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Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163) and negatived.
Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill
Friday 22nd March 2024
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill 2023-24 View all Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
11:32 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 49 / Noes: 0 - Question accordingly agreed to.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Often in debates that have had a long genesis and been considered many times in the House, there is that hackneyed phrase: everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone has said it. One cannot even use that phrase now, because everyone has said what they need to say many times over. Of course, that is not true in this case, not least because of the Bill tabled and pioneered very ably by the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) in the last Session of Parliament. The clear and overwhelming view of this House was that the legislation should go forward. We all know that that Bill was subject to extended delays in the other House—without wishing to cast aspersions, one could almost suggest delaying tactics—and eventually time ran out. I have to say that in this regard, even if in no other, I welcome the postponement of the general election until the autumn, as I hope that will give us more than adequate time, not only for the Bill to go through its stages in this House, but to ensure that the majority in the other place are not frustrated by the few who take a different view of it.
In some ways, what is happening down there is slightly reminiscent of the debate on the House of Lords in the early part of the last century, when the Lords were very much divided between the hedgers and the ditchers—between those who accepted that some reform was necessary and were therefore going to hedge their bets and allow reform to take place, and those who were going to die in the ditch. I hope very much that the hedgers in this case triumph in the other House, so that this matter, which is very important not just to us but to the public, makes progress.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
About this time last year, on Report, we reached somewhat of a compromise consensus on the Bill that left this place and went to the Lords. Am I right in thinking that the right hon. Gentleman has reintroduced the exact same Bill on which this House reached consensus last year? The Bill technically does not stop hunting; it simply stops the import into this country of any animal protected by the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora.
John Spellar
I thank the right hon. Lady for those comments, and for the work that she undertook as the Secretary of State to support this legislation. Given that we wish to speed the progress of this legislation, I hope that colleagues will not be prone to making long speeches on this issue—indeed, possibly not even medium or short speeches. Subject to Madam Deputy Speaker, I intend to be very generous with my taking of interventions, because right hon. and hon. Members want to ensure that the strong feelings of their constituents—which are made very clear every time this issue comes up—are expressed in this House, so that those constituents know that Parliament is listening and undertaking a course of action.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
John Spellar
I will just finish my comments to the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) before I take an intervention from my hon. Friend from Bebington.
The right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal is absolutely right; in the last Parliament, there were concessions and discussions in Committee and a consensus was brought about, which was expressed very solidly. That is why I stressed that this was the overwhelming view and message from this House to the other House, and it is regrettable that the Lords chose to ignore that. I understand that the other House has a role in revising legislation, particularly when there are deep divisions in this House, but that is not the case with this provision. It is absolutely clear that the overwhelming majority, including the overwhelming majority of our constituents—the figure is 86% or so, but I will come back to that—are in support of the Bill. The hon. Member for Crawley skilfully put it together, which shows the bipartisan nature of the legislation. That is why it should go through today, and why it should be speeded through its passage in both Houses of Parliament.
Justin Madders
The Bebington element of the Ellesmere Port constituency left about 40 years ago, but I know my right hon. Friend has been here a long time, so it probably was correct when he first entered this place.
I wanted to make the point that he has just made—namely, that there is overwhelming public support for this measure. A number of constituents have contacted me to express their support; as he said, time and again surveys show huge public demand for this. Does he agree that it is important that we get the Bill through as swiftly as possible, so that those in the other place are able to do as much as they can as quickly as they can?
John Spellar
I make no apologies for being regularly re-elected to this place over a number of decades. I am sure that my hon. Friend speaks effectively for his constituents in Ellesmere Port, and I suspect residents in Bebington probably hold similar views. That is important. Sometimes issues come before the House that reflect views from certain parts of the country—there are often arguments that reflect the views of those in the metropolis, or the inner metropolis and the metropolitan elite—but this issue runs across parties, across classes and across regions. This is a universal view across the country. People want this country to have no part in this vile trade.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Like many hon. Members, I have received hundreds of emails from my constituents in Batley and Spen, who are appalled at the vile trade of trophy hunting. Does he agree that the Bill will not only prevent the importation of hunting trophies to the UK, but it will also send a powerful message to countries around the world that hunting and killing endangered animals for trophies is always unacceptable, and that much more must be done to prevent that atrocious act wherever it occurs?
John Spellar
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, and for the work she has been undertaking on this issue, quite apart from the Bill. She is absolutely right. Other countries, including Australia, France and Belgium—I think there are a couple of others—have already shown the way by banning the trade in hunting trophies, and I hope that what we decide here will start to send a message to other countries that this is an international movement. As we always realise, society and opinions evolve. This country has the Bullring in Birmingham, but we no longer torment bulls with dogs in a public arena, or engage in bear baiting or cock fighting. We have moved on from that and we need to move on from trophy hunting, not least because of the decline in species.
Some of the arguments relate very much to Africa, but I remind colleagues—I pay tribute to the campaign by the Daily Express on this—that other regions of the world are also involved, such as polar bears in Canada. The Bill demonstrates that the public do not want those magnificent creatures to be slaughtered not only for a bizarre form of pleasure, but to decorate people’s houses. They do not understand it.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing this Bill forward. Is it not the case that this legislation is supported by campaigners in many countries, including in Africa? They love their animals and recognise that there is much more to be gained and it is much more profitable to keep these animals alive, rather than to allow this barbaric practice.
John Spellar
My hon. Friend is clearly speaking on behalf of her constituents in Nottingham in expressing those strong views. In a number of programmes yesterday, I pointed out that for the long-term sustainable future of tourism in these countries, it is much better to have tourists shooting animals with cameras rather than with rifles and crossbows. We need to look towards a future of sustainable species and people being able to enjoy these animals not just through historical videos from David Attenborough, but by visiting themselves. That gives rise to a great and long-term industry.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I agree with everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said, as well as paying tribute to my Sussex colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), for having persevered with this issue for so long. We should not be here; this legislation should have gone through already. I have been struck by the number of emails I have had from my constituents about how important this matter is, so may I make a practical offer to Members of the House of Lords who are minded to try to sabotage the Bill again? I speak as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for photography, and we will have a special category in the exhibition this year for wildlife photos, so that those Members can show how brave and manly they are by getting up close with cameras rather than guns. Is that a deal?
John Spellar
I am not sure their knees could take it, but that is a further matter. I absolutely take the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, and he is right about expanding the scope so that people can show their skill in photography and show these magnificent creatures in their natural environment. That is the record they should have—not some grisly trophy on the wall. I fully understand his point.
I am also pleased that the hon. Gentleman raised the question about colleagues being here today. I realise where we are in the electoral cycle, and that we have elections everywhere across England and Wales in May. Many colleagues will therefore want to be out campaigning, so I thank colleagues who are here today and hope they will be able to participate to put across their constituents’ views. I hope that constituents understand the effort that sometimes has to be made to be here on a Friday, given constituency pressures.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I think it was the distressing case of the killing of Cecil the lion that alerted many people to what is happening. I, too, have many constituents in Chipping Barnet who want this Bill to go through. That is why I am here today to support it.
John Spellar
I thank the right hon. Lady for coming in today, particularly because there are even more important elections taking place in her part of the country. She and I might take a slightly different view on them, but we are united on this issue today. It is important that we stress once again the cross-party support for this important measure.
I earlier highlighted the role of the hon. Member for Crawley, but I also pay tribute to many of those who played a part in keeping this campaign going over many years. I think of my old friend, Bob Blizzard, the previous Member for Waveney. He was a comrade in the Labour Government Whips Office, back in the days before the 2010 election. He was a great friend and also a great enthusiast—both for jazz, but also very much for this cause. After he had left Parliament, he encouraged me to take up this issue, and his involvement in the campaign to ban trophy hunting was enormously important, along with the campaign’s current director, Eduardo Gonçalves, who is sadly not well; I hope he will be cheered by the progress of the Bill later today. That is along with a number of celebrities. Sir Ranulph Fiennes has most notably been a stalwart in the campaign, as has Dr Jane Washington-Evans and Peter Egan, who initiated the e-petition.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Lord Mancroft in the other place said,
“What the Government are doing today is passing socialist legislation, which is an odd thing for a Conservative Government to be doing.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 September 2023; Vol. 832, c. 957.]
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not socialist legislation or Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru legislation? This is humane and compassionate legislation.
John Spellar
Well, we are a broad church—if Members on the Government Benches wish to join the cause of socialism, I welcome them. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; some issues divide us on non-political grounds and Members from different parties end up in the same camps, and many of those issues are subject to free votes. This issue unites us, and it unites us with the British people. It should have been sorted out ages ago. It is really a shame that we have to be here today. I do not in any way resent it, because this is the right thing to do, but this legislation should already be on the statute book.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). Today feels a bit like déjà vu. We are back here again, but that sends a message to our friends in the Lords that we will not give up. This legislation is the right thing to do. It is an abhorrent act to go to another country and kill an endangered animal in order to stick its head on a wall. It seems like something from a totally different century. The fact that we are back again, fighting for the right cause and standing on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before us sends an important message to both the House of Lords and the country.
John Spellar
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that; he expresses particularly well his point that trophy hunting is like something from a previous century. Its time has passed. Life moves on and society moves on.
As I was describing, it was interesting in the interviews I did that none of the commentators could respond when I asked, “How can you defend someone who wants to travel a distance to shoot a giraffe, stand on its corpse and bring parts of it back to this country?” Nobody seems to be able to answer that question. I am not saying it was ever right to do that, but what is absolutely clear now is that the British public are certain that they do not want any part of it.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Some in favour of trophy hunting argue that it lends itself to supporting conservation in the country, which seems to me an entirely spurious argument. We have just seen really promising figures on tigers; there are 5,574 in the wild now. That is actually a tiny number; there should be many thousands more, but it shows that conservation efforts can pay off if we focus on certain species. Trophy hunting is not about conservation. As my right hon. Friend said, it is about people shooting animals, taking pictures of themselves parading around the corpses and cutting the animals’ heads off to take home. It is an abhorrent act.
John Spellar
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend has been campaigning on this in Bristol and here in Parliament for many years, from the days when we worked in the Whips Office. She makes a very strong point.
The argument that says, “We are killing these animals in order to save them” is a bit like saying, “We created a desert and called it peace.” I really do not buy into that and, importantly, neither do the British public.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
There has in the past been the argument that trophy hunting performs the role of culling for protected species. We have always been able to negate that argument. There are times when there is a strategy for culling certain species, but that is done on the basis of scientific fact rather than inhumane delight at the killing of animals.
John Spellar
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Vastly excessive numbers, such as in certain parts of this country where there are problems with deer, have an impact on woodland and the very proper campaigns by the Government to reforest the country. In many cases professional hunters do the cull, rather than having people firing crossbows at animals, which can then linger for several days. Cecil the lion was mentioned. That case caught the attention and imagination of the British public, and it focused them on this issue and they made it clear that they do not want this practice to continue.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, but there is another factor to consider. The elephants taken out are the big leaders of the tribe. That has a significant effect on the gene pool. There is already some evidence that elephants with smaller tusks are surviving and therefore, contrary to natural selection, changes are taking place to their appearance. Also, some hunters do not seem to accept that, although some are solitary, many animals live in social structures. We saw that with the death of Cecil the lion and we see with elephants that the social structure and cohesion of elephant herds are completely disrupted. That applies to other creatures as well. Hunting is to the detriment of gene selection and the development and maintenance of groups of species.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly support my right hon. Friend’s Bill. As in the title of the Bill, these people are after trophies. They will not select the weakest in the herd or the pride. They will go for the one that looks the most magnificent on their wall or wherever they want to display it. Therefore, they are taking out the strongest, weakening the gene pool and having exactly the opposite effect on conservation. That is another reason why we need to send a strong message and support my right hon. Friend’s Bill.
John Spellar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The negative impact on the species as a whole has to be considered, especially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, because we are seeing real reduction in some species. We are getting below the critical mass necessary to sustain the genetic variation of a healthy species.
John Spellar
I will just make a little progress, because I mentioned one of the campaigning organisations and if I take interventions before I mention the others, they might think I am leaving them out.
I pay tribute to the many campaigns that have maintained interest in this issue over the years, bringing us—I hope —to the culmination today. Humane Society International, LionAid, FOUR PAWS and Born Free have all played a prominent role in contacting Members and campaigning. There is also the coalition against trophy and canned hunting, which includes Action for Primates, A-LAW, Animal Defenders International, Animal Aid, Animal Interfaith Alliance, Catholic Concern for Animals, the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation—again, showing the bipartisan nature of the support—International Wildlife Bond, Labour Animal Welfare Society, OneKind, People for Nature and Peace, Protecting African Lions, Quaker Concern for Animals, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Voice4Lions, World Animal Protection, Wildlife Conservation Foundation and Zimbabwe Elephant Foundation. If I have missed anyone out, they can text me and I might include them in the wind-up. Those organisations have worked together successfully to highlight the issue, and we pay tribute to them.
John Mc Nally
I totally agree with the right hon. Member on that point. I support the Bill because I stand with many of my Falkirk constituents who have written to me on the issue. He mentioned many of the non-governmental organisations. I have been heavily involved with FOUR PAWS in the UK, which has provided so much useful information to me on the subject over a long while. As we all know, this is a non-partisan issue. MPs from all corners of the House have spoken at great length and passionately on the totally incomprehensible nature of this brutal sport. Enough talking—the time is to make this actually happen. Does he agree that killing animals for sport is just not an acceptable practice?
John Spellar
The hon. Gentleman makes that point strongly and stresses once again the all-party support for the measure.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing the Bill forward. I fully support it and will be voting for it today. He outlined an impressive list of organisations. I do not think anybody has mentioned that apparently nine out of 10 of the British public support the ban, and that is something the House of Lords needs to take note of. I have just been looking through the list of emails I have had on the subject from right across my constituency from Chorlton, Didsbury, Burnage and Withington. From all kinds of different demographic groups and areas around the country, the British public are absolutely united in wanting this trade banned.
John Spellar
I thank my hon. Friend for that point and for highlighting the level of support. Of course, that was reinforced by the Government themselves in January in their response to the petition instigated by Mr Peter Egan, which said:
“We will continue working to deliver our manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals, which has overwhelming support from MPs and the public…We recognise that this is an issue that the public feel very strongly about, and over 85% of responses to our consultation supported further action. In the previous Parliamentary session, the Government fully supported the Hunting Trophies Bill during its passage through Parliament. The Bill passed the House of Commons in March 2023, with strong support from MPs, but did not progress through Committee stage in the House of Lords. We will continue working to deliver this important manifesto commitment.”
I hope the Minister will be able to back that up further in her contribution later on. That was reinforced in a reply at the end of January to a letter from a number of Members across the House that the hon. Member for Crawley organised, in which the Minister once again said that there is considerable debate, and that the Government support the Bill and shared the hon. Member’s disappointment that it did not pass through the Commons. It is absolutely clear that whatever our other divisions, we are united in support of a ban.
There is one particular aspect that I want to highlight. We have talked a lot about hunting in the wild, but there is the even more deplorable business of so-called canned hunting, where animals, especially lions, are bred in an enclosure to be shot by depraved individuals who want a trophy. I pay tribute to Lord Ashcroft—again, someone with whom I might disagree on other issues—who has spent a considerable amount of time campaigning on and instigating research into that appalling trade. I hope the Bill will help reduce the attraction to such trade. One firm involved in that dreadful trade advertised that
“Your hunt is never complete, until you receive your animals at home for you to reminisce and re-call your experiences for the rest of your life.”
Do we really want to be associated with people who take that sort of attitude?
I have taken a fair amount of time and a number of interventions. We could go on a lot longer and in a lot more detail, but I recognise that the House will want to make progress, and that colleagues will want to make what I hope will be brief contributions.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman take us through the clauses of the Bill? Clause 4 was incorporated as a result of the acceptance of one of my amendments when this Bill was last debated. Clause 4 has not yet been explained, and I would be interested to know whether the right hon. Gentleman supports it, and how he thinks it will work in practice.
John Spellar
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who sits with me on the British-American Parliamentary Group; we are joint officers. I consider him a parliamentary friend. I thank him for highlighting the fact that the Bill was amended to take account of various views. It was carried forward without dissent in this House, and was forwarded to the Lords. That is precisely why the Bill should be voted on again, sent back to the other House, and incorporated into the laws of this land.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). I pay tribute to him, and to many other Members from across this House who have worked so hard, not only in supporting my Bill when it was before the House last year, but in campaigning to end the importation of hunting trophies—the body parts of endangered species —to this country. It has been a fantastic effort. As we have heard, the Bill enjoys the support of well over four fifths of the British public. Indeed, there was a commitment to do what the Bill proposes in a manifesto on which I stood for election four and a half years ago, and I understand that that commitment has been reflected in the manifestos of many other parties represented in this House.
Last March, the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill that I introduced passed through this elected Chamber unanimously. As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), we accepted compromise amendments to make sure that it reflected as many views as possible. When it went to the other place, a very small minority of peers acted discourteously in the way that they sought to block the legislation. That is why we have had to bring it back, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Warley for doing so.
I mentioned the widespread support for this legislation in this country, but it is also extremely popular in other parts of the world. Southern Africa has been mentioned. Last year, I was in a number of southern African countries where there is a clear desire among the majority of people to make sure that such legislation is enacted in this country—and, as the right hon. Gentleman said, in other countries as well. Hunting for trophies is not a natural practice for people in southern Africa; it is a colonial import to the continent from the time of colonisation. It is not native. The ending of this practice enjoys widespread support across the world.
As the right hon. Member for Warley said, the practice that we are discussing is not unique to Africa. Claims have been made that somehow this is racist legislation that tells countries around the world how to act and conduct their hunting policy. Let us just remind ourselves that this Bill is import legislation; it says that we in this country, by a clear majority, choose not to allow the importation of body parts of endangered species slaughtered by hunters to Great Britain; that is the territorial extent of this Bill and what it is designed to do. Nevertheless, it would send a strong signal that these practices are deeply damaging to conservation, as he eloquently said. Damage is done to the gene pool by taking out the top animals in a pride of lions, or the big tuskers from a herd of elephants. That is beginning to damage the ability of those animals to survive. Let us remind ourselves of what this Bill is about. It is not about banning hunting, although I might have a view on that; it is about protecting endangered species before it is too late.
Sir Christopher Chope
In my hon. Friend’s tour of Africa, did he have the opportunity to meet President Masisi of Botswana, who has described western interventions as “a racist onslaught”? He has said:
“It’s racism. They talk as if we are the grass the elephants eat. It startles me when people sit in the comfort of where they are and lecture us about the management of species they don’t have.”
Henry Smith
I have not met the current President of Botswana, but I have met the previous one, President Khama, on a number of occasions. He is passionate about ending trophy hunting, because it is not typical African communities who benefit from it, but the big industry that supports it. Botswana is a good example, because in such countries there is a huge difference of opinion over whether trophy hunting should go ahead.
Clive Efford
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he has done on this issue. Is not the answer to the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) that the Bill deals with the import of trophies to the UK, and says nothing about Botswana?
Henry Smith
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. As I said, this is import legislation; its territorial extent is Great Britain. It is about what we choose to import to this country, and a clear majority of the British people do not want the body parts of endangered species imported here, because they care about these majestic species and want them to continue to exist, for the sake of their children, grandchildren and many generations to come. The idea that killing an endangered species saves an endangered species is absurd and should be called out for what it is.
Dean Russell
I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done on this issue. I reiterate that it is absurd that we are back here, because this House agreed unanimously to take this Bill through. My constituents, who are very far away from many of the countries in which this practice happens, are absolutely passionate about ending it. However, as has been stated, this Bill is not about the practices in those countries; it is about what we import to our country. If we do anything, we should make sure that we end this abhorrent act of importing the carcases of endangered animals for people to stick on their wall.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been stalwart in supporting me in this campaign. He is absolutely right to remind us again about what the legislation does; it is about what we choose to import or not to this country.
The Bill applies to the importation of endangered species’ body parts, no matter where in the world the animals were hunted, so it would also prohibit the importation of trophies hunted from polar bears in Canada, as the right hon. Member for Warley said. We do not hear people claiming that we are being racist against the Canadians because we choose not to import endangered polar bears. We need to remind ourselves what the legislation does.
I could speak with passion on this principle for hours, but I am conscious of parliamentary procedure, and I do not want to detain the Bill’s passage any further. I once again call on hon. and right hon. Members from across this elected House to send a clear message: we in this country choose not to import the body parts of trophy-hunted endangered species to Great Britain.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
All of us here are familiar with the term “trophy hunting”. We have come to recognise the evil acts that those two harmless-sounding words represent, but for those watching who may be less familiar with the term, animal welfare organisations such as SPCA International define it as
“the hunting of…animals for sport, not for food. Usually, the animal is stuffed or a body part is kept for display.”
They go on:
“Many hunters claim that trophy hunting isn’t bad for animals. They say they are supporting animal conservation. The opposite is true, live animals support the population of their species.”
The League against Cruel Sports says:
“We believe this multi-million pound industry is unjustifiable from an animal welfare point of view, but also for conservation, as it is responsible for endangering several species around the world.”
As for “sport”, that word is usually reserved for activities that revolve around the more positive aspects of life: fitness, healthy competition, teamwork, friendship, personal achievement, endeavour and endurance. Not a single one of those could be attributed to an activity that involves an individual choosing to photograph themselves grinning triumphantly as they celebrate killing a once gentle and graceful giraffe, whose lifeless body now lies slumped and twisted at their feet, pumped full of deadly bullets. My good friend the vet and animal welfare campaigner Dr Marc Abraham OBE agrees. He says:
“Anyone with an ounce of compassion and kindness despairs at seeing these images of cowardly, pathetic trophy hunters grinning over their still-warm kill. Exploited animals used as pathetic props to maintain, even elevate, an online self-image of superiority, without any shred of guilt or conscience.”
He describes those taking part in these killings as having
“a tragic lack of empathy and the highest form of narcissism”,
and says that
“to be complicit in this most extreme, callous form of animal cruelty, plus then to harvest the body parts and ship them back home to the UK, couldn’t be a clearer indicator of violent antisocial behaviour.”
Every Member of this House will have had emails and letters from, and meetings with, constituents who love and value animals, and loathe those who exploit, harm or kill them. There are so many British people who show such kindness—who campaign on behalf of animal charities, who volunteer, who make donations or fundraise, and who share a love for our planet and the incredible, breathtaking wildlife that we are so fortunate to benefit from. How dare a few wealthy individuals decide that they have the right to buy and cause the death of a lion, polar bear or elephant.
Alongside our constituents, there are those who use their fame and public platforms to fight for the protection of animals. Those campaigners include frequent visitors to Parliament whose passion is infectious—people such as the wonderful Peter Egan, friend to many in this place, who for years has fought hard to raise awareness and keep a ban on trophy hunting imports at the top of MPs’ agendas. Peter works with the fantastic campaigner Eduardo Goncalves, who we talked about earlier, and who is supported by many across this House, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar), who has never given up fighting to protect animals during his time here. He steps down at the next general election, but it is vital that we carry on his compassionate work. I absolutely pledge to do that to the best of my ability.
No speech about animal welfare should leave out top animal champion Ricky Gervais. He could spend his days polishing his many awards, but instead he chooses to condemn trophy hunting and shame those who consider the murder of animals to be a hobby. He supports the ban and has called trophy hunting
“humanity at its very worst”.
The murder of animals for fun is also condemned by Chris Packham, Bill Bailey, Joanna Lumley and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, as well as MPs and activists across the political divide and those with no political affiliation whatsoever. The legendary Jane Goodall said:
“Trophy hunting is utterly cruel, utterly unnecessary and utterly disastrous from a conservation perspective. It inflicts pain and suffering on animals for no other reason than to boast of some ephemeral ‘prowess’. There is no material human need met by it; it is a hobby, pure and simple, and a deeply wrong one at that.”
I urge colleagues to support the Bill. I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley for bringing it forward. I echo the words of the Humane Society and say that there is “no excuse” for trophy hunting, so let us get the ban done.
Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
The one thing that unites the House is that we all want to see successful conservation, but this Bill has always been about racism and neocolonialism. This Bill is questioned by science and by African countries. If anybody, no matter how much they think they love animals, is thinking about writing to me or contacting me about trophy hunting, I insist that they seriously consider what African representatives have said about both the Bill and the people who support it.
Over the last 22 years, 73 CITES-listed species of animal have been imported as hunting trophies. In the same period, the pet industry has traded in over 560 listed species. If hon. Members care about CITES, then perhaps the Bill should include pets as well.
I do not believe anybody in the House intends to be racist, but this Bill crosses the line. The Namibian Environment Minister, Pohamba Shifeta, has written to our Environment Secretary denouncing the Bill as
“regressive step towards neo-colonialism… Your bill implies that your judgments supersede our insights and expertise… Such unilateral actions, made without consultation and collaboration with us…challenges the sovereignty of nations like Namibia.”
We have talked about Botswana and I will quote what President Masisi says. It is worth remembering that Botswana had 50,000 elephants; it now has 130,000 elephants. The population increases year on year by about 5,000 elephants. Some 400 trophy hunting licences are issued, but those licences have never all been taken up. When President Masisi describes intervention in Africa’s wildlife as “a racist onslaught”—
Sir Bill Wiggin
I am in the middle of a quote, but I think the President will forgive me for allowing the hon. Gentleman to intervene.
Peter Dowd
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the House is perfectly entitled to make decisions having considered all the facts, not just selective facts? It can then decide that it does not want hunting trophies to be brought into this country, and it is perfectly entitled to make that decision.
Sir Bill Wiggin
If I did not respect the House, I would not have bothered to turn up today, so I do not think that is a valid point. We must consider how we would feel if Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa or Zimbabwe were legislating on what we do here. Awkwardly for the hon. Gentleman, we are not banning trophy hunting in the UK. We are targeting CITES-listed species, but we do not seem to care that there are 5,000 such species, of which only a handful are actually relevant.
To continue, the Namibian Environment Minister, Pohamba Shifeta, says this is
“regressive step towards neo-colonialism”—
whether it is meant that way or not. He goes on to say,
“Your bill implies that your judgments supersede our insights”—
those of the people who actually look after these animals. He says:
“Such unilateral actions, made without consultation…challenges the sovereignty”.
President Masisi said that this is “a racist onslaught” from people who
“sit in the comfort of where they are and lecture us about the management of species they don’t have.”
He was not just speaking for himself. Last November, The Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail reported that ordinary Africans share the President’s view. The paper quoted from a survey of 4,000 people in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe who said that the UK legislation was “racist” and “neocolonial”. That is what they are saying about us. Although I respect the sovereignty of this House, I would not like it if they said things like that about us, and I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman does.
Peter Dowd
I do not read The Times very often, but the hon. Member said that the African community leaders and conservationists he referred to rightly argue that it is not for us in the west to decide how they should manage their wildlife, and that that is why he cannot endorse the Bill. I am not telling them how to manage their wildlife, or demanding that they do it in a certain way. What I and many Members in this House are saying is that we do not want those disgusting trophies in this country. It is simple.
Sir Bill Wiggin
The African countries find it appalling that British politicians show no concern for the African lives threatened by these animals. They are furious with the virtue-signalling proposals, which lack scientific credibility. Time and again, they return with the facts and they are completely ignored by hon. Members in this debate.
I will come on to what Oxford University said about the facts and figures given by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). This week, Botswana’s Minister for Environment and Tourism, along with the high commissioners of Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Botswana, came to this House to express their dissatisfaction with the Bill. This is significantly different from when my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) brought forward his Bill. There was no pushback from African countries then. Now we are seeing significant unhappiness from those countries about the Bill. DEFRA Ministers and their Labour shadows know that the high commissioners of the six African nations have jointly condemned the Bill as inexcusable meddling in Africa’s democratic affairs.
There are in the UK tens of thousands of trophy hunting animals that the Bill does not cover. If the UK hates trophy hunting, it should ban it here first. I do not particularly want to see that, but that is what people in Africa feel.
On Second Reading of last year’s Bill that proposed such a ban, the Minister told the Commons that its purpose was to reduce the “impossible pressures” on Africa’s wildlife. Other MPs argued that the measure would save thousands of animals from the barbaric and savage African practice of legal hunting. Indeed, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) used other such adjectives, but this is misleading. In fact, MPs’ statements on Second Reading were analysed in an Oxford University study, and 70% were deemed to be factually incorrect.
The Bill covers 6,000 species and most of those are not threatened by trophy hunting. Since 2000, the UK has imported about 1% of the species in the Bill—that is in 24 years. At least 20 species that the UK imports may be or are benefiting from trophy hunting. Rural Africa welcomes controlled legal hunting, as it helps to manage excessive herds and rogue animals. Furthermore, the fees that hunters pay bring significant amounts of cash into remote areas, where tourists and photo safaris cannot get to. This creates incentives for villagers to refrain from poisoning, snaring or shooting the animals.
Between 20% and 100% of concession fees usually go towards community land. Africans know that legal hunting reduces illegal hunting. It is the poaching, often funded by Chinese criminal gangs, that puts at critical risk the survival of the species that we all treasure. Those brutal gangs are indiscriminate in how many animals they kill. By contrast, legal hunting estates need and want to grow their herds to ensure the future of their businesses, and that is why they invest heavily in anti-poaching patrols. They provide the armed guards that are vital to protect these animals from gruesome deaths. This legal hunting operates under strict quotas, agreed by national Governments and the international regulator. As a result, the herds have flourished. One paper found that in Kenya, where hunting has long been banned, there has been a dramatic fall in wildlife numbers. Another study found that Botswana, which did ban hunting, saw a horrific surge in human-wildlife conflict, with a 593% increase in the discovery of elephant carcases. That disaster led to a quick reversal of the ban.
In 2016, briefings from the International Union for Conservation of Nature stated that
“legal, well regulated trophy hunting programs can, and do, play an important role in delivering benefits for both wildlife conservation and for the livelihoods and wellbeing of indigenous and local communities”.
In a letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Namibia’s Minister for Environment and Tourism said:
“We are most concerned about how this proposed law would undermine the finances of our Protected Areas and Conservancies… The lack of dedicated land and the protection which protected hunting pays for would critically undermine the survival of species which we all love.”
He went on to say:
“The implications of this legislation, therefore, extend far beyond what has become known as ‘trophy’ hunting, potentially impacting the livelihoods of rural communities that rely on the revenue it generates.”
A joint statement from southern African Government representatives in the UK opposed the Bill.
Peter Dowd
I think the hon. Gentleman indicated that only 1% of trophies have come to this country. If it is only 1%, enacting this piece of legislation will not make that much difference to those countries, will it?
Sir Bill Wiggin
It would make enough difference for the hon. Gentleman to turn up for the debate, and for me to do so. It would also make enough difference for all the representatives of those southern African countries who care about the creatures that we all purport to care about to say that the Bill is wrong. In fact, they said:
“If income streams from trophy hunting were substantially reduced—as would be the outcome of this Bill—land would be abandoned and subject to poaching, or converted to less biodiversity-friendly uses, such as agriculture and livestock production. Local communities who live near and with wildlife would suffer.”
I think it is pretty clear that they do not think that the hon. Gentleman is right. The statement ends:
“Southern Africa’s track record on conservation is world-leading, and we use trophy hunting to do it. Let us continue to do so.”
I recognise that that is awkward for Opposition Members who care about animals, but the people who are responsible for those animals are telling us that we are wrong.
Botswana is the top country in the world for large animals, with Namibia second and Tanzania third. All three countries have paid hunting, which finances protected space and armed guards for those animals. The country that is 123rd in the world—that is us—is, in the words of David Attenborough, one of
“the most nature depleted countries in the world”.
We got rid of the last brown bear 1,000 years ago and our last wolves 264 years ago.
Africa’s human population has risen eightfold during our lifetimes, causing immense pressure on the land available for wildlife. That means that Africans increasingly come into conflict with big animals, which may eat their goats, threaten their children or trample their villages. Last year, Botswana’s Minister for Environment and Tourism started an article published in the Daily Mail by saying:
“Last month, I attended the funeral of two villagers in my homeland, Botswana. Both were in their teens, tragically killed by charging wild buffalo as they travelled to school and work. Sadly, this was not an isolated incident.”
She went on to say:
“believe me, I do understand the horror people feel when they see a photograph of a trophy hunting person posing beside a recent kill. Lion killings in particular seem to cause outrage among Britons, especially after the notorious shooting of Cecil the lion by a US trophy hunter in Zimbabwe in 2015. The widely circulated picture of Walter Palmer standing over Cecil’s body became emblematic of man’s destructive relationship with nature. Reasonable though this reaction is, it is a knee-jerk one. It fails to acknowledge that for many Africans, trophy hunting is vital for the local population. It is a wildlife conservation measure that generates income used to combat illegal poaching, support community development and enhance habitat protection. Sadly,”
she says, we
“all too often…focus solely on animal welfare at the expense of human life in Africa.”
I have thought carefully about the amendment that I intend to table. The Bill does not need to keep coming back in the way in which the right hon. Member for Warley has brought it back. My amendment will ensure that the Bill protects certain species, while recognising that other countries may be even better at managing conservation than we are. It will allow the Secretary of State to add or withdraw countries from a list of those that issue hunting licences and show sufficient levels of concern for conservation. Any hunting trophy obtained under licence in a country that was on the list would be exempt from the ban. Kenya would not be on the list, as it does not allow hunting and its wildlife numbers, sadly, have declined; but countries that do allow it and are doing a good job should be allowed to continue.
This Bill is being questioned by science and by African countries, and there is no excuse for blundering into inadvertent racism. If we want Africa’s big animals to survive into the future, I ask the House not to ignore the science and the misinformation that endangers the animals that we care the most about.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), but I cannot say that I agreed with a single word of his speech. He quoted David Attenborough, but David Attenborough has described trophy hunting as “incomprehensible” and certainly does not support it. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for presenting the Bill, to the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for his earlier work, and to our departed friend Bob Blizzard, who did an enormous amount of work on this issue when he was a Member.
I wanted to make this short contribution because I had the privilege of going on safari when my wife and I visited Africa. It was the trip of a lifetime. If I ever have the chance to go back and do it again I do not think it will be the same trip, because the first experience of seeing these magnificent beasts in their own habitat is something you never forget. I want to impress that on the people who seek what I suppose is the “thrill” of murdering these beasts.
Within two hours of arriving at our camp, we were in a truck being taken to look at the wildlife. As we sat in that open-sided truck, a lion walked past the bottom of it; I could look down and see its back as it walked past me. I sat there and thought, “What the hell am I doing here?” There is no cage around the truck, but you trust entirely the stranger you have just met—the guide who takes you around—while a wild beast only a couple of metres away walks calmly past the truck.
The experience of getting close to those animals is something never to be forgotten, but the most memorable experience was seeing, beside the Chobe river in Botswana, a herd of elephants feeding at dusk, talking and grumbling to one another as they ate the reeds on the river bank. We got quite close to these huge beasts, and felt entirely safe. Indeed, we felt that we were privileged to be so close to them in their natural habitat.
The idea that anyone would go into that environment with a gun and slaughter those animals is beyond me. If you want to experience wildlife, don’t go murdering it; get up close to it and experience it in that way. I ask Members to imagine this for a minute. There were probably about a dozen people in our truck. If every one of us had a gun and went out slaughtering these animals, the effect across the species would be enormous, but when large numbers of us go to these countries armed with cameras rather than guns, the effect on their economies is enormous.
We have heard arguments today about being racist towards African countries, but it is not just about African countries. I have not heard anyone say we are being racist to Canadians by not wanting polar bears to be imported. In the words of David Attenborough, this is incomprehensible.
Clive Efford
I am going to give way once, but I do not want to take up too much time.
Sir Bill Wiggin
The Canadian Government have not written to object—it is the African countries that object to this. I hope that was clear from what I said earlier.
Clive Efford
I am sure it was, but the hunting fraternity only contributes to a very tiny bit of those countries’ economies. What we seem to have heard today is an argument that without the enormous wealth of the people who go trophy hunting, conservation cannot be afforded. I just do not accept that that is a reasonable argument. Of course, people can pay; I would pay an enormous fee for the privilege of going to see these animals in their own habitats—and leave behind that fee in order to pay for conservation. There are ways that we can contribute to conservation that way outstrip the money that Members on the Conservative Benches have been talking about.
Let us be honest: the majority of the people who talked the Bill out in the other place were hereditary peers. That is the truth of it. The enormously privileged wealthy, calling this idea, which has enormous support from all the people, socialist—well, because it has the support of the people, it has to be socialist, doesn’t it? It has to be socialist, because commoners want it! How could the Conservative party possibly support a measure that is so socialist in its fundamental objectives? It is complete nonsense, but there is a species that perhaps we should be metaphorically hunting to extinction: the position of the hereditary peers and their ability to vote on laws in our country. That is an outdated anachronism that has to come to an end, and the person who starts that hunt will have my full backing.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pity that in a debate that should be about facts, the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) has allowed his prejudices to come to the fore. I do not think that helps his cause—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) and I agreed that it shows that we are winning the argument, because the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues are having to resort to smearing Members of the other place. Those Members tabled perfectly reasonable amendments; the problem was that they ran out of time for discussion.
The previous Bill was amended in this place. That was only because my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire and I tabled a large number of amendments, which put pressure on the promoter of the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), and the Government to accept some of those amendments. One of the amendments was to add what is now clause 4 of the Bill, and another was to remove from the Bill a Henry VIII clause allowing the subject matter to which the Bill would apply to be extended by statutory instrument without any proper consultation. This Bill is a better Bill than the one that was first introduced into this place by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley, but it is still very defective. Certainly, I think it would be a much better Bill if the amendments suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire in his excellent speech were to be incorporated into its text.
Sir Bill Wiggin
I am most grateful—sorry, I was a little slow to intervene. As always, my hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that we take any risk of racism away from this legislation, because at the end of the day, we are united in wanting better conservation.
Sir Christopher Chope
That is what unites us. The disagreements across the House are on the means to the end. Everybody wants to have better conservation of endangered species and wildlife in Africa. Like the hon. Member for Eltham, I have had the privilege of going on safari in Africa—indeed, in South Africa—on two separate occasions. One was in about 1984, when it was pretty hard to find the wild animals we were looking for in the game reserves. When I went again, about 18 months ago, there was an abundance of rhinos, giraffes, elephants, lions, leopards and so on. We had the most amazing experience. People used their cameras, and they relied on the protection provided by the excellent team that looks after and conserves that safari park or game reserve.
We could see with our own eyes that people were trying to poach the animals that were being looked after, and the cost of anti-poaching measures is incredibly high. How will that cost be funded unless it is paid for by the people who are engaged in the conservation? One small means by which they raise funds is by allowing the collection of trophies, and almost all the trophies that are not kept in Africa are imported into the United States, Spain or Germany. Very few are brought into this country.
Whatever happens to this Bill, trophy hunting will continue—but it may not include the import of a small number of trophies into this country under a licensing and regulatory regime that has stood the test of time. Instead of regulation, we will have an outright ban. Why are we doing that? The 2021 impact assessment in respect of an earlier Bill said:
“Why is government intervention necessary? Government intervention will address public concerns about imports of hunting trophies from endangered animals.”
Essentially, the Government’s impact assessment admits that this is about presentation, virtue signalling and pandering to public opinion, whether or not that public opinion is sound.
Let us take ourselves back to when the Government and Parliament took the view that we should abolish capital punishment. At that time, a vast majority of the population took the view that we should keep capital punishment. If we had applied the principle that is being applied to this Bill, we would still have capital punishment because it would “address public concerns” about people being murdered. We, in this House, need to rely on science and fact, rather than allowing prejudice and ignorance to prevail, which is one of the reasons why I hope the Bill will be improved, if it receives Second Reading today.
Section 4 of the impact assessment, from paragraph 98 onwards, refers to the costs of this proposed legislation, which is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire and I are seeking to get across to the Government.
The impact assessment says:
“A 2019 letter from 130 researchers described how in African countries that practice trophy hunting, more land has been conserved under trophy hunting than under National Parks, with hunting areas contributing to landscape connectivity. Some argue that restricting the import/export of trophies from hunting risks land conversion and biodiversity loss, and other alternative area management strategies must be in place to promote conservation, protect endangered species, and support livelihoods. Furthermore, many questions remain on whether alternatives such as wildlife tourism can effectively replace trophy hunting, especially in areas with poor political and economic stability, and areas with less aesthetic appeal.”
That is not what I am saying; it is what the Government said about the costs of this legislation when they did their impact assessment, which goes on to say:
“Wildlife conflict with local people can impose serious costs including causing physical harm and death, damaging crops, predating livestock and competing with livestock for food. Where wildlife provides few benefits to local people and/or imposes substantial costs, animals are often killed for food, trade, or to remove problem animals.”
That is a welcome recognition by the Government of some of the realities surrounding this subject, rather than the prejudices of people who have been ill informed by certain organisations.
In paragraph 100 of the impact assessment, the Government also concede that:
“Evidence suggests that trophy hunting can provide a value for animals which incentivises their protection for the purposes of hunting rather than indiscriminate removal, e.g. land use change to agriculture. Without trophy hunting, an income stream linked to positive conservation outcomes could be lost and other options need to be in place to address this conflict.”
That is what the Government said in their impact assessment, so I hope we are going to hear from the Minister how they will address the concerns that they recognised, if indeed they are still hell-bent on pushing this legislation through to try to get it on to the statute book.
The Government also conceded in their impact assessment—perhaps this is a point that my hon. Friend the Minister could refer to—that:
“A ban in the legal movement of animal trophies could have the unintended consequences, including increasing the illegal trade in wildlife parts which is unregulated. It could also reduce the amount of protein available to local communities as meat is often a by-product of trophy hunts. After a hunting ban in 2014 in Botswana one village lost the provision of 154 tonnes of meat, so less protein was available to the community. This resulted in an increase in illegal poaching and documented declines in wildlife.”
Those are facts. What is the Government’s response to the facts to which they referred in their own impact assessment in 2021?
The issue of costs is discussed in paragraph 102:
“One of the major arguments for hunting for trophies is that it provides financial benefits to local communities, and without trophy hunting these benefits could be lost. However, the extent to which local communities truly benefit is widely debated.”
Of course, that is the debate we are having today. Let us not take a view that all the people who support this Bill are lovers of animals and all the people who are against it despise animals. Nobody could be a stronger supporter of animals than I am. Indeed, my wife and I are proud that we have produced a daughter who is now a veterinary surgeon. Can one adduce any more evidence of the importance of inculcating into one’s children a love of animals that their parents share? Let us have none of this nonsense suggesting that this is not a vile activity and that those who are against this Bill should be subject to some sort of vilification. That is completely ridiculous.
Let me also refer to the letter to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire referred from the Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management Support Organisations. The letter was sent to all British MPs, and I am disappointed that more of my parliamentary colleagues who will have seen that letter are not present. One asks rhetorically, what have they done as a result of the points made in it? Mr Louis says:
“Please do not regard Africans as being incapable of deciding our domestic policies. The reason we have legal hunting is that it pays for protected land for our big animals. As our human population grows, it is crucial for our lions and elephants to have such space.
Our rhinos also require armed guards to safeguard them from ruthless poaching gangs financed by Chinese criminals. When there are no guards, massive numbers of the animals get killed by these brutal gangs. Legal hunting pays for the guards and kills far fewer.”
When we as a family were in South Africa, we saw the consequences of what happens with rhinos. To try to disincentivise the illegal poaching of rhinos, the rhinos are de-horned, but such is the value of rhino horn now, even from dead animals, because of ill-conceived bans on its use, rhinos are now being poached just for that part of the horn that is no longer visible, which is part of an extension of the head. That is a consequence—an unintended consequence, obviously—of the restrictions on countries exporting the rhino horn from dead animals. That is why this is a very nuanced debate, and I am not sure we are getting as close to that today as their lordships were when they were debating the legislation on Report in their House.
This very important letter from Maxi Louis goes on to say:
“The evidence for this is in the peer-reviewed science which shows how successful Africa’s system is at defending our precious animals. People who have read this science—and back legal hunting—include the EU Commission”—
I am not sure that is his strongest argument—
“and George Monbiot”,
which is a stronger argument. He continues:
“So does the global regulator, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. We use legal hunting to manage our big animals because they are a mortal risk to us and our children. African lives are at stake.
You do not have any dangerous wild animals. Britain got rid of its last brown bears 1,000 years ago and its last wolves 264 years ago.”
In his conclusion, he says that
“wildlife in Africa is flourishing. Because of our management. We ask for no more virtue signalling. It is arrogant, ignorant and racist.”
I could not have put it better myself. That is why I am disappointed that the Government continue to pander to those who would fit into the description given by Maxi Louis.
I turn now to the amendment that was made to the Bill introduced in the last Session by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. In introducing this Bill today, the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) did not refer to that, except to say that that amendment was in the proposed legislation, and that it showed how we had passed a Bill to the other place as a result of a consensus. That is one interpretation of what happened on that Friday when we were debating amendments on Report. Essentially what happened, as you may recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, was that there were a large number of amendments, and a deal was done whereby two of those amendments were accepted, and all the others were rejected. One new clause about setting up an advisory board on hunting trophies is now in the Bill, and I wish to speak briefly about the importance of that and the background to it.
Who will decide on issues relating to hunting trophies? I think we should have expertise, rather than people who are prejudiced. Clause 4 states:
“(1) The Secretary of State must appoint an Advisory Board on Hunting Trophies
(“the Advisory Board”).
(2) The Advisory Board appointed under subsection (1) may have up to three
members.
(3) The role of the Advisory Board is to advise the Secretary of State—
(a) on any question relating to this Act which the Secretary of State may
refer to the Committee;
(b) on any matter relating to the import to Great Britain of hunting trophies derived from species of animal which appear to the Secretary of State to be, or to be likely to become, endangered.”
That is an improvement on the original Bill, because it would require the Secretary of State to take advice, instead of just listening to the mob, so to speak, and I am pleased that that measure is in the Bill. Clause 4(4) states:
“In appointing members of the Advisory Board, the Secretary of State must have regard to their expertise in matters relating to the import of hunting trophies.”
One thing we discussed previously, which I do not think we have discussed today, is the extent of the Bill. The Bill extends to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the prohibition on imports applies only to imports into Great Britain. Why is that, and why does the right hon. Gentleman, in limiting the Bill to imports into Great Britain, think that that will help meet his objective? Does it not show that we are no longer one nation of the United Kingdom, but that there will be a different regime in Northern Ireland, compared with the one that prevails in the rest of our country? I hope the Minister will be able to explain why, if the Government are in favour of the Bill, and if they purport to be a Government for the whole United Kingdom, rather than just Great Britain, they are proposing to restrict the import of hunting trophies into Great Britain and not into Northern Ireland. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there is an open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and that Ireland is in the European Union, which has a much more benevolent approach to the import of hunting trophies than this Government seem to have. That important issue needs to be addressed in the Bill, and I hope that if it goes into Committee, we can ensure that its provisions apply equally to all parts of the United Kingdom.
There is no need to speak at great length on something like this when the arguments against the Bill are so strong, but we should not vilify those people who engage in conservation measures in the way that some have been seeking to do. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If we compare Kenya with other countries in southern Africa, we see that Kenya’s well-intended ban has been totally counterproductive, whereas in southern Africa there has been tremendous progress on the conservation of endangered species.
On a lateral point, is the collection of rare and endangered butterfly species illegal in this country? No, with very few exceptions. If we are free to pin butterflies to the wall or put them in display cabinets, does it suit us to preach to people in Africa about their conservation measures? I think not. We talk about the importance of culling, which is essential to control the numbers of a species in the restricted area of a wildlife park. We cull in this country, particularly deer. That culling can include the use of rifles to shoot the deer that people think have the finest antlers. Those antlers are kept as trophies. That is not my line of business at all, but I respect that other people might like to do that. It is all part of culling to ensure that we do not have too many deer to manage.
This complex Bill is worthy of further detailed consideration, but I am worried that the Government may have a secret agenda: they may try to use the Parliament Acts on this legislation. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister could assure me that under no circumstances will the Government seek to override the Parliament of this United Kingdom by seeking to use the Parliament Acts on a Bill that was rejected in the other House—not because it was voted down, but because not enough time was given for it. I am not sure that there is any precedent for the Parliament Acts being used when debate in the other place has been curtailed through lack of time, the Bill has been brought back in the next Session, and the Government’s failure to provide time is used as a justification for using the Parliament Acts. I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to that point when she winds up the debate.
Finally, let me put on record that I am against this Bill having a Second Reading in its present form. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to vote that way later.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I am pleased to speak on this important Bill. The importation to the UK of trophies produced during the barbaric sport of trophy hunting should have ended a long time ago. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for introducing the Bill, following the earlier Bill from the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). We need to get this sorted today, because we have had Warley and Crawley, and I am not sure there is another constituency that rhymes.
I thank animal welfare charities nationwide, including FOUR PAWS, Humane Society International, World Animal Protection and Ban Trophy Hunting. They have worked tirelessly for years to ensure that this legislation is passed, and have produced the most helpful briefing note for this debate. I also pay tribute to the former President of Botswana, Ian Khama, who has been a tireless and passionate campaigner on these issues.
However, for all the praise that our campaigners are due, we should not have needed to be here debating this Bill today. The legislation should have been passed by this Government long ago. We all know that members of the public, including in my constituency, overwhelmingly support the Bill. The wider public support for it is reflected in the fact that banning hunting trophies was both a 2019 Conservative manifesto promise, as the hon. Member for Crawley said, and a Labour manifesto promise. Why is this measure, promised by the Government, not already in law? Why did they fail to bring forward their own Bill banning trophy hunting, as they pledged to voters that they would? Given that an earlier private Member’s Bill seeking to implement a ban progressed through the House last year, why are we here again debating an equivalent Bill? It is because the Bill we debated last year was deliberately and wholly undemocratically derailed by a small number of mostly hereditary Conservative peers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) pointed out, those peers ignored the will of the public, the welfare of animals and their own party’s manifesto commitment, and used the amendment process as a blocking device. Labour Members think that that is unacceptable, and our party wants this long promised and long overdue legislation progressed as soon as possible.
Sir Bill Wiggin
When that Bill reached the House of Lords, no peer stepped forward to sponsor it. Why did no Labour peer do so?
Ruth Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman for pointing that out. Obviously, there were issues going on in the other place that I was not party to at the time, so I am sorry, but I cannot comment on his point.
Sir Christopher Chope
The hon. Lady keeps referring disparagingly to hereditary peers, but is it not correct to say that a significant proportion of hereditary peers were elected to that House, unlike most of the other peers, who are appointees?
Ruth Jones
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. He says that I keep referring to hereditary peers, but I have referred to them once, in response to one of my colleagues.
John Spellar
It is fascinating that some Conservative Members want to defend not only this completely outdated and barbaric practice of trophy hunting, but the procedure by which a few hereditary peers are elected among themselves, no member of the public having any say in the matter. May I help my hon. Friend by saying that in the previous Session, the Bill was introduced by a Conservative Member? Indeed, a Conservative Member of the House of Lords was going to take up that Bill, but someone else shot in and grabbed it beforehand, with a bit of sleight of hand. If the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) wants to defend that sort of jiggery pokery, he is welcome to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I am anxious for us to come back to the Bill before us, as opposed to discussing a Bill that we might deal with later today about hereditary peers.
Ruth Jones
Thank you for clarifying that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley for setting out what happened in the Lords, but I will move on.
The Bill will prevent people from bringing into Great Britain hunting trophies from the species listed in annex A, which are the most endangered species, or annex B, which are species threatened by commercial trade, of the principal wildlife trade regulation. Those lists largely correspond to equivalents in CITES, which is an important international agreement protecting endangered plants and animals, and the UK is a party to it. The Bill also creates an advisory board on hunting trophies, as some Conservative Members highlighted, which will advise the Secretary of State on any issues relating to the legislation, or any matter relating to the import to Great Britain of hunting trophies derived from species that are, or are likely to become, endangered.
I cannot emphasise enough how crucial this legislation is. Trophy hunting is not only barbaric, but wholly unnecessary. In this country, as in most others, we have long recognised that animals should not be subjected to unnecessary suffering. That principle is reflected domestically in our Animal Welfare Act 2006, and aligns with our understanding, supported by animal welfare science and enshrined in legislation, that animals are sentient beings. As such, they deserve to be treated with dignity and humanity.
There is nothing dignified or humane about the sport of trophy hunting. It involves killing innocent animals for the sole purpose of turning their bodies into trophies. The animals often experience immense pain, fear and distress in the moments before they die. Some may be shot by inexperienced hunters using less efficient weapons, such as crossbows or spears, which do not deliver a rapid death. We saw this with Cecil the lion in 2015, who suffered for several hours following his wounding by crossbow in a beautiful part of southern Africa before he was finally put out of his misery. His death quite rightly caused outrage around the world, including here in Britain.
Other practices that trophy hunting can involve raise further welfare concerns. I was horrified to learn of the practice of canned hunting—the captive wildlife farming of animals for hunting. It often involves inflicting extremely poor welfare conditions on the captive wild animals, mostly lions, who may have to suffer from unsatisfactory enclosures, a lack of enrichment, and insufficient provision of shelter and vet treatment, all so that part of their body may eventually become somebody’s trophy. Let us not forget the negative impact that trophy hunting can have on other animals, such as the harm to offspring, who may be unable to survive on their own after their parent is left for dead. That was highlighted earlier, as was the weakening of the gene pool. These are important factors to consider.
Trophy hunting can have a negative impact on wildlife. Trophy hunters tend to target the world’s most iconic animals, including endangered wild animal species such as lions, polar bears, giraffes and rhinos. Hunters selfishly kill these vulnerable animals so that they can display their body parts as some sort of perverse prize. World Animal Protection notes that British hunters have brought home approximately 25,000 hunting trophies since the 1980s, and approximately 5,000 of these came from species at risk of extinction. The public are right to find this absolutely abhorrent, and to want to increase the protection afforded to these species, which are already under pressure from habitat loss, climate change, poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, by passing this important legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) eloquently outlined those issues earlier.
Let us not forget how unnecessary these horrors are. Compared with the overall revenue that local economies gain from tourism, income from trophy hunting is insignificant. A 2017 report by Economists at Large that analysed eight African countries found that while overall tourism was between 2.8% and 5.1% of GDP in the eight countries, the total economic contribution of trophy hunters was, at most, about 0.03% of GDP, in stark contrast to the claims made by some Conservative Members.
There are more ethical and sustainable alternatives to trophy hunting for conservation. A recent study showed that 84% of previous or potential tourists to South Africa, including those visiting from within Africa, would be willing to pay a daily “lion protection fee” for wildlife conservation. Photographic safaris, which, as the Born Free Foundation puts it, involves shooting an animal
“with a camera, not a gun”,
is another welfare-friendly alternative to hunting trophies. These alternative activities have the potential to generate income equalling or even exceeding the income generated from trophy hunting without causing pain and suffering to wild animals. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham highlighted that when he mentioned the amazing experience he had on his photographic safari.
Supporting global efforts to promote humane tourism is consistent with recent legislation passed in this House, namely the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023. However, I note that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is yet to even consult on the activating regulations that are necessary for the 2023 Act to have any impact, or to give any indication of when such consultation will begin. I encourage him to do so as a matter of urgency, because wild animals deserve protection, and that requires regulatory action.
On this and so many animal welfare issues, the Government are letting animals and the public down by failing to act. As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), pointed out last Friday when another private Member’s Bill containing a broken Conservative party promise was before the House, the Government have completely abandoned an extraordinary number of the animal welfare pledges they had made. The Government like to tell the public that they have progressed world-leading animal welfare commitments, but Compassion in World Farming ranked the UK only ninth among European countries by percentage of cage-free farm animals, trailing Luxembourg, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Denmark and Belgium.
Although the Government have announced their support for private Members’ Bills on animal welfare issues put forward by their Back-Bench MPs since they abandoned the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, that is not leadership. I gently say to the Minister that if the Government really cared about animals and wished to honour the enormous public interest in passing strong laws for animals, they would put forward their own promised measures. Until they do so, Labour will keep reminding the Government of their broken promises and putting forward private Members’ Bills like this one, which we hope will become law as soon as possible. We have seen in the House today a near unanimous show of support. This is not racist, colonial legislation; it is UK law governing what comes into the UK. That is our right, and the Bill seeks to exercise that, so let’s get on with it and get it done.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
Many Members on both sides of the House have been eagerly awaiting the passing of this piece of legislation, as have many outside campaigners who have worked tirelessly on the issue and many of our constituents. I have had many emails on the issue in Taunton Deane. I thank the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) for introducing the Bill and all those who have taken part in the debate, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), who did such a sterling job just one year ago. I think he will agree that we had a lively debate then, and we have had a similarly lively debate today.
I want to list some of the colleagues from both sides of the House who have spoken eloquently. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made the point well about taking photographs of these wonderful creatures. There were interventions by my right hon. Friends the Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), but there have also been moving speeches, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. Of course, many Opposition speakers have joined in as well.
It is clear that the issue of hunting trophies continues to divide opinion. We have witnessed some of that today from my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin). There is disagreement over the scientific, social, economic, moral and ethical rationales for trophy hunting, and that will no doubt continue for some time. There are those who point to evidence of the potential benefits of well-managed hunting—we heard a great deal about that from my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire. We also heard the other side of the argument, with evidence of the harm caused by poor practice.
I want to stress something critical: we face the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution. Those are the greatest threats we face globally and, as the nature Minister, they are in my inbox every day. I am only too aware of all those threats and of how we need to tackle them. About 1 million animal and plant species face extinction. Much of that has occurred very recently—in our lifetime. The abundance, diversity and connectivity of species is declining faster than at any time in human history, and that includes the species targeted for trophy hunting. We all know and love them: elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards and polar bears, to name just a handful.
There are those who argue that banning the import of trophies from those animals will do nothing to improve their conservation status, and I am certainly listening to my hon. Friends on that, but we have to ask ourselves whether importing into Great Britain trophies from endangered animals helps to tackle biodiversity loss. Does this trade really help to secure a sustainable future for species on the brink of extinction? Many animals are under terrible threat anyway because their habitats are shrinking. That is happening for a range of social and economic reasons, but climate change is certainly part of it. Ultimately, the aim of the Bill is to ensure that imports of hunting trophies to Great Britain do not put additional pressure on already threatened species. That is what should concentrate our minds, and that is why I am pleased to confirm that the Government will support the Bill. In doing so, we signal our continued determination to fulfil our manifesto commitment in this regard.
I have heard the argument that a ban will have implications for local communities and conservation efforts globally, which is definitely something we must consider carefully. We must be alive to the unintended consequences. However, the Bill is about imports into Great Britain, as many have said in the debate—my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal reminded us of that. This is about listening to the British public. There is a clear, strong and consistent message that we need to bring to an end the imports of endangered animals taken as hunting trophies. The winds of change are blowing us in that direction, and a number of countries have already put restrictions in place.
Rebecca Pow
I am not going to take any interventions, because Members have made so many already and we do not want to restrict the debate on the ultra low emission zone, but I will refer to some of the points that my hon. Friend rightly raised in a moment.
It is important to recognise that the import ban will not prevent a UK resident or citizen from participating in hunting while they are overseas. Trophy hunting can and will continue around the world. It is right that each country should be able to decide how best to manage its own wildlife, and the Bill does not change that. That point was highlighted vociferously by my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for North Herefordshire, but it has to be remembered that we are not preventing that. Countries around the world on both sides of the debate have had regular opportunities to discuss this issue and raise their points. Indeed, we have had letters from the Presidents of Botswana and Namibia—the high commissioner was written to just yesterday.
It is important to keep in mind the contribution that the UK trade in hunting trophies makes. Annual imports of hunting trophies to the UK are very few in number—on average, there have been 73 a year over the last 10 years. Even so, it is essential that we play our part to ensure that communities around the world benefit from conserving the wildlife that they live alongside. That was reflected in the agreement of the hugely important global biodiversity framework. There is now a strong and essential focus on how, as a global community, we finance biodiversity, conservation and restoration work. Members will be aware of just how much the Government are doing on that front, with our huge £93 million Darwin initiative and our £30 million Darwin Plus initiative. All of that focuses on biodiversity and conservation, working with locals and indigenous peoples.
Penultimately, let me run through some of the provisions in the Bill. The Bill will ban the import of hunting trophies from specific species, with the explicit aim of ensuring that imports into Great Britain do not place unnecessary pressure on species that are at risk. For those species, an import ban without exemptions will be the most effective protection, as it will provide clarity and address the conservation concerns arising from trophy hunting.
Clauses 1 and 2 make provision for the import ban, which will cover trophies brought into Great Britain from animals hunted after the legislation comes into force—there are strict, clear lines about anything that happens before that. The definition of a hunting trophy in clause 1 is:
“the body of an animal, or a readily recognisable part or derivative of an animal, that…is obtained…through hunting…for the hunter’s personal use”.
That is how hunting trophies are defined in our current controls under CITES.
Clause 2 applies the import ban to all species listed in annexes A and B of the wildlife trade regulation. The wildlife trade regulation implements the convention on international trade in endangered species—CITES—in Great Britain. Annexes A and B are broadly equivalent to appendices I and II of the convention, and include species that the global community has agreed to protect through trade restrictions due to their conservation status. They cover a great number of species threatened by international trade, such as big cats, all bears, all primates, hippos, rhinos and elephants. As a result, the Bill will end the permit system for imports of hunting trophies derived from those species. There will be no provision for exemptions to the import ban.
Clause 3 is about movements from Northern Ireland. The clause states clearly that the import ban will
“not apply in relation to the removal of qualifying Northern Ireland goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain.”
Clause 4, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, establishes an advisory board on hunting trophies. The clause states:
“The role of the Advisory Board is to advise the Secretary of State on any question relating to this Act”.
Clause 5 simply covers the Bill’s extent, application, commencement and short title.
Let me quickly discuss the impact assessment, as I did not allow any interventions. We heard some views about the impact assessment and what the Government will do about it, but there are two sides to that. The impact assessment presented both sides of the debate, but it also highlighted that trophy hunting can lead to population declines and that over-hunting threatens more than 30% of endangered mammal species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The impact assessment also noted that trophy hunting quotas are inappropriate, unscientific, excessive and over-reliant on opinions, and that the management of such quotas is based on poor-quality data. Similarly, a report by the University of Oxford found that the damaging effects of the unsustainable trade in hunting can extend beyond hunting areas.
I hope that I have answered some of the questions. This has been a very positive and lively debate on both sides of the House. I thank the right hon. Member for Warley for bringing the Bill back to the House, and reconfirm that the Government are fully committed to supporting it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With the leave of the House, I call John Spellar to wind up.
Madam Deputy Speaker
In that case, I will put the Question.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Will the Serjeant at Arms investigate the delay in the Lobby?
Greater London Low Emission Zone Charging (Amendment) Bill
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill would overturn the expansion of the ULEZ scheme, simply because it is a cruel, cruel form of taxation. It is particularly cruel to the poorest in society, hitting heavily those people who have old motor vehicles that they cannot afford to upgrade, with or without a scrappage scheme. It is also very unfair on business owners—especially those in outer London, who lose out on business that they would otherwise have secured from people travelling in from neighbouring counties to purchase their goods—and on people who live outside London, who have no say in who the London Mayor is.
The border between London and the home counties is not neat. People in my constituency live in Kent, but some of them have to go into London just to exit their road. The border straddles some roads. It is a border that cannot be avoided, and the Mayor of London knows that.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
My hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour is making an impressive start. He and I share roads in Crayford and Dartford where people living on different sides of the road pay different taxes. Some people, such as gardeners and plumbers, travel regularly from Dartford to Bexleyheath and Crayford for work, and they cannot afford this. It is so unfair, especially as it was not in the Mayor’s manifesto when he was last elected.
Gareth Johnson
That is an absolutely valid point, but I would go further. About 50% of police officers in the Metropolitan police area live outside London and commute in, and the percentage for all emergency workers is probably about the same. These are the people who Londoners rely on the most—they are vital to Londoners—but if their vehicles are not ULEZ-compliant, they are hit with £12.50 every single time they go to work. Even worse, those doing night shifts have to pay on the way in and on the way out again, because at 3 am there might be no public transport. For emergency workers to be hit with £25 just for doing a night shift is totally and utterly wrong.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a great speech. As he knows, he has my full support. Does he agree that today we will see whose side Labour Members are on? Are they going to talk the Bill out, or are they going to back those emergency service workers and others in Bexley who want to be rid of ULEZ?
Dr Johnson
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he has done in this respect. He is entirely right: we will see today whether Labour Members are in favour of the workers or in favour of Sadiq Khan.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s arguments with interest. In Bristol we have experienced the first year of a clean air zone, which was actually imposed on us as a requirement by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), because the Government had been taken to court by ClientEarth for being in breach of air pollution limits and therefore insisted that we should adopt the scheme in Bristol. If I have a chance to speak later, I will comment on how successful it was, but in any case that seems slightly at odds with the hon. Gentleman’s argument about local autonomy.
Gareth Johnson
I am grateful for that intervention, because it gives me an opportunity to smash the myth that the expansion of the ULEZ scheme has anything whatsoever to do with air pollution. If it was about air pollution, the Mayor of London would ban motor vehicles from going into London, but he does not want to ban them; he wants to make money out of them. If those motorists give the Mayor £12.50, they can drive all day long in London. He does not give a damn. Take my constituency in Dartford, for example: many people who previously used the Blackwall tunnel with ULEZ non-compliant vehicles are now having to use the Dartford crossing to get across the Thames. It is adding to pollution in areas such as Dartford, not removing it.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend remember the letter I wrote in 2021, which was signed by many Members present today, including himself? Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, wanted to put a charge—a border tax, as I called it—on people driving into London, which had nothing to do with the environment at that time. He failed to do so after pressure was put on; a little bit later—shock horror—he puts the same thing out but with an environmental tinge to it. It is greenwashing, and it is making people in places such as Watford who work so hard pay extra just to go to work.
Gareth Johnson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to the work he has done on this issue for some time. The approach to the border tax, as he called it, highlights the fact that the Mayor of London was hellbent on bringing in a system whereby he could make money out of cars. Originally, he wanted to make money out of every car; when he was stopped from doing that, he decided to make money out of certain cars only. That was his plan B.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
My constituents are equally adversely affected, and would benefit from my hon. Friend’s Bill. Can he answer the question of why the Government themselves did not use the powers available to them to ban this extension of ULEZ?
Gareth Johnson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for intervening. As the law stands at the moment, the Government do not have the power to overturn the ULEZ expansion. As a consequence, I have introduced this Bill, which would give the Government the power to overturn the expansion.
I am really grateful to the Minister for his work and efforts on this issue, and for the fact that the Government now support the Bill. I therefore hope that it will be successful. We have heard about the scrappage scheme, but if we actually look into it, we see that it is up to £2,000 per vehicle—good luck getting a vehicle that is ULEZ compliant for up to £2,000. We are also hearing that people are finding it very difficult to actually get their £2,000, or up to £2,000, from Transport for London; there have been a lot of delays. People have said, “Why don’t we expand the scrappage scheme right down to Dartford and beyond?” Well, where do we draw the line if we are going to increase the scrappage area? Should it go up to the midlands or down to the west country? It could cost the taxpayers of this country billions of pounds, simply because the Mayor of London is unable to organise his finances.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I strongly support my hon. Friend’s Bill, because this is an unjust charge. Does he agree that some of the victims of the charge are local high street businesses in outer London, whose customers from beyond the London border are reluctant to come in because they may have to pay the charge?
Gareth Johnson
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who has been a real champion of this issue for her constituents in Barnet. She is absolutely right: people outside of London like to travel into London to use the dry cleaners, fish and chip shops, sweet shops and so on, but that no longer happens if their vehicle is not ULEZ compliant.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman very carefully. He keeps talking about money-making as if someone is making a profit, but that money goes to London’s services. He is a Dartford MP, from outside of London; how does he suggest that my constituents in London, who are writing to me in large numbers about the state of the potholes on our roads, can afford to pay for his constituents to drive through places such as my constituency on their way to the Blackwall tunnel? He is trying to deny Londoners the right to have decent roads.
Gareth Johnson
I am rather surprised that the hon. Member is standing up in support of what the Mayor of London has done with the ULEZ scheme. I think that if he looked at his inbox carefully, he would see that most of his constituents—particularly the poorest in his constituency—do not like the fact that they are having to pay £12.50 just to use their motor vehicles. I do not feel that this is something on which his constituents support him.
Clive Efford
I am a bit concerned that the hon. Gentleman has been looking into my emails—I think I will have a word with the parliamentary estate managers about that. Perhaps the reason I am standing up today is that not too many people have contacted me about ULEZ since it has been introduced; what they are contacting me about is the state of our roads. The potholes on our roads are symbolic of the Conservatives’ disastrous management of our public services over the past 14 years, and everyone is complaining about them.
Gareth Johnson
Maybe the hon. Member has an oasis in south London, where everyone around the outside hates the ULEZ scheme but in Eltham they love it, but I would be very surprised. I gently remind him that most of the roads in Eltham are maintained by Greenwich’s Labour council, which should take its share of responsibility for the state of the roads.
My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) mentioned the “border charge”. The Mayor launched a consultation that showed that people rejected the expansion—it was absolutely clear they did not want it. There was a question mark over how that consultation was handled, but it was clear that the majority of people did not want the expansion, yet the Mayor still went ahead with it. When he stood to be Mayor, his manifesto did not mention the fact that he wanted to expand the ULEZ scheme right to the border, so he has no mandate from his manifesto. His transport plan had no mention of the expansion either, so the Mayor of London does not have a mandate for expanding the ULEZ scheme.
I have heard people say, “Well, this is interfering with devolution. It is undermining devolution.”—[Interruption.] I would say the opposite. It is the actions of the London Mayor that are undermining devolution. The whole point of devolution is to bequeath the power to make laws to Mayors, in this example, and for those elected Mayors to use the powers for the people they represent. It is not devolution when those powers have a profound impact on people who do not come from the area that Mayor represents. The Mayor of London’s actions have had a huge impact on the lives of people living in Dartford, who do not have the power to vote him in or out. It is taxation without representation, or any kind of accountability whatsoever. Frankly, it is devolution at its worst, which is why it is right that central Government intervene over this matter. Devolved powers are being taken way beyond intended and they are impacting people who are not able to vote in that area.
I predict that this is the beginning, not the end. If Sadiq Khan wins the election for London Mayor in May, as sure as night follows day he will change the criteria for vehicles to be ULEZ compliant until we get to the stage where every single petrol or diesel car is impacted by the expansion. People watching this debate at home—if they have nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon—may be sitting pretty, thinking, “This does not affect me because my car is ULEZ compliant; it has nothing to do with me.” I say they should be very aware of what happens at the mayoral elections. As sure as night follows day, the Mayor of London will change the goal posts and ensure that all motor vehicles will be hit by the ULEZ expansion.
Gareth Johnson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is typical of what has happened throughout the debate about ULEZ. In July last year, the leader of the Labour party said that ULEZ expansion was a wonderful thing. Come the by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, he said, “Oh no, we have got to think again over this one. I’m not quite sure if we got this one right.” Just this week, he said the ULEZ expansion was a great thing. We have had enormous dithering from the leader of the Labour party over this issue, and the Mayor of London is taking full advantage of that fact.
Gareth Johnson
I will not. We had a Westminster Hall debate, at which many colleagues were present. Unfortunately, not a single Labour Back Bencher turned up. It was pitiful and it highlights the Labour party’s mismanagement of the issue. We have the mayoral election coming up in May, and the Conservative candidate, Susan Hall, has pledged to overturn the ULEZ expansion on day one. The quickest and most effective way to overturn the ULEZ expansion is therefore to vote for Susan Hall. If we do that, or if my Bill is successful, we will end a cruel tax on many people who have no say on London’s Mayor. It is an attack on the poorest in society, and those who can least afford to pay are being hit the hardest. I cannot wait to see the back of it.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I rise to speak in opposition to the Bill for three key reasons. First, it represents an attack on devolution. Secondly, it ignores the urgent and important need to tackle poor air quality, not just here in London but in towns and cities across our country. We would be forgiven for forgetting about this urgent public health issue, because the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) barely mentioned it in his introduction, yet it goes to the very heart of having the ultra low emission zone. It is about trying to tackle something that is a significant problem here in London and in towns and cities across the country, and it is not just a problem in city centres. The heat map for my city shows that poor air quality is not restricted to the city centre, and that the ring road has particular issues. Poor air quality is an issue in outer London just as it is in inner London. Thirdly, the Bill uses a serious public health issue for purely party political point scoring.
I begin with devolution. [Interruption.] It would be nice if I could hear myself speak. It is worth remembering that the ultra low emission zone and, indeed, emission charging zones are Tory policy that was pushed on to local government by a Tory Government and first championed here in London by a Tory Mayor. We would not know that from listening to the interventions of Conservative Members.
The Mayor of London has statutory obligations in relation to air quality across the Greater London area. He has a right, indeed a duty, to introduce measures to meet the national air quality targets set by central Government. The whole purpose of devolution is for local people to determine the policies that are needed for their area. The Government have set the targets for air quality, and it is for democratically elected Mayors and local authorities to run their cities or counties in a way that works best for their area, which I know can be controversial.
My city is unique in this country in having a workplace parking levy. I would not say for one moment that it has not been controversial. It was incredibly controversial when it was first introduced more than 10 years ago when, under a previous Conservative-led Government, there was a huge problem with austerity. People were feeling the impact of that austerity, so the levy’s introduction was delayed by a year, but it was about both discouraging people from driving into the city and providing an income stream that could be used to improve alternatives to driving by investing in public transport. It has been incredibly successful. Nottingham is one of the cities that have not been forced to introduce a clean air zone, because its work to improve public transport, in part funded by the workplace parking levy, has led to that situation.
The Mayor of London expanded the ULEZ in August 2023 because toxic air pollution is a public health crisis. He is acting to tackle the crisis of poor air quality. I remind hon. Members that poor air quality is linked to around 4,000 premature deaths per year in London. It leads to children growing up with stunted lungs, and contributes to people developing serious health problems, including asthma, heart disease and dementia. I understand that the hon. Member for Dartford might not agree with the Mayor about the best way to tackle air pollution, but that is democracy.
Clive Efford
My hon. Friend is developing a powerful argument, and this is what the Conservatives have no answer to. What would they put in place to deal with the health aspects of poor air quality, such as damage to children’s development, and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory and coronary illnesses who are adversely affected by this issue? The Conservatives are desperate because they have nothing to offer the people of London they seek to scaremonger about this charge. There is no concern whatsoever for the health of Londoners, or those people in outer London who are suffering most from air pollution.
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was really telling when the hon. Member for Dartford began to talk about his mayoral candidate that he said nothing about her plans to tackle the serious issue of air pollution.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend hits on a blunter truth about the Bill. In six weeks’ time, our constituents, whether they agree or not with the argument made by the hon. Member for Dartford or with arguments on the importance of tackling air pollution, will have the opportunity to express an opinion at the ballot box when choosing who the London Mayor overseeing this policy should be. Is the message of the Bill that Conservative MPs have no confidence in their mayoral candidate winning that argument, or indeed doing anything in support of their policies? They clearly feel the need to intervene and usurp devolution, so should nobody in London even bother with the Conservative campaign, because their candidate’s own colleagues think she is incompetent?
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head.
Progress is being achieved. The vast majority of cars —19 out of 20 in Greater London—are compliant with ULEZ. Labour Members are pleased that Transport for London and the Mayor of London have decided to expand the scrappage scheme to support those who are struggling as a result of the Tory cost of living crisis.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)
I am listening with interest to the hon. Lady’s speech. The Government obviously support the Bill in the circumstances applied. Will she address the point that is fairly made about people outside a mayoral zone being affected and penalised by entering a mayoral zone, when they did not vote for that?
Lilian Greenwood
Unusual as it is for the Minister to intervene, I think the point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). When people from outside London drive into London, the costs of that in terms of health, and wear and tear on the roads, is borne by constituents here in London. It is not unreasonable for them to expect that those who benefit from everything that London has to offer, who travel into the centre causing congestion and poor air quality, should abide by the well-established principle that the polluter pays.
Kerry McCarthy
This goes back to what I was saying about the fact that the Government insisted that Bristol had a clean air zone. Obviously that will have a significant impact on people from Bath, for example, who drive down the A4 into my constituency, causing a huge amount of congestion and air pollution, but that is basically how politics works. I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend just said: the duty of politicians is to look after people in the patch they represent.
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend is exactly right. I will come on to address how we best tackle the issue of air pollution and, at the same time, protect those who are impacted by this charge.
From 21 August last year, every Londoner with a non-compliant vehicle became eligible for a £2,000 grant to assist them in replacing their vehicle. I understand why people have said that £2,000 is not enough, but that has been provided despite central Government giving no financial support to the Mayor of London for it. Of course, if the Government are concerned about the impact—[Interruption.] If they are concerned about the impact of their clean air charging zones, they could have provided additional assistance—
Lilian Greenwood
No, I am not giving way at the moment.
As I was saying, the Government could have provided additional financial support to the Mayor of London so that that grant could have been increased, but they chose not to so.
I am proud that Labour is the party of devolution. [Interruption.] It was Labour that created the mayoral model in London, and created the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as always having—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Lady is trying to make a speech. We have a conversation going on between the two Front-Bench teams and rather a lot of shouting at the hon. Lady herself. We need to listen to her speech with respect.
Lilian Greenwood
As I was saying, that devolution is as well as always having regional and local decision making and funding across England. I am pleased that the next Labour Government will build on that record. Indeed, Labour Mayors across England are already showing how it is done—whether that is in Manchester, Liverpool, South Yorkshire or West Yorkshire—taking back control of buses, supporting new homes, and reforming employment and skills. I am very much looking forward to seeing Claire Ward elected as the first Mayor of the East Midlands on 2 May. Sadly, while Labour is committed to more devolution, this Bill shows that the Tories are simply trying to roll it back.
I wish to say a little more about air pollution, which is at the heart of this Bill, and the strategies to tackle it. As I have already said, we know the problems that poor air causes. It affects our health and our environment; as many as 40,000 people die prematurely each year as a result of poor air quality. The elderly, the unwell and the economically deprived are those most likely to be affected. The Government’s own estimates say that poor air quality costs the UK economy billions of pounds each year. I think about my own constituency and the arguments that we had about the workplace parking levy. Lots of people in the city do not pay the levy, because they simply cannot afford to run a car at all; they are reliant on public transport.
We also know where the problem occurs. Key pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter —known as PM2.5—are found in many places, and too many air quality zones in the UK exceed legal limits. The World Health Organisation tells us that there is no safe level of exposure to fine particulate matter. We know what causes poor air quality. It comes from several sources—industry, agriculture, homes, businesses, and, yes, transport. Road transport is responsible for the vast majority of nitrogen oxide concentrations at places in the UK that exceed the legal limits, with diesel engines a significant contributor.
The number of cars and vans on our roads continues to rise and congestion has worsened, which increases pollution in itself. Transport also generates a significant proportion of particulate matter, which can come from both combustion and wear of tyres and brake pads. Cleaner vehicles help to solve the problem, and we have made some progress on that, but not enough.
There are examples from across the country of the action that can be taken to tackle emissions. Low emission zones are only one tool in the toolbox, and it could be said that they should be a last resort. As I have said, in my city, there has been considerable investment in public transport, paid for in part by proceeds from the workplace parking levy. We have had major extensions to our tram network. Nottingham’s municipal bus company introduced new biogas buses years ago, and I am really pleased to see that it has just started to roll out new electric vehicles. I do not deny that there has been support from central Government for some of that investment. For some years, the city council has had an anti-idling campaign. That multi-pronged approach mirrors similar action in towns and cities across the UK, with not one but multiple tools being used to tackle this serious public health issue.
The Department for Transport has supported the development of low emission buses and taxis. That is a good thing, because tackling poor air quality should be about central Government working with local councils and Mayors, rather than dictating to them, as the Bill does. Central Government should support and collaborate with them. In preparing for the debate, I went back to a 2018 report, produced by four cross-party Select Committees, that looked at improving air quality. One thing that the Committees came together to recommend was collaboration and partnership between central Government, local authorities and Mayors, because air pollution is a problem that cannot be fixed by central or local government alone; they need to work together.
Like the Mayor of London, local authorities are already responsible for meeting air quality targets, but they find it difficult to make changes, partly due to a lack of resources and partly because the changes needed are politically unpalatable; I guess that in part is what has caused the debate. It was a while ago, but that joint report from 2018 called for ambitious, co-ordinated cross-departmental action. I am sorry that in some respects the Government have failed on that, as they have prevaricated on removing the most polluting vehicles from our roads. At the time of the report, we called on them to have a more ambitious target for the removal of petrol and diesel cars; I think they were only committed to removing them by 2040. They did at first commit to a more ambitious target of ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars, but more recently, they have rowed back from that, which makes it more difficult for us to achieve the improvements that we know are needed.
There was also a decision to row back on the electrifi-cation of our railways, in favour of bi-mode trains, which have worrying implications for air quality, carbon emissions and noise. Every time I go to St Pancras station to catch my train home to Nottingham, I stand on the platform among diesel trains because the railway is not electrified all the way to Nottingham. Frankly, I am looking forward to seeing new trains on the midland main line next year, but they will be bi-mode trains, and while they will leave St Pancras under electric power, which will improve air quality in central London, by the time they get to Nottingham, they will be operating under diesel power, doing far less to improve air quality in our city. That is the result of a decade of broken promises from successive Tory Prime Ministers, who have paused and cancelled the electrification of the midland mainline. We now know that electric trains will not reach Nottingham until at least the early 2030s. I have sometimes joked that I will be retired by the time we get there, and I am afraid that might be the case.
There is a danger of the Government relying too heavily on new technologies to solve our air quality challenges, and placing too much emphasis on cleaning up road vehicles and not enough on reducing the number of vehicles on our roads. Improving public transport and encouraging active travel should lie at the heart of any clean air strategy. Getting freight off our roads and on to our railways would be welcome, taking many heavy goods vehicles, which are often the most polluting, off our roads.
Back in 2018, the four Select Committees concluded that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Transport should work closely with local authorities to ensure that councils introducing clean air zones received the support that they needed to implement complementary measures that encourage car drivers to switch to public transport and active travel, and increase the take-up of electric vehicles. I understand that not every journey can be made by public transport or bicycle, or on foot, but if we can change a proportion of those journeys, we can make a real difference. For a while, the Conservative party seemed really interested in walking and cycling —I see the Minister with responsibility for walking and cycling, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), sitting on the Front Bench, but he has not been terribly busy. Yesterday at transport questions, not a single Conservative MP asked a question about active travel. It is disappointing that they have scaled back their investment in that.
Investment in low-emission buses is great, but the value of that investment is magnified if local authorities also take steps to encourage motorists to opt for buses, rather than make journeys by car. I understand the argument made by the hon. Member for Dartford that people can continue to drive, but of course a charge is a disincentive; that is partly how the scheme operates. The pandemic had a huge impact on public transport usage, both in London and across the country. I pay tribute to the Government for their £2 bus fare, which has been a welcome initiative. In London, the Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan has also taken action, both to protect Londoners from the Tory cost of living crisis and to encourage more people to travel by public transport; he has introduced the hopper fare on buses, and has frozen fares in five out of eight years.
Without action or a modal shift, efforts to tackle congestion or improve air quality are less likely to succeed. Many of the policies needed to tackle urban congestion could also help to improve air quality. Tackling both issues could have a positive effect on both the local and the national economy. A significant increase in active travel could make a difference not just to air quality policies but to tackling obesity, improving mental health and building better communities.
Stella Creasy
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case for why air quality should be a priority for us all. Ultimately, it is a social justice issue. However rich or poor we are, we all breathe the same air. I suggest to anyone who lives in London that they will see the need to tackle low air quality if they leave London for a couple of days and then blow their nose. They will realise what they have been breathing in. This issue affects everyone. She is right that we must tackle it nationally as well as locally. Does she agree that unless the Conservatives comes up with an alternative plan, they are condemning the poorest in our communities to the worst health outcomes?
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I would be surprised if many people decided that they wanted to go in the direction of having a Conservative Mayor in the absence of proper information about how a Conservative Mayor would tackle air pollution.
Finally, this Bill is about party political point scoring. The Government support clean air zones. Indeed, they provided cash for scrappage schemes in Bristol, Bath, Sheffield, Birmingham, Portsmouth and other areas of the country, but not London. I wonder why. In towns and cities across England—not just in London—our constituents have faced 14 years of Tory economic failure. They cannot afford another week, let alone more months or, heaven forbid, years of Tory Government. Families are sick with anxiety as they endure this cost of living crisis, while their local services are under immense pressure.
When times are tough due to the Conservatives’ economic failure, it is essential that we look at options for achieving clean air without disproportionately impacting people. We must secure our economy and make it stronger by getting growth back on course, as the last Labour Government did, whereas we have had an anaemic situation under 14 years of the Tories. [Interruption.] They do not want to hear it, do they? They do not want to hear that growth was faster under a Labour Government than under 14 years of the Tories. Fourteen years of Tory economic failure have left us in this position, where everything is worse and everything is broken. It is by growing our economy that we will provide sustainable, long-term funding for councils, and give local areas the tools and stability that they need for growth, as we push power, wealth and opportunity out from Westminster.
Gareth Johnson
The hon. Lady has been speaking for nearly half an hour, and it is obvious that she and the Labour party wish to talk out my Bill to overturn the expansion of the ULEZ scheme. Can I ask what her message is to a lady I spoke to recently in my constituency? She said that she could not visit her sister in Bexley, just a few miles away. As she was a disabled person, she could not use public transport, could not afford to upgrade her car, and could not afford a taxi. That may not affect people in Nottingham South, but it does affect people in Dartford.
Lilian Greenwood
I understand that people face a cost of living crisis. What the hon. Member should have explained to that lady is why she feels so much worse off after 14 years of Conservative Government. He should not try to pin it on a single issue; it is down to his Government’s failure, and he should take some responsibility for that.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent speech in support of clean air, which is what this debate is all about. What would she say to the many parents I meet in my constituency who introduce me to children who have asthma on a scale never seen before? Through ULEZ and other measures, they will see their children’s health improve.
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend makes an important point that could be lost in this debate, which is that the issue is about health—the health of children and older people. It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said, about the health of some of the poorest in society; they are most impacted by poor air quality. That is what we should be talking about.
Clive Efford
If, as the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), claims, the issue is not health, why are the Government supporting charge zones in other cities?
Lilian Greenwood
We will have to listen to the Minister’s answer on that. However, it was clear that the Government wanted clean air charging zones—in fact, they were a requirement on cities that had not succeeded in meeting air quality targets through other measures. I am not going to apologise for speaking in this debate because, as I say, I have long had an interest in air quality. The experience in my city means we have something to offer and share.
Finally, let me turn to the alternative, because the hon. Member for Dartford did not say much about alternatives. I want to talk about that because Labour does have a plan to support drivers. We will support them by focusing on the cost of living and on the infrastructure challenges, which are real priorities for households that have and use a car—that probably includes most of us some of the time, even if we walk, cycle or use a bus most of the time. Our plan includes working with the Competition and Markets Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority and industry on addressing the soaring costs of car insurance. We plan to bring railways back into public hands and to allow all local authorities to take back control of their bus services. London never had to put up with the deregulation of its bus services as the rest of the country did. Those things have the capability to relieve congestion by improving the state of our public transport network, and I imagine other local authorities might like to follow Nottingham’s lead by having a municipal bus company, which, once again, has been shown to provide one of the best bus services in the entire country. I would say that we have the best bus service, thanks to Nottingham City Transport.
A Labour Government would be committed to protecting our environment, helping to decarbonise the economy, and ensuring that we all have safe air to breathe. Labour would work with local authorities and mayoral combined authorities to support them to meet air quality targets in the ways that work best for their areas. We appreciate that emissions levels in different areas vary as a result of the kind of industry and economic activity in those areas, and we will work in partnership with local and regional governments, empowering them to protect and improve air quality, while fostering economic innovation and productivity.
Labour would make it clear that the Government have a direct responsibility to work with our local authorities to avoid the need for charging clean air zones through the adoption of alternative air quality improvement methods, such as those I have talked about: re-routing traffic, land management, speed limits, better public transport, and better options to get freight off our roads and on to our railways. That responsibility should also extend to helping to mitigate the impact of any proposals that clear the strong thresholds set by the Government for a clean air zone.
I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I hope that hon. Members will focus on the issue of air pollution and the need to take action in a variety of ways to tackle it.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Let me begin by congratulating my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), on his Bill, which I was delighted to sponsor. I am delighted to participate in this debate and to congratulate him also on his excellent, informative and constructive speech.
I was rather disappointed in the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), for whom I have a lot of respect, because she did not say much about ULEZ. She took us on a tour of Nottingham and told us about other parts of Labour party policy, but she showed a total misunderstanding of—or no understanding of—outer London. [Interruption.] She can barrack me all she likes, but she never had a view on outer London. She also made a statement that was fundamentally untrue, in saying that this Government had not bailed out the Mayor of London. Transport for London has been bailed out so many times in the past few years, but she did not say that. She glossed over the management of TfL. She also did not come up with any facts or figures to show that ULEZ has reduced the level of pollution in inner London. We are still seeing huge levels of pollution in inner London, even on the underground, which came to our attention last year—
Sir David Evennett
The hon. Lady would not give way to me, so I am certainly not going to give way to her. I have also not had the opportunity to start my speech. I know that Opposition Members just want to delay everybody and everything, but I want to speak for my borough of Bexley. We had a long tour about Nottingham, but ULEZ affects my borough and my constituency, not hers in Nottingham, so I think I should have a few minutes to speak. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) did not get up and ask to intervene, but the others did.
The expansion of ULEZ affects my area and the surrounding areas very badly. It blindly copies the approach taken in central and inner London without properly assessing the implications for outer London or the neighbouring areas. The expansion has caused a range of negative social, financial and economic impacts for those who can least afford it. Perhaps this is not the case for the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), for whom I have a lot of respect, but we are inundated with people in my borough, some of whom support his party, who think it is unfair for ULEZ to come to Bexley when Bexley has good air quality, as does Bromley. I am surprised at what he says; I have no doubt that it is correct, as he as a good friend of mine and an honourable man, but I do not believe that there have not been people in Eltham who have said that this is unfair to those who are less well off.
Clive Efford
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I want to clarify that I did not say that I have not had any people say that. What I said was that far more people write to me about the state of our roads, which the Government have caused by starving local authorities of investment.
Sir David Evennett
Of course, recently local authorities have been given more money by the Government. I would say to the hon. Member that that is the fault of Greenwich council, not the Government.
Mr French
My right hon. Friend rightly points out that the local council is responsible for the roads. What the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) failed to point out is that the Royal Borough of Greenwich has been given over £7.8 million by the Government through the recent announcement of the potholes fund.
Sir David Evennett
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour.
The ULEZ extension is a disastrous policy and another example of the London Labour Mayor filling the black hole in his finances. This Mayor is no friend of motorists. We have already had 20 mph speed limits, 24/7 bus lanes and the congestion charge on people who need to use their car. My constituents are very angry about this.
My borough is one of the two in London without the tube, the docklands light railway or trams. The Mayor of London has never even looked at extending any of those. We only have Southeastern rail and buses as our public transport. It is all very well to say that we should go on the tube, but we do not have it. Like many people, we have to use a car to get about in our area. The lack of public transport—and the fact that a lot of what we have is unreliable—has major implications for my constituents and residents of the borough of Bexley.
We are heavily reliant on our cars for various purposes. We have one of the highest car ownership rates and the lowest sustainable modal share rate in London. Over the last decade, car and van registrations have outstripped population growth. These are not figures we want to have. We hear all these wonderful things that the Mayor of London is doing, but in our area he has done very little. I made the point in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford that the Mayor had no mandate for this extension. It is all very well the hon. Member for Nottingham South talking about a mandate, but from his last manifesto he had no mandate for this policy. We could have debated it then. The hon. Lady was high on the mandates, but the manifesto did not mention it at all.
I believe that the consultation was rather a sham. Two thirds of people objected to the ULEZ, and they did so for many and various reasons. We have heard from businesses, and we have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford talk about his constituent who has to go and visit a relative in Bexley on a regular basis, and who now has to pay an extra £12.50 every time. The Labour party says that it cares about the less well-off and those who are disadvantaged, as I do passionately. I believe in social mobility and in giving people the chance to maximise their opportunities in life, and I have to say that the ULEZ is a tax on those who cannot afford to get around. In Bexley, we do not have the public transport services that other London boroughs have.
The congestion charge has tripled in the last few years, and the fine for non-payment has increased from £160 to £180—more than two days’ pay for minimum wage earners. It is reduced to £90 if paid within two weeks, but that is still more than a day’s pay. This is very unsatisfactory for the less well-off in the outer boroughs of London, as well as for businesses, key workers, pensioners and families. It is no good the Labour party always blaming somebody else, because the ULEZ was introduced by the Mayor of London. The poorest in my borough are the ones who do not have the ability to change their cars, and giving them £2,000 to do so is a bit of an insult. I am really disappointed.
Stella Creasy
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. If he were to persuade the Government to provide additional support for scrappage, as they have done for other clean air zones in the country, to people in the outer boroughs of London, whom he and I represent, he would have my support, but does he understand my concern? Our constituents can have their say on this matter at the London mayoral elections in just six weeks’ time. Why is he seeking to usurp his own candidate and her ability to address this issue? Does he have such little confidence that he feels that national legislation is needed to undermine his own candidate, or is it really a sign that he thinks London recognises that the best option is Sadiq Khan?
Sir David Evennett
I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady, and I know her constituency very well. I grew up in Woodford, so I know the area. [Interruption.] I know that is not in her constituency, but my wife and son were born in Walthamstow. The hon. Lady should let me finish before she interjects. I know that part of the world well, and I respect her tremendously for the work that she does locally. What I would say to her is that this is a conversation that should have been had before the Mayor implemented the policy. We could have then had meetings with the Government and Members representing outer London constituencies, and had a discussion about how we could go forward constructively.
The Mayor did not allow for that. He just had an artificial consultation and did not take any notice of what people thought, and we did not have a discussion. We should have had it beforehand. The hon. Lady says that these matters should be discussed with the Government and others, but we did not have that discussion. This Government have bailed out the Mayor of London so much, which the Opposition do not like to admit. I am a big supporter of Susan Hall, and I very much hope that she will win on 2 May.
It is important to note that a lot of care workers have been in touch with me. Some of them work in the constituency of the hon. Member for Eltham, and they are very cross that they have to pay £12.50. It is more difficult to get night staff, who have to pay £25. Surely that cannot be right. Surely it must be looked at again by the Mayor of London, because these are key workers in our area. They do a magnificent job, and I am always supportive of them.
I will come to a conclusion, because I do not want to take half an hour and not let other people participate in the debate. I am really disappointed that the Opposition Members who have spoken so far have tried to make this a general discussion about clean air zones across the country. We are looking at London. Unfortunately, we no longer have the debates we always used to—a debate on London issues on a Thursday. That is when we could discuss London issues, not Nottingham or national issues, however important they might be, and air quality is very important. If we are going to do that, as I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham South, let us have the figures for the improvements in inner London and the pollution that is still on the tube after years of the charge being in place in the centre of London.
Sir David Evennett
No, I am going to conclude because I want other people to have a chance. If people take half an hour, it is not fair on others who want to speak, whatever they want to say. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister who will respond to the debate, and I am particularly supportive of the Secretary of State for Transport, who is doing a brilliant job in the Department. He announced today that the Government will certainly be supporting this Bill.
In conclusion—because I want other people to have the chance to speak—the ULEZ extension was hurried in without proper discussion and consultation, and without thought of the consequences, and my constituents are suffering because of it.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As a Bristol MP, I suppose I have to apologise for daring to take part in a debate that is primarily about our capital city, but millions of our constituents visit as tourists and come here to work, and as a nation we all want to see it as a healthy, safe and pleasant place for people to visit, and to live and work in, regardless of which constituency we represent.
I want to challenge the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), who brought in the Bill, for saying that this is not an air pollution issue. It is clearly not an air pollution issue from his point of view. We know why he has brought the Bill forward: because of the elections coming up on 2 May. It is a desperate last-ditch attempt to try to boost the Conservative vote—and I think we know how that will turn out. Perhaps some Conservative Members ought to be out and about, talking to voters on the doorstep, rather than taking up our time here today, if they really want to influence the result of that election.
The hon. Member, who has left the Chamber now, may not feel that ULEZ is an air pollution issue, but I very much feel that it is because low emissions are a public health issue. In my role as shadow Climate Change Minister, people often come and talk to me about air pollution as though it is primarily a net zero issue, and we have seen some depressing attempts to make net zero part of the anti-woke culture wars by saying that net zero comes at a cost. We saw the Secretary of State for Transport buy into the whole conspiracy theory about 15-minute cities at party conference, which is incredibly depressing. Reducing emissions from transport is obviously very much part of our ambition to meet net zero, but the immediate driver is the need to clean up our air.
We have heard mention of the switch to electric vehicles. It is obviously the long-term objective that we want to ensure that all the vehicles on our roads reach safe emission standards. It was therefore disappointing that the Government rowed back the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles. The signal that that sent to the market and consumers was entirely counterproductive. Although initially there was some resistance to a 2030 target—rather than a 2035 target—within the car manufacturing trade, the trade then got with the programme and was critical of the Government for that row-back, because it affected sales. It had made the switch and was producing EVs; it is still bound by zero emission vehicle mandate, so it is making the new electric vehicles.
The most important thing we can do—this goes to the points about people not being able to afford cleaner vehicles that are compliant with the ULEZ—is to develop a second-hand electric vehicle market as quickly as possible. We do that by increasing new EV sales. The figure has gone down a bit, but it was the case that of new EV sales, 80-something per cent were fleet vehicles. We know that they then come on to the second-hand market pretty quickly. We have to bring down the cost of buying EVs—I can see the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) nodding—and we do not do that by pushing the ban back to 2035; we need to bring it in now.
We also need action on EV charging infrastructure. I will say thank you to the Government for providing some new money for charging infrastructure in the west of England—I think that Bristol is the best place outside London in this regard—but what is lacking is a national strategy to put the infrastructure into places where the market will not meet the need because there is not the necessary footfall, or whatever the driving equivalent is, particularly in our rural areas that depend on tourism. Those travelling down to Devon and Cornwall can use Exeter services, but after that it is pretty difficult to find somewhere to charge a car.
As I have an EV and cannot charge it at home because I live in a block of flats, I welcome the public charging points in Bristol. I spend far too much time sitting in car parks doing Duolingo and practising my very bad Russian while charging my car. It is quite sad when constituents spot me doing that. Although we need more charging points in our cities, including London, this is national infrastructure and we must roll it out to other parts of the country.
As I have said, I believe that the immediate imperative is not reducing transport emissions with the aim of reaching net zero but dealing with air pollution, which we know has a significant impact on people’s health and on children’s health in particular. When I was at school there was just one girl in my class with asthma, but nowadays the majority of kids in any inner-city primary school probably have it. Children are more vulnerable in this regard because their airways are smaller and still developing, because they are closer to traffic fumes because they are small, and because they breathe more rapidly. They are also more likely to develop more serious lung conditions in later life—although of course asthma can be very serious.
Moreover, air pollution affects the lung development of foetuses in utero, and increases the chance of miscarriage. If a mother is exposed to a large volume of air pollution during pregnancy the baby is more likely to be born prematurely and with a lower birth weight, which is correlated with the development of certain health problems as a child grows up. I pay tribute to groups such as Asthma + Lung UK and Mums for Lungs, which has been doing some very good campaigning in my constituency, while St George Breathing Better has been pushing for school street schemes to restrict the entry of high-emitting vehicles, especially when children are going in and out of schools.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I do not know whether my hon. Friend has found this in her constituency, but in mine there has certainly been a significant rise in the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The response has not been particularly helpful in recent years, in terms of acknowledgment, proper diagnosis and speed of reaction to the problem; but that, too, relates to the air pollution issue.
Kerry McCarthy
I think that is true, and it is also connected with poor housing conditions. We have talked in this place before about the need to ensure that homes are fit for human habitation. A young boy tragically died recently because of the mould in his home. All these things are connected.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
In the last few weeks I have been diagnosed with adult-onset asthma, which is on the rise. We know that 30% of cases are triggered by allergies, and that much of this is linked with mould in people’s homes. What my hon. Friend is saying—and she is making a powerful speech—goes to the heart of why we need to tackle this issue for all our constituents, whether young or old.
Kerry McCarthy
I suffer from hay fever virtually all the year round. I would have thought it would be worse in the countryside, but it is terrible when I am in London. I was in Paris in January and the hay fever took off suddenly because of the air pollution levels. Hay fever is not lethal in the way that asthma attacks can be, but it is a pretty grim condition to have to live with. It affects people’s ability to do their work and to study, for instance.
As I said earlier, the Government were forced to act on air pollution after being taken to court by ClientEarth, to which I pay tribute for its continuing efforts through the legal system to hold the Government to account in respect of their environmental targets. As a result of that court case, Bristol was asked to act. I have already made the point about the irony, perhaps, of demanding local autonomy in some cases and demanding not to be told what to do by the Mayor of London, but in Bristol the Secretary of State told us we had to do that.
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady is making a fair point, but we have to recognise the issue of scale. In Bristol, the clean air zone is barely 2 square miles—it is about 1 mile by 2 miles—and specifically took into account individuals and businesses. The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford does not seek to get rid of the congestion zone or the first ULEZ expansion, yet the second expansion of ULEZ, in contrast to Bristol’s 2 square miles, is approximately 600 square miles, at 50 miles by 50 miles. That is so monumentally bigger than anything contemplated in Bristol or other cities.
Kerry McCarthy
London has the Greater London Assembly, a Mayor with devolved powers and Transport for London, so this issue is looked at on a London-wide basis. There is an issue in Bristol with people coming into the city centre from places like Bath, but the boroughs are not so interwoven that we cannot see the borders between them, and we do not have the interconnectivity that London has. In Bristol, we were told that we had to bring air pollution levels within legal limits as quickly as possible. We went to great lengths with the modelling to deal with concerns about the economic and social impact. As the Minister said, making the zone as small as possible was one of the factors in that.
It is relevant to talk about the Bristol scheme because it shows what can be achieved by similar measures in London. The scheme came into effect in November 2022, and in January this year we had the first annual report on its effectiveness. It was judged to have been highly successful. The headline figure was that air pollution across all measured sites had declined by 9.7%. The success of the CAZ is measured by whether it lowers nitrogen dioxide levels below the legal limit of 40 micrograms per cubic metre. In November 2022, when the scheme was introduced, there were 18 sites across Bristol above the legal limit. Just 12 months later, that was down to just six zones. The scheme was particularly effective outside the Bristol Royal Infirmary and the Bristol Children’s Hospital, which are bang in the middle of the city centre. Air pollution was down by an incredible 26.9%. I defy anyone to tell me that such big improvements in air quality in areas where there are very sick and vulnerable people, including sick children, is a bad thing. It has been really successful.
Lilian Greenwood
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this is sometimes presented as a binary choice between motorists and everybody else, such as the children in the hospital, when these improvements are actually beneficial for everyone? One thing that came out of the 2018 report is that some of the worst air quality is inside vehicles, so motorists directly benefit from improvements in air quality.
Kerry McCarthy
I was on the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the time, both of which took part in that inquiry. It was difficult to bring those Committees together, but the inquiry produced a really good, significant report, which we should still pay heed to when we as House think about what to do on this issue going forward.
John McDonnell
There seems to be a focus on motorists, but there is now a multiplicity of electric vehicles. I have got one of them. I used to have an electric bike, but I now have an electric scooter—not a sit-down scooter. I find it particularly effective in my constituency, although to be frank my constituents do frown when I turn up as the MP because they think I should be delivering a pizza. There is a multiplicity of vehicle options that we can deploy to tackle some of these air pollution problems, but we need more incentives from central Government to develop that multiplicity.
Kerry McCarthy
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I did have an e-bike; it was stolen from inside the Houses of Parliament. One would think that there would be nowhere more secure, but when the Queen was lying in state, whoever was acting as her security removed all the bikes and took off a £130 lock—presumably with an angle grinder or something—and my bike was not seen again. Try explaining to the insurance company that it was people from Buckingham Palace or from the Queen’s lying in state who took the lock off! That is another story, though.
My right hon. Friend is entirely right. I used to hold the shadow green transport brief, and e-bikes are hugely important in allowing people to do those longer journeys. I could not make it up the hills in Bristol without a bit of extra help from an e-bike, but when it comes to delivery vehicles, one of the issues is deliveries inside the areas covered by zones. If we can have hubs outside the city centres and electric vans or e-cargo bikes making those deliveries, that could have a huge impact. Obviously, everybody making food deliveries and similar things really ought to be using clean modes of transport.
I am conscious of time, so I will finish my point about the Bristol scheme. There were concerns that it would lead people to take diversions and increase pollution outside the clean air zone, but air pollution outside the zone has also been measured as down: it has reduced by 7.8%, because the CAZ has encouraged a modal shift among people. I appreciate that people cannot always afford to make that shift in vehicles, but it has happened.
Another concern raised by opponents was that the CAZ would harm the local economy and communities by discouraging people from coming into the city centre. In fact, the opposite happened: retail footfall across four major retail hotspots in central Bristol actually rose from the previous year. There was also an argument that people would become isolated and stuck at home because they could not afford to pay the £9 charge, but again, that was not the case: the number of journeys into or through the CAZ per month was higher at the end of the year than at the start of the scheme, and the percentage of compliant journeys rose every single month. That is what we want to achieve.
It is the same with the landfill tax, for example. That tax is not about raising money because lots of people are sending stuff to landfill. If a landfill tax is effective, the revenues go down and down, year on year. There is actually an issue with the fact that the tax is not keeping pace with inflation at the moment, but assuming it is effective, the revenues will dwindle—it is the behaviour change that we want to make happen. As I said, ideally we would not have introduced a clean air zone, but we have made it work. It is also worth noting that the Government take £2 from every £9 CAZ charge, which we would very much like to be able to spend in Bristol instead.
Lilian Greenwood
It is quite difficult to assess the effectiveness of a clean air zone, because it is not about whether vehicle numbers go down, but about whether those numbers are higher or lower than they would have been if we had done nothing. When thinking about the effectiveness of ULEZ in central London, for example, we need to model what would have happened if we had not had ULEZ, rather than just look at whether the numbers have gone up or down.
Kerry McCarthy
Exactly—there is very complicated modelling involved. Also, if we can use measures such as these to take some cars off the road, that increases the attractiveness of public transport, because the buses can get to where they are meant to be without being stuck in traffic.
Guy Opperman
Surely the hon. Lady is making an argument in support of the Bill—for having small congestion zones in the centre of cities, allowing the public transport to get to where it is meant to be, but not massive 600 square mile congestion zones such as the present expanded ULEZ?
Kerry McCarthy
I was thinking in the context of the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) saying that he does not have a tube station in his part of Greater London, as though the only alternative to the tube is driving. London has a pretty decent bus system, but we need to make sure that people have that alternative.
Again, I am going to say something nice: we have had confirmation today that First Bus has received funding under the next wave of the zero-emission bus regional areas scheme to turn all of our buses into electric vehicles. We have been experimenting with biogas, but that funding will do an awful lot. We do have some clean biogas buses, and my right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party got to drive one on one of his previous visits to the city. He was like a little boy with a new toy, it has to be said—I think he greatly enjoyed it.
Stella Creasy
Given that the evidence shows that ULEZ has cut pollution in central London by almost half, the challenge that the Minister is presenting slightly misreads how people travel around London. As an outer-London MP, I am acutely conscious that people also drive within the borough to work, as well as between outer London boroughs. The idea that we would have the same impact on reducing pollution just by focusing on the centre misses the challenge that we are all trying to address. Nobody is saying that this is easy or that it is not controversial. I have the north circular running through my constituency, and I see the pollution. I see children and adults struggling with the consequences, and I am sure the same is true in south London. We have to consider how people travel around London to understand the best way of tackling these issues. It cannot just be theoretical. It has to be a practical model, does it not?
Kerry McCarthy
My hon. Friend is right, and she brings me on to my final point. Her borough of Waltham Forest hosts the mini-Holland scheme, which I have cycled around on an e-bike. Each week, the council’s transport lead takes people on a tour so that they can learn from the scheme. These local schemes can transform neighbourhoods by designing out some of the traffic and making them pleasant places to live, by building things like sustainable urban drainage schemes and areas where people can sit and talk.
A liveable neighbourhood pilot is just about to start in my constituency. It is important to engage the local community, to explain how it will work for them and to listen when they say how it might cause problems in certain areas. Although there has been some opposition, groups such as St George Breathing Better—which was founded by a group of parents whose children are suffering because of the city’s air pollution—are very much behind the pilot.
I return to the Secretary of State’s disappointing remarks about 15-minute cities. As well as bigger measures, such as ULEZ to address Greater London’s transport problems, we need to consider local solutions such as liveable neighbourhoods and school street schemes to encourage people to walk to school and work, and to make it as easy as possible for people to get around without resorting to their car. This should be about giving elected politicians the right to implement such solutions in consultation with the people they represent.
Steve Tuckwell (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) for introducing this Bill, which it is my great pleasure to support.
Members across the House will agree that we want clean air for our residents today and for generations to come. Across London and in my constituency, in the outer suburbs of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, we all agree that nobody wants dirty or poor-quality air. However, the Labour Mayor of London’s expansion of ULEZ to outer London has nothing to do with air quality and everything to do with punishing hard-working families and businesses of all sizes. Several months after he totally ignored Londoners and pressed ahead with expanding the ULEZ tax across outer London, like fellow Conservative Members I continue to be contacted by people sharing examples of financial hardship, collapsed businesses and negative social consequences.
As it stands, I believe the Bill would go some way towards rectifying a blatant money grab, by calling for the Transport Secretary to consent to any expansion of ULEZ and the ULEZ boundaries, once they have been amended as per the Bill, which spells out a number of important qualifications. Among them is whether any proposed changes are in accordance with a Mayor’s manifesto commitments at the most recent mayoral election.
The Mayor of London made no mention of ULEZ expansion in his manifesto, and he certainly made no mention of it to the people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, but that is not all. The ULEZ expansion’s democratic deficit does not stop there. Along with the lack of any mention of ULEZ in his manifesto, the Mayor of London embarked on a consultation that, due to a raft of allegations, including on the weighting given to particular consultation responses among other issues, has left multiple questions about its validity. I am glad to see that confronted in the Bill, which would require the Secretary of State to consider responses to any consultation conducted on proposed changes.
If the Mayor had put more time and effort into speaking to residents across outer London—and, indeed, in Uxbridge and South Ruislip—he would have understood that they were not far-right conspiracy theorists. These hard-working families and business owners were ignored, and continue to be ignored. Why did the Mayor of London not consider using funds to bring about a new fleet of green buses, electrify the taxi network, plant more trees or ensure that the tube runs on much cleaner energy? Let us not forget a properly funded scrappage scheme. Those alternatives would have produced real, binding changes in people’s lives: not just in how they travel around outer London, but in how they interact with their communities and their surroundings.
Rather than exploring sensible, common-sense alternatives, the Mayor of London chose to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on ULEZ enforcement cameras. Uxbridge and South Ruislip is heavily reliant on car usage due to the nature of its outer-London geography. The people I have the privilege of representing could opt to use public transport, but we see how the Mayor of London is decimating local bus services and continues to preside over the ongoing catastrophic failure of the Central line. Emails and social media comments flood in from constituents who are rightly angry about an unacceptable and unreliable public transport service. Why force ULEZ expansion on areas with minimal and long-term unreliable public transport without first rectifying those issues? Why not invest more in the public transport network so that people can rely on it and then decide to make the switch? Why did he push ahead with ULEZ expansion first? The answer is clear: to continue ignoring hard-working Londoners and punish them with a destructive money grab, thinly disguised as an environmental strategy, with little or no substance.
I know all too well about the anger and frustration felt by ordinary, hard-working people in Uxbridge and South Ruislip—and indeed those across outer London —about the Mayor’s cynical money grab. In my maiden speech, I stated:
“I stand here—no longer the local candidate, but the Member of Parliament—still determined to fight the Mayor of London’s money grab and reduce the burden placed on my residents and local businesses.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2023; Vol. 740, c. 389.]
Those words still ring true.
Only this week, the Mayor of London made comments citing that
“the sky didn’t fall in”
following the expansion of ULEZ. Well, it did for businesses who can no longer afford to trade and for households who have incurred financial hardships. Those flippant and arrogant comments cement the view that the Mayor of London is out of touch with hard-working Londoners.
The Bill has my full support as it looks to vary ULEZ boundaries and ensure that safeguards are in place for oversight and consultation. In addition to supporting the Bill, I want to place on record in the House my wholehearted support for the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, Susan Hall.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I rise to speak in opposition to the Bill. It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell). On the day that he was elected to this place, I remember campaigning and talking to residents, who said, “We are not going to vote Labour, as we have always done before, because we’ll have to pay £12.50 every day to drive on our local roads.” My colleague said, “How will it affect you? What car do you drive?” and the guy at this one house said, “Well, there it is—it’s a Toyota Prius.” On the day of that election, thousands of people were told, and some still believe, that every single person driving a vehicle in Greater London has to pay £12.50 a day. That is not true, and that myth is still going around.
I do not want to undermine the fact that about 5% of vehicles in London are non-compliant. I accept that the expansion forced people who drive non-compliant vehicles, for work or for personal use, to make decisions, as others had to when the original ULEZ boundary was introduced. I will come on to that aspect of the scrappage scheme later.
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady will be aware that Transport for London’s impact assessment states that there is likely to be a disproportionate negative impact
“for people on low incomes who travel by a non-compliant private vehicle in outer London to access employment…or opportunities”.
It is those organisations and individuals who are being affected by the policy.
Ruth Cadbury
As I have said, I will come on to the detail of the scrappage scheme later. I can address that point, because my constituency is crossed by the north and south circulars, so we have already been there.
As we know, the Bill proposes to amend
“the boundaries of the Greater London Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone”,
and provides that Transport for London—in other words, the London Mayor—
“may not make an order amending those boundaries without the consent of the Secretary of State”.
Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, transport in London is a devolved matter and the responsibility of the Mayor and TfL. As such, Parliament granted the power to make decisions on London-wide road-charging schemes to the Mayor. The proposed changes pose a threat to the powers of the Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority, and devolved places around the country. I am disappointed that the Minister has announced that the Government will support this Bill, given their long-standing position that local road-charging powers are the responsibility of the Mayor and TfL. Any support for such a Bill is regressive and anti-devolution.
The previous Mayor of London, before becoming Conservative Prime Minister, introduced the ULEZ, which came into operation in April 2019. In October 2021, he ensured its extension to the north and south circular roads. The current Mayor of London, as we know, then extended it to all of Greater London in August 2023. The Bill seeks to revert us to having the boundary at the north and south circular roads. I cannot see the logic in that.
Devolution is one of the key issues here, along with tackling air pollution. The ULEZ stems from Government legislation, which local government is required to abide by, and which was first championed in London by a Conservative Mayor of London. Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999—
John McDonnell
I served on the Bill Committee for that Act. At first, the Conservative party opposed the restoration of a Mayor for London and a Greater London Authority, but as we went through the legislation, an element of consensus built up, particularly in the local government community and among London MPs, about the sort of powers that the Mayor and the GLA should have, including around these sorts of issues. There was consensus that if we established these structures, they would need to be properly empowered, and then there was a debate about resourcing. The Bill before us flies in the face of the debate on that Act. As I say, I was on that Committee, and if I remember rightly, Glenda Jackson was the Minister.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank my right hon. Friend, who was a member of the Greater London Council, which was abolished by a Conservative Government who did not like what the Labour London government was doing —so much for respect for local politicians.
Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999, transport and air quality in London are devolved matters that are the responsibility of the Mayor and Transport for London. The Bill is an affront to the principle of devolution, and the principle of allowing local leaders to make the decisions needed to deliver local priorities and meet objectives set by national Government. Air pollution is a health crisis. There is a national air crisis. Targets to tackle that are rightly set by central Government. Across the country, the Government have required and encouraged the introduction of clean air zones. The Bill is plainly party political point scoring, given that the Government have required and encouraged many other clean air zones across the country.
The Bill seeks to:
“Amend the boundaries of the Greater London Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone; to provide that Transport for London may not make an order amending those boundaries without the consent of the Secretary of State”.
The boundaries of the zone would be amended, so that the new boundary would be the edge of the inner zone —that is, the new boundary would be the boundary that was put in place in October 2021, before the zone was expanded up to, but not including, the north and south circulars. Given the concerns of drivers coming from Dartford and other places into London, what is the logic of removing ULEZ from outer London but not inner London? Surely the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) represents residents and businesses who drive into central London. Either oppose ULEZ or support ULEZ; this Bill is neither one thing nor the other.
The Bill will prevent TfL from amending the boundaries without the express consent of the Secretary of State. It would restrict the ability of the Mayor of London and TfL to make amendments to the charging area by forcing the Greater London Authority to request permission from the Secretary of State first, and would place a duty on the Secretary of State to consider London election manifesto commitments. It is very bizarre. The Bill means that there will be contradictory decisions made in different parts of the country. The Bill strikes me as being part of a historical antipathy on the part of Conservative Governments to Labour leaders in Greater London.
As others have said eloquently, this Government could do so much more to address air pollution. They could support the Mayor of London’s making the scrappage scheme more generous, so that nobody has any reason not to get rid of their non-compliant vehicle. If the costs for non-polluting vehicles came down, there would be no non-compliant vehicles polluting London. That is important because of the impact that pollution has on our communities and the people of this country.
Air pollution is the No. 1 environmental threat to public health in the UK. It contributes to up to 43,000 premature deaths every year in England. In his 2022 annual report, chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty outlined that outdoor air pollution in England
“still poses significant health threats”
to adults and children. An increasing body of evidence links air pollution to various cancers, lung and heart disease, dementia and stroke. It puts us all at greater risk of disease and shortens lives.
Furthermore, toxic air is holding back our public services and making it harder to treat other conditions. Public Health England estimates that air pollution will cost the NHS and the social care system £1.6 billion between 2017 and 2025. That rises to £5.56 billion when we include the impact of diseases for which the evidence of an association is less developed and still emerging. By 2035, that figure will reach almost £19 billion unless stronger action is taken. In addition, a report commissioned by the Clean Air Fund concluded that improving air quality could boost the UK economy by £1.6 billion each year, as a result of 3 million additional working days being worked, and a reduction in the rate of early retirement.
In 2019 in London, toxic air contributed to around 4,000 premature deaths. The greatest number of deaths attributable to air pollution were in outer London boroughs, mainly due to the higher proportion in those areas of elderly people, who are more vulnerable to the impact of air pollution. I hardly see her now, but I worked with a wonderful tenant activist in Brentford when I was a councillor. She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and was confined to bed about 15 years ago; she has not been able to leave her bedroom because of COPD. She has lived all her life in Brentford, which has always had very high air pollution from the coke works and the proximity to the A4 and the M4. She is just one example, but we all know people who suffer from COPD, emphysema and a whole range of other life-limiting and life-damaging conditions.
If no further action is taken to reduce air pollution, around 550,000 Londoners will develop diseases relating to poor air quality in the next 30 years. The cost of that for the NHS and social care system in London alone is estimated to be £10.4 billion by 2050. More than half a million Londoners suffer from asthma and are more vulnerable to the effects of toxic air, and more than half of those people live in outer London. Toxic air is a social justice issue. The poorest Londoners, and Londoners from ethnic minority backgrounds, who are least likely to own a car, are worst affected by toxic air. Only 5% of the lowest-income Londoners own a car, yet they are more likely to suffer from toxic air.
Half of all the children admitted to hospital due to asthma in London are from minority ethnic backgrounds. How can we ever forget the case of Ella Kissi-Debrah, the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her death certificate? She was a child who grew up in a flat overlooking a busy road in south-east London. I have met Ella’s mother. I have also worked with campaign groups such as Mums for Lungs. Parents are campaigning for us to do the right thing. They support the ULEZ and they ask us—I have had two or three emails on this already this week—to oppose this Bill.
I want to say a little about my constituency and why this issue matters there. From one end of my constituency to the other, we are affected by heavy traffic and, therefore, high air pollution. That can be seen from the maps. We have the A4, the M4 above, and the A316, which comes in from the M3. The north and south circular meet at their westerly point in my constituency. All those roads are all hugely congested and have very polluted air. The last ULEZ boundary went through the middle of my constituency, just inside the north and south circular. There, we have St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School and William Hogarth School next door to each other, alongside the A4 in Chiswick. The pollution at those schools is incredibly high. Parents there, led by one of the fathers, Andrea Carnevali, have campaigned for years to address the issue. Their campaign has meant that the issue of air pollution has got into the public domain locally.
Through their campaigning, those parents managed to get support from the Mayor of London for a green wall along the playground side of the wall to try to catch some of the pollution. They have also worked with paint manufacturers. Remarkably, air pollution levels inside a classroom can be reduced with a particular paint. The school was donated the paint to do measurements and assessments so that everybody could see its efficacy. Sadly, it is too expensive for schools to buy, because it is so specialist, but that is the sort of thing the Government should be supporting.
Until air pollution levels drop—they are starting to drop, and I will come on to that—children who go to St Mary’s, William Hogarth and other schools in my constituency and across London will be going into classrooms, playing in playgrounds, and walking and cycling to and from school in environments that are limiting their life expectancy.
I want to pick up on two letters I received from parents this week. This is from a mother who told me about her son. He used to attend a school situated just one block from the A4 as it goes into London through Chiswick and Hammersmith. She wrote that he
“used to suffer from asthma and he used to tell us how he could breathe so much better when we were away from London.”
He has died from cancer. His mother said:
“Although his primary tumour was in his left humerus, he died from the bone cancer which had spread to his lungs and we now suspect that it had been in his lungs for quite some time.”
That is why she has asked me to oppose the Bill today. She added another thing in her note:
“When I took my son to hospital once for something unrelated, I was on a ward with him with three other children who all had breathing difficulties. When I asked the nurse about this she said they consistently have children admitted for breathing problems.”
That reminded me of my visits to schools over the years, from when I was a councillor and subsequently as an MP. A growing number of schools have to have an asthma strategy and a growing bank of drawers full of asthma inhalers, just in case. Those inhalers are used. More and more children are using asthma inhalers day in, day out so that they are able to make the most of school.
The second email is in a way more general, but it still explains from a constituent’s point of view why I will oppose the Bill today. My constituent wrote:
“As the dad of two young boys who has to expose them to pollution every single day on the school run—particularly over Kew bridge”—
over the river, but highly polluted—
“I support any and all efforts to clean up London’s air.”
The ULEZ is a strategy to protect public health. In lieu of alternative policies that could address this horrific health challenge, the ULEZ is the most effective strategy we have for London, and that is why the Mayor for London is using it. The ULEZ is highly targeted. It helps to take the most polluting vehicles off London’s roads. Vehicles that do not meet certain emissions standards and are not otherwise subject to a grace period, discount or exemption must pay the charge to travel within the city. The charge is set to disincentivise frequent trips in non-compliant vehicles that would otherwise contribute more to air pollution. It incentivises people to change their travel behaviour—for example, to use public transport more or to replace their vehicle—while allowing occasional visitors and infrequent drivers an alternative.
The London-wide expansion has already been highly effective in reducing the proportion and number of older, more polluting vehicles on London’s roads. Data from the London-wide ULEZ first month report shows a 10 percentage point increase in vehicle compliance in outer London, with 95% of vehicles seen driving in London on an average day now meeting ULEZ standards. That is up from 85% when the consultation was launched in May 2022, and means that compliance rates in outer London have nearly caught up with inner London. As has been said, any net revenue raised from ULEZ will be re-invested back into public transport, including the expansion of bus services in outer London. I am not aware of bus services that have been cut, but there is no doubt that we could always do with more bus services—more frequent services, and more night and weekend services—so that fewer people are forced to get their car out in order to get to work, visit friends and relatives, and so on.
The ULEZ has been hugely successful in central and inner London, and has led to significant benefits. Harmful NO2 concentrations alongside roads, such as the A4 and the A316 in my constituency, are estimated to be 46% lower in central London and 21% lower in inner London than they would have been without the ULEZ. The number of schools in areas exceeding legal limits for NO2 fell by an amazing 96%, from 455 in 2016 to just 20 in 2019.
Mums for Lungs is keen to remind us of those figures. It says that on an average day, there are 77,000 fewer unique non-compliant vehicles compared with June 2023, as well as an overall reduction of 48,000 fewer non-compliant vehicles per day within the ULEZ zone. The ULEZ has helped to reduce all harmful NOx by 46% in central London, and by 21% in inner London. Monitors in the capital showed that London enjoyed the cleanest air on record in 2023 as a result of ULEZ.
There is still a long way to go for London to meet World Health Organisation air quality guidelines, and forecasts show that all of London will continue to exceed those guidelines in 2025 and 2030 without further action. That goes back to what the Government are doing. Beyond London, it is the UK Government’s view that clean air and low-emission zones are the preferred option for improving air quality in the shortest possible time, but more must be done to incentivise the use of low and zero-emission vehicles than what the Government are doing.
We are already beginning to see the expected benefits of expanding the ULEZ, and it is estimated that 5 million more people, including the constituents of some Conservative Members, are expected to breathe cleaner air as a result of expanding ULEZ to outer London. Modelling suggests that the current ULEZ is expected to reduce PM2.5 exhaust emissions in outer London by nearly 16%, leading to a 1.5% overall reduction in PM2.5 emissions—those are the ones that cause severe lung disease. It will lead to a reduction of nearly 10% in nitrogen oxide emissions in outer London, and to 146,000 fewer car trips overall, which is an almost 2% reduction. As one of my colleagues said earlier, the worst place to be in terms of air pollution is inside a car, so if fewer car trips are made that should mean that fewer people are exposed to emissions inside a car as well as externally. The ULEZ is expected to save 27,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in outer London, so this is about not just air pollution, but climate change.
John McDonnell
The issue we have focused on today is respiratory conditions, but, like me, my hon. Friend has been working on air pollution issues around our airport. I do not know whether she will remember this, but when we looked at the matter perhaps 15 years ago, the issue we raised was the incidence of cancer—she has mentioned cancer itself. We then discovered the Chicago airport study, which linked cancer to air pollution and highlighted the significance of that for airports and the surrounding areas. We should not underestimate the impact that ULEZ could have, not only on overcoming respiratory problems, but on reducing cancer incidence in areas such as ours. A number of our key campaigners in the area have suffered from cancer and we consider that it is linked to the air pollution around the airport.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank my right hon. Friend for that. I have worked with him for many years on issues relating to Heathrow. We cannot separate the issues of vehicle congestion and air pollution from the issues around Heathrow airport, which does not do enough to incentivise its staff and its passengers to come to the airport by means other than car.
I said that I would cover the issue of scrappage. Having continued to listen to the concerns of Londoners, the Mayor and TfL expanded the scrappage scheme to provide support for more Londoners. The Mayor is providing a £210 million funding pot for the scrappage scheme to support all Londoners with an eligible car or motorcycle, as well as charities, sole traders and small businesses. It is the most generous scrappage scheme ever seen in the UK. As part of the scheme, any London resident with an eligible non-compliant car can apply for a grant of up to £2,000 to scrap it. Neighbours of mine have a nice little runaround car that cost £2,000 and is compliant, so anyone who says that it is not possible to buy a compliant car for that kind of money has not tried to do it.
Other more extended benefits are available. For example, disabled people who need to scrap or retrofit a non-compliant wheelchair-accessible car can apply for grants of up to £10,000 to scrap or £6,000 to retrofit. Charities, sole traders and businesses with fewer than 50 employees that are registered in London can apply for a grant of £7,000 to scrap a van, £9,000 to scrap a minibus, or £6,000 to retrofit certain vans or minibuses. They can also apply to scrap and replace a van or minibus with a fully electric vehicle, for which the grants are £9,500 and £11,500 respectively. Eligible organisations can scrap or retrofit up to three vehicles. As of 15 March 2024, applicants to the ULEZ scrappage scheme can donate their non-ULEZ compliant vehicle to support humanitarian and medical needs in Ukraine, in return for the same level of grant payment that is available to those who choose to scrap their vehicle.
The Government have provided scrappage funding for other cities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield and Portsmouth, but they have not provided similar arrangements for specific ringfenced funding for London. That is yet another sectarian attack by the Conservative Government on a Labour Mayor.
Air pollution is a health crisis, and targets to tackle it are rightfully set by central Government. Across the country, the Government have required and encouraged the introduction of clean air zones. The Bill is plainly party political point scoring, given that the Government have required and encouraged many other clean air zones across the country. This Bill is a challenge to the powers of the Mayor of London to make decisions that improve the health of Londoners—all Londoners. If successful, the Bill has the potential to do significant damage, reinforce inequities in public health and undermine the office of the Mayor of London. The Bill is an attack on devolution. The Mayor has a right to introduce measures within his powers to meet statutory targets set by central Government, but they are dictating how a democratically elected Mayor of London should run the city and that is counter to the principles of devolution. Labour is a party of devolution: we created the mayoral model in London, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, and promoted local and regional decision making and funding across England. This Bill is an attack not only on devolution, but on measures to improve our environment and the health of our children and our children’s children.
We have to have solutions to the air quality crisis and the cost of living crisis, both nationally and locally. Labour is clear that the Government have a direct responsibility to work with local authorities to enable clean air zones and alternatives to them, and there needs to be a range of alternative air quality improvement methods, including re-routing traffic, land management, speed limits, better public transport and making it easier to acquire non-polluting vehicles. That responsibility should extend to helping to mitigate the impacts of any proposal that clears the strong thresholds set by the Government for a clean air zone. I do not hear about any alternatives from those on the Government Benches, so whose side are the supporters of the Bill on—continuing pollution or finding a solution to stop our children dying? I want to read out the end of the email that I received from the father I mentioned earlier:
“Pollution is too high in London, it makes us sick and long-term exposure can reduce cognitive ability.”
I am proud that London has the world’s largest clean air zone. The ULEZ is a brave and important policy which will be a historic legacy for the London Mayor.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
I will not speak for long, because I do not want to delay passage of this important Bill, which I have been happy to support my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) in bringing to this place.
Today we will see whose side Labour is really on: the Labour Mayor of London, who has introduced this regressive and greenwashed tax on outer London, or the hard-working people in Greater London who are struggling to pay Labour’s tax of £12.50 per day, or £4,500 per year, for going to work, medical appointments or the supermarket. This week, the Leader of the Opposition has finally got off his fence and disgracefully backed the Labour Mayor of London over the interests of hard-working Londoners. Today we have heard that the hon. Members for Eltham (Clive Efford), for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) also back the Labour Mayor of London over their constituents—but the Conservatives will continue to back drivers in Greater London and the home counties, and I am pleased that the Government support the Bill.
Dean Russell
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is less about clean air and more about taking my constituents in Watford and those elsewhere to the cleaners? The scheme taxes hard-working people who just want to get to work. When we say “hard-working people”, that includes those who work in hospitals and who want to work elsewhere in London to contribute to the local economy, including the night-time economy.
Bands that want to go and do gigs in London are now being priced out of being able to do so, and those who want to go and see them are being priced out too. It is absolutely wrong and needs to be stopped. Those who do not want to back the Bill really need to look in the mirror and consider why they are not helping hard-working people.
Mr French
I thank my hon. Friend, who is a real champion of his constituents. As he has just pointed out, people who come into London at night face the double charge of £12.50 to come in and then go out. That equally applies to the night-time industry. We have heard a lot about the scrappage scheme, but according to the ULEZ data from TfL, only one in three van drivers who have applied for support has received any. I completely agree with my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford that this tax on hard-working people is hurting people in the likes of Bexley, which is inside the zone, and those just outside.
With the Mayor of London taking millions of pounds each month from the pockets of drivers via fines and charges, while at the same time refusing to publish any meaningful evidence that proves that the ULEZ in outer London actually improves air quality, the public out there do not need me to tell them how much of a greenwashed con the ULEZ expansion really is.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr French
No, the hon. Gentleman has only just come in.
The public do not need me to tell them that London devolution is broken, with TfL requiring Government bail-out after Government bail-out, London now being the slowest city in the world to drive in, and the Metropolitan police and London Fire Brigade in special measures.
Guy Opperman
I credit my hon. Friend for the speech he is giving. Is not the key issue here the democratic deficit for those outside the mayoral zone? A decision was made by the Mayor, which we know was not backed by a manifesto, and it is now impacting the wider communities my hon. and right hon. Friends represent, from Harlow to Bexley and Crayford. Surely the issue is how we navigate the desire to comply with the legislation—that is why the Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) does not say that we are scrapping it entirely—and the ability of individuals to have their say on whether this is the appropriate measure.
Mr French
I thank the Roads Minister for his intervention. I agree completely; there is a huge democratic deficit at play here. As he correctly points out, the charge affects people outside the zone who need to come into London, and it is having a significant negative impact on the likes of Crayford and Bexley village in my constituency, which are hundreds of meters away from the so-called London boundary and whose businesses are losing customers every single day because of the expansion.
The people of Bexley, who quite clearly rejected this policy in the sham of a public consultation we had, have been completely ignored. That is why I have no doubt that in a few weeks’ time they will be voting, like I will, to sack Sadiq Khan after eight years of failure. The public out there do not need me to tell them that London and the surrounding counties cannot afford another four years of Sadiq Khan and Labour running London. The plans to toll the Blackwall tunnel and install cameras on small residential closes and roads shows that ULEZ is not the end of the Mayor’s desire to hammer motorists in Bexley and outer London—people can look up Project Detroit themselves.
On 2 May, Londoners will be able to vote for Susan Hall and vote for change, to make London better and safer for everybody. People in Greater London do not need me to tell them who is on their side; they will see it with their own eyes as the Labour party desperately tries to block this Bill.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on an issue that is of the utmost importance for my constituents. I draw all Members’ attention to Bill No. 12 on the Order Paper, which is my private Member’s Bill, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (Amendment) Bill. It is about clean air, taking action on mould and giving private landlords more powers to take action—and ensuring that they have to take action. My Bill is connected to the Bill we are debating, because my constituents often suffer the double whammy of living in poorer, cheaper housing that is on a main road. They are very unlikely to have a car—the majority of my constituents do not—and are more likely to suffer from the effects of air pollution and to have mould in their homes. Many of my constituents talk to me about this issue, so if we get to my Bill, I hope all Members will support it.
John McDonnell
Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be better for us to spend parliamentary time looking at a comprehensive strategy that tackles air pollution and respiratory conditions, rather than going down this rabbit hole today? The issue she raises with her legislation, which I hope the Government will support, could be a foundation stone for us to tackle the problems of housing and respiratory conditions.
Fleur Anderson
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. There are many better things we could be discussing here than trying to turn back the clock on a progressive and life-changing policy that has been brought in by the Mayor. We could be discussing the Renters (Reform) Bill or action on respiratory health—or a whole number of things that my constituents would like to see us discuss instead of this Bill.
I object to the principle of the Bill, as well as its substance. The Bill proposes to
“amend the boundaries of the Greater London Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone; to provide that Transport for London may not make an order amending those boundaries without the consent of the Secretary of State”,
and legislates for connected purposes. In London, we voted to have a Mayor and voted for who that Mayor would be, and we support our Mayor in London making decisions about our roads. Parliament granted the power to make decisions on London-wide road charging schemes to the Mayor. This Bill is trying to take powers away from the Mayor—it is playing politics with our constitutional arrangements, and it is quite clear why.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is particularly disingenuous, because a number of the air quality mandate changes are the results of European and national decisions? It is not just Sadiq Khan or other people unilaterally doing it; it is being done because the whole of Britain needs to improve its air quality, which is currently producing real and harmful effects for our constituents.
Fleur Anderson
I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised that point. The Government have asked councils in Bristol and Birmingham, for example, to bring in clean air zones, and have asked for one to be brought in in London as well. I hope the Government will not be supporting the Bill today, because it would be against their policy of giving more people clean air across the country.
Any proposed changes to devolved powers would pose a threat to the existing powers of the Mayor and the London Assembly, and to those of devolved institutions across the country. It starts here—where will it go? We cannot just have the Government taking back powers willy-nilly and whenever they like because a mayoral election is due to take place in a few weeks’ time. The Mayor of London introduced the world’s first 24-hour ULEZ in central London in 2019 to bring in health benefits, and expanded it in 2021. That expansion brought the health benefits that were the result of the first ULEZ to 5 million more people and 87,000 more children. Rolling that back would mean worse air for those 5 million people and 87,000 children. I cannot believe that the Government would support this Bill.
The ULEZ is a highly targeted scheme that is set to disincentivise frequent trips in non-compliant vehicles. It certainly had that effect on me: I had a diesel car, which I bought back in the days when we were told that diesel was a better choice for the environment. I realised that it was not, and the fact that the ULEZ was coming speeded up my decision to not have a car. We do not have a car as a family—we have not had one for three years. I do not think we would have made that jump if it had not been for the ULEZ coming in. We thought we would see how it went, and it is going fine. We do not have a car; we do not need one, and I am not driving around in a car that is polluting the air in Putney.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Is it not also the case that even if my hon. Friend were to have a car, the vast majority of cars—as she well knows and as has been mentioned in this debate, which I have been listening to—are ULEZ compliant? I have a 10-year-old petrol car. I do not drive it in London, because I am not a maniac, but if I did I would not be ULEZ charged, because it is a small, lightweight petrol car. The vast majority are perfectly fine.
Fleur Anderson
I absolutely agree. A Member asked earlier for data on the ULEZ scheme and the effect it has had. Data from the first month’s report shows a 10 percentage point increase in vehicle compliance in outer London, with 95% of vehicles seen driving in London on an average day now meeting the ULEZ standards—up from 85% when the consultation was launched in May 2022. That means that vehicle compliance rates in outer London have nearly caught up with inner London, which is having a good effect.
The decision to expand the ULEZ was a difficult one for the Mayor, but it was felt necessary to save lives, protect Londoners’ health and tackle the climate crisis. I agree, because in 2019, toxic air contributed to around 4,000 premature deaths in London. Just because we cannot see the smog—as was the case back in the days of the great smog that led to the first clean air Act—does not mean that it is not all around us. We can see the impact in our hospitals. It is mainly parents and doctors who write to me in support of the legislation that the Mayor has introduced to clean up our air, because it is doctors who see the effects of air pollution: rising levels of asthma, cancer, heart disease, stroke and dementia in our hospitals. If no further action is taken to reduce air pollution, over the next 30 years around 550,000 Londoners will develop diseases related to poor air quality. That will cost the NHS and social care system in London £10.4 billion by 2050. Air pollution costs lives, but it also costs our public services. The first, inner-London ULEZ contributed to a 30% reduction in children being admitted to hospital with asthma. I think those results speak for themselves. How can we argue against that?
Taking action on the climate emergency and clean air was one of the reasons I became an MP. One of the first things I did when I became an MP was set up the Putney Environment Commission, a rather grand-sounding group of local people who want to take action locally, nationally and internationally. We had several open meetings to decide what we would do. One of the first things we did was run Putney’s first ever clean air fair. It was clean air that everyone wanted to take action on. Hundreds of people attended the fair. There were stalls from brilliant local organisations, including Friends of Wandsworth Park, Friends of Wimbledon Park, Little Ninja UK, Wandsworth Living Streets, the Roehampton Garden Society, Putney Community Gardens, the Putney Society, Friends of the Earth Wandsworth, the Putney Pollution Busters, Green the Grid and Cycle Buddies. Hon. Members can see how many local organisations we have that really care about clean air.
The number of residents who contributed to the event, and who came to check out the stalls on the day and ask what they could do or how they could push for more action, shows the huge concern in Putney, Roehampton, Southfields and Wandsworth town for cleaner air. We will be holding a second fair this year on 11 May, to which I invite all Members here today. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you would like to come to that event, it is at Wandsworth park. We would love to see you there. We will be talking about action that everyone can take on clean air, about saving our green spaces, about active travel and about green buses—all the ways in which, alongside the ULEZ, action can be taken.
On so many occasions while out canvassing I speak to parents who introduce me to their child who they say has asthma. It happens time after time. So many children in the schools I visit are now affected. I went to a school in Roehampton recently and asked the headteacher what the main issues were. I was expecting to talk about the curriculum and Ofsted—we did talk about that—or other issues, but she said that the main issues were mould and air quality, which were keeping children off school. She has had to introduce adaption strategies in the school to take action on that. It is horrifying that that is what she is saying in this day and age.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about active travel. I am a massive fan of active travel, as I know colleagues present are too, but if we are to get more people walking, cycling, wheeling and running, we need decent air quality in every town and city across the country. That is why it is so important to have things that bring air quality back to an acceptable standard.
Fleur Anderson
Absolutely. We want more people cycling and walking, to take cars off the roads and make them less congested for those who have to drive. We want to see an impact on active travel, but one that supports the businesses on the roadside in our community. It is unfair on the majority of constituents who do not have a car and those who live on the main roads in less expensive housing to bear the burden of air pollution.
Mr French
The hon. Lady is making a fair point about the impact of air pollution on the main roads. Does she therefore agree that it is somewhat strange that the largest investment that the Labour Mayor of London will have made during his term as Mayor will be the £2.2 billion Silvertown road tunnel, which will encourage heavy goods vehicles to drive along the A2 and into central London? That is why the Green party and the Conservatives are opposed to it.
Fleur Anderson
I would point to others, such as the Superloop—the new buses that will go around London—and the Elizabeth line. The Mayor will be able to invest more in public services because of the revenue from the ULEZ scheme, enabling people to travel on our public transport. That is the action we need to take to really clean up our air.
I have even taken to the streets for Clean Air Day to measure the clean air—or the polluted air—on Putney High Street. I used an ultra-fine particle counter, lent to me by the environmental research group at Imperial College London. It was amazing to take the counter out for the day and see the effects of air pollution. As I went down some of our main roads—Upper Richmond Road, Lower Richmond Road and Putney High Street—I saw a spike when buses and polluting cars came by. I thought there would be a constant level of dirty and polluted air, but it went up and down. I could see the impact of diesel buses and polluting cars. I thought of all the times that I had taken my children to primary school in Wandsworth over 15 years, walking along very polluted roads. All that time, it was damaging their lungs. This was worrying for me to see and for my constituents to know about.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
My hon. Friend is talking about damage to lungs, but will she also mention the damage that air pollution does to the brain? These microscopic particles and nanoparticles, such as PM2.5, can cross the blood-brain barrier and can cause long-term developmental problems for children that mean the brain never functions properly, even if the air is later cleaned up. That is why it is important to get it right now.
Fleur Anderson
Air pollution is like a ticking timebomb for our children. It has been shown that children who live on polluted roads in inner London have smaller lungs, and that their lungs will never fully grow. Pollution also has an impact on the brain, potentially including dementia in later life.
We owe it to our children to have this increased ULEZ zone to clean up our air. We have recently made progress on Putney High Street. Since I did the monitoring, we have a larger proportion of green buses—80%—which has made a significant difference. We need to get to 100%, and the Mayor has a plan. We need this robust action for the sake of our health and children.
Both in this Chamber and on the Environment Bill Committee, I have called many times for a new clean air Act. Mayors, including Sadiq Khan in London, need to introduce measures so that we are able to see an impact across the country. According to Asthma + Lung UK, more than 600,000 people in Greater London have asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and nearly 60% of them live in outer London. Outer-London Members need to be concerned about their constituents and the impact on their health.
I am pleased with the Mayor’s action, including the increase to more than 1,400 zero-emission buses on London’s roads. He has also rapidly expanded London’s fleet of green buses, with the capital now boasting more green buses than any other city in western Europe. He has also delivered a 170% increase in the number of public electric vehicle charging points, with London now boasting more than 11,000—a third of the UK’s total.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that the Mayor of London has consistently demonstrated that he is doing everything in his power, under London’s devolution settlement, to improve air quality for Londoners? Does she share my concern that he is somewhat hamstrung by the policies of a Conservative Government who, for example, take the vehicle excise duty paid by London residents and spend it elsewhere in the country, and by the fact that London is the only city of its size and scale that has a public transport system that relies entirely on fares and charges for its income? The Mayor of London is showing leadership where he can, but he is entirely constrained by a Conservative Government who do not care about the lung health of Londoners.
Fleur Anderson
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend is right that a fair amount of the vehicle excise duty is not being spent in London. Despite being hamstrung in many ways, the Mayor of London has been world-leading—he is going around the world to talk about the action he is taking on clean air. What we really need is the Mayor of London being able to pull in the same direction as the Government. We need a national strategy that goes as far and as fast on clean air as the Mayor has done in London. That is why it would be good if there was not only a Labour Mayor, but a London Government, because they would be able to work hand in hand to achieve that. That would be good for all of us wherever we go, and not just in London, but across the country.
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady criticised the funding in answer to her hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), but surely she is aware that the Department for Transport has given £6.4 billion in funding to the Mayor of London. That is not insignificant by any stretch.
Fleur Anderson
I thank the Minister for raising that, but that is not equivalent to the amount actually raised by Londoners and that goes to the rest of the country, which we understand, but that should be a factor when talking about how the ULEZ money, for example, is paid. Further to the Minister’s point, there are the concerns about those areas outside ULEZ that do not receive the same amount of funding. They are represented by their local representatives, who should have a strategy for responding to ULEZ being expanded to those areas of London as well.
The Putney Society in my constituency is a local amenity group of fantastic local people. They have chosen to concentrate on clean air because it is one of the issues of most concern. As a result of concern over the levels of atmospheric pollution in Putney, especially on the high street, the society has carried out a series of citizen science exercises over the past 10 years or so to measure the levels of nitrogen dioxide. Those have been one-off exercises measuring pollution for a month at a time. With the generous help and support of the local environmental health team, they have been able to mount a series of monthly tests, enabling them to see what the levels look like in the longer term. The highest level they found was—not surprisingly—at the northern end of Putney High Street, where it was 62.9 micrograms and 57.6 micrograms per cubic metre of air. In Putney Bridge Road, it was almost as high at 50.7 micrograms. Putney Cross and Upper Richmond Road were both in the mid-40s.
To put those results in context, we need to bear in mind that, although the agreed statutory maximum level is 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air, that is essentially an interim target level, whereas the agreed World Health Organisation safe level is 10 micrograms per cubic metre. Consequently, the levels that Putney Society recorded are still disturbingly high. I went into that detail because I do not think the high levels we have on our London roads are properly acknowledged in the Bill. Reining back the good results of ULEZ to a smaller area would mean leaving those larger areas outside the South Circular, which cuts through my constituency, and people in the whole of that area with those high levels of air pollution. That is simply not acceptable.
I support the implementation of ULEZ because we have a public health emergency. I am concerned about the impact on the health of children and vulnerable adults, so action is needed. I do not want to die earlier, and I do not want any of my constituents to die earlier, but that is what is happening. The existing ULEZ has been proven to change behaviour, and we need that change in behaviour to clean our air so that more Londoners will benefit. I welcome the extension of the scrappage scheme, which happened after consultation, for low-income and disabled Londoners and for charities to have their minibuses exempted. I welcome the additional time given to charities and small businesses to comply with ULEZ. I support and wish to see in the Bill no more bus route reductions, improvements in public transport and 100% green buses. I welcome investment in better public services as a result of the fines charged by ULEZ and the introduction of the Superloop. We also need to invest in more safe cycle routes, safe cycle storage and local cycle delivery bikes. We are proud in Putney to have an e-bike delivery scheme for our local businesses, which picks up waste and gets rid of it. We also have more local bus delivery routes available.
We need to make clear what is being funded by the ULEZ fund so that Londoners see the benefit of investment in local services and cycle provision as well as knowing that the air is healthier and that their lives will be healthier. I have been inspired by parents campaigning for change, including Mums for Lungs, which is based locally, and Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, the mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who died of asthma 11 years ago. If I had a daughter die in such tragic circumstances, I do not know what I would have done, but she has been so brave, courageous and inspirational in finding out and exposing the reasons for Ella’s death—the high levels of pollution—and in taking so much action to counter that issue. I also thank the Putney Society, Putney Pollution Busters, the London Sustainability Exchange, King’s College London, Clean Air in London and the Healthy Air Coalition for all the work that they do exposing pollution and taking action together for local people.
This is a huge issue for people across my constituency and across London. We cannot start to meet clean air targets without ULEZ. People in outer London are disproportionately affected, as more older people live in outer London. Recent analysis by Asthma and Lung UK has shown that the UK has the worst death rate for lung conditions in western Europe. Surely that demands urgent action, not reining in our action.
Toxic air is also shortening lives. Every year, 36,000 people in the UK die a premature death as a result of toxic air, and 4,000 of them are in London. We can see that we need action in London, but we also need it across the country. Let us look at outer London. In Dartford, for example, the equivalent of 66 deaths a year are attributable to long-term exposure to particulate air pollution. This is not just an inner-London issue; we need ULEZ expansion to the outer London boroughs.
Air pollution is killing us, and children are particularly vulnerable, but poor communities and black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are the worst affected. Eleven Londoners a day die prematurely because of air pollution. In Wandsworth—my constituents’ borough —129 deaths every year are attributable to the effects of toxic air. Before the ULEZ expansion, which the Bill would undo, only a small part of my constituency was covered by the ultra low emission zone, because the south circular cuts through my constituency. My constituents faced a postcode lottery, with only those on one side of the road covered by the clean air zone. Why should only some of my constituents, who live on the right side of an arbitrary boundary, be able to breathe cleaner air? It is far better to have a larger area covered that is much more consistent with where the polluted air is. If we sit back and do nothing to reduce air pollution, about 550,000 Londoners will develop diseases.
I have talked about the impact on small businesses. It is an issue that I have raised with small businesses on Putney High Street, who have said that the dirty air is holding back their businesses. We want Hammersmith bridge reopened—I cannot resist saying that and will do so whenever I can—but we also need the continuation of the ULEZ.
A report commissioned by the Clean Air Fund concluded that improving air quality could bring an annual boost of £1.6 billion to the UK economy through 3 million additional working days and a reduction in early retirement. The evidence shows us that ULEZ works, and that it has been hugely successful, with 5 million more people expected to breathe clean air.
I end with the words of a constituent—a doctor—who wrote to me and said:
“This Bill will send the capital backwards and is counter to the devolutionary system of our politics. Just as we are beginning to see the benefits of ULEZ, I am dismayed…that this Private Member’s Bill will make already poor air quality worse, harming Londoners’ health—particularly that of children. To make matters worse, the Bill takes the important decision about the air we breathe away from us as Londoners, and undermines our democratically elected mayor—who is accountable to us and will shortly be tested in the May elections.”
That is where such a decision should be made. I urge all hon. Members to put our health first, to support Mayor Sadiq Khan’s action to clean up our air, and to oppose the Bill.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
I am disappointed that the Opposition are using all the available time, to try to talk the Bill out, but I am not going to play that game. I will keep my speech short. I back the Bill on behalf of all the hard-working people of Watford who have to go into London to do their jobs: those who work at the hospital, and all the entertainers and musicians.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
It has been good to be in the Chamber to discuss the Bill. I have listened intently to Members on both sides of the debate. I must begin by emphasising that Labour Front Benchers do not support the Bill—as must be obvious—and reject it in its entirety. There are a number of reasons for that, but I shall focus on the two main reasons.
First, the Bill represents nothing other than a poor attempt at political point-scoring from a Government who are running out of ideas and, ironically, running out of road. As for the second reason, you may be wondering, Mr Deputy Speaker, why a Welsh Member is speaking out on a Bill relating to Greater London. I am a proud Unionist—I believe in our Union—but I am also proud to represent a devolved nation. I believe wholeheartedly in devolution and the benefit that it brings to the United Kingdom, and that is why I have felt so compelled to speak out today. In my view, the most worrying aspect of the Bill is the fact that it represents yet another—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I just want to clarify that the hon. Lady is speaking not in an official capacity, but on behalf of her constituents.
Alex Davies-Jones
Yes, absolutely. I am speaking on behalf of all the people in Pontypridd.
As I was saying, the Bill represents yet another devastating attack on devolution. This Government repeatedly attack devolution. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 rode roughshod over the devolved Governments, and the Bill seems to do the same. It also attacks the ability of the democratically elected Mayor of London to meet legally binding air pollution targets.
Let me explain my first point in more detail. The UK Government’s approach to clean air zones has been completely inconsistent. They clearly do not feel strongly about this issue. They view this as an opportunity to politicise a deeply important issue with life-threatening implications—an issue that should have cross-party support, and one about which the vast majority of the United Kingdom feels strongly. I am referring, of course, to our environment, our environmental commitments, and the health and safety of all our citizens. This is either an instance of the Government turning their back on those vital matters, or pure political point-scoring. Which is it? Perhaps it is both.
Let me highlight the hypocrisy of this Government, in case I have not been clear enough so far. They have required and indeed encouraged the introduction of many other clean air zones across the country. They have supported and continue to support those zones, and provided cash for scrappage in Bristol, Bath, Sheffield, Birmingham, Portsmouth and other areas. Given that they have encouraged and required the introduction of clean air zones across the country, why not in London? Why is London the outlier? Of course, Labour Members know exactly why. They also understand that improving and investing in other areas of transport might remove the need for clean air zones. For example, investing in our public transport and ensuring a better, more reliable and more affordable service would reduce the number of people on the roads.
There are other ways to help us reach our environmental goals, and Labour knows that the Bill is not the answer. Labour is completely committed to protecting our environment and tackling the climate crisis to give our children the future and opportunities that they deserve. A Labour Government would decarbonise the economy and ensure that we all had safe air to breathe. If the Government will not listen to the overwhelming evidence, and the environmental facts—if that is not enough for them to understand all this—they must at least attempt to empathise with the health case, because let us be clear: toxic air pollution is a public health crisis. Air pollution is linked to about 4,000 premature deaths a year in London, as we have heard repeatedly this afternoon. It leads to children growing up with stunted lungs, and is linked to the development of diseases, ranging from asthma to heart disease and dementia. Surely that alone is enough reason to support clean air zones. As for the practicalities, the vast majority of London cars—19 in every 20 cars seen driving in Greater London—are now ULEZ compliant.
If the public understand the importance of our environmental commitments and are willing to comply with the scheme, why are the Government trying to change it now? What possible motive could they have for doing so? Labour welcomes the decision of Transport for London and the Mayor of London to expand the scrappage scheme. Since 21 August 2023, every Londoner with a non-compliant vehicle has been eligible for a £2,000 grant to replace their vehicle, although central Government provide no financial support to the Mayor of London.
It is important that tackling air pollution does not place an undue burden on those already struggling with the Tory cost of living crisis. Families enduring that crisis are sick with anxiety, and their local services are under immense pressure. I see that in my community, and I hear directly from my constituents about the devastating hardships that the Tory cost of living crisis continues to place on them and their family, whether it is because of mortgage payments going up, the cost of food, fuel and energy prices continuing to rise, or being unable to afford that much-longed-for family holiday. All those things are pushing families to the brink. Let us be frank: we know where the blame firmly lies—
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Recommendations of the Infected Blood Inquiry
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of a number of constituents in Batley and Spen who have contacted me about the contaminated blood scandal, including Caroline Elliott from Liversedge and Jonathan Harvey from Birkenshaw. It states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to implement the recommendations in the Second Interim Report of the Infected Blood Inquiry without delay.
And the petitioners remain, etc.”
The Chancellor stated in Treasury questions just this week:
“The Government have an absolute moral responsibility, not just to pay the compensation owed, but to pay it as speedily as possible.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2024; Vol. 747, c. 804.]
With two victims of the scandal dying on average every week, the Government must get on and finally deliver the long overdue justice that my constituents and families across the country deserve. It is on their behalf that I present this petition.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom
Declares that people who received infected blood and who have suffered as a consequence have, along with their families, waited far too long for redress.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to implement the recommendations in the Second Interim Report of the Infected Blood Inquiry without delay.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002943]
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Today the British Youth Council has declared insolvency. As you may know, the British Youth Council runs the UK Youth Parliament, which sits here in this Chamber and holds the Youth Select Committee in this House. The organisation has been around for more than 50 years. It was set up by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to represent young people around the world, and has been supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Since it runs programmes in partnership with the House, will you and Mr Speaker inquire how these programmes can continue, so that young people can continue to be given a voice in Britain, and so that if we cannot save the British Youth Council from insolvency, we can at least save these programmes?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. I think we all value the work of that organisation, particularly when the Youth Parliament sits here in the Chamber. They are the parliamentarians of tomorrow, after all. I will make certain that this is brought to the attention of Mr Speaker, and I will inform the hon. Member of his response.
Kettering General Hospital: Redevelopment
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for her attendance and I thank Mr Speaker for granting me permission to hold this special debate. This is my 12th special parliamentary debate on Kettering General Hospital since May 2007; seven of those debates have been since September 2019, so the House is familiar with the subject. The reason I keep applying for debates on Kettering General Hospital is that the redevelopment of the hospital is the No. 1 local priority for all residents in Kettering, and for me as the local Member of Parliament.
Our hospital is a much-loved local institution. It has been in the town of Kettering since the year of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897. That was a great year for Kettering as not only was the hospital established, but so was the much-loved newspaper, The Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. And here we are, 127 years on, with an extremely exciting programme of massive investment going into the hospital. It is a really important issue for Kettering, which is why I keep up the pressure on the Government to ensure that the redevelopment programme is delivered and succeeds.
As the local Member of Parliament, I am pleased that Kettering General Hospital’s place in the national new hospital programme has been secured. That programme will see more than 40 hospitals redeveloped across the country. For KGH, it means £500 million of capital investment, with a fully funded, improved and expanded hospital on the same site. This is the biggest ever capital investment in KGH in its 127-year history. Initial enabling works have already started and the project is due for completion in just six years, by 2030.
All of us who live locally know how important KGH is to everyone who lives in the area. As the local MP, I have made it my main priority to make the case for this £500 million of extra investment. By 2030, we should have an improved and expanded hospital on the same site, the biggest ever new investment in our local hospital, and probably the biggest ever capital investment in Kettering itself. It will be of huge benefit to local people for many years to come.
May I start by acknowledging the Government’s commitment to the hospital? This pledge represents a massive amount of money. On top of the £500 million, the Government also effectively injected £167 million into the hospital by writing off its entire debt in 2020. The path to the £500 million project has been complicated and tortuous. It started with a pledge of £46 million made in 2019 to redevelop the A&E into an urgent care hub on the site. In the same year, £350 million was pledged for the hospital rebuild. The combined total was £396 million, but we have now secured £500 million and climbing, so the investment is getting bigger and the ambitions are getting greater. The pledge is no longer to replace the A&E with an urgent care hub, but to redevelop the entire hospital. That is hugely welcome and very significant for the local area.
We need this investment because Kettering and north Northamptonshire are among the fastest growing places in the whole country. The hospital serves the population of north Northamptonshire and south Leicestershire, where the growth in the local population has been almost double the national average over recent years. The latest Office for National Statistics data estimate above average percentage population growth of up to 40% over the next 30 years. Corby, which is next door to Kettering, has the country’s highest birth rate. The hospital expects a 21% increase in the number of over-80s in the local area in the next five to 10 years. The area as a whole is committed to at least 35,000 new houses over the next decade, and the local population in north Northamptonshire is set to rise by some 84,000 to over 400,000 people.
The accident and emergency unit already sees more than 300 patients every single day in a department that is sized to safely see only 110, so the pressures on it are acute. Basically, the A&E is full. It was first constructed in 1994, 30 years ago, to cope with just 45,000 attendances each year, but 170,000 attendances are expected by 2045. Seventy per cent of the buildings on the main site are more than 30 years old, and there is a maintenance backlog of more than £40 million. Sixty per cent of the hospital estate is rated either poor or bad, and local people all know that investment in our local hospital is badly needed. With credit to the Government, they have rightly accepted that, which is why KGH is part of the new hospital programme.
The plans to rebuild Kettering General Hospital are on track and are progressing faster than many similar schemes across the country. The plan is to rebuild KGH on the same site, moving the main services into two new six-storey buildings located next door to each other. The Government have allocated over £500 million to fund these works, including up to £50 million for the new urgent care hub to replace the A&E and just under £50 million for the new power plant to power the new hospital.
The inspirational director of strategy at Kettering General Hospital, Polly Grimmett, recently told North Northamptonshire Council’s health and scrutiny committee in January that the proposals for the new hospital to remain on the same site made progress
“a lot simpler and a lot easier”
than other schemes. She said:
“When you look at some of the other 40 schemes across the UK that were actually ahead of us initially, they slowed down and we sped up, because they have been stuck in public consultation for quite some time.”
The difference with Kettering is that it has a local development consent order to do the works; it owns the land. There are not the same problems that other sites are experiencing. Polly went on to say that
“it’s a scheme that’s fairly simple, won’t get stuck in the mire and can progress well.”
She said that KGH has moved to be “near the front” of other hospital builds in the running.
The first step in the redevelopment will see the new power plant being built on the site. This will replace the temporary steam boilers, put in as a temporary solution 12 years ago, which currently sit on flatbed lorry platforms in the hospital car park and can regularly be seen sneezing and spluttering as they power the hospital. They are in urgent need of replacement, which is what the new energy centre will do.
The first of the six-storey hospital buildings in the main scheme will be built in car park A, in the centre of the site, with some staff parking sadly being lost temporarily during that time, and nearby NHS office space will be demolished. Once building 1 is operational, the second phase can begin, which will include the new main entrance facing Rothwell Road.
The main works on the main building can be expected to start in 2026. An important part of the scheme is to keep the hospital running during the construction period. The first part of the scheme will be the energy plant to power the expanded hospital. That really is the main focus of my remarks in the debate today. The preparatory works on the hospital are under way, but I seek confirmation that we can expect spades in the ground to start the building of the energy plant sometime this summer. I hope the Minister can give that reassurance to me and local residents, who are keen to see work actually starting on the site.
The redevelopment of the hospital has been made more urgent by the discovery in February of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in the maternity wing. I know that where some of the other hospitals of the 40 in the new hospital programme have discovered RAAC, their investment profiles have been speeded up. Very sadly, Kettering now also has RAAC—not to anything like the same extent as some other hospitals, but it is badly affecting the maternity and gynaecology wing. RAAC has been found in the roof where the maternity block is currently housed. It has been deemed unsafe, and the entire top floor has therefore been lost. It is also known from a previous building assessment that the building contains asbestos and is deemed unsuitable for long-term repair. As such, could the Minister provide me with some reassurance that the investment profile for the rebuild can be speeded up due to the discovery of RAAC? That is an additional factor that was not realised when the original approval was given.
My understanding, which I would like the Minister to kindly confirm, is that ground investigation works are currently under way and are likely to be completed by the end of this month. I think we can expect site hoardings and site offices to be erected next month, which will have some impact on parking on site; that some temporary generators are likely to be installed in May; and that drainage diversions will also be starting. If the Minister could give me some assurance that in the summer we can expect a start to the construction of the energy power plant itself, that would be appreciated. I also understand that there are to be high-voltage infrastructure works—basically, a cable being laid from the Field Street substation under the railway bridge to the hospital—because of the extra power requirements that the hospital will have.
The business case approval process for all the hospitals in these schemes is tortuous. There are three stages that have to be gone through, and each stage takes at least three months for approval by the new hospital programme team and NHS England. Can I have some reassurance from the Minister that if the hospital gets its final business case in—which is due in June—it could be turned around in a fortnight rather than three months, so that we can get the funds in place and the building under way? Can I also have some reassurance that not only the approval process from the new hospital programme team, but the approval process from NHS England, will be expedited? Lots of boxes have to be ticked for the funds to flow, and residents are really keen to see the work under way.
I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for being in the Chair, and to Mr Speaker for allowing me to hold this debate. In closing, I simply ask the Minister whether she would be kind enough to facilitate a meeting for me with the Hospitals Minister, the noble Lord Markham—who has previously been kind enough to visit the hospital—so that I can discuss with him the details of the works that will be taking place over the next few weeks and months.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this important debate. He tirelessly campaigns for Kettering, particularly for the new hospital there, and firmly holds Ministers’ feet to the fire on this issue.
I reassure my hon. Friend that the Government remain absolutely committed to a new hospital for Kettering, and that a number of milestones are being met. As he pointed out, the trust is currently developing its refreshed strategic outline business case, supported by the new hospital programme team, to make sure that it aligns with our national approach of standardising all our new hospitals to the Hospital 2.0 model. We expect a submission to the Department for the wider hospital work later this year.
Mr Hollobone
I thank the Minister for the start of her response, which has been very constructive. I support the Hospital 2.0 programme and its standardised design of the 40 new hospitals—that is great. Kettering General Hospital has already submitted its first two business cases for the main scheme. Instead of having to resubmit them all over again, please could it simply submit an addendum, so that it does not have to reinvent the wheel?
Maria Caulfield
I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point, particularly given the issue he raised about RAAC being discovered on the maternity and gynae floors. I will take that point to the Hospitals Minister in the other place and the team, and I will put in his request to meet the Minister to discuss this. I understand the frustration that comes when some work has been done already, and that it takes time for the trust, which urgently wants to get on and construct the new hospital. I will certainly take that away after the debate.
I reassure my hon. Friend, his constituents, the patients who use Kettering General Hospital and the staff who work there that the new hospital will be in place as soon as possible and will meet the 2030 deadline. I recognise the urgency. As part of the works, the energy centre is crucial to the development of the wider hospital scheme. We heard very eloquently from my hon. Friend this afternoon—he has also explained this to me and other Ministers—that this is not just a crucial part of the new hospital plans, but that the current system was only ever meant to be a temporary measure; he described how fragile it is, so I recognise the urgency of starting work on the new energy centre.
My hon. Friend will know that early works have commenced on site. Ground clearance and site surveys are under way to prepare for the cabling that is needed to provide the energy centre’s power once it is completed. Hoardings will shortly go up to allow more extensive works to start on site. I can reassure my hon. Friend that his constituents will start to see progress on that very shortly. The trust has made progress, recently reaching a new connection agreement with National Grid and agreeing the reserve capacity needed for the energy centre. That is a vital step in securing the new hospital’s energy requirements for the future and in dealing with the imminent problem of the temporary energy facility that is keeping the hospital going.
The final piece of the jigsaw to get the construction of the energy centre under way is the full business case that the trust needs to submit. I can reassure my hon. Friend that that we are working with the new hospital programme team on this. We expect the case to be submitted in June. The Hospitals Minister has committed that, subject to it meeting the cost threshold and certain criteria, we can estimate a turnaround time for approval of two weeks, so hopefully we will start to see the construction of the energy centre this summer. I hope that gives my hon. Friend and his constituents reassurance.
Mr Hollobone
I thank the Minister for her reassurance. The purpose of these debates is to put pressure on the Government—that is the way Parliament works—but would she join me in applying gentle pressure on the trust? The sooner it can get the full business case in, the sooner the thing can be approved and the funds can start to flow.
Maria Caulfield
Absolutely. I have spoken to the Hospitals Minister on the specific issue of Kettering, and he is in agreement; if the trust can keep us updated with the timeline and let Ministers know as soon as it submits the business case, he has given the commitment to try to turn it around within a couple of weeks. I would gently say to the trust that it is in its interest to get the case to us as soon as possible.
Mr Hollobone
I thank both my hon. Friend and the Hospitals Minister for their involvement. It is right, is it not, that this two-week turnaround is a novel feature of the new hospital programme? It is a groundbreaking approval process that will turn the application round that quickly. Where Kettering leads, others surely will follow.
Maria Caulfield
Absolutely. I take hon. and right hon. Members’ feedback about their frustration at how clearing the red tape in this process sometimes takes longer than the construction. My hon. Friend is right: this will be a novel way forward and could open the door for other trusts that are proactive in securing approval for their business cases in a more timely manner.
In addition to the energy centre, the Government are releasing funds to support the trust overall for the new hospital that we wish to build at Kettering, both for the development of the business case more widely and for some early critical works to prepare the site for main construction. By the end of this financial year—which is early next week—the scheme will have received over £5 million in development funding. That includes the release of over £1.9 million in fees to support with the design, planning permission and a business case for a new multi-storey car park. Further funding has also been released to support the development of business cases for the reprovision of accommodation, which will be needed during construction, the data centre and construction area and access roads, which will also be required.
I hope I have reassured my hon. Friend that we are doing extra work, in addition to the energy centre. We expect to receive the full business case and submissions over the course of this year. Again, we urge the trust to be as swift as it can with that, so that we can make some assessments and decisions as quickly as possible. Of course we will keep my hon. Friend updated as the scheme progresses and as further funding is released to the project, because we want to stay on track to complete the main construction of the new hospital by 2030.
In the short time I have, I want to update the House on the wider hospitals programme, because I know that hon. Members are often interested in the progress we are making. I am pleased to say that four of our new hospitals are now open to patients: the Northern Centre for Cancer Care in Newcastle, the Royal Liverpool Hospital, the Louisa Martindale, also known as the 3Ts hospital, in Brighton, and the Northgate and Ferndene Hospitals in Northumberland. A further four hospitals are expected to be open by the end of the next financial year: Salford Royal major trauma centre, the Dyson cancer centre in Bath, the national rehabilitation centre in Loughborough, and the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital. A further 18 hospitals are in construction or well under way towards completion. We also have other capital programmes, including over 100 rapid diagnostic centres that are open, 100 new surgical hubs that are either open or in construction, and 160 mental health crisis centres—all capital projects that will transform healthcare up and down England.
In conclusion, I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering. He has raised this issue, quite rightly, to hold our feet to the fire. He is fighting tooth and nail for his constituents to get the new hospital up and running by 2030. The energy centre will be the first major part of that construction. If the trust can get us the business case by June, the Hospitals Minister has committed to try to turn that round within a couple of weeks. That will be the start of the wider programme for the new hospital at Kettering. We will absolutely keep my hon. Friend updated, and the new hospital programme team will continue to do all it can to meet the challenges of delivering such a large infrastructure project, to ensure that staff and patients have world-class facilities in Kettering.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statement
Scottish Government and Welsh Government Funding
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Laura Trott)
In addition to changes in funding at supplementary estimates 2023-24, and in line with the statement of funding policy, the Welsh Government have chosen to draw down £265.056 million in resource departmental expenditure limit excluding depreciation, £47.230 million in capital DEL (general) and £37.420 million in capital DEL (financial transactions) from the Wales reserve in 2023-24. £million Scottish Government Welsh Government Resource DEL excluding depreciation1 37,608.692 16,718.329 Capital DEL (general) 6,073.634 3,079.192 Capital DEL (financial transactions) 349.926 124.682 Total DEL 44,032.252 19,922.203
The Scottish Government have confirmed that they wish to carry forward £14.758 million in capital DEL (general) outside of the Scotland reserve and defer a reduction of £52.838 million in capital DEL (financial transactions) from 2023-24 to 2024-25.
The flexibility to carry forward funding outside the reserve and to defer the reduction in capital DEL (financial transactions) was exceptionally agreed to help the Scottish Government and Welsh Government to manage late changes to their budgets.
Revised 2023-24 funding is as follows:
1Due to the scale of tax devolution in Scotland, Scottish Government DEL funding is shown excluding tax and welfare block grant adjustments. Welsh Government DEL funding is shown including tax block grant adjustments.
[HCWS373]
House of Lords
Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill [HL]
Friday 22nd March 2024
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill [HL] 2023-24 View all Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill [HL] 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Holmes of Richmond
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I declare my technology interests as adviser to Boston Ltd. I thank all noble Lords who have signed up to speak; I eagerly anticipate all their contributions and, indeed, hearing from my noble friend the Minister. I also thank all the organisations that got in contact with me and other noble Lords for their briefings, as well as those that took time to meet me ahead of this Second Reading debate. Noble Lords and others who would like to follow this on social media can use #AIBill #AIFutures.
If we are to secure the opportunities and control the challenges of artificial intelligence, it is time to legislate and to lead. We need something that is principles-based and outcomes-focused, with input transparent, permissioned and wherever applicable paid for and understood.
There are at last three reasons why we should legislate on this: social, democratic and economic. On reason one, the social reason, some of the greatest benefits we could secure from AI come in this space, including truly personalised education for all, and healthcare. We saw only yesterday the exciting early results from the NHS Grampian breast-screening AI programme. Then there is mobility and net zero sustainability.
Reason two is about our democracy and jurisdiction. With 40% of the world’s democracies going to the polls this year, with deepfakes, cheap fakes, misinformation and disinformation, we are in a high-threat environment for our democracy. As our 2020 Democracy and Digital Technologies Select Committee report put it, with a proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, trust will evaporate and, without trust, democracy as we know it will simply disappear.
On our jurisdiction and system of law, the UK has a unique opportunity at this moment in time. We do not have to fear being in the first mover spotlight—the EU has taken that with its Act, in all its 892 pages. The US has had the executive order but is still yet to commit fully to this phase. The UK, with our common-law tradition, respected right around the world, has such an opportunity to legislate in a way that will be adaptive, versatile and able to develop through precedent and case law.
On reason three, our economy, PwC’s AI tracker says that by 2030, there will be a 14% increase in global GDP worth $15.7 trillion. The UK must act to ensure our share of that AI boom. To take just one technology, the chatbot global market grew tenfold in just four years. The Alan Turing Institute report on AI in the public sector, which came out just this week, says that 84% of government services could benefit from AI automation in over 200 different services. Regulated markets perform better. Right-sized regulation is good for innovation and good for inward investment.
Those are the three reasons. What about three individual impacts of AI right now? What if we find ourselves on the wrong end of an AI decision in a recruitment shortlisting, the wrong end of an AI decision in being turned down for a loan, or, even worse, the wrong end of an AI decision when awaiting a liver transplant? All these are illustrations of AI impacting individuals, often when they would not even know that AI was involved. We need to put paid to the myth, the false dichotomy, that you must have heavy, rules-based regulation or a free hand—that we have to pay tribute to the cry of the frontierists in every epoque: “Don’t fence me in”. Right-sized regulation is good socially, democratically and economically. Here is the thing: AI is to human intellect what steam was to human strength. You get the picture. Steam literally changed time. It is our time to act, and that is why I bring this Bill to your Lordships’ House today.
In constructing the Bill, I have sought to consult widely, to be very cognisant of the Government’s pro-innovation White Paper, of all the great work of BCS, technology, industry, civil society and more. I wanted the Bill to be threaded through with the principles of transparency and trustworthiness; inclusion and innovation; interoperability and international focus; accountability and assurance.
Turning to the clauses, Clause 1 sets up an AI authority. Lest any noble Lord suddenly feels that I am proposing a do-it-all, huge, cumbersome regulator, I am most certainly not. In many ways, it would not be much bigger in scope than what the DSIT unit is proposing: an agile, right-sized regulator, horizontally focused to look across all existing regulators, not least the economic regulators, to assess their competency to address the opportunities and challenges presented by AI and to highlight the gaps. And there are gaps, as rightly identified by the excellent Ada Lovelace Institute report. For example, where do you go if you are on the wrong end of that AI recruitment shortlisting decision? It must have the authority, similarly, to look across all relevant legislation—consumer protection and product safety, to name but two—to assess its competency to address the challenges and opportunities presented by AI.
The AI authority must have at its heart the principles set out in Clause 2: it must be not just the custodian of those principles, but a very lighthouse for them, and it must have an educational function and a pro-innovation purpose. Many of those principles will be very recognisable; they are taken from the Government’s White Paper but put on a statutory footing. If they are good enough to be in the White Paper, we should commit to them, believe in them and know that they will be our greatest guides for the positive path forward, when put in a statutory framework. We must have everything inclusive by design, and with a proportionality thread running through all the principles, so none of them can be deployed in a burdensome way.
Clause 3 concerns sandboxes, so brilliantly developed in the UK in 2016 with the fintech regulatory sandbox. If you want a measure of its success, it is replicated in well over 50 jurisdictions around the world. It enables innovation in a safe, regulated, supported environment: real customers, real market, real innovations, but in a splendid sandbox concept.
Clause 4 sets up the AI responsible officer, to be conceived of not as a person but as a role, to ensure the safe, ethical and unbiased deployment of AI in her or his organisation. It does not have to be burdensome, or a whole person in a start-up; but that function needs to be performed, with reporting requirements under the Companies Act that are well understood by any business. Again, crucially, it must be subject to that proportionality principle.
Clause 5 concerns labelling and IP, which is such a critical part of how we will get this right with AI. Labelling: so that if anybody is subject to a service or a good where AI is in the mix, it will be clearly labelled. AI can be part of the solution to providing this labelling approach. Where IP or third-party data is used, that has to be reported to the AI authority. Again, this can be done efficiently and effectively using the very technology itself. On the critical question of IP, I met with 25 organisations representing tens of thousands of our great creatives: the people that make us laugh, make us smile, challenge us, push us to places we never even knew existed; those who make music, such sweet music, where otherwise there may be silence. It is critical to understand that they want to be part of this AI transformation, but in a consented, negotiated, paid-for manner. As Dan Guthrie, director-general of the Alliance for Intellectual Property, put it, it is extraordinary that businesses together worth trillions take creatives’ IP without consent and without payment, while fiercely defending their own intellectual property. This Bill will change that.
Clause 6 concerns public engagement. For me, this is probably the most important clause in the Bill, because without public engagement, how can we have trustworthiness? People need to be able to ask, “What is in this for me? Why should I care? How is this impacting my life? How can I get involved?” We need to look at innovative ways to consult and engage. A good example, in Taiwan, is the Alignment Assemblies, but there are hundreds of novel approaches. Government consultations should have millions of responses, because this is both desirable and now, with the technology, analysable.
Clause 7 concerns interpretation. At this stage, I have drawn the definitions of AI deliberately broadly. We should certainly debate this, but as set out in Clause 7, much would and should be included in those definitions.
Clause 8 sets out the potential for regulating for offences and fines thereunder, to give teeth to so much of what I have already set out and, rightly, to pay the correct respect to all the devolved nations. So, such regulations would have to go through the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
That brings us to Clause 9, the final clause, which makes this a UK-wide Bill.
So, that is the Bill. We know how to do this. Just last year, the Electronic Trade Documents Act showed that we know how to legislate for the possibilities of these new technologies; and, my word, we know how to innovate in the UK—Turing, Lovelace, Berners-Lee, Demis at DeepMind, and so many more.
If we know how to do this, why are we not legislating? What will we know in, say, 12 months’ time that we do not know now about citizens’ rights, consumer protection, IP rights, being pro-innovation, labelling and the opportunity to transform public engagement? We need to act now, because we know what we need to know—if not now, when? The Bletchley summit last year was a success. Understandably, it focused on safety, but having done that it is imperative that we stand up all the other elements of AI already impacting people’s lives in so many ways, often without their knowledge.
Perhaps the greatest and finest learning from Bletchley is not so much the safety summit but what happened there two generations before, when a diverse team of talent gathered and deployed the technology of their day to defeat the greatest threat to our civilisation. Talent and technology brought forth light in one of the darkest hours of human history. As it was in Bletchley in the 1940s, so it is in the United Kingdom in the 2020s. It is time for human-led, human-in-the-loop, principle-based artificial intelligence. It is time to legislate and to lead; for transparency and trustworthiness, inclusion and innovation, interoperability and international focus, accountability and assurance; for AI developers, deployers and democracy itself; for citizens, creatives and our country—our data, our decisions, #ourAIfutures. That is what this Bill is all about. I beg to move.
Viscount Chandos (Lab)
My Lords, there can have been few Private Members’ Bills that have set out to address such towering issues as this Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. He has been an important voice on the opportunities and challenges arising from generative AI in this House and outside it. This Bill and his powerful introduction to it are only the latest contributions to the vital issue of regulating AI to ensure that the social and financial interests and security of consumers are protected as a first priority.
The noble Lord also contributed to a wide-ranging discussion on the regulation of AI in relation to misinformation and disinformation convened by the Thomson Foundation, of which, as recorded in the register, I am chair. Disinformation in news has existed and grown as a problem since long before the emergence of generative AI, but each iteration of AI makes the disinformation that human bad actors promote even harder to detect and counteract.
This year a record number of people in the world will go to the polls in general elections, as the noble Lord said. The Thomson Foundation has commissioned research into the incidence of AI-fuelled disinformation in the Taiwanese presidential elections in mid-January, conducted by Professor Chen-Ling Hung of National Taiwan University. Your Lordships may not be surprised that the preliminary conclusions of the work, which will be continued in relation to other elections, confirms the concerns that the noble Lord voiced in his introduction. Generative AI’s role in exacerbating misinformation and disinformation in news and the impact that can have on the democratic process are hugely important, but this is only one of a large number of areas where generative AI is at the same time an opportunity and a threat.
I strongly support this well-judged and balanced Bill, which recognises the fast-changing, dynamic nature of this technology—Moore’s law on steroids, as I have previously suggested—and sets out a logical and coherent role for the proposed AI authority, bringing a transparency and clarity to the regulation of AI for its developers and users that is currently lacking.
I look forward to the Minister’s winding up, but with my expectations firmly under control. The Prime Minister’s position seems incoherent. On the one hand he says that generative AI poses an existential threat and on the other that no new regulatory body is needed and the technology is too fast-moving for a comprehensive regulatory framework to be established. That is a guarantee that we will be heaving to close a creaking stable door as the thoroughbred horse disappears over the horizon. I will not be surprised to hear the Minister extol the steps taken in recent months, such as the establishment of the AI unit, as a demonstration that everything is under control. Even if these small initiatives are welcome, they fall well short of establishing the transparency and clarity of regulation needed to engender confidence in all parties—consumers, employers, workers and civil society.
If evidence is needed to make the case for a transparent, well-defined regulatory regime rather than ad hoc, fragmented departmental action, the Industry and Regulators Committee, of which I am privileged to be a member, today published a letter to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up about the regulation of property agents. Five years ago, a working group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best, recommended that the sector should be regulated, yet despite positive initial noises from the Government, nothing has happened. Even making allowance for the impact of the pandemic during this time, this does not engender confidence in their willingness and ability to grasp regulatory nettles in a low-tech industry, let alone in a high-tech one.
It is hard not to suspect that this reflects an ideological suspicion within the Conservative Party that regulation is the enemy of innovation and economic success rather than a necessary condition, which I believe it is. Evidence to the Industry and Regulators Committee from a representative of Merck confirmed that the life sciences industry thrives in countries where there is strong regulation.
I urge the Government to give parliamentary time to this Bill to allow it to go forward. I look forward to addressing its detailed issues then.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, one of the advantages of sitting every day between my noble friends Lord Holmes and Lord Kirkhope is that their enthusiasm for a subject on which they have a lot of knowledge and I have very little passes by a process of osmosis along the Bench. I commend my noble friend on his Bill and his speech. I will add a footnote to it.
My noble friend’s Bill is timely, coming after the Government published their consultation outcome last month, shortly after the European Commission published its Artificial Intelligence Act and as we see how other countries, such as the USA, are responding to the AI challenge. Ideally, there should be some global architecture to deal with a phenomenon that knows no boundaries. The Prime Minister said as much in October:
“My vision, and our ultimate goal, should be to work towards a more international approach to safety where we collaborate with partners to ensure AI systems are safe”.
However, we only have to look at the pressures on existing international organisations, like the United Nations and the WTO, to see that that is a big ask. There is a headwind of protectionism, and at times nationalism, making collaboration difficult. It is not helped by the world being increasingly divided between democracies and autocracies, with the latter using AI as a substitute for conventional warfare.
The most pragmatic approach, therefore, is to go for some lowest common denominators, building on the Bletchley Declaration which talks about sharing responsibility and collaboration. We want to avoid regulatory regimes that are incompatible, which would lead to regulatory arbitrage and difficulties with compliance.
The response to the consultation refers to this in paragraphs 71 and 72, stating:
“the intense competition between companies to release ever-more-capable systems means we will need to remain highly vigilant to meaningful compliance, accountability, and effective risk mitigation. It may be the case that commercial incentives are not always aligned with the public good”.
It concludes:
“the challenges posed by AI technologies will ultimately require legislative action in every country once understanding of risk has matured”.
My noble friend’s Private Member’s Bill is a heroic first shot at what that legislation might look like. To simplify, there is a debate between top-down, as set out in the Bill, and bottom-up, as set out in the Government’s response, delegating regulation to individual regulators with a control function in DSIT. At some point, there will have to be convergence between the two approaches.
There is one particular clause in my noble friend’s Bill that I think is important: Clause 1(2)(c), which states that the function of the AI authority is to,
“undertake a gap analysis of regulatory responsibilities in respect of AI”.
The White Paper and the consultation outcome have numerous references to regulators. What I was looking for and never found was a list of all our regulators, and what they regulate. I confess I may have missed it, but without such a comprehensive list of regulators and what they regulate, any strategy risks being incomplete because we do not have a full picture.
My noble friend mentioned education. We have a shortage of teachers in many disciplines, and many complain about paperwork and are thinking of leaving. There is a huge contribution to be made by AI. But who is in charge? If you put the question into Google, it says,
“the DFE is responsible for children’s services and education”.
Then there is Ofsted, which inspects schools; there is Ofqual, which deals with exams; and then there is the Office for Students. The Russell group of universities have signed up to a set of principles ensuring that pupils would be taught to become AI literate.
Who is looking at the huge volume of material which AI companies are drowning schools and teachers with, as new and more accessible chatbots are developed? Who is looking at AI for marking homework? What about AI for adaptive testing? Who is looking at AI being used for home tuition, as increasingly used by parents? Who is looking at AI for marking papers? As my noble friend said, what happens if they get it wrong?
The education sector is trying to get a handle on this technological maelstrom and there may be some bad actors in there. However, the same may be happening elsewhere because the regulatory regimes lack clarity. Hence, should by any chance my noble friend’s Bill not survive in full, Clause 1(2)(c) should.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
My Lords, I also warmly support the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I support it because it has the right balance of radicalism to fit the revolution in which we are living. I will look at it through eight points—that may be ambitious in five minutes, but I think I can do it.
There is a degree of serious common ground. First, we need fair standards to protect the public. We need to protect privacy, security, human rights, fraud and intellectual property. We also need to protect, however, rights to access, like data and the processes by which artificial intelligence makes decisions in respect of you. An enforcement system is needed to make that work. If we have that, we do not need the elaborate mechanism of the EU by regulating individual products.
Secondly, it is clear there has to be a consistency of standards. We cannot have one rule for one market, and one rule for another market. If you look back at the 19th century, when we underwent the last massive technological revolution, the courts sometimes made the mistake of fashioning rules to fit individual markets. That was an error, and that is why we need to look at it comprehensively.
Thirdly, we have got to protect innovation. I believe that is common ground, but the points to which I shall come in a moment show the difficulties.
Fourthly, we have got to produce a system that is interoperable. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, referred to the trade documents Bill, which was the product of international development. We have adapted the common law to fit it and other countries’ systems will do it. That is a sine qua non.
I believe all those points are common ground, but I now come to four points that I do not think are common ground. The first is simplicity. When you look at Bills in this House, I sometimes feel we are making the law unworkable by its complexity. There can be absolutely no doubt that regulation is becoming unworkable because of the complexity. I can quite understand why innovators are horrified at the prospect of regulation, but they have got the wrong kind of regulation. They have got what we have created, unfortunately; it is a huge burden and is not based on simplicity and principles. If we are to persuade people to regulate, we need a radically different approach, and this Bill brings it about.
Secondly, there needs to be transparency and accountability. I do not believe that doing this through a small body within a ministry is the right way; it has to be done openly.
Thirdly—and this is probably highly controversial—when you look at regulation, our idea is of the statutory regulator with its vast empire created. Do we need that? Look back at the 19th century: the way in which the country developed was through self-regulation supported by the courts, Parliament and government. We need to look at that again. I see nothing wrong with self-regulation. It has itself a shocking name, as a result of what happened in the financial markets at the turn of the century, but I believe that we should look at it again. Effective self-regulation can be good regulation.
Finally, the regulator must be independent. There is nothing inconsistent with self-regulation and independence.
We need a radical approach, and the Bill gives us that. No one will come here if we pretend we are going to set up a regulator—like the financial markets regulator, the pensions regulator and so on—because people will recoil in horror. If we have this Bill, however, with its simplicity and emphasis on comprehensiveness, we can do it. By saying that, it seems to me that the fundamental flaw in what the Government are doing is leaving the current regulatory system in place. We cannot afford to do that. We need to face the new industrial revolution with a new form of regulation.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and his interesting speech. I remind noble Lords that the Communications and Digital Committee, which I have the privilege to chair, published our report Large Language Models and Generative AI only last month. For anyone who has not read it, I wholeheartedly recommend it, and I am going to draw heavily on it in my speech.
It is a pleasure to speak in a debate led by my noble friend Lord Holmes, and I congratulate him on all that he does in the digital and technology space. As he knows, I cannot support his Bill because I do not agree with the concept of an AI authority, but I have listened carefully to the arguments put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, a moment ago. But neither would I encourage the Government to follow the Europeans and rush to develop overly specific legislation for this general-purpose technology.
That said, there is much common ground on which my noble friend and I can stand when it comes to our ambitions for AI, so I will say a little about that and where I see danger with the Government’s current approach to this massively important technological development.
As we have heard, AI is reshaping our world. Some of these changes are modest, and some are hype, but others are genuinely profound. Large language models in particular have the potential to fundamentally reshape our relationship with machines. In the right hands, they could drive huge benefits to our economy, supporting ground-breaking scientific research and much more.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Holmes about how we should approach AI. It must be developed and used to benefit people and society, not just big tech giants. Existing regulators must be equipped and empowered to hold tech firms to account as this technology operates in their own respective sectors, and we must ensure that there are proper safety tests for the riskiest models.
That said, we must maintain an open market for AI, and so any testing must not create barriers to entry. Indeed, one of my biggest fears is an even greater concentration of power among the big tech firms and repeating the same mistakes which led to a single firm dominating search, no UK-based cloud service, and a couple of firms controlling social media. Instead, we must ensure that generative AI creates new markets and, if possible, use it to address the existing market distortions.
Our large language model report looked in detail at what needs to happen over the next three years to catalyse AI innovation responsibly and mitigate risks proportionately. The UK is well-placed to be among the world leaders of this technology, but we can only achieve that by being positive and ambitious. The recent focus on existential sci-fi scenarios has shifted attention towards too narrow a view of AI safety. On its own, a concentration on safety will not deliver the broader capabilities and commercial heft that the UK needs to shape international norms. However, we cannot keep up with international competitors without more focus on supporting commercial opportunities and academic excellence. A rebalance in government strategy and a more positive vision is therefore needed. The Government should improve access to computing power, increase support for digital, and do more to help start-ups grow out of university research.
I do not wish to downplay the risks of AI. Many need to be addressed quickly—for example, cyberattacks and synthetic child sexual abuse, as well as bias and discrimination, which we have already heard about. The Government should scale up existing mitigations, and ensure industry improves its own guard-rails. However, the overall point is about balance. Regulation should be thoughtful and proportionate, to catalyse rather than stifle responsible innovation, otherwise we risk creating extensive rules that end up entrenching incumbents’ market power, and we throttle domestic industry in the process. Regulatory capture is a real danger that our inquiry highlighted.
Copyright is another danger, and this is where there is a clear case for government action now. The point of copyright is to reward innovation, yet tech firms have been exploiting rights holders by using works without permission or payment. Some of that is starting to change, and I am pleased to see some firms now striking deals with publishers. However, these remain small steps, and the fundamental question about respecting copyright in the first place remains unresolved.
The role for government here is clear: it should endorse the principles behind copyright and uphold fair play, and should then update legislation. Unfortunately, the current approach remains unclear and inadequate. It has abandoned the IPO-led process, but apparently without anything more ambitious in its place. I hope for better news in the Government’s response to our report, expected next month, and it would be better still if my noble friend the Minister could say something reassuring today.
In the meantime, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Holmes for providing the opportunity to debate such an important topic.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on his wonderful speech. I declare my interests as an adviser to the Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI and the UN Secretary-General’s AI Advisory Body.
When I read the Bill, I asked myself three questions. Do we need an AI regulation Bill? Is this the Bill we need? What happens if we do not have a Bill? It is arguable that it would be better to deal with AI sector by sector—in education, the delivery of public services, defence, media, justice and so on—but that would require an enormous legislative push. Like others, I note that we are in the middle of a legislative push, with digital markets legislation, media legislation, data protection legislation and online harms legislation, all of which resolutely ignore both existing and future risk.
The taxpayer has been asked to make a £100 million investment in launching the world’s first AI safety institute, but as the Ada Lovelace Institute says:
“We are concerned that the Government’s approach to AI regulation is ‘all eyes, no hands’”,
with plenty of “horizon scanning” but no
“powers and resources to prevent those risks or even to react to them effectively after the fact”.
So yes, we need an AI regulation Bill.
Is this the Bill we need? Perhaps I should say to the House that I am a fan of the Bill. It covers testing and sandboxes, it considers what the public want, and it deals with a very important specific issue that I have raised a number of times in the House, in the form of creating AI-responsible officers. On that point, the CEO of the International Association of Privacy Professionals came to see me recently and made an enormously compelling case that, globally, we need hundreds of thousands of AI professionals, as the systems become smarter and more ubiquitous, and that those professionals will need standards and norms within which to work. He also made the case that the UK would be very well-placed to create those professionals at scale.
I have a couple of additions. Unless the Minister is going to make a surprise announcement, I think we are allowed to consider that he is going to take the Bill on in full. In addition, under Clause 2, which sets out regulatory principles, I would like to see consideration of children’s rights and development needs; employment rights, concerning both management by AI and job displacement; a public interest case; and more clarity that material that is an offence—such as creating viruses, CSAM or inciting violence—is also an offence, whether created by AI or not, with specific responsibilities that accrue to users, developers and distributors.
The Stanford Internet Observatory recently identified hundreds of known images of child sexual abuse material in an open dataset used to train popular AI text-to-image models, saying:
“It is challenging to clean or stop the distribution of publicly distributed datasets as it has been widely disseminated. Future datasets could use freely available detection tools to prevent the collection of known CSAM”.
The report illustrates that it is very possible to remove such images, but that it did not bother, and now those images are proliferating at scale.
We need to have rules upon which AI is developed. It is poised to transform healthcare, both diagnosis and treatment. It will take the weight out of some of the public services we can no longer afford, and it will release money to make life better for many. However, it brings forward a range of dangers, from fake images to lethal autonomous weapons and deliberate pandemics. AI is not a case of good or bad; it is a question of uses and abuses.
I recently hosted Geoffrey Hinton, whom many will know as the “godfather of AI”. His address to parliamentarians was as chilling as it was compelling, and he put timescales on the outcomes that leave no time to wait. I will not stray into his points about the nature of human intelligence, but he was utterly clear that the concentration of power, the asymmetry of benefit and the control over resources—energy, water and hardware—needed to run these powerful systems would be, if left until later, in so few hands that they, and not we, would be doing the rule setting.
My final question is: if we have no AI Bill, can the Government please consider putting the content of the AI regulation Bill into the data Bill currently passing through Parliament and deal with it in that way?
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I thought that this would be one of the rare debates where I did not have an interest to declare, but then I heard the noble Lord, Lord Young, talking about AI and education and realised that I am a paid adviser to Common Sense Media, a large US not-for-profit that campaigns for internet safety and has published the first ever ratings of AI applications used in schools. I refer the noble Lord to its excellent work in this area.
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate on this Bill, so ably put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. It is pretty clear from the reaction to his speech how much he is admired in this House for his work on this issue and so many others to do with media and technology, where he is one of the leading voices in public affairs. Let me say how humiliating it is for me to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell and Lady Kidron, both of whom are experts in this area and have done so much to advance public policy.
I am a regulator and in favour of regulation. I strongly supported the Online Safety Act, despite the narrow byways and culs-de-sac it ended up in, because I believe that platforms and technology need to be accountable in some way. I do not support people who say that the job is too big to be attempted—we must attempt it. What I always say about the Online Safety Act is that the legislation itself is irrelevant; what is relevant is the number of staff and amount of expertise that Ofcom now has, which will make it one of the world’s leaders in this space.
We talk about AI now because it has come to the forefront of consumers’ minds through applications such as ChatGPT, but large language models and the use of AI have been around for many years. As AI becomes ubiquitous, it is right that we now consider how we could or should regulate it. Indeed, with the approaching elections, not just here in the UK but in the United States and other areas around the world, we will see the abuse of artificial intelligence, and many people will wring their hands about how on earth to cope with the plethora of disinformation that is likely to emerge.
I am often asked at technology events, which I attend assiduously, what the Government’s policy is on artificial intelligence. To a certain extent I have to make it up, but to a certain extent I think that, broadly speaking, I have it right. On the one hand, there is an important focus on safety for artificial intelligence to make it as safe as possible for consumers, which in itself begs the question of whether that is possible; on the other, there is a need to ensure that the UK remains a wonderful place for AI innovation. We are rightly proud that DeepMind, although owned by Google, wishes to stay in the UK. Indeed, in a tweet yesterday the Chancellor himself bigged up Mustafa Suleyman for taking on the role of leading AI at Microsoft. It is true that the UK remains a second-tier nation in AI after China and the US, but it is the leading second-tier nation.
The question now is: what do we mean by regulation? I do not necessarily believe that now is the moment to create an AI safety regulator. I was interested to hear the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who referred to the 19th century. I refer him to the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the internet itself has long been self-regulated, at least in terms of the technology and the global standards that exist, so it is possible for AI to proceed largely on the basis of self-regulation.
The Government’s approach to regulation is the right one. We have, for example, the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum, which brings together all the regulators that either obviously, such as Ofcom, or indirectly, such as the FCA, have skin the game when it comes to digital. My specific request to the Minister is to bring the House up to date on the work of that forum and how he sees it developing.
I was surprised by the creation of the AI Safety Institute as a stand-alone body with such generous funding. It seems to me that the Government do not need legislation to do an examination of the plethora of bodies that have sprung up over the last 10 or 15 years. Many of them do excellent work, but where their responsibilities begin and end is confusing. They include the Ada Lovelace Institute, the Alan Turing Institute, the AI Safety Institute, Ofcom and DSIT, but how do they all fit together into a clear narrative? That is the essential task that the Government must now undertake.
I will pick up on one remark that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, made. While we look at the flashy stuff, if you like, such as disinformation and copyright, she is quite right to say that we have to look at the picks and shovels as AI becomes more prevalent and as the UK seeks to maintain our lead. Boring but absolutely essential things such as power networks for data centres will be important, so they must also be part of the Government’s task.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, like other Members, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on what he has been doing.
The general public have become more aware of AI in very recent times, but it is nothing new; people have been working on it for decades. Because it is reaching such a critical mass and getting into all the different areas of our lives, it is now in the public mind. While I do not want to get into the minutiae of the Bill—that is for Committee—speaking as a non-expert, I think that the general public are now at a stage where they have a right to know what legislators think. Given the way things have developed in recent years, the Government cannot stand back and do nothing.
Like gunpowder, AI cannot be uninvented. The growing capacity of chips and other developments, and the power of a limited number of companies around the world, ensure that such a powerful tool will now be in the hands of a very small number of corporations. The Prime Minister took the lead last year and indicated that he wished to see the United Kingdom as a world leader in this field, and he went to the United States and other locations. I rather feel that we have lost momentum and that nothing is currently happening that ought to be happening.
As with all developments, there are opportunities and threats. In the last 24 hours, we have seen both. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, pointed out, studies on breast cancer were published yesterday, showing that X-rays, CT scans, et cetera were interpreted more accurately by AI than by humans. How many cases have we had in recent years of tests having to be recalled by various trusts, causing anxiety and stress for thousands upon thousands of patients? It is perfectly clear that, in the field of medicine alone, AI could not only improve treatment rates but relieve people of a lot of the anxieties that such inaccuracies cause. We also saw the threats on our television screens last night. As the noble Lord referred to, a well-known newscaster showed that she was presented by AI in a porn movie—she had it there on the screens for us to see last night. So you can see the threats as well as the opportunities.
So the question is: can Parliament, can government, stand by and just let things happen? I believe that the Government cannot idly stand by. We have an opportunity to lead. Yes, we do not want to create circumstances where we suffocate innovation. There is an argument over regulation between what the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, said, what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, and what I think the Government’s response will be. However, bolting bits on to existing regulators is not necessarily the best way of doing business. You need a laser focus on this and you need the people with the capacity and the expertise. They are not going to be widely available and, if you have a regulator with too much on its agenda, the outcome will be fairly dilute and feeble.
In advance of this, I said to the Minister that we have all seen the “Terminator” movies, and I am sure that the general public have seen them over the years. The fact is that it is no longer as far-fetched as it once was. I have to ask the Minister: what is our capacity to deal with hacking? If it gets into weapons systems, never mind utilities, one can see straight away a huge potential for danger.
So, once again, we are delighted that the Bill has been brought forward. I would like to think that ultimately the Government will take this over, because that is the only way that it will become law, and it does need refinement. A response from the Minister, particularly on the last point, which creates huge anxiety, would be most beneficial.
Lord Freyberg (CB)
My Lords, I too am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for introducing this important Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill. In my contribution today, I will speak directly to the challenges and threats posed to visual artists by generative AI and to the need for regulatory clarity to enable artists to explore the creative potential of AI. I declare my interest as having a background in the visual arts.
Visual artists have expressed worries, as have their counterparts in other industries and disciplines, about their intellectual property being used to train AI models without their consent, credit or payment. In January 2024, lists containing the names of more than 16,000 non-consenting artists whose works were allegedly used to train the Midjourney generative AI platform were accidentally leaked online, intensifying the debate on copyright and consent in AI image creation even further.
The legality of using human artists’ work to train generative AI programmes remains unclear, but disputes over documents such as the Midjourney style list, as it became known, provide insight into the real procedures involved in turning copyrighted artwork into AI reference material. These popular AI image-generator models are extremely profitable for their owners, the majority of whom are situated in the United States. Midjourney was valued at around $10.5 billion in 2022. It stands to reason that, if artists’ IP is being used to train these models, it is only fair that they be compensated, credited and given the option to opt out.
DACS, the UK’s leading copyright society for artists, of which I am a member, conducted a survey that received responses from 1,000 artists and their representatives, 74% of whom were concerned about their own work being used to train AI models. Two-thirds of artists cited ethical and legal concerns as a barrier to using such technology in their creative practices. DACS also heard first-hand accounts of artists who found that working creatively with AI has its own set of difficulties, such as the artist who made a work that included generative AI and wanted to distribute it on a well-known global platform. The platform did not want the liabilities associated with an unregistered product, so it asked for the AI component to be removed. If artists are deterred from using AI or face legal consequences for doing so, creativity will suffer. There is a real danger that artists will miss out on these opportunities, which would worsen their already precarious financial situation and challenging working conditions.
In the same survey, artists expressed fear that human-made artworks will have no distinctive or unique value in the marketplace in which they operate, and that AI may thereby render them obsolete. One commercial photographer said, “What’s the point of training professionally to create works for clients if a model can be trained on your own work to replace you?” Artists rely on IP royalties to sustain a living and invest in their practice. UK artists are already low-paid and two-thirds are considering abandoning the profession. Another artist remarked in the survey, “Copyright makes it possible for artists to dedicate time and education to become a professional artist. Once copyright has no meaning any more, there will be no more possibility to make a living. This will be detrimental to society as a whole”.
It is therefore imperative that we protect their copyright and provide fair compensation to artists whose works are used to train artificial intelligence. While the Bill references IP, artists would have welcomed a specific clause on remuneration and an obligation for owners of copyright material used in AI training to be paid. To that end, it is therefore critical to maintain a record of every work that AI applications use, particularly to validate the original artist’s permission. It is currently not required by law to reveal the content that AI systems are trained on. Record-keeping requirements are starting to appear in regulatory proposals related to AI worldwide, including those from China and the EU.
The UK ought to adopt a similar mandate requiring companies using material in their AI systems to keep track of the works that they have learned and ingested. To differentiate AI-generated images from human-composed compositions, the Government should make sure that any commercially accessible AI-generated works are branded as such. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has already mentioned, labelling shields consumers from false claims about what is and is not AI-generated. Furthermore, given that many creators work alone, every individual must have access to clear, appropriate redress mechanisms so that they can meaningfully challenge situations where their rights have been misused. Having said that, I welcome the inclusion in the Bill that any training data must be preceded by informed consent. This measure will go some way to safeguarding artists’ copyright and providing them with the necessary agency to determine how their work is used in training, and on what terms.
In conclusion, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for introducing this Bill, which will provide much-needed regulation. Artists themselves support these measures, with 89% of respondents to the DACS survey expressing a desire for more regulation around AI. If we want artists to use AI and be creative with new technology, we need to make it ethical and viable.
Baroness Moyo (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in commending the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for bringing forward this Bill.
I come to this debate with the fundamental belief that supporting innovation and investment must be embedded in all regulation, but even more so in the regulation of artificial intelligence. After all, this wave of artificial intelligence is being billed as a catalyst that could propel economic growth and human progress for decades to come. The United Kingdom should not miss this supercycle and the promise of a lengthy period of economic expansion—the first of its kind since deglobalisation and deregulation 40 years ago.
With this in mind, in reading the AI regulation Bill I am struck by the weight of emphasis on risk mitigation, as opposed to innovation and investment. I must say that right at this moment, notwithstanding the fact that I realise that the Government, through other routes, including the pro-innovation stance that we talked about, are looking into innovation in investment. Even so, I feel that, on balance, the weight here is more on risk mitigation than innovation. I am keen that, in the drafting and execution of the artificial intelligence authority’s mandate in particular, and in the evolution of this Bill in general, the management of risk does not deter investment in this game-changing innovation.
I am of course reassured that innovation or opportunity are mentioned at least two times in the Bill. For example, Clause 6(a) signals that the public engagement exercise will consider
“the opportunities and risks presented by AI”.
Perhaps more pointedly, Clause 1(2)(e) states that the list of functions of the Al Authority are to include support for innovation. However, this mandate is at best left open to interpretation and at worst downgrades the importance and centrality of innovation.
My concern is that the new AI authority could see support for innovation as a distant or secondary objective, and that risk-aversion and mitigation become the cultural bedrock of the organisation. If we were to take too heavy-handed a risk-mitigation approach to AI, what opportunities could be missed? In terms of economic growth, as my noble friend Lord Holmes mentioned, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that AI could contribute more than $15 trillion to the world economy by 2030. In this prevailing era of slow economic growth, AI could meaningfully alter the growth trajectory.
In terms of business, AI could spur a new start-up ecosystem, creating a new generation of small and medium-sized enterprises. Furthermore, to underscore this point, AI promises to boost productivity gains, which could help generate an additional $4.4 trillion in annual profits, according to a 2023 report by McKinsey. To place this in context, this annual gain is nearly one and a half times larger than the UK’s annual GDP.
On public goods such as education and healthcare, the Chancellor in his Spring Budget a few weeks ago indicated the substantial role that a technology upgrade, including the use of AI, could play in improving delivery and access and in unlocking up to £35 billion of savings.
Clearly, a lot is at stake. This is why it is imperative that this AI Bill, and the way it is interpreted, strikes the right balance between mitigating risk and supporting investment and innovation.
I am very much aware of the perennial risks of malevolent state actors and errant new technologies, and thus, the need for effective regulation is clear, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, stressed. This is unambiguous, and I support the Bill. However, we must be alert to the danger of regulation becoming a synonym for risk-management. This would overshadow the critical regulatory responsibility of ensuring a competitive environment in which innovation can thrive and thereby attract investment.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester
My Lords, I guarantee that this is not an AI-generated speech. Indeed, Members of the House might decide after five minutes that there is not much intelligence of any kind involved in its creation. Be that as it may, we on these Benches have engaged extensively with the impacts and implications of new technologies for years—from contributions to the Warnock committee in the 1980s through to the passage of the Online Safety Bill through this House last year. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for this timely and thoughtful Bill and for his brilliant introduction to it. Innovation must be enthusiastically encouraged, as the noble Baroness, Lady Moyo, has just reminded us. It is a pleasure to follow her.
That said, I will take us back to first principles for a moment: to Christian principles, which I hope all of good will would want to support. From these principles arise two imperatives for regulation and governance, whatever breakthroughs new technologies enable. The first is that a flourishing society depends on respecting human dignity and agency. The more any new tool threatens such innate dignity, the more carefully it should be evaluated and regulated. The second imperative is a duty of government, and all of us, to defend and promote the needs of the nation’s weak and marginalised —those who cannot always help themselves. I am not convinced that the current pro-innovation and “observe first, intervene later” approach to AI get this perennial balance quite right. For that reason, I support the ambitions outlined in the Bill.
There are certainly aspects of last year’s AI White Paper that get things in the right order: I warmly commend the Government for including fairness, accountability and redress among the five guiding principles going forward. Establishing an AI authority would formalise the hub-and-spoke structure the Government are already putting in place, with the added benefit of shifting from a voluntary to a compulsory basis, and an industry-funded regulatory model of the kind the Online Safety Act is beginning to implement.
The voluntary code of practice on which the Government’s approach currently depends is surely inadequate. The track record of the big tech companies that developed the AI economy and are now training the most powerful AI models shows that profit trumps users’ safety and well-being time and again. “Move fast and break things” and “act first, apologise later” remains the lodestar. Sam Altman’s qualities of character and conduct while at the helm of OpenAI have come under considerable scrutiny over the last few months. At Davos in January this year, the Secretary-General of the United Nations complained:
“Powerful tech companies are already pursuing profits with a reckless disregard for human rights, personal privacy, and social impact.”
How can it be right that the richest companies in history have no mandatory duties to financially support a robust safety framework? Surely, it should not be for the taxpayer alone to shoulder the costs of an AI digital hub to find and fix gaps that lead to risks or harm. Why should the taxpayer shoulder the cost of providing appropriate regulatory sandboxes for testing new product safety?
The Government’s five guiding principles are a good guide for AI, but they need legal powers underpinning them and the sharpened teeth of financial penalties for corporations that intentionally flout best practice, to the clear and obvious harm of consumers.
I commend the ambitions of the Bill. A whole-system, proportional and legally enforceable approach to regulating AI is urgently needed. Balancing industry’s need to innovate with its duty to respect human dignity and the vulnerable in society is vital if we are safely to navigate the many changes and challenges not just over the horizon but already in plain sight.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I speak not as an expert in AI but as a user, and I make no apology for the fact that I use it to do my work here in this Chamber. Your Lordships can form your own judgment as to which bits of my following remarks were written by me, and which are from ChatGPT.
I very much welcome the Bill. The Noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, gave us an inspirational speech which was totally convincing on the need for legislation. The Bill is obviously the first step on that way. The promise of artificial intelligence is undeniable. There is a large degree of hype from those with vested interests, and there is, to a significant extent, a bubble. Nevertheless, even if that is true, we still need an appropriate level of regulation.
AI provides the opportunity to revolutionise industries, enhance our daily lives and solve some of the most pressing problems we face today—from healthcare to climate change—and solutions that are not available in other ways. However, with greater power comes greater responsibility. The rapid advance of AI technology has outpaced our regulatory frameworks, leading to innovation without adequate oversight, ethical consideration or accountability, so we undoubtedly need a regulator. I take the point that it has to be focused and simple. We need rigorous ethical standards and transparency in AI development to ensure that these technologies serve the good of all, not just commercial interests. We cannot wait for these forces to play out before deciding what needs to be done. I very much support the remarks of the previous speaker, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, who set out the position very clearly.
We need to have a full understanding of the implications of AI for employment and the workforce. These technologies will automate tasks previously performed by humans, and we face significant impacts on the labour market. The prevailing model for AI is to seek the advantage for the developers and not so much for the workers. This is an issue we will need to confront. We will have to debate the extent to which that is the job of the regulator.
As I indicate, I favour a cautious approach to AI development. We should be focusing on meaningful applications that prioritise human well-being and benefits to society over corporate profit. Again, how this fits in with the role of the regulator is for discussion, but a particular point that needs to be made here is that we need to understand the massive amounts of energy that even simple forms of AI consume. This needs to be borne in mind in any approach to developing this industry.
In the Bill, my attention was caught by the use of the undefined term “relevant regulators”. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, could fill that in a bit more; it is a bit of a catch-all at the moment. My particular concern is the finance industry, which will use this technology massively, not necessarily to the benefit of consumers. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, emphasised the problem of regulatory arbitrage. We need a consistent layer of regulation. Another concern is mental health: there will be AI systems that claim to offer benefits to those with mental health problems. Again, this will need severe regulation.
To conclude, I agree with my noble friend Lord Chandos that regulation is necessarily the enemy of economic success. There is a balance to be drawn between gaining all the benefits of technology and the potential downsides. I welcome the opportunity to discuss how this should be regulated.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con)
My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes on bringing forward this AI regulation Bill, in the context of the continuing failure of the Government to do so. At the same time, I declare my interest as a long-term investor in at least one fund that invests in AI and tech companies.
A year ago, one of the so-called godfathers of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, cried “fire” about where AI was going and, more importantly, when. Just last week, following the International Dialogue on AI Safety in Beijing, a joint statement was issued by leading western and Chinese figures in the field, including Chinese Turing award winner Andrew Yao, Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell. Among other things, that statement said:
“Unsafe development, deployment, or use of AI systems may pose catastrophic or even existential risks to humanity within our lifetimes … We should immediately implement domestic registration for AI models and training runs above certain compute or capability thresholds”.
Of course, we are talking about not only extinction risks but other very concerning risks, some of which have been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Holmes: extreme concentration of power, deepfakes and disinformation, wholesale copyright infringement and data-scraping, military abuse of AI in the nuclear area, the risk of bioterrorism, and the opacity and unreliability of some AI decision-making, to say nothing of the risk of mass unemployment. Ian Hogarth, the head of the UK AI Safety Institute, has written in the past about some of these concerns and risks.
Nevertheless, despite signing the Center for AI Safety statement and publicly admitting many of these serious concerns, the leading tech companies continue to race against each other towards the holy grail of artificial general intelligence. Why is this? Well, as they say, “It’s the money, stupid”. It is estimated that, between 2020 and 2022, $600 billion in total was invested in AI development, and much more has been since. This is to be compared with the pitifully small sums invested by the AI industry in AI safety. We have £10 million from this Government now. These factors have led many people in the world to ask how it is that they have accidentally outsourced their entire futures to a few tech companies and their leaders. Ordinary people have a pervading sense of powerlessness in the face of AI development.
These facts also raise the question of why the Government continue to delay putting in place proper and properly funded regulatory frameworks. Others, such as the EU, US, Italy, Canada and Brazil, are taking steps towards regulation, while, as noble Lords have heard, China has already regulated and India plans to regulate this summer. Here, the shadow IT Minister has indicated that, if elected, a new Labour Government would regulate AI. Given that a Government’s primary duty is to keep their country safe, as we so often heard recently in relation to the defence budget, this is both strange and concerning.
Why is this? There is a strong suspicion in some quarters that the Prime Minister, having told the public immediately before the Bletchley conference that AI brings national security risks that could end our way of life, and that AI could pose an extinction risk to humanity, has since succumbed to regulatory capture. Some also think that the Government do not want to jeopardise relations with leading tech companies while the AI Safety Institute is gaining access to their frontier models. Indeed, the Government proudly state that they
“will not rush to legislate”,
reinforcing the concern that the Prime Minister may have gone native on this issue. In my view, this deliberate delay on the part of the Government is seriously misconceived and very dangerous.
What have the Government done to date? To their credit, they organised and hosted Bletchley, and importantly got China to attend too. Since then, they have narrowed the gap between themselves and the tech companies—but the big issues remain, particularly the critical issue of regulation versus self-regulation. Importantly, and to their credit, the Government have also set up the UK AI Safety Institute, with some impressive senior hires. However, no one should be in any doubt that this body is not a regulator. On the critical issue of the continuing absence of a dedicated unitary AI regulator, it is simply not good enough for the Government to say that the various relevant government bodies will co-operate together on oversight of AI. It is obvious to almost everyone, apart from the Government themselves, that a dedicated, unitary, high-expertise and very well-funded UK AI regulator is required now.
The recent Gladstone AI report, commissioned by the US Government, has highlighted similar risks to US national security from advanced AI development. Against this concerning background, I strongly applaud my noble friend Lord Holmes for bringing forward the Bill. It may of course be able to be improved, but its overall intention and thrust are absolutely right.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, I entirely agree with those last sentiments, which will get us thinking about what on earth we do about this. An awful lot of nonsense is talked, and a lot of great wisdom is talked. The contributions to the debate have been useful in getting people thinking along the right lines.
I will say something about artificial general intelligence, which is very different, because it may well aim to control people or the environment in which we live, rather than generative AI or large language models, which I think people are thinking of: ChatGPT, Llama, Google Gemini, and all those bits and pieces. They are trawling through large amounts of information incredibly usefully and producing a good formatted epitome of what is in there. Because you do not have time to read, for instance, large research datasets, they can find things in them that you have not had time to trawl through and find. They can be incredibly useful for development there.
AI could start to do other things: it could control things and we could make it take decisions. Some people suggest that it could replace the law courts and a lot of those sorts of things. But the problem with that is that we live in a complex world and complex systems are not deterministic, to use a mathematical thing. You cannot control them with rules. Rules have unintended consequences, as is well known—the famous butterfly effect. You cannot be certain about what will happen when you change one little bit. AI will not necessarily be able to predict that because, if you look at how it trains itself, you do not know what it has learned—it is not done by algorithm, and some AI systems can modify their own code. So you do not know what it is doing and you cannot regulate for the algorithms or any of that.
I think we have to end up regulating, or passing laws on, the outcomes. We always did this in common law: we said, “Thou shalt not kill”, and then we developed it a bit further, but the principle of not going around killing people was established. The same is true of other simple things like “You shan’t nick things”. It is what comes out of it that matters. This applies when you want to establish liability, which we will have to do in the case of self-driving cars, for instance, which will take over more and more as other things get clogged up. They will crash less, kill fewer people and cause fewer accidents. But, because it is a machine doing it, it will be highly psychologically unacceptable—with human drivers, there will be more accidents. There will have to be changes in thought on that.
Regulation or legislation has to be around the outcomes rather than the method, because we cannot control where these things go. A computer does not have an innate sense of right and wrong or empathy, which comes into human decisions a lot. We may be able to mimic it, and we could probably train computers up on models to try to do that. One lot of AI might try to say whether another lot of AI is producing okay outcomes. It will be very interesting. I have no idea how we will get there.
Another thing that will be quite fun is when the net-zero people get on to these self-training models. An LLM trawling through data uses huge amounts of energy, which will not help us towards our net-zero capabilities. However, AI might help if we put it in charge of planning how to get electricity from point A to point B in an acceptable fashion. But on the other hand people will not trust it, including planners. I am sorry—I am trying to illustrate a complex system. How on earth can you translate that into something that you can put on paper and try to control? You cannot, and that is what people have to realise. It is an interesting world.
I am glad that the Bill is coming along, because it is high time we started thinking about this and what we expect we can do about it. It is also transnational—it goes right across all borders—so we cannot regulate in isolation. In this new interconnected and networked world, we cannot have a little isolated island in the middle of it all where we can control it—that is just not going to happen. Anyway, we live in very interesting times.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, as has been illustrated this morning, we stand on the cusp of a technological revolution. We find ourselves at the crossroads between innovation and responsibility. Artificial intelligence, a marvel of modern science, promises to reshape the world. Yet with great power comes great responsibility, and it is therefore imperative that we approach this with caution. Regulation in the realm of AI is not an adversary to innovation; rather, it is the very framework within which responsible and sustainable innovation must occur. Our goal should not be to stifle the creative spirit but to channel it, ensuring that it serves the common good while safeguarding our societal values and ethical standards.
However, we must not do this in isolation. In the digital domain, where boundaries blur, international collaboration becomes not just beneficial but essential. The challenges and opportunities presented by AI do not recognise national borders, and our responses too must be global in perspective. The quest for balance in regulation must be undertaken with a keen eye on international agreements, ensuring that the UK remains in step with the global community, not at odds with it. In our pursuit of this regulatory framework suitable for the UK, we must consider others. The European Union’s AI Act, authored by German MEP Axel Voss, offers valuable insights and, by examining what works within the EU’s and other approaches, as well as identifying areas for improvement, we can learn from the experiences of our neighbours to forge a path that is distinctly British, yet globally resonant.
Accountability stands as a cornerstone in the responsible deployment of AI technologies. Every algorithm and every application that is released into the world must have a clearly identifiable human or corporate entity behind it. This is where the regulatory approach must differ to that inherent in the general data protection regulations, which I had the pleasure of helping to formulate in Brussels. This accountability is crucial for ethical, legal and social reasons, ensuring that there is always a recourse and a responsible party when AI systems interact with our world.
Yet, as we delve into the mechanics of regulation and oversight, we must also pause to reflect on the quintessentially human aspect of our existence that AI can never replicate: emotion. The depth and complexity of emotions that define our humanity remain beyond the realm of AI and always will. These elements, intrinsic to our being, highlight the irreplaceable value of the human touch. While AI can augment, it can never replace human experience. The challenge before us is to foster an environment where innovation thrives within a framework of ethical and responsible governance. We must be vigilant not to become global enforcers of compliance at the expense of being pioneers of innovation.
The journey we embark on with the regulation of AI is not one that ends with the enactment of laws; that is merely the beginning. The dynamic nature of AI demands that our regulatory frameworks be agile and capable of adapting to rapid advancements and unforeseen challenges. So, as I have suggested on a number of occasions, we need smart legislation—a third tier of legislation behind the present primary and secondary structures—to keep up with these things.
In the dynamic landscape of AI, the concept of sandboxes stands out as a forward-thinking approach to innovation in this field. This was referred to by my noble friend in introducing his Bill. They offer a controlled environment where new technologies can be tested and refined without the immediate pressures and risks associated with full-scale deployment.
I emphasise that support for small and medium-sized enterprises in navigating the regulatory landscape is of paramount importance. These entities, often the cradles of innovation, must be equipped with the tools and knowledge to flourish within the bounds of regulation. The personnel in our regulatory authorities must also be of the highest calibre—individuals who not only comprehend the technicalities of AI but appreciate its broader implications for society and the economy.
At this threshold of a new era shaped by AI, we should proceed with caution but also with optimism. Let us never lose sight of the fact that at the heart of all technological advancement lies the indomitable spirit of human actions and emotions, which no machine or electronic device can create alone. I warmly welcome my noble friend Lord Holmes’s Bill, which I will fully support throughout its process in this House.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for the meeting he arranged to explain his Bill in detail and to answer some of the more naive questions from some Members of this House. Having gone through the Bill, I cannot see how we can ignore the importance of this, going forwards. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lady Kidron for the meeting that she established, which I think educated many of us on the realities of AI.
I want to focus on the use of AI in medicine because that is my field. The New England Journal of Medicine has just launched NEJM AI as a new journal to collate what is happening. AI use is becoming widespread but across the NHS tends to be small-scale. People hope that AI will streamline administrative tasks which are burdensome, improve communication with patients and do even simple things such as making out-patient appointments more suitable for people and arranging transport better.
For any innovations to be used, however, the infrastructure needs to be set up. I was struck yesterday at a meeting on emergency medicine where the consultant explained that it now takes longer to enter patient details in the computer system than it used to using old-fashioned pen and paper—the reason being that the computer terminals are not in the room where the consultation is happening so it takes people away.
A lot of people in medicine are tremendously enthusiastic—we see the benefits in diagnostics for images of cells and X-rays and so on—but there has to be reliability. Patients and people in the general population are buying different apps to diagnose things such as skin cancers, but the reliability of these apps is unproven. What we need is the use of AI to improve diagnostic accuracy. Currently, post-mortems show about a 5% error in what is written on the death certificate; in other words, at post-mortem, people are found to have died of something different from the disease or condition they were being treated for. So we have to improve diagnostics right across the piece.
But the problem is that we have to put that in a whole system. The information that goes in to train and teach these diagnostic systems has to be of very high quality, and we need audit in there to make sure that high quality is maintained. Although we are seeing fantastic advances in images such as mammograms, supporting radiologists, and in rapid diagnosis of strokes and so on, there is a need to ensure quality control in the system, so that it does not go wild on its own, that the input is being monitored and, as things change in the population, that that change is also being detected.
Thinking about this Bill, I reflected on the Covid experience, when the ground-glass appearance on X-rays was noted to be somewhat unique and new in advanced Covid lung disease. We have a fantastic opportunity, if we could use all of that data properly, to follow up people in the long term, to see how many have got clotting problems and how many later go on to develop difficulties or other conditions of which we have been unaware. There could be a fantastic public health benefit if we use the technology properly.
The problem is that, if it is not used properly, it will lose public trust. I noted that, in his speech introducing the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, used the word “trust” very often. It seems that a light-touch regulator that goes across many domains and areas is what we will need. It will protect copyright, protect the intellectual property rights of the people who are developing systems, keep those investments in the UK and foster innovation in the UK. Unless we do that, and unless we develop trust across the board, we will fail in our developments in the longer term. The real world that we live in today has to be safe, and the world that AI takes us into has to be safe.
I finish with a phrase that I have often heard resonate in my ears:
“Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback”.
We must not let AI be the horses that take all the trust in the developments away.
Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
My Lords, are we ready for the power of artificial intelligence? With each leap in human ability to invent and change what we can achieve, we have utilised a new power, a new energy that has redefined the boundaries of imagination: steam and the Industrial Revolution; electricity and the age of light; and so, again, we stand on the precipice of another seismic leap.
However, the future of AI is not just about what we can do with it but about who will have access to control its power. So I welcome the attempt made by my noble friend Lord Holmes via this Bill to encourage an open public debate on democratic oversight of AI, but I do have some concerns. Our view of AI at this early stage is heavily coloured by how this power will deliver automation and the potential reduction of process-reliant jobs and how those who hold the pen on writing the algorithms behind AI could exert vast power and influence on the masses via media manipulation. We fear that the AI genie is out of the bottle and we may not be able to control it. The sheer, limitless potential of AI is intimidating.
If, like me, you are from a certain generation, these seeds of fear and fascination at the power of artificial intelligence have long been planted by numerous Hollywood movies picking on our hopes, dreams and fears of what AI could do to us. Think of the unnerving subservience of HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” made in 1968, the menacing and semi-obedient robot Maximilian from the 1979 Disney production “The Black Hole”, the fantasy woman called Lisa created by the power of 80s home computing in “Weird Science” from 1985, and, of course, the ultimate hellish future of machine intelligence taking over the world in the form of Skynet in “The Terminator” made in 1984. These and many other futuristic interpretations of AI helped to fan the flames in the minds of engineers, computer scientists and super-geeks, many of whom created and now run the biggest tech firms in the world.
But where are we now? The advancement in processing power, coupled with vast amounts of big data and developments such as large language models, have led to the era of commercialisation of AI. Dollops of AI are available in everyday software programmes via chatbots and automated services. Obviously, the emergence of ChatGPT turbocharged the public awareness and usage of the technology. We have poured algorithms into machines and made them “think”. We have stopped prioritising trying to get robots to look and feel like us, and focused instead on the automation of systems and processes, enabling them to do more activities. We have moved from the pioneering to the application era of AI.
With all this innovation, with so many opportunities and benefits to be derived by its application, what should we fear? My answer is not from the world of Hollywood science fiction; it relates not to individuals losing control to machines but, rather, to how we will ensure that this power remains democratic and accessible and benefits the many. How will we ensure that control does not fall into the hands of the few, that wealth does not determine the ability to benefit from innovation and that a small set of organisations do not gain ultimate global control or influence over our lives? How, also, will we ensure that Governments and bureaucracies do not end up ever furthering the power and control of the state through well-intentioned regulatory control? This is why we must appreciate the size of this opportunity, think about the long-term future, and start to design the policy frameworks and new public bodies that will work in tandem with those who will design and deliver our future world.
But here is the rub: I do not believe we can control, manage or regulate this technology through a single authority. I am extremely supportive of the ambitions of my noble friend Lord Holmes to drive this debate. However, I humbly suggest that the question we need to focus on will be how we can ensure that the innovations, outcomes and quality services that AI delivers are beneficial and well understood. The Bill as it stands may be overambitious for the scope of this AI authority: to act as oversight across other regulators; to assess safety, risks and opportunities; to monitor risks across the economy; to promote interoperability and regulatory frameworks; and to act as an incubator to innovation. To achieve this and more, the AIA would need vast cross-cutting capability and resources. Again, I appreciate what my noble friend Lord Holmes is trying to achieve and, as such, I would say that we need to consider with more focus the questions that we are trying to answer.
I wholeheartedly believe and agree that the critical role will be to drive public education, engagement and awareness of AI, and where and how it is used, and to clearly identify the risks and benefits to the end-users, consumers, customers and the broader public. However, I strongly suggest that we do not begin this journey by requiring labelling, under Clause 5(1)(a)(iii), using “unambiguous health warnings” on AI products or services. That would not help us to work hand in hand with industry and trade bodies to build trust and confidence in the technology.
I believe there will eventually be a need for some form of future government body to help provide guidance to both industry and the public about how AI outcomes, especially those in delivering public sector services, are transparent, fair in design and ethical in approach. Such a body will need to take note of the approach of other nations and will need to engage with local and global businesses to test and formulate the best way forward. So, although I am sceptical of many of the specifics of the Bill, I welcome and support the journey that it, my noble friend Lord Holmes and this debate are taking us on.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on his inspiring introduction and on stimulating such an extraordinarily good and interesting debate.
The excellent House of Lords Library guide to the Bill warns us early on:
“The bill would represent a departure from the UK government’s current approach to the regulation of AI”.
Given the timidity of the Government’s pro-innovation AI White Paper and their response, I would have thought that was very much a “#StepInTheRightDirection”, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, might say.
There is clearly a fair wind around the House for the Bill, and I very much hope it progresses and we see the Government adopt it, although I am somewhat pessimistic about that. As we have heard in the debate, there are so many areas where AI is and can potentially be hugely beneficial, despite the rather dystopian narratives that the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, so graphically outlined. However, as many noble Lords have emphasised, it also carries risks, not just of the existential kind, which the Bletchley Park summit seemed to address, but others mentioned by noble Lords today, such as misinformation, disinformation, child sexual abuse, and so on, as well as the whole area of competition, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell—the issue of the power and the asymmetry of these big tech AI systems and the danger of regulatory capture.
It is disappointing that, after a long gestation of national AI policy-making, which started so well back in 2017 with the Hall-Pesenti review, contributed to by our own House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee, the Government have ended up by producing a minimalist approach to AI regulation. I liked the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, “lost momentum”, because it certainly feels like that after this period of time.
The UK’s National AI Strategy, a 10-year plan for UK investment in and support of AI, was published in September 2021 and accepted that in the UK we needed to prepare for artificial general intelligence. We needed to establish public trust and trustworthy AI, so often mentioned by noble Lords today. The Government had to set an example in their use of AI and to adopt international standards for AI development and use. So far, so good. Then, in the subsequent AI policy paper, AI Action Plan, published in 2022, the Government set out their emerging proposals for regulating AI, in which they committed to develop
“a pro-innovation national position on governing and regulating AI”,
to be set out in a subsequent governance White Paper. The Government proposed several early cross-sectoral and overarching principles that built on the OECD principles on artificial intelligence: ensuring safety, security, transparency, fairness, accountability and the ability to obtain redress.
Again, that is all good, but the subsequent AI governance White Paper in 2023 opted for a “context-specific approach” that distributes responsibility for embedding ethical principles into the regulation of AI systems across several UK sector regulators without giving them any new regulatory powers. I thought the analysis of this by the noble Lord, Lord Young, was interesting. There seemed to be no appreciation that there were gaps between regulators. That approach was confirmed this February in the response to the White Paper consultation.
Although there is an intention to set up a central body of some kind, there is no stated lead regulator, and the various regulators are expected to interpret and apply the principles in their individual sectors in the expectation that they will somehow join the dots between them. There is no recognition that the different forms of AI are technologies that need a comprehensive cross-sectoral approach to ensure that they are transparent, explainable, accurate and free of bias, whether they are in an existing regulated or unregulated sector. As noble Lords have mentioned, discussing existential risk is one thing, but going on not to regulate is quite another.
Under the current Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, data subject rights regarding automated decision-making—in practice, by AI systems—are being watered down, while our creatives and the creative industries are up in arms about the lack of support from government in asserting their intellectual property rights in the face of the ingestion of their material by generative AI developers. It was a pleasure to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, had to say on that.
For me, the cardinal rules are that business needs clarity, certainty and consistency in the regulatory system if it is to develop and adopt AI systems, and we need regulation to mitigate risk to ensure that we have public trust in AI technology. As the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, said, regulation is not necessarily the enemy of innovation; it can be a stimulus. That is something that we need to take away from this discussion. I was also very taken with the idea of public trust leaving on horseback.
This is where the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is an important stake in the ground, as he has described. It provides for a central AI authority that has a duty of looking for gaps in regulation; it sets out extremely well out the safety and ethical principles to be followed; it provides for regulatory sandboxes, which we should not forget are an innovation invented in the UK; and it provides for AI responsible officers and for public engagement. Importantly, it builds in a duty of transparency regarding data and IP-protected material where they are used for training purposes, and for labelling AI-generated material, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and her committee have advocated. By itself, that would be a major step forward, so, as the noble Lord knows, we on these Benches wish the Bill very well, as do all those with an interest in protecting intellectual property, as we heard the other day at the round table that he convened.
However, in my view what is needed at the end of the day is the approach that the interim report of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee recommended towards the end of last year in its inquiry into AI governance: a combination of risk-based cross-sectoral regulation and specific regulation in sectors such as financial services, applying to both developers and adopters, underpinned by common trustworthy standards of risk assessment, audit and monitoring. That should also provide recourse and redress, as the Ada Lovelace Institute, which has done so much work in the area, asserts, and as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, mentioned.
That should include the private sector, where there is no effective regulator for the workplace, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned, and the public sector, where there is no central or local government compliance mechanism; no transparency yet in the form of a public register of use of automated decision-making, despite the promised adoption of the algorithmic recording standard; and no recognition by the Government that explicit legislation and/or regulation for intrusive AI technologies used in the public sector, such as live facial recognition and other biometric capture, is needed. Then, of course, we need to meet the IP challenge. We need to introduce personality rights to protect our artists, writers and performers. We need the labelling of AI-generated material alongside the kinds of transparency duties contained in the noble Lord’s Bill.
Then there is another challenge, which is more international. This was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Young, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. We have world-beating AI researchers and developers. How can we ensure that, despite differing regulatory regimes—for instance, between ourselves and the EU or the US—developers are able to commercialise their products on a global basis and adopters can have the necessary confidence that the AI product meets ethical standards?
The answer, in my view, lies in international agreement on common standards such as those of risk and impact assessment, testing, audit, ethical design for AI systems, and consumer assurance, which incorporate what have become common internationally accepted AI ethics. Having a harmonised approach to standards would help provide the certainty that business needs to develop and invest in the UK more readily, irrespective of the level of obligation to adopt them in different jurisdictions and the necessary public trust. In this respect, the UK has the opportunity to play a much more positive role with the Alan Turing Institute’s AI Standards Hub and the British Standards Institution. The OECD.AI group of experts is heavily involved in a project to find common ground between the various standards.
We need a combination of proportionate but effective regulation in the UK and the development of international standards, so, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, why are we not legislating? His Bill is a really good start; let us build on it.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, like others, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, on his Private Member’s Bill, the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill. It has been a fascinating debate and one that is pivotal to our future. My noble friend Lord Leong apologises for his absence and I am grateful to the Government Benches for allowing me, in the absence of an AI-generated hologram of my noble friend, to take part in this debate. If the tone of my comments is at times his, that is because my noble friend is supremely organised and I will be using much of what he prepared for this debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Young, I am relying heavily on osmosis; I am much more knowledgeable on this subject now than two hours ago.
My first jobs were reliant on some of the now-defunct technologies, although I still think that one of the most useful skills I learned was touch-typing. I learned that on a typewriter, complete with carbon paper and absolutely no use of Tipp-Ex allowed. However, automation and our continued and growing reliance on computers have improved many jobs rather than simply replacing them. AI can help businesses save money and increase productivity by adopting new technologies; it can also release people from repetitive data-entry tasks, enabling them to focus on creative and value-added tasks. New jobs requiring different skills can be created and, while this is not the whole focus of the debate, how we achieve people being able to take up new jobs also needs to be a focus of government policy in this area.
As many noble Lords have observed, we stand on the brink of an AI revolution, one that has already started. It is already changing the way we live, the way we work and the way we relate to one another. I count myself in the same generation of film viewers as the noble Lord, Lord Ranger. The rapidly approaching tech transformation is unlike anything that humankind has experienced in its speed, scale and scope: 20th-century science fiction is becoming commonplace in our 21st-century lives.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Moyo, said, it is estimated that AI technology could contribute up to £15 trillion to the world economy by 2030. As many noble Lords mentioned, AI also presents government with huge opportunities to transform public services, potentially delivering billions of pounds in savings and increasing the service to the public. For example, it could help with the workforce crisis in health, particularly in critical health diagnostics, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, highlighted the example of how diagnosis of Covid lung has benefited through the use of AI, but, as she said, that introduces requirements for additional infrastructure. My noble friend Lord Davies also noted that AI can help to contribute to how we tackle climate change.
The use of AI by government underpins Labour’s missions to revive our country’s fortunes and ensure that the UK thrives and is at the forefront of the coming technological revolution. However, we should not and must not overlook the risks that may arise from its use, nor the unease around AI and the lack of confidence among the public around its use. Speaking as someone who generally focuses on education from these Benches, this is not least in the protection of children, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, pointed out. AI can help education in a range of ways, but these also need regulation. As the noble Baroness said, we need rules to defend against the potential abuses.
Goldman Sachs predicts that the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs globally will be replaced; this includes around a quarter of current work tasks in the US and Europe. Furthermore, as has been noted, AI can damage our physical and mental health. It can infringe upon individual privacy and, if not protected against, undermine human rights. Our collective response to these concerns must be as integrated and comprehensive as our embracing of the potential benefits. It should involve all stakeholders, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society. Permission should and must be sought by AI developers for the use of copyright-protected work, with remuneration and attribution provided to creators and rights holders, an issue highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg. Most importantly, transparency needs to be delivered on what content is used to train generative AI models. I found the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, focusing on outcomes, of particular interest.
Around the world, countries and regions are already beginning to draft rules for AI. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, said, this does not need to stifle innovation. The Government’s White Paper on AI regulation adopted a cross-sector and outcome-based framework, underpinned by its five core principles. Unfortunately, there are no proposals in the current White Paper for introducing a new AI regulator to oversee the implementation of the framework. Existing regulators, such as the Information Commissioner’s Office, Ofcom and the FCA have instead been asked to implement the five principles from within their respective domains. As a number of noble Lords referred to, the Ada Lovelace Institute has expressed concern about the Government’s approach, which it has described as “all eyes, no hands”. The institute says that, despite
“significant horizon-scanning capabilities to anticipate and monitor AI risks … it has not given itself the powers and resources to prevent those risks or even react to them effectively after the fact”.
The Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, seeks to address these shortcomings and, as he said in his opening remarks: if not now, when? Until such time as an independent AI regulator is established, the challenge lies in ensuring its effective implementation across various regulatory domains. This includes data protection, competition, communications and financial services. A number of noble Lords mentioned the multitude of regulatory bodies involved. This means that effective governance between them will be paramount. Regulatory clarity, which enables business to adopt and scale investment in AI, will bolster the UK’s competitive edge. The UK has so far been focusing on voluntary measures for general-purpose AI systems. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester said, this is not adequate: human rights and privacy must also be protected.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, noted that AI does not respect national borders. A range of international approaches to AI safety and governance are developing, some of which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax. The EU has opted for a comprehensive and prescriptive legislative approach; the US is introducing some mandatory reporting requirements; for example, for foundation models that pose serious national or economic security risks.
Moreover, a joint US-EU initiative is drafting a set of voluntary rules for AI businesses—the AI code of conduct. In the short term, these may serve as de facto international standards for global firms. Can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House whether the Government are engaging with this drafting? The noble Lord, Lord Empey, suggested that the Government have lost momentum. Can the Minister explain why the Government are allowing the UK to lose influence over the development of international AI regulation?
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, noted that the Library briefing states that this Bill marks a departure from government approach. The Government have argued that introducing legislation now would be premature and that the risks and challenges associated with AI, the regulatory gaps and the best way to address them must be better understood. This cannot be the case. Using the horse analogy adopted by the noble Baroness earlier, we need to make sure that we do not act after the horse has bolted.
I pay tribute, as others have done, to the work of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee. I found the points highlighted by its chair and her comments very helpful. We are facing an inflection point with AI. It is regrettable that the government response is not keeping up with the change. Why are the Government procrastinating while all other G7 members are adopting a different, more proactive approach? A Labour Government would act decisively and not delay. Self-regulation is simply not enough.
The honourable Member for Hove, the shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, outlined Labour’s plans recently at techUK’s annual conference. He said:
“Businesses need fast, clear and consistent regulation … that … does not unnecessarily slow down innovation”—
a point reflected in comments by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. We also need regulation that encourages risk taking and finding new ways of working. We need regulation that addresses the concerns and protects the privacy of the public.
As my noble friend Lord Chandos said, the UK also needs to address concerns about misinformation and disinformation, not least in instances where these are democratic threats. This point was also reflected by the noble Lords, Lord Vaizey and Lord Fairfax.
Labour’s regulatory innovation office would give strategic steers aligned with our industrial strategy. It would set and monitor targets on regulatory approval timelines, benchmark against international comparators and strengthen the work done by the Regulatory Horizons Council. The public need to know that safety will be baked into how AI is used by both the public and the private sectors. A Labour Government would ensure that the UK public sector is a leader in responsibly and transparently applying AI. We will require safety reports from the companies developing frontier AI. We are developing plans to make sure that AI works for everyone.
Without clear regulation, widespread business adoption and public trust, the UK’s adoption of AI will be too slow. It is the Government’s responsibility to acknowledge and address how AI affects people’s jobs, lives, data and privacy, and the rapidly changing world in which they live. The Government are veering haphazardly between extreme risk, extreme optimism and extreme delay on this issue. Labour is developing a practical, well-informed and long-term approach to regulation.
In the meantime, we support and welcome the principles behind the Private Member’s Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, but remain open-minded on the current situation and solution, while acknowledging that there is still much more to be done.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Viscount Camrose) (Con)
I join my thanks to those of others to my noble friend Lord Holmes for bringing forward this Bill. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this absolutely fascinating debate of the highest standard. We have covered a wide range of topics today. I will do my best to respond, hopefully directly, to as many points as possible, given the time available.
The Government recognise the intent of the Bill and the differing views on how we should go about regulating artificial intelligence. For reasons I will now set out, the Government would like to express reservations about my noble friend’s Bill.
First, with the publication of our AI White Paper in March 2023, we set out proposals for a regulatory framework that is proportionate, adaptable and pro-innovation. Rather than designing a new regulatory system from scratch, the White Paper proposed five cross-sectoral principles, which include safety, transparency and fairness, for our existing regulators to apply within their remits. The principles-based approach will enable regulators to keep pace with the rapid technological change of AI.
The strength of this approach is that regulators can act now on AI within their own remits. This common-sense, pragmatic approach has won endorsement from leading voices across civil society, academia and business, as well as many of the companies right at the cutting edge of frontier AI development. Last month we published an update through the Government’s response to the consultation on the AI White Paper. The White Paper response outlines a range of measures to support existing regulators to deliver against the AI regulatory framework. This includes providing further support to regulators to deliver the regulatory framework through a boost of more than £100 million to upskill regulators and help unlock new AI research and innovation.
As part of this, we announced a £10 million package to jump-start regulators’ AI capabilities, preparing and upskilling regulators to address the risks and to harness the opportunities of this defining technology. It also includes publishing new guidance to support the coherent implementation of the principles. To ensure robust implementation of the framework, we will continue our work to establish the central function.
Let me reassure noble Lords that the Government take mitigating AI risks extremely seriously. That is why several aspects of the central function have already been established, such as the central AI risk function, which will shortly be consulting on its cross-economy AI risk register. Let me reassure the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that the AI risk function will maintain a holistic view of risks across the AI ecosystem, including misuse risks, such as where AI capabilities may be leveraged to undermine cybersecurity.
Specifically on criminality, the Government recognise that the use of AI in criminal activity is a very important issue. We are working with a range of stakeholders, including regulators, and a range of legal experts to explore ways in which liability, including criminal liability, is currently allocated through the AI value chain.
In the coming months we will set up a new steering committee, which will support and guide the activities of a formal regulator co-ordination structure within government. We also wrote to key regulators, requesting that they publish their AI plans by 30 April, setting out how they are considering, preparing for and addressing AI risks and opportunities in their domain.
As for the next steps for ongoing policy development, we are developing our thinking on the regulation of highly capable general-purpose models. Our White Paper consultation response sets out key policy questions related to possible future binding measures, which we are exploring with experts and our international partners. We plan to publish findings from this expert engagement and an update on our thinking later this year.
We also confirmed in the White Paper response that we believe legislative action will be required in every country once the understanding of risks from the most capable AI systems has matured. However, legislating too soon could easily result in measures that are ineffective against the risks, are disproportionate or quickly become out of date.
Finally, we make clear that our approach is adaptable and iterative. We will continue to work collaboratively with the US, the EU and others across the international landscape to both influence and learn from international development.
I turn to key proposals in the Bill that the noble Lord has tabled. On the proposal to establish a new AI authority, it is crucial that we put in place agile and effective mechanisms that will support the coherent and consistent implementation of the AI regulatory framework and principles. We believe that a non-statutory central function is the most appropriate and proportionate mechanism for delivering this at present, as we observe a period of non-statutory implementation across our regulators and conduct our review of regulator powers and remits.
In the longer term, we recognise that there may be a case for reviewing how and where the central function has delivered, once its functions have become more clearly defined and established, including whether the function is housed within central government or in a different form. However, the Government feel that this would not be appropriate for the first stage of implementation. To that end, as I mentioned earlier, we are delivering the central function within DSIT, to bring coherence to the regulatory framework. The work of the central function will provide clarity and ensure that the framework is working as intended and that joined-up and proportionate action can be taken if there are gaps in our approach.
We recognise the need to assess the existing powers and remits of the UK’s regulators to ensure they are equipped to address AI risks and opportunities in their domains and to implement the principles consistently and comprehensively. We anticipate having to introduce a statutory duty on regulators requiring them to have due regard to the principles after an initial period of non-statutory implementation. For now, however, we want to test and iterate our approach. We believe this approach offers critical adaptability, but we will keep it under review; for example, by assessing the updates on strategic approaches to AI that several key regulators will publish by the end of April. We will also work with government departments and regulators to analyse and review potential gaps in existing regulatory powers and remits.
Like many noble Lords, we see approaches such as regulatory sandboxes as a crucial way of helping businesses navigate the AI regulatory landscape. That is why we have funded the four regulators in the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum to pilot a new, multiagency advisory service known as the AI and digital hub. We expect the hub to launch in mid-May and will provide further details in the coming weeks on when this service will be open for applications from innovators.
One of the principles at the heart of the AI regulatory framework is accountability and governance. We said in the White Paper that a key part of implementation of this principle is to ensure effective oversight of the design and use of AI systems. We have recognised that additional binding measures may be required for developers of the most capable AI systems and that such measures could include requirements related to accountability. However, it would be too soon to mandate measures such as AI-responsible officers, even for these most capable systems, until we understand more about the risks and the effectiveness of potential mitigations. This could quickly become burdensome in a way that is disproportionate to risk for most uses of AI.
Let me reassure my noble friend Lord Holmes that we continue to work across government to ensure that we are ready to respond to the risks to democracy posed by deep fakes; for example, through the Defending Democracy Taskforce, as well as through existing criminal offences that protect our democratic processes. However, we should remember that AI labelling and identification technology is still at an early stage. No specific technology has yet been proven to be both technically and organisationally feasible at scale. It would not be right to mandate labelling in law until the potential benefits and risks are better understood.
Noble Lords raised the importance of protecting intellectual property, a profoundly important subject. In the AI White Paper consultation response, the Government committed to provide an update on their approach to AI and copyright issues soon. I am confident that, when we do so, it will address many of the issues that noble Lords have raised today.
In summary, our approach, combining a principles-based framework, international leadership and voluntary measures on developers, is right for today, as it allows us to keep pace with rapid and uncertain advances in AI. The UK has successfully positioned itself as a global leader on AI, in recognition of the fact that AI knows no borders and that its complexity demands nuanced international governance. In addition to spearheading thought leadership through the AI Safety Summit, the UK has supported effective action through the G7, the Council of Europe, the OECD, the G5, the G20 and the UN, among other bodies. We look forward to continuing to engage with all noble Lords on these critical issues as we continue to develop our regulatory approach.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this excellent debate. It is pretty clear that the issues are very much with us today and we have what we need to act today. To respond to a question kindly asked by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, in my drafting I am probably allowing “relevant” regulators to do some quite heavy lifting, but what I envisage within that is certainly all the economic regulators, and indeed all regulators who are in a sector where AI is being developed, deployed and in use. Everybody who has taken part in this debate and beyond may benefit from having a comprehensive list of all the regulators across government. Perhaps I could ask that of the Minister. I think it would be illuminating for all of us.
At the autumn FT conference, my noble friend the Minister said that heavy-handed regulation could stifle innovation. Certainly, it could. Heavy-handed regulation would not only stifle innovation but would be a singular failure of that creation of the regulatory process. History tells us that right-size regulation is pro-citizen, pro-consumer and pro-innovation; it drives innovation and inward investment. I was taken by so much of what the Ada Lovelace Institute put in its report. The Government really have given themselves all the eyes and not the hands to act. It reminds me very much of a Yorkshire saying: see all, hear all, do nowt. What is required is for these technologies to be human led, in our human hands, and human in the loop throughout. Right-size regulation, because it is principles-based, is necessarily agile, adaptive and can move as the technology moves. It should be principles-based and outcomes focused, with inputs that are transparent, understood, permissioned and, wherever and whenever applicable, paid for.
My noble friend the Minister has said on many occasions that there will come a time when we will legislate on AI. Let 22 March 2024 be that time. It is time to legislate; it is time to lead.
Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL]
Friday 22nd March 2024
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL] 2023-24 View all Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL] 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I propose that the Bill be read a second time with some trepidation, not because this is a momentous Bill but, on the contrary, because it is a very modest measure indeed.
I shall go through its clauses, which are very few. The first requires the Secretary of State to establish a committee and allows the Secretary of State to appoint the members of that committee. I have not chosen to specify who they should be or how many they should be, because I trust the Secretary of State in whatever Government, of whatever political colour, to make sensible decisions about that and appoint appropriate and skilled people. The clause also states what the purpose of the committee is, which bears reading out. It is
“to be a source of evidence-based, scientific expertise on the sentience of the human foetus in the light of developments in scientific and medical knowledge, and to advise the government on the formulation of relevant policy and legislation”.
The second clause requires the committee to publish reports. It actually requires the committee to publish only one report per annum, for the purposes of transparency, saying what the committee has done and giving an account of any income or expenditure it has had, as well as who its members are—a normal sort of annual report. The Government are not required to respond to that, but the committee is then free to publish further reports of a more scientific character. Clause 3—I shall come to this—requires the Government to respond to reports of that character. The other part of Clause 2 is language that ensures that the Bill is consistent with devolution legislation.
Clause 3 refers to the response that the Government have to make to those reports. There is nothing to stop the Government responding by simply saying that they have noted the report, if that is as far as they wish to go.
Finally, Clauses 4 and 5 are supplementary and general clauses, which I have been advised are appropriate for this Bill.
Why would such a committee be needed, and what value would it have? The question of human foetal sentience has been addressed by a number of bodies, but principally by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. As the very helpful note from the Library makes clear, the current conclusion—because, of course, this is a shifting and developing scientific field—is that, to date, evidence indicates that the possibility of pain perception before 28 weeks of gestation is unlikely. However, one of the members who formed the committee that reached that view has now changed his mind and takes the view that the perception of pain could arise as low as 12 weeks.
The British Association of Perinatal Medicine takes the view that foetuses born as early as 22 weeks’ gestation show physical and physiological responses to pain, and there is no reason to think that foetuses at this gestation are any different. In addition, it might be said that the NHS recommends the use of analgesia for the foetus in the case of operations in utero for spina bifida from 20 weeks onwards.
So it is fair to say that there is considerable breadth of view on the question of human foetal sentience and when it kicks in. We would all benefit—government and all the relevant professions—from having a forum in which a clearer and more determined view, and one which developed over time, could be thrashed out between different medical professions. It would also have the advantage that the Government generally, in responding to questions on this issue, have tended to rely on the work of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which places a heavy burden on it. The advantage of having a committee such as I propose would mean that there are opportunities to bring together other royal colleges, including those representing paediatricians, midwives and others, so that their view could be contributed on an equal basis.
This all brings me to the question of advances in medicine and medical science, and rapid advances in surgery. I have referred to the rare but important cases of operations in utero for spina bifida, but there are other reasons why operations may need to be carried out on the human foetus while still in the womb. There are also, of course, cases where it is necessary to operate on a pregnant woman for her own sake, and in those circumstances consideration should also be given to what consequences might arise in relation to the sentience of the foetus that she is carrying in her womb.
All of this, at the moment, is being conducted against a background of inconsistency of professional opinion. If one says, as one could, that this should all be left, as a matter of clinical judgment, to the medical practitioner, I am all in favour of medical practitioners being able to exercise clinical judgment freely and professionally, but in fact it is very difficult to do that without some sort of agreed guidance. We do not, as a matter of practice, leave practitioners free of guidance—there is a great deal of guidance on a range of topics, which they follow when carrying out their necessary and valuable work—so I do not think it impinges on the freedom of the medical practitioner to exercise their professional judgment that there should be a better-informed agreement on the time at which foetal sentience arises than currently exists, given the inconsistencies that I have drawn attention to.
There are also inconsistencies with the way in which we treat sentient animals. The then Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill 2022, which came through your Lordships’ House, established a precedent for this Bill by requiring the Government to set up and maintain a committee precisely to give them advice on policy in relation to animal sentience. That Act, noble Lords may recall, declares mammals and certain categories of shellfish to be sentient. I would be surprised if my noble friend the Minister wanted to say that a human foetus should be denied the same esteem as a lobster, but in fact that is the current position. We have legal protections for lobsters and decapod crustaceans—I remember the discussions during the passage of that Bill about those animals—as well as all mammals, but we have no view, let alone protection, for the human foetus.
There is also an inconsistency with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which defines protected animals and protects their foetuses from a point two-thirds through the gestation period. We have legal protection for canine foetuses from seven weeks onwards, but we do not even have informal policy advice for the human foetus and its own sentience. This Bill would open a path to correcting that, by allowing scientists to come together and reach an agreed view and a developing view, in the light of new discoveries.
Finally, I come somewhat reluctantly to the question of abortion, which I have not mentioned until now because the Bill is not about abortion. The question of sentience is much broader than that and relates to foetuses where the mother is extremely keen, devoted and committed—as indeed are her professional carers—to the healthy birth of that child.
The Bill does nothing to change abortion law or the way in which any proposed future changes to abortion law are carried out. It has no implications, other than to provide a focus for scientific knowledge, on the course of legal developments relating to abortion. It does nothing to impinge on the legal rights of women to terminate a pregnancy. Anyone who argues that it does is implicitly arguing that those rights are defensible only if scientific knowledge is somehow suppressed and dispersed.
This is a modest Bill intended to provide scientific knowledge and inform public debate. It is also based on a clear precedent advanced by the Government; the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act was a government Bill. It is hard to see on what grounds the Government or noble Lords would object to it. I beg to move.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, when I saw this Bill on our prospectus I was immediately suspicious. It follows close on the heels of an effort during the Public Order Bill to enable protests on the doorstep of abortion clinics. Happily, that effort failed and it was agreed that buffer zones were necessary. The amendment would have allowed people who totally opposed the termination of a pregnancy to harass women as they entered clinics for medical attention.
Why would an independent committee be needed to respond to the issue before us today? The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists updated its research and guidance less than two years ago, in 2022. The royal colleges—I am a fellow of three of them—are the seats of high-level monitoring of global developments in research and conduct of medical matters. They do it with great care and their research relates to what happens not just in the United Kingdom but around the world.
Why am I concerned? The politics of the United States of America is riven with divisions on the issue of abortion. For many decades it has been weaponised by far-right, deeply misogynistic organisations calling themselves Christian, which oppose women’s right to reproductive freedom. I always say, “Follow the money”. Dark money has surged into the United Kingdom’s anti-abortion groups in recent years. We should be concerned about overseas political influence inside our country. Sadly, many far-right organisations are being funded by such sources. Shadowy funds whose sources are obscured or not fully disclosed play an alarming part in enabling think tanks and far-right political groups to distort our politics.
One group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, has doubled its activities in this country in the last couple of years. Founded in the United States in 1993, the Alliance Defending Freedom—the freedom of only some—is an influential conservative group that aims to promote Christian principles and ethics. It is behind legal efforts to roll back abortion rights, remove LGBT+ protections and demonise trans people—that is not very Christian, and I count myself as one. It claims that its tireless work—
Lord Moylan (Con)
Is the noble Baroness suggesting that I have been in receipt of dark money or any money at all, or would she like to take the opportunity to state that she is not making such an allegation?
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
I am perfectly happy to say that some innocent dupes are used by some of the organisations funded in this way.
This organisation claims that its tireless work helped the United States Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion. The ADF has supported controversial anti-abortion activity in this country, including supporting and funding protesters outside clinics. We are seeing the ramping up of spending to bring US-style abortion politics into our country.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
May I ask the noble Baroness what precisely this has to do with a Bill proposing a committee of research and analysis?
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
It is quite clear that the purpose of the Bill is to seek to roll back advances that have been made in relation to abortion, and to try to reduce the time limits we currently have. The House should know that in 2020, £390,000 came through the ADF into the UK, and it is not disclosed where those funds come from. That money doubled to £770,000 in 2022. We do not have a current figure, but I am sure it is multiplying at a rate of knots. We are seeing, I am afraid, an effort to weaponise the issue of abortion and women’s freedom in order to create divisions in our society. I really hope the House sees the purport in the Bill.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moylan on bringing forward the Bill—
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I believe I am the next speaker; thank you.
There was an occasion in the last Session when a speech was made—it may well have been by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws—and it was so impassioned that the late Lord Cormack looked at me as the next speaker and said, “Follow that!”, and I said, “I shall try”. Sadly, I failed to follow it very effectively.
Today’s debate is clearly very heated. Yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said in his opening remarks, it is a very small Bill and is setting the framework for a committee. It is supposed to be an evidence-based committee building on scientific expertise and changes in scientific and medical knowledge. From sedentary positions from the Opposition Front Benches, I have heard that the Bill has everything to do with abortion. Yes, it may have something to do with abortion, but not only abortion. It has nothing on the face of it, or in terms of intent, that is about rolling back women’s rights. What is discussed in the excellent briefing from the Library is that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Medical Association have different guidance.
The British Medical Association has suggested that
“even if there is no incontrovertible evidence that the fetus feels pain, the use of fetal analgesia when carrying out any procedure (whether an abortion or a therapeutic intervention) on the fetus in utero may go some way in relieving the anxiety of the woman and health professionals”.
Surely, if a foetus of 24, 25 or 26 weeks’ gestation is sentient—whether the proposal is for a medical intervention or for abortion—no one would want the foetus to suffer, including the woman carrying the foetus, whether they intend to carry it to term or they do not wish it to live. Surely nobody wants to inflict pain. If we understand at what point foetal sentience really comes into play, appropriate decisions and recommendations can be made. At the moment, arrangements for medical interventions are in place only for spina bifida, but there are other cases of in utero interventions that should be explored.
There are differences of opinion and there may be different medical judgments in terms of analgesia and anaesthesia, precisely because the questions of the impact on the unborn child will be different. It may be necessary to use analgesia or anaesthesia, or it may not be appropriate, but we need to understand the situation. The proposed committee would be looking at scientific evidence. It would help clinicians to form views and be able better to advise parents and clinicians about the most appropriate way forward.
The suggestion that this is simply about rolling back rights to abortion is disingenuous. I know that from the Front Benches, there is considerable disagreement. I am used to being a lone voice from these Liberal Democrat Benches. Nevertheless, given that my party—and, I believe, other parties—spends a lot of time saying how important it is to have evidence-based policy-making, surely, setting up a committee to look at the evidence and give appropriate information to parents would actually be of benefit to all.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, first, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for my inability to read. Secondly, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moylan on bringing forward this Bill. To the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I say, not only am I not in receipt of any dark money; I am not a member of any sort of pro-life group, APPG or anything like that.
I think it fair to say that the Bill is not that likely to become law, so I suggest that my noble friend is putting down a marker. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, expressed very well the way we should be looking at these things, on a scientific basis. I am, in fact, going to talk about abortion, which is a path down which one should tread very warily. Last year, there were some 200,000 or more abortions, of which the vast majority will have been perfectly healthy foetuses that people just did not wish to take to term. That was not the intention of David Steel in 1967; it was thought to be quite a minor adjustment to the number of children that would be aborted.
My own view is that abortion is necessary on many occasions, but it is a necessary evil. It is not something that anybody could contemplate lightly or would wish to see happen—either the mother or indeed the child. This is not about women’s rights. The reason why I am putting down a marker today is that there is talk of decriminalising late abortions, after one or two very high-profile cases of a mother being prosecuted. In the particular case I am thinking of, a mother aborted at home, through drugs, a 36-week-old foetus.
Of course, that child could have lived perfectly happily, so we have to ask ourselves not about women’s rights, but about where murder begins and murder ends. A child that could have been born perfectly happily—that is being born in the ward next door—being aborted when it could have lived, seems to me to be a very, very serious matter. I put this down as a marker because I hope that nobody will pursue the idea that we decriminalise late abortions, which may take place at home. This is not about women’s rights, but about a decent, humane society.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in declaring non-financial interests as listed in the register, I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for bringing in this Bill. I entirely endorse what my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham has said to the House today. Being pro-life—for a woman and a child—and believing in the right to life as a human right does not make people misogynist bigots, and they should not be caricatured as such.
During the passage of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, I wrote that it left a gaping hole because of the lack of any comparable mechanism for the consideration of the human foetus, a point the noble Lord made earlier. I agree with what CS Lewis said in support of the National Anti-Vivisection Society: if you start by being cruel to animals, you will also end up being cruel to human beings. It is that incongruity, and how we treat the most vulnerable of our own species, that is close to my heart, and I make no apology for that.
In the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham argued that the relevance of pain was not dependent on the ability to think rationally, but rather to feel, as animals can do. In 1789 he wrote,
“the question is not, Can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?”
There is an analogy here with foetal sentience, one which emerged in two ad hoc inquiries held in Parliament and in which I took part, one chaired by the late Lord Rawlinson of Ewell, a former Solicitor-General. We said that, like a newborn infant, a foetus may not be rational in the way an older child or adult is, but, if there are grounds to believe that a child in the womb may be able to suffer, we have a responsibility to do what we can to minimise such suffering. If we are uncertain about the exact point at which, and by how much, an unborn baby suffers, we should always err on the side of caution.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referenced, by implication, Professor John Wyatt, who has three decades of experience treating extremely premature babies, including a large number born at 22 or 23 weeks, below the current abortion time limit. A few years ago, when addressing parliamentarians, in sobering evidence, Professor Wyatt told us that there was a link between what the foetus and premature babies experience. He said:
“I think from my observation of extremely premature babies that they are sentient, they are conscious, and they are responsive to their environment”.
Why should we care? First, this is a human rights issue. The preamble to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory, states that the child
“needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before”—
please note that word—
“as well as after birth”.
We have obligations that must be honoured, and how will we do that without expert research or guidance policy?
Secondly, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, barbaric, discriminatory legislation permits abortion up to and even during birth in the cases of Down’s syndrome—it was World Down Syndrome Day yesterday—club foot and cleft lip and palate. As the noble Baroness told us, the NHS recommends the use of analgesics when performing foetal surgery on babies with spina bifida after 20 weeks, but pain relief is not mandatory for foeticide abortions.
Noble Lords should study the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and attempts in the other place, in one instance, to increase the opportunities of abortion right up to birth in all cases, and, in another, to lower the abortion time limit from 24 to 22 weeks, in line with the increase in survival rates of babies born at 22 and 23 weeks. I also gently point out that, as long ago as 1988, I succeeded in the House of Commons in persuading 296 MPs—a majority of 45—to vote for my Bill to reduce the upper time limit to 18 weeks, the Swedish upper time limit. It would have saved the lives of some of the 10 million babies who have been aborted in Britain, but it was talked out by opponents. The case today is even more compelling; please note that the EU average upper time limit is around 12 weeks, with many Parliaments greatly influenced by the questions of sentience and pain.
In other areas of medicine, the precautionary principle is often applied: the idea that, where there is uncertainty, we should err on the side of caution. So, it seems to me that we ought to be prudent when it comes to foetal sentience.
I end with Professor Wyatt’s words:
“I think we should play safe, we should give the foetus the benefit of the doubt. We should assume that it is capable of experiencing pain and unpleasant sensations, and we should then treat the foetus appropriately, which would if necessary be with strong pain relief medication or with anaesthesia”.
This is both sensible and humane. A foetal sentience committee, which is all that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is asking us to support today, would enable us to increase our understanding in this area. I therefore commend the Bill to the House, and I gently say to my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, that Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
“Everyone has the right to life”.
Supporting that does not make me right wing, a bigot or a misogynist.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Moylan for introducing this Bill for a foetal sentience committee to review understanding of foetal sentience and to inform policy. It is a pleasure—indeed, I am humbled—to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, with whose views I find myself so often in agreement. The last time was in a committee that discussed China. I find him the most persuasive of human rights defenders in this Chamber and have done since I arrived.
This is a modest Bill, with modest aims: to approach policy in this area in the same way as in others, through consultation and the careful weighing of specialist evidence. That, as you would expect, continues to change, with new research and new evidence. In this area especially, there are many disagreements about the weight given to different parts of the evidence, and specialists themselves often change their views, as indeed has been pointed out earlier in this debate.
In particular, there are now doubts about whether some of the physiological assumptions that have dominated the debate are justified. Emphasis has often been placed on the role of the thalamus, a group of cells centrally in the brain that helps to control how sensory and motor signals are passed from one part of the cerebral cortex to another, and of the cortex, the grey matter that has a role in memory, thinking, learning, reasoning, problem-solving, consciousness and functions related to the senses. The emphasis has been often focused on them in respect of the perception of pain, but some researchers regard this as too narrow. There is, therefore, very good reason for all this complex, controversial and developing material to be weighed by an independent committee that can help advise government and parliamentarians to make and shape policy and legislation.
The approach already exists in the case of animal welfare, as we have heard, where there is a committee on animal sentience—see the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022. I see it as a model for the Bill. Indeed, as we heard earlier, in the UK, the foetus of protected animals in the case of a mammal, bird or reptile is protected when half the gestation or incubation period of the relevant species has elapsed, as set out in Section 1 of the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. This Act regulates the use of protected animals in any experiment or other scientific procedure which may cause pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm to the animal. It is important that, as a society, we do not knowingly and unnecessarily inflict pain. We have legislated to stop this happening in protected animals and prenatal animals. We should now extend this welfare to our own species, and a small but significant step in doing so is to gather and sift the relevant evidence.
I understand that one reason why some, including the noble Baroness on the Benches opposite, oppose this Bill is that they see it as a covert attack on the present abortion laws. If the committee is set up as proposed, they fear that it will, as the science develops, find more and more evidence that foetuses, as they like to regard them, are indeed prenatal babies, able to feel pain from an early stage, and that abortion is merely premature infanticide. Yet, however strong their views, they should not try to bury evidence that goes against them. They should be willing for the scientific picture to be fully understood and presented in all its nuances to policymakers, as this Bill proposes, and to make their arguments, just as those who oppose them should do in the light of this Bill.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I commend my noble friend for tabling this Bill, which is on such an important issue. I had hoped that we would restrict our debate to empirical evidence on the merits of this modest Bill, rather than hear smears about right-wing dark money and conspiracies.
I will restrict my remarks to a few reflections on relevant studies on both sides of the debate and highlight the need for objectivity in this area, of a kind that could be provided by a suitably comprised committee.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
Why do noble Lords who are proposing and supporting this Bill assume that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is not capable of researching in the way that the noble Lord describes? Why are they again attacking institutions that have expertise and do this constantly? It is like the attack on the Supreme Court. It is basically expressing contempt for the institutions that currently exist and doing precisely what they want, because they want to set up committees that I suggest would be weighted with people that they would choose.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I think that is a fatuous conspiracy theory again, but, if the noble Baroness satisfactorily answers my question about the involvement of Marie Stopes International and BPAS in the RCOG, I will gladly debate with her on the issues that she raises.
If I can continue—
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I am not addressing the noble Lord. I am speaking to my colleagues on his Front Bench. I am very sorry, but shouting “you” and pointing is not the conduct that we expect in this House. It is in our guidance, so I ask the Government Whip to please remonstrate with his colleague not to behave like that.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I say to noble Lords that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, had ample opportunity to make her points. She intervened on me and I put a very reasonable question back to her. Perhaps I can now continue.
Noble Lords may be aware of a fascinating peer-reviewed academic study published in 2010 of twins in the womb at 14 weeks of gestation. The study found that the twins’ self-directed hand movements were more calibrated than movements to the uterine wall, while movements towards the co-twin exhibited even greater care. The study determined that such deliberate actions could not be the result simply of spontaneous reflexes. The team behind the study concluded that these findings force us to predate the emergence of social behaviour. Another study published by a team of child psychologists and neuroscientists in 2006 found “surprisingly advanced motor planning” in foetuses at 22 weeks’ gestation, again pointing towards a sentience of the foetus during the second trimester of pregnancy.
These are precisely the kinds of studies that ought to be informing government policy, yet neither was cited in the RCOG reports on foetal sentience to which my noble friend alluded earlier. Some will no doubt argue that a committee is not required when we have the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to guide us, but, on the contrary, I would suggest that RCOG reports on foetal sentience highlight the need for objectivity in this area and there are a number of good reasons to be cautious about accepting the conclusions. The RCOG itself has now distanced itself from some of the conclusions in its 2010 report. For example, its updated 2022 report no longer asserts, as the earlier one did, that a foetus is in “continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation”. The 2022 report also removed a section on responding to common questions that included answering the question, “Will the baby feel or suffer pain?” with “No, the foetus does not experience pain”. Seemingly, it is no longer sure.
Since the RCOG has rejected sections of its own report, it would seem wise not to assume that its 2022 update is wholly reliable either. In a letter published in the European Journal of Pain, Italian neonatologist and bioethicist Carlo Bellini, who has written extensively on foetal pain, has questioned the conclusions of the 2022 report, arguing that they were based on misrepresentations and incorrect extrapolations of research cited in their support. As a layman of course it is difficult for me to comment objectively on differing research, but what is clear is that government policy would be assisted by a committee that can provide objectivity in this debate and consider all relevant findings. In fact, this is something that ought to be supported by the RCOG.
Let me finish with a final reflection on why this matters beyond simply informing the abortion debate. A 2007 academic journal cited in Neurodevelopment Changes of Foetal Pain asserted:
“Exposure of the foetus and premature newborn to pain has been associated with long-term alterations in pain response thresholds as well as changes in behavioural responses relating to the painful stimuli”.
In other words, if a baby experiences pain before birth, it may impact its development and behaviour in later life. It is therefore imperative that we understand foetal sentience adequately so that any treatment of unborn babies is performed in a way that will not lead to long-term damage. I therefore strongly support my noble friend’s Bill.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, I wish to put on record that although my noble friend and I have very different views, as a matter of principle I defend her right to make her views known, and I hope she will understand why I respectfully disagree with her. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws: she is spot on. This Bill is part of a far wider anti-gender, anti-LGBT attack on human rights, a campaign which is international and largely but not exclusively put forward by national Conservatives and Christian nationalists.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in his introduction said two things, both of which I think have subsequently been shown to be not true. This Bill is neither modest, nor not about abortion. It is far from that. It is unprecedented government interference in the ethics and practices of abortion care. It seeks to circumvent expert clinical guidelines, not because of another body of clinical evidence but because of an ideological disagreement with the conclusions of the work of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I should say to noble Lords opposite that the RCOG is duty-bound to provide evidence-based clinical guidelines, and to think that it would do so without talking to anaesthetists and other relevant professionals is to do that college a great disservice.
This Bill is focused solely on the foetus and says nothing about the rights of women. It is from the same stable that has brought similar legislation about in American states such as Arizona, Kansas and North Carolina, and it absolutely is a precursor to further legislation which will limit and outlaw abortion in full. Setting up a committee in this way, which has no remit to consider the rights of women or their experiences and healthcare, speaks volumes about the real motivation behind this legislation. I have to say to noble Lords opposite, and on the Cross Benches, who have repeatedly drawn parallels with the use of analgesia in animal scientific experimentation that they have ignored the fact that in this Bill we are talking about foetuses that are carried in the bodies of women—who are sentient beings capable of expressing not only their own healthcare needs but those of others.
This has been presented as being a method by which we can get to objective evidence. It is nothing of the sort. This is about setting up a committee to consider selective evidence—evidence that, I put it to the noble Lord, will inevitably lead towards a diminution of women’s rights. Far from being humane, the Bill has considerable scope for unintended consequences. The threats to women, not just during pregnancy but during childbirth, were this to go ahead, are considerable. We have already seen that throughout the United States, in states where these sorts of measures have been introduced.
I put it to you that this Bill does pretty well the opposite of what has been claimed for it. It is actually about picking and choosing selective evidence in order to lead down a path, as has happened in Alabama, towards the complete abolition of abortion. It is a Trojan horse. I really hope that we will not be fooled, and that we will put this in the context of that wider campaign against women’s rights and human rights.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
How does my noble friend account for the disparity between the views of the BMA and of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists?
Baroness Barker (LD)
It is not uncommon for health professionals to have different views and for their views to develop over time. However, I would much rather listen to either of those than to a hand-picked political committee making political decisions on what should really be a health matter.
This is a Trojan horse, and I really hope we will see through it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for unveiling, yet again, a little bit more of this wider campaign against women’s rights and human rights. He has done us a service.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I refer noble Lords across the House to the Companion at 4.18, where it states clearly that we address each other as “noble Lord”. We do not use the word “you”, and there is a good reason for that, which is that that actually makes us a politer House. Standing up, even in impassioned debates on subjects about which people feel strongly, and saying “you” will lead to people pointing, which is not acceptable, and there is a reason for this. I have been in this House for 26 years, and there are some things that are wise, and this is one of those.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I heartily endorse what the noble Baroness has just said about how we address each other. Does she think that stating quite clearly that those who disagree with you are either in receipt of “dark money” or are “innocent dupes” meets the standards of the House?
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
The noble Lord will note that my noble friend made all her remarks within the guidelines of the House on how we address each other. He may not enjoy what she had to say, and he may disagree with her—some of us do agree with her—however, she did it within the rules of the House.
First, I would like to congratulate—
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. I do not think I have ever misused the procedures of the House and I do not intend to start now. I respect the noble Baroness and we have made common cause on my occasions. Does she think it is within the rules of the House to talk about other noble Lords as if they are dupes or as if they are in receipt of money from outside that has been undeclared?
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
If the noble Lord reads Hansard, I am not sure that that is actually what my noble friend said. However, she is perfectly capable of defending herself.
I want to start my remarks by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on introducing the Bill with such clarity. He called it “modest”, but I beg to differ: this is not a modest Bill. It is short, which definitely helps, but it is not modest. I also need to start by stating that Labour’s policy is that abortion is an essential part of healthcare. We support a woman’s right to choose and we believe that access to safe, legal abortion should be available throughout the UK.
We need to be clear about the true intentions of this proposal: it seeks to chip away at the Abortion Act and change how we govern abortion law. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, may have said that this is not about abortion or the Abortion Act, but the fact that so many of his supporters have said exactly the opposite—that this is indeed about abortion—shows that that is what the Bill is actually about. We can be clear that that is the intention behind the Bill.
The topic of foetal sentience is under constant review by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and its last review found no evidence of a foetus experiencing pain before 24 weeks. It is best that we trust expert medical bodies and scientists, not a Government-appointed committee, to say what is the case and how we should proceed. We need to be clear that the Bill seeks to circumvent expert clinical guidance because it has an ideological disagreement with its conclusions. I was looking at the list of participants on the committee of the royal college, and I suggest that noble Lords do the same because it is a truly impressive medical and scientific body that takes its job very seriously. One noble Lord said they had changed their view between 2010 and 2022. In a way, that proves the point: the point of that committee is to do that review.
Has there ever been a time when a Bill has been brought to this House asking the Government to set up a committee to analyse the medical evidence for, for example, coronary heart disease or endometriosis? No, because we trust the relevant expert medical bodies to do that job for us. We believe the Bill represents a dangerous move to politicise the way that we make decisions about healthcare, and for that reason I will not be supporting it if it moves forward.
The review of foetal awareness of pain reception undertaken by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists found in 2010 that the cerebral cortex is necessary for pain perception, and that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 28 weeks. It was therefore concluded that a foetus cannot experience pain in any sense before that stage. In the light of that, I ask noble Lords to ask why we would vote to set up a committee on that issue, unless that evidence is not considered robust.
I note that, if the Bill were to pass, the remit of this government committee would not extend to the health and well-being of pregnant women, as the noble Baroness said. The comments about sentience in fish, animals and so on make one question where the supporters of the Bill place women’s health, well-being and reproductive rights on the scale of animals, fish and so on. One has to question where that is coming from.
No other area of healthcare is subjected to a dedicated government committee designed to limit access to its treatment. The Bill would leave a woman’s right to access to care at the whim of a committee focused solely on the foetus, with no remit to consider women’s experience, needs or rights. I will certainly not support the Bill as it progresses.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
I thank my noble friend Lord Moylan for introducing this Private Member’s Bill. I am grateful for the contributions by all noble Lords to the debate, which has proven more than ever that there are some deeply held personal views. That is because the Bill itself raises issues of profound sensitivity on a topic on which, as we see, there is a wide range of views.
As the noble Lord said, the main purpose of the Bill is for the Secretary of State to
“establish and thereafter maintain a committee called the Foetal Sentience Committee”
to provide
“evidence-based, scientific expertise on the sentience of the human foetus in the light of developments in scientific and medical knowledge”.
The Government have expressed reservations over the Bill as we do not believe that legislation is needed. The aims of the Bill can be achieved through alternative routes, thereby rendering legislation unnecessary. The Government must uphold the duty of care not to legislate where other reasonable processes are available. Also, the House can decide, if it wishes, whether it wants to set up a such a committee to scrutinise the matter. I fear that, if the Government were to set up such a committee, we would immediately get into issues of who should be on it, its composition and whether it goes one way or the other. That would inevitably lead to the politicisation of it all, and I think we all agree that that would be a regrettable step.
Before I turn to the points raised in the debate, let me first remind noble Lords of the history of abortion legislation in Great Britain and the Government’s long-standing position on matters of abortion policy. Abortion in Great Britain is governed by the Abortion Act 1967, which clearly defines grounds under which an abortion may be carried out. With the exception of emergencies where it is necessary to perform an abortion to save the life of the woman, two doctors must certify that, in their opinion, which must be formed in good faith, a request for an abortion meets at least one ground set out in the Act, and they should be in agreement about which ground this is.
The current gestational limits of abortion in this country are based on the gestation at which a foetus is considered viable, not on foetal awareness. Foetal viability is the ability of a foetus to survive outside the womb. The link between viability and the gestational limit for abortion was made in the 1990 amendments to the Abortion Act, when the gestational time limit for most abortions was changed from 28 to 24 weeks following a change in widespread medical consensus.
An important feature of abortion legislation is that Parliament decides the circumstances under which abortion can be legally undertaken, not the Government. The Government take a neutral stance on changing existing law relating to abortion. Any change to the law in this area is rightly a matter of conscience for individual parliamentarians, rather than for the Government.
Over the last 50 years, the Abortion Act has contributed to a significant reduction in maternal mortality and enabled lawful access to abortion, which is an important area of women’s healthcare. The department remains committed to ensuring that women have access to safe, legal abortions on the NHS, including taking abortion pills at home where eligible, in accordance with the Act.
According to our most recent data, most abortions take place in the early stages of pregnancy, with 93% up to and including 12 weeks’ gestation. Abortions at 20 weeks and beyond are very infrequent. The percentage performed at 20 weeks and over was 1% in 2020 and 2021, and 41% of these were under ground E of the Abortion Act, which states that, if the child were born, there would be
“a substantial risk … it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.
The decision to proceed with an abortion due to foetal abnormality is very difficult for parents. In 1990, when the grounds for abortion were last amended, Parliament decided that doctors are best placed to make these decisions with the women and their families.
A few noble Lords raised issues using the example of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act, which legislates for the creation of animal sentience committees. This legislation reflects that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sought independent advice specifically on animal welfare, as it is a topic on which it sets policy. The Government do not set policy on foetal awareness. When we consider matters as sensitive as that of foetal awareness, it is right that clinical policy is reached through medical consensus among the professional bodies that set clinical guidelines.
We must recognise that the prevention and relief of unnecessary pain is a primary concern in clinical practice. There is no doubt that there have been medical advances over recent decades in in utero surgery and in the study of pain perception. Clinicians who are experts in this field have undertaken a balanced study of the evidence. It was on this basis that, recently, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists undertook a comprehensive review and published its foetal awareness evidence review in December 2022.
This review concluded that evidence to date indicated that the possibility of pain perception before 28 weeks of gestation was unlikely. As an independent organisation responsible for producing clinical guidelines and setting standards for high-quality women’s healthcare, the RCOG’s clinical expertise on this matter is recognised by the Government. In response to questions raised, my understanding is that analgesia is used more to immobilise the foetus for its safety when operations are taking place.
In conclusion, the Government have expressed reservations about this Private Member’s Bill, as a number of non-legislative routes exist through which a committee could be created to consider this matter. I recognise the sensitivity of this topic, as well as the diverse and deeply held views across the House. I thank all those for taking the time to attend and participate in this important and sensitive debate.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to those who have spoken in the debate. I am not proposing to answer them individually, but I shall make some comments, if I may, about the extraordinary speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. The first thing is that nobody, certainly not I, made any deprecatory remarks about the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The idea that we were, or I was, holding it in institutional contempt is simply not borne out by anything that was said. All that was said was that other professional bodies of equal reputation have reached different views, and that a forum for bringing them together so that something could be worked out that might have a more robust character was something that could be recommended. It was complete fantasy and totally unfair to claim that we had said, or I had said, anything deprecatory about the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
The second thing that I feel I have to say is that, given an opportunity, as the noble Baroness was, to state that she did not think that I was in receipt of dark money, or any money, in relation to this, her only answer was to accuse me of being some dupe. Without making any judgment, I will say that I have never heard anything like that said in your Lordships’ House, in the admittedly short time I have been here.
I shall only repeat, in a way, what I said earlier, in response to the noble Baroness, that the right to an abortion—any right that depends on blanking out developing scientific knowledge—cannot be regarded as a very robust right.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, suggested that somehow the evidence before this committee was going to be selected. I have really no idea where this idea comes from or who it is she thinks is going to do the selection. But that brings me to another point—one, I am sure, of genuine misunderstanding—the fault for which I have to attribute to myself.
There was a suggestion by some noble Lords, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that the committee would be full of politicians or politically appointed persons. That was never my intention. I thought that I had made it clear, and perhaps it should have been made clear in the Bill—that is something that could happily be addressed by an amendment—that the membership of the committee was to be made up of experts with scientific knowledge. That is how it would generate scientific knowledge and examine the research. Of course, leading among those experts, I would expect appropriately chosen representatives of the relevant royal colleges and other professional bodies, not politicians at all. I do not think that the Animal Sentience Committee, to take an example that provides a parallel, is stuffed with politicians or political appointees. I think that it has members who know something about animals and how they respond to pain. But that point may be a genuine misunderstanding, and one that I would be happy to address, as I say, in Committee.
As for the Minister’s response, I am grateful for his tone but very sorry to hear his content and the fact that he feels that he cannot agree. In effect, as another noble Lord pointed out—I think that it was the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham—he is rejecting an opportunity to make policy-making more robust and evidence-based. There were some very clever but totally unpersuasive words about the Animal Sentience Committee. The Minister said, in effect, that the Government’s view was that crustaceans deserve higher esteem and regard than the human foetus. Neither position, in my view, is sustainable. With that, I beg to move.
Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill [HL]
Friday 22nd March 2024
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill [HL] 2023-24 View all Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill [HL] 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to propose, for your Lordships’ consideration, a statutory mandate for the prevention of and response to genocide and atrocity crimes. Instances of mass atrocity violence—war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing—are not just rising but are spiralling around the world.
I am the director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and I have spent time with, and campaigned alongside, survivors of atrocity violence, from Yazidi women in Syria and the Uighur communities in exile from China, to the women and human rights defenders of Afghanistan, and many others. Their stories are a glaring testament to the collective failure to stand resolute in the face of atrocity crimes and hold accountable those who continue to perpetrate this kind of identity-based violence.
I have been helped in all my work by a wonderful team at the International Bar Association’s institute, particularly by Dr Ewelina Ochab, who helped in the drafting of this Bill. I have also been assisted by another great group of people, led by Dr Kate Ferguson, who runs an operation called Protection Approaches, which is concerned with foreign affairs.
Of today’s major and emerging foreign policy crises, the vast majority—from Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Israel and Palestine to Myanmar and Xinjiang—are driven by violent targeting of civilian groups based on their identities. If left unchecked, the global propellants of prejudice and inequality, climate collapse, the retreat from liberal democracy, and the great changes in technology, as we see in social media and so on, mean that identity-based mass atrocity crimes will multiply over the next decade. Of that I am sure. We are already seeing it happening.
At the same time, growing disregard for international law, for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our collective responsibilities to prevent and protect, has ushered in an age of impunity. We have failed, time and again, in the face of these grave crimes, and as a consequence our world—indeed, our nation—is less safe and becoming less so. Impunity begets impunity.
Regrettably, these crimes have deep consequences. Perpetrators commit genocide and crimes against humanity because they work; they fulfil the dreadful political objectives of their architects. It is not a nice fact, but it is a true one. It is past time that we, and our Government, accept it. For too long, the reluctance to do so has created a strategic and moral deficit in government policy.
This Bill would move towards filling that gap. Anchored by a statutory mandate and, importantly, bolstered by political leadership and strategic vision, properly prioritising atrocity prevention could see the UK lead the world on preventing violence and protecting civilians. It would re-energise commitments to international humanitarian law and rehabilitate Britain’s battered reputation on the global stage, which has happened as a result of our pulling away from our international obligations.
It is commonly said that armed conflicts are a precursor to the commission of mass atrocity crimes, but in fact it is not always that way round. Indeed, during the many human rights crises of the modern age, mass atrocities often came first and caused armed conflict to break out. For example, mass atrocities drove armed conflict in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and failures to adequately respond to mass atrocities against the Rohingya in Myanmar in 2017 emboldened the Tatmadaw, contributing to their seizure of power in February 2021 and the ensuing civil war. The current conflict between Hamas and Israel follows decades of terrible conduct, by both the IDF and Hamas, before, during and after 7 October. We are now seeing the consequence of that in the current crisis in Gaza.
Members of this House and the other place have stood together in outrage, time and again, and I see those of your Lordships who have often supported those of us who have sought to put amendments into legislation. There has been a strong sense of outrage, but it is not sufficient. Outrage does not help to protect innocent civilians from deliberate attack, arbitrary detention, summary execution, sexual violence and torture, or forced starvation.
This Bill seeks to address this fact head on and focuses on what can be done. In recent years, the Government have made welcome progress, recognising mass atrocity prevention as a new foreign policy priority. That started in 2021, and I pay tribute to the Government for doing that. Following the much-needed inquiry by the International Development Committee on this very issue, a mass atrocity prevention hub was created in Whitehall, tasked with co-ordinating the UK’s approach to these crimes. Here I pause to pay tribute to organisations such as Protection Approaches and the UK atrocity prevention working group, and indeed the institute which I have the fortune of directing, all of which have worked on making changes. Despite the steps forward, it is difficult to see their impact in the inconsistent and insufficient policy responses of government to widespread, systemic and systematic violations.
This Bill’s first purpose would provide a statutory basis to elevate and leverage the important work of the mass atrocity prevention hub. It also includes the monitoring of the steps that take people, and Governments, on a trajectory towards genocide. The hub is forecasting global atrocity risks and making country- specific risk assessments, along with the development of early-warning indicators and policy-making efforts. All of that is good, but it is not being adequately supported, so we press for the changes of the Bill.
The second provision of the Bill addresses and seeks to enshrine the need for senior political leadership and ownership of the UK’s moral and legal obligations to prevent and protect. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, is in his place, and he holds ministerial responsibility for UK atrocity prevention. I know he shares my deep concerns about these matters, but I would welcome his thoughts as to what can be done to repair our damaged reputation, as a state that has strayed from the bounds of international law in recent months under this Government.
Thirdly, the Bill addresses the urgent need to support and train embassies and country teams on the dynamics and warning signs of modern atrocities, and the trajectory towards genocide in some cases. The Government have already committed to doing this, but are yet to deliver on it. UK country teams in fragile or violent states have to be properly resourced to embed atrocity prevention thinking and strategy within their policy and programming.
The Bill is ambitious. I make no pretence about the fact that we want to see a growth in accountability for upholding and delivering on this mandate. As your Lordships will see, there is a section in the Bill which requires a Minister to lay an annual report before Parliament. Such a report would enable proper scrutiny of the United Kingdom’s contributions to prevent, protect and punish, and allow us all to advise on their development.
One of the final provisions in the Bill seeks to establish a fund with ring-fenced budget lines that guarantee consistent resourcing for mass atrocity early-warning systems, strategic policy-making and effective implementation.
This is not an expensive set of changes, but I urge them on the Government. The hub that exists is full of really good people doing good work, but it needs to be strengthened. We need proper leadership from politicians and from the Secretary of State. We want to see some real building on this, in the way that has taken place within the State Department in the United States on atrocity crimes and genocide prevention.
It is evident that any meaningful development of a strategic approach to preventing and responding to mass atrocities must bring together senior representatives of government departments—No. 10 itself, the intelligence agencies and multilateral representatives, from the UN to NATO. Atrocity prevention has been a core national security interest for the United States since 2011, supported by a clear atrocity prevention strategy launched in 2022. I knew and was a huge admirer of Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor, who was very much at the heart of persuading the American State Department to take these steps and to create a hub that was about genocide prevention and atrocity crime prevention.
I hope that there will be support in government for this Bill. I know that the hub exists, but we need to strengthen it and put it on a statutory footing. I beg to move.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and I congratulate her on her work and initiative. The Bill, as I understand it, is an important step forward which would boost His Majesty’s Government’s capabilities to implement their obligations under the genocide convention and is in line with the Government’s duty to prevent genocide.
If the Government are to implement their duty to prevent genocide, they must have comprehensive mechanisms to enable them to monitor early-warning signs and risk factors of atrocities to come. The issue of early-warning signs and risk factors of atrocities to come has been discussed in this House on many occasions. Time after time, we have raised the issue that the Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers—a message that should be ingrained in HMG’s laws and policies on genocide and atrocity crimes. However, sometimes this message is ignored, so I shall repeat it again: the Holocaust did not start with gas chambers. It started with hate speech; it started with dehumanising of Jews; it started with policies and laws that discriminated against Jews. It started with attacks on Jews—their places of worship, shops and places of work. It started with impunity for such acts. It started with all these warning signs and risk factors that may have been seen as irrelevant, but they were not—early-warning signs are never irrelevant.
How shocking it is that, today, on Friday 22 March 2024, we see on page 13 of the Daily Mail the following two headlines. The first is, “Jewish Boy mistreated by pro-Palestine nurses on NHS hospital ward in Manchester”. Secondly, next to a picture, is the caption: “Was this terrifying house blaze in east London an anti-Semitic attack?”. I repeat that this was on 22 March 2024.
Let us look at the harm that misinformation can bring about. Sadly, social media and mainstream news outlets, including elements of the UK Government, could be complicit because of the spread of lies about what is happening in Gaza. I shudder to think what Joseph Goebbels would have done with social media.
In this Chamber, I have raised the issue of genocide several times. I did so in relation to the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, with the 30th anniversary coming up on 7 April. Would it not be appropriate if those perpetrators who are living freely in the UK are either tried immediately here or sent back to Rwanda for trial?
I have spoken about the situation of the Uighurs. The atrocities seen in recent years did not start with the forced indoctrination camps for whole populations; they started with narratives presenting the Uighurs as extremists. It started with things such as the Xinjiang regulations and blatant discrimination against members of the community, which flourished without impunity. As the early warning signs of the atrocities against the Uighurs were circulating in international media, we did not have a hub on atrocity crime, but even if we did it would not have had the capacity or resources to conduct the kind of monitoring of early warning signs that would be needed to enable us to prevent them.
All these issues can be rectified once and for all by this Bill. I end by referring to the late, great Lord Sacks. As many noble Lords will know, we will celebrate Purim tomorrow night. Purim was to be the first genocide; the whole Jewish population was to be murdered. In looking for what I wanted to say, I found a “Thought for the Day” on BBC Radio 4 from 22 February 2002 by Jonathan Sacks. If I may, I will share his teachings about Purim with the House:
“It’s a joyous day. We have a festive meal; we send presents to our friends; and gifts to the poor, so that no one should feel excluded. Anyone joining us on Purim would think it commemorates one of the great moments in Jewish history, like the Exodus from slavery or the Revelation at Mount Sinai. Actually though, the truth is quite different. Purim is the day we remember the story told in the book of Esther, set in Persia in pre-Christian times. It tells of how a senior member of the Persian court, Haman, got angry that one man, Mordechai, refused to bow down to him. Discovering that Mordechai was a Jew, he decided to take revenge on all Jews and persuaded the King to issue a decree that they should all—young and old, men, women and children—should be annihilated on a single day”.
That is the day of Purim that we celebrate. He went on:
“Only the fact that Esther, Mordechai’s cousin, was the King’s favourite allowed her to intercede on behalf of her people and defeat the plan. Purim is, in other words, the festival of survival in the face of attempted genocide. It wasn’t until way into adult life that I realised that what we celebrate on Purim is simply the fact that we’re alive; that our ancestors weren’t murdered after all. Like many of my generation born after the Holocaust, I thought antisemitism was dead; that a hate so irrational, so murderous, had finally been laid to rest. So, it has come as a shock”—
this was in 2002—
“To realise in recent months that it’s still strong in many parts of the world, and that even in Britain yesterday a cleric appeared in court charged with distributing a tape calling on his followers to kill Jews. What is it about Jews—or black people, or Roma, or foreigners—that causes them to be hated? The oldest explanation is probably the simplest: because we don’t like the unlike. As Haman”—
the wicked figure in the story—
“put it, ‘Their customs are different from those of other people.’ And that’s why racial or religious hate isn’t just dangerous. It’s a betrayal of the human condition. We are different. Every individual, every culture, every ethnicity, every faith, gives something unique to humanity. Religious and racial diversity are as essential to our world as biodiversity. And therefore, I pray that we have the courage to fight prejudice, of which antisemitism is simply the oldest of them all. Because a world that can’t live with difference is a world that lacks room for humanity itself”.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, as we have heard, having ratified the UN convention against genocide, the UK has a treaty obligation to prevent genocide wherever and whenever it is threatened. However, too often this does not happen. It is worth while examining the reasons why and seeking answers.
As it stands, this admirable Bill has only a faint chance of being adopted by the Government. Here, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for her unceasing efforts to uphold human rights. The Bill asks for considerable resources, and touches on economic and diplomatic interests of states parties to the convention. It puts forward some clear and doable mechanisms to detect, acknowledge and act upon the early indicators of genocide which are, by now, well researched; it is cost effective, certainly in terms of saving human lives.
It is, to say the least, disingenuous to believe that Governments are unaware of the potential for genocide or the early warning signs. Going back to the Rwanda massacres in April 1994 and Srebrenica in July 1995, there were clear indications. For example, in the case of Rwanda, the widely popular Mille Collines radio station virtually spelt out its genocidal plans in lightly coded messages, including references to the Hutus as “cockroaches”. Furthermore, genocidal tribal attacks had occurred with depressing regularity in that region of Africa. In Srebrenica, the rounding up of 750,000 Muslim men and boys and the sudden departure of the UN forces made massacres inevitable, but events leading up to this terrible development were obvious.
The UK, like many other countries, has been deeply reluctant to act. It is said that the US officials in Rwanda were ordered not to use the term “genocide”, precisely because to do so immediately implied the obligation to act. The UK Government have consistently referred any threat of genocide to the courts to determine the application of the genocide convention. More than anything else, Governments are fearful of stepping out alone, or being seen as stepping out alone, in the absence of strong support from allies and member states.
Perhaps the way forward might include the setting up of, or greater co-ordination between, existing early warning mechanisms and units across Europe and North America. The specific task of these networked systems would be to both monitor signs and issue timely alerts to all participating member states, with a view to concerted action. Difficult as it might be to get countries to agree on such vital actions, a scheme such as this might reduce the paralysing reluctance to declare the risk of genocide and to act according to the obligations of the treaty.
The mechanisms and the tasks of a proposed genocide monitoring team set out in the Bill provide an excellent blueprint for other similar units. The UK human rights community, which has steadfastly pursued the prevention of genocide around the world, is well placed to encourage such an international network and achieve its ultimate aim.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, on her speech and her tireless efforts in the area. She shines a light and that it is very important. I pay tribute to the Minister, who is also no slouch in this area; I know he makes considerable efforts to do what he can. I hope we are going to hear some very good Foreign Office reasons as to why we are going to take the legislation forward rather than why we are not going to take it forward, and I look forward to his speech.
I hope the Minister can be persuaded that this small but significant piece of legislation—small in length and minimal in cost—will help provide a massive boost to the prevention of atrocities and genocide. It will provide a laser-like focus on the efforts of His Majesty’s Government, which have consistently provided a powerful lead on such matters, as is consistent with our history, our leading international role, our status as a permanent member of the Security Council and as a leading player on the world stage.
In the US, there is a similar provision. In her opening speech, the noble Baroness referred to Elie Wiesel and the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018; that US legislation is very similar to what the noble Baroness is suggesting we have here in the UK.
That legislation has helped identify likely atrocities in a host of countries, working alongside the UK on occasion—for example, in Ukraine and in Myanmar. It has also provided the ability to highlight atrocities in the People’s Republic of China, northern Ethiopia, South Sudan and so on. The United States is committed to promoting respect for human rights and atrocity prevention, and we should be doing the same as a core national interest. Surely we can take up that baton.
My personal interest in this policy area comes from when I was Minister for Faith in what is now the levelling up department. I took an active role in this policy area, for example, in honouring the Holocaust memorial—I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Polak for his powerful speech today—but also later, as president of Remembering Srebrenica. Taking up that role, alongside Dr Waqar Azmi, who provided inspirational leadership in this area—and still does—I recall a seminal visit to Sarajevo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which demonstrated to me that genocide does not just suddenly happen; its roots are deep. This is important, as is the essence of prevention and getting in early to do something.
I recall the momentous moment I met a doctor who had been a young man at the start of the conflict. Before the conflict, he was to have been a doctor—I suppose like a GP in our own country—working in a quiet rural community called Srebrenica. He looked forward to his new life, an almost idyllic life. Then came the conflict, the war—the genocide—and his life altered. He was called on to do things that a doctor is not normally called on to do, and his life changed. He became a hero when he had wanted a relatively quiet, ordinary life.
I met many other people who talked to me of friendships they had across religion in Sarajevo and Bosnia-Herzegovina: people they had grown up with, living next door to them, who suddenly disappeared, leaving the flats that they lived in to go and live in another community. They never saw these people again. They had been lifelong friends until this moment, and suddenly this community was split, divided, and what had been perfect harmony led to conflict and genocide—yet these people had been living together in perfect harmony for generations.
It is disappointing that against this background, the Minister cut back funding for Remembering Srebrenica. That is regrettable. We should be encouraging and promoting the Bill. It is in our country’s and the world’s interests that we do something on this. I commend the work that the noble Baroness has done on this and look forward to the Minister wanting to take this forward, to ensure that Britain’s role is highlighted and that we can do something powerful as a leading member of the world community.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, before I begin, I offer my great thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, for introducing this piece of legislation, which is quite admirable. Given the brickbats that were being directed at her in the last debate, I hope that my words of thanks will offer some help in that moment, and also my word of congratulations on the signal honour she received last week.
I speak in support of this Bill as one deeply scarred by my experience as Britain’s Permanent Representative on the UN Security Council during the periods of the Rwanda and the Srebrenica genocides. The UN—and we, an important participant in that body—failed to do anything effective then to prevent those genocides, although we did set up the tribunals that brought to justice their perpetrators. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for what he has done in recent years to ensure that the horrible experience of Srebrenica is not forgotten. Whatever one says about those two events, we really must do better now.
The Bill before us does not attempt to name any genocides, either those already perpetrated or those at risk of being so. That, in my view, is extremely wise. The term “genocide” is at some risk of being sprayed around indiscriminately, at the cost of being devalued and even discredited. Look only at Russia’s claim of the genocide of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine for an example of that. In debating this Bill, I hope we can avoid citing too many explicit examples and concentrate rather on future prevention, which is what the Bill does in a non-discriminatory way—in all directions, in fact. I hope the Government will feel able to throw their weight behind the Bill.
One possible impediment—the often deployed and long-discredited argument that it is for only courts and not Governments to identify and name genocides—is no longer the obstacle it was. Otherwise, how could the Government—rightly, if belatedly—have decided to join the International Court of Justice case brought by Gambia against Myanmar in respect of the Rohingya Muslims before the court has ruled on the matter? In the case of the Yazidis killed in a genocide by Islamic State, while there is a court ruling, the Government have again—quite rightly, in my view—treated it as genocide, even though the court in question was a German one and not an international court; it was what the Government in a different context might have called a foreign court. Since the Government are no longer as attached as they were to their earlier argument, it would surely be better to systematise the process of reaching a prima facie determination of genocide. That is what the Bill would provide the instruments to achieve.
Britain cannot on its own prevent an act of genocide, of course. It can act only as part of an international collective effort to do so. The Bill, which largely replicates what is already being done by the US and which also could be followed, if we give a lead, by the EU and its member states, would be a significant step in that direction. I hope that, at the end of this debate, we will hear from both the Government and Opposition Front Benches that they will support this effort.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hannay has reminded us of the searing experience of the Rwanda genocide and the failure of the international community to act in time. The tribute he paid to the noble Baroness for the recent honour she received was well made. She was made one of 16 members of the Order of the Thistle. I note that its motto is “Nemo me impune lacessit”—no one harms me with impunity. Those words sum up the motives that lie behind this Bill, as it seeks to end the culture of impunity and the lethal harm caused by genocide.
In parenthesis, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Polak, for reminding us of the late Lord Sacks. I was privileged once to chair a lecture he gave in Liverpool. During the course of it, he said that no one should ask, “Where was God at Auschwitz?”; they should ask, “Where was man?”. It is about what men and women can do to prevent these atrocities occurring.
The noble Lord, Lord Polak, who comes from Liverpool, cited the experience of Esther at the time of Purim. She is one of the great figures in the Bible. She is told, “You have come into this world for such a time as this”. It reminds us that sometimes unlikely people who have no great power can do extraordinary things. Each of us who has the privilege to serve in this place has the chance to do extraordinary things and to be a sign of contradiction.
As the noble Lord said, the word “genocide” should not be used as a slogan or devalued. It is different from war crimes and crimes against humanity. The duty to prevent genocide is one of the most neglected duties under international law. In 2022, with Dr Ewelina Ochab, who has been mentioned in this debate, I published State Responses to Crimes of Genocide, which the Minister has a copy of. Although I know he welcomes the establishment of the hub on atrocity crimes, I am sure that he will agree that progress is slow. We are still a long way from implementing our obligations set out in Raphael Lemkin’s 1948 convention on the crime of genocide.
On other occasions, I have spoken about the Rohingya, the Yazidis, Armenia, Nigeria and the Uighurs. Today, in my brief few minutes I will focus on three particular cases that underline why a Bill of this kind is needed: Tigray, the Hazaras and Darfur.
In September 2023, the APPG on International Law, Justice and Accountability published its Tigray report. Our inquiry received an unprecedented amount of data, including testimonies from victims and witnesses from Tigray. We found evidence of atrocities, including mass killings, sexual violence, and starvation, which continue to this day and for which no one has been brought to justice. On numerous occasions, I have brought the dire situation of the Tigrayans to the attention of the Government. There are more than 100 references in Hansard, and letters and emails to the FCDO. I asked for a JACS—joint analysis of conflict and stability—assessment. Close to two years after the beginning of the war in Tigray, the Government finally commissioned a JACS for Ethiopia, but they have refused to make it available to Parliament. Why on earth are parliamentarians denied the right to see information that is crucial to our duty to prevent genocide?
Afghanistan’s Hazaras were referred to in our own International Relations and Defence Committee report on Afghanistan in 2021. Later that year, I was approached by Hazara human rights defenders concerned about the lethal targeting of their community. With colleagues, I established the Hazara inquiry. Our report, launched here by me and the noble Baroness, found that Hazaras, as a religious and ethnic minority, are at serious risk of genocide at the hands of the Taliban and Islamic State Khorasan Province. Under the genocide convention and customary international law, this finding should have engaged the responsibility to prevent—but it did not. The return to power of the Taliban has included brutal acts of violence against the Hazaras and a return of terror, including the bombings of Hazara schools, places of worship and other centres—atrocities that continued throughout 2023 and now into 2024. On 18 December 2023 in an Oral Question, I asked whether a JACS report could be initiated, not least because Pakistan had begun mass deportations back to Afghanistan—I have never had a reply.
Finally, I will mention Darfur, which I visited during the genocide 20 years ago. Some 18 months ago, people on the ground warned that a new genocide was likely. In response, all I have received from the FCDO are statements about deadlines for transitional justice being met and that progress was being made. Dissatisfied with those assurances, the APPG on Sudan and South Sudan decided to establish the Darfur inquiry, which I chaired, and we collected evidence from victims, survivors and experts.
In 2023, as the situation in Khartoum deteriorated, we published our Darfur report warning about the very clear early warning signs of atrocities to come and the danger of yet another genocide. These warnings were not listened to and were not acted on. The catastrophic situation in Sudan has led to 9 million displaced people, thousands dead and now an impending famine. In Darfur, the RSF continued the genocide begun by the Janjaweed. Who is being brought to justice or held to account?
The work of monitoring early warning signs cannot be left to parliamentarians and ad hoc inquiries—that is why the Bill is necessary. The FCDO has the capacity and resources needed to do this work well. We have a Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who understands that and works hard on these issues. The prevention of genocide and atrocity crimes is a duty that the noble Baroness’s Bill might ensure is treated with the gravity and urgency it deserves, and I support it.
Lord Hussain (LD)
My Lords, I support the Bill. I have been able to visit some countries that have been discussed: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Darfur in Sudan and many other areas where there has been evidence of genocide and human losses taking place at a large scale in the past. I have noted many other areas where there are concerns about genocide taking place. Britain is a member of the UN Security Council, which is well placed to help to prevent genocide whenever there are chances of it happening.
One of the areas which I want to draw to the attention of Members is India. Gregory Stanton, chairman of Genocide Watch, who predicted genocide in Rwanda five years before it happened, is calling for the world to take note of genocide in the making in India, and he particularly mentions Kashmir. Genocide does not happen overnight. It is a process over a length of time, and steps are taken when genocide happens. Over the past couple of decades, Kashmir has been the biggest army camp, with nearly 1 million Indian soldiers there since 1990. There are widespread reports from renowned international human rights agencies such as the UN Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, and so on, that the Indian Army is involved in killing, rape, torture, missing persons, and so forth.
In 2019, India withdrew the special status that Kashmir had within the Indian constitution. It has taken a lot of rights back from the local people. Since 1990, there have been reports that more than 100,000 people have been killed and there are thousands of people still languishing in prisons. We talk about human rights in other places, and we have human rights champions whom we celebrate who have fought for people’s rights. We have people such as Shabir Shah, who has been in prison for more than 30 years in Kashmir. These are the signs which prove that Gregory Stanton may not be far from the truth in what he is saying. We must take this seriously. Britain is well placed. We have strong links with India and must use them to prevent genocide taking place in Kashmir.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, it is pleasure to rise from these Benches to support the Private Member’s Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. It is also something of a relief that the debate on this Private Member’s Bill has been somewhat more consensual than that on the previous Bill, in which I found myself in the unusual position as being on the opposite side from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, which was a slightly uncomfortable position to be in.
This is a Private Member’s Bill to which we have heard no opposition from any part of your Lordships’ House. We heard the Minister’s noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth say that he hopes that the Minister will bring some words of comfort from His Majesty’s Government. I have been in your Lordships’ House for nearly a decade. I have rarely heard from the Government Front Bench words that lead us to think that a Private Member’s Bill is going to be warmly accepted, but on this topic, I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give some positive responses.
Over many years the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, have spent much of their time in your Lordships’ House, in ad hoc committees and in other places arguing that we need to take the crime of genocide seriously, calling on His Majesty’s Government to look at particular cases and acknowledge that they are, or could be considered, genocide. Although the present Bill is not about genocide determination, the House of Lords Library briefing for today reminds noble Lords of the words of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, in previous debates.
We have heard many times that the Government are not able to act because the issue of genocide is for courts to determine—yet, as the present Bill and the Library briefing both make clear, under the genocide convention the Government have a duty to prevent genocide. It is not simply that we need to say, “We are not happy with this”; we have a duty to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, parliamentarians cannot do that—we cannot individually prevent or punish genocide—but His Majesty’s Government and other sovereign Governments are in a much better place, precisely because of their embassies and high commissions, to understand what is going on on the ground. The Bill, which I suggest is not as modest as some Private Members’ Bills—it is very ambitious—would pave the way for the Government to be able to do what the UK needs to do in performing its duties under the convention.
We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Polak, a reminder that the Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers. The same has been true of other genocides. Something does not happen at the point where hundreds of thousands or millions of people are being killed or potentially fleeing for their lives; there is a much more insidious process. Recently, for our debate for Holocaust Memorial Day, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust reminded Members, in a very helpful briefing, of the stages of genocide.
By the time your Lordships’ House talks about genocide, it is usually at a point where we are saying that there already is or has been genocide—in Darfur, of the Uighurs or of the Yazidis. We need to raise issues and find a vehicle for exploring the potential for genocide before it happens—before it is too late. We heard from my noble friend Lord Hussain that His Majesty’s Government need to look at the situation in Kashmir, and maybe the Foreign Secretary, for example, should be talking to his opposite number in New Delhi. We need to be thinking and exploring issues ahead of time, and the Bill gives us and the Government the opportunity to do that.
We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the situation in Darfur and how he has been told that there is further potential for a new genocide there. If one goes to Bosnia and Herzegovina, one finds that “remember Srebrenica” is not just a slogan; it is an everyday injunction. There is still concern there about Republika Srpska and concern on the ground about the situation. We should never be complacent as a Parliament or as a country.
The Bill offers His Majesty’s Government the opportunity to act, and it would hopefully empower the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, to do many of the things from the Front Bench that he has often said he wished he was able to do—but these things were for courts to decide and for other people to do. I am not sure I expect the Minister to accept the Bill as it is enshrined today, but perhaps he could give us some suggestion of the Government bringing forward their own proposals that would have the same purpose as this eminently welcome Private Member’s Bill.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend’s Bill introduces mechanisms to ensure that the United Kingdom’s Government are better equipped to prevent and respond to genocide and other atrocities. It is a welcome piece of legislation. My noble friend highlighted that the problem with the current generic responsibility across all embassies of examining where genocide might be in the offing is that it often results in a situation where, when everyone is doing it, no one is doing it. That is clearly a problem.
The solution in the Bill is absolutely vital. It is to put on a statutory footing this special hub within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which will monitor and evaluate processes and keep in touch with developments taking place and research being done. As my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, highlighted, we have seen what the US has done in putting its legislation on a statutory footing within the Department of State.
We should not forget, as I am sure the Minister will say, that the UK has a positive record of contributing to international efforts to gather evidence of alleged genocide and war crimes. This includes the example of the ICJ case of the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. More recently, it includes Russia’s conduct during its invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing case at the ICC. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to give us an insight into what kind of staff resource is required for this work and what kind of processes are in place to ensure international co-operation in a manner that builds capacity and avoids unnecessary duplication.
We welcome the proposal to put the responsible team on a statutory footing, whether it is the existing mass atrocity prevention hub or another team, to come up with recommendations for enhancing the Government’s work to mitigate atrocity and genocide risks. I certainly agree with my noble friend that three staff working in the atrocity prevention hub seems too few.
We share the Government’s view that determinations of genocide must result from a legal rather than a political process—this has been touched upon slightly. That does not mean that we shy away from saying that matters need to be investigated if there is sufficient evidence to require an investigation, but we certainly agree that determinations of genocide must result from a legal rather than a political process. This morning, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, kindly sent me the letter he received from Minister Mitchell, setting out a number of the jurisdictions where the British Government have responded to those determinations. I will not read them out today.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, there are clearly a number of steps to be taken before those cases are brought. That is why I referenced the efforts of the Government and previous Governments to collate the evidence and make sure that it is not lost, because, sadly, far too often in these terrible cases, the evidence is got rid of. I hope that the Minister can give us a better idea about who decides—whether at the FCDO or in individual embassies across the world—which allegations to investigate, how much resource is devoted to evidence gathering, what domestic or international legal cases the UK becomes a party to and at which stage it might do so. Obviously, we have had discussions in the Chamber about that.
My noble friend raised current events in Gaza, which clearly continue to cause grave concern. We are clear about the need to avoid a Rafah offensive, and instead to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. I know what efforts we have taken at the United Nations; I hope the Minister can give us an up-to-date report. We discussed this week that Gaza is on the brink of famine, and I have repeatedly stressed that Israel must comply with the ICJ’s interim measures. I hope the Minister can provide us with an update on the status of the negotiations that we know are carrying on at the moment.
We have also made reference during the debate to reports by UN bodies and others that suggest very clearly that China has serious questions to answer about the treatment of the Uighurs. Again, I hope that the Minister can respond positively on that.
As to the proposal to have a Minister with the responsibilities set out in the Bill, clearly we need to look at how these very serious matters are overseen in government, at whether and how there is parliamentary accountability for the work of the FCDO’s unit and the UK embassies, and at whether the current set-up is the appropriate model.
We cannot prevent every atrocity or genocide, but, as has been made clear in this debate, we absolutely must do more to mitigate atrocity and genocide risks around the world, and to integrate this work into our foreign policy, making it a clear priority. We certainly welcome the Bill’s focus on better monitoring risks in a way that joins up our country presences with Whitehall-based expertise.
As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, highlighted, the Government’s approach in Sudan shows, frankly, how badly prepared we were. We failed to listen to civil society groups warning us about the risk of impending violence. We know that the Government put too much focus on bargaining with elites who had little interest in stepping back from power. If we had done the long-term work of supporting inclusive peacebuilding in Sudan, Sudanese civil society might now be in a stronger position to take part in the transition negotiations that we are all hoping for. We must learn from our mistakes. We certainly welcome the Government’s decision to support the work of the ICC and the UN OHCHR in investigating and documenting the atrocities taking place in Sudan, and their support for the Centre for Information Resilience.
Labour has consistently called for attention and action on these atrocities, and will continue to highlight the need for further and better co-ordinated action on this crisis. Our sanctions against those fuelling the violence in Sudan have not gone far enough and came too slowly. I hope the Minister will agree that we must do more to hold those actors responsible for these atrocities to account.
We are also concerned that the Integrated Security Fund, formerly the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, which has a domestic and international remit, could see the important work of mitigating atrocity risks abroad deprioritised. I hope the Minister can offer some reassurance in this regard.
I hope I have made clear in my response to this debate that I think the Minister and I have been at one in wanting to ensure that we prioritise this work, and that we take seriously the measures highlighted by my noble friend. We have to work together to make sure we can deliver on it.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for tabling this Bill. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who talked of the incredible work that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, do in this area, and have done over many years. I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that a fair bit of that is done in my office, with both the noble Baroness and noble Lord ever-present. I am sure they both recognise the deep affection that I have for both of them in the challenge that they provide—but it is not just a challenge. As we see from the tabling of this Bill, it is also about making practical suggestions on how we can move forward.
I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Collins. I think there are many across your Lordships’ House who genuinely put the importance of human rights at the heart of their work, in our diplomacy and development activities. That is an important attribute to continue. I shall be honest in saying that it is a challenge, particularly when we look at the global world as it is today, but we should not give up this important flame of hope and humanity.
In thanking the noble Baroness, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. My noble friend Lord Polak struck a very poignant note about Purim, and the history behind it. I totally appreciate and associate myself with the important principle of survival. It is something to celebrate. Anyone who has met a survivor of an atrocity, as I have had the honour to do in meeting survivors of sexual violence in conflict—as I know other noble Lords have—gains incredible inspiration from their courage not just to survive the most atrocious of ordeals but to have the courage and conviction and become advocates on how change can be effected.
My noble friend Lord Polak was described by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, as being from Liverpool. The only claim I can make is that I am a Liverpool fan, although after last weekend’s events I am feeling rather sore, so we will park that one there.
This is a very important debate. The UK Government remain absolutely committed to preventing and responding to genocide and other atrocities taking place around the world. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that we should be learning, and that experience is important. While we are doing work, there is so much more to be done.
My noble friend Lord Bourne talked about Srebrenica, and paid tribute to many—apart from himself. Let me put on record the important work that he did when he was the Minister responsible for communities and faith, particularly in relation to the shocking events that took place in Srebrenica—again, on the lack of intervention and prevention. For anyone who has been to Srebrenica, or to Auschwitz-Birkenau, as I have, the chilling effect of what you see remains with you and, I think, strengthens your own conviction in these areas. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talked about Rwanda. Again, anyone who goes to the memorial in Kigali cannot but be moved by the thousands and thousands of lives that were taken at that time, and have a real conviction to prevent that happening again.
The provisions of this Bill are highly commendable, and many of them are very much aligned with the activities of the Government that we are planning or which are already in place. I agree that we need to be very focused. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, rightly said that there was great care in the Bill being put forward and many doable mechanisms, as she described them. I say at the outset that, in this instance, I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness to discuss what the UK is currently doing to prevent atrocities and look at the specific provisions of the Bill to see how they can best be taken forward.
I also miss Lord Sacks. Anyone who met him could not but be inspired by his example. Perhaps when we look across the world, and particularly at the Middle East, we are reminded that his engagement and involvement are very much missed at this important time.
The noble Lord, Lord Hussain, said that atrocities do not happen overnight. I give him a reassurance that our relationship with India is such—it is strong and one of friendship—that it allows us, both ways, to bridge issues of importance, as I did recently with Home Secretary Bhalla on the issue of human rights in India. We will continue to do this in a candid, constructive way.
With the challenging outlook we currently face, with conflicts and crises continuing and worsening, my noble friends and all noble Lords will recognise the need for prioritisation and making the best use of resources. So I say from the outset that the Government agree with many of the provisions of the Bill—the question is how best to take them forward. I was scribbling during the debate and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was right to say that, while I cannot give it total endorsement and agreement, I want to very much examine the provisions of the Elie Wiesel Act to see how we can best adapt. I am going to be very up front in saying that there are issues of training and cost within the provisions of the Bill that need to be considered: those are two of the main considerations for the Government.
For example, the Bill proposes to establish a genocide monitoring team. We recognise, as all noble Lords have said, that robust early warning and monitoring mechanisms and early response are key to preventing atrocities. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, reminded us that we cannot stop every atrocity, but we can certainly look to see how we can focus on mitigation. That is why the FCDO has integrated risk analysis into global horizon scanning. We are continuously looking to improve our forecasting capabilities through forging new partnerships and harnessing innovative, data-driven approaches.
The Bill would also provide for training for civil servants. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked about the sometimes disjointed nature of this, as did the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness when she introduced the Bill. We have got better at the FCDO and it is certainly my intention, as the Minister responsible, to ensure that any diplomats deployed into defined conflict zones are fully versed in the importance of the training they receive. But again, as a way of moving forward constructively, I am very keen to understand how we can strengthen that training. This is an open invitation to the noble Baroness and others to see how we can integrate more professionalised training and more insights that are country-specific, to enhance the training that our civil servants and those being deployed into conflict zones receive, and to ensure that it is tailored to the country in question.
The enhanced offer that we are developing will also enable staff to recognise the very early warning systems that my noble friend Lord Polak and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talked about, and understand the levers available when preventing and responding to atrocities, recognising that there is still more to do—I fully recognise that. We need to build further capacity and we intend to explore further training options, both internally and with external experts, as I have said, to ensure that not just diplomats but our most senior officials, who are the key decision-makers and provide advice directly to Ministers, are also versed in this. We will continue to learn from experience.
The Bill also calls for the Government to report to Parliament on atrocity risks. All noble Lords present know that, at times, information can be highly sensitive. That said, we have, based on the contributions I have heard and the advocacy of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and others, defined within our Human Rights and Democracy Report a specific element on atrocity prevention and human rights. It has been expanded to now include the responsibility to protect. Again, I encourage suggestions and recommendations on how we can improve that further, with that ambition.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I apologise for interrupting, but I asked the noble Lord specifically about the joint assessments on conflict and stability which the Foreign Office undertakes. Why can they not be shared with parliamentarians? Even if it cannot be right across the piece in both Houses, why not to the relevant Select Committees, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of another place and our International Relations and Defence Select Committee? JACS assessments are crucial in recognising what signs are emerging.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Again, I will take that back. The noble Lord and I have had discussions on that. Previous answers we provided related to the sensitivity of that information, but I will certainly take back the practical suggestion he makes on particular committees to the FCDO to see whether there is more we can do in that area.
The outstanding provisions would also appoint a Minister for genocide prevention and response. I like that idea, specifically as it is described, rather than encompassed within my current role as Human Rights Minister. That is something to be thought through again in the discussion that I hope I will be able to have with the noble Baroness. This is very much cross-government. I have been discussing with officials—in preparation not just for this debate but generally on the issue—how to make it cross-government. The Ministry of Justice, for example, would have a key role. We have worked well together in this respect.
With my experience as the Minister for Human Rights and as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, I assure your Lordships’ House that preventing and responding to atrocity remains a priority for me and for the Government. Prompted by this Bill, we will also look at how we can make that specific element, as suggested by the noble Baroness’s Bill, a key ministerial responsibility.
On the provision of funds, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and others, this is always a challenge for government. There are provisions in the Bill on this which are probably my key reservation—if I can put it that way—and would need to be considered. However, it is my clear view that we need to ensure that by addressing the prevention element, we will have a medium- to long-term impact on the costs of dealing with the end product of these awful, abhorrent atrocities.
A number of noble Lords made points about our embassies and high commissions across the globe. I can assure the House that—based on some of the central initiatives that we are taking—they have been implementing programmes to target the risk factors that can lead to atrocities, as well as to strengthen reporting and improve accountability mechanisms. These will be a critical part of our commitment to atrocity prevention.
On specific actions, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for recognising the work that we are doing with the ICC. UK funding amounting to £6.2 million since the invasion of Ukraine has helped to train more than 100 judges and deploy 30,000 forensic medical kits for police officers. In respect of this shocking and illegal invasion, the core group that we are part of to ensure criminal accountability for Russia’s aggression is also adding to the mechanisms that we are putting in place, not for after the conflict but during it, to deal with this.
On Myanmar, as has been recognised, we have now joined with Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands. The UK has also filed a declaration of intervention at the International Court of Justice in Gambia’s case against Myanmar. The UK is clear that there must be accountability for atrocities committed. Again, we have put money behind this, providing over £600,000 to the UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. We have also established Myanmar Witness, a programme to collect and preserve evidence of human rights violations for future prosecutions. The culture of impunity in Myanmar must end. I have seen this directly during my visits to meet survivors of those atrocities in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
The Sudan was mentioned, most notably by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Atrocity prevention is one of the key pillars of our Sudan strategy. We have enhanced our atrocity risk monitoring work in Sudan, including on conflict-related sexual violence. Our work with open-source investigations—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about civil society in this regard—continues to play a vital role in amplifying the voices of victims and survivors. Again, however, I accept that we need to do more.
We are supporting the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Sudan in monitoring and reporting on human rights violations. As part of these actions, marking one year since the start of the current conflict, my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Development and Africa will be visiting the region shortly.
I am conscious of time. China was also raised. In this regard, the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Collins, will know of the long-standing work that has been done. The OHCHR’s assessment found possible crimes against humanity. We should take robust action. As noble Lords will know, the UK has led international efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations in Xinjiang. Indeed, we were the first country to lead the joint statement on China’s human rights in Xinjiang at the UN. We continued to advocate during the recent UPR in January as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked for an update on the situation in Gaza. I assure the House that our priorities remain that the fighting must stop now. This is the only way that we will get the return of the hostages. I met the families of the hostages again this week, as did the Foreign Secretary. Irrespective of their view on this conflict, no one can fail to be moved by the devastating nature of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
The latest update is that there has been a lot of diplomacy. Secretary Blinken has embarked on a tour of the Middle East, partly in conjunction and in parallel with UN Security Council resolutions. As I came into this Chamber, a lot of work had been done overnight to get countries in the right place. Unfortunately, the resolution by the United States calling for an immediate ceasefire was vetoed by Russia and China. We must continue to find a way to get agreement in this space. Noble Lords will be aware of Secretary Blinken being in Cairo. He is in Israel today. I will be travelling to Egypt next week as part of our continuing diplomatic efforts not only to bring an end to the immediate conflict but for a resolution based on peace, justice and equity for Israelis and Palestinians alike. All noble Lords have expressed views on the importance of the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine side by side in peace and justice.
In thanking the noble Baroness, I have not given a ringing endorsement—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I think the Minister is coming to an end, but I just wanted to raise one point that he has not covered. He covered extremely fully the ground which has been covered by the noble Baroness in her Bill, but I heard nothing about making an annual or regular report to Parliament specifically about genocide and the risk of genocide. It is quite important. The FCDO does an annual report on human rights, but it is all too easy for things to become somewhat fuzzy in such a report as to whether what you are talking about are the many breaches of human rights or specifically a precursor to, or a risk of, genocide.
Some countries will be shameless, but if the Foreign Office produced a report about the risk of genocide and the precursors, some countries would do an awful lot not to get into it. I think the FCDO would find that report quite a useful tool.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his prompt. Two lines down I was going to address that issue as my penultimate comment, but I will take it now.
I mentioned the human rights report. I have asked officials to see what our options are to cover the aspects that the noble Lord highlights—for example, a quarterly statement or a WMS. I cannot give a definitive answer because those options are being worked up. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, that it will be helpful to have this level of engagement to ensure that we get something which is acceptable and the right product for Parliament to allow for the analysis that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has once again highlighted.
I hope that in the qualified support for the provisions of the Bill the noble Baroness recognises that we respect and appreciate her constant advocacy on these important issues. As she rightly acknowledged, there is support for many of the principles within this Private Member’s Bill. It is ambitious, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, but the Government believe in the priorities stated in the Bill. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated today. The UK is working with other partners in preventing and responding to human rights violations and atrocity risk. I look forward to listening to, learning from and working with noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House to further strengthen our aspirations and our delivery on these important issues and mitigations. If I was to provide a sense of where I am on this, whenever I talk to anyone, I say that we must put humanity at the heart of our policy-making.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for such a comprehensive response to the Bill and for being generally supportive to it. I know that, when it comes to Private Members’ Bills, there is a reticence about wholehearted support, but I feel that he has dealt with so many of the issues that are of concern here. Again, I pay tribute to the way in which the Minister has such a complete and deep understanding of these issues. He is a great champion of human rights and his command of his brief is exemplary. Our shadow Foreign Minister does a pretty good job as well, in that he too is so knowledgeable about all these issues, and I pay tribute to my noble friend for all that he does and advances in relation to human rights.
I am always in awe of this House when it comes to discussions on these issues of genocide, atrocity crimes and human rights globally. There are so many voices of people with such great and deep experience; I always come away having learned things. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, whose many years of experience enrich this House in what he can contribute. My dear friend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is the voice of a great conscience in this House about the horrors that take place in our world. His advocacy for steps to be taken in relation to genocide have been without comparison.
All the people who have spoken today, including the noble Lords, Lord Polak and Lord Bourne, are those whose experience—here and in other debates, too—has always left me with a strong sense that, by coming together, we can make a difference. We could reclaim our position as the nation that has the loudest and clearest voice when it comes to the rule of law and respect for human rights. I want that to be reclaimed, as we have gone through a rather low period recently with regard to our commitment to international law. This is really important. Britain is respected around the world and, with leadership, we can make an enormous difference.
I felt the general sense about the Bill was that putting this on a statutory footing has support. I think it would have support in our political parties, so I am going to press on with it because it is so important. One thing that was mentioned repeatedly was that whole business of the logjam that there was about genocide—of always saying that it is a matter for courts and not for Parliaments to decide whether a genocide is happening. One of the refrains which people must become tired with is that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and myself in saying that it is not about waiting until a genocide happens; it is about what has to be done to prevent genocide, which is so embedded in the genocide convention.
The noble Lord, Lord Polak, described so well, as did the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, the way in which atrocity crimes start with lesser horrors and then rise in the significance and then the gravity of what takes place. That takes us along the road of atrocity crime on a trajectory that goes towards genocide, and a full understanding of that within our embassies and those who assess our security internationally is so important.
It was great to see a hub on atrocity crimes created within the Foreign Office, and they are wonderful people, but it is not properly resourced and it is beleaguered in the efforts it has to make. I know there is great pride in the standards of our diplomats, but it is not enough for us to say that every diplomat has his eye on this ball; there are too many other things to consider. I reinforce what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Collins: that because everyone has responsibility for this, sometimes nobody has responsibility for it. That is why it is so important that the hub is looking; not only should it deal with atrocity crimes but genocide should be named on it as part of its remit.
I want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, because I see that she is at the Bar. She has been one of my heroines in her great advocacy for human rights over many years, and having her participate in the debate today was so important to me.
Members on all Benches, including the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, were in support of this Bill. I know that a Bill will follow from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, where he will seek to create a way in which it could be a court of law that helps us decide whether a genocide is in the offing and for it to be evidentially based.
I am grateful to the Minister for all that he has said about the things that can be taken out of the Bill. I hope that he might at some point be able to persuade his colleagues in the Foreign Office that it would be an advantage to have this legislation and that it would be strengthened by having the hub and this work placed on a statutory basis. I was very interested in his acceptance of many of the suggestions made in the Bill, and I hope to take up his invitation to go and see him.