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Oral Answers to Questions
(2 months ago)
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Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)
The Government’s 2021 fuel poverty strategy recognised that warm homes can help to reduce health inequalities and pressure on the NHS. That is a key reason why we are delivering a package of cost support worth £3,700 per household on average from 2022 to 2025 and investing heavily in fuel efficiency.
Dr Whitehead
The recent Institute of Health Equity Marmot report highlighted the negative effects of living in cold and uninsulated homes, including respiratory and circulatory diseases and hampered lung and brain development in children. Last year, the Energy Systems Catapult and a number of NHS providers ran a trial of warm homes prescriptions, with NHS practitioners identifying vulnerable patients and supporting them with their energy needs. I think that the Secretary of State has accepted the link between cold homes and health outcomes. If that is the case, are the Government considering expanding this approach, or looking for alternative ways in which the health system and fuel poverty prevention can go hand in hand?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a number of local warm homes prescription schemes have offered additional support to help people with health vulnerabilities to stay warm and well. Such schemes are excellent examples of local collaboration between the NHS, local government and other partners—tailored, of course, to the local needs of their areas—and I would be interested to see whether other parts of the NHS choose to take up these sorts of ideas in the future.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
A year ago we set out a plan to improve urgent and emergency care, and the plan is working. Performance this winter has been better, with ambulance waits down by nearly a third, and we are learning the lessons from this year to make further improvements in the year ahead.
Mary Robinson
It is welcome news that the brand-new £30 million A&E campus at Stepping Hill Hospital is nearing completion. However, other buildings on this ageing site are failing and urgently need replacing. Will my hon. Friend ensure that Stepping Hill remains at the heart of hospital facilities in Stockport with rebuilt units, and support new hospital investment and specialist diagnostic hubs across Stockport?
Helen Whately
I am delighted that Stepping Hill Hospital will soon have a new emergency care campus, with all the benefits that that will bring to my hon. Friend’s constituents. I know that she is a great campaigner for her local NHS and has already met the Secretary of State about the concern she raises. As well as making her argument so clearly in Westminster, I would encourage her to continue discussions with her local NHS integrated care board, which is responsible for local decisions on capital investment.
Mrs Drummond
Up to £900 million for a brand-new acute hospital is coming to mid-Hampshire and health experts are making the case that it will make huge improvements in care, despite some politically inspired and misinformed opposition. Can my hon. Friend reassure my constituents that those running our local NHS should be listened to, and also that the doctor-led urgent treatment centre in Winchester will continue to provide for three quarters of urgent cases including X-rays, MRI scans and other tests after the new acute hospital is built, which we hope will be at junction 7?
Helen Whately
I commend my hon. Friend for her hard work on supporting the new hospital, for the leadership she is providing and for her work on encouraging residents to have their say in the consultation. I cannot prejudge the outcome of the consultation but I agree with her that the new hospital will be great for patients, with its modern facilities. She is right to say that an urgent treatment centre can provide excellent emergency care for the majority of people who attend A&E.
Andrew Lewer
Northampton has been the beneficiary of many welcome new or improved facilities in recent years, including a children’s A&E, a main A&E and the announcement of a community diagnostic centre. However, the missing piece of the jigsaw is an urgent treatment centre, for which I have been campaigning for many years now. Will the Minister inform me on the progress on that centre?
Helen Whately
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his successful campaigning for healthcare in Northampton, which is, as he says, benefiting from upgrades to the children’s A&E and the main emergency department and will soon have one of our 160 new clinical diagnostic centres. He will know that his local NHS integrated care board will decide whether to fund a new urgent treatment centre, and I have every confidence in his ability to persuade it of doing so.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is one of the great successes of the past few years that we now save the lives of a lot more people with an acquired brain injury. Although we might save them in acute and emergency care, however, a national strategy for acquired brain injury is a really important part of ensuring that people have the proper care thereafter. The Government appointed me and the Minister for Health and Secondary Care, the right hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson)—he is just passing the hon. Lady a note to inspire her on the subject—to try to publish one. When does she hope that there will be money available to ensure that that strategy is one worth having?
Helen Whately
I know that the hon. Gentleman is a great campaigner on this issue; he has worked very hard on it with me in the past, and he now does so with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health and Secondary Care. I assure him that we are in the process of revising the draft strategy, taking on board feedback from patients, their families, charities and the NHS, and we will publish the strategy in due course. I thank all stakeholders for their continued efforts.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
In January, the average category 2 response time for west midlands ambulance service was over 43 minutes. We know that the problems are worse in Shropshire, following stories such as that of a lady who waited 18 hours before seeing a doctor, having contracted an infection following radiation therapy for her cancer treatment. The situation in Shropshire does not seem to be improving as fast as we would like. What steps is the Minister taking to resolve the problem?
Helen Whately
Across the country, ambulance response times have come down by a third. We have worked very hard, particularly with areas that face greater challenges, including Shropshire. I have spoken to leaders in the local health system about the ongoing challenges. We are learning lessons about what has worked over the past year, and from where we have not made so much progress, to ensure that we do better in areas such as the hon. Lady’s over the year ahead.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her positive answers; they are really appreciated. Bearing in mind the pressure that GPs are under, which is leading to more pressure on emergency provision, what steps are being taken to provide greater incentives for medical students to take on positions in GP surgeries? That would make a big difference.
Helen Whately
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about the whole health system. One thing we are doing as part of our work on urgent and emergency care is preventing people from being admitted to hospital unnecessarily, or from being brought to A&E in the first place. Primary care is part of that. In our investment in expanding medical school places, we are particularly encouraging medical schools, such as the new Kent and Canterbury Medical School near me, to train students to work more outside hospitals, including in primary care.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Despite watering down the targets for ambulance response times and the A&E four-hour wait, the Government still cannot meet them. We have heard from Members across the House this morning how patients are waiting longer. The new targets say that there will be further improvements in 2024-25, and the Minister has said that again this morning. Can she let us in on what exactly they will be?
Helen Whately
I am not going to pre-empt the publication of targets for the coming year, but, as I have said, we will continue to learn lessons from the progress that we have made this year, including on ambulance response times, which are down by over a third. Anyway, I will take no lessons from Labour, because we know the state of the NHS in Wales.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
We are making great progress on our 10-year vision for adult social care reform. We have introduced the first ever national career structure for care workers, and we have introduced new assessments by the Care Quality Commission, which will shine a light on how well councils are delivering their social care duties.
Peter Aldous
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. In Suffolk, where the population is increasingly elderly, social care is under enormous pressure, and it is a significant challenge to recruit carers, pay them fairly and provide them with a proper career path. Therefore, I heard what my hon. Friend said, but will she consider commissioning a long-term workforce plan for adult social care equivalent to that for the NHS?
Helen Whately
My hon. Friend is right about the importance of the social care workforce: social care is its workforce. I can assure him that we already have a plan for the care workforce, set out in the “People at the Heart of Care” White Paper, and now we are putting it into practice. Our care workforce pathway is already being implemented, our new accredited qualification for care workers will be launched later this year, and we are backing social care with up to £8.6 billion in extra available funding.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I was concerned to hear that a constituent of mine was initially denied access to social care for his mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s despite her inability to administer her own medication. Will the Government look to broadening the criteria of the Care Act 2014 to include those requiring support with administering medication?
Helen Whately
We very much want everybody who needs care to get it and everyone who is eligible for financial support should get it. That, of course, is assessed by local authorities. We are introducing Care Quality Commission assurance of social care commissioned by local authorities, to make sure people get the care they deserve and to shine a light on where local authorities are doing a really good job and where others could do better.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The idea of a social care cost cap has dropped off the agenda slightly. I know it is incredibly expensive, but I continue to be contacted by constituents who face losing everything. When often their loved ones have dementia and it is already emotionally an incredibly traumatic time, they have the added anxiety of how they are going to pay for care. The only thing that should matter is what works and is best for their loved one, but there is a cloud of anxiety hanging over society, which we all worry about. Will the Minister confirm that this issue has not lost her attention and that we will continue to consider whether we can introduce a cap?
Helen Whately
I thank my hon. Friend for his important question on concerns about the cost of care and how much it costs some people. As he may know—I remind him—the charging reforms were delayed in 2022 by the Chancellor after we listened to local authorities.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
A fifth of the social care roles in Westmorland and Furness are currently vacant and unfilled. Coincidentally that is the same proportion of beds in Morecambe Bay that are occupied by patients who are unable to get a care package and therefore leave hospital. The reasons for this are blindingly obvious: the pay and career structures are derisory for hard-working wonderful people and there is a complete absence of genuinely affordable homes for people in those sorts of roles to enable them to live locally. Does the Minister agree that fixing that crisis in my community and others should be the priority for the Chancellor tomorrow, not silly electoral gimmicks?
Helen Whately
I recognise the challenges in the hon. Gentleman’s area, although nationally vacancies in social care have fallen by over 20,000. We are reforming adult social care careers to make care a career for the UK workforce. We are putting extra funding into social care—up to £8.6 billion over two years—and introducing CQC assurance to make sure local authorities are doing their best on social care. I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to talk to his local authority and make sure it is paying a fair rate for the care it commissions.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
Care is a skilled profession and I want care workers to get the support and recognition they deserve. In January we took the next step in our ambitious care workforce reforms, launching the first ever national career structure for the care workforce alongside our new nationally recognised qualification.
Peter Grant
I know the Minister will want to join me in thanking every single person who dedicates themselves to working in the social care sector, including perhaps particularly those who have come to the UK from overseas to do so, but it is not sustainable to rely on incoming workers forever. The Migration Advisory Committee has found that Scotland is now less reliant on migrant workers in the social care sector than England, through the simple expedient of paying a decent wage. That might, by the way, also be a good way to stop doctors in England going on strike; the Minister might want to look at that. Has the Minister asked the Chancellor to provide funding in the Budget so that social care workers in England can enjoy the same pay and conditions as their colleagues in Scotland, and if not, why not?
Helen Whately
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we are grateful to all who work in social care, including those who have come here from other countries to care for our loved ones. We also agree that international migration is not a long-term answer to our care workforce needs. That is why we are reforming social care to work as a career, and we are backing that with extra funding—up to £8.6 billion extra for social care over two years.
Sarah Owen
I am afraid the Minister’s warm words about the social care workforce do not meet the reality check for most people. The Government’s own statistics show that there are at least 152,000 vacancies in social care in England alone, leaving my constituents waiting up to 10 weeks to be discharged from hospital. The Government have been using international recruitment to plug the gaps and as a result have filled over 11,000 vacancies in the past few years, so can the Minister confirm whether recruitment and retention in social care will be better or worse due to Government plans to prevent overseas social care workers bringing family members to the UK?
Helen Whately
As I said a moment ago, vacancies have fallen and the care workforce grew by more than 20,000 last year. We are seeing better retention of care workers as well, but we need to go further. That is why we are reforming social care careers, introducing the first ever national career structure for the care workforce and new qualifications and training.
Joanna Cherry
Edinburgh Trade Union Council recently described changes to the healthcare worker visa route as cruel and inhumane. Many of my constituents who have relatives in care share its concerns, as do I. We know the valuable contribution that foreign care workers make to the sector. Ideologically driven change to visas could further exacerbate the recruitment and retention crisis that other Members have so eloquently described. Given that the Government skipped consultation on these changes, will the Minister commit to meeting trade unions and social care leaders in Scotland to understand the impact of these harmful changes?
Helen Whately
I am grateful to international care workers who have come to the UK to look after loved ones. Their work has contributed to reducing vacancies and increasing the supply of social care, but we need to get the balance right between international recruitment and our homegrown workforce. We are carrying out ambitious reforms of our adult social care workforce, and therefore it is right, alongside that, to ensure that we have the right numbers of people coming here from overseas for social care. That is why we have worked with the Home Office on changes to visas.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The managers of the wonderful care home I visited in Dunstable on Friday were annoyed by the number of job applicants for care places who were making the interview stage and then not arriving on the day. Can the Minister have a word with ministerial colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that job coaches are certain that jobseekers are not wasting the time of care homes? It is not fair, and those who work in care homes are busy people with a lot to do.
Helen Whately
I work closely with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions on the recruitment of people looking for jobs in social care, and I will raise that point with my colleague in the Department.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It was the Minister’s party that promised to fix the crisis in social care “once and for all”. With vacancy rates almost three times above the national average and turnover rates for new staff at more than 45%, it is clear that the Government failed. Labour’s plan for a national care service with clear standards for providers and a new deal for staff will give social care the fundamental reset it needs. The Government have done it with our workforce plan, and they have half-heartedly tried it with dentistry. Does the Minister want to copy our homework once again?
Helen Whately
Let us be honest, Labour has no plan for social care. Whatever the shadow Minister says, it is unfunded. There is no funding committed to it and it is not meaningful. Those of us on the Conservative side of the House are reforming adult social care. We not only have a plan, but it is in progress.
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I have asked the Secretary of State a number of times how she intends to recruit and retain social care staff, particularly with the visa changes coming into effect next Monday, stopping those from overseas coming to fill skills gaps from bringing their spouse or dependants with them. I ask again: how does the Secretary of State intend to improve the recruitment and retention of staff in the social care sector while her colleagues effectively work to undermine her?
Helen Whately
We are grateful to international workers coming to support us in social care and improving supply, but we have to get the balance right between international recruitment and our domestic workforce. In England, we are reforming social care careers to make social care work a career for our homegrown workforce, and I encourage her to make sure the SNP does the same in Scotland.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
Improving maternity care is a year 2 priority in our women’s health strategy for this year. Any decisions around maternity services need to be focusing on improving outcomes for mums and babies. However, decisions on the local reconfiguration of services are made by local integrated care boards and local trusts.
Tulip Siddiq
The maternity unit at the Royal Free Hospital in my constituency is facing closure. Last week, I met with doctors from the unit who told me that the Royal Free is uniquely placed to help mothers with diabetes, pregnant women with HIV, and mothers who require interventional radiology. The Royal Free is the only local provider that offers this life-changing treatment 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Does the Minister agree that the Royal Free maternity unit has to stay open for the sake of those vulnerable groups of women?
Maria Caulfield
I thank the hon. Lady for raising her concerns, but as I said, this is a public consultation. It runs for 14 weeks and will close on 17 March. I urge her to raise her concerns as part of that consultation. It is absolutely crucial that we keep expertise in our maternity services, but I understand that the local proposals by the trust and the integrated care board outline plans for £40 million of significant additional investment into maternity services. Those decisions are for the local ICB and the local trust. The deadline is 17 March, and I urge the hon. Lady to ensure she takes part in that process.
Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Remaining in north London, can I bring to those on the Treasury Bench my concern over the quality of nursing care at Barnet Hospital? An elderly constituent of mine, who is in her 80s, was admitted there recently. She asked to use the lavatory but was told no one could take her, and was handed a nappy; she waited three hours until someone could actually take her to the loo. She is a coeliac, but was not offered any food for coeliacs during her 10-day stay because nobody had read her notes. She was also moved around her bed by her arms despite having a broken shoulder, which nobody knew as nobody had read her notes.
Maria Caulfield
I am very sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. That level of care is absolutely unacceptable. I know he has raised this particular issue with the Patient Safety Commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, but I am very happy to meet with my hon. Friend and his constituent to discuss those complaints, because that care is not acceptable.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)
At Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, the number of gynaecology patients waiting more than 52 weeks reduced by over 30% between August and December, but I sympathise with the many women who are still waiting too long. NHS England has been doing targeted work to help trusts with the most long waiters to support gynaecology patients in the community where appropriate, and to find specialist services that can treat them as quickly as possible.
Sarah Green
My local NHS trust recently stated that the average wait for a gynaecology appointment is 18 weeks, with patients starting treatment within 24 weeks, but that does not include those on cancer pathways. One of my constituents who had been identified as having abnormal cells in her cervix waited more than 60 weeks for a diagnostic assessment. She is one of many contacting me with tales of long delays for gynaecology appointments and paying to go private out of desperation. What steps is the Department taking to reduce waiting times for gynaecology assessments and treatment for those on cancer pathways?
Andrew Stephenson
Significant investment is going in to reduce both general wait times and cancer wait times. More patients on the cancer pathway have been seen than ever before; nearly 220,000 patients were seen last December following an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer, representing 117% of December 2019 levels. We continue to keep this under review and continue to strive to make the system go faster and reduce the elective backlog.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
NHS figures from December show that the number of women waiting for gynaecological treatment reached another record high of nearly 600,000. That number has tripled since 2012. A Labour Government will cut NHS waiting lists in England by funding 2 million more appointments a year. What can the Minister say to the women waiting urgently for treatment?
Andrew Stephenson
I would say that we are sticking to our plan to back the NHS to cut waiting lists and make our NHS fairer, simpler and faster. When there is no strike action, that plan is working. We already eliminated the longest waits, and, in November, we saw the biggest fall in waiting lists outside of the pandemic in more than a decade, alongside record investment in things like women’s health hubs. We are prioritising women’s health.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)
We have met our manifesto commitment to deliver a record extra 50 million GP appointments annually. Our primary care recovery plan addresses increased GP access and expands community pharmacy services nationwide with Pharmacy First. Our NHS dentist reform plan also allocates resources for 2.5 million appointments, targeting rural and coastal communities.
Julie Marson
I thank the Secretary of State for her response, and I thank the Minister for Health and Secondary Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), for visiting the community diagnostic centre and minor injuries unit at the Herts and Essex Hospital yesterday and all the fantastic staff there.
Frontier Estates committed to building a GP surgery as part of the wider Stortford Fields development. However, citing inflated build costs, it now questions the viability of the plans despite months of negotiations and efforts by the local NHS to find a solution. Will my right hon. Friend work with colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with whom I have already met on this issue, to ensure that Frontier really engages with the process and builds the surgery it promised my constituents?
Victoria Atkins
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the enormous amount of work she has done in her constituency to secure that community diagnostic centre. We have rolled out some 160 or so of those centres across England —we want to do more—and they are supplying some 6 million tests and scans for patients across England.
On the important issue that my hon. Friend raised, my officials and Levelling Up officials are already considering how primary care infrastructure can be better supported in the planning process to ease the pressure on primary care estates, particularly in areas of housing growth. I know that she will continue to be as conscientious in her campaigning on that as she is on other matters.
Greg Smith
Rural communities need local, easily accessible primary care. Since Long Crendon surgery closed during the pandemic, patients in that village and surrounding villages have been displaced, mainly to Brill and Thame, for GP appointments. For the vulnerable and those without private cars, the absence of regular bus services can mean an unaffordable £25 at least in taxis to see a GP. I have raised many times an innovative approach to building a new health centre in Long Crendon by the parish council, which has the land and the agreement by the ICB for the rent to put Unity Health in there—we just need the money to build it. Will my right hon. Friend break down every barrier to help us get that health centre built in Long Crendon?
Victoria Atkins
Again, I very much admire the effort and determination that my hon. Friend is showing to stand up for his constituents. He will know that sadly I am constrained from commenting on individual cases, but what I do know is that the innovation he is showing alongside his parish council—and, indeed, I would hope, his local integrated care board—is the approach we want to adopt across our rural and coastal communities to ensure that they, too, have the access to primary care that we all expect.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Equal access to primary care is so important, but the use of physician associates is downright dangerous. Does the Secretary of State agree that patients have the right to see a qualified GP and not be fobbed off with a two-tier primary care system?
Victoria Atkins
I understand the concerns—we have seen them in the media—but, please, we in this House have a responsibility to our constituents and to professionals working in healthcare, including our clinicians and physician associates. In fact, physician associates have been working in the NHS for some two decades. They are there to work with doctors to assist them, freeing up doctors’ time to focus on the tasks that only they are qualified to do. We have been very careful to listen to the concerns raised, which is why we recently announced intentions to regulate them. But, please, we must all take that responsibility for ensuring that we are not spreading concern. Actually, these roles can have a very positive effect on healthcare system.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
My constituents are fed up with battling to see a GP. I have been working hard across party lines with local councillors and the ICB, but I was surprised to hear from the Prime Minister in response to a question last week that only £2 million was allocated to my ICB for primary care, and that it should raid its hospital refurbishment budget instead. Could the Secretary of State advise me which part of the much needed hospital investment should be overlooked to compensate for the failure to invest in primary care locally?
Victoria Atkins
Again, it is for integrated care boards to assess the needs of their area. If there are concerns about access to primary care, we are keen to give them the autonomy to make decisions about how they spend their budget. We have set expectations of integrated care boards in a couple of respects—in particular, we expect them to use the money that we have provided for dental care and we have set clear expectations that integrated care boards will introduce at least one women’s health hub in their area this year.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
While we are talking about the recovery of primary care and the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box, the recovering access plan released last May talked about high-quality online consultation, text messaging services and online booking tools. They were due in July, but that became August and then December, and I understand that it has now been delayed indefinitely due to a claim made against NHS England in what is a £300 million project. That delay is hitting access to primary care. Will the Secretary of State update the House?
Victoria Atkins
We are determined to bring not just primary care but the whole NHS up to speed with technology. We are firm advocates of the idea that technology can help free clinicians’ time and ensure that they are spending time looking at their patients rather than at computer screens. In primary care, we are working to ensure the digital telephony services that have played such a critical role in providing those 50 million additional appointments, as I described. I will take away my hon. Friend’s points, and look into them carefully.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I have been corresponding with the Primary Care Minister, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), and her predecessors about urgently needing to protect general practice locations in city centres from outdated Treasury rules that potentially force them to move to ring-road locations. The Minister’s latest reply suggested that the ICB could use capital funding to pay for new premises, but my ICB claims that that is against the rules. Would she and her officials please urgently meet me and my local ICB to bottom out what the rules are and urgently protect our city centre GP locations?
Victoria Atkins
I will ask the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Lady.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
The simple fact is that the Conservatives have been in power for 14 years, and general practice has never been in a worse state. Despite slogging their guts out, GPs are struggling because this Government have cut 2,000 GPs since 2015, making it even harder for patients to get an appointment. Given that, why has the Government decided that the NHS needs what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has described as the biggest funding cut since the 1970s?
Victoria Atkins
It has been a very long time since Labour were in government, but even the hon. Gentleman knows that Ministers will never comment on fiscal events the day before they occur. Let me introduce some facts into his analysis. We have now delivered on our manifesto commitment for 50 million more general practice appointments per year, with 363.8 million booked in the last 12 months. That compares with 312 million deliveredin the 12 months to December 2019. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman stopped shouting, perhaps he would be able to hear me. About 62,000 more appointments were delivered per working day last December, excluding covid vaccinations. We have our primary care recovery plan, and it is working. Of course there is more to do, but even the hon. Gentleman would not be so churlish as to deny those extra 50 million appointments.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dame Andrea Leadsom)
The hon. Member will know that, shockingly, smoking kills 80,000 people across the UK every year, and costs society £17 billion in ill health and loss of productivity. The Government will introduce the tobacco and vapes Bill shortly. I am delighted to say that Northern Ireland Ministers announced just this morning that we will legislate for the whole of the United Kingdom.
Paul Girvan
I thank the Minister for that answer. I just want to say that the age-related Bill on the sale of tobacco products will create the first generation of smoke-free people in the United Kingdom. All politics is local, and it is vital that we have the same legislation in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, smoking contributes to at least 1,300 smoking-related cancers per year. Some 13.9% of the people in my constituency continue to smoke, irrespective of the guidance given. I am glad to hear the Minister’s assurance on the legislation, but will the Government engage with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure it is on their priority list?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State met the Northern Ireland Health Minister just yesterday. I absolutely assure him that all parts of the United Kingdom will be included in the once-in-a-generation public health intervention that will save millions of lives.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I urge my right hon. Friend to get on with introducing the Bill, because every single day we delay, more people die of cancer and other smoking-related diseases. Equally, in creating the first generation of people who will not be allowed to buy cigarettes or tobacco products—that is excellent—does she agree that one concern is that young people are now taking up vaping instead of smoking, and that vaping is clearly a path towards nicotine addiction?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
Yes. My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. There is no doubt that tobacco and vaping companies are now trying to recruit children, putting vapes, including many illegal vapes, next to the sweet counter with extraordinary flavours such as bubble gum and berry blast, which are clearly not designed, as was originally proposed, for adult smokers to be able to quit smoking by moving to vaping. He is absolutely right and we will bring forward this once-in-a-generation legislation shortly.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)
We have delivered our manifesto commitment of 50,000 more nurses six months early. There are now almost 361,000 nurses working across the NHS. As part of that, community nursing has grown by over 9% since 2019.
Neale Hanvey
There has been a crisis brewing in community-facing nursing over the past decade, with the number of district nurses down by 40% and health visitor numbers in England and Wales falling by almost a third. What guarantees will the Minister provide that this vital workforce will be supported, when health budgets in all the nations of the UK are under increasing strain and NHS funding faces a £2 billion black hole, and cuts to spending in England have a consequential impact on budgets in Scotland?
Andrew Stephenson
Record funding is going into our NHS. In addition to the 9% increase in community nursing since 2019, we are investing over £2.4 billion in education and training through the NHS long term workforce plan, which commits to increasing training places for district nurses by 41% by the end of the decade. Since 2010, we have delivered over 63,300 more nurses and midwives into our NHS.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
I put on record my thanks to the members of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, which scrutinised our draft Mental Health Bill. We are looking at the recommendations and will respond to the Committee’s report shortly.
Olivia Blake
It is now over a year since the Joint Committee report on the draft Mental Health Bill was published. Despite repeated promises of reform, the Government have failed to act. More than 50,000 people are held under the Mental Health Act 1983. It is an outrage to them and to campaigners that reform has been de-prioritised. Will the Minister confirm when the Government plan to bring a formal Bill to Parliament and what conversations they have had with the Chancellor in the run-up to the Budget to ensure the reforms are properly resourced?
Maria Caulfield
As I have said, we have published our draft Bill, it has undergone pre-legislative scrutiny and I shall respond to the Committee’s recommendations shortly, but this is not just about legislative reform. As a result of the £143 million that we have invested in crisis support, we have already seen less use of the Mental Health Act 1983 because people are being seen earlier: our crisis cafés and crisis telephone services, for example, have led to a 15% reduction in the use of the Act.
Dame Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
It is a number of years since we promised to reform mental health legislation that reflects a time when people with severe mental ill health were viewed as problems to be managed rather than as individuals. I believe that we on these Benches, as Conservatives, should be doing everything we can to empower people and respect their liberties. It simply is not right that in the 21st century people’s health conditions are being managed through the forced administration of drugs, which pays no respect to their liberties. May I reiterate the urgency with which measures should be introduced, particularly as people with lived experience have relived their trauma to provide the benefit of their experiences?
Maria Caulfield
I absolutely entirely agree. That is why the Government published the draft Bill in January last year, and why it underwent pre-legislative scrutiny. I gave evidence to the Committee, and we are working our way through its detailed recommendations and will publish our response shortly. However, that is in addition to our significant reform of mental health services, particularly earlier intervention and crisis cafés. We have seen the impact of that: 15% fewer detentions under the Mental Health Act, 8% fewer admissions to hospitals and 12% fewer admissions from our mental health crisis telephone centres, which are now available across England 24/7.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)
Women’s health is one of my top priorities. As we approach International Women’s Day, we have already improved access to contraception and the treatment of urinary tract infections through Pharmacy First, announced £50 million of funding for research on maternity disparities and other health conditions affecting women, and set the expectation that each integrated care board area will have at least one women’s health hub operating this year.
Ms Brown
For more than a decade I have been raising the appalling, often agonising treatment of many women who need hysteroscopies in the NHS. They are being left with unnecessary trauma and are reluctant to engage further with doctors, which is quite simply life-threatening. However, the medical establishment continues to resist change and the Government shirk their leadership role. Earlier this year the Secretary of State set out her priorities for the women’s health strategy, and access to pain-free hysteroscopy was not included. Why?
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Lady for her work in this regard, and I absolutely acknowledge the issues that women are experiencing with this highly invasive procedure at what is often an extremely distressing time in their lives. We are waiting for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to update its guidelines on best practice in hysteroscopies. Following consultation last year that is under peer review, and is due to published soon. However, as the hon. Lady knows, I am clear that it should not be the responsibility of women in those very distressing circumstances to ask for pain relief. Clinicians must assume that a woman wants it, and discuss that with her before the procedure.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s recent refresh of the women’s health strategy and the addition to it of birth trauma. However, I am currently chairing a national inquiry into birth trauma, and we are hearing from mothers throughout the United Kingdom about some of the severe mental health conditions that they are facing, including postpartum psychosis. I have been particularly concerned to hear about the risk of suicide among new mothers. What action are the Government taking to address this?
Victoria Atkins
Let me put on record my admiration for my hon. Friend’s action in sharing her own experiences in order to improve healthcare for women across the country. She will know of yesterday’s important announcement about suicide prevention, elements of which addressed exactly the concerns that she has rightly raised. Thanks to her hard work, we have also announced that within eight weeks or so of giving birth mums will be asked by GPs whether they are okay, and we hope very much that that will open up the conversation with women who may be struggling.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Amma Birth Companions has just been recognised in the 2024 GSK IMPACT awards. The charity is doing really important work to support vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees who would otherwise face giving birth alone. Will the Secretary of State meet the charity to discuss its work and research, given the disparities that continue for this group of women?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady describes a very interesting piece of work. I will ask my ministerial colleague to meet the charity, as we want to support women. Indeed, part of our work across the women’s health strategy is ensuring that maternity services are not just safe, but trusted by mums-to-be.
Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
With regard to healthcare for women, a gynaecologist who claimed that Hammersmith would be better if it were “Jew free” has been ruled as not racist, but merely
“comfortable with using discriminatory language”,
according to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. He was merely suspended for three months and is due to start seeing patients again in a few weeks. I am concerned that this doctor may be a danger to Jewish patients. I am also concerned that the tribunal is defective and its decision is grossly unreasonable. Will the Secretary of State instruct Government lawyers to begin judicial review proceedings against the tribunal?
Victoria Atkins
I sincerely thank my right hon. and learned Friend for raising this issue. As the Prime Minister set out on the steps of Downing Street last week, there are people whose ideology and dogma are in direct conflict with our country’s shared values. Just as we will not stand for that across the country, nor will I stand for it in our NHS. I have already written to NHS England and regulators, setting out their responsibilities and our expectations of them, and I can assure my right hon. and learned Friend that I will be looking into this issue with great urgency and great care.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)
I am committed to making our NHS faster, simpler and fairer for all, including families, which is why the Government have recently introduced baby loss certificates. Nothing can diminish the pain of losing a baby, but we hope that this formal recognition of a life lost can help families to live alongside their grief. Indeed, since we announced the launch some two weeks ago, more than 37,000 certificates have been requested by parents.
That same commitment to families is why we are rolling out Martha’s rule across England, giving patients and their families the automatic right to a rapid review of their case—24 hours a day, seven days a week. Families and carers know when something is not right or their loved one’s condition is deteriorating. Martha’s rule not only recognises this powerful instinct, but allows anyone concerned to act on it and to make sure that the NHS listens.
With your permission, Mr Speaker, for which I am very grateful, I would like to alert the House to a written ministerial statement and a detailed letter from NHS England that has been laid this morning. It addresses a historical issue whereby women who received radiotherapy above the waist to treat Hodgkin lymphoma, and who were therefore at a higher risk of breast cancer, were not given annual checks. Yesterday, the NHS wrote to the 1,487 women affected in order to inform them. We expect all women to be offered a scan within the next three months, and NHS England has established a helpline and briefed GPs and relevant charities. The vast majority of this group of women will already have been receiving screening on a three-yearly basis, but NHS England wants to ensure that they receive annual tests, in line with the clinical guidance.
I wanted to alert hon. Members to that because, with the letters having been sent out yesterday, it is perfectly possible—indeed, probable—that they will start to receive queries from their constituents. I will of course keep the House updated. I emphasise, however, that what I have given is a summary, and I would encourage hon. Members to look at the very detailed letter from NHS England in order to reassure their constituents that we are scooping up everybody we can to look after them at this very troubling time.
John Penrose
Like many people here, I was delighted by last month’s NHS dentistry recovery plan. How many new NHS dental appointments does the Secretary of State expect to be available in my constituency of Weston-super-Mare, and by when?
Victoria Atkins
I thank my hon. Friend for supporting our dental recovery plan. Indeed, he is one of many colleagues who campaigned hard for it. I am pleased to inform him that dental activity, as measured by courses of treatment, has increased by 15% on the previous year in his local integrated care board area, and our plan will support further increases to dental access through some 2.5 million additional appointments across the country, including in his constituency. The first measure, namely new patient premiums, went live on Friday, and we hope to have the results very soon.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
With a general election in the air, I welcome what the Secretary of State has said about baby loss certificates and Martha’s rule—there is genuine cross-party agreement on this. I also thank her for advance notice of today’s important written ministerial statement.
However, with a general election in the air and given the Secretary of State’s principled, vocal and consistent opposition to funding the NHS by abolishing the non-dom tax status, on a scale of one to 10—one being utterly shameless and 10 being highly embarrassed—how red-faced will she be when the Chancellor adopts Labour’s policy tomorrow?
Victoria Atkins
One of the joys of being at the Government Dispatch Box is that not only do we have to deal with very serious matters, such as I have just set out, but we get to have a knockabout on the Labour party’s electioneering. The hon. Gentleman will know the Conservatives’ proud record on funding our NHS since 2010. I invite him to wait for tomorrow’s Budget to see what more this Conservative Government are doing to support our constituents, and to help our economy grow for a bright future.
Wes Streeting
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), has said that the policy will be
“as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 710.]
As she speeds down the A23 back to Lewes, to defend her constituency against the Liberal Democrats, how on earth will she feel with all those embers of the Conservatives’ 14-year record blowing in her face?
Is it not now clear that, with the Government having adopted Labour’s workforce plan, Labour’s dentistry recruitment plan and now Labour’s NHS funding plan, when it comes to a record to be proud of, and when it comes to finding the answers, only Labour can deliver an NHS that is fit for the future?
Victoria Atkins
The Leader of the Opposition is a former barrister, and barristers like to rely on evidence, so let me give some evidence on what the Labour-run NHS in Wales looks like. People are almost twice as likely to be waiting for treatment under the Labour-run Welsh NHS—21.3% of people in Wales are waiting for hospital treatment after a consultant referral, compared with 12.8% in England. Patients in Labour-run Wales are, on average, waiting five weeks longer for NHS treatment than patients in England, and the number of patients in Wales who are escaping to seek treatment in England has increased by 40% in two years. But don’t worry, folks, according to the Leader of the Opposition this is the blueprint—
Mr Speaker
Order. I remind everyone that these are topical questions. It is about the many Members I need to get in, rather than the ping-pong over the Dispatch Box. Let us move on to Andrew Jones as a good example.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dame Andrea Leadsom)
I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we need more capacity in our dental workforce, and I know he will be a big advocate for his constituency. We set out in the first ever NHS long-term workforce plan that we will increase dentistry training places by 40% by 2031-32. Our dental recovery plan sets out many different measures to improve capacity.
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Later this month I will be 10 years cancer free, having survived melanoma first as a teenager and again in my early 20s. Can the Secretary of State look me in the eye and guarantee that she is doing all she can to prevent others from getting the same diagnosis ?
Victoria Atkins
Again, I thank the hon. Lady for sharing her experience, and of course we are doing all we can. I know that the SNP Scottish Government share our determination to ensure that cancer treatment continues to improve. England is diagnosing earlier and treating more. We have seen cancer survival rates improve by almost 10 percentage points since 2005, but we also know that four in 10 cancers could be prevented, which is exactly why we are bringing forward the smoke-free generation work. Of course, if the Scottish Government would like us to help with some of their waiting lists, we genuinely stand ready to do so.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I have had a number of meetings with my hon. Friend and know that he is determined to resolve some of these long-standing issues in his constituency. I have assured him that ICBs have the freedom to increase capital for primary care in their region, so long as their plans remain within their overall capital allocation. I will certainly be happy to meet him again to talk about what more measures we can take to support his constituents.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I am very surprised and disappointed to hear the hon. Lady say that. We are delivering 2.5 million more appointments through the new patient premium, which started last Friday. We will have information within a month to see which dentists have taken up this generous new patient premium to ensure that many more people get access to dentistry. Not only that, but we have golden hellos to attract dentists to areas that are underserved, mobile dental vans and, importantly, a new focus on Smile4life. That is going to ensure that all babies and young children have that fabulous smile for life.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Dame Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend raises an important point. He will be aware that a decision was taken that ear wax removal services are better done in the community and that ear syringing can cause problems. That area is under review and I am happy to write to him to address the specific point he makes about over-18s and children.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
As the hon. Lady will have heard me say earlier, we are grateful to international care workers who come to care for our loved ones in this country. We need to get the balance right between international recruitment and our home-grown care workforce. On the question specifically on dependants, I say to her that every care worker who comes here to do work in the UK has a choice as to whether to come here or not.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question and her kind invite to visit her constituency. I pay tribute to all the work she has done to secure investment in Anglia Ruskin University. She is right to highlight the importance of delivering clinical placements as part of the long-term workforce plan. I assure her that we are working closely with NHS England and partners in health and education to ensure that happens.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Medicine shortages have doubled in the UK in the last two years. There might be some global pressures, but two issues have particularly affected the UK: first, the post-Brexit regulatory framework; and secondly, the fact that the pound has tanked, making it more expensive to buy medicines. What are the Government doing to undo that Brexit dividend?
Andrew Stephenson
The hon. Gentleman sounds like a broken record, as usual. The Department has no evidence to suggest that EU exit is leading to sustained medicine shortages. Shortages occur for a wide range of reasons and are affecting countries all over the world.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Rural Norfolk is experiencing a dental crisis and a generation of children are in danger of going without dental care. I welcome the dental recovery plan, but I notice that it will be four or five years before we get more dentists. Last week, NHS Norfolk and Waveney integrated care board announced a £17 million underspend on dentistry. Will the Minister agree to meet with me and the ICB to work out how we get more money out now to help dentistry in Norfolk today?
Victoria Atkins
One of the many ways we have tackled access to dental care is to ensure that those dentists who have a contract to conduct NHS work are using them to the top of their licence. We are encouraging dentists to do that through the new patient premium and a higher rate paid for units of dental activity. There is so much more to the plan. Labour keeps trying to claim credit for our plan, but the truth is that our plan promises 2.5 million appointments while its plan promises a miserly 700,000.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
It is imperative that we tackle the scourge of mental ill health in children and young people. Labour will ensure access to mental health support in every school and establish an open-access mental health hub in every community, paid for by charging VAT on private school fees. Why will the Government not adopt that plan?
Maria Caulfield
I have a news flash for the hon. Lady: we are already doing all that work. Mental health support teams are being rolled out in schools—44% of pupils now have access to a mental health support team, rising to 50% shortly. Over 13,800 schools and colleges now have a trained senior mental health lead. Only last week we announced 24 early support hubs for 11 to 25-year-olds—they will not need a referral; they can drop in. There are 24/7 helplines available that can be accessed through 111. That is what we are doing.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Mid and South Essex integrated care board is seeking to remove vital community health services from St Peter’s Hospital in Maldon. Will the Minister meet me and our right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) to discuss the proposals? They will affect both our constituencies and are causing a great deal of concern.
Helen Whately
I would be very happy to meet my right hon. Friends to discuss those concerns.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for her offer to help cut waiting lists in Scotland. I listened to the frankly delusional statements from the SNP Benches about the state of the NHS in Scotland. We are in dire straits and suffer the same problems, particularly about GPs and appointments disappearing. When are we going to see an improvement in appointment availability?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady will no doubt be extremely envious of the fact that in England there are 50 million more GP appointments now every year, which is a fantastic achievement by this Government. She will want to look at what is happening in Scotland, which has some of the worst health outcomes in western Europe, and challenge SNP Ministers over drug and alcohol death rates and falls in life expectancy.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend explain an anomaly in the “Agenda for Change” pay deal as it affects non-NHS providers? People working in the NHS for non-NHS providers may be eligible for extra money if the organisation they work for is in financial difficulties, but not if it is not. So badly run organisations are being rewarded and well-run organisations are being penalised, which seems to me to be perverse.
Andrew Stephenson
I am happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss the matter. We have reached pay settlements with the “Agenda for Change” unions, and we continue to reach pay deals with other unions. We are also supporting non-NHS providers whose contracts are dynamically aligned. It is a complex area, so I am more than happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss his concerns.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State will know that NHS England is expected to announce the decision about the primary children’s centre for cancer treatment in south London and south-east London. Evelina London Children’s Hospital in my constituency is one of the only specialist centres in south London. Does she agree that the final decision should be made as soon as possible in order to benefit staff, patients and families? Will she join me in visiting Evelina London?
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. In fairness, colleagues from across the House have been raising this issue with me because it affects a large population of London and the surrounding areas. I must leave it to NHS England to finish its consultation process, but I would be very happy to visit not just the Evelina but our other wonderful hospitals that look after children.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Given the expansion of health services through Pharmacy First, what action is my right hon. Friend the Minister taking to ensure that communities such as Sandiacre in my constituency, whose branch of Boots is due to close at the end of the month, are not left without access to such vital services?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I am very happy to discuss that matter with my hon. Friend, who is a huge advocate for her constituency. It is always disappointing when a community pharmacy closes, but she will know that the launch of Pharmacy First on 31 January expanded the value and contribution of all our community pharmacies. It has been met with a £645 million investment over this year and next.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
On access to primary care provision, will the Secretary of State assure the House that she will liaise with Health Ministers in the devolved Departments to ensure that rural communities do not lose out because of their isolated locations?
Victoria Atkins
I am very happy to give that assurance. I was delighted to meet Minister Swann yesterday to discuss his plans for Northern Ireland healthcare, including access to primary care.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
I remind Members of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s international recognition procedure will ensure faster access to innovative treatments, but it will realise its full potential only if it is matched by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s evaluation process. What is my right hon. Friend the Minister doing to ensure that the two processes are aligned?
Andrew Stephenson
My hon. Friend will be aware that there have been delays with approvals by the MHRA and NICE. We are keen to ensure that those delays are reduced, and I am delighted to tell the House that significant progress has been made in both organisations. I am happy to work with my hon. Friend and both organisations to ensure that progress continues to be made.
Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
Figures obtained by the British Dental Association project that £8 million of the NHS budget in Somerset is going unspent. Will the Minister explain to my constituent, who is suffering in dental agony, why that is happening?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I encourage the hon. Lady to hold her integrated care board to account. We invest more than £3 billion a year in dentistry, and our dental recovery plan means that significant money is available for NHS dentistry. It is for the integrated care board to commission those units of dental activity, which now offer more money—a minimum of £28 per UDA. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady if she finds she is not getting anywhere with her ICB.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
I am currently working with a brilliant local pharmacist, Fizz, to open a new NHS dental practice in Belfairs in my constituency. Premises and dentists have been lined up, but we need the ICB to commission the service. Will the Minister meet me, my local ICB and Fizz to unlock that vital service as soon as possible?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I am delighted to hear about that really good news for my hon. Friend’s constituents—I know she works tirelessly for them. Of course, I will be very happy to meet her.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Wendy Hart had a high white blood cell count when she was discharged from the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. Her husband, Terence, described a dreadful, pointless 60-mile round trip home and back to hospital before Wendy died of sepsis. Will the Minister consider distances between acute hospitals and rural communities when reviewing hospital discharge guidance?
Helen Whately
I am very sorry to hear about what happened to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. I send my condolences to her family and loved ones. Clearly, it is very important that discharge decisions are led by clinicians, who can make a clinical decision about whether somebody is medically ready to be discharged. I have no doubt that the family may well take up that decision with local NHS organisations.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
No doctor wants to be on strike, so I welcome the new deal with the consultant unions. It shows that by being reasonable, pragmatic and acting in good faith, unions can deliver for their members. Does my right hon. Friend agree?
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend knows only too well the importance of industrial action and the impact it can have on patients and on the NHS as a whole. I am pleased that the BMA has announced today, following the previous settlement that was narrowly rejected in its ballot, that it has been able to get back around the table with my officials and me. We have been able to find a fair and reasonable settlement that the BMA will advocate for and recommend to its members. We hope that that shows those who are choosing to strike that constructive negotiations, and trying to sort out some of the concerns that we know clinicians have, can be dealt with in a reasonable manner, which is of benefit not just to staff, but to patients.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
How many people were treated for acquired brain injury last year?
Andrew Stephenson
The hon. Gentleman has caught me off guard—I will write to him. I am keen to continue working with him on that issue. As he knows, we have already shared draft details of the acquired brain injury strategy with him and members of the all-party parliamentary group, and I am very keen to continue working collaboratively on that issue with him.
Point of Order
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have spoken before in the House about my constituent, retired school caretaker Gary Godwin, who is fighting for redress after losing £2,000 of his hard-earned savings to the now defunct funeral plan firm Safe Hands. Gary and 47,000 others look to have been let down by a failed regulatory regime overseen by the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, for a grand total of £60 million between them. After raising the issue in questions to the Leader of the House last July and at Treasury questions last October, I finally managed, at the start of the year, after several attempts, to get a meeting with the Economic Secretary, who said he would raise it with the Chancellor. Having not had a reply for two months, I informed the Economic Secretary that I would raise a point of order today. Within an hour, I received a reply, but there was no mention of discussing the matter with the Chancellor, or of a review of the correspondence, as was originally promised. Will you tell me, Mr Speaker, what more I can do to ensure that Gary and his fellow victims do not have a lengthy wait for justice?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order and for giving me notice of it. I understand that the Chancellor has replied to his letter in the last few minutes—is that correct? In any case, those on the Treasury Bench will have heard what he has had to say. He still has time to table a question for the Chancellor at Treasury questions on 19 March to follow up on this important matter. I am sure that the Table Office will be able to advise him on how to else he might pursue it.
Senior Civil Service (Accountability and Appointment)
Tuesday 5th March 2024
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Senior Civil Service (Accountability and Appointment) Bill 2023-24 View all Senior Civil Service (Accountability and Appointment) Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the scrutiny and approval by Parliament of appointments to senior civil service roles; and for connected purposes.
In this nation, people rightly expect this elected and accountable Parliament to oversee an impartial civil service. The notion of distance and unaccountability has, however, grown among the populace like a spectre, caused by unnecessary tensions on both sides and casting aspersions on the majority. It is time something was done about it.
We need this reform because nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the relationship between Parliament and the civil service. This is the mother of Parliaments, and our civil service is held to be the gold standard in the world of officialdom. When elected Members and the civil service row in the same direction, we can produce startling results, which have beaten fascists, built the NHS, and won the Olympic bid. When the conduct between us becomes strained, when confidence is undermined and when accountability, trust or respect are lacking, we get cast-iron assurances regarding matters such as weapons of mass destruction and sub-par personal protective equipment contracts. As a result, perfectly sound policies get stalled.
I am sure all colleagues will agree that our civil service is a great one, as is our Parliament—men and women dedicated to the public good—but has been plagued in recent years by increasing tensions that have a fundamental impact on the discharge of governance and policy. Let us consider the issues we have seen in recent years and how they tell of structural deficiencies, rather than being merely isolated accidents under a particular Administration.
The Sue Gray affair should alarm us all, whatever side of the House we sit on. To have a civil servant preside over an investigation into a Prime Minister, and then achieve escape velocity from the civil service to go and work immediately for the Opposition, has scarred the view of impartiality that the majority rightly accept and expect. The same could be said of the role of political appointees. In many ways, we can view certain Labour and Conservative spin doctors as essentially the same entity: unaccountable to the public, but very much imposed on the public, beyond the advisory role for which they were initially intended.
Both those issues could be addressed through updates to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which sought to better control apparatus such as special advisers, but if we wish to fix an issue, we need to amend the culture that goes with it. To do that, we need to start at the top. We need a culture that the majority of the service still respects.
Let us define that top and the route to it. The great mandarins who hold vast power are often faceless. That cannot be right in a democracy: if a person wants power, they must be subjected to the sunlight of this place. Permanent secretaries are appointed under a scheme in which the Prime Minister has the final say in the recruitment process—the Prime Minister alone chooses directly from a list created by the civil service commissioners. If any Member present can, without the aid of Google, name the commissioners who appoint people to hold power over their constituents’ lives, I would be amazed.
It is not just the permanent secretaries we must consider. The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trades Union Administration Act 2014 explains that a permanent secretary is a person serving in a range of government posts. That definition needs massively expanding to ensure that it encompasses top officials within state entities such as the NHS—for instance, the CEO of the NHS is often seen as a godlike distant figure and not suitably accountable to this place. Let us be in no doubt: horrific things happen if a culture is enabled where officials feel they are above policy instructions from the elected. At the current time, advancement in the civil service comes from appeasing the established networks, such as the commission, and the Minister for the civil service. These people serve the nation, so their fortunes should lie with this institution, not an elite few within it.
I do not propose that we fix all the issues at once, nor do I propose a baby-out-with -the-bathwater approach, but a modest solution that resets the relationship to a more traditional and, may I say, British footing. By that, I mean a process that is less invested in smoke-filled rooms with those from the Executive, one that empowers this place. I propose that a cross-party Committee of both Houses be formed to fold those appointments into understood due process. Appointments would be fixed-term and renewable by this place, which will end at a stroke the concept of a job for life. This is hardly revolution: it is a mix of established democratic processes in Parliament and professional standards that industry outside this place would recognise. It would only impact a few dozen people at the top; it is hardly onerous. I imagine that 99.9% of the civil service would not be impacted, but the change to the culture at the top would cascade down. If the upper echelons knew they were better overseen by this place—this cross-party institution—they would ensure that those they manage are correctly supported, mentored and held to account.
Some siren voices claim that this work could be discharged by Select Committees holding more hearings, or that better training of Ministers could fix all the issues, but the bottom line is that if a person has vast power over the machinery of government but does not feel a sense of fealty to Parliament, such ideas are mere tinkering. What I have proposed can be done now, in a modest manner, to gently course-correct a few errors and modernise and empower this institution. If we do not do so, eventually we could well need more radical reform. The relief valve is simple and established: professional industry processes via this accountable House. Let us act now, because if a trend of unaccountability continues to make people question who is really running Britain, the gold standard I mentioned will soon be seen as fool’s gold.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Giles Watling, Michael Fabricant, Andrew Rosindell and Mr Mark Francois present the Bill.
Giles Watling accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 May, and to be printed (Bill 171).
Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]
Tuesday 5th March 2024
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Automated Vehicles Bill [HL] 2023-24 View all Automated Vehicles Bill [HL] 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 1-R-I(a) Manuscript amendments for Report (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (6 Feb 2024)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As hon. Members know, most journeys take place on our roads. About 86% are made by cars, taxis and vans, but in the over 100 years since the invention of the car, despite our vehicles becoming better, safer and now cleaner, one aspect of driving has remained constant: the driver has always controlled the vehicle. In future, things may be different. For all or part of a driver’s journey, self-driving vehicles will free them from that responsibility, improving the lives of the millions of people who are unable to drive; boosting connectivity for rural communities across the country; transforming freight, be it long haul or last mile; and above all, making our roads safer.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
As the Secretary of State knows, insurance premiums have been going through the roof recently—the costs are astronomical. What impact does he expect automated vehicles to have on insurance premiums?
Mr Harper
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make a little progress, I will speak about how one centrepiece of the Bill and of our approach is the safety not just of the automated vehicle and its occupants but of other road users, particularly vulnerable road users. I will come on to that point; if the hon. Gentleman does not feel that I have covered it, he should feel free to intervene again.
We are on the cusp of a transport revolution, and Britain is very much at the wheel of that decision. British companies are developing the self-driving technology; British lawyers are developing the robust new legal frameworks that are being used; and British parliamentarians in this House and the other place can now agree regulation widely seen as among the most comprehensive in the world. The goal is clear: we want to make this country the natural home for the self-driving vehicle industry, and this Bill is the next stop on that journey.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
It will not surprise my right hon. Friend that I am speaking up for Milton Keynes on this subject. This is a huge global opportunity for Britain, worth £350 billion, and Milton Keynes is often the testbed of this technology. It is a beautiful, vibrant city that is going places—except perhaps in the eyes of the producers of last night’s “EastEnders”—so does he agree that when we get this technology, we will be able to roll it out because we have tested it in places such as Milton Keynes?
Mr Harper
I thank my hon. Friend for speaking powerfully for his constituency. He is right: those developing this technology will want to roll it out carefully and thoughtfully, and they will want to do that in specific places in the United Kingdom. He has just made a powerful bid for Milton Keynes to be at the centre of that.
Gearing Britain up for a self-driving future has been the work of years. In 2015, our world-leading code of practice enabled self-driving vehicle trials in the UK. We passed the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018, which codified insurance in this area for the first time and recognised the importance of that, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) said earlier. In that same year, we kicked off a Law Commissions review on a legal and safety framework for self-driving vehicles—
Mr Harper
Let me just set out what that review did, then I will take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman, who is an esteemed member of the Select Committee. It convened legal minds from across the country, launched three rounds of public consultation, sifted through hundreds of written responses and produced more than 70 recommendations, which now underpin this legislation.
Grahame Morris
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. These are really important points, as is the clarification sought by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr on insurance liability. Can I ask the Secretary of State about the arrangements for the compensation of victims of any collisions that are caused by uninsured automated vehicles? He mentioned the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018, but that legislation does not mention this point. This Bill represents an opportunity to address that. Will the Secretary of State set out how we are going to do that, or are we missing an opportunity?
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. We have arrangements in place for vehicles with human drivers who are uninsured, and we are working with the Motor Insurers’ Bureau on the arrangements that will be in place. I would envisage analogous arrangements for self-driving vehicles that are uninsured, to make sure that if they are involved in accidents, any victims of those accidents are able to receive reimbursement in the same way as happens now for the victim of an uninsured driver. We already have arrangements, and I would envisage analogous arrangements. We are already having those conversations, but if the hon. Gentleman has more to say on that, either today or in Committee, I will be delighted to hear from him—
Grahame Morris
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification, but this is a whole new world where we will be relying on AI, software and so on. How would an insurer prove that a vehicle was being driven autonomously rather than by a driver? Under the provisions of the Bill, would the insurer have access to the data so that they could analyse it and see whether an individual was in charge of a vehicle or whether it was being driven autonomously?
Mr Harper
I will come on to that in my speech, but I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions. From the point of view of any person needing to make a claim, the insurer will be liable whether the vehicle is in self-driving mode or the user is in charge. What happens subsequently, regarding whether the manufacturer, the software provider or whoever has to pony up the money, is a matter for the insurer to argue about with them. That will not impact the victim, who will be paid by the insurer.
On the hon. Gentleman’s important point about data, we discussed this last week when I met a roundtable of those involved in the industry, including road safety campaigners and those in the insurance industry. The Bill will ensure that the data can be shared, and the insurance industry is keen for that to happen so that it can properly price the risk. I will say more about this when I talk about the safety framework, but there is a real opportunity here because most road traffic collisions are caused at least in part by human error. The track record of self-driving vehicles shows that this is an opportunity to improve road safety, which is important not just for those who use vehicles but for other road users. There is a balance to strike here. We need to capture that benefit but also ensure that we do not leave anyone exposed without protection, as the hon. Gentleman rightly set out.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
On the point the Secretary of State has just been discussing, presumably the details of all journeys undertaken by automated vehicles will be recorded. Where will that data be stored, and who will have access to it? Could someone access that information for non-driving reasons—for example, someone involved in divorce proceedings or an employer in an employment tribunal?
Mr Harper
My right hon. Friend should note that data for these purposes will be protected in the usual way. Data has to be used for the purposes for which it was gathered. There are legal processes for who has access to it, as well as those we will set out specifically for driving purposes. The other things he mentioned will be governed by the usual laws that govern the use of data. I do not want to dwell on those specifics, but they are already covered by existing data protection legislation for the devices that people have in vehicles to monitor their progress or for mobile phones.
I would like to start with safety. Anyone stepping into a self-driving vehicle will reasonably ask: “Can this car consistently drive safety? Will the law protect me if there is an accident? Is the manufacturer regulated and can they be held to account?” Under this legislation, the answer to each of those questions will be yes. The Bill has been built on a bedrock of safety, protecting not just the driver inside the car but road users outside the vehicle.
As I mentioned in answer to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), I chaired a roundtable with road safety groups last week and explained how we are holding self-driving vehicles to a higher safety standard than the average human driver, guided by principles we will soon consult on; how these vehicles must meet rigorous technical requirements before rolling off production lines and being authorised for our roads; and how we will tackle misleading marketing, with new offences for companies that seek to blur the line between true self-driving and driver assistance.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
That gets to the nub of the point. Because these vehicles are going to be automated, they will be governed by an algorithm written by a human being somewhere remote from where an accident might occur. How do we determine whether the primary purpose of that algorithm is to protect the person in the car or someone outside the car, such as a pedestrian or a child crossing the road? How does the algorithm make a choice in those circumstances?
Mr Harper
We will consult on the statement of safety principles, which will set out the governing principles of the legislation. On the specifics, this will be about making sure that the manufacturers—those who create the software and those who put the cars together—have rigorous processes for testing and decision-making. Those systems will have to be authorised to be used in our cars, and it will be important to look at their data and their track records. As I say, in real-world situations where these vehicles are being used—for example, in California—the evidence suggests that they have a very good safety record that is much better than that of human drivers. There is a big opportunity here to have a safer road environment, not just for the users of the vehicles but for other road users.
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity to ride in a self-driving vehicle, but the data they collect of their surroundings is interesting. My personal observation is that the space they give when passing a cyclist, for example, is a lot more generous than that I have seen many human drivers give. Of course, those parameters are going to be set and regulated, and people will have to be assured that the vehicles are safe before they are on the road. Ultimately, the manufacturer will be legally responsible if they turn out not to be.
Clive Efford
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way a second time. I agree entirely that, overall, roads will be safer with automated vehicles, but there will still be accidents. My question was specifically about where there is an accident and there is a choice to be made about protecting the person inside the car and injuring someone outside the car. How do we determine what takes priority in those circumstances?
Mr Harper
We will consult on the safety principles, but with some of this stuff we have to look at the way the vehicles make decisions. We cannot possibly legislate for every single set of circumstances. In the same way, when there is a collision involving a vehicle with a human driver, the driver will make the best decision they can in the specific circumstances. Sometimes those situations lead to legal conflict and then people have to make a judgment. We cannot legislate for every single one of those circumstances in advance. What we can do is make sure there are robust systems that make good decisions based on the best data, and then look at the track record. We will also set up a regulatory system whereby any accident involving an automated vehicle will be properly investigated.
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. It is essential with this legislation that we earn the public’s trust and win their confidence. That is one of the reasons why we have been so clear, and why we accepted the amendments in the other place, about putting safety at the forefront of the Bill. If people are not persuaded of that, this technology will not make much progress.
Several hon. Members rose—
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State is taking a safety-first approach to this legislation, and that seems to be the will of the House. I have used a driverless vehicle operated by Waymo, a driverless Uber-style service in the United States. He will know that those vehicles have more cameras—more eyes—looking in more directions more of the time than it would be possible to achieve even with 100 drivers sitting in a single vehicle. My concern is whether, in his effort to put safety first, he is compromising the potential for economic growth. In America, most of the force for change with automated vehicles is being driven by the leading global technology companies. What discussions has he had with those companies in preparation for the Bill? How comfortable are they with the Government’s approach?
Mr Harper
I have discussed the legislation with a number of those companies—both UK companies and those in the US—and I am pleased to assure my hon. Friend and the House that they too recognise that safety is incredibly important. They all understand that they have to be able to operate within a legal framework set by legislators who are ultimately accountable to the public, and that they have to take the public with them. As ever with these things, whatever the track record of existing vehicles and drivers, because this is new technology, people will be sceptical about it, and anything that goes wrong will have a brighter light shone on it. The industry is very aware of that and, I think, very happy to work with us on those issues.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I will be honest, Mr Deputy Speaker: I am not very technically minded. I like the idea of a manual car with five or six gears and reverse. In the rural community that I live in, I am very happy with that. I have a bit of hesitation about automated vehicles. Thinking about young drivers—this is really important, because the Secretary of State mentioned blurred lines—we have to make sure that everyone who learns to drive has full capacity to drive any vehicle, and does not think they can get into an automated vehicle and just sit there and do nothing. It is really important that everyone is subject to the same rules. Can he confirm for anyone who thinks that in future they will be able just to sit in the back of the car that that is not the case, and that they will have to learn to drive in the way that we all have over the years?
Mr Harper
I will come to that in a second—it will become clear in the next section of my speech—but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Bill is about giving people choices. If people want, as many will, to carry on driving their existing vehicles in the traditional way, that is absolutely fine and no one is going to try to stop them. To be very clear, the hon. Gentleman can carry on driving for as long as he wants to and is safe to, and no one is going to try to stop him. Certainly, I am not going to try—I wouldn’t dare.
On the legal concerns—this will address the point about the driving test, too—the Bill redefines our legal relationship with road transport. As soon as someone turns on a self-driving feature, legal responsibility for how the car drives will transfer to an authorised self-driving entity, or ASDE—not a very catchy acronym, admittedly, but that is what they are called. That could be a manufacturer or a software developer but, crucially, it will not be the human driver, who will assume a new status. As a user in charge, they will still need to ensure that the car is roadworthy, and they will need to reassume control if necessary. That answers the hon. Gentleman’s question: someone will still need to be in possession of a full driving licence and able to reassume control of the vehicle if required, but they will be protected by law from any offences while the car is driving itself.
Some journeys, either in private cars or on self-driving transport, will be fully automated, and a human will never need to take control; they will be, in essence, a passenger. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) mentioned the example of Waymo cars in the US. Those are operated as taxis, with no driver present, and the human is never expected to take control; it is classed as a “no user in charge” journey. In those circumstances, someone would not need a driving licence, because they would never be expected to drive the car, in the same way we are not expected to drive a taxi or private hire vehicle. Those legal concepts will have a seismic impact.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
This is the future, and it is both quite exciting and quite scary. We have to get our heads around it and make sure that we get this right. On what the Secretary of State has just been describing, is it basically the difference between someone taking a taxi and driving their own car? If there is an accident in a taxi, the taxi company is responsible, not the passenger.
Mr Harper
If someone is using a vehicle for a “no user in charge” journey for which they are, in effect, the passenger and there is an accident, it will be totally the responsibility, in all circumstances, of the person operating the vehicle. Where someone who is driving the car for part of the time switches on the self-driving features and something happens while those features are activated, that will be not their responsibility but that of the manufacturer or the software developer. If someone is in control of the vehicle and the self-driving features are not activated, they retain responsibility.
One of the things that we will have to do is educate people about the difference, and we are being clear to manufacturers that there is a big difference between a self-driving feature and driver assistance. Under driver assistance, the driver is still fully legally responsible for the vehicle, but with some technological help; when the self-driving features are activated, they no longer have legal responsibility.
Wera Hobhouse
Is there not potential for a legal conflict between a driver who says, “I was in self-driving mode,” and a company that says, “No, it was switched off”? Does the Secretary of State see that it might be very difficult to establish what happened in such circumstances?
Mr Harper
Potentially, but that is exactly why the earlier question about data is very important. These vehicles generate a huge amount of data and one part of the authorisation process will be making sure that that data is properly managed and there is proper access to it by the investigators of any potential accident and the insurance industry to establish exactly what has happened in such circumstances.
Iain Stewart
I want to build on the question from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the situation where a driver is in control of the car at some point and at other points the car is autonomous. That will presumably result in drivers becoming less experienced, as they will not accumulate as much knowledge and experience of driving. When the automated features switch off and the driver needs to take control, those will be potentially immediate and challenging circumstances. Is my right hon. Friend assured that the driving test and refresher courses will give drivers sufficient capacity to take over in those circumstances?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend raises a good point. I am very comfortable with the driving test; it continues to be updated to make sure drivers are familiar with features such as satnavs, and the new technology will be added. The wider question about how often drivers drive and how experienced they are of course arises now. Someone can take a driving test and not drive very much but occasionally hire a vehicle, and we hold them to the same standard as those who drive day in and day out; they are still responsible. There might in these circumstances be a question about whether it would be sensible for people to take refresher courses and do further training, and we will want to monitor that and determine whether we should legislate for it or issue guidance. It is an interesting point for us to keep an eye on.
As well as the legal issues, making driving more convenient in this way also makes it potentially much more accessible, by for example giving those who cannot drive at the moment, such as the 340,000 people registered blind or partially sighted, new options to travel independently, opening doors to economic and social opportunities that have thus far remained closed. Interestingly, in the United States, where this technology has been rolled out earliest, it is those groups who have been most vocal in arguing for the technology, because it changes their lives for the better and opens up their opportunities.
The third area is learning and enforcement. This technology will get stronger, smarter and safer over time. The safety data will be collected by the vehicle, monitored by its operator and scrutinised by a Government regulator, which means we can take enforcement action when things go wrong or through sanctions and suspensions if a company withholds data. The Bill also includes measures to investigate incidents independently and ensure that lessons are learned. I have spoken about the context behind the Bill and addressed some of the key components and will turn now to some of the benefits self-driving vehicles will bring.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
This is an exciting Bill about an exciting future. I have listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend has said about who will ultimately be responsible if there is an accident. My understanding is it will always be the manufacturer and will never be the person who owns the car. In my constituency, as in many others, large numbers of people like modifying their cars and I am sure when autonomous vehicles are introduced people will want to modify those as well. They might change them in ways that ultimately slightly limit or diminish some of the safety features put in when the car was built, so who will be ultimately responsible in such circumstances? People may make modifications without knowing the implications, potentially, for diminishing the safety of the car. Will the manufacturer still be responsible when the car is modified, or will it be the owner?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend raises a very important point that we must make sure is covered. Clearly, if people make modifications that alter the functioning of the self-driving features of the vehicle, we would either have to say that that was not acceptable or they would have to accept that the vehicle was no longer self-driving. There would need to be rules. The vehicle will go through an authorisation process to go on the road, and there will be things that people will be allowed to change and things that they will not. I suspect that manufacturers will be very clear that they will no longer be responsible for a self-driving vehicle if someone has modified it. As long as that is clear, that is fine, but people will have to accept that, as cars become more technological with more technology built into them, the days of being able to tinker around with them under the bonnet and alter things will be long past if we want that technological stuff to kick in.
Alexander Stafford
My question was not just about modification that may change the safety of the car but about any modification. If someone who owns an iPhone changes the screen, it is no longer under manufacturer warranty even though that does not affect how it works. If someone has modified their car and it does not affect a safety feature but there is then an accident, will the manufacturer be able to say that the car has been modified and that, even though the safety features are unchanged, it is therefore no longer its responsibility? Will the liability pass to the owner if the manufacturer decides it has nothing to do with it?
Mr Harper
These cars will have to be authorised by the regulator to go on the road, but my hon. Friend makes the good point that, as part of that process, what the user of the vehicle can and cannot do needs to be clear. I suspect there will be very limited things that they could do without affecting the operation of the vehicle, but it is good to put on the record that in the information provided by both the manufacturer and the regulator we must be clear about what the user of the vehicle can and cannot do to ensure it can be driven safely.
Despite Britain having some of the safest roads in the world, the levels of serious injury and road deaths remain too high. That could soon change. If we can eliminate driver error, which is involved in 88% of road collisions, we could get to the point where self- driving vehicles are a game changer for road safety: they do not drink and drive, they do not get stressed or distracted, they do not speed, get tired, bend the rules of the road or push their luck.
Self-driving vehicles will save lives and we cannot ignore the economic impact either. According to industry estimates, 40% of new cars will by 2035 have some self-driving capability. This is a growing global market, Britain’s share of which could be worth £42 billion and generate 38,000 skilled jobs in areas ranging from cyber-security to AI, and thanks to Government support, our self-driving vehicle industry is not only thriving but recognised the world over.
Grahame Morris
I thank the Secretary of State for his reassurances about safety. I do not think it is all one-sided, because another aspect of safety is cyber-safety, which we do not need to worry about with a traditional car. Automated vehicles are extremely vulnerable to cyber-attacks from hackers and potentially from terrorists, especially as the software and technology age. What are the Government going to do? Are they going to commit to establishing the necessary regulations to ensure cyber-security for automated vehicles is robust and that protections continue over the lifetime of the vehicle?
Mr Harper
The simple answer is, yes, we are going to do that. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise cyber-security as an issue, and it is of course an issue today, because many cars today have electronic features from keyless entry to navigation systems. Existing cars are vulnerable to being hacked. Cyber-security is important and we and the industry are working with the National Cyber Security Centre. I agree that cyber-security will be very important, but it already is important.
Clive Efford
I agree with what the Secretary of State said about tinkering and that nullifying any insurance, but we have also just experienced the Horizon scandal, where the manufacturers themselves had access to the technology. What security do drivers have from the designers of the software governing these cars covering their own backs?
Mr Harper
One of the things we will have in place is a duty of candour. We will also set up a regulatory process with investigations of every self-driving vehicle involved in an incident. Importantly, manufacturers will be legally obliged to have that duty of candour to disclose the information, so that these issues can be got to the bottom of. The hon. Member raises a specific case that I will not comment on, and there will no doubt be learnings from that case, but the regulatory approach we are setting up will deal with the issue he just raised.
Mr Harper
Let me make a bit of progress; I want to try to get to a conclusion, because others wish to speak, but I will try to get back to my right hon. Friend in a sec.
In 2019, Google’s Waymo made the UK its first European engineering hub for self-driving technologies. Bosch and ZF, among others, are investing in the UK, drawn by our highly skilled workforce. CAM Testbed UK, a unique cluster of five facilities between London and the west midlands, has received £200 million of Government and industry funding, and we have put £66 million into scaling up self-driving mobility ideas, from buses in Scotland to HGVs in Sunderland, with a further £150 million announced as part of our advanced manufacturing plan. We do not want to lose momentum, and we want to make sure that we push the industry to realise the full benefits of this technology. I hope that the Bill brings certainty to investors, clarity to manufacturers, confidence to the public and demonstrates Britain’s strongest commitment yet to a self-driving future. Before I conclude, I will take an intervention from my right hon. Friend.
Sir Greg Knight
The Secretary of State has been generous in giving way. Just to clarify the point, there could be circumstances where a vehicle is in fully auto mode, but the owner bears some responsibility. For example, if an automated vehicle is on full auto and is involved in an accident, but it is then discovered that all the tyres are without tread, surely in those circumstances the owner would bear some blame.
Mr Harper
I set out at the beginning that in circumstances where a user is in charge—where they are not purely a passenger with a company providing a taxi or private hire service—and the vehicle is in self-driving mode, the manufacturer or software provider is responsible for the conduct of the vehicle, but the user in charge is responsible for such things as the physical condition of the vehicle and the tyres, and they retain that responsibility. The balance of which of those things caused the accident will be determined in exactly the same way as currently.
In conclusion, as I think the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) set out, self-driving vehicles will provoke excitement from some and nerves from others, but for most of us, it is a combination of the two. Clearly it is an opportunity, but there are some risks. I know that first-hand, not only having visited California-based Waymo and ridden in one of its self-driving vehicles, but having done a journey from my departmental office to this House in a self-driving vehicle designed by the British company Wayve. It was interesting, as it went expertly through busy streets and responded quickly to things. It was a rainy day and a lot of people were darting in and out of the traffic—probably not sensibly—but the car responded safely. I realised the enormous potential of this technology, not just as a growing economic sector, but for a future where transport is safer, more convenient and more accessible. This Bill is a crucial step towards that future, and I take great pleasure in commending it to the House.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Let me start by confirming Labour’s support for the legislation and the principle behind it. Automated vehicle technology, once the preserve of science fiction, is advancing at pace. Fully autonomous vehicles are already being tested on our roads by world-leading UK companies. The progress they have made is truly something to behold. Continuing that progress and getting this technology and the safety standards around it right are so important. It has huge implications for road safety, vehicle accessibility and our economy, so Labour agrees that it is vital we have a proper regulatory framework in place to ensure these technologies are introduced in a safe and accessible way that contributes positively to our economy.
On that basis, we welcome the Bill and its efforts to set safety principles for these vehicles and clear rules around marketing to stop consumers being misled about the autonomous capability of the vehicles being sold to them. However, there is still room to go further and to ensure that these vehicles’ introduction is a public good and not in any way a destructive force. A few months ago, I also visited Wayve in King’s Cross, a UK company doing pioneering work to develop autonomous technology for vehicles, which it is already testing on our roads. It is an experience, sitting in a vehicle with no driver, no controls and no clue which direction it will go in next, and I admit that I wondered, as I was being whisked about central London in all sorts of directions without any input or control from me, if that was not how the Secretary of State felt sitting around the Cabinet table most weeks.
Turning to the safety benefits of autonomous vehicles, it has been estimated that road collisions cost our economy as much as £43.2 billion in 2022 and that 85% of road crashes involve an element of human error. Automated vehicles can play a huge role in reducing human error, avoiding tragic accidents and helping to reduce the burden on the state in the process. The need to do more to tackle these deaths and injuries on our roads cannot be overstated. The last Labour Government cut road fatalities by almost 50% while in office, but there has been only an 8% reduction since 2010.
The Bill comes to us in a vastly improved state from the other place, thanks to pressure from my Labour colleagues there. As a result of their efforts, the Bill explicitly targets a safety standard for autonomous vehicles equivalent to or higher than a careful and competent human driver, as it rightly should. The statement of safety principles that the Secretary of State must make following the passage of the Bill will now also be subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is important progress, and we are grateful for the Government accepting those important amendments.
Grahame Morris
We are addressing important safety and regulation issues, but does my hon. Friend share my concerns about potential job losses? Almost a million people are employed in the logistics sector, including drivers, delivery drivers and so on. I know the Bill is not concerned with alternative employment, but I see the effects of deindustrialisation in my area. Does she share my concerns about the potential job losses if this legislation is not done in a sensible way?
Louise Haigh
It is typical of my hon. Friend to raise such an important and pertinent point. I will come to it shortly in my speech.
It is a shame that much of the important work still to do on this safety regime will be set out further down the line, rather than being debated today in the Chamber. We will look closely at the detail when it comes to see how the standard is defined in practice, and I welcome any insight from the Government today to reassure colleagues on that. For instance, what level of fault will be allowed for an autonomous vehicle compared with a standard practical driving test, if any at all?
This technology does not just offer potential road safety benefits. It is estimated that disabled people in the UK take around 38% fewer trips than non-disabled people. Automated vehicles could help address that gap by unlocking a world of opportunity for those who cannot or struggle to drive and for those held back from that opportunity by the inaccessibility of too much of our public transport network. Securing those benefits will mean ensuring that access to these vehicles is not limited just to the extremely wealthy, and that the interests of disabled people, who are currently five times more likely to be injured by a vehicle than non-disabled pedestrians, are at the heart of the development of these technologies from the very start. I would welcome the Secretary of State setting out how he will ensure that disabled people and disability-led groups will be properly consulted as these vehicles are introduced to our roads.
Jim Shannon
I suppose, if I am being honest, that I am a bit of a sceptic in this matter. I am not a petrolhead, by the way, but many of my constituents love their cars, love their vehicles, and love the opportunity to work under the bonnet. I am always conscious that we may see a move towards automated vehicles all across the country, irrespective of what people think. Is it the shadow Minister’s intention to ensure that people will always have choice? If she does, that is the right way.
Louise Haigh
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and remain impressed that he has something to say on this issue, as on so many others. It will of course remain the case that should people wish to drive their cars, they will be free and able to do so. I think it will be a long time—indeed, the industry has predicted it will be several decades—before the number of automated vehicles outstrips the number of vehicles with drivers on our roads.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) mentioned, there is one major area that the Bill does not address, and which we have not considered in any meaningful capacity, which is the potential impact on jobs from automated vehicles. As a South Yorkshire MP, I am all too familiar with the economic impacts of deindustrialisation. Far too many towns and cities across the north have already suffered enough from lost livelihoods, with the social fabric of their communities ripped apart as a new economic model left them behind. We simply cannot afford to make those same mistakes again.
That is why Labour has been clear that artificial intelligence and automation must be harnessed as a public good—one that delivers social benefits, grows the economy and supports jobs rather than destroying them. That is why, during its passage through the other place, my Labour colleagues attempted to amend the Bill to establish an advisory council that would ensure the Government consult on the introduction of these vehicles with not only industry representatives and road safety experts, but trade unions. The Government opposed that amendment. From the way this Government have politicised the ongoing industrial dispute on our railways and Ministers’ failure to even sit down with union representatives, we have already seen just how important it is to have proper engagement with workforce representatives, as well as just how far this Government will go to avoid doing it.
I would welcome an explanation from the Secretary of State as to why he is so opposed to the idea of speaking to experts and trade union representatives about the introduction of such sensitive and consequential technology. Will he also say what steps he will take to ensure this technology creates jobs, rather than destroying them, especially in the areas of the country where low-paid work dominates? It is in exactly those areas, which still feel the ravages of deindustrialisation, that jobs in driving, warehousing and logistics dominate—all jobs that face the highest risks from automation. Unless the Government are prepared to play an active role in how we transition our economy, it is exactly those areas, like my constituency in South Yorkshire, that will be hit all over again.
I have talked a lot about what the Bill is, Mr Deputy Speaker, but allow me a minute to talk about what it is not. As the Secretary of State well knows, his Government have promised us all sorts of transport legislation over the years that they have failed to make parliamentary time for. This Bill is not his long-promised rail reform. It is not legislation to properly regulate e-scooters, e-bikes or drones, to set minimum standards for taxis, to extend franchising for buses, or to strengthen the powers of the Civil Aviation Authority—legislation that has been promised time and again by this Government, without any intention of actually delivering it.
I will close by pointing out the irony that the one major piece of transport legislation in this parliamentary Session is a Bill on driverless cars brought forward by a driverless Government who are running out of road.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
I call the Chairman of the Transport Committee.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute to this debate. I should flag that the Transport Committee conducted an extensive inquiry on self-driving vehicles and published our report on the subject last year. Our principal recommendation was to bring forward legislation to give the industry and investors the certainty to continue their work. We are very pleased indeed that the Government have taken on board our central recommendation and brought forward this Bill. We commend the Law Commission for the background work it did to provide the legal underpinning.
Hopefully there will be sufficient time for the Bill to reach the statute book before we get to the general election. Had it not been brought forward, there was a real danger of a missed opportunity. The UK has been a leading player in the development of this global technology, but there is no certainty that that would continue. One message we heard loud and clear from the sector was that it needs the regulatory framework and that certainty to allow further investment to take place, so we are, as I say, very pleased that that is happening. To give some idea of the scale, figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders estimate that by 2040, the annual economic impact to the country will be £66 billion. My fellow Select Committee member, the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), raised legitimate concerns about the risk to jobs from this new technology, but there is an upside: 12,000 new direct jobs in automotive manufacturing, and more than 300,000 additional jobs in the wider economy, again using SMMT figures. There are economic opportunities —job opportunities—provided by this new technology.
It is always difficult to adjust to change in the economy. I often use the analogy that a few decades ago, lots of people were employed in manufacturing typewriters; now there is hardly anyone in that industry, but other job opportunities arose. That will also be the case in this sector. He is not in his place now, but I echo the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) that the city of Milton Keynes has been at the forefront of the research and development and the testing of this technology in the UK, and long may that continue.
As other speakers have said, the advantages are not just economic; this technology also widens the accessibility of transport for many people who are, for various reasons, inhibited at the moment. That wider social value may be more difficult to quantify in monetary terms, but will be increasingly valuable. More generally, this technology will widen the transport choices available. Self-driving vehicles will replace some journeys made purely by car, but will also be part of an integral transport system where a self-driving vehicle may pick up people from a railway station, bus station or airport to complete their journeys. There are many, many upsides to this legislation.
I want to highlight a few other concerns we had during our inquiry, some of which the Government have already addressed. The first is on safety. We very much welcome the amendments put forward by the Government in the other place to introduce a more certain and wider definition of safety; we set out concerns in our report that the broad definition of a self-driving vehicle as being as safe as a
“competent and careful human driver”
was just a bit too vague and weak. The amendments that have been brought forward in the Lords to ensure proper consultation not just with the industry, but more widely with road safety stakeholders, are very welcome, while the change in the parliamentary procedure from a negative to an affirmative resolution will give it greater clarity. We very much welcome that.
I will raise two particular safety issues. One, which I mentioned in my intervention on the Secretary of State, is the need to ensure that drivers have the relevant level of skill and experience to intervene when the technology requires them to do so. As I said, those instances will obviously be immediate and often in challenging conditions, and will require skills over and above the general driving competencies and knowledge as to what a driver ought to do in those circumstances. I do not think it is necessarily something to include in the Bill, but, as the Government look at the consultation on safety, I strongly urge them to look at what changes to the driving test may be appropriate, and even at wider encouragement for everyone to have refresher courses. I think most drivers—me included—would be terrified at the prospect of resitting our driving test, as we have probably built up many bad habits over the years. There is, perhaps, a wider point about ensuring that drivers remain competent, but this new technology does introduce specific new circumstances that need to considered.
The second safety-related issue is about ensuring that MOT tests are up to date so that they properly capture all safety-critical technology. In the future, cameras, sensors, software and other technology will be as safety-critical as tyres, brakes and other mechanical parts that are currently assessed. Again, I urge the Government to look ahead and perhaps redefine what is encapsulated by the MOT.
Related to that is a concern raised with me by smaller garages about ensuring that they still have a fair chance of carrying out MOTs. As the technology becomes ever more sophisticated, there is a risk that the original equipment manufacturers will have a monopoly on maintaining software and related equipment and that only their garages will be able to carry out such work. There a wider point—this is not just about self-driving vehicles—about ensuring that the full spectrum of operators in the car repair and maintenance sector has fair access to doing that work.
I will also raise two points related to insurance. My friend and colleague from the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Easington—he is no longer in his place—mentioned data sharing. I welcome the fact that data sharing is referenced in the Bill and that its scope will be set out in secondary legislation. It is important for the insurance industry to be able to capture the full picture of driver behaviour and the behaviour of vehicles in this new world. That will not be limited to collisions, where the insurers will need to know what happened; there will be other injuries for which data must be available—say, a self-driving vehicle may brake suddenly, which results in a whiplash injury or related concerns. As a probing suggestion, is there a case for putting in the Bill a requirement for consultation with the insurance industry on the concept of data sharing, similar to the one that Government have set out for the setting of safety parameters? I will leave that with my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to consider.
The second insurance concern was raised by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau about where we have what might be called a “black swan” event, with a significant co-ordinated cyber-attack that instructs many vehicles simultaneously to behave in a way that could cause mass public injury. The instruction might be to drive at high speed and turn sharp right into a crowded pedestrian area. The concern is that, as things stand, the absence of a mutualisation of risk could lead to such a level of claims that it would bankrupt the car insurance sector.
In property, there is an equivalent backstop to cover the event of such terrorist activity. Some thought needs to be given to that. Again, it probably goes wider than purely self-driving vehicles, because, as the Secretary of State mentioned, the technology is often already embedded in cars and could be hacked by a malevolent actor. The insurance industry is concerned about that, and I urge the Government to consider that perhaps not necessarily in the Bill but as part of wider reform.
Notwithstanding those concerns and questions, this is a welcome Bill with huge upsides economically and socially. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) put it succinctly, it is an exciting new world, but for many people it is a scary new world, and we have a duty to bring the public with us.
There are many areas where transport is already automated and people accept it and are quite relaxed about it. They will get on a get on a docklands light railway train, which is automated, and aircraft flights are now 95% automated. In Milton Keynes, we have delivery robots going along the pavement and no one bats an eyelid about them. But as we see with smart motorways, if the public are not convinced about the safety of new technology, they will not accept it.
We all have a duty to make sure that the regulations ensure the safety of the drivers and the passengers as well as the wider roads-using and pavement-using public. The upsides are enormous, but we must bring people with us. I commend the Government for bringing forward the Bill, which is incredibly important, and I look forward to seeing it on the statute book.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), the Chair of the Transport Committee, on which I serve alongside him. He made many good points and I agree with much of what he said. We still have good questions about the Bill on technical details and insurance among other things, which we will undoubtedly cover in great detail in Committee. His final point about bringing the public with us is key. During the Select Committee’s inquiry, which was referenced by the Chair, I brought that up several times with the witnesses. As the Chair said, we accept things like the DLR, but that is fixed transport; this is very different. Obviously, as we have seen with smart motorways, the public may not buy it unless we and the industry are robust in what we are selling them.
Before I start, I must be honest about my own thoughts and preconceptions about autonomous or automated vehicles, as we are calling them in the Bill. The kid and science fiction fan inside me looks forward to the transport of tomorrow, with futuristic cars like those in films such as “I, Robot”, “Minority Report” and “Blade Runner”—although it must to be said that with their current policies the Government are doing their level best to deliver the bleak and dystopian future from “Blade Runner”. “Back to the Future” told us that that we would have flying cars by 2015, but perhaps “The Jetsons” was more accurate with its version of 2062.
Growing up, my favourite had to be “Knight Rider”, where David Hasselhoff played—[Interruption.] Yes, I am showing my age. Well, “The Jetsons” is from 1962, so hopefully that was on repeat when I was watching it. In “Knight Rider”, Michael Knight very much played second fiddle to KITT the car.
In truth, I am not the best passenger in a car. I prefer being in control, no matter how suboptimal that might be for my passengers. I also like driving. As a family, we have been driving electric for three years to reduce our carbon footprint. I also use public transport and active travel a lot more than I used to, but I enjoy driving and would not want my car to drive itself, although I do enjoy the driver aids seen in most modern cars. I hope we never quite get to the point where automation becomes compulsory, but I suspect that will be a debate for MPs a couple of generations and more from now.
This issue and the Bill sound exciting, but the truth is that the Bill is technical and dry—it is less Michael Knight, more Michael Howard. Its Committee may not be a barn burner, but none the less it will be important. That is because the Bill is absolutely necessary—indeed, we could say it is long overdue—and will put in place much-needed regulation to focus and develop this technology and ultimately enable its full commercialisation and public roll-out.
As you might hear me saying from time to time, Mr Deputy Speaker, Scotland has been taking the lead on autonomous vehicles for some time now. The Forth bridge has been home to one of the main pilots of autonomous vehicles for passenger services, with the CAVForth project operating since last summer. Buses built just up the road by Alexander Dennis in Camelon are taking thousands of passengers a week over the bridge and into Edinburgh. It is a groundbreaking and world-leading trial, which could help revolutionise public transport in the long term. I cannot resist saying that it would not have been possible had the Scottish Government listened to the naysayers just over a decade ago and dropped construction of the Queensferry crossing. We now have the Forth bridge operational for public transport, with private vehicles transferred to the new crossing. Those trials can happen in the best possible environment, with the result that thousands of passengers are crossing the Forth every week on an autonomous bus.
Like Labour’s shadow Minister, I welcome the Bill, although with some reservations. Ultimately, it represents a chance to be ahead of the curve and get the appropriate legislative framework in place before problems arise. It allows that framework to change things when the future does not deliver what it is supposed to. Motoring is a highly regulated area of life, and rightly so, given that we are dealing with machines capable of wiping out multiple lives with barely a scratch on them.
It was mentioned earlier in the debate, although perhaps from a different viewpoint, that we have seen in the US that problems arise when there is a lack of regulation and proper legislative oversight of the industry. Since there is virtually no national oversight, those issues and the regulatory frameworks have been dealt with at state level. We saw the dangers of such lax regulation with the suspension and collapse of Cruise in four different states. Just weeks after getting approval for full operation of its autonomous taxi service in San Francisco, a slew of incidents and accidents led it to withdraw all its vehicles from service.
The day after the Transport Committee was treated to a trip around London in autonomous vehicles, with drivers in the driver’s seat ready to take over, a friend of mine posted clips of his journey in a Cruise taxi in San Francisco. I am not sure I would have been as willing at that point to do the same without a driver ready to take over, because later investigations showed that the cars had difficulty identifying children as pedestrians and risked hitting them. In a statement to The Intercept website, it said:
“its vehicles sometimes temporarily lost track of children on the side of the road.”
That is exactly the type of thing we need to stop here before it happens. We support the approach of legislating before those vehicles are on the road. We do not want to follow the United States into a wild west of autonomy, where it takes multiple incidents or corporate whistleblowers to ensure intervention from the state. That intervention must be built into the entire regulatory process from beginning to end.
I also want corporate responsibility to be built into the regulatory framework. As we have seen with the law on corporate manslaughter, although the legislation may talk a good game, the reality is that prosecutions are few and far between, and those who should be held accountable for actions carried out under their watch are instead allowed to walk away. I do not want that to happen to the operators of autonomous vehicles that are proven to be at fault, particularly in incidents where people are harmed or even killed. I would welcome some reassurance from the Minister that where negligence or fault is established, those ultimately responsible are held to account through the criminal law.
Like Labour’s shadow Minister, we welcome the changes made in the Lords to guarantee that autonomous vehicles achieve equivalent or higher safety standards than human drivers. That only seems right, and it would be a retrograde step if this much-vaunted technology delivered worse results and worse safety than we have now. I ought to be clear that, despite my personal misgivings, I have every confidence that, in the end, automated vehicles will prove to be safer.
This area crosses legal jurisdictions. As the Minister mentioned, much of the Bill results from joint working between the Law Commissions of England and Wales and of Scotland, which may at times have been a tricky needle to thread. Throughout, the Scottish Government have been keen to work alongside the UK Government to ensure that the Bill is fit for purpose not just for today’s environment, but to anticipate future developments.
I am happy that, for the most part—highly unusually, it has to be said—there has been constructive working and pragmatic engagement. I say “for the most part” because, unfortunately, the Scottish Government’s representations on clause 50 have so far been ignored. Clause 50 is hugely problematic because it gives the UK Government the power to amend Acts of the Scottish Parliament in areas that are fully devolved, with no recourse to this place or to Holyrood. As it stands, there will be nothing to stop the Secretary of State laying a statutory instrument containing regulations that are counter to Acts passed at Holyrood, where the UK Government regulations would override the Scottish Parliament’s Act.
That is simple disrespect for devolution and for the devolved institutions, and it has happened despite the Scottish Government engaging with the UK Government to find a way forward on clause 50 that respects Scotland’s Parliament as well as this place. There is no objection to having in place a provision to allow existing legislation to be updated to account for autonomous vehicles and the implications on traffic laws and the highway code, but it is simply not on for the Secretary of State to grab that power from the existing devolved powers that rest with Holyrood, rather than accept that Scotland has a different legal framework and work within that reality.
Like so many folk across Scotland, I am sick and tired of the arrogance of this Government when it comes to devolution. There is still time for the Secretary of State and his officials to sit down with their counterparts in Edinburgh and iron out a solution, particularly given the good working relationship on much of the Bill. I urge him to make that happen, and not have the UK turn this Bill into another constitutional punchbag.
We would also like a clear strategy from the Government on the societal and economic consequences of a move towards automation in the transport sector. As the Chair of Select Committee, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), said, these new technologies will create new and novel jobs, but there are 2.7 million jobs in the logistics sector in the UK, and not one of those positions will be unaffected; they will be either lost or changed as a result of this new technology. There are around 400,000 taxi and private hire drivers in the UK. If we end up with autonomous taxis, how many of those drivers will remain in jobs 50 years from now? What will their jobs be in 50 years’ time?
The UK has an unfortunate track record of managing technological change and its impact on the employment market. As the Labour shadow Minister said, deindustrialisation destroyed countless communities across these isles, particularly in Scotland and in swathes of the north of England, in part because there was no plan and no thought put into how to deal with and support that transition. The Tories caused untold long-term damage by essentially abandoning sectors such as manufacturing altogether, in favour of putting all the UK’s eggs in the services basket. We are seeing the same thing happen now with the move to green technology, although thankfully in Scotland we have a Government committed to a fair transition.
Automation is a much bigger issue than the matters we are talking about today. In many ways, it is time to have a public conversation about what this means for society as a whole. Change always comes with positives and trade-offs. An assumption that the public will simply consent and welcome automation without that conversation is potentially gravely misplaced. The Government must acknowledge those issues and be prepared to support sectors and communities if the changes that the Bill envisages come to pass.
It has taken longer than anticipated by many for automated vehicles to get to this point, but we cannot assume that the advances in technology will continue at the current pace. The pace may increase quickly, and the implications will be with us before we know it. Those implications of automation for our society more generally are serious and deep rooted, and they need a serious response.
We broadly welcome the Bill, but it is incumbent upon the Secretary of State and his Government to fix clause 50 and engage in real dialogue with the Scottish Government in order to help both parties. It is incumbent upon Ministers to explain their approach to the wider societal and economic implications of these measures. I look forward to positive responses on those issues as the Bill moves through its stages.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. One of the first things I did when I arrived in this place was to sit on the Bill Committee on the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018. Here we are, all these years on, and the technology is making significant improvements. I would like to outline what I see as the important benefits of this legislation, and some of the safety and security issues. I will make the case for why these technologies should be developed further. But an advisory council is paramount, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) mentioned, because a wide range of voices must be heard before this legislation is implemented.
The automotive sector is the jewel in the UK’s manufacturing crown. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders estimates that its total turnover in the UK economy is £78 billion, with £16 billion of added value. The industry’s transition and development are all about the automated connected electric and shared vehicles—the ACES vehicles—which are the future. As has been said, what they bring is very exciting, but there are also concerns. They are a rapidly developing technology. We must ensure that the UK automotive industry has a prime role in its development. According to the SMMT, it is estimated that autonomous vehicles could create a market worth £42 billion by 2035 and potentially provide 38,000 new jobs.
Importantly, autonomous vehicles make roads safer—I believe that and I think most in the industry would say it; and we heard it, too, from the Secretary of State in his opening remarks—not just for occupants but for pedestrians and cyclists, provided the right sort of technologies are deployed. I have personally seen that they remove the opportunity for human error, which causes 88% of road traffic accidents. Indeed, research from the SMMT states that if automated vehicles were deployed in substantial numbers, some 4,000 lives could be saved and 60,000 serious accidents prevented between now and 2040. I will come to the benefits of that not just in terms of lives, but what that means for the economy.
Autonomous vehicles can improve connectivity in areas where our public transport is failing passengers. With the depopulation of rural areas, we can see how challenging that issue can be, including for older people and disabled people more generally. Other countries, including states in the EU, and most states in the United States, are all moving forward with their own autonomous vehicle frameworks, so the United Kingdom cannot afford to fall behind in an industry that could be worth £750 billion globally by 2035. That is why the legislation is so important. The UK automotive industry needs to be at the forefront of this rapidly developing technology and we need the legislation to provide the framework to support it.
Like the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, I have experienced driverless vehicles. I was fortunate enough to try it in the Jaguar I-Pace and the technology is incredibly impressive. Although we had a driver at the wheel for safety and security, just seeing the screens and all the information feeds determining the passage, speed and direction of the vehicle was extraordinary. This work is not just being done in silicon valley, but around the world by great organisations. I am particularly proud to have as a neighbour WMG, University of Warwick—the Warwick Manufacturing Group—developing these technologies, but we also have companies such as Oxa at the forefront of developing this work.
I said I wanted to talk about safety. As I articulated with the numbers I mentioned earlier, we will see a significant reduction in the number of accidents, and in the number of those killed and seriously injured. In 2018-19 I tried to introduce legislation called Rowan’s law. If you will forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will remind the House that seven-year-old Rowan Fitzgerald was killed on a bus in Coventry because the driver fell asleep at the wheel. He had been driving more than 70 hours a week for three weeks. Rowan and another passenger were killed in the incident. It is my belief that, with certain assistive technologies we are discussing, that would not have happened.
While the technology is being developed and rolled out, we must ensure that public safety is at the forefront of the Bill. The insurance giant Axa, based on 2022 data, calculated that accidents in the UK cost the UK economy £42 billion in lost productivity and wider loss. There was also a cost to the NHS of £2.4 billion. That is why I commend the work by my Labour colleagues in the other place in pushing the Government to concede on two key safety points. I welcome the Government’s concession to put the highest standard of safety on the face of the Bill.
To introduce automated vehicles successfully and safely in the UK, we need to bring all the public with us on the journey. Whether as drivers or as those sharing the roads with AVs, the public need accurate knowledge of any new transport technology so that they know how to engage with it safely. It cannot be acceptable for manufacturers to mislead or over-promise. Equally, manufacturers will benefit from being held to a fair standard. We therefore need strong, fair and enforceable standards. Improving and strengthening safety communication and messages on AVs should be the top priority before we fully deploy AVs on the roads. Communication and messages about AV safety must be written and delivered in a clear and accessible manner. Technical knowledge must be translated into language that everyone in society can understand. False and misleading AV advertising should be regulated to avoid miscommunication. For example, driver-assistance systems should not claim to be self-driving systems. We need an objective national safety threshold definition for the safe deployment of AVs. There is evidently still work to be done on the implementation of the legislation to ensure that safety remains at the forefront of the Bill.
The implementation of the Bill should be supported by an advisory council, which would advise on its implementation and on the roll-out of self-driving vehicles. It would include trade union representation, emergency vehicles, disabled groups, manufacturers, highway authorities and other road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists. It is a shame that the amendment that would establish such a group was voted down. I am pleased that we passed amendment 5, which would ensure representatives of road user groups are consulted when preparing the statement of safety principles. I would like that expanded to include the membership of the advisory group, and to put that on the face of the Bill.
On security, I have concerns, particularly on insurance, that have been aired across the House. Having listened to manufacturers in recent weeks about security challenges and the amount of vehicle theft across the country, I am satisfied they are doing their utmost to provide vehicle security. There are, however, many out there who are seeking to steal vehicles for export. The simple truth is that whatever technologies manufacturers come up with, they be overridden, especially by organised crime. That must be a real fear for the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) mentioned the unfolding Horizon scandal, the role of the tech company and the cover-up it was alleged to have been involved in. What does that mean for the development of vehicle technology? More generally, we have seen the challenges that authorities face when trying to impose regulation on tech companies. Just this morning we read about Apple facing a fine from the EU of, I think, €1.6 billion. A central concern must be the extent of the control given to big tech, and the transparency that policymakers such as Governments, as well as other authorities, will be able to demand of it.
When the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) mentioned MOTs, I was thinking precisely the same as him. At present many elements are not covered by MOTs, and I wonder how it can be ensured that a vehicle is valid, legitimate and roadworthy when so much of the brain power of that vehicle is driven by new technologies. All MOT centres will have to be geared to keep up with technological development to ensure that these vehicles are roadworthy and have fully up-to-date software.
As I said earlier, these developments will have a huge impact on the economy and jobs. Other Members have asked what they will mean for operators in the logistics sector and, for instance, taxi drivers. I urge the Government to adopt our proposal for the establishment of an advisory council to hear from trade union representatives and take on board their thoughts, and, indeed, I suggest that a requirement for trade union representation should be included in the Bill. Other Members have also mentioned the concerns raised by industry, such as who will be responsible for software updates. How will a victim of a crash involving an automated vehicle be able to prove whether the vehicle was driving autonomously? Perhaps the Minister could clarify those points, and confirm that insurers will have appropriate access to data to deal with claims of this kind.
Without doubt, the future lies in automated, connected, electric and shared vehicles, and it is important that the UK has the necessary legislative framework not only for manufacturers but for the development of these technologies. The automotive industry contributes an estimated £3 billion to UK research and development and is one of our greatest strengths, so we must ensure that we have the legislation to provide for that. In the short term, the benefits of the Bill will be largely in assistive technology—data and mapping technologies, for instance—to make vehicles much safer for their occupants and for others. I welcome those safety benefits and the potential opportunities for the UK automotive industry, but, as I have said, there are real concerns about future security.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill because it takes the first step towards the creation of a framework within which automated vehicles can operate safely. The future of sustainable travel lies in such vehicles, and the UK now has a good opportunity to join the growing number of countries that are embracing this new technology. The tech sector in the UK is particularly strong, and the Bill should give confidence to investors if we are to develop a self-driving vehicle industry and take full advantage of its potential. A large part of that potential relates to road safety: there are still too many road accident victims, and I believe that automated vehicles can contribute significantly to reducing that number if we get this right. The Bill also has the potential to help us reach net zero. We may need to question, and reduce, individual car ownership in future if we want to hit our net zero targets, and automated vehicles may help us to do that.
However, the potential of this industry will only be realised if there is a high level of public confidence in the protections that the Bill gives to public safety—particularly the safety of other road users such as cyclists and pedestrians, who are more at risk than motorists. There is clearly scope for improving the safety of our roads, given that nearly 90% of traffic accidents are caused by human error. Many of the accidents that involve more vulnerable road users, such as cyclists, result from driver impairment or from drivers’ disobeying traffic laws.
Evidence emerging from trials of AVs in San Francisco relating to overall safety improvements is encouraging, but a report of just one thing going wrong will set back efforts to secure public confidence in the safety of these vehicles. It will be important to set out very clearly the scope of any trials in the UK. We may receive reassurances from the industry that the technology is being improved continuously, but we must set out our expectations of what the trials can and cannot achieve. No technology will ever be 100% safe. If there is an interaction between technology and the human being sitting in the car, there is the potential to override the system. The nature of that interaction is almost a philosophical question, which has not been entirely resolved today, but the Minister has been generous in allowing us to raise our concerns.
During the San Francisco trials, issues arose relating to AVs’ hindering emergency vehicles and stopping in cycle lanes, and those need to be addressed. Of course some issues are to be expected in trials, but a repetition of those incidents will damage public trust. People must be confident they will not be repeated on UK streets, and that will require a robust legal and safety framework which will also cover our trials.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s concession in changing the standard of safety for AV drivers so that they will have to meet or exceed the level of safety of careful and competent human drivers. The implications of that for driving tests have already been mentioned, and it is important for that discussion to continue. The Bill gives us a chance to improve the safety of our road networks for the long term, and we should see this as an opportunity to improve accessibility and safety for the public rather than just maintaining current standards.
Automated vehicles also require adequate infrastructure to support them. The poor state of UK roads has led to the highest number of pothole-related call-outs for the RAC in the last five years. Assurances must be given that improvements in road surfaces will be made before the roll-out of AVs. Will minimum standards for road quality be set for their use, and will local authorities be given the additional resources they will require in order to meet them?
Older and more vulnerable people are more reliant on taxis and private hire cars, a great benefit of which is a driver who can help them with access. The benefits of increased affordability that AVs may bring must not come at the cost of reduced access for disabled and vulnerable users, who will also require assurances about access on automated public transport if it is to be completely unstaffed. We have not talked enough about the human input into this brave new world of automated vehicles and about whether, for instance, someone will be available to assist a disabled person using such a vehicle.
Another area of concern, which has also been mentioned today, is the attention given to data protection in the Bill. It is of course essential that AVs can take in data for machine learning algorithms, which enable them to improve the way in which they navigate. However, a large number of parties will inevitably have access to the data. It will include personal information, including people’s faces. The overlap between commercial and personal data creates issues with access and storage. When data is shared between parties, including private companies, can we be sure that people’s personal data is not being monetised for commercial gain? The Government have not yet given adequate assurances that personal information will be protected.
What about insurance? Insurers have said that the data from AVs must be readily available to establish liability, but drivers must feel confident about how their data is managed. How the data is stored must be open and transparent, and it must be held independently. Establishing a clear path of accountability is essential for public confidence. Cyclists and pedestrians who do not hold personal insurance should receive fair and swift compensation when they are victims of an accident. Further assurance is needed that insurance companies will receive adequate guidance for such claims.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, but I urge Ministers to carefully review how it will impact on access for disabled and vulnerable transport users. I also encourage the Government to look further at data protection regulation. We must see this Bill as the beginning of a framework, not the end.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Member is giving a list of things that are absent from the Bill. In my constituency we have autonomous delivery robots, which are currently on pilot; they are not regulated at all in the UK. Is this not another area that the Bill should regulate, in addition to the issues she has raised?
Wera Hobhouse
We always try to solve other problems with Bills in front of us, so we have to be a bit careful not to hang something on this Bill that actually goes into other areas, but new technologies create new challenges for all of us. For example, there are safety issues with such deliveries, but that probably requires a separate Bill. However, it is important that the Government make sure that we have adequate regulation of new technologies.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, there are many exciting opportunities for technological change, and we must embrace them. If we do not, other countries will go ahead, and then we will have them anyway. We must take the public with us, understand the risks and make sure that the huge potential of AVs is seen for what it is, but we must avoid unintended consequences that will lead to the public not coming with us, so let us get this right. It is a great opportunity, and let us make sure that we minimise the risks.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I did not intend to give a speech in this debate—I just wanted to intervene— but as there were so few of us contributing, I thought I would make a short contribution at the end. I am grateful to you for allowing me to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I accept that the time has come for this technology. As somebody who worked in the transport industry for many years prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, I accept that we cannot stand in the way of this technology and that, overall, our road network will be safer with the advance of autonomous vehicles. None the less, there will be occasions when accidents occur, and we have to accept that we will be legislating for how vehicles respond in those circumstances. At the moment, if an accident happens, it happens in real time and people behind the wheels of the vehicles make real-time decisions to try to minimise the impact. However, automated vehicles will have to be programmed in advance to respond in a particular way in certain circumstances—we cannot get away from that. The fact is that the people designing the algorithms will be doing so remotely and well in advance of any accident happening.
Who is the primary person to consider when an accident takes place? Is it the person or persons in the vehicle, or is it the pedestrian? Is it a child, if someone is identified as being a child? Is it people standing at a bus stop on the side of the road? I will come to that soon when I share the concerns of one of my constituents who came to see me not about autonomous vehicles, but about an accident at a bus stop. These things have to be considered and accounted for when drawing up the algorithms that control automated cars—we cannot get away from that. Who will the algorithm protect in such circumstances? That is one of the challenges that came up when autonomous vehicles were being tested in Greenwich. When someone moved a chair and put it in front of the vehicle, the vehicle did not identify it. If it had been a child, the vehicle would have run them over.
We have to accept that we are going into no man’s land by advancing with this technology. We will need to scrutinise its use, which is why it is right that we are looking to set up a panel that will have oversight of this area and advise the Secretary of State. I accept what the Secretary of State has said: if somebody tinkers with the software, clearly they put themselves outside of their insurance policy and will be liable for any accident that occurs as a consequence. However, both I and my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) have mentioned the Horizon scandal. At the heart of that scandal was Fujitsu, which tried to hide the glitches in its software. We cannot run away from the fact that there is a distinct possibility that something like that could happen when we have automated vehicles that are controlled by software. We must have the ability to scrutinise that and to ensure that people can have confidence in what companies say about the software they develop for automated vehicles.
We are told that we will have these vehicles for 20 to 30 years in co-existence with driven vehicles. What is going to happen when accidents occur? I am sure we will be told, as we were told in 2018 with the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act, that insurance companies will pay up, that these matters will be sorted out later and that they have anticipated every circumstance. We hear that time and again with legislation, but its practical application is where we really find out what is going on. When a driven vehicle has a collision with an autonomous vehicle, will the assumption be that the autonomous vehicle is always right, that the driven vehicle must be wrong and that the accident must be due to human error? I am sure I will be told that we have allowed for that in the legislation, but I am also sure that once it is applied on the roads, this will become a big area of contention.
Wera Hobhouse
I am listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I am thinking about the aviation industry. Aeroplanes are very complicated technologies, yet aviation is one of the safest forms of travel, because each accident is investigated carefully to avoid a similar catastrophe. Does he think that similar structures for investigating accidents should be put in place as a safety mechanism?
Clive Efford
Scrutiny of accidents is going to be important, because we will learn a lot. We can improve safety with this technology—there is no question about that. The question is about the moral argument when accidents do happen and how we choose how vehicles should behave in those circumstances.
A constituent has come to me about a tragic case of a child being killed at a bus stop. A lorry lost control and swerved into the bus stop, and the child could not escape the vehicle and was crushed. It is an absolutely tragic story. My constituent came to see me about designing bus stops to make them safer for people standing at the roadside. Having lost her child in such tragic circumstances, I commend her for her consideration in wanting to improve the situation for others. As it is rolled out, this technology could prevent vehicles from colliding with roadside structures such as bus stops, so I accept that it can improve safety. This is an example of where we might be able to meet my constituent’s desire to improve safety in such circumstances.
This technology will need a great deal of scrutiny. We will learn a lot from the application of this legislation as more and more automated vehicles enter our road network, and an advisory council to consider all aspects of the technology is absolutely necessary.
Clause 2 says that the Secretary of State must consult, but the list is very limited and puts businesses, including those that design the vehicles and draw up the algorithms, in prime position above road user representatives and other concerned individuals. The list needs to be much wider, and there needs to be a statutory body to provide oversight. We are on a steep learning curve and we will learn as we go. I accept that we cannot stand in the way of progress, but we must accept that there are serious safety questions that require answers. An advisory council of the kind that has been recommended is absolutely necessary.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I thank all Members who have taken part in this debate.
Self-driving vehicles offer an enormous opportunity to this country, with the potential to create a market worth £42 billion by 2035, to create 38,000 new jobs and to improve road safety and connectivity in the long term for all road users. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) said, Labour welcomes and supports the broad principles of the Bill. I pay tribute to the detailed work carried out over four years by the Law Commission to give us confidence about the framework before us.
The UK was leading the charge on self-driving technology in 2018, but since then, China, the US, France and Germany have overtaken us. The Opposition want to encourage innovation in this sector to bring economic and job opportunities to the UK, and to return the UK to its leading role in the development of this technology. Labour’s industrial strategy will do that, as part of our approach to improving the UK’s prospects.
Automated vehicles could remove transport-related obstacles for those living in remote rural communities, those living with a disability and older people by reaching those who are denied access to public transport.
Crucially, automated vehicles have the potential to improve road safety for all. Eighty-eight per cent of road collisions are a result of human error. Research by Axa suggests that 3,900 deaths and 60,000 serious road traffic collisions could be prevented between last year, when it carried out the research, and 2040 through the deployment of automated vehicles. It forecast an 85% reduction in road incidents through the introduction of AV technology, which would in turn benefit the NHS to the tune of £2.3 billion a year in reduced medical and ambulance costs. However, this all requires a proper transition and roll-out from the Government.
I mentioned the importance of safety improvements, and I am pleased that the Government have accepted the need for higher standards in the Bill. My Labour colleagues Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Liddle deserve particular credit for their work in this crucial area. The Government amendment that referred to “careful and competent” drivers sends a very clear indication to industry, and it rightly puts the highest standard of safety in the Bill. I am also glad that the Government agree that secondary legislation should be considered under the affirmative procedure. The regulations that follow from the Bill should be subject to proper scrutiny over the years as the technology is developed.
A number of concerns that were raised in the Lords remain to be addressed in Committee. The impact on the transport workforce will be crucial in any transition to automation, which is why trade unions have a key part to play. Working with industry and the unions is a key part of a successful industrial strategy, and the unions have much to offer in advising on how to find alternative employment for their members and in ensuring that the economic benefits of new technologies are available to workers, as well as to investors and consumers.
As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, said, we have already seen what happens when this Government do not engage with union representatives. We must learn the lessons from deindustrialisation to avoid repeating its mistakes, which have contributed to growing inequality across our country.
We also want to see people with disabilities, pedestrians, cyclists, businesses, emergency services and highway authorities included in the development of this technology. My hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Eltham (Clive Efford) both highlighted the importance of setting up an advisory committee, and I hope they will join me in Committee to revisit this important aspect that should be added to what has already been amended in the Lords.
This brings me to accessibility. This Bill’s framework provides a unique opportunity to support people with disabilities from the outset by, for example, including consultation with disabled road users on the statement of safety principles. In 2019, the Government published their “Future of mobility: urban strategy” which highlighted that one of the potential benefits of supporting self-driving vehicles is making travel more accessible to disabled and older people. The Government know that the Bill should specifically include people with disabilities and older people. It was therefore disappointing that they did not accept Labour’s amendments in the Lords.
I said earlier that the introduction of automated vehicles brings an opportunity to improve safety for all road users, not least pedestrians and cyclists. The Transport Committee’s September 2023 report on self-driving vehicles argues that the introduction of self-driving vehicles
“should not impose new responsibilities on other road users and pedestrians”.
Will the Minister confirm whether he accepts that principle?
Speaking of areas of uncertainty in the Bill, there are other examples of a lack of clarity, which is something that the insurance industry will require. I know that much of this will be addressed in secondary legislation. Access to data is essential to ensuring that the insurance model does not break down on issues such as responsibility for software updates, on liability during transition from automated to “user in charge” and on the Motor Insurers Bureau dealing with cases of uninsured vehicles. Additionally, clarity is required for those injured by an automated vehicle, as they currently have to prove that automated features were engaged in order to claim compensation. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham made a reasonable point about who will be responsible in the event of an incident and how this can be covered in legislation.
The Transport Committee highlighted the insurance industry’s concerns in its recent report on self-driving vehicles. Uncertainty, and the possibility of endless legal disputes if access to data is not available, risks increasing insurance costs for consumers and deterring growth in the market for automated vehicles, so I look forward to delving further into these questions with the Minister in Committee.
The Bill rightly addresses concerns about false marketing of automated vehicles that have not been authorised. The Government must work with industry to ensure there is a clear communication strategy during the transition to automated vehicles. We have seen what happens when communication is negative, through the approach in the media to the transition to electric vehicles. Whether deliberate or otherwise, the messaging from some, not just in the media, but in government, including the Prime Minister, has delayed the time at which many people will benefit from cheaper private cars, at a cost of £13 billion to drivers. I hope that Ministers will not repeat the same damaging approach in their messaging on the switch to automated vehicles.
Labour welcomes this Bill as it moves through the House. The benefits of automated vehicles are there for all to see, for our economy, through the creation of new jobs and, crucially, through improved road safety and connectivity. There is a good degree of consensus on the implementation of the legislation. If Labour is given the opportunity to serve after the election, with us in the driving seat, we will power ahead and ensure that Britain really can lead on this exciting new technology.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)
I thank everyone who has contributed to this incredibly enjoyable debate. It is always enjoyable when there is a remarkable degree of consensus across the House. I note that Labour, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats all support this legislation. There was a large degree of consensus on the various issues, with almost everyone who spoke agreeing that this legislation could and should lead to safer roads. We all want to reduce the number of accidents, injuries and deaths on the road.
Various Members from different parts of the country talked about the autonomous vehicle work going on in their constituencies: the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) talked about CAVForth in Scotland; the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), talked about the work in Milton Keynes; and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about the benefits in Warwick. Various Members also mentioned Wayve in north London, and I know that companies in my constituency are working on this. Getting this industry right really is an example of levelling up. There was also a large degree of consensus that we need to make sure that this technology works for the benefit of vulnerable users. One of the major reasons for it is that it offers huge opportunities for people who are blind, frail and so on and cannot drive.
Lots of useful questions and points were raised. I spent a huge amount of time nodding in violent agreement with what Members from the various Opposition parties were saying, such was the consensus. Many of the points have been covered in the Bill, which I will go through in detail. Various Members mentioned the need for proper accident investigation. We completely agree on that, because it is vital that whenever a self-driving vehicle is involved in an accident, we need to know why the accident happened and whether, for example, it was a result of the software or the algorithm going wrong. We need to learn from any accidents. This is an evolution; we are not going to get the perfect result and this is going to evolve over the coming years and decades. The importance of accident investigation is why we provide in the Bill for an incident investigation function similar to those in other sectors, such as aviation, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). The Secretary of State will have the power to appoint independent accident investigators, who will find out the root cause and make sure that we all learn the lessons.
Matt Western
I just want to understand this better, because I might have missed something. Is that technology, in essence, like a black box that would be fitted within a vehicle, which those investigators could then access?
Anthony Browne
Absolutely, the accident investigators will have the power to get access to the software and technology so that we understand what went wrong. That is a crucial part of this; we need to understand technically what the cause of any accident is. That is very different from a police investigation into an accident, where they are trying to attribute blame to X, Y or Z but do not need to understand the root cause.
Let me turn to some of the most detailed comments. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), said that the Opposition support this legislation. She talked about the importance of jobs and getting that aspect right. Most speakers talked about the benefits for jobs, with the self-driving sector creating as many as 38,000 new jobs by 2035. A range of new jobs will arise out of this, not just in the companies making self-driving technology, but with conductors on automated services, for example. She worried about the job losses that were coming, as did various other Opposition Members, but they are getting ahead of themselves; those sort of impacts will be a very long way down the line and this is an evolution in the coming years and decades. It is definitely worth thinking about the issue. The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, asked what will happen to jobs in 50 years’ time, but it is not the purpose of this Bill to deal with the situation in 50 years’ time.
Accessibility is clearly a major issue and we completely agree on it. The Government want to ensure that all parts of society, including people with disabilities, can reap the benefits of self-driving technology. That is why we have anchored our approach in the recommendations put forward by the Law Commissions in their inquiry. Their central conclusion was that our focus should be on gathering evidence and gaining experience, and making sure that this works for disabled people and vulnerable users. The Bill requires that the authority granting a passenger permit must consider how the service will lead to improvement in understanding accessibility. Service providers will then be required to publish regular reports on how they are meeting the needs of disabled and vulnerable users. We are also following the Law Commissions’ recommendation in establishing an accessibility advisory panel to inform the development of national accessibility standards. The Department for Transport already has a statutory disabled users advisory panel.
My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, the Chair of the Select Committee, raised a large number of points. He made comments about “careful and competent driver” being too weak as a definition. It is an ambition rather than a detail, and that takes us to the whole point about the statement of safety principles. The ambition of making sure that a driver is safe, careful and competent is in the Bill, but the detail of exactly what that means will come through in the statement of safety principles, on which we will consult widely.
The Secretary of State and I had a meeting with a wide range of user groups last week—road user groups, road safety groups and people from the Royal National Institute of Blind People were at the roundtable. We committed to working with them as we go forward on putting together that statement of safety principles. We have also committed in the Bill to consulting a range of different groups, including road user groups, and that could include trade unions. We would very much like to hear from them if they have contributions to make on the different aspects of safety that we will be sorting out. As this is an evolving technology, a lot of what is in the Bill is high level and quite a lot of statutory instruments will fall from it; it is necessary to be flexible. Consulting on developing those SIs will take until 2026, so there is a long time to get a lot of the details right.
My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South also said that he wanted to make sure that drivers have the right level of skills and do not forget how to drive. People being deskilled is a long way off, but he asks the right question and the Government will keep under review whether we need to do anything on that. He also made the point about making sure that MOT tests are kept up to date. We have consulted on the future of those tests, and we will be monitoring that and making sure that they are kept up to date. Most Members, including my hon. Friend, raised the valid point about data and the insurance industry. Thatcham Research, which does the driving safety work for the insurance industry, was at the roundtable that we had last week, and we committed to working with them in the future. They need to know exactly what data they can get access to at the time of an accident. The powers for that are in the Bill. It will be critical to understand whether the vehicle was in self-driving mode at the time—the “no user in charge” mode—or whether a human was driving, as well as the cause of the accident. That point has been well made, but those issues are already addressed in the Bill.
Various hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, talked about the need to take the public with us; I agree. It is good to debate the subject here and good that there is a political consensus. We will be doing lots of consultation on the subject going forward and will invite everyone’s input. The Government recently launched PAVE, Partners for Automated Vehicle Education. I launched the initiative at the RAC Club a couple of weeks ago and it is supported by the Government. It aims to educate the public about self-driving cars and promote debate about that transport revolution.
The spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, made many very good points. I am not usually in such agreement with the SNP on Government policy. We absolutely need to take the public with us. He asked whether it would be compulsory to have an autonomous vehicle, as he wants to carry on driving. I can confirm to the House that the Government have no plans to ban driving—not now, not ever. He will be entitled to carry on driving if he wishes. Self-driving cars are entirely voluntary.
The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members raised points about international incidents, including problems with state-level rules in the US and problems that Cruise had in San Francisco. I agree that we need to learn lessons from all the international incidents and that we need strong, clear rules. The whole point of the legislation is to clearly define the legal and regulatory structure, so that we avoid the bad stuff and so that we can learn, improve the system and bring in changes as we need them.
Gavin Newlands
As I alluded to, the Scottish Government have been more than willing to work with the UK Government on the Bill. In fact, they are in complete agreement on many aspects of the Bill, but does the Minister accept that clause 50 is an overstep by the Government yet again? They are overruling legislation defined in the Scottish Parliament, given that Scotland has a separate legal framework.
Anthony Browne
I reassure the hon. Member that we have been in contact with Scottish Government officials about the Bill over many months, including on this issue, and there has been an exchange of letters. The power in clause 50 is limited to making regulations changing or clarifying whether, how or in what circumstances a relevant enactment applies to the user in charge of a vehicle, a concept that the UK Government consider to be reserved. The power can amend devolved enactments only to this limited extent. It cannot be used to amend enactments more broadly or for any other purpose. I am happy to meet the hon. Member if he wants to discuss that further.
On international rules, many hon. Members mentioned the Horizon scandal and whether big tech companies can be trusted. They mentioned the fine Apple has just received from the EU. Those are valid concerns. It is imperative that we go on the journey of developing the technology together, so that there is trust between the Government, the regulators, the public and the companies themselves. That is why we have introduced a duty of candour, legally requiring senior management of the companies to be up front with the Government about any technical problems or changes that could impact safety. We take this so seriously that it is subject to criminal sanctions, including prison sentences of up to 14 years if senior management are completely deceptive about what is happening. The work has to be carried out on the basis of openness. This is not a new idea—we have the same legislation in other industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, where we need a similar duty of candour about the safety of drugs. We take the issue very seriously.
The Opposition spokespeople and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington talked about the need for an advisory council. We have committed to consulting on the statement of safety principles, and most of the issues we have discussed are included in that statement. The legislation also includes a duty of monitoring. The Secretary of State will have a legal duty to monitor the development of self-driving autonomous vehicles, including safety issues, and to write a report that every year.
Most of the other issues have been covered already. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] Hon. Members are very keen to conclude the debate. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who is no longer in his place, said that the legislation should cover delivery robots. I agree with the hon. Member for Bath that this legislation does not provide the time or the place for that. There are many different issues concerning delivery robots that do not fit within the scope of this Bill.
Finally, the hon. Member for Eltham, who was not originally going to speak but decided to give a speech, said we should ensure that all road users benefit from the legislation. There is no algorithm that decides to run over cyclists or children. The whole point of these vehicles is to make roads safer. That will come out through the consultation on the statement of safety principles, but we are already committed to fairness between all road users being at the centre of those principles. Safety has to be for all road users, not just the people within the vehicle.
The debate has been positive and constructive, with a lot of well made points. I look forward to going through the Bill in Committee where we can discuss issues in more detail. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]: Programme
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 18 April 2024.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Anthony Browne.)
Question agreed to.
Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]: Money
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State.—(Anthony Browne.)
Question agreed to.
Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]: Ways and Means
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise:
(1) the charging of fees under the Act; and
(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Anthony Browne.)
Question agreed to.
Business of the House (Today)
Ordered,
That at this day’s sitting, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on
(1) the Motion in the name of Secretary Kemi Badenoch relating to the Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill: Instruction not later than 45 minutes after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order, and
(2) the Motion in the name of Secretary James Cleverly relating to British Citizenship (Northern Ireland) Bill: Instruction not later than 45 minutes after the commencement of proceedings on that Motion;
such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings on those Motions may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply to those motions or to the motion in the name of Nigel Huddleston relating to High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill: Money.—(Penny Mordaunt.)
Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill: Instruction
Tuesday 5th March 2024
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Bill 2023-24 View all Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move,
That it be an instruction to the Committee on the Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill that the Committee have leave to make provision about paternity leave in cases involving the death of—
(a) the mother of a child,
(b) a person with whom a child is, or is expected to be, placed for adoption, or
(c) an applicant or intended applicant for a parental order under section 54 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.
The Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), was supported by the Government on Second Reading and enjoyed cross-party support from the House. I congratulate the hon. Member on bringing forward this very important Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) has also campaigned on the issue.
As it stands, the Bill would require regulations to be made that remove the continuity of service requirement for bereaved partners so that they are eligible for shared parental leave and pay. The Bill aims to provide a parental leave entitlement for bereaved fathers by providing a shared parental leave entitlement, but that is not the only or necessarily the best mechanism available. It is also possible to use parental leave to achieve the Bill’s objective.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
There is nobody in the House who does not welcome the legislation and the thought behind bringing it forward. I understand—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—that the Bill will not be law in Northern Ireland, and that it will take a process to make that happen. Will he outline the process that will ensure that those in Northern Ireland have the same opportunities as those the Bill?
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very happy to work with the hon. Gentleman to ensure that is the case. We will do everything possible to support those efforts in Northern Ireland.
My officials are working to complete a comparative analysis of shared parental leave and paternity leave entitlements to establish which mechanism is best to achieve the Bill’s intent. To ensure we use the best available mechanism to deliver this entitlement, we are seeking to broaden the scope of the Bill to include paternity leave. In that way, both shared parental leave and paternity leave can be considered in Committee. We are of course working closely with the hon. Member for Ogmore on that.
What is more, the instruction would enable a Committee to consider amendments that would extend the measures to new parents who have their children through other routes, such as adoption or surrogacy arrangements. Where possible and appropriate, the Government aim to afford adoptive and surrogate parents similar employment rights to those we give to birth parents. Employed parents who have their child through adoption or surrogacy arrangements may be entitled to adoption leave and pay, or paternity leave and pay. Extending the provision in the Bill to new parents who have their children through those other routes is consistent with the Government’s stance on this issue. I have discussed this motion with the hon. Member for Ogmore, and I appreciate his support. I commend the motion to the House.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I will just say a few words about the motion; I am sure the Minister would be disappointed if I did not.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for his work on this issue. I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) here too, because they have both been working on this issue with the Minister, and it is very pleasing that we have got to this stage. I commend my hon. Friend on his success in achieving Government support. This important Bill will help those in the awful and unimaginable situation of losing a partner when a child is expected. The Minister is right to try to equalise the provisions across all circumstances. We look forward to the Bill hopefully being amended in Committee to take on board the intentions set out today. We welcome the motion, and we wish it all the best.
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)
When Aaron came to my constituency surgery with his three-week-old son, Tim, in his arms—his wife sadly died in childbirth—he had been working for a company for less than six months so he was not entitled to shared parental leave. Does the shadow Minister agree that this will affect the very small number of people a year in that situation? It will not be a significant burden on businesses and the Government, but for the people it affects it will be hugely impactful.
Justin Madders
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have discussed that with the Minister in other debates. The Bill will thankfully affect a very small number of people, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that for them it will be an incredibly important advance. On that note, I wish the Bill the best of success in its passage through Parliament.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I rise in support of the Minister’s motion. I thank him for the constructive way in which he, his officials and—dare I say it?—the Government Whips Office have engaged with me during the passage of this Bill. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his and his team’s support.
As the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) said, this Bill will not impact many people. No one in this House wants it to impact many people, because nobody should face what some of our constituents have in recent years and long before. Becoming a parent should be a moment of joy, not a moment of grief and sorrow. I welcome the Minister’s intervention to broaden the scope of the Bill. It is hugely important to a small number of people, and I look forward to dealing with the number of amendments that will come forward when the Bill is in Committee at the end of the month.
Question put and agreed to.
British Citizenship (Northern Ireland) Bill: Instruction
Tuesday 5th March 2024
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Bill 2023-24 View all British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border (Tom Pursglove)
I beg to move,
That it be an instruction to the Committee on the British Citizenship (Northern Ireland) Bill that the Committee have leave to make provision for the acquisition of British citizenship by Irish citizens, whether born before or after 31 December 1948, who are resident in the United Kingdom.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for selecting this motion. The reason for tabling it is that the Bill, as currently drafted, allows only people born in Ireland after 31 December 1948 who have been resident in Northern Ireland for five years to register as British citizens. The instruction will allow the Bill Committee to consider amendments that would apply the provisions to all eligible Irish nationals of all ages who live anywhere in the United Kingdom for five years.
The provisions to amend the Bill will do that in several ways. First, they will make the route available to Irish nationals regardless of how they became Irish, and not just those born in Ireland. Those covered by the original Bill will still be included, but the measure will be more generous and fairer, in that it will give all eligible Irish nationals a more straightforward pathway to becoming a British citizen.
Secondly, there will not be a requirement for an Irish national to have been born after a certain date. The instruction will make it so that people born on or before 31 December 1948 have the same opportunity to make use of the Bill as those born after that date.
Thirdly, qualifying residents can be from any part of the United Kingdom, not just Northern Ireland. That will mean that all eligible Irish nationals resident anywhere in the United Kingdom will be able to make use of this important piece of legislation.
I again ask Members to consider the unique position that Irish nationals hold with regard to the United Kingdom. The Bill will help to reaffirm and reflect that, and will make a real difference to those Irish nationals who also wish to be British citizens. We are confident that the amended route will not undermine the integrity of the system. It is about introducing a more appropriate route for people who could otherwise seek to naturalise.
Amending the Bill will help us to be more inclusive to all eligible Irish nationals currently resident in the United Kingdom. The Government are clear in our support for the underlying principle of the Bill, and it will have our full support if these suggested amendments are made. I thank the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for bringing the issue to our attention, and indeed for his constructive engagement with me and my officials. I look forward to working closely with him to help his Bill safely travel through the House.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
His Majesty’s official Opposition support the changes to the Bill. We outlined our reasons for supporting the Bill on Second Reading, and I have nothing further to add.
Gavin Robinson
I thank the shadow Minister for her renewed endorsement, and I thank the Minister, in particular, not only for the way he introduced this motion, but for the courteous way in which he and his colleagues have engaged with me. The officials in his Department have been uniquely pleased to receive my telephone calls, text messages, emails, Teams calls and everything else—they have been very helpful—and the Minister, with his joyous bonhomie, has come back to me on a number of occasions about the Bill. I appreciate all that support.
I think that there is a procedural requirement that I indicate my assent to the motion. Anybody who was present for Second Reason will understand entirely not only the nature of what the Minister has outlined, but the reasons for the instruction—it all follows from narrow drafting. We are more than content with what has been outlined.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It would be remiss of me not to put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend for his insight. The formation of Northern Ireland left behind many who considered themselves to be British in Ireland. This Bill will right the wrong that was done to those who had a right to that identity but were held back by the ties to their homes and their local communities. Does he agree that the message sent today to those who consider themselves British in Ireland is clear: “There is a place for you, and a passport to go along with it”?
Gavin Robinson
My hon. Friend is quite right. In relation to the entitlement of those born in the Irish Free State to obtain British citizenship, the reason a date was introduced to the Bill in the initial stages was the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1948. That is the reason for it, but there is absolutely no requirement for it to be there, and I agree with the Government that it is unnecessary.
It is encouraging for me as a Unionist to have an even better Unionist argument put forward by the Conservative and Unionist party to say that this should not be restricted solely to those in Northern Ireland, but should apply to anywhere in the United Kingdom. How could I oppose that proposition?
Given that my colleague and hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) was not here for Second Reading, it is important that I place on the record, in his presence, my appreciation for the path that he laid before me. In the 23 years that he has sat in this House representing the people of Northern Ireland, he has championed the content of the Bill and the requirement for such legislation. We are all greatly appreciative of the Government’s support, and hopefully we will be able to progress this positively and conclusively within this parliamentary term—an outcome that we relish.
I think you are coiled, Mr Deputy Speaker—poised and ready to go. I am very concerned for those people in our society who tune into the BBC Parliament channel at teatime. I am concerned that if I do not exhaust the next 45 minutes, there will be nothing for them to watch when they get home from their hard day’s toil and check in to see how we are representing them. But since you seem so keen to restore yourself to your feet, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall conclude.
Question put and agreed to.
High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill: Money
Tuesday 5th March 2024
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill 2023-24 View all High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
I beg to move,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.
The Government fully support the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) to improve our nation’s high streets.
Jack Brereton
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I will not detain the House long. I just wanted to put on the record my huge thanks and appreciation to my hon. Friend the Minister, his officials and the Whips Office for all the support that they have given me and my Bill—it is an important Bill. Members across this House care deeply about high streets, and I am grateful for the support that I have received from them. I hope that the Bill will continue to move forward with success—we have Committee stage soon—on its way towards Royal Assent.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I do apologise to the hon. Gentleman. He did indicate to me that he wished to speak, but the business was moving so fast that I overlooked him.
Question put and agreed to.
Business without Debate
Groceries Code Adjudicator
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Having seen the House run through business at such a blistering pace, we can now all settle back and enjoy the next four hours and six minutes as we consider the matter of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I assure the House that it is some years since I made my living by speaking for six-minute units in the legal profession, so we may manage to knock off the odd six minutes here or there. I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Yesterday we were here in rather greater numbers for a wider debate on agriculture. I spoke then about the importance of food manufacture and processing to the local economy in the northern isles. Today we paint on a somewhat broader canvas with issues of wider concern, but what is important for the agricultural industries throughout the United Kingdom will always be important for us in the northern isles.
In recent years, farmers in my constituency and elsewhere have found themselves caught in a pincer. They have seen their input costs—particularly the costs of fuel and fertiliser—rise sharply, while the price that they are able to get for their produce at the farm gate has continued to be depressed by the operation of the market in which they are often required to operate. Farmers have, to put it bluntly, found themselves squeezed in the middle.
I think it worth reminding ourselves of how we came to this point. The genesis of the Groceries Code Adjudicator was an inquiry by what was then the Competition Commission—now, I guess, the Competition and Markets Authority. That inquiry took many years of pressure to be held, and its report led to the creation of the groceries supply code of practice, which was, in turn, followed by the Groceries Code Adjudicator Act 2013. It was a long, slow and painful process to get even to that stage. I remember the conversations that I had with colleagues in 2013, as a Minister in the coalition Government, about how the adjudicator would operate and whether it would be sufficient. I think we all knew that, at some point or other, we would need to revisit the matter, but we were certainly pragmatic about it, and took the view that what we were getting in 2013 was better than nothing.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate on a massive issue that affects us all. Hailing as I do from a farming constituency, I have a deep and intricate interest in the defence of farmers’ prices and income. My real fear is that the harder farmers struggle to eke out their pay, the less likely future generations will be to pursue farming, being isolated and working night and day for less than minimum wage. Does he agree that we need to defend the pay scales, through an enhanced adjudicator power, to secure the viability of the job as an occupation for the future?
Mr Carmichael
I do. I felt that a debate focused on the Groceries Code Adjudicator was timely and essential because the relationship between the producer and the retailer is critical. Unless we get that relationship right, there will be no future; many generations, one after the other, have made the decision to go into agriculture, but it will simply not be worth it. As many of our environmental objectives rely on agriculture, the reduction of agriculture and the change we are seeing in the countryside will ultimately be counterproductive to achieving those environmental gains.
I understand Governments’ reluctance and caution about interfering in the operation of a market—we all know that the law of unintended consequences is never far away—but 10 years since the adjudicator’s creation, it is surely obvious that the way in which it is working, measured by its outputs, is simply not good enough, and that reform is required. On the basis of the debate we had in the Chamber yesterday, the good news for the Government is that there is already a fairly broad consensus in the House, both from people representing rural seats and those representing urban seats, about what that reform should achieve.
The Competition Commission’s report identified what was essentially a dysfunctional market. On the one hand, we have a handful of behemoth purchasers: 95% of the food consumed in this country comes from 12 retail companies. On the other hand, we have thousands of small businesses—farmers, processers and others. We have all heard the stories over the years about the influence of the supermarkets. Of course, big food manufacturers such as Kraft Heinz can compete—they can engage with supermarkets on something like an equal footing—but for the farmers and processers in my constituency and those of other Members, it is a very different story.
The hard commercial fact is that farmers require access to supermarkets to grow their business, but once they have access to those supermarkets, the risk is that they become dependent on it. At that point, it is the supermarkets that can dictate the terms and conditions on which trade is done. Of course, that is a matter of contract, but as any lawyer could tell us, when it comes to taking action to enforce or arbitrate on the basis of a contract, that contract is only as good as the resources behind it. It seems that even 10 years after the creation of the adjudicator, it is still necessary for farmers and processers to say that supermarkets should be required to buy what they say they are going to buy, pay the price that they say they are going to pay, and pay it on time. The fact that we still hear that message is the simplest basis on which I can illustrate the need for reform.
At the moment, our farmers find themselves in a perfect storm. Leaving the European Union brought with it the repatriation of agricultural policy, as well as a number of trade deals with other countries in other parts of the world. The changes to agricultural support risk reducing the amount of food produced on the land; at the same time, we see land given over to other, non-food-producing purposes, such as the creation of renewable energy resources or the process of growing trees—rewilding. Those trade agreements open up our markets to imported food. If that food is not produced according to the same welfare and environmental standards that we expect our farmers to meet, it will inevitably lead to an imbalance in price, which makes it more difficult for our farmers to compete on price. At a time when we see huge pressure on family budgets as a consequence of a massive spike in the cost of living, consumers will increasingly buy on the basis of price. It seems to me that we are putting ourselves in a place where our own farmers are least able to compete on the basis that consumers are most likely to buy on.
If the Government are sincere in wanting to keep productive farming and a proper, functioning market, the relationship between the farmer and the retailer is absolutely critical—it is more important than ever. I was struck when listening to the debate yesterday how many of the participants spoke about subsidies for farmers. The hard truth of the matter is that these subsidies have never properly been subsidies for farmers; they have been subsidies for consumers, because they have allowed farmers to sell their produce at a price that simply would not be economic in any free market. The people who have benefited from these farm subsidies have ultimately been the consumers and the large corporates—the supermarkets—that have been supplying them.
The world is very different today from the one in which the adjudicator was created 10 years ago. There are changes that I would like to see, around which consensus was apparent yesterday. The first difficulty in the way in which the adjudicator’s functions and office were created is that the remit given to them misses out on the early parts of the supply chain. It does not cover producers who supply processers, or smaller retailers. As with the Groceries Code Adjudicator, the code of practice surely requires to be extended to include processers, hospitality and manufacturers.
As well as the remit given to the adjudicator, the resourcing of that office also requires to improve. It is difficult to see how we can possibly hope for an adjudicator to exercise meaningful control over the big supermarkets—who, incidentally, fund its operation through a levy—if the cost of a single investigation is greater than its annual budget. Remember also that when it comes to the dialogue between the regulator and the supermarkets, the supermarkets will not be under-resourced and they have every interest and every means to ensure that they put forward the most favourable case they can possibly create. Just as there is an inequality of arms between supermarkets and farmers, so there is an inequality of arms between the supermarkets and the regulator.
Also, the code applies only to direct suppliers, which are now the 14 largest retailers. There is no protection, as things are currently structured, for those who would be indirect suppliers, so any supermarkets or other large retailer that wishes to avoid enforcement or coming under the attention of the Groceries Code Adjudicator can do that quite simply by purchasing the goods through intermediaries.
The Agriculture Act 2020 allowed the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to create statutory codes of conduct. I am aware that a consultation being carried out by the Government on contractual relationships in the fresh produce industry finished on 22 February. I expect that that is still being considered by Ministers, but I hope it will be possible to hear some indication from the Minister today of when we might see the outcome of that consultation. As we consider the reform of the adjudicator’s office, we must ask one simple question: is there an overall strategy at play? It seems to me that different avenues of influence are possible and that, as part of the review, the compatibility of the codes of conduct under the 2020 Act and the office of the adjudicator requires to be examined.
Bluntly, I do not care how we tackle this. The vehicle for change is irrelevant, as far as I am concerned. It is the outcome, the change that we are able to achieve, that matters to me. The concern that is most frequently expressed to me is a pretty fundamental one—namely, that the code does not cover pricing. Few things illustrate that better than the way in which the dairy industry has been affected by supermarket activities in recent years, but when we speak to producers in just about every sector, we get the same story every time.
The strands of Government policy that we have at the moment—the removal of support for production through the new agricultural policy for England, which, as I said yesterday, has a knock-on effect for agriculture in other parts of the United Kingdom, and the improvement of food security—will only both be achieved if British farmers receive a fair price for the food that they produce. If we do not achieve that, then removing the direct support for food production from our subsidy system will leave us with no option but to import ever more of our food. The carbon consequences of the production of that food—reference was made yesterday to its being produced in Central and South America in ground that would previously have been rainforest or whatever else—and its transportation would run counterproductive to other stated Government policies.
It is in the round that we see the importance of regulating properly this relationship, and it is now a matter of urgency. Recent research demonstrated that 49% of farmers in the United Kingdom fear they could be out of business next year, 61% identify supply chain unfairness as something that has an adverse effect on their mental health, and 23% of dairy farmers doubt that they will continue into 2025. Action needs to be taken. There is a willingness in this House to take meaningful action to deal properly with this relationship, which in itself will have a significant effect on the future economic and social viability of our rural communities producing good-quality food for people in all our communities to consume. Who would not want that?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. This debate is very important to me personally. My father was a hill farmer, and I represent a rural constituency with many farmers who are experiencing many of the pressures that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) referred to; indeed, he described them as a perfect storm. I congratulate him on securing the debate and on all the work he does in this area, of which I am only too aware. He mentioned the pressures that farmers and those in the farming community face making a living, and the competition for land from different land uses, with which we should be careful in ensuring that we have food security as well as energy security and the other things that we need to retain in this country.
The right hon. Gentleman is of course familiar with the Groceries Code Adjudicator, but it might be worthwhile setting out exactly what it is there to do, how it can help get a fair deal for farmers, and what else we are doing to ensure that that is the case. The role of the GCA is to enforce the groceries supply code of practice. It does so by providing advice and guidance to both suppliers and large retailers on matters relating to the code, arbitrating in disputes between large retailers and their direct suppliers, investigating issues to ascertain whether there has been non-compliance with the code, and imposing sanctions and other remedies for breaches of the code.
The code applies to the 14 largest grocery retailers in the UK, which have an annual turnover in groceries of £1 billion or more. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, the code was put in place following a detailed market investigation by the Competition Commission between 2006 and 2008, which found that direct suppliers of groceries to large supermarkets faced unfair risks that adversely affected competition and, ultimately, consumers. The code regulates designated retailers’ interaction with their direct suppliers, including some but not the majority of farmers.
While the code prevents the unilateral variation of supply agreements, such as on wastage and forecasting errors, and requires retailers to pay invoices on time, it does not cover prices agreed between a retailer and a supplier, which, as the right hon. Gentleman says, are a matter of commercial negotiation. However, the code does help ensure that negotiations are conducted fairly and transparently, and the GCA has an interest in ensuring that negotiations on cost price pressures do not lead to non-compliance with the code.
Of particular note are the GCA’s seven golden rules, which all the regulated retailers have signed up to and which safeguard the requirements of the code in discussions about price and cost pressures. There is strong evidence to show that the GCA has been highly effective since it was established in ensuring compliance with the code and changing the behaviour of retailers to ensure fairness for suppliers.
Stakeholders have expressed a positive view of the GCA and their input has helped inform the statutory review of the performance of the GCA that the Government conduct every three years. Indeed, I met many of those suppliers and they spoke very clearly about the benefits of the GCA that they see. Those suppliers represent many of the primary producers referred to by the right hon. Gentleman.
The third such review concluded in July 2023 and I hope the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents felt able to submit their views. The review considered publicly available evidence and the responses submitted by 71 stakeholders, including from 27 individual suppliers and their representative bodies, and 30 other trade associations, organisations and individuals. Most of the suppliers who responded to the review said they believed the impact of the GCA on the groceries market had been positive as retailer behaviour had improved. They also said the adjudicator had addressed the previous imbalance of power and made the grocery market fairer to operate in. For instance, in 2014, just after the GCA was set up, four out of five direct suppliers responding to the GCA’s first annual survey said they had experienced an issue with the code. That is now down to one in three, and the issues that concern suppliers are down in practically all cases. Suppliers, including small and medium-sized enterprises, feel better protected against any poor behaviours from retailers following the best practice put in place by the GCA. In 2022, more than two thirds of direct suppliers felt that retailers covered by the code conducted relationships fairly.
Overall, there is a consistently high level of awareness among suppliers of the GCA and the code. I have met the current adjudicator, Mark White, several times and have been extremely impressed by his pragmatic approach to ensuring the compliance of the designated supermarkets, which has helped to stop problems escalating and reduced the need for time-consuming and expensive formal dispute resolution.
I am aware that some Members have asked whether the GCA has the necessary powers and resources. I know that Mark White believes his current powers provide the necessary tools to enforce the code and change retailer behaviour. He is also responsible for determining the level of resources that he needs and setting the levy of regulated retailers to fund his work. While Ministers are responsible for approving the proposed levy, the Government have always accepted the adjudicator’s levy business case and will of course give careful consideration to future requests.
Mr Carmichael
I am pondering the words the Minister has used. I think he is right that the adjudicator does have the powers to investigate and enforce the code of practice, but there are still big areas that are not covered, and that comes to the concern that farmers, producers and processors have.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am not ignoring the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns at all. I recognise them and, as I said earlier in my speech, the vast majority of the market in terms of primary producers is not covered by the code. I will come on to that shortly. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that there would be challenges in the GCA being the custodian or overseer of thousands upon thousands of business contracts, with the complexity and bureaucracy that would flow from that, which neither of us would wish to see. That would, of course, result in an impact on prices as well. I will address that later.
We recognise that, despite the GCA’s effectiveness and successful interventionist approach, we have not yet stamped out all unfair practices. The impact of the recent cost price pressures in the food sector has demonstrated how external factors can affect relationships and behaviours. As such, we recognise the continued need for the GCA’s role in ensuring fair treatment of suppliers to supermarkets through enforcement of the code. We are aware that some poor practices are affecting producers across several agricultural sectors not covered by the code and that primary producers, such as farmers, have felt unfairly treated. The Government also want farmers to get a fair price for their products—that was the opening and closing argument of the right hon. Gentleman—and we are committed to tackling contractual unfairness that can exist in the agrifood supply chain.
Powers in the Agriculture Act 2020 enable the introduction of statutory codes and contractual practice to protect farmers. Those codes would apply to any businesses purchasing agricultural products directly from farmers, including processors, consolidators and other intermediaries, providing greater certainty for farmers by ensuring that clear terms and conditions are set out in contracts. That will seek to improve the negotiating position of farmers to achieve fairer prices and greater transparency and accountability in supply chains. Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are exercising the powers under the 2020 Act in a sector-specific approach, acknowledging that the problems experienced by each sector differ widely and avoiding broad regulation that places burdens on sectors that may not require intervention.
The first sector-specific regulations for the dairy sector were laid in draft in February 2024 and regulations for the pig sector are expected to be introduced later this year. Work is also progressing on regulations for the egg sector, and DEFRA carried out a fresh produce review, which the right hon. Gentleman referred to, in December 2023, and the response to that will be published shortly. I cannot give a more definitive timescale than that, I regret—if it was all in my gift, perhaps I could, but it is not. He is probably pretty familiar with the term “shortly”. Crucially, the recruitment is under way for an agricultural supply chain adjudicator, who will be responsible for enforcing the new regulations.
As I touched on earlier, it may be that the GCA’s effectiveness is the reason why some think we should extend its role to ensure the better protection of primary producers in the grocery supply chain, such as farmers. Requiring the GCA to regulate the many thousands of transactions throughout diverse supply chains would risk diluting the adjudicator’s tight focus on the 14 largest supermarkets and could undermine its record as a highly effective regulator. In terms of what it does, if something is not broken, don’t try and fix it. However, we do understand that parts of the system are broken, and that is why we are bringing in the sector-specific supply chain remedies.
It is important to safeguard the GCA’s ability to remain vigilant on the compliance of the 14 designated retailers. The Government therefore have no plans to extend the adjudicator’s remit, but instead seek to learn from and emulate the GCA’s approach and effectiveness, so that it can be replicated for the sector-specific codes.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Draft Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023
(2 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023.
Robbie Moore
Laid in draft before the House on 17 January, the regulations amend the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023. Since June last year, when those regulations were first amended, there have been developments in the collection and packaging reforms, including a 12-month deferral of the full implementation of the packaging extended producer responsibility scheme, to focus on stakeholder engagement, and a delay to the Scottish deposit return scheme. Those events have caused several issues that now require amendments to producers’ data reporting obligations.
Let me turn to the details of the first statutory instrument. The regulations introduce two key changes, but I assure the Committee from the outset that the changes being introduced are not a change of policy intent; instead, they address the delay to the Scottish DRS and stakeholder concerns. First, the SI removes the exemption from data reporting on drinks containers that would have been obligated in a Scottish DRS. The delay to that scheme, combined with the exemption from the data reporting regulations, meant that 180,000 tonnes of packaging would have gone unobligated for a number of years under both the DRS and the EPR. The amendment accounts for the development and ensures that all packaging supplied in the UK will attract a recycling obligation. The new provisions will exempt this material again once a DRS is operational.
Secondly, the SI makes changes that address stakeholder feedback on the definition of household packaging. The amendments address two key aspects, which broaden the definition to allow for more packaging to be exempt from disposal fees. The first is where packaging or a packaged product is designed to be used only by a business. An example would be a 50-litre beer keg. Under the current definition, if the beer keg is sold to a wholesaler before being supplied to the pub that uses it, the packaging would have to be reported as household packaging. However, large beer kegs are unlikely to end up in household bins. Our amendments introduce an additional test, which offers producers the opportunity to exempt such packaging from being treated as household packaging.
The second change widens that business-only exemption to include packaging or a packaged product that is supplied to public institutions, such as hospitals or schools, that is unlikely to end up being disposed of in a household bin—for example, packaging for an ultrasound scanner or restricted medicines. The amendments allow for more packaging to be fairly exempted from being defined as household packaging and therefore not attract packaging EPR disposal cost fees. However, all packaging will remain subject to packaging EPR recycling obligations through the purchase of packaging recycling evidence notes from re-processors and exporters, as it is at present.
In addition to the two key changes that I have discussed, the regulations make a number of other changes. Four of the amendments were identified not long after the original regulations came into force in early 2023. We were not able to include them in the amendments midway through the 2023 data collection year as they would have retrospectively increased the obligations. We always intended to make the changes starting from the 2024 reporting year.
The first change clarifies that the packer or filler is obligated for branded packaging if the only brand on the packaging relates to the packaging itself and not the product inside. For example, if a packer puts their product in a branded Jiffy bag but does not add their own brand to it, the packer is obligated, not Jiffy.
The second change makes it clear that where ownership for imported packaging remains with an overseas producer until it is passed to the client by a third party—or a toll manufacturer—the first person to take ownership in the UK is obligated for that packaging. This could be a supermarket or wholesaler. The amendment ensures that such packaging does not go unobligated.
The third change addresses a loophole to ensure that distributor producers retain their obligations where they sell empty packaging to large producers who then sell that packaging onwards without filling it. For example, this could be a wholesaler that sells unfilled cups to small, independent coffee shops.
The fourth change is an amendment to the seller obligation. The regulations already require reporting by nation of packaging sold from a business to a consumer. The fix in the regulations will ensure that data is also reported on the nation in which packaging is sold from one business to another business. This was always the intention, and will help to enable the tracking of recycling rates in each nation individually.
In addition, we are making an amendment that will aid distributor producers in complying with the regulations in advance of the main packaging extended producer responsibility regulations coming into force later this year. It does this by placing an obligation on the Environment Agency to publish a list of all large producers that have reported data, thereby supporting them in identifying which of their customers are obligated producers in their own right.
Finally, the SI includes some minor amendments to correct the drafting, some provisions to accommodate the transition from the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007, and some changes to help to avoid the reporting on one piece of packaging by two producers. The amending regulations will apply to England only, but similar amending regulations are being progressed in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. My officials have worked closely with the relevant Departments in the devolved Administrations on the development of this legislation.
I turn now to the draft Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023, which were laid before the House on 10 January this year. Litter and fly-tipping harm the environment and blight our communities. We want to see councils making the most of their enforcement powers, including by issuing fixed penalty notices to those who litter, fly-tip or pass their household waste to someone without the proper licence. Income from such fines is retained by councils and is currently ringfenced for various functions related to waste management, including sweeping, emptying bins and household waste collection. We know, however, that in a minority of councils fixed penalty receipts are absorbed into general council budgets or spent on other neighbourhood functions.
The Government believe that the revenue received through the payment of such penalties should be reinvested into expanding or improving councils’ enforcement functions and cleaning up the consequences of this antisocial behaviour. The statutory instrument achieves this goal by amending the qualifying functions on which councils can spend income from such penalties to cover enforcement and clean-up only. By improving their enforcement capabilities, councils should be able to catch more perpetrators and deter others from offending, which should lead to cleaner streets, parks and countryside. Enforcement functions could include employing more officers, investing in CCTV and signage, and improving the use of data. Clean-up functions can include collecting and disposing of litter and fly-tipping and restoring land that has been harmed.
The statutory instrument retains the ability of the Secretary of State to make provisions by future legislation about how local authorities in England use their fixed penalty receipts. Although the new ringfence will apply to councils in England only, the instrument does include consequential amendments relevant to Wales to ensure that no changes are made to how local authorities in Wales can spend fixed penalty receipts.
The statutory instrument also makes consequential amendments to the Local Government (Structural Changes) (Further Transitional Arrangements and Staffing) Regulations 2009 to ensure that arrangements pertaining to the merging of authorities in England are not affected. Consequential amendments are also made to the Littering From Vehicles Outside London (Keepers: Civil Penalties) Regulations 2018, meaning that no changes are made to how authorities can spend income from the relevant civil penalties.
To conclude, I emphasise that the measures in the first statutory instrument are crucial for enabling the effective implementation of the extended producer responsibility for packaging and realising its associated environmental benefits. The regulations in the second instrument will drive councils in England to reinvest more income from fixed penalty receipts from litter and fly-tipping into enforcement, thereby catching more offenders and keeping our communities clean. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dame Maria. It is a wonderful start to the day to be talking waste with the Minister. I reassure the Minister and the Whips that, given the technical and relatively uncontroversial nature of this legislation, we do not intend to press it to a vote.
But before everyone breathes a sigh of relief, I have a few remarks to make. I want to be very clear that His Majesty’s Opposition are on the side of, and support, all measures that are aimed at promoting the better use of our natural resources and increasing reuse and recycling. Establishing the correct base data will be fundamental to the success of the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging.
I note the important progress on recycling made by my colleagues in the Welsh Labour Government. Welsh recycling rates have now reached 65.7%, with the aim to get to at least 70% in 2024-25. That has already been met by five Welsh local authorities. In Wales, we have also now recorded the lowest ever amount of waste sent to landfill, at just 1.6%. I pay tribute to the fantastic work being done in my local communities to save usable items from landfill, by organisations such as Re:Make Newport and Wastesavers.
It is a shame that England is lagging so far behind. The lack of progress is also causing huge unnecessary costs and holding back business investment. Having made that point about landfill, and I think about all the places across England—from Hull to Newcastle-under-Lyme to Greater Manchester—where landfill sites continue to blight the lives of women, men and children of all ages and from all backgrounds.
I will take each SI in turn and then make some short concluding remarks. First, the draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 are needed partly because of the Government’s failure, to date, to deliver an agreed way forward for the UK’s deposit return scheme, which was promised in 2018. With the Prime Minister picking a fight with the Scottish Government, we have heard from business that the DRS industry forum has now been placed in a position of postponement, with neither the January nor February meetings taking place this year. There has even been press speculation that the scheme will now be delayed until 2028.
Maybe this is just another case of the Conservatives giving up on governing because it is all too difficult? Well, the Minister will not be surprised to know my views: if they do not want to govern, they should get out of the way and let us in. Will the Minister confirm when the Government will bring in a UK-wide DRS, and when the DRS industry forum will next meet?
Meanwhile, the draft regulations will place a significant reporting burden on business, especially with the inclusion of DRS materials as part of the EPR. Will the Minister clarify whether that means that the costs of collecting and recycling drinks containers will fall to non-drinks packaging producers through EPR fees? I listened carefully to what he said, but I am still not clear whether that will happen.
Although regulations on data reporting have been introduced, the wider regulatory package for the Department’s EPR scheme for packaging remains a work in progress and shrouded in mystery. There is no clear timeline or indicative fees, which industry was told to expect at the beginning of January. Does the Minister accept that without indicative modulated fees, businesses are unable to budget and prepare for the introduction of EPR?
The lack of clarity and continual delay is a huge barrier to the investment and planning that we need from industry to design and roll out the packaging of the future, which must be far more reusable and recyclable. The question is about whether the draft regulations will lead to more or less recycled material. Will they encourage or discourage the refill and reuse of containers? What about retailer packaging take-back schemes? Overall, will they reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
We have heard from the all-party parliamentary group on sustainable resource that the draft regulations could actually disincentivise refillable packaging. The APPG has put forward several recommendations to enhance the EPR’s effectiveness in facilitating and accelerating reuse, including the setting of fees at a level that will promote design for reuse and provide incentives for reuse infrastructure. Will the Minister confirm that those measures will be part of the wider EPR regulatory framework?
The Department’s plans are far from transparent, whether for industry, English local government or the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Instead of building confidence in fair charging for industry and a fair allocation of proceeds across waste authorities, there seems to be suspicion that the UK Government are trying to manipulate the finances to mask inadequate funding. When will the complete packaging EPR regulatory framework be available for industry and local authorities?
I have some further specific questions on which industry needs answers sooner rather than later. In our meetings with industry representatives, they are focused on these questions, because they cannot plan for the future unless they know the answers. How much packaging has been declared as placed on the UK market by those producers that have reported data to the new EPR system? How does that compare to the tonnage the Department expected to be declared?
What penalties will be incurred by producers that fail to submit their EPR data by 31 May? Will the penalties reflect the size of turnover or the size of the recycling obligation of an offending producer? New regulation 7A of the data reporting regulations refers to Environment Agency guidance on the definition of household packaging; when will that guidance be available to producers? It is very difficult to devise a scheme without having the guidelines.
Five years since the Government’s 2018 waste strategy stated that the current packaging waste rules lacked transparency and did not
“sufficiently incentivise design for greater reuse or recyclability”,
what is the timetable for phasing out the packaging recovery notes system? What preparations are being made to reduce undue burdens on businesses? Finally, will the Minister explain how EPR will work for franchise businesses, as the British Retail Consortium has written to ask the Minister to allow franchisors to register, report and be charged on behalf of franchisees?
On the draft Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023, I understand that their aim is to more tightly ringfence the use of income by local authorities, as the Minister said. Will he outline how much has been received in fixed penalties and what local authorities have spent it on? How does the amount that local authorities received in fixed penalties compare with the amount they spend on street cleaning and dealing with fly-tipping? A limited consultation was undertaken with local authorities, but no responses from the west midlands were included; does the Minister know why?
Adequate and long-term funding is crucial for councils to effectively prosecute fly-tippers, develop litter strategies and implement best practice, but councils are facing financial challenges in prosecuting fly-tippers, with the fines issued by courts often lower than civil penalties. Will the Minister work with the Local Government Association to remove the cap on fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping, littering and graffiti? Has he had any discussions with the LGA to date? Will he work with the LGA to explore how more stringent court fines for the worst offenders could help councils to investigate and prosecute fly-tippers and deter repeat offenders?
A few weeks ago in a Westminster Hall debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) drew attention to the dangers of fly-tipping, including the feeling of dirtiness and neglect that it causes, damaging small businesses, cafes, grocers and hairdressers. She was right to say:
“Clean streets tell us that we are part of a community and that people take pride in the spaces they share, the memories they make there and the community they are part of.”—[Official Report, 6 February 2024; Vol. 745, c. 21WH.]
Neighbourhoods across England are getting buried under an avalanche of litter and dumped rubbish, leaving communities feeling broken and powerless. In 2022-23, local authorities in England had to deal with more than 1 million incidents—that is nearly 3,000 a day. Will the Minister confirm whether the draft regulations will allow councils to use fixed penalty funds to avoid having to close recycling centres, to provide free mega-skip days and to put up CCTV at fly-tipping hotspots?
Finally, when will we see the Government’s promised action on single-use vapes, 1.3 million of which are thrown away every week? I accept that I have asked lots of questions, but the Minister will appreciate that governing by statutory instrument will land us all in this situation. If he and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for West Dorset, have not had time to scribble down all my questions, or the Minister cannot answer them now, I will happily put them in writing, but I wanted to give him a go at answering them today. The Opposition will not oppose the regulations but we want answers to those obvious and important questions.
Robbie Moore
I thank the hon. Member for Newport West for her valuable contribution to the debate. Let me address some of her points and comment on the questions that have been raised.
The first SI makes amendments that will significantly extend the household packaging exemption, but we appreciate that more work may need to be done to make it go further. In developing the definition we have reviewed and engaged heavily with stakeholders, and taken into account the established schemes that have been introduced in other countries. We are not only making sure that this legislation is rolled out here, but working closely in conjunction with the devolved Administrations before the main SI is laid before this House by the UK Government. We are also working closely with stakeholders to ensure that the definition aligns with the policy aims and needs of the sector, while balancing the requirement to create an approach that is both enforceable and fair to local authorities.
The hon. Lady asked why the SI is necessary. It includes important amendments that take account of the deferral of the packaging EPR and the delay of the Scottish deposit return scheme. The amendments also take account of feedback. We have listened to stakeholders throughout the 2023 consultation and other engagement. Not making the amendments would result in, among other things, the Scottish DRS material being unfairly obligated; double reporting by producers; and packaging being classified as household packaging where evidence to the contrary is easily available. That is why the SI is necessary.
On timing, it is understandable that producers are keen to get clarity on fees. Under the extended producer responsibility packaging regulations, producer fee rates will be set and published by the scheme administrator. The fee rates for the 2025-26 financial year will not be known until the spring of 2025, once all the producer packaging data has been received and checked. However, in the meantime, to support producers, we aim to produce illustrative fees as soon as possible.
On the risk of significant non-compliance by producers, I assure the hon. Lady and all Members that we are doing all we can to make sure that producers that are obligated to comply with the regulations are in the best position to do so. We have a comprehensive programme of engagement that is reaching out to more than 10,000 organisations through webinars and newsletters. In addition, we have published guidance on the gov.uk website.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friend is tackling fly-tipping, which my constituents have raised with me as a problem, as well as dealing with people dropping litter. What does he expect it to cost businesses to comply with the packaging regulations? Does he expect that to put prices up?
Robbie Moore
As I have said, we want to put businesses in the best position possible to have an understanding of the fees that are likely to be imposed on them. That is why we aim to give out indicative fees to businesses later this year, so that they can encompass them within their business models. It will be up to them to consider how that will impact any consumer when rolled out. As a Government, we aim to get the indicative fees out to industry as soon as possible so that they can best forward plan.
The hon. Member for Newport West referred to modulated fees. We are in the process of reviewing and collating the evidence we collected in the autumn of 2023 on the 13 broad types of packaging that will be shortlisted for higher fees, and we will engage further with stakeholders on that topic in the second half of 2024.
Ruth Jones
I understand that the Minister is talking about preparation, but industry needs certainty and clarity now; it cannot talk about things now and then put them into place with just a couple of months’ notice. When will the DRS industry forum next meet? When will the complete packaging EPR framework be available for industry and local authorities?
Robbie Moore
I will come to the DRS shortly. We engage with industry constantly on EPR and, as I said, we are aiming to get the indicative fee structure out as soon as possible. On modulated fees, we have ongoing engagement with the sector and aim to provide further clarity in the first half of this year.
The hon. Lady asked about reusable and refillable packaging. Following feedback from stakeholders, we have decided that the initial focus of the packaging EPR will be to encourage the greater use of recyclable packaging and to complete the work of putting in place a cost-effective and efficient recycling system to ensure that recyclable packaging is recycled. Further obligations are to be introduced on the use of reusable packaging, in which all producers will be encouraged to get involved and engaged.
Before I move on to the DRS, I know that the hon. Lady asked about support for councils. From 2025, the extended producer responsibility for packaging will move the full cost of dealing with household packaging waste that is generated by households from local authorities to the businesses that handle and use packaging, applying the “polluter pays” principle. Once the packaging EPR is fully operational, the shift of cost from local authorities to producers is estimated to be in the order of £1.2 billion per year across local authorities in the UK.
The implementation of the DRS will be rolled out, and we are listening to and continue to work with industry to assess the feasibility of the implementation date as more detail on the implementation phases of the scheme is developed. I stress that it is incredibly important that we get the complete interoperability of the deposit return scheme across all nations. That work and those conversations are currently happening with the devolved Administrations.
Ruth Jones
The Minister is generous to give way again. He has talked up interoperability, which is crucial —we do not want glass bottles going one way across the border and plastic bottles going across the Scottish border—but when will it happen? The rumour is that it will be 2028; will the Minister confirm or deny that?
Robbie Moore
I will not get involved in commenting on rumours, but I can say that the announcement will be made shortly.
In May 2023, the UK Government published a position statement setting out that the deposit return scheme across the UK should be interoperable to reduce the complexity for businesses and consumers. That is key because not only does the scheme need to be completely interoperable but we need to bring consumers along with us. If a DRS scheme is to be completely operational and have the influence and impact that we as a Government want it to have, we have to bring consumers along with us, which is where we are focusing our efforts before we make any further announcements. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working closely and at pace with the devolved Administrations on the next steps to deliver interoperable schemes across the UK. As I say, we aim to provide more clarity on that shortly.
Let me turn to the second SI, on waste enforcement. As referred to in the anti-social behaviour action plan, the Prime Minister has made it clear that councils should take a tougher approach to enforcement and make greater use of fixed penalties. The maximum fixed penalty that councils can issue has been increased from £400 to £1,000 for fly-tipping, from £150 to £500 for littering, and from £400 to £600 for householders using an unlicensed waste carrier. I reassure the hon. Member for Newport West that the Government have published new league tables to provide transparency on how councils are using their fly-tipping enforcement powers.
As I outlined, the statutory instrument will help to drive up more income from fixed penalty receipts, which will go into the building of enforcement capability and capacity in English councils, meaning that more offenders are brought to justice. As we all know, fly-tipping is a serious crime and offenders can face significant fines and imprisonment if they are convicted in court. DEFRA is working at pace on the issue. In 2021, the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group produced a guide on how councils and others can build robust cases for prosecutions. The average court fine has increased by 12%.
On the hon. Lady’s question about litter and fly-tipping fining for profit, fixed penalty notices should never be used to raise revenue, or to punish accidental littering or those who are trying to do the right thing, when education would be a better approach. The new, tighter ringfence will send a clear message to councils and members of the public that the penalties are not a moneymaking tool for councils, but rather a tool to help them to protect public spaces. We will provide statutory guidance on the use of litter penalties and will consider including advisory statements on fly-tipping.
To conclude, I hope that I have covered most of, if not all, the points raised—
Ruth Jones
The Minister is being very generous with his time. I do realise that I asked a lot of questions; would it be easier for me to write to him on certain things such as when the DRS industry forum will next meet?
Robbie Moore
I am more than happy to receive correspondence from all Members of this House, and will of course provide the response to any questions raised. I am happy to receive any questions in writing.
To conclude, I trust that Committee members understand and accept the need for the two statutory instruments, the first of which will make crucial changes to the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023 that will ensure that drinks containers that are supplied in Scotland pick up an obligation in the same way that drinks containers supplied elsewhere do. The amendments will also widen the provisions that allow for some primary and shipment packaging to become exempt from being defined as household packaging. Finally, further amendments made through the regulations will provide clarification on producer reporting.
The second statutory instrument will drive councils in England to reinvest more income from fixed penalty receipts from litter and fly-tipping into enforcement, thereby catching more offenders and keeping our communities clean. I thank Members for their contributions and support. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
DRAFT WASTE ENFORCEMENT (FIXED PENALTY RECEIPTS) (AMENDMENT) (ENGLAND AND WALES) REGULATIONS 2023
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023.—(Robbie Moore.)
Draft Representation of the People (Variation of Election Expenses and Exclusions) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (Variation of Election Expenses and Exclusions) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure, Dame Angela, to serve under your chairmanship.
The draft regulations uprate the maximum campaign spending limits for Greater London Authority and local authority mayoral elections in England to reflect the changes to the value of money. This statutory instrument also provides an exclusion for reasonable security expenses—an issue which I think requires no further amplification from me—from various election campaign spending limits. Finally, the draft regulations make some technical amendments to remove drafting that is now redundant from the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012.
Elections rely on the ability of political parties, candidates and other campaigners to communicate their views so that voters may make an informed decision at the ballot box. If approved by Parliament, this draft statutory instrument completes the package of reforms that the Government announced in July 2023 to uprate reserved and accepted party and candidate spending limits and donation thresholds. This is a necessary action, as many of the statutory limits, which are set in absolute terms, have not been uprated in recent times. If we do not uprate them in line with inflation, it means that they continue to be lower in real terms, which has a real impact on campaigning.
Furthermore, no one should feel afraid to participate in our democracy. In the past eight years, we have witnessed, as we all too horribly remember, murders of two colleagues, Jo Cox and David Amess. The safety of parliamentarians and candidates is important and, in recent years, the Government have introduced numerous measures to tackle intimidation in public life. It is of the utmost importance that candidates feel safe to campaign. The Government are therefore explicitly exempting reasonable security expenses from contributing to spending limits for political parties, candidates and other campaigners at reserved and excepted UK elections. I am pleased to confirm that this fulfils a recommendation made by the Jo Cox Civility Commission in its recent report, “No place in politics: tackling abuse and intimidation.” I am sure that the whole Committee will welcome that response.
Turning to specifics, the draft regulations will uprate the spending limits for candidates at GLA elections and local authority mayoral elections. The various spending limits for GLA elections have remained unchanged since they were set in 2000. Due to such a significant gap, the regulations will uprate the spending limits by 81.05%. That means that the limits for a candidate at an election for the Mayor of London will increase from £420,000 to £760,410; the limits for a candidate at an election of a constituency member of the London Assembly will increase from £35,000 to £63,360; and for an individual or party list candidate at the London-wide Assembly election, the limits will change from £330,000 to £597,460.
The draft regulations will also uprate the spending limits for local authority mayoral elections in England by 29.09%. The uprating is done from 2017 to align with the new spending limits for combined authority and combined county authority mayoral elections, recently approved by Parliament in the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 (Amendment) Regulations 2024. This is to ensure parity between mayoralties, and it means that the limits for local authority mayoral elections in England will change from £2,362.059 per elector to £3,040.08 per elector.
The draft regulations will provide clarity for parties, candidates and campaigners, as I say, by explicitly exempting reasonable security expenses from contributing to the spending limits for candidates, political parties and third-party campaigners at UK reserved and excepted elections, other than local government elections in Northern Ireland. The Government will introduce an equivalent exemption for local elections in Northern Ireland in due course. The regulations will not apply to security expenses at devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. The Scottish Government have separately legislated to make similar provision and the Welsh Government have recently consulted on doing so as well.
Many parties and candidates already take the view that security expenses are, in general, not election expenses. This exemption will put that view beyond any doubt and ensure that campaign spending limits are not a barrier to provision of security during election campaigns. I thank the Electoral Commission for drawing the Government’s attention to this point of law and for its support in getting the drafting of this important exemption right.
The draft regulations make minor technical and consequential changes to remove police areas of Greater Manchester, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire from the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012. [Interruption.] At the very mention of West Yorkshire, the hon. Member for Leeds North West arrives in Committee, and he is most welcome.
Those functions have been transferred to the relevant Mayors by separate legislation, so these regulations do not make a substantive policy change. They simply remove the redundant drafting from the 2012 order to ensure that the law accurately reflects that position.
Before uprating election spending limits, the Government consulted the members of the Parliamentary Parties Panel on two occasions. The parties were first consulted in 2020 ahead of uprating spending limits for candidates at local elections in England. In September 2022, the Government wrote to the members of the Parliamentary Parties Panel again regarding uprating election spending limits and exempting reasonable security expenses from those limits. The responses received indicated support for increasing various spending limits and also endorsed exempting security expenses. As is statutorily required, the Electoral Commission was formally consulted on this statutory instrument.
In conclusion, the uprating of campaign spending limits at GLA and local authority mayoral elections in England to reflect inflation is necessary. The significant gap since the limits were last set and the current high level of inflation mean that the uprating exercise is required to avoid the spending limits putting greater constraints on campaigners than originally intended.
I am sure I speak for the whole Committee when I say that violence and intimidation cannot and will not be tolerated and have absolutely no place in our public and democratic life. The security expenses exemption will bring clarity and reassurance for parties, candidates, third parties and those who enforce the rules as to their ability to incur security expenses without it impacting on their overall spending limits.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Angela. I thank the Minister for his introduction to this statutory instrument. I agree with him that violence and intimidation have no place in our democracy. As we prepare to celebrate International Women’s Day, we remember, sadly, the level of abuse that a number of female parliamentary candidates and colleagues face. We stand united in calling out any form of abuse.
I start with some good news for the Minister, as we support the implementation of regulation 4 of the instrument. It would be wrong for expenses incurred to protect candidates, their families and supporters to be seen as part of the cost of campaigning. It would set a dangerous precedent if candidates requiring extra security had to forgo elements of their campaign simply to feel safe.
These exclusions should not mean that it becomes the norm that candidates are expected to pay even more to fight an election because they do not feel safe. This instrument stops an obvious injustice in our electoral expense law, but our response to candidates feeling unsafe cannot simply be to tell them to open their pockets and hire security. The Government must make sure that adequate resources are in place to ensure that candidates feel secure without needing to spend their own money.
The Minister mentioned his discussions with the Electoral Commission, which I welcome. I would also welcome assurances from him that there have been conversations with the Electoral Commission on guidance. For example, when are expenses reasonably attributable to security when someone tasked with security simultaneously carries out tasks that would come under election expenses? There could be a blurred line there.
Another significant part of the instrument concerns the increase to election expenses in Greater London Authority elections and local authority mayoral elections. As the Minister outlined, the figure for mayoral elections dates back to when the role was introduced in 2000. Since then, sadly, that figure has failed to be updated in line with inflation, and it was used during the last mayoral election, 21 years after it was introduced. I understand that a significant increase is expected, given that the limit has been untouched for 24 years. I hope that the Minister recognises why we need to ask questions about why we are raising the limit by over 80% just two months out from the elections. The reality is that we have seen a huge rise in inflation under this Government. If we look at the £340,000 increase in the mayoral candidacy budget in London in this SI, nearly £250,000 is accounted for because of inflation. The last four years alone have accounted for a massive £132,000 of the increase.
I am sure that the Minister will not want to enter into an argument about compound interest, but the real reason we are seeing this rise in the proposed figures is the compound failure by successive Tory Chancellors to get inflation under control. If we apply that to other things, we see other areas across the country with skyrocketing inflation, whether that is the price of basic essentials or the cost of mortgages—there are so many things. No one can pull a magic lever to bring these costs down, to accommodate the massive increase in inflation. People have had to cut costs and lower their standard of living to accommodate that, but the Government can raise the limits for election spending by over 80% at the drop of a hat.
We do not intend to oppose this instrument outright, as I said, but I hope that the Minister will agree that this rise does not reflect the reality that people are seeing in their day-to-day expenses. I hope that he also agrees with me that future Governments should not wait until two months before an election to carry out an increase that is 24 years late.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her in-principle support for this measure and for her general approach to the issue. With regards to timing, this is the fourth of a quartet of SIs dealing with these matters. The Government will of course always strive to meet the Gould principle: we aim to comply with the principle wherever possible. This was a judgment call. I will be perfectly frank with the hon. Lady and with the Committee: we could have delayed this until after the elections in May. We took the view that, given the need for clarity on security and on upgrading, it was better to do it now. I take entirely the point that she made that it is relatively close to May to make the decision, but I took it in good faith, believing it to be helpful to candidates, particularly on security.
As for how the guidance on expenses will be dealt with, these things have to be done in a sensible and prudent way. Given the temperature of some of our political discourse in this country, I am tempted to say that security issues trump all, and the Electoral Commission and others who inspect candidates’ returns will take that into account. That is not an excuse to defray other campaigning costs under the banner of security. To do so would not only be wrong; it would also be deeply dangerous and offensive to those whose memory I mentioned in my opening remarks, and to others. The hon. Lady was right to point to the spirit of International Women’s Day and the disproportionate amount of abuse that female politicians receive, irrespective of party. We would do well to bear that in mind.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on Friday outside Downing Street, our democracy feels slightly under threat. The defending democracy taskforce, which I sit on with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security is bringing together a whole raft of agencies and involved parties to ensure that everybody who takes part in our democratic life, whether they are a deliverer, campaigner, door knocker, putter-up of posters, candidate, candidate’s agent, a member of a candidate’s family or whoever, feels safe and secure in fulfilling that important role. If we want people to stand, they must feel safe to be able to do so. I know that the hon. Member for Vauxhall will agree with me on that. The whole purpose is to ensure that security is understood clearly by those standing and helping in those elections and those monitoring and regulating the expenditure.
We take this issue seriously. Where we think that there are new burdens, as the hon. Lady will know, with regard to voter ID and changes to postal votes, we have created a new burdens fund for local authorities. We keep those issues entirely and consistently under review, because—without sounding too lofty, because I think that there is comity between the Front Benchers on this— we really cannot put a price on the functioning of our democracy. The Government stand ready to do whatever they can, wherever and however they can, to ensure the safe progress and conduct of our elections such that when results are declared, irrespective of which body there is an election to, the victorious are confident in the legitimacy of their victory, as are their supporters and voters, but, more importantly—I suppose this is really the fulcrum on which our democracy rests and works— the defeated know that they lost fairly, squarely and legitimately. Everything that we have been doing post the Elections Act 2022, with all the flow-through of statutory instruments, is designed with that key importance in mind. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Lady.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft General Aviation (Persons on Board, Flight Information and Civil Penalties) Regulations 2024
The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border (Tom Pursglove)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft General Aviation (Persons on Board, Flight Information and Civil Penalties) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. The purpose of the regulations, which were laid under sections 27BA and 27BB(6) of schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 and section 32B(6)(b) of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, is to require owners, agents or captains of international general aviation flights to submit information about the flight and the persons on board online and in advance of the flight. General aviation flights are those that do not operate to a schedule. They include large commercially operated business jets, air taxis and private pilots in light aircraft. The regulations also amend the Passenger, Crew and Service Information (Civil Penalties) Regulations 2015, thereby making a failure to comply with the requirements of the new regulations liable to a civil penalty of up to £10,000.
The safety and security of our citizens is the Government’s top priority. We are committed to implementing resilient border security processes for all modes of international transport for counter-terrorism, policing and immigration purposes. A key part of our border security strategy is the ability to know who is travelling or intending to travel to and from the UK’s border before they arrive or depart. Through the provision of advance passenger information, known as API, our border officers can quickly determine who does and does not pose a threat to the UK or to UK interests and, importantly, prevent travel in accordance with the authority to carry scheme 2023.
All airlines that operate scheduled commercial international flights to and from the UK, apart from some flights within the common travel area, are required to provide API for all individuals on board their aircraft. In addition, all passengers who arrive on scheduled international flights are subject to full passport control checks at the border. Individuals who arrive in or leave the UK on international general aviation flights are not all subject to the same checks. They can arrive and depart at major airports where Border Force officers are located, but also at small airports with no permanent Border Force presence. Many international general aviation flights operate out of private airfields and landing strips where there is no permanent border control or police presence.
I reassure the Committee that all crew and passengers who arrive on international general aviation flights have their details checked. Border Force and the police use intelligence to address a series of security, policing, immigration and customs matters, then determine an appropriate operational response based on an assessment of the risk that each flight poses. That combination of intelligence assessment, expert judgment and spot checks means that we can provide an appropriate operational response.
The requirement to provide API forms a key part of our approach to managing international general aviation flights and the individuals on board. Currently, those who operate international general aviation flights are required to provide data in advance of departure for customs purposes and, on some routes, for security purposes, but they are not required to provide the information electronically in a way that enables law enforcement to process it efficiently.
To effectively assess the risk posed by individuals on board international general aviation flights, our border control authorities need not only to know who intends to travel in advance of their commencing their journey to or from the UK, but to receive the information in a way that supports effective processing to clear individuals who raise no concerns and to focus on subjects of interest. The submission of flight information, online and in advance, will allow Border Force and other law enforcement authorities to analyse and quantify the extent of the potential threat and level of risk. It will enhance automated checking and intelligence-led decision making to improve the effectiveness with which resources are deployed to meet flights.
Last April, the Home Office undertook an eight-week consultation, targeted at the general aviation sector, on regulations to require information about general aviation flights and persons on board to be submitted electronically in a manner that enables automated watchlisting. Respondents to the consultation understood the reasons for doing this, and most were supportive of the introduction of the regulations.
To be clear, the regulations will not require the provision of information over and above what is already required. They simply specify the manner in which the information must be supplied: it must be provided online. Already more than 50% of submissions are made electronically, and the regulations will have no impact them. For the pilots and operators who submit their flight information via email, or even fax, there will be a small impact. Border Force has introduced the free-to-use web service “Submit a General Aviation Report”, hosted on gov.uk, which general aviation owners, agents or captains can use to comply with the regulations.
For individuals arriving and departing in private aircraft, the requirements reflect and support the Government’s intention to have a fully digitised border system and allow us to know about and have control over who is travelling to, entering and leaving the UK. The draft regulations will ensure that information about general aviation flights and the people on board is submitted consistently, meaning that Border Force will be able to better assess any risks.
The Government recognise the significant economic benefit that the general aviation sector provides to the country and that the majority of owners, agents or captains make available to border authorities and the police information about their international flights and the people on board. The changes are a necessary and proportionate step in our continuing efforts to secure the border and keep our country safe. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr Huq. I welcome the regulations. I am not here to stand in the way of measures to assist Border Force, polices forces and other agencies to do their job and, once implemented, the regulations should ensure that they have complete and timely access to a range of advance passenger information to ensure that immigration controls are properly enforced. The requirements for flight operators to submit advance passenger information online should promote compliance with immigration law across the general aviation sector.
The statutory instrument establishes that failure to comply with the requirements will be subject to financial penalties of up to £10,000. I am interested to know how the decision to set £10,000 as the maximum amount for civil penalties was arrived at and what specific steps the Home Office and other Government Departments plan to take to monitor the implementation of and compliance with the rules. Will the Minister ensure that Parliament and the public will be kept up to date on how effectively the rules are enforced?
I am concerned about the capacity of Home Office officials, particularly Border Force, to adequately police compliance with the new rules. At present, only around 50% of advance passenger information is submitted electronically. To ensure that the remaining 50% or so of flights have correctly submitted the required information, there may well be a need for Border Force to maintain a significant presence at several airfields where there are typically no officers stationed.
Home Office data provided to the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, showed that last year UK Border Force failed to check the occupants of hundreds of private jets arriving at just one airport. The Minister told the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), that the Home Office cleared 100% of high-risk general aviation flights either remotely or in person. Will he confirm what percentage were in person?
Will the Minister provide reassurances on the levels of Border Force funding and personnel that the Home Office plans to allocate to supervising the roll-out of and subsequent level of compliance with the regulations across the general aviation sector? There has been a decade of cuts to immigration enforcement. With that in mind, will he confirm what the total budget and headcount of Border Force have been in every financial year since its establishment as its own command in 2012? Of the total headcount, how many officers in each year were engaged specifically in monitoring and enforcing compliance with immigration controls in the aviation sector? If the Minister has that information, he can give it to us in Committee, but I understand that he might not have it all to hand so am happy for him to write to me.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq.
I will not oppose the draft regulations, but I have some questions for the Minister, certainly about their timing, coming as they do on the back of the sacking of David Neal as the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration. I understand that on the day the reports came out about the misuse of London City airport flights by private jets, David Neal had a meeting scheduled with the Minister that was cancelled that morning. That is what David Neal told the Home Affairs Committee. If the Minister cared to enlighten us a little about the circumstances of the cancelling of that meeting, that would be useful.
I wish to put a number of concerns on the record. This statutory instrument puts the onus on the pilot to comply with the rules, rather than on UK Border Force. Given the nature of the accusations about some flights coming into UK airports, I am concerned that people who are not keen to comply with the rules in the first place will be even less likely to comply with the rules that the Minister is bringing in under the regulations. What consultation has the Minister had with the British Airline Pilots’ Association and other pilot representative organisations? Are they happy enough to take on the additional responsibility of ensuring that passengers on such flights are registered in the system?
The Minister talked about only 50% of passengers being registered by electronic submission at the moment. Will he tell us how long he will give people to comply with the regulations? Is he expecting instant compliance? People might not be familiar with electronic submission—the Minister suggested that they are faxing passenger information to UK Border Force—so will they be set up to do it in the way that he expects?
Who will check compliance with the system? The Minister talked about spot checks to ensure compliance with the regulations, but there are lots of small private airfields around the UK. When I tried to establish exactly how many small private airfields there are in the UK, the figure I found was around 144. Will the Minister assess the risk of particular airports? Is it likely that if compliance becomes heavier at London City airport, people will move their private flights elsewhere? It feels to me like a population who will, if they seek to evade Border Force, have at their disposal lots of means by which to do so. The Government are quite good at bringing forward laws, but not so good at implementation, so may I ask whether any additional staff will be put on to monitor electronic submissions, to spot check and to seek compliance on the submissions?
Is what is actually happening here that the Minister is legislating ahead of the April publication of what we expect to be David Neal’s damaging report on London City airport? David Neil also suggested to the Home Affairs Committee that the big delays in the release of his reports were to allow the Home Office time to find sticking-plaster solutions, so that the reports were not quite as bad by the time they came out because the Government could say, “No, we’ve fixed this. We’re doing something about it.” Is this the Government doing something about it eight weeks ahead of the promised publication of the report?
The accusations are serious: that UK Border Force failed to check hundreds of private jets. The potential was for criminals, trafficking victims and all kinds of people to be able to come into the country. That has been the allegation. The Daily Mail is not a publication I generally refer to in this place, but it cited the fact that at London City airport last year just 21% of general aviation flights were inspected by immigration officers. The airport handled 1,305 general aviation flights, with 687 categorised as high risk. Only 144 of those were checked by Border Force, and 543 had no passport inspections whatsoever. That is really quite worrying given the potential for people to come through.
I understand that the definition of high and low risk is part of the dispute here. The Minister has said previously in the House that it is about the persons on board, intelligence and things like that, but if someone was of a mind to try to circumvent UK border security rules, they would be able to find their way around this legislation quite easily. Instead of flying from an airport in Moscow, they might fly from an airport in the south of France, or they might try to find other ways so that their flight appears to be quite low risk. It would be interesting to hear an understanding of what that risk is and how the Government assess it.
I am also concerned about how the information made it to the press. I appreciate that the report is yet to come out, so the Minister may not want to comment on this, but the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration was also quite concerned about the insider threat to Border Force—about people becoming employees of Border Force and then using their role to allow people in and things to happen that should not. Could the Minister tell us anything more about that?
As I said, I will not oppose this statutory instrument, but I do have concerns about the manner in which this change is being brought forward. I would be interested to know more about the consultation process, and I am concerned about how the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has been treated for trying to do his job in alerting Ministers to his concerns. He felt he was getting no response from Ministers, hence the situation he ended up in. It is unfortunate that this is the case, because he has been a diligent and fearless advocate for what he is trying to do.
Tom Pursglove
I appreciate the broad support for the measure from colleagues from across the Committee. On the point about year-to-year staffing in Border Force, I will happily write to the hon. Member for Enfield North with that information. It is worth saying that there is a degree of day-to-day flexibility, in operational terms, around the work of Border Force. Staff are surged in to deal with particular and competing pressures. This really goes to the heart of why the change we seek to introduce today is so important, because it will help us to respond operationally to the challenges of general aviation in a more targeted way. Where there are no risks or low risks, that can be dealt with accordingly, and we can then channel greater resource at dealing with higher-risk general aviation matters. That goes to the heart of what we seek to achieve. I will happily provide the hon. Lady with the information.
On the question about the former chief inspector of borders and immigration and the meeting that was organised with me, I had accepted that meeting as a matter of priority. It was organised but did not go ahead because of the information that was supplied to journalists. As I have said now several times in the House, that was done outside the proper process and was not respectful of the confidentiality requirements associated with such reports. The Home Secretary had been very clear with Mr Neal, as had I and the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, that we would respond to the outstanding reports as a priority. We have now subsequently seen, as a House, the way in which we have gone about that.
I also refer the Committee to the commitment I made yesterday that the report on general aviation relating to London City airport will be responded to in the proper way within eight weeks. I undertake to make that commitment again today. I do not intend to deal with that report in a piecemeal manner. It is important that we have the chance to reflect properly on Mr Neal’s recommendations and the statistics included, with proper assurance and fact checking, and are able to respond in the usual way to the recommendations, but that will be done in a timely way. I give that undertaking again to the Committee.
It is important to say that there is no change to what is required in terms of the information that people are asked to provide. What is different is the manner and the way in which we are asking for it to be presented, through the online means, which will ensure that, for the reasons I touched on earlier, we are better able to respond to risk and to be in receipt of that information in a more timely and co-ordinated way. That should, of course, help to manage border security challenges more effectively.
On the point about the maximum penalty level, the figure is up to £10,000. That was adopted in 2015 as an appropriate and proportionate level, and we will keep the number and level of penalties under close review. It is important to recognise that there is a graduated approach. I hope that we do not have to resort to using the penalties, because I hope that people will want to engage properly with the process, recognising the imperative of ensuring our border security, but there is a graduated approach and we will keep the level of the penalty under review.
Alison Thewliss
I thank the Minister for that clarification. Why is it being levelled particularly at the pilot, rather than at the person who chartered the plane or the person who owns it?
Tom Pursglove
The reason is that there is clear accountability around an individual piloting a plane. The hon. Lady will appreciate that the legislation is relevant to a number of different types of individuals or operators, right the way through from individual private pilots to small businesses that fly people around. There is an obvious, clear line of accountability and sight when it comes to the way in which the penalty is issued and subsequently levied.
The hon. Lady was right to ask her fair and legitimate question about consultation and engagement. The Home Office has a good working relationship with representatives of the leisure and business general aviation sectors. Regular meetings are held, and invitees include the British Business and General Aviation Association, the Light Aircraft Association and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
To support the launch of the regulations, the Home Office has planned a comms campaign to ensure that all general aviation operators, agents or captains are aware of the changes that will come into force on 6 April, and the underpinning civil penalty regime, which we anticipate starting by the middle of February. It will consist of detailed guidance as well as high-level top lines that can be included in GA publications or mailshots. We will keep under review what more we can do to try to help to generate awareness, which is important because we want people to be compliant. In fact, I would go as far as saying that I want people to provide the data that is being asked of them, rather than having to resort to fines and extracting money from them for non-compliance.
On the related issue of compliance monitoring, the civil penalty regime will be applied consistently across all Border Force regions. To ensure that that happens, comprehensive guidance will be provided to all frontline Border Force officers. Each region will have a single point of contact for officers to approach regarding the process. In the event that a breach is identified, the GA owner, agent or captain will be served with an initial notice of potential liability setting out the breach that has occurred. The notice will then be reviewed by a central Border Force team, which will make the final determination on whether there is a liability, at which point the penalty notice will be served.
Understandably, there were also questions about what more we can do to try to improve the situation when it comes to the security of our border and the approach in relation to general aviation. Working with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Home Office has reduced the number of airfields into which an international GA flight can arrive, from more than 3,000 to 400. That is a result of the UK’s departure from the European Union, which has meant that to continue to receive international flights airfields have had to apply for a certificate of agreement. That is another significant step taken to manage the risk posed by GA flights, and it means that 16% of the GB aerodromes total will be approved to handle CTA and international flights from 1 January 2024, so that change has come about. The remaining 84% of aerodromes will be classed as undesignated and restricted to domestic movements only, which is helpful when it comes to being able to surge our Border Force resources to respond to issues and ensure we have the appropriate oversight of general aviation.
On the point about what is required, it is worth saying that more than 50% of the general aviation sector submits information using online methods. There will be no change and no impact for those people, as they are already complying. Yes, for those who submit via email, or even by fax, there will be a change, but we consider that to be a small change in behaviour and have provided a free-to-use web service through which to submit information, with a view to making it as easy as possible. The Home Office has drafted guidance for the sector that will be published in advance of the regulations coming into force. That will give the sector adequate time to understand its obligations and the penalties should it fail to comply.
A question was asked, understandably, about the speed at which and the timetable by which the reform is being brought to fruition. It is worth saying that this change has been in the making for some time; I am pleased that we are now bringing it forward. In saying that, it is worth making the point that this change is not related to the ICIBI report, in the sense that we have only just received that report and I will respond to it within eight weeks. This workstream has been ongoing for some considerable time in advance of that. We have not long been in receipt of the ICIBI report.
A point was made about a willingness to be scrutinised in relation to general aviation. I have said this in the House before, but it bears repeating: this was an area in relation to which senior leadership in the Home Office, on the officials side, had invited scrutiny from the ICIBI. Far from trying to be evasive on the issue of general aviation, there is most definitely a willingness to look carefully at it. There is most definitely a willingness to learn. There is always an opportunity to get ahead and advance recommendations in responding to them and getting on and doing the work ahead of publication. I want to do this work properly. I want to provide greater detail to the House, and to people further afield, about that report, by responding to it properly in the usual way, with proper responses to the recommendations, but I give an undertaking to do that in a timely way. We treat this issue with the utmost seriousness.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Energy Bills Discount Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Energy Bills Discount Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
The Government responded decisively to the unprecedented rise in energy prices by delivering critical support to households and non-domestic energy consumers facing significant increases in their bills. More than £35 billion has been spent on supporting households via the energy price guarantee and the energy bill support scheme, and £8 billion is expected to be spent on non-domestic customers via the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills discount scheme.
The energy bills discount scheme provides a discount on energy bills between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 for those on non-domestic tariffs. It includes a higher level of support for heat suppliers with domestic customers, which reflects the fact that heat networks typically purchase their energy through commercial contracts and then sell it on to their domestic customers. That meant that heat network customers were not supported by the energy price guarantee as other domestic customers were.
The Energy Bills Discount Scheme Regulations 2023 require all heat suppliers that have eligible heat networks with domestic customers to apply for the higher EBDS heat network rate and then pass on to their customers the benefit that they receive. Without that support, domestic customers on heat networks would have been exposed to the full impact of high wholesale market prices. The support that we have provided through the EBDS regulations is estimated to be worth £180 million in total, and £1,200 for the average supported heat network customer.
Our intention in amending the EBDS regulations is to provide a finite window within which heat network operators can apply for EBDS support. The EBDS regulations allow rules to be made about the scheme, including rules about the time within which a heat supplier must comply with the duty to apply for the scheme. However, the duty to apply does not come to an end if heat suppliers fail to apply within the deadline imposed through the rules. The regulations and rules do not currently impose any end date to the requirement to make an application. The result is that a qualifying heat supplier that has failed to comply with the rules must still apply for support even after the end of the scheme, which means that the Government would retain a legal obligation to process applications indefinitely and would therefore need to maintain and pay for the administration of applications indefinitely.
The Department’s policy is to provide for an end date after which further applications cannot be made. The final date on which an application can be made is to be specified in rules, which will be made and published if the draft regulations are approved. The intention is for the deadline to be 31 March 2024, to align with the end of the period covered by the EBDS. The 31 March end date has been widely publicised to the sector.
There will be a limited exception to the 31 March deadline: a two-week limited extension for cases in which the duty to apply arises so close to the deadline that it would be unreasonable to expect a heat supplier to be capable of applying. Those heat suppliers would have until 14 April to apply.
The most important aspect is the impact of the scheme on the individuals and families who are facing pressures on their bills right now. It is right that we introduce the deadline to ensure that consumers receive the benefits of the scheme in a timely manner. It is also essential that support reaches as many people as possible, so my Department has conducted extensive engagement to encourage all eligible networks to apply.
It is important to note that the creation of the deadline via the rules will not close down routes for consumers to seek redress. Dispute resolution through the energy ombudsman remains open to customers beyond the deadline imposed by the amending regulations. Further-more, customers can pursue their claim in the civil courts if necessary.
In conclusion, the draft statutory instrument will amend the EBDS regulations so that the duty to apply for the support is a duty to apply before a deadline. It is an essential step towards ensuring that we support customers while taking measures to draw in public spending as pressures from energy prices ease. I commend it to the Committee.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
As the Minister has explained, the draft regulations make a lot of sense administratively and in respect of future costs to the Government. The explanatory memorandum sets out the cost of keeping units in place essentially forever, because there was not originally a cut-off date for applying for the scheme or for being liable for the consequences of registration. The explanatory memorandum mentions a sum getting on for £6 million as the administrative consequences of not doing something. From that point of view, the draft regulations make a lot of sense.
From the point of view of consumers, and indeed of justice, the draft regulations make rather less sense. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that? Is there anything she would consider doing to mitigate the negative consequences? I address that question to her because I know that as the scheme has progressed she has always been keen for customers to get the full discounts to which they are entitled. She and I have discussed methods of ensuring that that happens. I completely exempt her from my criticisms of the problems that we are likely to see, because I know that her intentions are absolutely in the right place.
Let us go back to the introduction during the energy crisis of the methods by which discounts could be applied. As the Minister says, there were two schemes: the energy bills discount scheme for commercial and business interests, and the energy price guarantee for domestic customers. The energy price guarantee went straight to customers, because there was a direct relationship between the issuer and the receiver of the discount. However, although a substantial majority of customers were in that position, some domestic customers were not in a position to receive any direct discounts, because, as far as the scheme was concerned, they were not direct consumers of energy. They were people in park homes, people in shared properties in which a landlord had responsibility for the energy supply, or—as in this case—customers of a heat network. It was the intermediary, the heat network operator, that took the discount on the commercial energy bills discount scheme, not the customers themselves.
What happened after that was established as part of the overall discount scheme. I feel that some of the thinking on who got what and through which instrument was not pursued fully when the schemes first came in. Because of the speed at which they came in, the problem of pass-through to customers who would not receive the discount directly was not properly investigated in the first instance.
In an attempt to rectify that, a number of statutory instruments then made provision that, although the heat network operators would get the discount through the EBDS, they were essentially required to pass through the discount to customers. Indeed, because they had to apply for the discount, they were required to register to apply. The discount would not automatically come to them, as was the case in some other aspects of the energy bills discount scheme; they were effectively required to apply and register that they had applied.
The Chair
Order. I am following the Opposition spokesman’s comments very carefully. He is making an argument that the two schemes to which he has referred are related. He is entitled to make that argument, but strictly speaking it is not within the scope of the statutory instrument before the Committee. He has made his point clearly, but if he could move on to issues within scope of the statutory instrument, that would be helpful.
Dr Whitehead
I completely accept your guidance, Sir George, but I thought it essential for the elucidation of hon. Members to state the position as it actually was, as the discount scheme progressed.
The draft regulations relate specifically to combined heat and power companies required to give a discount to customers. When the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments considered the original statutory instrument, it was concerned that it imposed an obligation on intermediaries to provide certain information to end users without a mechanism for enforcing it. There was no sanction on those bodies—in this case, energy networks as the intermediaries—to ensure that they would face legal consequences for failing to do so. In other words, if they did not apply to receive a discount or they did not pass it on to their customers, nothing would happen to them.
When I made that point in a debate at the time, the Government said, “We don’t think it necessary to have any kind of sanction in place, because most people will comply, on the basis that we have published a piece of secondary legislation that they will comply with.” However, it is apparent from the draft regulations that in many instances those people have not complied with the requirements. They either did not apply for the discount in the first place or have not passed it on to their customers; we do not know which, because there was never a sanction.
Now, at the end of the scheme, we are saying—perfectly reasonably for administrative purposes—that we should no longer require those people who have not applied to receive a discount to do so in future. As the Minister said, there is a brief period after 31 March when they will be able to do so, but after that it will stop. Effectively, the potentially large number of companies and organisations that have not applied the discount or passed it on will just get away with it. They will just continue with their business and have no liability after that to do anything for their customers. They will probably never know just how many of them have been disadvantaged as a result.
The explanatory memorandum indicates a range of customers and an amount of money of which customers may have been deprived, one way or another. It states:
“Based on data from existing applications, we estimate the value of lost discounts could be up to £1,200 per customer. This lost benefit would disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups—namely the elderly and ethnic minorities—who are significantly more likely to be on a Heat Network.”
There is a essentially a mini-impact assessment in the previous paragraph, which states that between zero and 3,000 quality heat suppliers
“have not applied for the scheme, representing £0-66m of support.”
That is the effect on customers.
The Minister has said that civil sanctions will continue to apply. It may well be that in many instances customers can still take their supplier to court if they think that the supplier has received a discount but it has not been passed through. However, it is very difficult for customers even to know that, and they certainly will not know it after the scheme comes to an end.
According to the impact assessment, there are a large number of customers who should have received a discount of £1,200 but have not, either because the company did not apply for the scheme or because it applied but did not pass anything through. Again, we do not know which is which, because we have no records. There were no sanctions relating to who was doing what with the scheme.
Although the Opposition do not intend to vote against the regulations today, I want to register substantial disquiet about how we have ended up here with the scheme. I know that the Minister is very keen on ensuring that everyone gets their discount. Are there any methods of reaching a more satisfactory ending, other than offering people the option of going to the energy ombudsman or the courts to get their discount? Most people would rather fly to the moon. I would value the Minister’s thoughts.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George. I echo many of the points raised by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. There is a very real concern about the negative impact of the draft regulations, which leads me to ask whether the Government believe that the cost of living crisis is over. If they do, I say to them that that has not been the experience of constituents in Glasgow South West or, I am willing to wager, elsewhere across these islands.
The hon. Member made sensible points about the difficulties of the scheme and the fact that discounts have not been passed on. I agree with him that saying, “Go to the ombudsman,” will not fill businesses with confidence. Many domestic and non-domestic users do not view the ombudsman as having great teeth in enforcing its decisions. Court action will be taken only by the businesses that can afford to do so and that estimate that its costs are worth it vis-à-vis the money they would get back. The Minister needs to think through and answer the questions about the companies that have not been passing on the discount. There is a real issue with non-domestic customers and the challenges that they have faced.
Many businesses in Glasgow, in the rest of Scotland and across the UK have been stuck in or have signed multi-year energy contracts since the market peak in 2022. Research and evidence shows that hospitality businesses reported higher energy and supplier costs in 2023. I ask the Minister to look at that.
Now that the Government are ending this scheme, are they listening to the many calls to introduce longer-term reform? Are they looking to introduce blend-and-extend contracts so that businesses will do not need to wait until the end of their energy contract to see their energy bills begin to fall? I hope that the Minister will answer those points.
Amanda Solloway
I thank the hon. Members for Southampton, Test and for Glasgow South West for their valuable contributions. As has been stated, this was an incredibly complex matter to work through. I give an assurance that customers have been at the heart of all that we endeavour to do.
The non-domestic point is not particularly related to this instrument, which is quite narrow. I can give an assurance that we are working with UKHospitality and other organisations to think about how we talk to suppliers about blend-and-extend contracts and about third-party intermediaries, but that is probably a matter for a different debate.
Through the EBDS, the Government have provided essential energy bill support to heat network customers to help to avoid unnecessary financial pressures during the energy crisis. To date, we have paid out £50 million in support and have approved nearly 12,000 applications to ensure that those who are exposed to volatile energy prices are supported.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test asked whether we are considering support for customers on heat networks. He also raised an important point about customers getting a pass-through discount. Customers on heat networks are not protected by the same regulations as other domestic customers, so the Government are introducing a new regulation for heat networks. Alongside protections around service quality, it will give Ofgem powers to investigate and intervene on networks where prices for consumers appear to be unfair.
A scheme developed in haste, in response to the energy crisis, was never going to be perfect, but we have tried to ensure that as many people as possible have been reached. I am glad that through the scheme we have helped hundreds of thousands of people when they needed it most. We continue to target communications towards heat suppliers with vulnerable customers, including housing associations and local authorities. I have been keen to ensure that we use all available methods to reach out to as many consumers and customers as possible.
The Government are also helping with £6 billion of investment in energy efficiency improvements. It is expected that regulations will introduce back-billing rules for heat network providers, like those that already exist to protect gas and electricity customers. Our ambition is that consumer protections will be regulated from next year, with price regulation beginning in 2026.
The amendment that the draft regulations make to the EBDS regulations is necessary to ensure that the Government are not legally obliged to accept applications to the scheme indefinitely. It also balances our responsibility to limit the fiscal burden on the taxpayer.
From next year, we will have new consumer protections in place, provided through the Energy Act 2023. Regulations created via the Energy Act will give Ofgem powers to investigate and intervene on networks if prices for consumers appear to be unfair, or if prices are significantly higher than for comparable heating systems.
Once again, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
NHS dental appointments in rural areas
Westminster Hall
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Educational Attainment of Boys
(2 months ago)
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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
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the educational attainment of boys.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank the Backbench Business Committee, which agreed to this debate.
The Government have been improving the overall standards of education in this country, which we can see in the fact that 80% of our schools are good or outstanding. We have been rising up the international rankings on maths, reading and science, and yet today boys are still not doing as well at school as they should be. They are underperforming and that cannot go on any longer.
In addition to that, boys are behind girls at every single stage of education. The gender attainment gap is an expression of their underperformance because there is no biological or other intrinsic reason why boys should be behind girls, as they have been for the past 30 years. It is not a competition or a battle of the sexes, of course—we all want our girls to learn, to do well, to reach for the stars. But as a Parliament and as a society, we must want our boys to do the same. The figures are stark, as is the lack of interest or action, which I will come to later.
Let me run through a few facts. At 11, in reading, writing and maths, 56% of boys meet the expected standard, compared with 63% of girls. At 16, 43% of boys and 47.2% of girls received a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths. At 18, 34,000 fewer British boys every year go to university than girls of the same age. Boys are also behind girls in terms of exam performance in A-levels, T-levels and vocational education. At 16 to 24, more than 400,000 young men are NEETs—not in education, employment or training—and fewer young men go into the majority of our professions than young women.
We should also mention exclusions: another sign of boys not doing so well. The latest figures that I have show that 4,677 boys were excluded from school in one year. Those figures are hidden in plain sight. The Government, education research bodies, think-tanks, trade unions and social mobility organisations all know them, and yet there is silence—a silence of inaction, a silence of acknowledgment, a silence of care.
Research papers from academic research bodies and think-tanks continually highlight the facts, but say precious little on what should be done. One published only this year focused on how girls were outperforming boys, yet the main recommendation was to ask why so few girls study science, technology, engineering and maths—unbelievable! The plight of the boys was made invisible. Similar recent research reports give a scant nod to the gender attainment gap, but do not seek to explain it, let alone put forward ideas on what to do. Boys’ educational underperformance is a truth and no one dares speak its name: silence across the educational establishment.
Some have spoken, though. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, cannot be in Westminster Hall this morning because he is chairing the Committee at this precise time. He reminded me recently, however, that the Committee has made a number of recommendations about the need to support boys in school. He believes it is a matter of concern that boys are disproportionately represented among many groups. He wants schools to be inclusive and to unleash the potential in every pupil and thinks that understanding the best ways for them to support boys and drive forward their academic attainment is so important. I know that he welcomes this timely debate.
I chair the all-party parliamentary group on issues affecting men and boys. Our fourth policy report in this Parliament focused on boys’ educational underperformance. As in all our reports, we asked experts in the UK and across the world to speak to us. Crucially, they included six brilliant headteachers from across the UK—from Dorset, London, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Sussex and Rochdale—who have closed the gender attainment gap in a way that has also supported their female students.
We also heard from a national network of educators led by Dr Alex Blower, the access and participation development manager at Arts University Bournemouth. They are implementing an educational framework based on the “taking boys seriously” principles developed at Ulster University. I highly recommend that as a starting point, alongside how the six headteachers are succeeding at a practical level.
From what the successful school leaders told us, four main pillars need to be adopted. First, schools and trusts need to recognise the gap, collect data, then commit themselves to addressing it continuously throughout the school. From the board down to teaching assistants, it is a whole-school cultural approach. There has to be institutional will from the top to the bottom. The schools found that the problem is not with the boys, but with the way the adults treat them. They found, for instance, that some teachers were sanctioning boys more harshly than girls for the same offence and that they had lower expectations of boys and were inadvertently rewarding them for lower effort. Once the teachers recognised that, the improvements were immediate. They found that many of the disengaged teenage students were those who had arrived at secondary school aged 11 with low literacy skills. The successful schools put in place careful monitoring and interventions to ensure that language and reading skills enable the student to understand the lesson. It is basic stuff, not rocket science. We cannot expect the pupils to learn if they cannot access the curriculum because they do not have the basics. I will happily send the Minister a summary of what the successful schools have done.
Secondly, the schools create a boy-positive environment that is inclusive, fair—including with discipline—relational and aspirational. It is important that the boys and their parents recognise that they are included and that parents are supported if needed. The boys are not seen as a problem; they just need encouragement, understanding, to be believed in and given self-esteem. They need pushing. They need high expectations, their success to be celebrated and to understand the point of what they are being taught.
Thirdly, there need to be tactical interventions, especially on literacy, oracy and study skills, plus role models and mentors. The successful schools did not see role models and mentors as necessarily being outside school or in the media. They simply made sure that older boys were visible in succeeding in all subjects—not just traditional subjects such as football and physics, but drama, music and history. Not all boys need that but some do, especially boys with no father or positive male role model at home or in their community.
More male teachers are needed to show boys that learning is for them, too. It is telling that 80% of teachers told me that not having enough male teachers in school is a problem, especially given that 30% of primary schools have no male teachers at all. Yet the Department for Education and teaching and training institutions fail to promote teaching specifically as a career for young men. We have asked, but we have been ignored.
Lastly, as a society we simply need to take better care of our boys and support them when they need it. The attitude identified as harming boys’ progress is not limited to the school environment. We have all as a society inadvertently developed a culture that boys experience as hostile to them. We have developed the belief that boys’ underachievement is somehow natural and normal, because “boys will be boys”.
The negative narrative and indifference that boys face, especially those with problems, have to change. Some 41% of sixth form boys and girls have been told in school lessons that boys are a problem. Two in five boys have been told by schools, or outside organisations invited into schools, that they are a problem. Let that sink in. Two in five is a shameful statistic, and those schools need to take responsibility. What will the impact be? It’s hardly going to be positive, is it? Too many boys feel ignored, marginalised and unsupported.
We also need to deal with other problems caused by the adult world: family dysfunction; a lack of community aspiration and opportunity; gangs; criminal pathways; and social media’s so-called influencers. What to do? As well as making my earlier points, which are aimed at all involved in education, the APPG asked the Government to do a number of things and I will mention a few. We need to provide political leadership and a narrative that publicly acknowledges that the gender attainment gap exists and that boys’ relative underperformance is a problem that the whole educational community has to solve.
We need to launch or fund a sector-wide task and finish group, and a summit of headteachers to find and promote solutions, inviting successful heads to guide the taskforce and the Government’s thinking. We need a ring-fenced research programme on understanding and addressing the gender attainment gap, and to launch a “This boy can” campaign, similar to the “STEM is for girls” campaign and other initiatives. We should specifically promote careers in teaching and other professions, including health and social care, which would then put pressure on careers services.
We need to tell Ofsted to include the gender attainment gap in its assessment of schools and to give a positive assessment to schools that have policies and initiatives in place to address it. There should be more encouragement of mentoring schemes for boys, whether from current or former pupils, or community leaders. On behalf of boys without fathers or positive male role models at home, I urge the Government and the wider educational community to take action.
As a society, Government and Parliament that believe in inclusion and equality, we cannot let this situation continue. We must not and cannot tolerate our boys not doing as well at school as they should. The time to stop the inaction and stop ignoring the issue has come. We have to come together and tackle the underachievement of boys in our schools. We can and must do that together.
Several hon. Members rose—
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Thank you for bobbing, colleagues. I call Jim Shannon.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Paisley. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing forward this debate. He has spoken on this issue many times in Westminster Hall and the Chamber, with a real passion for the subject, encapsulating his concerns for his constituents and for our young boys. I will do likewise for my constituency, because this issue has been on my radar throughout my time as an elected representative, from when I was a councillor, starting in 1985, through my time as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, and now as an MP.
The hon. Gentleman clearly laid out the problem and I join him in speaking out for those young boys who seem to fall through the cracks. It is a long time ago, of course, but I can well remember that as a boy my attention was hard won by the teachers at school. Sometimes my mind tended to wander, and for that reason many a duster sailed past my head and many a cane came down upon my hand—all justified and well deserved. I do not think that it did me any harm; it may have motivated and challenged me to focus a wee bit more in the class and to do the right things.
The issue I am trying to get at is that times were much different. I can remember teachers encouraging me— I also have to say, Mr Paisley, that you and I both will have been encouraged by our parents, both mum and dad. They are the motivation for us in many cases; they are the encouragers who make us try to achieve higher goals and higher things, and we are thankful for them. They ensured we went through the exams and went straight out to work, though I certainly know how easy it would have been to slip through the cracks, like those young people the hon. Member for Don Valley referred to.
Every time A-level or GCSE results come out, I like to remind those who feel disappointed—I say this very humbly—that I did not excel at exams in the way that I should have. That was probably a case of not focusing and not putting in the hard swotting that was necessary. However—again, I say this very gently and humbly— I started work, progressed through that to my own business and ultimately became an elected representative. There are things that can be done and just because exams do not work out when someone is 16, 17 or 18, that does not mean that life is over and it cannot get better.
The issue of educational attainment for boys is one that my colleagues in Strangford, the former Education Ministers Michelle McIlveen and Baron Weir of Ballyholme, worked on very closely. Now, a good friend of ours, Mr Paisley, Paul Givan, is in the post and he really focuses on those issues back home. It is an accepted fact in Northern Ireland that Protestant males from working-class backgrounds are the lowest achievers, with some all-boys schools only having around 30% of pupils attaining A to C grades in five GCSEs, so there are a lot of things to do back home—that is not this Minister’s responsibility, of course, but I mention them because they relate to the story and the debate before us today.
The topic has been the subject of numerous reports and actions taken to improve the outcomes that some have labelled a generational educational problem. Indeed, the underachievement of young Protestant males in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), such as at Dundonald High School, is similar to that in mine.
One of my constituents works in a school. He has only five boys in his class and he caters to them day and daily on an individual basis because that is his focus and his responsibility. Some of the boys are incredibly bright but also incredibly troubled, with backgrounds that make their outlook on life understandable. Other boys struggle with the basics and use anger in an attempt to distract from what they believe is their failure—but in my opinion, the failure is not theirs. It is ours. The society we live in and the education system in place have allowed a situation where those who do not thrive academically feel like failures.
We have to make sure they do not feel like failures—we have to lift them above that. We need surgeons, but we also need the people who make the scalpels and the surgeons’ tools. Those who manufacture the knives are as necessary as those who wield the knife, something that seems to be lost in some approaches to learning. It is important that teaching captures our young people’s attention and takes them forward.
Having said that, I am aware of programmes in Northern Ireland, such as the Usel programme, which takes the children referred by social workers and who have slipped through the gaps and provides them with learning and employment and, more importantly, helps them to find their place in a fulfilling way. I have sat on the board of governors for Glastry College since 1987, approximately 37 or 38 years, and my boys grew up with young boys from Greyabbey.
Some of those boys were never going to achieve educational standards—it was never going to happen. They knew what they were going to do: they were going to work on the farms or building sites, because that was where their vocation was. Opportunities do not always come through education, but the opportunities to have education must be there. That is what we are really asking for. I am asking to make sure that those young boys have that opportunity and can do those things.
Those programmes are vital. I recently spoke to a lady involved in running one of them in a café, who told me that the overwhelming majority of children in the programme were young boys who simply did not feel worth anything or that they could achieve anything. In some cases, their dads were in prison, and some did not even know who their dad was. That is a fact of society; it is a fact of life. That is not a judgment, by the way— I am making an observational point because we have got to reach out, try to do things better and bring people forward.
Those cases are heartbreaking. The need for programmes and small classes is clear, but so is the need to change the structure so that those who excel in the practical know that they are valued and vital. That takes changes from the root, but all that takes money. There is no better person than this Minister to be asked this question, or to encapsulate our thoughts, put them together and tell us how the education system here on the mainland will work. It takes money and determination to help to make a change, and that is the message we need to send from this House today.
Grades are important and educational standards are vital—but, with respect, they do not always equate to success. I say that gently but honestly. Success is finding happiness, fulfilment and joy in life, and people need to know their worth in order to achieve that. Today must be the first step.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I begin by wishing everyone a very happy St Piran’s Day. St Piran is the patron saint of tin miners and we have adopted him as our national saint in Cornwall, hence my attire.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this debate on a very important issue—one that he feels passionately about, as do I. He opened the debate by laying out the case very clearly. Although this debate is about academic attainment, and that is clearly important, it should not just be about that. I stand before Members as someone who left school at 16—as I often say, most of my teachers thought I left long before that—and could not wait to get out of education, although I did quite well in my O-levels. I am a great believer that, although academic attainment is important, it is by no means the only important thing in life. The most important lessons I learned in life, I did not learn in the classroom.
We need to keep things in perspective. As a country and as a Government, we sometimes put so much emphasis on academic attainment that that becomes counterproductive for those, particularly boys, who do not achieve it and then feel that they have not quite come up to the mark and may become demotivated as a result. The debate needs to be about more than just academic attainment.
Having said that, I think we have a real challenge in this country when it comes to how we educate, support, equip and enable boys to fulfil their potential in life. Some recent figures showed that there are now 83,000 more boys not in education, employment or training than girls. That should raise a number of questions. Why is there such a big disparity between the number of boys who drop out of education or training and are not in jobs and the number of girls who do the same?
We need only look at the suicide rate among men, particularly young men, to wonder what is going on in our country and our society today. Three quarters of all suicides involve men. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in this country, and that should really concern us. What is going on with the way we support, help and treat men that means so many of them decide to take their own lives?
I think there are a number of factors. I speak as a father to two boys, who are now grown men in their own right, and as a granddad to three, two of them boys—for the avoidance of doubt, the other one is a girl. I am so grateful, actually, that I am not a young man today because we seem to bombard our young men with so many negative messages about being a man.
The whole thing about toxic masculinity pushes negative messages all the time to young men, who then wonder what they are meant to be, who they are meant to be and how they are meant to behave. We need to take a long look at ourselves. I absolutely understand and agree that we have needed to address the inequality that many women have experienced in our society for a long time, and we have made huge progress on that, but we should not be putting men down as a result. I feel sometimes that that is what we have done, and we need to think carefully about it.
I am also concerned that we seem to put so much expectation on teachers. I am a great believer in the family and that having a stable, loving and positive family environment is the single thing that determines the outcome for boys and girls—for all children. Teachers clearly have an important role in providing education, but so often we expect our teachers to do far more than educate; we expect them to be social workers and mental health professionals and all sorts of other things. The state cannot do everything. I worry sometimes that we are always looking for the state to provide the answers to these challenges, whether in education, through schools and teachers, or other parts of the public sector, when I believe that most of the answers actually lie within the family. The Government have made some positive steps to support families and parents. That is hugely welcome, but we could do more to help parents to fulfil their role, rather than expecting teachers and other parts of the state to do it for them.
One thing I have noticed—the Minister is aware of this, and I am grateful for our meeting to discuss it—is that Cornwall, like other parts of the country, is seeing a huge rise in schoolchildren suffering with mental health conditions or who have neurodiverse conditions, and the education system is struggling to support them properly. Many parents are taking their children out and off-rolling them as a result. My observation is that disproportionately more boys are affected than girls. We need to look at what more we can do to support children struggling with these challenges and their parents.
As the Minister knows, I think fining the parents is not the answer. I have to put on record that I was disappointed that the Government are going to increase unauthorised absence fines for parents; that is not something I agree with at all. I think it is definitely the wrong thing to do. We need to provide help to ensure that children struggling with these conditions get the support they need, rather than threatening their parents with fines for the children not being able to attend school.
Finally, on the point about the underachievement of boys, a report into race and ethnic disparity in this country was commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) when she was Prime Minister. It found that one of the most disadvantaged groups in our country was white working class boys in coastal towns. I would ask the Minister: what have we done with that information? In Cornwall, where we clearly have many coastal towns and villages, it is young people, and particularly boys, growing up in those communities who consistently underachieve.
My Cornish colleagues and I worked hard to get Cornish included as a recognised national identity in the recent census. That has been really helpful, because we now have real data on how Cornish people are faring. The census found that only 14% of 18 to 24-year-olds who identified as Cornish went on to further or higher education, whereas nationally it was 34%. The Cornish are 20% behind the national average. Again, I would say to the Minister: what are the Government doing about that?
We are very much aware of the underfunding of schools in rural areas, which the Government have begun to address, but there is still a long way to go. We need to look at the funding of schools and other services in coastal areas. Many young people growing up in our coastal towns and villages find themselves disadvantaged because of the very nature of the challenges that coastal towns face. That is feeding through into the underachievement of those young people, particularly young boys.
I ask the Minister: what more can the Government do to support coastal communities and to ensure that schools in coastal communities get the resources that they need to close that gap or disparity, so that young people growing up in our coastal towns and villages do not suffer the disadvantage that they have done for far too long? I believe that this really should exercise the Government, particularly Ministers in the Department for Education, to look at what is going on and provide the support that we really need in Cornwall and other coastal parts of the country.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Paisley. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this incredibly important debate on the educational attainment of boys, and I also congratulate him on his excellent and constructive speech, which I am sure gave the Minister and his team a lot of food for thought.
Like my hon. Friend, I have raised this matter in debate and discussion on numerous occasions and not enough has been done to date by our Government to address these issues, despite the fact that our Government have been very successful in all that they have done in the past decade to improve our education system and to make it positive and successful. I pay tribute to the tireless work on men and boys’ issues by my friend and campaigner, Mark Brooks OBE, who has done so much to raise this issue outside this Chamber by campaigning across the country.
Overall, we know that there is an attainment gap between boys and girls. That is not a recent phenomenon—it has been the case for many years. The trend continues, and at all stages of education, boys lag behind girls. I am a great believer in social mobility, and education is an important path to achieve that. Opportunity through education and offering good education is what we all want. As a former teacher and lecturer, I have been disappointed to see how the issue of educational attainment for boys has not progressed in the way that I would have liked seen—I know that the Minister will agree with that too. Girls outperformed boys at the expected standard for all subjects in 2023, except for maths, where they were neck and neck or maybe the boys were slightly better. In reading, 76% of girls met the expected standard, which was down from 80% in 2022, while 70% of boys met the expected standard, which was unchanged from 2022. That is a huge gap in educational achievement between boys and girls.
I follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) in highlighting the underachievement of white working class boys, which has made the headlines quite a number of times in the past decade. There is obviously no quick fix to this long-standing and growing problem, which has developed into something of a taboo subject. Both the previous speakers have highlighted the fact that we have concentrated on women’s issues, which are very important, but we have somewhat neglected some of the issues facing men—which my colleagues have already raised, and I will not repeat.
White working-class boys from disadvantaged backgrounds underperform against boys of all other races and ethnicities in our country. The question is why. That demographic is falling further and further behind and shows no signs of catching up, which is a huge worry. White schoolboys eligible for free school meals have lower higher-education participation rates than any other group when analysed by the sex and ethnicity of those receiving free school meals.
Even for those not eligible for free school meals, white boys still trail. They have a higher-education participation rate of 36.4%, compared with Chinese boys, who have the highest participation rate. Why have Governments of different political persuasions not attacked that problem and come forward with solutions? What should be done? What can be done? We have heard some examples and I will not go down repeat them. We need to look seriously at tackling this problem, but to do so it must be accepted that a lot of working class white boys have disadvantaged backgrounds, which we have to help them to overcome.
We understand the reasons, but what action should we be taking? Schools need to adapt more and the curriculum needs to be adapted too. Academic excellence is not the only thing that matters, and there are a lot more jobs and opportunities out there that are not based on academic achievement. Good role models are also absolutely vital. The family is the primary educator, and one hopes that parents, as well as teachers, will have a huge input, but there are many other candidates for role models, including local sportsmen and women, businesses and former students, particularly those who are really successful.
In schools in my constituency of Bexleyheath and Crayford we quite often get those people to come in to enthuse the young boys and make them realise that, yes, they have got to have a basic education, but beyond that there are huge opportunities in sport, business, retail, music and entertainment—there is a great wide world out there that is not based on academia. There are many careers and jobs about which, unfortunately, teachers are not knowledgeable. It is absolutely true that teachers do a fantastic job; they are dedicated and hard-working, but former students, or successful footballers or whatever, who can come in and talk to boys about their lives and careers are great motivators.
When we look at today’s society in our country there is such huge opportunity. We want these underprivileged lads to have that opportunity to advance themselves, but they need to understand what is there. It is not just the academic curriculum that matters—teachers and parents need to be informed of what is available and of the routes through which people found successful career opportunities.
Great teachers can give inspiration for life—we all remember inspiring and motivational teachers. I had one when I was in sixth form many years ago called Peter Sillis. He was my history teacher. He was a great motivator, telling people that they did not just have do jobs based on academic achievement. He always told me that I had the wrong political views, but it was the 1960s and I am afraid that all the teachers were left-wing. That did not stop us sitting in the front desks opposite him in his lessons arguing back whenever possible. He was a great Harold Wilson supporter—I will not go any further with that one.
There are many dedicated and outstanding teachers for whom we are grateful. We praise teachers because it is a difficult job in today’s society. It is more difficult than when I was a teacher and when I was at school, because society and, I am afraid, behaviour has changed. However inspirational and good teachers are, they cannot do the work alone. They require the backing of the education establishment, the Government, academics, businesses, industry and the general population, believing in the teachers and in the boys. We need to motivate them. Of course, parents are the primary educators, and we need to help and enthuse them and get them to be positive and look at what can be done. Academies are a great triumph of our Conservative Government because they have opened up a different world, and they run differently from when I was teaching and when I was at school. That has been a positive achievement. Quite often, academies and secondary schools have people in to offer advice and to discuss matters.
We have heard that there is a shortage of male teachers. That is a regret because a lot of our primary schools have few, if any, male teachers. That may be difficult for families if at home the mother is bringing up the children without a male role model. We must never forget that boys from the most economically deprived areas of our country are just as clever, talented and able as anybody in the best areas. What they lack are the opportunities and the chance for support, encouragement and confidence. Being confident that they can and will do things is key in today’s society. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley mentioned reaching for the stars, and that is a good matter to highlight. Boys can succeed if they get the opportunity to do so.
We need more publicity from the Government, academies and businesses and more investment in boys at an earlier age, particularly white working-class lads. In particular, we must not at any time let boys decry education, become disillusioned and opt out, so we end up with an underclass who are not educated and have not had the opportunity to make something of themselves. Yes, we need qualifications, but it is the basics that they all need—the ability to read and write and to be confident with maths. They will hopefully see what the opportunities are if we bring people into schools who are not educationalists. I know we as politicians go into schools and talk about life at Westminster, but we need more people to go into schools and talk about their careers. If we do not, not just individuals but society will be disadvantaged because there is huge talent out there among young males, including young white males, which needs to be grasped so they can all have a positive future. This debate is important, and I know the Minister is listening with great concentration, but he needs to take back to the Department the fact that this is an issue. The Government have done good things in many other areas, but this one is still in his in-tray.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett), and I agree with him that no one forgets a good teacher. Indeed, my own socialist English teacher remains in regular contact with me, continuing to lobby and raise issues with me on almost a weekly basis. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing the debate and on the report from his all-party parliamentary group on this important issue.
Education is everything. It is the route to opportunity and the way to ensure that everyone is best equipped to fulfil their ambitions and dreams—it is, indeed, a silver bullet. Research shows that boys perform worse than girls on most major educational indicators through their school years, and some figures in particular should cause us concern. Boys are far more likely to be suspended and twice as likely to face permanent exclusion, and less than 60% of boys meet the expected standard in English, reading, writing and maths.
Specific groups of boys are particularly impacted by low attainment. Of those eligible for free school meals, only 34% of white British boys, 35% of mixed white and black Caribbean boys and 36% of Caribbean boys attained grade 4 in both English and maths GCSEs in 2023. Most noticeably, boys from Gypsy, Roma or Traveller backgrounds have especially low pass rates. I mention the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in particular as Darlington has a high proportion of that population. I want to mention St Teresa’s Primary School, which is led by the excellent head Paula Strachan, who has done so much work focusing on the GRT community.
We must take these figures seriously. The Government have taken, and is taking, steps to close the gap, having driven up standards over the past decade. In Darlington, 80% of schools are now rated as good or outstanding, in comparison to 2010, when only 65% of our schools met those standards.
However, we must not forget the young working-class boys from the groups I mentioned—the kids who often miss out on so much. In Darlington I have seen at first hand that many working-class kids miss out on the aspiration and inspiration to succeed in education. Many of those boys come from families where they may not have a male role model; if they do, that male role model might not be in employment. Being encouraged to succeed is much more the norm in middle-class households, as well as in some ethnic minority communities. That is something that we can and must change. It is down to us as politicians, as well as our schools, community groups and Government—with parents, perhaps most importantly of all, taking the lead—to inspire kids to take education seriously, and schools need to have the resources to facilitate that.
In my role as the MP for Darlington, I have ensured that I have spent time at every one of the 36 schools in Darlington, hosting assemblies, answering questions and talking about my career in business and politics. That might only be a small thing, but it might be the one thing that inspires one person. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, who is leading this debate, has organised an amazing programme of role model lectures in his local schools, and his work in that respect is an example to us all. I am interested in hearing from the Minister what plans there are for more innovative ways to inspire and teach the boys who are falling behind where we want them to be.
Reading is a good place to start. The library at Skerne Park Primary School was opened last year by children’s author Cressida Cowell as part of her Life-changing Libraries scheme, in partnership with BookTrust. The project gave the school a dedicated library space and new books, and it has inspired teachers to put reading at the forefront of the curriculum. On my visits to Skerne Park, I have been delighted to see the enthusiasm with which pupils talk about what they are reading, and how much the variety of books engages children’s creativity and imaginations. Many of those inspired kids may previously have missed out on more conventional forms of education.
I was also delighted when the historic Darlington Library on Crown Street reopened its doors last year, having been saved by community campaigners after the Labour council sought to close it down. It is a vibrant place with a huge variety of books, where children, parents and carers can further indulge in reading in. It is beautifully decorated with murals depicting scenes from Charlie Mackesy’s wonderful “The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse”. It is a vital hub for our community, with a focus on being welcoming to children and therefore encouraging them to read. It also helps to inspire parents to encourage and embrace their children in learning. Facilities such as that can really inspire a love of reading and open doors to other worlds for our children.
In addition to that, we must not ignore the need for further focus on children with special educational needs and disabilities. As of January last year, 22% of boys were identified as having special educational needs. That is a further sign that we must look at innovative ways to make sure these children are educated in the way that best fits them. More than 300 children in Darlington are still waiting up to three years for a child and adolescent mental health services assessment, so much more still needs to be done to ensure that more boys do not miss out.
Before I conclude, I must put on record my concerns about Labour’s plans to tax private education. When I recently visited Dame Allan’s School in Newcastle, I was blown away by number of places it gives to local disadvantaged communities—funded entirely by itself. That could all be thrown away if VAT is added to school fees, which risks robbing that community of that opportunity.
We cannot uneducate a person who has learned to read. If we arm them with the basics, we lay the ground for them to succeed. Education is a silver bullet in terms of achievement, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister what more the Government are doing in this area.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It is great to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), who made some incredibly interesting and pertinent points. I agree with him particularly about putting VAT on private schools. Abbeywood School, a private special school in Hellaby in my constituency, deals with people with severe SEN, and I worry that it will close if VAT is applied. That would have a detrimental effect on Rother Valley and on our children with special needs.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for the work, time and effort he has put into championing and supporting men and boys in this place through the APPG and for consistently raising this issue in debates and questions. I know that he feels strongly about it, and he is making a real difference in raising its profile. Prior to his election, these issues were not raised nearly as much as they are now. He really is giving a voice to men and boys and their place in this world, so I thank him for that.
It is an undeniably shocking statistic that more than three times as many men as women take their own lives every year. In fact, suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50, with one suicide taking place every 90 minutes, which is as long as this debate will last. I believe a lot of this stems from education in schools and from a lack of attainment, and to tackle this epidemic, we need to take a new approach. There have been some incredibly effective adverts and advice—Norwich City FC’s incredibly powerful “You Are Not Alone” advert springs to mind—but they focus on tackling symptoms, not on addressing the causes of male suicide.
To address any problem, and especially this issue, we must start with young people. Schools are the perfect place to build self-esteem and character and to grow the boys of today and the men of tomorrow. However, on the facts, it is clear that many schools are not yet the welcoming, nurturing place where all young men can thrive. As we have discussed, boys are more than twice as likely to be excluded. Even by the end of reception, their attainment is already significantly behind that of girls. These shaky foundations do nothing for the rest of boys’ education, eventually leading to tens of thousands fewer boys attending universities than their female peers.
Crucially, this trend is exaggerated by external factors, especially in less well-off areas. Boys on free school meals continue to be let down by schools that fail to provide an environment geared towards them, and that has a consequential effect on their grades and thus their lives. After all, everything from earnings to employment and from happiness to suicide rates is heavily in favour of university graduates. The picture is even worse for white working-class boys from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are the least likely to gain entry to our elite universities of any socioeconomic group. Universities often pride themselves on their diversity and inclusiveness statistics but, when it comes to white working-class boys from disadvantaged backgrounds, all universities are abjectly failing. There are not enough—frankly, there are barely any—outreach programmes for this demographic group, who are just not going to university. Through no reason other than being born a boy in a working-class area such as mine, they are being pushed away from higher education and face a statistically worse quality of life—and even an earlier death.
What, then, is to be done to support these boys through education, so that they can grow into happy, fulfilled men? If the problem starts with early education, how can we foster a healthier, more boy-friendly education system? Getting more men into teaching is clearly a good start. Male role models can play an important part in a boy developing a healthy sense of self and growing into a well-adjusted man. Only a quarter of teachers with whom boys in school might spend the majority of their time are male, so we must do more to encourage men to re-engage with schools, and bring about a shift towards helping to understand young men, rather than excluding them.
However, when we go to the nursery sector—even before schools—that figure is dramatically worse. Only 3% of nursery teachers are men. That is a shocking statistic. At the very earliest age—I thank the Government and the Minister for opening up childcare places, which my girls are benefiting from—only 3% of teachers are male. That is an absolute disgrace. We need to make sure that men are seen by young boys as role models—as leaders, learners and educators—literally from as soon as they go to university, because at the moment they are not, and unfortunately that sets in train later failures.
However, the problem cannot be solved just with more male teachers. I know that young women can and do make brilliant and inspiring teachers, and are clearly good role models for young men. But there are thousands of small changes that could be made right across the education system that could incrementally improve it for boys—for example, encouraging them to play sports or perhaps learn an instrument, both of which have proven beneficial impacts on education and therefore on life. Perhaps we should be opening up diverse scholarships to working-class boys at schools, making higher education more open and accessible to a group who our universities are failing.
Perhaps, though, the most important thing we can do is continue to open up the conversation about our failure to properly provide a suitable education for boys, and especially white working-class boys, that can allow them to reach their full potential. We need to encourage a sense of togetherness and allyship, where currently there might be division or gender bias, to make sure they are supported in their educational career. We need an open and honest conversation, both within schools and between schools, to explore how to best support boys in their development towards becoming young men. We need to recognise the effects of education, and particularly the rejection from education that some boys feel, on the rest of their lives, and to build schools and universities designed to welcome and champion them.
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) about bringing back former male teachers and alumni to talk to boys. Schools in Rother Valley such as Wales High School do that very well, but all schools should be bringing back as many people as possible—to talk to boys, to show success, to show that there is a future, to encourage them and to show them that they can achieve anything.
That leads me to a couple of other points I want to make about the current structural failings, which I do not think we have touched on yet. A University of Kent study from not that long ago found that boys felt they were not expected to do well at school. I am sure we have all seen this “Boys will be boys” attitude—“Oh, he’s misbehaving. Boys will be boys. They’ll be fine. It’s the girls who are sitting and reading.” Yes, boys will be boys, of course; but they are no less good than girls, especially when it comes to education. If boys are allowed to run amok or run riot, or are treated differently, they will not have the same expectations. We need to make sure they have those expectations. The University of Kent study was incredibly insightful, because the primary school boys who were interviewed felt that they did not need, and were not expected, to achieve the same as girls. But that is wrong: they need to be expected to achieve the same as girls, and we need to make sure it is the same.
Another point—I hate to say this, and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley will criticise me for using this phrase—is gender bias. The University of Trento in Italy found that there was a gender bias in the marking of educational papers. When girls’ names and boys’ names were on the same papers, boys were found to be statistically marked lower—harder—than girls. However, in a blind test of exam papers, they were found to be equals, so there clearly is some sort of gender bias against boys when it comes to marking. If that is happening in school, it will lower the expectations of boys and retard their progress. That is wrong.
I think every Member here has mentioned that boys need to be encouraged, nurtured, treated differently and given better role models, and another aspect we should talk about is single-sex schools. Only 6% of schools in the UK are single sex, and the majority of those are female single-sex schools. I am not saying that single-sex schools are the best, or better or worse than mixed schools, but surely there needs to be an open conversation. If boys are doing worse at school—clearly, they are, and we all agree with that—surely there need to be schools that are geared to raising up boys, including some of the white, working-class, disadvantaged boys, and perhaps that should be in a single-sex educational space.
I declare an interest: I went to a single-sex male school and had a great time. It was wonderful; I felt nurtured and loved, and it was a very good school. I now have two girls, who will do well wherever they go to school. We need to look at this issue, because the drive since the 1970s has been to get rid of single-sex schools, and yet for some boys——and for some girls—single-sex schools might be the right place to be educated.
The last thing I want to touch on before I close is the ultimate responsibility for boys’ education, which is parental responsibility. We cannot get away from the fact that the majority of a boy’s time will be spent with his family, and the family is the bedrock of society, of education and of his future. We need to do more to support families, because it is families, the role models in families and the way boys are treated in families that will have the biggest effect on how boys do at school—not what a teacher says, but where they spend most of their time. We need to ensure that all policy has that family-friendly and family-centric approach first, because that is the most important thing for success for everyone, male or female.
I want to sum up by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and the all-party group for its report on how improving the lives of half of those in education will improve the lives of everyone else. Turning schools towards, not away from, young men will only serve to improve their lives and those of everyone in the community. We cannot allow the unseen killer of suicide to continue to claim men’s lives, and we must address the root cause of those tragic deaths. Schools are clearly where we need to start.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mr Paisley. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this debate, which seeks to dig deeper into the educational attainment of boys at school, and other hon. Members on sharing their views this morning.
The attainment gap between boys and girls is something that starts at an early age and grows throughout a boy’s time at school. In 2022-23, according to Department for Education statistics, by the end of the reception year, just under two thirds of boys had what is classed as a good level of development, compared with about three quarters of girls. By the end of primary school, the proportion of boys reaching the expected standards of reading and writing remained lower than girls. Going into secondary school, boys lag behind girls across every headline measure collected by the Department for Education and, as hon. Members have mentioned, boys are more likely to be excluded from school during that time.
As hon. Members have also touched on, other significant attainment gaps exist in our school system. For example, following the covid pandemic, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and others grew, while white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds underperform compared with those of other races and ethnicities. Labour has set out how we would tackle the inequalities in our education system with our plan to break down the barriers to opportunity for everyone in this country, because all boys and girls should have the same opportunities to have an excellent education, leading to a good job and a good standard of living.
We know that the gap starts at a young age, where boys start school at a lower attainment level and with less developed language skills. Indeed, the pandemic shone a light on how a child’s early language development goes on to affect their later education. That is why Labour has called for primary schools to be equipped with funding to deliver evidence-based, early language interventions. That is something we would prioritise in government. Better communication skills would boost boys’ and girls’ outcomes and improve engagement with school.
Research has also consistently shown that the attainment gap is largest for those on free school meals, coming from the poorest families. Again, that issue has been raised by hon. Members today. We all know that there are shocking levels of child poverty in this country, leaving children too hungry to learn. That is why we would introduce free, funded breakfast clubs in every primary school to provide children with a softer start to the school day. That would give them an opportunity to play and socialise with their friends, developing their communication and social skills, as well as providing them a breakfast, setting them up well to learn throughout the day.
We know that the quality of teaching is a huge driver of pupils’ attainment. Quite simply, there are not enough teachers in our schools. Many teachers feel overstretched, and turnover is higher than before the pandemic, and there is no real plan to tackle the issues with their working conditions. They feel badly let down by this Government. To ensure that we have the best—and necessary—teachers in our schools who can deliver the best life chances for all our young people, Labour would recruit 6,500 new teachers to fill the gaps. We would pay for that by ending the tax exemptions that private schools currently enjoy.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for her words and comments. It is World Book Day this week, and an event for it is taking place in Portcullis House. Looking to the future, should the Government change, is it the shadow Minister’s intention to ensure that books and reading would be a clear, core part of any child’s education?
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Indeed, we will have a debate here tomorrow about World Book Day and how important reading and literacy is for children. We recognise it as the absolute core foundation of every child’s start in life, ensuring the best education for every child. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted that today.
We would also reintroduce a school support staff negotiating body to ensure a proper voice for support staff, because we know that they power our schools, but unfortunately are currently leaving the profession in droves.
Peter Gibson
Turning back to Labour’s plans to tax education, I wonder if the Labour party has actually done any modelling on how many children whose parents are struggling really hard to put their children through private education will end up in the state sector, and how many children on assisted free places, bursaries and so on, funded by those private schools, will end up back in the state sector?
Catherine McKinnell
As I said earlier, Labour believes that education should be a priority, and should be at the centre of national life for this country. That requires the necessary funding to ensure that there are teachers. We know there are teaching gaps throughout our school system. Young people are not being taught by specialists in their subjects, and we know there is a shortage. Teachers are struggling to manage the workloads as a result. Labour would prioritise supporting the teaching workforce for the 93% of children who are educated within the state sector. That would come by removing the current tax exemptions that private schools enjoy. That has been modelled by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, showing very clearly that we would have a net benefit from the policy, closing—I know hon. Members are here to debate this very point today—the attainment gap between the outcomes for all children at school, and particularly boys.
Peter Gibson
The hon. Lady has not given us the figure that I asked for in my earlier intervention. It is simply my view, and I am sure that of all hon. Members on the Government side, that we do not level up opportunity by robbing opportunity from those who are already enjoying it.
Catherine McKinnell
It is interesting that hon. Members are here today to discuss an education system that they are highlighting is currently letting children down, which we in Labour agree is letting children down. After 14 years in government, it is quite remarkable that hon. Gentlemen would take that attitude to a costed proposal that seeks to meet the huge demands within our education system and the requirement to ensure that every school has the teaching workforce it needs. That will be Labour’s priority. The choice we make in government will be to ensure that we have an education system that can meet the demands we are hearing about today.
I want to echo the points that have been raised about mental health. As has been highlighted, we know that boys are far less likely to reach out for support and often struggle to speak about mental health challenges. That is holding children and young people back, impacting on their ability to learn as well as their health, and the number of children waiting for support continues to rise, along with absence from schools.
Alexander Stafford
I have been following the hon. Lady’s argument, which I believe is to put VAT on private schools and use the money from that to top up and improve the education system. We have also talked about suicide prevention. Obviously, suicide is a very complex issue when it comes to men and includes factors such as mental health. If the Labour party wants to put VAT on private schools to help education, then, following the same logic, the hon. Lady should agree with putting VAT on private healthcare to improve healthcare outcomes. Is it the Labour party’s position to put VAT on private healthcare to improve mental health outcomes?
Catherine McKinnell
The Labour party will present our offer for Government when the general election comes, which we are all waiting for at the moment, and we will put our fully costed plans in our manifesto. We are focused on improving and increasing mental health support for young people, which I will get to.
Catherine McKinnell
I will respond to the previous intervention first. We will pay for that by ending the loopholes that non-doms enjoy in this country. We will fund mental health support, as well as breakfast clubs, which are intended to tackle the issues that hon. Members have highlighted in this debate, which are getting worse, not better. I hope that hon. Members would be minded to note that, because they are making the case to their own Government to find solutions to these problems—problems that a Labour Government would respond to.
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Member gives way, I remind colleagues that this is a debate on educational attainment of boys, not a general debate on the Budget, which will come later in the week.
Sir David Evennett
I have been listening with great interest. Obviously, the hon. Lady is putting forward Labour party policy generally. I am very concerned about what Labour would do if it ever got into government to help these working-class boys to achieve. The issues she is raising are very generalised.
Catherine McKinnell
I would not suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has not been listening to my speech, but I have set out a whole range of measures that Labour would put in place to raise the attainment of every child.
Going back to mental health support, we would ensure that there are dedicated counsellors in every secondary school and that there are mental health hubs in every community. Children and their families are waiting and waiting for the mental health support they need. The absence levels in schools are clearly being affected as a result.
It is clear that there is an attainment gap between boys and girls. It is Labour’s view that we need to do everything we can in government to break down the barriers to opportunity that too many of our children face, and we will do that. I agree with hon. Members: there is no silver bullet to solve this. That is why we have proposed a whole range of measures that match the ambition we have for every child. We would put the education of all our children at the heart of national life. It is the very least that our children and our country deserve.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing a debate on this important subject. The last time that he and I were at an event on this topic was a meeting of his APPG, where he had invited Richard Reeves to come and talk about his book, “Of Boys and Men”. We discussed a lot of these issues. The book is very interesting and thought provoking. In my previous life as a charity director I was involved with lots of organisations that did great work to support boys through education and employment pathways, so I have a lot of sympathy with the issues that my hon. Friend raises. I thank him for his continued campaigning on this important issue.
The Government’s track record in education has been in improving standards dramatically. We have been rising up the league tables internationally in stark contrast to Labour-run Wales, which has been falling down them. Girls continue to outperform boys across most headline measures, although the gap has been narrowing. At key stage 2 the gap between boys and girls at the expected standard in reading, writing and maths has fallen since 2022; it is the lowest since 2016. Although that is in part due to a slight decrease in girls’ attainment, increased attainment for boys in reading, writing and maths combined has also supported that. Similarly at key stage 4 there was a gap of 6.6 percentage points between girls and boys achieving a grade 5 in English and maths in 2018-19. That was down to 4.3 percentage points in 2022-23.
However, we know there is more to do. Raising attainment for all pupils, including boys, is at the heart of the Government’s agenda. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley is right that boys’ attainment is not currently as high as that of girls. He will know that the attainment of some ethnic groups is not as high as some others, and that the attainment of free school meal children is not generally as high as non-free school meal children. I know that the issue of white working- class boys is something he has spoken about many times, as have my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett). I was on the Education Select Committee when it did its report on the attainment of white working-class boys, which the Government at the time welcomed.
Our approach is to provide schools and teachers with the resources and expertise to target support at those that need it most. Often it will be targeted at disadvantaged young people. The pupil premium helps to provide extra support to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged pupils. The funding will rise to more than £2.9 billion in the coming financial year—an £18 million increase from the year before. We are targeting a greater proportion of the schools’ national funding formula towards deprived pupils—more than ever before. That will be more than £4.4 billion, or 10.2% of the formula allocated to deprivation this year.
More broadly, we have invested significantly in education to ensure that all young people can reach their potential. The core schools budget next year will be the highest ever in real terms per pupil, helping schools in their vital work to close attainment gaps and level up educational opportunities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley talked about the importance of literacy, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson). This is a key area of focus for us because evidence shows that high quality early childhood education, including language development and literacy, has a positive impact on outcomes in both the short and long term.
Alexander Stafford
On literacy, does the Minister agree that there should be a statutory requirement for every primary school to have a library? At the moment one in seven primary schools do not have a library.
David Johnston
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; I was not aware of that statistic. I absolutely agree with him about the importance of libraries and of children reading. When I visit primary schools in my own constituency, I tell all the children that the most important thing they can do is read a book. I share his enthusiasm for that.
We have invested more than £17 million in the Nuffield early language intervention programme, improving the language skills of reception age children who need it most following the pandemic. Our English hubs programme is improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. That has provided appropriate and targeted support to more than 5,000 schools across England since it was launched. Targeted support is also being provided through the national tutoring programme, with almost 5 million courses started since it began in November 2020. In 2022-23, more than half of the pupils tutored under the programme were boys, and we expect tutoring to continue to be a staple offer from schools, providing targeted support for those children who need it most.
My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington raised the important issue of SEND, and I completely agree with him. I had a very good visit to Beaumont Hill Academy in his constituency, and was impressed by the dedication of the staff team there. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay talked of the educational challenges in coastal areas such as his. He will know that Cornwall is one of our education investment areas, precisely for that reason, to be given a package of additional funding and support.
Peter Gibson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being incredibly generous with his time. May I place on the record my thanks to him for visiting the fantastic Beaumont Hill Academy last week? My sincere apologies for not being able to join him on that visit. Was he able to visit the site of our planned 48-place new special school?
David Johnston
Unfortunately, I was not, although the plans were indicated to me. Attendance is obviously fundamental. Ensuring children reach their potential requires them to be in school, which is a big priority for us. We are more than doubling the number of attendance hubs to support 2,000 schools, investing £15 million to expand one-to-one mentoring to help 10,000 children. Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, talked about the importance of mentoring. We will require all schools to share data to support early intervention. Our plan is working, with 380,000 fewer children persistently absent or not attending last year, and numbers continuing to fall.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) was right to raise how few men work in early years education. I wrote a piece a few weeks ago, trying to encourage more men into that area. On the teaching workforce more broadly, my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley is right to say that men make up a smaller proportion of the teaching workforce than women. It is important to attract more male teachers to the profession.
We have seen some change. In state-funded nursery and primary schools, we have seen an increase of more than 6,500 male teachers since 2010, but we want to go further, through our campaigns to attract and retain excellent teachers, including more men. We want teaching to be an attractive and competitive profession. From September 2023, starting salaries rose to at least £30,000 in all areas of the country, alongside a 6.5% pay award for experienced teachers and leaders in the past financial year, ensuring all teachers launch their careers on a competitive starting salary.
On exclusions, creating a culture with high expectations of behaviour is very important. Our behaviour in schools guidance provides clarity and support to schools, to help them create calm, safe and supportive environments. We are clear that permanent exclusions should be used only when absolutely necessary, as a last resort, and should not mean exclusion from education. I was concerned by what my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay described, and we are looking at what action may need to be taken there.
Briefly touching on professions, I used to work on widening access to professions before I became an MP. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley is absolutely right that professions, such as medicine, the law and others, have seen a huge shift from being overwhelmingly male to overwhelmingly female in their entrants. That is less so at senior levels, but certainly in entrance to those professions, that is the case. I used to work on this issue, partly from the aspect of class and socio- economic background. Actually, a lot of those professions had been successful in recruiting more women and ethnic minorities, but disproportionately from private schools and professional families. Whether male or female, black, white or Asian, it was considerably harder to get into those professions if from a working-class background. Indeed, an individual is 24 times more likely to become a doctor if a parent is a doctor, and only 6% are from a working-class background. I agree with my hon. Friend about the issue and would only say that there are a number of issues about access to those professions and more work is needed to make sure that who gets into them is representative of the country at large.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others set out the importance of people, and especially boys, understanding the full range of jobs and careers open to them and of having mentors and other support to encourage them along those pathways. That is a big part of the Careers & Enterprise Company’s network of enterprise advisers, who are volunteers from businesses who help schools in that regard.
We accept that there is always more that can be done to improve outcomes for children of all backgrounds, including boys, and we will continue our work to ensure that in every area, children can access excellent schools and high-quality technical and higher education and go on to good jobs. I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley for continually raising the issue of educational attainment for boys. The Government agree that boys should feel included and supported at school to help them reach their full potential and we will continue to work to deliver our commitment of building a world-class education system for all children and young people.
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
I call Mr Fletcher, who has a couple of minutes to wind up.
Nick Fletcher
I thank everyone who has taken part in this extremely important debate. I also want to put on record my thanks to Mark Brooks OBE, who is a colleague and friend. He has done a huge amount of work on the matter over the past few decades.
I am genuinely pleased by many of the points made. One thing that has come through is the importance of family. We put an awful lot on teachers, but I genuinely believe, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) said, that we tend to put too much on teachers a lot of the time. The family is the silver bullet for everything—I genuinely believe that. Unfortunately, we have 2.6 million separated families out there with 4 million children, so there will be an awful lot of boys who do not have a male role model in their lives. We really need to take that on board. It is a huge problem that is coming down the line and we need to do everything we can to get mentors and role models in front of those young boys. If we do not, they could quite easily end up on a path that we do not want them to take—and that will not just cost us with a society we do not want to belong to, but it will cost us a fortune to look after those boys once they have taken that wrong path.
I had hoped we would have got a little more from the Minister today. There are some easy wins there for us that will not cost us any money. For instance, if we just write to schools and say to them, “Please look at the gender attainment gap and whether it exists in your school. If it does not, fantastic. Well done. Come back to us and tell us what you are doing to make sure it does not. If it does, just acknowledge it.” We need to acknowledge that there is a gap there. It is said that the first sign of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. We cannot be in a position like that with our boys. If we let boys down at 11 years old, we will have a huge problem in future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) and I mentioned one word: expectation. We should expect boys to do well. They can do well and with the right support they will do well. Once again, I thank everyone for coming. I am sorry for the Minister that, unfortunately, there are no Back-Bench Labour MPs here today. That is really disappointing. It just proves what they would do with working-class boys and boys as a whole if they did get into Government: not a lot. Unfortunately, we are where we are, but I thank everyone on this side.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the educational attainment of boys.
Farming in Wales and the UK
(2 months ago)
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Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
I will call Jonathan Edwards to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up—as he knows; he is an experienced Member—as is the convention for 30-minute debates. I suspect, however, that he will get a number of interventions.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered farming in Wales and the UK.
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and to have the opportunity to raise the concerns expressed in rural Wales in particular, but seeing that there is an honourable turnout from Members from all constituent parts of the UK, I suspect we will hear about the concerns of other farmers across the UK.
Feelings are running at fever pitch in Wales, and last week a mass protest converged on the capital city of Cardiff. For those in the rural heartlands of Wales, Cardiff is not the easiest place to get to. My hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) will attest that it is easier to get to London than to Cardiff from Caernarfon.
Jonathan Edwards
Yes, it is even easier to get to Dublin. The turnout was extraordinary and showed the strength of feeling that has erupted over recent weeks. I was listening to the Wales podcast on the BBC on the train down over the weekend, and it said it was the largest demonstration that the Senedd has ever seen. That is testament to the strength of feeling in rural Wales.
Although I do not come from farming stock directly, my father and his brother were raised on Ffos y Ffin farm in Capel Dewi following the death of their father from tuberculosis. He got involved in the local young farmers movement, and his best friend was David Woods, who farmed Waunyryddod in Cwmfelin Mynach in the west of Carmarthenshire, near Whitland. Some of my fondest memories as a child include visiting the Woods family at their farm on weekends, watching my father and Mr Woods milk the herd, and helping out as I got a bit older. I witnessed at first hand the unwavering dedication of our farmers and grew a huge appreciation for their work and for the pride they feel in being food producers for the general population.
The pressures farmers work under are considerable. They are open to hugely fluctuating costs and prices while their payments largely flatline, and they work on extremely small margins. One of my first meetings after being elected was with a dairy farmer, who explained the huge financial difference that a 1p increase or decrease in the price of milk would cause his business. The inflationary pressures squeezing our economy are hitting farmers particularly hard, with skyrocketing input costs severely impacting their income. Last year, I received a justifiably angry message from a constituent complaining that fertiliser costs had doubled in less than 12 months. He was talking about having to drastically cut back on production. The inflationary pressures have driven up costs across the industry, yet farmers have not had the option of passing those costs on to consumers due to their position in the supply chain.
Mental health has become a major issue in the agricultural community. Suicide rates are far higher than those of the general population. Economic pressures undoubtably play a role, as do the insular nature of the job, the relentless hours and the demanding schedules. A recent survey revealed that over a third of farmers experience clinical depression and nearly half struggle with anxiety. I have been there myself on many occasions, and it is absolutely no joke. Being in that state of mind while working in an extremely dangerous workplace obviously makes matters even more serious. I know of a farmer who has had his struggles over the years. Recently he walked into a slurry pit before snapping out and phoning the emergency services, which thankfully got there in time. Mental health in farming should be a priority for policymakers, and I pay tribute to charities such as the DPJ Foundation, based in Carmarthen, for their work in providing advocacy and raising the profile of those issues.
From an economic perspective, agriculture is comparatively more important to the Welsh economy than that of the UK as a whole. Take out farming and other sectors will be severely hit. To further make the point, National Farmers Union Cymru recently hosted a meeting with over 100 stakeholders who are worried about the new sustainable farming scheme of the Welsh Government. A wide range of organisations and companies were represented, including agricultural contractors, vets, academic institutions, farming charities, legal firms and trade associations, as well as major meat, milk and food service companies based in and operating in Wales.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate forward. He is absolutely right to highlight the issues for Wales, and indeed for the whole of the United Kingdom. Does he agree that there are many issues facing farmers UK-wide, and that the farming community needs support to ensure that we are providing opportunities to not only those from farming backgrounds but those outside, so that they can realise that there is potential for a fulfilling career in the countryside? Perhaps we need to push for this vocation as passionately as we do for the NHS or even engineering.
Jonathan Edwards
I am extremely grateful for that very valuable contribution. Later in my speech I will talk about how the agricultural community needs to perceive us as wanting to work with them, as opposed to being unsympathetic towards them, which, unfortunately, is especially the case in Wales at the moment.
Returning to my point about the NFU gathering, following the meeting, NFU Cymru president Aled Jones said:
“The food and farming supply chain is an £8 billion industry in Wales that employs some 233,000 people, Wales’ biggest employer. As a sector we are completely interlinked with each part of the supply chain relying on the other for their viability.
A productive, progressive and profitable Welsh farming sector is essential to the wider supply chain, farmers spend around £1.4bn annually on products such as feed, fertiliser, veterinary and medicines, farm machinery and contract work. The produce from our farms is processed and sold in retail and food service markets in Wales, across the UK and globally.”
To return to the issue of intervention, we get the impression that policymakers at a Welsh level in particular view our farmers as some sort of economic burden. Their mindset needs to be turned around, and a key part of that is accepting the anchor status of farming for the whole rural economy.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate, and I very much agree with all the points that he has made. He will be aware that in much of East Anglia, just as in Wales, one in eight jobs in rural communities are linked to agriculture, food and drink, and the wider supply chain. I wonder whether more can be done to support the agricultural sector through public sector procurement, such as the UK Government and the devolved Governments introducing minimum requirements for food in our hospitals and our schools to be purchased from local farmers.
Jonathan Edwards
I am extremely grateful for that intervention. I think that such a policy would give the added bonus of providing high-quality food in hospitals and schools, which we should be aspiring to achieve as policymakers.
Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what is going on in Wales—the real disappointment faced by Welsh farmers under the Labour Government provided by the Welsh Assembly—is the gypsy’s warning for farming across the whole of the UK? If we were unlucky enough to get a Labour Government, what is happening in Wales would happen in the rest of the UK, and there is not even a Labour MP present to defend the Welsh Government. It’s a shocker!
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his passion and his support of the farming industry. I do not want to write his election leaflet for him, but I will certainly be concentrating on Welsh Government policy further on in my speech.
Earlier this month, 3,000 farmers converged on Carmarthen market under the protest banner “Digon yw Digon”, which translates to “Enough is Enough”. I pay tribute to my constituents Gary Howells and Aled Rees for mobilising so many farmers in my home county. Indeed, protests have been erupting across Wales and England. As an aspiring historian in a past life, I have to mention that those massive protest meetings have parallels with the Rebecca rioters’ mass gathering at Mynydd Sylen, near Pontyberem, in the summer of 1843—I had to get that in. What we are witnessing today, however, is colossal discontent in the agricultural community. Thankfully, organisers and the unions have done a great job in ensuring that matters have remained peaceful and within the law.
Much of that anger has been growing since the EU referendum, as farmers have witnessed the destructive approach taken by policymakers to the development of post-Brexit agricultural policy. There is no doubt that leaving the European Union has been a disaster for Welsh farming. They were promised sunlit uplands by the leave campaign but have been let down, and in the post-Brexit trade deals that have been signed, the interests of our farmers have been sold down the river by the UK Government. I acknowledge that there seems to have been a slight change of approach with the current deals, such as the one with Canada. However, that is too little, too late in relation to some of the previous deals.
The Welsh Government calculate that, for the period 2021-25, rural support funding will be £243 million less than had we been under EU farming support policy, and that figure does not account for inflation. The difficulty faced by the Welsh Government in managing an overall budget declining in real terms perhaps explains some of the unfavourable policy approaches that we have seen towards agriculture over the last few years. If the UK Government have left themselves open to accusations that they have neglected agriculture, the Welsh Government are open to accusations of hostility.
Hywel Williams
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate; he is making a fine speech. He points to the double whammy facing Welsh farming. It is not only Brexit and the subsequent disaster—of course, the Canada deal is far from settled; a cruel pantomime is going on at the moment, as we shall see later in the main Chamber—but there is also the incompetence and lack of understanding and listening from the Welsh Labour Government, as witnessed at the very large protests last week. Clearly, we need a change.
Jonathan Edwards
My hon. Friend’s point about the Welsh Government is well made. I do not know of any farmer who votes for the Labour party, and I suppose one can understand why the Labour party takes the approach it does. But it is disastrous for agriculture to have a Government who are open to the accusation of being hostile to farmers.
One of the most emotionally difficult meetings I have had as an MP was on the case of the farm that was struck down with bovine TB. It is difficult to explain the mental health impact on those affected. Earlier this month, “Ffermio”, an agricultural programme on S4C, unmasked those horrors graphically on the Castell Howell farm of Mr and Mrs Davies in Capel Isaac in my constituency. The family had to witness their cattle herd shot in front of them, one by one. It was absolutely harrowing for the viewer and utterly despairing for the family. It has become a tipping point for the emotional outpouring we are witnessing in rural Wales at the moment. It was an incredible piece of filmmaking by the “Ffermio” programme team, led by my constituents Ellen Llewellyn and Meinir Howells.
The failure of the Welsh Government to get to grips with bovine TB, and the continued faith in the policy of destroying cattle herds, has become a perfect metaphor for the unsympathetic environment farmers face from their own Government. I am glad that the Welsh Government committed to reviewing their policy on farm slaughter last week, but there should be a wholesale review of policy, including dealing with TB in wildlife.
To compound matters, the Welsh Government partnership parties have acted with blatant disregard on changes proposed to school terms and the potential impact on the Royal Welsh show, one of the marquee events in the Welsh national calendar. Proposed school term changes could see the show fall outside the traditional summer holidays, with the organisers warning that they will face a £1 million-plus shortfall, making the event unviable. Last week, the Minister hosted an event by the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society in the very room where the idea to form it came to fruition, Committee Room 12, to celebrate the 120 years since that initial meeting. England has lost its royal show, and we in Wales now have the most successful, and possibly the largest, agricultural event in Europe. Yet the event operates on small margins, and a £1 million operational loss could be fatal. The Welsh Government need to sit back and think this policy through, and make sure that the Royal Welsh show and the National Eisteddfod are protected.
The all-Wales blanket approach to nitrate pollution by the Welsh Government has irked farmers further due to its disproportionality and the estimated cost of £400 million to the industry. Everybody acknowledges the need to reduce agricultural pollution. However, why the Welsh Government feel the need for a sledgehammer approach is beyond me. Coleg Sir Gar’s Gelli Aur Agricultural College in my constituency has been pioneering slurry treatment technology that separates waste into two reusable products by separating the water. Water can then re-enter the environment safely or be reused on the farm, with the remnants being a dried product that can be used as fertiliser with little pollution risk.
Instead of coming down on farmers like a ton of bricks, why are the Welsh Government not providing grants for farming businesses to upgrade their waste systems? That could be done on a collaborative basis among farmers. One system could service a number of farming businesses and would potentially provide an income source from a waste product. It ticks all the boxes.
There is huge innovation in Wales. Aled Davies and his company, Pruex, also based in my constituency, is pioneering using natural bacteria to disinfect chicken and cattle sheds from ammonia pollution instead of chemicals. The results I have seen look very impressive. I was delighted to receive an email last week from Mr Davies saying that he had secured a research contract from the Welsh Government—I will give them a bit of credit for that. That shows what can be achieved if the Welsh Government work with the sector. Wales can pioneer change.
Unfortunately, that brings me to the new sustainable farming scheme for agricultural payments proposed by the Welsh Government. Their own assessments indicate that the scale of job losses in the agricultural sector would be around double the expected steel job losses in Port Talbot. Unamended, the new policy would also lead to a loss of £199 million to farm incomes and an 11% reduction in livestock numbers—that is the Welsh Government’s own figures. The knock-on effect on the wider rural economy would be catastrophic.
Page 6 of the partnership agreement between Labour and Plaid Cymru endorses the SFS as a commitment in which both parties will develop the new agricultural support regime.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
On support for farmers, yesterday I was speaking to a former president of the Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society, a Mr Finlay Munro, a farmer in my constituency. He made the point, which I found quite thought provoking, that when we talk about carbon sequestration, we are not really giving grassland its full value, and that, if that could be worked into the equation, it might be a support mechanism for our farmers. Does the hon. Gentleman—who is making an excellent speech—agree that the Government should look at that?
Jonathan Edwards
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; indeed, that is the criticism of the SFS coming from farmers. The Welsh Government made a statement last week saying they were going to review it, which is a positive step forward in response to the protests. However, reviewing is one thing; what we want is policy implementation. The hon. Gentleman’s point is well made, and it is often made to me by my farmers in Carmarthenshire.
Returning to what I was saying, it is worth reading out the section on the SFS in the partnership agreement, so that it is on the record. It says that both parties will work together to:
“Introduce a transition period as we reform the system of farm payments so stability payments will continue to be a feature of the Sustainable Farming Scheme during and beyond this Senedd term. We will agree the longer-term arrangements for Welsh agriculture, recognising the particular needs of family farms and acknowledging ecologically sustainable local food production.”
It pains me to say this, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) will not be too happy with what I am about to say, but it seems to me that Plaid Cymru has been completely outmanoeuvred by the Labour party in the partnership agreement. They have effectively been lead down an endless 20 mph road to nowhere by Labour.
There is a clear case that the farming community has a vital role in helping the Welsh Government to reach their environmental targets, especially in terms of carbon sequestration—to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). The alternative is letting the speculators buy up Welsh agricultural holdings—as has been happening—and planting trees on productive Welsh farming land. As always, the Welsh Government would be better advised to take farmers with them on a journey, as opposed to dictating and imposing. Just to reiterate the point I made in response to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, there has been a Welsh Government statement saying that there will be a review, but what we really want to see is action.
My understanding is that in Scotland the SNP aim to enable farmers to continue to access a level of basic payments, which seems to be a better approach. In Wales, we would do well to rethink the SFS, look at what Scotland is doing and meet the demands of the farming unions for a new universal baseline payment. As my constituent Ian Rickman, the president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales, has said:
“The reality is that if the scheme remains in its current form, and if the modelling report is correct, farmers uptake will be minimal and everyone will lose out—Welsh farmers, the environment, the public and ultimately the Welsh Government. There is a real worry that even under a scenario where scheme payments come nowhere near to compensating for the loss of the Basic Payment Scheme, there will be some farm businesses that will have no choice other than to participate in the SFS. This will, no doubt, place further pressure on farmers’ workload and mental health.”
He continued:
“The Sustainable Farming Scheme must be accessible by all, and provide long-term stability for farming businesses and the wider rural economy that relies upon agriculture. The SFS needs to provide a meaningful income stream which properly rewards farmers and underpins the importance of a high quality food supply chain, produced here in Wales.”
The deadline for the final stages of the Welsh Government’s consultation on the SFS is later this week, and I will be sending them a copy of this speech. As Ministers and negotiators on behalf of Plaid Cymru and the Government consider the responses, I urge them to tread very carefully before announcing their final plans. Conceding reviews is one thing; what matters is the policy environment that will be implemented, and unless concerns are addressed, the protests that we have witnessed to date will be magnified.
Hywel Williams
May I just say that the hon. Gentleman does a slight disservice to my party by lumping Plaid Cymru in with the Welsh Labour Government. We do have an agreement, as he knows full well, having been involved in discussions on this issue in past times, but that is far from being jointly responsible together as a coalition—as some parties have recently titled it.
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention because what he said is what a lot of the public discourse around the protests has been. However, I read out the actual partnership agreement—
Jonathan Edwards
Yes, there is a negotiation going on, and the hon. Gentleman is aware that his colleague in Arfon is the lead negotiator. I think she has been blindsided by the Labour Government.
He will like this bit now, though—
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Order. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to bring his remarks to a close.
Jonathan Edwards
R. S. Thomas, one of our greatest national poets, would often portray in his work how farmers and the land of Wales are one and the same. I have to be honest: I find the culture war tactics used against farmers difficult to comprehend. As R. S. observed, nobody understands nature and the intrinsic link between the preservation of nature, industrial toil and food production better than our farmers. Everyone understands that practices will have to evolve, but the role of policymakers must be to lead industry on a journey that it can buy into, as well as one that safeguards farming, as opposed to one that industry considers to be undermining it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Fay Jones)
It is lovely to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley; I know that, given your constituency, this is a matter of interest to you as well. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) on securing today’s debate. I thank the hon. Members who have contributed so far; I am pleased to see colleagues from right across the United Kingdom, because all too often farming in Wales does not get the attention it needs. I am delighted to see so many people contribute.
Fay Jones
My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, makes a good point about the startling lack of Labour Members in the debate. I will come back to that in a moment.
The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr drew attention to many of the key pressures facing farmers at the moment, and I particularly commend him for talking about mental health. I join him in praising the DPJ Foundation, which I know. My constituency adjoins his, and I have been to a farmer, in Hundred House in my constituency, who pointed out the beam at the top of the barn that he contemplated using when things got so desperately bad. I am grateful that with the support of the DPJ Foundation he is worlds away from that place now, and I credit it for all the work it has done to support farmers, because it is a very difficult time.
We know that farmers are used to working in incredibly difficult conditions, whether that is from the weather, a difficult lambing or poor global prices—whatever it might be. Farmers are often at the bottom of the chain, and it is right that we thank them for what they do, not only in producing our food but in stewarding our environment. We simply would not have the incredible rolling hills of mid-Wales without them. I am incredibly proud of them, and this is another opportunity for me to restate just how much we owe to farmers the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
There was much in speech by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr that I agreed with, and sadly I do not have time to talk through everything. I gently challenge his points on trade, which he brought up on the Floor of the House yesterday.
Jamie Stone
I was tempted to intervene because of the mention of farmers across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. It is of interest that there are no Scottish National party Members here. Again, when I talked to Mr Finlay Munro, we spoke about the lack of forward planning. We do not know where we are on what will be environmental, what will be wild and what will not. Is it hedgerows or is it feeding the nation? That is something that I think we need to be very wary of.
Fay Jones
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. It is not a political point to say that Members are not here, because all Members from all parties ought to be engaging and listening to farmers at the moment. It is absolutely right to point out that what farmers need is certainty. In my maiden speech, I talked about how farmers can withstand drought, flood and Government interference if they are able to plan and are given the certainty. Sadly, that is very much lacking for farmers in Wales, and I believe in Scotland we need to see a little bit more detail. I urge all Members to come to the table.
To return to the points made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr about trade, he referred to the Australia trade deal. I would push back gently against some of the language that he used there. There are safeguards within the Australia trade deal that protect farmers right across the United Kingdom from any kind of dumping. I wish that would get a little bit more attention.
Hywel Williams
I do not know whether the Minister has met the Australian and New Zealand ambassadors, but I have along, with the Plaid Cymru group. I can inform her that both ambassadors were delighted at the wonderful deal they achieved with the United Kingdom, and slightly puzzled as to what we were getting out of it.
Fay Jones
I will carry on with the point about protections in the trade deals. I understand that Plaid Cymru is quick to talk down trade deals—in fact, I am not sure that it has ever supported a single one. However, there are a number of safeguards in both free trade agreements that protect agriculture, so there are huge reasons to be positive, not least about the fact that the Australia trade deal brings us access to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. That is a hugely promising market for Welsh agricultural products.
As I have not yet even started my speech, I will try to return to some of the points I was going to highlight. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is right to point out some of the issues with the sustainable farming scheme. He used the phrase “digon yw digon”, and we in Wales understand what farmers mean when they say that: they have had enough of feeling as though they are not being listened to.
I was really disappointed to hear a Labour Member in Prime Minister’s questions last week refer to some of the protesting farmers as extremists who are sharing conspiracy theories online. If Labour Members were willing to listen to them, they would understand that they are raising legitimate grievances about the future viability of their businesses, for example over bovine TB, which the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr raised incredibly well. That is an example of where the Welsh Government have set their face against farming. In England, we introduced a badger cull in 2013—I pay credit to the Liberal Democrats for their determination to see that through as part of the coalition Government. We have seen statistics that show that the rate of bovine TB is reducing, but in Wales we have no such support. In England, we are being led by the science; in Wales, I am afraid that it is being ignored.
I am afraid to say that the sustainable farming scheme is frankly unworkable. We had a long debate on the Floor of the House last night, when we talked about some of the challenging elements of that scheme. I am afraid to say that farmers will be required to carry out six online training courses each and every year. They will be required to submit data on the amount of medicines they use in their flock or herd, the rate of lamb loss, soil, worm numbers, and seed receipts. It is simply unworkable. That is before we even get on to the two headline items of the sustainable farming scheme: the condition that farmers must remove 10% of land for planting trees and a further 10% for habitat construction. Given the global uncertainty we face, it is madness that the Welsh Government want to reduce the amount of land available for food production. We should be boosting our food security, not reducing it.
I will try to wrap up my remarks in the last couple of minutes. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is right to point out that the sustainable farming scheme will, according to the Welsh Government’s own analysis, cost 5,500 jobs on farm, not to say anything about the impact on the wider supply chain. I have a huge amount of time and respect for the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), but he criticised me in his intervention on the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr for the fact that the Welsh Conservative party has pointed out Plaid Cymru’s support for Welsh Labour over the last few years. If it looks, sounds and smells like a coalition, I do not really know why the hon. Member for Arfon wants to call it a co-operation agreement.
However, the fact is that this is in Plaid Cymru’s hands. To make the sustainable farming scheme go away, all it needs to do is vote against the Welsh Government’s budget and force them to go back to the table, listen to farmers and make improvements to the scheme. Were it to withdraw from the co-operation agreement—or coalition, as I call it—it could get this off the table, which is what all farmers want. They want to deliver for the environment and food production, and they want their Government to listen to them,. Plaid Cymru has the power to make that happen. I urge the hon. Member for Arfon to hear the message coming from Westminster Hall and the main Chamber that his party has the power to do that, and I very much hope that it does.
In the final minute, I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr once again for bringing this debate to the House. The importance of food production and environmental delivery must go hand in hand. It is absolutely incumbent on all of us here to speak up for the important industries that power our nation, whether it is steel, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, or farming, which is a historic, dynamic and proud industry that powers rural Wales. In the few seconds I have left, I commend him for his comments about the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show, which is the largest show in Europe.
Fay Jones
I am sorry to contradict my hon. Friend. Farming is the beating heart of rural Wales. I am incredibly proud to represent so many farmers, and I thank the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr for his work in doing the same.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Neonicotinoids and other Pesticides
(2 months ago)
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Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the environmental impact of neonicotinoids and other pesticides.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I thank all Members who have joined this debate. I also thank everyone who has signed the many petitions linked to the debate, including a significant number of my constituents in Chester. It is clear that the concern about this issue is overwhelming. Before I start, I should say that I will do my best to refrain from any bee puns.
On 18 January this year, the Government approved emergency authorisation for use of the highly damaging neonicotinoid on sugar beet for the fourth year in a row, going against the advice of their own advisers and the concerns of campaigners and environmentalists across the country. That decision is yet again ill-judged and wrong. It directly contradicts our national and international obligations, such as the commitment to halt species loss by 2030 and the obligation under the global biodiversity framework to reduce the overall risk from pesticides by at least half.
Those decisions are being made against expert advice, waved through without a parliamentary vote and made on the basis that they are temporary and in the case of an emergency. Have we really had an emergency for four years in a row or is this just the Government’s way of nodding through harmful practice on a yearly basis?
Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important debate. I am sorry for intervening early, but I have to go to a meeting and wanted to make my point.
I am a beekeeper myself. I was recently speaking to the Somerset Beekeepers’ Association, which called the Government’s ongoing war on insects “unfathomable”. Does the hon. Member agree that we must have rigorous testing of chemicals before they are approved for agricultural use, and that the Government should introduce a clear qualitative target for significantly reducing the overall use of pesticides in agriculture?
Samantha Dixon
I agree with the hon. Lady and I thank her for the intervention.
Last night, I noted a BBC article entitled “Bee-harming neonicotinoid use ‘makes a mockery’ of ban”. There is no doubt that there is an issue with virus yellows, but we are facing a biodiversity emergency and lifting the ban is not the way forward. We have got to find another way. I support the calls made in the article by Richard Benwell, the chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, for the Government to urgently deliver their long-awaited strategy on sustainable pesticide use.
Bees and other pollinators have for many years been facing an increasingly difficult task in the face of changing agricultural practice. That is a challenge in itself for our farming community, but it can also lead to a decrease in available forage and produce monoculture deserts for much of the year, making insect existence increasingly challenging. It is well known that neonicotinoid pesticides can be very harmful to a wide range of insects and invertebrates, including our beloved bees. They affect the nervous systems of bees and other insects, resulting in paralysis and eventually death. In fact, author and academic Professor Dave Goulson has warned that just one teaspoon of this type of chemical is enough to kill 1.25 billion honeybees. That is equivalent to four lorry loads.
Environmentalists, campaigners and local beekeepers have been in touch with me ahead of this debate to share their views and concerns on this topic, including the Wildlife Trust, our own Chester zoo, and Angharad, a local beekeeper who kindly alerted me to a report by the expert committee on pesticides that states:
“There is new evidence regarding the risk from neonicotinoids globally which adds to the weight of evidence of adverse impact on honeybee behaviour and demonstrated negative impacts on bee colonies”.
Bees play a crucial role in our food supply chain by pollinating crops, and their decline could have cascading effects on biodiversity and agricultural productivity. We should be protecting them, not putting them in harm’s way. Insect populations have suffered drastic declines in the UK. Recent evidence suggests that we have lost 50% or more of our insects since 1970 and that 41% of the Earth’s remaining five million insect species are threatened with extinction. Of course, other human factors and habitat loss are also to blame, but so is the widespread use of neonics. Given that a third of our food crops are pollinated by insects, we have a lot to lose.
The Government’s emergency authorisation allows the seed coating of sugar beet crops with neonics—a method of application that results in only 5% of the pesticide reaching the crop. The rest accumulates in the soil where it can be absorbed by the roots of wildflowers and hedgerow plants visited by bees, or it can leech into watercourses and affect the wildlife that lives there. If we thought sewage in our waterways was not enough, we are also adding harmful chemicals into the mix. Harmful neonics have been found in more than 10% of English rivers despite a widespread ban in 2018. In more than half the rivers where neonics were detected, they were at levels that pose a significant risk to wildlife. I back our farmers and am concerned that sugar beet farmers are experiencing a difficult time. However, lifting the ban is not the way forward. In fact, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ own economic analysis found that there was little impact of the beet yellows virus on sugar beet yield in untreated crops.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Pollinators, which are obviously the subject of the debate, are particularly important, but what about human health? Norfolk County Council is the first council in the country to ban glyphosate. That is an important move forward, and perhaps the hon. Lady will give her thoughts on that. More importantly, should we not be trying to find naturally produced, sustainable products that are not harmful to pollinators or human health and to repeat what has happened with Norfolk County Council and glyphosate? We should be rolling that out and putting all our scientific efforts into trying to find those products for the future.
Samantha Dixon
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. In fact, that underlines the importance of the strategy coming forward on the use of all pesticides. I thank him for his intervention.
We must find a science-led way forward that not only protects our bees and safeguards our future biodiversity and human health, but helps the farming sector by supporting initiatives that promote alternative, bee-friendly pesticides and sustainable farming methods. Despite the emergency authorisation being granted in 2022 and 2023, the proportion of farmers who decided against using neonics was 29% and 40% respectively. That shows that an increasing number of growers are trying to farm in a way that does not harm nature or rivers, yet there appears to be no support for those growers from the industry or Government.
The Government have instead focused on short-term solutions that will undermine the long-term sustainability of the farming sector and disadvantage those growers trying to do the best for nature. Emergency pesticide authorisation risks not only the floodgates opening for other harmful pesticide use, but slowing down crucial research on the alternatives. Without those alternatives, climate change will only lead to increased demand for neonics. The use of pesticides in the agricultural industry has become commonplace for many years, and there are good cases to support the use of targeted pesticides to help secure successful food production. However, some of those treatments are not being used in a targeted way and are affecting beneficial pollinators, as well as pest species.
Sarah Dyke
Scientists increasingly believe that there is no safe level of pesticides for humans to be exposed to. There is growing evidence that pesticides become more harmful when they are combined together—something known as the cocktail effect. I spoke to an arable farmer last summer, who told me he would never allow his children to eat bread made with his wheat. When I challenged him, he simply said, “Well, I know what’s gone into it, don’t I?” Does the hon. Member agree that the Government need to regulate, incentivise and support farmers to lead the transition away from pesticide use?
Samantha Dixon
I agree. The hon. Lady makes a very compelling case, which I hope the Minister is listening to.
The widespread use of the pesticides is not seeking to target known pest species but, as the hon. Lady has mentioned, being used as a blanket catch-all that preloads the crops with deadly chemicals that can transfer into the pollen and nectar, and into the food chain. We must look for positive alternatives, and not settle for short-term harmful solutions.
Will the Minister comment on the assessment the Government have made on the impact of their emergency authorisation of neonics for the last four years? Will he explain why the Government have ignored expert advice, which puts our vital pollinators under threat? Will he commit to any future decisions on this issue being put to a parliamentary vote? Finally, will he tell us all when the long-awaited strategy will be published?
I thank all Members who have joined today’s debate. I know we are all busy bees with packed diaries, and I hope the rest of the debate will create a real buzz about this issue—sorry, I really couldn’t help myself. On a serious note, nature has a critical role to play in both integrated pest management solutions and tackling climate change. It cannot do that if it is under attack from harmful pesticides such as neonicotinoids.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Henderson. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) on setting the scene so very well on a subject that should really interest us all. If it does not, then there are questions to asked—that is the reason we are all here. It is a pleasure to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who has a deep love of farming. It is an especial pleasure to see the Minister, who is always here whenever debates such as this are to be answered. I know that he, like me and others in this room today, understands the importance of the subject.
I declare an interest—not because I am a beekeeper, but because my neighbours down the road, Chris and Valentine Hodges, are. A couple of years ago, I let them put some of their beehives on to my land, because I wanted to see the natural environment that I live in enhanced. It quite clearly has been. They have what is called a black bee species, which is almost extinct; they are responsible for ensuring that it comes back. This is not just on my farm, but in the constituency across the whole of the Ards peninsula, up into North Down and as far over as Strangford lough. By the way, the honey is absolutely gorgeous. Every morning before I leave my house, I have two spoonfuls on my brown toast. Fibre is very important when getting to a certain age, so the honey gives me that wee bit of flavour and taste, and I thank the Lord for it. It is really special.
I am ever mindful of the responsibility that we hold to be good stewards of our environment, which I know is an obligation that our farmers honour in every sense. All the farmers I know want to do that; I know the Minister does that, and other people here do the very same. Many farmers see themselves not as landowners but as caretakers of the land for future generations, as the hon. Member for City of Chester said clearly in her introductory speech. The responsibility for producing food that is safe is of great importance. For that reason, many old-school farmers—I am probably one of them—have encouraged their children to attend agriculture college to get a basis of generational knowledge, while working hand in hand with modern techniques, and to be taught how to get the most out of the land and diversify where necessary. Our agriculture colleges are vital to the future food security of this nation, and that should also be noted today.
The complexity of grant applications and red tape has been somewhat reduced, but it is still a matter of concern to the farming community. The need for the Ulster Farmers’ Union—the sister organisation of the National Farmers Union in England—is very clear. The two work together and provide some of the best insurance rates possible; maybe I am a wee bit biased, because all my insurance is with the Ulster Farmers’ Union. That is why I looked to see what the NFU’s view was on this issue, knowing that it has hands-on knowledge and science at its fingertips.
I can understand that there are situations in which the use of these pesticides is important. Most recently, the Government approved an application from NFU Sugar and British Sugar for the emergency use of the seed treatment on sugar beet seed in 2024. That was a vital application, and we need to look at it and recognise why that decision was made and its implications. The authorisation was granted on the condition that the product will be used only if the threshold for virus lessons is reached. Michael Sly, the chair of the NFU Sugar board, said:
“The British sugar beet crop, which safeguards more than 9,500 jobs, continues to be threatened by Virus Yellows disease.”
That terrible disease can do all sorts of damage to the countryside and to bees in particular. He continued:
“In recent years the disease has caused crop losses of up to 80%.”
We cannot ignore that; those are the facts, figures and statistics. He went on to say:
“I am relieved that this has been recognised by Defra”—
particularly the Minister who is here in Westminster Hall today—
“in granting the derogation which will be invaluable if we see a return of severe pest pressure.
An independent, scientific threshold is used to forecast the severity of pest pressure on the British sugar beet crop and any seed treatment will only be used if this threshold is met.”
So there are conditions; this is not a wild abandonment of the process, which is very much controlled. DEFRA and British Sugar have it well under control. Mr Sly added:
“the industry will again deliver a comprehensive stewardship programme to ensure safe and responsible use of the treatment if the threshold is met.
Led by the British Beet Research Organisation, the homegrown sugar industry is working hard to find viable, long-term solutions to this disease.”
This process is about the long-term vision and how we find a cure or something that ensures that this disease does no more damage.
Duncan Baker
I am the first person to say that we need to look at insecticides and make them safer. However, I represent a constituency that produces a large amount of sugar beet, and this derogation is for a limited period and for a non-flowering plant in its first year, so pollinators will not be at risk from it. The fact that we are spraying the seeds of this plant actually mitigates a huge amount of risk. I think the public do not fully appreciate that absolutely key point.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that very salient and helpful intervention, which put the facts on the record. He explains why and how these things have been done, the controls that are necessary and why these things are necessary, and I am sure nobody here will have any concerns about the way they have been done, how long they will last or their importance. As I said, Mr Sly concluded by saying that the homegrown sugar industry is working hard to find a viable long-term solution to the disease, but it is imperative that we recognise the necessity for that.
To conclude, that application shows the level of thought that must go into having an application approved by British Sugar. The use of these harsh chemicals is not the first solution; it is a final solution. For that reason, I believe that they should remain available, but they should always—always—be closely monitored. We owe a duty to our environment, but also to our food security. The balance between them is so delicate, but it can be struck; I believe in my heart that if there is a will, there is a way. I look to the Minister, as I always do, to ensure that we in this House are doing the best we can to put the garden back in the shape that it should be in.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) for introducing the debate in the way she did. There are strong supporters of bees and pollinators in all parties, and she set out clearly that there is genuine concern among the people we represent about the continued use of emergency authorisations of bee-killing pesticides for the sugar beet crop.
Having called similar debates in previous years, I am hugely passionate about this issue. I bloody love bees, and I am desperately concerned that the public’s concern about bees is not being reflected in Government policy. It is not being reflected in the way the Government follow expert advice or in the way they are treating this House on an issue they know matters to nearly every single Member of Parliament.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
On the point about greater awareness, does the hon. Member agree that such debates are essential in not only the beekeeping fraternity but the wider community, who sometimes do not understand the importance of beekeeping and what it contributes to wider society? They are helpful in broadening knowledge among the 95% of the public who take beekeeping as a small, almost irrelevant pastime and do not see the importance.
Luke Pollard
Beekeeping is a pastime that is enjoyed in rural and urban areas, and it is something that matters. It is not just about local produce; it helps to support an ecosystem that we all depend on—from our vibrant, beautiful gardens through to the food we eat. What matters to bees should matter to us all, because it affects every single one of us.
Bees, along with other pollinators, play a crucial role in our ecosystems. The decline in bee populations affects not only our country’s biodiversity but our food security. It is paramount that we as politicians take the issue more seriously. One third of the UK’s bee population has disappeared in the last decade, and the UK has already lost 13 out of our 35 native bee species. That should make us think about what we are doing to safeguard those remaining species and ecosystems, and how we are not only protecting habitats from being lost, but increasing available habitats for insects, for pollinators and for nature.
I have listened intently over many years—from when I sat on the Front Bench, where my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) is sitting today, to where I sit now—to Ministers talking about the importance of nature-based recovery and of encouraging more of our farmers to take nature-based solutions to heart. I welcome that change in language, and we have seen an important policy shift in recent years, but if we are to make it real and deliver that nature-based solution, emergency authorisations for bee-killing pesticides simply cannot sit alongside it; they are incongruous with it. Continuing the use of bee-killing pesticides amounts to environmental vandalism.
I back British farmers. One of my two little sisters is a farmer, and the other works in agricultural products. This issue matters. I represent an urban constituency in the south-west of England, but I know just how important farming is to the south-west and to our rural communities, because without farmers, there is no food. It is really important that we understand that, so I back farmers’ concerns.
I understand that there is a real issue around the viability of crops affected by the diseases that the emergency authorisations are seeking to address, but I want to look at those authorisations. When we left the European Union, the Government said they would follow the evidence and not make decisions without it—DEFRA said that on a number of occasions, even though a prominent former Environment Secretary might not have been very kind about experts. However, the Government are not following the evidence here. Will the Minister explain why they are not following the expert group’s advice? When do they expect to be back on track with that? Do they have alternative science that gives a different perspective from that of the expert group? And what guidelines have they given the experts about commenting on the authorisations?
It is important to recognise that this is the fourth year in a row where neonicotinoids have been allowed for emergency use, but if we look at the words in the emergency use authorisation, I doubt there has been an emergency for four years in a row. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester: four years in a row is not emergency use; it is a pattern that has allowed a type of behaviour to continue. If it was an emergency, there would have been one year of emergency use, and activity to correct that would have taken place.
In the first of the debates I called a number of years ago, one of the Minister’s predecessors told me that these were temporary emergency authorisations that would last only three years at most. We are now in the fourth year of temporary emergency authorisations, and I am not certain from anything I have seen from the Government that there will not be a fifth, sixth and seventh emergency authorisation if they are re-elected. I do not get the sense that there is a destination that the Minister is driving us towards, and what I would like to see is a clear destination.
The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)
I am grateful to the hon. Member because he is making an important point. It may be helpful to the House to understand that a further check and balance on the authorisation for emergency use is whether the threshold is met for the product to be deployed. Only where that threshold is met is the product deployed in the open market. In 2021, that threshold was not met, so the product was not deployed in the open market—that was not felt necessary. The science says that where there is an issue and a challenge, we will use the product, and where there is not, as in 2021, that product will not be allowed.
Luke Pollard
I agree with the Minister about the thresholds, but they do not detract from the fact that the Government have effectively established a baseline that they will authorise emergency use of neonicotinoids every year, notwithstanding that emergency use is subject to a threshold being met.
I do not see how we can be in the fourth year of an emergency without some urgent and emergency action being taken to address it. It would be kinder and more honest in this debate to say that the Government now have a standing policy to authorise the use of bee-killing pesticides for sugar beet crops, but a threshold has to be met. For me, that would seem a more honest appraisal because, after four years, it is a reality that this is authorised every year, and I do not think it should be.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I am sympathetic to a lot of the points the hon. Gentleman is making, but does he not think that authorisation every year is a fairly reasonable position to get to in the absence of an alternative to neonics? One important thing that has not been discussed in this debate is that there is currently no viable alternative to neonics when the threshold has been met. Until we are in that position, authorisation may well be the reasonable course of action.
Luke Pollard
One advantage, or disadvantage, of having spoken in and called debates on the use of neonics is that I have listened to a number of Ministers cycle through the arguments for why authorisation is justified each and every year. In one earlier debate, the argument was put that we need to use the emergency authorisation because the new crop species are not yet online. In another, a Minister said that we need to use the emergency authorisation because the insurance scheme that would support sugar beet growers where there is disease in the crops is not yet online.
Those debates were many years ago, and we need to see honesty and transparency in this debate. I think the hon. Gentleman is saying that it would be reasonable to argue for using these pesticides if those things happen. What I am saying to the Minister is that we now have a standing policy that bee-killing pesticides are used on an annual basis, subject to a threshold. Let us be honest that it is a standing policy, and then we can debate whether the Government’s policy is right and what the alternatives are. At the moment, the annual reauthorisation is against the expert advice of the Government’s own scientific body, which does not support the position that we should be allowing these pesticides to be used on an annual basis.
Dr Poulter
I will give the hon. Gentleman a medical analogy—I am a practising doctor, as he may be aware. I may prefer certain medications over others and recognise that a medication I prescribe may have unpleasant side effects. Although I may wish that there was an alternative to that medication in development, at this moment it may be the only option available to me in my prescription repertoire to make the patient better. That is a similar situation to the one we are facing with the use of neonics. The issue here is what is being done to accelerate the finding of effective alternatives to neonics. That is the question we need to ask here, because we do not want to put farmers in a situation where the only viable treatment is completely banned.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful for that intervention. I am not a doctor, so I will not try to butcher a health analogy that might be shot down. I think the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) is saying that we need to hear from the Minister about authorising neonicotinoids against expert advice, which the Government say they are following but are not, with a different excuse every year. I would like to see the destination we are going to. We have a standing policy now from DEFRA that that is authorised every year. It does not necessarily mean from what the Minister said in his intervention that they will be used every year, but they will be authorised every year. That is the standing policy.
The reality is that for the majority of years in this Parliament the Government have authorised neonicotinoids to be used in emergency cases. I do not believe we can have four years’ worth of emergencies. If a patient came to the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich four years in a row, I suspect he would challenge the use of the word “emergency” in that context. That is why I want this made clear. What is the Government’s destination? What is their plan? What are their alternatives for the use of neonicotinoids?
I do not want to limit what I say to farmers’ use of neonicotinoids. As this debate is about the broader use of neonicotinoids and we have established that neonics kill bees, that bees are essential for our ecosystem and that there is cross-party concern about the Government’s use of bee-killing pesticides, we have established that neonics are the problem. How they are deployed into our ecosystems is also a problem. We have looked at the neonic deployment in agriculture and sugar beets, but I want to talk about neonics in two other areas.
One is neonics’ use in imported food. For the countries where we have now signed trade deals that use neonics as standard in their agricultural production, how are we safeguarding our ecosystem and food supply against importing neonics in food, on coatings of food and in other agricultural products? We know that neonics, when exposed to the natural environment, get everywhere. We have seen studies recently, as cited in The Guardian only a month ago, that refer to neonics now appearing, according to a Swiss study, in children—in every child that was tested in the study. So we know that neonics are present.
We also know that neonics are present in our wildlife and in our rivers, as has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester, and in our wider ecosystems. So we need to look at how we are getting neonics into those things and where neonics are imported in food.
Also, I have a concern that neonics are being used in flea treatment far too frequently. Dog and cat owners, in an attempt to look after their pets and make the right decision, are using neonicotinoids. Fipronil and imidacloprid are two different types of neonics used in flea treatment. We are advised to use it on the back of our pet’s neck and we are not supposed to touch the pet until it is dry. In practice, we know that the effects of those neonics and their ability to spread last for the duration of that flea treatment. We are seeing more neonics going into our rivers and watercourses as a result of flea treatments.
At the moment there is not enough focus on that area. If we have established that neonics are a concern for bees, we also need to understand the direction of travel. I do not come with a prescription for the Minister to cut and paste into policy; I am saying there is an issue here. It is important that we have an honest debate with members of the public who, I believe, are trying to do the right thing by their pets. Many of them would be utterly horrified and aghast if they found out that in trying to do the right thing to support their pets and prevent diseases they are harming our wider ecosystem.
There is a debate worth having, as the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich suggested, on a destination and how we address the problem. The authorisation for emergency use of bee-killing pesticides on sugar beet crops affects a certain part of the country primarily. It does not affect every watercourse or river catchment area, yet we are finding neonics in a wider variety of areas when bee-killing pesticides are used, so it is incumbent on us all to make a strong case against bee-killing pesticides in agriculture and also look at bee-killing pesticides used elsewhere.
Professor Dave Goulson, whom my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester mentioned in her remarks and whom I met at a bee roundtable that I hosted a year or so ago to talk about bee-killing pesticides, warns that flea treatment harms fish and invertebrates that live in our waterways. Those are chemicals that were banned for agricultural use in the UK several years ago, and which remain banned for that use, but are allowed to be used in pet treatment—that is a question mark we have to look at. I have already spoken about the human health impacts; they are concerning and also need to be properly understood.
It is incumbent on all of us who campaign on bees, and who love bees, to make sure that our answers to this issue are clear on where we need to see action. The emergency authorisations for bee-killing pesticides in agriculture should end; they should not be allowed. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge will restate the position he has held in every one of the debates on this issue that I have spoken in over the course of this Parliament—that we should stop.
However, it is clear that there are also other challenges that we need to look at and investigate. Could the Minister explain where else we can look, and what science his Department is commissioning about the wider use of neonicotinoids and their pollution of our wider ecosystem? I do not think that any one of us present has the answer, but if we can agree on the problem, that will at least get us moving towards starting to address it.
I thank the campaigners—not only the wildlife trusts—who have been working on this and who are championing insects. Apart from bees, insects get a pretty bad rap—there are not many charities holding out for the daddy-long-legs, but without insects there is a really significant impact on our ecosystem. Insects should be championed much more. They are not just scary creepy-crawlies; they are absolutely essential for a vibrant ecosystem and the nature-based recovery that we all want to see.
In particular I want to thank Anabel Kindersley of Neal’s Yard Remedies for her tireless campaigning on this matter. No debate could happen without her continued pressure on MPs and her encouragement of us to keep pushing further and further. Bees and nature matter; if we are not having that constantly said, there is a risk that the wider use of neonics becomes something that is just accepted, and that their authorisation becomes an annual occurrence that passes without a parliamentary vote.
In previous debates I have spoken about the importance of a parliamentary vote. If something damages our environment, as we know that these pesticides do, and that is against Government advice, and against the principles of evidence-based policymaking and “following the science” that the Minister’s Department has set out, there should be an extra step before it is authorised.
The reason we do not have a debate and a vote on authorising bee-killing pesticides in agriculture is very simple—the Government would lose that vote each and every time. The Opposition MPs would vote against it and their own MPs would vote against it, and that is why we do not have a vote on it. That in itself should tell us a story about whether the use of those pesticides is acceptable behaviour.
In this latest authorisation, those chemicals are being used against the Government’s expert advice, and that is ill-judged and wrong. There has been no parliamentary vote on it, nor do I think the Minister wants one—it will not happen. I do not think we can have an emergency four years in a row without bigger action. That is why, whether we like it or not, bees are an election issue, and matter to the voters who we all represent. They are in decline across the country, despite the incredible efforts of local councils planting wild flower meadows and bee corridors, and of local people encouraging the use of hives. Pollenize is an amazing community interest company in Plymouth that puts amazingly-painted beehives all over our city and collects the honey, supporting nature-based recoveries. However, despite their work we know that that recovery is not working in the way we want it to.
This is not just about the emergency authorisation of bee-killing pesticides; it is about something else as well. This involves habitat loss and the wider use of neonics in our economy, and we must look at all of those. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, but I also look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, so that we can be absolutely clear that those bee-killing pesticides would not be authorised if there were a change in Government. I would encourage my hon. Friend’s position on this matter to go in that direction.
If that were the case, there would be a greater focus on the issue that the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich mentioned—finding better ways of supporting our farmers who are affected by this issue. Not all farmers are affected, but some are, and they deserve support. If this were a genuine emergency it would be all hands on deck to try and solve this matter, but four years later it is still not all hands on deck. Four years later we are still here, having emergency authorisations passed without a parliamentary vote, and bees are still dying. That is why this needs to change; we need a change of approach, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister and the shadow Minister what that approach should be.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Henderson. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) for securing the debate. Her introduction was full and thorough, and I will echo many of her points. I am also grateful for the other speakers. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has left us. I have long wondered what he was on to keep him going, and now we know the answer: two spoonfuls of honey on a piece of toast in the morning. We will all have to try that.
I was particularly taken with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). His passion for bees is legendary and he raised a series of important points, many of which I will touch on. I thought that the exchange between him and the Minister on the threshold issue was illuminating. I fear that, because of the weather this year, we are likely to cross that threshold again, so in reality we are talking about a derogation that will be applied this year. He made a point about flea treatment for pets, and I think that issue will rise and rise in salience. It is clearly a significant problem.
The key point is that we are here again—for the fourth time. It is almost an annual debate—the annual neonicotinoids debate. It really is a case of déjà vu. We are also still waiting for the national action plan on pesticides. I have had this brief for four and a half years now, and Josie Cohen and others from the Pesticide Action Network have been pressing me on this point all the way through. I have lost count of the number of changes in terminology so, if the Minister cannot give us a date, perhaps he could tell us whether it is soon, imminent or in due course, or maybe, just possibly, after the election—who knows?
There is a serious point here: why on earth has it taken so long to deal with these issues, which have already been raised? Why can’t we find a way forward? How many times is it that the Government have ridden roughshod over expert opinion by allowing yet another emergency authorisation for the use of Cruiser SB? We have already heard the answer; it is four times. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said, that hardly constitutes an emergency because, once again, the Government have ignored the advice of Government scientific advisers on the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides. Back in September, it said that it was unable to support an authorisation for Cruiser SB because
“the potential adverse effects to honeybees and other pollinators…outweighs any likely benefits.”
It is right. We simply cannot afford to allow further devastation to the number of bees in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has already quoted the statistics: one third of the UK bee population has disappeared in the last decade. Since 1900, 13 of 35 native bee species have been lost. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of all pollinators, which has fallen by over 50% between 1985 and 2005.
This is a fundamental threat to the survival of a much-loved part of our natural world—a threat that we should challenge not only for its own sake, but because the economic consequences are severe. Quite frankly, we would struggle to survive without bees. They are crucial to our physical health and the health of the wider environment. In the UK alone, approximately 75% of our crop species require pollination and around 70 crops depend on, or benefit from, bee pollination. Though there are of course other methods of pollination, wild bees can pollinate on a much bigger and more efficient scale than the alternatives.
The economic benefits are estimated to be worth approximately £690 million to the UK economy in terms of the value of the crops they pollinate. From a global perspective, bees pollinate 70 out of the top 100 foods we eat and an astonishing one third of every mouthful of food we consume. They are also essential for the crops used for animal feed. Without them, it would be harder to produce much of our meat, egg and dairy products. I am told that in China they have had to resort to pollinating fruit trees by hand because pollinators have been nearly wiped out by pesticide use. That should serve as a warning to us. Estimates suggest that it would cost UK farmers an incredible £1.8 billion a year to manually pollinate their crops. Without bees, it would not be long before our ecosystem was in severe trouble.
Not only are bees in more danger every year, but they are more important every year. According to the UN, the volume of agricultural production dependent on pollinators has increased globally by 300% in the past 50 years. The UN also found that greater pollinator density results in better crop yields, so it is also good for farmers.
These pesticides are not only toxic for bees; at certain levels, they are toxic to aquatic life and build up in river systems. Research by the Rivers Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link found neonicotinoids in more than one in 10 English river sites tested by the Environment Agency. The levels of neonicotinoids in many of our rivers was above the environmental quality standard deemed safe for aquatic wildlife. The rivers most affected by the pesticides were found in the east of England, south-east England and west midlands, including the Ivel, Waveney, Nene, Ouse and Tame. The evidence is pretty clear. It is no surprise that other countries are heeding the advice of their experts on banning these pesticides.
A European High Court ruling last year found that no derogation concerning seeds treated with neonicotinoids was justified, including in exceptional circumstances invoked to protect sugar beet. The French Government announced on 24 January 2023 that they had decided not to pursue a further exemption for neonicotinoid use on sugar beet, in the light of the court ruling, effectively putting an end to the emergency use in Europe of three banned substances—imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam. We are going in the opposite direction from scientific and legal consensus in comparable countries.
I recognise the problems that growers face in combating diseases transmitted by aphids. I am an east of England Member of Parliament and I absolutely understand the importance of the sugar beet industry to our region. Virus yellows, in particular, causes significant yield losses. The National Farmers Union, as has been said, reports that for some that can be up to 50%, and I thank the NFU for its background briefing. The most complex and serious example is that spread by the peach potato aphid, and it is hard to control. In 2020, the sector lost 40% of the national sugar beet crop, bringing down the five-year average yield by 25%.
I was grateful to the NFU and British Sugar a few months ago; I met their representatives and some from the British Beet Research Organisation in Rougham near Bury St Edmunds. We stood in a field and looked very closely at the impact of the disease on a variety of sugar beet plants. That was an informative and chastening experience, because one could see the damage being done to those plants. I fully appreciate the challenge that farmers face. I also think that most farmers know that the use of this chemical will not be a long-term solution. In 2023, 40% of sugar beet farmers in England chose not to use them, despite the authorisation allowing their use. That is up from 29% in 2022.
To go back to earlier discussions, many have been able to successfully deploy integrated pest management systems. There was an interesting piece in Farmers Weekly a few weeks ago detailing the recommendations being made by BBRO, including a move to more tolerant varieties. That is part of the issue—it is an economic one. The problem is that, in moving to some of those more tolerant varieties, there is a yield penalty, a financial calculation. What that tells us is that there are choices, and that it can be done. The question is whether we choose to do so.
My view is that the future will be different, and I think that is why so many people are exasperated and genuinely shocked by the Government’s continuing stance. The reaction to the Government’s latest decision to authorise the use of Cruiser SB has been damning. The Wildlife Trusts called it a
“deathblow for wildlife, a backwards step in evidence-based decision making and a betrayal of farmers who are producing food sustainably.”
The chief executive officer of Wildlife and Countryside Link said the decision
“flies in the face of ecological sense”.
It is not just environmental and wildlife groups who are outraged. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has already referenced the campaigning work of Anabel Kindersley, chief executive of Neal’s Yard Remedies, who helped to establish the “Save the Bees” campaign with a number of businesses that have repeatedly called for an end to the use of bee-killing pesticides. That is partly because they see the threat to bees as a threat to their businesses. In the modern world, that is the challenge: not just to produce food, but to do so in an environmentally sustainable, nature-positive way. I acknowledge that that is hard, and we may need new tools to help us, but change has to come, and it should start now with an end to the use of these toxic chemicals in our fields.
The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a farmer, although we do not and have never produced sugar beet at home. I thank hon. Members for their contributions to this interesting debate. We agree on more than we disagree on, including the necessity to find a way forward, to which I wholly subscribe.
Decisions to allow or not to allow the use of pesticides are based on careful scientific assessment of the risks. The aim is to achieve a high level of protection for people, animals and the environment while improving agricultural production. The decision to grant the emergency authorisation of Cruiser SB was not taken lightly and was based on robust assessment of the environmental and economic risks and benefits.
The emergency authorisation was issued with a strict threshold for use. The seed treatment was authorised to be used if—and only if—a virus incidence rate of 65% or more over the summer months was forecast by the independent model developed by Rothamsted Research. That forecast was made on Friday 1 March.
The use of Cruiser SB on sugar beet in England will be allowed this year as yellows virus incidence thresholds, as predicted by the Rothamsted model, has been met. Emerging sugar beet seedlings and young plants are vulnerable to feeding by aphids, which transmit several viruses collectively known as virus yellows. These viruses lead to reduced beet size, lower sugar content and higher impurities.
We withdrew authorisation for the use of pesticide products containing three neonicotinoids on outdoor crops at the end of 2018. Since then, sugar beet growers have been adjusting to the new conditions. In 2020, there was severe damage, with 24% of the national crop being lost, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), recognised. Many individual growers were severely affected and less sugar beet was planted in 2021, because some growers were reluctant to take the economic risk. In recent years, the virus threat has been relatively low.
This year, the threshold has been set at a predicted virus incidence of 65% or above. That is a slight increase from last year’s threshold. The change reflects our improving understanding of the fit between the model used to predict virus incidence and the real-world outcomes. The aim of the threshold is to ensure that Cruiser is used only if damage is predicted to sugar beet production.
Members will be aware of the strict conditions of use that have also been set as a requirement of the emergency authorisation. As the threshold has been met and neonicotinoid-treated seeds will be planted, those conditions are in place to mitigate risks to the environment, including risks to pollinators. Neonicotinoids take time to break down in the environment, and during that period, may be taken up by flowering plants. The conditions for use of Cruiser SB therefore allow only a limited range of crops, none of which flowers before harvest, to be planted in the same field within 32 months of a treated sugar beet crop.
Growers must also comply with a stewardship scheme. As part of that scheme, treated fields are monitored to determine the levels of neonicotinoids in the environment. Full details of the conditions of use have been published online.
To be clear, we remain committed to the existing restrictions on neonicotinoids. Emergency authorisations are approved only where strict legal requirements are met. There must be special circumstances. Use must be limited and controlled, and the authorisation must appear necessary because of a danger that cannot be contained by any other reasonable means.
Daniel Zeichner
I wonder whether we could turn the question round. What would need to happen for the Minister not to grant a derogation? I cannot really see circumstances in which this situation is likely to change.
Mark Spencer
There are circumstances where it is likely to change. There are advancements in other products that are coming forward in the marketplace. The gene editing Act offers opportunities for research institutes to find alternative genetic possibilities to help improve resistance within the sugar beet plants to some of these pests and diseases. In those circumstances, as those new technologies come forward, of course they will be assessed on their merits. We are very keen to support the development of alternatives to try to help sugar beet producers and the environment at the same time.
Daniel Zeichner
As I said in my speech, it is not that tolerant varieties or alternatives are not already available; it is that there is an economic cost. I do not really see how that is different from the situation the Minister has described. They will not necessarily provide the same level of yield, even with the gene editing. There will still be a cost.
Mark Spencer
Let me give way to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, and then I will take both points at the same time.
Luke Pollard
I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said. The Minister set out the reasons for Cruiser SB’s authorisation. Could he be equally clear about the plan to address it? What measures are being taken, how are those measures being assessed and how can we as interested parliamentarians scrutinise progress against those measures, so that that we are not here next year having the same debate with the same possible alternatives, but not yet having them in action? Can he set that out in a reply to Members in this debate, or as a written ministerial statement, so that we can see what plan his Department is pursuing?
Mark Spencer
The plan that we are pursuing is working with the sector and the scientific community to try and bring those advances forward as soon as possible. It is not possible for me to stand here today and predict what those advances may be in the next 12 months or five years. Clearly, we have to work with the sector. British Sugar is putting an awful lot of work into trying to improve sugar beet growing in terms of its practice and the products available.
To return to the point I was making, the aim of the threshold is to ensure that Cruise will be used only if there is predicted to be a danger to the sugar beet crop. Those criteria have been met at the moment. There must, of course, be special circumstances. Use must be limited and controlled, and the authorisation must appear necessary because the danger cannot be contained by any other reasonable means. That emergency authorisation allows a single use of neonicotinoid on a single crop under very strict conditions to mitigate the risk to those pollinators.
My decision was informed by the advice of DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser, the Health and Safety Executive and the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides. I also considered economic issues informed by analysis from DEFRA economists. The scientific advice concluded that with the proposed conditions of use there were no concerns for human health. In respect of environmental risk, potential risks to bees were considered in particular detail.
HSE concluded that a number of potential risks to bees, including acute risks to bees from all routes of exposure, were not of concern for this use of thiamethoxam under the proposed conditions of use. Further advice from the chief scientific adviser was that remaining risks, including those from following crops, were likely to be acceptably low given the conditions of the use proposed.
In taking the decision, we have wanted to be as transparent as possible and to give access to the information considered during the decision-making process. We have published documents outlining the key elements involved in making the decision, which can be accessed on gov.uk. That includes the HSE emergency registration report, where Members can access the full HSE risk assessment.
Looking to the future, we do not wish to see the temporary use of neonicotinoids continue longer than is strictly required. The development of alternative sustainable approaches to protect sugar beet crops from viruses is paramount. That includes, as I was saying, the development of resistant plant varieties, measures to improve crop hygiene and husbandry, and alternative pesticides. British Sugar, plant breeders and the British Beet Research Organisation are undertaking a programme of work to develop such alternatives. The Government are closely monitoring progress and in January provided £660,000 towards a precision breeding project to develop resistance to virus yellows in sugar beet, helping to expedite the transition away from neonics.
In addition, the Government recently held a roundtable with members of the British sugar industry and environmental organisations to discuss the industry’s progress on implementing alternatives. I have urged British Sugar and others in the sector to drive forward the plans so that their outputs can be implemented in the field at pace. This afternoon’s discussion gives us an opportunity to recognise the need to develop alternative, sustainable approaches to tackling these plant diseases.
The Government are fully committed to the agricultural transition to repurpose the land-based subsidies we inherited from the EU, which did little for the environment or farmers. That is why we are delivering on a new and ambitious system that rewards farmers and land managers for their role as environmental stewards, which starts with the sustainable farming incentive. Last year saw the roll-out of the sustainable farming incentive, which includes the introduction of paid integrated pest management actions. Specific actions to support more sustainable pesticide use include: paying farmers to carry out assessments and produce integrated pest management plans; establishing and maintaining flower-rich grass margins, blocks or in-field strips; and payments for not using insecticides or for planting companion crops. Those actions are already supporting farmers to minimise the use of pesticides and incentivising the uptake of alternative pest control methods. Encouraging lower-risk and alternative approaches to pest management will be a prominent feature of the national action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides, which will be published shortly.
As I have outlined, the decision to allow the limited and controlled use of new neonicotinoid-based pesticides on a single crop was not taken lightly and is based on the most robust scientific assessment. We will continue to work hard to support our farmers, and to protect and restore our vital pollinator populations.
Luke Pollard
I do not quite buy the Minister’s argument. Will he reflect momentarily on the other uses of neonicotinoids in our wider economy, including in flea treatments? I recognise that he may not have the answers in the folder in front of him, but this might be an area that he could ask his officials to investigate. We are at the start of exploring the issue, and I would be grateful if he could set out the path that he thinks would be useful to take in order to explore the matter further.
Mark Spencer
I am more than happy to continue to explore that issue. It is interesting that the hon. Member should raise it at this moment in time because we are doing some work in that regard, and there is a statutory instrument coming on veterinary medicines and their deployment. He will be aware that some flea treatments require a veterinary prescription and some can be done under the jurisdiction of an expert—I hesitate to use that word; for example, it might be in a pet shop, where there is some expertise. Others treatments can simply be bought of the internet, so there are different levels of treatment. The Department needs to be careful that such products are of benefit to pets, but also of their impact on the environment. We will consider that robustly as we move forward. I thank him for highlighting that matter and thank hon. Members for their contributions.
Samantha Dixon
I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner)—and other hon. Members for joining the debate. I am not sure that I am particularly reassured. I have heard that, as of Friday, growers may be spraying this particular chemical on their crops.
Mark Spencer
On a point of clarification, the product is not sprayed. There is no aerial spraying of neonicotinoids at any point, and I would not want to inadvertently mislead the House.
Samantha Dixon
Crops are being treated with this particular chemical, which I find disconcerting. As I set out in my speech, concerns are shared by constituents up and down the country that instead of the chemical being used in an emergency situation, its use is becoming routine.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) for broadening the debate into the use of the chemical in pet treatments, and I thank the Minister for his comments about how the Government are considering addressing the issue. An SI may not be the most appropriate way to do that, given the need for the wider concerns about neonicotinoids to be aired, as he said, as transparently as possible; an SI is not the route that most of my constituents would want to see followed. I go back to the point I made earlier about the use of parliamentary time to consider and debate these issues.
Hopefully, this time next year we will not be debating this issue. Hopefully, that will not be necessary, as alternative means of controlling the specific disease referenced today will have been found, but I hope that everyone here understands how worried people are about the future health of bee communities.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the environmental impact of neonicotinoids and other pesticides.
Wine Duty
(2 months ago)
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Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)
I shall call Will Quince to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered wine duty.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I am pleased to have secured this important debate the day before my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivers the Budget statement to the House. I am grateful to the Minister for responding. I know he will take very seriously the points I will make further to our correspondence on this issue. I would also like to thank the unusually great number of right hon. and hon. Members present for supporting this 30-minute Westminster Hall debate. I hope the Minister has noticed the strength of feeling on this important subject.
I applied for this debate as a result of meeting the chief executive officer of Majestic Wine, which is the UK’s largest specialist wine retailer, with more than 200 stores across the UK, including a large store in my constituency. They raised a number of concerns relating to wine duty that I felt were important for the House to hear and reflect on. The UK is a major global hub for wine and spirits. It is the world’s second largest importer of wine by volume and value, and the largest exporter of spirits. It supports over 390,000 jobs, £69 billion in economy activity and £8.6 billion in excise duty revenue.
Like all businesses, those across the wine supply chain have had to confront some tough trading conditions over recent years, but a number of the challenges they face are unique to the wine and spirit trade, and these were brought to my attention by Majestic. The challenges faced by Majestic and other similar businesses stem primarily from the new alcohol excise system, which was introduced last year. In particular I am referring to the impact of the historic duty increases and the changes to the way wine duty is calculated. The introduction of the new duty regime last August followed a review of the inherited EU duty rules. When the review was announced, it was welcomed across the drinks industry, which backed wholeheartedly the aims of the review, which were to make the new duty system fairer, simpler, less distortive and easier to administer.
Sadly, particularly for wine and spirit businesses, the new regime is not fairer. In fact, in many ways it has reinforced the existing market distortions. For wine businesses, the new system is anything but simpler to administer—in fact, it is exactly the opposite. The new system that was introduced on 1 August 2023 levies excise duty on all alcoholic products according to strength, but at different rates. This reinforces pre-existing market distortions by continuing to tax wine and spirits more harshly than other categories of alcoholic drink.
When introducing the new system, the Government recognised the impact it would have on wine businesses and rightly put in place a temporary easement mechanism that pegged the amount payable for wines in the range of 11.5% to 14.5% at the amount payable on a wine of 12.5% alcohol by volume. That amount is currently £2.67 per bottle. Wines falling within this easement mechanism account for 85% of the wine sold in the UK market. That is 1.1 million out of 1.3 million bottles sold. This easement is set to end on 1 February 2025.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I represent the Wine Society, which is headquartered in Stevenage and is a large organisation struggling under this pressure. It will cost it £300,000 to £400,000 to upgrade its systems. It is being asked to price wine before the level of alcohol is known, as wine is an agricultural product, and it is having to re-evaluate the range of wines it is able to output, which is having a knock-on effect on the supply chain. Does my hon. Friend agree that this seems to be a difficult case of unintended consequences, and if the easement he refers to were to be made permanent rather than temporary, it could solve the problem?
Will Quince
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right to champion the cause of the Wine Society, which is based in his constituency. There is both a significant cost implication and an administrative burden for such organisations, so the impact of these changes should not be understated.
The easement that is set to end on 1 February 2025 will affect wine businesses ranging from major retailers such as the big supermarkets to specialist retailers such as Majestic. However, as my right hon. Friend has just alluded to, there are also thousands of independent wine merchants who have all said that having to implement fully the strength-based system would impose significant costs, running to many millions of pounds, both in the short term and once the necessary systems are established.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for his great speech. We are constituency neighbours and he knows that it is not just wine merchants that will be affected but thousands of wine businesses across the UK. We have a strong and flourishing wine sector, but this regime has failed to meet one of the original key objectives that the Treasury sought to establish, which was to make the system easier to administer. Instead, unit labelling and ABV is putting a burden on producers and merchants, which means that they face pricing and cost implications. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is increasing red tape at a time when the Government should be doing much more to reduce it and ease the costs and the burdens of regulation for businesses?
Will Quince
My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is absolutely right to raise that issue, and she has long championed cutting the red tape and bureaucracy that British businesses face. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) said, this unintended consequence means that business faces not just extra cost but the significant administrative burden that comes with cost and time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) is right to point out that the new system is not simpler or fairer and that it has a huge cost implication.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. James Nicholson Wine in Crossgar, which is in my constituency, is one of those excellent wine businesses that draws lots of people, not just because of the quality and wide variety of its wines but because it has also become a bit of a tourist attraction. It does lots of things. When it comes to the retention of jobs, does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the Government’s proposed changes will undoubtedly—though I hope not—have an impact on job creation and job retention?
Will Quince
The hon. Gentleman is right to intervene on that point, because job creation and retention, including in his constituency, is important, as is our flourishing tourism sector. The growth in wine production across our country is something that we should celebrate; we should be proud of that and support it.
This debate is timely because we have some time on our hands. Obviously, the sooner we give notice to industry that the easement can continue, the lower the cost and administrative burden borne by industry. We have until 1 February 2025 to address this issue. I will have an ask for the Minister in a few moments, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree with.
I will just touch on one other element first, which is why wine is different. The easement recognises that wine is different from other categories of alcoholic drink. Wine cannot be made to a predetermined strength; the alcoholic strength of wine is determined by climate. I know that I do not need to teach anyone in this Chamber to suck eggs, but wine from warmer climates tends to be higher in alcohol than wine from cooler climates. Wine is not like beer or cider. And wine is subject to strict production rules, so in that respect it is also unlike beer and cider. As a consequence, there is very little that wine makers can do to lower the alcohol content.
It is estimated that there are over 100,000 different wines on the UK market. By comparison, there are less than 1,000 different ciders. Different vintages of wine can vary in strength, as is the case with some wines from the same year. Of course, that is one of the great pleasures of wine; wines from around the world are unique, while different vintages from the same vineyard can differ in strength and taste.
Taxing alcohol by strength, with lower rates for lower-strength products, might seem simpler on paper, but it takes absolutely no account of how different alcoholic products are consumed, including in what quantities and whether the product is diluted. This new system is much more complicated to administer for wine businesses and it penalises wine from warmer climates.
The differences between wine, spirits, beer and cider will remain if the easement ends. In practice, if the easement is abolished as planned, there will be 30 different payable amounts for wine in the 11.5% to 14.5% ABV range.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an important argument. I met with Liquid Indulgence, a small wine supplier in my constituency that supplies commercial businesses around York, as well as selling direct to customers. The point my hon. Friend is making is exactly what that small business said to me about the impact this change would have on that business and whether it could continue. It will surely have a massive impact on small wine suppliers across the country, and will potentially have a negative impact on what those businesses can bring in in tax, compared with what the Government are trying to achieve.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is right to raise that point on behalf of the small wine supplier he represents in York. Of course, this change will have a massive impact. When Majestic originally brought this matter to my attention, it did so not just on its own behalf, but on behalf of the thousands of wine organisations and companies across the country, ranging from one-person bands through to small and medium-sized enterprises, all of which will bear the administrative burden of this cost.
I want to reiterate one point. If this easement ends—I hope it is “if”, as I very much hope the Minister listens and it will not end—there will be 30 different payable amounts for wine across the 11.5% to 14.5% ABV range. Prices will range from £2.45 to £3.10 per bottle. The practical arrangements that would need to be made as a result of this change are countless, including the reality that two wines from the same independent vineyard in France, say, would have to be labelled differently.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Other right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned wine merchants, but what we have so far not discussed are the wine growers in the UK. I had better declare an interest, being the chair of all-party parliamentary group for wine of Great Britain. Wine production is one of the fastest growing agriculture sectors, employing about 2,300 people, with a predicted 50% growth in jobs by 2025. Last year, 2023, was an absolutely vintage year, with an estimated 25 million bottles. This easement affects not just wine merchants, but a very important and fast-growing agriculture sector.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just about wine merchants, of course; it is also about the growers. It is a boom industry in this country, and not just for tourism, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, but because English wine, and wine from across our four nations, is being consumed far more frequently than ever before. It is something that we should encourage as a country. I know the Chancellor is keen, in particular, to encourage sparkling wine.
I want to reiterate a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). I am sorry to labour this point, but it is important. The abolition of the easement would introduce massive ongoing red tape costs that concern supermarkets and large retailers, which, of course, we are concerned about. However, what I am more concerned about, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have eloquently pointed out, is the disproportionate costs for smaller wine businesses in constituencies across this country.
As I have said, wine has far more stock keeping units, or SKUs, than other alcohol categories. It is estimated that there are in excess of 100,000 wine SKUs on the UK market. A specialist SME wine retailer, for example, will carry more than 2,000 SKUs at any one time, while larger wine retailers may carry up to 10,000 SKUs. If the easement ends, the duty will have to be calculated individually for each SKU; this will have to be done on an annual basis, as alcoholic strength can vary between vintages.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very good case. I speak on behalf of Direct Wines, which is based in my constituency. It has pointed out that now is not the time to remove the easement because the hospitality industry is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. Just over the weekend, we read that a number of pubs are closing regularly. Now is surely not the time to bring about more cost pressures to the industry.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend makes a valid point about time. Arguably—I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham on this—there is no time to impose additional red tape and bureaucracy on SMEs across this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) is right, however, and as I said at the outset, businesses are coming out of what has been a difficult economic situation. We need to support them as much as we can. As a constituency MP, it sets off alarm bells when I hear that a large organisation such as Majestic—in fact, the largest in the UK—informs me that it will struggle with the additional bureaucracy and cost. We can therefore only imagine how difficult it will be for the tens of thousands of smaller UK wine businesses in constituencies across our country.
As I said at the outset, the UK is the world’s second largest importer of wine by volume and by value. In 2022, we imported the equivalent of more than 1.7 billion bottles of still and sparkling wine. I know that the Minister—a good man and a great Minister, whom I respect hugely—recognises the economically significant contribution that the wine industry makes to the United Kingdom. I invite him to commit today to visiting the Majestic Wine headquarters in Watford before the Easter recess, because I think that will allow him to understand—as I have by meeting people from Majestic—the full implications for wine businesses of ending the easement.
For all the reasons that I, and right hon. and hon. Members have set out, I genuinely believe that there is still time to do the right thing. The more notice that we give business, the better. I hope that the easement will continue—but I hope that that decision can be made soon—that we will do the right thing and that we will make the easement permanent. It is a simple fix, which would benefit business and consumers, and make very little difference, if any, to Treasury receipts.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Gareth Davies)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, as always, Mr Henderson.
I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), on securing the debate and on the attendance that he has achieved. I recognise the strength of feeling on this across the House and in particular in this Chamber today. I completely share his support for our broader alcohol sector. Not only is it a significant contributor to our gross national product, but I would suggest that it pays a little towards our gross national happiness. It is part of our heritage. From Shakespeare’s plays to our modern British sparkling wines, we have long recognised how life’s triumphs and trials—weddings, wet weather and the working day—can be soothed or celebrated with a glass of our favourite tipple. I recognise that.
In the past few weeks alone, therefore, I have for example met the head of the all-party parliamentary group on wine and spirits, my right hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), and the highly active Wine and Spirit Trade Association to discuss how this remarkable industry’s potential can be truly uncorked. My officials have engaged with businesses and representatives of the UK industry up and down this country as part of budgetary processes that one might expect, from the more well-aged players such as Majestic Wine to the younger vintages such as Ambriel Sparkling.
On behalf of the Government, I am proud to represent our alcohol duty reform package and to present it to the House. We have introduced the biggest reform of alcohol duties for more than 140 years. We introduced a new, simplified alcohol duty system based on the common-sense principle of taxing alcohol by strength to modernise the existing duties, to support businesses and to meet our public health objectives. This is the first time that public health objectives have been inserted into the alcohol duty system.
That reflects four key principles, which it might be helpful for me to set out: the duty system should be fair to the producers that make and grow the drinks we enjoy; it should recognise the importance of jobs, and of pubs and their role in our national life; it should tackle the problem of harmful high-strength products being sold too cheaply; and it should support innovation and modern drinking trends, in particular today’s trend of moving towards lower-alcohol products. Our reforms do just that.
As part of the changes, which came into effect in August last year, we have supported our wine sector. Let me set out how we have done so. First, we removed the sparkling wine premium. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) rightly spoke about our domestic growers, a really important part of our wine industry. I recently met the chief executive officer of WineGB. I can tell her that we have removed the English sparkling wine premium. Since 1 August 2023, sparkling wines attract less duty than they did under the previous duty system. That is one of the points that I want to make today.
In such a reform some duty has gone up for some sectors in the alcohol industry and some has gone down. For our domestic growers of English sparkling wine it has gone down significantly, even with the retail price index increase that we saw last year. That is the right thing to do for our domestic growers. It will ensure consistency in our system and build success for British wines, which my hon. Friend and I want to see.
Secondly, as has been extensively discussed today—I will come on to this in more detail and address some of the points that have been made—we introduced a wine easement for 18 months until February 2025. As a result, all wine between 11.5% and 14.5% alcohol by volume will be subject to duty as if it were 12.5% ABV. That means we have effectively given the wine industry time to adapt to the new system and allow wine producers to adapt their systems. I recognise completely that a shake-up of a system that has existed for more than 140 years will raise some eyebrows and cause change for a number of businesses, but we should be confident that the bureaucratic burden under the new system is manageable.
Every other product is already subject to duty based on our strength-based system. We have included, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester rightly pointed out, the weather impact of wine, and included cider, which is also subject to seasonal variability challenges. We are mindful of unintended consequences, as several right hon. and hon. Members have outlined, but to make the wine easement permanent, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) has called for, would go against the principle of the alcohol reform to move to a strength-based system that brings in the public health element. As I have already said, although the impact on wine is clearly being felt, we have provided an easement over a period of time that was decided in consultation with the wine industry in four rounds of consultation before the reform comes into being.
I can commit to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester that we will monitor the reforms and their impact. We have outlined that three years after they come into effect, which is enough time for us to be able to assess them, we will conduct an impact assessment, which will allow His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to gather the relevant information to understand any long-term impacts in the alcohol market. That commitment complements the broader fiscal approach, because at the last autumn statement we announced tax cuts that supported the alcohol and hospitality industry.
We froze alcohol duty for six months until 1 August 2024. We also announced a package of business rate changes and tax cuts worth £4.3 billion over the next five years. My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) was right to highlight the difficult time that our hospitality industry has gone through in recent times. That is why we extended the retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme—a 75% relief—up to a cash amount of £110,000 per business between 2024 and 2025. In addition to the work being led by my colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on their package of wine reforms, which will increase flexibility and innovation, the Government have announced a freeze to the small business multiplier for the fourth consecutive year, for 2024-25, protecting over 1 million ratepayers from a multiplier increase. That builds on the unprecedented support that we should never forget we offered the industry during the pandemic—some £16 billion of business rate support. We have also held the tax rate steady over the last three years, which has protected businesses from inflationary pressures at a cost of £14.5 billion to the Exchequer.
This Government have never given the sector reason to doubt our commitment to it, because it has received many cuts or freezes to duty over the last decade. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester that the wine industry has benefited from cuts or freezes to wine duty at five of the last 11 fiscal events. Compared with 2015, wine duty is some 12% lower in real terms. That is something we can all raise a glass to.
Finally, I will address the comments by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who, rightly, has consistently raised the issue of red tape for businesses in the House. She specifically mentioned labelling. Overall, these reforms to our alcohol system simplify our tax duty. That is a Brexit freedom. Under the last slight change to our alcohol duty system in 1996, we had to take duty from the European Union, which was incredibly complicated, completely inconsistent, and did not include any provision for public health. Our easement gives businesses time to adapt to the new system and put in place measures to be able to administer it. Wine can still be labelled to 0.5% ABV. DEFRA has introduced guidance and an option to label to 0.1%, but I want to be really clear that that is optional.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester for raising this important sector and this important issue. It is right that the Government’s fiscal approach continues to be scrutinised in this way. I am confident that this policy is the right one, not just for the wine industry, but for the whole of the United Kingdom.
Question put and agreed to.
South West Water
(2 months ago)
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Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the performance of South West Water.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Henderson. I am delighted to have secured this important debate, one year on from another debate that I secured on the performance of South West Water. It is another opportunity to hold South West Water to the highest possible standards in the House.
Last year, I described the performance of our water company and its historic lack of investment as “shameful”, and many of my constituents shared my point of view. This year, I want to focus my speech on the facts facing my constituency of East Devon. The public want to see evidence of improvement and delivery of the promised investment, and they want South West Water to clean up its act and our water. South West Water must deliver better services for our constituents, improve our bathing waters, and protect our natural environment. Not doing so puts the vibrancy of our coastal communities under threat.
As the MP for East Devon, I am determined to push South West Water to deliver the standards expected by local residents, visitors and businesses. I want the unacceptable pollution we have seen in Exmouth, Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton to be met with the full force of the law. Thanks to this Conservative Government, we finally have the tools to hold South West Water to account. It is the biggest crackdown on sewage spills in history: the Government have introduced unlimited fines, accelerated investment plans, legal targets to reduce discharges from every single storm overflow and eliminate all ecological harm, as well as compulsory storm overflow monitors, and they have forced live spill data to be made public. I voted for all that. The Government have passed a suite of new laws to crack down on spills, including the Environment Act 2021, the Environmental Targets (Water) (England) Regulations 2022, the Environmental Civil Sanctions (England) (Amendment) Order 2023, and the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023.
Those new laws, brought in by this Conservative Government—and no previous Government—are forcing the hand of water companies, but new laws on their own will not clean up our water: more investment, better data, and tougher enforcement are clearly needed. On investment, we know that South West Water has historically failed to invest; we pay the highest sewerage bills in the country, and we have not had our fair return for decades. On data, we now know the scale of the problem, because this Government lifted the lid on the water companies’ infrastructure and made them pay to monitor the results of their own failures.
On enforcement, the Environment Agency must be appropriately funded to carry out its enforcement work. In order to crack down on water pollution, this Government have boosted funding for the Environment Agency, with a budget of £2.2 million per year specifically for water company enforcement activity. That means more officers focused on regulation, more compliance checks, and more data specialists. Environment Agency workforce numbers are higher than a decade ago—there are now 13,200 staff, and it is growing at its base in Exeter. In the past two years, staff numbers have grown by 2,300 across the Environment Agency.
So are things moving in the right direction? Well, the Environment Agency has said:
“There is still much work to be done.”
Its latest annual rating for South West Water is now two stars. That rating is for 2022; in 2021, it was a one-star water company. The Environment Agency has said that the two-star rating is evidence of “modest improvements”, but it has also said that pollution is still at “unacceptable” levels. I agree: only last year, South West Water was fined £2.1 million after admitting that it caused pollution across Devon and Cornwall dating back to 2016. The year before last, it was hit by £13 million in fines in the form of bill deductions for customers. Since those fines were handed out, the Government have legislated to introduce unlimited financial penalties on water companies and expand the range of offences for which penalties can be applied.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. It is interesting to note that a £2.1 million fine was levied against South West Water, but does he think that fine is going to make any difference to a company that has a debt in its water business of £2.8 billion?
Simon Jupp
I think every little helps. When we look at the scale of fines and potential future fines from ongoing investigations, which I will come to, I think we will see more money levied in that way from South West Water. Money raised by fines will then be channelled back into improving water quality, supporting local groups and community-led schemes, which help to protect our waterways.
The bosses of water firms that commit criminal acts of water pollution will be banned from receiving bonuses. I am pleased that the chief executive of South West Water led by example in not accepting a bonus last year. Meanwhile, the industry regulator, Ofwat, is currently investigating South West Water’s wastewater treatment works and leakage reporting. I and many colleagues look forward to seeing the outcome of those investigations. The need for independent regulators—Ofwat and the Environment Agency—to act decisively in these investigations is crucial.
Unfortunately, I have to report that the start of 2024 was particularly poor for South West Water in my constituency. Exmouth has faced several major incidents resulting from failures in South West Water’s infrastructure and the lack of investment in the town. South West Water has been using tankers to take sewage from burst sewer pipes to pumping stations, causing additional spills due to the disposal of additional tankered sewage. Those incidents are currently under investigation by the Environment Agency. The situation was—and is— completely unacceptable.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Incidents such as the one he has just described have been happening in Kingsbridge in my constituency, where there have been significant floods and raw sewage has been coming out of the network. The problem is that the investigations are not quick enough, nor are the actions to resolve them, and the damage done to residents and businesses is not well enough understood by South West Water, which needs to engage at a far quicker rate. Does he agree?
Simon Jupp
I do agree with my hon. Friend. The extra resources being pumped into the Environment Agency in our region will no doubt be helpful. Coming back to Exmouth, unfortunately some of the ground team, both contractors and people who work for South West Water, who were trying to fix this mess faced harassment and abuse during the weeks of disruption. Historical underinvestment and poor management by South West Water executives are not the fault of workers on the ground, who are out day in, day out in all weathers. I thank everyone who worked so hard to fix those failures, come rain or shine.
As investigations continue into this extremely sorry state of affairs, I continue to work with the Environment Agency, Ofwat and the water Minister. Every option must be on the table in response, including hefty fines. The recent debacle in Exmouth has once again demonstrated the dire need for fast-tracked investment into Exmouth’s water infrastructure, fully funded by South West Water. I have asked Ofwat to include Exmouth’s recent pollution incidents as part of its ongoing investigation into sewage treatment works, and I am pleased that that is happening.
I visited the Exmouth burst pipe alongside the Environment Agency, and I challenged South West Water on the timescale for a permanent solution. I repeated my calls for it to speed up its plans for £38 million of investment in Exmouth. That work includes upgrades to reduce spill frequency at Phear Park and Maer Road pumping stations, and upgrading the sewage treatment works outlet through Sandy Bay holiday park.
That is apparently due to be completed by March 2025, but let me be exceptionally clear: I remain to be convinced that plans to manage spills by moving them across town from one part of the network to the other, or by building pipes further out to sea, will deliver the result that the people of Exmouth dearly deserve. Nor will I or anyone else be grateful for a partial fix. I would add that we still do not know the precise location of an important sewer overflow in Exmouth. After so many months, South West Water still has not determined where the Maer Road combined sewer overflow spills off Exmouth beach. That is unacceptable.
Anthony Mangnall
I apologise for intervening twice, but my hon. Friend has just made an essential point about the impact that water companies are having on our aquaculture businesses. Some of them are based out of Brixham, but some out in Lyme Bay, off his constituency, and they are severely jeopardised by the network that South West Water operates and by its lack of ability to treat the sewage. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to ensure that South West Water takes into account the businesses that will be affected by those networks?
Simon Jupp
I agree 100% with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point about the impact of this unacceptable performance on businesses. We need to know the location of the end of the pipe off Exmouth beach, not only because of a potential breach of the Environment Agency’s permit conditions, but for the safety of bathing water users. I remain on the case with South West Water. The saga has gone on for far too long. Both the Environment Agency and I agree that investment to reduce sewage spills in Exmouth is well overdue and I will not relent in my calls for more investment from South West Water in Exmouth and across all parts of East Devon.
Near to Exmouth is the gorgeous town of Budleigh Salterton, at the mouth of the River Otter, with a new national nature reserve that I was privileged to visit a couple of weeks ago. A couple of hours ago I learned that the sewer pipe in Budleigh Salterton burst last night. South West Water were using tankers to transport flows from Budleigh to Maer Lane sewage treatment works. I understand from South West Water, with whom I remain in touch about this recent incident and its impact on the local environment and disruption to local residents, that the repair is now complete. I have already received several emails on the matter. I have asked South West Water for more details on its longer-term plans for Budleigh Salterton and what its investment will mean in terms of spills.
Following my debate in Parliament last year, South West Water announced a new multimillion package to upgrade Sidmouth and Tipton St John’s sewer system and to reduce the number of spills. I have been calling on South West Water to speed up that already announced investment, and I reiterate that call today—I know the company will hear me. We have seen far too many reports of spills off Sidmouth beach in the last few weeks. If it is possible to go further and faster, while balancing the cost to customers, South West Water must not hesitate to do so.
If South West Water believes its sewage systems cannot cope with new housing developments, it must say so. The Government are looking to consult on whether to make water companies statutory consultees on major planning applications. I wholeheartedly support such a move, and I urge the Minister to press ahead with that as quickly as possible.
I firmly believe that applications for new planning developments should only go ahead if it is clear that local water infrastructure can cope. I also urge the Minister to get water companies to install monitors on all emergency overflows. There cannot be any excuses for pollution. I understand that the Government want to do that, and I would be grateful to hear the timescale for when that could happen.
For my part of Devon, South West Water must make its water infrastructure fit for the future. When the new town of Cranbrook, which I am proud to represent, was being built, South West Water opted to upgrade an existing sewage treatment works in Exeter rather than build a new plant. If further development east of Exeter is to go ahead, I strongly urge South West Water to draw up plans for a new plant, with urgency.
Councillors on East Devon District Council very much jumped the gun to sign off a further new town of 8,000 homes in our district—just weeks before the new national planning policy framework was announced, which provides the tools to challenge such housing targets, especially in these circumstances. That was spectacularly short-sighted and risks further challenges for the district’s water infrastructure.
I will not use much more time; I am conscious that other colleagues would like to speak. Outside Parliament, I have been working with East Devon parish, town, district and county councillors—this must be a cross-party endeavour—and with environmental groups. I have raised their concerns with South West Water’s bosses, the Environment Agency and Ofwat. We all want to hold South West Water to account for its plans to invest in East Devon and to fix local problems urgently, as and when they crop up—and they do crop up all too frequently.
I have previously secured compensation for residents of Clyst St Mary after foul flooding in the village and I recently helped local charity Sidmouth Hospice at Home to reach a resolution over a hefty bill from South West Water. I have also facilitated meetings between Sidmouth town and Lympstone parish councils and senior figures in South West Water to look at data and delve into the issues in granular detail.
South West Water has held community meetings in Exmouth and Sidmouth recently and I publicly urge the company to continue to talk regularly with the communities that pay for its services. I also urge South West Water to publish its post-2025 investment plans online as soon as they are finalised. After all, it is we the public who are the billpayers. We have the right to know what is going on.
We all want to protect our stunning coastline, rivers and streams and hold South West Water to account for its failings. We finally have the tools to do so, through targets, fines, monitoring, data and investment plans. I am pleased to have secured this debate on the performance of South West Water and I very much look forward to hearing the contributions of other colleagues and the Minister this afternoon.
Several hon. Members rose—
Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)
I was about to remind hon. Members to bob if they want to speak, but it looks as though I do not have to. I gently urge Members to restrict their comments to about five minutes. I call Luke Pollard.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Henderson. It is good to follow my fellow Janner, the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp), who brought forward this debate. The performance of South West Water is not good enough: that is felt by the constituents both he and I represent. We need renewed cross-party pressure on the company to invest in the services required to cut sewage spills and to return reliable water usage all year round, as well as to address the concerns about drought in our area.
Raw sewage is the perfect metaphor for the last 14 years. For years, South West Water dished out huge dividends to its shareholders while dumping sewage into our rivers and seas. Our region deserves so much better than that. The most recent data from the Environment Agency has not been published for 2023, but the 2022 figures show there were more than 37,000 sewage spills in the south-west. In Plymouth alone, there were more than 2,000—an average of five spills every day, or 12,750 hours of sewage dumping.
According to South West Water’s live, interactive storm overflow map, as of half-past 3 today there are 26 bathing water locations across Devon and Cornwall that may be affected by the operation of overflows, including two in Plymouth. Having more data is a necessary part of being able to respond to the challenges of a lack of investment in infrastructure over a long time. However, that data must lead to enforcement and to a change in investment behaviour by South West Water in order to start shutting down those storm overflows for routine discharge.
All of us in this House recognise that, in the event of extreme weather, our water system cannot hold that much water—but we are not talking about extreme weather on a day-to-day basis; discharge is a routine daily occurrence from a water company that knows it should not be doing it, but is still doing it. I would like the water company to be more honest with customers and parliamentarians about what needs to be done to get to a point where all those storm overflows do not routinely discharge on a daily basis.
Richard Foord
The hon. Member talked about how data on sewage spills is gathered. Does he agree that, rather than water companies having complete control over gathering data on sewage spills, that function ought to sit with the regulator, the Environment Agency?
Luke Pollard
I am not a huge fan of the Environment Agency—I like the people who work there, but there are just not enough of them. Certainly, since 2010, Environment Agency funding has been cut by over 50%, which creates real challenges in the efficiency of prosecutions. Prosecutions that take years do not represent justice delivered quickly, or fines going to the affected communities quickly; they represent justice delayed, and something that can be built into the company’s daily business operations.
I will pick up on a final point before I finish: the investment that South West Water is making at Devil’s Point in Plymouth. As a regular wild swimmer there—I swim all year round, in shorts or wetsuits, depending on the time of year—I am grateful that the Minister and his predecessor authorised the campaign I was running for a new bathing water status at Devil’s Point and Firestone Bay. That is very welcome. The data collection there shows excellent water quality nearly all year round, but the two private raw sewage outlets that pump untreated human effluent into that important part of Plymouth Sound are not acceptable. I am grateful to South West Water for starting the work on closing those and adopting those raw sewers, but that work is taking too long and I would like to see a greater urgency in delivering it. We know raw sewage is going into our sea, and the action taken there should be quicker.
I encourage the Minister to keep pressure on South West Water, because as a water company it is not investing enough in the infrastructure we need. I have long-term concerns about the amount of water in our system to prevent future droughts and water restrictions in the summer. I would be grateful if the Minister could keep that pressure on South West Water, so that the region gets the water and sewage services that we deserve.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I will focus my remarks on water supply rather than pollution. To give some context, the Environment Agency predicts that England risks running short of water by 2045—not very far away—due to climate change and population growth. The Government are struggling to get our daily usage down to 122 litres per person by 2050—currently that figure is 145 litres. We have built no new reservoirs since 1991, and we know that the Environment Agency is going to reduce river abstractions.
In 2022 we had one of the hottest summers on record, and yes, we did almost run out of water. What happened in the south-west? Reservoirs were at a record low—Roadford lake was 30% below its usual water level—and, much to everyone’s consternation, hosepipe bans were implemented for over a year, from August 2022 to September 2023. The Environment Agency was not impressed; as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request, a leaked email from the Environment Agency said that South West Water
“were not honest, open and transparent with regulators about their drought projections”
and that there was
“a lack of understanding of their own supply system”.
Basically, it was not prepared.
What did South West Water do? To its credit, it did start putting measures in place. It introduced the option of water audits and made a number of water-saving products available—although not everyone can use them and they run out very quickly. Its “stop the drop” and “save every drop” campaigns were well regarded—indeed other water companies have followed suit—but they did not deliver the savings expected. The target was a 5% reduction in consumption, but the campaigns achieved only a 3% reduction. The company also introduced a non-household innovation fund.
So far, so good, but as we head forward, climate change is not going to improve much; it is going to make things worse. Looking forward to the water plan for 2024, there is an assumption that there will be a sixteenfold increase in heatwaves by 2030 and we will have 15 megalitres less water available per day by 2050. Yet the population of Devon will have increased by 350,000 by 2050, with many working from home, increasing demand, and we know that abstraction licences will continue to decrease, so we will need extra 30 million litres of water per day net for that plan period.
I have a real concern that the supply and demand calculations made by South West Water are unrealistic. There is a huge overreliance on smart meters to deliver the goods, and indeed on every one of us using less water. South West Water was rated as red on the supply demand balance index for 2022-23 because two of the four water zones were in deficit. By 2050 we will need 200 million litres of water per day. It is not realistic. We already know that the figures from South West Water are questionable, and work is going on with Ofwat looking at the leakage and consumption data.
Smart meters have proved a bit of a challenge in the electricity industry, and I see no hope that they can be better for water, not least because they are going to be under paving stones. The apps—it is not clear what sort of device South West Water will use—do not work very well. If the electric market is anything to go by, if one’s property is too far away from where the core meter is, the app simply does not work. I put in a smart meter, but I still have to give my readings every six months.
To top it all, if we do not have proper guidance for individuals and they do not know how much water they are using in a bath, or shower or washing machine, and if we do not have manufacturers putting grading systems for water usage on their machines, we are never going to change behaviour to meet the need that is clearly there. Water companies are bearing the brunt of trying to convey this message, and the Government need to do some more heavy lifting here. It feels like the measures are being done to consumers, not with and for consumers.
I am pleased that there is going to be a consumer-focused condition introduced into water company licences, but when? The Government said 2024; will the Minister confirm whether that will be the case? That measure will mean that we, as customers, should be well informed and feel that we can rely on South West Water to fix problems. This weekend, my residents in Ashcombe were very concerned because a pumping station that supplies their water, and that has been off-on with different problems since 2017, failed again. This is 2024, seven years since 2017—the consumer duty cannot come soon enough.
The water supply is just as important as pollution, and we need to focus on it. We cannot rely on reduced demand assumptions. We need more infrastructure—we cannot just sit on our laurels—and it needs to be innovative. We need to look at desalination as, to its credit, South West Water is beginning to do, but that is only the start of a very big mountain that still needs to be climbed.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Henderson. A policy paper says:
“the costs of cleaning up coastal waters, a national resource, have not fallen fairly across the country. Thirty per cent of the cost has fallen on Devon and Cornwall, which have just 3 per cent of the nation’s population. The chair of the South West Water Consumers Committee believes their average bill will go up by a further £150 a year”.
That was written in 1996. It is a Liberal Democrat policy paper from almost 30 years ago, and it is a story that continues to chime today and echoes through the decades. It is good that we are talking about the performance of a single water company, and South West Water is plainly one of the worst performing water companies in the country, but we should not focus myopically on the performance of one single water company and miss the big picture: the regulatory environment in which all water companies work. That is what I shall address my remarks to.
It is true that South West Water pays out some staggering dividend payments. Since 1990, South West Water has paid out in dividends an amount equivalent to £2,931 per property. That is more than any of the other 13 English water companies. A constituent of mine from Seaton recently pointed out to me that South West Water, or its parent company Pennon Group, owes £3.1 billion, which is similar to the amount paid in dividends since 1990, which is £3.2 billion. By those measures, South West Water is a poorly performing water company, but we have to look at the environment in which it is working. The water companies are working to the incentives that their shareholders set for them, rather than for the public benefit and good.
There were 146 recorded dry spills over a 12-month period last year. To recap, those are illegal spills made by water companies when there is no heavy rainfall. Just yesterday evening, I was talking to Jo Bateman from the East Devon constituency, who attended the End Sewage Pollution coalition meeting that I brought together. She explained to me that she is suing South West Water for those illegal dry spills. I am not at all persuaded that water companies will simply do the right thing without Government intervention. We know the Environment Agency has been denuded of resources in recent years. The agency had £235 million cut from its budget when the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Simon Jupp
Obviously, the hon. Member was in the room for my speech, and I explained that more investment is going into the Environment Agency to tackle the issues he raises. Would he shed some light on Lib Dem policy? Does his party still want to abolish the EA or keep it? It is not clear—it is a muddle and a farce.
Richard Foord
Liberal Democrat policy is to abolish Ofwat but very much to bolster the Environment Agency. We need to ensure that we have a regulator with teeth. As I have said to the hon. Member before, if the Environment Agency has teeth, they are in a glass of water by the side of the bed. He says he thinks that South West Water will hear his concerns, but I point out that the chief executive only forwent her bonus when it was plain that the level of outrage and campaigning in the west country was such that anything else would have been unacceptable. I should say that it is under pressure from parties like the Liberal Democrats that the Conservatives seem to have been talking in recent weeks about water companies and their executives not taking their bonuses when their performance is so poor.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
In clarifying Liberal Democrat policy and the actions they have taken, perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain what his party’s leader, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), did to tackle this issue when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change between 2012 and 2015.
Richard Foord
I would be very happy to. Of course, at that time the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change had different responsibilities.
Our policy now is very much about reforming water companies’ boards. They need to be transformed into public benefit companies. We need boards to have grassroots campaigners such as those I gathered together last night. We had Surfers Against Sewage and the Women’s Institute, which is pushing its “Water You Waiting For?” campaign. Fantastic campaigners such as these need a voice at the board level of these companies, otherwise we will face the catastrophe of our tourist hotspots being struck with the affliction that is water pollution. According to Blue Flag, four of the 10 beaches most affected by pollution last year were in Devon, including Sidmouth, which endured over 600 hours of sewage spills.
We heard earlier in the debate about the Environment Agency. In my view, we need to see the end of operator self-monitoring, which is where water companies get to gather their data themselves before passing it to the regulator. It means that they can potentially vary the data they are collecting. Water companies are essentially marking their own homework. This is having a devastating effect on some tourist areas such as the ones in Honiton.
I feel that there is a mismatch between the rhetoric we have heard this afternoon from some hon. Members and their voting records. I point them to 25 January 2023, when we voted on the draft Environmental Targets (Water) (England) Regulations 2022 and when I was very proud to insist that the Government should have more stringent targets for water pollution. I can see, Mr Henderson, that you are suggesting I have reached the end of my time, but I am grateful to have had the chance to make my remarks.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for securing today’s important debate.
I must declare an interest: I surf. I surfed on Sunday on a beach that South West Water’s website advised it was safe to surf on and had been for 24 hours. However, a well-known campaign group assured me that it had a sewage alert on it. This happens week after week. A campaign group has chosen to misrepresent the data it has, issuing sewage alerts when the combined storm overflows run and scaring people from entering our beautiful waters. Yes, we would all like the combined storm overflows to not run so often, but they are over 95% rainwater, and on most of North Devon’s stunning surf beaches they rush out into the Atlantic ocean. It does not take 48 hours for the tide to sort that out. The recommended gold standard for removing overflow waters is one tidal rotation, which is 12.5 hours.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank South West Water for the work it has done to date, which saw Croyde, one of the jewels of the surf crown, move from having “good” to “excellent” bathing water quality last year. I also thank the company for working with the event organisers—the ones who accepted—over the Christmas period to try to get our big Christmas swims out safely. Huge confusion is being caused on our beaches, with a Victorian bathing water season still in place, meaning that the most accurate data from the Environment Agency is not available from September through to May. We are a hardy bunch in North Devon. We are out all year round.
With that in mind, I want to focus on the serious problem that occurred in North Devon just three weeks ago, when there was a raw sewage spill from a sewage treatment works due to an electrical fault caused by a contractor on site. This resulted in six hours of raw sewage running into a large river that runs straight out to sea. Yes, there are questions for South West Water about the incident, but accidents do happen. South West Water reported it in line with all procedures.
The Environment Agency recommended closing four beaches and posted details of the sewage incident on its website. Unfortunately, it informed only one of the two councils that needed to be notified. No one told people on the beaches. The well-known campaign group, which we would think would rush to issue a sewage alert, did nothing of the sort. Its “sewage alert” has no definition; it literally means that the storm overflow had gone at some point in the previous 48 hours. The group chooses not to use the information that is available to it from the Environment Agency, which details when there is a real sewage pollution issue. In that respect, I have an issue with the South West Water website as well, which only includes data on its own storm overflows. However, it is at least clear that that is what the company is doing.
Most people do not use the Environment Agency website, which is not a fancy app that says when there is a problem. On that day, although we now know that sewage was being released, the campaign group that apparently prides itself on supporting surfers did not use the data available to it and surfing lessons went ahead.
Many people who regularly use the beaches in North Devon gave up on the campaign app some time ago. One surf school said, “We’d never go surfing if we listened to them.” I ask the Minister this question: what more can be done urgently to provide accurate information to those wishing to bathe or surf at this time of year? I urge the campaign group to think a bit harder about the information it is spreading—
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but she has mentioned many times this “campaign group”. I assume she means Surfers Against Sewage, but can she be clear for the record whom she is being critical of?
Selaine Saxby
I am happy to clarify, but by the same token the group does not actually like it when I mention it by name.
As I was saying, I urge the group to think a bit harder about the information it is spreading and at least try to issue a sewage alert when there actually is sewage. I say that because when the group set itself up 40 years ago, it ran a brilliant campaign and quite rightly so, as there was a lot of work to do. However, the group now privately states: “With regard to the beaches in your constituency, we totally agree that huge improvements have been made to water quality there and in many places around the country.” However, the group does not like me repeating that in public, as it undermines its very existence.
Yes, South West Water has more to do. I want to know how that incident at Ashford and two more incidents at Croyde over Christmas happened. Most of all, however, I want people to have easy access to accurate information about when it is safe to enter the water on some of the finest beaches in the world.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
It is an absolute pleasure, Mr Henderson, to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) and fellow Janner on securing this debate.
It is worth recalling what our water quality was back in the mid-1980s. For decades, the south-west had some of the cheapest water bills in the country for one simple reason: we just used to dump our sewage straight into the sea, with no real investment to end that practice until that time. Those who try to pretend that public ownership innately means great standards of environmental practice need to think again.
There has been major investment since that time, but it is another initiative that began under the coalition Government that has brought the issue of water quality back into the headlines. In 2013, only 7% of storm overflow outlets received any monitoring; as of the end of last year, 100% of those outlets receive monitoring. Put simply, the issue—the use of storm overflow outlets—has always existed, but it was just ignored and not monitored.
Bathing water quality is vital for Torbay, especially given the popularity of water sports and sea swimming among both residents and tourists. I have done some considerable work on the issue of bathing water quality since being elected to the House. Achievements so far include the completion of a major project at Torre Abbey sands by South West Water to ensure that our bay met the tougher legal bathing water standards introduced since my election in 2015. Those standards remain in place today.
To provide some background information, the majority of beaches in Torbay have outstanding bathing water quality, with 11 of the 15 registered beaches in the English Riviera classified as excellent for water quality in 2023. However, with Goodrington’s bathing water quality rated as sufficient, there is a need for further work to get all our beaches to a rating of good, then excellent.
To push forward action in the bay, over the last year I have met the chief executive of South West Water at Meadfoot beach, which does not have a storm overflow outlet, despite some claims that it does, and I met the company’s chief operating officer at Goodrington beach to discuss water quality across the bay and the next steps to invest in it.
During my most recent meeting, South West Water recognised the popularity of bathing at Goodrington and the need to improve the rating of Goodrington’s water quality. I pushed it for a target for the water quality being rated excellent by 2030, and to be fair to the company it agreed to that target. We will therefore see a £6-million programme of investment by 2030 in infrastructure near Goodrington and Paignton sands to help to achieve that goal. That work alone will not improve the standard of the bathing water at that beach to excellent, given the issues with items washed into the sea from surrounding parks and facilities, but it will provide further improvement. One thing we sometimes miss in this debate is the fact that water quality can be as easily affected by what is washed in from a park, particularly animal waste, as by whatever discharge may be coming from an outlet. The plan for Goodrington and Paignton is part of a £27-million plan for investment in the bay between now and 2030, with the clear goal of all our beaches reaching the excellent standard.
The Tor Bay Harbour Authority needs to stop using the same term for both rainfall drainage predictions and actual sewage releases—an issue which the previous Lib Dem-independent coalition-run council and the current Conservative leadership have raised regularly with the Environment Agency. The aim is to create clarity for residents, ensure that investment is targeted at sewage and end any misleading presentations of data by third parties.
I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I ask that he cover some specific points. First, what work will be done to hold South West Water to the commitments it has made to invest in further improvements in water quality? Secondly, alongside the wider plans for our region, how will local communities be able to hold South West Water and other partners, such as local councils, to pledges such as the ones recently made relating to Goodrington and Paignton sands? Finally, what steps will he take with the Environment Agency to create greater clarity about what is rainwater draining from land and what is an actual sewage spill? The aim is to bring clarity for the public and focus for resource investment.
Progress has been made, but there is more to do. We need to keep a focus on the issue and ensure that our water company is held to account, so that the progress residents expect to see is delivered.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on securing this debate. I have spent many summer holidays in his constituency over the years, so it was great to hear those names.
This issue is vital, so I welcome the opportunity to discuss the performance of South West Water in more detail. There are lessons for us to learn about the whole sector by examining this case, but many of the issues that have been raised are specific to the south-west. Although there are strong opinions on this issue, there were some very valuable contributions to what has been an excellent debate.
The first point made by the hon. Member for East Devon that is worth repeating is the fact that across the country, many people working for water companies have become the victims of harassment. They are not in any way responsible, and I echo his point about that. He welcomed, as others did, the recent increase in funding for the Environment Agency. However, the context is that the Environment Agency had a 50% cut from 2010 to 2022. If it is the case, as I believe it is, that more money for the Environment Agency will improve the quality of its monitoring, it must be accepted that the huge cuts it experienced in the first 12 years of this Government have been a contributory factor.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) spoke about the need for more honesty from South West Water, which other Members repeated. He spoke powerfully about how important the issue is for his constituents. He also invited us to imagine him swimming in various amounts of Lycra, which many people will have enjoyed when thinking about his outdoor swimming. It is important that we reflect on the fact that swimming is key to both the enjoyment of people in the south-west and the economy down there.
The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) reflected on the lack of investment in infrastructure over many years. She also said, in what was a very good speech, that she believed that South West Water had not been honest. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) spoke about the specific challenges in the local area, particularly the fact that it is a popular tourist destination, with the population expanding hugely in the summer months. That has specific consequences, and is not necessarily reflected in who pays the bills. He also questioned where the responsibility for companies stood between shareholders and the general environmental good. Businesses have a statutory responsibility to respond to their shareholders, which is why it is down to Government to have responsibility for ensuring that they perform to environmental standards as well. That informs much of the approach that the Labour party takes.
The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) identified a failure of investment between 2012 and 2015. She placed responsibility at the feet of the Lib Dems, who were in government with the Tories at that time, but we would say that it has happened throughout the past 14 years. She also took the unusual step of suggesting that the major issue that people were angry about was the performance of the local campaign group, which I have to say is a new development that I was not expecting.
The recent report by the Rivers Trust, “State of Our Rivers”, which was published only last week, shows that the dial overall has not shifted on the health of our waterways. Not a single English river is in good overall health, and that has not changed since the previous report in 2021. A multitude of factors inform water health, but 54% of rich river stretches failed because of activities attributed to the water industry. That simply is not good enough.
Yesterday, along with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, I spoke at the launch of the election manifesto for the Surfers Against Sewage campaign. It was a shame that the Government were not able to send the Minister, although he was intending to go. It is an important coalition, because the issue is of huge importance to our constituents, particularly to the economy of the south-west. As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton reflected, we heard from Jo Bateman about the powerful campaign that she is fighting for the ability to swim in clean waterways, recognised as an amenity that should be available to us all.
In preparing for this debate, I was pleased to hear about the work of Jayne Kirkham and Perran Moon, Labour’s parliamentary candidates for Truro and Falmouth and for Camborne and Redruth, respectively. They have supported protests and started petitions that add to the community fight to preserve Cornwall’s waterways. Jayne stressed that the discharges into Cornwall’s rivers was impacting on tourism and costing millions alongside the environmental damage.
Many people are concerned that Ofwat’s new growth duty will further reduce its ability to be a force for environmental good. When the Minister responds, I hope that he can set out how he sees that duty working alongside Ofwat’s responsibilities to improve environmental outcomes. Does the Minister agree that the perception that our waterways are not fit to swim in is damaging to growth as it depletes tourist revenue? If so, will he confirm whether he has instructed Ofwat that its new growth duty must mean that no sewage discharge is liable to reduce tourist growth?
Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)
Order. May I stop you? I am afraid you have run out of time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for bringing the matter of the performance of South West Water before the House, which has proven to be an incredibly important debate. I am disappointed in the continued poor performance shown by South West Water and its impact on our local environment.
Recently, I undertook a tour of the south-west and heard at first hand how pollution can impact coastal communities and local economies. I want it to be clear that this Government have made improving water company performance a top priority. While performance may have improved in the 2022-23 reporting year, South West Water remains one of the worst performing companies, with a long way to go still—in particular on pollution incidents and storm overflow discharges, both of which were significantly above the industry average in 2022. That is completely unacceptable. South West Water should be under no illusion: it must take urgent steps to reduce its pollution incidents significantly, as well as addressing other performance concerns, such as increasing resilience of the water supply.
Among the concerns expressed by Members, my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon raised the issue of sewage discharge into Exmouth bathing water. I have recently had discussions with him about that, and he has written to me several times. Although the condition of the bathing water is currently classified as excellent by the Environment Agency, I wish to reassure the House that the recent incidents raised by my hon. Friend are currently being investigated by the Environment Agency. It has required South West Water to provide data and information to support its investigations. It would be inappropriate for me to comment from the Dispatch Box while this investigation is ongoing, but please rest assured that the regulator will not hesitate to hold the water company to account if a breach has occurred.
The Environment Agency is also scrutinising South West Water’s overall pollution reduction plan to ensure that the company has the right plans in place to prevent future issues. I will also be personally seeking assurance from the chief executive of South West Water, Susan Davy, that the company is doing all it can to mitigate the environmental impacts and protect bathing waters both in Exmouth and across the south-west for the sake of both the environment and public health.
I am also aware of the concerns of Members and the public following high-profile sewage spills, such as those at Harlyn bay in Cornwall. I am pleased to see that South West Water has outlined an £800,000 investment in this area by 2025 to reduce surface water ingress into the combined sewer network to help reduce storm overflow spill frequencies. However, its actions are again coming too late, following years of neglecting its civic duties. This Government will not be shy of holding the company to account.
Richard Foord
Would the Minister agree that the problem is not just with one single water company but with the regulatory environment in which water companies operate? That is why at last night’s #EndSewagePollution coalition meeting, which I brought together, we had present the Rivers Trust, British Canoeing, the Angling Trust, River Action UK, Swim England, Surfers Against Sewage and the Women’s Institute. Does the Minister regret being unable to attend?
Robbie Moore
I find it a huge misfortune that it is Lib Dem policy to get rid of one of the key regulators, Ofwat, as has been confirmed in this debate. We have just given Ofwat powers to take a much more robust approach to dividends and water company bosses’ bonuses, so I fear for the future of holding water companies to account if Lib Dem policy is get rid of it. This Government know that the industry needs to go further and faster to address these issues.
In 2022, data indicated that 6.47% of South West Water storm overflows spilled 100 times or more, which was twice the sector average. That is quite simply unsatisfactory. That is why we have introduced our storm overflows discharge reduction plan—the most ambitious plan to address storm overflows discharges in water company history, which will deliver £60 billion of capital investment by 2050 and target our most important sites, including bathing waters first.
The Government have also driven water companies to ensure that we now have 100% monitoring of storm overflows; that is up from 7% in 2010 under the previous Labour Administration. It was the last Labour Administration who brought out self-monitoring; we want to overturn that as we have better data from the roll-out of 100% monitoring.
However, I recognise the progress happening in the south-west. Indeed, I recently visited a pilot scheme at Combe Martin village with my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), where smart water butts and sustainable drainage had been introduced to better manage rainwater. That was having a positive impact. I commend my hon. Friend on the good work that she has been doing in her constituency, working together with her constituents and with campaign groups to ensure that a partnership-led approach can actively work on the ground when it comes to tackling sewage pollution.
Mr Perkins
The Minister mentioned something that some of his colleagues have referred to. Self-monitoring was either a big problem, in which case I do not know why the Government have not got rid of it in the last 14 years, or it was not. He needs to be credible about this. If he is trying to say that self-monitoring is a problem, they should have done something years ago.
Robbie Moore
That is why this Government have rolled out 100% monitoring of our storm overflows; once we have the data, we are able to hold failing water companies to account. That is exactly what this Government intend to do through our “Plan for Water”, which is all about more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement.
I also wish to address some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) regarding South West Water’s resilience to drought, as I know many in the region experienced extended hosepipe bans. I am pleased to say that South West Water has informed us that, as of 22 February 2024, the Roadford reservoir is now at 100% capacity and Colliford is at 87%, showing significant improvement. The Environment Agency continues to work with the company on a range of new sources to improve resilience. I recently visited Hawks Tor, a former clay pit, that has been brought into the water supply to try to deal with some of those water resilience issues.
Many Members mentioned the issue of investment. Of course, addressing these concerns requires investment, and this responds to some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). Following a DEFRA commission, Ofwat—which, it seems, the Lib Dems want to abolish—agreed to accelerate £128 million of funding to accelerate smart metering, build nutrient removal systems to improve river water quality and accelerate 15 storm overflow improvements in the Falmouth and Sidmouth catchments.
South West Water’s latest business plans include a significant £2.8 billion package of investment, which Ofwat is now scrutinising to ensure that it will truly deliver for customers and begin to turn its poor record around. Its commitments will also include achieving the lowest level of pollution incidence in the sector and significantly increasing water quality and water resilience by investment in new treatment works, reservoirs and tackling leakage. South West Water must now deliver on those ambitious plans, and this Government will hold it to account every step of the way. I look forward to my next meeting with the chief executive to be able to get an update on those plans.
I also wish to assure the House that the Government and our regulators, Ofwat and the Environment Agency, do not take underperformance lightly. As a result of failing to meet its performance commitments, Ofwat has directed South West Water to return £9.2 million to customers during the financial year of 2024-25, in addition to the £13.3 million returned in the financial year 2022-23. I again reiterate that, if the Lib Dems want to get rid of Ofwat, I am not quite sure who would be directing South West Water to do that.
South West Water was also instructed by Ofwat to produce a service commitment plan to demonstrate how it will meet the commitments made at the start of the current five-year price review period, and that was updated in November 2023. As I have said, I will shortly be meeting the chief executive of South West Water again to discuss progress on its plans and to hold the water company to account on its specific failures on pollution incidents.
When water companies fall short, we will not hesitate to hold them to account. Since 2015, the Environment Agency has secured fines of over £150 million, including a £2.1 million fine for South West Water in April 2023. Furthermore, under the action taken by this Government, we will be strengthening regulation to ensure that regulators have the tools to hold water companies to account. I want to thank all Members for their contributions today, and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon for bringing this important debate before the House.
Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)
The hon. Gentleman has one minute to wind up.
Simon Jupp
Thank you, Mr Henderson. This has been a really good debate, following on from the debate that I led last year as well. It is clear that people, on a cross-party basis, care about this. We have been paying South West Water bills for decades—I know my family has—and we all want to get value for money. We do not think that we have got that historically. If I may, I will make a point to the Liberal Democrats again. In January, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), when talking about the EA and Ofwat, said:
“the Government probably ought to be stepping in and removing those regulators”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 916.]
As ever, Lib Dem policy is as clear as mud.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the performance of South West Water.
Written Statements
World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference
(2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
Last week, I attended the World Trade Organisation’s 13th ministerial conference MC13—in Abu Dhabi with the Minister of State for Trade Policy, my right hon. Friend, the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands).
MC13 saw the world’s Trade Ministers come together to discuss the most pressing challenges facing global trade and agree a way forward.
The WTO members agreed several outcomes, including:
extending the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, which protects tariff-free digital trade, thereby maintaining lower costs and predictability for business engaging in digital trade;
re-committing to find a solution to restore the dispute settlement impasse, which is necessary to uphold global rules of free, fair and open trade and to ensure that every member of the WTO has access to a system to protect their trading interests against the unfair practices of other members;
extending the moratorium on TRIPS—trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—non-violation and situation complaints;
a small package of outcomes on development, including easing the transition for countries graduating from “least developed country” to “developed country”, such as Angola and Bangladesh;
the Abu Dhabi ministerial declaration, which emphasises the importance of work on a range of important areas, including WTO reform, women’s economic empowerment, services trade and supporting micro, small, and medium enterprises.
MC13 also celebrated the accession of two new members to the WTO—Comoros and Timor-Leste—which will bring the total number of WTO members to 166 and help developing countries reap the benefits of free trade.
At the conference, we celebrated the entry into force of new disciplines under the Services Domestic Regulation Joint Initiative, which could lead to global savings of £99 billion through facilitating trade in services.
The UK is also pleased to have completed the investment facilitation for development agreement, which commits its 127 signatories to practical steps to make it easier to invest in developing countries. This means UK investors should benefit from reduced transaction costs in low-income countries under this agreement, which could increase stocks of outward UK FDI by £2.5 billion in participating members. The agreement will also cut red tape, providing a one-stop shop for investors to communicate with Government, and the creation of a single website that investors can go to for information.
The UK remains committed to the rules-based multilateral trading system as vital to the economic prosperity and trading stability of all the WTO’s 166 members. MC13 did not deliver on all of the UK’s objectives and was a stark reminder of the challenge of agreeing change on the consensus basis of the WTO. However, the WTO remains a critical, albeit imperfect, part of the global trading system that helps deliver global economic growth.
MC13 was also a great opportunity to meet with my international counterparts, including the Gulf Co-operation Council, the United States Trade Representative and the EU Executive Vice-President to progress MC13 negotiations, the New Zealand and Australian Trade Ministers to discuss implementation of the UK’s free trade agreements, and the Canadian Trade Minister to discuss bilateral trade relations, including rules of origin.
[HCWS310]
NHS Workforce: Revised Offer to Unions
(2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)
After re-entering negotiations with the British Medical Association (BMA) and Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) committees last month, during which the consultants did not take up industrial action, I am pleased to inform the House that I have made a revised formal offer to both unions, which includes a package of reforms to be applied from 1 March 2024. Both unions will recommend this revised offer to their members.
If accepted by their members, this would end the prospect of damaging strike action, benefit patients and deliver for consultants by delivering much-needed reform.
All sides returned to the negotiating table in good faith and in recognition of the narrow margin by which the initial offer was rejected. I would like to thank the unions for their co-operation and willingness to come to a swift resolution.
This demonstrates that approaching negotiations constructively and with reasonable expectations can lead to a good outcome for patients, consultants and the taxpayer.
The principles and aims of the updated offer remain the same. The Government’s position is that the headline pay uplift for 2023-24 was settled through the pay review body process. This updated offer adds further clarity and specificity, as well as addressing concerns that consultants have raised. The Government’s position remained that the headline pay uplift for 2023-24 was settled through the pay review body process.
This is a reform offer. The core contract for consultants has not been updated for 20 years and this offer will deliver reform to reflect modern ways of working, such as enhanced shared parental leave, in line with other NHS staff. It invests in modernising the consultants’ pay structure—reducing the number of pay points and the time it takes to reach the top of the pay scale.
As we originally proposed, this would make it faster for consultants to progress and help mitigate the gender pay gap, which was expressly highlighted in the independent review into gender pay gaps in medicine in England. Under the revised offer, the Government have agreed to include an uplift for consultants with four to seven years of experience, in direct response to members’ concerns.
To enable these reforms, unions have agreed to end local clinical excellence awards going forward—an employer level bonus scheme that has been seen to contribute to pay inequalities.
The updated offer reaffirms our intention to introduce pay progression arrangements, which link pay progression and evidence of skills, competencies and experience, and further clarifies how this will work in practice.
In addition, the Government will enact changes to the operation of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) to address matters raised by the BMA and HCSA. This offer sets out the detail of work to improve the process for the appointment of members to the DDRB, and revises the panel’s terms of reference.
The Government have listened carefully to the concerns of consultants and their representatives, particularly around retention, motivation and morale. This revised offer has been carefully balanced to meet those concerns while also ensuring value for the taxpayer. This offer, should it be accepted, will improve the working lives of consultants while ending the prospect of damaging strike action, which has had a detrimental impact on patients and the NHS.
The BMA and HCSA will recommend this offer to their members in a vote in the coming weeks. No further industrial action will be called while this happens.
[HCWS311]
Breast Cancer Screening
(2 months ago)
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The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)
I would like to inform the House that on Monday 4 March, NHS England wrote to a group of women who are at very high risk of breast cancer who have been eligible for annual MRI checks, but who may not have been routinely referred to the annual tests recommended in NHS guidance.
This is an historic cohort of women who from 1962 to 2003 received radiotherapy treatment above the waist to treat Hodgkin lymphoma. Because of their treatment, this group were at an increased risk of breast cancer, so in 2003 clinicians were asked to contact both previous and current patients to refer them for annual checks. Women do not start annual MRI testing immediately following treatment—but between eight and 15 years after treatment depending on their age at the time they were treated.
A number of women who were eligible for more regular annual testing did not receive it. This was due to variable referral processes. To rectify this, specialists set up a database to identify how people were referred on to the very high-risk pathway for breast screening. Details of the missed group were shared with NHS England in late September 2023, and they have since analysed data to triangulate information about clinical history, current status and residency in order to identify the individuals in the affected cohorts. Ministers were notified in February 2024.
We have overseen a system that has resulted in the identification of these very high-risk women, and we are now taking the appropriate action. This week, NHS England has written to 1,487 women whom they have identified as not currently on the correct very high-risk pathway to receive annual MRI testing. This cohort will now be urgently offered an MRI follow up and inclusion in the very high-risk pathway. We expect all women to be offered a scan within the next three months.
The specialist team have also identified a much smaller historical group whose details are currently being verified, and they will be written to in the coming weeks.
NHS England has set up a helpline for affected women, the details of which will be included in letters sent to them. More widely, NHS England will undertake a review of the process that refers these women into the most appropriate service for their risk to mitigate any future impact of this issue.
Further details of this issue can be found in a letter from NHSE to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), which will be deposited in the Library.
Attachments can be view online at:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2024-03-05/HCWS312
[HCWS312]
Grand Committee
Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023
(2 months ago)
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Lord Douglas-Miller
That the Grand Committee do consider the Waste Enforcement (Fixed Penalty Receipts) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Regulations 2023.
Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Douglas-Miller) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations were laid before this House on 10 January.
Litter and fly-tipping harm the environment and blight local communities. In a recent survey, 61% of the public thought that litter and dog fouling were a problem in their area, and 49% thought that fly-tipping was a problem. Street cleansing, including clearing up litter and fly-tipping, cost councils in England £822 million in 2022-23. There is clearly a need for more action to deter people from committing these offences, and to ensure that those who cause these problems face the consequences.
Councils already have a range of powers, including issuing fixed-penalty notices to those who litter, fly-tip or pass their household waste to someone without the proper licence. But we know that some councils are not using these powers, even where they have significant fly-tipping problems. In his anti-social behaviour action plan, the Prime Minster made it clear that councils should take a tougher approach to enforcement and make greater use of these fixed penalties. The Government have already taken steps to help councils do just that, including publishing new league tables providing transparency on how councils are using their enforcement powers for fly-tipping. Furthermore, the maximum fixed penalty councils can issue has been increased from £400 to £1,000 for fly-tipping, from £150 to £500 for littering, and from £400 to £600 for householders using an unlicensed waste carrier.
Income from these fines is retained by councils and currently ring-fenced for various functions related to waste management, including sweeping, emptying bins and household waste collection. We know that in a minority of councils, fixed-penalty receipts are absorbed into general council budgets or are spent on other neighbourhood functions. The Government believe that revenue received through payment of litter and fly-tipping penalties should be reinvested in expanding or improving councils’ enforcement functions and cleaning up the consequences of this anti-social behaviour. The instrument will ensure this by amending the qualifying functions on which councils can spend income from fixed-penalty notices issued for littering, fly-tipping and breaching the household waste duty of care, to enforcement and clean-up only.
By improving their enforcement capabilities, councils should be able to catch more perpetrators and deter others from offending, which should lead to cleaner streets, parks and the wider countryside. Enforcement functions could include employing more officers, investing in CCTV and signage and improving the use of data. Clean-up functions can include collecting and disposing of litter and fly-tipping, and restoring land which has been harmed. The instrument also retains the Secretary of State’s ability to make provisions by legislation in future on how local authorities in England use their fixed-penalty receipts.
Although this new ring-fence will apply to councils in England only, the instrument does include consequential amendments relevant to Wales to ensure that no changes are made to how local authorities in Wales can spend fixed-penalty receipts.
The instrument also makes consequential amendments to the Local Government (Structural Changes) (Further Transitional Arrangements and Staffing) Regulations 2009 to ensure that arrangements pertaining to the merging of authorities in England are not affected. Consequential amendments are also made to the Littering From Vehicles Outside London (Keepers: Civil Penalties) Regulations 2018, meaning that no changes are made to how authorities can spend income from these civil penalties.
In conclusion, this instrument will ensure that all councils in England reinvest the money they make from those fines into expanding or improving their enforcement functions and cleaning up the consequences of this anti-social behaviour. This should help deter people from harming our public space and make it more likely that those who do so face the consequences. I hope noble Lords will support these measures and their objectives. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing forward these regulations and, in particular, on ring-fencing the money raised through the fixed-penalty receipts. I will raise one issue with him. If I have understood it correctly, this still applies only to public land. If so, this is a missed opportunity. In incidents of fly-tipping on private land, as I am sure my noble friend may be all too aware from his home estate, we are increasingly seeing an element of criminality, with people taking construction waste and literally dumping it on private land.
I worked with the Environment Agency when I was an MP and a shadow Minister in the other place. It has a very good mechanism of cameras in strategic places—I know it does not always want it publicised—which can catch the perpetrators of this crime to very good effect. That makes it much easier for it to bring them to book. My concern is that there was a very powerful response from the NFU, among others, and I am sure that the CLA and the TFA would have responded in the same vein. In its response to the original consultation, which is the basis of these regulations, the NFU asked for
“greater consistency across how local authorities, the Environment Agency and the police engage with private land managers who are victims of fly-tipping. We believe it should not be the sole responsibility of the land managers to deal with this crime, when it is a community-wide issue”.
I would like to understand why, if that was in the consultation, the department chose not to apply the regulations or ASBOs to private land and what the basis was for that. The NFU concluded that
“it is imperative that these proposals are not limited to fly-tipping and littering incidents solely on public land”.
I am sure that my noble friend and others in the Committee will have seen the graphic images on television of people now taking matters into their own hands because the Environment Agency and the police do not always turn up. There was a very good example of how these criminals can be apprehended—although there are dangers attached to this—when four vehicles hemmed in one van that was dumping on to private land all the materials to which I have referred.
I accept that there is an inevitable cost to local authorities and the Environment Agency in finding the perpetrators and, for public land, removing this material, but we are missing the fact that most fly-tipping is increasingly on private land. I would like to understand why it was excluded from this. If we are to go down the path of people individually trying to apprehend perpetrators on private land when they are in the middle of a crime, that will bring inherent dangers and I am sure the Government do not wish to encourage it. In the instance to which I referred—I cannot remember which part of the country it was—they apprehended the perpetrator and he was brought to book. The police attended and criminal charges followed.
I applaud everything that the Government are doing to make these regulations, firm up government policy and make sure that the receipts are ring-fenced, but the weakness is that most fly-tipping is on private land and we seem to have left that out.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the details of this SI on the fees received from fixed-penalty receipts for fly-tipping. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.
Fly-tipping is a scourge on our environment. During the passage of the Agriculture Bill there were several debates on the effect of fly-tipping on the farming community. Fly-tippers find it particularly easy to dump their spoils on droves, bridleways and open countryside, leaving the farmer to clean up the mess, often at considerable expense. The law is of no particular help to them. Local authorities issue fixed-penalty notices for littering and fly-tipping where they know who the culprit is, but this is often very difficult to ascertain. They are also able to issue notices for breaching the household waste duty of care. In this case it should be slightly easier to discover who the culprit is, but I wonder how often this power is used. Can the Minister say how many fixed-penalty notices were issued last year for breaching the household waste duty of care?
This SI is yet another example of central government adding to the burdens of local government. Subsection (5) of new Section 73ZA inserted by Regulation 2 of the SI is a good example of this:
“A waste collection authority must supply the Secretary of State with such information relating to its use of its fixed penalty receipts as the Secretary of State may require”.
Subsection (6) adds:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision … about what a waste collection authority must do with its fixed penalty receipts pending the use of those receipts for the purposes referred to in subsection (2) or (3)”.
Subsection (7) of new Section 95A inserted by Regulation 3 inserts:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision … about what an authority must do with its fixed penalty receipts pending the use of those receipts for the purposes referred to in subsection (3) or (4)”
Subsection (8) states:
“The provision that may be made under subsection (7)(c) includes (in particular) provision for the payment of sums to a person (including the Secretary of State) other than the authority”.
It is clear that central government does not trust local government to conduct its waste-collection functions effectively or to have the best interests of its communities at heart. As we have local elections coming up in part of the country in May, I wonder how many political leaflets will say, “If you vote in this election don’t be surprised if we are unable to carry out any of the usual services you expect of local councillors, as central government is continually putting extra duties and restrictions on the way we can operate”. This is nothing more than a tax to be collected by local authorities and paid to central government.
The Explanatory Memorandum tells us that the SI will
“add a new list of qualifying functions for local authorities in England”.
This should, allegedly, mean that more enforcement will take place, resulting in more fixed-penalty receipts, which would reduce incidents of fly-tipping and function as a deterrent. The logic appears fine, but it takes no account of “first find your fly-tipper”. I will share with the Committee an example of the way in which illegal fly-tippers operate, although I am sure everyone is aware of this. Last autumn, as I went to the GP surgery for my Covid booster, I had to negotiate a huge pile of what looked like cedar tree prunings in the middle of a junction in the road. This was at 9 am in the morning. By the time I came back 40 minutes later, council employees were there with a truck clearing the mess away, and I stopped to speak to them. They confirmed it was likely to be fly-tipping by an operator who had persuaded a householder that they were a legitimate contractor who could do some work for them but who was, in fact, an operator without a licence. There was, of course, nothing on the pile of tree branches to indicate who the culprit was.
I am afraid that restricting what local authorities can spend their fixed-penalty revenue on is not going to prevent fly-tipping. A wholesale campaign to alert the public to the fact that everyone who removes waste from a property or business must have a licence to do so, and that they should ask to see it before parting with money, is really the only way to reduce fly-tipping.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction of this statutory instrument. Waste enforcement is clearly an important issue, so I do not intend to make any throwaway comments. However, I have some questions for the Minister.
First, am I correct in thinking that this SI was laid, withdrawn and laid again? If so, was there a problem with it? Perhaps the Minister could clarify that I have not confused it with another SI.
In his introduction, the Minister referred to some of the key statistics in the Explanatory Memorandum. The figures from the Environmental Services Association’s research spell out the problem, and that it is increasing. The estimated annual national cost of fly-tipping was £209 million in 2015, and just three years later it had increased to £392 million. That is pretty appalling, so it is important that we have legislation that attempts to deal with the problem. Paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum gives the results of the recent survey, which again demonstrate that this is a really important and concerning topic to the public, of whom
“49% thought that fly-tipping was a problem”.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, made some excellent points about fly-tipping on private land, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, talked about farmers. I know from where I live in Cumbria, as I am sure the Minister does, the huge costs associated with sorting out this problem on farms, particularly for small farmers, who simply do not have the ability to shift it. This is becoming a real problem, so I hope the Minister heard what the noble Baronesses said and that, if this is not the appropriate instrument to deal with it, something else can be done to address it going forward.
We have also heard about the involvement of local authorities. There is a commitment to limit the use of FPN proceeds to expanding or improving councils’ enforcement functions and cleaning up the consequences of this anti-social behaviour. As the Minister said, this was set out in the Prime Minister’s anti-social behaviour action plan last March. Can the Minister say why it has taken a year to bring this forward? It should be straightforward.
According to paragraphs 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the revenue from FPNs is generally spent on street-cleaning activity rather than enforcement. My understanding is that this SI will mean that more revenue is spent on prevention, which is very welcome, but how do the Government see councils plugging the gaps in their general street-cleansing budgets through this instrument? The Minister talked about the amount councils can charge being increased through this SI, but there is still a cap on fixed-penalty notices for fly-tipping, littering and graffiti. Will the Government consider removing the cap and explore whether more stringent court fines for the worst offenders could help councils investigate and prosecute fly-tippers and deter repeat offenders? We know that some people make a living out of doing this.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, gave the Committee an extremely good example. In our own communities, we have all heard about instances of people saying, “We’ll take that away for you”, taking a fee and then dumping it on someone else’s land. These repeat offenders need sorting out. The noble Baroness also talked about CCTV. CCTV is now being used in some areas of the Lake District National Park, because people are dumping rubbish even in some of the most beautiful areas of our national parks.
The enforcement actions include employing officers who are authorised to issue the fines. Have the Government any figures on the average number of officers employed by each local authority in England, in order to get an idea of the number of people currently involved? It would be interesting to know whether these are full-time posts or part of the officers’ wider responsibilities; if the latter, how does the ring-fencing work? If they have different responsibilities and this is just one of them, how is the ring-fencing guaranteed?
Paragraph 10.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the consultation that took place with local authorities, and states that there were no responses from the West Midlands, which seems a bit odd. Why did the West Midlands not take part?
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
My Lords, I thank all three noble Baronesses for their contributions to this debate. I will start with fly-tipping on private land, which they all raised. The Government appreciate the difficulty that fly-tipping poses to landowners. As was pointed out, it is indeed deeply unfair and places a huge and unreasonable burden on private landowners. The Government are working with a wide range of stakeholders, such as the NFU, through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, to promote and disseminate good practice, including how to prevent fly-tipping on private land.
Furthermore, in April last year, the National Police Chiefs’ Council established a new National Rural Crime Unit to support police forces nationally in responding to rural crime, including fly-tipping. Defra has awarded the National Rural Crime Unit a grant of £100,000 to fund a dedicated 12-month post, which started last month on the Northumberland-County Durham border, to explore the police’s role in tackling fly-tipping and how this can be optimised, with a particular focus on rural areas. Outputs from this will include training for police officers and working on intelligence-sharing across borders and between authorities.
Defra is also funding councils across the country to directly intervene at fly-tipping hotspots, including in rural areas, through the fly-tipping intervention grant scheme. For example, in Herefordshire, councils have seen a reduction in fly-tipping of over 90% across areas where CCTV—another issue raised by noble Baronesses —and signage have been installed, and they have developed stronger relationships with local farmers and landowners. If any noble Baroness has further specific questions on that issue, I will write to them.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Why was it excluded from the regulations before us today?
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
I will write to my noble friend on that because I do not have that detail in front of me.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, stated quite a strong view about the Government passing this burden, if you like, on to local authorities. Interestingly, that was in fairly stark contrast to what my noble friend Lady McIntosh had previously said. That illustrates to me that there is no right or wrong way to do this; it is probably just a personal choice. Everybody will have a view about how it might be best done, but the Government’s view is that this is the best way to do it. I appreciate that that will not get much traction or be very well received, but it is the Government’s position, and that is where we will be heading.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, mentioned the powers of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State already has these powers but due to the drafting required to retain the status quo, it has been necessary to restate them. This is linked to retaining the status quo in Wales. She also asked why there is a difference in the value of littering and fly-tipping. That is largely related to the volume associated with fly-tipping. It tends to be much greater and has the potential to cause much more damage to the land. Sorting out that problem usually takes a little more time and costs a little more money.
The noble Baroness also asked about the date of the draft consultation. I will write on that, because I do not have that detail with me.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked whether the SI had been laid, withdrawn and then relaid. She is absolutely correct; this is the exactly the same thing, but there have been a number of changes since then. There were some typographical errors in the last one which this seeks to address. I think she also asked why it has taken so long. The best answer I can give is that it is due to pressing parliamentary business. Other questions related to the number of officers employed and why the West Midlands do not feature in the consultation. Again, I am afraid I cannot give any details on that but will write.
I hope I have answered your Lordships’ questions and that all noble Lords share my conviction of the need for this instrument. As I outlined, it will help move more income from fixed-penalty receipts to building enforcement capability and capacity within English councils, meaning that more offenders are brought to justice. At the same time, the increased deterrent effect should make people think twice before ruining the local environment for the rest of us. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Douglas-Miller
That the Grand Committee do consider the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Douglas-Miller) (Con)
My Lords, we have an afternoon of waste regulations today. These regulations were laid in draft before the House on 17 January. They amend the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023. Since June last year, when those regulations were first amended, there has been significant change and development of the collection and packaging reforms. This includes a 12-month deferral to the full implementation of the packaging extended producer responsibility scheme, in order to focus on stakeholder engagement, and a delay to the Scottish deposit return scheme. These events have caused several issues that now require amendments to producers’ data reporting obligations.
I turn to the details of this instrument. These regulations introduce two key changes, but I assure the Committee from the outset that these changes are not a change of policy intent; instead, they address the delay to the Scottish deposit return scheme and stakeholder concerns. First, this SI removes the exemption from data reporting on drinks containers that would have been obligated in a Scottish deposit return scheme. The delay to that scheme, combined with the exemption from the data reporting regulations, meant that 180,000 tonnes of packaging would have gone unobligated for a number of years under both the deposit return scheme and the packaging extended producer responsibility. This amendment accounts for this development and ensures that all packaging supplied in the UK will attract a recycling obligation. The new provisions will exempt this material again once a deposit return scheme is operational.
Secondly, this instrument responds to stakeholder feedback on the definition of household packaging. These amendments address two key aspects of this feedback, broadening the definition to allow for more packaging to be exempt from disposal fees. The first update to the definition concerns packaging, or a packaged product, designed only for use by a business or a public institution: for example, a 50-litre beer keg. Under the current definition, if this beer keg is sold to a wholesaler before being supplied to the pub that uses it, this packaging would have to be reported as household packaging. However, large beer kegs are unlikely to end up in household bins. Our amendments introduce an additional test that offers producers the opportunity to exempt such packaging from being treated as household packaging.
The second update widens this “business only” exemption to include packaging or a packaged product that is supplied to public institutions, such as hospitals or schools, and is unlikely to end up being disposed of in a household bin, such as packaging for an ultrasound scanner or restricted medicines. These amendments allow for more packaging to be fairly exempted from being defined as household packaging and therefore not attract packaging extended producer responsibility disposal cost fees. However, all packaging, regardless of whether it is household packaging or not, will remain subject to packaging extended producer responsibility recycling obligations, as at present. This requires producers to purchase evidence from recycling facilities and those who export packaging for recycling; this is then used as proof that their recycling obligations have been met.
In addition to the two key areas that I have discussed, these regulations also make a number of other changes. There are four amendments that were identified not long after the original regulations came into force in early 2023. We were not able to include these in the amendments midway through the 2023 data collection year as they would have retrospectively increased obligations. We therefore always intended to make these changes starting from the 2024 reporting year.
This includes an amendment to clarify that the packer or filler is obligated for branded packaging if the only brand on that packaging relates to the packaging itself, not the product inside. For example, if a packer or filler puts their product in a branded “Jiffy bag” but does not add their own brand to it, the packer or filler is obligated, not Jiffy. I hope that is clear.
A further amendment to the regulations clarifies who is responsible for packaging where ownership is retained by an overseas producer while a UK-based third party imports or manufactures the product on their behalf. Once the ownership is passed to a UK-based client, that person, as the first UK-based owner, becomes obligated for that packaging. This could be a supermarket or wholesaler. This amendment ensures that packaging does not go unobligated.
The third amendment addresses a loophole to ensure that distributor producers retain their obligations where they sell empty packaging to large producers that then sell the packaging onwards without filling it, for example where a distributor makes coffee cups and sells them to a wholesaler, and then that wholesaler sells them on to a small coffee shop. In this scenario, the amendment will make the distributor the obligated producer for those coffee cups.
The regulations also amend the data reporting requirements on the nation in which packaging is sold. The regulations already require reporting by nation of packaging sold from a business to a consumer. This fix extends this requirement to ensure that data on the nation in which packaging is sold from one business to another is also collected. This was always the intention and will help enable recycling rates to be tracked individually in each nation. In addition, we are making an amendment that will aid distributor producers to comply with the regulations. It does this by requiring the Environment Agency to publish a list of all large producers that have reported data, supporting distributors to identify which of their customers are obligated producers in their own right.
Finally, the SI includes some minor amendments to correct drafting; some provisions to accommodate for the transition from the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007; and some changes to help avoid the reporting of one piece of packaging by two producers. These amending regulations will apply to England only, but similar amending regulations are being progressed in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. My officials have worked closely with the relevant departments in the devolved Administrations in the development of this legislation.
In conclusion, I emphasise that the measures in these regulations are crucial for enabling the effective implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging and realising its associated environmental benefits. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling these regulations. I have two quick questions.
First, throughout the Explanatory Memorandum, a key theme is the link between the regulations before us and the extended producer responsibility regulations. When might we expect to see them? The two fit quite closely together. I do not know whether my noble friend can give us a date, but I understand that those regulations will contain guidance relating to the ones before us.
Secondly, I looked up the cost-benefit analysis and if I understand it correctly, the costs are about £1,200 million per year, presumably to producers of the packaging —I do not know whether that includes local authorities—and the benefits are zero. If so, is that beneficial going forward, on the basis of that cost-benefit impact assessment?
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his informative introduction to this long-awaited and much-heralded SI. He will be relieved to know that, unlike the previous SI, I am not outraged by this one.
These regulations come into effect on 1 April 2024. Large producers must collect the data from 1 January to 30 June this year but may not have to report it. However, all must collect and report the data from the commencement date of 1 April to 30 June, according to the Explanatory Memorandum. It is not clear what the large producers are expected to do. Can the Minister provide some clarification?
The Environment Agency will provide the necessary guidance for this SI. Why is it necessary for the EA to do so? Why is Defra not doing it? The EA is already under-resourced and under pressure, with a wealth of other duties. Surely Defra, which has increased its staff considerably in recent years, could have produced this guidance for what is, after all, a government policy objective.
These regulations relate to the extended producer responsibility scheme, as the Minister said, whereby producers will pay a tax for the amount of packaging they release on to the market. However, information about the cost will not be available until the producer responsibility, packaging and packaging waste regulations are produced. Smaller producers are particularly affected by not knowing the likely level of fees, and cash flow is a vital element of their businesses. I am sure the Minister is ready for the next question and will have a substantive answer. Exactly when will these regulations be published? Without them, the exercise we are going through today is somewhat meaningless.
I fully support these regulations, which should help considerably to eliminate plastic and other non-compostable waste from our environment. I have been contacted, as I am sure have others, by the Federation of Wholesale Distributors. It too is wholly supportive of the regulations but has a couple of reservations. usbIt feels that it is essential that the Government and the Environment Agency work with the sector on the types of products that will be classified as household waste. Can the Minister give a reassurance on this issue? The FWD is also keen to see continued collaboration between the Government and the wholesale sector to ensure that EPR remains a pragmatic and inclusive policy. I fully support the FWD in its aims and objectives. It is only by working together that a solution which suits all will be found and, therefore, be successful.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his clear introduction. Previous speakers have asked the questions I am particularly interested in, so I shall be brief. We support any measures aimed at promoting better use of our natural resources and increasing reuse and recycling. Establishing correct base data is fundamental to the success of the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging, so we welcome this instrument.
We appreciate the reasons behind the instrument, which the Minister explained very clearly. However, I have a question about paragraph 10 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which deals with the consultation outcome. Paragraph 10.5 say that a third consultation on PEPR ran from July to October 2023. Paragraph 10.6 states that the response is being reviewed and that a summary is expected to be published in the spring of this year, which is only a few weeks away. Is it expected that anything in the outcome of that consultation might have been useful to have ahead of this legislation? It seems a bit odd that the Government did not finish the consultation before introducing this legislation. If there is something useful in it, are we likely to see a similar SI in the near future?
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
I thank the noble Baronesses for their questions. I am not sure that I grasped the nub of my noble friend Lady McIntosh’s question. I wonder whether I might chat to her afterwards about it, or I can write to her, or both.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked when producers are going to get clarity concerning fees for the extended producer responsibility packaging scheme. Producer fee rates will be set and published by the scheme administrator. Rates for the 2025-26 financial year will not be known until spring 2025, once all the producer packaging data has been received and checked. In the meantime, to support producers we aim to publish illustrative fees as soon as possible.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, also asked about stakeholder concerns about EPR. We continue to listen to feedback from all stakeholders throughout the development and delivery of this policy. The 12-month deferral of producer fees from 2024-25 has given producers an additional year to prepare for them, while also giving us the opportunity to consult producers on the deliverability of the draft regulations. Some of the amendments to this SI are in direct response to the feedback we have received from the consultation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked about the planned consultation. I think it would be best if I wrote to her on that. I am not aware of anything that is likely to come out of that which would require us to do another SI.
I hope I have covered most of the questions; if I have missed anything, I will write. I trust that noble Lords understand and accept the need for this instrument, which will make crucial changes to the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023. These changes will ensure that drinks containers supplied in Scotland pick up an obligation in the same way that drinks containers supplied elsewhere do. The amendments will also widen the provisions that allow some primary and shipment packaging to become exempt from being defined as household packaging.
I thank noble Lords once again for their contributions and support today, and I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Electricity Supplier Obligations (Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston
That the Grand Committee do consider the Electricity Supplier Obligations (Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 12th Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Johnson of Lainston) (Con)
My Lords, as a matter of good practice, I refer the Committee to my interests. I do not believe that there is any conflict with these specific measures.
The Electricity Supplier Obligations (Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, the Electricity Capacity (Supplier Payment etc.) (Amendment and Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2024, the Energy-Intensive Industry Electricity Support Payments and Levy Regulations 2024 and the Renewables Obligation (Amendment) (Energy Intensive Industries) Order 2024 were laid on 23 and 24 January this year. I acknowledge that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments provided a helpful review of these instruments and did not draw the special attention of this House or the other place to them. I also acknowledge that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has reported these statutory instruments as instruments of interest to Members.
Together, these four instruments make up the British industry supercharger, which aims to support our most energy-intensive industries with the cost of electricity. Energy-intensive industries, known as EIIs, include important foundational manufacturing sectors such as steel and metals in Port Talbot, for example; chemical manufacturers; paper, glass, ceramics and so on. As foundation industries, these businesses are critical in the development of new projects including offshore wind. They therefore play an important role in the transition to net zero.
The British industry supercharger also provides relief for new and emerging industries such as battery manufacturers, which are critical to electric vehicles and manufacturers of semiconductors, which are critical to the high-tech economy. Due to their nature, these industries require significantly more electricity use than other sectors. As a result, they are disproportionately impacted by high electricity prices.
The Government already provide some electricity price support to these industries, but there remains a competitive gap with other nations. In the UK, our electricity prices for medium and large industrial users were the highest in western Europe in 2019, so these regulations importantly seek to close that gap, ensuring that British industry can thrive and grow, attracting new investment rather than losing out to cheaper production overseas, and helping to mitigate the risk of carbon leakage due to cheaper energy costs elsewhere.
This existing support was put in place in 2017 and, since then, over 370 businesses have benefited from an 85% exemption from certain renewable energy levies. Under these new measures, those business that are eligible for the exemption scheme will not only see an increase in the value of their exemption, up to 100%, but benefit from a new exemption from capacity market charges, as well as receiving compensation for a proportion of their network charges.
Taken together, the Government estimate that this support could be worth, on average, around £24 to £31 per megawatt hour, closing the competitive gap between UK industrial energy prices and those faced by international competitors.
These savings are funded by spreading the cost widely among all other electricity consumers, which is estimated to add between 5 to 10 pence per week to the average domestic bill, and increase electricity costs for non-domestic consumers by about £1 a megawatt hour, once all measures have been fully implemented by 2025-26. These are clearly estimates, since the energy market is highly volatile, but these are our projections and it is important to understand the scale of the effect.
The sectors eligible for the British industry supercharger support scheme employ around 400,000 workers and account for more than a quarter of total UK exports. Many are located in areas of economic disadvantage and provide good, high-paid jobs. This carefully crafted support will mean strategically important UK industries remaining competitive on the world stage. We will back these businesses to keep on growing our economy and delivering into the UK both high-quality jobs and investment as well as the products that we rely on for our everyday lives and work.
I shall summarise for noble Lords. These regulations amend the Electricity Supplier Obligations (Amendment & Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2015, which make provision for indirectly exempting eligible energy-intensive industries from the full costs of funding the contracts for difference scheme as set out in the Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) Regulations 2014. They amend the Electricity Capacity (Supplier Payment etc.) Regulations 2014 to make provision for indirectly exempting eligible energy-intensive industries from the costs of funding the capacity market. They make provision under the Energy-Intensive Industry Electricity Support Payments and Levy Regulations 2024 for electricity support payments to be provided to energy-intensive industries for the purpose of alleviating the impact of electricity costs under the proposed network charging compensation scheme. They amend the Renewables Obligation Order 2015 to allow the Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to revise the renewables obligation level for the 2024-25 scheme year; this will allow the implementation of the increased EII exemption rate under this scheme from 1 April 2024 onwards.
In conclusion, this suite of regulations will help bring electricity costs down for the most energy-intensive and trade-intensive industries—such as steel, chemicals, glass and battery manufacturers—to a level similar to those of their European counterparts. In my view, this is crucial in helping UK-based firms remain competitive, incentivising investment and a move towards decarbonisation through electrification. With that, I beg to move.
Earl Russell (LD)
I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. Before I start, let me say that I will not speak for longer than I would do if we were dealing with just one set of regulations; I will treat all the regulations together and not go through them individually. I will conclude by asking just a couple of questions. I apologise in advance if any of my questions are wrong. These are quite complicated regulations so I offer any advance apologies as necessary.
These four draft instruments propose to implement jointly the key aspects of the British industry supercharger, a package of measures that the Government announced back in February 2023. It aims to make strategic energy- intensive industries, or EIIs, in the UK—for example, steel production, cement production and glass manufacturing, as well as other areas including critical national infrastructures such as steel and chemicals—more competitive. This is to be achieved by closing the gap in electricity prices between the UK and our competitor countries, especially in the European Union. I note that these measures apply only in the UK and not in Northern Ireland.
Despite the technical names of these regulations, there is a back story to all of this, with the war in Ukraine, Covid and our continued reliance on importing energy. We know the impact that this has had on the increase in energy bills in the domestic sphere. These measures are the equivalent of saying, “It’s a question of the Government supporting these energy-intensive industries to make sure that they can continue, survive and flourish in a market where energy prices are rising”. However, I want to be clear: they water down some of the reforms to our carbon markets that have previously been agreed.
I understand that the impact of these measures will be that the cost of emitting 1 tonne of carbon under the UK’s emissions trading scheme will fall from almost £100, as it was a year ago, to about £47. I also understand that the costs will be borne by bill payers, be they domestic consumers, small and medium-sized industries, charities, the health sector or the education sector in this country. I understand that, for these industries, the percentage of their operating costs that is represented by the cost of energy has risen; in some cases, it has risen from 3% of their operating costs to 10% or in some cases 15%. So I recognise that these instruments are important and necessary. I will not go through them individually; I had a sentence on that but, in the interests of time, I will cut that out.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out these instruments so clearly and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his contribution. These four instruments implement key aspects of the British industry supercharger, as mentioned by the Minister, a package announced in February 2023 to make energy-intensive industries—EIIs—in Great Britain competitive. These industries face challenges in the coming decade. The primary issue is the relatively high cost of energy in the UK, which makes it difficult for them to remain internationally competitive. Furthermore, there is a need for them to implement transitions toward greener technology, with lower carbon leakage, as we strive to move towards a net-zero economy. We recognise these challenges and broadly support these instruments, in so far as they seek to address them for these industries, which are vital for our national security and the literal fabric of our national growth.
The first instrument exempts eligible EIIs from the costs associated with funding the capacity market and seeks to ensure that there is sufficient supply despite fluctuations in demand, especially at peak times of day or in colder periods, and in supply, for example when wind generation is low. While we support this instrument, have the Government considered whether this will lead to any shortfall in the capacity market? If so, what measures are in place to mitigate this?
The second instrument concerns additional costs due to green levies which the UK imposes and some of our international competitors do not. We do not want this differential cost to drive our energy-intensive industries abroad, so this instrument adjusts an already existing scheme and exempts EIIs from 100% of the costs of funding various environmental schemes. Industrial electricity costs in comparable neighbouring countries are evidently not static, so will the Government keep them under review? If there is movement, do they have plans to make further adjustments if necessary?
For both these instruments, the Government’s calculations accept expected increased electricity bills for non-eligible users, including small businesses, charities and households. For this instrument, that is cited at 20p to 30p per megawatt hour. With the current spot price at just under £60 per megawatt hour and the reduction since the start of this year already being closer to £30, that certainly does not seem a massive amount. However, will the Minister outline how much these regulations, in conjunction, will add to the average household electricity bill per annum? The third instrument follows by necessity to enable the Secretary of State to revise the renewables obligation level from 2024-25.
The fourth and final instrument makes minor amendments to the Energy Act 2023, sets out funding for the payments via a levy on suppliers and appoints an administrator. Such support payments are to be made to the EIIs quarterly. Will there be an automated process for eligible recipients to receive these payments with the minimum administrative fuss? Have the Government made forecasts as to whether the costs of this scheme will outstrip the contributions from the electricity suppliers, which will effectively be funding the EII support levy? Are there any provisions in place for this possibility, so that the scheme does not collapse if it is successful?
This instrument allows corrections to be made to support payment entitlements. It will also make provisions for the administrator to hold a reserve fund so that EIIs will always be able to receive payment. Do the Government expect this will need to be used? If so, how big will it be and is there a maximum time limit over which the administrator will be expected to cover the shortfall?
We will be very happy to support these four instruments if the Minister can provide some assurances on the concerns I have mentioned. I look forward to his response.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for their comments. These measures are extremely important if we are to have a sustainable heavy industry in this country. If I may take my own experience as Investment Minister, I have unquestionably been able to land a significant amount of investment—some of the biggest investments that we have announced to date, particularly in the car and advanced manufacturing industries—because we have these mechanisms in place. It is not even ambiguous. It is a clear point of fact in these discussions and is very important.
The noble Earl rightly raised that we do not want to be subsidising carbon-intensive businesses out of some desire to keep historic organisations going, contrary to our net-zero ambitions and our overall industrial policy. It is right to challenge the principle of carbon leakage, which is exactly what would happen if we did not operate this process. It is designed to help these businesses to decarbonise. For example, for Port Talbot, which will obviously be a receiver of these support packages, the intention is clearly that it will decarbonise. If you look at the car industry, it is going to an EV industry, and rightly so.
The noble Earl asked when the next review will be, how we will review it and how we add companies. This is an issue with novel technologies coming forward and with industries that need this support, which may not already be under a current and easy-to-define classification. Quite rightly, we will review this. The next review point is 2026. This measure will come into force next month so it seems logical that there is an 18-month or two-year period for review. I am absolutely sure that, at that point, there will be some quite significant changes. It gives us an opportunity to take companies and sectors out and put new companies and sectors in. I am positive about that.
I am also positive about the ability to spread the cost. The noble Lord, Lord Leong, rightly asked how much this will add to the electricity bills of an average household. These are the dreaded averages but we are looking at £4 to £5. I am very aware that there is a cost of living crisis and that there are other pressures on people’s households but, when you look at the ability to target this type of support for that type of diffuse outcome, it makes a lot of sense. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned the power-generating and petrochemical industries, which do not qualify for this. I am sure that there are others that do not qualify; we would be happy to provide a specific list. It is a 1% increase overall.
Noble Lords will know that I have spent many years in investment and looking at financial markets. The energy markets present a high degree of volatility. The gas prices now are lower than they have been for a considerable period. We are very dependent on gas, which is why our own power structure is so complex to manage. Looking at the network costs, the capacity market charges that are made and other exemptions, these mechanisms are really about removing the obligations to invest in the net-zero ambitions of the UK while expecting businesses to do it for themselves. There is a sensible trade-off there. It is well balanced.
The noble Lord, Lord Leong, asked whether there would be a shortfall in the capacity market point because of the effective compensation being paid. As I understand it, that charge has never been utilised. We are confident that there is no effect on the capacity market in terms of the charges that are being made; I would be happy to investigate that further. On technical guidance and the transparency around these processes, let me say that, as Minister for regulatory reform, better regulation or smarter regulation—whatever the current title is—impact assessments are important to me. I hope that all noble Lords have read the impact assessment reports for these statutory instruments; anyone listening to this debate is also welcome to do so. It is a transfer rather than a new cost so it does not show up on the impact assessment process as clearly as it would do if it were a new principal regulation.
It is important that there is as much transparency as possible because these are, in effect, transfer charges. This is a transparent system; to some extent, it requires the complicit consent of industry in general and the public. It is important that this is happening in a private sector capacity with government direction. We feel that this is absolutely the right thing to do. It is highly diffuse in its impact and very targeted. We believe that it will allow the UK to be incredibly competitive when it comes to developing its advanced manufacturing ambitions.
I hope that I have answered all the questions from noble Lords today. If I have not, I will certainly scrutinise Hansard and welcome any follow-up, but this is a relatively uncontentious series of statutory instruments.
In summary, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned that he was not going to address each statutory instrument individually; he was quite right not to, not just in the interests of time but because this is one package—they are naturally separated for reasons of legislative complexity but this is the British industry supercharger. It presents a powerful package to industry and sends a strong message to the country and internationally that we want to support businesses as they develop and decarbonise. Support for our economy gives us great growth for the future. With that, I commend this instrument to the Committee.
Renewables Obligation (Amendment) (Energy Intensive Industries) Order 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston
That the Grand Committee do consider the Renewables Obligation (Amendment) (Energy Intensive Industries) Order 2024.
Relevant document: 12th Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Energy-Intensive Industry Electricity Support Payments and Levy Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston
That the Grand Committee do consider the Energy-Intensive Industry Electricity Support Payments and Levy Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 12th Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Electricity Capacity (Supplier Payment etc.) (Amendment and Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston
That the Grand Committee do consider the Electricity Capacity (Supplier Payment etc.) (Amendment and Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 12th Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Data Protection Act 2018 (Amendment of Schedule 2 Exemptions) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom
That the Grand Committee do consider the Data Protection Act 2018 (Amendment of Schedule 2 Exemptions) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, this instrument, which was laid before the House on 31 January 2024, would amend paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018, more commonly known as the immigration exemption. The Government are amending these provisions following the Court of Appeal judgment on 11 December 2023, which found the immigration exemption incompatible with provisions in the UK GDPR. The court suspended the effect of the judgment until 11 March 2024 to allow the Government time to make the necessary amendments.
I will briefly outline what the immigration exemption does and the changes being made by these regulations. Parliament included the immigration exemption in the Data Protection Act 2018. It provides a legal basis to derogate from certain data subject rights where their exercise is likely to prejudice effective immigration control. For example, a data subject has the right to request and receive details of what personal data is held about them and how it is being processed. Under the provisions of the immigration exemption, the Government may limit the information provided in response to that request if, for example, the provision of that information would tip off the data subject that they were about to be subject to immigration enforcement. The immigration exemption is therefore an important provision in the DPA 2018 that allows the Government to protect the functioning of the immigration system. This was noted specifically by the Court of Appeal in its judgment.
The Court of Appeal’s judgment noted two technical deficiencies in the current exemption. First, the safeguards to be applied to the immigration exemption needed to be in the legislation itself; this is being amended by the regulations’ new paragraph 4A, which inserts the safe- guards on the use of the immigration exemption previously contained in the immigration exemption policy document into the legislation.
The court also determined that the risks to rights and freedoms of individuals were not sufficiently set out in the legislation. This is being remedied by new paragraph 4A(3), which specifically sets out the rights and vulnerabilities that should be taken into account when exercising the exemption. By including these explicitly in the legislation, we are providing increased clarity on the safeguards that are already applied when exercising the provisions of the exemption.
The Government are also choosing explicitly to include provisions as to the balancing exercise that must be undertaken when determining whether the exercise of data rights is likely to prejudice effective immigration control and, if it is necessary and proportionate, to restrict such rights as a result. The draft regulations were subject to consultation with the parties to the judicial review proceedings as well as the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO issued a public response to the consultation confirming that it was content with the regulations.
The Government have acted to meet the requirements of the Court of Appeal’s judgment while continuing to ensure that there are necessary safeguards in the legislation to protect effective immigration control. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that explanation. I have to say that my recollection is that the issue is much wider than the exemption and ensuring that there is no tip-off to somebody who is about to be visited by immigration enforcement. Let me give an example that was borne out after the Act was passed: solicitors acting for data subjects were unable, as we had anticipated, to find out what the Home Office thought it knew—I put it that way deliberately —about their clients.
I have some general points to make; I will do so fairly quickly. It would be optimistic to think that the Home Office had taken from this saga that objections and criticisms—in the form of amendments, obviously—can be helpful because we could have avoided a lot of effort in rectification. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones will go into some of the history; I must admit, I do not recall much detail except for being teased frequently by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, when she was the Home Office Minister, because I brought up our objection to the immigration exemption so often.
I feel strongly that it should not have to be for non-governmental organisations that are no doubt strapped for cash to do so much in order to get things right. I appreciate that that is part of our democracy; I do not object at all to the fact that they can do so, of course, but they should not have to. An application, an appeal, another judicial review, another appeal—at what cost to those organisations and the taxpayer! I emphasise that there is an exclamation mark, not a question mark, at the end of that sentence.
This saga is one of those episodes that vindicates the role of the courts, often in language that I, for one, relish. We have spent a lot of time in the Chamber recently discussing the role of the courts in our constitution; to give one example of the language, I really liked the understated use of
“over-broad derogations from fundamental rights”.
As the Minister said, the litigants were consulted before the publication of the SI. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reports that it made three points, of which one, on oversight, was rejected by the Home Office and one was regarded by the Home Office as not necessary. Can the Minister tell the Committee what these were and why they were not pursued?
On the detail of the instrument, I note that it will be a matter for the Secretary of State to balance the risks to the individual and the risks to the state. I happen to think that it is in the public interest to apply exemptions with a very light touch, but of course it is no secret that the Liberal Democrats have problems with the Home Office’s immigration policy, and I fear that the reputational ship is well on its way. Clearly, there is an imbalance of power. That is inevitable, but it is not easy for the individual data subject to exercise his rights, and we should be aware of that.
Can the Minister also tell us what the Home Office will do to ensure that there will be transparency of decisions so that it can appropriately be held to account? Mechanisms must be written into the procedures. New paragraph 4B of Schedule 2 provides for a record of decisions and reasons. How will that be published and what will happen to it?
Will the Minister also comment on the capacity of immigration enforcement—and whoever else needs to—to look at prospective decisions on a case-by-case basis for each disapplication? I recognise that that will not necessarily be a straightforward and easy exercise, but it certainly requires a great deal more than, “It’s okay; it’s immigration, so we can just rely on the exemption”. Case-by-case decision-making is very important.
Finally, I note that the Explanatory Memorandum tells us that there is no full impact assessment because the instrument
“does not substantively alter the safeguards and considerations for applying the Immigration Exemption”.
I have to say that I thought that was the point.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, this set of regulations is a step forward, but with all the caveats that my noble friend made, and I have some more.
As the Minister confirmed, these regulations are the result of the Open Rights Group case—the Court of Appeal judgment in the3million & Anor, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor—which confirms the earlier High Court judgment in March 2023. In broad terms, the Court of Appeal found that the immigration exemption in Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018 conflicted with the safeguards in Article 23 of the UK GDPR, as the Minister said. This was because the immigration exemption was drafted too broadly and failed to incorporate the safeguards prescribed for exemptions under Article 23 of the UK GDPR. It was therefore held to be unlawful and was disapplied.
These regulations follow two previous attempts by the Home Office to craft an immigration exemption which contained sufficient safeguards to satisfy the requirements set out in Article 23 of the UK GDPR. This is the third shot at it. In order to make the immigration exemption compatible with the requirements of Article 23, as the Minister explained, the Government added a number of safeguards to the exemption which were not there before. These are set out in the regulations. They are worth stating because they are really important requirements, which were omitted previously.
They include requirements to: make decisions on the application of the exemption on a case-by-case basis; make separate decisions in respect of each of the relevant UK GDPR provisions which relates to the data subject; make fresh decisions on each occasion where there is consideration or restriction of any of the relevant UK GDPR provisions in relation to the data subject; take into account all the circumstances of the case, including the potential vulnerability of the data subject, and so on; and apply the exemption only if the application of the particular UK GDPR provision would give rise to a substantial risk of prejudice that outweighs the risk of prejudice to the interests of the data subject, ensuring that the application of the exemption is necessary and proportionate to the risks in the particular case.
You would think it rather extraordinary that those are excluded from the previous regulations. In addition, a record must be made of the decision to apply the exemption, together with the reasons for that decision. There is also a rebuttable presumption that the data subject will be informed of the use of the exemption.
The ICO welcomed them in its letter to the Home Office as, in its view, satisfying the requirements of the Open Rights Group case. In its view, the proposed changes will ensure that the exemption complies with Article 23(2) of the UK GDPR and ensure that there are appropriate safeguards to protect individuals. Since it took part in the case as an interested party, this is of considerable reassurance. I congratulate the Open Rights Group and the3million on not one but two notable successes in court cases which have forced the Home Office to amend the exemption twice.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I agree with much of what they said. I thank the Minister for his introduction to this important SI.
In May 2021, the Court of Appeal ruled that the wording of the exemption at the time did not comply with GDPR because it did not provide sufficient safeguards against abuse or risks to data subjects. In December 2021, the Government laid an instrument intending to rectify this by introducing guidance. However, officials then found that the guidance was not sufficient and a further Court of Appeal judgment required the Government to come forward with safeguards that they have now put into the legislation. We support the SI in doing that.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister regarding that. Paragraph 5.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that the High Court said that,
“the balancing test between the rights of individuals and the maintenance of effective immigration control should be set out more explicitly in the legislation”.
Can the Minister say a little more about how the Government intend that test to work and the criteria for the balance between the rights of the individual versus the rights of immigration control? How is it different from before? Presumably there was some sort of test even if it was not in any legislation. Is there any oversight of how this operates, anywhere that this has to be reported so that there is oversight of it? Who applies for the exemption? Who starts the process of saying, “We think that there should be an exemption in this case”. What is the process for that?
Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I am interested to know how many times this has been used over the past few years. How many exemptions have taken place? What is the status of those who have had this applied to them where their data was not compliant with the law? Presumably they were subject to some sort of immigration sanction. Can the Minister say anything about this?
There is a question that I always ask. Sometimes it is irrelevant, but I ask it anyway. Does it impact on anyone leaving the country? Obviously, it impacts on people coming in, but I am never sure about anyone leaving the country, which is a weakness in our immigration system. We spend a lot of time talking about people coming in, but I sometimes wonder whether counting people out might be an idea as well.
The Explanatory Memorandum talks of the need to consider any,
“potential vulnerability of the data subject”
Does this SI impact on unaccompanied children and children more generally or are children exempt and it is just applicable to adults? I am not sure. I apologise if that is in there, but I could not see it anywhere, so I just wonder whether it applies to children or just to adults. There is some criticism that the Government rejected the idea of including storage and retention periods in the Bill. Can the Minister say why they rejected that?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I shall start with justification and the public interest, which is obviously at the core of this. Parliament included the immigration exemption as part of the Data Protection Act 2018, as has been noted, for the legitimate purpose of effective immigration control. The Court of Appeal declared in its judgment,
“that there can be no dispute that the Immigration Exemption has a legitimate aim and indeed seeks to advance important public interests.”
We agree with the court: the immigration exemption is vital to prevent the release of information which would otherwise prejudice effective immigration control. I particularly welcome its endorsement by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker.
I want to be clear with noble Lords what those important public interests are. Through targeted use of the immigration exemption, we are able to maintain our capability at the border to prevent criminals and those who seek to cause us harm threatening our country as well as to support other agencies and international partners. We are able to frustrate and prevent sham marriages and protect the integrity of ongoing immigration removal and enforcement action and forgery investigations. The immigration exemption is also used to protect people being forced into a marriage and to prevent individuals absconding when there is a planned immigration visit. The central aims are to protect our citizens, ensure the integrity of the border and prevent abuses of the immigration system.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about the balancing test. I will come on to the use of the exemption in practice, but it is always clear that the balancing test has to be carried out, and will now be explicitly in the Act. In practice, I can reassure noble Lords that the exemption is employed at around 70% of subject access requests relating to immigration and the Border Force. The amount of data that is restricted by the use of the exemption is, in the vast majority of cases, very little. It is not simply the case that where one piece of information is found to be prejudicial to immigration control, the Home Office does not respond to a request. The piece of information may be redacted as a result, but otherwise a full response will be given. It must be both necessary and proportionate to use the exemption, and this must be balanced against the risk to an individual’s rights. These existing standards will now be set out explicitly in the legislation.
I acknowledge that there was a difference of opinion in the House over whether the previous regulations amending the immigration exemption in 2022 met the requirements of Article 23 of the UK GDPR. The courts have agreed with the Government on a wide range of issues in the hearing. They declared that in two areas in particular the amended exemption did not, and the Government respect that ruling. We are confident that these regulations meet the requirements of the judgment in full, and we are supported by the ICO in that opinion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked whether we consulted the claimants. They were consulted as part of the development of the provisions, and they suggested some additions to the provisions. We accepted suggestions to provide detail on applicable storage periods in the Explanatory Memorandum. We did not accept a suggestion to alter the existing model of ICO oversight of the exemption. The existing model of ICO oversight of the Home Office is robust, and data subjects are able to challenge use of the exemption. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, acknowledging the ICO’s part in this.
We also rejected the suggestion to specify in the legislation the wording that must be provided to data subjects when informing them that the provisions of the exemption have been applied. The provisions of the exemption are already accessible to data subjects and adding that detail to primary legislation would be unhelpful.
As regards how the ICO assesses the Government’s use of the immigration exemption, it already assesses the Home Office as part of its statutory role as regulator. Those assessments are published as data protection audit reports, setting out the findings and any recommendations. Should a data subject disagree with the decision to apply the immigration exemption in their case, the usual redress mechanisms to contact the ICO are available.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about the application of these rules to children. The immigration exemption applies to all immigration data, but there are special considerations in relation to minors, which are set out in the ICO’s guidance.
The subject of an impact assessment also came up, which relates to oversight and transparency more generally. It is important that these regulations retain the presumption that a data subject should be informed that the immigration exemption has been used—for example, to redact information provided to them in response to a subject access request. That allows the data subject to challenge that decision, should they believe that the application of the exemption is not justified. The ICO has appropriate powers to investigate whether the immigration exemption has been applied appropriately in a specific case. This is in addition to its overall assessment of the Home Office’s data protection practices, which include the use of the immigration exemption more broadly.
An impact assessment was carried out as part of the inclusion of the provision for the immigration exemption in the Data Protection Act 2018. A further supplementary impact assessment was conducted as part of the amendment to the exemption by the SI in 2022. This is noted in the Explanatory Memorandum. Given that there is no substantive change to the safeguards and scope of the exemption, we have not completed a new IA for this instrument.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
I am sorry; the Minister seems to be moving on from the impact issue. Clearly there was a period when the old regulation, which is now being superseded, was in operation and individuals were impacted. In a sense, an inappropriate exemption was used. What data does the Minister have about those individuals and the impact on them? What redress do they have? The Minister skated over the ICO’s redress mechanism. Is there no direct mechanism to the Home Office?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I did not skate over it at all; I referred to it explicitly and am happy to do so again, if it would help. I do not know if there is any specific redress to the Home Office. I would imagine not, given that it is explicit that data subjects should go via the ICO. If I am wrong on that, I will clarify.
I have no particular data on the subjects who may have been covered by this before the court’s decision, so I will have to find out, come back and write to the noble Lord if there is anything useful to add.
The Home Office already has relevant guidance and training in place for those exercising the immigration exemption provisions, but we are undertaking a review of those materials to ensure that they align with these regulations. That will be completed in time for the 11 March deadline to amend the current exemption. The instrument is making existing safeguards explicit in the legislation, which are already captured in the existing training and guidance, so we do not expect substantive changes to be needed.
The costs of the court case are not yet settled, but I am happy to commit to write once they have been.
There are a couple more bits to say. How often is the exemption used? The honest answer is not very often. I think I referred to this earlier, so it is probably redundant to say it again but, for the record, in the year ending October 2023, the immigration exemption was applied in around 70% of subject access requests received in relation to immigration citizenship and the Border Force. Of those, the vast majority had only a small amount of data redacted under the use of the exemption. So I suppose the answer to the noble Lord’s question is that it will have a very minimal impact on people, but I commit to clarify that.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about the relationship between the DPA and retained EU law. The official answer is that the focus of this SI is the immigration exemption and that discussions of the rules and the implications for the DPA 2018 are probably best debated as part of the DPDI Bill, which will, I believe, come to the House on 20 March. The unofficial answer is that I cannot comment on the noble Lord’s disposition because I did not really understand it and I do not have much knowledge of this subject. However, I note that we have left the EU: the people voted. Our rules can now be amended to our own circumstances, and of course, that applies across the entire legal suite. It was a pretty clear vote by the people of this country; I know that that does not suit the Liberal Democrats.
In closing, I hope that I have satisfactorily answered the points that were made and that noble Lords understand the necessity—
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
Before the Minister ends, can I go back to the record the Home Secretary is to keep under the schedule’s new paragraph 4B? It provides that, when he makes a decision, he must keep a record and the reasons for it. In essence, my question is about whether this will be public to any extent or whether transparency will be confined to the data subject. Also, I do not expect the Minister to go into any detail on this now or to comment, because he gave the figure, but 30% seems very high to me. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has commented in the past—not the immediate past but, then again, I have not asked it—about the difficulty data subjects and, in particular, their legal representatives face because they simply do not know what the Home Office thinks it knows about their clients, which is an important starting point for any legal representation and any claim. I make this point because it really needs to be made.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for making her point. As regards what is required of the Home Secretary, for obvious reasons, it will not be public, although I agree that transparency is important when it comes to culture; we talked about that earlier in the context of the police, where similar rules apply. It will, however, be available to the ICO and subject to the usual transparency rules at the ICO’s request.
As I have already noted, we understand the necessity of these changes in order to ensure compliance with the Court of Appeal’s judgment and to increase clarity around the use of the immigration exemption. With that, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (Remedial) Order 2023
(2 months ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom
That the Grand Committee do consider the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (Remedial) Order 2023.
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, this order was first laid before Parliament for consideration on 20 March 2023. It was laid again on 18 October 2023, and sat for 60 days. It was debated in the other place on 23 January 2024. As noble Lords will be aware, it is a top priority for the Government to maintain our national security and keep the public safe. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 provides robust privacy safeguards in relation to investigatory powers.
The United Kingdom’s investigatory powers regime is world-leading and provides the international standard on transparency, privacy, redress and oversight to accompany the exercise of these critical powers. This House recently considered the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill, on which noble Lords provided expert scrutiny. I am hopeful that today’s debate will be approached in the same spirit.
This instrument will make necessary and important amendments to the IPA following the May 2021 judgment from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Big Brother Watch and others v the United Kingdom, which I will refer to as BBW. The ruling from the Grand Chamber related to the United Kingdom’s bulk interception regime under the legislation which preceded the IPA—the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The Grand Chamber found that certain aspects of that regime were not compliant with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, on respect for private and family life, and Article 10, on freedom of expression. While most of the incompatibilities identified by the Grand Chamber were addressed through the introduction of the IPA, there was one outstanding issue which requires an amendment to the IPA. This relates to journalistic safeguards, which I will come to later.
I will first briefly explain how the bulk interception regime operates, so that it is clear how these additional safeguards will be applied. The main purpose of a bulk interception warrant is to acquire overseas-related communications. That material is then retained for the minimum amount of time necessary for the authorised purposes. Criteria are used to search through that material to find material which is useful in support of operational purposes. Useful material is then retained for the minimum amount of time necessary for the authorised purposes.
Section 154 of the IPA covers the journalistic safeguards for bulk interception. Presently, it requires only that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner be informed if material thought to contain confidential journalistic material or sources of journalistic material is retained, following examination, for a purpose other than its destruction. There are additional safeguards in the interception code of practice. The code requires that the relevant intelligence agency seek the agreement of a senior official within a warrant-granting department before the agency may select material for examination, in order to identify or confirm a source of journalistic information.
The purpose of this remedial order is to amend the IPA to strengthen the existing journalistic safeguards for bulk interception under Section 154, which is not possible through the delegated powers provided for within the Act. It does this by requiring that approval from the Investigatory Powers Commissioner is obtained before any criteria are used where the purpose is to select material for examination that is confidential journalistic material or a source of journalistic material, or where it would be highly likely to do so. The retention of confidential journalistic material or sources of journalistic material must also be authorised by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. There is also an urgency provision, which I will come on to later. It is necessary that the Government introduce this reform to ensure that our intelligence agencies can maintain their ability to carry out bulk interception in line with the convention and the Human Rights Act 1998.
Bulk interception is an important operational tool which is used by intelligence agencies to identify threats to the national security of the United Kingdom—it was recognised by the Grand Chamber as such—as well as in tackling serious and organised crime and maintaining the United Kingdom’s economic well-being. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner already provides oversight of the acquisition, examination and retention of confidential journalistic material and sources of journalistic material obtained under bulk interception. Legislative change is needed so that these safeguards are expressly set out within the legislation. Failure to amend the IPA would mean that the UK’s bulk interception regime would continue to be in breach of Article 10 of the convention.
This remedial order introduces amendments to Section 154, the creation of a new Section 154A and a minor consequential amendment to Section 229(8). The amendment to Section 154 will introduce enhanced safeguards relating to the criteria used to select material for examination that will identify confidential journalistic material or identify or confirm sources of journalistic material derived from material acquired through bulk interception. The permission of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner will be required before such material can be purposefully selected for examination or knowingly retained for a purpose other than destruction.
Permission from the commissioner is also required before such material may be retained. The commissioner will make that decision on the basis of whether it is in the public interest to retain the material. The commissioner may impose conditions on the retention of the material. The creation of the new Section 154A introduces an urgency process for dealing with requests for authorisations out of hours. These authorisations will be subject to subsequent judicial approval and any search activity must cease if approval is refused, so urgent applications will still be subject to rigorous independent scrutiny. The judicial commissioner will make their decision on the basis of whether it is in the public interest to approve the use of the search criteria.
The amendment to Section 229(8) is a consequential amendment which includes reference to the new functions of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner in Sections 154 and 154A so that they are treated consistently within the IPA. Sections 229(6) and (7) require judicial commissioners to not act in a way that is contrary to the public interest, national security, the prevention or detection of serious crime or the economic well-being of the UK. Section 229(8) then disapplies that requirement when the judicial commissioner is exercising various functions such as considering whether to approve the authorisation of a bulk interception warrant. Subsection (8) is amended by this instrument to include decisions by the judicial commissioner under new Sections 154 and 154A. This is consistent with similar judicial commissioner functions in other parts of the IPA and ensures that the judicial commissioners can exercise their functions properly.
This remedial Order will ensure that the United Kingdom fulfils its obligations under Article 10 of the convention by making the necessary changes to the bulk interception regime under the IPA in order to be compliant with the findings of the Grand Chamber in BBW. These changes will further strengthen the world-leading safeguards within the IPA, which is a crucial tool in the ongoing effort to protect the United Kingdom and its citizens. I therefore commend the draft Order to the Committee.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful introduction.
This SI concerns the selection for examination and retention of confidential journalistic material which has been collected under a bulk interception warrant. Big Brother Watch brought a challenge to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the predecessor of IPA, and the courts found several incompatibilities with the ECHR. Most of those incompatibilities were resolved by the introduction of the IPA in 2016. One issue remained—where an intelligence agency seeks to select confidential journalistic material for examination obtained under a bulk interception warrant or identify sources of journalistic material, the selection criteria used should be subject to prior independent authorisation. Where they are found during the examination of bulk data, their retention must be independently authorised.
In its report on the draft version of this instrument, the JCHR made three recommendations. Two have been accepted by the Government and integrated in this SI. However, the Government have not fully accepted the third recommendation, which was that security agencies engage with the Investigatory Powers Commissioner so that they can review journalistic material which had been retained before this SI is implemented. The Government responded that notification of the IPC is already required for an application for the retention of confidential journalistic material and that a judicial commissioner also must consider the application. Additionally, the IPC audits statements submitted for retention applications. However, if the Government accept that there is a need to change the law, surely they accept that there is a need to create an additional review in cases that will not be captured by the new regulations?
I have some questions which may be helpful for those who read these proceedings. Can the Minister explain why these changes have not been brought about as part of the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill, given that it is still going through Parliament? New Sections 195 and 195A were inserted into the Investigatory Powers Act on Report in this House. They create additional safeguards for journalistic material for bulk equipment interference. Why is this being introduced separately? Can the Government provide more details on why they have not fully accepted the third recommendation of the JCHR?
In Article 2 of the SI before us, the Government talk about
“Additional safeguards for confidential journalistic material etc”,
and state that the two bodies that can investigate or seek approval are the Investigatory Powers Commissioner or a senior official. The Minister knows that I will ask who the senior official is. How senior does the senior official have to be? In what circumstances would you go not to the IPC for approval but to the senior official? I know the Minister tried—I expect that he thought that people would ask what “urgent” means—but can he say a little more about urgency, even though he included some of that in his remarks?
Does the senior official have to report every decision to the IPC, as outlined in the substituted Section 154A? Does the senior official have to inform the IPC within days or weeks of any decision that they have made? What happens if the IPC does not approve of the decision made by the senior official, given that, presumably, in the interim the Security Service will have acted as though it had permission? I hope that is clear: presumably a senior official can give permission, then for a few days the Security Service can operate as though it had permission, then the IPC turns around and says, “I don’t think that was the right decision and you do not have permission”. How does it function in the interim, if that is clear? You have a gap between the senior official giving permission and the IPC turning it down, which may be a few days. Does the Minister have anything to say about that?
Does the IPC or the senior official have to record their reasons for believing that the public interest in obtaining the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining confidentiality? In other words, do they have to be transparent about their reasons for coming to their conclusion? Similarly, under new subsections (6), (7) and (8), does the IPC or the senior official have to record the reason why the public interest in retaining the information outweighs the public interest in destroying the information that has been obtained? Again, it is the test about public interest and the conflict between confidentiality and openness and transparency. I wonder whether the Minister has anything to say about that.
However, I understand the need for the SI. I think some clarity around some of those questions would be helpful for those who read our deliberations but, with that, we support the SI.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his participation and support in the debate today. As I set out earlier, the changes that we are seeking to make to the Investigatory Powers Act will bring the bulk interception regime in line with the requirements of the European Court of Human Right’s Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Big Brother Watch. As I set out, it will ensure that the UK meets its obligations under Article 10 of the convention concerning confidential journalistic material and sources of journalistic material. Prior independent authorisation will be required where the purpose of the use of criteria to select material for examination is to identify confidential journalistic material or to identify or confirm a source of journalistic material. Prior independent authorisation will also be required for the retention of such material for purposes other than its destruction.
The noble Lord asked why this amendment was not taken forward as part of the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill. That Bill was announced in the King’s Speech on 8 November 2023 and was introduced into the House of Lords on the same day. The Home Office was not able to pre-empt the contents of the King’s Speech and there was no guarantee that the Bill would be brought forward in the fourth Session. The judgment in the BBW case was handed down in May 2021 and, as a considerable time has passed and with no guarantee of a suitable legislative vehicle, the Home Office felt it was necessary to remedy the incompatibility as soon as possible. A remedial order was therefore the most appropriate course of action; essentially, it was timing.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I know it sounds like dancing on the head of a pin, but what “senior” means is quite important, so I ask the Minister to clarify that.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I take the point. I absolutely will clarify it, if possible.
I would love to read the Committee my last answer, but I cannot read the writing, so I am sorry, and I apologise to whoever wrote it. Whatever it says, I will write to the noble Lord—or, rather, type—when I have deciphered it. I am very grateful for his contribution in this debate. As I set out, the changes we are seeking to make will ensure that the UK’s bulk interception regime meets its obligations under Article 10 of the convention and strengthens existing safeguards for journalists. I therefore commend this order to the Committee.
TV Licence Non-payment: Women
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Hoey
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of women who have been prosecuted for non-payment of the television licence in the past two years.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, the BBC is responsible for the collection and enforcement of the licence fee and it has undertaken a review of the disparity between the sexes in prosecutions for TV licence evasion. His Majesty’s Government remain concerned about the fairness of the criminal sanction for TV licence evasion and its disproportionate impact on women. That is why the issue will be considered in the BBC funding model review.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I thank the Minister for that. He will realise that about 1,000 people a week are prosecuted for non-payment of their licence—of whom 70% are women. Recently, the use of the single justice procedure with one magistrate has meant that the mitigating circumstances are often not heard. The magistrate may even be sitting at home. The elderly, the disabled and the poorest are most likely to be prosecuted. Capita gets £456 million from the BBC for the use of its investigators, most of whom are on a bonus pay scheme, dependent on how many prosecutions they get. Does the Minister not agree that it is time to decriminalise the non-payment of the BBC licence fee, as the Government promised on many occasions before the last general election?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is important to emphasise that licence fee evasion is not an imprisonable offence the maximum sanction is a fine of up to £1,000. But the noble Baroness is right to point to the disproportionate impact it has on women. As I said, the Government remain concerned that a criminal sanction for licence evasion is increasingly disproportionate and unfair in our modern public service broadcasting system, which is why we will look at the matter as part of the future funding review.
Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)
My Lords, some 90% of 18 to 24 year-olds stream their content instead of watching TV channels. What does the Minister see as the future of the BBC licence fee to a generation growing up with subscription-based services?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right. The uptake of TV licences has fallen by around 1.7 million from its peak of nearly 56 million in 2017. As people consume media in different ways, the model looks increasingly obsolescent. That is why, as part of the future funding model, we want to ensure that we are giving the BBC and our public service broadcasters the funding they need to continue to produce programmes that are much admired for an audience which consumes television in different ways.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the BBC is taking steps to try to lessen the effect of this through its newly proposed scheme of spreading out payments? Will the Government assist the BBC in collecting its revenue, so that it can carry on producing the programmes that most of us are still watching?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Yes. I commend the work that the BBC has done: it commissioned a gender disparity review, with which I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, from your Lordships’ House, helped assist. We welcome the 10-point plan that the BBC has set out, flowing from that review, but we will look more broadly at the issue of criminal sanctions as part of future funding.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former BBC TV producer. The BBC has previously said that decriminalising licence fee evasion and switching to a civil system would cost it more than £1 billion over five years. Does the Minister agree that this would lead to huge cuts in programming and a big hit to an already struggling creative economy?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
No. We want to look carefully at the issue of how we make sure that the BBC continues to get the funding that it needs to produce the wonderful programming that is much admired. But, in light of the trend that I have outlined, in which fewer people are buying a licence fee in the first place, of course we will make sure that we speak to the corporation as part of that review—but we are doing so with its best interests in mind.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, it is not just the withdrawal of free TV licences for the over-75s that hurts women the most; numerous other government policies are anti-women. For example, real wage cuts in the public sector hurt women the most, as most of the workforce is female. Other examples include the gender pay and pension gaps, the two-child benefit cap, real cuts in benefits and lower state pensions for women. Can the Minister explain why the Government do not assess the gender gap of all their policies?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Government are committed to making sure that everybody—men and women—can reach their full potential and play their full part in our society and economy. We bring forward policies to try to make sure that everybody can do that. In this instance, I am glad that the BBC has looked at the gender disparity, recognising the impact of licence fee sanctions on women—and the Government have set out their thinking on that, too.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, when I was fined for refusing to pay the television licence fee by Hastings magistrates’ court, I observed that all the other people being charged were single mothers and wondered why that would be. Does the Minister think that it could be to do with the very fact that they are vulnerable? That is to say, they are in the same place—they cannot escape from the place where they live—and can be easily caught; therefore, they are what officials call “low-hanging fruit”.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord is right: women make up around 75% of people prosecuted for TV licence evasion. As the overall number of prosecutions has fallen, the number of women and vulnerable people affected has also fallen. But, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State outlined, we are very concerned about the appropriateness of a criminal sanction in these matters, and we will look at this as part of the BBC’s future funding review.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, with the collapse in the funding model underpinning local newspapers and the closure of so many local newspapers, does my noble friend agree with me that it is vital that the BBC continues to invest in the local democracy service, particularly local radio stations, to hold to account local decision-makers throughout the country?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Yes, the BBC does very important work through the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Local radio stations provide hugely important information and news to their local communities, as I set out in our Second Reading debate on the Media Bill, where I know we will talk about these important matters further.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not the case that at present we are seeing an increase in the amount of propaganda that comes from areas such as GB News? Can the Minister assure us that the BBC will be left with the revenue needed to counteract that, and the problems of social media as well?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Ofcom, not the Government, regulates the provision of news, whatever channel people receive it on. The BBC receives some £3.8 billion in licence fee income; that income allows it to provide its important and impartial news, both at home and around the world.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, this is indeed a troubling and concerning matter. Does the Minister think there is a case for moving the licence fee to a monthly payment, paid by standing order, in line with other broadcast subscriptions? At the moment, that would mean a payment of £13 per month.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Simple Payment Plan does help people pay the television licence fee at present. As I say, we are looking at all the ways in which the BBC might receive its funding in the future, taking into account the declining number of people paying for a licence, but looking at all options to make sure that it has the revenue it needs to continue doing the work for which it is much admired.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, the Government have known for some time about this injustice of the prosecution of a majority of women rather than men. Why are they not doing something about it faster, and when will the BBC review actually report?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Government consulted on decriminalisation of TV licence evasion in 2020, and we published our response in 2021. The appropriate time to make this decision is as part of the BBC funding model review, when we can look at the way we can get the sustainable funding for the corporation that everyone wants to see.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the urgency with which people are suggesting this is looked at is not helped by the fact that we are going through a very serious financial time and it is likely that there will be more, not fewer, people in this difficult situation. First, can the Minister take note of what the original Question said—that there is a danger of this being abused by private companies that are incentivised to prosecute women in this situation? Secondly, we are spending a lot of time doing the Victims and Prisoners Bill—well, some of us are—and it seems so wrong to criminalise people who are vulnerable and victims. This has got nothing to do with BBC bashing; it has everything to do with recognising that women are being discriminated against unfairly for something which, given the scale of the problems facing society, the Government should really just deal with now.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that the number of women being prosecuted is falling. In the year ending June 2022, 35,000 women were prosecuted; in the year ending June 2023, 29,000 were. So the number is coming down, but the disparity between the sexes is indeed stark, with women still making up around three-quarters of people prosecuted. That is why we are glad the BBC has looked at this and has set out actions, and why we are looking at it as part of our future consideration of how the BBC should be funded.
Mental Health Patients: Discharge
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Merron
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the current level of (1) safety, and (2) patient and carer involvement, where mental health patients are discharged from inpatient settings and emergency departments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
In January, the Government published new statutory guidelines setting out how health and care systems can work effectively together to support a safe discharge process for mental health patients from hospital and ensure patient and carer involvement in discharge planning. This is particularly important given that the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health has found that there is an increased risk of suicide within three days of discharge.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recent report found many failings in care around the discharge of mental health patients, with the most common being a lack of involvement of patients, their families and carers. With the pre-legislative scrutiny of the mental health Bill highlighting the need to address this preventable situation, and the Government still not bringing forward this crucial legislation, what immediate steps will the Government take to involve those who are essential to the care and safety of mental health patients?
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Baroness is correct; the question is of the utmost importance. It is about putting more care into the community—that is why we have put £1 billion of extra spend into community support for mental health. Some 160 local mental health infrastructure schemes are being set up, with 19 in place already, and they are starting to work. The crisis cafés have resulted in an 8% decrease in admissions, while the telephone helpline has resulted in a 12% decrease.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the link between mental health and homelessness. He will also be aware that 50% and more of those who suffer from mental health illness have been homeless for over a year. What action are the Government taking to work with other government departments to ensure that this issue can be alleviated as soon as possible, and what help and mental health services are these homeless people entitled to?
Lord Markham (Con)
My noble friend is correct. In fact, 48% of the reasons for the delayed discharge of mental health patients is because of a lack of suitable housing. That is why we have introduced the specialist housing fund; we are working with Homes England and DHLUC so that supported housing runs alongside more support in the community from the extra mental health services.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, the Government have said that the additional discharge fund includes support for mental health in-patients leaving hospital. I believe that local areas are required to report fortnightly to the Government on the use of these funds. How much of the additional discharge fund has actually been spent on mental health patients? Does the Minister agree that it is important to have that information in the public domain, given concern that mental health services are treated as second-rate?
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Lord is correct. I agree that it is important that the funds are spent on discharging mental health patients at a community level. I do not have the percentage figures to hand, but I will make sure that I provide them to him.
Lord Bradley (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. Does the Minister think that there are lessons to be learned from the excellent RECONNECT programme by NHS England? It is being rolled out across the country and tries to ensure that vulnerable people, such as those with mental health conditions, are reconnected to local services, and that their release from custodial settings can be successfully undertaken.
Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, in a word. We must try to make sure that each integrated care board has a mental health lead in place and that the services are rolled out. Much of the strength of the ICBs is that they can look after the needs of their area in ways that they know best. At the same time, where there is good practice, we must make sure that it is rolled out as well.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, suicide is the second highest cause of maternal deaths in England. All such deaths are preventable, because mothers at risk can easily be recognised antenatally, and certainly postnatally. What actions will the Government take to prevent these deaths?
Lord Markham (Con)
Like many of us, I am sure, I have had very good personal experience of the midwifery service at community level. I know that there have been some challenges post Covid, but midwives are on the front line in understanding and recognising some issues. I should have mentioned earlier that there will be a round table with the Minister on mental health issues, following the one a few months ago, and this is one of the areas we should bring up with her.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, as a member of the Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill, it was clear to me that one of the problems was that there is a statutory list of next of kin which does not match the reality of some people’s lives, so there were provisions to introduce a nominated person. It does not matter how good the guidance is. How are we circumventing the statutory requirement for next of kin to be involved?
Lord Markham (Con)
Again, like many noble Lords, I understand the disappointment that there has not been the time for the mental health Bill. This is what the round tables are about: exploring with Maria Caulfield, the Mental Health Minister, how we can ensure that we implement as many of these things as possible. We had round 1 and we will set up round 2 shortly. I suggest we take it up then.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, one of the problems that carers in these circumstances always report at the point of discharge is that the professionals dealing with the patient are reluctant to share information with the person who is expected to provide care. Although I recognise the sensitivity of these issues and the need for confidentiality, does the Minister agree that if you expect someone to provide care in these circumstances you should at least provide them with the requisite information?
Lord Markham (Con)
In a word, yes. We had the rapid review of data in mental health settings. Not surprisingly, in mental health, as in a lot of other settings, ensuring that there is the flow of information so that carers get the right information is paramount.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, as a former mental health commissioner, I know that the default position regarding long-term in-patients back in the 1980s and 1990s was to ensure they were given a place in the community. As a result, successive Governments closed down many of our institutions. Can my noble friend comment on the balance between present institutional care and its desirability for many in-patients, and in-patients who are regarded as being in the community but are not necessarily protected sufficiently when they are?
Lord Markham (Con)
There is, quite rightly, a balance to be struck. For people with learning difficulties and autism, which noble Lords have debated before, we set a 50% target for that reduction—not 100% because, as has been mentioned, it is not always appropriate as a number of people in those situations need additional support. However, as a general sense of direction I think we all agree that, where we can put support into communities, that is the right thing to do. That is what the £1 billion extra investment is about.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a former practitioner. I have spoken before about the disproportionate numbers of black and Asian men in the system using mental health services. There is a gross disconnect between the amount of funding available and the services that they receive, particularly regarding carers’ involvement. We must admit that the amount of medication that they are given is not often monitored successfully after discharge. Maybe that is one of the reasons why there is a high suicide rate. How can the Minister ensure that, when patients are discharged to the services of social workers, they are not put in extremely expensive mental health provision or private healthcare housing, which is often not needed? The services are wasting huge amounts of money. Will the Minister look at the disconnect between social services and the healthcare system to ensure that the money is used effectively?
Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, I am happy to look at that. I am on board with what the noble Baroness said, as I am sure all noble Lords are, about wanting to ensure that every pound we spend is well spent. I am aware of the racial disparities that she mentioned, as all noble Lords are. We are looking to address that issue, but in a cost-efficient way.
War Widows: Ex Gratia Pension Payment
Baroness Crawley
To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Harlech on 18 May 2023 (HL Deb col 367), what plans they have to ensure that War Widows receive the ex gratia pension payment announced in that answer.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare an interest as vice-president of the War Widows’ Association.
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a serving Army reservist. The Government continue to recognise the unique commitment that service families make to our country, and we remain sympathetic to those widows and widowers who forfeited pensions under historic rules because they remarried or cohabited. In acknowledgement of this, the war widows recognition payment scheme was launched on 16 October 2023. I am pleased to say that, so far, 190 individuals have made a successful application, with payments having begun in January 2024.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, but despite his Answer, I wonder whether he is aware that there is huge anger among many war widows because of the last-minute eligibility criteria imposed on this recognition payment. Last May, the Government finally agreed that all war widows deserved special consideration under the Armed Forces covenant; now, they appear to have gone back on their word. Does the noble Lord the Minister realise that widows whose partners died as a result of service and who remarried after 2000 have been excluded from this payment? I am talking about war widows from the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. Will the Government now make it right?
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness has done campaigning in this area. Some of the applications for the award have been rejected, and I am happy to share the statistics with the House: 72 individuals have not been accepted for a reward. However, the Ministry of Defence denies that the eligibility criteria have changed: 49 of those were already in receipt of financial reward for their bereavement; 10 are eligible for their war widow’s pension to be reinstated due to no longer being in a relationship that led to the original forfeiture; and 13 have had their initial claim rejected because of either insufficient evidence or because their partner sadly passed away from a non-service attributable death.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I too declare an interest as a vice-president of the War Widows’ Association. We were so hopeful that the war widows who had missed out would at last have their cases sympathetically solved, but following on from my noble friend’s Question, it appears that it was decided late in the day that the ex gratia payment would not be for all those who forfeited their war widow’s pension but for those who forfeited an attributable pension before 2000, which is nothing to do with the war pensions scheme. Under this new scheme, the Minister has told us how many widows have benefited; can he say, given how canny the MoD is with any money for widows, how much money it has actually paid out to date?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I understand what the noble Baroness is asking, but my mental arithmetic is not good enough to multiply the ex gratia payment amount by the number of awards paid out, so I will write to her.
Lord Hintze (Con)
My Lords, just briefly, how much is this costing, given how much we are actually going to be giving to these poor people?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I think my previous answer addresses the point raised by my noble friend, and I will make sure that he receives a copy of that letter too.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, has the noble Lord the Minister read the recent excellent publication of the War Widows’ Association called Courage? If he has not, I suggest he does because then he will know the answers that he needs to give to the war widows. They are very complicated arrangements, and I do not sense that the widows are given proactive advice by the Ministry of Defence or the Veterans Agency. I believe that would be extremely helpful if it happened.
Lord Harlech (Con)
The noble and gallant Lord raises an important point of communication. I encourage any war widows who believe that they are eligible for this claim who have not yet already claimed to access the application form, which is available from GOV.UK or to call Veterans UK. For the benefit of the House and any war widows watching, I will outline now the eligibility criteria for payments:
“The eligibility criteria for the scheme are that the claimant … forfeited their entitlement to a service attributable survivor’s pension and/or a pension in accordance with the rules of the War Pension Scheme prior to 2015 for the death of a member of the UK Armed Forces and … has not had either pension restored because they are still in a relationship”.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the War Widows’ Association. I have been following this very closely and I must tell my noble friend that we are wholly dissatisfied with this latest turn of events. Does he realise that this question of the attributable pension making war widows ineligible was never raised specifically with the many deputations to Ministers? It was certainly never raised with me. It appears simply to be a last-minute attempt to claw back some money that is rightfully theirs. I call this, at best, mean-spirited.
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the tireless campaigning that my noble friend has done on behalf of war widows. I appreciate that this is difficult, but the eligibility criteria were discussed with the War Widows’ Association from the inception of the scheme. I have been assured by officials from the Ministry of Defence that at no point have the eligibility criteria changed.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister may think that war widows and others spend their lives watching parliamentlive.tv; I suspect that most do not. I seem to recall that, last time this issue came up, I asked whether His Majesty’s Government could inform everybody who they thought was eligible about eligibility, not request people to go online. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to ensure that they do the right thing by all of these widows, including ensuring eligibility as they expected it to be?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. We do need people to apply because, in line with legislation, once an individual is no longer in receipt of payments from the MoD, the MoD will not update its records on an ongoing basis. Therefore, crucial information such as their address, bank details and surname may not be current. The information requested on the application will enable the MoD to cross-check with the records that it holds and verify an applicant’s eligibility.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord the Minister finds himself personally in considerable difficulty seeking to defend this position— I realise that he could not possibly comment—but why on earth do the Government insist on continually painting themselves into morally indefensible bureaucratic corners?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I will take on board what the noble and gallant Lord says.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, there is just a fraction of time left. Would my noble friend be kind enough to confirm to the House that, in parliamentary terms, there is no such person as a “noble Minister”?
Lord Harlech (Con)
My noble friend strays somewhat outside the scope of this Question, but he is, of course, absolutely right.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I first take the opportunity to thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Crawley and Lady Fookes, for their tireless campaigning on behalf of the disenfranchised war widows. Their work is inspiring. Given the answers that the Minister has given us today, when will he meet with the War Widows’ Association and apologise?
Lord Harlech (Con)
I have not actually received an invitation from the War Widows’ Association. However, should such an invitation be forthcoming, I would be only too delighted to meet with them.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, our AGM is in a couple of weeks’ time. The Minister would be very welcome.
Lord Harlech (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her kind invitation and look forward to seeing her there.
Police Recruitment: Reform
(2 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Manchester
To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the first report of the Angiolini Inquiry published on 29 February, what assessment they have made of the case for reforming police recruitment.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
In begging leave to ask the Question in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interest as co-chair of the national police ethics committee.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, the horrific crimes committed by a then serving police officer shocked the nation and undermined public confidence in the police. My thoughts are with the family and friends of Sarah Everard; I cannot imagine how painful this must be for them. In the years since, the Home Office has worked closely with policing partners to strengthen the way that police officers are recruited, vetted, scrutinised and disciplined. The Government will continue to work with policing partners to consider the findings and recommendations of this report at pace, and will respond fully in due course.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. The Angiolini report makes one thing very clear: the appalling long-term toleration of the killer’s abusive and criminal behaviour was made possible by two related factors. The first is a misogynistic culture, and the second is the persistence of employment practices that discourage women from joining, remaining and progressing to senior roles within police forces. Do His Majesty’s Government accept that the culture of UK policing needs an overhaul? What specific steps will they undertake to reform recruitment and retention to ensure that female officers and staff can thrive in policing, and thrive in the numbers necessary to ensure that women in Britain need no longer fear the dangers that led to the death of Sarah Everard?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The right reverend Prelate in effect asked me two questions. Decisions about police recruitment, including how recruitment and selection processes are run, are a matter for chief constables and police and crime commissioners, and are therefore managed locally by forces. But they are managed within a national application, assessment and selection framework, which is in line with guidance maintained by the College of Policing. That guidance was updated in February 2023, and all 43 forces are now utilising the various online assessment protocols and the face-to-face requirements.
On the culture of the police, it is difficult to disagree with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who said that
“the best processes and structures in the world cannot replace focus and leadership. It is incredibly important that leadership at every rank in policing takes that seriously”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/2/24; col. 456.]
This is a conversation that he has had with police leaders and the College of Policing to ensure that the attitudes highlighted in the report change. Without that shift in attitude, the culture will remain the same, which is clearly not acceptable.
Lord Bird (CB)
Has the Minister ever looked at the fact that we are talking about a class issue here? Most police officers come from the class that I come from, and most of the leading people who run the police force come from another class. It is a bit like the Army. When are the middle classes going to join the police force and create a mix, rather than relying exclusively on the working classes to do the hard part?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord raises an interesting point. Of course, the point of the police is that they are there to represent us all. According to the Peelite principles, they have to have our consent to do so, and therefore they should very much look like us.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, on these Benches too our thoughts are with Sarah Everard’s family at this time. The recommendations that Lady Elish Angiolini makes about vetting are what an ordinary recruitment agency would do as a matter of course: face-to-face interviews and home visits. Anybody in your Lordships’ House who has adopted a cat or dog will know that you have a home visit to make sure you are suitable as a potential adopter—this is basic stuff. They need to find out about the suitability and psychological suitability, taking notice of PNDs and revetting those on transfer from another force or military, or any government location. Taking it on trust that someone has been vetted by these agencies and therefore is okay surely does not work, so why does the Home Office not have a national vetting programme that is compulsory and that all police forces have to follow?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Baroness raises some good points, and she is quite right about some of the recommendations made by Lady Elish. The Government of course recognise that there have been significant and justifiable concerns regarding police vetting, so over the past year we have worked to sort that out. As noble Lords will be aware, in early 2023 we asked the College of Policing to update the statutory code of practice for vetting, which was published in July 2023. It makes clear the expectation that chief officers will ensure that vetting standards are maintained within their forces. The vetting code is supported by the authorised professional practice guidance for vetting, which has recently been revised. There is much more to do on this—no one is denying that. I take the noble Baroness’s point seriously but, as I say, we will soon respond in full to the report and the recommendations.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, everyone is appalled by this dreadful crime and our thoughts are with Sarah Everard’s family. Will the Government commit to ensuring that female police officers and police staff have the same rights as the public to make a complaint of domestic abuse against their own police force? At the moment their only option is to make a criminal complaint, which most of them are not happy to do. That is definitely not helping recruitment or retention of females in the police force.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, we have already referred to the culture that needs to change, and that is part of the overall cultural change that is required. I am not particularly familiar with how that sort of report would need to be made. I will look into that and come back to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the current situation represents a terrible collapse of trust throughout society? There was a time when we could all have confidence in politicians, civil servants, police and everything. Now that trust in the police has gone, that is deeply damaging to the relationships that we have with each other and with the organs of society, and to the safety with which women and men can walk around.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I agree with the noble Baroness up to a point. As I said in my earlier answer, that trust has to be rebuilt by strong leadership. In the case of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley has demonstrated his capacity to give the leadership that is required. He needs to be allowed time for that to happen, but he has been in post for a while so I am hopeful that results will be delivered soon.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)
My Lords, in addition to the 16 recommendations pointing to specific system and individual failings that explain what happened in this very tragic case, Lady Angiolini identifies two factors. One of them, mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, is the culture in the police that has persistently not changed. The second is the failure of senior police leadership to deal with those issues and challenge that culture. What women in particular, the public in general and the thousands of decent men and women in the police service want to see is the Government taking responsibility for the changes that are required—not saying that this is the province of chief constables or whoever but showing responsibility and leading the change that is necessary.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
We do. Obviously we have to maintain the operational independence of the police—I do not think there is any question or dispute about that—so leadership of the police has to remain localised to that extent. However, noble Lords will be aware that we have invested in the College of Policing’s National Centre for Police Leadership, which has already set out standards at every level. There is no dispute that the leadership of the police needs to up its game.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. What plans does the Home Office have to take some responsibility here and mandate the psychological assessment of potential police recruits, looking particularly for any propensity to inappropriately exert power over others?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, as I understand it, part of the online process for recruitment involves an element of psychometric testing. I do not know precisely what that testing involves, but I will find out and come back. The online assessment process is very complicated—otherwise, I would give more detail.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
My Lords, in 2018 the Government shelved the second part of the Leveson inquiry—which had wisely been initiated by the former Prime Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron —which was to examine the criminal nexus between rogue police officers and journalists. Since then, we have had the Henriques report, the Casey review and now the Angiolini review. How confident is the Minister today that there are not criminal police officers who would have been caught by the second part of that inquiry, who were inappropriately recruited by the police and who are still in office?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I cannot comment on the inquiry itself. Unfortunately, I cannot be as confident as I would like to be that there are no police officers out there who remain to be caught. Unfortunately, these incidents keep coming to light. Sir Mark Rowley warned us that there were more still to come to light, so I expect to hear more.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, the excellent recommendation 7 of the Angiolini report was that every police recruitment process should have a holistic in-person interview looking at the motivations of the person concerned for joining the police and the extent of their dedication to serving the public. I have a close family member of the fairer sex who has just successfully been through the appraisal system but did not have such an in-person interview matching that description. Will the Minister look closely at recommendation 7 to see how quickly it can be implemented?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I have to say that she should have been interviewed face to face. The information I have is that all 43 forces in England and Wales are conducting those face-to-face interviews. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to share the details, and I will investigate further.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, before we start this debate on foreign affairs, it might be helpful if I briefly remind all noble Lords that the advisory speaking time for Back-Benchers is five minutes. It is obviously advisory, but it was set with the intention of ensuring that as much time as possible for individual contributions was available, while enabling the House to rise at a reasonable time.
We have 65 Members participating, and I anticipate that the debate will therefore last about six and a half hours. I am sure the House is very much looking forward to hearing from the speakers, but given the number of speakers, I respectfully request that all speeches are kept within the advisory time limit to ensure that all noble Lords can contribute at a sensible hour. The usual channels have also arranged a Statement to be taken as dinner break business, which will start at the usual time of about 7.30 pm, to ensure that all noble Lords taking part in the debate can have a bit of a break.
Foreign Affairs
(2 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
That this House takes note of the United Kingdom’s position on foreign affairs.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, it is an immense honour to open this important debate on behalf of my noble friend Lord Cameron. I look forward to some insightful contributions.
I must admit that, in preparing for this debate, I do not know if I should feel a sense of trepidation in having my boss watching my performance or, indeed, a degree of nostalgia, because it was of course my noble friend Lord Cameron who first appointed me to this House. As a Minister, I am sure it is a mixture of both. I of course welcome my noble friend’s appointment and the intensity of diplomatic effort we have seen in recent months. His experience, insight and engagement on the global stage have been a real reflection of the strength of British diplomacy. I assure noble Lords that this is a welcome opportunity for us to listen and to consider the UK’s place in the world and its position on the full range of foreign affairs issues—development, diplomacy, defence and security.
What is clear is that we face a world that is increasingly unstable and insecure, and we are facing, frankly, a daunting set of challenges with direct implications for our country. I assure noble Lords that we are working with old friends and new partners to address these challenges, bringing together our best efforts across diplomacy and development to protect our security and shape an open and stable international world order.
This approach has defined our approach to issues across the Middle East, in particular to the Israel-Gaza crisis, where we are driving progress towards a sustainable peace, a peace that lasts, and a solution that delivers justice, security and stability for Israelis and Palestinians. Let me be clear: Israel was shaken to its core by those horrendous terror attacks perpetrated by Hamas. Today, we see Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are facing a devastating humanitarian catastrophe. We need to act, and we are doing just that. That is why we have said that the fighting needs to stop now. That call was echoed by the US Vice-President Kamala Harris just this weekend. The most effective way, as we have said consistently, is to agree an immediate humanitarian pause, a stop in fighting. That will lay the ground and the space to create a sustainable ceasefire. It would allow for the safe release of hostages and a significant increase, which is vitally needed, in aid going into Gaza. I stress again: this must happen, and happen now. It is a position shared by many partners, and I assure noble Lords that it has been the focus of all our extensive diplomatic efforts. Indeed, since his appointment, my noble friend and I have conducted more than a dozen visits to the region, sometimes visiting countries twice over, as well as the other engagements we have had on this issue in multilateral fora.
As Foreign Secretary, my noble friend Lord Cameron has visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories twice over. He has also visited Qatar and Turkey. I have had the opportunity to join him on visits to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt, as well as the visits I have made to Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Israel and the OPTs, Egypt and Morocco. We have been clear that there are five vital elements for a lasting peace. These include, first, the release of all hostages, which should also allow for unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza; secondly, the formation of a new Palestinian Government for the West Bank and Gaza, accompanied by international support—meaning support for reconstruction to rebuild schools and hospitals, and allowing for basic amenities to start again; and, thirdly, removing Hamas’s capacity to launch attacks against Israel.
We also want to see an end to extremist settler violence, which we have seen perpetrated in the West Bank, and Hamas no longer being in charge of Gaza. Importantly, we want a political horizon which provides a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution, with two states—Israel and Palestine—living in security and peace. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister, my noble friend Lord Cameron and I have reiterated these messages with senior members of all Governments, including Israelis and Palestinians, in all our various visits, engagements, telephone calls and diplomacy in recent weeks.
I assure all noble Lords that we make the point that civilians must be protected and have made it clear that all parties must act within international humanitarian law. Israel must focus its operations on military targets and avoid civilians being killed. A military ground offensive into Rafah is, frankly, a chilling prospect and we are urging Israel to stop and think seriously about the impacts of such an offensive.
Meanwhile, we are doing all we can to alleviate the suffering. We have trebled our aid commitment this financial year and are pressing to get more crossings into Gaza open. We have reminded Israel of its obligation to ensure that significantly more humanitarian aid enters Gaza. In this respect, we are focusing on five key humanitarian needs: an immediate deconfliction mechanism to enable safe distribution of aid through that extended humanitarian pause; increased capacity inside Gaza, enabling the humanitarian system and private sector to scale up the provision of goods; increased access for aid through land and sea routes; an expansion of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, including fuel, shelter and public health items, as well as items critical for infrastructure repair; and, of course, the provision of electricity, water and telecommunications.
I turn to the wider region and the situation in the Red Sea, where the Houthis have been using the events in Israel and Gaza as an excuse for their attacks on commercial shipping. I assure noble Lords that we are using every diplomatic lever at our disposal to pressure the Houthis to desist, working with our allies and international partners, including through Operation Prosperity Guardian—an international naval force to deter mounting attacks. We are working alongside the US with non-operational support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and New Zealand. We must protect these lanes: 15% of the world’s trade and shipping passes through them in the Red Sea. Let me also be clear: military action is always treated as a last resort.
I turn briefly to Iran. We believe that Hamas alone was responsible for the horrific terror attacks on Israel last October, but Iran also bears responsibility for the actions of such groups, which it has long supported politically, militarily and financially. This includes Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, militia groups in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. As my noble friend has made clear to his counterpart, Iran must actively restrain them.
I turn to Mr Putin and Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine. The brazen violation of the UN charter strikes at the heart of the rules on which our security and prosperity depend. Mr Putin’s recent address, simply put, was deplorable. The threatened use, yet again, of nuclear weapons is chilling and irresponsible. Two years on from his illegal invasion, Ukrainians continue to stand strong, as they fight to defend their country and the principles of freedom and democracy.
The international community stands just as firmly in support. We are leading the international response, giving the Ukrainians what they need to defend themselves, to succeed against Russian aggression and to build a secure and prosperous future. Russia and Mr Putin should be in no doubt of our resolve. This is why the Prime Minister made his first foreign visit of the year to Ukraine, with one message:
“The United Kingdom stands with you”.
Indeed, my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, upon his appointment, made Ukraine his first visit. This underlines the strong support we are giving to a key ally and partner. It is why the UK signed, with President Zelensky, a historic agreement on security co-operation, providing assurance for the long term. It is why we have pledged almost £12 billion in overall support to Ukraine since the war began, including £2.5 billion in military assistance this year and a further £245 million for artillery ammunition to boost Ukraine’s reserves.
Meanwhile, our sanctions have deprived Russia of over $400 billion in assets and revenues. In a joint call with G7 leaders and President Zelensky to mark the second anniversary of the invasion, my noble friend the Foreign Secretary renewed our pledge to make Russia pay. Russia must also be held to account for the terrible impact of Mr Putin’s despotism on ordinary Russians. We saw this most recently in the tragic death of the brave and courageous Alexei Navalny. Our thoughts and prayers extend to his family. As the Prime Minister and my noble friend have done, I call again on Russia to release our British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza. Release him—release him now.
Elsewhere in the world, the UK’s approach to China is to strengthen our national security protections, to work closely with our partners and to engage directly where it is in our interests to do so. My noble friend met his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on 16 February at the Munich Security Conference. They agreed that our countries should continue to engage across a range of areas. The Foreign Secretary also urged China to use its influence with Iran to pressure the Houthis over their attacks in the Red Sea and further stressed the UK’s support for Ukraine. My noble friend also raised the case of British parliamentarians sanctioned by China, some of whom are present in the Chamber, and reiterated his call for the British national Jimmy Lai to be released.
On human rights, I assure noble Lords that the UK continues to play a leading role in holding China to account over its human rights violations, both through sanctions and international action, as our joint statement in October on the situation of the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang demonstrated.
Elsewhere in the world, we are also demonstrating leadership in our work with regional partners, particularly and most recently to de-escalate tensions and ensure respect for Guyana’s sovereignty. I know that my noble friend the Foreign Secretary and my colleague Minister Rutley have engaged extensively on this issue.
I turn to multilateral organisations. There are, of course, many brutal conflicts taking place, humanitarian crises that are gripping us and human rights violations taking place as I speak. We could talk about Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen, Venezuela, the DRC, Syria and Ethiopia —the list goes on. It is important that we strengthen our work in multilateral organisations, including the UN. Our role as a P5 member of the Security Council is key, as well as being a leading ally within the expanding NATO. We are also looking at new partnerships, to see how to reinvigorate the Commonwealth, and new alliances, such as strategic dialogue within ASEAN.
Amid all our diplomacy, international development plays a pivotal role in our approach, helping to protect our interests in an open and stable international order, and the sovereignty, security and prosperity of British people. As such, we are drawing on the UK’s diplomatic and technical skills, its science and technology expertise and its role as a global financial centre, to partner with developing countries, including the most fragile ones, so that we can deliver, with them, our collective ambitions. This means unlocking the full potential of UK development finance and programming, while also pushing for reform and delivery of a bigger, better, bolder and fairer international financial system. I pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Development Minister for pushing this agenda and these priorities to ensure that those in the developing world get a fair deal. It also means supporting countries to cope with the effects of climate change; UK international climate finance has helped more than 100 million people cope with our changing planet, giving 70 million access to clean energy. On preventing sexual violence in conflict—a personal priority—we have helped to shape this agenda over a number of years, and I pay tribute to the people we have worked with, including the Nobel laureates Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege, and to the convening power of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh.
I turn briefly to the topic of trade and growth during these unstable times that are affecting all economies. Enhancing our trade partnerships is, as ever, a key priority in order to boost security and prosperity at home and abroad. Accordingly, we continue to work around the clock on the FTA negotiations with India and our GCC partners. We are also expanding British international investments, including in the Indo-Pacific, where up to £500 million focused on climate finance will be invested. This will contribute to the £11.6 billion international climate finance commitment that we pledged to spend by March 2026, along with our pledge of $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund that was announced by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister at the G20 summit last year. Meanwhile, our developing countries trading scheme offers one of the most generous sets of preferences in the world, supporting jobs in partner countries and cheaper imports for UK consumers and businesses. Finally, I will mention the Blue Belt, which is another great example of British leadership. The UK and its overseas territories are custodians of the fifth-largest marine estate in the world, and the Blue Belt now protects 4.4 million square kilometres of ocean. We need to work with other countries to ensure that our oceans are protected for generations to come.
To conclude, when faced with so many international challenges, I assure your Lordships that the UK stands ready to continue working with key partners but also to continue to show leadership. On issue after issue, noble Lords can see the difference we are making with our partners. We are using our global convening power, working closely with old friends and new; and this is how, in the spirit of co-operation, we can shape that open, stable international order, despite the immense challenges and conflicts we face. From conflict resolution to climate change, from embracing new technologies to strengthening cybersecurity and facing the challenge and opportunities of AI, from standing against aggression and aggressors to fighting the cause of justice and security through strengthening alliances and supporting friends and allies, both old and new, we, the United Kingdom, remain committed to building a world in which freedom, democracy and justice can truly flourish. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the Minister, who, in the way that he has dealt with questions and debates in this House, has won the respect of your Lordships’ House. We certainly welcome the debate and appreciate that the Foreign Secretary and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, have ensured that, at a critical time in world affairs, we can draw on the expertise across your Lordships’ House—the speakers’ list promises an interesting and useful debate. I smiled when the Minister spoke about a sense of nostalgia when he introduced this debate. All of us, when looking back at foreign affairs, always have a sense of nostalgia that somehow things were better in the past—we are not always right.
This really is a critical time. It is two years since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Negotiations for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza continue. We have seen a fourth round of UK airstrikes against the Houthis. Tensions continue in the Indo-Pacific region, and we must acknowledge the growing threats from various hostile states. A further dynamic is that, this year, across the world, billions of people will vote in crucial elections, against a backdrop of huge technological change, bringing greater potential for disinformation and external interference. Today’s world leaders face multiple risks and challenges, including conflict, terrorism, the climate emergency and migration.
The first duty of government is the security of its citizens. Throughout history, every Government, in every country, have had to adapt to meet the risks of the age. The driving force behind the creation of both the EU and the UN was a desire for greater co-operation and lasting peace. At a time when trust in government and wise counsel is most needed, we have also seen a rise in those who wish to spread conspiracy theories, fake news and extremism. This creates unpredictability.
The UK holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, plays a major role in NATO, retains membership of numerous international organisations, and is a signatory to important treaties and conventions. We take pride that our international relationships with long-standing allies, the Commonwealth and key international partners, give us a wide-reaching diplomatic network. Yet it is a sad reflection that in the past 14 years we have become increasingly disconnected from some of our important allies and institutions.
We have had a significant role in relation to Ukraine and Gaza, but we have retreated from or cast doubt on our commitment in other areas. We had policy differences when the Foreign Secretary was in Downing Street, but we also accept that his Administration were serious about foreign policy. More recently, the Government’s conduct on issues such as Brexit and the protocol, the Northern Ireland legacy Act and the Rwanda agreement has tarnished our long-standing reputation for respecting human rights and upholding the rule of law. Ill-advised comments about foreign leaders, the slashing of international aid, reducing our diplomatic presence and a casual attitude towards the importance of international law, and lecturing others while watering down the UK’s climate commitments undermines our soft power.
Yet as a world response to the actions of hostile states, international co-operation has rarely been more important. Such states are deploying increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks against western parliamentarians, hospitals and civil infrastructure. In some ways it is like a modern-day version of the Zinoviev letter, in seeking to influence and disrupt the diplomatic process. The Foreign Secretary looks at me askance—I was not around then either, if it is any consolation.
The Home Secretary has expressed concerns about the potential impact on the UK when foreign actors are involved in major disinformation campaigns. This does not just affect elections; such external campaigns are designed to impact on domestic and international stability. Parliament has an opportunity to address this in the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, currently before your Lordships’ House, where amendments will be tabled to try to tackle the issue of political deepfakes. I appreciate that the Bill is not the responsibility of the Foreign Secretary, but, given the international implications of this and its seriousness, can he look at it with his Cabinet colleagues? We are open to further discussions on that issue.
At our last Oral Questions with the Foreign Secretary, my noble friend Lord Collins was somewhat bemused when he announced that he had been sanctioned by the Putin regime. He joins an elite group of parliamentarians, but our response to this must be robust. Can the Foreign Secretary outline how those issues are discussed between government departments and with international partners to ensure that modern state threats are more effectively identified and countered?
In his introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, spoke of the death of the courageous Alexei Navalny. There is also the increased imprisonment of political opponents in Russia and other countries. How we respond to this with our international partners can have important repercussions. Who was not moved to see thousands upon thousands of people queueing to pay their respects, even though they knew that they were at risk from Putin in doing so?
Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine impacts across the whole of Europe and beyond. I was honoured to briefly meet President Zelensky when he visited Parliament —his leadership is inspirational. We all condemn the illegal invasion. Keir Starmer has been clear that, if we are in government later this year, we will stand with Ukraine—because Britain and this Parliament stand with Ukraine.
Months ago, we called for legislation to enable the utilisation of seized Russian assets. We were pleased that President von der Leyen supported doing just that to fund rebuilding Ukraine. Andrew Mitchell in the other place has said that the Government hope to have positive news on this soon. I hope the Foreign Secretary can provide an update when he responds in a few hours.
The attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October unleashed catastrophic devastation, and we totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and others, that fighting must stop now. A sustainable and sustained humanitarian ceasefire observed by both sides, underpinned by the release of all hostages and the ramping up of aid, is essential. Alongside that, diplomatic engagement is paramount. We are aware of the intense efforts taking place as we speak, and we want to remain optimistic, however difficult that is. An offensive in Rafah would create an even greater humanitarian catastrophe, and such action during the holy month of Ramadan would further inflame regional tensions.
I will not repeat the noble Lord’s five points, but we concur with the points he made. The eventual aim of a two-state solution must be kept alive, despite the huge challenges—a safe and secure Israel, but also a viable Palestinian state without Hamas. We are a long way from there.
Last week, the noble Lord confirmed that the aid getting into Gaza is not enough, and that 500 to 600 trucks are needed daily. Is there any evidence yet of a significant improvement, or the likelihood of one, in the days to come?
On the Red Sea, we have supported the limited targeted action taken by the UK, alongside allies, to diminish the Houthis’ ability to disrupt maritime navigation, and we acknowledge and thank our Armed Forces for their professionalism, capability and commitment. We have now had a fourth round of strikes. I ask the Foreign Secretary at what stage the Government would consider this to be a sustained campaign and, if we cross that threshold, what accountability to Parliament might look like. When we last had a Statement on this issue, I asked the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House whether the Ministry of Defence is content that the strategic objectives are being met. Can the Foreign Secretary confirm these objectives today and say whether they have changed? Given that, whenever possible, military action should be accompanied by diplomatic efforts, can he say more about the efforts taking place in the region?
I know that the Foreign Secretary is aware of the huge disappointment when the Government down- graded international development—particularly in reducing the target from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP, when GDP was falling—and in how that money has been used. For many years, including when he was in a different role, there had been a consensus on retaining that ambition of 0.7%. Yet not only was that figure reduced but the way in which it was done—so quickly and immediately, without consultation, and with no transitional arrangements put in place—had serious consequences and implications.
We have heard on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House of the damage that has been caused to international development programmes that were funded by that money. The Foreign Secretary knows the importance of the SDGs and the Government have committed to implementing them, yet the way in which the aid cut was undertaken makes implementing the international objectives even more difficult. What confidence is there that we can actually achieve those aims? This does not just impact on the perception of the UK across the world and our soft power; it impacts directly on the projects that were taking place on the ground, saving lives. Can he offer any hope of an improvement from this Government?
In the time available, I have not been able to comment on the many issues that will be part of today’s debate, specifically our relationships with China and Taiwan and issues in the Indo-Pacific region. However, my noble friend Lord Collins will respond to the debate on those issues.
We remain of the view that, when the world is increasingly shaped by geopolitical events and trade flows, when risks and challenges are international, the UK should step up, engage and show leadership, rather than step back. In recent years, it has been felt that the Government have been too casual and uncommitted to our international obligations. I can think of no other Government, including the Foreign Secretary’s, where senior figures would seek to defy international law, or where legislation to protect citizens’ rights would become a political football.
I suspect that the Minister would agree with Keir Starmer. I expected a reaction then—but I think he would. The nation’s foreign policy must prioritise restoring our place on the world stage. That is not about being jingoistic or unrealistic about resources, but about how we, once again, make the UK a force for good. In the past, we have helped shape international institutions and norms; we have played a key role in conflict resolution; and we have used our convening power to build an international consensus around major events. We want to work with the EU as genuine partners; to be a dependable NATO ally, supporting Ukraine’s accession; to implement AUKUS; and to strike new security and intelligence partnerships. We want to again lead in development and seek to lead on climate action too.
Everyone stands to gain if we can lift vulnerable countries up and do something to accelerate climate mitigation. For our security and prosperity, and for those of our allies, Britain must reconnect with the world and become a positive leader once again.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, started, he said he was not quite sure how he felt about opening the debate. I wondered whether he was really musing about the fact that normally he would have to spend a whole debate sitting and scribbling in response to everything that we had said. This afternoon, he has now passed this task on to the Foreign Secretary. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, can—for once—sit quietly and listen, probably to some of the tributes that will be paid to him, as one of our most indefatigable Ministers who truly has respect in your Lordships’ House.
From the High North to the South Atlantic, from North Korea to South Sudan, there are global challenges and foreign policy concerns for the United Kingdom, our partners and allies. Some speak of a new Cold War; I have never understood that. I do not see how this is a new Cold War. If anything, we are seeing a series of very hot wars. At the time the Cold War ended, the UK, like so many of our partners, took a peace dividend. We now need to consider whether that was at too high a price. Are we paying enough now for our security and defence, or are we overstretching ourselves in diplomacy, defence and development—the three Ds?
In your Lordships’ House, we have two Ministers who have spent—as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, told us—weeks and months travelling around globally, representing this country very ably. Yet, is the country really spending enough on foreign security and defence policy when we face so many challenges? We have a series of challenges, threats and global issues that need to be considered.
In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, got round part of the world in 16 minutes. In her 13 minutes, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, got round some other parts. That in itself demonstrates that we are in a situation where we need to be looking south and east, north and west. I wonder whether we are able to do so effectively. Does the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have the resources to achieve everything that this country and our European and NATO partners need us to do? Does the Ministry of Defence have the resources that we need? Does this country take our foreign policy responsibilities sufficiently seriously? This is not a criticism of this Government or of previous Governments. We need to consider it as a public policy discourse because, if we do not pay sufficient attention to the international, we will be caught out when the next crisis or conflict occurs.
During the last three years, three areas have been, in series, the source of much discussion and debate in British foreign and defence policy—Afghanistan, the Middle East and Ukraine. I will mention a fourth area because I know that the Foreign Secretary has just been down to the South Atlantic and the Falkland Islands. Before I look at the more recent hot conflicts, I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary can enlighten the House about the current feelings in the islands, particularly in light of the Argentine President resurrecting the idea that the Falklands are of significant interest to Argentina. What confidence can he give the islanders? Is he able to answer a question put to me when I was in the Falklands 18 months ago—if Argentina invaded today, would the United Kingdom be able to protect us? At one level, the short answer is that we have forces permanently deployed down there. But, if we were asked whether we could send a task force, the answer might be somewhat different.
I turn to more recent issues. We have a legacy of 20 years in Afghanistan. At the time of the United States’ withdrawal, there was an ignominious departure by the United Kingdom and our other European NATO partners. We left behind too many people who had put their lives on the line by standing alongside the United Kingdom—whether they were interpreters, British Council contractors or the Triples. The cases of all these people have been raised many times in your Lordships’ House. Too often, the answers have reflected interdepartmental differences—a sense that it is not an issue for the Foreign Office, or the MoD, or the Home Office. There is too much buck passing. In his response, can the Foreign Secretary give some reassurance to those people who are still in fear of their lives because they worked alongside the UK and NATO? Can he assure them that we will get them out of Afghanistan, that they should not be risking their lives in small boats, or going to Rwanda, and that we will do the right thing for those people we left behind in Afghanistan?
The Afghan case is too infrequently discussed because the bandwidth is not there. We have moved from Afghanistan to Ukraine—and rightly so. It is absolutely right that His Majesty’s Government and the whole of the United Kingdom has been supporting Ukraine, whether by welcoming Ukrainians into our homes, sending ammunition, training soldiers or through the diplomatic route that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have engaged in. But one of the lessons from Afghanistan is that, when the United States withdraws, it is difficult for the United Kingdom and our European partners to stand alone. If we see that on this side of the channel and of the Atlantic, the message was also not missed in Beijing, Moscow or Tehran.
The third of the areas that have already been discussed today is Israel, Gaza and the Red Sea, about which I will not go into detail because so many other noble Lords will do so. The Foreign Secretary has clearly already been trying to play a role in those areas, making some very important statements about the importance of a two-state solution. We are facing a world where so many of these issues have links with Russia or Iran; Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah are all supported by Iran. What conversations are His Majesty’s Government able to have to try to reduce the danger from Iran? That is one of the issues that we do not talk enough about that needs to be discussed.
The final area is China, about which I turn, briefly, to the High North. In recent years, our attention as a country and politicians has been to the south and east, but if we look to the High North, we see that climate change is affecting everyone. Greta Thunberg talked about the world being on fire—that includes the Arctic, which sounds impossible but is true. As the Arctic ices melt, we will see new sea routes offering potential trading opportunities that may be beneficial to the United Kingdom and our allies; but it is also seen by China as the opportunity for a polar silk road. As China signs deals with Russia—and the Arctic, instead of being an area of high co-operation and low tension, looks, potentially, to become one that is securitised by Russia and China—what assessment are His Majesty’s Government making of the High North? Do they have the bandwidth to think not just about the present issues in the Middle East and Ukraine but about potential conflicts and areas of difficulty in the High North?
How far are the Government also looking west? At the moment, we still have a President of the United States who is committed to NATO. If Donald Trump were re-elected in November, could we rely on the United States? If not, what is the United Kingdom doing with our European NATO partners and the European Union? What discussions are His Majesty’s Government having, bilaterally and multilaterally, with France, Germany and the European Union to strengthen our security ties? Will we go through the open door to have a UK-EU security relationship? We have moved beyond the intricacies of Brexit that soured politics for so long and there is an opportunity to think about a security relationship—but will His Majesty’s Government take it? Do they have a strategy for co-operation, or are we destined simply to see ad hocery? At times, AUKUS and the relationship with Japan and Italy on fighter jets look—dare I say—opportunistic.
Can His Majesty’s Government tell us that they have a strategy for the UK’s place in the world in which it plays its right and proper part? Will it demonstrate the leadership that we all need? That is not just about leadership in this place and the other place but about a national conversation that reminds everyone that we must stand up for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. If we in this country—not just politicians, journalists and academics but every citizen—are complacent and do not stand up for those things, we will be vulnerable. Can the Government offer the leadership that we all need?
Lord Ricketts (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the debate and the great energy and purpose that the Foreign Secretary has brought to his role, ably supported of course by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and the talents of the Foreign Office staff. They have increased the impact and influence of British foreign policy.
Five months after the awful Hamas attack, we must not lose our sense of horror at the incessant images from Gaza that we see every day. The suffering of the Israeli hostages is unimaginable. It is extraordinary that, despite all UK and US efforts, Gazans on the verge of starvation are reduced to mobbing a food convoy, with the stampede killing many people after Israeli forces opened fire. It is equally extraordinary that the US is reduced to air-dropping some pallets of aid into northern Gaza because it cannot persuade the Israelis to let in enough by land. I have never known as wide a gulf as exists now between a US President and an Israeli Prime Minister. It seems that the talks in Egypt about cessation of hostilities and hostage exchange have now broken down. Faults are no doubt on both sides, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Netanyahu’s determination to prolong the war is linked in some way to his own political survival.
Stopping this fighting is desperately urgent, to get hostages out and humanitarian aid in, but also to create an opportunity to move towards a better post-conflict future for Israel and Gaza. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s championing of the two-state solution. For all the difficulties, it is the only viable alternative to a forever war between Israel and the Palestinians. I also think he was right to open up some negotiating space around the point at which a Palestinian state could be recognised. Of course there are huge obstacles; a new Israeli and Palestinian leadership would be needed, in my view, as would a credible answer to who will provide security in Gaza and who will foot the massive reconstruction costs there.
From that point of view, it is encouraging to see that the Gulf Arab states are now much more engaged in thinking about the future of the Palestinian people than was the case in the past. They will have to have a central role in the running of Gaza in the future, alongside a new Palestinian leadership. Part of that package should be a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would enable Israel at last to integrate into the dynamic region of which it is a part. A lasting ceasefire would also do a great deal to stop Iran destabilising the region. It should de-escalate tensions across the border with Lebanon, and remove the Houthis’ pretext for taking international shipping hostage in the Red Sea.
Could the Foreign Secretary tell us where things stand on the comprehensive US draft UN Security Council resolution, which the Americans circulated in mid-February and which set out a lot of the points I have just gone over, and a very different vision from that on offer from Prime Minister Netanyahu?
I turn briefly to Ukraine. Of course, I draw attention to the European Affairs Committee’s report on the impact of Ukraine on UK-EU relations, which has been largely positive. I single out the issue of using frozen Russian assets to fund reconstruction; when he came to the committee, the Foreign Secretary kindly told us that
“there is a legal route to doing this”.
The Commission plan at the moment seems to be only to use future windfall profits from the euro clearing balance. Frankly, that will not change the dial on reconstruction. Can the Foreign Secretary update the House on where we are on the idea of using frozen Russian assets, at least as collateral?
More broadly, I am afraid that there is no prospect of either side achieving an outright victory, much as I would like to see Ukraine doing so. The risk is a long, grinding war in which the Russians gradually gain the upper hand, especially if we have a new President Trump in the White House. If President Zelensky decided the time had come for an armistice, freezing something like the current front lines, we should see that as an opportunity, not a disaster. It would enable us to bring the 80% of Ukraine which is free into NATO and the EU. Korea is not an exact precedent, but it gives an idea of what could be achieved by a long-term armistice. In that case, rather than being a bridgehead for further Russian aggression in Europe, an armistice would be more likely to leave Putin and his successors scrambling to prevent people stuck in the benighted, sad, Russian-controlled rump escaping west to a prosperous and free Ukraine.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, I join in the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for his opening and his many distinguished years of service—may he continue in his current position—and to the energy that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, as Secretary of State, has brought to the present process and this debate.
I want to focus, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, did, on the means rather than the end. Like many noble Lords here, I was in Ukraine three weeks ago—for about a week, in my case—in Kyiv and Odesa. I was there, coincidentally, at the same time as the head of the European foreign service, and we managed, with some of his staff, accidentally to be in the same bomb shelter at the same time, which gives one an opportunity to talk to people. One of the things that came across was the determination of Europe to protect Ukraine from defeat—to support it. However, in conversations with senior politicians in Ukraine, as well as the most senior religious leaders in that very religious country, the question they put was not just what the West intends and what the UK intends—their warm words about the UK were very striking—but what were the means to those ends. You do not win wars by good intentions.
I will not go further on that except to say that the integrated review and the refreshed integrated review talk extensively about ends, but they do not talk at all, or not very much, about means. This is the question that has to be put to government but will be much better handled by the noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords, with infinitely more expertise than me, who are here today.
Moving on from that, I want to talk about something that is a major focus, and has been for many years, in the Anglican Communion. I remind noble Lords that the average Anglican is a woman in her 30s in sub-Saharan Africa, on less than $4 a day, with a 50:50 chance of being in a place of conflict or persecution. The question of avoiding war and making peace applies not only, obviously, in Ukraine and Gaza but, according to the UN’s recent figures, in at least 52 other places around the world. Over the last 10 years, in the 165 countries in which we have Anglican churches, divided into 42 provinces, I have visited all those provinces. I have spent much of that time with people involved in conflicts, seeking to build them up, whether it is in northern Mozambique with training from the UN or other places. It is very striking that the impact of peace- building is not only a primary command of Christ in the Bible—
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God”—
but fundamental to the national interests of this country.
Our leadership, historically and today, in areas of conflict brings us enormous distinction, at huge cost. Our leadership in peacebuilding is something we have the capacity to do: it is hard won and brings long-term prosperity and opportunity. Peace brings development; development brings trade; trade is to our advantage and brings more development. Our soft power assets in this country are enormous, especially when combined with the hard power within our Armed Forces to contribute to the necessary tough side of peacemaking.
We see with Gaza and the horrendous events I saw within a very few days of 7 October—I was in east Jerusalem—the terrible human impact and the almost impossible task of bringing peace in the midst of the sound of the guns. Once the guns begin, peacemaking becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The Foreign Office has an excellent unit, pithily named—I am sorry to have to reach for my notes as I can never get this right; I am sure the Secretary of State could whip it off—the negotiations and peace processes team in the Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation. I will call it peacemaking for short. It is staffed, like the whole Foreign Office and our brilliant Diplomatic Service, with people of courage, determination, huge experience and great wisdom—small in number and with very little money.
If we are to talk about the use of aid, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, did so effectively, we must look at where that aid is best used. Putting it properly to the service of peace has a far higher return than any other possible use of it. It saves money on fighting wars and on diplomatic intervention at a time when diplomatic intervention is virtually vain.
This debate will cover so many areas and has so many wise Members of this House participating that I do not wish to go on any longer. I simply hope that the Foreign Secretary, when summing up, will speak about peacemaking. In the refreshed integrated review, the word “reconciliation” does not appear and, when I did a search, “peace” appeared four times in 114 pages. I may be wrong; it may have gone up and I did not notice. Two of those references are in the context of nuclear war.
Will the Government enhance the work of the peacemakers in the Foreign Office? Will they encourage working with the third sector and local groups? Will they bring in the coalitions—for instance, in the south Caucasus and other areas that we forget so easily—which will mean that we in the West are not only resilient, united, determined and courageous but making peace in a way that opens a future for the country and for ourselves?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the most reverend Primate’s thoughtful contribution. These are bewildering times. They are the most complex that I have ever known. The Government have innovated and adapted to be more effective, as my noble friend Lord Ahmad so eloquently described, and to be resilient in this menacing age. I commend the Government on the action they have taken and on recognising that in this age, relationships, partnerships and alliances are key.
What about global fora, where we have a joint interest but no singular control? I will focus on NATO and the United Nations. Two questions must be asked: are they still relevant and, if so, are they still fit for purpose? I will not dwell on the threats—we all know what they are—but I want first to look at NATO, which is 75 years old this year. It is a military defensive alliance of 31 states—about to be 32 with the accession of Sweden—bound by the collective obligation of Article 5. It has a proven record of effective military activity, honed and reinvigorated with the renewed sense of purpose in response to the illegal invasion of Ukraine by President Putin.
Is NATO still relevant? Yes, and I would argue even more so than in 1949. Is it still fit for purpose? Yes, but with two material caveats. The first is money. Defence spend of 2% of GDP is not enough. I am now going to be a liberated, uncorseted Back-Bencher. The UK must show leadership. The feast and famine approach does not work. Giving when we have the money and withholding when we do not is no basis on which to operate our defence capability. It is cloud-cuckoo-land.
We need to think outside the box and I suggest a new and hybrid approach. Defence is of such primary importance that I think it merits top-slicing from the budget to fund core need. Then, why do we not consider giving the public a stake? Issue “patriot bonds”—call them what you want—so that the public can invest directly in our security. If you want a defence capability, it needs consistent resourcing and you must take the public with you.
My second caveat is that the commitment of all member states to Article 5 must be unyielding and explicit. Ambiguity and loose talk by member states are irresponsible and fatal to the integrity and credibility of NATO as a defence alliance. I look to the United Kingdom to lead that charge. Having said that, thank goodness for NATO, and I praise the leadership of the Secretary-General and the professionalism of all the militaries that make it what it is.
I turn to the United Nations. Created in 1945 following the collapse of the League of Nations, the UN was very different—but then so was the global environment of nearly 80 years ago. It was built around the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and the then Republic of China—the five permanent members of the Security Council—and many positive developments have ensued. The UN is a pre-eminent global presence with a worthy record of achievement. It is the umbrella for important and effective subsidiary groups.
The real engine of the United Nations remains the Security Council. Paradoxically, two of the main perpetrators of global threat and instability, Russia and China, are still two of the permanent members. They regularly veto Security Council proposals. That is a self-perpetuating stasis right at the heart of the United Nations and it is not workable. Is the United Nations still relevant? Unhesitatingly, I say yes. Is it still fit for purpose? Reluctantly, I say, without reform, no.
Let me offer hope. As a Defence Minister I regularly represented the United Kingdom at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is headquartered in The Hague. It has 193 members and an annual Conference of the States Parties with equal voting rights. An executive council of 41 member states is appointed by the annual conference for a two-year term and a technical secretariat delivers the activities mandated by the executive council. There are no vetoes.
Since 2018, the OPCW has been led by an able and courageous director-general, Fernando Arias. The UK is an important and influential member, the support of the FCDO is excellent and the contribution of our own ambassador in The Hague and her staff is superb. But here is the important part—this potentially unwieldy organisation is focused, effective and delivers, notwithstanding the presence of a hostile and unco-operative Russia and Syria, at times supported by a minority of other states. What they do not do, because they cannot, is obstruct the work of the OPCW.
In conclusion, I ask my noble friend the Foreign Secretary: does he agree that defence spend is not a soft option but a hard fact of life and that we need a new approach? In relation to NATO, are the strongest diplomatic persuasions being exercised to support NATO’s critical unanimity of purpose under Article 5? In relation to the United Nations, is the visible and, I would say, fatal flaw which I have identified being recognised and the urgent need for reform being acknowledged? Are there lessons perhaps to be learned from the OPCW?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland (Non-Afl)
My Lords, when I was in office at the EU, I visited the Middle East more than anywhere else. In Sderot in Israel, I was presented with a sculpture of a rose, fashioned from one of the hundreds of Hamas rockets fired regularly at the town, and visited the places where children played underground to keep them safe. Sderot was targeted on 7 October by Hamas terrorists.
On my visits to Gaza, I would often visit a school for deaf children offering education and vocational training to those with an additional disadvantage in a place where children had few opportunities. It now lies in ruins. I am filled with overwhelming sorrow at what is happening and has happened and with shame that we have failed over decades to find a lasting, viable solution.
Meantime, the region risks falling into greater chaos. I am only too aware of the influence and control that Iran exercises in the region. It had been my hope that, after dealing with the nuclear issue, we would move on to tackling the problems that, in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, see Iran exacerbate already deeply troubled states. We need longer-term thinking here. Twenty years from now, will we have curtailed and contained Iran’s influence? What will be the role of the key Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, in bringing stability and prosperity to their neighbourhood? I believe there is a need for even greater UK engagement in this area.
Ten years ago, I celebrated with Ukraine the signing of the long-awaited association agreement with the European Union. The country was already in conflict after the taking of Crimea and the invasion of parts of the Donbas, and the hope was for a plan to resolve Russia’s incursion and find a new future closer to Europe. Just before the pandemic took hold, I was in Kyiv in a cold winter. While I was there, hundreds of people were killed by bombs, guns or freezing weather as power stations were targeted in the Donbas. In Kyiv, I was told repeatedly that Ukrainians felt they were alone: left to deal with ongoing aggression by themselves. I worried then that Russia was waiting. Now, after two years of war, many of the people I stood with in Maidan a decade ago are gone.
There is a need for a new broad security architecture that is more than the important continued military engagement and NATO expansion, and which will provide economic and political security well into the decades ahead. In 20 years’ time, what of Russia? Do we need a plan for containment—to write the equivalent of the “long telegram”—and where do UK relations with the European Union fit in strategic terms in that time period?
Many countries, especially in what we call the global South, are no longer prepared to fall into line with our views simply because it is expected, even if the principle in question is one they accept. Discussing Ukraine, one African leader asked when we were going to pay real attention to what was happening on his continent, pointing to the 17 coups in Africa during the last six years and the 18 armed conflicts in 2021 alone.
Old relationships do not always translate into strong links, especially as economies grow and political alliances shift and develop. Their present and future growth depends on diversifying relationships or dumping old ones in favour of new. We need to forge these new relationships.
Too often, we describe crises as coming out of nowhere. Too often, it is because we were not looking hard enough. I learned a long time ago that there is no issue any nation can solve alone; it is in our partnerships and our alliances that we find the strength and resources to tackle problems. Governments need to think in decades, not years: to resolve problems that have taken decades or longer to bubble up and burst; to tackle underlying causes, not just manifestations, as they affect us; to understand the nature of long-term needs and commit to resolving them, and to do so based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Those are the values that Britain has been known and respected for across the globe. This is, above all, about our own long-term security and, looking across our world, it cannot wait.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, and to benefit from her considerable personal experience. In recent years, the Government have undertaken two detailed analyses of foreign policy: the 2021 integrated review and the 2023 refresh. It was, and is, difficult to argue with any of the individual propositions made in either document.
The problem, though, is that it can be difficult to discern how the analyses can or should be translated into a strategy for action—into an appropriate balance between ends, ways and means. As the most reverend Primate has observed, the reviews are strong on ends and, to some degree, ways, but weak on balancing these with means.
In such a complex and challenging world, it is inevitable that the UK will need to pursue many objectives and respond to many challenges. For example, it is clear that China represents a major threat to the liberal world order from which we have benefited so much since 1945. It is clear that the stability of the Middle East is as important to us, and as fragile, as it has been over recent decades. It is clear that climate change and the scramble for scarce resources are transforming the Arctic from an area of co-operation to one of contest, as pointed out in a recent report from your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee.
But, for us, the issue of overwhelming significance is the threat posed by Russia. The 2023 refresh was, it seems, inspired largely by a perceived change in circumstance resulting from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022—but Putin’s war of aggression began in 2014, not 2022. The fact that many people woke up to the implications only two years ago does not make this a new challenge. The 2023 document did, however, make clear at last that
“The most pressing national security and foreign policy priority in the short-to-medium term is to address the threat posed by Russia to European security”.
That is quite right. Protecting this nation must be the UK’s top strategic objective, and Russia is the clear and present danger.
The 2023 refresh also points to the main ways through which we should work towards such an end: deterrence and, if necessary, defence through NATO. But what about means? Here I am afraid the review abandons analysis in favour of soundbites, and this weakness is reinforced by a fundamental misunderstanding in the supporting arguments. The review says:
“In addition to reinforcing the UK’s ability to deter and defend, we must also address the risk that misunderstanding and miscalculation could lead to large-scale military conflict”.
This treats deterrence and miscalculation as separate issues. In reality, they are very closely linked. If deterrence is to be effective, it must leave no doubt in the mind of a potential aggressor about the unacceptable costs of launching any attack. They must be crystal clear about the ability and will of the defender—in this case NATO—to absorb an initial attack and to strike back overwhelmingly. It is a question not of fine balances and narrow margins but of undoubtedly superior capacity.
We should keep this in mind when we consider what the 2023 refresh has to say about means. It talks about recent increases in UK defence expenditure in cash terms, but we all know how little meaning that has in the face of inflation, let alone when set against previous large reductions. On future increases, the Government have said that they aspire to increase defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP over time and as fiscal and economic circumstances allow. This is like someone muttering about one day taking out adequate insurance while their house burns down around their ears.
If the Foreign Secretary thinks this is somewhat extreme, let me quote his own wise words. He said that
“the lights are absolutely flashing red”
on the global dashboard. He added that
“it is hard to think of a time when there has been so much danger and insecurity and instability in the world”.
That is spot on. But does he really think that a vague aspiration to increase defence expenditure to a level still far below where it stood as recently as 2010 is an adequate response to such a dire, but undoubtedly accurate, analysis?
The Economist recently said that European leaders, including in the UK, need to raise defence spending to
“a level not seen in decades, restructuring … arms industries and preparing for a possible war”.
It concluded that this work had “barely begun”. I look to both sides of the Chamber when I say that we had better get on with it before it is too late.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, after these wise speeches, with more no doubt to come, what can one say in five minutes about the boiling turmoil of the world today and the crises and pessimism with which it is riddled? In particular, what can one say that is at all optimistic about this scene? One positive and optimistic note that I strike straightaway is the excellent handling of these dangerous problems by our Foreign Secretary. My noble friend has kept us, and your Lordships in particular, continuously well informed, and all I can say to him is that that is very much appreciated.
Many of these current situations—Gaza, Ukraine, Afghanistan and all the rest—are deep-seated with long histories, but all are vastly intensified, amplified and indeed enabled by communications technology and now, with the onset of AI, being further twisted with deepfakes and massive and poisoning disinformation that is calculated to inflame. The result we can all see clearly, even if often we are not so clear about the deeper causes. I say in parenthesis that, if a Labour Government are to take over, I hope they have on board a real Ernie Bevin who understands the fundamental realities of the modern situation.
Trust and mutual respect have dwindled. Polarised abuse has taken centre stage internationally, as well as, of course, internally within our own society. Deliberative diplomacy has been pushed aside, killing the areas of compromise and the middle ground on which international cliff-edge crises in the past have usually been resolved. As I noticed the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, observe the other day, we are seeing the collapse of the international rule of law before our eyes. My noble friend the Foreign Secretary has more than once made the strong point that all the democracies and responsible nations of the world, which are directly endangered by current world crises, should step up much more strongly to the plate and work together, rather than leaving all the heavy lifting to us and the Americans.
The UN was founded by our forefathers in 1946 but in entirely different global conditions from anything that we face today, so the question that we must address now is: what new structures, independent forces and alliances of the like-minded should we be beginning to think about building anew on, or even replacing, the post-war global architecture of the last century? How, for instance, do we give the UN new life and effectiveness, or do we just shrug our shoulders and instead develop multipolar forums and overlapping alliances with the new Asia and the new Africa—at least as long as the UN, despite its excellent agencies, remains paralysed by Russian and Chinese domination, as my noble friend Lady Goldie was reminding us just now?
Do we place the 56-nation Commonwealth, the largest association of like-minded people in the world, which is still growing, nearer to the centre of our own national strategy by looking at our common security concerns and remembering that its members are with us in the common values that we treasure? Do we replace the Bretton Woods aims and begin serious reform of today’s western digital capitalism, which the younger generation dislike and feel is utterly unfair and of no benefit to them—or so poll after poll tells us?
Should we work out a cleverer China approach of containment or modernise the outdated UK-US special relationship, which is absurdly out of date? Do we devise a new pan-European security system and further restructure NATO in the age of hybrid wars, now that a possible Trump Administration are going to turn America away from NATO altogether?
There are currently no answers to any of these concerns and almost no sign of any common ground on which they could be pursued. The wise American Francis Fukuyama may not have been correct about the end of history—it certainly has not ended—but when he says that people have not yet woken to the magnitude of what is happening, or about to happen, to humankind as a direct result of the communications and connectivity revolutions, he is dead right. Perhaps this is one area in which our nation, and our foreign policy thinking, really can begin to take an enlightened lead.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister, in his characteristically powerful speech, reminded us of the importance of the UK championing the flourishing of democracy. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, reminded us of the need for us to wake up. We certainly do need to wake up to what is happening to democracy in the Sahel and throughout Africa, and to the danger of democracy and democrats finding themselves on the back foot.
I grew up in the Commonwealth. I grew up in Ghana, in west Africa, in the 1960s. Many of us in here are children of the 1960s, and we know that the 1960s were characterised by global competition between West and East. No continent suffered more from that competition than the African continent. There is a proverb in Africa: when the great elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. That is certainly what occurred in Africa. During that period between 1960 and 2000, coups in Africa averaged four per year. There have been an estimated 200 successful or attempted coups in Africa since the 1950s.
Until relatively recently, democracy seemed to be flourishing in Africa, and there were more people who were able to cast their vote at the ballot box, and cast it safely, than since the early days of independence. Sadly, that is now in decline. In Mali, there have been two coups, in 2020 and 2021. There have been coups in Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso—twice in 2022—Niger in 2023 and Gabon in 2023. The Sahel is threatened with a contagion of coups and Islamist insurgency on a par with nothing we have seen before.
Added to that is the growing destabilising factor of the intervention of Russia in the continent through the Wagner Group, which has reinvented itself in ways that mean, I am afraid, that it is directly linking its commercial interests in mineral extraction with military intervention in order to create the context in which that extraction, to the benefit of Russia, can take place. At the same time, it is selling arms: it is the single biggest supplier of arms in the Sahel as we speak. We have to have a response to that.
For democracy to flourish, there is a need for jobs, an end to instability and an end to hunger. The reality for Africa and Africans is far from that. There is a growing humanitarian crisis. Armed conflicts have worsened human suffering and forced millions to flee: roughly 2.7 million people have been displaced by coups and armed insurgency in the Sahel. I know what it is to be a displaced person; I am for ever grateful to the people and community of Hemel Hempstead who welcomed me, my mother and my sister when we fled the coup in Ghana in 1966. It is no easy thing. Linked to the 2.7 million displaced people are 1.6 million children who are malnourished. Those are last year’s figures, and the most recent indications suggest that over 2 million children are undernourished this year.
We need to have a response to that and it needs, surely, to be one that links support for democracy and civil society, through giving institutions such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy the capacity to operate on the ground. It means creating jobs through support for the Africa free trade area and expanding in answer to the desire of China and Russia to create more military and naval bases. China now has naval bases in west Africa, as well as east Africa, and Russia is seeking a base in Sudan. We have to have a response to that which is led by military diplomacy, so there has to be an investment in military diplomacy on a scale that we have not seen for very many years.
We have an opportunity, with the reputation that the people of this country have in Africa, to make a difference so that democracy flourishes—because it is seen to provide jobs and security, as well as decent health and well-being for all the citizens in democratic countries.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, is used to being on the global stage. He may have just a few months to make a difference now, so what might he and his very able colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, focus on? Like the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, I was a junior Minister in the Administration of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron—so fancy me having this opportunity now.
First and foremost, there is climate change. Perhaps the noble Lord’s main aim here should be to stop the UK going further backwards. We were a world leader; that is not our message now. Then there is the rise of authoritarian and populist regimes, bolstered by misinformation and the undermining of international law. A key actor here is Putin, with his aggression against Ukraine.
Perhaps the greatest contribution the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, can make is to work very closely with European allies. Those European leaders have welcomed him with a sigh of relief and it is Europe that is at most immediate threat. Then the noble Lord could argue for the restoration of the aid budget. However, something tells me that the Budget tomorrow will not restore this and that he would waste his breath here.
Might the noble Lord do more in relations with Africa? He leaves that, perhaps, to Andrew Mitchell, another very able colleague. But why was the UK-African Investment Summit called off? The explanation that there are elections this year and many other events really does not hold water. That was known in advance. We hear that, in the tail end of this Government and with the UK no longer in the EU, leaders simply prioritised elsewhere. Could he comment?
Now I come to an area where I think the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, can make a real difference; I hope that he may already be doing so. Maybe he is breaking away from long-established UK Government positions. This is in relation to the conflict in the Middle East. Does he agree with Oliver McTernan, director of Forward Thinking and a long-standing negotiator in the region, when he says
“despite the terrible events of October 7th and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza, we still remain convinced that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not an intractable problem … It remains essentially a human problem that can be resolved by … political will”?
In some ways that is self-evident and in some ways a pipe dream, but such a resolution seemed impossible in earlier years in relation to Northern Ireland, and yet it was possible. That was a conflict on which the whole world seemed to have a view, just as they now do on the Middle East. Does the noble Lord agree that what is happening now has to be a turning point for both Israel and the Palestinians? Violence cannot be the solution.
There were so many warnings over the years that here was a tinder box; the area is alight now. Over 30,000 people have been killed, with the largest proportion being women and children. Many others are unaccounted for. The UN speaks of law and order breaking down in Gaza, famine, women and girls at huge risk, and of Rafah being the largest refugee camp in the world, yet nowhere is safe. The Israeli hostages and their families continue to suffer. Attacks have increased in the West Bank, where support for Hamas has increased—the reverse of the Israeli Government’s avowed intention.
The Foreign Secretary himself has called for an investigation into what happened with the deaths associated with the aid convoy, where 80% of those in hospital, according to the UN, had gunshot wounds. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic, and tensions are escalating globally, as well as in our own communities. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that a ceasefire is desperately needed, as the US vice-president, the UN, the WHO and so many others are calling for? From what we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, I think he probably does. Above all, does the Foreign Secretary see that tectonic plates are now shifting, to say that we should not do and say the same as we always have before? He is Foreign Secretary at this key point in history. This may be where he can help make a difference. I look forward to his reply.
Lord Fowler (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, on his speech. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on his new post, which he is carrying out with absolute excellence.
Today, we have all around us headlines about the need to reduce taxes to make life better for the electorate. Perhaps I can adapt the famous words of President Kennedy: we should think not just about ourselves but also about the needs of other peoples around the world. There is the perilous position of the Palestinians, and there is poverty in Africa and a host of other nations. But I would suggest that what we have to decide is where, today, we can exert the most influence, most quickly, to improve the position. I suggest, at this moment, that this is in Ukraine.
I remember being in Kyiv in the winter of 2013, just before Christmas. In the central square, there was a crowded demonstration of several thousand supporting closer links with western Europe and protesting at the then Government’s refusal to do this in the face of Russian threats. The crowd was enthusiastic but peaceful; there was no hint of violence. Later, when the television cameras had stopped transmitting, the demonstrators who remained were beaten back by riot police and the square cleared. It was the immediate prelude to the Kyiv revolution.
It is fair to say that, since then, the Government of Ukraine have received a great deal of verbal support from other European Governments, including Britain, France and Germany. The question, which has been touched on by a number of speakers—perhaps most of all by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop—is whether the tangible support has matched the rhetoric.
In 2022, the Russians invaded and few of the commentators gave much for Ukraine’s chances. We have now passed the second anniversary of the resistance to that invasion. Thanks to the courage of the armed forces, the determination of the people of Ukraine and the leadership of President Zelensky, Russia has been held back. The question is: for how long? To put it bluntly, Ukraine needs more help, now. Last month, in Germany, President Zelensky made an urgent appeal for more weapons to avoid a “catastrophic” situation in Europe. That was a strong warning; we should listen and, above all, we should respond. Countries such as Britain are giving, but the truth is that we must give more.
I am not a completely uncritical supporter of Margaret Thatcher, as my recent book perhaps shows—she was certainly not a world leader on AIDS. However, I will say that, on her central aim that the Government must pursue a strong defence policy, coupled with insisting on law and order at home, she was absolutely right. I am not so hopelessly optimistic that anything we say in this debate will influence the Budget tomorrow, much of which has, regrettably, already been leaked to the press. Nor do I pretend that spending more on defence is an easy message, as it means scaling back on other projects. But it is the right thing to do and we should pursue it. We cannot afford a further part of Europe to slip under the power of Putin and the Russian Government. Ukraine deserves all our support, and that is what we should volunteer.
Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. I was reminded of dragging him and my noble friend Lord Johnson—whom I saw on the steps of the Throne earlier—through the Sinai Desert, with a number of others, into Gaza. We had to go through Rafah, because the Israelis would not let us in through Erez. We arrived very tired and dusty, and the first visit was to a school, which was two containers stacked on top of one another. Some little boys in beautifully whitewashed shirts had learned a song for us: it was “If You’re Happy and You Know It (Clap Your Hands)”. I wonder what has happened to them now.
I thank my noble friend Lord Ahmad for his excellent opening of this debate, and especially for his depth of knowledge and commitment to the Middle East. I declare my interests as set out in the register, especially my positions as Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Kuwait, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and president of Medical Aid for Palestinians.
What has happened over the last 151 days, first in Israel and then in Gaza, is nothing short of tragedy. The unconscionable acts of Hamas on 7 October were abhorrent and the train of events that they have unleashed is heartbreaking. The devastation in Gaza is unimaginable, and yet the hostages have not been released and one in 20 Palestinians, mainly women and children, have been killed or injured. In the north of Gaza, which has consistently been denied food, and with few aid trucks able to get through, one in six children under the age of two are now seriously malnourished. This has not been caused by crop failures or drought; as the UN said, this is entirely manmade and, as such, could be immediately reversed.
I would like to pay great tribute to my noble friends the Foreign Secretary and Lord Ahmad. They could not have done more to deliver difficult messages, especially on the access of aid. Where trucks cannot go, we have dropped aid from the air in co-operation with our good friends the Jordanians, and this is more than welcome. But aid dropped from the sky does not always reach those who need it most. What we need is fully trained workers on the ground to help to distribute the aid and to treat the children, but they cannot gain access with the ongoing bombardment.
As of yesterday, 16 children had died of starvation, dehydration and malnutrition. Today, that number will have grown. Children should not be used as a weapon of war. I agree with my noble and very good friend Lord Ahmad that the fighting must stop, and it has to stop now. In a powerful and passionate speech which says everything, and which was delivered at the Cairo summit for peace on 21 October last year, His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan said:
“This conflict did not start two weeks ago, and it will not stop if we continue down this blood-soaked path. We know all too well that it will only lead to more of the same—a zero-sum game of death and destruction, of hatred and hopelessness played on repeat”.
The only hope of preventing the seeds of future hatred growing is a two-state solution. In a speech last October to your Lordships, I said that I had always hoped that the path to peace might be through the Arab peace initiative and that one day it might be picked up, dusted down and given new purpose. Among all this heartache, I was delighted to read that serious work was being undertaken by the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, to forge a path to peace. I very much hope the UK Government will give any such initiative their full support and that we will help in any way we can.
Of course, we are able to make the first step towards a two-state solution, and that is recognition of Palestine. I welcome my noble friend’s statement on this. My noble friend Lord Soames and I called for recognition in 2011, when the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and the EU had all said that Palestine was ready for statehood. When President Obama promised that Palestine would be a new member of the UN, we endorsed that promise. We missed the opportunity to change the course of history then—we can do better now.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, few have done more over such a sustained period to promote peace and reconciliation in the Middle East than the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, and it is a great pleasure to follow her.
In my remarks, I want to mention the new axis of authoritarian dictatorships and their proxies, the danger posed by isolationism, and accountability and the rule of law. For the purposes of transparency, and as it was mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, I should note that I am sanctioned by China and Iran.
On this day in 1946, in Missouri, Winston Churchill gave his famous “Sinews of Peace” Iron Curtain speech, in which he talked about,
“a solemn moment for the American democracy”,
warning that Hitler’s Nazism would inevitably reappear in
“the designs of wicked men or the aggressive urge of mighty states”.
Here they are—an alliance of dictators and authoritarians —in Xi’s Communist China, Putin’s Kremlin, Iran’s apocalyptic mullahs and their many imitators, from North Korea to Belarus. Then there are terrorist proxies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, combining a toxic mix of ideologies and criminality.
China commits ethnic genocide in Xinjiang, with impunity destroys democracy in Hong Kong, and threatens a blockade of Taiwan, which would devastate the world’s economy. It persecutes, imprisons and oppresses. Foolishly, we have allowed the CCP to penetrate our markets with slave-made goods. Foolishly, we have allowed it to fill the void in the global South, including Commonwealth countries, with their $1 trillion belt and road programme, leaving indebted nations hostage to China’s strategic hegemonic interests, hostile and inimical to those of the free world.
China has happily watched Putin invade a sovereign nation, degrade its munitions and threaten the use of nuclear weapons, as he has sacrificed Russia’s place as a great power, as political opponents die in prison and as an ICC arrest warrant is issued against him. Putin’s quartermasters are Iran and North Korea—North Korea, which executes a young man for watching a South Korean movie, and Iran, where a young woman, Mahsa Amini, is jailed and then dies after being accused of failing to wear clothes approved by the morality police. This is the axis of despots and dictators who say that they will impose a new world order. The year 2024 feels dangerous, uncertain and unpredictable.
As in 1946, we must counter this through strengthened alliances and by combating isolationism—including through NATO and AUKUS, as we have heard. While it is heartening to see the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, it is depressing to hear Donald Trump with his threats and his isolationist talk of leaving NATO. He should remember that isolationism did not stop the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbour, and that Article 5 binds the other 31 NATO members to support America in the not inconceivable event of it being attacked.
America needs to be fully engaged not just in NATO but in the United Nations—in combating, exposing and reforming the UN. That institution’s organisations and agencies—from the discredited UN Human Rights Council to the manipulated WHO and subverted UNWRA —are all in need of new leadership.
The UN’s pathetic response to Alexei Navalny’s death —suggesting the Kremlin impartially investigate itself—defies reason and leaves it looking incompetent and corrupt. In the case of the Hamas attacks on Israel, it initially proved itself incapable of an unbiased outright condemnation. Where were the blue helmets as 600,000 were killed in Tigray while the world looked away? Now, thousands are dead in Darfur and Sudan, with 9 million people displaced, adding to the 114 million people displaced worldwide.
To tackle root causes of displacement will need the equivalent of the post-war Marshall aid programme through which the US, with extraordinary generosity, transferred $173 billion in today’s money to the reconstruction of western European economies. The 1940s was also a time when we built new alliances based on the rule of law, with lawyers like Raphael Lemkin framing the genocide convention, and others writing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was when Churchill advocated for the creation of the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights. Their endeavours led to the Nuremburg tribunal, and later to the Rome statute and the creation of the International Criminal Court.
I hope that when he comes to reply, the Foreign Secretary will tell us how, in our generation, we will ensure a tribunal is established to prosecute the crime of aggression in Ukraine. What will we do to preserve the evidence and ensure prosecution for the crimes committed by ISIS against Yazidis and others in Iraq? What will be done to bring to justice those responsible for the genocides in Darfur, Xinjiang and Burma, and crimes against humanity in Nigeria and Tigray? In too many places, impunity has become the norm and justice is the exception. We must take urgent steps to reassert the primacy of the rule of law and demonstrate to the axis of dictators that they will be deterred and held to account.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow my noble friend Lord Alton of Liverpool. In today’s world, it is difficult to separate the domestic from the external, and the economic from the political. We have seen this in many crucial issues, such as climate change, immigration, free trade agreements, and, of course, Brexit, to name a few.
Brexit was about what kind of relationship with continental Europe best serves our national interest, but this debate has been going on for at least 1,000 years. What has changed since then is that the national interest is equally abroad as it is at home. The dilemma today is what to do when the security and prosperity of our citizens clash. What should we do when the Chinese Government invest in key British infrastructure and in our universities? Should the economic argument override security concerns? What about human rights? China has been suppressing democracy in Hong Kong, trying to eliminate the Uighurs, and supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet it is our fifth-largest trading partner. How do we reconcile the idealism of how we would like the world to be with the realism of how we find it?
In March 2021 the Government published a sweeping review of their foreign, defence, development and security policies. It named Russia as
“the most acute physical threat to our security”.
Several months later, Russia invaded Ukraine. In response, an updated version of the integrated review was published in 2023 stressing the need to build economic and military resilience.
Far from ending, as Francis Fukuyama proudly predicted in 1989, history is back—and with a vengeance. It is far worse than a return to the Cold War. In those days, it was a regulated conflict; it was the politics of détente, with far less economic interdependence. Today the world appears to belong increasingly to dictators.
Russia and China argue that their brand of authoritarian government allows them to act decisively while their democratic rivals debate, dither and fail to deliver on their promises. There is some truth in this. Organisations founded after the Second World War under US leadership—the UN, NATO, the IMF, the WTO and even the EU—have lost their way, while the United States is taking an increasingly isolationist stance. But because our relationship with the United States is based on both countries’ national interests, as an independent country we will have the opportunity to play an important role, whoever wins the United States presidency. Since leaving the EU, we have not forfeited our global leadership opportunities. We have hosted COP 26 and the G7 summit, played a crucial role in AUKUS, become a CPTPP member and led the way in responding to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. We may no longer be the superpower we once were, but we can still help shape history.
Does my noble friend the Foreign Secretary not agree that we must first regain our confidence, stop apologising about our past and stop bickering about Brexit? We should instead focus on what we have excelled at for centuries—pragmatism, wisdom and a strong sense of purpose—and use our diplomatic might to work towards a workable peace.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, after the Hamas terror of 7 October and the Netanyahu Gaza horror since, I will speak frankly as a former UK Middle East Minister and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
First, Israel is not going to destroy Hamas, as its leaders promise—not even by destroying Gaza. Although Israel has seriously damaged Hamas militarily, it is a movement and an ideology that, in many respects, Israel helped promote. Its right-wing Governments thwarted serious negotiations with Yasser Arafat’s more moderate Fatah after Bill Clinton’s Camp David summit in 2000. They also oppressed Gaza residents, imposing a state of siege. Surely, after Israeli bombing kills their relatives and destroys their schools and communities, Gaza teenagers will resist even more, and be recruited even more easily by Hamas and jihadism. As Britain’s troubled history in Northern Ireland vividly demonstrates, if politics does not work, violence and extremism always fill the vacuum.
Remember also that British Governments refused for decades to negotiate with the IRA because of its terrorist outrages. When they finally did so, the 1998 Good Friday agreement happened, supported by a US President, a UK Prime Minister, a UK Foreign Secretary and an EU President.
The notion, also peddled by leaders of the global North, that only negotiations with a discredited West Bank Palestinian leadership can be countenanced will not work. Nor will Netanyahu’s recently reported plan for Gaza to be run by Israeli-approved administrators without links to either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. There is a salutary history of trying and failing to promote favoured candidates on peoples who are demanding self-determination to choose their own. Like it or not, Hamas will have to be included in some way, as indeed they are now in the Egypt-based negotiations.
In the end, the solution has to be political. Palestinians of whatever political stripe cannot defeat Israel militarily; nor can Israel defeat Palestinians militarily. As Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, wrote compellingly in his book, Talking to Terrorists, such conflicts can be resolved only by negotiation. By the way, Arafat had previously been labelled a terrorist with whom Israel would never deal, as also had Nelson Mandela by apartheid’s rulers.
Yet Israel’s right-wing leaders have been hell-bent on turning Palestinian territories into occupied dependencies. The West Bank—small islands of which are nominally administered by Fatah but in practice controlled by Israel—now contains half a million Israeli settlers, and east Jerusalem nearly a quarter of a million. UK Ministers wring their hands, pointing out that such settlements are illegal—but do nothing.
Where has all this got Israel? It is not more but less secure, as the 7 October pogrom palpably demonstrated. Yet the flat rejection of a two-state solution by Netanyahu means permanent Israeli domination, with escalating violence and regional instability. I suggest to the Foreign Secretary that, beyond the current talks, he supports a regional summit involving Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and, yes, Iran too, along with Jordan, Qatar and the UAE. There will be no stability in the region unless all parties are included.
Many in the global South are contemptuous of what they see as profound double standards by global North leaders, including the UK, who quite rightly want backing for Ukrainian self-determination but are complicit in the denial of Palestinian self-determination and culpable in the Gaza horror. The geopolitical breach with the global South is deepening and will cost Washington, London and Brussels dearly in an increasingly turbulent world. Meanwhile, I remain a friend to both Israelis and Palestinians. That is no sell-out of either, but a recognition that they share a future together or they share no future at all worth having.
Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain, with all his experience.
I have five minutes in which to make two points about a part of the world that has not yet been discussed in this debate. My first point is about central Asia, where I believe that increased investment in soft power now could make a real difference. There is a clear appetite there for greater engagement from the United Kingdom. I refer noble Lords to my interests in the register: my work in central Asia since 2017 and, more recently, as a trustee of the John Smith Trust. I believe the UK should be both a reliable long-term partner and a critical friend to central Asia. Geopolitically it is an important region, with a young and dynamic population. For example, more than 60% of Uzbekistan’s well-educated population are under 30 years old. Younger people in central Asia want an alternative to both Moscow and Beijing. They want greater access to our English language and our universities. They want to strengthen their civil society and free media. The Minister will also probably know that, currently, many Uzbek workers help every autumn with our cherry harvest in Kent.
People I speak to in central Asia would also like greater assistance in establishing a genuinely independent judiciary and modern legal structures. These would assist in the fight against corruption and help to embed reforms. I know that many in Kyrgyzstan in particular would welcome this.
We should learn from the lessons of the recent past and from some of our mistakes in the region. After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin and the current Russian leadership were able to adopt a pick and mix of unregulated free market economy with pretend so-called managed democracy, without ever allowing genuinely democratic structures and the rule of law to take hold.
Our soft power influence is absolutely key, through the BBC World Service as well as leadership and critical-thinking programmes such as the John Smith Trust and the British Council. For example, having a British Council staff member in the British embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, would make a very real difference very quickly. As I understand it, Kyrgyzstan has just chosen to invest in a 30-year contract with Cambridge University Press for its core school textbooks—we should celebrate that. The Foreign Secretary clearly has many calls on his time, but I strongly recommend a visit to central Asia.
My second point is one that has been mentioned already by many other noble Lords. This is a critical year for Ukraine, especially in the context of the elections in the United States. The series of additional sanctions announced by the Foreign Secretary two weeks ago are very welcome, but we now have to do so much more to inflict real and meaningful damage on the Russian war economy, and I hope that we will continue to work with our G7 and European partners to that effect. Last week, I was at an event in Canterbury with many Ukrainians who asked me whether it was right to continue to provide enough so that Ukraine does not lose but not enough for it to win. I ask the Foreign Secretary the same question.
Putin cannot be allowed to win—that view is shared by all mainstream political parties in the UK. No country should ever have the right to declare that another sovereign country does not have the right to exist. Putin’s world view is based on a distortion of the truth, a reinterpretation of history, populism, authoritarianism and the accumulation of his own personal wealth. It has been hugely convenient for him to use the truly awful wars happening now in Sudan and the Middle East to stir up feelings of resentment against Ukraine in the global South. Just because Putin might not be directly responsible for those other awful wars does not mean that he has not been indirectly involved.
More or less exactly a year ago, I was working in Khartoum, Sudan, just before the dreadful civil war started there. The presence of Russian Wagner mercenaries was clear for all to see; they have caused untold misery for the people of Sudan, so many of whom are now living abroad as refugees. President Zelensky is right to say that this is not just Ukraine’s war; it is now a war against authoritarianism and in favour of the international values of justice, freedom and the rule of law. We must keep supporting Ukraine in this war, however long it takes.
Lord Polak (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. I refer the House to my registered interests as president of Conservative Friends of Israel and director of the UK Abraham Accords Group.
Some three months ago, my noble friend the Foreign Secretary said:
“If we leave Hamas in charge of even a part of Gaza, there will never be a two-state solution because you can’t expect Israel to live next to a group of people that want to do October 7 all over again”.
I would be grateful if he can confirm that this continues to be his position and that of His Majesty’s Government. In asking my questions, I would like him, if possible, to comment on the deeply worrying FCDO seminar that took place last Wednesday, 28 February—“Israel/Gaza: What Next for Hamas?”—with 100 people, including speakers who were clearly at odds with government policy.
Of the five points that are paramount in achieving regional peace, I will highlight three. First, no ceasefire can be achieved until all hostages are released. Like other noble Lords, especially the Foreign Secretary and my noble friend Lord Ahmad, I have spent time with the families of hostages both in Israel and here in the UK. We recoil in horror at the witnesses’ testimony about those held hostage, especially the plight of the young women of the tunnels, who are subject to unspeakable horrors as sex slaves—they must all come home. Having returned from two recent visits to the region—one to the UAE and Bahrain and the other to Israel—it seems to me that the Abraham accords represent a beacon of hope; they have shown promise, but their full potential remains untapped.
Less than one month before 7 October, on 14 September, I initiated a debate on the third anniversary of the Abraham accords. I asked His Majesty’s Government what role they were playing in the accords:
“What proactive steps are we taking”?—[Official Report, 14/9/23; col. GC 215.]
What conversations are we having with Arab states? I asked how many officials in the FCDO were engaged in the Abraham accords activities. I say to my noble friends the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for the Middle East that we really have to do better.
On 15 January, I paid tribute to the Kingdom of Bahrain for playing an important role in the coalition against the Houthis in the Red Sea. The security and stability of the Red Sea are vital for the UK and all our global allies. Last weekend, the UK-registered carrier the “Rubymar” was sunk off the coast of Yemen by Houthi terrorists who have vowed to continue to target UK shipping. The Houthis’ deputy foreign minister, Hussein al-Ezzi, said:
“Yemen will continue to sink more British ships, and any repercussions or other damages will be added to Britain’s bill”.
A very short distance from Yemen’s violent and chaotic coast lies Somaliland. Somaliland has 850 kilometres of Red Sea coastline with no piracy; this can be attributed to the pro-western democracy that is Somaliland. On 1 January, Ethiopia, a key partner of the UK, signed an MoU with Somaliland, in which Ethiopia formally recognises Somaliland in return for it giving Ethiopia naval and commercial access to the Red Sea. This has been ratified by the Ethiopian parliament and other prominent African nations are seriously discussing this. I urge my noble friend the Foreign Secretary to look at these positive developments with a sense of urgency.
The energy that my noble friend the Foreign Secretary has put into the areas of foreign policy in Ukraine, the Middle East and beyond has been abundantly clear. It is a dangerous world, as we have all heard, being made more dangerous every day by the actions of the regime of Tehran and its proxies—whether Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. But there appears to be an opportunity for the UK to play a significant role in the Horn of Africa. My noble friend the Foreign Secretary has a unique role, after hosting the global Somali conference in 2014. The UK is also the penholder at the UN on Somalia and Somaliland and is therefore perfectly positioned to take the lead.
Putting Somalia back together has not worked. The world has changed and has moved on since our “one Somalia” policy, born in 1961. It is time our policy changes too. I hope my noble friend the Foreign Secretary will find the time to recognise and uphold Somaliland’s contributions to regional stability and security, ensuring that its vital role is not overlooked or undervalued.
Lord Young of Old Windsor (CB)
My Lords, next Monday, we mark Commonwealth Day, and we look ahead to the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa this October.
It is no secret that the Commonwealth is an organisation that was close to the heart of Her late Majesty the Queen, as indeed it is to her son, now our King, both of whom I was privileged to accompany to many Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings over the years in my role as private secretary. The late Queen put it in a typically enigmatic way when she said:
“It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime”.
None the less, I will make two brief comments about the UK’s present relationship with the Commonwealth.
First, I believe Samoa represents a great opportunity for the Commonwealth to rekindle its sense of purpose, and the UK can play an important role in assisting with that. The fact that world leaders will gather in October in this Polynesian island country is a fitting illustration of the geopolitical importance of the Commonwealth, not least as we contemplate a growing Indo-Pacific focus. One country that has certainly got this message is China. Beijing has reportedly invested more than £685 billion across 42 Commonwealth member states since 2005, and many of your Lordships will have seen first-hand evidence of major Chinese infrastructure projects when visiting Commonwealth countries.
There is much that the UK can do in the run-up to Samoa to influence the Commonwealth’s future trajectory, including in the areas of intra-Commonwealth trade and investment; tackling climate change and biodiversity; youth opportunity and education; and promoting our shared democratic values.
There is a huge inherent opportunity in an organisation which can tap into the ingenuity and imagination of a third of the world’s population, including 1.5 billion people under 30. It is the global strategic equivalent of sending a space probe to Pluto powered just by two Duracell batteries, using the gravitational force of the planets to slingshot us on our way. I detect an increasing appetite within Commonwealth countries for fresh and equitable relationships, which in the long run improve us all. It is an opportunity too good to ignore.
Secondly, I know I am not alone in my concern about the current status of the Commonwealth Games. We all know that these “friendly games” have the benefit of being less commercial than other international contests, give non-Olympic sports such as netball a place on the world stage, and allow smaller countries, including the UK’s home nations, a chance to get their athletes on the scene. In the immediate term, I hope the United Kingdom is doing all it can to encourage the Commonwealth Games Federation to work out a viable resolution for 2026 and 2030. For the longer term, perhaps now is the time to start exploring fresh ideas for the staging of the Games, perhaps—as has happened recently with other contests—different countries, cities or states holding different sporting events during a given year.
We often say of institutions in this country: “If it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t invent it”. With the Commonwealth, it is the other way round. It is an institution you would love to have if it did not exist, but I fear we are somehow in danger of taking it for granted.
I have first-hand personal experience of the Foreign Secretary’s long-standing commitment to and interest in matters relating to the Commonwealth, which are shared by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad. But I hope we can receive some reassurance today that they will ensure that the “C” in FCDO continues to carry as much weight as the “F” and the “D”.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young. I endorse the comments made by many speakers about the great respect that we have for the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Ahmad. I note that it is not only the anniversary of the Fulton speech by Winston Churchill but the 71st anniversary of the death of Stalin—even tyrants are mortal.
Foreign policy is domestic policy, and vice versa. What happens in Gaza hits the streets of Leeds; what happens in Kashmir directly affects attitudes and events in Bradford. It is impossible to put foreign and domestic policies in separate compartments, which is why it is vital that the UK does not create a credibility gap when thinking that what we do in London is not noticed beyond these islands.
In the last 10 years, we have seen the absurdity of speaking of our neighbours as if they could not understand us—I witnessed Brexit—and of demanding adherence by Russia, China, Sudan and so on to the rule of law while being ready in this place to drop commitments made by us. I think that three Bills now have come to this House with a cover note saying that the Secretary of State cannot guarantee that our obligations under human rights legislation, for example, are being met. This country has achieved a credibility over decades, especially in the 80 years since the end of World War II, for honest diplomacy and pragmatic integrity. What takes decades to create can disappear in days when that integrity, or at least reputation for integrity, is compromised or questioned.
As this debate will be wide-ranging and the time limit is short, I will focus briefly on three points: security, strife and Sudan. First, national security is achievable only if and when our neighbours are also sure of their security, which is why the absence of a Palestinian state remains a bleeding wound. Equally, any achievable peace in the Middle East depends on Israel also being secure. This must be resolved diplomatically and politically, not militarily or by terrorism. The current conflict will sow the seeds of the next five generations of violence and vengeance. Our response to it matters more than ever.
Secondly, the integrated review refresh of 2023 moved us from the language of:
“Global Britain in a Competitive Age”
to
“a more contested and volatile world”.
This is too tame: the world, wherever you look, is now conflictual. It has taken only three years to shift from competitive to contested to conflictual. Policy decisions that are made now must consider long-term aims but be capable of sustained investment, not purely reactive to the immediate. Ukraine might look different now and Russia might be behaving differently if Putin’s aggression in 2014, despite many warnings, had been met with more than a shrug.
Finally, Sudan: it is symptomatic of an age dominated by audio-visual news cycles that the latest conflict takes the headlines. This means that immense suffering falls off our radar too easily. My diocese has been closely linked with Sudan for nearly half a century. The collapse into civil war is appalling. More people, estimated to be between 9 million and 11 million, have been displaced here than anywhere else on the planet. Not only are we witnessing genocide in Darfur again but the whole country now faces extreme famine. Even at the basic level of self-interest, we cannot complain about large-scale migration to the shores of England and other European countries if we do not work with partners collectively to address the fundamental causes of this migration. These are usually climate change, conflict and cruelty, but global crises demand global responses.
I urge the Government to invest more in stopping the drivers of conflict and insecurity in the first place, prioritising conflict prevention rather than resolution alone.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, if Hamas released the hostages and came out from hiding in the tunnels, the immediate crisis would end. The world is concentrating on Gaza, and the need for humanitarian aid is the basis for the urgent calls from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for more funding. But the solution to the Israel-Palestine issue is not being progressed.
UNRWA is the problem, not the solution. It has not resettled a single person since 1948, whereas the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with fewer personnel and far less funding, has resettled 50 million people. UNRWA’s mission is not to help people but to perpetuate a political conflict—that is, to keep the so-called refugees in a state of misery until they can return to Israeli territory. That would mean the destruction of Israel and the obliteration of its 7 million Jews. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we say “never again”. The Hamas invasion of 7 October was, to Hamas, a foretaste of its declared aim to remove those 7 million.
The only way to resettle refugees and bring peace is to treat Palestinians like all the other refugees in the world. As with millions of others post war, there was upheaval and new national boundaries. They cannot return any more than Jews can return to their former homes in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. The host countries where the refugees are resident must take over their care, resettlement and full civil liberties, just as every other civilised country does eventually with displaced persons.
UNRWA should be abolished, leaving aid for the many other organisations operating in Gaza. Unfortunately, the iniquitous effects that UNRWA has created will last. That is the poisoning of the mind of future generations in the way that it has taught Palestinian children to hate, to believe lies about Israel and to believe that they can return there through violence. It has given make-believe employment to thousands of Palestinians. It continues the myth that there are millions of Palestinian refugees, when in fact they are not Palestinian and not refugees. It is a bottomless pit into which countries pour money—not only with no return, but money that has been used to murder and take hostage and starve ordinary Palestinians of the necessaries of life.
It is noteworthy that the rich Arab countries that surround Israel do not reach out to support their Palestinian neighbours. The major donors are the US, followed by Germany and then the UK. Where have the millions—indeed, billions—of dollars gone? They have gone directly to Hamas to build tunnels, secure armaments and keep Hamas leaders in luxury. The ordinary poverty-stricken Palestinian has seen none of it, and the state donors are curiously reluctant to follow through to see where their dollars are going. By funding UNRWA, the international community has freed Hamas to spend on terror rather than health and education. UNRWA has no financial control and no audit; it suffers from mismanagement, sexual misconduct and nepotism. Support for UNRWA contradicts the UK’s policy of a peaceful two-state solution.
UNRWA employees were undoubtedly involved in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October; some were members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. At least another 1,000 UNRWA employees have ties with Hamas. Even more of them have praised the 7 October attacks, expressed anti-Semitism and praised terrorism.
What should be done? The UN refugee agency should take over the settlement of Palestinians in the countries where they live, and the right of return should be abandoned. The millions who live in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere should have citizenship and full rights in those countries, as would be the case for refugees in any other country of refuge. They are not refugees in any case, being neither born in nor driven out of the land of their birth.
Will the Minister accept that the continued existence of UNRWA fuels terrorism, twists the minds of future generations and perpetuates the refugee illusion, rather than putting an end to it? The end of UNRWA would be the beginning of peace.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, it is a genuine pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech; I agree with her about a great many things, including what she has just said. I am also pleased to see my noble friend Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, in his place. It is rather too late for me to welcome him here, but I welcome somebody of his stature representing the United Kingdom abroad.
Perforce, I will be brief. I would like to give the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, my support in his dissection of the integrated review refresh of last year. I also say to my noble friend Lady Goldie, who is not in her place, that, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop knows, there is more rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repenteth as she has done over defence spending. It is a pity she did not say that when she was a Minister, but I will upbraid her for it in person.
I will touch briefly on three current conflicts; first, Ukraine, about which a great deal has been said. This war in Europe is the most serious for nearly 80 years. The war is a mixture of World War I attrition and 21st-century high-tech drones and the like. I congratulate Boris Johnson—I do not often—who was of course a great school friend of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary. I also congratulate the UK Government on their steadfast support for Ukraine in the last two years, but we must continue to do this and do more. Are we pressing our allies, particularly France, Germany and the United States, to do more? They must do more, not sit on their hands and say, “It is all very good but a bit difficult”. This war affects global security and prosperity. The United States, Europe, Africa and India all need to understand that.
Our munitions have been extremely welcome and invaluable, but now they are totally depleted for our use or Ukraine’s. Is my noble friend pressing for a dramatic increase in industrial production, to move away from the mindset of the peace dividend? My noble friend may say that defence is not his brief, but he will be listened to, and he will know well the dictum of von Clausewitz in “Vom Kriege”, or “On War” for those who do not speak German:
“War is the continuation of policy with other means”—
and for foreign policy with defence, I suggest.
On Gaza and the Middle East, the UK has again been steadfast. It is a dreadful, possibly intractable situation. I cannot think of anybody who is not very concerned, to put it mildly, about the death of many civilians in Gaza, but Hamas could end this war tomorrow if it gave up the hostages and stopped attacking Israel. Perhaps we could then allow for a more peaceful, long-term solution to emerge, probably based on a two-state solution in which Hamas disappears, along with the illegal settlements in the West Bank and some of the ultra-Orthodox pressure on the Government. Perhaps we would get more reasonable—or moderate, shall we say —Governments in both Palestine and Israel.
Finally, on the situation in Yemen with Iran and the Houthis, the prosperity of the world is under threat. It is disappointing to see so few countries defending the shipping routes in the Gulf. My noble friend Lord Ahmad spoke of international responses, but as I understand it, the only response has been from the United States, helped by us with one ship. We need much more than that to defend the shipping lanes in the Gulf.
Moving on, perhaps I may quote a predecessor of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary from some 30 years ago, Lord Hurd, who said that we punch above our weight in foreign affairs, and President Theodore Roosevelt, who said some 100 years ago, in a much better- known quotation:
“Speak softly and carry a big stick”.
We spent the defence peace dividend several times over and we have no big stick left. Our allies know this, and the United States and NATO say it. As I speak, we are reducing our defence in terms of numbers of troops, numbers of ships and numbers of aircraft. I heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer say recently that he wants to dramatically increase defence spending over the next 15 years. That is not good enough; our needs are now.
I support the Conservative Government. I have supported my party. I have been loyal—mostly—through thick and thin over 32 years; quite a lot of it has been rather thin, to be honest. I do not believe that a Government led by the Opposition would do any better, but I say to my noble friend the Foreign Secretary that our interests, our society, our values and our security are all threatened. We must spend more on defence, because the first duty of government is, as always, the defence of the realm.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for all the work he has done over the last years, in particular just recently, on sexual violence in conflict by visiting countries that many people would be quite afraid to go to in order to negotiate with people and keep this agenda going, and for the other acts he has done to promote women and girls’ education and employment around the world. I do not think many people in this House know the work he has done. He is always there, and if he cannot be, he is on Zoom or something else. He has done magnificent work for this country, and I know that, across the divide, people will give him that support.
With regard to foreign policy, the Government have listed their intention to prioritise building resilience and strengthening security, domestically and abroad. Important progress has been made in recent weeks via the Windsor Framework and with the Irish Parliament. I remind the Government to respond to the findings of the inquiry into regulatory divergence and the Windsor Framework.
The UK holds a prominent position as a leader in soft power. It is important that we leverage this influence to cultivate opportunities for collaboration among nations, sharing our values in pursuit of the common good. We must always keep talking and keep all the doors open. This is often highlighted by the sustainable development goals. Hard power seems to be the name of the game these days, and we can see where that has got us. Rather than succumbing to the allure of strongman policies, we must harness the positive soft power of our culture, values and ideas to forge enduring connections and facilitate dialogue across borders, creating a more peaceful and stable world for us all.
The impact of recent global shocks, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, and climate-related catastrophes, has led to a concerning decline in the UN Human Development Index for the first time in 38 years. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on his pivotal role in fostering consensus around development, particularly by upholding Britain’s commitment to the 0.7% target set by the Labour Government. However, the recent decision by the Government, under the direction of Prime Minister Sunak, to reduce the development target to 0.5% and slash funding from vital aid programmes is deeply concerning. Such actions are counterproductive if our aim is to address vulnerabilities and promote resilience. Instead, we must adopt a long-term approach that addresses vulnerabilities at their roots and reduces our susceptibility to crises and hostile actors.
It is imperative to recognise that women and girls have borne a disproportionate burden of the consequences of past decisions. The intersections of climate change, conflict, and gender inequality highlight the urgent need to meaningfully reinstate development aid before harm occurs. Although there is a growing acknowledgment of the unique vulnerabilities women face in environmental and humanitarian crises, their voices continue to be marginalised in the decision-making process. I ask the Government to continue the approach that no decisions of any type should be made without women at every table.
Conflict exacerbates existing inequalities in societies and breaks down social networks, making women more vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation. Research shows that, in fragile and conflicted countries, only 44% of women are likely to be in paid work, compared with 66% of men. Globally, women are less likely to have a bank account, to participate in the labour market, to have access to social security or to be entrepreneurs, and they are paid less than men. However, they are more likely to work in informal and vulnerable labour markets, and to undertake unpaid work that is vital for a working economy.
We cannot forget the women of Afghanistan especially, who are subject to a cruel form of gender apartheid. Decisions to bar girls from middle school through to higher education have led to the closure of schools and the erosion of education and opportunities. What will this do to the society of that country, which we hope will one day be at peace and working with us? Movement restrictions and a lack of access to healthcare facilities and legal safeguards have left women at risk of serious harms, especially in maternal and reproductive health, and vulnerable to violence and abuse. Women’s ability to engage in gainful employment outside their homes has been significantly curtailed, which not only undermines their economic independence but contributes to rising poverty rates among Afghan families and to suicide.
When women in emerging settings are held back, the entire process of peacebuilding and reconstruction is jeopardised. Stable economies are paramount to the transition that a country makes from war to peace and can help prevent conflict breaking out in the first place.
I ask the Foreign Secretary to outline the steps being taken to ensure the meaningful inclusion of women in every aspect of decision-making about Britain’s overseas involvement and development spending. Each decision that crosses his desk must be evaluated based on its impact on the empowerment and success of women and girls worldwide. I urge him to consult resources such as the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security’s index to gain an insight into the pressing needs of women globally. I ask him to support the request from my friend, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, for more funding for the peace team in the Foreign Office.
Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. I join others in thanking my noble friend the Foreign Secretary and the ministerial team in the Foreign Office for the impact they are bringing to British foreign policy. We have been asked to keep it short. I want to make just two points.
The first is about the increasingly turbulent and risk-laden era in which we live and which shows no sign of abating—on the contrary. The social and economic disturbance that western societies, and others, are encountering as the result of the major technological revolution we are undergoing is compounded by aggressive challenge from ideological competitors. It has been said, as a result, that we are in a pre-war situation. That description certainly has the effect of waking people up to the dangers of the highly unstable situation we now confront. It also recalls, perhaps with some justice, the folly of delay, producing the inadequate responses which characterised the 1930s.
However, I do not think it wise to talk about a pre-war world. The use of the term pre-war implies that we are on a treadmill to war, but this is the case only if we allow it to happen, and we must not do so. We need to build our defences, increase our capacity to deter our enemies and opponents, and convince them of the seriousness of our purpose and our resolve to prevent war. That is not appeasement; it is the opposite and, as others have said, it involves spending more money on defence now.
That brings me to my second point. In this House, and I think more widely in this country, we understand the supreme importance for our own security of a victorious Ukraine. We know that Russia does not need to succeed in her maximal ambition of controlling the whole of Ukrainian territory to deprive Ukrainians of the integration into the western economy and institutions that they wish and to create an indefinite and not so frozen conflict in the middle of our continent. I cannot imagine much more dangerous than that.
Although I have great respect for the judgment of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, I disagree rather strongly with the notion that it would be good to accept a so-called armistice in the middle of Europe. It would demonstrate that we had lost control of events, and we cannot allow that to happen. It would certainly invite third parties to take advantage of our demonstration of weakness—Taiwan springs to mind.
It is good to learn from the press—and I hope it is true—that the Government are discussing with European partners how to aid Ukraine should the American arms package not pass Congress. I would like to take that a little further. I think the time has come when contingency planning could and should go further. I hope the Foreign Secretary will tell me that his department has started to think about what should happen when the war ends. Sadly, that is not going to be soon and, sadly, the longer the war, the more profound the consequences are likely to be.
That is a very good reason for thinking about the consequences. You might say that that is an ex-planner speaking but, if one recalls, during the Second World War—and fortunately we are not in a global war; I trust we will never get there—thinking about where the world was heading that we wanted to create started very early. It is not too soon to think about where we want to be at the end of the war.
There is another reason, which is that if you want to take measures during the course of a war you need to be very clear that as a result you are not going to engage in actions that you will regret subsequently, which, with the wisdom of hindsight, you should have realised would have worked to your disadvantage. The sanction money is a good example. We will need to get how we handle that right so that we are not put in a difficult position when it comes to the end of the conflict. I could cite other examples.
I do not want to take the argument any further and my point, in any case, is a general one. It is not too early to go beyond the slogan of supporting Ukraine whatever it takes—which is what we have been saying—to thinking through what our post-war aims ought to be and how to realise them. It may be argued that disagreement will arise out of this and it is a risky thing to do but I would argue that hiding from an unavoidable agenda would be a bigger mistake.
Baroness Cox (CB)
My Lords, I try to use the privilege of speaking in your Lordships’ House to be a voice for people whose voices are not often heard. It is with a very heavy heart today that I will speak a little about one of the world’s forgotten, or largely forgotten, crises: Nigeria.
In central Nigeria, millions of people have been displaced by intercommunal violence. The death count has risen to 22,000 in 15 years, with countless others suffering life-changing injuries. Many children cannot go to school and so have no education. Families have been torn apart by insecurity and fear. The crisis is not often reported in our news media, but militias drawn from the Islamist Fulani ethic group—I emphasise that not all Fulani are Islamist—are now very well armed. Their cache of weapons includes automatic weapons, laser sights, machetes, petrol bombs and incendiary chemicals used to burn houses. They have carried out hundreds of attacks on Christian villages.
My small not-for-profit organisation, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust—HART—has made numerous fact-finding visits to dozens of these villages. I have witnessed first-hand the ruins of homes, farmland, food stores and churches. During my most recent visit, I heard detailed accounts of the deliberate targeting and slaughter of children, a 98 year-old woman being burned alive, and people being hacked by machetes as they ran from rapid gunfire. One survivor, who I will call Beatrice, told me:
“I returned in the morning but everything was burned. I went to my home and saw my mother and siblings butchered and burnt”.
Despite the scale and nature of the killings, victims receive almost no support from the Nigerian Government or the international community. Neither the UK Government nor the US Government have provided adequate humanitarian assistance to central Nigeria; nor has any member of the EU or African Union, or any of the UN relief agencies operating in Nigeria. Aid for Nigeria is directed mainly to the north-east or the north-west of the country, so displaced families across the Middle Belt are often left to fend for themselves. As HART’s local partner, the Reverend Canon Hassan John, told me before today’s debate when I asked him what his views were:
“I can say categorically that none of these villages have received security or humanitarian assistance from the Government of Nigeria, the UK Government or anywhere else. Victims of conflict are forced to rely on aid from local churches or small NGOs, or they receive no aid at all”.
I am told that the FCDO has responded to the crisis with support for a handful of small projects to promote interfaith dialogue. It has also launched the five-year SPRiNG programme to assess the root causes of violence. These are steps in the right direction. However, such a tiptoe response from the UK does not reflect the urgency of the crisis in central Nigeria. The rate of killings, abductions and land grabs is escalating fast. The longer we tolerate these atrocities, the more we embolden the perpetrators; we give them a green light to continue their killings with impunity.
I ask the Minister whether His Majesty’s Government will encourage the Government of Nigeria to respond more effectively to protect the civilians in their own land suffering so horrendously in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region and in other parts of the country too, of which, sadly, I do not have time today to identify the problems.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, nearly three and a half years after the ratification of the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU, we are at a critical juncture. It is a moment for reflection and, more importantly, for constructive engagement between the United Kingdom and the European Union, still our nearest ally and largest trading partner.
The intervening years have, regrettably, been marked by disagreements and a palpable erosion of trust but this trajectory is beginning to change and I commend the Prime Minister for his role in the Windsor Framework agreement. His success exceeded expectations and stands as a testament to what can be accomplished through negotiations marked by sincerity and a willingness to compromise. This framework not only addresses the immediate concerns of the people and businesses of Northern Ireland but safeguards the integrity of our union and the Good Friday agreement while respecting the EU single market. The Windsor Framework allows us to embark upon a new chapter characterised by closer co-operation and renewed trust.
We have already associated with Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research programme, and Copernicus, but there is, of course, more to do. I greatly welcomed the refresh of the Government’s integrated review last year. It addressed the Europe-shaped hole of the previous version, reaffirmed the Euro-Atlantic region as the core priority and, significantly, talked openly about the benefits of working with the institutions of Europe.
However, the TCA is not without its shortcomings. Negotiated under time constraints, it necessitated the disentanglement of complex political, economic and legal ties. At its core, it is a free trade agreement, yet it largely omits provisions for services and foreign policy co-operation—areas where there is considerable scope for enhancement, and where we here have much to offer.
The forthcoming review is scheduled for 2025. This period coincides with the renewal or review of key provisions, including those related to data adequacy, fisheries and energy. This is an opportune moment to re-evaluate and enhance our partnership. We must approach this review with ambition, aiming to strengthen co-operation for the mutual benefit of UK and EU businesses and consumers alike. But this co-operation requires realistic and politically viable proposals. Although there are merits in rejoining a customs union or single market, there is currently little willingness on either side for the UK to do so.
Europe and the western world are contending with instability and geopolitical challenges, with Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine serving as a reminder of the critical importance of European unity and co-operation. Yet we have no formal mechanisms for foreign and defence policy co-operation—an obvious gap in the TCA. We really must change this. I also suggest a new framework participation agreement, allowing the UK to engage selectively with EU operations, and maintaining our strategic autonomy while fostering collaboration. Additionally, a strategic partnership agreement, like that between the EU and Canada, would formalise areas of consensus and provide a structured basis for cooperation. Outside the EU, but with European partners, we should expand the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force to include like-minded nations such as Poland.
Horizon Europe runs until 2027. The successor programme, FP10, is already being discussed in Brussels and capitals in Europe. We have no role in the decision-making process, but that should not stop us working with like-minded EU member states to try to influence that programme.
Regrettably, the Partnership Council has convened only twice since its establishment. Given the dynamic and important nature of our relationship with the EU, more frequent meetings are essential to address emerging issues and find new opportunities for working together.
On trade, our businesses continue to grapple with a plethora of non-tariff barriers, further exacerbated as they now have to deal with 27 jurisdictions. In the services sector, particularly for professionals undertaking short-term work in the EU, the current patchwork of regulations presents significant obstacles. I believe both sides should revisit the TCA to see if we can offer more flexibility, as the current list of activities not requiring a work permit or visa is narrowly drawn.
The forthcoming TCA review should not be merely an administrative exercise but a pivotal opportunity to enhance the UK-EU relationship in a manner that reflects our shared interests and the changing geopolitical landscape. The Conservative European Forum has recently concluded a year-long inquiry into the TCA and our relationship with the EU. Our report, due next week, will set out recommendations aimed at enhancing the economic prosperity and collective security of both the UK and the EU. I will ensure that my noble friend the Foreign Secretary receives a copy and would urge him to pursue our recommendations with our European counterparts.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, last week I met a Minister from Ukraine, who told us that North Korea had last month supplied Russia with a million shells while Ukraine had received just a few thousand from its allies. She was displaced from Crimea and wondered whether her young child would grow up in a free Ukraine. She was determined to restore Ukraine’s damaged infrastructure and build resilience, but she wanted to know how we were going to help.
The free world—even Europe by itself—has the capacity to outproduce Russia several times over, yet what are we doing to achieve that? What are the British Government doing to step up our production capacity, and encourage allies to do the same, to meet Ukraine’s immediate needs? At the same time, recent information suggests that components from UK and EU defence equipment are getting to Russia through third countries. What are we doing to stop that happening?
Given the global nature of conflicts today, countries in the global South are assessing the likely outcome and wondering where their interests may lie. I very much appreciate the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, about Russia’s intervention in Africa. Both Russia and China are actively trying to isolate the free world from Africa. Recent reports reveal that, with the demise of Wagner, the group has been reinvested in the Russian Expeditionary Corps—an agency of the Russian state backed by billions of dollars.
Undemocratic, authoritarian Governments are being offered support to suppress challenges to their power in exchange for mineral rights—in other words, power to suppress democracy. Countries identified include the Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as Libya, north of the Sahara. The group is also active in several other countries, and Russia is increasing its influence in South Africa. This strengthens pro-Kremlin support at the UN and extends authoritarian rule and the suppression of democracy. What steps are the UK Government taking to counter this advance and, in particular, to support democracy and poverty reduction-focused development?
Cuts in UK aid to Africa, the DfID/FCO merger and the diversion of funds to the fallout from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine mean that the UK has lost influence and trust right across the continent. UK aid to Africa has fallen year on year from a peak of £2,989 million in 2019 to £1,240 million in 2022. That dramatic cut means programmes cancelled, expert aid deliverers sacked, development partners in poor countries left bereft, poverty increased and lives lost. Until this policy switch, we had built up a reputation as reliable partners, in it for the long term, building up relationships and underpinning resilience—all that has been trashed. When I asked him last month about aid in Africa, the Foreign Secretary said that it was being increased, but, as I have just indicated, the increase will not cover a fraction of what has already been lost—and we have to rebuild trust and delivery as well.
It is only too easy for Russia and China to play on the evils of colonialism while offering a modern colonialism of their own. If we are to tackle the challenge of poverty in Africa to realise the continent’s potential for its people, it will be by working with local partners, in the public and private sectors, with sustained, long-term commitment. We have to rebuild trust to know that that is forthcoming. Development possibilities depend on aid, trading and public investment, often building from the grass roots, in countries where the economies depend on millions of small businesses. We need coherent, long-term strategy. I have to challenge the Government and ask whether that is even possible given their record.
More than 500 million people are living in absolute poverty in Africa, yet this is a continent rich in resource and potential. The UK should engage in the exemplary way that it has in the past, not to exploit but to help the people of Africa, especially in countries where there is a legacy of mutual good will, and where Russia and China have not yet got their teeth in quite as deep as they have in other countries, so that those countries can build their own futures of peace and prosperity. This is surely a challenge and a worthy ambition for the UK. What are we doing to achieve it?
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I start my contribution by saying a huge thank you to my two colleagues on the Front Bench and their families. The amount of travel they have undertaken, and the commitment they have shown, is an example to all of us, and in particular to some other countries around the world.
Just under a year ago, I brought a big debate to this very Chamber, the title of which was
“Climate change in developing countries”.
That arose from a UN report, the final part of which said that the cash flows to help developing countries cut their emissions must be raised by six times their current levels. I gave a number of examples.
One example I gave was the Falklands and the situation there. I know my noble friend the Foreign Secretary has been there recently. In fact, I read in the Independent that he stated that
“if they can responsibly extract hydrocarbons”—
which is a project called Sea Lion—
“that can be part of that zero because of course we’re still going to need oil and gas in the short term while we transition. I think that’s an important point to make. It’s net zero, not zero”.
So there is this new project, and I hope my noble friend will influence his colleagues in Cabinet to give some moral and sort of financial backing, as final lender if necessary, for that imaginative project.
Secondly, there is the Caribbean, which views with great care and worry the annual hurricane season. I declare an interest: I have family in the Cayman Islands. It is pretty devastating when it hits. My understanding is that we now provide and pay for some special resources to Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia through a gentleman or woman called the climate adviser. But my question to my noble friend is: why is that not extended to the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos, and Bermuda, which equally suffer from these difficult hurricanes?
I will move on to a country I know probably better than any other. I served there in 1963 for the Reckitt & Colman Group, and I started the all-party parliamentary group. Of course, I refer to Sri Lanka, a country that has faced incredible problems. On the climate side, the tsunami hit Sri Lanka and the Maldives really hard. I remember my wife and I watching it on Boxing Day and, a few days later, we were out there trying to help them deal with that problem. Over 1,000 people were killed on one railway because of the tsunami. Huge numbers were killed.
The country has been through massive difficulties, some of them of their own making and some of them not—but it does not matter: it is an important part of the Commonwealth. I thank our Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for the way it has stood by it, questioning it very hard at times. But, underneath, the Sri Lankans know that they are part of the same family.
Two things are happening now. There is the talk—and, more than talk, work being done—on a truth and reconciliation commission. In my judgment, that is to be greatly welcomed. I reflect on the late Sir Desmond de Silva, a great lawyer, as evidence that the quality of lawyer in Sri Lanka is second to none. As it is set up, it will of course be across the ethnic groups—it has to be. There are people there who are thoroughly objective.
There is still one challenge: that country lives by good tourism. It is recovering now, but one element that is missing is those who are 75 and over. They are, on the whole, British citizens. It is the FCDO comments on that country that currently cause me concern because they refer to the fact that protests are going on when they are not. They say that there is a fuel shortage, but there is not and has not been for 18 months. They also say that there are other difficulties of a terrorist nature, which we have not had for five years. So can my noble friend look at that guidance? It helps that particular age group because, at least from surveys that have been done, 80% of it looks at that guidance. Perhaps I could bring a couple of people from the newly set-up Experience Travel Group, which is private sector, to perhaps talk to a junior Minister about amending that.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, as has been said today, foreign affairs and what happens here are becoming more closely linked. So I hope I will not need to apologise to your Lordships for making a partially domestic plea in this debate. Ten days ago, I was in Kyiv. The mood there is anxious, but the determination is great and there is frustration, which many noble Lords share, that not nearly enough weapons from us, EU countries and above all the United States are reaching Ukraine. The American elections could well prolong this agony until November and even beyond. That is a frighteningly long time. I am afraid there is evidence, particularly in Germany, that some Europeans are taking this delay not as a spur to action but as a cue to hedge their bets.
However, what I also found in Kyiv was that Britain’s reputation still stands high in Ukraine, an impression reinforced by what was reported by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—I am sorry I did not run into him in the streets of Kyiv. We were the first major country to support Ukraine during the Russian invasion of 2022, and our support remains solid. Ukrainian morale is bolstered by the knowledge that not only our Government but so many British people are active supporters. We lead the world in our charitable and voluntary backing for Ukraine.
Such popular backing is not merely a pleasant extra. In this grim war, morale matters particularly greatly, as does practical and humanitarian help, which goes beyond the supply of weapons. So, as a matter of policy, not just decency, our Government should actively assist the voluntary efforts that so many of our citizens are making. I am sorry to say that this official backing is not, in practice, very warm, although I should say to the Foreign Secretary that I am not referring to his department in this respect.
We fly the Ukrainian flag over our public buildings, but what goes on inside those buildings can be maddeningly obstructive. I will give two examples from campaigns in which I am involved. The first is the supply of vehicles to Ukraine, chiefly 4x4s repurposed as field ambulances. With Mission Ukraine UK, I helped to deliver one such vehicle to the front last summer, and I saw how they can save lives. In these ambulances, the wounded are pulled out of the line and taken to the nearest stabilisation point. Without such transport, many more die. More than half of those vehicles that originate outside Ukraine come from Britain, usually delivered by British volunteers. British number plates are a frequent sight near the front. I have here on my phone—obviously I cannot show all your Lordships—a new picture of a British-plated pickup beside the ravaged town of Avdiivka.
I am delighted to report that, now, after months of prevarication, the Mayor of London has at last backed the proposal of the umbrella group ULEZ for Ukraine. From 18 March, all vehicles destined for scrappage under his controversial ULEZ scheme can, if the owners wish, be handed over to the charity British-Ukrainian Aid. The ULEZ scheme attracts 100 vehicles a day, so it seems a reasonable guess that 3,000 vehicles from it could ultimately end up in Ukraine. Such numbers would represent a breakthrough in a war where the average lifespan of a field ambulance is four to six weeks. As I say, this has been hard work, but there is real progress.
The other task—less far advanced—is boats for Ukraine. Their purpose is to cross the great Dnipro river, and they are at present the only means by which troops and supplies can reach the potential bridgeheads that have been gained and held by Ukrainian forces on the eastern bank in recent months. These little RIBs and dinghies, which the narrow channels require, have been making this almost unprotected passage, reinforcing their comrades and bringing back the wounded—it is one of the bravest things that is happening in this war.
British organisations have been assisting for six months, but, as with the 4x4s, the task requires scale. Before Christmas, some volunteers at Mission Ukraine UK had a brilliantly economical idea. In Dover, they observed, there is a big pound of small boats seized from illegal immigrants as they arrive. “Why not turn this waste to good?” they thought. They know a bit of British history: the small boats should become little ships for Ukraine. This is a resonant scheme and, perhaps as a result, it is being stolidly resisted by the bureaucracy. On 31 January, the Home Office refused a direct request for help. One of its lines is that the boats are not seaworthy, to which comes the simple reply: “We know that. It is our job to make them fit for their task. Please just hand them over and we can do the rest”.
Hundreds of boats and engines are wanted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. Unless the Border Force has secretly destroyed these boats, such numbers are currently idling beneath the white cliffs of Dover. I hope your Lordships will wish to urge the Government that the little ships be released for a last and better voyage.
Lord Desai (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, to his position as Foreign Secretary. He is a rare example of someone who has been Prime Minister and come back as Foreign Secretary—are we not all lucky? However, I have to warn him that he has landed almost immediately on arrival into a problem created by another Prime Minister who became Foreign Secretary: Lord Balfour. The Israel- Palestine problem, or the Israel-Hamas problem, did not start in October 2023; it started in November 1917, and we still have it. Some here may remember Arthur Koestler, who was a communist and then became an ex-communist and was one of the few people who worked on a kibbutz in the 1920s. He said that:
“One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third”.
That was very much the message. Before Palestine had fallen from the Ottoman Empire, it was signed over to welcome Jews from all over Europe and America to come and make a nation.
It is a fact—I have been reading lots of books about this—that at no stage did we say that the Palestinians had any claim on the territory where they had been living for several centuries. That is the dilemma: two communities of very ancient origin can claim, truthfully and simultaneously, that it is their country and no one else’s. It has taken 100 years to prove who is right, and neither group is. We have to solve this problem because for a long time, not just since October 2023, there has been a lot of killing and damage done to both communities, carried out with a passion that is quite surprising. Obviously, being an atheist, I blame religion for this. The children of Abraham have quarrelled with each other now for about 2,000 years. After all, anti-Semitism was not invented recently; it was invented by the Christians, and the rest we know.
The events of 7 October, which were on a scale that we had not experienced for a long time, partly showed that Hamas was better prepared than it had been until recently. Given the retaliation by Israel in Gaza and elsewhere, is a two-state solution at all feasible to anticipate when passions are so heightened and so much killing has gone on? Twelve hundred people were captured or killed by Hamas in October while 30,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been killed. That is 25 Palestinians for each Israeli. Things are getting completely out of control. The question for the Foreign Secretary is whether a two-state solution is feasible any longer. Given the very peculiar shape of the partition that was decided by the UN, is it at all likely that a peaceful solution can be implemented and that these two communities will be able to live with each other for even a day longer if a ceasefire happens?
I do not know the answer, but there two outcomes are possible. One is that the territory can belong to only one country, and we have to find another solution for the refugees and people living on the Palestinian side. I am presuming that the Palestinians will lose; I do not desire that, but it is currently the situation. Where would the Palestinians go? There are millions of them to resettle. If they cannot resettle in Palestine, where will they go? That is the sort of problem that we are facing due to climate change, for other communities being made homeless because the sea level is rising or whatever.
We need to think about how to stop the Israel-Palestine war right now, as soon as possible, and then about how to rehouse the refugees scattered throughout Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and all those places, as well as people who are being thrown out of Gaza, the West Bank and everywhere else. We face the prospect of two different settlements because it is not possible to think that the two groups could live in a single area. That is going to be a major challenge, and we will have to create some room. I have one slightly quixotic suggestion and then I can sit down. Across the Caspian Sea, there are many Islamic states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and so on. A tremendous amount of money ought to be raised to resettle the Palestinian refugees in that region. If everyone agreed to that, we might have peace for a while.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai. I shall focus on two important allies, Ukraine and Israel, which are battling forces intent on undermining the democracy and protections on which our way of life depends. I commend and congratulate my noble friends Lord Ahmad and Lord Cameron—who I am delighted to see return to government—on the Front Bench, on our country’s strong support for both our allies.
The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, encapsulated ideally all the reasons that I would mention for why we must not waiver in our support for Ukraine, and even why we should step up the further support that is essential so that Russia does not prevail. Ukraine is fighting on the front line for western European democracy, especially after the appalling death of Alexei Navalny, to whom I pay the highest tribute. We must stand firm.
Today marks 150 days that the Palestinians have been holding the Israeli hostages, with no Red Cross access despite promises of such during the last humanitarian pause and no willingness even to confirm who is alive. This is the other major threat to our national security and our democratic norms, as is demonstrated by the reaction to the murderous, barbarous Hamas attacks on Israel. Islamist fanatics and threats have been excused or appeased. The western pull-out from Afghanistan may have emboldened the Taliban ideologues seeking to establish a caliphate. Iran and its satellites in Syria, Yemen and Gaza are determined to spread their hate across the western world and undermine our security. Turning a blind eye to Iran’s preaching of medieval jihad as it has slowly taken over these countries—now extending to Gaza, as we see—is a threat to us all.
UNRWA has held a mandate for education and social care for the Palestinian people. However, it has actually engaged in an extreme form of child abuse. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in all that she has said to call out the problems created by UNRWA. In UNRWA schools, there is glorification of jihad. The teaching materials encourage violence and martyrdom, and the content promotes anti-Semitism and the demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel, making the Jewish state full of subhumans. It is part of the problem, and UNRWA should be replaced. Glorifying martyrdom as an essential part of the Islamic faith should not be accepted or tolerated. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s stated aims are the eradication of the Jewish state.
Recognition of a two-state solution while such indoctrination persists and Palestinian leaders refuse to accept Israel’s very existence would be a reward for murder, terror, rape and hostage-taking and an indication, I fear, of western weakness in the face of threats that require strong, determined support for those who believe in our own values. Support for Hamas and the Palestinian terrorists, calls for a ceasefire and chants of “from the river to the sea” amount to support for terrorism and ideological hatred. They amount to anti- Semitism.
In particular, I am exercised by the sexual violence that is being excused. There is no excuse for rape, wanton assault and torture of Israeli women and children. Rape is not resistance. Hamas filmed and glorified its pogrom and violation of Jewish women, yet western supporters here and in other countries ignore this. Sisters Uncut claimed that reports of Hamas sex attacks amounted to Islamophobia and racist weaponisation of sexual violence. Women’s groups that rail against such attacks on all other women have stayed silent. It seems it is #MeToo unless you are a Jew.
Western leaders fail to recognise, at our peril, what a major challenge the current wars in Ukraine and Israel and Gaza pose to the enlightened values we claim to hold dear. I urge my noble friends to stand firm on the right side of history against the forces of anti-Semitism and anti-democracy.
Lord Mitchell (Lab)
My Lords, 6 October saw Israel approaching the zenith of its dreams. Following the initial success of the Abraham accords, full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia were tantalisingly close. After 76 years of rejection by the Arab world, Israel was poised to achieve what she wanted most of all—international acceptance. Cruelly, 7 October changed all that.
At the beginning of January, I went to the Gaza border with the noble Lord, Lord Polak. I saw the mangled bicycles and the smashed barbecues; I saw the bullet holes and the bloodstains on the walls; I read the names and saw the photos of those who were butchered. The people of Israel were traumatised; I was traumatised. They still are; I still am. As I stood there, I looked to my left, and no more than a kilometre away I could see the Gaza border. I could hear the pounding of the shells; I could see the smoke hovering over the buildings, and I could smell the explosives hanging in the air. I felt rage that such barbarity was committed against innocent Israeli civilians, but I also felt horror that such pain and death were being inflicted on the people of Gaza. It is hard to reconcile such inner conflict.
Five months into this war, the hostages have still not been fully released, and Hamas is still functioning. Gaza has been flattened, and its people are starving and desperate. Some 1,700 Israelis are dead, many wounded. Tens of thousands of Palestinians—men, women and, most of all, children—are also dead and wounded. If we condemn one party, we must condemn the other, and I do.
Fifty years ago, the great Israeli statesman, Abba Eban, made the famous quote that the Palestinians
“never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.
Sadly, the same can be said of Benjamin Netanyahu today. His “day after” plan was presented last week; it offers the Palestinians nothing more than continual subjugation. The great tragedy of the situation is the craven, ineffective leadership of both the Palestinians and the Israelis. Mahmoud Abbas is old and immovable. I have never heard a brave or constructive word pass his lips; he does the Palestinians no favours. Benjamin Netanyahu is just as immovable. His mantra has always been: not an inch. He portrays himself as Mr Security, and he will never give the Palestinians the state they deserve. For him, it is always about the next election. He has allied himself with an ultra-right-wing clique. Ironically, they too believe in “from the river to the sea”, but in their case meaning the total annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. Both countries need new leaders who have new visions.
Noble Lords may say that all this has been tried before and it has failed. That is true, but the Oslo accords and the negotiations in 2000 came very close. What is different now? First, the parties are exhausted. Secondly, there are now other powers that can guarantee a peace: the US, of course, and Europe too, but also Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan. They all have skin in the game. They could provide the massive funding that could rebuild Gaza and give hope to Palestinians, both in Gaza and in the West Bank. They could also give Israel guarantees by way of a military alliance, and they could ensure that the Palestinian state remains demilitarised for the foreseeable future.
I have been a friend of Israel since its creation 76 years ago. Believe it or not, at the age of five, I remember Israel being created. Nobody could call me a fair-weather friend—I have been there through thick and thin—but now I think it is necessary that it accepts a sustainable ceasefire, works hard to make it permanent and gets back the hostages. I will end by quoting Abba Eban once more:
“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives”.
We saw that in Northern Ireland. Surely, that moment is now.
Baroness Fall (Con)
My Lords, 2024 is turning out to be every bit as challenging and volatile as expected. Of the three most pressing geopolitical issues of the day—Ukraine, the Middle East and China—two are live, kinetic even, and China is in the waiting room. Meanwhile, half the world is going to the polls in elections which will profoundly affect us all, from Taiwan at the beginning of the year to India and of course the USA towards the end of the year, elections which also drive a degree of introspection, which is difficult at a time when global leadership is so needed. I can think of few more important moments to be a British Foreign Secretary. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for their leadership, judgment and humanity on the world stage to date. My question today is: what, within the confines of British influence, can we do to help? Given the time constraints, I am going to touch just on the three issues we cannot ignore: Ukraine, the Middle East and China.
Following a bleak winter of stalemate, we arrive at the grim second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. Navalny’s death is a stark reminder of how those who oppose the Russian regime are treated but also, in Navalny’s bravery, that Putin does not speak for all Russia. However, with Putin’s imminent re-election and Russian troops on the offensive, we must be prepared for things to get worse, all at a time when American willingness to stay the course is called into question. What can be done? First, hold fast: let us remember that Putin is fighting a costly war which he had hoped to win in just a few months. Ukraine may not be winning as it enters its third year, but nor is Putin.
Secondly, we must continue with the reinvigoration and expansion of NATO, which is exactly what Putin never wanted, and be resilient to Trump’s taunts. But that also means meeting the 2% target, especially among those who seek to lead the organisation.
Thirdly, Europe must be wary of losing heart and fast fixes. It has been a while since we have paid the price for peace. There is a danger that those who might seek a Finnish-style resolution, for example, just enable Putin to pause and then come back for more.
Fourthly, I urge the Foreign Secretary to continue to make the case to our American allies that, for a relatively low price, they are fighting a war that we—the West—cannot afford to lose. But we must build our resilience and be prepared to step up, if needs be.
I turn next to the Middle East. I commend the Foreign Secretary on the steadfast support for Israel following the terrible atrocities of 7 October, but also on being the first to call for a sustainable ceasefire, urging caution and prioritising humanitarianism. In this, we have acted as a trusted friend to Israel: one who can always be counted on but who also does not fear to flag concerns. Surely, Rafah is one such. We have a two-week opportunity before Ramadan; this is surely a moment to use our influence and urge Israel not to move into a tiny area inhabited by so many, with nowhere to go.
I also urge the Foreign Secretary to continue work with the Americans to have the hostages released and to bring radical improvement to the humanitarian situation. A two-state solution should be kept firmly on the table, as a long-held British foreign policy objective and, surely, the best hope for securing long-term peace and security for Israel in the region.
I will say a brief word on China. I commend the Government’s policy, which has been largely consistent over the last decade in balancing national security, human rights, sovereignty and economic considerations. The variable here has been Xi’s trajectory, which has hardened in recent years. We are right to be vigilant but, alongside building a credible deterrent to China, we should also be mindful to keep channels of communication open. The episode of the spy balloon showed us that whereas with the Soviet cohort we had a red phone to pick up, we had no such device for Beijing. This is dangerous, especially when some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate, require some sort of co-operation.
I end by coming to the US election. We must always remember that we work with our allies whoever they choose as their leader, but we should also be building our resilience and preparing for the unpredictable as we come to the end of the year.
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, immediate crises have understandably been a major part of this debate, but I want to concentrate on our significant role in maintaining and promoting values to strengthen democracies and the rules-based international system, and the importance of necessary investment in nurturing old and new alliances, including engaging with countries not necessarily within the current conflict areas, a number of which noble Lords have mentioned today, in order to build long-term relationships, trust and influence. In the current context it may seem naive to talk about these issues but, in an increasingly complex and unstable world, winning hearts and minds is more important than ever before, as has powerfully been demonstrated in the Russia-Ukraine war.
In an increasingly volatile world, we need to renew our commitment to a rules-based world order and double our efforts with old and new alliances to restore the declining confidence in liberal democracy. New informal alliances are challenging the existing multilateral institutions, becoming more assertive and questioning the efficacy of democracy. Survival, security and prosperity in a hyperconnected world now have new dimensions that require better understanding, new thinking and approaches, and redoubling our efforts with regional and other emerging powers whose actions will determine the future. This will require strategic thinking and a holistic and nuanced approach to international affairs.
Our foreign policy narrative to date has been shaped around our liberal values—a reflection of the values we uphold. They have influenced how others see us. Sadly, this positive perception gets more slender by the day. If we want to continue to be an influential voice and strong player on the world stage, both as a force for good and for our national interest and security, what we do and how we behave at home and overseas has to be consistent with our values. An ability to influence and build trust and relationships lies in the credibility and moral authority that we generate through our actions and behaviours. The way we act and the influence we bring to bear will determine our ability to shape the future.
It will take persistence and courage to develop strategies to win minds and hearts. This will mean maximising effectively all levers at our disposal: military, economic, diplomatic, social and cultural. Intercultural interactions, country engagements and people-to-people dialogue are crucial components of our foreign policy. We have been in this space for nearly 90 years. The British Council, our prime organisation, was founded in the 1930s at a time of global instability, when Britain’s influence was weakened and extreme ideologies were gaining ground. There are parallels with what is happening now and lessons to be learned.
The British Council was born to create friendly knowledge and understanding by developing closer cultural relations. We have been a world leader in this space, well ahead of everyone else and well before the term “soft power” was coined by Joseph Nye. Creating friendly knowledge and understanding is neither soft nor power. In today’s hyperconnected world, it is about mutual exchange and understanding—an essential and strategic part of foreign policy to create a fertile ground for diplomacy and an environment conducive to dialogue, alliances, partnerships for business and security co-operation, supported by policies and behaviours that enforce our respect for the rule of law, democratic processes and so on.
Our internal affairs, our shared societal values and our domestic political context are equally important. They are key in enabling or constraining our ability to forge an effective foreign policy in a fast-changing world. We can be in an enviable strategic position if we build a refreshed strategic relationship with Europe, maintain—but not be subservient to—the transatlantic axis, despite the challenges we face, and engage meaningfully with the Commonwealth and, through it, the global South. Along with that, we have our footprint in more than 100 countries with the British Council.
There is no room for complacency or taking our eye off these long-term issues. They should be an integral part of our overall strategy, backed by proper investment in the diplomatic networks and organisations such as the British Council, the BBC and other cultural and educational organisations. They are an essential component in our foreign policy, not an optional extra. I know that the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Ahmad, are both committed to the issues I have been talking about. I end by paying my tribute to the excellent work that they are doing in difficult circumstances. I look forward to their response.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I will speak today about our Government’s response to global Christian persecution. In 2019 the Bishop of Truro, now the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and a Member of this House, highlighted in his review the near abandonment of the world’s most persecuted religion by western powers. By the UN’s definition, levels of persecution of Christians around the globe were close to genocidal. Their extinction was imminent in the Middle East. In Iraq, the number of Christians is now 10% of what it was 20 years ago.
Christian persecution is now even worse and still the worst of any religion in the world. One in seven Christians—365 million—face high to extreme levels of persecution for their faith and 80% of all acts of religious persecution are against Christians, which is a staggering proportion. Nearly 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith last year, compared with nearly 3,000 in 2019 when the Truro review was published, and twice as many Christians were forced to flee their homes in 2023 as in 2022.
Any concerted effort to secure freedom of religion or belief barely scratches the surface if Christians are ignored. This is not just because of these numbers. As the Truro review states, the persecution of Christians is “a bellwether for repression” more generally.
I need to mention two major areas. The first is northern Africa, including Nigeria—the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in her very eloquent speech, described what is happening there—and the Sahel. The second is the Indian subcontinent, where Christians are routinely targeted, terrorised and killed in countries which aspire to be, or already are, major trading partners with the UK. Nigeria is the sixth-worst country to live in as a Christian. More Christians are killed there for their faith than in all other countries combined. Armed groups, such as Boko Haram or Islamic State West Africa Province, burn churches and target Christians for rape, murder and kidnap.
Terrorism cannot be solely blamed. Deborah Yakubu was murdered in 2022 after expressing concerns in a college WhatsApp group about discrimination against Christian students. She was stoned, beaten and then burnt on a pile of tyres by a mob. Yet the UK signed a £7 billion trade partnership with Nigeria a matter of weeks ago. I ask my noble friend the Foreign Secretary if such abuses were raised at any point in negotiations.
On the Indian subcontinent, persecution against Christians is rising fast. Speaking about one’s faith is hazardous in most of India, where Christians can be arrested and subjected to physical violence on false charges of forced conversions. Acid attacks, so-called honour killings, mob beatings and executions happen regularly, as do arson attacks on churches. Again, can my noble friend confirm that this Government will use the lever of trade to improve rights to religious freedom?
The Foreign Office’s own assessment in 2022 found that many Truro review recommendations had not been implemented. It cited failure to create both an “early warning mechanism” for religious persecution and a data-gathering system of religious freedom abuses. There was still no name or term for Christian persecution and no meaningful culture shift in the Foreign Office to take it seriously. More positively on the FCDO scorecard, its November 2023 White Paper on UK aid referred to for the first time, and prioritises, persecution on grounds of religion or belief as a driver of poverty. I commend my right honourable friend Andrew Mitchell, the Minister who listened to FoRB concerns and included this.
Additionally, the Prime Minister now has a highly effective envoy for freedom of religion or belief, my honourable friend Fiona Bruce. Her important role should be established in statute. Will the Government support the Bill to secure its continuity? It acts as an important counterweight when considering with whom we trade. I understand the pressure that the Government are under to bow down to the god of bilateral trade agreements while sacrificing the weak and vulnerable and our own British values. But where did these values come from? The historian Tom Holland says in Dominion:
“So profound has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilisation that it has come to be hidden from view”.
Without Christianity, where would there be tolerance, respect for others’ views and the impulse to move beyond narrow personal, or indeed national, self-interest?
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests in the register, especially as executive chairman of the Changing Character of War Centre at Pembroke College, Oxford, and as founding chairman of the Concord Foundation, an independent peacebuilding organisation.
As others have commented, our world is spinning into increasing turmoil. It is not just the spreading violence and war; people across the globe believe that they can no longer trust the institutions they depended on for stability. They see widespread corruption and incompetence in their political, faith, intellectual, and even sporting and cultural elites. They see the galloping extension of disruptive technologies they do not understand, and they believe that their leaders neither understand them nor know how to control them. They fear the existential threats of climate catastrophe and global, perhaps even nuclear, war. Addressing these complex issues meaningfully in five minutes is not possible, so I will focus on just three questions for the Foreign Secretary.
First, on the Russia-Ukraine war, I am rather proud of the role our country has played to date in the war effort, going back long before the February 2022 invasion. While our military, intelligence and political contributions have been—and continue to be—very significant, we need to realise that we have a real problem of replacement of our stocks of weapons and ammunition, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has pointed out. However, whatever the outcome of the war, and we do not know what it will be yet, there will come a stage—I fully recognise that now is not the time—for negotiations that bring it all to a political conclusion. Do His Majesty’s Government agree that, in the meantime, it is important to ensure that there are some protected channels of communication with Russia, which can be of use when the time comes?
Secondly, on Israel-Gaza, we all agree that the Hamas attacks of 7 October were utterly appalling and unforgivable, but that the problems between Israel and the Palestinians did not start in 2023. The military actions taken by Israel after the immediate response are not defending Israel but harming Israel. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, is a wonderful Minister and representative of our country at home and abroad, but I disagree with any suggestion that the international community is united in support of Israel. On the contrary, the actions of the IDF, with the deaths of thousands on thousands of women, children and babies, sick people in hospitals and elderly people, starving and terrified as they are caged in and unable to escape the horrors, have undermined the moral standing of Israel. Outside western Europe and North America, the perspective is completely different from what it is here. Indeed, our own standing as a country is being affected.
In any situation of violent political conflict—I am fairly familiar with them—however tempting it may be to back one side or the other, when you do that, you simply become part of the conflict. Sometimes there is absolutely nothing else that you can do, and you have to back one side, but the consequence is a very limited role in brokering peace. If and when this war ends, there will need to be someone to ensure the security of Gaza and, despite what the Israeli Prime Minister says, that is not a role that can be undertaken by Israel. I rather doubt that our own country or our US ally can undertake it either. Are His Majesty’s Government taking seriously, as I believe they should, the offer from President Erdoğan of Turkey for his country to play a significant role, with others, in providing some security to all sides in that context?
Finally, I turn to Tunisia, a country that triggered the so-called Arab spring, which gave us such hope for democracy in the MENA region. How are His Majesty’s Government responding to the suspension of democratic structures and the imprisonment by current President Saied of many elected representatives, including the former assembly speaker, Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, who had been working against the odds to build a pluralist and Muslim democracy? I emphasise “Muslim” democracy, not Islamist. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to press the President of Tunisia to release the democratic politicians of all parties and allow them to build a new pluralist and democratic Tunisia, which can give hope again to all of us for democracy in that region?
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, I join others in recognising and thanking my noble friends Lord Ahmad and the Foreign Secretary for all the work they do. It gives us all confidence seeing them on the world stage on our behalf. I thank them very much indeed.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the United Kingdom currently faces the most serious and sustained threat to its international relations position since the end of the Cold War, in the context of our position as a prominent member of the free world. We face emboldened aggressors and multiple threats. How we respond to these will be a defining moment for British foreign policy. Two current conflicts encapsulate the possibilities and problems for the United Kingdom in a fast-changing world: Ukraine and Gaza.
Although, at first, they do not seem connected, they share a common pattern and, even more importantly, a common message: if the free world does not stand up to aggression until it has been defeated, we can only bring further aggression on us. This is an obvious lesson from history, notably the history of the 1930s and what it teaches us, and which His Majesty’s Government would be wise to understand.
We are now in the third year of a war visited on Ukraine solely by Russian aggression. For all Vladimir Putin’s fictions about why he started this war, none of us in this Chamber should be under any illusions that it was anything other than an old-fashioned land grab. We are discussing Ukraine because it did the incredible: it stood up to the Russian steamroller and stopped it in its tracks through the bravery and commitment of its own people. Since then, in addition to its admirable courage, Ukraine has been emboldened in its defence by the staunch support of its allies, but now we face a troubled year ahead, with crucial supplies from the United States stalling and debates abounding about whether, and for how long, Ukraine can survive without our full-throated and continued backing.
The cold-blooded murder of the largest number of Jews in one day since the Holocaust was always going to elicit a severe response from the Israeli Government, and rightly so. No democracy, even our own in the United Kingdom, could turn the other cheek to such atrocities without seeking to prevent those who committed the crimes from ever doing so again. This is all the more so given the despicable taking of large numbers of hostages by Hamas and others in Gaza, 130 of whom remain unaccounted for nearly five months into this conflict. We all grieve and react with total distress to the horror of the tragic deaths of children, women and all those citizens killed in Gaza; but far from being a genocide, or the greatest crime in history, the care that the Israel Defense Forces have largely taken during this operation to minimise civilian casualties will likely be studied for years by free-world military planners facing similar campaigns.
As with Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the Hamas war of aggression against Israel initially elicited firm free-world support. Free-world leaders, this country’s included, understood entirely that Israel could not allow Hamas aggression to go unpunished and that the hostages needed freeing. In just a few short months, that solidarity of purpose has been undermined as, country by country, elements of the free world have peeled off from the idea of defending democracy. Instead, we have seen vapid and inane requests for an Israeli ceasefire now, sometimes even with no conditions on Hamas’s continued rule in Gaza, or the release of hostages, attached.
I posit, therefore, that British foreign policy must make 2024 a year of decision for the free world, and that our stance in the two conflicts I have addressed will be central to this. It might be tempting to give up on supporting Ukraine because we are growing weary of doing so, or to force Israel to compromise because we are tired of fending off the aggression of the street mobs here in the UK that did so much damage to the reputation of the other place a couple of weeks ago. But neither approach is in our national interest. If Ukraine is driven to the negotiating table through weakness this year, Mr Putin’s decision to wage war will have been vindicated with additional territory, and if Israel gives in to the international pressure before it has succeeded in delivering a final death blow to Hamas, terrorism will be seen to have triumphed through the improbable act of survival, even after committing the most heinous of crimes.
Do we think that Russia and international terrorists will be satisfied with their ill-gotten gains after achieving them? Of course not, they will come back for more, after a period of reconstruction, certain that the free world will eventually crumble before aggression if they just wait out our period of outrage over their actions. For this reason, I implore my noble friend the Foreign Secretary to stand firm with our fellow democracies in 2024. We must make the decisions that allow our allies to finish the jobs that they did not want but were forced on them—the same jobs that we would do if we were in their place.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
The Middle East is a part of the world that the UK understands, and, in turn, the UK is held in affection there. It is with concern, therefore, that I hear from long-standing friends there that those feelings are changing. We are seen as either bystanders or complicit in the current conflict in Gaza. My noble friend the Foreign Secretary, however, deserves appreciation for his leadership in expressing that the state of Palestine be recognised, and calling for accountability for crimes committed by both sides in Gaza. The change of tone from the United States is an indication of his influence.
The dream of the Palestinian people is the same as for all people: freedom; security; food and shelter; and some degree of hope for a better future through education and employment. I condemn the Hamas terrorist atrocities of 7 October in the strongest possible terms, but the indiscriminate killing of so many innocent Palestinian civilians is causing such outrage, anger and sorrow across the region and throughout the world that Britain’s ongoing support for Israel’s war in Gaza is damaging our equally important relationships with other allies in the region. It is as if the Palestinian people have been dehumanised to such a degree that some people in this place, and in the other place, do not even recognise the enormity of the injustice being committed against the Palestinian people, so many of whom are children, bombed and starved for crimes they did not commit. International humanitarian law does not permit collective punishment, but that is what is happening in Gaza. It is wrong, and it must stop.
We proclaim the rights of the child, but when it comes to the rights of Palestinian children, our lack of action during these past five months makes a mockery of that declaration. How many potential artists and scientists have been simply eliminated? So much talent is, literally, being killed. If we wish to generate a better future, this is not the way to do it. Our credibility, our legitimacy and our role as a country central to the contemporary global world order are because of our adherence to and support for the rule of domestic and international law, and justice and fairness. The British people are fair and expect their representatives in Parliament to be fair and just on their behalf. Even if we were simply to consider our own interests in much of the Middle East, we have to show ourselves as fair brokers. It is vital that we make every effort towards ending this ghastly situation, and I know my noble friend the Foreign Secretary is working tirelessly to do this.
The United Kingdom has a legal, moral and historical obligation to make every endeavour to help both sides make peace a reality, but the process for a lasting peace cannot be ambiguous; there are no partial solutions. Our support for international efforts towards, on both sides, a full, immediate and permanent ceasefire—not just for the six weeks stipulated by the United States—is essential, as is the safe delivery of aid without obstruction. Can the Foreign Secretary say why medical equipment, such as ventilators and anaesthesia machines, is being refused entry by Israel?
Also needed is the immediate exchange of Israeli hostages and non-Hamas Palestinian detainees, and the forcible displacement of people to stop. There are now 1.5 million in refugee camps in Rafah. We need the reconstruction of Gaza to start and, ultimately, those displaced to be able to go back to where they once lived. Furthermore, the illegal occupation by Israel of the West Bank in east Jerusalem must end. Hundreds have been killed there since January last year.
As for Gaza, in 2010, the House of Commons Hansard shows that my noble friend, then the Prime Minister, said that
“we are not going to sort out the problem of the middle east peace process while there is, effectively, a giant open prison in Gaza”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/6/10; col. 583.]
Yet Israel has recently stated it wants to remain in overall security control of Gaza and select the Palestinian technocrats that it chooses to run it. Can the Foreign Secretary say whether he believes that that would be in any way acceptable or have legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians? Most would argue that having two independent separate states is the only solution. It is a right of the people of Israel to have peace and security, as, too, it is for the people of Palestine, in two separate independent states that recognise each other’s right to exist.
Lord Skidelsky (CB)
My Lords, it is a rare privilege for us to have the Foreign Secretary wind up a debate on foreign policy in this House. Such are the quirks of politics, I suppose.
I shall concentrate on one topic, and that is economic sanctions. The sanctions regime has emerged as one of the most important tools of British foreign policy. Despite, or perhaps because of their long and tangled history, their rationale remains deeply mysterious. Are they tools of war avoidance or an extension of war by other means? It is a hybrid tool, at best. This ambiguity is fatal to any peacekeeping or peacemaking purposes they may have, because they insert a warlike mentality into what should be efforts at peace—hence the utmost clarity is needed in defining their purpose and assessing their results.
Since 2014, the number of individuals designated under the UK sanctions regime has grown from 230 to 2,000. The Foreign Secretary added another 50 a fortnight ago. Their stated purpose is, as has been said, to “degrade Russia’s war-making capacity” and deplete Putin’s armoury. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted that the
“Russian economy will be devastated”
by sanctions, after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Two years on, Russia’s economy is a long way from being devastated; indeed, it has proven far more resilient than many believed possible. The IMF now predicts that Russian GDP will expand by 2.2% this year, much faster than is predicted for the UK.
There are two main reasons for this. The first is trade diversification. Far from having no place to hide, as Liz Truss, then Foreign Secretary, predicted on 31 January 2022, Mr Putin and his friends have found plenty of places to hide. Moscow has been able to pivot its oil exports towards Asia, now the destination for 80% of Russian crude delivered by sea. Sanctioned goods, including critical components for military equipment, continue to reach Russia via neighbouring countries. Beijing is now Moscow’s main trading partner, and the yuan is one of the main foreign currencies in Russia. That is one reason. The second reason for Russia’s economic resilience is what I would call military Keynesianism. Russia has successfully converted a civilian economy into a war economy. Not only is growth positive, but a higher fraction of GDP is concentrated on war production.
The efficacy of economic sanctions has been repeatedly challenged by experts—not least, I should say, in the report on economic sanctions of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, on which I had the honour to serve. Not only may the efficacy of sanctions be questioned, but they stitch animosity into the fabric of international relations, thus precipitating the break-up of the global trading and payment system which, in turn, makes the world more warlike. There are lots of unintended consequences here, and we need to be very clear about what they are before simply urging more and more sanctions. It would be an important outcome to this debate were the Foreign Secretary to authorise a strategic review of the purpose and track record of sanctions to be made public before international relations are allowed to drift into a permanent warlike state, which may easily topple over into actual war between nuclear powers.
The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
My Lords, I add my gratitude and appreciation to the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Ahmad, not just for what they do but for the way in which they do it.
I want to focus on how we continue to apply moral principles surrounding war in this ever-changing landscape. These are dangerous and uncertain times, as we have heard countless times this afternoon, for which we must prepare—and good preparation is itself deterrence. I add my name to the appeal made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, that we see a significant increase in defence funding.
There is now a risk that the changing nature of war and warfare is shifting our understanding of when military force should be resorted to and the restraints that should check its use. The concerns that lie behind just warfare still apply. What is proportionate response and engagement, and how do we protect non-combatants? What is pre-emptive and what is preventive action, and how will military engagement contribute to a just and lasting peace? Old-style wars, at least in theory, as von Clausewitz expounded, were contests of wills. He defined war as an
“an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will”.
But today, and for many decades now, the potential exists that our opponent could be destroyed and us, too.
We have seen contemporary conflicts that involve networks of states and non-state actors, where most violence is directed against civilians as a way of controlling territory rather than against enemy forces. Forced migration is often an unintended consequence. Such wars are decentralised and have low levels of participation, intending to disassemble the state or involve the fragmentation of federations. In their place, they create new, unstable, inward-looking sub-state entities. In these situations, state services such as health, education and the rule of law are degraded, with finance coming less from taxation and more from war-related and criminal activities. Such wars often produce transnational extremist, political or religious ideologies. Of course, all this is exacerbated by the impact of climate change. The failure to plan a just post-war situation can prolong the war and can lead to internal chaos after the war, the failing of the state or the seeds of a new war.
We are also fighting wars differently, with highly advanced weaponry and the increasing use of AI. The speed of development in military applications of AI inevitably raises concerns. We should not forget the huge potential of AI systems in defensive contexts, but the wider ethical problem is that, when we delegate decision-making to machines, they will act according to the moral assumptions with which they have been fed. Those who develop AI applications for use in military offensives, as opposed to defence, need to do so with such moral understanding that they do not inadvertently design algorithms that risk committing war crimes in our name.
To return to where I started, even when the use of armed force is considered justifiable, the overarching aim of just war is a just and durable peace. It means that just war advocates are concerned with limiting the occurrence of war and, when it does occur, ensuring that its conduct is as humane as possible. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that our current understanding of the ethics of war are sufficient to deal with the changing nature of adversaries and the complex ways in which wars are now fought? Will he commit to exercising UK leadership with the UN and other institutions, albeit undergoing reform, as we have heard appealed for, to ensure that the conventions and treaties that govern our actions in war remain fit for purpose—the purpose of lasting, just peace?
Angiolini Inquiry Report
(2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, this damning report is about women’s safety. It is also about trust and confidence in policing, and whether we have the standards in place to maintain confidence in individual officers. The vast majority of police officers work immensely hard, and with integrity, to keep our communities safe. This is undermined when standards fail.
We thank Lady Elish for her inquiry and its comprehensive first report. The report exposes a catalogue of appalling failures in police misconduct processes. What is truly frightening is the line,
“there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight”.
We can believe that that might be the case because of the story of PC Cliff Mitchell, who was vetted months after Sarah Everard was killed. He had an allegation of rape in 2017 and a non-molestation order against him, but that did not stop the Met recruiting him. At about the same time that the Met was telling us that vetting had been tightened up, it was simultaneously congratulating PC Mitchell on passing his police entrance and handing him a warrant card, which he used to get the trust of women he went on to abuse and rape.
This Government have been repeatedly warned about failures around vetting and misconduct. Independent inspectorate reports in 2012, 2019, 2022 and 2023 all highlighted serious failures in vetting processes, which is why, two years ago, we on these Benches called for mandatory national vetting standards. Why has this not yet happened?
As for the misconduct charges the Statement referred to, most of them are not even in place yet, three years after Sarah Everard was murdered. Will the Minister commit today to a new mandatory vetting framework, underpinned by legislation, that all forces must abide by, under which any evidence about past domestic abuse or sexual offending will be pursued—and not simply take convictions into account? At a minimum, he should surely accept recommendation 6:
“Review of indecent exposure allegations and other sexual offences recorded against serving police officers”.
As well as talking extensively about vetting, the recommendations also focus on indecent exposure. Indecent exposure is still treated as a joke by police—something “she” should not be bothered about because “he” is pathetic and harmless. It is seen as old men—past it and pathetic—trying to get attention. Many women, if not most, have experienced this at some point in their lives. But Couzens was in his 40s and did this five or so times, including one scary incident when he masturbated on a banking on a country lane as a lone woman cyclist cycled past. There was an incident just before Sarah Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder when he drove undressed through a McDonald’s. People got the name, model and licence number of his car and the vehicle was traced to him, but nothing followed after that.
Clearly, the sexual impulse that drives indecent exposure is to force attention to the man’s sexuality on a woman who does not want it. We have to ask the question: how far is that from the motive that drives rape? It is clearly a terrifying experience for a woman—often isolated and confronted with a man bigger and stronger than she is—who will be afraid of what might happen next. Getting away with it encourages a predator to feel that they can act more boldly next time, increasing the threat to women.
The recommendations in this report are absolutely clear, and they have a timetable. Will the Home Office insist that all police forces have a specialist policy on investigating all sexual offences, including so-called “non-contact” offences such as indecent exposure, by September this year? Will the Minister commit to guidance and training on indecent exposure being in place by December this year? Will he ensure that the College of Policing, in collaboration with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, will improve guidance and training on indecent exposure? Will there be an immediate review, called for in recommendation 3, which concerns treatment of masturbatory indecent exposure within the criminal justice system? The review needs to focus on recognising the seriousness of the offence, identifying it as an indicator of disinhibition by perpetrators, and understanding and addressing the wider issue of sexual precursor conduct, so as to prevent victimisation, to improve the response to victims when it occurs, and to bring more offenders to justice.
Recommendation 4 calls for research into masturbatory indecent exposure with immediate effect. Does the Minister have a schedule that he can tell us about today? Recommendation 5 is a public information campaign on indecent exposure by March 2025, which the Home Office should launch, together with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, to raise awareness about the illegality, criminality and legal consequences of any type of indecent exposure.
When it comes to women’s safety, the reality is that the number of prosecutions for domestic abuse has halved, rape prosecutions are still taking years, and early action and intervention still do not happen. As my honourable friend Yvette Cooper said on Thursday:
“There is a shocking drift on women’s safety and in what the Home Secretary has said today … How long must we go on saying the same things? The first women’s safety march was on the streets of Leeds nearly 50 years ago, and we are saying the same things about our daughters’ safety today”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/2/24; col. 454.]
We really cannot stand for any more of this.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, what happened to Sarah Everard was horrific, and made worse by the fact that this callous murder was committed by a serving police officer. The report says that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and that numerous opportunities to end his career were ignored. It lays out a number of steps to ensure that this appalling tragedy is not repeated.
The Minister has promised decisive action and outlined several welcome measures, yet the vehicle required to take such action is available to him now. The Criminal Justice Bill is due to reach this House in the coming weeks. As it stands, the charity Refuge says it is seriously disappointed with the Bill’s measures on police perpetrators, which it believes will do very little to rid our forces of abusers.
The Government have so far resisted a series of amendments, such as one that would mean all allegations of police-perpetrated domestic abuse would be recorded —either as a police complaint or a conduct matter. This would inform vetting and any potential future investigations. Will the Minister reconsider placing such provisions in the Bill, rather than falling back on regulations and, worse still, voluntary codes of practice, which seldom if ever work?
Does the Minister accept that the time has now come to spell out, in no uncertain terms, that violence against women and girls is not acceptable if you are a police officer? That surely means being clear that domestic abuse is not just a criminal matter but a disciplinary matter within the police services themselves.
I also want to address the issue of consistency. At the moment, there is too much variation around the country, and the issue of warrant card removal illustrates this well. In some forces, officers are required to surrender their warrant cards if they are suspended; in other forces, they are not. Sarah Everard’s murder horribly underlines the power that comes with a warrant card. At the very least, surely suspended officers should be required to surrender warrant cards nationwide. This is something that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner is calling for.
Another matter of consistency is on the issue of suspensions themselves. The Government are now saying that there will be an automatic suspension of police officers charged with certain criminal offences pending trial. Can the Minister confirm that domestic abuse offences will be among those leading to suspension?
The Government are planning to change the rules to make it easier for forces to remove officers without vetting clearance. However, removing those who fail vetting or are guilty of gross misconduct will still not be a legal obligation. These measures will not be mandatory or backed by primary legislation. A Liberal Democrat freedom of information request last October revealed that 129 Metropolitan Police officers were still working on the front line while under investigation for allegations of sexual or domestic abuse, eight months on from the Casey review. This is, frankly, a disgrace.
Meanwhile, a clear issue with culture and leadership remains to be addressed. This is particularly critical in the context of an increasingly young and inexperienced workforce, a third of whom have less than five years’ service. The Police Foundation describes a
“culture of silence and complicity”,
where the default is to keep quiet if you want to get on or fit in. This report rightly says that our police must be held to a higher standard of behaviour and accountability given the powers that they have. Good officers will welcome anything that does this.
Time and again, we have had excellent reports which identify the issues and make recommendations to stop them happening again. Most of the recommendations are accepted, but they are seldom, if ever, implemented. Can the Minister explain what the Government propose to do to ensure a full and speedy implementation of the recommendations in this report? Crucially, can he also say what the consequences will be for those forces that fail to comply?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
I thank both noble Baronesses for their comments. The first thing to say, which I said earlier, is that my thoughts are with the family and friends of Sarah Everard.
The second thing, highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and which it was remiss of me to neglect to say earlier, is that we owe it to all the decent police officers out there—there are very many, who I would like to thank—to get this right. Finally, I place on record my thanks to Lady Elish, who has delivered a very efficient, speedy report. This is obviously only part 1. I note that part 2 is considering cultural issues, which include misogyny and predatory behaviour. There will be much more to say on that subject, which is not to say that we should not act speedily and efficiently now—and we are. I will explain how.
The vetting process has come in for a considerable amount of criticism, with some justification. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked why the Government are not legislating to put vetting standards on a statutory footing. The report did not specifically recommend that the Government legislate on vetting standards. As I have just said, part 2 will look in depth at vetting and recruitment, among other cultural issues in policing. We will consider any findings from part 2 in due course. However, we expect policing to examine the Angiolini findings from part 1 in detail, and for them to be addressed.
To ensure that forces are adhering to the existing standards, as set out by the College of Policing, the college will establish a process of national accreditation, setting out the high standards that policing must meet, with the aim of increasing confidence in policing. We are introducing regulations on vetting, which will make it easier for forces to remove those who cannot hold the minimum level of clearance.
As Lady Elish says in her report, it is not possible to
“make any conclusive finding that earlier interventions would have prevented the horrific crimes”
that the report responded to. However, I do not think that Couzens would have been able to remain a police officer if he was serving today—I think it is important to state that for the record. Vetting has been significantly tightened, and tolerances are lower. Forces now do a full re-vet on transfer. Lady Elish highlighted that that is clear in the new vetting code. There is also a data wash process. We are funding policing to develop automated screening, so that records added to the police national database, such as the indecent allegations made against Couzens in 2015, will be quickly picked up by the employing force.
In January 2023, the then Home Secretary asked HMICFRS to carry out a rapid review in response to the November 2022 inspectorate report into vetting. That also looked at what forces are doing to identify and deal with misogynistic behaviour. The inspectorate identified good process in certain areas, and in January this year, the NPCC provided evidence on the implementation of relevant recommendations across forces to the inspectorate. We have also asked the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice, which I have mentioned. That code was published in July 2023. I referred earlier to the authorised professional practice guidance which is available for public consultation. Finally, in January 2024, the Home Office agreed to provide an additional £500,000 to policing to develop a continuous integrity screening system for the workforce, building on the data wash exercise.
Recommendation 6 is for the NPCC, and I hope it will implement it as quickly as possible—indeed, that goes for all of the recommendations. We discussed some of them earlier, and they all make perfect sense to me. I hope they make perfect sense to others, as well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about indecent exposure and whether the police are taking such offences seriously enough. In accordance with the strategic policing requirement, we expect that all sexual offending, including for cases where there is no contact, is taken seriously, because we want victims to have the confidence to report these offences. We need them to know that they will get the support that they need, and that everything will be done to bring the offenders to justice.
As noble Lords will be aware, we have added violence against women and girls to the revised strategic policing requirement, which means that crimes that disproportionately impact women and girls, such as indecent exposure, are set out as a national threat for forces to respond to, alongside other threats such as terrorism, serious and organised crime, and child sexual abuse. The strategic policing requirement is set by the Home Secretary and provides clear direction to policing. It highlights where police forces need to work together, using their local and regional capabilities. This requirement covers all forms of violence against women and girls. We continue to work closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s violence against women and girls task force to drive improvements in the policing response. It will soon publish an updated national framework on how policing needs to prepare, prevent, pursue and protect to robustly improve policing’s response to these crimes.
The report found that what might be considered “lower-level sexual offending”, such as Couzens sending unwarranted pictures of himself, could lead to more serious sexual assault. Obviously, as I have said, we regard that any kind of sexually motivated crime is abhorrent and should be treated very seriously. Women need to be confident in calling the police and reporting crimes, and to trust that they will be taken seriously when they do. As I have said, in tandem with policing partners, we will be considering Lady Elish’s recommendations very carefully and will respond fully after a review of all of the content. I am afraid that I cannot give a timetable as to recommendation 4, but, as I said earlier today, we will be responding in full very soon.
In terms of women joining the police, I looked up the statistics after the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, asked me about it earlier, and they are not as bad as I might have inferred. The 20,000 officer uplift programme provided a once in a generation opportunity to support forces. The police force is now more diverse than ever, with 53,080 women police officers and 12,086 ethnic minority police officers; this was as of 31 March 2023, so those numbers will have changed. Females accounted for 35.5% of officers—the highest number and proportion in post since comparable records began. Between April 2020 and March 2023, 43.2% of new police officer recruits in England and Wales were female—a notable increase on levels in previous years. I will not go into more detail, but it is an encouraging picture and a good start when it comes to the cultural change that we have been talking about at some length.
The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, also asked a good question which I was unable to answer about how officers and police staff should be encouraged to call out wrongdoing when they see it. I will go into a bit more detail about this, though I suspect it is not as much as the noble Baroness would like. Police officers have a statutory duty to report wrongdoing by their colleagues when they see it, and not doing so constitutes a breach of their standards of professional behaviour. The noble Baroness referred to the Criminal Justice Bill; a duty of candour is included in that, which will help this progress significantly.
There are a number of other routes, both internal and external, through which police officers and staff can raise concerns. External routes include staff associations, trade unions, the office of the relevant PCC if the matter concerns the chief constable, Crimestoppers and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. A police officer can report wrongdoing directly to the professional standards department within their force. Most police forces in England and Wales have reporting phone lines, many with protections for anonymity. A reporting line run by the IOPC enables officers and staff to report concerns that a criminal offence has been committed or where there is evidence of conduct that would justify disciplinary proceedings. I appreciate that this does not fully answer the question about others who might report domestic abuse, but I will take those comments back and find out what can be done about it.
I appreciate that I am running over time. With the indulgence of the House, I will quickly finish by talking about recommendation 5, which is what the Government have done or should be doing to try to change societal attitudes towards women and girls. It is important to highlight the Government’s Enough programme, which is designed to deliver a generational shift in the attitudes and behaviours underpinning abuse. The campaign has a continued focus on encouraging bystanders to challenge safely any abuse they may witness and to trigger reflection among perpetrators and their peers. Evaluation of Enough has shown that it is successfully reaching target audiences, driving behavioural change and encouraging bystanders to intervene when they see abuse. This has been helped by the creation of a STOP mnemonic which is proving highly effective.
I will finish there for now, though I am sure there is more to be said on this subject. Recommendation 5 makes considerable sense. I will certainly be taking the suggestion from the noble Baroness back to the Home Office.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I want to raise the issue of proper accountability, because there appear to be few real consequences for police officers who grossly breach police discipline. For example, there is no legislation to prevent members of police staff retiring or resigning while they are under investigation for gross misconduct. I am told that, because of Operation Onyx which, as the Minister will know, was commissioned following the appalling case of David Carrick, 51 Met officers were referred for dismissal and would have been dismissed but for the fact that they resigned and retired on full pension.
If I understood the Minister correctly, there was a statutory duty on Couzens’ colleagues to report the behaviour which earned him the nickname “The Rapist”. Were such reports made? Are people being investigated and possibly prosecuted for not doing so? They should be. If the Government can legislate every year for public order, as they do, why can they not legislate for public discipline? Why, for example, is the police disciplinary rulebook not in statute and therefore enforceable, with breaches of it a criminal offence? This would not impinge on operational independence at all. Why do we not go down this route?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, it is important to say in response to the remarks and questions from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that Lady Elish did not find any evidence of that particular name being applied to Couzens. That was explicit in the report. This is not the same as explaining away the accountability of the officers who were perhaps aware of his behaviour.
As the noble Lord will be aware, in January 2023 we launched a comprehensive review into police dismissals. As a consequence, we are making significant change to the way in which these dismissals are handled. We have made changes to the composition of misconduct panels by replacing legally qualified chairs with chief officers—something which chief officers have asked for—and this will be implemented in May 2024. We have streamlined the performance system to make it more efficient and effective; this is due to be implemented in late summer 2024. A new route to discharge officers who fail to maintain basic clearance is also due to be implemented in late summer. Changes to the misconduct system, including a presumption of dismissal for gross misconduct, a presumption of fast-track hearings for former officers and convictions for indictable offences automatically amounting to gross misconduct are also due to be implemented in the summer of 2024. The dismissals process has clearly been tightened up and will be tightened up further during the course of this year.
I cannot really comment on the pensions issue. I hear what the noble Lord has said, and I will make sure that the Home Office is well aware of his concerns.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)
My Lords, recommendation 14 says:
“With immediate effect, every police force should commit publicly to being an antisexist, anti-misogynistic, anti-racist organisation in order to address, understand and eradicate sexism, racism and misogyny, contributing to a wider … culture … This includes properly addressing—and taking steps to root out—so-called ‘banter’ that often veils or excuses malign or toxic behaviour in police ranks”.
What concerns me is that this kind of finding has been repeated in more or less every investigation, inquiry and report into police malpractice for decades. Yet here we are again, with this report concluding that police leaders, whose responsibility it is to address those issues, have not taken a stand on them and stamped them out. As my noble friend just pointed out, in many instances the unacceptable behaviour of individuals is in plain sight among their colleagues and has gone unchallenged. My concern is the process by which the detail of the responses, which my noble friend on these Benches and the noble Baroness on the other Benches referred to, will be decided. Given the history of this, I do not feel that it can be left to individual chief constables—or even to police organisations such as the College of Policing, much as I respect them—to come to the conclusions that are necessary. The process needs to be absolutely transparent for the public—as well as other police officers, who have been referred to—to feel confidence in it.
I have some questions for the Minister. First, how would he intend to involve people with lived experience of these kinds of behaviours of the police and organisations that represent women in particular, as well as other people who have been discriminated against? Secondly, I will take up the point that my noble friend raised. The Minister referred to the statutory duty to report wrongdoing. What is wrongdoing? At the moment, it would appear that it does not include the kind of vile behaviours and verbal comments that we have seen in relation to Couzens and elsewhere. If there is a requirement of police officers and staff to report anybody who expresses discriminatory, sexist or misogynistic statements, I would like to see the Government commit to strengthen it. That should definitely be included in the definition of wrongdoing.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Is it not lamentable that recommendation 14 had to be written at all in the 21st century? Frankly, it is pathetic that we still have to have this conversation about such behaviour. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that this is about leadership and culture, and the Home Secretary was extraordinarily explicit on that subject, as I referenced earlier. The culture change has to come from the top; leaders are responsible for setting the standards, and we obviously expect them to keep pushing for improvements to be made across policing.
The recommendation is directed at police forces. It is important to remember that there is local accountability via the office of the police and crime commissioner, and that local accountability absolutely should be engaging with all sectors the community—the people who elect them, after all—to do precisely that. However, the Government have invested in the College of Policing’s National Centre for Police Leadership, which has already set out national standards for leadership at every level. That has to be embedded across forces, so that officers at every rank know what is expected of them and what development they need to get there. That also goes back to a question that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, asked me about consistency, which I did not answer: she is 100% right that there is a lack of consistency across police forces. Of course, when all ranks are trained nationally, that will introduce the element of consistency that we clearly need.
I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford. However, as the recommendation is directed at police forces, I have to maintain the operational independence line, as it is entirely appropriate that police forces should be free from central government control. Nevertheless, there is local control that could certainly exercise the type of oversight that the noble Baroness wants.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, the Minister referred to local accountability. Is he satisfied that the various assurances and procedures that he described will apply to the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and other forces that do not have local accountability?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord raises a good point. The Civil Nuclear Constabulary comes under the atomic energy people—I forget their precise title—and was referenced in Lady Elish’s report. I have not been party to the conversations that are going on there; I imagine that they are ongoing, and I would like to report back in due course, when I can. Obviously, I cannot say more at the moment.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
Is it not right that when police officers commit such offences their pensions should also be suspended immediately as part of the punishment?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I cannot say that it is right across the board; I do not know. It would obviously have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. The way that we have changed the dismissals process will, I hope, give that decision-making power to the right people and make the dismissals process much easier for them to navigate. As I said, it would be foolish of me to say a blanket yes or no; it depends on the case.
Foreign Affairs
(2 months ago)
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Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, it is my privilege to start the second half of this debate. I trust that your Lordships are suitably refreshed, in spite of the limited time made available for that purpose. I thank my noble friend Lord Ahmad for an excellent introduction, and I thank him and my noble friend the Foreign Secretary for giving us this opportunity today to debate the UK’s position on foreign affairs in a world that has become less stable, with events harder to predict than any of us had expected, even before Covid.
It is excellent for global Britain that a former Prime Minister, with much international experience, and who is held in high regard abroad, has returned to government as Foreign Secretary. It is also very good for your Lordships’ House that, once again, the holder of one of the great offices of state is accountable to Parliament in this place. I do not agree with those who say that my noble friend should be made accountable also to another place, because it would be most time-consuming for him to have to account to both Houses and would diminish the significance of his contributions to your Lordships’ deliberations in this place.
It is apparent that, following Brexit, the United Kingdom’s voice in world affairs has remained significant. We are the only G5 country that can develop a new independent trade policy and, as such, we are able to contribute positively to the further adoption of free, rules-based trade throughout the world. We need to restore the position of the WTO and act as a force for good through our newly acquired membership of the CPTPP. It is interesting that seven of the 12 members of this partnership, following our accession, are Commonwealth countries. Does my noble friend think it is possible for the Commonwealth itself to develop a more active role in supporting free trade and upholding the international order?
It is also interesting that the largest economy in the CPTPP is Japan. Our Japanese friends have been very active for several years in encouraging the UK to apply for accession, and they have effectively helped to persuade those members who were sceptical about the value to the partnership of the accession of a non-Pacific country. Japan understands and shares this country’s strong commitment to the international order, and it welcomes our tilt to the Indo-Pacific and renewed commitment to defence and security across the world—not by imagining that we are any longer a great imperial power capable of unilateral action but by using our hard and soft power in conjunction with our friends and allies, where we can make a useful contribution.
In that connection, I must record my great regret that the FCDO has disposed of a large part of our Tokyo embassy estate, which at a stroke lessens the ease with which we could effortlessly project soft power in the minds of the Japanese people. That was a mistake, but I am nevertheless happy that His Majesty’s Government now recognise clearly that Japan is our most important friend and ally among Asian nations.
It is also a pity that we allowed two major gigawatt nuclear power station projects—one with Toshiba and one with Hitachi—to crash. I ask my noble friend to give his support to seeking changes to the Government’s current nuclear policy to accelerate the commercialisation of another nuclear technology that we desperately need to roll out much sooner than currently envisaged. I am referring to Japan’s high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, which can make an enormous contribution to our total energy capacity, not just the electricity grid.
I mention also the enormous significance of the agreement announced in December by the UK, Japan and Italy to work together to create a new sixth-generation fighter jet—the Global Combat Air Programme. Bearing in mind that the RAF’s order for GCAP aircraft may need to be much bigger than he had expected, does my noble friend agree that there is a clear and urgent need to increase defence spending to 3% immediately, and probably to a much higher level within a year or two? What does my noble friend think about the interesting idea proposed by my noble friend Lady Goldie to issue a kind of defence bond? In these deeply troubled times, we surely need to think outside the box.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, as the death toll in Gaza now tops 30,000, we reflect on the catastrophe that continues to unfold since the horrific Hamas attack on 7 October. I too pay tribute to the Ministers for their work and commitment to achieving a resolution, but the impact of their efforts may be less as a result of the unconditional support that they have given to Israel since the events of 7 October.
In Gaza, the death and destruction continue and have not resulted in the freeing of the hostages. At least 30,200 people have been killed in Gaza, including more than 12,300 children and 8,400 women. More than 71,300 have been injured, including at least 8,600 children and 6,300 women, with more than 8,000 missing.
In the Occupied West Bank, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 108 children, with more than 4,600 injured. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, the president of Medical Aid for Palestinians, told us, a quarter of people are at risk of imminent famine and one in six children in the north is acutely malnourished. Gaza’s children are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen. I am sure that she would testify that, unlike what was said earlier, in Gaza there are no places of safety for the protection of the civilian population, which is why the number of fatalities and injuries is so high. The executive director of UNICEF said last week:
“Horrific news out of Gaza that at least ten children have reportedly died of malnutrition and dehydration so far, while many more are on the brink … 1 in 6 children under the age of two in north Gaza are acutely malnourished … Over 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza are at starvation levels”.
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime?
Infectious diseases are also spreading rapidly, and there is little access to medical care. No hospitals are fully functioning across the territory. At least 90% of children under five are affected by one or more infectious disease. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that an immediate permanent ceasefire is even more desperately needed now?
The UK Government have so far refused to halt arms exports to Israel, despite the risk that these weapons pose to civilians. Special rapporteurs, independent experts and working groups issued a statement on 23 February, warning that the transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel to be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law and must stop immediately. Further, the Dutch Court of Appeal order on 11 February required the Netherlands to halt its export of F35 fighter-jet parts to Israel, because of the clear risk that they might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. The UK’s own arms criteria establish the very same obligation, yet the UK produces 15% of the parts of all F35s being used in Gaza.
The UK did suspend arms licences to Israel during the bombardment in Gaza in 2014, despite the very much lower numbers of deaths and injuries, when the Foreign Secretary was then Prime Minister. In the light of the potential complicity of the UK in war crimes, will he halt arms exports to Israel as he did in 2014? Is he aware that hand-wringing pleas for restraint while still supplying weapons seems rather hypocritical, whether they come from the UK or the United States?
Israel is now pushing ahead with an additional 3,300 illegal settlements in the West Bank. Will the Foreign Secretary let us know the Government’s view of this and of further expansion of settlements, potentially into Gaza? Will they ensure the rights of the Palestinian people to return to their land, as is their right under international law?
The Foreign Secretary has spoken about the two-state solution. If he truly believes in this, then time is very short, and action must be taken now by making Hamas and Israel accountable, releasing the hostages and showing to all parties a commitment to a different vision of peace and justice with security for Israel and Palestine, starting with the recognition of the Palestinian state.
Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con)
My Lords, I have three quick questions for my noble friend the Foreign Secretary. Does he agree that, for centuries, freedom of the press has essentially meant freedom from the control of Governments, both foreign and domestic? I have an interest to declare, as I have been writing for the Telegraph and the Spectator for over 30 years—although they pay so little that I would not really call it an interest so much as a mild or passing interest. I do not want that to be taken as a criticism in any way of the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham, owing to the fact that he was only obeying orders.
My second question is a follow-up to that of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts. What is Britain doing to persuade the G7 to give the entire $300 billion of frozen Russian assets currently held by Euroclear in Brussels to the Ukrainians for the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine? We sequestered huge amounts of funds in both the First and Second World Wars, as did the Americans; there is plenty of precedent for this. The moral case is obviously clear, especially after the death of Alexei Navalny. The legal and economic arguments against it have been comprehensively demolished in a recent article in the Financial Times by Bob Zoellick, the former president of the World Bank:
“Policymakers rarely find opportunities based on sound policy, good politics and compelling ethical values … The G7 and other friends should quit dithering”.
The Foreign Secretary has done a wonderful job in Washington, trying to persuade Congress to part with the $66 billion or so, but this would be almost five times the amount and would set the Ukrainians up extremely well in the event of a Trump presidency.
My third question is: which country or group of countries would genuinely guarantee Israeli security against a future Palestinian state if it turned out to be revanchist? There are 15 demilitarised states in the world, none of which is in a conflict zone. No countries intervened when Hamas violently overthrew Fatah in Gaza in 2007. Who will step in when the so-called police force of a future Palestinian state starts to acquire heavy weaponry, armour or attack drones? The chronically anti-Israel United Nations? The G7? The Arab League? Britain and America have the dubious fact of having guaranteed Ukraine in 1994 after it got rid of its nuclear weapons. Surely Israelis are right to fear that any security guarantees will not be worth the paper on which they are written, at least while Palestinians still harbour these ludicrous dreams of expelling the Jews from the river to the sea.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, I will make just two points. Like everyone else, I wish there were no wars in the world. I wish we could all live in peace and harmony, and that we did not have to watch night after night on our TV screens humanity tearing itself apart around the world. That is just wishful thinking, so let me return to the real world.
At this moment, we have conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. Ukrainians are fighting for the survival of their country against a tyrant, Putin. Along with the US and other European countries, we are standing with Ukraine. The way things are going, in spite of all our help and efforts, its looks as if the tyrant might prevail. President Macron alluded to the fact that NATO might consider sending troops to Ukraine. This proposal was immediately shot down by everyone, including our Government. Have our Government and NATO considered another option—something that NATO did in the war in the Balkans in the 1990s to bring another tyrant, President Milošević of Serbia, to his senses? I suggest that NATO considers provide air cover on Ukraine soil only, to protect the troops on the ground and to keep the Russian troops away from Ukraine borders. Like I said, NATO has done it before, so why not consider it again in Ukraine? It is a bit drastic, but a thought.
I will move on to Gaza. What happened on Israel’s soil on 7 October was horrendous. My heart goes out to all the victims of Hamas, a terrorist organisation. The State of Israel has the right to protect its borders and its citizens, but what it is doing in Gaza now to men, women and children is beyond description and disproportionate. I totally condemn it.
This point is historical. I do not mean to reopen old colonial wounds, but after the First World War the British Government had a mandate from the League of Nations to sort out the question of Palestine and leave peacefully with both communities, Jews and Arabs, living in harmony, side by side. We failed on that count and left in a hurry.
Even now, the British Government bear a moral obligation—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, used those words—towards the Palestine conflict, stemming from their historical involvement following the 1947 withdrawal. We left behind a complex and unresolved situation that resulted in decades of conflict and bloodshed on both sides, and immense suffering for the Palestinians. Millions of them became stateless refugees in neighbouring countries. As a former colonial power, Britain has a moral responsibility to advocate for a just resolution by acknowledging the consequences of its past actions and engaging diplomatically as the main power, and by providing further humanitarian aid and supporting a peaceful solution. Addressing this long-standing issue aligns with British values of justice, compassion and international responsibility, and would foster stability and hope in the region.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, at a recent meeting, Xi Jinping said to Vladimir Putin that right now we are witnessing changes
“the likes of which we have not seen in 100 years”.
He was referencing the change in the balance of power. It sounds like grandstanding, but what if he is right?
Today’s debate comes at a very important time. If the events of 2023 and 2024 tell us anything, it is that for the first time in a generation there is a genuine global challenge to our way of life in the West and to the international rules-based order. The geopolitical dynamics are changing and we need to wake up if Britain is not to be caught in the crosshairs of increasing competition between great powers. The gathering of the BRICS in 2023 was perhaps the most important gathering last year that nobody was talking about. Niall Ferguson talks of an “axis of ill will” comprising nations that are hostile to the West and to the liberal democratic rules-based system. We should take his words seriously.
This gathering is not just a talking shop. It is underwritten by China, a global superpower intent on rebalancing the geopolitical dynamics. To see this, look at three nations: Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Iran’s economy has grown faster than western counterparts despite US sanctions. Why? It is because Beijing consumed 90% of Iranian oil imports in 2023 and signed a $400 billion partnership agreement in 2021. Russia’s GDP is growing faster than any country in the G7. Why? It is because Beijing is now its main export partner for gas and other commodities. Beijing has ensured that sanctions against Russia have hurt Germany far more than they have hurt Putin. Meanwhile, the Chinese have poured in $17 billion in investment and construction into Saudi Arabia in the last three years, changing the balance for Sunni states too. The aggression of the Houthis against western nations started only once Beijing had brokered rapprochement between Saudi and Iran in that nation.
Furthermore, we would be naive to think that the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are purely isolated incidents. They are emblematic of the shifting of geopolitical tectonic plates. The odds that a third front opens up in Taiwan or the South China Sea grow sadly shorter by the day. Xi has consistently stressed that the Taiwan issue cannot be passed on from generation to generation. US intelligence sources and the Taiwan Foreign Minister have said that 2027 is the year they are concerned about.
If Britain is to stand tall and be resilient in the coming years, it is essential that we prepare now. Three principles should govern our actions. First, we must set our economy and society on to a resilient footing. Geopolitical risk should be run through our every decision. If this means directing investment into local and reliable supply chains, that may be necessary. If it means increasing military spending, we should do that too. If it means adjusting our net-zero targets to avoid critical dependencies on China, then we need to consider this as well.
We urgently need to know how a crisis in Taiwan would impact us. A recent study by the Rhodium Group forecast that a conservative estimate puts the damage at $2 trillion globally. Given that our trade-to-GDP ratio is 70% and the odds of the US, which is far less vulnerable than us to these shocks, using the full force of economic statecraft in the context of any confrontation are high, we should make this a priority. I ask my noble friend the Foreign Secretary: what assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of these risks and will he make any such assessment public?
We must work with allies to strategically prioritise the maintenance of the international rules-based order. The liberal democratic world underpinned by the West has provided for greater prosperity worldwide than any other system. If we do not understand this and do not invest in this, we will hand over the rules-based order to nations which play by different rules. Finally, we must take a step back and ask ourselves: who are we and what are we building? Confidence in our identity and character as a nation matters. In a time of shaking, will Britain allow itself to be riven by division internally or will we stand tall?
In the early 20th century, we were resilient in crises and came out stronger on the other side. Our current internal weaknesses and lack of confidence in our own civilisation leave us vulnerable. We must remember who we are and why our way of life is worth defending. If we fail to do this, we may not like the world order that our children inherit. If we succeed, not only will we still have an important role to play in the world but we will have the resilience to stand in a time of shaking and a clearer identity as to who we are as a nation.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. I note that, with the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, who follows me, we form a wedge of former coalition advisers on the Order Paper, perhaps placed there as a reminder to the Foreign Secretary of calmer, gentler times, when Prime Ministers lasted their full five-year terms and parties co-operated to solve problems in government rather than tearing themselves apart.
I declare my interests as CEO of United Against Malnutrition and Hunger, trustee of the Royal African Society and chair of the Africa APPG’s inquiry into just energy transition. I associate myself with the excellent speeches of my noble friend Lord Bruce and the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, highlighting the need for a total refresh of UK policy towards Africa.
I will focus most of my remarks on the implications of climate change for our foreign policy, but first I want to say a brief word on Gaza. Over a quarter of Gaza’s population are said to be one step away from famine, almost the entire population are in desperate need of food, and child malnutrition is at catastrophic levels. This cannot continue. As my noble friends on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and others have argued, there must be an immediate ceasefire.
Sadly, Gaza is not the only place where conflict is fuelling malnutrition. In Yemen, in DRC, in Ethiopia, in Sudan and South Sudan and in Ukraine, conflict has exacerbated a global hunger crisis already driven by climate-related extreme weather events. The impacts of climate change will only worsen. The science is unequivocal: warming is already at 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and further warming is inevitable, with the 1.5 degrees Paris target almost certain to be breached and probably far beyond that. This is already having huge impacts, through more frequent and longer-duration climate events such as heatwaves, floods, droughts and tropical cyclones.
A few weeks ago I was in Isiolo County in Kenya, visiting impressive projects run by UNICEF to prevent and treat severe acute malnutrition. Isiolo County is only now recovering from prolonged drought, which is becoming more and more common in this part of Africa, creating acute food insecurity for millions.
Every increment in warming will bring escalating hazards for human health and ecosystems. As the APPG on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases notes, changes in precipitation combined with increasing temperatures will alter vector breeding habitats and pathogen development, changing the geographical distribution of diseases, transmission risks, prevalence rates and the virulence of disease. Some 500 million more people could become exposed to chikungunya and dengue by 2050, with a recent UK Health Security Agency report warning that dengue could be transmitted in London by 2060.
Warming is being accompanied by unprecedented biodiversity loss, by increasingly desperate competition for resources and by rising sea levels that threaten massive human dislocation. Our foreign policy needs to shift dramatically to meet this reality.
First and foremost, this means seeing ourselves as others see us, not just as we would like to be seen. It means understanding that lecturing nations that have done little to contribute to climate change, but are most vulnerable to it, on clean energy transition, while granting new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, destroys credibility. It means honouring our pledges on international climate finance. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact recently stated that, to meet the UK’s pledge to spend £11.6 billion on ICF by 2025-26, we need to spend 55% of the total in the next two years. I hope the Foreign Secretary can tell us in his reply whether that is actually going to happen and, if so, how the spend will be profiled.
ICAI also criticised the Government for “moving the goalposts” by changing the way the target will be met, which it said amounted to an additional £1.724 billion being categorised as international climate finance that
“was not new and additional spending for developing countries”.
Again, this is destructive of our credibility in an area we once led on.
We also need to recognise that addressing climate change will require us, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, said, to work with Governments and countries we do not like. That does not mean abandoning our values and principles, but it does mean co-operating together for a wider good. The climate crisis poses an existential threat to humanity. We need to face up to that reality and make global co-operation to protect our planet the number one priority of our foreign policy.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friends from the coalition. I join many noble Lords who have paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Ahmad for his tireless work and endless optimism and energy. I also pay tribute to the late Lord Cormack. I will miss the wisdom and experience he would have brought to this debate.
Future generations may study this period as an example of how the world stumbled into a major upheaval. The world order, as envisioned after the destruction and horrors of the Second World War, is dangerously close to coming to an end. There has never been a greater need for our foreign policy to be strategically and morally consistent, and aimed at unifying rather than dividing our society. I fear that we are in danger of lacking on both counts. I will give two examples, necessarily briefly.
First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought into question the idea of a Europe at peace—a Europe of prosperity and progress. Vladimir Putin sees Ukraine not as a final destination but as a starting point in his campaign to undermine the stability of Europe and NATO, from the Baltics to the Balkans. Logic and national interest dictate that we must support Ukraine in resisting Russian attempts to redraw its borders. Yet we are not applying the same logic in the western Balkans, where Russia is actively cultivating separatist proxies and where the risk of conflict is higher today than at any time in the last 20 years.
I know that my noble friend the Foreign Secretary is alive to the danger. In January he described his sense that
“the posture of the West when it comes to Kosovo and the western Balkans … is … set in a time before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.
Can he give an update on what has been done to bring our policy in line with our wider strategy towards Russia? Will this include a UK commitment to reinforce the military deterrent in Bosnia, through Operation Althea, as we have done so effectively with KFOR in Kosovo?
The second inconsistency arises from the Israel-Gaza war. In a 1987 interview with the Jewish Chronicle, against the backdrop of the first intifada, Margaret Thatcher, a great friend of Israel, repeatedly urged restraint, stressing that it was
“vital not to use excessive force”.
In response to a question about settlements, she set out what should be an abiding principle:
“what you do not like yourself you must not do to others”.
Regrettably, in the current conflict Israel’s right to self-defence has morphed into a disproportionate military response, tantamount to the collective punishment of a civilian population. Civilians are being killed and starved as their homes, schools and hospitals are destroyed and their children maimed.
Where we have rightly condemned Russia’s use of siege tactics and its attacks on hospitals and civilian targets, and where we have rightly condemned the terror attack against Israel, the taking of hostages and the sexual violence that was committed, we, along with the US and some other democracies, have also provided diplomatic and moral cover for the carnage in Gaza. These apparent double standards have been noted by British people and in countries around the world. Such inconsistency runs counter to our long-term interests, which should be the shaping force for our foreign policy. It helps Vladimir Putin, undermines our national interest and weakens our moral authority. The welcome exception to that is my noble friend’s call for a Palestinian state. Could he give his assessment of just how close or far away the horizon that he has spoken about is now?
The Government have done an admirable job of explaining our policy on Ukraine and carrying forward public support for our goals. The same cannot be said of our response to the war in Gaza. How did we end up alienated from the electorate, who are shocked by the civilian toll and many of whom are protesting because they believe that their voices cannot be, and are not, heard in Parliament?
Our role in the world is only as strong as our cohesion. Pursuing policies abroad that divide and weaken us at home is not in our national interest. I recall the words of my noble friend Lord Hague, a previous Foreign Secretary. Speaking in 2010, he said:
“Foreign policy is domestic policy written large. The values we live by at home do not stop at our shores. Human rights are not the only issue that informs the making of foreign policy, but they are indivisible from it”.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, for some months now it has been evident that 2024 was going to be a nail-biting year for Governments worldwide and for foreign policy practitioners, not just because of the plethora of elections—some more properly democratic than others—but because so many of the fixed points of international relations are under siege. It is high time for this House to be debating the choices and the challenges, and a privilege to be doing so in the presence of the Foreign Secretary.
There are no prizes for starting with the recent statements and actions of the man who is, in near certainty, going to be contesting the US presidential election in November. Donald Trump’s incitement to Putin to attack NATO member states is not only a blow to NATO’s deterrent capacity but a breach of the UN charter, and it is damaging to America’s own interests. How much good did US isolationism in the 1930s do for its security? His torpedoing of a Bill in Congress that contained what he had been asking for on migration was shocking, reversing, as he has done, Louis XV’s dictum, “Après moi, le déluge”, which means “After me, the deluge”, into “Avant moi, le déluge”—“Ahead of me, the deluge”.
One conclusion can be drawn already: whether Biden or Trump is in the White House after November, we Europeans are going to need to do more in our own defence and to do more together, working in concert, than we have done hitherto, and we need to get started on that now, not later. We need too to tighten the noose of sanctions on Russia, working with the EU and the G7 to reduce third-country leakage.
Then there is the war in and around Gaza and more widely in parts of the Middle East. No one can have followed events since 7 October without feeling deep anguish—anguish for Israelis whose compatriots were killed in the terrorist attack and some of whom are still being held hostage, and anguish for the many thousands of Palestinian civilians who have subsequently lost their lives. But we really should stop tearing ourselves apart over whether we back an immediate or a sustainable ceasefire, neither of which we are in a position to deliver.
Instead, we should concentrate on how to prevent such appalling events happening again. In that context, I applaud the shift in policy over Palestinian statehood that was hinted at by the Foreign Secretary, and the move away from the long since bankrupt policy of offering statehood only at the end of a process over which Israel would have a veto at every stage. Would that be to offer Hamas victory? Certainly not, because Hamas does not even contemplate a two-state solution and because any such approach would necessarily involve all concerned—Israel’s Arab neighbours and Israel itself—recognising each other and committing themselves to respecting each other’s sovereignty.
The UN has taken some hard knocks in recent years, but now is not the moment for the UK, a founding member and a permanent member of its Security Council, to give up on it, to walk away washing its hands; nor would it be sensible to propose a process of fundamental reform in such unpropitious circumstances. It is better, surely, to focus on sectoral reforms and, in particular, ones that relate to the priority concerns of the countries of the global South, thus helping to bridge the gap that has opened up between them and the West. Such measures include: strengthening the World Health Organization, enabling it to deal more effectively and more equitably with the next pandemic when it comes along; bridging the gap between the warm words agreed at COP meetings and members’ actual performance on climate change, with additional resources for mitigating measures in heavily indebted developing countries; getting the sustainable development goals back on track; and restarting a dialogue on strategic stability between nuclear weapon states.
I conclude with a plea that we do not give in to counsels of despair or to siren songs to appease actions that we know are wrong and which we have all committed ourselves to resisting. Diplomats, to whose ranks I belonged, and democratic politicians are professional practitioners of the art of the possible. But that art has to be anchored in common interests and common values. So I would express the wish, and I will do so myself, that we dedicate our debate today to two outstanding men who gave their lives to making the world a better place: Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, who knew that Israel would never be secure or prosperous without a two-state solution, and Alexei Navalny, who championed a Russia with which we could have lived in peaceful coexistence, and whose parting advice to all of us was, “Do not give up”.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and to welcome both his final comments and those on our relationship with Europe, which I will come back to.
It is tempting to focus, as many noble Lords have, on the situation in Palestine now: the hideous human suffering in the Gaza Strip; the terrible circumstances of the Israeli hostages; and the invention of a new acronym —WCNSF—meaning “wounded child, no surviving family”. UNICEF estimates that there are now 17,000 children in Gaza who are unaccompanied or separated from any relatives. That is about 1% of the entire population. Yet still we sell arms to the Israeli Government.
The topic of today’s debate is a broad one: the UK’s position on foreign affairs. I am in the lucky position that I can recycle material, because tomorrow I will be in Brussels with the Green European Foundation— I declare I have an unremunerated position on its board—to chair a debate at the Press Club on a major report, Geopolitics of a Post-Growth Europe. I urge noble Lords who seek new answers in a world where the old approaches—the approaches used for decades and continuing to be used by this Government—have delivered the conditions we have today to take a look at this report. Many will be pleased to note that in the introductory essay, the Dutch GreenLeft analyst Richard Wouters concludes that the EU
“should keep the United Kingdom close and underline that the door is open for re-entry. EU membership offers the closest form of alliance”.
However, in terms of our relationship with the nations of the global South—a growing, still relatively young part of the global population, as opposed to ours—the important point is made that it pays for them to sit on the fence, to play off the US, the EU and China, as well as the UK, against one another to secure trade, aid, investment and even security protection. There are many reasons for them to not prefer us and our allies. Many nations and peoples do not see the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the imperialist, colonialist attack that it is, because they associate such behaviour with western Europe and the US. They see, rightly, that much of the injustice and suffering they experience today originates from us. They see the enforced austerity of the IMF, the predatory actions of western lenders, the corrupt behaviour of western mining companies, the refusal to open up the use of climate technologies and, crucially, the refusal to allow affordable access to essential medicines and vaccines with manufacturing close to where they are needed.
History is not pre-written but made by the actions of people. Where we are today is the result of past actions over decades and centuries. Men sitting on these very Benches imposed starvation on India, forced 1.5 million Kenyans into concentration camps between 1952 and 1960, and imposed similar conditions in the so-called Malaya emergency. What should be at the heart of our foreign policy is, first, acknowledging the many abuses of the past and then that we need to act to stop the continuing oppression that arises from our own actions.
Debt cancellation is an obvious area of urgent need. Through that we would, as Wouters points out, ease the pressure on global South countries to sell off their biospheres and their lithospheres, and reduce the pressure to promote often exploitative labour conditions in export-orientated industries, when the efforts of their people could instead be directed towards delivering resilience and security, particularly food security, in the age of climate shocks.
I finish with a reflection on normative power—the power to exports one’s values—as an integral part of geopolitics and how living up to those values is crucial to being able to use that power for constructive good. With that in mind, I have two direct questions to the Minister for his summing up.
First, as Prime Minister in 2015, he made a public call to halt the planned execution of child defendant Ali Mohammed al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia. Ali was ultimately spared and has been released from prison. There are at least three such child defendants now in Saudi Arabia, despite its promises to stop sentencing child defendants to death. Will the Minister tonight publicly call on the Saudi authorities to prevent the executions of Abdullah al-Derazi, Youssef al-Manasif and Abdullah al-Howaiti? Secondly, the published value of UK arms sales licensed to Saudi Arabia since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015 is £8.2 billion; the Campaign Against the Arms Trade says that it is much more than that. What is the world reading of Britain’s values when we export those arms and hand them over to one of the world’s regimes that is most abusive of human rights, particularly the rights of women and vulnerable migrants?
Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)
My Lords, at this stage of the evening, I will make one point— I hope in less than five minutes—and in doing so will draw heavily on the stark and authoritative soundings and warnings that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and others have laid before us. That point is that, as a nation, we are not yet facing up to the fiscal consequences of the defence capabilities we now require.
For all the reasons we have heard this evening, sadly, the era of the peace dividend is over—the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary may recall that when he was Prime Minister from time to time I helped him spend the peace dividend in the NHS. However, when the threat facts change, our defence posture needs to change with them. In fairness, of course, the Government can point to increasing military expenditure, support for Ukraine, a procurement pipeline, Archer artillery, the Type 26 and Type 31 new ships for the Navy and so forth, but the fact remains that we clearly have capability gaps.
Those were laid out starkly by the House of Commons Defence Committee in its report at the beginning of February and we must square up to them. For every five service personnel joining the military, the MoD reports that eight are leaving. When it comes to the Equipment Plan for the Ministry of Defence looking out over the next decade, which accounts for about half —49%—of forecast defence spending, we see, according to the National Audit Office, a funding gap of £17 billion, at least. Indeed, there is a rather curious feature of the way in which that forecast defence equipment budget has been established. In the case of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, the full predicted costs of their equipment requirements to deliver the Government’s objectives, set out in the integrated review and the defence Command Paper, are priced up, but in the case of the British Army, they are not. I asked a Written Question as to why there was this difference in the internal budgeting between different parts of the Armed Forces in the MoD. I was told on 21 December that the Ministry of Defence’s operating model allows top- level budget holders
“to have different financial positions and to be at different stages of addressing their financial pressures”.
I think one way of interpreting that Answer is to say that, in effect, the Army is being used as the balancing item for a set of unbudgeted requirements. As a consequence, it is very hard for Parliament and the Government to have a transparent debate with the public about the costs of resourcing the military capabilities that we say we need as a nation.
Of course, better procurement and stronger economic growth would, to some extent, dissolve these trade-offs. We will have a Budget tomorrow, so it is possible that the Chancellor will answer the question of when we will get to 2.5% of GDP and rise beyond that. However, I rather doubt it, because we all know that at this stage of the electoral cycle what is going on is a torturing of the OBR forecasts until they confess. The likelihood is that, at best, these commitments will show up in manifestos. To the extent that they do not, it will be vital that at the start of the next Parliament—whoever holds the reins of power—we are in a position to have a frank conversation with the British people about the progress, the trade-offs and the trajectory required to give us the capabilities we need. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said at the start of the debate, to will the end is to will the means.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, the debate title asks us to “take note” of the UK’s position on foreign affairs, so where do we stand today?
One useful starting point is the finding of an Ipsos poll in January. The question was “What difference has leaving the EU had on the UK’s standing on the world stage?” and 54% of those polled said it had a negative effect. Some 17% said that it had a positive effect. I concede, however, that on soft power we remain a superpower. The latest Brand Finance survey had the UK again in second place after the US. Much of that, however, is outside the control of government—for example, the quality of our universities.
The international context is bleak for all of us, certainly compared with 20 or 30 years ago. There is no peace dividend, no new international stability, no greater co-operation among nations, and democracy and the rules-based system are in retreat. The picture today is one of wars and rumours of wars. The evolution of relations between NATO and Russia is instructive. Twenty or 30 years ago, there was a NATO-Russia Act; today, we have Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the flippant threat of Trump to abandon Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
What used to be called the third world, now the global South, is increasingly moving away from the western orbit. Some wars we almost ignore; for example, those in Sudan and eastern Congo. Some force themselves upon us, such as the Houthi war in Yemen, and affect our shipping and food prices. Some, of course, are threats to our allies and domestically. On Ukraine, and of course again on the Middle East, there is essentially a cross-party consensus in this House and beyond. In Ukraine, momentum has certainly passed to Russia. Germany agonises over the supply of Taurus long-range missiles. Republicans in Congress block aid and arms to Ukraine. However, it is unlikely that either side in the conflict will win a decisive victory.
For Ukraine to lose would be a great defeat for the West. It is fighting gallantly for all of us, yet surely we should not give unconditional support and subcontract our own policy entirely to Ukraine’s. If Russia were to prevail, Trump and the Republicans in Congress, and possibly the German Chancellor, would bear a heavy responsibility. There should be twin tasks of military support and looking for diplomatic openings.
On Gaza, the position is different. After the atrocities of 7 October, there was enormous international sympathy for Israel, but Netanyahu has frittered much of that away through his intransigence, the creation of a humanitarian catastrophe and the pictures of starving children; President Biden had warned against a response of fury. There is at least a possibility of some good emerging if a grand deal were agreed, including a two-state solution.
The Oracle at Delphi advised us to “Know thyself”, and that should be part of our international role—a national introspection of what we can do. However, there is a degree of unreality post Brexit. If we were to tilt to the Indo-Pacific, that would be a tilt away from Europe, where our interests mainly lie and where we currently seek to avoid the major part of our foreign policy at a time when Europe is facing new threats in the Arctic and in Ukraine.
I end on this. Our foreign and security policy interests are closely aligned with the European Union. There are three blocs today: China is hostile; the US may become unreliable; the EU is our regional alternative. Theresa May considered a treaty in this area—do the Government envisage building a closer relationship? What new institutions does the Foreign Secretary favour, or are we too constrained by Brexiteers in the ranks of the Conservatives? The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, our welcome Foreign Secretary, ran well once. Where does he stand today on closer relations with the European Union on foreign and security policy?
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, addressing your Lordships’ House today about multiple murders is a flashback to my former life as a detective superintendent and graduate of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. This debate is very timely, not just because the world appears to be in turmoil but because I received a letter last week about the incarceration, for 25 years, of Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a strict regime prison in Russia.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a radical critic of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the war. He was educated at Cambridge University and has joint British/Russian nationality. The jointly signed letter is from three British subjects in London, who have all had their lives tragically turned upside down by Vladimir Putin. The first of these is Professor Michael Borschevsky, whose wife, Galina, a scientist and distinguished vocal advocate of democracy, was murdered by shooting in St Petersburg by Russia’s Federal Security Service, of which Putin was then in charge, in 1998. The second is Marina, the wife of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian defector who was poisoned by a radioactive substance in London in 2006 by Russian FSB agents.
Finally, the third is Bill Browder, who believes that he himself is a target of Putin for campaigning for justice in the case of his Russian solicitor, Sergei Magnitsky, who was advocating for him in a fraud case in Russia in 2009 when he was arrested and led to a freezing isolation cell in a Moscow prison, handcuffed to a bedrail and beaten to death by eight corrupt police officers. Mr Magnitsky had uncovered evidence that they had stolen £230 million of taxes paid to the state by a very successful hedge fund. Mr Browder has campaigned tirelessly and successfully for severe international sanctions against corrupt Russian individuals, known as Magnitsky sanctions. Mr Magnitsky’s killing remains uninvestigated.
Your Lordships will recall other similar assassinations of Putin’s opponents, such as Boris Nemtsov, who was shot on a bridge in Moscow, and most recently, of course, as has been mentioned several times, the disgraceful death of Alexei Navalny, an opposition politician whose tragic funeral took place in Moscow last weekend. He was also a poison victim, who is believed to have been murdered in a severe Arctic prison.
Could I ask the Foreign Secretary whether representations have been made to the Russian authorities regarding the imprisonment of Vladimir Kara-Murza? All three of my correspondents are in effect exiled from Russia for safety reasons and bring a large amount of experience and intelligence in these matters over many years. Would the Secretary of State agree to meet the three distinguished authors of the letter in my possession, of which I can let him have a copy, with a view to shining a light on the case and preventing Mr Kara-Murza suffering the same fate as Alexei Navalny? I look forward to a positive reply from the Foreign Secretary.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I begin by saying this is the first debate in which I have taken part to which my good friend the Foreign Secretary has been replying. He is a man of great wisdom—he put me into the House of Lords. There can be nothing greater in the wisdom field than that.
Although this is in title a debate on foreign affairs, I want to speak mainly about Russia. Before doing so, since Gaza has come up, I fully associate myself with the speeches of my noble friends Lord Polak and Lady Altmann, who are exactly in the right direction.
My noble friend Lady Eaton treated us to a bit of history earlier, and I would like to treat us to some history as well—that of post-war Britain. Those who are very boring, like me, and watch BBC Four at 10 pm on a Sunday night, may have seen that, last Sunday, they replayed the broadcast that Hugh Gaitskell made after the invasion of Suez. He berated the British Government for breaking international law. I mention that in passing, since of late we have heard a lot about the breaking of international law. I certainly do not condone what Russia did, but I ask that we maybe understand the context in which it happened.
At the end of the Second World War, Stalin was anxious—in fact, more than anxious—that Russia should be surrounded by a cordon sanitaire, and that was the whole purpose of Yalta. We sometimes forget that we went to war for the freedom of Poland, and we ended up agreeing to the borders of Poland agreed in the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. That was never settled until Willy Brandt was Chancellor of Germany, at which point it was settled along the lines of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact.
There have been lots of changes in borders, and I ask the House to consider that what we are currently facing are a lot of frozen conflicts around the Russian border of the former Soviet Union. This is where the problem arises—and why, just as the United States gets absolutely paranoid about Cuba, the Russians get rather paranoid about their riparian borders. If we are to avoid a long-term conflict in which issue after issue is brought up, we have to have some sort of new Helsinki. There has got to be a conference in Europe in which we negotiate and come to a new set of agreements.
We know, because it has now been comprehensively leaked, that there was almost an agreement between Ukraine and Moscow about Moscow having neutrality in Ukraine, but the agreement was sunk. What we have now is a hopeless war, and it will go on and on, and the Russians will, almost certainly, not be beaten. It will become another frozen conflict like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and like what is now rapidly coming up on the rails in Moldova, what could break out in the Suwalki strip between the coast and through Lithuania and what could break out on the borders of Latvia and Estonia with the Russian cities that were created there.
I say to the Foreign Secretary that the long-term consequences of this must be that the shooting will have to stop. It cannot carry on for ever, and, if it is going to stop, we must have a series of new arrangements. This afternoon, just before I came here, I was looking at a German newscast which reported that 65% of Germans believe the shipment of arms to Ukraine is now “excessive”, and 75% oppose the export of Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Do not get this wrong: the fear of many people in Europe is a drift towards war. The job of the Foreign Office—which I served in for a very short time, but I know its mentality—is to encourage peace, not to build up to war.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, the world is at a perilous moment. I will refer to the Middle East situation, before turning to the overseas territories, and conclude with a thought regarding China.
The situation in the Levant is so distressing. Everyone knows the ramifications, not only for the conflicting sides, but for the world. Resolution drifts, either willingly by skilled defenders of one side or another, or unwillingly by their collocutors. Is either side ready to discuss life in the region, or do they want to continue to prove themselves right and to die for it?
Claims on the rights to the land and who was there first—with control or containment of the settlers—is a quandary as complex as the horrific events of 7 October. Debating circular claims on the cluster of problems with the many participants who are physically in combat, or actively driving it from behind, is not going to lead to any sustainable solution. The only question is whether the sides can face reality and discuss the present and future, while putting aside grievances from the past.
Can a wedge be inserted between Iran and active players in the region, or will we continue to allow skilled puppet masters to continue unabated? A peace treaty will be signed one day; there is no choice. We—all those with a vested interest in a resolution—must not stay on the sidelines. However, we must not take sides, but instead push the sides to face reality and negotiate on its terms.
I turn now to the overseas territories and shall take Gibraltar as an example. Gibraltar has assessed broadening its trade links, and it wishes to do this with the same rights and privileges as the United Kingdom. It sees potential in increasing trade with Africa. However, to maximise its potential, a level playing field with respect to the UK is needed to allow the repositioning of its economy to a post-Brexit model and the maximising of advances in new technology such as artificial intelligence. Article 12 of the UK-Sierra Leone bilateral FTA is clear, however, that the Government “may” consider extending the same rights and privileges to an overseas territory. Why would government in London not agree? First and foremost, we must surely be looking after our nearest and dearest.
However, a recent official note from the FCDO made the Government’s position clear: “It is not the policy of the UK Government to extend bilateral investment treaty agreements to British Overseas Territories, even though that provision is in all of them, because the UK has found that the BIT treaties are not made much use of”. I am confused as to what is meant by that—the horse or the cart syndrome. I would be delighted to give a copy of the note with those remarks in it from a department of the FCDO. If I may say so, I believe that approach to be wide of the mark in today’s world, and it smacks of yesteryear’s colonial approach to policy. We should be encouraging innovation in our post-Brexit world, and as much to our overseas territories as elsewhere. Would the Secretary of State look at this with a view to reconsideration?
I conclude with a remark as regards China. Too much of an open door is being given to China to build on a range of strategic alliances. Beyond, notably, Africa, inroads are being made into the Pacific. I hope the upcoming CHOGM in Samoa will emphasise the unity and importance that we and the Commonwealth place on our Pacific Rim relations.
That said, and while it is imperative that we diversify supply chains—with India being an obvious beneficiary —and be proactive regarding the changing maritime landscape, I believe that we should not be dismissive of the relationship with China, and should be exploring ways for, not thwarting, mutual bilateral co-operation, building on our respective strengths and contribution, and recognising the importance, together with all the complexities. Dialogue and engagement are always preferable. It is not as though we, the West, do not hold a trump card by providing a large percentage of their marketplace.
However, going back to an earlier remark on sea routes, too much overreliance is being given to the vagaries of international law, for example to the potential for future civil and defence long-term challenges in the Northern Arctic Sea route. We—those who share common ideals—must become more assertive as the world is headed towards an extended cold war.
Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend the Foreign Secretary for finding the time to allow the House such a long debate today, when there is such pressure on his time. This particular marathon is almost over.
In the short time allowed, I want to focus on one example of where the UK’s continuing influential position and soft power in the world could be used successfully to help thwart further Russian expansionist aspirations in the Caucasus, through greater support for Armenia. Armenia is an essential potential ally in the region but, perhaps more importantly, a country that we can help remove from the jeopardy of Putin’s longing for full control of the former Soviet Union.
My noble friend the Foreign Secretary gave an inspiring speech, on 23 February in New York, on his own experience of Russian aggression in Georgia, the Crimea and Ukraine. In that, he outlined the continuity of Putin’s policies and Putin’s disrespect for the sovereignty of other nation states. I make a particular plea this evening that, following that experience, the UK’s foreign policy includes and continues to develop our relationship with Armenia. There is much we can do.
As noble Lords will be aware, Armenia is in what can only be described as a vulnerable position in a tough neighbourhood. It is currently defending its sovereignty in peace talks with Azerbaijan after significant military losses over the last few years, with no fewer than 33 Armenian villages under Azeri occupation. Armenia has found out the hard way that supposed military support from Moscow has come to naught.
Despite Russian bases in Armenia, the democratic Government put in power by its people after the 2018 velvet revolution have bravely condemned the invasion of Ukraine and have also suspended their membership of the CSTO.
Only yesterday, the Putin propagandist and Russia Today media star Margarita Simonyan said that Armenia would not exist in five years if the democratically elected Prime Minister Pashinyan remained in power. We should not underestimate the pressure that Prime Minister Pashinyan’s Government is under to halt progress away from Putin and towards the West.
As my noble friend the Foreign Secretary knows only too well, we have seen this playbook before. Armenia is a country that has lost a war, does not enjoy normalised relations with Turkey or Azerbaijan and is ripe for Russian aggression and negative influence. To its south lies Iran, always keen to play geopolitical games. This democratic Government need all the support we can give them.
I would like my noble friend to consider three things. First, as a fragile Armenia tries to move away from the Russian sphere of influence, it is vital that we do all we can to welcome it to the western alliance and support it. While I understand that the UK-Armenian relationship is different from that of France and Armenia, where direct military support is being provided, we have an opportunity to help stabilise the situation. Through our strong relationship with Azerbaijan, an important trading partner, we are uniquely placed to ensure that the peace talks from which Armenia emerges leave it a strong, sovereign nation and that any rhetoric from Baku on further Azeri expansion into Armenia is put to bed.
Secondly, we should use our relationship with our strategic friend and NATO ally, Turkey, to give impetus to the normalisation process between it and Armenia. This will help ensure that Armenian economic reliance on Russia is mitigated.
Thirdly, this last year has seen a welcome engagement with Armenia by the FCDO. My noble friend’s colleague, Minister Docherty, has twice been to Yerevan and the Armenian Foreign Minister visited London last year—in fact, on the day on which my noble friend was appointed Foreign Secretary. We must continue this dialogue. I hope that further visits, meetings and agreements can come from this interaction.
The alternative to these three actions is to leave Armenia as a susceptible, vulnerable state, which, while bravely reaching out to the West and away from Russia, is not properly supported and is at the disposal of Putin. I am sure we can all agree that we cannot afford to let this happen.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, as others have mentioned, it is two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Soon after the war started, I was appointed to a legal task force to advise on war crimes. My area of work is related largely to crimes concerning women and children. I am now working with President Zelensky’s office on the return of children who have been abducted and taken from Ukraine by Russia.
I cannot emphasise enough just how indebted the Ukrainian leadership feels to Britain for the way in which we have been at the forefront of supporting Ukraine. From my work on this task force, it has become clear that there are areas of law where we could make some beneficial changes. For example, what would the authorities do if a Russian general who had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine showed up at a London airport? We asked whether he would be arrested and put on trial. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Of course, we recognise the principle of universal jurisdiction and have interpreted it into British law. However, that allows us and our courts to put on trial people for only a handful of offences—genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity—the kinds of offences that shock the consciousness and the conscience of humankind, no matter where they occur.
The problem is that our law confines this to citizens and residents of the United Kingdom. The only people who can be prosecuted are those with this status. Interestingly, the United States’ law was formed in exactly the same way but, last year, it amended its legislation. Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, very much supported by the State Department, changed it so that presence was enough. The Americans do not have the problem of not being able to arrest Russian generals or Iranian mullahs who are currently out of our reach. This is a piece of low-hanging fruit.
I take up what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, in that I am very happy to see the Foreign Secretary in his role. I know that many of us involved in international issues have been impressed by his willingness to depart from some of the normal policy constraints, so I congratulate him on that. He has a window of opportunity—who knows what will happen later in the year? I suggest that this is a piece of low-hanging fruit, and he could change the law through the Criminal Justice Bill that is coming through Parliament.
The other area of law that I would like us to look at is our state immunity law, which I will discuss very briefly. There is a growing feeling—it has been expressed by the President of the European Commission—that we should consider using the frozen Russian assets that we have. We ourselves have £20 billion worth of Russian assets in our banks. They should be used to assist in the buying of military supplies for Ukraine. The way to do that would be to liquidate them. It would mean some legal change, but, under the doctrine of collective countermeasures, it would be permissible because we are suffering economic consequences, as a nation, as a result of the war. I am not suggesting that we go off on a tangent on our own. I am sure that the Foreign Secretary, with his great skills as a politician, great charm and ambassadorial skills, could get together with the rest of Europe and make an agreement that it is done collectively, as the risks are diminished when it is done collectively.
I turn to the other matters that I want to raise with the Foreign Secretary as low-hanging fruit. I would like to see the strengthening of the atrocity crimes unit in the Foreign Office, because it needs greater resources, and it should monitor indicators of genocide. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I argue for that in relation to the issues to which we often drawn this House’s attention, including the position of the Uighurs. The unit should look at whether there is a trajectory towards genocide, which should be monitored in a sophisticated way, and resources are needed for that.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad—I am a great fan of his—for mentioning Vladimir Kara-Murza, an extraordinary person who is currently in prison in Russia. He has, undoubtedly, twice been poisoned by the state and is now facing a long sentence, just like Navalny. He is a British citizen, and I hope that pressure can be brought to bear on Russia to release him and let him return to Britain. I suspect that that means having to be involved in an exchange of prisoners. We do not have a Russian to exchange, but Germany does, and I think that collaboration with Germany may make it possible for that kind of exchange to take place. I know that that is normally resisted by the Foreign Office, but we should consider doing it for this prisoner at this moment in time, given what happened to Navalny.
My last message to the Foreign Secretary is this. He is dealing with the whole issue of the Middle East, and I know how difficult that is. We always talk about the importance of peacemaking. Here I take up what the most reverend Primate mentioned: peacemaking is vital, but we must have women at the tables, and I am worried that women will not be at the tables in the Middle East. With his great advocacy skills, please will the Foreign Secretary ensure that we have women at the tables? That is what we want to see.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we have heard a lot about the challenges that we face in the world: Ukraine, China, Middle Eastern crises, climate change, the backlash against globalisation, and conflicts and state weaknesses in Africa. However, I will argue—as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, did—that the greatest challenge for British foreign policy today is America’s move away from global engagement and, in particular, from a commitment to European security.
British foreign policy since 1940 has been based on the concept of a special relationship with the United States as the key to maintaining our global influence. Until 2017, we also argued that we were America’s closest European partner, acting as the bridge between regionally focused continental countries and their transatlantic security guarantor.
Since Brexit, we have lost that position. Boris Johnson as Prime Minister attempted to replace it by proposing his tilt to the Pacific—to become America’s partner in facing the challenge of containing China. Whoever wins the coming US presidential election, we now have to accept that the United States no longer regards the UK as a special or privileged partner, or European stability and security as the key factor in American foreign policy.
When I lived in the USA in the 1960s, a very long time ago, I met many policymakers in Washington who had spent the Second World War in Britain, in shared intelligence operations or preparing to liberate the European continent. American foreign policy was run by people from the Atlantic states, advised by first or second-generation immigrants from Europe itself.
Two generations later, America has changed in fundamental ways. California, Texas and Florida now matter far more, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania far less. There are significant Muslim minorities in several states, as we have recently been told, as well as many Latin American and east and south Asian voters. When I was a teaching assistant in an American university, we taught “western civilisation”, and the most important destination for our American students going to study abroad was Britain. Chinese students in British universities now well outnumber American, and young Americans spread out across east and south Asia, the Middle East and Africa instead.
The underlying concepts of British defence policy and procurement have remained. As I have discovered by talking to people in the MoD, the standard by which our priorities and procurement should be measured is acceptance as equivalents by the United States. We have to recognise that this also cannot hold; American equipment is increasingly sophisticated and expensive, as we have discovered with the F35. Unless we substantially raise the scale of our defence spending, we cannot contribute significant additional forces to American deployments. Boris Johnson’s dream of contributing a British task force to the Indo-Pacific was always fantastical; the reality of a British carrier dependent for support ships on the United States and other allies has shown how limited our naval capabilities now are.
There are other nostalgic echoes that we have to leave behind. When I became a very junior Minister in the coalition Government, I was struck by the overemphasis of some of my Conservative colleagues on the value of the Commonwealth, half a century and two generations after the new Commonwealth countries had become independent. One Cabinet Minister remarked to me that the Indians were dependable friends because they remained so grateful for what British rule had given them, which is something that I doubt the current Indian Prime Minister accepts.
We still have close political relations with the Gulf states, with historical echoes, and naval ships and bases there as well. But the idea that the authoritarian Gulf ruling families are natural British allies is not sustainable, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Belgravia, said. Conservative Ministers also doubt that people close to a Gulf state ruler should be allowed to own a conservative British newspaper, because they argue that they are hostile to our democratic values.
The tilt away from Europe was a post-imperial dream. Our natural partners in this now-hostile environment are our European neighbours. Our priority must be to rebuild that partnership with neighbours who share our democratic values. As many noble Lords have already said, if we want to maintain influence in Europe and across the world, we will have to prioritise spending on defence and international development over tax cuts.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Ahmad, and express some sympathy to my noble friend the Foreign Secretary. I am sure that, when he received the call from the Prime Minister inviting him to be Foreign Secretary, his mind must have turned to trips to the Arctic, rainforests in Brazil and white tie receptions in Washington as the Ferrero Rocher was handed around—perhaps not a six-hour debate that some would say reminds them of a radio station phone-in without even the break of adverts in the middle. However, here we are. I hope I can add to the sum of knowledge with some thoughts. I refer to my register of interests in respect of Israel, as I will speak on that topic.
First, let us remind ourselves why we have this horrific situation in Gaza. As today’s United Nations report by Pramila Patten finally admitted and confirmed, it is because a horde of people, including UNRWA employees, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and my noble friend Lady Altmann explained, committed the most deplorable and evil of crimes against civilians. They were targeting civilians, who suffered not as innocent bystanders but as victims. They raped young girls so violently that they broke their pelvises. They tied and burned whole families together, ensuring that family members witnessed the death of their siblings, parents and children, and committed such evil atrocities as putting babies in ovens.
I am sorry to have to repeat this in graphic detail in your Lordships’ House, but I am afraid I feel I have to, as Hamas has vowed to repeat this again and again. It still holds innocent hostages in what must be unimaginably horrendous conditions. So we need a constant reminder as to why we cannot have an unconditional ceasefire in isolation. Given this report, will my noble friend now push the United Nations to confirm Hamas as a terrorist organisation? He might do likewise with the BBC, but we have tried that.
What option is there now other than to take every step to ensure that this does not happen again? If UK citizens, members of any of our families in this Chamber, were abducted on our soil, I would want to be sure that my Government pursued the perpetrators to the ends of the earth, even if on the way there were civilian losses that, while deeply regrettable, are, as my noble friend Lord Roberts of Belgravia, the distinguished military expert historian, and many others have pointed out, much lower than one might expect in this type of challenging and terrible urban warfare.
To suggest that the IDF is carrying out a genocide is hugely insulting to the genuine victims of a genocide and to the IDF, which has been commended by our own military as the most humane army on the planet. It consists largely of civilian conscripts and has taken more steps than any other army in the history of human armed conflict to try to reduce harm to innocent civilians.
I applaud my noble friend’s valiant attempts to try to find a way through the current situation. He has set out his five clear objectives and I, for one, would like to support them. However, I will focus on one of his objectives that I believe needs some clarification: his horizon of an irreversible pathway to a state of Palestine. That needs much further thought. I am inclined to support it, and I believe that the citizens of Palestine deserve a free state of their own, but it needs some clarity. Perhaps a conference needs to be secured by my noble friend to address the issues of genuine concern. For example, to ensure that a free Palestine is freed from Hamas, will that state be a democracy or an autocracy? Will it be demilitarised? Will Jewish people be allowed to visit, work, study and pray, as Arabs from the West Bank are and should be? Will inspections be allowed to ensure that there are no tunnels? Will there be no treaty allowing funding or other arrangements with Iran? Will a border be created, such as the one in Cyprus, with international protections? In this new state, will the rights of gays, women, minorities and those with other religious practices be protected in the way that they are in Israel?
There are many other concerns—this is a first list. There is much work to be done now if a state is to be possible and not collapse into violent civil war, as in Sudan. We need to start work now, as there is just the possibility that after Hamas and its military infrastructure are destroyed, there might be a way forward to the peaceful co-existence we all seek.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the House for missing my earlier slot. I am grateful for being allowed a few words in the gap.
In his Downing Street address on extremism last week, the Prime Minister gave us a much-needed warning. I believe that the greatest threat to world peace and security today is the resurrection of fascism. The Prime Minister did not say “fascism”, but he described it very well: it seeks
“to advance a divisive, hateful ideological agenda”,
combined with
“Threats of violence and intimidation”
to win power. We all know that this is followed with increasingly cruel and brutal repression to obtain power.
There are two obvious areas where all this is happening. The first and most obvious is Putin’s far-right rule in Russia, which ticks every box for qualification as fascist, from Ukraine to Navalny. He has recently engaged the Wagner Group as his own private instrument of despotism, particularly in Africa. The second, and in some ways more formidably, is political Islam, whose distorted jihadist ideology was created by hijacking the religion of Islam, as peacefully practised by hundreds of millions throughout the world.
Israel cannot fully escape criticism. There are echoes that can be seen by some as fascistic. Netanyahu is certainly risking turning what could have been an ethical military victory into a major global defeat. However, as the Prime Minister put it:
“Islamist extremists and the far right feed off and embolden each other”.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, this debate has presented a fascinating combination of the global challenges—outlined so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Alderdice—that we now face mid-decade but which will be with us for many years, in fact decades, to come and how the UK Government have approached them over recent years. In summary, the former are immense, and the latter has been faltering in too many areas. Regrettably, there have been too many times in recent years, especially in development policy, when the UK has not been a dependable, reliable and predictable partner. All these factors are absolutely necessary if we are to have the international reputation and recognition that the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and my noble friend Lord Bruce have indicated are in our interest.
I start with two areas that have been raised in the debate that need an immediate, far greater international response to humanitarian need. Last year at this time, I was in Khartoum. I met separately General Burhan and General Hemedti to support what turned out to be a failed process to prevent conflict between the Sudan armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces. As the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, knows, I have continued to support Sudanese civilians through their Takadum initiative, but have watched with ongoing horror the suffering of the people since last April: 8 million Sudanese driven from their homes, likely 15,000 dead and 18 million people whom the World Food Programme describes as being in acute hunger. What was the global community’s response? A paltry 3.5% of the $2.7 billion requested by OCHA has been raised. Trafficking in humans is now on the increase. My heart sank last week when I learned in a meeting that, in 2024, a slave market has been reported in Omdurman, outside Khartoum.
My noble friends Lady Suttie and Lord Bruce, and the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, mentioned the Wagner Group. I called for its proscription 11 times over 12 months and commend the Government for proscribing it, but I would be grateful if the Foreign Secretary could give an assessment of the impact that has had on the Wagner Group’s capability.
Sudan is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, but it is the least reported and has had the worst global response. Gaza has understandably dominated much of this debate this evening, and I visited the Gaza border two weekends ago through the UK-based Jewish charity, Yachad. I also visited Ramallah, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. As my noble friend Lady Janke said, of the reported 30,000 Palestinians killed, it is estimated that 70% are women and children. We know in all conflicts that women and children are disproportionately impacted.
I know that the Foreign Secretary is a student of political biography. In 1979, in the first speech by his predecessor Lord Carrington as Foreign Secretary in the Thatcher Government—the last time we had a Foreign Secretary in this House—he discussed the Middle East and said that
“the Palestinian problem lies at the very heart of the issue. The objective here must be full and genuine autonomy for these areas as a step towards determining their final status. Nothing would do more to help these negotiations, to build trust in the area, and to win the consent of the Palestinians than for Israel to cease the expansion of its settlements in the occupied territories”.—[Official Report, 22/5/1979; col. 240.]
That was the year of Security Council Resolution 446, which sought to prohibit illegal settlements. That year, they numbered not more than 15,000; 45 years on and the resolution not being adhered to, that figure is now 750,000.
We already know that settler violence in the West Bank in 2023 was the worst on record, so I welcome warmly the Government’s designation of the two settlers under the global human rights sanctions regime. I visited the part-UK-funded school and medical centre in the West Bank destroyed by one of the settlers now sanctioned by the UK. They acted with impunity, with material and economic support from government entities and Ministers, and these Benches call for the designation under the human rights regime of Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir as facilitators of the violence.
When I met the IDF spokesman, I asked for an estimate of how much they had depleted the capability of Hamas after four months of fighting. He told me that of the 30,000 estimated Hamas fighters, the IDF had killed 10,000. A remark was made at the meeting that 2024 will be a year of war. It is now obvious that there will be no sustainable military solution, and to secure neighbour security for Israelis and Palestinians we needed the bilateral ceasefire in November when these Benches argued for it, with a hostage release programme and the commencement of a political track including the recognition of the state of Palestine.
We have also heard about the ongoing Ukraine conflict and the ongoing suffering of the people of Ukraine. One constant across all sides of the Chamber is that we cannot afford for the Putin regime to prevail. However, as my noble friend Lady Suttie, said, the war inflicted on Ukraine has many fronts. The week of the full invasion, it was clear from messages that I received—when I visited Baghdad and Beirut and came back to the Chamber with reflections—that efforts in Ukraine must be matched with diplomatic and development efforts in the wider region, especially in the Horn of Africa, which is reliant on food supplies, to ensure that we did not present apparent and real double standards.
Unfortunately, we are seen by many around the world not to be reliable, and we have raised the concerns about double standards. We have welcomed and sheltered Ukrainians fleeing disaster but closed off routes for those from Sudan, Yemenis, Iranians and Rohingya. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary confirmed to me on 16 January that funding had been diverted from supporting the Rohingya to pay for the Ukrainian resettlement. The welcome UK aid for Ukraine scheme has been offset by cuts to famine support in the Horn of Africa, meaning our response to famine there was far lower than that to a lesser famine in 2018. These actions are significant because Putin’s objective is to undermine the rules-based international order to highlight its double standards and hypocrisy and instead present a multipolar one, even though we know that it is deeply threatening to neighbouring states. China seems aligned with that broad approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, referred, rightly, to trade and development. But the UK has little credibility when we challenge developing economies, asking them to pivot from China when they know that the UK has by far the largest trade deficit in goods with China of any nation on earth, at around £50 billion. That deficit means that we are dependent on China in key sectors, while government policy has made it much harder to trade with Europe, with a cost of £100,000 per typical business in extra trade friction, bureaucracy and form-filling.
As my noble friend Lord Wallace said, reconnecting with Europe on trade—but also on security and intelligence—is now of geostrategic importance. It is an irony of Putin’s horrors against Ukraine that Europe is more united and less divided. This will potentially be a supremely important contingency should a second Trump Administration happen in America.
I declare that I co-chair the Trade Out of Poverty All-Party Group. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, when he says that trade and the Commonwealth offer significant opportunities; but not a single FTA with a Commonwealth country signed by the UK under this Government has included a Commonwealth chapter, allowed by the WTO, to pursue and promote intra-Commonwealth trade. I hope that before he leaves office, whenever that is, the Foreign Secretary will change tack and speak to the business department to ensure that that is corrected.
While we have become a less reliable partner, we have also become a less dependable one. At the UN last year, the Development Minister, Andrew Mitchell, said that the UK needed to regain and rebuild trust in the development area. But how can we do this when the Government do not even acknowledge that we have lost it? As my noble friend Lord Oates has indicated, we need to have dependable relationships too. The average tenure of an Africa Minister over the last eight years has been nine months. I was speaking to a diplomat during one of the many reshuffles and he said that the Foreign Office was currently finding out whether the new Minister for Africa had ever been to Africa.
With regard to what dominated the recent AU summit —the eastern lakes, the DRC and Rwanda—we know that there are very many potential conflict areas. Therefore, Rwanda is not only in our domestic legislation but potentially of foreign relations interest. On the Rwanda Bill, we talk about global human rights and the global rules-based order, but the Human Rights Council’s top headline on UN News two weeks ago, when we were debating the Rwanda Bill in Committee in this House, was that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was decrying the UK’s breaching of the rule of law and fearful of how other autocracies would feel that it would now be easier for them to do so.
Regrettably, I feel that the Foreign Secretary’s legacy will be his name on that Rwanda treaty; it is his signature. It is a terrible agreement, which, alongside its profound moral faults, simply will not work.
I return to why the UK needs to be a predictable partner in development investment. These Benches would adhere again—we would never have left it—to the 0.7% target in the 2015 legislation, which I had the great privilege to pilot through, with cross-party support. We are committed to its immediate restoration, and we want to see UK development expertise again recognised in an independent development department.
I return to the immediate: 2024 is already a terribly bloody year for civilians. I close with just two comments on a recent visit that I made. Rachel Goldberg, mother of Hersh, a hostage held by Hamas, told me of her empathy with Gazan mothers who have lost their children or are unsure where their children currently are. She told me, “There is no competition of pain and tears; there is just a lot of pain and tears”. The son of parents killed in a peace kibbutz told me how all his mother’s work and warnings had been overlooked in recent years. He said, “I can forgive the past. I can even forgive the present and those who commit the crimes, but I won’t forgive the failure to change the future”.
As we face the first anniversary in a number of weeks’ time of the present conflict in Sudan, I hope the Foreign Secretary will take time to focus on the Sudan crisis. In Gaza, the US and UK must now change policy and call formally for an immediate bilateral ceasefire. If we are to have a process after the day after, we need a day before. If we are to fight for the rules-based international order, there must be order, and we must adhere to the rules.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, on his excellent introduction to the debate. For this Government, he has broken all records: he has had seven continuous years in one department. That is unbelievable for this Government. I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned Ernie Bevin, who was a great statesman and trade unionist—two ingredients that deliver effective foreign policy. He was a hero of mine. He understood that the best response to dictators is strong collective defence and security.
The world faces huge challenges, with increasing inequality, conflict, climate change and health pandemics. On many occasions in this House, I have praised the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for the way he ensured that the international community focused on the sustainable development goals after Gordon Brown’s success with the MDGs. We are way off meeting those goals by 2030. So do the Government have a response to the UN Secretary-General’s call for a global SDG rescue plan, involving international partners, civil society and business?
As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, we had a political consensus around development. Sadly, under the direction of Rishi Sunak, we have seen the development target cut from 0.7% to 0.5%. It is not just the size of those cuts but the speed of their implementation that caused so much damage to people who most needed it. This country’s reputation and credibility as a trusted partner were so damaged. We also saw the bungled merger between DfID and the Foreign Office, deprioritising development, sapping morale and pushing out expertise. I know the Foreign Secretary opposed that merger at the time.
In his introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, spoke of a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to diplomacy, development and, of course, defence, which I will not go into too much detail about because we are talking about foreign affairs. But those three Ds are very important ingredients in a successful policy. Sadly, the words have not been matched by reality, as was argued by the most reverend Primate and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup.
The publication of the integrated review was followed by the refresh, where we had to refocus on the threat from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the refresh also said that the so-called Indo-Pacific tilt has apparently been completed—yet the UK’s diplomatic presence in India and China had been cut by 50% over the past eight years. We need a strong and consistent approach to China, working with partners and allies, and engaging where it is in our interests. The Intelligence and Security Committee report described the UK’s approach to China as “completely inadequate” and said that Britain was “severely handicapped” in managing future security risks. Despite announcing a China policy with interrelated strands of protect, align and engage, we still do not have a clear strategy, which is vital to engage our businesses and civil society, as well as our international partners.
The refresh also recognised the need for changes to the multilateral system, as many noble Lords have referred to. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, mentioned proposed reforms, and of course the refresh document included the recommendation for additional members of the UN Security Council, with permanent representation for Africa, so sorely missed out of this Government’s priorities. What progress has been made on that? Does the Foreign Secretary agree that a broader review of the working methods of the Security Council, including looking at ways to amplify civil society voices, could also give the global South a greater voice?
We have also seen the international development White Paper, which is another attempt at a strategic approach. There is much in the White Paper that we can welcome, and I certainly welcome its vision of a much longer-term approach to development. As the Foreign Secretary knows, I have raised the fact that one of the major barriers to development is access to finance. For many of the most heavily indebted countries, that is unachievable. We need a fairer system between private creditors and countries in debt distress. The Foreign Secretary has responded to me on what the UK Government are currently doing at the G20 and the Paris Club, but the situation is getting worse, not better.
Are the Government considering reforms for international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, to help developing countries to deliver clean energy infrastructure, which is vital if we are to address some of the issues of climate change? By 2050, climate change is predicted to have increased the risk of hunger and malnutrition by 20%—a point made by my noble friend Lord Boateng and the noble Lord, Lord Oates.
Last year’s global food security summit gave us a chance to put malnutrition back on the global agenda, but what progress has been made on delivering the clear and strong commitments made by this Government at the nutrition for growth summit in Tokyo, on which we have not received any clear progress reports?
I turn to the issue that we have focused on the most, which is the Middle East. David Lammy said last week that
“it is through diplomacy, not debate in Westminster, that we will ultimately secure an end to this war”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/2/24; col. 149.]
As the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said, most people in this House agree that both sides should stop fighting now and that all hostages should be released. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who talked about a two-state solution. As the Foreign Secretary said earlier this month, we need to work with our international partners to give hope to that process and move towards recognising a Palestinian state, rather than waiting for the end of the process. I hope he agrees that there is an opportunity here and now for the Government and the Opposition to work together to support the diplomatic process in order to deliver a two-state solution.
The ICJ said that Israel must take measures to ensure humanitarian access to Gaza. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that a full-scale Rafah offensive would be consistent with that ICJ ruling? We need to focus on getting aid in.
One of the issues raised by my noble friend Lady Smith relates to humanitarian workers whose visas have expired or been withdrawn. Many of them are facing deportation at a time when Palestinian people need them most. I hope the Foreign Secretary can reassure us today that the Government will make the strongest representations to ensure that those visas are extended and renewed.
The Government’s last Statement on the Middle East referred to the increase in aid, air drops and trucks going through. But as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said at the time, it is not enough. At the weekend, President Biden announced that the US Air Force began further air drops over Gaza on Saturday afternoon in a joint operation with the Jordanians. Can the noble Lord tell us what we are doing? Can we work with allies to ensure that further air drops take place? I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, means when she says they do not get to the people most in need. Can we also talk about opening the port of Ashdod in Israel, 40 kilometres from the border with northern Gaza? That would help significantly with getting aid through. What diplomatic efforts are we making to ensure that?
On Ukraine, there may be a change of Government here this year—who knows when a general election will take place?—but one thing we can say clearly to the world, and to Russia, is that there will be no change in Britain’s resolve to stand with Ukraine, confront Russian aggression and pursue Putin for his crimes. Two weeks ago, President von der Leyen of the European Commission made a very positive statement about repurposing seized Russian assets to fund the rebuilding effort. Canada has passed laws to do the same. We have heard in this debate from noble Lords that this is not setting a precedent. Andrew Mitchell said that the Government hope to have positive news on this soon, so I hope the Foreign Secretary can provide a clear update on when we will move with allies in supporting this. We must continue to stand with Ukraine in every aspect it needs until it is victorious. It is up to the President of Ukraine, and the people of Ukraine, to determine any peace and settlement in the war with Russia. It is their decision, and we must support them in whatever they conclude.
Let me finish by saying a slightly partisan thing, which is not in my nature. After 14 years of chaotic government and chaotic governance, and the changes we have had, Britain has lacked the leadership it needs to succeed in the face of a world characterised by conflict, the climate emergency and the erosion of the rules-based order. In contrast, Labour’s foreign policy will reconnect Britain to deliver security and prosperity at home. We will return to being a reliable partner and a dependable ally.
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) (Con)
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today. It is great to follow the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and let me tell him, in the spirit of cross-party politics, that every morning I am proud to walk up the steps in King Charles Street, walk past the statue of Ernie Bevin and recognise a truly great British Foreign Secretary who stood up for this country. The noble Lord was right to praise my partner, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who has been in post for seven years. My last job was six years, so there are 13 years between us, and we are both looking forward to many more years in these posts.
Today has been an opportunity for me genuinely to benefit from the accumulated wisdom and experience that resides in this Chamber, and it really has been a fascinating debate. We have ranged from Nigeria to Armenia, from universal jurisdiction to sanctions, from individual cases to current crises. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said in her opening speech, we are having this debate at a critical time.
I will try my best to respond to the many comments made, but let me say by way of introduction that, as I have said before, I cannot recall such a dangerous time in international affairs during my political career. The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, made this point by referring to a time of despots and dictators, but it was refreshing when the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds reminded us that it is the anniversary of the death of Stalin, so some of these things at least come to an end.
The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, was right to draw attention, as the Prime Minister did on Friday, to the combined threat of the far right and Islamist extremism. We must respond to all these threats with strength and unity, and always be clear about where British interests lie. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, put it particularly clearly when she said, as I always do, that at the heart those interests are about our prosperity and our security. I have a clear set of priorities, rooted in these interests: supporting Ukraine, building a more stable Middle East, enhancing British security, promoting international development, including green growth, and boosting UK prosperity. The Foreign Office is working with departments across government to drive these priorities forward.
In the 100 days or so since I took on this job, we have tried to surge our activity to respond to new developments and crises. In the last 113 days I have visited 26 countries, spoken at eight multilateral gatherings and, of course, tried to account to this House. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for kindly saying that I should be focused on this House rather than appearing at the Bar of the House of Commons, as entertaining and fun as that might possibly be. One must always be conscious, perhaps particularly in this job, not to confuse activity with action, but I hope noble Lords can see that the actions we are taking are making a difference. I want to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on that point.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, who made a very powerful speech, I have shown solidarity with Israel, seeing the death and destruction wrought at Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October, while also speaking out for a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza with my German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock. We have trebled our aid to Gaza and appointed a representative for humanitarian affairs to work intensively in the region to address the blockages to aid reaching Gaza. Much more needs to be done, and I will say more about that in a minute.
I have urged allies to stand by Ukraine, joining with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski to send the clearest possible message to the US Congress that that money needs to be released. Like the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, I am proud of the record that we have in the UK. I listened very carefully to what the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said: that we must will the means to the end we want, as well as that end. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was completely right when he said that this has to be our highest priority. I have the five things I set out that I want to do, but Ukraine is number one and I will say more about that in a minute.
We have surged in terms of publishing our sanctions strategy, the first one Britain has ever had. We have imposed travel bans and asset freezes on over 200 individuals or entities. To those in the debate who mentioned the terrible nature of the Navalny case, including the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the Opposition Front Bench, the UK was the first to put in place those sanctions on the people who helped to bring about his death, and we should be proud of the action we take. I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on this issue. Sanctions can be an effective weapon and, in this troubled world, we need those sorts of weapons at hand.
We published a ground-breaking international development White Paper, which I know the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has praised. It has the aim of expanding the money for developing countries, especially fragile states, but also covers a number of subjects including support for women’s rights organisations and things such as assistance with climate adaptation. We heard a great speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie. We are committed to the SDGs; we are also committed to getting back to 0.7%.
I gently point out, in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, that while it was the Labour Party under Gordon Brown that committed to 0.7%, it was a Conservative Government—a coalition Government, indeed—under my leadership that achieved 0.7%. It is worth remembering that. I will not reveal what Nick Clegg said to me privately when we were pushing for 0.7%, as that would be unfair.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
Be careful.
Action has also involved talking to people who we do not agree with, including sitting down directly with the Iranian Foreign Minister and delivering some very tough messages about what Iran is doing in the region and around the world. I have also had some pretty frank bilateral conversations with my opposite number in China.
We have equally surged to seek to strengthen our network of alliances and partnerships around the world. Let me reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, that central Asia is one of those networks in which we want to do better. I am planning a visit there. I will be holding a round table with anyone who knows the industries, business, voluntary bodies and educational organisations that we should be talking to there. The noble Baroness is very welcome to come and join my round table in the Foreign Office and talk about that. The noble Lord, Lord McInnes, is right to include Armenia as a country we should be thinking about trying to include in our network.
We have also surged to seize the chance for a more constructive relationship with Argentina’s new Government, without in any way shying away from defending the Falklands’ right to self-determination. Let me reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, that we are fully committed to the defence of the Falklands. I met the forces there while on my visit, as well as meeting a number of penguins and others. I can tell noble Lords that it is very well defended. We have some extremely capable air-to-air missiles and all the other things you would expect, including Typhoons.
Let me also reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that we are working hard for a deal between the EU, the UK and Gibraltar. I will look specifically at the point he raised in his speech.
We are investing in our partnership on climate defence and digital with Brazil, which is hosting the G20 and chairing COP 30. I say to both the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Collins, that I had the opportunity to explain at that G20 how we are going to expand the balance sheets of the multilateral development banks to surge money into helping with the SDGs. That is our strategy.
I will now turn to other points made by noble Lords across the House, starting with Gaza. We heard powerful speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris, Lady Fall, Lady Mobarik and Lady Janke, and the noble Lords, Lord Sahota and Lord Anderson. We are facing a situation of dreadful suffering in Gaza; there can be no doubt about that. I spoke some weeks ago about the danger of this tipping into famine and the danger of illness tipping into disease, and we are now at that point. People are dying of hunger; people are dying of otherwise preventable diseases.
The situation is very bad, and we have been pushing for aid to get in. There is a whole set of things that we have asked the Israelis to do. But I have to report to your Lordships’ House that the amount of aid that got in in February was about half of what got in in January. The patience needs to run very thin and a whole series of warnings needs to be given, starting, I hope, with a meeting I have with Minister Gantz when he visits the UK tomorrow.
We have set out very clearly five asks that need to be put in place, including the humanitarian pause and the capacity inside Gaza that many noble Lords have spoken about. We need increased access through both land and maritime routes, including Ashdod port, which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, mentioned, and to expand the type of humanitarian assistance that gets in. Too many items are sent away because they are supposedly dual-use goods. Some of these things are absolutely necessary for medical and other procedures. We also need to see a resumption of electricity and water to north and south Gaza. Let me say again at this Dispatch Box that Israel is the occupying power. It is responsible and that has consequences, including in how we look at whether Israel is compliant with international humanitarian law. I think that is the most important thing on the issue of Gaza.
I turn to the political process and how, as many noble Lords have said, we try to turn this moment of such disaster into a moment of opportunity. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, the noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Leigh, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds all asked whether we are committed to finding an answer; do we see this as an opportunity? My answer to that is yes, the situation is terrible, but if we can turn a pause for this hostage deal into a sustainable ceasefire and build momentum, so that we do not go back to fighting, there is a chance. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, said, there is some exhaustion on both sides. There may be a chance to get to more of a political solution.
I know a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked: are we torturing ourselves with this debate between pause and ceasefire? The reason that I think saying a pause is right—the pause should happen now; I want it to happen tonight or tomorrow, to stop this killing—is that you have a pause and then put in place the conditions that make a ceasefire more likely to be permanent. You have to get the Hamas leadership out of Gaza. You have to get rid of the terrorist infrastructure. You have to have a new Palestinian Government. You have to have a horizon towards Palestinian statehood. These things are necessary in order to have a chance of a genuine peace process and outcome.
The noble Lords, Lord Ricketts and Lord Roberts, asked absolutely the right question: what is the guarantee of security that Israel can have? A two-state solution will not work if Hamas is still running Gaza and if there are no guarantees about how secure Israel would be living alongside a Palestinian state, so we must get that right.
Let me reconfirm that Britain is committed to a two-state solution, following the excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on recognition. Part of a two-state solution is, clearly, the recognition of Palestine as a state. I do not think that should happen at the start of the process, because it takes all the pressure off the Palestinians to reform, but it should not have to wait until the end. On the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others made, that we should not give Israel a veto power, this is the effect of the American policy at the moment, so I think that recognition can become a part of the unstoppable momentum that we need to see towards a two-state solution.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, made a powerful speech about Gaza. I do not agree with him about hypocrisy when we look across to the Ukraine and Russia dossier. There was no 7 October event in Russia; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was without any justification; it is the simple invasion of one state by another and it is different to the situation with Israel and Gaza.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
I am very sorry. If I have time at the end, I will take interventions. It is a challenge to try to answer 63 speeches—I am determined to be equal to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Polak, made a powerful speech and I want to answer directly his question: do we still believe that a Hamas-run Gaza cannot be a partner for peace for Israel? That is correct: it cannot be. Hamas is a terrorist organisation and let me say clearly that its apologists should not be invited into the FCDO for a seminar. I once said as Prime Minister that when you are Prime Minister you spend half the time trying to find out what the Government are doing and then you spend the other half of the time trying to stop it, and it turns out that being the Foreign Secretary is not entirely different.
I pay tribute to the strong speeches on UNRWA by the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Deech. I understand the concern about the fact that people who work for that organisation were involved in 7 October; that is shocking and it has to be properly investigated. There must be proper undertakings and reforms to that organisation so that it cannot happen again, and it can be put beyond doubt. However, I say to the House that if we also want aid delivered, UNRWA is the only body with a distribution network, so we must have a dose of realism about what we can achieve and how quickly we can achieve it. But the promotion of extremism needs to be properly dealt with.
I turn to Ukraine and Russia. We had some extremely strong speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Bruce and Lord Robathan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, about this issue. The common theme was the sense that just more needs to be done. In terms of defining what is more, to me, it is really focusing on the military commitment. The Macron event in Paris last Monday was useful, because there are a lot of quite simple things that every country should do. The countries of eastern Europe that still have some legacy Soviet ammunition that the Ukrainians can fit into their systems should release that immediately. Countries that still have stocks that they could give to the Ukrainians should give those stocks. Every country, and this is a small point but none the less it matters, should check the expiration dates of their weapons systems. If they pass those expiration dates, countries spend a fortune decommissioning them, whereas if they actually find out what the date is and give them to the Ukrainians, they could use them now.
What lies behind these speeches and questions is an understanding that Britain has to do more in boosting its own defence production and scaling it up, not just for Ukraine, but recognising, in this more dangerous world, that we are going to need greater stocks of ammunition and less of a just-in-time concept for defence production.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, made very powerful points about when this conflict really started, and pointed to 2014. I would point to 2008; that was the moment when we saw that Putin was in the mode of grabbing land and territory without justification.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, talked about frozen assets. Let me explain where I think we have got to. The moral case is there—this money should be used for the benefit of the Ukrainian people. I think that the economic case is very strong. Here we are in the City of London, one of the great financial centres of the world. I do not think that using that money will disadvantage us in any way. There are a bunch of different legal justifications, of which collective countermeasures is one that could be used—but there is also the opportunity to use something such as a syndicated loan or a bond that, in effect, uses the frozen Russian assets as a surety to give that money to the Ukrainians, knowing that you will be able to recoup it when reparations are paid by Russia. That may be a better way in which to do it. We are aiming for the maximum amount of G7 and EU unity on this but, if we cannot get it, we will have to move ahead with allies that want to take this action. I think that it is the right thing to do—I agree with the speakers.
I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, that Putin will not stop at Ukraine. If we allowed him a win of any form, I think Moldova would be at risk and possibly some of the Baltic states would be at risk. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and I have known each other for many years, but I just do not accept the idea that countries that are close to Russia are not allowed to choose. I remember a conversation that Tony Blair once reported to me—that he had sat down with Putin and said, “Well, of course it’s up to the Ukrainians to choose. If they want to be in the Russian orbit, that is their choice, and if they want to have a more Euro-Atlantic leaning, that is also their choice”. Putin said, “No, no, they’re not allowed to choose”. I do not think that that is acceptable. We should allow democratic, independent countries to make their choices, and we should back them when they make them.
I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. I am delighted that his 4x4 campaign is succeeding. I will look at the boats. I suspect that they were seaworthy enough to get across the channel, but they may not be seaworthy enough to get much further—but let us look at that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fall, rightly reminded us that Putin is not winning, and we should not fall for that narrative. In fact, he has lost about 25% of his navy in the Black Sea.
On defence, we had a number of very strong speeches, almost unanimously across the Benches—whether it was the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, or others—calling for an increase in defence spending. In this Government’s defence, we are heading towards 2.25% fairly rapidly. We have a rising defence budget. Then there is the new equipment that has been put in place, whether it is F35s, Typhoons, aircraft carriers, Type 26 frigates or Type 45 destroyers. There has been an enormous uplift in the capacity, capability and quality of what we do.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was rather gloomy about our capabilities and our relationship with the United States. I just make the point that, when it comes to defending the sea lanes in the Red Sea and standing up for the freedom of navigation, only two countries were prepared to step forward and make that choice, and they were Britain and America. We are a very reliable ally, as we rightly should be.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, made a very powerful speech about running the Ministry of Defence better. As he ran the Department of Health so well, I thought that maybe it was a job application and that we should take it up.
Moving swiftly to Europe, I started my day with all the EU ambassadors, having breakfast together. The mood between Britain and the EU is much stronger now than it has been for many years. The mantra of being friends, neighbours and partners is true. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, was right in paying tribute to the Windsor Framework. It was a great negotiating success by the Prime Minister, and it should be celebrated.
The noble Lord and others, including the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, made a number of suggestions about how we might improve the trade and co-operation agreement and look at our co-operation with the EU. I think that we should pursue this with some thought and care. Some of the options of very structured dialogues do not always get you what you want, whereas a little bit of ad hocery from our new position might be better. But I have an open mind.
A number of noble Lords talked about green issues. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, was quite right to mention our Blue Belt. Now that we have one around the South Sandwich Islands, we have actually created a bigger blue belt across the oceans of our world than any country ever in history, and we should be very proud of it.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, all spoke about the importance of climate finance. Of course, we have £11.6 billion committed over the five years.
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, made a plea about helping small island states. I very much agree about that. It is a good moment to think about that in the run-up to the Commonwealth conference, and we will have more to say about that soon.
We heard a number of important speeches about human rights. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, about the case of Vladimir Kara-Murza. I was honoured to meet his wife and mother at the Foreign Office last week and, again, we should call for his freedom at every available opportunity.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about the importance of gathering evidence of war crimes—something that we do, and must do more of.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and others, spoke about how we should act in a way that enhances our moral authority. That is something that the noble Lord, Lord Hague, always used to say, and it sticks with me that it is important if we are to be taken seriously.
The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, talked about the persecution of Christians. He mentioned Fiona Bruce and the great job she does as the Prime Minister’s envoy on religious freedom. A Bill is being passed through the other place, and will, hopefully, come here, which will put that on a statutory footing. That would be the first time one of those envoy roles would be treated in that way, and that is quite right.
On Saudi Arabia, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that we always oppose child executions and are happy to oppose the ones she mentions. More than that, we oppose the death penalty in every circumstance, and we always raise these cases. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, has done that in his recent meetings.
I will make one more point, because I am running out of the additional time that I have kindly granted myself, and that is to mention development in Africa.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
You are very kind, thank you.
The most reverend Primate, the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and a number of others made speeches about the importance of peacemaking. The Archbishop reminded us of an important fact when he mentioned that acronym of the Foreign Office preventing conflict, and building peace, and whatever else it is called, and comparing that to our Lord Jesus just saying “Blessed are the peacemakers”—proof, if ever we needed it, that Jesus was better at soundbites than modern politicians. I say to him that we now put over 50% of our aid into fragile and conflict-affected states, but he is right that, as part of that, we must think what more we can do to surge peacemaking and peacekeeping—a point also made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds spoke about Sudan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, spoke about Nigeria, and I say to them, and to the noble Lords, Lord Bruce and Lord Oates, that bilateral aid to Africa—where we have just signed off the bilateral agreements—is going up by 50% this year. So there are some proper big bilateral programmes to countries in need, such as Ethiopia for instance.
The final thing I will refer to before concluding is that a number of noble Lords made points about strategy. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Young of Old Windsor and Lord Howell, about the importance of the Commonwealth, particularly in this year. I also want to make the point to those who said they are worried about our ambition in terms of diplomacy that Britain still has the third biggest network of embassies, high commissions and missions around the world. In fact, we have just said that we will open a new one in East Timor, and not every country does that.
There was a lot of discussion about the future of the UN. We are in favour of UN reform, but I say to noble Lords that if we want to see a rules-based order, and countries obeying those rules, there are times when the UN Security Council cannot deliver because of the Russian veto and the Chinese veto, and there are times when you need coalitions to come together to help make that happen.
To conclude, I am grateful to noble Lords for all their contributions and for listening so attentively as I close my first debate in this Chamber. I have tried to directly address as many noble Lords’ contributions as possible, but it was hard to do all 63. I will follow up any remaining in writing and place a copy of the letter in the Library of your Lordships’ House.
To return to where I began, on issue after issue I think noble Lords can see the difference we are trying to make, together with others: with Ukraine, in getting grain exported from the Black Sea; with a number of allies, in signing those long-term bilateral security guarantees; with Jordan and Qatar, in delivering life-saving aid by land and by air; with states such as Kosovo and Moldova, in boosting their resilience; and with the US and the Commonwealth, we have stood by Guyana. With the multilateral development banks, we are beginning to unlock billions more in development finance. With our overseas territories, we are expanding our magnificent Blue Belt programme. With the Department for Business and Trade, we are negotiating new free trade deals. With the Ministry of Defence, we are increasing European defence production. With the Home Office, we are returning foreign national prisoners and tackling the smuggling gangs.
The challenges we face are considerable. The noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others spoke about the changes in the global dynamics we face; they are right, but I believe we can take heart from the work that our amazing diplomats, development experts and intelligence experts are doing, day in and day out, to make our country safer and more prosperous.
In a dangerous world, we must not shy away from the need to stand by our allies, strengthen our partnerships and make sure our voice is heard. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, made an excellent speech when she said that we must not accept a glide path to decline or a glide path to war. I completely agree with that. That is what I have been doing since becoming Foreign Secretary, in standing up for some simple principles: the right of countries to have their borders respected, the importance of democracy and the importance of freedom. We should demonstrate strength and we should show humanity. That is what the Government and I will continue to do in the months ahead.