroad?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the strength of feeling in this House, and in the other place, on this subject. Let me explain what the Government have done. The Home Office is leading work on countering Iranian state threats in the UK, making full use of the breadth and expertise of government and our extraordinary and courageous police, security and intelligence agencies. On 1 November, the Security Minister announced in the other place that the Prime Minister has asked him to lead the Defending Democracy Taskforce to build further resilience within our institutions in order to safeguard against physical, personnel and cyber threats.
The National Security Act will provide another significant toolkit in the fight against individuals working for state entities such as the IRGC; it criminalises a wide range of hostile activities conducted by, for or on behalf of foreign powers. Materially assisting a foreign intelligence service in any activity in or related to the UK will be a crime.
We continue to make use of any and every opportunity to call out Iran’s malign activity—I apologise for the long answer but there is a lot to say. More than 350 Iranian individuals and entities have been sanctioned for activities, including human rights violations. Since January 2023, we have sanctioned more than 140 Iranian individuals and entities in response to the regime’s human rights violations. That is being strengthened.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, is there not a much simpler and shorter answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker: the Foreign Office?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
It is a shorter answer, I will certainly give the noble Lord that. The Government keep the list of proscribed organisations under review. We do not comment on whether a specific organisation is or is not being considered for proscription. This position has been informed by several considerations, including to avoid creating an expectation that the Government will proscribe a certain organisation, to reduce the risk of an organisation taking evasive action before the proscription order comes into force, and to manage the risk of any subsequent decision being vulnerable to challenge on procedural grounds. The Government will always consider the full range of powers available to tackle threats on our soil.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, not a single Member of this House, I would think, believes that there is any answer to this question other than “yes”. Can my noble friend please go back to his department and tell the Secretary of State that what we want to hear is that this organisation has been proscribed?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I said earlier, I fully understand the strength of feeling in both this House and the other place, as does the Home Secretary. I am well aware that 67 cross-party parliamentarians wrote to the Prime Minister requesting proscription in early November. The Home Secretary is due to respond to that.
Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, one of the very worst features of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard is its persecution of young women. Can the Minister explain why the Government still have not put in place a safe and legal route for persecuted Iranian women to seek asylum in the UK?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, this subject comes up frequently. As noble Lords will be aware, we work with all the relevant UN agencies to ensure safe and legal routes for people such as that.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I very strongly support the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. This Government proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation. The Iranian regime runs Hamas; it tells them what to do; it commands them what to do. Can the Minister, without any further delay, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, proscribe the Iranian regime as a terrorist organisation, which is of course what it is?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, we are very clear that Iran poses an unacceptable threat to Israel. We have long condemned Iran’s destabilising activity throughout the region, including its political, financial and military support of several militant and proscribed groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As I said earlier, we are committed to working with the international community to ensure that Iran abides by international laws and norms and is held to account for its destabilising activities in the region.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that these are fine judgments. The suppression of terrorist organisations can often diminish our operational intelligence, so it is not an easy decision. However, the last time I intervened on this subject was in 2010 in the House of Commons. The Government have had 14 years to review the situation, which the Minister told us was constantly under review. Can he tell us anything that has happened during those 14 years which suggests that we should do other than ban this organisation?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s extensive experience in this area and his perspective on it. These are obviously finely calibrated judgments. I am afraid that I will not speculate on what information has been considered over the past 14 years; it would be unwise of me to do so.
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford
My Lords, it is clear that the Iranian regime does support groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, including via the IRGC. The Minister will have heard the strength of feeling in this House. However, US officials have confirmed reports that Iran did not have prior notice of Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October. What assessment has been made of the true extent of the links between the IRGC and Hamas, and what recent conversations have the UK Government had with Iran to chart a course towards peace in the region?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The right reverend Prelate asks a difficult question in terms of conversations, security and intelligence. I will avoid those subjects, but there are extensive and ongoing conversations with all our international partners to ensure that Iran is held to account on the world stage, and that includes the US.
Lord Grabiner (CB)
My Lords, on the question of the possible involvement of the IRGC on the appalling weekend of 7 October, is the Minister aware of reports at the time of Farsi having been spoken during the intrusion from Gaza into Israel? If that is correct, the implication is plain that the relationship between Hamas and the IRGC is a very strong and rather distressing one.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am afraid I am not aware of those reports of Farsi having been spoken, but as I have acknowledged, we are aware that Iran funds some of the groups that are under discussion, including Hezbollah and Hamas.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I too asked this question on 15 November in the King’s Speech debate on foreign affairs and defence. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a death cult run by psychopaths who think nothing of the rape, torture and beheading of civilians in Iran should they dare to dissent. It is they who pull the strings of Hamas and other terrorist groups and who share responsibility for the attack on Israel on 7 October. Can my noble friend tell us when the United Kingdom will join the European Union, the United States of America and other countries in proscribing them as such?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid I have to say to my noble friend, as I have already said a couple of times, that the Government keep the list of proscribed organisations under review. We do not comment on whether a specific organisation is or is not being considered for proscription.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the IRGC has a violent and deep hatred of Jews, Israel, Christianity and the West. On that alone, it should be proscribed. However, proscription is not where it stops. Hamas has been proscribed for some considerable time. When will we see more action on what is happening on the streets of the United Kingdom with those who are supporting Hamas?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, that is an operational matter for the police, as has also been discussed at the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions. I point to last weekend’s protests, which passed off much more peacefully, it would seem, than some of their predecessors. It is probably too early to say this, but things look to be heading in the right direction regarding the noble Baroness’s question.
Net Migration
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Green of Deddington
To ask His Majesty’s Government why net migration rose to 745,000 in 2022, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on 23 November; and what plans they have to reduce it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, the increase in net migration since 2021 reflects a number of important factors including the introduction of our humanitarian routes, such as the Ukrainian and British national (overseas) schemes, and an increase in non-EU students and workers. Earlier this year we introduced measures to tackle the substantial rise in students bringing dependants to the UK, and the Government will announce details of further measures to reduce net migration in due course.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his outline, if I may call it that. It may help the House to consider the last two years of net migration because that comes to a total of 1.2 million people, and the significance of that is that it is the population of Birmingham. When you think about that, of course you think about the enormous expenditure there will be on infrastructure, hospitals and so on in return for a large number of immigrants, many of whom are relatively low paid. The impact on housing, schools, medical services—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, I think the House is asking if we can come to a question point. We must respect the noble Lord. Not everybody agrees with his contributions, but I think he must be heard and he must ask a question.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
I am so sorry; I got that in the wrong order. My question is to ask His Majesty’s Government why net migration rose to 745,000 in 2022, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on 23 November; and what plans they have to reduce it.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I alluded to in my opening Answer, there are well-understood reasons why net migration is high at present. Global events such as the world’s recovery from Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and the national security law in Hong Kong, along with policy changes introduced as part of the new immigration system and the end of EU freedom of movement, have all had an impact on migration. On 23 May the Government acted decisively by announcing a package of measures to reform the student route. We are working on further measures to prevent exploitation and manipulation of the visa system, including clamping down on those who take advantage of the flexibility of the immigration system, and we will announce details of these measures in due course.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that asylum seekers coming across the channel by boat are probably between 5% and 7% of the total figure? Is the hostile attention given to asylum seekers not totally disproportionate in relation to inward migration?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I have enormous respect for the noble Lord, but these asylum seekers are illegal migrants. They arrive here by methods that facilitate the activities of criminal gangs, they place their own lives and the lives of others at risk while they are in the English Channel, they impose themselves on the generosity of the British taxpayer, and they are jumping the queue of legal migrants. I think there are principles at stake.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, last week it was reported that the Government will likely breach their own welfare spending cap for the fourth time since its introduction. Some 18% of Manchester is on out-of-work benefits, 20% of Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool, 23% of Middlesbrough and 25% of Blackpool. Where mass migration facilitates and is even required by this, porous borders are not progressive. What are the Government doing to get native Britons working again?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend asks a good question. The Government are encouraging all sectors to adapt, to make employment more attractive to UK domestic workers by offering training, career options and wage increases, and to invest in increased automation technology. Supporting individuals to move into and progress in work is one of the DWP’s core strategic objectives. The Government are committed to supporting individuals who are stuck in low-paid work to progress, helping them to increase their earnings and move into better-paid quality jobs. The Government are extending the support that Jobcentre Plus provides to people in work and on low incomes to help them to increase their earnings and move into better-paid quality jobs. I alert my noble friend to the back to work plan published on 16 November—a plan to get 1.1 million people back into work—and refer him to the Chancellor’s recent Statement which, while raising benefits, also referred to getting people back into work.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, in 2021 international students added £42 billion to the UK economy through their fees, living costs and the NHS levy for them and their dependants. Why do this Government constantly portray them as a drain on the UK and why are they proposing to reduce their numbers, rather than recognising their direct contribution to our economy, communities and universities?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I do not think that is what the Government are doing. Students are short-term, temporary migrants who leave at the end of their studies. We know from previous research that many also stay in the UK beyond their studies. In keeping with the UN definition of long-term migration, the Office for National Statistics has stated that it will continue to include students in its net migration statistics, and the Home Office supports that position. On the changes I referred to earlier, we should certainly welcome students here; however, we are taking steps to tackle the number of dependants who come with them. That is not inconsistent.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, following that last question, does the Minister recognise that the higher education sector is one of the major invisible exports that we have in this country, one in which we are truly world leading? Great care has to be taken not to damage that. Will he therefore say whether the Government have considered ways in which fee-paying students can be taken out of this equation, which is becoming so difficult to solve?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I just alluded to that. The ONS is operationally independent of government—its work is overseen by the UK Statistics Authority—so any decision around that methodology would be for the ONS. Its definition of a long-term migrant aligns with the UN definition and is anyone who comes to the UK for 12 months or more. Students who remain in the UK for less than 12 months will not, at present, be counted in the ONS estimates. However, I am happy to associate myself with the noble Lord’s remarks about how higher education is a massive export industry for this country. Of course, it delivers enormous soft power benefits too.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, how has it come to the point at which net migration is three times the level of 2019, when the Government promised to reduce it? It has taken four years for the Government to come up with any sort of plan, but we do not know what it is because members of the Cabinet are fighting among themselves about what it should be. Can I make one suggestion? Do the Government agree with us that the unfair wage discount, allowing overseas recruits to be paid 20% less than the going rate, should be ended and replaced with proper training and fair pay in the UK?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord is referring to the shortage occupation list. The Migration Advisory Committee is clear that immigration can be a sensible solution to occupations that are in shortage, at least in the short term, but the Government believe that no occupation should be on the list for ever. Sectors must therefore present a realistic strategy to end their reliance on migration before such jobs can be added to the list, and compelling evidence that they should remain. We asked the Migration Advisory Committee, as part of its recent review, to consider whether the discounts should be stopped. The Government are considering the recommendations of that review and will respond in due course.
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister assure me that, notwithstanding former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s suggestion that she had a deal with the Prime Minister on this matter, there is no plan to axe the graduate route for international students?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am disappointed that my noble friend is referring back to that letter. I have already been very clear that there are no plans to affect the student graduate route. These measures are specifically targeted at dependants.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the Minister suggested that people coming on boats are illegal by definition. If somebody from Afghanistan who has an ARAP number arrives in the UK that way because it is the only way they can come here, would the Home Office not give them the asylum to which they are entitled?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
It is a very different question if they have an ARAP number. Why would they be leaving France, which is a safe country, to come here on a boat? That makes no sense.
At-Home Early Medical Abortion (Review) Bill [HL]
Wednesday 29th November 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate At-Home Early Medical Abortion (Review) Bill [HL] 2023-24 View all At-Home Early Medical Abortion (Review) Bill [HL] 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text
Asylum Application (Entry to the United Kingdom) Bill [HL]
Wednesday 29th November 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Asylum Application (Entry to the United Kingdom) Bill [HL] 2023-24 View all Asylum Application (Entry to the United Kingdom) Bill [HL] 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text
Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, events are changing every minute, and it is very difficult to keep up to date, but I know that all our hopes and prayers are for a further extension of the cessation of hostilities, which will provide relief in Israel, Gaza and beyond. I certainly acknowledge the Government’s efforts in giving humanitarian support, which I very much welcome.
There are two specific issues that I feel Andrew Mitchell did not properly address when he had the opportunity earlier this week. One is in relation to the release by Hamas of nationals from around the world. Can the Minister give an update on the British hostages that the Government had previously reported were being held in Gaza?
My right honourable friend David Lammy has written to the Foreign Secretary, asking him to respond to Steve Brisley’s request for a response to his family’s request to meet the Foreign Secretary. I know this was raised yesterday. Can he give an assurance on it? The matter should be properly addressed without delay. It is awful that they have heard nothing from this Government about their family members who are being held as hostages.
My other point was raised by Alicia Kearns, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, in relation to Netanyahu’s announcement of funds of $80 million for the expansion of settlements. Can the Minister be more explicit about the British Government’s response to that? Have we made direct representations to the Prime Minister of Israel to ensure that it complies with international law in this regard? It will hinder progress towards a two-state solution.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his questions. He is right that it is a very fast-moving situation, and the hostage releases start at about 2 pm local time, which is very shortly. I can give him figures as of yesterday only: we think that a total of 81 hostages have been released under the deal.
It is wrong to call this a humanitarian pause: it is a pause to facilitate a hostage release deal. We want a humanitarian pause—we actually want a ceasefire. But the good news is that Ada Sagi, an Israeli national with a British family, was one of those released, and another 10 have been agreed for today. We hope that that is taking place as we speak.
The number of foreign nationals crossing the border while hostage exchanges are going on is none, because the hostage release has primacy. Some 245 UK-supported foreign nationals have crossed at Rafah; of those who have left, 175 are British nationals, 27 are country-based UK staff, 43 are Palestinian dependants, and 67 people are waiting to cross. There are some issues relating to people who have clearance to leave—
Lord Collins of Highbury
That was not my question; it was about British nationals who are hostages.
Lord Benyon (Con)
I take the point that the noble Lord asked about the hostages. We are working very closely with the Qataris, and my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon has been in regular discussions with the negotiator and has made the point that we want a release. I am very happy, as is he and is the Foreign Secretary, to meet families with British connections from both sides of the conflict. Indeed, I am meeting families of the hostages after this session so I will be very happy to continue that dialogue.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, the release of the hostages is a blessed relief for the families involved, but the humanitarian catastrophe continues. I heard the Minister say that His Majesty’s Government now favour a ceasefire rather than just a pause. These Benches would support that but I understand that it is not government policy. If he could clarify that, I would be grateful. More than 10,000 women and children have now been killed in Gaza, so does the Minister agree that the UK needs to fully replenish our humanitarian support to levels pre the ODA cut? He did not respond to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, on the West Bank. The Israeli Government passed a budget this week which included over $100 million for expanded West Bank settlement and the weaponisation of some of those settlers. Surely the position of Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, who oppose this in the Knesset, should be supported by the Government.
Lord Benyon (Con)
The Government have been very clear about the settlements on the West Bank and I apologise if I did not answer the noble Lord, Lord Collins. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is absolutely right that this is an emerging humanitarian crisis. We entirely support Israel’s right to defend itself and to perpetrate efforts to ensure that Hamas never commits such an appalling atrocity again. We want aid to get to people who are in a really dire state. As for language, we want the conflict to end and if that is a ceasefire or a pause I am not going to be semantic; we want to make sure that we get aid to people in the meantime. We do not want to limit the opportunity for Israel to defend itself and fight a legitimate conflict against Hamas, but we want to protect civilians and get aid in there, and we will do all we can to make sure that is happening.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, if the 7 October atrocities had never happened, there would never have been a war in that area at all and nobody—no man, woman or child—would have died. There were only a few weeks before the Abraham accords were going to be signed, as noble Lords all know. If that had happened, we would not have had this outrageous anti-Semitism increasing throughout the world. Does the Minister agree with that view?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The conflict has had a terrible effect of destabilising people way beyond the region. As I said earlier, we firmly support Israel’s right to defend itself but the tragedy is that, while there was still terrible poverty in Gaza, there was hope for a great many people. There was an emerging tech economy. There were things happening of a very good nature. Hamas has spent a very large amount of money on things it should not have spent money on—it should have been improving healthcare and education—and that is a tragedy. We want to support the people of Gaza and the people of the region in trying to rebuild this shattered community and make sure that Hamas never has a role in its governance again.
Lord Walney (CB)
Do the Government continue to share Israel’s assessment that that country and the world can be free from the threat of Hamas only if we see Hamas in the same terms as ISIS: in needing to completely eliminate that threat, rather than cut a deal, make a ceasefire and entrench its resistance for decades to come?
Lord Benyon (Con)
This is a matter to be settled in the region. Countries such as ours can be involved, and we are involved at a high level, particularly with negotiations on the hostages. I entirely agree with the noble Lord: Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and the horrendous attacks it perpetrated on 7 October cannot be seen as anything other than a brutal terrorist atrocity.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, there have been reports of women and girls being violently raped by Hamas terrorists, but I have seen no reflection of this in UN reports or actions. Does the Minister agree with me that, since rape is a war crime, this should be reflected in the UN’s understanding of the situation?
Lord Benyon (Con)
We have very strong views where actions such as rape and torture are used to perpetrate conflict in any form whatever. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that this matter should be investigated further and the people responsible should be held to account. We really want to ensure that the vast number of people who are affected by, and are innocent parties to, this conflict can receive the humanitarian aid they deserve.
Autumn Statement 2023
(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That this House takes note of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement 2023.
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this debate on the measures brought forth by the Chancellor in last week’s Autumn Statement. It was a Statement designed to drive growth across the country, creating jobs and giving more people more money through work. It included some big, headline-grabbing announcements—not least of which was a tax cut for 29 million working people—and over 100 other measures carefully crafted to build on the post-Covid economic recovery. Taken in combination, the measures that the Chancellor proposed could boost business investment in the UK by around £20 billion a year in a decade’s time.
I will start my remarks with some important context. The British economy has outperformed all expectations this year and has exceeded many of the forecasts. Yet in some ways we should not be surprised. When the Prime Minister took office, he set out five pledges to the British people, three of which were economic: to halve inflation, reduce debt and grow the economy—and he is a man of his word.
I turn first to inflation. At a high of 11.1% last year, it is now at 4.6%—a promise delivered. As the OBR noted, the measures in this year’s Autumn Statement are not inflationary, and inflation is forecast to continue to fall. I echo the Chancellor’s thanks to the independent Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee for its work in bringing down inflation. The Government will continue to support it to do whatever it takes until the job is done.
Secondly, I turn to debt. Before last year’s Autumn Statement, our debt was predicted to rise to almost 100% of GDP by the end of the forecast period. This is unacceptable. As the late Lord Lawson said, and as the Chancellor quoted in his speech,
“borrowing is just a deferred tax on future generations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/23; col. 328]
That is something we cannot justify.
Now, thanks to the decisions taken by the Chancellor, the OBR says that borrowing is lower this year and next, and, on average across the forecast, lower by £0.7 billion every year compared to the spring Budget forecasts. It falls from 4.5% of GDP in 2023-24 to 1.1% five years later. We meet our fiscal rule that public sector borrowing must be below 3% of GDP, not just by the final year but in almost every single year of the forecast. From a predicted rate of nearly 100%, headline debt is instead predicted to be 94%. The OBR forecasts that underlying debt will be 91.6% of GDP next year, rising to 93.2% in 2026-27, before declining in the final two years of the forecast to 92.8% in 2028-29. That is lower in every year compared to forecasts from last spring. So we meet our fiscal rule to have underlying debt falling as a percentage of GDP in the final year of the forecast, with double the headroom compared to the OBR’s March forecast. The UK continues to have the second-lowest government debt in the G7; that is lower than the United States, Canada, France, Italy or Japan—another promise delivered.
Finally, I turn to economic growth. There are one or two in your Lordships’ House who remember the economic recession that accompanied the Second World War. When this Government came to power in 2010, the UK was facing the worst recession since that era of terrible conflict. From 2010 until the pandemic, this Government presided over faster growth than many of our major competitors, including Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan. When the pandemic hit, followed in quick succession by an energy crisis, our economy, like so many around the world, faced a shock. As a result, last autumn, just a year ago, the OBR forecast a recession, in which the economy was expected to shrink by 1.4% in 2023. Instead, it grew. Revised numbers from the ONS now say the economy is 1.8% larger than pre-pandemic.
Looking ahead, the OBR expects the economy to be larger in every year of the forecast, compared to March. It is expected to grow by 0.6% this year and 0.7% next year. After that, growth rises to 1.4% in 2025, 2% in 2026, 2% in 2027 and 1.7% in 2028. This Government are delivering on growth. We have an economy that is bigger and stronger than people thought and, as I have already said, with double the headroom that the OBR predicted. This is where our leeway comes from, and a large part of the reason why we can introduce generous tax reforms, including cutting taxes for 29 million working people.
As I have said, this Autumn Statement is focused on economic growth, and the Government have set out a raft of measures to support long-term sustainable increases in economic output. For large businesses, full expensing has been a game changer. The likes of the CBI, Make UK, BT Openreach and Siemens, and indeed 200 other businesses and trade bodies, called for this measure to be made permanent. They all agreed that it would be the single most transformational thing we could do for business investment and growth. Full expensing means that, for every £1 million invested, a company will get £250,000 off their tax bill the very same year. That is cashflow that can be used to buy a vital new machine, expand premises, test a new product, or hire a new team to begin work on a new project.
For investment, growth and employment, that is game-changing. It means that we will soon have both the lowest headline corporation tax rate in the G7 and the most generous plant and machinery capital allowance anywhere. Once again, the OBR says that this measure will achieve our aims, and will make a huge contribution to our economy, increasing annual investment by £3 billion a year, totalling £14 billion in the forecast period.
Alongside this, the Government will provide £4.5 billion over five years to our strategic manufacturing sectors—those where we already have, or can have, a competitive advantage, and which have tremendous potential for growth in the years ahead. This will encourage the manufacturers of zero-emission vehicles, green energy solutions and aerospace and life science technologies to set up or expand in, and stay in, the UK—again, creating more jobs and more income.
As we move down the business scale, from the very largest to small and medium enterprises, we continue to provide support. The Government are extending the 75% business rate discount for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses for another year, and will freeze the small business multiplier, saving an average independent pub more than £12,800 next year.
Then we come to the smallest businesses of all—those consisting of self-employed people. The Chancellor illustrated the importance of these people in his speech last week, and it was an elegant description that I would like to repeat:
“These are the people who literally kept our country running during the pandemic: the plumbers who fixed our boilers in lockdowns, the delivery drivers who brought us our shopping and the farmers who kept food on our plates”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/23; col. 333.]
Without these people, I simply cannot imagine how we could have got through the pandemic. They already give so much of their time and effort to their work that it has always seemed an unnecessary burden to ask them to fill in all sorts of tax forms, and then pay all sorts of different taxes, before they can enjoy the fruits of their labour.
So the Chancellor made two interventions: first, the abolition of class 2 national insurance, saving 2 million self-employed people an annual average of £192; then, the reduction of class 4 national insurance, down from 9 % to 8%, saving those 2 million people more again. From April next year, 2 million self-employed people will save an average of £350 a year.
Finally, the Chancellor offered one more major tax cut—a 2 percentage point reduction on national insurance for employees. That saves someone on an average salary over £450 a year, and that saving will start from January, once the legislation is passed.
I now turn to labour and welfare. The Government want to make work more available, more appealing, and more rewarding. That is why we are delivering on our commitment to end low hourly pay for full-time workers on the national living wage. Last week, the Chancellor announced the largest ever cash increase in the national living wage, increasing it by 9.8% to £11.44 an hour for workers aged 21 and over. This is worth up to £1,800 for a full-time worker. This follows a series of increases dating all the way back to 2010, when this Government first came to power. In 13 years, we have increased the national living wage by 30% in real terms.
As the Chancellor said in his speech last week, the best way to tackle poverty is through work. For tens of thousands of parents, the Chancellor’s spring announcement of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents of one and two year-olds will help them return to work without having to worry about their career prospects, or about being able to afford childcare while they are at work.
The focus of the Autumn Statement is on those with long-term health conditions and disability, and the long-term unemployed. Every year, 100,000 people are signed on to benefits, with no requirement to look for work, because of sickness or disability. Some of these people are unable to work and it is perfectly right that we support them with the uprated benefits that the Chancellor announced last week.
But for a large number of sick or disabled people, the issue is that they are not given a clear route back to work when they are ready for it. That means they are not even given a chance to reach their full potential. We should not be comfortable with that. Everyone should have the opportunity to make the most of themselves and to experience the benefits of work. So, over the next five years, the Government will commit £1.3 billion to help nearly 700,000 people with health conditions to find jobs. Over 180,000 more people will be helped through the universal support programme and nearly 500,000 more people will be offered treatment for mental health conditions, and employment support.
At the same time, there are many people in this country who have been unemployed for a long time—over a year—not because of any conditions that they have but rather because of the conditions that they find themselves in. Perhaps a surprising redundancy has left someone in their 50s, who has worked in the same role for 30 years, adrift in a modern job market for which they are not entirely equipped. Perhaps the kind of work someone in their 20s really wants to do requires qualifications which they just do not have the means to attain.
There are numerous reasons for long-term unemployment, but there is one basic truth: work lifts us up, so the Government will provide a further £1.3 billion of funding to offer extra help to the 300,000 people who have been unemployed for over a year. But if, after 18 months of intensive support, jobseekers have not found a job, the Government will require them to take part in a mandatory work placement, through a new work programme or other intensive activity, to increase their skills and improve their employability. In addition, if they choose not to engage with the work search process for six months, their case will be closed and their benefits stopped.
Other Benches may try to argue that this lacks compassion. I say that is wrong; that the inverse is true and that this is a fundamentally compassionate approach, because it prevents those who choose not to work siphoning off the finite resources that those who sincerely want to work, or those who genuinely cannot, desperately need. It protects our most vulnerable, and the people who most want and need our support, from those who would seek to exploit them by hiding among them—and the OBR says that this will work. Taken together with the labour supply measures the Chancellor announced in the spring, the OBR says that this Autumn Statement will increase the number of people in work by around 200,000 at the end of the forecast period, permanently increasing the size of the economy.
This is a wide-ranging Autumn Statement which includes bold measures to get our country growing: the largest business tax cut in modern British history over a five-year period; the largest ever cash increase to the national living wage, paired with the largest ever cut to employee and self-employed national insurance; the biggest set of welfare reforms in a decade; one of the largest ever increases to the state pension; and a focus on investment that could see business investment in the UK increase by £20 billion per year in a decade’s time.
I have outlined only some of the numerous measures announced by the Chancellor last week. There is much more to cover but, for now, I welcome this debate and look forward to hearing the views of your Lordships’ House.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, I first welcome the noble Baroness to the Treasury Bench. She has a hard act to follow.
A couple of weeks ago, the Institute for Government and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy published a detailed 300-page analysis of the impact of the pandemic on nine public services, ranging over health and social care, education, local services, criminal justice and the police. The study first evaluated performance from 2010 to the eve of the pandemic, meaning that any change in quality of service over the first nine years of the Conservative Government could not be blamed on the pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
In eight out of nine areas of public service studied, performance was found to be worse in 2019 than in 2010. In four areas—general practice, hospitals, adult social care and prisons—performance was much worse. Only in schools was performance rated as better. Between 2019 and the present day, nothing at all has improved and eight of the nine major services have deteriorated yet further. Finally, as far as the next five years are concerned, while some services are predicted to stay at the same miserable level, others, including schools and criminal justice, face further decline.
So, will the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement proposals turn this decline around? The answer given by the OBR is clearly no. As tables A.l and A.2 of the OBR outlook make clear, current spending will grow very slowly, while investment in public services will suffer major cuts. The Chancellor’s one big public services announcement was to set a productivity target of a 0.5% increase per year. Productivity is an issue in many services, particularly in the courts and hospitals, but nothing in the Autumn Statement will significantly improve the situation. Indeed, the real-terms cuts to capital budgets ensure that public services will be left with a crumbling estate, insufficient equipment and inadequate IT systems.
But of course, the main focus of the Autumn Statement, as the noble Baroness made clear, was not public services but private sector growth. If significant economic growth is indeed achieved, the positive impact on public services might be considerable. The Autumn Statement commitment of £4.5 billion-worth of support for new industries sounds impressive—until you compare it with United States funding for green investments of $360 billion and European Union plans in excess of €200 billion.
Of course, the Government deserve congratulation that taxpayers’ money has secured the new Nissan investment, and we all hope for similar encouraging results from the investment summit held on Monday. But just as when unemployment rises, some people find new jobs, so these welcome investments must be viewed not as isolated events but in the context of the overall investment picture. The Chancellor’s primary measure to stimulate investment was his decision to make so-called full expensing permanent—a positive step. According to the OBR, this is expected to increase long-run potential output by “slightly below” 0.2% of GDP per annum. However, this positive impact is, according to the OBR, offset by the reduction in
“the public capital stock as a share of GDP”,
which
“would likely also have a material, negative impact on potential output”
over the forecast period.
Here, the OBR has, sotto voce, identified a fundamental error in the Government’s approach to investment and growth: their failure to recognise that public services are complementary to the efficiency of private sector investment. Private profitability requires a thriving public sector. For example, the deterioration in the health service has been a major contributor to the record 2.5 million people out of work due to ill health. If just half these people were in work, this would add a full 1 percentage point to GDP—five times greater than the impact of full expensing. Similarly, the lack of additional support for local government will impact spending on local infrastructure, transport and skills, increasing private sector costs of production, particularly for SMEs. The complementarity of public and private investment was very clear in 2010.
George Osborne’s austerity Budget killed a growing economy stone dead. This was not the immediate effect of his expenditure cuts, which took time; it was the immediate effect of his clear declaration of intent to cut public investment and cut the growth of demand. It was the vision of austerity, together with the reality of cuts, that killed off so much private investment. The Chancellor’s 110 measures to stimulate growth may be successful, but a fundamental problem is that they do not add up to a coherent policy. They are, in Churchill’s famous phrase, “a pudding without a theme”. An economy and society in which the popular estimation is that nothing works is not an attractive place for businesses to invest.
That is why Rachel Reeves’ commitment to large-scale investment in green technologies—the undoubted technologies of the future—is so important. This defining commitment will provide the theme and coherence this Autumn Statement lacks. It is also a long-term policy, a commitment to at least one Parliament—so different from the persistent chopping and changing of the last 13 years, and providing the stable policy confidence investors need. Of course, given the public sector scorched earth that a Labour Government will inherit, an ambitious green growth investment strategy will be a considerable challenge. But it is as nothing compared to the challenges faced by our parents and grandparents in 1945, when, in far worse circumstances, a Labour Government laid the public sector foundations for the next 25 years of transformative growth, under both Conservative and Labour Administrations.
A component of Reeves’ green growth strategy is a long-term commitment to investment in and reform of the public services—reform that recognises not only service to the public but the support the public sector provides to business investment. The green investment programme will be a catalyst, defining Britain’s profitable investment future. It will herald a fundamental change in the way the British economy is managed: a fundamental reform that, as illustrated by the failure of this Autumn Statement, is desperately needed.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I too welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, to her new ministerial post and I remind the House of my direct interests in local government, as set out in the register. It may not perhaps be surprising that my perspective on the Autumn Statement is somewhat different from the Minister’s.
The Autumn Statement provided an opportunity for the Government to set out a coherent strategy for tackling the deep challenges facing households, businesses and public services. It contained a package of sweeteners for taxpayers, positive support for some businesses, a welcome increment to the national living wage and increases in benefit levels. However, it was not a programme that demonstrated that the Government understood the enormity of the challenges faced by both public services and many businesses.
The Government fail to understand that a successful country depends on well-funded, reliable and resilient public services. Our NHS currently has 7.7 million people on waiting lists for elective care. The latest information from Cancer Research UK shows that 20,000 cancer deaths per year are avoidable. The Autumn Statement was the chance to use the fiscal headroom available to provide the NHS with the resources it needs to reduce waiting lists and cut avoidable deaths. The NHS was not even mentioned. The Government are ignoring the consequences for individuals who are stranded on ever-increasing waiting lists to alleviate a painful hip or hernia. These are the very people who are on long-term work sickness, which results in burgeoning demands on welfare support. A strategic approach would recognise the links and attempt to address them.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported in October that over 1 million children are experiencing destitution, which means that their families are struggling to provide the absolute basic needs to stay warm and have enough food and appropriate clothing. That is shocking enough, but the fact is that three quarters of those experiencing destitution are already in receipt of social security payments. The JRF recommended that universal credit should have what it called an “essentials guarantee” to ensure that everyone has a protected minimum amount of support to afford the very basic needs. The rise in benefit levels will not be sufficient to reduce this appalling picture of destitution. Maybe the Minister can say what actions the Government intend to take to substantially reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.
Increasing numbers below the breadline has consequences for other public services, particularly for local government. Yet another important piece of the jigsaw that provides for the needs of communities and families is under severe pressure, but was not referenced at all by the Government, who nevertheless expect local public services to pick up the pieces in times of stress and distress.
Local Government Association analysis shows that councils are facing funding gaps of £2.4 billion in 2023-24 and a further £1.6 billion the following year. This amount is equivalent to all local government spending on waste collection, libraries, and recreation and sport. The Institute for Fiscal Studies demonstrates that my own council of Kirklees is underfunded relative to its need by £13 million a year. Across local government there has been a reduction on average of 22% in real-terms spending, which for councils with higher levels of deprivation rises to 26%. In my own authority, this equates to a loss of £536 per household per year.
It is therefore not surprising that one in four councils are right on the brink of declaring what amounts to effective bankruptcy—this includes Conservative-led county councils, as well as Labour-led metropolitan authorities. Indeed, Nottingham City Council has this very day issued a Section 114 notice because it is unable to issue a balanced budget. Can the Minister provide any assurance that there will be funding support for councils to enable essential services to continue? For example, will councils be provided with additional funding to pay the increase in the national living wage? Many employees in councils will be affected, as will partner organisations providing essential care for adults and children.
Local authorities in more urban areas are spending around 30% of their core spending power on children’s services. Increases in central funding nowhere meet that justified level of demand, which leaves local authorities making desperate decisions. Over 70% of councils are considering scaling back leisure services. In my own council, there are current proposals which will result in the closing of swimming pools, leaving just two swimming pools for a population of 500,000 people. Again, this has consequences—for example, for those with arthritis who depend on swimming for exercise. The closure of sports centres means that the social prescribing of, say, yoga, dancing or badminton, becomes impossible, and those same people are then reliant on an already overstretched NHS. Perhaps the solution to the loss of swimming pools is to use our rivers, but the only action in the Autumn Statement in relation to tackling sewage-filled rivers is to slash the funding of the Environment Agency by 11% per year.
No doubt the Minister will respond by saying that there has been an increase in funding for adult social care, but what is never acknowledged is that over a quarter of this additional funding comes from the pockets of hard-pressed council tax payers in the form of the social care precept, which in my council amounts to £200 per household per year on top of the council tax.
Levelling up is the Government’s answer to the dire state of local services, yet the investment provided is, according to SIGOMA,
“a drop in the ocean”
compared to what councils have lost, alongside the bidding regime that requires councils to spend £30,000 per bid to the various levelling-up pots. Therefore, it is not surprising that people say that they are losing a sense of pride in the place where they live and feel that the country is going downhill. Those were the sentiments that were crying out for action in the Autumn Statement; what we were given was the equivalent of a few deck chairs being moved on the “Titanic”.
Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the Minister on her move to the Treasury. It is a much-maligned institution, but I am confident that she will enjoy her time there. I hope that, with time, she is given a more glamourous title than Parliamentary Secretary, if only to avoid being confused with the Chief Whip, whose official title is Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury.
As a student of fiscal Statements—I reckon that I have worked on 30, including seven that can be termed “pre-election”—I rate this one as better than average. First, I welcome the cut in national insurance. This reverses the trend of the last 40 years, which has been to raise national insurance to finance income tax cuts. Over my adult life, the basic rate of income tax has been cut from 35% to 20%, while the employers’ national insurance rate has risen from 8.75% to 13.8%, and the rate paid by employees has more than doubled from 5.75% to 12%. This sleight of hand has been bad for the economy. The fact is that national insurance is a tax on jobs—it penalises working people and the young—while income tax cuts tend to favour the old, rentiers and those who live off capital. So I welcome the 2% cut to 10%; I hope that it will start a trend. Can the Minister say whether it is now government policy to prioritise national insurance cuts over income tax cuts? Of course, whether it is affordable is another matter, and one to which I shall come back.
Secondly, I welcome the focus on growth and, in particular, the full expensing of business investment. Normally, I would favour the widest possible tax base with the lowest tax rate, but Britain has a chronic problem of underinvestment, which is a contributory factor to our low growth, so it is right to try to tilt the playing field.
Finally, I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to fiscal rectitude, if only by 2028. He did a great job in pulling the Truss Government back from the brink a year ago and in restoring confidence. Whoever governs in the coming period will need to keep on bearing down on borrowing and get public debt on a downward path in relation to the nation’s income. We may currently be benefiting from a rally in the bond market, but we cannot be sure that that will be sustained. The fact is that debt interest is eating into resources better spent on the public services people need.
That brings me to what I see as the problem with the Autumn Statement: I fear that the public expenditure projections are simply unrealistic. The National Health Service and the state pension are accounting for an ever-increasing proportion of public spending. The triple lock is a luxury that the country can ill afford, but all our parties seem to be committed to it. Of course, there is more the Government can do on the productivity and efficiency of public services, starting with the Civil Service, but the so-called unprotected programmes, such as criminal justice, housing and local government, have already been cut too much—as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned—and the results are beginning to show.
Moreover, as the international security situation deteriorates, we need to spend more on defence, diplomacy and intelligence. Demographic pressures will only increase over the next 20 years. Much of this was set out in the OBR’s fiscal sustainability report, published in July. Can the Minister assure me that that report is informing Treasury policy and will inform the Budget come March?
I fear that, sooner or later, the Government will have to grasp the nettle and reintroduce a health and social care levy. When they do so, it should be based on the income tax base, rather than that of national insurance. The better-off elderly—I should declare an interest as the possessor of a free bus pass—should pay their fair share.
My other concern is that the Government are not going far enough on growth. Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, that more private investment needs to be combined with more public investment. Yet the Government are projecting that net public investment will fall over time from some £72 billion this year to £56 billion by 2028. When inflation is taken into account, that is a cut of at least 30%. One of my biggest regrets as a Treasury official was recommending the cancellation of what is now called the Elizabeth line in the early 1990s. Of course, we need to focus on investment projects with the biggest economic return— to that end, I am no fan of HS2—but we also need to ensure that infrastructure gets sufficient resources. That means consuming less and investing more. I welcome the Chancellor’s words on planning reform, but I fear they do not go far enough. We need to make it easier to build houses and to make progress on infrastructure. Only yesterday, a telecoms industry veteran told me about the planning obstacles to delivering infra- structure in Scotland, and I see little evidence to suggest that the planning system is much better in the rest of the UK.
Finally, the Autumn Statement does not go far enough on skills. Many of Britain’s problems with immigration stem from our inability to develop a labour force for the 21st century. We used to rely on the Polish and central European taxpayer to train our workforce. If on the day after the 2016 referendum the Prime Minister had said we were going to prioritise further education and vocational skills and then relentlessly focused on the problem, we might just, seven years on, be beginning to see some results, but she did not, and her successors have shown even less interest in the subject. It is not too late to put that right. If we do not rise to the productivity and growth challenge, the public finances will only get worse. This Autumn Statement represents a small step forward, but whoever forms the next Government is going to have to do a whole lot more.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I, too, welcome my noble friend’s arrival at the Treasury, in which, a long time ago, I served as an official. I shall try to find something nice to say about the Treasury, although frankly, it is not terribly easy. I told my noble friend before this debate that I hoped to touch on three questions, and she mentioned them in her excellent opening survey of the scene which we all heard a moment ago.
The first is about the overall policy in dealing with the inflation headline, the rate of inflation and the prospects. It is a sort of mantra of the Treasury, the Bank of England and lots of experts that all cuts in taxation are inflationary: you cannot cut taxation at this delicate and fragile time without raising the rate of inflation. I am not so sure about that. I got a very interesting note from the Library—of course, these figures must be treated with caution—which pointed out that about 28% of total public expenditure, which is about £340 billion, is indexed. In other words, it goes up when the inflation rate goes up and then comes down. That is out of a total of £1,222 billion. So presumably if we can get headline inflation down by one point, straightaway we will save £3.7 billion to £4 billion; by two points, £8 billion, and so on. It is a lot of money.
One therefore asks whether there are some areas where retail taxes being reduced can have an impact on headline inflation? If they can, then you are losing revenue, but you are also saving expenditure on a very large scale. I sometimes wonder whether the Treasury has worked out some of these things. The figures are very big indeed.
That is quite distinct from the other indexing point, of course, which is that higher interest rates immediately raise the amount that the Government have to pay in debt payments for their borrowings. These were running at £116 billion a year. I think they have come down a little, but it would be interesting to know, if my noble friend can provide the figures, what a one-point interest rate fall involves in reducing public expenditure. There is a sort of swings-and-roundabout element here that we do not hear very much about. I hope that my noble friend will talk a little more about it.
The cost of debt servicing is 5.2% of total public expenditure, which is a lot. That is 3.8% of GDP, so any increase in interest rates, which the Bank of England firmly says is to cut inflation, has a big inflationary element built into it as well. These things are not straightforward. Does the Bank of England take this into account? We never hear any statement of the kind that recognises that raising interest rates, which is said to be the necessary medicine for curbing inflation, has a huge inflationary punch in it. I have been given a figure that indicates that every 1% on the inflation rate and every 1% on interest rates costs the Treasury £26 billion. That is inflation, not deflation. These are very complex matters that tend to be pushed out of the debate.
Long ago, in the time of Ted Heath, he used to get very annoyed because he felt that the Bank of England and the Treasury were playing a “one-golf club game”. All they had in their golf bag was this one club which said, “Push up interest rates and push down all forms of government expenditure and that will somehow solve the inflation problem”. It does not work out quite that way. These things are not straightforward, so anything more on that would be very helpful.
My second point is that it is rather curious that missing from the Autumn Statement and the Green Book, which we have all been given, is a rather serious item. The Green Book says that the Government are focusing on five important areas, including education, rewarding hard work—we all want that—backing British business, world-class education, building domestic and sustainable energy, and other desirable aims. That is all very nice, but one enormous thing is missing. This is where our history gets a little distorted. In the Thatcher times, it was said that Mrs Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe were very keen on balancing the budget, and certainly Geoffrey Howe—my dear friend and a wonderful man—ran a very tight ship. However, that was not our priority. Our priority was trying to restore the balance in an unbalanced economy, which was grossly overweighted on the state side. Most of our giant industries were nationalised. Half of British industry was in the state sector, and we wished to pull the pendulum back to the middle and get a better balance between the state and the private sector. To that end, we concentrated on enormous efforts that had considerable success. We succeeded in rebalancing the economy in a less socialised way. We still wanted an efficient state sector of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said we must have; but we did not want a greedy public sector. That was the danger right from the start: that we were being sunk again and again by a huge, overexpanded and constantly growing public sector. The mechanism for bringing that down is a very important part of the story and, at the moment, it does not appear to be there.
Thirdly, my noble friend Lord Maude is reported to be advocating that, in order to get a tougher approach on public spending, we should split the Treasury between its various functions of being a bureau of the Budget and the ministry of economics. I would be interested to hear the Government’s view on that proposition, particularly as, if we are talking about public sector capital investment, that is always the orphan. If the investment comes from the public sector, it tends to be a leftover from current pressures and political demands on the budget. That is why a great deal of the infrastructure needed in this country is going to have to come from the private sector.
That was the third matter. I have a fourth one, in my last few seconds. Please can we pay serious attention to more democratic capitalism—that is, wider share ownership and wider involvement by everybody, rather than just the few, in the growth of assets? This is not a good advertisement for capitalism. Capitalism does work but it works best of all when it is democratised, even socialised. I note that the Chancellor is trying to expand people’s involvement in the stock market and asset ownership; we need a lot more of that. Can I have a comment from the Minister on that as well?
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, reducing national insurance contributions does nothing for people on the lowest incomes. Full expensing, at a cost to the Exchequer of £11 billion a year, seems an expensive way of securing an increase in annual business investment of £3 billion.
Before the Autumn Statement, the OBR projected a fall of £27 billion in borrowing in 2027-28 compared with its forecast in March. The Chancellor had a choice as to how to use this windfall between consolidating the public finances, improving public services or making tax cuts. Bullied by his party, and with an election coming up, he chose tax cuts. He has gambled that the wafer-thin margin forecast by the OBR will enable him to adhere to his fiscal rule that the debt to GDP ratio will be falling by the end of the period.
Of course, the OBR’s projection is no more than optimistic guesswork. The Chancellor has left himself with nothing in the bank for contingency, yet contingencies always occur. If the market should take the view that the fiscal framework is fanciful, the effects could be devastating. A rise in interest rates, coming on top of the vast debt service costs that the Government’s policies have already incurred—£116 billion annually—would wreck his flimsy plan. International confidence in the UK has already been weakened, not only by the Truss-Kwarteng episode but by this Government’s cavalier attitude to international law.
A different kind of unrealism and irresponsibility is apparent in the Chancellor’s decision to withhold resources for public services. Inflation that is boosting his tax revenues is also increasing the cost of public services. He claims that his tax cuts will enable public services to be better funded; the reality is that he has funded tax cuts at the expense of public services already shredded by austerity. In his plans, public spending on government departments is due to fall by £19 billion in 2028; if this were actually to happen, it would be appalling.
The Chancellor made the bizarre claim that we deliver world-class education. That is not so for those who are threading their way through our chaotic and underfunded FE system, nor for the generality of children who have seen the discrepancy in funding per pupil widen vastly between state schools and private schools. Faced with the crisis in the justice system, bound up with inadequate education—cut by 20% after 2010—the Chancellor offered nothing.
With the Home Office budget also unprotected, how are the Government going to control immigration? The Autumn Statement showed a wilful evasiveness about the challenges to the British state. To court popularity with the pensioner vote, there is an 8.5% increase in the state pension—way above the 6.7% indexation of social security benefits—yet the Chancellor knows that the triple lock is fiscally unsustainable. He ought to recognise that it is socially damaging as well, widening the gulf between generations. The defunding of universal credit over the years has widened the gulf between the affluent and the destitute. On average, the Chancellor’s measures will give £1,000 a year to the top 20% of earners but only £200 to the bottom 20%.
Who are the employers who will provide all this work at home for people with mental health and mobility problems? Although the Nuffield Trust calculates that the NHS faces a £1.7 billion deficit, the Chancellor made no significant health funding announcements. Moreover, he provided nothing to support local government to pay for better social care and public health to ease pressure on the NHS. Demographic developments mean that, with an ageing population and a deteriorating dependency ratio, the Government will be faced with reduced tax revenues from people of working age and higher outlays on health and social care. The demands of the NHS, year after year, exceed the rate of growth of the economy. The days are gone when, to pay for the welfare state, the Government could raid the defence budget, which they have now said they want to increase.
Aside from his douceur to people who live near new energy infrastructure, the Chancellor showed no recognition of the scale of public expenditure that will be required to meet our commitment to a green transition. The Climate Change Committee and the OBR estimate that the Government must spend £25 billion per year between now and 2050 to achieve net zero. Where is the provision for that? His arithmetic assumes that he will index fuel duties next spring. We shall see. What is sure, though ignored by him, is that with the phasing out of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles, fuel duty—currently raising about £25 billion—will evaporate. VAT at 5% on domestic gas and electricity use, like the freezing of fuel duty and the tax treatment of air travel, subsidises fossil fuel consumption while we struggle towards net zero.
This Chancellor shows no interest in tax reforms such as introducing a progressive carbon tax and road pricing. There is a whole agenda of tax reforms that would be beneficial to the economy. The Government should at least extract the best value they can from the existing tax system, whether by merging national insurance and income tax into a properly progressive system, tackling the chaotic complexity of VAT, addressing the damaging effects of the stamp duty regime or removing the anomalies and injustices of council tax, but the Chancellor shies away from all this. Following the Statement, he said:
“I hope we are able to reduce the tax burden still further in the future”.
Instead, he should have told the truth—that low taxes are a fantasy. We are heading towards a tax take of 38% of GDP. That will still leave public services threadbare and the great challenges I have mentioned unaddressed. He said it was
“an autumn statement for a country that has turned a corner”,—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/23; col. 337.]
but we have not. To transform productivity so as to achieve the growth that will improve living standards and fund decent public services, far more needs to be done on education and skills, NHS waiting lists, infrastructure, availability of capital, tax reform and rejecting the lobbying of vested interests.
The legacy that this Chancellor and his Conservative predecessors will leave is dire. We need a Labour Government to grapple with it. For the next Government and for our country, the road ahead will be arduous.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to and welcome my noble friend the Minister to her new place on the Front Bench.
It is a great privilege to speak once again as a Back-Bencher. To minimise anxiety on the part of my noble friend the Minister, let me say that I intend to be very well behaved, a house-trained and biddable Back- Bencher. I shall not indulge in a meandering, auto- biographical valedictory exposition of how I was short-changed as a Minister, because I was not; of how senior colleagues failed me, because they did not; or of how the Government have lost their way, because they have not. My short letter to the Prime Minister made clear that being a Defence Minister requires reserves of energy and resilience that this old bird was finding it increasingly difficult to muster. The time had come to pass on the baton to another incumbent, who I am delighted to say is my noble friend Lord Minto. My letter also made clear my pride in serving this Prime Minister and that I would continue to support him in every way I can. The Autumn Statement is the affirmation of why I offer that support. Let me explain.
I am an old-fashioned kind of girl—a sort of political response to Eartha Kitt. I know why I am a Conservative: you do not come from Scotland and not know that. I know what kind of conservatism I believe in: a free society where everyone is encouraged to optimise their individual talents; a free enterprise economy which can flourish when supported by the state but not obstructed or oppressed by it—my noble friend Lord Howell eloquently explained why that is so important; a society where the state and its offshoots are enablers and facilitators, not a resource-sapping monolith, as is sadly the case in the devolved governance of Scotland; lastly and most importantly, a society where the privileges of these essential freedoms are balanced by a responsibility and a compassion which protects and supports those who, for whatever reason, are vulnerable. So, you will not find me in the tent of ideology and dogma; I am much more interested in pragmatism and delivery of the broad tenets I have outlined.
One of the benefits of getting on a bit is that you have at least seen a lot in life. Experiencing what the big dipper of life can sling at you can be excoriating, but it can also be instructive and enriching. This brings me to context. When I read some of the commentary on the Autumn Statement and listen to predictably partisan criticism from opposition politicians, there is one gaping void: context. When the global financial crash happened in 2008 and a UK bank had to be bailed out, there were consequences. In 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition had to deal with the worst recession since the Second World War. Remember the notorious note from the outgoing treasury Minister—there is no money left—something to which the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, did not refer in his analysis. And when there is a pandemic, apart from the human cost, for the economy it is the equivalent of another war. The economic cost is high, and thanks to the decisions Rishi Sunak made as Chancellor there was a functioning economy when we came out of Covid. But the measures to ensure that was the case have consequences.
This has all been compounded by the illegal invasion by Russia of Ukraine, which created inflation and a massive hike in energy charges. The Government rightly stepped in to help households, to the tune of nearly £40 billion, but there are consequences. Then there is driving down inflation: absolutely the right thing to do. Some people may never have known inflation running at 25%, as it did under Labour in the mid-1970s; I shall never forget it. It is the most pernicious impoverisher of people’s incomes. So, since 2010 we have had cumulative, not isolated, challenges and all of that is context. A lot of the commentary about the Autumn Statement looks at it in a bubble—there have been echoes of that today —as though it is some semi-detached lacuna with context miraculously airbrushed out. For me, the Autumn Statement was a reassuring manifestation of my conservatism: rooted in pragmatism, demonstrating compassion and in short, doing what you can with what you have got.
The Autumn Statement was also part of an established and carefully calibrated approach to the economy by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. It was back in January this year that the Prime Minister set out his three economic priorities: halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt. We have made progress on all three of these. So, what the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had already created to give us a meaningful “What we’ve got” was the springboard for the next step of doing what we can, which, in reality, has translated much more excitingly into “Look at what we can do!” I find this invigorating, and I could not disagree more with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth.
So, we have a serious approach to keeping inflation falling, a consistent resolve to reduce debt, and a coherent and credible approach to economic growth, building on positive progress through a laser focus on higher productivity. One hundred and ten growth measures in the Autumn Statement, boosting business investment by £20 billion a year—that is what I wanted to hear; but then rightly recognising how searing the cost of living has been, particularly for those most vulnerable and on the lowest incomes. They will benefit from our approach to universal credit and other benefits, 1.6 million households will be helped with rent, and we have honoured the triple lock for pensioners in full. For this Conservative, the Autumn Statement has delivered not just for the moment, but for the future and for the country. It is part of a journey.
Interestingly, the political challenge this poses to the Opposition is already clear. The shadow Chancellor can try to dissect the Autumn Statement in the abstract, but that approach is not credible or rooted in reality. When she embraces the reality, she is confronted by three demons. Demon 1 is a persistent Labour record of economic mismanagement whenever it has been in government. Demon 2 is that the shadow Chancellor says she will do it differently and control inflation, but with no mention of how. Instead, she is going to increase borrowing by £28 billion a year. That is bad news for the economy, flinging petrol on inflation. We need neither and the public will work that out.
Demon 3 really has got pointy ears and big horns, but she has to agree that the Conservatives are taking the correct decisions, so she cannot disagree with much in the Autumn Statement. This poses a lethal question for the shadow Chancellor: what is the point of Labour? This is a question that others may have asked in the past, but I expect more voters to be asking it in the future.
In conclusion, I know the point of being a Conservative. I shall fight the next election as a Conservative and, based on the Autumn Statement, I look forward to winning that election as a Conservative.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, that felt more like a speech about a future Autumn Statement from a Labour Government than about the current one before us.
I too welcome the Minister to her new role and look forward to hearing from her often in this House. However, I suspect that, even if you are a Treasury Minister, every Autumn Statement feels like a missed opportunity. There are always things that each one of us would have liked to have seen given a higher priority and areas of spend to which we would have wanted greater resources allocated. There may also be things on which we think too much money is being spent, although they may be a little less common.
I begin by being grateful for a number of items announced this time. I am not sure that I can sustain that congratulatory perspective all the way through my remarks—your Lordships know me too well to expect that—but I will at least start in a positive direction. The uprating of working-age benefits by 6.7% and the 9.8% increase in the national living wage will go some way to stemming or slowing the growth and deepening of poverty among households who are striving and struggling with low-paid and insecure employment. My belief is that the money made available to our lowest-income households should not, however, be subject to annual political whim. More than a triple lock for pensions, we need an independent mechanism to ensure that benefits always cover the basic essentials of living.
To that extent, I would, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, urged, encourage support for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell Trust proposal for what they call an “essentials guarantee”. This would provide long-term certainty that benefits would be enough to live on for all families. It would mean that the rate of universal credit is set by an independent body which takes the cost of essentials into account. But that is for the longer term; this year’s announcement is a step in the right direction.
The uprating of local housing allowance back to the 30th percentile is also something I welcome wholeheartedly. Freezing this figure during a period when private sector rents have risen rapidly busts any myth that holding LHA down would help keep private rents affordable. Instead, we have seen rent levels become one of the principal drivers of homelessness, now including homelessness among people who are in steady employment, especially in major cities such as my own. In inner Manchester, these new rates will provide an additional £41 per week or over £2,000 per year. This uprating will go some way to addressing the worst of the problem.
However, given that the national insurance reductions will take immediate effect, I fail to see why this is being delayed beyond the coming winter months, when homelessness wreaks its greatest toll on the health and lives of our fellow citizens. I would welcome a commitment, ideally from both Front-Benchers today, to not letting this level fall back below 30% in future years.
Taken together, these changes are a welcome step in the right direction. However, the parish of St Barnabas in Oldham, which serves one of the poorest communities in Greater Manchester, now finds itself operating a free laundry service for local people—people who cannot afford a washing machine or dryer, and for whom commercial laundrettes necessitate an expensive and difficult journey. We all know what happens when you try to dry clothes in a cold house: you get the kind of damp that we have seen wreak such havoc on people’s health. I applaud that parish’s initiative, but I deplore the need for it and I do not see measures in this Statement that are sufficient to render it no longer necessary.
However, there are several areas where I feel opportunities have been missed. As time is brief and other noble Lords have, and no doubt will, refer to many of them, I will focus on one in which I have a particular interest. From my work as co-chair of the National Police Ethics Committee, as set out in the Register of Lords’ Interests, I am deeply concerned as to how much police time is wasted by officers sitting in hospital A&E departments waiting to hand over people with mental health issues to the medical professionals who can properly assess their needs and then offer treatment. One of my right reverend friends on these Benches recently observed four officers spending six hours on such duties each. This was time that could and should have been spent preventing and detecting crime.
I applaud the Right Care, Right Person initiative, which seeks to divert people with health needs from inappropriate and wasteful periods of engagement with police. However, timely handovers will not be achieved without a more significant increase in funds for mental health in our hospitals and communities. We need an increase beyond what is in the Statement, at least commensurate with the dramatic growth in levels of need we witnessed through the pandemic years and beyond. We have a mental health crisis. I would be grateful if the Minister could give this House a commitment in principle for funding in mental health care, even if it is not possible to make money available today.
Finally—and I depart here from the from the noble Baroness who spoke before me—I suspect that many of us here feel that this Autumn Statement reflects a tiredness and a lack of ambition. It may speak of
“long-term decisions for a brighter future”,
but the reality feels somewhat different. Early in my years as a parish priest, I learned that one of the saddest signs of human decline and the approach of life’s end is a narrowing of horizons, physically and metaphorically, until they barely reach beyond the bedroom walls. I hope that, when we next hold an Autumn Statement debate, whichever party is in power after the forthcoming general election, it will feel able to bring us a bold and long-term vision for Britain’s future—not, as we have before us today, a whispered croak from a governmental deathbed.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I begin by welcoming my noble friend to her new role in the Treasury. I speak in this debate more because I feel obliged to than because I really want to. I am well aware that the Government have stopped listening to Conservatives with my opinions, but I will give them anyway. I had hoped last week that we would get a Statement and set of measures that acknowledged that Britain has been on the wrong track and that a radical change of direction is needed. I am afraid that instead we got some palliatives—obviously, these are welcome—some attempts to soften the direction of travel, which remains wrong. We got a Statement that, I am sorry to say, does all too little to persuade the British people that we, as the governing party, have solutions capable of solving the country’s problems, and that makes it far too easy for voters to believe the falsehood that there is no real difference between Conservative philosophy and those of the parties opposite.
If I am honest, I am tired of pretending that I think we are on the right track. I meet many Conservative members and voters—former voters, all too often, I am afraid—and even quite a few Ministers who do not think we are either. Even with the reduced tax increases that we saw in the Autumn Statement, we are still heading for the highest levels of tax and spend ever seen in this country outside wartime. Not surprisingly, economic growth is anaemic. Yes, as my noble friend the Minister said, we are outperforming the gloomiest predictions of the OBR, let alone the pre-Brexit Treasury prophecies of doom. However, as noble Lords will see if they look at the Angus Maddison database, which has been measuring this country’s growth for the last 700 years, we have had pre-modern growth rates since the financial crash, with a per capita growth rate roughly that of Britain during Queen Victoria’s reign.
Many, perhaps most, European countries are doing just as badly as us, if not worse, but we are one of the few that has the powers to solve the problems. Instead, what are we doing? We are spending more money than ever on the National Health Service—indeed, we are one of the top 10 spenders per head globally—and getting worse and worse results for it. We are paying huge sums on welfare and pensions, yet the only solutions we have are the very gentle carrots of encouraging people back into work, rather than a bit more of the effective stick of reducing welfare for people who choose not to work.
We are sucking in huge numbers of immigrants to try to fill the gap—or rather not, because we still have a million job vacancies. We are building nowhere near enough houses. We have heard from many noble Lords already many wishes, many calls—very well justified, I am sure—for more public spending on favourite causes, but the truth is that we are trying to provide public services as if the economy were growing by 3% a year when the real figure is 1%. That just cannot be done and we are now feeling the pain.
It is not as if any of this is a secret. Outside this building, people talk about these real-world problems all the time. They do not talk about smoking bans or A-level reform. The party I am a member of has been in power for 13 years and, I am afraid to say, bears much responsibility for problems I have just outlined. I spent the best part of three years working to get this country out of the EU in a way that gave us full optionality about the future, and I believe we largely succeeded in that. But we have not fully used those powers and often seem frightened to. The Windsor Framework—trumpeted as an achievement but actually doing significant political and economic harm to the unity of this country—makes it even harder to do anything differently.
But it is more than that. I worry we have all been captured by the socialist belief that government regulation and spending is the way to solve our economic problems, that vast taxpayer subsidies to all kinds of politically favoured industries—productive, or more often not—such as semiconductors, windmills, batteries, the hydrogen boondoggle, electric cars, zero-carbon steel or aviation are going to solve our economic problems, despite all the evidence that government direction of the economy never works out well. I would like to see policymakers paying less attention to the many snake-oil proponents of the so-called active state and spend a bit more time reminding themselves of Hayek’s essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society”.
The truth is that we need to get on to a different path if we are to boost economic growth, which is overwhelmingly what we need to do. The first duty we owe to the people of this country is honesty about the nature of our problems and how we can solve them. The only way we can get growth and incomes up again is to release the forces of the private sector—removing the crushing tax and regulatory burdens, dramatically reforming planning and building many more houses, slowing or halting the collectivist delusion of net zero, ending the war on SMEs and the self-employed, beginning to cut public spending by cutting the functions of government and by properly reforming the great public sector entities. At the same time, we must show that the Government have a grip and can perform their core functions, most obviously on immigration where we must be ready to shake ourselves free from the many constraints that seem to leave us frozen in immobility.
The Autumn Statement dips a toe in all these waters, notably with the national insurance cuts and full expensing—these are to be welcomed, as they are a signal that there is understanding of what is going wrong—but it does all too little to challenge, let alone hold back, the tide of statism, miserabilism and nannyism that risks overwhelming this country. We can still change that, so I ask my noble friend the Minister and beg my Government to show that they are listening to our voters and the country, to stop being swept along by the collectivist current and to change course—to act before the election, before it is too late.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to welcome my noble friend Lady Vere to her post in the Treasury. I also draw her attention to my entry in the register of interests, especially my role as president of the Resolution Foundation, on whose analysis of the Autumn Statement I will draw.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Frost that we must not fall into the trap of miserabilism, but I could not entirely work out whether his speech was example of it or an attack on it. My view is that this budget has some excellent measures and I agree with him and the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, in particularly welcoming the full expensing of private capital investment. If anything, we think that the OBR may underestimate the effect of that measure in promoting private investment. It will of course particularly help physical investment in stuff. We should not forget that a lot of drive and innovation comes from investment in software and softer forms of investment that may not be supported; nevertheless, it is the right thing to do.
However, it is a striking contrast with the depressing cuts in the real value of public investment, partly because it will be held flat in cash, so the real value of public capital investment will fall. That means that, over the next few years, Britain will remain a country whose public capital investment is approximately half the OECD average. Where I part company with my noble friend Lord Frost is that I think the evidence is overwhelmingly that public and private capital investment can go together. They need not be alternatives; public investment in transport links can be a precondition of successful private housebuilding. It would be great if we were capable of promoting public investment as effectively as the Government are now trying to promote private investment.
There is certainly a need for a growth agenda. Again, I agree with my noble friend Lord Frost that, since the financial crash, Britain’s growth performance has been shockingly poor. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, about some of the areas where we should do more. I certainly agree with him on skills. I have to say that I very much regret that the Government are in the process of defunding BTECs—a widely recognised and used vocational qualification—and investing their hopes entirely in speculative T-levels, which are simply never going to come on stream and deliver qualifications to the numbers of young vocational learners currently served by BTECs.
Our analysis at the Resolution Foundation is that the fundamental problem is that Britain has become, overall, a low-mobility economy. The speed at which business sectors grow or shrink has diminished. The likelihood of people making job moves from one business sector to another has fallen—indeed, the likelihood of them making any job moves at all has fallen. We should be promoting economic change and mobility. Unlike my noble friend Lord Frost, I think that the single market and competitive pressure across Europe was an extremely good way of promoting economic change, and the evidence is that it was strongly associated with high rates of business change in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, there are other things that can be done. I would have stamp duty high up on my list of taxes to be cut, and promoting disruptive technologies—providing we do not imagine that we have the exclusive understanding of exactly how they will play out or which will have the biggest effect—can also be a very good way of challenging incumbents and promoting innovative new companies.
It is very important that we continue to promote work. Again, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, and my noble friend Lord Frost that the national insurance cut is very welcome. As a cut in a tax on earnings and work—a refreshing contrast to the previous preoccupation with income tax cuts—it is aimed much more directly at people in work.
That was part of a wider package promoting incomes and earnings, especially among people on benefits. We have heard about the increase in the local housing allowance. There is a very substantial increase in spending on wider benefits, notably, of course, the pension triple lock, expenditure on which—just to register its scale—will reach £172 billion by the end of the period covered by this Treasury Statement. This means that we have now reached the position in Britain where not only do the poorest 10% of pensioners, after housing costs, enjoy a higher income than the poorest 10% of non-pensioners, and middle-income pensioners, after housing costs, enjoy a higher income than middle-income people and families, but the most affluent 10% of pensioners have a higher income after housing costs than the most affluent 10% of families.
I end, therefore, by asking the Minister to reflect a little on how the shape of the state is changing. There is a debate about the size of the state; there is also a debate about the shape of the state. There is a pattern. One pattern is that, when you have such very large increases in the value of benefits and in debt interest payments—which will be running at over £120 billion a year—and a hidden cut in expenditure on many services, you essentially become a transfer payment state, not an investment or service delivery state. You put much more of your effort into paying out the pensions, the debt interest and the wider benefits, and less and less into investing in stuff and technologies. Is that a reshaping of the state that meets my noble friend Lady Goldie’s attractive account of what made her a Conservative?
It is also clearly a state focused on expenditure, services and benefits for older people and doing far less to invest in our future. A state that is for transfer payments and not investment, and which is for the old and not the young, is not the kind of state that I think should be an objective of government policy.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, I also welcome the noble Baroness to the Treasury Bench. I think she will find it interesting to be shaping the state in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, in his evidence to the Constitution Committee in June of last year, said that
“there are no votes in criminal justice”.
He continued:
“The criminal justice system is in the most appalling state. I would never have believed it”.
He added:
“The present Lord Chancellor has the misfortune of presiding over a department both the large chunks of which”—
the courts and prisons—
“are in a … dire state”—
worse than he can ever remember.
He said that the Lord Chancellor lacked the necessary political clout to get a sensible settlement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, he should know; he held both offices of state successively and, after being at the Treasury, at the Ministry of Justice he was the first to take the knee to austerity cuts in departmental budgets at the beginning of the Cameron Government. The Ministry of Justice has never recovered.
The analysis of the MoJ’s statistics published in October by the Institute for Government underlines the present crisis. First, there is a backlog of serious cases awaiting trial in the Crown Courts which, adjusted for complexity, amounts to a record high of 89,939 cases. This seriously diminishes the capacity of our courts system to deliver justice. Victims become disheartened and withdraw their complaints, to the distress of themselves and their families; the memories of witnesses fade; and juries grapple with events that occurred years before the trial. As the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, pointed out, our prisons are overloaded with unconvicted prisoners on remand, awaiting trial—currently more than 15,000. Indeed, 28% of cases in the backlog have been waiting for over a year and 10% for over two years. This represents an increase of 54.2% in prisoners on remand between 2020 and the present.
As I said in my contribution to the debate on the King’s Speech three weeks ago, the major reasons for the backlog are a lack of judges, causing a serious decrease in the number of sitting days, and a lack of barristers, both to prosecute and defend. The diminution in criminal legal aid by 41% since 2010—the cause of the barristers’ strike—has destroyed the attractiveness of the criminal Bar as a career. So I repeat my call for incentives to aid recruitment; if the Government can fund £26,000 bursaries for young teachers to teach maths and the sciences, they need a similar scheme to fill up the vital vacancies at the criminal Bar.
The dire state of prisons was highlighted by the MoJ’s own figures. The backlog of major capital works was £1.4 billion in July 2023. It has been increasing by £220 million a year since 2019. Prisons are filthy and crumbling.
The Prison Service suffers from recruitment problems, compounded by a failure to retain staff at an increasingly alarming rate—currently 15% per year. Between December 2022 and October last, the prison population has increased at a rate of 605 prisoners per month, to reach the highest figure ever, of over 88,000.
The effect on prisoners themselves is that 42% of male prisoners are locked up for 22 hours a day during the week. Education and rehabilitation courses have been dramatically curtailed. The Guardian recently reported that the number of self-harm incidents, including cutting, overdose and hanging, reached the second-highest on record in March 2023, with 733 incidents for every 1,000 prisoners. Three-quarters of the prison population are engaged in cutting, overdose, hanging and other such activities.
Nick Vineall KC, chairman of the Bar Council, said this week that
“the consequences of underfunding are extremely serious for society as whole. Ultimately, we must have a system that properly supports victims and ensures that the guilty are punished and the innocent walk free. We no longer have such a system”.
The Government may be anxious about victims, but the aim of rehabilitation is not to give criminals an easy time; the aim is simply that there be fewer victims in the future. I could go on, but the picture is clear.
The Autumn Statement increases MoJ day-to-day spending from £9.4 billion for 2022-23 to £9.8 billion for 2023-24—a rise of 4% but in real terms a cut, set against the OBR’s projection of 7.4% inflation next year. The capital budget will fall to £1.5 billion in 2024, below the current capital budget for this year, of £1.7 billion.
Justice is not a peripheral matter: it is a central pillar of our society. When it fails, the stability of the state, and its very existence, are at risk. There are innumerable examples from history, both past and present.
The Autumn Statement is peddled with mendacious spin, with claims of tax reliefs as the actual tax burden rises. It is a final blow to the credibility of this Conservative Government. When they pack their tents and steal away next year, they will leave behind the appalling mess of the criminal justice system, to which the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, has referred. Another Government, I hope, will clean it up.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, as a member of the ranks of the struggling self-employed, I applaud the Autumn Statement, and particularly the idea that we should cut taxes to get growth. It has been mentioned by many Members today; it is a great new idea and it might even catch on. In fact, our growth record is not as bad as we sometimes pretend. In recent years, it has been better than those of many others—I think my noble friend said that it had surpassed all expectations. I welcome her to her new role on the Front Bench, but, if she will forgive me for saying so, in truth, and for a very long time, under successive Governments it has not been anywhere near good enough.
I have been struck by how many noble Lords seem to rely so heavily on experts—too heavily, in my view. Over the years, that has allowed too many Governments to shrug off their basic responsibilities. It is 25 years since Gordon Brown handed over a great chunk of the Treasury’s responsibilities to the Bank of England. Today, we worship at the altar of the OBR.
It has been fascinating that almost every speaker today has leaned on the OBR, including my noble friend, even as on several occasions she mentioned how many of its forecasts have been wildly off target. We have put ourselves in thrall to the so-called experts. I always rely on Winston Churchill, who always has a great word. He once warned about having experts on tap, but never on top. Yet often—too often—we simply claim that we are following the science, so it is not our fault really, even though that excuse is being ripped to shreds daily at the Covid inquiry.
Our own Economic Affairs Committee got it right earlier this week in its excellent report, when it said that the Bank of England’s “expanding remit” should be cut, its responsibilities decreased and its growing “democratic deficit” remedied. That is a healthy and very timely vote of scepticism, but all recent Governments have spread our wealth around—here, there, far and wide—even before that wealth has been created. How many times have we heard that phrase from Ministers, “Whatever it takes”, meaning, of course, that we will spend whatever it takes? We will tax and borrow, and all the rest, and triple lock it. Whatever it takes: shake the money tree yet again and hope that there are not too many pigeons roosting above our heads.
That has allowed us to put off difficult decisions. One little irritant of mine is around dealing with the desperately poor public sector productivity levels, when civil servants are still working from home in vast numbers—even as productivity drops and TV daytime figures, fascinatingly, soar and as telephones do not get answered. Why is that still the case? Forgive me: I am sounding grumpy, even cynical. I know it is not like me; I think I must still be suffering from frozen thresholds.
Let me try to raise spirits by looking at what is going on in the United States for some interesting lessons. Not very long ago, it was the sun-kissed cities of the west coast that were the exciting, almost romantic, future. Yet today, so sadly, the fabled streets of San Francisco are overwhelmed with misery and homelessness, while in Los Angeles residents are moving out in record numbers. Yes, California has the sun, but it also has the highest tax rates in that union. There is something similar in the old economic heartland of the north-east: New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The dynamo is slowing. The energy and ambition are moving south to states such as Texas, Florida and the Carolinas. Twenty years ago, the north-east was considerably wealthier than the south. Then its states raised their taxes, while the south’s cut theirs—and the south is where cities are now booming. If you go to Dallas, Atlanta and Miami, they almost shake with enterprise and ambition. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is moving from the west coast to Miami. I do not want to shower this House with statistics but today the low-tax south has a higher share of the nation’s GDP than the once all-conquering north-east. I do not think that is just because of the weather.
I wholeheartedly applaud the Government’s determination to boost growth by cutting taxes. Growth may not be the answer to everything, but it is the foundation of so much of what we want for our future, our children’s future and our country’s future. Can my noble friend confirm that this commitment to cutting taxes and boosting growth is not simply a short-term expedient, or even a pre-election jolly, but rather a deeply felt and long-term mission—a crusade, even—and one that will carry this country forward? I hope we will all remember that, without better growth, very few political promises are worth the inflated paper that they are usually printed on.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, the Budget is further evidence of the Government’s war on low and middle-income families. The 2p reduction in national insurance delivers zero benefit to 19 million adults whose annual income is less than £12,570. The two-child benefit cap continues and removes around £3,000 a year from some of the poorest families. Wages continue to be taxed at a much higher rate than capital gains, dividends or income from speculative ventures. The freezing of income tax and national insurance thresholds means that, by 2028-29, another 4 million people will be paying income tax; 3 million more will pay tax at the higher rate of 40%; and 400,000 more will end up paying tax at 45%.
The Minister referred to economic growth. Despite economic growth since 2010, the average real wage has returned to the 2007 level and the Resolution Foundation estimates that the average household will be £1,900 poorer by January 2025 than in December 2019. The Government have to remember that, in the absence of good purchasing power for the masses, the economy cannot be rejuvenated—they simply have not learned that lesson over the last 14 years.
The Government’s failures have caused huge growth in poverty. Malnutrition, scurvy and rickets have returned to the UK, and people are actually dying. Between 2012 and 2018, some 335,000 people died from government- imposed austerity—that is the excess deaths according to a paper published in a refereed scholarly journal. We had a debate in this House and I never got a decent reply from the Minister. The Government’s response is to cut real public spending by another £19 billion, which means that public sector wages will be cut, hitting women the hardest as they form the majority of the public sector workforce. Can the Minister explain why the Chancellor’s Statement is not accompanied by an impact assessment showing how many more people will die as a direct or indirect result of the Government’s policies?
On economic growth, the Government offer absolutely no vision. Despite a decade of low inflation, low interest rates and low corporation tax, and numerous incentives, the private sector has failed to invest adequately in productive assets. In the OECD table of 38 countries, the UK is ranked 35th. The private sector will not invest because people do not have good enough purchasing power, and the Government have starved the public sector of investment, which then fuels private sector activity. So the Government are not really offering to increase public sector investment.
Last week the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England told the Treasury Committee that Brexit “has chilled business investment”. It has grown by less than 1% a year in real terms since Brexit. The Government have offered absolutely no answer to Brexit woes, though they have now belatedly offered £4.5 billion for investment in advanced manufacturing, as the Minister said, over the next five years. That shows hardly any ambition. I give the example of investment in the semiconductor industry: the US has offered a package of $50 billion; China, $40 billion; India, $10 billion; and the UK, £1 billion, or $1.2 billion. That is no vision of any kind whatever.
I have some specific questions for the Minister about the public debt, which she referred to in her speech. Nearly £1 trillion of quantitative easing has pushed up asset prices and enriched a few. One study has shown that QE boosted the wealth of the richest 10% of households by between £128,000 and £322,000 per household. Instead of squeezing the poor and public services, the Government could have clawed back this gift to the richest. Can the Minister explain why the gains arising from QE have not been clawed back?
Public debt under the Conservatives has soared from around £1 trillion, or 65% of GDP, in May 2010 to £1.79 trillion, or 79% of GDP, just before the pandemic. The latest figure is £2.64 trillion, or 97.8% of GDP. What does this public debt actually consist of? Ministers have never explained. I can see no rationale whatever for treating quantitative easing balance as part of the public debt, especially as the Government hold equivalent gilts and bonds. In any case, QE is an intrastate transaction between the Bank of England and the Treasury, and the consolidated effect is zero. Can the Minister explain how much of the QE is included in the public debt amount, and why?
Through the QE, the Government have enriched speculators by pushing up the price of gilts and corporate bonds, but they are now selling them at a loss. Can the Minister explain why, as part of quantitative tightening, the Government are selling securities at a loss, how much has been lost, and why the public purse is being held responsible for that loss? The Government are also paying interest to commercial banks on what are called central bank reserves, which are created as a result of QE. Can the Minister explain why this interest is being paid on the money that has been created by the state and given away freely? How much has been paid so far, and when will the Government stop this practice? It is akin to a farmer growing carrots and giving them away, then when he wishes to have one or two carrots back he offers interest to those who will return a carrot. That is exactly what the Government are doing, and it is a crazy policy. I hope the Minister will be able to give a detailed reply to each of my questions.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I warmly welcome my noble friend to her new ministerial brief, but I am sorry that I cannot be as welcoming to the Autumn Statement. I know that all sides of the House, with the possible exception of our Green colleagues, who are not in their places, want to see a significant boost to the UK’s economic growth. They will not find that in this Statement.
Our growth prospects are uninspiring: the OBR says 0.7% next year and only 1.7% at the end of the forecast period. The Chancellor announced quite a lot of allegedly pro-growth policy measures, but the OBR calculated that they would increase potential output by only 0.3% at the end of the forecast period. Of course, that is better than nothing, but it does not transform our economic prospects by a very long way. I and many of my Conservative colleagues believe there are three foundations for growth: low taxes, low regulation and a small state. This Autumn Statement achieves none of these things, and for us it is not surprising that economic growth remains feeble.
On taxes, full expensing has been welcomed by the business community and by many noble Lords today, but it is very expensive and achieves very little. The policy costs £30 billion over the forecast period but produces extra investment of only £14 billion. I cannot see that this is a good use of taxpayers’ money.
A much bigger driver of business investment is the headline rate of corporation tax, which the Chancellor has kept at 25%. This is the main reason that the UK has plummeted down the competitiveness league tables for tax. The latest OECD figures show us at number 30 out of 38 countries.
I am sure that those in work will welcome the national insurance reductions, but they probably do not realise that they are paying for this themselves through fiscal drag. For all the talk in the Autumn Statement about tax cuts, there has been nothing to change the trajectory for this Parliament to be the biggest tax-raising one since the Second World War. Taxes as a percentage of GDP continue on an upward path and are even higher than at this year’s uninspiring Budget.
The Autumn Statement does nothing about reducing the size of the state, with total managed expenditure still around 43% of GDP at the end of the forecast period. The Chancellor missed another opportunity to get rid of the triple lock, which remains one of the biggest fiscal sustainability risks identified by the OBR. I applaud the efforts by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to get more people into work, and to bear down on the bill for out-of-work benefits. However, he is barely making a dent in that bill, or cutting the nearly 9 million economically inactive people of working age who are a major drag on the economy. Apart from welfare, the Autumn Statement said nothing about cutting the size of the state.
Similarly, the Autumn Statement said nothing about cutting regulatory burdens. It bragged that the Government are
“bringing forward an ambitious package to supercharge small and medium sized enterprises”.
I got quite excited about this, until I read five meagre paragraphs. These include something on faster payments —I have lost count of the number of times that faster payments have been announced as an initiative—and something arcane about HMRC rewriting its guidance on the tax deductibility of training costs. SMEs need something more transformative than this.
The Chancellor announced in his Statement that he had 110 growth measures. I had expected the Autumn Statement documents to set them out. There are some costings covering 67 policy decisions in chapter 5 of the Statement, and a separate policy costings document which has detail under 55 headings. However, quite a lot of these could not conceivably be regarded as growth measures. Chapter 5 also has 200 paragraphs on policy decisions, some of which presumably have growth implications, but this is not always clear. The OBR has some analysis of the main policy decisions, but it does not reference the growth ones specifically, so I cannot find anything that says, “These are the 110 growth measures”. My question for my noble friend the Minister is: what are the 110? If nothing in the public domain sets them out, will she undertake to write to me and put a copy in the Library of what those 110 measures actually entail? I should be clear that if even by some miracle she has a list of the 110 measures in her briefing for this evening, this is not an invitation to her to read them out.
GDP growth of 1.7% at the end of the forecast period is nothing to be proud about. We must not be self-congratulatory about merely being in the pack with other G7 countries. This country needs more ambition and more imagination—certainly much more than this Autumn Statement provides.
Lord O'Neill of Gatley (CB)
My Lords, it also my pleasure to speak in this important debate and, as always, to hear such a vast array of different and generally extremely eloquent opinions, which somewhat intimidates me, despite my role in some of these issues in the past. In that regard, I also welcome the Minister to her new role. Having sat there myself once, I know that it is an interesting challenge.
Reflecting on some of the things that have been said already, I am still stuck in my mind, one week after the Autumn Statement, on aspects of the bizarre gaming that the system has got into. I am not quite sure whether this is what the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, was reflecting on, but I will come back to that. At the same time, it included a number of measures that really are for economic geeks to wade through, particularly those with real expertise, notwithstanding economics being a miserable or social science. I am not sure if it was 110 measures that I would cite as particularly important. However, they are the ones that can think about the microeconomic issues of some of these so-called supply-side measures.
Indeed, the Chancellor made a point in his speech, and his follow-up media—as referenced by some others—of saying that the OBR had boosted its estimate of the trend rate of growth by an accumulated 0.5% because of the Spring Budget and what he announced last week. By the way, contrary to what the noble Baroness said just said before me, that is pretty miraculous for any country in the world to do if it turned out to be accurate, because long-term growth is driven by the nature of the labour force and its productivity.
However, I will also touch on two other things that have not yet been mentioned at all, I am pleased to say, and in this regard reflect my own current duties—or some of them—as reflected on the register. In my role as chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and being involved in the whole northern powerhouse thing since it started, I really welcome the additional steps to give more mayoral powers to different areas and for a select few—so far—to have potential or theoretical access to the next spending review. I also welcome the news of a devolution deal for Hull and the East Riding after the endless years of struggle to get that through.
Also reflecting my role as chair of Northern Gritstone, the entity that is investing in start-ups coming out of northern universities, I greatly welcome the news of the enhanced powers and role for the patient capital arm of the British Business Bank, in fostering an even greater growth capital culture among our investing institutions—or perhaps a significantly greater culture. I ask the Minister in this regard if the requirement for them to repay a set amount of capital each year has indeed now be removed. If so, this should be of considerable help to giving more genuine aspiration for the BPC.
As touched on, the never-endingly discussed OBR, despite what I have just said, lowered its estimate of trend growth because of some of the underlying issues that cannot go away. However, slightly contrasting to the flavour of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, and almost an analogy with being thrown a favourable VAR decision, the OBR actually decided that things look about £30 billion-plus better than they did in the spring. Of course, in the game that I referred to at the start, this gave the leeway which the Chancellor exploited pretty well. I will not touch on some of the other complications of that, which others have touched on. However, it also means that, come next spring, a VAR decision might go in the opposite way. This would have some very interesting consequences for what would then happen, especially as relates to tax.
I also quickly add that despite the very passionate and often understandable pleas about lower taxes, the UK is the 20th country in the world in GDP per capita. More than half the other countries have considerably higher taxation levels than we do. What matters is how tax is used and how it is spent by the state.
In that regard, let me close with what is increasingly one of my hobbies, if not slight obsessions. I am encouraged by the focus on public sector investment by a number of other speakers. As I have said in this House on many occasions, the UK suffers deeply from poor productivity and low investment spending from both the public and private sectors. In my view, we should use an entity such as the OBR for what it is good at: focusing on things to do with the long-term growth trend and studying truly long-term things. I call for more powers for the OBR to have what it is good at and, in particular, instruction to scorecard regularly and analyse at least 20 of the biggest infra- structure projects that the independent infrastructure commission was set up for. If they turn out not to have multiplier economic benefits and lower debt, they should not happen; but if they do, why on earth are they not happening?
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as set out in the register, particularly as chair of the financial services division of the global commercial law firm, DAC Beachcroft.
Like many other speakers, albeit in varying degrees, I warmly welcome the Autumn Statement. I have known the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, for many years and I am confident that the economy is now in safe hands again. His presentation of the Statement was characteristically unflashy, and the reassuringly calm response of the markets spoke volumes.
Speaking as a solicitor still practising in the City of London, the one message I hear all time is that businesses crave certainty. In this world, especially now, there can be no certainty, but Governments can still strive to create stability and productivity—that is how we encourage businesses to invest and innovate. That, it seems to me, is the hallmark of this Government’s approach.
The House does not need me to remind it of the storms the UK economy has had to navigate in recent times. The political decision taken was to leave the European Union, but the direct consequence was to leave the single market, which many of us still regard as one of Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievements. For that, shall we say, reorientation of the economy to coincide with the first pandemic in a century would test any economy, Government or society. That now we find ourselves in relatively calm waters is quite an achievement, and the Prime Minister and Jeremy Hunt deserve much credit for that.
What I hope to hear more of now is a renewed determination to tackle the red tape that continues to stifle innovation and enterprise. Some is a legacy from our European Union years—the committee I chair is working its way through that as I speak—but so much is either homegrown or gold-plated. Of course, I am not saying that all regulation is bad, just that it must always be proportionate and targeted. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill is an excellent example of how statutory intervention in a market can both protect consumers from unacceptable market behaviour and foster competition. I look forward to our debates on that Bill and hope for more of the same, especially as the latest innovations in financial services regulation bed down.
Buried away at the end of the Autumn Statement is a very welcome proposed consultation on a UK regime for captive insurance companies. I applaud many of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, on that; I think it was number 99 on the list of measures. Two years ago, the London Market Group produced an excellent plan for the future, pointing out that the UK lacks a specific regulatory regime for captives, which, by definition, present relatively low risk to the overall financial system. This is another example of regulation that is not fit for purpose, because this is a fast-growing market, estimated at over $100 billion, and we have a golden opportunity to see a repatriation of UK company captives and to be a competitive location internationally.
A bespoke UK captive regime would be consistent with the new international competitiveness objectives in the Financial Services and Markets Act, strengthening the UK’s position in the international reinsurance market. The London Market Group has worked with HM Treasury to produce a detailed implementation plan setting out the legislative and regulatory changes required. Importantly, this could be done entirely through a single statutory instrument.
I therefore hope that my noble friend the Minister, whom we warmly welcome to her new role, can commit tonight to launching the consultation quickly, with a view to implementing it as soon as possible. This could have major economic benefits, and there is no time to waste. In summary, I welcome the Autumn Statement and hope for more of the same for many years to come.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to her place on the Treasury Bench. I will speak on the creative industries.
The big players in the film industry are breathing a sigh of relief, having seen off the threatened restrictions on tax credit relief for commercial party transactions. They also welcome the announcement of the launch of a new consultation that could see tax relief expanded to cover expenditure on visual effects. All I say on that is, “Please hurry up”. It was good to have clarified which documentaries qualify for credit; that will now be judged by the same guidance the BFI uses.
However, as BECTU made clear in its commentary on the Autumn Statement, sectors of the industry such as opera, theatres, independent film production and live events needed a lot more than a promise of further reviews. So, may I ask the Minister about the independents—the lower-budget films? Where was the offer for them? They needed a rise in tax relief to 40%.
As I hope this House knows, the creative industries are outstripping all other growth industries. I laid out the case here in November 2021 in the Liberal Democrat debate on the creative industries, asking for them to be a growth priority because at that point, the Prime Minister had left them out of his five-point plan. Then the Communications and Digital Committee, ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, made the same case in its report, At Risk: Our Creative Future. Only then did the PM finally make this one of his five priorities for growth—but that was not reflected in the Autumn Statement. So many in the industries that make up this creative powerhouse hoped and expected more, and deserved so much more.
Tax reliefs are a proven road to putting a rocket under an industry’s capability to attract investment to this country and to boost exports. So, where were tax reliefs for the fashion industry; for publishing, where tax relief would incentivise UK production of published works; for live events, where the UK would increase its share of the market and grow skilled jobs throughout the UK; and for music production, where tax relief would incentivise the creation of new music and attract inward investment? Clarity on theatre tax relief is welcome, but why was it not made indefinite? There was also no word about museums and galleries tax relief being made permanent.
Moving from tax relief to national insurance, the Writers’ Guild acknowledges that its self-employed members will benefit from getting rid of class 2 national insurance, and from the reduction by 1% of class 4. There is a “thank you” for the changes on that, but not a big “thank you”, as it called the measures
“small crumbs of comfort when taken against the bigger picture”.
Equity’s general secretary, Paul Fleming, said:
“The Chancellor is taking the same approach to the performing arts and entertainment that has seen billions in public funding for the arts cut … The self-employed are being shortchanged by a headline-grabbing tax cut. Our self-employed members want investment to fix the holes in the social security system and public services”.
I was a designer and illustrator long ago and far away in another life, and late payment can force you out of business. When you are already living hand to mouth, even 30 days is a long time to wait for payment, let alone the liberties that big companies in particular take, with frequent waits of 90 days or more. Promising 30 days in the coming years is a promise of virtually nothing. The music industry was pretty unimpressed. Its whacking £5.8 billion contribution to the UK economy before Covid was phenomenal, but the repercussions of the lack of forethought by this Government during the Brexit process were a double whammy. The Association of Independent Festivals was disappointed that the reduction to 5% VAT on ticket sales, which the live sector desperately needs as a way to revive its post-Covid fortunes, did not materialise. As for the manifesto promise of an art premium, I must have blinked: I missed it.
We needed an Autumn Statement that respects, capitalises on and believes in the creative sector, that supports and encourages our broadcast companies, recognising their irreplaceable value as the second-largest exporter of television programmes and formats in the world. We needed a Statement that understands the BBC and supports it, rather than undermining it and continually diminishing its budget and status. I found it shocking to read that “Newsnight” is to be diminished, because trust in our democracy is already diminishing at a terrifying rate.
We needed a Statement that recognises that tax reliefs support and encourage an ecosystem that supports new and emerging talent as well as the big financial successes, and that supports freelancers, sole traders, part-timers and those with a portfolio of roles. Those are the roles that people the creative industries, and the NI changes simply do not go anywhere to support that industry. We needed an Autumn Statement that ensured that the tax and welfare system supported those freelancers to survive, thrive and earn well; that promoted the value of live events and music, small and public venues, regional theatres, local halls and festivals across the country; that addressed the real challenges that orchestras and touring are having, and gave the assurance that the 50% tax relief will remain beyond 2025.
The Publishers Association was disappointed that the Government missed the chance to axe VAT on reading and publishing once and for all by zero-rating audiobooks and article processing charges for open-access publishing. I declare an interest in ALCS, in that I get about £20 a year from it. If my book had sold more, maybe I would do better. If noble Lords are interested, it is called Equal Ever After and is about how I did same-sex marriage. I know David Cameron says it was him, but it was me who started it. ALCS had hoped and needed an increase in the public lending rights that provide such vital income for authors, ensuring that financial support reaches beyond just the bestsellers. While we welcome the extension of the 75% business rate discount for all music spaces, I probe the Minister further to clarify whether this extension applies to music studios, which are having a particularly bad time. We needed commitments to research and development and to an additional capital budget for historic buildings affected by that crumbly concrete, RAAC.
I am indebted to Creative UK, whose briefing I have used extensively this evening. The Autumn Statement I have described is the sort of Autumn Statement that our creative industries deserve.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome my noble friend to her new position, and I am also very pleased at the Chancellor’s decision on full expensing. When he introduced that measure earlier—I cannot remember exactly when—I argued that it would be fully effective only if it was made permanent, and I am delighted that it has been. It is the single best way to encourage capital investment available to him at the present time.
I also welcome the cut in national insurance payments, for precisely the reasons set out by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson. There is one other thing I welcome very much. As a former chairman of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, I welcome the Chancellor’s imaginative decision to award it, along with Imperial College, £5 million to establish an Alexander Fleming centre to mark the centenary of the invention of penicillin at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. This sort of gesture is modest in financial terms but makes, I think, a big impression on those involved. It is a particularly welcome one on this occasion.
I want to devote my speech mainly to talking about how public expenditure and taxation are discussed in relation to GDP and the implications for policy, whether under this Government or under another. As my noble friend Lord Frost indicated in his speech, it is constantly pointed out that they are at the highest levels since the post-war years, as if this was some sort of historical aberration and a bad thing that needs to be put right —they are in fact not out of line with other similar countries. I believe that the approach epitomised by my noble friend Lord Frost is very much the wrong one. They are at these levels because we are in a situation very similar to the post-war period, by which I mean that so many of the problems our country faces, like other similar economies, are big state problems. That is to say that they are problems that primarily require government action and government expenditure to be progressed, let alone resolved. Unless that action and expenditure are forthcoming, the private sector will not be able to function effectively.
These problems are well known to us all. They are the consequences of climate change; the impact of the ageing population on the NHS, social services and the public purse generally; the need to renew our crumbling infrastructure, as well as to prepare it for the digital age; the need to rebuild our defences; and the need to prevent public debt running out of control. To get a grip on this list requires the Government to spend money and to raise money. Nothing has done more damage to the present Government’s reputation than the widespread perception that this country is not working properly. That is because too often it is true. It is because the battle is being lost on too many of these problems that growth is held back and the country is not working as it should. It is not a case of having to choose between public and private: the private depends on the public.
I hope we can stop obsessing about the weight of the overall tax burden and the proportion of public expenditure to GDP. Instead, we need to consider far more carefully how to spread the tax burden fairly and how best to use it to encourage those economic and social projects and activities that will enable our country to be more competitive and a better place to live in. Some taxes certainly can be cut, but others must yield more.
Finally, a serious Government need also to be frank with the public about which public expenditure programmes outside the protected departments they intend to prioritise in the coming years and the costs involved. With an election looming within the next 12 months or so, this Autumn Statement does not do that, and nor does the Opposition’s response. A big test of whoever is in charge after the election will be the extent to which they are willing to be frank on these matters.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to her new post at the Treasury. That is currently a hugely and unduly powerful department. We are all familiar with departmental Ministers at the Dispatch Box, when faced with an undeniable failing, shrugging and playing the “The Treasury just won’t give me the money” card. Look at where that has got us. We have heard from many noble Lords about the state of broken Britain, so I suggest that the Minister take note of the fact that the Treasury is increasingly being held responsible for the state of the country.
I am going to look at three ways in which our system is broken. I turn first to individual and household poverty, inequality and insecurity. The Resolution Foundation has calculated that this Parliament is set to be the worst on record for household income. Incomes are projected to fall by 3.1% in real terms from December 2019 to January 2025. Many noble Lords have focused on the triple lock, but the problem is not generational. The problem is poverty and inequality, and structural changes over decades that have left our society failing to meet the most basic needs. We have, very literally, a failing economy.
Figures out today from the National Housing Federation show that the number of pre-retirement private renters in the 55 to 64 age group has increased six times the rate of the population increase in the past decade. We are going to see a huge spike in pensioners living in private rental homes that they cannot afford. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures show that 1 million children experienced destitution last year—a number that has almost doubled since 2019.
What is in the Green Party’s alternative Autumn Statement, released before the Chancellor stood up, for individuals? Starting with the most vulnerable, the Green Party is proposing an increase in universal credit by £40 a week, which would cost £9 billion. It is also proposing to abolish the two-child benefit cap by increasing the welfare budget by £1.3 billion. I challenge the Government, in particular the Front Bench in front of me, to say why they would not do that in order to help some of the most vulnerable who are suffering so much now.
Secondly, I turn to public poverty, inequality and insecurity. The Productivity Institute has highlighted that there has been a decade of declining spending per capita on education at all levels above primary school. Yet overall, schools have somehow—all credit to them—broadly upheld performance, as measured by the Institute for Government. They are the only group of public services, of nine in total, that has not seen a deterioration since 2010. As the Institute for Government said:
“This Government has abdicated responsibility for public services”.
There is also the question of how realistic all these plans are. The OBR has publicly doubted that the plans for further swingeing austerity in public services are actually deliverable. The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has described these as “implausibly tight” spending plans. It stressed the sheer impossibility of not providing a drip of bare subsistence funding to our collapsing court system, to our financially staggering local councils—as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, highlighted—and to a DEFRA that is regularly failing to meet even its basic statutory responsibilities.
What is the Green Party’s plan? It is to restore the public health budget by increasing spending by £1.4 billion; to immediately increase NHS spending by £8 billion; and to increase access to NHS dentists by increasing spending by 50%, or £1.5 billion. Crucially, as many noble Lords might appreciate, we would provide the necessary powers and funding to rural local authorities to take back control of bus services, so that they can increase routes and service frequencies. This would cost £3 billion. Will the Labour Front Bench consider matching that?
Thirdly, I turn to nature’s poverty, inequality and insecurity. There was precious little in this Statement on the climate emergency and nature crisis that is clearly already hitting us so hard. The £960 million investment fund by 2030 for the green industries growth accelerator, which does not even start until 2025, is proportionately orders of magnitude smaller than the plans of the US and EU. Words are only words, but there was even austerity in the nature element of the Chancellor’s Statement: the number of nature-related terms used by the Chancellor in his speech almost took us back to the era of “cut the green crap”.
The Green Party’s plan is to turn ISAs green by linking their tax exemptions to investments in green bonds, and to invest an additional £3 billion in green transition grants for small businesses to help them prepare for and take advantage of the opportunities offered by greening the economy. Noble Lords will be seeing much more in green spending in our general election manifesto, and I hope that the Labour Front Bench will be confirming very clearly plans to stick to its previously announced policies, about which there has been considerable doubt.
The question I am sure that noble Lords might ask is: where is the money coming from in the Green plans? We have calculated that around £30 billion of additional funds would be available from rebalancing the tax system so that the super-rich pay their fair share and both people and planet benefit. There is enough money in our economy to make our country fairer and greener. What is lacking is the political will to change priorities.
Finally, I have a direct question to ask the Minister. The revenue side of the fiscal projections assumes that the 5p per litre cut in fuel duty will end in April and that the levy will then rise in line with inflation. This comes to a total of £6 billion a year, but of course fuel duty has not risen since 2011. I know that I cannot ask the Minister what will be said in the spring, but I can ask her to acknowledge that there is a significant gap in the Chancellor’s figures if he does not put fuel duty up in the spring by 8p per litre.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, when I listened to the Autumn Statement, it seemed to contain only good news. On the economic front, public sector net borrowing is reducing; on the tax front, national insurance rates are being cut; with regards to pay, the national living wage is going up by nearly 10%; on benefits, working-age benefit is increasing by nearly 7%; pensions are receiving an 8.5% increase; and businesses are getting permanent full expensing for the cost of qualifying plant and machinery. In other areas, I welcomed help with business rates for smaller companies, reforms of the planning system, additional investment zones, assistance for landlords with housing benefit, and permission for property conversion.
All these measures are most welcome, but when you stand back and look at the overall economy, wage, benefit and tax situations, a much less rosy picture emerges. I am in the camp of my noble friends Lord Frost and Lady Noakes on this. Looking at economic growth, other noble Lords have highlighted the weak growth figures for 2024 and 2025, so I will not repeat that. However, I make a plea to the Minister to make equivalence for the asset investment management business a priority, since this industry has been thrown to the wolves since Brexit.
I move on to the borrowing situation. Our total government debt was £2.6 trillion in October and interest on the debt is forecast at a horrendous £116 billion this year. Not helping on the debt front was the fact that there was too little monitoring of some handouts, especially in the area of Covid bounce-back loans.
On the minimum wage front, the large increase could put considerable pressure on businesses struggling with their overall costs. According to the Sunday Times, business leaders are sounding the alarm that the 10% increase in the minimum wage will substantially drive up their costs and undermine efforts to reduce inflation. The jump was beyond the top of the range recommendation of the Low Pay Commission. Although business leaders recognised the moral case for the rise, they are fretting over the economic impact. Steve Morgan, the founder of the housebuilder Redrow, said that the Government
“don’t realise the knock-on effect of wage rises”
on inflation and
“on those higher up the pay scale”.
Adrian Hanrahan, who runs the Midlands-based chemical company Robinson Brothers, warned that the ripple effect would extend to skilled workers as they saw their less-skilled colleagues gaining ground on their pay. He said:
“They want a differential”.
On benefits, we have a record 2.5 million people who are economically inactive. Although I respect the problems of genuine long-term sickness and disability, this figure is still far too high.
On pensions, I feel that the triple lock system should be changed and increases tapered so that more support can be given elsewhere.
For businesses, the Chancellor failed to point out that, overall, the benefits of the full expensing of qualifying capital expenditure are more than cancelled out by the increase in the corporation tax rate from 19% to 25%. This is proven by looking at table 3.3 in the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook and comparing it with table 4.3. The benefits of full expensing to companies forecast in the five years from 2023-24 is £19.6 billion, while the extra corporation tax burden in the same period is forecast as £42.8 billion. It does not take complicated arithmetic to work out that these corporate tax changes have an overall net cost to companies of an additional £24.2 billion.
For individuals, the tax and living standards situation is no better. I am sure the Chancellor was not happy that the OBR highlighted both these issues in its economic and fiscal outlook. According to it, the tax burden rises to 37.7% of GDP by 2027-28; that is the highest since the Second World War. The freezing of the personal allowance at £12,570—the point at which people start to pay income tax—means that, as the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, has already said, that 4 million more people will be expected to pay income tax between 2022-23 and 2028-29, according to the OBR. It also estimates that 3 million people will move into the higher rate band and 400,000 people will move into the 45% band. Living standards have recorded their largest reduction since the ONS’s records began in the 1950s.
The Government can turn round and say that all these tax rises were necessary to recoup the costs of state support during Covid and support for Ukraine. They could also point out that the inflation rate is outside their responsibility as it is meant to be controlled by the Bank of England. The sharp increase has deeply affected living standards; I am glad to see it falling. So I have some sympathy with the Government’s reasoning.
Also with regard to inflation, I repeat my previous assertion that the Governor of the Bank of England was asleep at the wheel, carrying on with quantitative easing for far too long and failing to recognise that earlier action was needed with regard to interest rates. In my view, there were obvious signs of price increases, such as in building materials, which should have raised inflationary alarm bells.
I was disappointed that the Chancellor failed to do anything on inheritance tax. I remind noble Lords that, when the then shadow Chancellor announced he would raise the threshold to £1 million in 2007, it was such a popular move that it stopped Gordon Brown holding a general election as the Conservatives surged in the opinion polls. If the Government are nervous about any change and wish to hold back until the Spring Budget, I cannot see any reason for this delay; there will be exactly the same criticism as now. The now well-respected GB News political commentator Piers Pottinger agrees with me that, while the Government are so far behind in the opinion polls, a bold measure such as this is required to win back Conservative voters.
I am also unhappy that the Government did not do anything about the “tourist VAT tax”. The extra benefits of scrapping it include the fact that it brings in additional tourists, who then spend extra money, particularly in shops, restaurants and hotels. In my view, that more than makes up for the revenue lost on VAT.
So, overall, although I am happy that the Autumn Statement did not spook the markets, I am sorry that it did little to reduce the overall tax burden—not that Labour are likely to do this; it could even increase it. The Conservatives are meant to be the party of lower taxation—something we need to remember.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, when I first put my name down for this debate, I did so in order to get extremely angry about the announcement in the Autumn Statement on the end of free prescriptions for certain benefit claimants. However, thanks to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, I can save my anger for tomorrow’s debate—save to say that it is a cruel and outrageous proposal that reflects so badly on a Government who have already lost much credibility and honour. Instead, I turn to the proposals in the Autumn Statement relating to pensions, which do not incur my anger; indeed, there are certain aspects that I positively welcome. But I do have some questions.
I welcome the Government’s continued commitment to the triple lock for increases in state pensions. Newspaper columnists and other commentators might speculate about the unpopularity of the cost of the triple lock but, in truth, there is overwhelming support for protecting state pensions, including with the triple lock, which is of particular help to those on low to middle incomes. In truth, the Government did not have any choice. This year’s increases are simply in line with the legislation and did not actually involve the triple lock.
It is worth mentioning here that everyone says pensions were increased by 8.5%, but they were not. No one’s pension was increased by 8.5%. Part of everyone’s pension was increased by 8.5%, but part of their pension was increased by 6.7%, because the triple lock applies only to the basic state pension and the new state pension.
Of course, it was not for want of trying that the Government complied with the triple lock—or the existing law, I should say. A series of kites were flown, clearly in line with government thinking. They might have fiddled with the index, although they did that two years ago and promised never to do it again. Another idea was to fiddle with the time period, but that would have been wide open to legal challenge. So, in the end, they made the right decision and complied with the law—admirable and a true reflection of public sentiment.
Turning to pensions, I welcome the new Minister to her post. I am sure that she will enjoy our future discussions on pensions, because the Autumn Statement included a whole series of proposals relating to pensions; we will have to wait and see whether anything substantial emerges from the proposals. The key of course was the Chancellor returning to his much-touted Mansion House reforms as the basis for
“a comprehensive package of pension reform that will provide better outcomes for savers, drive a more consolidated pensions market and enable pension funds to invest in a diverse portfolio”.
He oversold it a bit, I think; hope is a fine thing. However, I welcome some of the thinking behind these proposals, as they affect pension fund investment. Some of us have been arguing for years that pension funds should be invested in the productive economy and that this should be reflected in the bases used to estimate the contributions required to pay for the benefits promised.
Defined benefit schemes have had a tough time of late, but they still hold substantial funds available for investment, which should be used to grow our economy. Instead, for the past 25 years, they have been increasingly forced by regulatory errors and false concepts of what constitutes safety to invest in what the new City Minister has just called the “safest graveyard”. There was a de facto race to the graveyard for such schemes, with wind-ups seen as the preferred option.
Now, the Government have reversed their approach, with measures being promoted that they say are intended to encourage them to run on, to continue in operation, to continue in active life and to continue to pay benefits. The idea, it is argued, is that larger funds—involving some consolidation—will be able to take advantage of the expertise that is available to invest successfully and, hence, to increase growth in our economy. Can the Minister help us by indicating some sort of timetable for the implementation of these proposals?
A second key theme, looking at defined contribution schemes, is consolidation and the elimination of uneconomic “small pots”. There is also the idea of building on the success of Labour’s policy of automatic enrolment, or, to put it less charitably, “let’s learn from our mistakes so far”. The move here is to what is termed in the Statement as the “lifetime provider” model. How committed are the Government to early implementation of change in this area? I was present at a meeting yesterday with the new Pensions Minister and gathered the impression that the Government were only at an early stage of their thinking.
Finally, I want a commitment on the changes mentioned in the Statement to the rules on when surpluses can be repaid. The use of “repaid” is slightly misleading. The Statement says that this will include
“new mechanisms to protect members”.
The starting point is that the money in a pension scheme is the members’ money and should be used only where there is a benefit to the member. However, where discretionary benefits require the consent of the employer, it is possible that there is a deal to be done that can suit the employer and the members. But such a deal should be done only with the fullest disclosure to those who matter—the members—and only after consultation with them and the unions that represent them. This is obviously all subject to consultation, but I hope the noble Baroness will reaffirm the commitment in the Statement to protect members.
Baroness Lea of Lymm (Con)
My Lords, I was very encouraged by last week’s Autumn Statement and welcomed the policy changes, while recognising the Chancellor’s limited room for manoeuvre. However, before discussing these policy changes, I would like to put the Autumn Statement into some sort of economic context.
All too often, two recent, seismic economic events are overlooked or regarded as history, but their legacies still cast major shadows over the economy and inevitably restrict the Chancellor’s room for manoeuvre. The first event was, of course, the economic lockdown associated with the pandemic. There was a huge cost to the Exchequer, which the National Audit Office estimates at nearly £380 billion. That is about 20% of GDP. That is absolutely enormous. Unsurprisingly, the debt to GDP ratio soared and this debt needs financing. Also, lockdown severely hit the labour market. According to the ONS, the figure for the economically inactive—people aged 16 to 64 who are not in work and not looking for work; so, anyone who is over 64 is let off—was over 410,000 higher in the three months to July 2020 than in the three months to February 2020, prior to lockdown. This helps to explain the current tightness of the labour market, which is a major supply problem.
The second event, of course, relates to the soaring energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This was a major inflationary shock to the economy, at a time when inflationary pressures were already building up, reflecting supply-side disruptions after lockdown. Of course, the burst of inflation triggered a cost of living crisis and has undermined real personal disposable incomes significantly. Arguably rather late in the day, the Bank of England began to tighten interest rates. Interest rates of course hit mortgage holders, along with the higher RPI inflation that the public finances by significantly boosting debt interest payments.
Despite these seismic events, the economy has proved quite resilient. Granted, overall GDP growth since 2019 has been pretty weak but it has been similar to France’s and has exceeded Germany’s. It has been more resilient than was widely expected by major forecasting bodies. It is worth remembering that the Bank was still forecasting a two-year recession for 2023-24 as recently as February this year. However, anybody who has done any economic forecasting knows that it is not an exact science—or art, I do not know which. It is all the more difficult when the ONS revises the underlying data quite significantly, as it did in September with the GDP data. This is not to criticise the ONS—your Lordships would not expect me, as an ex-member of the Government’s statistical services, to do that—but it is an attempt to provide some context to the difficulties and uncertainties underlying the Autumn Statement.
I note that the OBR concluded in its Economic and Fiscal Outlook that:
“The economy has proved to be more resilient to the shocks of the pandemic and energy crisis than anticipated”
in March. It upgraded its forecast for 2023 but cautiously downgraded its overall growth projections for the forecast period—perhaps too cautiously.
Turning to the fiscal outlook, the OBR’s forecast reduced public sector borrowing quite significantly, as higher inflation boosts revenues more than spending. This provided the Chancellor with a windfall, which he largely used for some judicious tax cuts while sticking within his main fiscal targets. Do not forget those fiscal targets.
Turning to the policy measures, there were two major tax changes, both of which were very welcome. First, there was a package of reduction of national insurance contributions, including a 2p cut in the main employee rate and help for the self-employed. Secondly, full expensing of plant and machinery costs was made permanent in order to stimulate business investment and productivity, as already mentioned. Full expensing was initially reduced in the March Budget but only up to financial year 2025.
Given the aforementioned limited room for manoeuvre, the Chancellor understandably treated these two major sets of tax changes as his priorities, and I fully understand that. Suffice it to say that it is clear that he did not have the leeway to address two key tax issues which are very close to my heart, and which noble Lords have already alluded to. First, personal income tax thresholds are due to remain frozen at financial year 2021 levels, up to and including financial year 2027. These frozen thresholds increase the personal tax burden through fiscal drag, as stronger wage growth pushes more taxpayers into higher tax bands. Secondly, again as already mentioned, the Chancellor cut the main corporation tax rate from 25% back to 19%. As I said, I appreciate that his room for manoeuvre was very limited, especially as he had his eye on those key fiscal targets. However, it is instructive to note that, as already mentioned, the tax to GDP ratio will be increasing over the next five years to a post-war high of nearly 38% by financial year 2028. This is despite the tax cuts in the Autumn Statement. Perhaps, however, there might be further tax cuts in the Budget.
Finally, I note the Chancellor’s back-to-work plan, which he announced with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: getting people with sickness or disability, and the long-term unemployed, back into work. This is absolutely excellent, not least considering the substantial increase in the economically inactive compared with pre-lockdown, to which I referred earlier. Therefore, the plan must be welcomed. We must get these people, if they can work, back into work, and help the economy. All in all, it was an encouraging Statement, but let us be aware of the difficulties ahead.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, I join others in welcoming the Minister to her new role. Also, in the spirit of trying to have a balanced approach to the Autumn Statement, there are a number of aspects which I welcome. It is a relatively small intervention, but the additional finance announced by the Chancellor to combat anti-Semitism is particularly pertinent at this time, and I think the House can unite around it. Similarly, the Government’s commitment to maintain the triple lock on pensions is important. When my party entered into a confidence and supply arrangement in 2017 with the Government, we insisted that it was a key part of the agreement. It is good to see the Government honouring that.
I also welcome the increases in the national living wage and in the benefits uplift. While there is a bit of a mixed bag on personal taxation, at least the reduction in the national insurance contributions will offset some of the pressures that are there from the failure of the Government to alter the rates at which personal taxation is paid. Similarly, from a business point of view, some of the interventions around incentivising capital investment are also to be welcomed. To that extent, I do not take great issue with a lot of the things announced in the Autumn Statement; I have a greater problem with its missed opportunities.
The Government have rightly said—the Minister raised it today—that they place at the heart of the Autumn Statement economic growth, productivity and trying to ensure that the private sector grows at a much faster rate than the public sector. Those aspirations are all to be welcomed, but I do not necessarily see corresponding measures in the Autumn Statement that will help facilitate them. It is a great disappointment that the headline rate of corporation tax remains at 25%. Although there have been some small adjustments, and even the slightly lower rate of 19% for some businesses, it leaves the United Kingdom in a less competitive position than it should be when it comes to attracting international investment.
When one talks about corporation tax, it is easy to get drawn into the cliché of seeing this as some sort of device for global corporatism to benefit, but that is quite a short-sighted approach. Similarly, there has been a myopic approach taken that does not realise that a reduction in corporation tax can lead to a much greater tax yield. One looks to our near neighbour, the Republic of Ireland, which for many years has maintained a corporation tax rate of 12.5%. Look at the impact of that rate on its economy: a country less than 1/10th the size of the United Kingdom is projected to have a budget surplus of around £56 billion or £57 billion in 2027. It is noticeable that at the low point for the Republic of Ireland in the economic crisis of 2008-09, when in effect it had to be bailed out by Europe, with contributions from United Kingdom, and faced a range of austerity measures, the one thing it held on to as an economic tool was maintaining that low level of corporation tax. We are being short-sighted in our approach to corporation tax in this nation, and the opportunities for it to be a major driver for economic growth have been abandoned for the moment.
Secondly, on attracting people back into the workforce, we know that the Government’s own statistics in the last quarter identified job vacancies at around 957,000. That was slightly down on the previous quarter, but the failure to fill vacancies quickly is still a major drag on our economy. Although there were very welcome announcements on childcare in the Spring Budget, this Autumn Statement not only fails to follow up on those measures but probably provides additional barriers to their implementation. For example, from the point of view of parents choosing and being able to afford childcare, the tax-free childcare allowance has remained unaltered. Similarly, it has been highlighted by early years organisations that, although they welcome the increase in the national living wage, creating a situation in which a large number of their workers are getting a considerable boost to their incomes comes with a severe cost to those organisations. Without corresponding government support for those childcare organisations, the sector’s capacity to deliver what are ambitious targets for the expansion of childcare is, in effect, meaningless. It has been estimated by the National Day Nurseries Association that the number of nurseries closing in this country increased by 50% in the last financial year. If we are to deliver on childcare, which has such a major impact on our economy and children’s life chances, we need to ensure we have a joined-up approach to ensure that we can deliver that.
Finally, I will mention a more parochial issue: the Government’s failure in the Autumn Statement to look at the fiscal floor for regions of the United Kingdom. Although there is a Barnett consequential in the Autumn Statement of £185 million for Northern Ireland, £75 million is immediately absorbed through paying back overspend for the previous year, leaving £110 million for this year. Yet the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council indicates that if Northern Ireland was on the same needs-based analysis as Wales and other regions, our budget should have been £300 million higher last year, £450 million higher this year and more than £0.5 billion higher next year. There has been an absence of any commitment by the Government to deal with that.
In conclusion, this Autumn Statement produces some short-term benefits—perhaps that is what we should expect in what is likely to be an election year—but the ability to grasp long-term economic solutions for the whole United Kingdom has been missed on this occasion, and that is a severe disappointment.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I also welcome the Minister to the Treasury bit of the Front Bench, having dealt with her extensively in her previous job as Aviation Minister.
I look at the Autumn Statement and I think it is fair enough, but there is no inspiration in it. Next year we are going to be going to the country and asking people to vote for our party to continue in government. A random selection of my friends yielded no one who was particularly happy with this Statement; they think it is a Statement for other people. Within this House we are always hearing about the poor, but we never hear about the people who make the money that keeps this country going. They are people who go to work every morning, have qualifications and work hard. In a democracy there is no such thing as gratitude; people look to Governments to improve their standard of living. That has not happened recently and, indeed, there is a feeling abroad that the British state has been captured by the Civil Service and the woke brigade. The biggest example of that is the National Health Service. It has never had more money or more staff, and it has never had more problems, which it appears incapable of solving. All we get are calls for more and more money when, quite clearly, the system itself is not working.
I will give the Minister three things that I would like her to take back to the department and look at. First is the reform of death duties—inheritance tax. No one will believe you if you put it into the next manifesto. They will say that George Osborne promised this in 2007 and it was never delivered. Do we, on this side of the House, honestly believe that an incoming Labour Government will reform inheritance tax? I think it will be well down their list of priorities. But many people in Britain, particularly in the middle classes who keep this country running, hope to inherit part of a house, and about 30% of them believe that they will end up paying inheritance tax. The Minister has not only to reform it but to get it into law before the election. If it is in the manifesto, no one will believe we will carry it out because we have not done so in the past.
Secondly, I will mention the freeze on tax thresholds. Every year, the Britons who are just managing may get an increase in their income, and then they are pulled into higher-rate taxation. There is virtually no incentive to do anything. To say it is frozen until 2028 because of various government things is marvellous for the Government, but that is not going to incentivise anyone to vote for the Government. No one is going to get up and say, “Oh goody, by the time this Government come to an end, they may or may not have delivered on some promises that they have made and, frankly, do not have much of a record in carrying out”.
The third thing is child benefit. Its withdrawal rate has been frozen at £50,000 for 10 years, which means that more and more families are losing out. If the Minister thinks that a family with two children and an income of £50,000 a year is a rich family, she needs to think again. They are not; they are struggling. Even paying nursery fees is difficult. I ask the Government to look at this, please—look at increasing the threshold, changing the taper or doing something to help the hard-working middle class, which is losing its benefits all the time. I declare an interest here, because this affects two of my three children. My third child does not have any children, so this affects both of those who do.
My daughter was a convinced Conservative long before I was. At nine years old, she stood as the Conservative candidate in her school election in 1997. Note that it was 1997, and she was a Conservative candidate. She actually came second and was beaten by the Green—you can tell it was a private school. She said to me on the weekend, “Dad, what are they actually offering families like ours at the end of the Statement?” The Minister will have to go back to the Treasury team meetings—I know it is not within her gift to change these things—to ram home that we need changes in these areas for the hard-working, middle-income, middle class.
My final point might please the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, although he is not in his place. We somehow need to find a way to tax the billionaires who jet in from Monte Carlo and keep their savings in the British Virgin Islands and all over the place. We seem to put no effort into taxing them. This is not just for Britain—it needs an international move—but there is no sign of anything happening. Can we please get together? If people thought that the Government were trying to get some money out of these tax dodgers, they might feel warm towards them. At the moment, the feeling—and this applies equally to the Labour Party—is that they are not bothered. Could the Minister please remember that you have to win an election, as well as have a nice and very sound economic statement? We need to win an election, please.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, just two weeks ago during the debate in this place on the King’s Speech, I admitted to being baffled by the Prime Minister’s comments in his introduction. He talked about a “vibrant economy”, which had “turned the comer” and was making investors excited. I should declare that I am an investor in British SMEs, so I was somewhat concerned, rather than excited, to see that the Chancellor appears to have been drinking from the same bottle of Kool-Aid.
In his introduction to the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor says that he is delivering
“the biggest business tax cut in modern British history”
backing
“British business with 110 growth measures”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/23; cols. 325-36.]
He said that we sit in “Europe’s most innovative economy”, which is soon to become an “AI powerhouse”.
That is mouth-watering stuff but, before I rush to invest, let me indulge in some due diligence with the help of the OBR. First, GDP growth of 0.6% this year will accelerate to only 0.7% next year. The tax burden will continue to rise over the next five years to 38% of GDP, the highest rate in modern history, and our interest payments on debt will grow to £122 billion per annum. That is triple what it was a few years ago, raising questions around debt sustainability. Your Lordships may well ask how 110 growth measures deliver so little growth. Is the OBR being excessively pessimistic? Apparently, it is not; the Bank of England is forecasting 0.1% growth next year and just 0.2% in 2025, and most independent forecasters are more bearish than the OBR.
Whichever forecast we take, the problem remains: there is virtually no growth momentum in the economy. As we know, that so-called fiscal headroom to usher in £20 billion of tax cuts was driven by inflation. That is fiscal drag, not economic growth, and it is set to continue. That is why we are heading for the highest tax burden in 70 years: it is a percentage of something that has ceased to grow. Our GDP is stuck at around £2.3 trillion, which is not sufficient to finance public services for an ageing and increasingly unfit population of 67 million, let alone to invest in the nation’s infrastructure.
The Chancellor is rightly concerned about our low productivity, especially in the public sector, yet there is little in this Statement to address that, bar reducing the size of the Civil Service. If we are serious about the “long term”, which is an expression that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor keep harping on about, we need relentless focus on our productivity, which continues to lag behind France, Germany and the US by disturbing margins.
This is not just about pushing up low levels of business investment or providing tax breaks, such as full expensing—welcome though those measures are. Ask employers around this country what the biggest block to productivity is and they will tell you that it is the workforce, not just the supply of labour but the calibre. We need a long-term qualitative approach to improving worker productivity. That involves skills, training and proper levels of investment in education, yet our education budget is not even keeping pace with inflation. In fact, we will pay more interest on our debt this year than we will spend on the Department for Education’s entire budget.
We are still waiting for per-pupil funding to return to 2010 levels, in real terms—a pledge, incidentally, that Rishi Sunak made several years ago as Chancellor. We now have 9 million adults in England who have low basic literacy and numeracy skills. That is a huge productivity blocker in itself.
At the other end of the spectrum, 40% of our graduates are leaving university unable to find graduate-level employment, while saddled with an average £40,000 debt that they will struggle ever to repay. That is a damaging mismatch of skills and vacancies, and a terrible waste of talent and money. We need to address it.
As for skills and training, the Chancellor is stumping up a derisory £50 million over the next two years to increase the number of apprentices in engineering and “other key growth sectors”. To put that in perspective, it is less in annual terms than the wage bill of a second- tier football club such as Norwich City—no disrespect to the Canaries.
I find myself, for the fourth time in my relatively short career in this place, urging the Government to set up a permanent productivity council, headed not by politicians but by leading practitioners from both the private and public sectors, to address the long-term challenges of generating real economic growth. I would appreciate the Minister’s response to this suggestion, for we are in desperate need of a long-term plan for the economy and to generate a growth culture. This Autumn Statement, like its predecessors, simply misses the mark.
Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)
My Lords, I join the long line of people welcoming my noble friend to the Treasury and the Front Bench today. I have a lot of respect for her personally and she has done the jobs she has held within government extremely well. Before she was in this House, she had a very noble cause as well, which we worked on together in 2016. I hope that her current position is more successful for her than that was for us.
I am here today to speak about a document. For those who got all their papers from the Printed Paper Office, or from the Table Office in the House of Commons, there was a separate one buried deep within them called the Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment. I feel that I should restrict my comments to that, and I will happily test any Member of this House to see whether they have read it—I am looking at the Minister. It is only 125 pages. I do not think that it will get in the Amazon bestseller list of books, but I feel it is of some significant interest, not least as the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement fully accepted its principal recommendations. What the report has brought out will be a basis for some reorganisation of government to make it more friendly towards foreign direct investment.
The background to the review is that the Chancellor asked to see me and said that he was disappointed that we were losing some significant foreign direct investment deals. That does not mean that it is a disaster—we are good at foreign direct investment—but he wanted me to look deeply into some of the deals that we had lost, find out exactly the reasons why and come up with some recommendations to deal with them. Of course, it is very easy for some people to say that it is all because of Brexit—I would have liked to have said that—and for other people to say that it is all because of corporation tax. However, the evidence we got from interviewing more than 200 companies—sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and multinational companies, mainly—is far more complex.
This country basically has what I call a 15-love advantage, as in a tennis game: the clichés about companies liking the rule of law, the language and the fact that they can get executives who want to live and work here are absolutely true. That is where the 15-love comes in. However, there is then a story of a number of factors that seem to get in the way of investment. The grant system, the investment system that the Government have, which is comparatively generous—more generous than I first thought—is very difficult to get hold of. It takes a long time, and there is a general feeling that prospective investors are moved from one department to another. There is then a series of other obstacles, such as planning, visas, skills, the grid, et cetera. These are all well documented.
With the time available—noble Lords are very fortunate, as my last speech on this subject was 55 minutes long and I have only three more minutes to go—I note that we have a number of suggested solutions to this: restructuring the government, having a senior-level committee for investment chaired by the Chancellor and having an Investment Minister over three departments. Their responsibility would basically be to supervise all investment decision processes from the beginning of the inquiry through to their completion. Each relevant department would have a Minister and a senior member of the Civil Service, part of whose responsibility would be to push forward investment. No longer would the Home Office say that it deals with visas and the investment angle is not really its problem; nor would the DfE say that it does skills but does not take investment decisions into consideration.
In the end, I found in the evidence I received that the view of some Members of these Benches about the future of how government should organise itself—basically to do as little as possible, cut taxes and leave it to the market—is completely fallacious. In a business—as far as attracting investment, the Government are one—you must do what your competitors do. People have a small-state fantasy about countries such as Singapore and others—that we can be Singapore-on-Thames. But these countries get totally involved in investment decisions, and many of them throw money at companies to entice them to come here.
We are not market-makers but market-takers, and we must do what our competitors do. We must give companies the incentives to come here; we must provide a quick and efficient package to include the money, energy and all the things they look at for an investment decision; and, above all, we need consistency of policy. This has been shown with net zero: policy on internal combustion engines has changed three times since we published the industrial strategy in 2016. We need consistency of policy and very efficient government machinery to deliver it. I hope all noble Lords will read the report, and I look forward to discussing it in future.
Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)
My Lords, I want to focus my remarks this evening on the 39% stake that the Government still have in the NatWest bank. In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor indicated that the Government were considering disposing of their holding over a period, suggesting also that they might go down the “Tell Sid” route of early privatisations.
I want to suggest something very radical. I think it is accepted that, in this country, there is near zero financial education in our state schools. I suggest that the Government gift, say, £5,000 worth of the NatWest shares that they own to the 4,400 state secondary schools, to be held for the long term. That would cost the Government only something like £22 million. That £5,000 worth of shares would annually produce a dividend income of about £350. My suggestion is that the pupils themselves could decide, by voting, how that £350 is spent. Maybe it could be on an item for the school or to subsidise a school trip, something along those lines, or maybe even go to a local charity, but the pupils would decide. Similarly, they could participate digitally in the NatWest AGM.
In my judgment, this suggestion would raise awareness of how banks and the stock market operate. I am very pleased to say that, when I put this idea to the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, who drove the programme of introducing computers into secondary schools when he was IT Minister, he was very supportive. I was also very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Howell, talk about wider share ownership a little earlier.
The Government also could and should provide a little money to enable approved speakers to go into schools to talk about financial education. Parallel to all this, I hope we can encourage PLCs, particularly those in the regions, to gift shares in their companies to the state secondary schools in their area, from which they draw recruitment or will in years to come. I put this idea yesterday to a public company chief executive and FD of a company that I am invested in; they immediately said that, yes, they would sign up and thought it was an excellent idea.
I realise that the Minister will not be able to give a reaction immediately, and I would not expect her to, but I hope that she will take this idea to the Treasury with her and that they will give it serious consideration. I hope that the Labour Front Bench will also perhaps consider this, because the opportunity may well come to them in a few months’ time.
Moving on, I was hoping that the Autumn Statement would reverse two early mistakes that I believe were made by this Government. First is the mistake that George Osborne made when he disallowed mortgage interest for landlords on their borrowings, which has had a massively negative effect on the private rented market. As we know, landlords are leaving the market and selling up, and I was hoping that would be reversed. Secondly, there is the decision that I believe the present Prime Minister made when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer to disallow overseas visitors from reclaiming VAT. There has been a massive campaign, as the Minister and the House will know, by our hoteliers and virtually all our leading retailers and restaurateurs to try and reverse the present situation and give us back a level playing field.
Finally, if the Government and the Treasury are looking to save money, I suggest that they look at the 60,000 civilians employed by the Ministry of Defence. It is an extraordinarily high figure—we have only about 70,000 in our Army—and has hardly changed over the last five years. In fact, if anything, it has slightly increased, despite the fact that our forces have been reduced. Almost every large employer in the country will have reduced their headcount over the last few years. We have had developments in automation, video conferencing and similar, yet the civilians employed by the MoD stay stubbornly at this figure of 60,000. I suggest that the Government and the Treasury look at this and see if they cannot reduce that headcount and move the money saved from the blunt end, as it were, to the sharper end of our Armed Forces and equipment for our Armed Forces.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to welcome the Minister to the Front Bench and I wish her every success. I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, with his very interesting suggestions on educating youngsters, particularly on investment and shares, and applaud his work over many years in that area.
I declare an interest as the founder and research director of Politeia, a think tank which has published a great deal on many of the matters raised by your Lordships today and in the Autumn Statement, particularly on levels of tax and public expenditure and their impact on the economy and inflation. Other noble Lords have commented on many aspects of tax and public spending. My noble friend Lady Lea spoke on the wider economic context. My noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Frost considered the overall context and the impact of the size and power of the state on economic growth. We heard an interesting vignette from my noble friend Lord Dobbs earlier on what happened in the United States economy when we saw success moving from the sunshine state and the north-east and New York down to Texas. There are lessons for this country there.
I welcome the lower inflation figure of 4.6% and the forecast that inflation is due to fall to 2.8% by 2024 and to reach the 2% target in 2025. My noble friend Lord Northbrook commented on inflation and asked very pertinent questions about the role of the Bank of England and its governor. Perhaps I might reflect on questions prompted by the Bank’s remit of the inflation figure target of 2% of GDP. Given that inflation in the 28 years to 2020 was 2%—a rise of 2% in the CPI—what were the authorities in the Bank thinking when inflation went up five times that much over the next two years to reach 11% in October last year? Did they expect it? If not, why not? We might recall the question asked by Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth when visiting the LSE at the time of the financial crisis in 2008: “Why did nobody notice it?” It was a question to which economists were then just beginning to turn their attention. Indeed, one answer given in 2021 to our current problems and since was that the rise in inflation was due to external shocks: Covid, the Ukraine war, escalating fuel prices and so on.
The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, has already referred to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee report Making an Independent Bank of England Work Better, and I too congratulate its chairman and committee. The report, published this week, noted the importance of an independent Bank in achieving price stability, but mentioned that public confidence had fallen in the Bank of England, given that inflation has remained above target. While the report referred to supply shocks, it also noted that the
“above-target inflation over this period also reflects errors in the conduct of monetary policy, including an over-reliance on inadequate forecasting models”.
Although not alone among central banks in failing to anticipate the high and persistent inflation, the report suggested that there may be
“a lack of diversity of view in the Bank of England and wider central bank community”,
and that
“Some witnesses … considered that the inflationary potential of elevated rates of money supply growth were given insufficient attention by the Bank”.
Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that perhaps Governments pay too much attention to the specialist advisers on whom they rely. The problem raised by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee highlights one of the significant changes in the measures and arrangements used by official bodies—that the money supply and the growth in money supply no longer tend to be used or considered to matter. Put less delicately, there may a tendency to groupthink.
The economist John Greenwood recently drew attention to the data available then and now on money supply growth, noting that each period of high inflation was preceded by a rapid growth in the money supply. This is a subject which the monetary economic and former Treasury adviser Professor Tim Congdon has considered over decades. Indeed, in April 2020 in the Wall Street Journal, Congdon predicted the return of inflation in the US with the highest annual rate of money growth since World War II. I welcome the Government’s commitment outlined in the Statement to lower inflation and their support for an independent Bank, but might it now be timely to include in the Bank’s letter a requirement, as Professor Congdon proposed, that the Governor of the Bank of England would write to the Chancellor when
“money growth is too high or too late relative to the 2 per cent inflation target”
and tell the Chancellor
“why the … quantity of money will prove compatible with future inflation close to the 2 per cent target”?
Such a requirement would be fully consistent with the operational independence of the Bank and, combined with other proposals from the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, would help the Bank as well as the Government, the Treasury and their economic advisers to take account of the diversity of data and view and ensure the right course is followed. No longer need a potential reluctance to take account of money supply growth be a factor in decisions which can have such a devastating effect on our economy and the lives and livelihoods of the people.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to her new role on the Front Bench. I will speak briefly to express my concern about the regressive impact of the Autumn Statement on working households. I like and respect Jeremy Hunt and fear that the Autumn Statement reflects the undue influence of the right wing of the Conservative Party at present.
The OBR considered the tax changes of this Government, including those in the Autumn Statement, and concluded that tax as a share of the economy will rise every year to a post-war high of 37.7% of GDP by 2028-29, most of it driven by tax threshold freezes and strong nominal earnings growth, which together hit hard-pressed working families particularly hard. The Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that the national insurance contribution reductions announced in the Autumn Statement will largely benefit the best-off households. For every £100 spent on these cuts, £46 will benefit the richest fifth of households and only £3 of every £100 will go to the worst-off families.
Paul Johnson points out that the tax cuts in the Autumn Statement are funded by the promise of years of very low real-terms increases in public service spending. Of course, these services benefit the poor disproportionately. The Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson described the public services as on their knees after 13 years of Conservative Government. Clearly things are not going to improve.
A very small but highly regressive tax change is that on tobacco products. For me, this small tax change epitomises the unfairness of the Autumn Statement. In general, tobacco taxes will increase by RPI plus 2%. However, duties on hand-rolling tobacco products will increase by RPI plus 12%. These products are overwhelmingly used by low-paid people. Again, they are being penalised.
Finally, as the Minister mentioned, the national living wage will increase by 9.8% to £11.44 an hour from 1 April 2024. This will not compensate for the price inflation and tax changes in recent years. Again, those on low incomes will suffer.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, viewed from the position of strict Treasury orthodoxy, this was a highly intelligent Autumn Statement. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, who spoke earlier, said that it was above average, which I think is high praise in mandarin-speak. It was well thought out. I very much doubt whether it will fall apart, as some have in the past, and expectations in particular were well managed.
The main point, as is surely right, was help for business. The Chancellor said he was actioning 110 different ways to help business. Personally, I think that was about 100 too many, but none the less the thought was clearly right. In particular there was making investment fully expensed against corporation taxation. I know from my business career how important it was, when we came to that part of the year when we made investment decisions, to have the feeling that those investments were fully set against corporation tax. That would be a huge relief and a big incentive.
I also support the initiative the Government have taken in asking my noble friend Lord Harrington to produce a special report on foreign direct investment. He has come up with some interesting ideas, such as a concierge service for such investment. He is not in his seat at the moment, but he might be amused that the film “Barbie”, which is the epitome of sunny California, was actually made in his former constituency of Watford. What we can do in this country is quite remarkable. I even saw some distinctly British scenarios lurking in the background of the film “Napoleon”, which was rather interesting. Our creative industries are clearly in great shape. So we are supporting our innovative industries.
Looking at all of this, it seems that we are getting towards what I would describe as an industrial strategy: if it walks like an industrial strategy and talks like an industrial strategy, it probably is an industrial strategy, and I am delighted that we have got there.
I was also pleased with the support for the lower paid. I am always in favour of increasing the minimum wage. I also appreciate the 2% cut in employees’ national insurance. I agree that that is more debatable in view of the pressures on public spending, but people need a little bit of cheer at the moment and it does help growth. However, I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, is right that we will soon be back to talking about higher taxation, in view of all the inevitable demands there will be on public services.
That is the short term. In the longer term, I am afraid to say that we have been running the economy since what I call the Blair-Brown days in a very sub-optimal way, because it has relied on high and increasing levels of immigration. Some people think that mass immigration is good for the economy; it is not. It increases the size of the economy but GDP per head, which is what matters, is not necessarily increased. Indeed, large-scale immigration may decrease productivity. Putting it in the simplest terms, a worker needs capital to become productive. An immigrant does not bring capital with him. Therefore, the country has to develop capital to make him productive, on top of the capital it needs to develop for the existing population. Frankly, we are not very good at that—or we have not been recently. As we know, immigration also has very big downsides, which I will not go on to in this speech.
It need not be like this. When Margaret Thatcher and John Major were Prime Ministers, net immigration was usually around 50,000 per annum and the annual rate of GDP growth was greater than it has been in the last 20 years. I do not believe for a minute that Margaret Thatcher would ever have agreed to allow immigration to get to the level of 745,000, which it was last year. I do not believe for one minute that she would have authorised that.
We can also look abroad. We have recently had a visit from the President of South Korea. That country had a ruinous civil war that ended only in 1953, but its gross domestic product per capita, measured on purchasing power parity, is now virtually the same as ours—and it has almost no immigration. The same can be said for Taiwan and Singapore, which have no immigration to speak of and are as rich or richer than we are—so it can be done.
I suggest that the Government at the centre, in Downing Street or the Cabinet Office, take a long-term, holistic view of the demographic, environmental, societal and economic trends in the country and start to adjust the economic model that we have been pursuing over the last 20 or 30 years. Otherwise, I fear that the quality of life in Britain will continue to deteriorate and other countries that take a more rational or long- term view will continue to overtake us.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, I was deeply perplexed when I listened to the monarch’s speech at the opening of Parliament and, equally, to the budgetary speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The question I ask is: to what extent do these speeches represent an attempt at bamboozling the public, and to what extent do they represent acts of self-deception on the part of the Government? I have not reached any firm conclusion.
The Chancellor’s recent Autumn Statement is full of doubtful claims about the success of the economy. We hear, for example, that under the Conservatives our technology sector has grown to become the third-largest in the world—that is, double the size of the German sector and three times that of France. This seems to be patently untrue, and one may wonder what statistics are being misused to support such a claim. The truth is that our manufacturing sector has sunk to a proportionate level that is way below the corresponding levels of those other economies. What, then, is the technology sector to which the Chancellor refers?
In appraising the Autumn Statement, it is clear that many of its provisions, which include significant reductions in taxes, are intended to enhance the electoral prospects of the Conservatives. However, given how dim these prospects seem to be, one wonders about the extent to which the provisions are intended to embarrass a succeeding Labour Government.
The Autumn Statement has the intention of reducing public expenditure in the early years of the succeeding Government. It severely restricts the financial leeway available to them unless they are prepared to increase taxes. A Labour Government would be intent on repairing the damage that Conservative Administrations have inflicted on public services. Damage has been done to the health service, care for the aged and the finances of local government. Our schools are in a state of physical disrepair, as are our prisons, which are severely overcrowded. Much else needs to be repaired, and public sector wages need to be restored in some measure. However, if the trajectory that has been defined in the Autumn Statement were followed, none of these repairs would be possible. There is also an urgent need to repair the physical infrastructure of the economy, which includes the transport and energy infrastructure. Our water supply and sewerage system also require urgent attention.
Beyond these needs, there are huge and looming costs associated with the transition to a green economy and the fulfilment of the programme to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. Government support is required both to sustain technological innovation and to assist in establishing the facilities that are available to a net-zero economy. So far, little has been forthcoming. An example of the shortfall has been in the failure to satisfy the requirements of the automobile industry in converting to the manufacture of electrically powered vehicles. A precondition for a successful transition is the existence of an adjacent industry for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries. The Government failed to avert the collapse of the Britishvolt project to establish a mega-factory for manufacturing batteries. The project faltered for want of sufficient investment from the private sector—this is at a time when foreign Governments are investing heavily to establish those facilities.
The derelictions of the Government can be attributed, in large measure, to the prevalence of a political philosophy that limits state interventions and proposes that our industrial infrastructure can be sustained by private capital and the initiatives of free enterprise. State interventions are necessary to achieve the transition of our energy sector. The programme to restore our nuclear power faltered because the Government failed to recognise that it could not be achieved by the private sector alone.
Their response has been to imagine that instead we can rely on so-called renewable sources of energy. But here, the intermittence of these resources necessitates a means of storing the energy. In order to accommodate lengthy and unpredictable periods when the sun is masked and the wind does not blow, there is a need for a large amount of long-term storage. It is doubtful whether effective incentives can be devised to encourage the private sector to make the necessary provisions, yet the Government and the Civil Service blithely assume that they can devise a commercial model which will allow them to avoid any direct participation in providing the energy storage.
I earnestly hope that an incoming Labour Government will not suffer from the same delusions. They must take an active role in repairing the damage and in fostering the technological transformation of our economy.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, it would be churlish not to admit that the Government have faced some very difficult headwinds with the Covid pandemic and Ukraine. That is, of course, the economic background to the Autumn Statement. But this Autumn Statement is rather like a Christmas gift from an eccentric aunt—I have really tried to like it, but I just cannot. To paraphrase Walter Mondale in 1984: “Where’s the beef?”
It is very much an incremental Budget and does not seem to have a coherent, long-term narrative. I cannot work out, in fact, if it is the apotheosis or the coda of social and economic liberalism. Yes, there are some good parts—the 110 growth measures, the work capability assessments to get people back into meaningful work, the increase in the national living wage, pension fund reforms and the permanent full expensing of capital allowances—but that is against the background of huge demographic change, low productivity, low growth and a lack of meaningful reform after 13 years in social care, housing, planning, the National Health Service, government and the Civil Service. Of course, stagnant real wages are the largest reduction in living standards since the 1950s—under a Conservative Government.
Indeed, there are other good measures as well, such as the national insurance contribution changes, but even that is a sleight of hand by frozen allowances and fiscal drag. It is actually giving a tax cut via further borrowing, which was deprecated just a year ago when the same people criticised Liz Truss and her Administration. Debt will remain high, at 93% of GDP by 2029. On tax, we will be bringing an extra 4 million people into income tax in that period, and 3 million into the top rate. On public expenditure, our proportion of GDP will still be approximately 43% by 2028-29.
I will just challenge the Minister on a specific issue. The Resolution Foundation maintains that the spending power of unprotected departments, such as the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, will be cut by 16% in the next five years. I think that is unsustainable for the delivery of public services, and I say that as a Thatcherite Conservative. Just today, the OBR said that there were no public spending plans beyond 2025, and that is a very worrying issue for any Government who are elected. Perhaps the Minister will answer that point later.
Economics is about the efficient allocation of resources, so I will mention three sins of omission and commission when we are talking about tough choices. The first is the triple lock. Paying 8.5% in pensions to people, many of whom have a very high disposable income, and uprating in line with inflation—effectively bribing a cohort with £30 billion—and making a capital transfer of funds from young people to older people is unfair, unsustainable and, frankly, cynical politics. I think that the Chancellor will look at that issue in the Budget in 2024.
I also need to make the point about immigration. We have increased the number of people in England and Wales alone by 3.3 million in the last 11 years. The most damning statistic in the Green Book is that per capita GDP is actually going down this year because we have so many people coming into the country, sharing the admittedly modest increase of 0.6% of GDP. That cannot be right. Immigration is important and is to be supported if you have a plan, but the net immigration figures of 672,000 announced last week are not a plan. The figure in 1997 was 107,000, and even in 2010 it was 294,000.
We must do something about the liberalised international student regime. There has been a 40% increase, to over 200,000, in work visas given to dependants. The definition of skilled work is now meaningless. Even the Labour Party is ridiculing this Conservative Government for the salary threshold policy, which is completely wrong. Yesterday, S&P Global research showed that less than a quarter of those coming to this country in the last year or so have come seeking work. It is an unsustainable position.
I know big business is addicted to cheap foreign labour, but it embeds welfare dependency, destroys social solidarity and cohesion, and is corrosive of democratic legitimacy when you have stood for election saying that you are going to reduce immigration. It kills incentives to train resident workers, to innovate and to improve productivity. If uncontrolled, unmitigated immigration is such a great thing, why is growth so flat and productivity so poor? There is no evidence that the level of immigration is anything other than cost-neutral. Most new migrants, particularly recently, are in fact net recipients of public expenditure and not contributors. They are an overall net fiscal cost. I certainly welcome the prospect of emergency legislation to address these issues urgently, but it may be too little and too late.
Previous speakers have mentioned welfare. Our system is broken. We will be spending £30 billion on universal credit in the next five years—a 40% increase. There will be 3.4 million people on sickness benefits. In 2010, 3,000 people each week were found by work capability assessments to be unable to work. That figure is now more than 35,000 a week; it is an unsustainable position. Demographic change and the triple lock mean that the system is creaking and falling apart.
In conclusion, whatever Government are elected next year, immigration and welfare must be a priority for tough choices to save our economy and public services from being overwhelmed. This Autumn Statement could have been a catalyst for those long-term decisions, and I hope that they will be taken into account in the Budget. It pains me to say that this was a very sad missed opportunity.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, amid such a body of economic expertise and experience, I intend to focus simply on some of the main headline-grabbing announcements on housing in the Autumn Statement. Interestingly, I will echo some of the thread of criticism made by many noble Lords.
Despite the rise in universal credit, pensions and the national living wage, the welcome big announcement, for those of us involved in housing, was the unfreezing of the local housing allowance to restore it to the 30th percentile. With homelessness at a record high, rising rents and a cost of living crisis, unfreezing housing benefits to cover the bottom third of local rents is an essential lifeline to keep people in their homes. But—and there has to be a but—it is still not restored to the 50th percentile, which was the benchmark in 2010, and, regrettably, it will not come into play until next April. It is nearly December. Surely the Government realise that this will leave many families facing an uncertain cold winter, with many facing the threat of eviction and subsequent homelessness, or spending their Christmas in one-room temporary accommodation—a grim situation for the most vulnerable. Will the Government reconsider and bring this decision forward?
The additional sting in the tail is that this rise is for one year only and will be frozen again from 2025, when the whole depressing cycle will start again. These delayed starts and later freezes are no way to run either a benefits or a housing system. Meanwhile, the increases in the local housing allowance, and benefits in general, will also bring more people within the scope of the benefits cap. Although that was increased last year, it has been frozen this year. Do we see a pattern? It is still way below what it was 10 years ago.
We also see in this Autumn Statement clever examples of smoke and mirrors—or, as the previous speaker said, sleights of hand. Take the amounts of money given to the extension of the affordable homes guarantee scheme: a £3 billion extension—good news. But these are loans to housing associations to allow them to build more affordable homes for rent. All good—but a loan compensates only partially for the lack of enough real new money being put into a system already creaking under the costs of decarbonisation, building safety, spiralling material and labour costs, and all the other factors significantly squeezing associations’ budgets. As they are the main providers of affordable and social homes, it is important that we recognise the precarious financial situation of some of the sector.
The social housing regulator has recently announced the downgrading of “a couple of dozen” associations over their financial viability, with the lower V2 assessment becoming “the new normal”. That reflects the economic reality for the sector. But the consequence of this harsh reality is that many have had to reduce their building and development aspirations, or put them on hold completely. This is a very poor state of affairs when the need for social homes has never been greater.
The Minister will rightly say that there is some new money. But take the third round of the local authority housing fund. It is hoped that £450 million will provide 2,400 new homes. Interestingly, the criteria for this fund have been tweaked to include use for temporary accommodation and housing Afghan refugees. Both those groups need secure permanent accommodation, but there are already more than 100,000 families in temporary accommodation, and about 21,000 Afghans have been resettled under different schemes and a further 1,054 entered the UK in the first three months of this year, requiring homes. It must be recognised that this has put real constraints on council budgets. Put quite bluntly, in areas of high-cost housing, properties are simply not there at an affordable price. Councils are now in the invidious position of competing with ordinary citizens to find homes to rent for their groups, putting more pressure on an already overheated market, with soaring rental prices.
Add to this the increasing waiting lists for social housing and, according to the most recent English Housing Survey, some 750,000 families living in overcrowded conditions—sleeping in hallways and living rooms, and sharing beds with parents or siblings. It is not an exaggeration to say that this money, however welcome, is a drop in the ocean.
There were also interesting headline announcements on planning. One was that there would be a new premium planning incentive, whereby local planning authorities would be able to recover the costs of major business applications, in return for guaranteed faster timelines. That will undoubtedly help cash-strapped councils, and hopefully speed up applications—but, given that only 15% of planning applications currently come from such businesses, it will be helpful but merely a plaster on the wound.
The fear is that council officers will concentrate on those cash-earning applications, while the vast majority of applications will be placed in the pile labelled, “To be dealt with as and when we can”. Given the serious recruitment issues that the sector faces, this will be a tough challenge. The Autumn Statement promises a pot of money for additional planning officers, but there are simply not enough trained planning officers in the system to make a difference in the short term. The bodies are simply not out there, and many go straight to work for the housebuilders, because—guess what—they can get significantly more money by doing so. Importantly, as with all the areas in development construction, the industry skills shortage is acute. This is probably the most significant barrier to speeding up planning applications and improving build-out rates. We need a longer-term training and recruitment strategy across all the skills within the construction industry and its supply chains. Never has the need been more urgent.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, I will start where the Chancellor started, with his opening remarks. If I have to criticise those remarks, it is because he was far too modest. We have a growing economy. We are doing a lot better than he gave us credit for. The recent IMF figures show that average real GDP growth from 2010 to 2023—to take a period at random—was 1.53%. That is not great, you might say, but look at the lower figures for Germany, at 1.45%; France, at 1.18%; Spain, at 1%; and the Euro average, at 1.25%. Tick, I say.
Thankfully, my noble friend covered this in her opening remarks. She is a welcome addition to the Treasury team, and I give her a warm welcome. Congratulations as well to my noble friend Lord Harrington on producing his inward investment report, which was so well received.
Some would say “Well done the Tory team” on the growth to date, but I also congratulate the Chancellor on his first and opening pledge—not widely reported—to offer up to £7 million to the Holocaust Educational Trust and related organisations. For full disclosure, I am a donor to the HET. I believe it is so important to educate on and fight anti-Semitism, and I was proud to do so in Parliament Square this weekend.
This Budget struck me as perfect for the time: balanced and hopeful, with clear benefits for most as the economy recovers, and without any irresponsible giveaways. It promotes considered policies that make sense. For example, there were no changes to IHT, or even its abolition, as widely sought by some. Labour, on the other hand, seems to be flip-flopping on its previous announcements, which were to abolish business property relief for IHT. I do not know where they stand on it but, if they kept their word to abolish that, it would dramatically knock the AIM market which relies on it and almost every single private family company would be at risk of collapse when a shareholder passed away. I declare my interests, as in the register, but, even though it would probably help my business if business property relief were withdrawn, as everybody would have to sell, it would be a disaster for the country. Can my noble friend the Minister write and tell me how much inheritance tax is currently sheltered by business property relief, so that we can have a proper debate about it?
I welcome the announcements on research and development. However, as the chairman of the Finance Bill Sub-committee of the Economic Affairs Committee, I can confirm that we are producing a report on R& D tax credits in the near future, so I will not speak further on the detail of that today.
I am pleased to see a commitment to OECD Pillar 2. I know it is not popular with every member of my party, but the tax treatment of multinationals, in my opinion, needs urgent attention. If we do not get that right, I still want to see a digital sales tax, which I have consistently advocated.
I want to focus my remarks on just over three lines in the Green Book, in section 5.76. They were not even mentioned in the Chancellor’s speech and are on EIS and VCT. My noble friend will recall that, in the Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto, a pledge on page 34 assures us that EIS and SEIS will continue—and there you go, it pops up in the Autumn Statement as a pledge to legislate to extend the sunset clause. I have to ask why we need to legislate. HM Treasury knows that this can easily be resolved by Treasury regulation. Perhaps I can help my noble friend by explaining the problem.
While we regard EIS as a tax relief or tax break, the EU regards it as state aid. As such, it is governed by the Windsor Framework, in as far as it includes companies which trade in goods—not services, just goods. Although at first sight this should apply only to those companies physically based in Northern Ireland, because Northern Ireland is still in the single market, I am afraid that the EU regards the regulations as applying to all of the UK, as it is possible for a company in, say England, to have a subsidiary company in Northern Ireland that might benefit from what it regards as state aid and we regard as tax breaks. To the extent that there is trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, the EU is concerned that this could give an unfair advantage to the Northern Irish company.
The Windsor Framework helps us by trying to offer a pragmatic route out of this. But it does not clarify whether we can say, with certainty, that we can abolish the sunset clause, or indeed make other changes that I would like to see in respect of EIS rules, which are currently too restrictive, without any EU permission. In the past, when we were a member of the EU, that permission would be granted by the EU if we could show—indeed, we had to prove—that there was an equity gap which meant that EIS was needed as state aid. It will be impossible to provide proof that there is an equity gap in Northern Ireland, mainly because the equity gap figures for Northern Ireland are simply not available. In theory, we could remove all companies engaged in goods from EIS—but what a disaster that would be.
So I think we are not looking at getting rid of the sunset clause that easily at all; at best, we might put it back a further 10 years. However, the financial services industry and the savings industry really need an urgent answer from the Treasury, if not today from the Dispatch Box then very soon afterwards, as to whether this proposal, which is in the Autumn Statement, has been squared with the EU. Do the Government have the permission of the EU to abolish the sunset clause, as is claimed? How depressing it would be to discover that we are still dependent on EU approvals for an otherwise excellent Autumn Statement.
Lord Desai (CB)
My Lords, I wish first to commiserate with the noble Baroness on having a very hard job: of sitting here listening to people and even having to answer questions. Let me assure her that I am not going to pose any questions to her in the course of my speech.
The Statement is not a bad primer for an election manifesto. It is not a serious Autumn Statement but just an election manifesto: “We are going to do such and such”. I should confess that I am an enemy of lower taxation and have been for all of my political life. There is a fallacy in the history of the Conservative Party’s economic policy, which still prevails in this Government after 13 years. They believe that Mrs Thatcher cut taxes, but she actually did not. There are people here who were partners in that crime, so I can tell them about this.
VAT was doubled in the first term of Mrs Thatcher’s Government, from 8% to 15%. The said, “We didn’t quite double it”, because it went up only to 15%. There was money from North Sea oil and from privatisation. This allowed some tax cuts after Lawson became Chancellor of the Exchequer—this was after several years. It was miserable, I can tell you. Until about 1987, it was very miserable and taxes and interest rates were high—up to 15%. I do not want anybody to think that it was nice and happy. It was successful, but to be successful you have to be hard on the economics. You cannot go on planning picnics when you do not have any food in the larder. That is why I worry about this Government. Being a Cross-Bencher, I do not have to worry about which party will come to power, but to believe that tax cuts increase growth is a fallacy that I can disprove any time anyone wants me to. I can give the numbers for that. After the Lawson tax cut, there was a recession, as everybody remembers, and a deficit in the Major Government’s budget.
As the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, said, if you look at other countries’ taxation, those with higher tax takes than us are richer than us and have a better growth rate. There is an idea that somehow tax cuts raise growth; there is no evidence in the British data on that—and I can tell you that as I used to do this thing for a living. What is interesting is to ask, “Why has growth been so miserably low for the last 13 or 15 years?” I am really surprised when people say, “The growth has gone from 1.5% to 1.6%—how exciting!” As a statistician, I would say that a difference of 0.1% is not statistically significant and nobody should even talk about such small numbers. Anyway, we will let that go; we are not supposed to be a numerate country, so that is all right.
The problem is that we have, at least in this Government, ample proof that, any time you talk about tax cuts, the markets panic and put up the cost of borrowing—so, please, can we stop talking about tax cuts while the deficit is high? We have some room this time, which we have given away in tax cuts, because of inflation. Thanks to inflation and fiscal drag, we had some surplus to spend. But if inflation goes, that surplus will go and the deficit will increase. So please can we not have tax cuts, because it will wreck the economy before the next Government come to power?
I want to propose one tax increase that will actually be growth enhancing. I say that because, more or less ever since the Thatcher years, we have indulged in a luxury that is costing us a lot of money. It is a luxury much beloved by the Conservative Party and by most of the middle classes—who are, according to my friend the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, the people who work. Of course the poor do not work, according to him; only the rich work, which is all right; I do not mind that. The luxury is home ownership. We treat home ownership as one of the biggest tax breaks that I can think of because, when you sell your house, land being in limited supply, you will always make profits—and of course you pay zero tax on it if it is your principal residence. All your unearned capital gain is taxed at 0%. All good middle-class people, with their children going to private schools, if they have money, do not invest in equity; they invest in house buying. Of course you would.
The Resolution Foundation has the numbers about Mum and Dad’s bank: we spend an enormous amount—about £80 billion per year, if I remember correctly. The money invested there would go into equity buying if people had decent rental property. Housing services can be rented or owned; it should make no difference to the quality of the houses. But we believe in home ownership as the foundation of our democracy. If you believe in that, you will have zero growth, because investment supplies the funds of money coming from the middle classes. It will not come if they invest in bricks and mortar. Of course, when it comes to bricks and mortar, we love inflation. Do not knock inflation; inflation has helped you—and please, do not have any tax cuts.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai. He always makes everything sound so seductive and simple.
This afternoon, we have heard many speeches from noble Lords welcoming the excellent provisions in the Autumn Statement. I therefore hope that the Minister, whom I also welcome warmly to the Treasury, will forgive me if I do not go down that avenue, because I want to focus on one point this evening, and that is the national debt that we have in this country. We are, at present, paying £100 billion a year servicing the debt. That is £100,000 million, or 10% of government revenue, and it does not pay for a single service. It is more than we spend on education, twice as much as we spend on defence and five times as much as we spend on local government, housing and communities. Of course, government spending is still outstripping government revenue, so each year we go on adding to our total national debt.
Imagine you have built up a huge credit card bill and that you cannot pay the interest, so you have to borrow to pay. That adds more to your debt and eventually the bank is going to say that you cannot go on borrowing. Germany is already in some difficulty. It has a constitutional court which constrains it, of course, but there may well be an emergency budget in Germany, and that may well put at risk its coalition Government. On Monday, here in the UK, the chief executive of JP Morgan described America’s fiscal stimulus as “drugs in the system”. He is reported as having said:
“we’re now spending a lot of money … That money is like heroin”.
There are only two ways to deal with overspending: more borrowing, which the Government are committed to reducing; or more taxation, and we should not pile more taxes on business or individuals. The answer has to be control of public spending. That means that this Government, and any Government, must sometimes say no. It is not easy, especially for Ministers in this House, because they are then given a very hard time by Members opposite. If there were to be a Labour Government —I hope there will not be, but if there were to be—we would soon see what stuff Labour Ministers in charge of spending departments were made of. I suspect they would be under enormous pressure to give in, and we would end up with higher taxation.
I want to make two observations about public spending. First, I believe that recent decisions to ring-fence the spending of certain government departments is unhelpful. Economic circumstances change. Priorities change. Giving some government departments protected status means that they are let off the hook in having to argue their case against competing and often more deserving demands from other government departments. My second observation is that it is very easy to call for efficiency savings, but these rather glib words conceal the deep-seated and complicated workings of public bodies. Take, for example, the health service. Yes, for millions of patients, NHS nurses and doctors provide outstanding care, but talk to them and they will often complain about lack of executive grip and lack of accountability, despite—or maybe because of—the layers of management. I accept that public bodies have a real difficulty because they are not subject to the market and competitive pressures, which should keep a commercial company on its toes.
Another problem is the difficulty which public bodies often have in letting go people who, decent and honourable as they may be, are not really up to the job. Only today, the National Audit Office is reported as saying that one in five government departments did not know how many underperforming workers they had, and that a majority did not know what happened to staff who were told to improve. If public bodies are to become more efficient and to manage resources better, there will have to be fundamental changes in administration, in personnel and in culture, and that cannot be done quickly. It will take time. The public sector needs executive managers with the right business experience and expertise. We already have some, but we need more, we need to retain them and we need to attract them. Of course, rewarding people of talent at all levels costs money, and public services cost money, so if we are going to cut borrowing and avoid further taxation, we will soon have to answer one of the toughest questions of the next Parliament: what should the state do and what should the state not do?
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, to the Government’s Treasury Front Bench. Last week we debated a statutory instrument and I failed, until very late in the day, to congratulate her on her new role. I remain mortified by my absence of mind, so I repeat the welcome today. I also compliment her on tackling two of the most difficult topics in the portfolio: central counterparties last week and the Autumn Statement this week. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, that no matter what the excellent qualities of her successor, in her portfolio she will be very much missed.
The headline message of the OBR is that, even after the Autumn Statement, and taking into account every government policy and promise, the forecast growth rate for the economy is essentially—and let me quote the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—“uninspiring” and, to use my own word, stagnating. Only this Government would applaud and congratulate themselves on a Statement with that characteristic.
Living standards for ordinary people have fallen by £2,000 per household. Inflation and high interest are now expected to continue for longer. Indeed, the overhang of inflation will hold back people’s spending power for years. The cost of housing has now become a persistent crisis for many people, especially young people. On my Benches, my noble friend Lady Thornhill took us through the real-life experience, which is dire for so many people who are dependent on housing from housing associations. Typical households will soon be paying over £5,000 a year to service debt, driven largely by mortgage costs, and household saving rates have fallen sharply.
The Government use tax-cutting rhetoric, but ordinary people face a tax-rising reality for at least the next five years, thanks to the freezing of thresholds—the noble Lords, Lord Sikka, Lord Northbrook and Lord Jackson of Peterborough, all referred to this in various ways. Despite the rate cut in national insurance, a typical earner will pay £400 more next year in tax and national insurance, and a middle-income earner will pay £1,200 more. It is instructive, in understanding Conservative priorities, that the highest one-fifth of earners will receive five times as much from the national insurance rate cut as the lowest one-fifth of earners—that is a measure referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who is not yet in her place.
In the same vein, the Chancellor confirmed the dire message from the Department of Work and Pensions for the mentally ill and mobility-impaired members of our community: work from home or lose nearly £5,000 a year in benefits. Mental health charities are sending out almost emergency briefings, warning that home working rarely allows for hands-on support and can add to isolation, and that the costs of heating and wifi, and other necessary supports, can be prohibitive. Over the weekend, I had a conversation with some disabled people; they are genuinely frightened, having fought for the benefits they have got, only to find that they will now begin to lose them if they do not agree to home working, for which they are in no way prepared and often not capable. I do not think this is the way to save £1.3 billion a year in a civilised society.
Public services—already badly degraded, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth—will face real cuts, with, as others have said, the blows falling hardest on unprotected services, such as local government, which support the most vulnerable people. This was referred to in detail by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, who also pointed out that the numbers mean a cut in the clean-up of sewage, which is really going to disturb the many communities who are disgusted by the state of our rivers.
Public borrowing will still be at 94% of GDP at the end of the forecast period, and then only if we assume that fuel duty rises every year with inflation—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. Infrastructure spending also has to be curtailed, and the public will have to accept collapsing public services.
Among advanced countries, we are now a high-debt country, and that fits with the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne. I am particularly concerned and alarmed at the condition of the gilts markets, given not just the Government’s expected gilt issuances of over £200 billion a year but the determination of both the Bank of England and the pension funds to sell off gilts. The OBR worryingly concludes that private sector holdings of gilts will need to be the highest level on record next year and, over the forecast period, the highest sustained level this century. We will depend heavily on foreign buyers, and foreign buyers are volatile.
The Government have offered a carrot to businesses, with full expensing of new investment. That refers to expensing in year one; we have always had expensing over the accounting lifetime of the investment. However, read the whole paragraph; I read it in the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. The OBR expects this to be fully offset by the faster retirement of existing capital. Modernisation of equipment and software is surely a good thing, but it is not the dramatic industrial expansion this Government seem to promise as a consequence of this particular tax change. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, put it well, describing it as a costly way to achieve a modest increase in investment. Meanwhile, the Government have largely neglected small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy, and certainly failed to grasp the need to wholly reform business rates.
The OBR makes it clear that the economic damage of Brexit—some 4% to 5% economic scarring—remains, and the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, drew attention to this. In her listing of all the events that have shaken the economy, it was notable that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, did not mention it, and yet it is the deepest and most permanent scarring, compared to the other features she carefully named—interesting. The OBR also reports that neither this Statement nor other Government policies, nor trade deals, are forecast to reverse the Brexit-driven collapse in our terms of trade by 15%. According to surveys by the Federation of Small Businesses, much of the drop in trade is tied to SMEs ceasing to export. Many British SMEs have been dropped from European supply chains, have lost buyers around the world because they can no longer guarantee European standards, or find the post-Brexit regime too costly and cumbersome.
Productivity remains below the rate before the 2008 financial crisis; frankly, no developed economy can be prosperous with productivity at this persistent level. I like very much the idea suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, of a productivity council, and others have proposed ways in which to try to tackle this issue.
Demographics show that we are desperately short of a working-age population, given the size of our ageing population, and we are also short of skills. The situation is made far worse by the vast numbers on NHS waiting lists. My party would have reinstated the bank levy and strengthened the oil and gas windfall tax to tackle those waiting lists head-on, as key to reviving the economy—an issue referred to by my noble friend Lady Pinnock.
The Government’s Advanced Manufacturing Plan, published on 26 November, is positive news and I welcome it. The strategy is a bit scattergun, but it is definitely good news. However, it does not assure that the UK can build the industries of the future at sufficient scale. The plan itself exposes the problem, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. The Government say:
“Other countries have embarked on large tax and spending sprees to claim a share of the global manufacturing market”.
The Government then claim the moral high ground in not following suit. The truth is that this Government have run this economy so badly that they cannot follow suit to compete with the US and the EU in support for the industries of the future. People might then start talking about Covid and oil prices, but they have hit all those countries as well. We have got to be in that competitive game. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, talked about this in some detail, and I appreciated the advice we got from the noble Lord, Lord Harrington. I have not yet read his report, but I promise to do so immediately, because it sounds fascinating.
In this Autumn Statement, the Government found £27 billion of headroom, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill. But it was not the headroom that came from economic success, a point made by the noble Lords, Lord Londesborough and Lord Desai. The headroom came from two sources. The first is from the revenues that resulted from higher than forecast inflation, especially since the Government chose not to fund the hit to public services from such inflation. The second is from freezing the thresholds for income tax and national insurance. In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor spent every penny of that headroom.
I do not claim that the Government faced an easy time in shaping the Autumn Statement—although one must admit that they have brought most of it on themselves. But where are the plans to recapture our access to European markets? Where is the investment in the NHS to rapidly cut waiting lists and allow people to return to work? Where is the capital budget to revive our faltering infrastructure? The noble Lords, Lord Macpherson and Lord Willetts, and others, talked about the importance of that public sector infrastructure investment.
I return to my earliest comments. Put the whole package together—the Statement, the promises, the policies—and the output, which surely is the measure, is economic stagnation for at least the next five years.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in welcoming the noble Baroness to her new role. It is a privilege to take part in today’s debate, and a pleasure to hear contributions from so many eminent and expert noble Lords.
All of us here have benefited from the intervening week between the Autumn Statement and today’s debate, allowing us to consider in greater detail the Green Book and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report, as well as analysis from other independent forecasters. What has become clear is the extraordinary difference between the story told to us by the Chancellor and the reality revealed to us by the numbers themselves.
The Chancellor told us the economy had turned a corner but in reality, growth was downgraded—revised down next year, the year after and the year after that. The Chancellor told us inflation had fallen, but he omitted to mention that the inflation forecast has actually been increased every single year for the next three years. The Chancellor told us that debt will be lower. What he did not tell us was that debt will actually now be 28% higher than when this Government came to power 13 years ago and is set to surpass £3 trillion for the first time ever. The Chancellor told us that take-home pay is going up, but he did not reveal that real household disposable income is set to fall next year, or that we are now seeing the biggest ever fall in living standards since records began. Of course, the Chancellor also told us he was cutting taxes, when in reality the tax burden will now rise every single year for the next five years, making this the biggest tax-raising Parliament ever, with the tax burden now set to reach its highest ever level.
Increasing growth is clearly the biggest economic challenge our country faces, with the Governor of the Bank of England warning since the Autumn Statement that the current economic outlook is the worst he has ever seen. It is therefore no surprise that many noble Lords mentioned growth in their contributions to this debate, including my noble friend Lord Eatwell in his excellent opening speech, and the noble Lords, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, Lord Willetts, Lord Dobbs, Lord O’Neill of Gatley, Lord Londesborough, Lord Leigh of Hurley, and Lord Desai, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Lea. The UK’s growth record over the past 13 years has been poor. We have languished in the bottom third of OECD countries, with 27 OECD economies growing faster than us since 2010. Looking ahead, over the next two years no fewer than 177 countries are forecast by the IMF to grow faster than the UK. For this year and next, we will be 35th out of 38 OECD countries for growth.
Against this backdrop, we were told to expect an Autumn Statement for growth, and several noble Lords have mentioned the Chancellor’s 110 measures for growth. Yet, the Office for Budget Responsibility, having seen those measures, actually downgraded its growth forecast in each of the next three years. The economy is now forecast to be £40 billion smaller by 2027 than the Chancellor expected as recently as March. The latest outturn figures for GDP show that there was no growth at all in the third quarter of this year. Growth in 2024 is now forecast to be just 0.7%—more than halved from the 1.8% predicted in the Budget. The Bank of England’s view is that even this is too optimistic. Its latest forecast shows no growth at all in any of the next three years: no growth this year, next year or in 2025. Restoring growth to Britain must be our priority, and Labour has set out a plan to deliver that mission. Indeed, many of the Chancellor’s announcements last week were simply pale imitations of measures we have already set out.
As my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton mentioned, the Chancellor spoke about unlocking capital by reforming pensions. However, Labour has already announced that we would go further, encouraging investment in British start-up and scale-up firms. On planning, the Government are simply attempting to follow Labour’s lead on how to encourage communities to host grid infrastructure, and on speeding up planning decisions. We also welcome the Chancellor’s announcing permanent full expensing—another measure we have been calling for. However, that does not make up for the years of uncertainty businesses have faced. How many billions of pounds of investment has our economy missed out on because of the Government’s delay?
Several noble Lords focused on inflation, including the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, in her very enjoyable speech. In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor tried to suggest that the cost of living crisis is now behind us. In reality, the inflation forecast was actually increased by the OBR in every single year of the forecast period, and consumer prices in 2027-28 are now set to be 7% higher than previously expected in March. Inflation is still more than double the Bank of England’s target rate, and the Bank now expects inflation to stay above target throughout next year, with interest rates remaining at their current levels for “an extended period”. Indeed, on Monday of this week, the Governor of the Bank of England warned that interest rates will not be cut “in the foreseeable future”.
Interest rates have now risen 14 times to a 15-year high of 5.25%, while the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage at one point rose from 2.6% to over 6%. As a result, those re-mortgaging since July have seen their mortgage payments rise by an average of £220 a month. Some 1.6 million families have seen their mortgage deals end this year; next year, a further 1.5 million families will face a similar fate.
Therefore, the outlook for living standards remains truly bleak. It is of course welcome that the Chancellor has accepted this year’s recommendation of the Low Pay Commission on the minimum wage, but real wages are set to fall this year and real average weekly earnings are now set to remain below their 2008 level until 2028—a shocking two full decades of pay stagnation. According to the Resolution Foundation, this Parliament is now on track to be the first ever in which real household incomes fall, and we are now seeing the biggest ever fall in living standards since records began.
The centrepiece of the Autumn Statement was of course the Chancellor’s claim to be cutting taxes. Several noble Lords spoke about the Chancellor’s tax plans, including my noble friends Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Sikka, the noble Lords, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, Lord Tugendhat, Lord Northbrook, Lord Balfe, Lord Horam and Lord Desai, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes, Lady Featherstone and Lady Meacher. The reality of this Autumn Statement is that the tax burden now rises every single year for the next five years, rising to its highest ever level and making this the biggest tax-raising Parliament ever.
We on this side have argued that taxes on working people are too high and that we want them to be lower. We opposed the manifesto-breaking increase in national insurance that the Prime Minister tried to implement last year when he was Chancellor. Going into this Autumn Statement, the Government had already put in place 25 tax rises, amounting to £90 billion. That is the equivalent of a 10p increase in national insurance. So, while welcome, the 2p cut does not remotely compensate for the tax increases already announced. Indeed, the Resolution Foundation has calculated that, even after the measures announced by the Chancellor, households will still be £1,900 worse off.
As several noble Lords have observed, greater than expected fiscal drag also means that nearly 4 million more people will pay income tax, and 3 million more people will pay the higher rate. The combined effect is an average tax rise of £1,200 per household. According to Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the cut in national insurance rates
“pales into … insignificance alongside the long-term increase in personal taxes created by the six year freeze in allowances and thresholds”.
The IFS has calculated that—extraordinarily—almost every single person in the UK liable for income tax or national insurance will now be paying higher taxes overall. As a result, the tax burden will now reach 37.7% of GDP by the end of the forecast period, an increase equivalent to an extra £4,300 in tax for every household. This was not an Autumn Statement that cut taxes.
The reality of this Autumn Statement is very different from the story presented to us last week by the Chancellor. Despite the picture he tried to paint, the reality is that the economy is just as weak, if not weaker, after this Autumn Statement than it was before. The Government cannot undo the damage done over 13 years, because their economic approach simply is not working.
Growth was low before this Autumn Statement; it is even lower now. Living standards were falling before this Autumn Statement; they are now seeing the biggest fall on record. Taxes were high before this Autumn Statement; they are now set to be the highest in history. Far from turning a corner, as the Chancellor claimed, the economy is stuck with low growth and high taxes, and working people are still worse off.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I am enormously grateful to all noble Lords for their very valuable and interesting contributions to today’s debate and for their kind words in welcoming me to my new role. I have to be honest that there were some very undignified ministerial tears leaving Transport after four and a half years, but of course I am absolutely delighted to be at the Treasury—it seems like such an easy job.
I am very grateful to all noble Lords who, wholly or partially, welcomed the Autumn Statement for what it is: a well-thought-through plan to grow our economy, thereby improving prosperity and well-being across the country.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Is that genuinely funny or is it just performative?
It will not surprise noble Lords to learn that I did not agree with all the points raised, but there have been others that have truly piqued my interest and I will take them away for further consideration.
I will first set out the context, which was noted by my noble friend Lady Goldie in her very spirited speech for an “old bird”. It is very important to think about the context of where we are and where we have come from. There were some notable exceptions, because many noble Lords just glossed the past few years and said, “Oh, it’s all the Government’s fault”. I note that my noble friend Lady Lea gave an excellent speech, with a very authoritative analysis of where we are.
We have faced a global pandemic and global economic headwinds generated by Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine. As a result of those things, we have made decisions. Other countries did not make exactly the same decisions as us; therefore, they had a different experience. The decisions we took included the Covid support of over £350 billion, and the cost of living support to dampen the impact of rising bills has exceeded £100 billion. I invite noble Lords to recall these interventions, because I do not, in my years on the Front Bench in this House, recall any time when the Opposition Benches, in particular, argued against them. In fact, in nearly all cases, I seem to recall many saying that it was just not enough and that more needed to be done during Covid and the recent cost of living challenge.
Therefore, when noble Lords turn around and complain about various elements of the state of our economy, I say that we have not lived in usual times. That is why this Autumn Statement is a blueprint to get our debt down, to get business investment up, to get inflation controlled, output boosted and taxes cut; and this is an Autumn Statement plan for growth. I reassure my noble friend Lord Dobbs that economic growth is and will be at the heart of this Government’s plans, and that the Government will do more on tax cuts when the circumstances allow. I understand that my noble friend Lady Noakes will probably never be happy with what the Government propose and their speed for the interventions that she would like, but I hope that she appreciates that we are making steps in the right direction.
On a minority sport, I also welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, for the devolution deals: they do not get enough love and, combined with good local scrutiny, can make huge differences to parts of the country. One has only to look at the West Midlands and the great mayor we have there.
Turning to a few of the issues raised and trying to deal with them, I turn to my noble friend Lord Dobbs and his comment about experts and forecasters. When I was quite young, I was an investment banker for many years. I am well aware that forecasts are rarely 100% right. They are forecasts; we know that. However, it is important that we have a framework for decision-making, so I agree with him that forecasts are not gospel. It might have been my noble friend Lady Lea who said that they can be both an art and a science, and of course they get slightly less certain the further out you get. However, we need a framework to make our decisions, and that is why it is really important that we forecast where we think the economy is going to be and that we have the OBR to check our thinking. It is an educated view—a snapshot in time—but one that I believe is useful.
My noble friend Lady Lawlor made some very good points about inflation and its contributing factors. She talked about the role of the Bank of England and mentioned the report on that. I have to confess that I have not yet read that report, but I intend to very soon. I have already brought it to the attention of my officials, and I look forward to debating the report in due course.
My noble friend Lord Northbrook asked why we did not stop QE sooner. Of course, decisions on the size of the APF, which means something that escapes me now—oh, I believe that it is the asset purchase fund—and the pace of purchases and sales are those of the independent Monetary Policy Committee, and the Government do not comment on MPC actions.
My noble friend Lord Howell talked about the impact of high interest rates on government debt payments, and my noble friend Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury also mentioned debt, the size of interest payments and the consequences of those high levels. That is why this Government are absolutely committed to getting debt down, so that the actual cash cost of the debt comes down too. I cannot speculate on bank rates, of course, but we feel that by 2028-29 underlying debt will be 92.8% of GDP.
The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, whom I have not yet congratulated on his new role as shadow Exchequer Secretary—so that is all good news—talked a lot about the tax burden, and I hope I was able to demonstrate in my opening remarks why the tax burden is necessarily high, because we must pay off the debt that we had to accumulate, given the economic circumstances that we were in. He said that he did not think this was a tax-cutting budget, but the OBR has confirmed that decisions made by the Chancellor in this Autumn Statement reduce the tax by 0.7% of GDP—which is a tax cut. I am confused, but I am sure we will sort all that out.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
The Minister just made a mistake. What the OBR argued is that the cut in national insurance means that taxes have risen less rapidly than they would have done otherwise, but that they have risen none the less.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord is exactly right. But the counterfactual is what happened before the Autumn Statement. People are, in general, paying less than they would have done previously. Yes? Okay. We got there in the end.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
People are paying more. In other words, the Minister is arguing a case for cuts in taxation. This is not a cut in taxation; it is a reduction in the rate at which taxes are increasing, but they are increasing none the less.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
We are both correct.
The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, asked whether it was the Government’s policy now to favour national insurance reductions over income tax reductions. I think I can say yes. It certainly was true for the Autumn Statement—so, for this moment in time, I think I am covered.
A couple of noble Lords mentioned inheritance tax: my noble friends Lord Northbrook and Lord Balfe. I can assure noble Lords that more than 93% of estates are forecast to have no liability in each year up to and including 2028-29. Those that do are very important in contributing to public finances and in helping to fund vital public services. However, as all noble Lords know, the Government keep all taxes under review, including inheritance tax. That also goes for the stamp duty suggestions mentioned by my noble friend Lord Willetts and the fuel duty suggestions from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
I turn now to public spending. Many noble Lords called for increased public spending during this debate. I would read out the names, but it is actually nearly all noble Lords, apart from notable exceptions on the Benches behind me. Those who called for more public spending included the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Featherstone, Lady Bennett and Lady Meacher; the noble Lords, Lord Howarth, Lord Macpherson and Lord Thomas; the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. The list is extraordinary. However, on the list of noble Lords who came up with a plan for how to pay for those spending increases—a medal goes to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. She did come up with a medal.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
A medal? I am going to come up with a medal. She is going to get it, because she came up with a plan. Of course, her plan was more taxes—but we knew that was going to happen, so that is okay. There was one other person who came up with a plan for how to pay for this increased public spending, and that was the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. He said to ditch the tax cuts. So there were two people. Everybody else just wanted to increase spending, and therein lies the problem.
Looking in more detail at some of the public spending that noble Lords were concerned about—and obviously I can reflect some of these concerns as well—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, called for additional funding for councils so that essential services could continue. The Government stand behind councils up and down the country. The 2023-24 local government finance settlement provides councils with a 9% increase in core spending power in total, making available almost £5 billion in additional resources. It should be noted that local councils can also raise funds from local taxpayers for local services.
Personally, I live in Kingston-upon-Thames, which all noble Lords well know has a Liberal Democrat council—and my word, my council tax is eye-watering. I think it is one of the highest in the country. What makes me slightly laugh about this is that, despite having some of the highest council tax in the country, the Liberal Democrats have closed the swimming pool. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is very concerned about swimming pools. I suggest that she go to Kingston-upon-Thames and get them to open it again. There is not a lot of happiness around that.
Public spending also needs to be efficient and not greedy, as noted by my noble friend Lord Howell. It is really important that we set public spending on sustainable trajectories, delivering high-quality public services effectively and efficiently. This is why my honourable friend the Chief Secretary is leading an ambitious public sector productivity review. I hope that my noble friend Lord Sherbourne will share his thoughts with her, because we need to reimagine the way that government delivers public services. So often we fall into the trap where the amount of money put into something equates directly to its outputs. That would never happen in the private sector. It just does not happen. Outputs can be independent of the money that one puts in, and it is very important that, within the public sector, we get that and we try to do that.
I take on board the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, about the 60,000 civil staff in defence. My former Secretary of State is now the Defence Secretary; I know him well, and I am fairly sure that he will already have looked at this in great detail, but I will nudge him in case he has not.
The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, asked to what extent the Autumn Statement was informed by the OBR’s report on fiscal risks and sustainability. That report did inform the Autumn Statement, as I am sure the noble Lord thought I would say. The Government’s agreement to respond at a subsequent fiscal event establishes this feedback loop, which demonstrates the Government’s commitment to thoroughly assessing and actively mitigating fiscal risks.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked a question I was a little surprised by; I thought he may have known this, but perhaps it is not well known. He asked about the inclusion of QE in public debt. The UK’s fiscal rules target public sector net debt. This metric excludes the Bank of England and all its subsidiaries, including the asset purchase facility. This changed in 2021 as it was felt that excluding the Bank of England’s contributions to public sector net debt through the valuation effects associated with its quantitative easing programme and term funding schemes better reflected the impact of government decisions.
I will write to noble Lords on MoJ funding and the maintenance of schools. I want to talk about the cost of living because the amount of support that the Government have given, and will continue to give, is not fully recognised. There has been some good feedback about the local housing allowance rates going up, and not enough noble Lords welcomed where we are on the national living wage.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
Can the Minister tell the House how much of QE is included in the public debt now? Why is it the case that, when the left hand of government transacts with the right, the Treasury with the central bank, it somehow creates debt?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I will probably write to the noble Lord with clarity on that, because I would like to make a little progress.
A number of noble Lords tried to pull out one element of the Autumn Statement and made the point that it will benefit rich people more than poor. One cannot look at one measure in isolation. The Government have conducted extensive assessment of the policies announced both in this Autumn Statement and in previous years. It shows that, across all government decisions dating back to the 2019 spending round, the combined impact of tax, welfare and public services spending measures has benefited the lowest-income households the most.
I will touch briefly on welfare reforms. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Jackson for his support for these reforms. We want to see people who can work be able to work; we are absolutely willing to provide support for them.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned mental health. I agree with him that we must confront this issue in our country. It remains a priority for the Government. Alongside other recent mental health interventions, the back to work plan includes nearly £800 million over five years to expand talking therapies for those with mild or moderate conditions, as well as individual placements and support to be delivered within community mental health schemes for those with more serious conditions.
I will write to noble Lords on a couple of other things. I come back to growth because it is undeniable that growth in many developed nations has been difficult. Since 2010, when this Government first came to power, the UK has grown faster than many of its competitors, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan. Would I like to see us grow even faster than we currently are? Absolutely—indeed, the growth trajectory is on an upward trend after the first two years. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, did not quite get to those numbers but they are higher, peaking at 2% a year. This Autumn Statement is focused on creating sustainable growth without adding to inflation or overall borrowing. It is sensible supply-side interventions that boost business investment.
This is in stark contrast to the plans set out by the party opposite, such as they are. It is not clear to me which parts of the Autumn Statement the Labour Party actively oppose or would do substantially differently, and the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, has not enlightened me. So not only do we have a cut-and-paste shadow Chancellor; it seems we have a cut-and-paste shadow Exchequer Secretary too. It is worth reflecting on the much-vaunted flagship Labour spending policy of £28 billion. For clarity, that is £28 billion per year. In the absence of significant tax rises or substantial cuts to public spending—and only the former is in the traditional Labour playbook—this £28 billion per year will just add to our national debt, piling pressure on future generations and busting through fiscal rules. As I said, this Conservative Autumn Statement is about sensible supply-side reforms to support British businesses and boost productivity.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked whether full expensing represents value for money. The Government have prioritised the business tax cut as a targeted way to support businesses which invest. It does this by reducing the cost of capital for UK companies. This policy will drive 0.1% GDP growth in the next five years, increasing to slightly below 0.2% in the long run. Whereas the benefits of the policy will grow over time, the costs will reduce. Full expensing brings forward relief that would otherwise be claimed over decades, meaning that the costs are highest in the policy’s introduction.
The noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, talked about a productivity council. The Government take a range of advice on matters of growth and productivity from all sorts of organisations, including public sector organisations such as the National Infrastructure Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority, but also from academics, think tanks and businesses. While I respect his idea, at the moment we will probably not take it forward.
There was some interesting comment around the pension reforms. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, welcomed the proposals. He asked for the timing of implementation of changes to retired benefit schemes. This will become clearer when the consultation period has completed. I will write on the second question about pensions, because I am conscious that I will imminently run out of time.
My noble friend Lord Northbrook and the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, asked why the Government are not bringing back the VAT retail export scheme. The Government continue to accept representations from industry regarding the tourist tax and are considering all returns carefully. It is about providing very robust evidence on this. At the moment, we feel that it is a little lacking.
The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, talked about the creative industries. There is a large number of specific asks for a very specific sector, so I will certainly write.
It is also worth noting some of the more general discussions that noble Lords had today, and I hope will continue to have in the future. There were considerations around the size and shape of the state, the amount of contributions that should come from taxpayers, and, from the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, public versus private sector investment. My noble friend Lord Willetts talked about the shape of the state. These are things to mull on, definitely. They will not change government policy today or in the near future but are really important issues that should be debated.
I second what my noble friend Lady Noakes said about regulation. We need to look at regulation as our economy develops. It is most helpful for the Government when noble Lords can go into specifics. I am always very happy to hear about specific regulations that we feel are not fit for purpose and which need to be improved.
Also, to my noble friend Lady Noakes, on the 100-plus measures, I say that the details can be found in the “Policy Decisions” chapter of the Autumn Statement document.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My request was quite simple. I did say that there were 200 paragraphs in Chapter 5 and a number of policy costings, but none of them actually shows what amounts to the 110, which was one of the leading statements made by my right honourable friend the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement. I am simply asking: which are the 110? Does my noble friend undertake to let me have that information if she cannot provide it now?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I will go away and see what we can do. I said over 100 because it is now much more than 110. There are a lot of measures, and I will see what I can do to get together some sort of list.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
Can I support the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in her request? It would be enormously helpful if the Minister would commit herself to provide an annotated list of the 110 measures and place it in the Library.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As I said to my noble friend Lady Noakes, I will do my best.
It is worth spending some time on my noble friend Lord Harrington’s review. I am enormously grateful for his work. This is an area in which he has great interest and, indeed, great expertise. His speech today added colour to his thinking set out in the report; I know that all noble Lords will be keen to see it, and I hope will be able to speak to him about his conclusions. The Government have accepted all the headline recommendations and, as a result, are establishing a new ministerial investment group and backing it with additional resources for the Office for Investment. I have worked with the Office for Investment; it is very good and works across government, pulling together all the bits of government one needs to make a successful strategic investment. I have some minority-sport questions on EIS and VCT on which I will have to write, important though they are.
I believe I should conclude. The measures in the Autumn Statement are important and bold, and rightly so. As a country we find ourselves in a moment when inflation is reducing, borrowing is reducing, and growth is improving. The measures announced by the Chancellor last week will support efforts to boost business investment in the UK, and they will help businesses of all sizes to spend more of their money on the things that bring them success: premises, people, ideas and products. Our measures will get thousands of people working and reward them with better pay. By delivering for the British people, we will see economic growth leading to increased prosperity and well-being for all.