House of Commons
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163) and negatived.
Mr Speaker
Before we begin today’s proceedings, I know that the whole House will have been horrified to hear the news of yesterday’s crash of an Air India flight from Gujarat to London. On behalf of the House, I express our deep sorrow at this awful tragedy. Many colleagues will have lost constituents and they will be working tirelessly to support those families who have suffered a devasting loss. Our thoughts are with those constituents, their friends and the victims in India, the United Kingdom and around the world. I am expecting Ministers to come to the House on Monday to make a statement and provide an update on the Air India crash, as well as about the events that have happened overnight in the middle east.
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
13:45 - The House divided: - Ayes: 233 / Noes: 254 - Question accordingly negatived.
14:02 - The House divided: - Ayes: 230 / Noes: 256 - Question accordingly negatived.
14:15 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 259 / Noes: 216 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
Before we begin, I would like to say a few words about today’s proceedings.
We will begin at the point we ended on Friday 16 May, with the decisions to be taken after debate on the first group of amendments. I will put the necessary questions without further debate. After that, debate on the second group of new clauses and amendments can begin. I remind hon. Members that the scope of that debate will be the amendments and new clauses in that group.
Nearly 60 Members have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate. Not all hon. Members will be called. It is not customary to impose a time limit on speeches on a private Member’s Bill, but I hope that Member in charge of the Bill, and the speakers after her, will restrict themselves in the early part of the debate, including in taking interventions. The Chair will keep time limits under review as the debate progresses. If the Chair feels that people are taking advantage of the Chamber, a time limit will be imposed, but I hope we do not have to do that. I do not expect to call the Front Benchers to speak until at least 1.15 pm.
I can also confirm that I have provisionally selected for separate decision all of the propositions in the name of Kim Leadbeater, the Member in Charge of the Bill. I have also provisionally selected the following for separate decision on new clauses: amendment (b) to new clause 14, new clause 1, new clause 2 and new clause 16. I will make further announcements on selection for separate decision on amendments at an appropriate point. We will begin with the question that new clause 10 will be added to the Bill, which was debated on Friday 16 May.
New Clause 10
No obligation to provide assistance etc
“(1) No person is under any duty to participate in the provision of assistance in accordance with this Act.
(2) No registered medical practitioner is under any duty to become—
(a) the coordinating doctor in relation to any person, or
(b) the independent doctor in relation to any person.
(3) No registered medical practitioner, other than the coordinating doctor or the independent doctor, is under any duty to perform any function under or in connection with this Act other than—
(a) a function relating to the giving of notifications, or
(b) a function relating to the recording of matters in a person’s medical records.
(4) No health professional or social care professional is under any duty to respond when consulted under section 11(3)(b) (requirement for assessing doctor to consult professional with relevant qualifications or experience).
(5) No registered pharmacist or registered pharmacy technician is under any duty to participate in the supply of an approved substance to a registered medical practitioner for use in accordance with section 23.
(6) No person is under any duty to—
(a) act as a witness under this Act, or
(b) act as a proxy under this Act.
(7) Nothing in this section affects—
(a) any duty relating to the giving of notifications under this Act or the recording of matters in a person’s medical records,
(b) any duty relating to a requirement to keep records or to provide information, or
(c) any duty of a professional to respond to enquiries made under section 11(2)(b) (enquiries by assessing doctor) relating to health or social care the professional is providing, or has recently provided, to a person seeking assistance under this Act.
(8) Schedule (Protection from detriment) amends the Employment Rights Act 1996 to make provision to protect employees and other workers from being subjected to any detriment for—
(a) exercising (or proposing to exercise) a right under this section not to participate in an activity or perform a function, or
(b) participating in the provision of assistance in accordance with this Act or performing any other function under this Act.
(9) In this section—
(a) a reference to a duty includes any duty, whether arising from any contract, statute or otherwise;
(b) “registered pharmacist” and “registered pharmacy technician” have the same meaning as in the Pharmacy Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/231) (see article 3 of that Order).”—(Kim Leadbeater.)
This new clause, intended to replace clause 28, expands the protection currently provided by that clause by broadening the persons to whom it applies and the functions to which it relates; and it introduces NS1 which makes provision for enforcement of the right not be subject to detriment in connection with the Bill
Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill.
Question agreed to.
New clause 10 accordingly added to the Bill.
New Clause 11
Replacing the coordinating or independent doctor where unable or unwilling to continue to act
“(1) This section applies where—
(a) after a first declaration has been witnessed by the coordinating doctor, that doctor is unable or unwilling to continue to carry out the functions of the coordinating doctor, or
(b) after a referral is made under section 9(3)(c) (including a referral to which section 12(4) applies), but before a report under section 10 has been made by virtue of that referral, the independent doctor is unable or unwilling to continue to carry out the functions of the independent doctor,
and in this section such a coordinating or independent doctor is referred to as “the outgoing doctor”.
(2) The outgoing doctor must as soon as practicable give written notice of their inability or unwillingness to continue to carry out their functions under this Act to—
(a) the person seeking assistance,
(b) the Commissioner, and
(c) if the outgoing doctor is the independent doctor, the coordinating doctor.
(3) Any duty or power of the outgoing doctor under this Act that arose in consequence of the declaration or referral mentioned in subsection (1) ceases to have effect from the time the outgoing doctor complies with subsection (2); but this does not apply to any duty under subsection (8) or (9).
(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision relating to the appointment, with the agreement of the person seeking assistance, of a replacement coordinating doctor who meets the requirements of section 7(5) and who is able and willing to carry out the functions of the coordinating doctor.
(5) Regulations under subsection (4) may, in particular, make provision to ensure continuity of care for the person seeking assistance despite the change in the coordinating doctor.
(6) Where the independent doctor gives a notice under subsection (2)—
(a) a further referral may be made—
(i) under section 9(3)(c) (if section 12 does not apply), or
(ii) where section 12 applies, under subsection (2) of that section, and
(b) the registered medical practitioner to whom that referral is made becomes the independent doctor (replacing the outgoing doctor) and sections 10 to 12 (and this section) apply accordingly.
(7) Subsections (8) and (9) apply where the coordinating doctor—
(a) gives a notice under subsection (2) to the person seeking assistance, or
(b) receives a notice under that subsection given by the independent doctor in relation to the person seeking assistance.
(8) Where the coordinating doctor is a practitioner with the person’s GP practice, the coordinating doctor must, as soon as practicable, record the giving of the notice in the person’s medical records.
(9) In any other case—
(a) the coordinating doctor must, as soon as practicable, notify a registered medical practitioner with that practice of the giving of the notice, and
(b) the practitioner notified under paragraph (a) must, as soon as practicable, record the giving of the notice in the person’s medical records.”—(Kim Leadbeater.)
This new clause makes provision about the replacement of the coordinating doctor or the independent doctor where the doctor is unable or unwilling to continue to carry out their functions under the Bill.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 12
Report where assistance not provided because coordinating doctor not satisfied of all relevant matters
“(1) This section applies where a person is not provided with assistance under section 23 because the coordinating doctor is not satisfied as to all of the matters mentioned in section 23(5).
(2) The coordinating doctor must make a report which—
(a) sets out the matters as to which they are not satisfied, and
(b) contains an explanation of why they are not satisfied of those matters.
(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the content or form of the report.
(4) The coordinating doctor must give a copy of the report to—
(a) the person,
(b) if the coordinating doctor is not a practitioner with the person’s GP’s practice, a registered medical practitioner with that practice, and
(c) the Commissioner.”—(Kim Leadbeater.)
This new clause (intended to be inserted after Clause 27) requires the coordinating doctor to produce a report where assistance is not provided because they are not satisfied of all of the matters mentioned in Clause 23(5).
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 13
Regulation of approved substances and devices for self-administration
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision about approved substances.
(2) The regulations must make provision about—
(a) the supply or offer for supply, or administration, of approved substances;
(b) the transportation, storage, handling and disposal of approved substances;
(c) the keeping of records of matters relating to approved substances.
(3) The regulations may in particular make provision—
(a) about the manufacture, importation, preparation or assembly of approved substances;
(b) for or in connection with the monitoring of matters relating to approved substances;
(c) requiring persons specified in the regulations, in specified cases, to give information to the Secretary of State.
(4) The regulations may in particular—
(a) make provision relating to approved substances that is similar to, or that corresponds to, any provision of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 (S.I. 2012/1916);
(b) make provision applying any provision of those Regulations, with or without modifications, in relation to approved substances.
(The regulations may also amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.)
(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about devices made for use or used for, or in connection with, the self-administration of approved substances.
(6) Regulations under this section must make provision about enforcement (which must include, but need not be limited to, provision imposing civil penalties).
(7) Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament; but they may not amend this Act.
(8) In this section “device” includes information in electronic form for use in connection with a device.”—(Kim Leadbeater.)
This new clause (which is intended to replace clause 34) imposes a duty to make regulations about approved substances, and a power to make regulations about devices intended for use, or used, in connection with the self-administration of approved substances.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Kim Leadbeater (Spen Valley) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment (b) to new clause 13, at end insert—
“(5A) The Secretary of State may only approve a device under subsection (5) if the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has approved the device for that purpose.
(5B) Before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.”
This amendment requires that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency be consulted before making regulations and that medical devices can only be approved for self-administration if they have been approved by the MHRA.
Amendment (c) to new clause 13, at end insert—
“(5A) Regulations under subsection (5) must forbid the use of any device used for the self-administration of a gas.”
This requires the Secretary of State to forbid the use of medical devices which cause death by the administration of a gas.
Amendment (a) to new clause 13, leave out subsection (7).
This removes the power to make regulations that may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament (known as Henry VIII power) from this new clause.
New clause 14—Prohibition on advertising—
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision prohibiting—
(a) the publication, printing, distribution or designing (anywhere) of advertisements whose purpose or effect is to promote a voluntary assisted dying service;
(b) causing the publication, printing, distribution or designing of such advertisements.
(2) The regulations may contain exceptions (for example, for the provision of certain information to users or providers of services).
(3) Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament.
(4) But regulations under this section—
(a) may not amend this Act, and
(b) must provide that any offence created by the regulations is punishable with a fine.
(5) In this section “voluntary assisted dying service” means—
(a) any service for or in connection with the provision of assistance to a person to end their own life in accordance with this Act, or
(b) any other service provided for the purposes of any of sections 5 to 27.”
This clause imposes a duty to make regulations prohibiting advertisements to promote services relating to voluntary assisted dying under the Bill.
Amendment (b) to new clause 14, in subsection (2), leave out from “exceptions” to the end of subsection (3) and insert—
“( ) for the following—
communication made in reply to a particular request by an individual for information about a voluntary assisted dying service;
(b) communication which is—
(i) intended for health professionals or providers of voluntary assisted dying services, and
(ii) made in a manner and form unlikely to be seen by potential service users.
(3) Regulations under this section may make provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament, but may not amend this Act or the Suicide Act 1961.”
This amendment would limit the exceptions that can be created to the advertising ban set out in NC14 and also provides that regulations cannot amend the Suicide Act 1961, which includes the offence of assisting and encouraging suicide.
Amendment (a) to new clause 14, leave out subsection (3).
This removes the power to make regulations that may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament (known as Henry VIII power) from this new clause.
New clause 15—Investigation of deaths etc—
“(1) In section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (duty to investigate certain deaths), after subsection (7) insert—
“(7A) In this Chapter a reference to an “unnatural death” does not include a death caused by the self-administration by the deceased of an approved substance, within the meaning of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Act 2025, that was provided to the deceased in accordance with that Act.”
(2) In section 20 of that Act (medical certificate of cause of death), after subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) Regulations under subsection (1) may make, in respect of cases where assistance was provided or purportedly provided to the deceased under the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Act 2025—
(a) such provision that is similar to, or that corresponds to, provision mentioned in subsection (1) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate;
(b) such further provision as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(4B) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide that in cases where the cause of death appears, to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person issuing a certificate under the regulations, to be the self-administration by the deceased of an approved substance (within the meaning of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Act 2025) that was provided to the deceased in accordance with that Act, the certificate must—
(a) state the cause of death to be “assisted death”, and
(b) contain a record of the illness or disease which caused the person to be terminally ill within the meaning of that Act.”
(3) In Schedule 1 to that Act (suspension of investigations etc), in the definition in paragraph 1(6) of “homicide offence”, after paragraph (d) insert—
“(e) an offence under section 31, 32 or 33 of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Act 2025;”.”
This new clause provides that references in Chapter 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (investigations into deaths) to unnatural deaths do not include deaths caused by self-administration of approved substances provided in accordance with the Bill. It makes offences under clauses 31 to 33 “homicide offences” for the purposes of that Act. It also amends the powers in that Act in respect of medical certificates of cause of death.
Amendment (a) to new clause 15, in subsection (1), leave out from “section” to “(medical” in subsection (2) and insert
“20 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009”
This amendment ensures that deaths from assisted dying will still fall within the coroner’s duty to investigate deaths under section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
New clause 20—Guidance about operation of Act—
“(1) The Secretary of State must issue guidance relating to the operation of this Act.
(2) The guidance need not (but may) relate to matters about which the Welsh Ministers may issue guidance under subsection (4) (“Welsh devolved matters”).
(3) Before issuing guidance under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Chief Medical Officer for England,
(b) the Chief Medical Officer for Wales,
(c) such persons with learning disabilities and other persons who have protected characteristics as the Secretary of State considers appropriate,
(d) such persons appearing to represent providers of health or care services, including providers of palliative or end of life care, as the Secretary of State considers appropriate,
(e) if any part of the guidance relates to Welsh devolved matters, the Welsh Ministers, and
(f) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(4) The Welsh Ministers may issue guidance relating to the operation of this Act in Wales, but the guidance must only be about matters within devolved competence.
(5) For this purpose, a matter is “within devolved competence” if provision about it would be within the legislative competence of Senedd Cymru if it were contained in an Act of the Senedd.
(6) Before issuing guidance under subsection (4), the Welsh Ministers must consult—
(a) the Chief Medical Officer for Wales,
(b) the Secretary of State,
(c) such persons with learning disabilities and other persons who have protected characteristics as the Welsh Ministers consider appropriate,
(d) such persons appearing to represent providers of health or care services, including providers of palliative or end of life care, as the Welsh Ministers consider appropriate, and
(e) such other persons as the Welsh Ministers consider appropriate.
(7) When preparing guidance under this section, an appropriate national authority must have regard to the need to provide practical and accessible information, advice and guidance to—
(a) persons (including persons with learning disabilities) requesting or considering requesting assistance to end their own lives;
(b) the next of kin and families of such persons;
(c) the general public.
(8) An appropriate national authority must publish any guidance issued under this section.
(9) In this section—
“appropriate national authority” means the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers;
“protected characteristics” has the same meaning as in Part 2 of the Equality Act 2010 (see section 4 of that Act).”
This new clause (which is intended to replace clause 37) makes provision about guidance relating to the operation of the Bill.
New clause 21—Provision about the Welsh language—
“(1) In this section “relevant person” means a person in Wales who wishes to be provided with assistance to end their own life in accordance with this Act.
(2) Subsection (3) applies where the Welsh Ministers make regulations under section 39 (voluntary assisted dying services: Wales).
(3) Regulations under that section must make such provision as the Welsh Ministers consider appropriate for the purpose of ensuring that, where a relevant person indicates that they wish to communicate in Welsh, all reasonable steps are taken to secure that—
(a) communications made by a person providing a voluntary assisted dying service to the relevant person are in Welsh, and
(b) any report about the first or second assessment of the relevant person is in Welsh.
(4) Where a relevant person informs the Commissioner that they wish to communicate in Welsh, the Commissioner must take all reasonable steps to secure that—
(a) communications made by the Commissioner to the relevant person are in Welsh,
(b) each member of the panel to which the relevant person’s case is referred speaks Welsh, and
(c) communications made by that panel to the relevant person are in Welsh,
and any certificate of eligibility issued by that panel must be in Welsh.
(5) Regulations under section 7, 9, 10, 17 or 26 that specify the form of—
(a) a first or second declaration,
(b) a report about the first or second assessment of a person, or
(c) a final statement,
must make provision for the forms to be in Welsh (as well as in English).
(6) Before making regulations in pursuance of subsection (5), the Secretary of State must consult the Welsh Ministers.
(7) In this section—
“panel” and “referred” have the meaning given by paragraph 1 of Schedule 2;
“voluntary assisted dying service” has the meaning given by section 38.”
This new clause (which is intended to replace Clause 47) makes provision about the use of the Welsh language.
New clause 4—Monitoring by Chief Medical Officer—
“(1) The relevant Chief Medical Officer must—
(a) monitor the operation of the Act, including compliance with its provisions and any regulations or code of practice made under it,
(b) investigate, and report to the appropriate national authority on, any matter connected with the operation of the Act which the relevant national authority refers to the relevant Chief Medical Officer, and
(c) submit an annual report to the appropriate national authority on the operation of the Act.
(2) The relevant Chief Medical Officer’s report must include information about the occasions when—
(a) a report about the first assessment of a person does not contain a statement indicating that the coordinating doctor is satisfied as to all of the matters mentioned in section 9(2)(a) to (h),
(b) a report about the second assessment of a person does not contain a statement indicating that the independent doctor is satisfied as to all of the matters mentioned in section 10(2)(a) to (e),
(c) a panel has refused to grant a certificate of eligibility,
(d) the coordinating doctor has refused to make a statement under section 17(6).
(3) An annual report must include information about the application of the Act in relation to—
(a) persons who have protected characteristics, and
(b) any other description of persons specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State.
(4) When preparing an annual report, the relevant Chief Medical Officer must consult—
(a) The Commissioner, and
(b) such persons appearing to the relevant Chief Medical Officer to represent the interests of persons who have protected characteristics as the relevant Chief Medical Officer considers appropriate.
(5) An appropriate national authority must—
(a) publish any report received under this section,
(b) prepare and publish a response to any such report, and
(c) lay before Parliament or Senedd Cymru (as the case may be) a copy of the report and response.
(6) In this section “appropriate national authority” means the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers.
(7) In this section “protected characteristics” has the same meaning as in Part 2 of the Equality Act 2010 (see section 4 of that Act).
(8) In this section “relevant Chief Medical Officer” has the meaning given by section 37(5).”
This new clause would require the monitoring, investigation and reporting functions set out in the Bill to be carried out by the Chief Medical Officer instead of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner.
New clause 5—Implications for civil procedure rules and probate proceedings—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, publish a report setting out the implications of this Act on—
(a) the civil procedure rules, and
(b) probate proceedings.
(2) The report in subsection (1) must include an analysis of likely consequential changes to the civil procedure rules and probate proceedings in consequence of this Act.”
New clause 6—Board to consult communities—
“(1) The Commissioner must, within six months of being appointed under this Act, appoint a consultation board.
(2) The role of the board is to consult communities in order to report to the Commissioner on the impact of the Act on those communities.
(3) The Board must report to the Commissioner and the Secretary of State every 12 months from its appointment on its findings.
(4) The communities that the Board must consult include people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
(5) The Board may consult other groups in addition to those listed in subsection (4) as it considers appropriate.
(6) The Secretary of State must, within 3 months of receiving a report under subsection (3), lay that report before both Houses of Parliament.”
New clause 19—Collection of statistics—
“(1) The Voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner must ensure that the statistics specified in Schedule (Statistics to be collected) are collected.
(2) The Commissioner must publish a yearly report setting out those statistics.
(3) The Secretary of State may, by regulation, vary the contents of Schedule (Statistics to be collected).”
Amendment 13, in clause 4, page 2, line 22, at end insert—
“(2A) A person may not be appointed under subsection (2) unless the appointment has the consent of the Health and Social Care Select Committee of the House of Commons.
(2B) In this section, references to the Health and Social Care Committee shall—
(a) if the name of that Committee is changed, be taken (subject to paragraph (b)) to be references to the Committee by its new name;
(b) if the functions of that Committee at the passing of this Act with respect to matters relating to the provision of assistance under this Act become functions of a different committee of the House of Commons, be taken to be references to the committee by whom the functions for the time being exercisable.”
Amendment 96, in clause 25, page 21, line 5, at end insert—
“(1A) A drug or other substance may only be approved under this Act if the Secretary of State is reasonably of the opinion that there is a scientific consensus that this drug (or other substance) or combination of drugs (or other substances), is effective at ending someone’s life without causing pain or other significant adverse side effects.”
This amendment ensures that drugs can only be approved if the Secretary of State is reasonably of the opinion that there is a scientific consensus that the drug is effective at ending someone’s life without causing pain or other significant adverse side effects.
Amendment 97, page 21, line 5, at end insert—
“(1A) A drug or other substance may only be approved under this Act if it has been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for that purpose.”
This amendment ensures that drugs can only be approved for this purpose if the MHRA has licensed those drugs for that purpose.
Amendment 98, page 21, line 5, at end insert—
“(1A) Nothing in subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State to approve any drugs or other substance if they conclude that there are no appropriate drugs or other substances to approve.”
If the Secretary of State concludes that no drugs or substance is appropriate to be used, then the Secretary of State is not required by subclause 25(1) to approve any.
Amendment 27, page 21, line 7, at end insert—
“(2A) The doses and types of lethal drugs specified in any regulations made under subsection (1) must be licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
(2B) The doses and types of lethal drugs to bring about the person’s death must be recommended by the guidelines of either—
(a) the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, or
(b) the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group in Wales, as appropriate, prior to licensing.”
This amendment will require the doses and types of lethal drugs to be licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and to be recommended by either the National Institute of Clinical Excellence or the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group in Wales as appropriate prior to licensing.
Amendment 99, page 21, line 7, at end insert—
“(2A) The Secretary of State may not lay a draft statutory instrument containing (whether alone or with other provision) regulations under subsection (1) before both Houses of Parliament unless they also lay before both Houses a report setting out all relevant information on the likely time to death, complications (including pain) and likely side effect.”
This amendment requires that a report be provided to Parliament setting out the information available on the proposed drugs, including time to death, complications (including pain) and likely side effects. Such a report is required before Parliament votes to approve the drugs or substance. See consequential Amendment 100.
Amendment 69, page 21, line 8, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
“(3) See section (Regulation of approved substances and devices for self-administration) for powers to make provision about—
(a) approved substances, and
(b) devices for use or used in connection with the self-administration of approved substances.”
This is consequential on NC13.
Amendment 53, line 24, leave out clause 34
This amendment is consequential on NC13.
Amendment 54, line 34, leave out clause 35
This amendment is consequential on NC15.
Amendment 19, in clause 36, page 27, line 17, at end insert—
“(ba) how the provisions of this Act relate to the operation of—
(i) the Government’s strategy on suicide prevention,
(ii) the duties on clinicians and others to secure the right to life, including of those at risk of suicide, under paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 2 (Right to Life) set out in Schedule 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998,
(iii) the Mental Health Act 1983,
(iv) deprivation of liberty safeguards as set out in Schedule A1 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and
(v) liberty protection safeguards as set out in Schedule AA1 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005.”
Amendment 70, page 27, line 20, at end insert—
“(ca) ensuring effective communication in connection with persons seeking assistance under this Act to end their own lives, including the use of interpreters;”
This amendment provides that a code of practice must be issued covering ensuring effective communication in connection with persons seeking assistance under the Bill.
Amendment 108, page 27, line 31, at end insert—
“(h) how the provisions of this Act, including but not limited to section 23, interact with the provisions of the Abortion Act 1967.”
Amendment 71, page 27, line 35, leave out subsection (3).
This amendment is consequential on amendment 70.
Amendment 20, page 28, line 5, leave out subsection (8) and insert—
“(8) If it appears to a court or tribunal conducting any criminal or civil proceedings that—
(a) a provision of a code, or
(b) a failure to comply with a code,
is relevant to a question arising in the proceedings, the provision or failure must be taken into account in deciding the question.”
Amendment 89, page 28, line 7, leave out clause 37.
This amendment is consequential on NC20.
Amendment 34, in clause 37, page 28, line 14, at end insert—
“(ii) persons from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities and advocate groups representing those communities, and
(iii) representatives of the healthcare sector, including persons who work in hospices.”
Amendment 12, clause 38, page 28, line 36, leave out subsections (4) and (5) and insert—
“(4A) Regulations under subsection (1) may not amend, modify or repeal section 1 of the National Health Service Act 2006.”
This amendment would prevent section 1 of the National Health Service Act 2006, which sets out the purposes of the NHS, from being amended by regulations. Its effect would be to require changes to be made by an Act of Parliament instead.
Amendment 105, page 29, line 4, leave out subsection (6).
Amendment 15, page 29, line 5, at end insert—
“(6A) Regulations under this section must provide that, where a body other than a public authority provides voluntary assisted dying services under subsection (1), that body must publish an annual statement that includes information on the following—
(a) the number of persons to whom the body has provided a preliminary discussion under section 5(3);
(b) the number of to persons whom the body has assessed under section 9(1);
(c) the number of persons whom the body has assessed under section 10(1);
(d) the number of persons to whom assistance has been provided under section 23(2);
(e) the cost and revenue associated with providing such assistance; and
(f) any other matter that the Secretary of State may specify.”
This amendment would require private providers of the services permitted under the Act to publish annual statements of the numbers of people to whom they have provided those services. It would also require them to disclose their associated costs and revenue.
Amendment 92, in clause 39, page 29, line 13, leave out from “Wales” to end of line 14.
Amendment 106, page 29, line 16, leave out subsection (2)(a).
Amendment 107, page 29, line 22, leave out subsection (4)(a).
This amendment and amendment 93 ensure that the power under subsection (3) also covers provision securing that arrangements are made for the provision of services, so far as such provision is outside the legislative competence of the Senedd.
Amendment 93, page 29, line 27, at end insert—
“(b) a reference to provision about voluntary assisted dying services includes in particular provision securing that arrangements are made for the provision of such services.”
See the statement for Amendment 92.
Amendment 29, in clause 40, page 30, line 5, at end insert—
“(5) Any notification to the Commissioner made pursuant to regulations under this section must be forwarded by the Commissioner to the relevant Chief Medical Officer.
(6) The relevant Chief Medical Officer may exercise any power granted to the Commissioner under subsection (2).
(7) In this section “relevant Chief Medical Officer” has the meaning given by section 37(5).”
Amendment 21, in clause 43, page 31, line 15, at end insert—
“(4) For the first reporting period referred to under subsection (2) (a) the report must set out an assessment of the state of health services to persons with palliative and end of life care needs and the implications of this Act on those services.
(5) The report under subsection (4) must, in particular, include an assessment of the availability, quality and distribution of appropriate health services to persons with palliative and end of life care needs, including—
(a) pain and symptom management;
(b) psychological support for those persons and their families;
(c) information about palliative care and how to access it.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to prepare and publish an assessment of the availability, quality and distribution of palliative and end of life care services as part of the first report on implementation of the Act (to be undertaken within 1 year of the Act being passed). This would mirror the assessment already required as part of the 5 year review of the act.
Amendment 28, page 31, line 32, leave out clause 45.
This amendment is linked to NC4.
Amendment 35, clause 45, page 32, line 20, after “characteristics” insert
“, including persons representing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities,”.
Amendment 36, in clause 46, page 33, line 11, after “disabilities” insert
“, and
(ii) persons from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities”.
Amendment 90, page 33, line 18, leave out clause 47.
This amendment is consequential on NC21.
Amendment 39, in clause 47, page 33, line 19, after “provided” insert “in Wales”.
This amendment specifies that this section applies only to services provided in Wales.
Amendment 40, page 33, line 24, at end insert—
“(2A) Any entity providing a service or fulfilling a function under this Act must take all reasonable steps to ensure the particular health professionals providing a service or fulfilling a function under sections 5, 9,10, 12, 15, and 23 have fluent proficiency in the Welsh language, if the services are to be provided to a person in Welsh under subsection (1).
(2B) For the purposes of subsection (2A), “fluent” includes speaking fluent Welsh in order to enable conversations with the person in Welsh.
(2C) The Commissioner must take all reasonable steps to ensure members of Assisted Dying Panels will, if the person to whom the referral relates has asked for services to be provided in Welsh, when hearing from or questioning that person under section 15(4)(b), do so in Welsh.”
Amendment 103, in clause 50, page 34, line 24, leave out from “under” to end of line 29 and insert
“any provision of this Act unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
This amendment would require all statutory instruments in the Act, except commencement orders, to be made by the draft affirmative procedure. It is linked with Amendment 104 which creates the power for the Secretary of State to use the made affirmative procedure in cases of emergency.
Amendment 72, page 34, line 24, after “10(9)”, insert—
“(Regulation of approved substances and devices for self-administration),”.
This amendment provides that regulations under NC13 are subject to the draft affirmative procedure.
Amendment 50, page 34, line 24, after “10(9),” insert “(Doctor independence)”.
This amendment makes regulations under NC7 [Doctor independence] subject to the affirmative procedure.
Amendment 100, page 34, line 24, after “10(9),” insert “25(1)”.
This amendment makes regulations under clause 25(1) subject to the draft affirmative procedure. It is consequential on Amendment 99.
Amendment 73, page 34, line 25, leave out “or 39” and insert—
“39, or (prohibition on advertising)”.
This amendment provides that regulations under NC14 are subject to the draft affirmative procedure.
Amendment 88, page 34, line 25, after “39” insert “or (Collection of statistics)”.
This amendment provides that the changes to NS2 should be made by affirmative regulations, and is consequential to NS2.
Amendment 104, page 34, line 32, at end insert—
“(5A) If they reasonably consider it urgent and necessary for the protection of others, the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers may dispense with the requirement to lay a draft statutory instrument.”
This amendment is linked with Amendment 103. It creates the power for the Secretary of State to use the made affirmative procedure in cases of emergency (this means that it would come into effect straight away but there would be a vote afterwards).
Amendment 76, in clause 53, page 36, line 12, at beginning insert “Subject as follows,”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 77.
Amendment 77, page 36, line 12, at end insert “only.
(2) Sections (Regulation of approved substances and devices for self-administration), (Prohibition on advertising), 50 and 52, this section, and sections 54 and 55 extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
(3) Section (No obligation to provide assistance etc)(8) and Schedule (Protection from detriment) extend to England and Wales and Scotland.”
This amendment provides for NC13 (regulation of approved substances etc) and NC14 (prohibition on advertising), and the general provisions of the Bill, to extend to each part of the United Kingdom; and for NC10 (no obligation to provide assistance etc) and NS1 (protection from detriment) to extend to England and Wales and Scotland.
Amendment (a) to amendment 77, in subsection (2), leave out
“(Regulation of approved substances and devices for self-administration),”.
This would provide that NC13 (regulation of approved substances etc…) does not extend to each part of the United Kingdom and only applies, like most of this Bill, to England and Wales.
Amendment (b) to amendment 77, in subsection (3), leave out “and Scotland”.
This amendment would provide that subsection (8) of NC10 (no obligation to provide assistance) and NS1 (protection from detriment) only extend to England and Wales.
Amendment 42, in clause 54, page 36, line 16, leave out subsections (2) to (5) and insert—
“(2) In relation to England, the provisions of this Act not brought into force by subsection (1) come into force on such day or days as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint.”
This amendment will mean that, except as provided by subsection (1), provisions of the Bill will only commence in England when the Secretary of State makes a commencement order, and not automatically.
Amendment 37, in clause 54, page 36, line 21, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
“(4) Regulations under this section cannot be made unless the Secretary of State has previously—
(a) made a statement to the effect that in their view the provisions of the Act are compatible with the Convention rights; or
(b) made a statement to the effect that although they are unable to make a statement under subsection (4)(a), the Government nevertheless wishes to proceed with commencing provisions of the Act.
(4A) The statement required by subsection (4) must be laid before both Houses of Parliament.
(4B) A statement under subsection (4)(b) must include the steps the Government plans to take to resolve any incompatibility.”
Amendment 3, page 36, line 22, leave out “four” and insert “three”.
Amendment 94, page 36, line 25, leave out “Wales” and insert—
“sections 39(1) and (2) and (Provision about the Welsh language)(2) and (3) which come into force on such day as the Welsh Ministers may by regulations appoint.”
This amendment provides that the Welsh Ministers have power to commence clauses 39(1) and (2) and NC21(2) and (3), and that other provisions of the Bill come into force in accordance with subsections (1) to (4) of this clause.
Amendment 95, page 36, line 26, leave out subsection (6).
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 94.
New schedule 2—Statistics to be collected—
“Characteristics
1 The Voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner must collect the following information about persons requesting assisted dying—
(a) sex,
(b) age,
(c) self-reported ethnicity,
(d) level of education,
(e) Index of Multiple Deprivation based on postcode,
(f) region of residence,
(g) marital status,
(h) living status (alone, with others, in a care home etc),
(i) main condition leading to “terminal illness” fulfilment,
(j) other medical conditions,
(k) other psychiatric / mental health conditions,
(l) presence of physical disability, and
(m) presence of intellectual disability.
Health and Care Support
2 The Commissioner must collect statistics on the following information about health and care support—
(a) whether the person was, before the request—
(i) under a specialist palliative care team, and
(ii) under a psychiatry team,
(b) whether following the request there has been—
(i) referral to specialist palliative care team, and
(ii) referral to psychiatry team following request.
Information about requests
3 The Commissioner must collect statistics on the following information about the requests for assistance—
(a) the main reason for requesting assisted dying,
(b) any other subsidiary reason for requesting assisted dying,
(c) any previous requests for assisted dying from that patient,
(d) time between first request and subsequent request(s),
(e) number of times a second opinion was requested under section 10, and
(f) number of times the second opinion disagreed with the first.
Information about refused requests
4 The Commissioner must collect statistics following information about requests that are refused—
(a) at what stage of the process was the request refused, and
(b) reasons for refusal.
Information about the process
5 The Commissioner must collect statistics on the following information about the process—
(a) time from initial discussion to first declaration,
(b) time from first declaration to first doctor’s assessment,
(c) time from first doctor’s assessment to second doctor’s assessment,
(d) time from second doctor’s assessment to panel approval,
(e) time from panel approval to second declaration,
(f) time from second declaration to provision of assistance to self-administer lethal drugs,
(g) time from panel approval to death (whether by lethal drug or natural causes),
(h) duration of relationship between patient and coordinating doctor at first request, and
(i) use of a proxy and reason for using proxy.
Information about clinicians and pharmacies
6 The Commissioner must collect statistics on the following information about clinicians and pharmacies—
(a) number of clinicians participating, their speciality, and number of assisted deaths each carries out per year, and
(b) number of participating pharmacies; number of times assisted dying drugs are dispensed.
Information about Assisted Dying Panel processes
7 The Commissioner must collect statistics on the following information about Assisted Dying Panel process—
(a) number of applications made,
(b) number of applications granted and rejected,
(c) reasons for rejection,
(d) whether family members informed of proceedings,
(e) whether family members took part in proceedings,
(f) number of requests for reconsideration made,
(g) number of reconsideration requests granted and rejected, and
(h) reasons for granting requests.
Information on approved substances
8 The Commissioner must collect statistics on the following information about the approved substances—
(a) name of drug(s) used for the assisted death,
(b) whether intravenous or oral self-administration is used,
(c) presence and nature of complications following self-administration of drugs (vomiting, regurgitation, seizures, regained consciousness, other),
(d) time from self-administration to loss of consciousness,
(e) time from self-administration to death,
(f) whether emergency services called at any time following self-administration of drugs,
(g) location of death,
(h) health care professionals present at self-administration,
(i) non-professionals present at self-administration,
(j) health care professionals present at death,
(k) non-professionals present at death.”
Amendment 82, in schedule 2, page 41, line 18, leave out sub-paragraph (1) and insert—
“(1) The Judicial Appointments Commission must make arrangements for the appointments to a list of persons eligible to sit as members of panels.”
This amendment requires that panel members be appointed by the Judicial Appointments Commission. It is linked with Amendments 83, 84, 85 and 86.
Amendment 83, page 41, leave out lines 23 to 26 and insert—
“but has not reached the age specified in section 11 (Tenure of office of judges of Senior Courts) of the Senior Courts Act 1981.”
This amendment requires that the legal member of the Panel is someone who holds high judicial office or has held high judicial office but not yet reached the mandatory retirement age. It is linked with Amendments 83, 84, 85, and 86.
Amendment 41, page 41, line 34, at end insert—
“(2A) In Wales, the Commissioner must take all reasonable steps to ensure each member of a panel has fluent proficiency in the Welsh language if services or functions in the Act are to be provided to an individual in Welsh under section 47(1).
(2B) For the purposes of subsection (2A), “fluent” includes speaking fluent Welsh.”
Amendment 84, page 42, line 2, leave out “or deputy judge”.
This amendment ensures that only High Court judges, and not deputy High Court judges, can chair the panel. It is linked with Amendments 83, 84, 85 and 86.
Amendment 85, page 42, line 2, at end insert—
“(4) All judges of the High Court are automatically on the list and will remain so for the duration of their appointment to the High Court.
(5) If they have not already, all persons on the list (whether as a legal member, psychiatrist member, or social care member) must take the judicial oath.”
This amendment makes all High Court judges automatically eligible to chair panels without needing further application and it requires that the non-legal members take the judicial oath before they can sit. It is linked with Amendments 83, 84, 85 and 86.
Amendment 86, page 43, line 5, at end insert—
“(3) Panels shall have the same powers, privileges and authority as the High Court.”
This amendment gives the panel the same powers as the High Court. It is linked with Amendments 83, 84, 85 and 86.
Kim Leadbeater
It is a privilege to open today’s debate and to present to the House the amendments tabled in my name, a number of which relate to issues that I promised to return to when they were raised in Committee. All amendments in my name have been drafted with technical advice and expertise from civil servants from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice, along with the brilliant Government Legal Department and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, in order to make the Bill workable and to give coherence to the statute book, as confirmed by the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), and the Minister for Courts and Legal Services, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), in their recent letter to MPs. Some are technical and drafting amendments, and all are there to strengthen the Bill, so I hope that colleagues will be able to support them, wherever they stand on the principle of assisted dying.
I know that many colleagues wish to speak today, so I will endeavour to speak with brevity. I will speak first to the new clauses that stand in my name, starting with new clause 13. This important new clause and the related amendments would create a regulatory framework and safeguards around the approved substances referred to in the Bill by imposing a duty to make regulations about those substances and a power to make regulations about devices for use in connection with their self-administration.
Amendment 72 provides that the regulations relating to approved substances would be subject to the affirmative procedure, meaning that they must be laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of both Houses, providing important parliamentary oversight. These measures ensure that the substances used in assisted dying are subject to a specific and appropriate regulatory regime.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I am genuinely looking for clarification. As a former Cabinet Minister in the Scottish Government, I jealously guard the devolution settlement. I wonder how the extension of some of these clauses to include Scotland will be interpreted. What conversations have taken place between my hon. Friend, Scotland’s Lord Advocate and the Scottish Government?
Kim Leadbeater
I have taken legal advice from Government officials to ensure that devolution is respected at every stage in proceedings. Where legislation that affects other jurisdictions needs to be amended, those conversations have already started and will continue.
Kim Leadbeater
No, I am going to make some progress, if that is okay.
The substances that would be used would not be new substances. As we know, assisted dying is available in many other jurisdictions, and there are substances that have been used safely and, in some cases, for many years. Their safety and efficacy has been proven around the world, but they do need to be treated differently, which is the purpose of new clause 13.
Kim Leadbeater
I am going to make some progress.
However, it is most likely that these products are already licensed for other purposes. They could well be regulated through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and within the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 for the purposes of the Bill, but it is important that time is given—
Cat Eccles
As an operating department practitioner with more than 20 years of experience, I emphasise that controlling and administering drugs is already a key part of every healthcare professional’s practice. Medicines management is at the front and centre of everything we do when handling drugs. Does my hon. Friend agree that the safeguards added to this Bill, along with the existing frameworks, are more than adequate to deal with this?
Kim Leadbeater
I thank my hon. Friend for sharing her expertise, along with other colleagues with medical backgrounds who have worked with me on this amendment.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kim Leadbeater
Given what you have said, Mr Speaker, I will make some progress. [Interruption.] A lot of Members wish to speak today.
I now turn to new clause 14 and amendment 73. The new clause imposes a duty to make regulations prohibiting advertising of services related to voluntary assisted dying. This issue was discussed in Committee, following an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin). It was proposed that there should be no advertising of assisted dying services. I agree, and there was a consensus on that in the Committee. There were some issues with the previous amendment’s workability, so I gave a commitment to return to the matter on Report—hence the inclusion of this new clause. Amendment 73 provides that regulations under new clause 14 would be subject to the affirmative procedure, providing parliamentary oversight.
Jim Shannon
On the evidential basis, on page 15 of today’s edition of The Times there is a story about a gentleman who was born in South Africa and lives in Australia. He has come to London this week for this particular Bill in order to give his story. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he had only two weeks to live: he lived for three years and one month, and he is still living. There is a growing evidential basis. He said that he was never afraid to die, but he says that he is afraid of the process of dying, and the hon. Lady is the initiator of that. Will she acknowledge the evidential basis and the importance of this subject? Does she realise that the evidential basis against this Bill is growing?
Kim Leadbeater
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention, although I am not sure that it is relevant to the banning of advertising for assisted dying services, which I will try to stay focused on.
Kim Leadbeater
I am afraid that I am going to have to make some progress, based on the number of Members who wish to speak today.
I thank the hon. Member for West Worcestershire and the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for working with me on amendment 73, and I am very pleased that they support it.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Kim Leadbeater
I will not—sorry.
New clause 15 and amendment 54 make changes to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 that the Bill would necessitate. They would insert a new clause into the Act to provide that deaths that occur in accordance with the Bill will be certified by an attending practitioner and medical examiner and will not be subject to a coronial investigation.
Kim Leadbeater
I am afraid not.
Coroners investigate suspicious or violent deaths, or situations in which the cause of death is unknown. Assisted deaths would not fall into these categories, and there would therefore be no need for a default coronial investigation. This will ensure that any unnecessary delays and distress for bereaved families are avoided. These are not unexpected deaths; sadly, they were inevitable.
Kim Leadbeater
I will not, I am afraid.
It is the manner and timing of their death about which the patient will make a legal, informed choice, having been thoroughly assessed. As Professor Aneez Esmail has said, “I cannot think of any death that would be the subject of greater scrutiny in advance of the person dying than an assisted death. The process far exceeds the level of safeguarding that is in place for many of the deaths that are, at present, routinely reviewed by medical examiners and not referred to a coroner.” Of course, anyone can report a death—including an assisted death—to the coroner, or indeed to the police, if they have any concerns that it was not carried out in accordance with the Act, and if any offences have been committed, they will be investigated.
Kim Leadbeater
I am going to make some progress, I am afraid.
The Secretary of State must also consult providers of health and care services, including palliative and end-of-life care. I am really pleased that Hospice UK is supporting this amendment—it is very important that those voices are heard. The Secretary of State can also consult anyone else they feel to be appropriate, creating a flexible and holistic approach.
Turning to devolution, this long-overdue reform would apply to England and Wales, which share a criminal justice system. Health is a devolved matter, of course, and I have recognised from the outset that the legislation must respect devolution. I am fully committed to observing the same conventions that the Government would if this were a Government Bill. I have worked with UK Government officials to ensure that the right steps are taken at the right time by the right people. I have engaged with colleagues in the Welsh Government—I met the Welsh Health Minister in Cardiff, and there have been ongoing detailed discussions between the two teams of Government officials to ensure the workability of the legislation in both jurisdictions, in line with the devolution settlement.
Amendments 92 to 95 also ensure that the devolution settlement is respected and adhered to. I thank the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) and the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green), not only for their diligent work on the Bill Committee but for working with me on the amendments in relation to Wales, and I thank the Welsh Government for their guidance and support. I hope that colleagues across the House can support these new clauses and amendments.
I now turn to new clause 21, which makes specific provision about the use of the Welsh language. The conversations that happen at the end of a person’s life are extremely personal and should be handled with the utmost sensitivity. It is very important that they are conducted in the best interests of the patient, and a big part of that is using clear communication. In this respect, language matters, so if a patient in Wales has Welsh as their first or preferred language, all efforts should be made to ensure they can communicate with voluntary assisted dying services in Welsh. I committed to this in Committee, and have made good on that commitment.
Turning to amendments 76 and 77, as with any Bill, it is important that the amending legislation secures overall coherence with the statute book. As such, the clauses relating to medicines, advertising and employment protections amend, or confer power to amend, other legislation that currently extends to parts of the UK. Of course, this does not mean the provision of assisted dying, but, for example, they extend the prohibition on advertising to the whole of the UK and apply the employment protections in the Bill to Scotland. That is in line with the guidance I have received from legal experts, and as such I hope all colleagues can support these amendments. If the Bill passes, I will, if necessary, work with other devolved Administrations in the same way as I have worked with the Welsh Government to ensure that devolution is respected.
That concludes the explanations of the amendments tabled in my name. Many colleagues are keen to speak, so I am not going to comment on all the amendments in the group; I will just make two comments about amendments that are not in my name, and allow other people plenty of time to speak.
Amendment 42, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), would not only try to remove the backstop for the provision of assisted dying in England, but create a number of other issues in relation to commencement. If Parliament chooses to give this choice to terminally ill people, there cannot be a clause in the Bill that would prevent that from being available as soon as it was safe and practicable. But the amendment would remove the four-year backstop. It would also prevent the appointment of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner and create a potential commencement gap between England and Wales. Given that, I have been strongly advised that the amendment would create serious workability issues. I urge colleagues who want an operable Bill to join me in rejecting the amendment.
To finish, I am pleased to support amendment 21, tabled by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson). I thank her for her engagement with the Bill and the amendment, which would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish an assessment of the availability, quality and distribution of palliative and end-of-life care, as part of the first report on the implementation of the Act, mirroring the assessment already required as part of the five-year review.
Although the Bill seeks to address what in some respects is a very specific issue in terms of the failings of the current law, it has become part of a much-needed broader conversation about death, dying and end-of-life care. We all have our own experiences of death, loss and grief, and we do not talk about them enough. I am really pleased that the Bill has led to many conversations up and down the country; whatever our views, that has to be a positive thing.
Kim Leadbeater
I have nearly finished.
I have had many such conversations over recent months with those who support the amendment, including with palliative care doctors, nurses, hospice staff, GPs, Hospice UK and Marie Curie. I thank them all for their constructive engagement with the Bill. I cannot imagine that anyone in this place is not truly grateful for the outstanding work done every day by the wonderful people working in palliative and end-of-life care in every one of our constituencies. Many of us, if not most of us, will have personal experience of the kindness and compassion that those people have shown to our own families and friends.
But this is not an either/or conversation. Palliative and end-of-life care and assisted dying can and do work side by side to give terminally ill patients the care and choice that they deserve in their final days. Just as there should not be an either/or for dying people, there should also not be an either/or for us as legislators in having to choose between supporting assisted dying or other end-of-life choices. That is why I am supporting amendment 21: to ensure that in this place we channel our energies into supporting all options available to terminally ill people—something that I have always committed to do.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a privilege to be called at this stage in the debate. My principal reason for voting against the Bill on Second Reading was my concern that vulnerable people would be put at risk. I agreed to serve on the Bill Committee to do what I could to allay my concerns about that issue and address some of the issues raised by others. I do not think that the revised version of the Bill properly or completely reflects the concerns expressed on a multitude of different occasions. Consequently, it does not fully mitigate the risks to vulnerable groups.
We all recognise that decision making of any kind does not take place in a vacuum and that, in all parts of life, we live in a particular context. The Equality Act 2010 recognises that many people face discrimination or unfair treatment as a result of particular characteristics and that reasonable steps should be taken to eliminate that. It was very clear from the oral evidence sessions that particular care has to be taken to assess the context within which people are making the decision to seek an assisted death: if they suffer from a mental illness or eating disorder, if they are from a low-income or ethnic minority background, if they suffer from a disability or if they are in an abusive relationship. Those factors are likely to lead to an increased risk that someone will seek an assisted death that they would not have sought if those factors were not present.
In Committee, I and others made the point that it would have been desirable to have received an equality impact assessment before the detailed work of Committee scrutiny had begun, so that Committee members had a sense of how the proposed legislation would impact groups that we know can suffer disproportionate levels of disadvantage.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Sarah Olney
I will not, if that is okay.
We were told that it was not practical to produce such an assessment until after Committee stage, as it would be necessary to assess the impact of amendments made in Committee.
The equality impact assessment was finally published five weeks ago. I have to say that I was pretty astounded. It does not recognise that certain groups in this country may have their lives prematurely shortened as a result of this legislation; instead, it concerns itself with the barriers that vulnerable people may face when trying to access assisted dying. I find that astonishing. Did the people who drafted the assessment not hear the speech of the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on Second Reading? She spoke with passion about how the underlying inequalities in access to healthcare experienced by those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds would be exacerbated if the Bill passed unamended. Did they not listen to the oral evidence that Dr Jamilla Hussain gave to the Bill Committee? She talked about her experience of working with racialised communities in Bradford and their fears of being pushed disproportionately towards an assisted dying pathway. Did they not listen to the testimony of Dr Miro Griffiths on the experience and concerns of disabled people—testimony that has been echoed by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and the actress Liz Carr?
I find it inexplicable that the framing of the impact on vulnerable people should be the removal of barriers to accessing assisted dying and not, as it should be, the increased risk to their health and wellbeing that the Bill presents. I am concerned that we are thinking about the impact on vulnerable people solely with reference to those who are suffering a terminal illness with less than six months to live. We are not thinking about the impact on wider society of introducing a concept of lives not being worth living and how that might disproportionately affect our more vulnerable communities.
My new clause 19 and consequential new schedule 2 and amendment 88 seek to ensure that a comprehensive range of statistics are collected about those who seek and receive an assisted death, so that proper and complete monitoring of requests can be carried out. It is imperative that we get the most detailed possible picture of who is requesting an assisted death so that any patterns of disproportionality can be properly detected and addressed.
Jim Shannon
What assurances does the Bill give to the families of people with a disability, or those with mental health issues and those who are anorexic? I do not see any. Does the hon. Lady see any assurances for those who want to end their lives but suffer from those ailments?
Sarah Olney
I welcome that intervention. I spoke extensively about the Bill’s impact on anorexic people, and I am not satisfied that those concerns have been addressed.
I am pleased to support amendment 21 tabled by my good friend, colleague and constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), which has attracted support from across the House. It would require the Secretary of State to report on the impact that the Act has had on the healthcare available to those with palliative and end-of-life care needs. I am really pleased that the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) has agreed to accept the amendment.
I am also pleased to support amendments 103 and 104 in the name of my other constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler). They seek to make all statutory instruments made under the Act subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure. As it stands, the Act will come into force in four years’ time with no further scrutiny by MPs, yet a whole host of issues that have been delegated to the Secretary of State or have not even been considered will need to be legislated for after Royal Assent. As the Bill stands, the only way for Parliament to scrutinise those powers will be to call for a 90-minute debate on a motion that cannot be amended and will be voted on only if the Leader of the Opposition calls for a vote. Making statutory instruments subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure would mean that the Secretary of State, whoever that is, can exercise the powers delegated to them only with the approval of Parliament. For an issue as sensitive and profound as assisted dying, I believe that to be an appropriate level of scrutiny.
Sarah Olney
I am sorry, but I will make some progress.
In a similar vein, I plan to support the amendments in the name of the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), which seek to remove all Henry VIII powers from the Bill and from the amendments introduced by the hon. Member for Spen Valley. I will support the right hon. Member’s amendments if they are selected for a vote, as I do not believe that the use of Henry VIII powers is appropriate or necessary.
I want to speak against amendment 94 in the name of the hon. Member for Spen Valley. It appears to be innocuous, but in reality it would reverse the effect of an amendment that I had accepted in Committee. The Bill as originally drafted would create an enormous constitutional minefield. It seeks to amend the criminal law of England and Wales, which is a reserved matter for the UK Parliament, and simultaneously to make provision for healthcare, which is a matter devolved to the Senedd in Wales. The Senedd debated a motion calling on the Welsh Government to support the principles of assisted dying, but it was defeated by 19 votes to 26. The motion was non-binding, but the Bill gives the UK Parliament the power to impose on the Senedd in Wales a measure that it has expressly said it does not want. The Bill as amended in Committee would give the Senedd the power to decide for itself when it is ready to bring the Bill into force.
Amendment 94 would reverse that provision and deprive the Senedd of the right to exercise its legitimate powers. It is not just that the amendment would restore the constitutional loophole that the Committee had closed; it threatens to create real problems and risks for Welsh citizens if the Senedd is forced to implement the Bill before its devolved healthcare system is ready. I urge fellow Members to have regard to the Committee’s decision and vote against amendment 94.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to rise to speak to new clause 6, which proposes a special representative for ethnic minorities. I am not white, as some Members may have noticed. The fact that my presence in this House is unremarkable is in and of itself remarkable. That did not happen by chance; it happened because of those who came before me.
The Mother of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), has spoked powerfully in this debate, and I know that my unremarkable presence here is due to her remarkable achievements. We may not always hold the same opinions, but we have always shared the same Labour values. She will never know how grateful we all are to her. I may be part of the last generation of MPs who can say this to her while she is in the House: thank you.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) has spoken powerfully in this debate, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall and Bloxwich (Valerie Vaz) has tabled new clause 6. I know I stand on their shoulders too, and I do not doubt their good intentions, but this Bill has nothing to do with the colour of my skin. New clause 6 proposes a special representative for ethnic minorities. I disagree with the new clause, because the colour of my skin has no bearing here and no special place in this debate. Equalities data will be reported through the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as set out in clause 51, and the Secretary of State can already consult community representatives. For every person of every skin colour, this Bill gives those already dying a choice to end their suffering—
Mr Speaker
Order. We need to make sure that contributions are tied to the amendments. We are not debating the general points of the Bill—we have gone past that. The hon. Gentleman is making more of a Third Reading speech, which he might want to save.
Mr Speaker
Order. I will make that decision. Please do not challenge the Chair.
Dr Sandher
I do apologise, Mr Speaker.
What I meant to say is that new clause 6 would introduce a special representative for ethnic minorities, and I am trying to explore why we do not need one. A duty to consult is already included in clause 51.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
This is a very sensitive issue. There is data to support the fact that people from minoritised ethnic groups are less likely to trust their health professionals—the figure is 18% among the general public, but as high as 30% among those groups. Does my hon. Friend not think it is necessary to make sure there are additional protections for those who face additional barriers, such as people from minoritised ethnic groups?
Dr Sandher
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and other hon. Members have also spoken powerfully about the impact that the Bill could have on ethnic minorities. Does any hon. Member know how many ethnic minorities access assisted dying in other nations? I will give way on this point; the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) raised it earlier.
Sarah Olney
The hon. Member calls me to speak. If we do not know, it is probably because those other nations are not collecting the data. My position is that we should be collecting the data, which is why hon. Members should vote for my new clause 19.
Dr Sandher
We do know. Ethnic minorities are less likely to access assisted dying in jurisdictions where it is in place. In Oregon, 10% of those accessing assisted dying are ethnic minorities, but they make up 40% of the population. In California, ethnic minorities make up 15% of people accessing the option, but 30% of the population. However, that is not the point. The point of the Bill is to give people the choice to end their life regardless of the colour of their skin. There is no special quality about the colour of my skin that affects my access or the need for a special representative in this case, which is covered by the ECHR and by the Secretary of State.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
I am quite perplexed by my hon. Friend’s speech, but I would like to understand whether he has data related to the demographics of those jurisdictions compared with the UK. If he does, could he present it to the House to support his argument?
Dr Sandher
I have spent a lot of time around data, but I am not sure that I understand the question.
Dr Sandher
I will make a bit more progress.
This has been a heated debate, and hon. Members on both sides of the House feel strongly about it. I am grateful to Members who came before me, who made my place here possible and who have spoken so powerfully and movingly in this debate, but I believe—and the evidence shows—that the colour of my skin does not belong in discussion of the Bill.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I rise to speak to amendment (a) to new clause 15, tabled in my name, which I hope hon. Members will support. Although it may seem technical, it is in fact a simple amendment with a significant impact. It will ensure that there is genuine protection against abuse, proper detection of coercion, and effective scrutiny of how the law works in practice. Simply put, it will ensure that deaths from assisted dying under the Bill will still fall within the coroner’s duty to investigate deaths under section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. I will explain why that is important.
Like many hon. Members, I have been deeply concerned from the outset about how the Bill is drafted, its workability, and its impact on the NHS and on the lives of vulnerable people up and down the country. To be clear, my view is that one unintended death as a result of the Bill becoming law is one too many. I humbly ask hon. Members who are still considering their position, or who are minded to support the Bill, to consider this point about my amendment carefully: what is an acceptable error rate?
Based on the figures in the Government’s impact assessment, which I think underestimates the impact, even a 1% error rate would see a minimum of 13 wrongful deaths in year 1, with 45 per year by year 10. A 5% error rate would see 65 deaths in year 1 and 227 in year 10. A 10% error rate would see 131 deaths in year 1 and 455 in year 10. As I say, I think those are low-ball estimates, but they are nevertheless chilling. If this law is passed, it will be exceptionally difficult to say whether there have been errors or instances of abuse; or, at the very least, any errors picked up will be but a fraction of the true picture, as tragically those who would testify to the fact will already be dead. My amendment (a) to new clause 15 directly addresses that issue.
In England and Wales, a coroner will investigate a death when certain legal conditions are met. This duty is primarily governed by section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Judge Thomas Teague KC, who served until 2024 as the chief coroner of England and Wales, notes:
“any death arising as a consequence of the ingestion or administration of a lethal substance constitutes an unnatural death which the local coroner is under a statutory duty to investigate”.
Clearly, assisted dying meets that definition, and it is right that such deaths be afforded the best possible posthumous judicial scrutiny.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady not feel that the provisions in the Bill already have safeguards? Also, and most importantly, does she not feel that putting a family through a coronial process when the death is expected is unfair, unjust and completely beyond the bounds of what coroners are meant to do?
Rebecca Smith
On the first point, I do not believe that the Bill is strong enough as it stands. On the second point, we are already dealing with the fact that families are not even guaranteed knowledge of their loved one having an assisted death, so I do not think the hon. Lady’s point is entirely to be considered.
As it stands, the Bill would disapply the duty of the coroner to investigate in the case of an assisted death that has been carried out in accordance with the Bill’s provisions. New clause 15, specifically, would amend the Coroners and Justice Act to clarify that assisted death does not constitute “unnatural death” for the purposes of the Act. I think it takes an extraordinary leap of imagination not to conceive of deliberately self-administering lethal drugs as anything but an unnatural death.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; I want to support her in what she is saying. We are going through a process, as we consider the appalling situation of coercive control in domestic abuse cases, where a person who is a victim may not realise they have been a victim until years later. Obviously, a person who has gone through an assisted death will have no years later. Is the amendment not a way of making sure that we guard against the evil of coercive control?
Rebecca Smith
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I completely agree with him. These are the sorts of safeguards that even the promoter of the Bill is saying should be there. I do not think that they are in the Bill and my amendment to new clause 15 would make them much stronger.
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend is right in what she says. Those of us who are opposed to the death penalty, for example, are against it because we do not believe in the infallibility of the state. The state can get things wrong; professionals can get things wrong—and when they do, there should be a proven, clear path as to how that wrongdoing can be identified, to try to ensure that it does not occur again.
Rebecca Smith
I thank my hon. Friend. The statistics I quoted earlier are pretty clear on the point he makes. Let me make some progress.
The work undertaken by the coroner is not a box-ticking exercise or a bureaucratic hurdle. In the context of assisted dying, it is an extremely powerful deterrent against abuse and malpractice. Again, to quote Judge Thomas Teague KC, in a letter to The Times on 7 May this year, he said that the removal of
“any realistic prospect of an effective inquest...would magnify, rather than diminish, the obvious risks of deception and undue influence”.
Rebecca Smith
I thank the hon. Member and I will come to that point very soon. I will now make some progress; I will not take any further interventions.
I struggle to see how removing automatic oversight of assisted deaths squares with a commitment to enact legislation with the “strongest safeguards in the world”. By doing so, the Bill sets a lower bar for scrutiny and review, and creates an information deficit. Put another way, we simply do not know what we do not know. Implementing a novel piece of legislation such as this without ensuring the most robust possible scrutiny of deaths taking place under the Act is astonishing. Under the Bill, assisted deaths would be the outlier, as any other intentionally procured death would automatically be reviewed by a coroner. Why should deaths under this legislation be any different?
Requiring automatic scrutiny from a coroner for assisted deaths should not be viewed as an add-on at the end of the process or perhaps just a safety net, although it is that.
Rebecca Smith
No, I have already said that I am not going take any further interventions. I have been very generous with my time.
It is imperative to consider the whole picture, particularly regarding malpractice or coercion—whether that be on the part of medical professionals, families or third parties. In written evidence to the Committee, Dr Rees Johnson, a legal expert from Essex Law School, highlights that, in some cultures,
“decision-making is a collective process involving family and community members.”
Rebecca Smith
No.
Beyond coercion, automatic inquests provide vital opportunities to identify other critical issues that may not otherwise be picked up. Without a coroner’s inquest, there would be no post-mortem examination. This is not merely an academic point; studies have shown that autopsy reveals that one in four cases have been misdiagnosed. Without this oversight, as His Honour Judge Thomas Teague KC, the former chief coroner, notes, there is
“no certain means of knowing whether the approved substance has led to a quick and painless death, or a lingering and distressing one, or even whether it had failed to cause death altogether and the deceased had been dispatched by manual asphyxiation or some other unlawful means.”
I am not sure whether that could be more clear. The view of experts in this area—both the Royal College of Pathologists and the former chief coroner of England and Wales—is that this Bill’s proposals, as drafted, are not fit for purpose. I strongly urge hon. Members to support my amendment (a) to new clause 15.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
May I informally suggest that we aim for speeches of around six minutes? I call Paul Waugh to provide a good example.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to speak in support of the amendment in my name, which seeks to strengthen new clause 14 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). Why do we want to restrict advertising about assisted dying? It is not just because such adverts could appear crass or insensitive, or because we worry that private companies could profiteer from death, but because advertisers know that they influence choices. The issue of choice, whether it is informed choice, skewed choice, self-coercion or coercive control, as has already been mentioned, is, in many ways, at the heart of the Bill and whether its safeguards are sufficient.
My brother works in advertising and he knows its power. It is why companies spend billions of pounds on it, why Google is the giant that it is, why we see lots of adverts at Westminster tube station trying to influence every single one of us, and why X is full of ads. Advertising works because we human beings are suggestible, and prone to messaging, visual cues and hints. Older people are bombarded with adverts for everything from stairlifts to care homes. One person’s advert, though, is another person’s public information campaign. It is not impossible to imagine a future Secretary of State, who passionately believes in the merits of assisted dying, authorising such a campaign. It could be a Government-approved plotline in a soap opera, or an ad read out by a podcaster that ever so subtly sounds like a news item, or even their own opinion. Many in this House rightly try to protect teenagers from online harms, but the online harm of an ad for a website about assisted dying shared on TikTok could be a reality without the tighter safeguards in my amendment.
Anna Dixon
I thank my hon. Friend for speaking so clearly about the issue of advertising. Does he recognise that this country has banned pharmaceutical advertising because we do not want to have the situation that exists in America where people are popping pills all the time? There is a reason that we are protecting patients and we need to do the same with assisted dying.
Paul Waugh
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The dangers of what is happening in America provide a real lesson for us here.
As the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) put it, conversations about assisted dying should happen in person—between the relevant doctor and the patient. They should not be prompted by a TV ad, or something seen on a bus. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) spoke very movingly about the way that IVF services have been commercialised, leaving people who are, as he says, “already on their knees” vulnerable to exploitation, so that someone else can profit.
I am certain that nobody in this House believes that passing this Bill into law should mean the rise of a similarly aggressive market for assisted death, but it is our role—indeed our responsibility—to deal not only in intended consequences, but in unintended ones, too. The real risk in the drafting of new clause 14 is that it allows exceptions that are not specified in the Bill. A future Secretary of State will be empowered not only to make the necessary regulations, but to amend them at any time; and a future Secretary of State, who does not share the concerns of this House, would have the ability to draw the exceptions so widely as to make the ban worthless. There are a number of similar advertising bans already in place on tobacco products, surrogacy and the latest cancer drugs being marketed to the public. In every case, the legislation sets out the exceptions, leaving no room for doubt as to how Parliament intended to protect the public.
Why should the services that this Bill would legalise not be subject to that same legal clarity? Do people who have less time to live not deserve all the protection we have the power to give them from a death they do not truly want? I cannot believe that this Parliament would be content to have that power taken out of its hands, and the rights of our most vulnerable constituents left for someone else to decide on some other day.
My amendment therefore sets out that exceptions to the advertising ban should be limited to cases where a person has requested information and where the materials are intended for health professionals and not for their patients. New clause 14 would allow a future Secretary of State to make provisions that would usually have to go through the House in legislation. It is not at all clear to me why that power is needed to introduce a ban on advertising.
Sir John Hayes
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I entirely support his argument and his amendment. This is the difference between, in his estimation, accepting a request and promoting a service. Advertising is about the promotion of a service to doubtful, fearful and vulnerable people, and that is precisely what his amendment addresses.
Paul Waugh
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and there is a wider point here about the Henry VIII powers in the Bill. This would be the third such power added to the Bill since Second Reading. At that stage, it had none. The Attorney General, Lord Hermer, has said that “excessive reliance” on Henry VIII powers
“upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive”,
and he is right.
Away from matters of constitutional principle, I am especially concerned about the practical impact of such a power, which would allow a future Secretary of State to change the law as set out in the Suicide Act 1961. This is the Act that contains the offence of encouraging or assisting a suicide. Ministers have confirmed that the Bill leaves the offence in place in all cases except where a medical practitioner assists a person to die under its provisions. We must surely therefore not hand the power to a future Secretary of State to weaken or even abolish that offence without the need for primary legislation. My amendment specifies that the Suicide Act cannot be amended in that way.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley recognises that my amendment does not seek to undo or undermine her new clause, but rather to build on it and to ensure that the ban she intends to deliver does not collapse around the loophole at its heart.
Kim Leadbeater
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point, and there is consensus across the House about banning the advertising of assisted dying services. His amendment, though, would be slightly limited in that it makes just two exceptions. There would probably need to be a broader piece of work on that, but I commit to working with him if he is interested.
Paul Waugh
The point of my amendment is to make sure that a future Secretary of State would have to come before the House with primary legislation.
Report stage is not about the principles of the Bill. It is not about whether a Member may, in principle, support the idea of assisted dying, as Mr Speaker will point out to everybody who strays from the amendments. It is about the individual Bill before us today. We have to ask: what will it mean in the real world for our very real constituents?
Paul Waugh
I will not; I am short of time.
Just how strong are the Bill’s safeguards? We are not commentators; we are legislators. Our job is to scrutinise, to test and to test again the Bills that come to this place. I spent 26 years up there in the Press Gallery writing about politics, but the big difference between them and us is that we have a vote in this place. With that vote, particularly a free vote, comes responsibility, and there is no greater responsibility than protecting the vulnerable from feeling they have to end their life. That is why I tabled the amendment.
I am not driven by religion, though I do not believe that those with religious faiths should be denigrated or patronised, as they have been during the passage of the Bill. It is worth saying that some of those who passionately support assisted dying have a faith—a devout faith—that their world view is the right one. I am driven instead by my duty as a legislator to get this Bill right, and by what I see as my moral duty to protect the most vulnerable in society.
I believe that my duty is to protect those who do not have celebrity names or campaign groups behind them—the people who do not get heard, who do not want to be a bother, who do not want to make a fuss, and who feel at the end of their lives that they are a burden on their family but may never say so. I worry about the unheard, the unseen, the ignored and the marginalised. Most of all, I worry about the heartbreaking modesty of that phrase we often hear from older people: “I don’t want to be any trouble, love.” We need, for their sakes, to make sure that the safeguards in the Bill are the strongest they can possibly be.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I intend to speak only briefly. We have to be really honest about where we are, and the current situation under the legal status quo is not working. It is failing terminally ill people who want choice, compassion and control at the end of their lives.
Right now, those with the means are travelling abroad to die, often alone, away from their loved ones, without medical support, and when they can physically make it rather than at a time of their choosing. Those without the means face suffering they do not want, or try to take matters into their own hands here in the UK unsafely and illegally. It is not humane, it is not fair and it is not sustainable.
I spent two years as a Minister in the Department of Health, with palliative care and end-of-life care as part of my portfolio, so this matter came across my desk on a regular basis. I have had a lot of time to think about it. It is not easy to find an answer and a solution, but we owe it to people to try to do that. That is why I support the Bill: it brings the issue out of the shadows and into a framework of regulation with safety and dignity.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I do not know whether the hon. Member has yet had time to read the report from the independent commission on palliative and end-of-life care, which goes into how pain and symptoms can be palliated. Ultimately, the problem at the moment is poor care and poor provision of specialist commissioned palliative care services. Will she read that report to understand the difference that palliative medicine can make for all the examples of poor care we have heard about in these debates?
Dame Caroline Dinenage
I certainly will read that report. The hon. Member makes an excellent point. Palliative care is really important and needs to be improved. In many cases it makes such a difference, but it is not the solution for everybody. There are the most heartbreaking cases—I have met people in these situations in my constituency—where that form of palliative care would not have made the difference. That is why I support the Bill, and that begins with new clause 13.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you can assist me as I am at a loss as to what amendment we are discussing.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I have no doubt that if the right hon. Member gives the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) a moment, she will address it quickly, because even Members who are contributing do not have long.
Dame Caroline Dinenage
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am addressing new clause 13, which provides the strict regulation of life-ending substances and self-administering devices. That means there will be transparency about what substances are used and how they are stored, prescribed and delivered. We owe it to patients, clinicians and the public to ensure that every part of the process is governed by clinical standards and ethical safeguards. For those physically unable to swallow or self-ingest, the new clause ensures that devices to support self-administration can be safely used. Without that, we risk creating a system that excludes some of the very people it is meant to support.
While we must regulate the system properly, we must also reject amendments that would undermine or stall the Bill’s delivery. Amendment 19 proposes adding suicide prevention, the Mental Health Act and deprivation of liberty safeguards to the code of practice. As the Minister who put much of that legislation through, those are really important topics for me, but this is not the legislation to address them. Let us keep the code focused on the Bill’s core function of ensuring a safe, consistent and compassionate assisted dying process.
Amendment 20 would allow non-adherence to the code to be used in civil or criminal proceedings. That is not appropriate. Guidance is meant to help professionals navigate difficult decisions, not become a legal trap. If clinicians act negligently, existing law already applies. We should not be creating new liabilities for those acting in good faith in very difficult conditions.
I also oppose amendments 97 and 27, which would require the MHRA to license drugs specifically for assisted dying and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to recommend them. That would make the Bill unworkable.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
Does the hon. Member share my concern that the impact assessment associated with the Bill says:
“The safety and efficacy of those substances used for assisted dying is currently difficult to assess”?
Dame Caroline Dinenage
I am not entirely sure that I agree with that.
However, I want to talk about the MHRA, which is just not set up to license drugs for ending life. Clinical trials to support such a licence and MHRA requirement would be impossible. However, the substances likely to be used are already tried and tested in other jurisdictions and are MHRA approved for other purposes. New clause 13 already provides us with the strict regulation that we need, without putting prohibitive hurdles along the path to a compassionate and painless death.
Amendment 42 would remove the backstop date for implementation, giving the Government indefinite discretion over when or whether to put this law into effect. That cannot be right. If Parliament passes the Bill, there must be a clear and reasonable timeframe for implementation. The four-year backstop already gives Government more than enough time to get this right. Removing it simply invites delay.
This is a moment to show that we can be both compassionate and competent, and that we can bring an end to the quiet suffering caused by an unjust status quo and replace it with a system that is safe, fair and accountable. Let us support new clause 13, let us reject amendments that would add red tape or stall the Bill’s progress, and let us show dying people that we are ready to treat them with the dignity and trust that they deserve.
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
Before entering this place last July as the Member for North Somerset, I had been a pharmacist for nearly 20 years. Pharmacists have a unique role in our healthcare system as the group of health professionals who specialise in drug usage and safety. That is where I wish to focus my thoughts today, and on which I offer the House my expertise.
Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have had the great benefit of learning from a number of international examples. In Australia, we have seen a carefully designed countrywide pharmacy system that has delivered self-administered assisted dying safely and with dignity. The evidence from that experience is greatly reassuring. Even in cases where the drug was not fully ingested, every patient who made use of the service died peacefully and without complications, with not a single complaint yet received from any of the families involved.
From Switzerland, we have learned from decades of practice, over which they have refined the substances and processes involved to the point where complications are now nearly unheard of. Their approach demonstrates that with care and rigorous regulation, drugs can offer an effective and compassionate route to end one’s life.
That brings me to new clause 13, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). The clause outlines a comprehensive framework for the oversight and safety of substances involved in assisted dying. As is only right for life-ending drugs, the public expect the highest standards of transparency and the highest standards from manufacture to dispensing. As someone who has been involved in every facet of pharmacy for the past 20 years, I believe that the clause meets all our expectations. By strengthening safeguards and enhancing the workability of the Bill, new clause 13 ensures that healthcare professionals can act with clarity and confidence.
Amendment 72 is similarly important, and I believe it will provide much assurance to those in this place who are uncertain about whether they can support the Bill. By ensuring that all regulations made by the Secretary of State under new clause 13 are subject to the draft affirmative procedure, it will ensure that this place continues to play a central role in overseeing the safe and effective implementation of this legislation for years to come, and through our collective and continued scrutiny, it offers the opportunity for many millions of constituents who have contacted us on this issue to continue to have their voices heard and their concerns answered.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 14 and amendments (a) and (b) to that new clause. I am honoured to speak after the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I also thank the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for working closely with us on the issue of banning advertising. Whatever our views on assisting terminally ill adults to end their lives—and I remain implacably against the potential harms that arise when our society and our imperfect state are given permission to help people kill themselves—I have to acknowledge that there was a majority on Second Reading in favour of the Bill and a majority for closing down debate in the last sitting on Report.
Thinking ahead to the possibility that this Bill might get on to the statute book, I hope that everyone participating in the debate will recognise that we should not allow the services of the organisations that will arise from the legislation to advertise on television, online, on posters, on TikTok or on any platform that our constituents may see.
We can all imagine a scenario where, if the Bill passes without the House agreeing to new clause 14, independent contractors and not-for-profit firms, and perhaps even the NHS, will be able to advertise to potential customers, for instance on afternoon television. Can you imagine a situation, Madam Deputy Speaker, where, while watching a repeat episode of “One Foot in the Grave”, an advert runs for a funeral plan company, and is then followed by an advert for an organisation offering services to make it easier to have an assisted death?
Members may think the situation I am painting is merely hypothetical, but in Belgium, in fact, the Government themselves are running online adverts featuring young, healthy women at a yoga class talking about how they are worried about granny’s situation, and discussing whether they have considered telling her about the option of assisted dying.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Spen Valley for tabling new clause 14. It is not perfect, but she and I have had a lot of discussion about the wording. I also support the intention behind amendments (a) and (b) to new clause 14. It is important that Ministers confirm—as we have heard before, and as I hope we will again today—that encouraging assisted dying under the Bill remains a crime under section 2 of the Suicide Act. However, this requires showing intent to encourage, and adverts might be framed so that they are not so intended, so a specific provision on advertising is needed in this legislation.
I am also concerned about the scope of some of the exceptions in unamended new clause 14. I am grateful that the example set out in subsection (2) does not refer to potential service users, but there is nothing preventing the Secretary of State from exercising Henry VIII powers to exempt them, and doing so would negate the point of the prohibition. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that the power will not be exercised to create exceptions for adverts targeted at potential service users.
It is the case, as the hon. Member for Rochdale mentioned, that a number of advert bans already exist on the face of legislation, such as the Cancer Act 1939, the Surrogacy Act 1985 and the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. Such bans are set out clearly on the face of those Acts.
I hope the matter can be resolved. I hope the House today will, at a minimum, support new clause 14. I hope that the House will also support the strengthening amendments, which I endorse. I hope that Ministers will confirm that these powers will never be used to create an exemption to section 2 of the Suicide Act in order to partially allow encouragement of assisted dying, as I think it would defeat the whole point of the provision.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
I rise to speak in favour of new clause 15, which clarifies that an assisted death would not be classified as an unnatural death and that a full coroner’s inquest would not normally be required.
My constituent Antony Shackleton lived with motor neurone disease for six long years. As his condition worsened, his options narrowed until there was only one choice that preserved his dignity, autonomy and peace: to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland and end his suffering on his own terms. Louise, as his wife of 25 years, and someone who had known him since the age of 18, did what any loving partner would do: she stood by him. She helped him on to that plane and held his hand through the most difficult decision of their lives, and now, for that act of love, she is under police investigation.
That is precisely why we need new clause 15. If the Bill is passed, assisted dying would be a legal, strictly regulated and monitored choice made by the individual concerned.
Jess Asato
I recognise that the situation facing my hon. Friend’s constituent is awful, but we are here today to balance such situations with the choices of people who may not be loved as dearly as him. Our concerns would be about the fact that many of these killings could be mercy killings, and if there is no recourse to the coroner, some people may be taking their own lives under coercion and pressure that may never be discovered, because the full law will not be applied.
Alison Hume
New clause 15 particularly addresses the role of coroners. Coroners investigate deaths in which there is a reasonable suspicion that the deceased has died a violent or unnatural death, where the cause of death is unknown, or if the deceased died while in custody or state detention. This is not the case with an assisted death, and there would already be strong safeguards in place, including multiple layers of oversight and assessment. The process is cautious, thorough, and heavily safeguarded. There is no need to investigate an assisted death, as it is not unnatural. In this country, it is still a crime to help someone die peacefully and with dignity, even when they are suffering unbearably from a terminal illness.
Alison Hume
I will make some progress, thank you.
It is still a crime, even when the person is of sound mind and even when it is their deeply considered wish. Anthony wanted a good death—he wanted to die peacefully and with grace, without pain and without profound suffering. He got that in a foreign country, far from home and far from family, because our laws force people like him to make that desperate journey abroad. That is why I support this Bill and, in particular, new clause 15, as there is no need for coroners to investigate an assisted death.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
One of my constituents told me of her mother’s pain in her last few months of suffering. It was so painful that she could not bear to be touched by my constituent or her brother. Now, both my constituent and her brother are facing post-traumatic stress disorder because of the difficult situation they witnessed while their mum was dying. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they had helped her to die in the way that this Bill allows, they should not then be subject to a coroner’s investigation? It is not going to help them, and it is not going to help their mother.
Alison Hume
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case on behalf of her constituent. New clause 15 is a compassionate and practical clause, ensuring that the Bill works not only for the individual making the choice, but for the families they leave behind. Let us not turn our backs on people like Anthony and Louise; let us not make criminals out of the compassionate. The death of a loved one is always difficult. When someone has gone through the legal and safeguarded process of assisted dying, it is not right that their family should face an unnecessary, potentially lengthy and distressing coroner’s investigation.
Alison Hume
I am coming to my conclusion. New clause 15 will protect bereaved families such as that of my constituent Anthony, and therefore I urge hon. Members to support it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
As Mr Speaker has already mentioned, in order for everybody to get in—well, in order for most to get in—we need speeches to be shy of six minutes, and interventions to be short. I call Gregory Stafford.
Gregory Stafford
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am conscious of those comments and will try to limit my remarks to new clause 13 and some of the amendments to it.
The Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Association for Palliative Medicine and the British Geriatrics Society have all said that there are problems with this Bill, and I have heard nothing from its sponsor, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater)—despite trying to intervene on her a number of times—about what she has done to ensure that their concerns have been addressed. This brings us directly to a fundamental concern: namely, the means by which assisted death would be carried out under new clause 13. The impact assessment for the Bill recognises that
“The safety and efficacy of those substances used for assisted dying is currently difficult to assess”.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
Does the hon. Member agree that the barbiturates that we are considering are conventional agents? They have been used in anaesthesia to cause loss of consciousness and suppression of respiration for generations. These are not novel substances.
Gregory Stafford
I obviously respect the hon. Gentleman, given his medical background, but as far as I am aware those substances have not yet been used for murdering people, which is what we are going to do here. That leads me neatly on—
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Gregory Stafford
I will make a little progress before taking another intervention.
No safeguards can prevent complications from taking medicines. As I am sure the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) knows, there can always be complications. In this case, those could include regurgitation of the drugs, regaining consciousness and seizures.
Gregory Stafford
Can I just finish this point? During the 27 years that the law in Oregon has been in place, data is available for only about 36% of cases. However, within that, 59 incidents of regurgitation are known to have occurred and nine people are known to have regained consciousness. Different drug protocols have been used in those 27 years but the efficacy and safety of the drugs are unknown, with a time range between ingesting the drugs and death ranging from one minute to nearly six days.
The lack of defined protocols for the regulation, supply and administration of life-ending substances is precisely why I have tabled my amendment (c) to new clause 13, tabled by the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater).
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend was right to table his amendment, which I certainly support. Does he agree that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency would insist that a barbiturate or any other substance used in medicine should be approved for a specific cause? We cannot translate that to a completely different cause or reason for using it. Would he also agree that the way to deal with the issue is for it to be properly regulated through the MHRA?
Gregory Stafford
I entirely agree. Some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) may address that.
Gregory Stafford
I will make a little progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
My amendment would require the Secretary of State to prohibit the use of medical devices designed to induce death by the administration of gas, such as the Sarco suicide pod, which has been in the press recently. That device bypasses medical oversight entirely and presents an ethical rupture in our current framework. If the Bill proceeds without safeguarding against such methods, we risk opening the door to a deeply troubling precedent—one that would erode professional accountability and compromise the integrity of end-of-life care.
Sadik Al-Hassan
I would like to share my expertise as a pharmacist with the hon. Member. Drugs can be used for many indications and are quite commonly used in unlicensed situations, where there would be less evidence to support them than in the situation that we are discussing today with new clause 13: an idea that is incredibly well researched, practised and evidenced in multiple countries.
Gregory Stafford
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do not disagree that drugs are used for different things; that is not the thrust of the argument that I am making. What I am saying—relatively clearly, I hope—is that when the drugs we would potentially use in these situations have been used, there have been unintended consequences and side effects. We must ensure that the drugs we use, if the Bill passes, are absolutely effective in what they are intended to carry out: namely, the end of the life of the individual.
Gregory Stafford
This is the last intervention that I will take, as I must make progress.
Sir John Hayes
The reason why what my hon. Friend has said is so important is that it is yet another important safeguard, particularly given that, as we learn from analysis in the impact assessment, much of this is outsourced to private organisations. Those organisations need to be regulated in precisely the way he has described.
Gregory Stafford
My right hon. Friend is entirely correct.
The Royal College of Physicians has said:
“Medicines prescribed and administered in assisted dying must be regulated for safety and efficacy for this use.”
If that is a requirement of the Royal College of Physicians, we in the House should take it seriously and put it into the Bill.
I will now draw my remarks to a close, but I should say that I also support amendment 99, which would require a report on the drug’s effects before Parliament approves the regulation, as well as a number of the other amendments, which hopefully would remove the wide-ranging Henry VIII powers currently in the Bill. In the light of all that I have said, I remain deeply sceptical as to whether the Bill, in its current state, provides the robust, protective and operationally sound framework that such a profound societal change deserves.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me my first opportunity to speak in the Chamber on this most important of issues. As I do so, I think of all those who were killed in the horrendous plane crash in India yesterday. I think of their families, their friends and the lives they have left behind. May their collective and individual memories be a blessing.
I rise to speak to amendment 42, tabled in my name and those of more than 60 colleagues from the majority of parties in the House, representing constituencies in all four nations of our United Kingdom. It would remove the automatic commencement of the Bill’s provisions in England. It is a safeguard, good and proper.
As it stands, the entire assisted dying process will commence automatically in England four years after the Bill is passed. Notwithstanding some of the comments we have heard, that will happen regardless of how far along the plans and preparations are—plans for the manufacturing and supply of the drugs that will be used to end the life of anyone who chooses this step; for the identification and training of those on the panel; for the impact on the national health service in England and Wales and its budgets; and all the rest.
Colleagues will know that, as the Bill was originally drafted, the process would have commenced two years after it was passed. I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) amended that period from two years to four. That was a genuinely welcome acknowledgment that such a serious and consequential change to every aspect of our country, from our healthcare system to our legal system, should not, must not and cannot be rushed. Therein lies the basis of my amendment. If this change is going to happen, let us do it properly. Let us not impose a timeframe that puts us in a bind—one that means we are driven by timing over purpose, and the pressure that comes with a ticking clock, rather than by the need to do it properly.
People living in Newcastle-under-Lyme and York Outer, in Buckingham and Bletchley and Pembrokeshire, are counting on us parliamentarians—those of us who are concerned about assisted dying and those who passionately support it. The Bill’s supporters have won every single vote, apart from on this issue in Committee. Our people are counting on us to make sure, if the Bill passes, that it is a success, that it will be consistent and, most importantly, that it will be safe. If the Bill passes, it will introduce assisted dying in the biggest jurisdiction yet by population. These are uncharted waters; this will not be like anything else. The last thing we should do is rush this process.
In Committee, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), who spoke excellently earlier today, tabled an amendment to remove the automatic commencement deadline for Wales. It provided that assisted dying could be rolled out only once Welsh Ministers deemed that everything was ready for a safe roll-out. The Committee voted by a majority to give that extra safeguard to the people of Wales. If it was good enough for the people of Wales in Committee, it is good enough for the people of England today. We face a situation in which assisted dying may proceed in England months or even years before it does in Wales. The provisions and systems may look different. The process of organising the English system to meet the arbitrary four-year deadline would almost certainly lead to rushed decision making.
My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has sought to remedy the disparity, but her solution is not to extend to my constituents in England the safeguard that the members of the Bill Committee—members that she appointed—voted for. No, her remedy is to allow for automatic commencement to happen in Wales as well, removing the safeguard that the Committee voted for. The answer is not to fast-track the roll-out of assisted dying in both England and Wales, potentially putting the lives of some of the most vulnerable at even greater risk due to rushed decisions that are not fully thought through.
I have not been on these Benches for very long, but I know that arguing for the automatic commencement of legislation is generally, in the kindest interpretation, unusual. For legislation of this magnitude it is, I am afraid to say, reckless, and reinstating automatic roll-out in Wales when the Committee explicitly voted against it borders on the undemocratic.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I visited the Isle of Man and met the sponsor of the Bill there. The House of Keys, which has only 24 Members, took three years to get to this point, and the sponsor of the Bill thinks it will take at least five years to implement the Bill in that much smaller jurisdiction.
Adam Jogee
I will take one intervention from the other side of the House, and then I will continue.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is fast becoming one of my favourites on the Government Benches, among many competitors. The point that he makes is fundamental. If we are going to do this right, we have to do it thoroughly and with independent analysis. Had the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) engaged in pre-legislative scrutiny and thorough analysis before introducing the Bill, we may have ironed these matters out in the first place.
Adam Jogee
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention—it teaches me not to take them. I also thank him for helping my street cred this morning. He raises an important point.
Members of this House have been told that this Bill—it is this Bill we are voting on, not the principle—was rigorously tested and refined in Committee. However, we are now seeing efforts to undermine the decisions of that same Committee. Amendments 94 and 95 serve the singular purpose of undoing amendments introduced in Committee to improve the Bill and make it a safer and more conventional piece of legislation, but their implications go beyond just that: they challenge the basic tenets of our democracy.
One of the key roles at the heart of our democratic system is the role of the or a Minister of the Crown. It is our Ministers who prepare the groundwork for legislation to be enacted successfully, and amendments 94 and 95 would completely do away with that core ministerial function. They would see the responsibility for ensuring the roll-out of assisted dying in Wales—the power that we the people entrust to our Ministers and democracy—taken away from them. [Interruption.]
Conscious of your cough, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall quickly move towards the end of my remarks—I have taken half of them out already. In my view, Ministers should be able to lead the roll-out of assisted dying in Wales, just as they should in England. It is Ministers, not the supporters of the Bill, who will be responsible for delivering these seismic changes to our health and legal systems, so it is only right that they decide when the provisions become law. Amendment 42 would put England back on an even footing with Wales.
Getting this right is literally a matter of life and death. It makes sense to avoid any possible pressure on decision making and decision makers and, at the very least, allow Ministers to enact legislation with the usual constitutional powers. One death because of a rushed decision would be one too many and should give us all food for thought. I do not want it on my conscience that our collective sticking to an arbitrary deadline led to a death or deaths that may otherwise have not taken place. We must recognise that we can prevent any such situation, and we can prevent that with our vote today. To do so, we must remove the deadline for automatic commencement in England and uphold it in Wales. I urge Members to support my amendment 42 and to vote against amendments 94 and 95.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
I rise to speak to amendment 3 in my name, which would do the exact opposite of the amendments of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee)—in fact, it would see the commencement period reduced from four years to three years. As a member of the Bill Committee, when we had the initial conversation about increasing the commencement period from two years to four years, I was the only person to speak against it, and I pushed it to a vote.
What frustrates me about the situation we are in is that, in effect, we are acknowledging that the reason we are here and debating this Bill is that the status quo is not acceptable. People are pushed to taking decisions that they should not be and having to go to foreign countries to have opportunities overseas. Those of us who support the Bill are broadly in agreement on those principles. A number of things frustrate me about the four-year period, principally that the people in office—the Government of the day—will not necessarily be here to implement it. I am really hesitant about supporting a Bill when we do not know who would see through those details.
Amendment 3 would reduce the threshold back down to three years, which would still be more than most jurisdictions around the world. Countries have implemented assisted dying legislation after as short a time as six months, 12 months or 18 months, so three years would still be a substantial increase compared with other countries. We are not innovators or leaders in this field: there is no reason why we cannot take best practice and learn from and speak to colleagues around the world. I believe that this Bill has the strongest safeguards of any, which is why I think an implementation period of three years would more than meet the requirements.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
I want to put on record my sincere thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for the way that she has approached this Bill. Her willingness to listen to concerns from across the House has been evident, not least in new clause 14, brought forward in the names of the hon. Members for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) and for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin). That is a testament to how we can work together on these deeply sensitive issues.
I rise to speak in favour of new clause 14 and against amendment (b) to new clause 14. I absolutely understand the intent behind the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). Nobody in this House wants to see voluntary assisted dying services being advertised in a way that is insensitive, inappropriate or exploitative. We all want to protect individuals, particularly those who may be vulnerable or more easily influenced, so I fully share that concern. Although I respect the principle behind the amendment, however, I do not believe it offers the right solution.
New clause 14 rightly prohibits advertising voluntary assisted dying services to the public, while giving Ministers tightly defined powers to create appropriate exceptions through regulations. That is important, because in a healthcare system as complex as ours, we must be able to draw the line between unethical promotion and responsible professional communication. I think the new clause gets that balance right.
Tony Vaughan
I will press on.
Secondly, the amendment attempts to limit the scope of future regulation by barring any changes to the Suicide Act 1961, but that is already covered by new clause 14, which prevents other changes to this Bill, should it become an Act. The amendment is not only duplicative, but closes off avenues for future clarity that might be needed in the Suicide Act, such as to ensure that offences around coercion or fraudulent practice are properly dealt with.
In short, the amendment does not add clarity; it risks confusion. It does not strengthen the advertising ban; it introduces constraints that could make it harder to enforce with evolving practice.
David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for giving way, given the time constraints. I have a simple but key question: does an advertisement include a leaflet on a GP’s surgery table or on a door going into the GP? It seems unclear to me what is information and what it advertisement.
Tony Vaughan
That will have to be worked out; I do not have the answer at my fingertips, but others might.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley say earlier that she is open to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and others in the Lords to find a workable way forward on all these issues. I hope that he will take her up on that offer. This is obviously an area where constructive cross-party work could ensure that strong safeguards are achieved without unintended consequences.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tony Vaughan
I am essentially finished.
I urge hon. Members to reject amendment (b) to new clause 14 in its current form, not because we oppose its aim, but because we can and must find a better way to achieve it.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I am grateful to have my first opportunity to contribute on this Bill. It would not be appropriate to dilate on my profound anxieties about it, but I approach these amendments in the spirit of constructive engagement. I rise to speak to linked amendments 82 to 86, which would strengthen the panel by giving it some of the features of the High Court safeguard that was, regrettably, removed.
We heard from the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) that the panel will now be stronger because it includes a broader range of expertise. The argument against that, of course, is that the High Court was a stronger safeguard because it has the powers of a court and the independence of the judiciary. My amendments would mean that we do not have to choose between the two: the panel is part of the Bill, but we can have a better panel if we give it some of the features of the High Court, namely its independence, the calibre of its judges, and its powers as a court.
Amendment 82 would require all panel members to be appointed by the Judicial Appointments Commission, which nominates judges in England and Wales. Currently, the selection of panel members is wholly down to the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. Schedule 2 says:
“The Commissioner must make appointments to a list of persons eligible to sit as members of panels.”
I have absolutely no doubt that the commissioner will be someone of great integrity and experience, but he or she will certainly be a strong advocate of assisted dying, as will those who put themselves forward for the panels. That may create an impression that the VAD commission is a self-selecting group with a particular set of institutional views.
If the system is to command public confidence, I believe that appointments would be best administered by an external body, and the Judicial Appointments Commission is the obvious choice. We in this country trust the judiciary, partly because we know that they represent no set of opinions.
Danny Kruger
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his amendments. He is absolutely right to say that this country trusts the judges, which is why this House was so enthusiastic about the inclusion of the High Court in the original Bill. Does he agree that by reintroducing proper judicial scrutiny at this stage we would be reverting to the Bill that the House voted for on Second Reading?
Kim Leadbeater
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his constructive engagement, but he did not vote for the Bill when it included a High Court judge, and now he is trying to reintroduce a High Court judge. Is there a version of the Bill that he would vote for if it had some sort of judicial oversight other than a commissioner who is a judge or a retired judge, a deputy commissioner who is a judge or a retired judge, and someone on the panel who is a legal expert?
John Glen
I have been very clear that I have tabled my amendments in a constructive way to reflect the will that the hon. Lady has expressed, but to recognise the meaningful dilution in the authority of the process and what can reasonably be amended to invigorate it, based on the principles that I think were intended at the outset.
I will revert to the point I was making about the judiciary. They have a commitment to uphold the law, and that should be the standard we are looking for when it comes to matters of life and death. The Judicial Appointments Commission already conducts appointments for all tribunals, including lay members. The Government’s impact assessment compared the panel to the mental health tribunal. All appointments to the mental health tribunal, including the non-legal members, are made by the Judicial Appointments Commission, so this would not be a novel function for it.
Let me move on to amendment 85, which would ensure that all members of the panel have to take the judicial oath if they have not done so already. If other amendments pass, amendment 85 would be necessary only for the non-legal members, and it is crucial for public confidence that the judicial oath is taken.
Amendments 83 and 84 seek to preserve an important element of the Bill as originally presented to the House. They would ensure that the most senior decision-making figure, the chair of the panel, is a High Court judge with all the experience, responsibility and professionalism that that implies. Under these amendments, all High Court judges would be automatically eligible. They would need to be currently serving or at least be below retirement age, and would have to be a judge of the highest authority and not a deputy judge. Members of this House and the public were originally told that this would be a safe Bill precisely because it would have a High Court judge. That was a persuasive promise, and I think there is a way to honour it, even in the new version of the Bill.
I will briefly mention the retirement age, because it is important. It used to be 70, but judges can now continue until they are 75. However, there is no age limit for members of the panel. If we are saying that an 80-year-old retired judge is still with it and is able to decide on matters of life and death, why are they too old to help clear the backlog of criminal cases? That seems to be a meaningful anomaly.
I have been very clear about the purpose of my amendments. I have tabled them in the spirit of trying to strengthen the Bill and return it to what was intended, so that it can meet the expectations of so many Members who supported it at an earlier point.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I rise to support a number of new clauses and amendments to the Bill. The common thread running through all of them is a need to address some of the gaps in the safeguards and oversight. Should the Bill pass, I at least want to ensure that we improve its protections and remove some of the risks that it contains.
New clause 4 requires the chief medical officer to monitor the operation of the legislation, rather than depending solely on the assisted dying commissioner. Alongside the requirement for a High Court judge, oversight by the CMO was removed during the Committee stage. This means that, essentially, the assisted dying commissioner would mark their own homework. New clause 4 returns the safeguard of independent oversight, which is sensible given the significant concerns expressed by many experts and organisations, which were often neutral on the principle, but concerned about the Bill. They include the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Association for Palliative Medicine, the British Geriatrics Society, the Royal College of Physicians and many experts such as Professor James Monckton Smith, a leading criminologist, Baroness Finlay, Parliament’s leading expert on palliative care, Sir David Haslam, former head of the British Medical Association and of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—my previous employer—and many more. All have expressed concerns, even when neutral on the principle of the adequacy of the Bill.
Hence new clause 4 requires an annual report to include
“information about the application of the Act in relation to—
persons who have protected characteristics, and
any other description of persons specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State.”
I fervently hope that that includes domestic violence victims.
Amendment 13 very sensibly adds the requirement that the commissioner appointment is not the sole remit of the Prime Minister at the time, by requiring the consent of the Health and Social Care Committee. This provides a safeguard against ideological and politically motivated appointments, and I would be very critical of anyone who would want to prevent that.
Amendment 15 addresses the significant concerns about the involvement of private—for profit—providers of assisted dying. There are concerns that, when there is a commercial relationship between providers, there will be a gaming of the system. That risks compromising the relationship between the co-ordinating doctor and the independent doctor. Likewise, the existence of such providers does not allay concerns about doctor shopping, as was raised in the previous debate. Hence amendment 15 will require private providers to be transparent and provide reports on service members, service numbers, costs and revenue.
In previous debates and in the public discourse I have found it very disconcerting that, in response to legitimate concerns, all that we have been offered—as we have seen today—are some promised, unspecified future regulations that will fix the gap—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
Naz Shah
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does she share my concern that most of our discussions today were thrashed out in Committee, and now we are being told that we have to leave them to the Lords, because we cannot fix the issues here? That is a really flawed process.
Dr Gardner
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
To expect MPs to improve the Bill without clarity as to what the regulations are or what they will be, and how the service will be delivered without rigorous regulatory oversight is fundamentally wrong.
Furthermore, the fact that the implementation of the Bill will be automatic in 2029—a general election year, incidentally—is not realistic when reflecting on the many areas that still lack detail. Hence I support amendment 42, proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), which allows the Secretary of State to determine the appropriate date for the Bill to be implemented. This would allow time to make the NHS fit for purpose, to strengthen palliative care, and for Parliament to draft and scrutinise adequate regulations without being rushed.
Similarly, but fundamental to the society in which we live, amendment 12 protects the status of our most dear institution, the NHS. The Bill before us provides Henry VIII powers to amend the National Health Service Act 2006 without limit, which could include a specification of charges. If, as Labour MPs, we are committed to the NHS remaining free at the point of use, then amendment 12 is vital, as it will require any changes to the 2006 Act to be made by an Act of Parliament. The future is uncertain. We must build safeguards in the Bill to protect us from measures that fundamentally alter the fabric of our society.
Briefly, amendment 27 requires the MHRA to license the drugs used for assisted dying. Research has shown that painful and protracted deaths via assisted dying drugs are not uncommon, with deaths ranging from three minutes to 137 hours—nearly a week— with up to eight hours to lose consciousness. Furthermore, serious side effects disproportionately affect younger people. Amendment 27 will help to ensure the safety and efficacy of these substances.
I will close by quoting Sir David Haslam on how we balance some of the individual stories used on both sides of the debate with the good of society. As we know, NICE has to make the difficult decision to approve or not approve medications and treatments based on a cost and clinical effectiveness model. It is experienced in weighing up societal good—[Interruption.] I will be quick, Madam Deputy Speaker—versus the needs and wishes of individuals.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
Let me begin by laying my cards on the table. I am, of course, a liberal and have always supported the right of individuals to choose freely when they want to end their life. I have no religious or philosophical objection to assisted dying, and when the debate on the Bill began, I assumed I would vote in favour of it. However, as the debate in this Chamber on Second Reading progressed, and in particular as a result of the compelling speeches by the hon. Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) and for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), and in particular from the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), I came to the reluctant decision that the state of palliative care in this country and the safeguards against coercion in all its forms were not sufficient to vote in favour of the Bill. Despite the changes in Committee, my mind has not changed. I will again be voting against the Bill.
However, let me be equally clear that amendments 103 and 104, in my name and to which I will now speak, are not wrecking amendments, but critical to ensuring proper parliamentary scrutiny if the Bill becomes law.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
The issue of palliative care has been raised across the House. We have been repeatedly told that this is not an either/or choice, but does the hon. Member agree that without world-class palliative care, that will force some patients down the assisted dying route, where otherwise they would have chosen better care?
Christine Jardine
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I share with him concerns about the level and quality of palliative care in this country. However, I do not agree that giving people the choice to end their life, if they are terminally ill and have been diagnosed as dying shortly, in any way undermines our ability as a House to insist on an improvement in palliative care. What is more, statistics from other jurisdictions show that once given that choice, people often turn to palliative care.
Mr Kohler
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Giving people a choice when they look on the internet and see how awful their death might be because of the shocking state of palliative care is not a free choice.
This is an extraordinary Bill. It has 55 clauses and 38 regulation-making powers, of which five are Henry VIII powers—in other words, powers to modify primary legislation. As Ruth Fox of the non-partisan Hansard Society, which is absolutely neutral on assisted dying, made clear, there are lots of powers in the Bill conferred on Ministers. Why is that a problem? Lord Hermer KC, the Attorney General, in his Bingham lecture last year, puts the point as follows:
“Henry VIII clauses…upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty.”
I am afraid the Bill is an example of such excessive reliance. That is a major problem because in large part the safeguards are left to be decided by regulations. What level of qualification and training will doctors need to have? How will mental capacity be assessed? Who can be a proxy? What happens if the self-administration of drugs goes wrong and a person suffers complications but does not die? When pressed on the key safeguards and key issues, supporters of the Bill say that they are problems that can be approved later.
The same goes for how the Bill will actually be delivered. Will it be delivered by the NHS, and if so, how? Will private providers be commissioned, and if so, how, by who and on what terms? Will for-profit providers be allowed? All those questions go unanswered by the Bill. I had hoped that they would be answered in Committee, but they were not, and instead we got even more reliance on delegated powers.
First, that means that MPs cannot make a judgment about assisted dying and how it will work in practice. On training, for example, MPs might assume that the training provided will be a robust two-week course on assessing coercive control, but there is no such requirement in the Bill. Indeed, the impact assessment suggests that it would be a short course. Secondly, regulations cannot override statute and are ultimately bound by it. While it might be reassuring that a code of practice must be issued to take into account how depression can impair a person’s decision making, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists recently reminded us, that does not change the fact that impaired judgment does not mean that someone lacks capacity. Thirdly, leaving all those matters to be considered by guidance and regulations places them outside the democratic control of MPs. With limited exceptions, we will not get a vote on those regulations, and will have no input, directly or indirectly, in formulating them.
The case for the defence might be that reliance on such guidance and regulations is inevitable with a Bill of this complexity, but the experience of other common law jurisdictions suggests that that is not the case. In Victoria, the first Australian state to legalise assisted dying, there are only 20 pages of regulations and much more has been included in the Act, which is necessarily longer than the Bill before us. That is a good thing, as it means more parliamentary scrutiny.
I wholly understand why it was not possible for the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) to draft a Bill as detailed as the Australian Act before Second Reading, but I had hoped that with the help of Government resources, those gaps would have been filled in Committee and on Report. Sadly, that is not the case. [Interruption.] I had much more to speak about, but heeding your cough, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me say clearly that I will vote against the Bill, but even if Members disagree with me, they should please vote for my amendments.
Rachel Taylor
I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) who has exemplified the integrity and transparency that we need in public service.
I will speak about amendments 82 to 86, which were introduced by the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) earlier, because as a former lawyer, they concern me. In Committee, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) was clear that the panel’s decisions will be subject to public law principles. That will include procedural propriety and an absence of bias, including the appearance of bias. My concern is that the panel is deliberately designed to be inquisitorial. It is intended to collect information; it is not meant to be adversarial like a court.
Rachel Taylor
No, I will make some progress. Requiring a judicial oath would be inappropriate because the panel is not performing a judicial function. It is a specialist, administrative panel whose first priority must be focused on safeguarding and the review of evidence.
Rachel Taylor
No, I will make some progress and expand on my point. Disqualifying retired and deputy judges would only shrink the pool of experienced candidates, and I do not believe that those changes would make the process safer, more effective or better. Instead, they would make it more difficult to appoint experts to allow the panel to function as the necessary safeguard that it needs to be.
Finally, I turn to the most important aspect of the Bill, which is those who are affected directly. Opponents present hypotheticals, but I have heard real stories from my constituents who support the Bill. One constituent told me about her husband who died of metastatic prostate cancer. He wanted to die at home, and despite the efforts of a dedicated palliative care team, his final month was marked by excruciating pain. Our constituents deserve better. They deserve the choice to say goodbye in peace, surrounded by loved ones, without unbearable pain. For me, this debate is about whether the status quo is acceptable. After hearing these stories and listening to lawyers and doctors, I know that it is not. If we vote in favour of the Bill, our constituents must be able to expect that it will be brought into law quickly. I therefore oppose amendment 42.
The British public overwhelmingly support the Bill. They are looking to this House for courage and leadership. That is why I will vote for the Bill, with the amendments that strengthen it. Let us bring dignity, peace and choice to those facing the end of their lives in difficulty and pain.
Dr Ben Spencer
Before I come to the substantive part of my speech, I would like to pick up on the comments of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor). I have signed the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen). I support them because I think the panel needs strengthening. It is not the case that courts have to be adversarial. Tribunals are set up to be inquisitive. In fact, the mental health tribunal is set up to be inquisitive. That is why, in Committee, I tabled amendments to use a tribunal panel as the mechanism for scrutinising decision making.
It has been a real pleasure to listen to the debate, particularly in relation to the prohibition of advertising, because the debate started to move to focus on the issue of suicide promotion and prevention. I have been quite concerned from the beginning that that has not been part of what we have been talking about. Duties to prevent suicide—whether they be doctors’ duties under article 2 of the European convention on human rights, the NHS’s clinical duties around suicide prevention, or duties relating to the Mental Health Act 1983—are a blind spot in the Bill.
The reason why the issue has not been focused on until now is that the Bill has been framed as the assisted dying Bill, as opposed to the assisted suicide Bill. I blame myself in part for that, because I started by called it physician-assisted suicide, but then I started using the term “assisted dying” because it was in common parlance and it was what everyone was using. The problem is that it frames it as something else. It frames it as reducing the dying process as opposed to what it is, which is an act to end somebody’s life. That is why the Bill amends the Suicide Act, and it is why I have tabled similar amendments on how it is conceptualised.
Caroline Voaden
I take issue with some of the language being used. We have heard the words “murder”, “killing” and “suicide”. Twenty-three years ago next week, my husband died of terminal cancer. He was in extreme pain and was given morphine to relieve it. As the pain got worse, he was given more morphine so that he could die gently and not in complete agony. This is about helping people die in a civilised way, and helping their families to not go through the horrendous experience of watching a loved one die in agony. To call it murder and killing is so wrong, and we have a duty to mind our language with this Bill. It is about helping people die quickly and with dignity. It is assisted dying.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before Dr Spencer resumes, I note that this has been a well-tempered debate. Let us keep it so. We know our constituents are watching.
Dr Spencer
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. Of course there are situations in which a decision to end one’s life is perfectly understandable—indeed, rational. I spent my career looking after people, many of whom presented to me and to medical services with thoughts about wanting to end their life. Many of them had mental illness. Some had terminal illness. The fundamental problem with the Bill is that it has a complete blind spot for those people who are highly vulnerable. It is scandalous that we have got to this point and are still having a debate about the core concepts. The Bill should have been dealt with properly from the start with a royal commission or a review so that we did not get to the point where we are still debating core principles on Report.
Tim Farron
I will not be the only person in this place who has lost someone they loved to suicide. In listening to what has been said recently by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which is not opposed to the Bill in principle, the penny dropped for many of us that many people given a terminal diagnosis will have mental health issues that come with that. How does the hon. Member think we can distinguish between a person who chooses to end their own life because of a mental health issue caused by despair from having a terminal illness and somebody who wants to end their life because of despair caused by something else? Does that not blur our approach to the importance and sanctity of life and to preventing suicide in every circumstance?
Dr Spencer
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Of course, these are difficult things to disentangle. People will say, “You would say this, wouldn’t you, Ben?”, but we should get the person in front of a psychiatrist or a clinical nurse specialist working in psychiatry. This is what psychiatry does; this is what it is about. That is why I tabled amendments to ensure that the person is put in front of a psychiatrist as part of the process to deal with the blind spot. [Interruption.] Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will finish now.
My amendment would ensure that the code of practice clarifies the interaction with services.
Dr Spencer
I think I am pushing it.
I tried to intervene on the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) to ask what she thinks about that. She is welcome to intervene on me now if she has further points to add. Otherwise, I ask the Minister to address those points.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendment 27, which would require the doses and types of lethal drugs to be properly licensed by the MHRA. It is important that I put it on the record that I do not think the Bill is safe. It does not provide adequate safeguards. Most importantly, it will deepen and exacerbate inequalities. On that, I know that I speak for tens of thousands of disabled people who rightly say, “We need assistance to live, not to die.”
Throughout the passage of the Bill, hon. Members across the House have received many letters and briefings from leading experts, including this week a letter from over 1,000 doctors across all areas of medical practice expressing their clear view that the Bill does not provide answers on how we can improve management of the end of people’s lives. They said that the drugs expected to be used in assisted deaths should undergo rigorous testing and approval, as would be required for any other prescribed medication. Those requirements are missing from the Bill. Indeed, there is nothing in the Bill requiring lethal drugs to be regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. That is contrary to good medical practice.
Many of us will have heard that in Oregon, complications with drugs used for assisted dying occurred in about 7% of deaths and included vomiting, seizures and prolonged deaths of up to 137 hours. Where is the requirement in the Bill to inform patients about how those risks, including prolonged dying, might be managed? Where is the plan to identify the most acceptable medications? If they have not already done so, I urge hon. Members to consider this letter, signed by many leading experts. If we do not listen to them—the very people who would have to implement the Bill—who will we listen to?
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
On that point, will my hon. Friend give way?
Marsha De Cordova
I will not take any interventions.
It is clear that the Bill does not protect vulnerable patients from coercion. In 2021, the UN’s human rights experts raised concerns that, even if assisted dying is restricted to those with terminal illness, disabled and older people may feel subtly pressured to end their lives due to social attitudes and lack of appropriate services and support. Across the House, we know that support for disabled and older people is inadequate. We know that disabled people continue to face disproportionate levels of poverty, isolation and hardship. Until that changes, I urge every Member to think and not vote for the Bill.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
I rise to speak in support of new clauses 13 to 15, tabled by the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), to support amendments 94 and 95, and to oppose amendment 42. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Spen Valley for her compassionate leadership and immense hard work, to the Members of all views who served on the Bill Committee for their thoughtful and hard work, and to those who have worked behind the scenes to scrutinise the Bill and contribute to the debate.
I thank all the constituents who have been in touch with all of us. I am sure that, like me, hon. Members have carefully reflected on those contributions and taken them into account. It is clear that the status quo is not acceptable. That is why it is right that we have this legislation before us, and that we are scrutinising it so carefully and looking at it in such immense detail.
Turning to new clause 13, regarding the regulation of substances for use in assisted dying, those substances obviously have to be properly regulated, although it is equally obvious that they cannot be subject to conventional clinical trials in the same way as other medicines, which is why the proposal to make that process go through the MHRA is inappropriate. The regulations provided for in new clause 13 will ensure that that critical part of the process is carried out with the highest possible level of scrutiny and harm prevention. It is essential that there is transparency and assurance of the process, from manufacture all the way through to administration, which is what new clause 13 does.
Ms Billington
I am interested in what the hon. Lady says about the safety of those drugs. Does any adverse event data exist globally to quantify how much harm and suffering could be caused while inducing the dying process?
Ellie Chowns
I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue and giving me the opportunity to speak about the detailed evidence given by my constituent Emeritus Professor Sam Ahmedzai, with whom I spoke at length yesterday about precisely this detail. I have reviewed a number of tables of data about this. Any substance has side effects but, as the comments made today have indicated, in reality those substances are being held to a far higher standard than substances routinely used in palliative care.
We have to recognise that there is a huge amount of evidence about the efficacy of the substances that are talked about in relation to assisted dying. There is a huge amount of published, peer-reviewed evidence about the effectiveness of those substances, and people like Professor Ahmedzai, who has 40 years of experience and is a global expert in this area, point out that we know how to assist people to have a peaceful, compassionate death effectively, and that is what the Bill is about: helping people who are terminally ill to die with dignity and to face those final moments with the support, love and care of their family around them; not in agony, but in whatever degree of peace is possible when facing death.
As the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) said, new clause 14, which relates to advertising, has been developed in consultation, as a result of concerns raised by opponents to the Bill, to try to ensure the crucial fact that assisted dying is not an advertised service. There is a crucial distinction between advertising and information, and this new clause will ensure that assisted dying remains a careful, clinical process and not something that would be promoted commercially. It is a balanced, cross-party safeguard supported by people on all sides of this debate.
Ellie Chowns
I am very short of time, so I think I had better continue.
Turning to new clause 15, which relates to the role of coroners, if the Bill is passed, assisted dying would be a very strictly regulated process—the choice of an individual; not a death caused by others, but by the individual themselves. As Aneez Esmail has pointed out, this would be the most scrutinised type of death in the country, and it therefore makes no sense to require another legal process at the end when there have already been multiple layers of scrutiny before the death.
Ellie Chowns
I am so sorry, but we are very short of time.
New clause 15 is a compassionate and practical clause. There are strong safeguards already in place, and requiring a coroner’s inquest would go against the spirit of compassion that should be driving us all.
I will briefly turn to amendment 42, tabled by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), which would remove the backstop commencement. Essentially, the amendment would leave it in the hands of the Secretary of State to decide when, or if, the Bill comes into effect. That would go against the will of the House. If the House passes this Bill, it is perfectly reasonable and workable for the detail of it to be worked out within the next four years. We have already doubled the length of time allowed for that to happen. Amendment 42 is effectively a wrecking amendment that seeks to kick the Bill into the long grass. [Interruption.] That would be its effect.
To conclude, I will briefly address the misconception that seems to have informed some of the comments I have heard in today’s debate, which is the assumption that families would want to pressure family members to die quicker. My mum is a specialist palliative care social worker, and she has told me that in all her years of practice she has never experienced that happening. It is the other way around.
Several hon. Members rose—
Ellie Chowns
I am sorry, but I am concluding. We are each speaking from our own experience and from the heart.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. The hon. Lady has made it clear that she is not taking interventions at this time.
Ellie Chowns
The evidence shows that it is dying people themselves, facing the end of life, who wish to have the choice. Only small numbers of them will take up that choice, but it is crucial, humane and compassionate for us to offer them the choice. Assisted dying is complementary to palliative care, not contradictory, and this Bill has been through a huge amount of scrutiny—far more than any other Bill in this Session. Therefore, I deeply hope that the House will pass this compassionate, humane, clearly drafted and tightly structured Bill, to offer a dignified death to those who are facing death.
Patricia Ferguson
I rise to speak to my amendment 13, which concerns the appointment of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. In Committee, it was decided that the Prime Minister would appoint the voluntary assisted dying commissioner, and that the appointee would serve for five years and be responsible for appointing the assisted dying review panels. The commissioner would also oversee the training of panel members, give them guidance on the procedures to be used and, crucially, decide when a case that a panel has refused should be referred to another panel for reconsideration. According to the Bill, the commissioner will not be acting as a judge, but they must be a current or former senior judge of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal or High Court. However, they are not required to have any expertise in medicine or healthcare.
Importantly, following our considerations in Committee, the Bill no longer requires that the chief medical officer be responsible for monitoring whether or not the assisted dying regime complies with the law. That responsibility has now been transferred to the voluntary assisted dying commissioner, so the person in charge of overseeing the process and setting up the panels will also be the person deciding whether the Act is being administered correctly.
Jonathan Davies
Given the scandals we have seen in healthcare over many years, from infected blood and medicines that should not have been prescribed to what happened at Mid Staffs hospital, it is clear that having that independent, robust oversight from the chief medical officer is a good way forward if people are going to be able to trust this legislation, if it comes into law.
Patricia Ferguson
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The point of my amendment, as I will come on to, is that we need to ensure as much scrutiny as possible in this regard.
From what I have outlined, this is clearly an exceptionally important post, which carries great responsibility and significant power; indeed, it seems the postholder will require the judgment of Solomon to be able to fulfil their role. It is therefore surprising that, as the Bill stands, there is no requirement for pre-appointment scrutiny by the relevant Select Committee, despite the profile of the post and the controversy it will inevitably attract.
Considering that such pre-appointment scrutiny is required for the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority, the chair of the BBC, the chair of the Charity Commission, the Information Commissioner, the chair of the Care Quality Commission, the health service commissioner for England, the chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission and the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, the omission of such scrutiny in this case is clearly a serious oversight, which my amendment seeks to remedy by ensuring that the correct Select Committee has the power of scrutiny.
In my view, we need to guard the rights and privileges of Parliament jealously. We must ensure that Parliament is involved in the scrutiny of this legislation going forward as much as we possibly can. The Bill itself requires this to be as rigorous and transparent as is possible. No matter what side of the debate we are on, it is important to ensure that the Bill is as strong and as good as it possibly can be; we owe it to the people who send us here—the people who have been writing to us in such great numbers. My amendment seeks to strengthen the Bill in respect of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I refer right hon. and hon. Members to my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I am an NHS consultant paediatrician.
The debate so far has focused primarily on ethical considerations, legal frameworks and who will be eligible—the who, the when and the why—but I want to focus my remarks on the how. As a doctor, I know that various drugs in different combinations can be fatal; in other words, there is more than one way to kill people. Which would be the best drug, if that is what we wished to do? Which would be the most comfortable, and how do we know?
Some forms of assisted dying use neuromuscular blockades, which, in common parlance, means that they paralyse the body. Imagine a situation where someone in a lot of pain is given such a drug; from the outside they would look relaxed and peaceful as their muscles relaxed, but inside they would be in a lot of pain, and unable to express that to anybody else. Do we want people to be comfortable and to know that they are comfortable, or only to appear comfortable to us? Clearly, we want them to be comfortable inside as well. We therefore need to have drugs that are properly understood and regulated for this purpose.
Assisted dying is often portrayed as safe, peaceful and controlled, but the reality in comparable countries where it has been legalised so far is more complicated. Technical difficulties frequently arise, leading to complications causing greater suffering, requiring intervention and potentially leading to a prolonged and painful death.
A report in The BMJ by Dr Suzy Lishman, former president of the Royal College of Pathologists—who, I should say, works at the same trust as me—showed that there is a lack of reliable data on the effectiveness and safety of the drugs used, largely due to inconsistent reporting in jurisdictions where such dying is legal. In Belgium it is estimated that only 52% of euthanasia cases are reported to the Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia.
During a Select Committee visit in the last Parliament to Oregon to discuss assisted dying, which I and two other hon. Members from the Labour Benches went on, we heard about the complications being unknown in 71% of cases. No healthcare professional was present when the drugs were given so we could not really know, and we did not even know if the drugs had been taken in some cases. Where we did, we found a history of seizures, vomiting and prolonged deaths. On having been given the drugs, patients in nine cases in Oregon in 2023 had reawakened later. How they felt in the intervening time is difficult for us to know.
In Washington, a 2018 report found that 31% of patients took more than 90 minutes to die. I also remind hon. Members that an absence of evidence that things are not going well is not evidence of an absence of things going wrong.
Anna Dixon
I thank the hon. Lady for so eloquently describing some of the variation in the use of drugs in the case of assisted dying. In normal practice we have a yellow card scheme, which allows for any adverse events from ingestion of prescribed medication to be reported. Is it her understanding that, under the current proposals, that would not happen for assisted dying? Is she also aware of a review that shows a great variation in the range and dosages of drugs used?
Dr Johnson
I think one of the key problems with this form of intervention, compared with others, is that we cannot ask the patients afterwards how that felt. We cannot get their feedback, because they are dead. If we are going to give them things such as neuromuscular blockers or sedatives, we may not be able to tell what they feel. There are physiological ways in which we can monitor patients and get some idea—perhaps in their heart rate or blood pressure—but we will not be doing that. That is, therefore, one of the reasons for my tabling the amendments, to ensure that the drugs are properly regulated by the MHRA, so that we know that they have been properly tested on the purpose for which they are to be used.
Dr Johnson
I do not have much time and I do not want Madam Deputy Speaker’s cough to return. [Laughter.]
If one examines the litany of drugs involved in other jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal, it makes for troubling reading. It is often an ad hoc cocktail of lethal substances, including sedatives, analgesics, cardiotoxic agents, neuromuscular blockers and antiemetics. There is no internationally agreed drug regime. Jurisdictions such as Oregon, Canada and the Netherlands use varying combinations of barbiturates, sedatives, opioids and antiemetics. In 2020, the official Oregon report stated that, compared with single barbiturates,
“All drug combinations have shown longer median times until death”.
As the Bill currently stands, doctors will have to consider prescribing untested drugs or drug combinations, which could potentially breach the General Medical Council prescribing guidance that a doctor must be satisfied that the drug serves the patient’s needs. To address some of those concerns, I have tabled several amendments.
Amendments 96 and 97 ensure that no drug can be approved under the Act unless there is a scientific consensus that it is effective and does not cause undue pain or side effects, and that it has been specifically licensed for that purpose by the MHRA. I cannot really understand why anyone would disagree with that.
Amendment 98 clarifies that the Secretary of State is not compelled to approve any drug if, after consultation, it is concluded that no substance is appropriate or safe enough to meet the standard.
Amendment 99, alongside amendment 100, mandates that before any regulations are laid before Parliament, a comprehensive report must be provided. That report must include time to death, possible complications including pain, and any likely side effect of the proposed substances. Again, I cannot see why that would be controversial, because surely we all want everybody to be fully informed and make fully informed decisions, and that is part of making an informed decision.
Amendment (b) to new clause 13 requires any medical devices for self-administration be approved by the MHRA and that the Secretary of State consult the MHRA before making any regulations. That is a basic safeguard that we would expect in any medical intervention, and it should be a non-negotiable condition here.
Finally, amendment 42 removes a time limit and therefore the pressure on the Secretary of State. I understand other people’s concerns about that. There is often a narrative that it will lead to patients being able to die at a time and in a place of their choosing. However, the regulations in the Bill require the doctor to stay with the patient from the moment the drug is given until they are dead. We have heard that that could take quite a long time. Do we really have enough doctors to do this at people’s homes at a time of their choosing? At the moment, I do not think we do, and I do not see how, in a short period of time, that will be achievable either.
Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I stand in support of new clauses 20 and 21, along with amendments 89 and 90 and 92 to 95, all of which are in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). Colleagues need not fear—I will not speak to all of them.
I am a proud Welsh MP, and a lot of the debate today has centred on differences or confusion about the distinction on devolution on aspects of the Bill. Focusing on new clause 21 and consequential amendment 90, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley and to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) for their work together on this issue to ensure that people in Wales can access the assisted dying process in the Welsh language, if that is their preference.
In the last few months, I have met with many constituents about this Bill, including medical professionals and palliative care consultants. One of their overarching concerns is a fear that the language barrier may inadvertently impact on the ability of a relevant person in Wales properly to access and understand the assisted dying process. I am grateful to those constituents, including Dr Siwan Seaman and Professor Mark Taubert.
Accordingly, new clause 21 and amendment 90 are important. They seek to replace clause 47 and provide Welsh versions of the forms for the first or second declaration, the report about the first or second assessment of a person, and the final statement. Further, they stipulate that where a relevant person informs the voluntary assisted dying commissioner that they wish to communicate in Welsh, the commissioner must take all reasonable steps to ensure that that wish is respected and that communications by the relevant assisted dying review panel are in Welsh. These are important amendments, as they are about accessibility and respect, ensuring that language is never a barrier to compassionate end-of-life care. They uphold the principle of linguistic equality, which is well-established in public services in Wales, and I trust that that should not be controversial to colleagues when they come to vote later on.
As a Welsh MP, I am pleased to see the inclusion of amendments 92, 93, 94 and 95. While they may appear to be small amendments, they are important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley said, they fully respect the devolution settlement by ensuring that Welsh Ministers have all necessary powers on devolved aspects of the Bill—health—while retaining the powers of UK Ministers over aspects that are not devolved. I think that was slightly misunderstood earlier by some in this debate.
Taken together, the amendments provide clarity and legal certainty and offer reassurance to patients, clinicians and Government agencies in Wales. That principle should be uncontroversial. I know from my own discussions with the Welsh Government and the Welsh Health Minister that he is extremely grateful for the interactions he has had with my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, and he is confident this measure is workable from the Welsh perspective.
New clause 5 seeks to mandate that the Secretary of State must, within six months, publish a report setting out the impact of this legislation on the civil procedure rules and probate proceedings. During the debate and the streams of evidence we have heard, I do not recall a suggestion that this Bill is likely to result in any serious changes to those specifically referenced matters. On the contrary, England’s CMO, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, warned against creating a “bureaucratic thicket”, saying that the best safeguards are the simplest ones. Let us keep that at the centre of our minds when we consider this legislation and avoid inserting amendments that are no doubt well-intentioned but would create such a thicket.
I conclude by sharing one story from a constituent of mine who was focused very much on safeguards, which has been the debate on all these amendments and new clauses.
Mr Barros-Curtis
I will not, because I want to finish up; I appreciate the hon. Member’s forbearance.
That constituent was Claire O’Shea. Claire was originally diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome; it was only much later that it was realised she had stage 4 cancer. Within an hour of this House voting to pass this Bill on Second Reading, Claire messaged me to say:
“What a powerful debate today. It’s hard to say I’m ‘pleased’ as it’s a terrible issue to have to contemplate. But it’s such a relief to know the next stage is open and hopefully allays the fears of those talking about safeguards.”
Claire lost her battle with cancer last month, so I am pleased that we are here again, discussing the specifics of this Bill and talking about amendments in good faith that either side thinks will enhance its safeguards. In honour of Claire and for all those like her, I urge colleagues to support the amendments and new clauses I have outlined and to support the Bill itself.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
I rise to speak in support of amendment (a) to amendment 77, which is in my name. I should also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests about my involvement with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
New clause 13, we are told, is a replacement for clause 34; I hope that Members have taken the time to compare the two. New clause 13 contains even more powers than clause 34. It follows the trend of this Bill: instead of more detail being added, more powers are added. It seems to me that the line is, “There are some issues that we’ll sort out later,” but that this place will not be involved in that “later”. What is particularly concerning is that the powers that the Bill creates contain no explicit limit or guiding principle by which they are to be exercised. Nor do we have the benefit of a policy paper from the Secretary of State saying how he intends to exercise those powers or how his successors will.
I believe that the provisions relating to “approved substances”—clause 25 and new clause 13—face a real problem. As Dr Greg Lawton, a barrister and pharmacist, told the Committee in written evidence, the lethal substances intended to end life are not medicinal products within the meaning of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. That definition is itself derived from EU law, which states that
“the term ‘medicinal product’…must be interpreted as not covering substances whose effects merely modify physiological functions and which are not such as to entail immediate or long term beneficial effects for human health.”
That creates the real problem: if the substances are not medicinal products, why does the Bill provide that pharmacists are to be involved in their preparation and why would doctors be supplying them? New clause 13(4) seeks to get around the problem by giving the power to the Secretary of State to amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 so that the substances fit in. The impact assessment tells us that the Government have no plans to conduct or rely on the sort of scientific studies normally done for drug approvals or for the MHRA to be involved.
Sadik Al-Hassan
As a pharmacist, I should say that the drugs to be used for assisted dying are commonly used in pharmacy now. It would be obvious for pharmacies to supply those drugs in some way, shape or form. I accept the hon. Member’s point about medicines being used, but he will, I hope, accept my point: how would the same studies used to approve treatments be used to approve their use for death?
Robin Swann
I think the hon. Gentleman said in an earlier intervention that those medicines would then be used off licence, to the risk of the prescribing doctor and the person using them. That is where the risk falls back on the individual rather than being covered by anything in the Bill. That is where my regret comes.
I understand the need to treat the substances as medicinal products in England and Wales if it is the will of the House to change the law here; what I cannot understand is why the law should change the situation for the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the basis of my amendment to amendment 77. The House is not voting for assisted dying in Northern Ireland, so it has no locus to change the definition of a medicinal product in Northern Ireland in order to accommodate this Bill, which we have been told applies to England and Wales only. Or is it the intention of the Bill’s sponsor or those behind her to extend it to Northern Ireland at a later date, using some of the Henry VIII regulations in it?
There is a further issue in Northern Ireland. We are still in part subject to EU law, and I would be interested to know whether the Government have considered that aspect. Can the Minister really change, by ministerial diktat, EU law in Northern Ireland when it comes to the use of these substances? If so, why is he not being granted such power in other areas of significance to Northern Ireland? Why only this? Why has so much Government time previously been spent on medicine regulation and supply for Northern Ireland? Why did the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar), as the Minister of State for Health, and I, as the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, spend so much time on that? To that extent, I ask the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) and the Minister: what engagement has there been with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland or the chief pharmaceutical officer for Northern Ireland? Or is this another part of the Bill that is being put in to meet the promoter’s needs without any background or engagement?
In conclusion, the application of those provisions to Northern Ireland also has implications for the conscience protection. If, as a result of regulations made under those provisions, pharmacists in Northern Ireland are required to be involved in the manufacture or preparation of such substances, they will not have the benefit of the conscience clause, as that clause has not been extended to Northern Ireland. I therefore oppose the extension of those provisions to Northern Ireland and Scotland. I will also oppose amendment 77 and ask hon. Members to support amendment (a) to amendment 77 in my name.
Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of amendment 15, which is tabled in my name. I will minimise my comments to maximise the time available to other hon. Members.
Owing to the widespread unease among NHS practitioners and the growing number of concerned voices about the Bill’s shortcomings, if it is passed by the House—I still hope that it will not be—it is likely that assisted deaths will take place away from the public sector. Indeed, the Bill does not prevent assisted deaths from being outsourced to private companies, and there is no definition of what “reasonable remuneration” means in return for helping to end someone’s life. My amendment seeks to ensure that providers publish annually the number of people to whom they have provided those services, the costs of doing so, and the revenues received in return.
Many hon. Members will be guided by their religion when they vote on these issues. Although I deeply respect that, I am not a person of faith. If there is a booming baritone voice appealing to my conscience, it is not that of God, but that of Nye Bevan, who was concerned about the commodification of care. In his time, the worry was about the role of the market in extending life. Today, my concern is about the potential role of the market in ending it.
Throughout the Bill’s passage, we have discussed different kinds of coercion by individuals on the lives of people whose protection is entrusted to us. As a Labour MP, I do not think that we can have this debate without addressing the economic coercion experienced by the vulnerable in our society. As someone who has sat beside a bed and prayed for mercy, I genuinely understand the attraction of arguments around freedom of choice, but arguing for that as a fundamental principle in isolation, without also acknowledging the economic, social and cultural context in which people make such choices, is not a Labour approach to the issue.
Shockat Adam
Does the hon. Member agree that no matter how many new clauses we introduce, we cannot militate against people being vulnerable, particularly financially? According to the charity Mind, 2.7 million people in this country have considered suicide because of financial hardship. How could we militate against that?
Blair McDougall
The hon. Member makes an important point that we have to consider. We must recognise that, as he says, people’s choices are limited by the unfair distribution of wealth, the injustices that disabled people face throughout their life, or the attitudes of the powerful in society towards those who are less fortunate.
Blair McDougall
I will come to that point shortly.
We have a duty to ask whether the poorest and most vulnerable will be coerced into choosing assisted dying over palliative care because of economic disadvantage. Will they be exploited by those with a financial interest in their choosing to end their life? Will their death become a commodity? If we are really going to pass legislation that allows someone’s death to become a matter of business, we must have full transparency on those financial motivations, and my amendment 15 would require that. If we are really going to pass legislation that allows someone’s death to become a matter of business, we must have full transparency on those financial motivations, and my amendment 15 would require that.
Carers in the private sector are not bad people any more than people working directly in the NHS, but private healthcare operates in a context. The evidence that profit influences the moral choices made in the care and treatment that is already provided in this country is overwhelming; this is not a hypothetical concern. For example, a systematic review published by The BMJ found that private equity ownership of healthcare is associated with lower standards of care. Around the wonderful miracle of IVF there is an industry profiting from people’s desperation as they start life rather than end it. Already, at the end of life—this relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher)—choice in palliative care is limited by economic status, with the wealthy more likely to die a good death than the poor. My amendment seeks to address the fundamental question of whether free choice really is free by bringing into daylight the financial motivations of those involved in individuals’ decisions.
Anna Dixon
My hon. Friend makes a strong argument for excluding private, for-profit providers. He may know that I tabled an amendment in Committee that would have limited the provision of assisted dying to charities; unfortunately, it was rejected. Will he clarify where and how he thinks assisted dying should be provided, and his understanding of the Bill in that respect, given the lack of clarification we have had from my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater)?
Blair McDougall
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Amendment 15 seeks to recognise that there is a difference in where private providers’ income stream comes from and that that raises moral issues.
Blair McDougall
I do not wish to exacerbate your bronchitis, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will continue.
Amendment 15 touches on a fundamental point at the heart of the debate. Disabled people and the sick, in every aspect of their lives, have to fight every day for resources from a state, a market and a society that view them as a drain on finances. Do we honestly believe that at the moment when the most vulnerable are least able to argue for themselves, under the most intense societal and cultural pressure, and at their most expensive, those same public and private sector institutions will succeed in making choice real for them when they have failed to do so throughout the rest of their lives? Even if we stretch credulity and convince ourselves that that will be true in the state sector, can we say that it will be true in the market? I do not believe that the Bill should be passed, but if it is, let us not make it worse by allowing unscrutinised profit from the loss of human beings.
Simon Hoare
I rise to speak in support of amendments (a) and (b) to new clause 14, new clauses 1, 2 and 16, and amendment (a) to new clause 15.
I will make two observations at the outset. I do so as a Welshman representing an English constituency, as a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and as the current Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I remain to be convinced, despite the confidence expressed by the Bill’s promoter, that the Bill honours, in spirit and letter, the devolution settlement. Based on the expression on the face of the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), I do not think she believes that it honours the devolution settlement as far as Scotland is concerned either.
I also make the point that we are here to make law that has to stand the test of time. She was not the only one to do so, but the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) shared a heartfelt anecdote about a conversation with her mother as a result of her mother’s professional work. I know how easy it is to do, because it is a trap that I have fallen into, but, particularly on an issue as emotive and literally life-changing as this, we should not base our decision just on anecdote. We must base it on cold analysis of what is before us.
It is almost six months to the day since the Bill was introduced and still I think it is best described as skeletal. We have been told time and again by the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) and the Minister how busy officials have been looking at the practicalities of the Bill and how to operationalise it and make it workable. Yet this House is kept in the dark on what Ministers intend. Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) said in his earlier contribution that his understanding was that the hon. Lady was still prepared to work with colleagues to perfect the Bill. But, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are on the second day of Report stage and we could easily fall to Third Reading today. The time for that evolutionary conversation is long past. The time for detailed clarification is now. The Bill remains skeletal.
Simon Hoare
I will not; I am very conscious of time.
Madam Deputy Speaker, given that so many right hon. and hon. Members have been constrained in the length of their contributions because of your persistent cough—I say that not as a criticism—and that next week we have a lot of one-line Whips and the following week we have exactly the same, more time really should be given to the Bill. I do wish the Government had taken it on, not as a Government Bill but by finding Government time for Report on the Floor of the House. This is too serious an issue to have as many gaps and lacunae as this Bill has.
The founding fathers of the United States worked on the basis that the vague generalities of the constitution would always be adhered to, and that men and women of goodwill would adhere to it. I am pretty certain that they are now beginning posthumously, with the current incarnation, to wonder whether that is true. We should not be legislating to leave it up to Ministers to define regulations and decide how they come forward. We have Bills that have page after page after page which, when people ask themselves, “What is this all about?”, actually amount to very little. The amendments that have been tabled, and which I support, have been tabled in good faith, but I am afraid to say that, in trying to improve the Bill, they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
I rise to support new clauses 20 and 21, and amendments 70, 71 and 92 to 95. They are all about the right people having the right powers at the right time, and they respect the devolution settlement for Wales. I am mindful of time, and therefore I am sorry but I will not take interventions. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for engaging so meaningfully and strongly with the Welsh Government, including going to Cardiff to speak with Welsh Health Ministers and officials, to ensure that they are continually consulted during this process.
New clause 20 ensures that the Secretary of State, not the chief medical officer, is responsible for issuing guidance on the operation of the Bill. It enhances oversight and accountability by placing that responsibility with the Secretary of State, so that scrutiny and accountability regarding how the Bill will be implemented in practice is put in the right place. It is normal practice that officials whose roles and responsibilities may alter over time are not named in primary legislation. It is, however, important to note that the chief medical officer is not being cut out of the process, because the chief medical officers for England and Wales must be consulted. The new clause also allows persons with learning disabilities and other protected characteristics, as well as providers of palliative care services, to contribute to the process of provisioning guidance. It is a simple but important measure that ensures the right level of ministerial oversight, and I urge colleagues to support it.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) has explained, it is important to urge Members to support new clause 21, because it ensures that people in Wales are able to access the assisted dying process in the Welsh language if that is their preference. Almost 30% of the population in Wales speak Welsh, and it is so important that they can access this service in their language should they wish to do so. It is a small change, but it will make a huge difference to patients, families and clinicians in Wales.
Amendments 70 and 71 simply refine provisions around the use of interpreters, requiring the Secretary of State to publish a code of practice on the matter. Interpreters are essential to ensure fair and equal access to the assisted dying process for those whose first language is not English or Welsh.
Amendments 92 and 93 provide greater detail on the Welsh Government’s responsibilities in delivering assisted dying services in Wales. Some hon. Members seem confused about what is and is not devolved, but as a Welsh MP, I wholeheartedly support the amendments, which 100% respect devolution. They ensure that Welsh Ministers have all the powers they need regarding the devolved aspects of the Bill and the health provisions, while retaining the powers of UK Ministers over those aspects that are not devolved, such as criminal justice provisions and, crucially, changes to the Suicide Act 1961.
Amendments 94 and 95 clarify how and when provisions relating to voluntary assisted dying will come into force in Wales. They do not impinge on the devolution settlement, but simply provide clarity and legal certainty. All the amendments would help my constituent, Noah, a 19-year-old with a terminal brain tumour who knows what he wants if his pain becomes unbearable. The Bill is about giving people like Noah the choice, control and compassion that they deserve at the end of life. Who are we to deny that choice?
I pay tribute once again to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley for working closely with officials in both Wales and this place to craft what could be the strongest and most safeguarded assisted dying legislation anywhere in the world. It is a Bill designed to protect everyone, including my constituents in Monmouthshire and people across Wales. Thanks to the careful, considered amendments, including the ones that I have spoken about today, the Bill not only respects the devolution settlement but ensures that the right people hold the right powers at the right time to deliver this law safely. I urge Members to join me in the Aye Lobby to legislate to protect the rights of the terminally ill in their final months—to legislate for compassion, for choice and for dignity.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lefarydd. I rise to speak to amendments 39 to 41, which stand in my name; clause 47, on the provision of information in Welsh and English; and new clause 21, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). Others have touched on the Welsh language, and I will touch on the settlement in Wales as well.
In relation to the Welsh language, we are talking about something that is quite conventional: forms and guidance should be available in written Welsh. However, of much more significance is the opportunity for people to use Welsh—it may well be their first language—in dealing with the provisions in this Bill. My amendments would ensure that “all reasonable steps” are taken to find a co-ordinating doctor and an independent doctor who can question people in Welsh where necessary. I would dearly like it to be more than “all reasonable steps”, but the reality is that we have to deal with the staff who are available and the language skills that they have.
I thank the hon. Member for Spen Valley for tabling new clause 21. It recognises that it is really important for a Welsh-speaking individual to be able to communicate in the language in which they can best express themselves when it comes to the assisting dying review panel, because that is the final stage at which we will recognise whether there are questions of coercion and capacity. I welcome the fact that there are different clinical specialists on the panel; I believe that having an expert psychiatrist and a social worker will help to identify potential questions of coercion and capacity, because they will have different approaches to those questions.
I must step back to the reality of how Welsh language speakers can use Welsh in the justice system, which is where the assisted dying review panel comes in. In the justice system, an individual has the right to speak Welsh. If they use Welsh in a court, an interpreter will be used to interpret their words to the people to whom they are speaking. That is not acceptable in this context. This is the most serious and most desperately difficult conversation that people will have, and they must be able not just to speak Welsh, but to be heard in their own language, if all the subtleties and what they really want to express are to be heard. I will not press my amendments 39 to 41, and will support new clause 21 wholeheartedly.
I turn to the Senedd powers, particularly those in clause 54. I welcome new clause 20, which provides clarity on the responsibility of Ministers in the Welsh Government and the UK Government, but there are two issues here: the clarity of powers, and respect across legislatures. I have concerns about amendments 94 and 95, tabled by the hon. Member for Spen Valley, which would amend the amendments moved by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) in Committee. What did those amendments do? They ensured a vote in the Senedd to decide when the Bill will come into force in its entirety in Wales.
The Scottish Parliament passed stage two of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill on 13 May. Such a Bill could not be brought forward in Wales, because Wales has no powers over criminal law. The Bill that we are discussing today could not be brought forward in Wales. Although I appreciate what the hon. Members for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) and for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) said about the devolution settlement, and I am glad that we have clarity, there is also a question of respect for decisions already made in the Senedd. As things stand, what does the Senedd have to do? It will be required to pass a legislative consent motion, as required by the Sewel convention, but that can be ignored by the UK Parliament. This legislation effects action in Wales, but the Sewel convention can be overridden, as can an LCM.
The second thing that can happen in the Senedd—and this will be expected—is in those areas that are within the power of the Senedd. On commencement, a decision is required on the provisions of the Bill that have devolved competencies: specifically, the NHS in Wales. Bear in mind that if that consent is refused in Wales, the Bill, if enacted, can be brought in only in the private sector. That decision lies with the Senedd.
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendment 12, which stands in my name. I want to be clear that a decision on amendment 12 would not be a vote for or against assisted dying. The amendment is about preventing any Government of any political persuasion from rewriting the very purpose of the NHS, using a small group of MPs in a Committee Room rather than debate on the Floor of the House. The amendment seeks to protect the foundational document of our NHS and ensure that any changes to it are properly debated in open Parliament, as the public should expect. Let me explain why that matters.
In Committee, clause 38 was added to the Bill. The clause gives a future Secretary of State sweeping powers to amend existing health law through delegated legislation. Subsection (4) allows a future Government to change the very purpose of the NHS by amending section 1 of the National Health Service Act 2006.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is setting out her concerns eloquently. What concerns does she have that the Bill writes a blank cheque for a future Health Secretary to change the nature of the NHS without parliamentary scrutiny?
Dame Siobhain McDonagh
That is the whole purpose of my amendment and my speech. Section 1 of the 2006 Act is the legal foundation on which every NHS duty rests, guaranteeing that our NHS will serve everyone, always. The section, which expresses the promise of
“a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement…in the physical and mental health of the people of England”,
has remained virtually unchanged since 1946. Those words, spoken by Nye Bevan and enshrined in law, set out the purpose of the NHS: a national health service free at the point of delivery.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before an intervention is taken, may I put it on the record that Members should not be wandering into the Chamber and then very quickly making an intervention? Lots of Members are waiting to speak and to make interventions. Is that the case? Have you been in the Chamber for a while?
Andrew Pakes
I did use the facilities, Madam Deputy Speaker; I apologise for that. I am a gentleman of an age. [Laughter.]
I thank my hon. Friend for taking an intervention. We are about to reach the 80th anniversary of the landslide 1945 Labour Government, which set the NHS in train, and the 77th anniversary of the NHS. Fundamental to that is her point about the NHS being free at the point of need and being about care, compassion and life. What assessment has she made of how the Bill, if it goes through unamended, will fundamentally challenge that great victory and legacy that Labour Members cherish?
Dame Siobhain McDonagh
The power to alter the intentions, as mentioned by my hon. Friend, was not in the Bill we voted for in November. That is why I have tabled my amendment: to prevent anyone from tampering with the NHS as founded by our forefathers.
Let us be clear about what clause 38 would allow. It would allow a Minister, through delegated legislation, to rewrite the very purpose of our NHS; it would let them do so without the full scrutiny that primary legislation demands; and it would mean that Parliament could be denied any real chance to amend or reject that change. These are not abstract constitutional concerns; this is about whether the founding promise of the NHS can be quietly rewritten—not through open debate or an Act of Parliament, but by a handful of MPs behind closed doors in a Committee room. Once that pass is sold, there is no telling what future Governments might do or undo.
That is why this matters so deeply, because the NHS is not just a set of services, but a promise—a promise made right here in this House nearly 80 years ago, on Second Reading of the National Health Service Act 1946.
Ms Billington
It is important for my hon. Friend to be able to explain in detail what the philosophical and institutional implications are. But, fundamentally for ordinary patients, what does she think the Bill will do to change the relationship between the patient and the doctor?
Dame Siobhain McDonagh
Its potential is to alter everything in a very undemocratic manner. In this very Chamber, Nye Bevan told us that the NHS would
“lift the shadow from millions of homes...keep very many people alive who might otherwise be dead...relieve suffering...produce higher standards for the medical profession”
and
“be a great contribution towards the wellbeing of the common people”.—[Official Report, 30 April 1946; Vol. 422, c. 63.]
We have a duty in this place to defend that promise. We cannot allow the promise to be reworded without the full voice of Parliament. We owe it to the public, to patients and to the NHS staff who dedicate their lives to this service, to stand firm and protect what is sacred.
The amendment is simple but its impact is profound. It would ensure that any future changes to the core principles of the NHS must be debated openly, transparently and with the full consent of every Member—no short cuts, no sidestepping, no ministerial overreach. I urge colleagues across the House to support amendment 12, to stand with our NHS and with the people it serves. I urge my side—the Labour side—not to allow the assisted dying Bill to be the trojan horse that breaks the NHS, the proudest institution and the proudest measure introduced by our party in 120 years.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
I rise to speak in support of amendments 21, 103, 104 and 42, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler). As other Members have said, this is a deeply consequential Bill. I want to record my thanks to the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), to all members of the Bill Committee, and to all those who have contributed to its careful scrutiny through the tabling of amendments and debates over them.
The Bill is about the end of life. It is an emotive and sometimes painful topic, and I am grateful to the many constituents who have generously shared with me their experiences and opinions. I have also taken some time to consult palliative care practitioners, including those providing hospice care in my constituency. Those conversations reinforced the awe and admiration I hold for these caring professionals. Their expertise and deep commitment are always impressive. Contrary to the points made by the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), they are adamant that they can provide sufficient pain relief to the vast majority of those receiving end-of-life care. The issue is about not the efficacy of treatment, but access to it. In this, I echo the powerful points of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on the present inequality of access to palliative care.
Amendment 21 would ensure that the availability, quality and distribution of palliative and end-of-life care is published within one year of the Act being passed. When assessing the provision of end-of-life care, it is critical that this House and the public can see how palliative care is being delivered. For the measures in the Bill to provide a genuine choice to those at end of life, palliative care must be much more widely available.
The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) argues that there should be no false choice between palliative care and assisted dying, yet she and health Ministers know that there is a choice as resources are limited. When so many hospices have closed beds due to funding shortages and receive more than 70% of their funding from donations, I am concerned that we may see significant expenditures on a new regime for assisted dying, funded by the state as a health treatment, while the palliative care sector and hospices in particular remain chronically underfunded.
Calum Miller
I will not give way.
Only by having the assessment of the palliative care system that is proposed in amendment 21 can we be confident of knowing whether access to palliative care is sufficient. If we are to provide a true choice at end of life, that is critical.
I also stand in support of amendments 103, 104 and 42. Amendments 103 and 104 would give this House a say over the key decisions that still remain to be taken on the implementation of the Bill. Given the significance of the Bill and the importance of the many questions still to be resolved, these amendments are critical.
Amendment 42 would ensure that we do not career towards the enactment of this Bill in four years whether or not the system is ready to operate safely and fairly. Taken together with amendments 21, 103 and 104, this would ensure that this House has the chance to consider whether those at end of life can access the full range of support, advice and protections intended by the Bill, and which they deserve from palliative care services across the country.
Like so many in this House, I have direct personal experience of the issues addressed by the Bill. My father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in May 2002. Over seven weeks, he and my family benefited from the incredible care of our local hospice. Sharing my dad’s life, care and death has shaped me, so I fully understand why so many of my constituents have asked me to vote on this legislation in the light of their and their loved ones’ experience.
Yet our task is to legislate for a new system that will affect thousands of people and society as a whole. However this House votes on this Bill, our debates must result in a new focus on the provision of palliative care, so that all people at end of life truly have options in the management of their care and death.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I rise to support amendments 34 to 36 and new clause 6, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall and Bloxwich (Valerie Vaz), who sadly cannot be here today.
Health inequality shapes life expectancy and outcomes —covid deaths illuminated that—but it is absent from the Bill. A younger me would have been 100% behind this Bill. I am very pro body autonomy when it comes to abortion, but 10 years of being an MP has exposed me to coercion, duress, the billionaire price of London property, and elder abuse. It is no coincidence that, like me, the majority of London MPs and of black and minority ethnic MPs oppose the Bill.
Let us look at amendment 34. The experience of my aged parents—now no longer with us—opened my eyes to a world of pills, incontinence pads, hoists, power of attorney, key safe boxes and carer worries. I saw how non-native English-speaking pensioners—I am not talking about Welsh speakers—have their agency denied, perhaps unconsciously, by health professionals in a stretched system. My mum’s GP had a clear contempt for her accented words. At every appointment she would say to her, “One question only”. As my mum grew frailer and began to lose the power of speech, she reverted to her mother tongue and was seen by hospital teams as an annoyance, a time waster, and bed blocker. Similarly, the disabled are often written off. People cannot see beyond the wheelchair or the non-verbal. Amendment 34 would place a duty on the chief medical officer to provide information at every step of the way
Jess Asato
I thank my hon. Friend and I recognise the time constraints. On the issue of vulnerable groups, she may know that a letter has been sent about eating disorders but the spokesperson for the Bill’s sponsor dismissed it, saying that the concerns raised were old news. Does she agree that there is a problem with the way the Bill is being run, as so often the concerns and evidence presented by groups have been dismissed out of hand?
Dr Huq
I totally agree. We know that Esther Rantzen and Jonathan Dimbleby want the Bill to be implemented, but our role is to be voices for the voiceless, so I totally agree with her.
As opposed to the vague, ever-changing qualifying criteria that are held up as safeguards, at least these amendments would put ethnic minority people on the board: new clause 6 says that if they are on the ward, they should be on the board as well. The Bill seems to have neglected them altogether, so the new clause would provide real protections.
We know that in a cost of living crisis, assisted dying could be quite attractive. BAME communities have lower disposable household incomes than standard households, and during a cost of living and housing crisis, it is possible to imagine relatives wanting to speed up granny or grandad’s probate—or naani maa or dadima, even—to get a foot on the ladder.
Dr Huq
No, because I will not get any more time.
Given the cost of care, people could convince themselves that elderly relatives would be better off out of the way, in order to get the younger generation on the ladder.
We know from the experience of other places that once assisted dying is allowed, the scope broadens—depressed 12-year-olds in Holland can get it—and the incentive to fix palliative care will lessen. Why now, with the state of the NHS? What of Suicide Prevention Week? Yes, we know that public opinion is in favour of assisted dying, but public opinion also supports bringing back hanging.
Dr Huq
No, I am not giving way.
At my advice surgery, people have pointed out the unfairness of the £10,000 cost of Dignitas. We know that the status quo is imperfect, but let us not remedy it with something that will make things worse. We need to get this 100% right if we are going to do it all.
Although well intentioned, the Bill has too much room for error, manipulation, misapplication and unintended consequences. Six months to live is impossible to predict and, with life and death, it is too late to change your mind after the latter has happened, is it not? This week, 1,000 doctors have argued that it will widen inequalities and it is simply not safe. These amendments strengthen the Bill by taking ethnic minorities into account, when hitherto they have been completely unacknowledged by it. They must be incorporated into any assisted dying legislation, but the best thing of all would be not to rush down this road with indecent haste in the first place, because it is so littered with obstacles.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
I rise to support new clauses 13 to 15, and to oppose amendment 42. I commend the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) on the way that she has navigated this incredibly difficult and sensitive process.
In considering these clauses and the passage of the Bill, I have kept in mind the simple but difficult word “pain”, because the legislation is about those who face a certain death in unimaginable pain, and its relationship with palliative care and the word “choice”.
Richard Tice
I will not, because so many hon. Members wish to speak.
In this country we are lucky enough to have some of the finest palliative care in the world, and it is a noble aspiration to want to improve that—to be the best in the world. Nevertheless, many of us will have seen loved ones, family members and friends, suffer huge pain even given the finest palliative care. The trauma that that leaves for those left behind can be painful and enduring, which is why we are where we are.
Richard Tice
No, that would be unfair as so many wish to speak.
In considering the Bill, I think, yes, let us improve palliative care, but let us remember that choice, when faced with certain unimaginable pain, is the right thing to provide. That is why I will be supporting the Bill.
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)
I am almost in my 13th hour of trying to speak on this topic, so I hope Members will understand that I am not going to take any interventions. I rise to speak in support of new clause 4, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes); amendment (b) to new clause 14, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh); and amendment 13, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson).
Let me start by saying that ending suffering is a shared goal of all Members across this House. No one has a monopoly on wanting to end suffering; the question is how best we do it. As a former aid worker and someone who has risked my own life in order to alleviate the suffering of total strangers in war zones, I promise the House that I am motivated to end suffering at least as much as the next Member. It is worth the House knowing, too, that my darling dad died of terminal cancer in a hospice that was run and funded by a charity, because the NHS does not have that provision.
New clause 4 matters, because we do not live in an equal society, although many of us—particularly on the Labour Benches—seek to bring one about. This is a deeply flawed Bill, and the truth is that in seeking to give choice to some, it risks causing new harm to a much larger, vulnerable group of our citizens. The safeguards, which were watered down in Committee, will not prevent this. Indeed, this week, we have seen a letter from over 1,000 doctors saying that the Bill will “widen inequalities” and that it is “simply not safe”. Earlier, we heard a powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale about the impact of advertising on the most vulnerable. New clause 4 would increase the collection of data about the impact on the most vulnerable and bring in proper oversight from the chief medical officer, including in relation to those with protected characteristics.
Last time we debated the Bill, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis). We are in the shared situation of having close and dearly loved family members who have complex disabilities. My hon. Friend and our families know how it is to have to struggle—to fight every week for the access to basic state services that our loved one is entitled to but cannot access. Those services and precious state resources would increase their equality and ability to live well, but were stretched beyond breaking point by successive Tory Governments. It is that experience that brought me into politics and into the Labour party, and to this day—away from my day job as a Member of this House—I still have to fight on behalf of my loved one, who has significant physical impairments as well as learning difficulties, for them to access the healthcare and support that they desperately need.
Vulnerable people do not always make decisions in their own best interests, and I also know from my family experience that they can be highly susceptible to pressure from others who do not have their best interests at heart. That is why the transparency created by new clause 4 matters. I remind the House, too, that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has described the so-called safeguards in the Bill as “inadequate”, and that in Washington state, almost two thirds of those who had an assisted death in the last year for which data is available cited fear of being a burden on their family, friends or caregivers as a reason for doing so. I do not want that to happen in our country. Over 350 disability rights organisations oppose the Bill as it stands, and one of my constituents has told me that the Bill contributes to a sense among disabled people that “We are disposable.”
Amendment 13 and new clause 4 both make important changes to the role of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner. I ask my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches whether they have questioned the wisdom of the Prime Minister himself having to personally appoint the death tsar—as the media have christened that role—shortly before the next general election.
Finally, earlier this week, I heard an hon. Member say that he believes the Bill is flawed, but plans to vote for it anyway so that it becomes law and we would have to sort out the problems later—we have heard more of that today. The hon. Member did not specify how he thought this would happen, or when. He is right that the Bill is flawed, but he is wrong that we can ignore those problems. To do so would be to fail in our job as legislators. Being in favour of these amendments and against the Bill does not mean accepting the status quo, as some have tried to suggest. It means that we choose, instead, to protect the NHS and to work, to fight and to battle for a palliative care system that is worthy of those we represent, rather than diverting time and energy into helping people to kill themselves.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Even though I am not opposed to the principle of assisted dying, I have a number of deep concerns about the content of the Bill, the process by which we are legislating for such a monumental change and, importantly, the context in which it would be enacted, given the numerous challenges facing our health and care services. That is why I have tabled amendment 21 relating to palliative care and end-of-life needs, which has attracted cross-party support.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for supporting the amendment. I want to pay tribute to her today for kick-starting a debate about dying well and, in particular, about palliative care—a topic that has been neglected by many of us, myself included, for far too long.
Amendment 21 would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament a year after the Act has passed detailing the availability, quality and distribution of health services to those with palliative and end-of-life needs. Marie Curie estimates that one in four people who could benefit from specialist palliative end-of-life care do not receive it. People who are poorer, less educated and, yes, non-white are even less likely to receive it.
I was horrified, if I am honest, by the earlier speech from the hon. Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher). All the data shows us that people from minority ethnic communities are less likely to access the healthcare services they deserve, in particular palliative care. There is a deep distrust of health services, and those of us who were in this place during the covid pandemic saw that played out in real time in hospitals and care settings up and down the country, with far more people from minority ethnic communities losing their lives and far more healthcare professionals from ethnic minorities not protected in the way that they should have been. If those people from minority ethnic and disadvantaged communities are less likely to access palliative care as a result of the Bill being passed, contrary to what its supporters say, my fear is that more people—rather than fewer—will die a terrible, horrendous, traumatic and painful death and they will be disproportionately from those communities.
Dr Sandher
The hon. Member raises a powerful and excellent point about the people from ethnic minorities who died during covid and their access to healthcare. As she will understand, that is of deep importance to me too. She is right about the need for greater palliative care and I am glad, as she says, that we are having that discussion.
If we look at assisted dying around the world and concern around ethnic minorities being more likely to access it, the stats show that it is the other way around and they are less likely to access it. However, that point is neither here nor there; rather, given that the safeguards are in place, the question is: is the process working well? Those are where the stats are going forward. I believe that the hon. Member raises the matter in good faith, and I thank her for doing so.
Munira Wilson
I actually think the stats the hon. Member cited undermine his own argument, because all the data shows us that the members of the communities I am talking about are less likely to access the healthcare services they need and therefore, less likely to end up accessing assisted dying. The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) gave the game away—he is acknowledging it—that wealthier people tend to access assisted dying more because they have the choice, as well as the services to have that meaningful choice. Those inequalities deeply concern me.
My grave concerns about the Bill becoming law are that the people I am talking about do not have the loudest voices or well-funded campaigns to support them. This whole debate about inequalities in access to palliative care should be the topic of a debate on a separate day and I hope there is the chance to have that debate.
Marie Curie also warns that there is
“no realistic national or local plan to address the scale of this challenge”,
and that the whole system is in “a perilous state” due to a
“lack of sustainable funding…and limited prioritisation of…end of life care”.
A 2023 survey of integrated care boards found that half had no plans to invest capital in palliative care services and 40% admitted that their services were inadequate for the needs of their population.
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
I hear the argument from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber about palliative care in this country not being at the level that we would expect, and I accept that. What I do not hear from those who oppose the Bill is exactly what level we need so that assisted dying can go hand in hand with it as a genuine option.
Munira Wilson
I note that the Health and Social Care Committee and the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) have undertaken a report, so they will advise us on that issue. [Interruption.] I am aware that I need to finish, so I urge hon. Members to support the amendments of my hon. Friends the Members for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) to ensure that we do not allow the Bill to implement sweeping Henry VIII powers on such a sensitive and important issue, and to ensure that we collect, through new schedule 2, important monitoring data on how any assisted dying or death service will operate. We need transparency.
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 15 and amendment 54, and against new clause 5. As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, new clause 15 would not classify a death under the Bill as suspicious or unexpected, so a full coroner’s inquest would not be needed.
If the Bill becomes law, assisted dying would be a legal, strictly regulated and well monitored choice made freely by the individual concerned. To be absolutely clear to hon. Members, it is not assisted suicide. The Bill concerns people who want to live but who, faced with an inevitable, irreversible and terminal diagnosis, want choice over the manner of their death. That is an important choice that removes some of the trauma and anxiety for not only the patients but their family and loved ones. New clause 15 and its consequential amendment 54 will ensure that families who are naturally grieving the loss of their loved one are not needlessly subjected to an invasive coroner’s investigation.
Lloyd Hatton
I share my hon. Friend’s sentiment. I firmly believe that we should protect bereaved families against such a distressing ordeal happening automatically, particularly when the process, as set out in the Bill, will already be legal and transparent.
With that in mind, it makes practical sense to support new clause 15. If we pass legislation to permit assisted dying with the full weight of the law behind it, we must also respect that choice in the way that we classify and record such deaths. Those deaths would not be in any way unexpected or suspicious, so to classify them as such would simply be inaccurate.
As has already been touched on in great detail today, if the Bill is passed, it would implement the most robust assisted dying framework anywhere in the world. It already includes multiple layers of oversight. In my view, the process is cautious, thorough and robustly safeguarded. A retrospective investigation would be to duplicate the process, and risks suggesting wrongdoing when none has occurred.
Anna Dixon
I wonder what my hon. Friend’s view is of the opinion of the Royal College of Pathologists—the body responsible for medical examiners—which is that:
“deaths following assisted dying should be notified to the coroner, just as other deaths following the administration of drugs, prescribed or not, must be.”
Lloyd Hatton
I respectfully disagree with that position. I believe that there are already levels of safeguarding in the legislation.
New clause 15 is a compassionate and practical clause that would ensure the law works not only with the individual making the choice, but for the family they leave behind.
I move now to speak briefly on new clause 5, which I would strongly encourage Members to vote against. Tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall and Bloxwich (Valerie Vaz), the new clause would require the Government to publish a report on any impact the Bill might have on civil procedure rules and probate proceedings. As has already been pointed out, the chief medical officer has warned that we are at serious risk of creating a “bureaucratic thicket” with this legislation. In my view, new clause 5 would do just that: requiring the Government to publish such a report would create unnecessary bureaucracy and divert resources without adding any material value.
As Members will be aware, the Government have already published an impact assessment on the relevant impacts that they deem the Bill could have. There is nothing in the Bill likely to result in any changes to civil procedure rules, so there is no obvious justification for producing a formal report on that issue. It is important that we remain focused on practical and meaningful safeguards, rather than procedural requirements based on immaterial impacts. Introducing extra reporting requirements based on speculative impacts risks creating unnecessary red tape without delivering any practical benefits. I therefore urge Members to reject new clause 5 and accept that no additional reporting in that area is needed.
As we rightly scrutinise the Bill today, on top of nearly 97 hours of scrutiny so far, which is more than many Government Bills receive, we must keep dying people at the centre of the debate. I speak today in support of new clause 15 and its consequential amendment 54 and in opposition to new clause 5 for exactly that reason—to keep terminally ill people at the centre of this discussion, and at the centre of this piece of legislation. No matter where we stand on this pressing matter—whether Members support it or have reservations—it is crucial that we collectively ensure that the Bill is workable, compassionate and truly centred on the dying person. As legislators, that must always be our chief concern.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I rise to support and speak briefly to amendment (a) to amendment 77, tabled by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), and I will speak to new clause 13, amendment 96 and other amendments if time permits.
I was rather confused when I looked at the amendment paper a few days ago and noticed that amendments that would directly impact on Northern Ireland had been tabled. When last I checked, the Bill as a whole extended only to England and Wales, so I find amendments 76 and 77 perplexing. To be clear, health and criminal justice are devolved matters. The people of Northern Ireland elect their own Assembly to make precisely these sensitive decisions, including whether to legislate for assisted suicide, which is an issue of profound moral weight and cultural consequence.
Jim Shannon
My hon. Friend is right to pursue this matter. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) said it earlier on: the NHS was formed by the Labour party and is of the Labour party. These amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State could overrule Assembly Members. In other words, 90 Members of the Assembly could make a decision, but the Secretary of State could overrule it—surely that is incredibly wrong. It flies in the face of the democratic process that we are here to uphold.
Carla Lockhart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. On a constitutional basis alone, amendment (a) to amendment 77 is necessary, and I hope that hon. Members will feel they can support it.
Moving on to factors beyond the constitution, I am concerned that there is a dangerous absence of an adequate regulatory framework for lethal drugs under the Bill. At present, clause 25 gives the Secretary of State powers to approve lethal drugs, while clause 34 mandates the Secretary of State to make provision for prescribing, dispensing, transportation, storage, handling, disposal and record keeping, as well as enforcement and civil penalties. However, the fundamental issue of how these approved substances are actually approved remains alarmingly weak. The Bill defines “approved substances” simply as
“a drug or other substance specified”
by the Secretary of State in regulations. There is no explicit requirement for those substances to undergo specific, rigorous testing for their use in assisted dying.
When this issue was debated in Committee, I was disappointed to see good-faith amendments to engage, such as amendment 443, being dismissed.
Carla Lockhart
No, I will not.
Amendment 443 sought to mandate that those substances be approved through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and either the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group processes. I therefore strongly support amendment 96, tabled by the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), which
“ensures that drugs can only be approved if the Secretary of State is reasonably of the opinion that there is a scientific consensus that the drug is effective at ending someone’s life without causing pain or other significant adverse side effects.”
That is a common-sense approach that should attract support from across the House.
This week, more than 1,000 doctors wrote a powerful letter to all MPs to outline their deep concerns about this Bill, calling it a
“real threat to both patients and the medical workforce”.
I strongly urge this House and colleagues to read that letter before Third Reading. The Government’s own impact assessment does not provide any comfort with regard to the use of lethal drugs under the terms of the Bill, which the doctors’ letter picks up on, saying that
“there is no requirement for…[the drugs]…to undergo rigorous testing and approval that would be required of any other prescribed medication, nor indeed for them to be regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency”.
They go on to say that that is
“contrary to all good medical practice”.
This matters not just for regulation, but with regard to patient safety and complications. There is no requirement in the Bill to inform patients about how risks—including a prolonged death, rather than the promised peaceful and dignified death—will be managed. Complications do occur, and this is not scaremongering. In Oregon, when complications have been recorded, patients have experienced difficulty swallowing, drug regurgitation and seizures, and they have even regained consciousness. In Canada, a Canadian association has noted that patients have experienced regurgitation, burning and vomiting.
I draw Members’ attention to the written evidence submitted to the Bill Committee by a group of expert senior pharmacists and pharmacologists. In their submission, they warn that the approach of the Bill puts the cart before the horse. Specifically, they caution against proceeding without
“a comprehensive review of the evidence for efficacy and safety”,
and note that that review
“should be scrutinised by MPs before…consideration of legalising assisted suicide”.
These are not small details or incidental matters, yet, even at this late stage in the Bill’s passage through the Commons, we are still being asked to pass legislation without satisfactory answers to basic questions from experts in the field. That is simply not good enough.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak, and I will close by saying simply that whatever mitigating amendments may be passed, this Bill remains morally and ethically wrong. It is flawed and should not be passed.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendments 8, 13, 82, 83, 85 and 86, but first I turn to amendment 77, which would extend some of the provisions of the Bill to Scotland. My review of the Bills in Scotland and England that are proceeding at the minute suggests that if someone moved permanently from Glasgow to Bradford or Newcastle, they would lose their right to an assisted death in Scotland and would have to wait a year to acquire their right to an assisted death in England. Imagine the heartbreak if somebody was diagnosed as terminally ill three or six months into their permanent move to Newcastle. That is a natural consequence of the law of habitual residence; there is long-standing case law on that. One matter that has not been addressed satisfactorily is how the relationship between Scots and English law and the Scottish and English Bills will be worked out. I suspect that that will require further primary legislation in this place and in Holyrood if both Bills pass.
I turn to the remainder of the amendments. Amendment 13 is very sensible and would introduce much-needed scrutiny and oversight to the appointment of a commissioner. The right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has set out in detail the very sensible reasons for the introduction of his suite of amendments. Amendment 86 is particularly important, because the panel faces real difficulties in compelling people to come before it if they have relevant evidence. It seems manifestly reasonable that the panel should hear from people who have relevant evidence. I am also concerned that the panel process does not provide a clear role for people who love and care for the person seeking an assisted death. Amendment 8 would require the panel actively to consider hearing from such people, which addresses a serious gap in the Bill.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that across all aspects of the Bill we cannot legislate only for those with good mental health, or for those who are loved, supported and protected? We must have at heart the best interests of the most vulnerable and those without a voice or without loved ones, to ensure that they are protected.
John Grady
I am obliged to my hon. Friend—that is precisely why I joined the Labour party as a 16-year-old. Faced with terrible circumstances, some people will seek an assisted death. I find it hard to accept that those will be truly autonomous choices. We must be clear that the very same circumstances that have denied people dignity and robbed them of autonomy throughout their lives will drive them to an assisted death. I find that deeply troubling, and I worry that we are placing too much confidence in concepts of capacity, autonomy and self-determination.
Everyone accepts that coercive control is common—indeed, it is incredibly common, as is domestic abuse and elder abuse. There are very clear risks of coercion. I recognise that the supporters of the Bill have sought to improve protections, and to protect people in those types of circumstance. I have anxiously scrutinised those protections, and I do not believe that they will achieve their aim. That is why the amendments are so important.
Jess Asato
Last weekend my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) posted on X a story of two older people who wanted to die together, and who had found doctors to sign off their assisted death. Is my hon. Friend concerned that this debate might be romanticising suicide pacts given that, as we know, there are mercy killings, which are, unfortunately, actual deaths? Does he share the fears of the Government’s suicide adviser that the Bill will undermine suicide prevention efforts?
John Grady
I think everyone in the House debates this issue in good faith, and in the courts there is a general view that one should be reluctant to attack otherwise. I am sure that question was meant on that basis. However, one must not lose sight of the fundamental point that the protections in the Bill will not address the profound societal pressures that people will face. One must not lose sight of the fact that, whatever protections are included in the Bill, it will not protect people against coercion.
Sir John Hayes
Edmund Burke said:
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”
Over time, I have seen many imperfect measures put before the House—under Governments of all persuasions, by the way—and usually, through scrutiny, they are improved. That is because the parliamentary process works when there is time available, and in particular when there is pre-legislative scrutiny, independent analysis and thorough thinking about the consequences of what we debate here. That could have happened on this important matter, but it has not because it has been shoehorned into a process ill-fitted for its purpose.
The amendments we are debating are a late attempt to improve the Bill. I particularly recommend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who made an excellent contribution to our debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I support those amendments because it is critical that the safeguards in the Bill are not only maintained but improved and enhanced, for all the reasons advanced by hon. Members across the House about coercion and vulnerable people.
The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) said she has never encountered coercion. North Herefordshire must be a wonderful place where people carry harps and drink ambrosia, but in the rest of the kingdom and, I assert, the rest of the world, there are many wicked people doing many bad things. We must never allow those wicked people to have reign and power over those who inevitably, because of their circumstances, will be at risk if the Bill is not improved.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir John Hayes
I give way to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire as I cited her.
Ellie Chowns
I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman has misrepresented what I said. I was contributing an observation from somebody who has been deeply involved in palliative care practice, who reports that it is far more frequent that the dying person wishes to die, while it is their family who are pressuring them and encouraging them to stay alive as long as possible. The fears about coercion appear to be worry about something that is not actually the case in these cases of dying people.
Sir John Hayes
I am afraid that I disagree. There are numerous cases where people will be encouraged, and perhaps even forced, to take a decision, when they are coping with illness and at their most vulnerable—when they are frightened, doubtful and distressed, and may be unbalanced. Of course we have to protect against that eventuality if the Bill is to be passed.
Tim Farron
On that point, evidence from exit interviews shows that 35% of people choosing an assisted death in Canada and 47% in Oregon listed as their reason for doing so that they felt they were a burden to their family.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman anticipated what I was about to say; I have cited exactly that evidence many times during the debate. We need to look at the experience elsewhere to inform what we do here. We always do that when we pass the right laws in this place.
There is worse news than that, because rather than being improved during its passage, the Bill has in many ways got worse, in particular by giving additional powers to Ministers—so-called Henry VIII powers. When the two words “delegated legislation” are mentioned in this place, we should always be fearful; when the words “ministerial discretion” are used, be doubly fearful. I said that looking directly at Government Front-Bench Members, but I could have been looking at the Conservative Front Bench. The Bill gives permissive powers to Government to make all kinds of changes. I want to take some of those to illustrate my point.
The Bill empowers Ministers to amend the Suicide Act, including the offence of encouraging suicide. They can rewrite the principles of the NHS, in section 1 of the National Health Service Act, to read, “secure improvement in the mental health of the people of England and Wales and end the lives of the terminally ill”. They can amend the NHS Act to specify that this service is not free of charge. The Bill points only to the section of the National Health Service Act that says,
“services to be provided free of charge except where charging expressly provided for”.
They can amend the definition of a registered medical practitioner, so it is not a doctor carrying out the assessment. And so on and so forth.
That is why the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) is so vital. The speech she gave was among the best speeches I have heard in this House. The passion she feels for vulnerable people and the difference the NHS makes to them is not only felt on the Labour Benches, as she well knows, regardless of the theatre. We all come to this place to ensure that the least fortunate have a voice; that those with less power are given a little more by our advocacy.
In conclusion, I say to the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) that there has never been any doubt about the depth of her piety. Let us now be sure about the breadth of her mind. If she really wants the Bill to be passed in a way that is palatable, then she must surely accept the amendments I have supported and highlighted in this brief—all too brief—contribution.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Members need to be aware that I will start the Front-Bench speeches at 1.30 pm. I call the final Back-Bench speaker, Rachael Maskell.
Rachael Maskell
I rise to speak to my amendment 27. The insufficiencies of clause 25 and new clause 13, and the mechanisms for substance approval, have attracted much criticism as they defy safe process. I have therefore undertaken extensive research with leading academics, toxicologists, anaesthetists, pharmacists and others to understand the safety concerns over pharmacology, prescribing and dispensing.
Normally, the MHRA would undertake research and trials to secure safety, quality and licensing. The British National Formulary focuses on dosage and side effects, and NICE or the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group focuses on showing that drugs work and are cost-effective. That safety regime underpins the reputation of UK pharmacology. So can this House assure itself that without due process, someone will have a safe and peaceful death? Let us look at the evidence.
First, the data is poor. The Health and Social Care Committee visited Oregon. We know there are varying times for how long it takes for someone to die—up to 137 hours. The research cites nausea and vomiting in 10% of cases, seizure, oral muscular burning, regurgitation and regaining consciousness.
Rachael Maskell
No time.
There is a lack of consistency of approach and data across jurisdictions on the substances used, how they are titrated and the dosages administered. While ingestion can be a factor, absorption varies according to frailty, metabolism, diagnosis, body mass index and drug reactions. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics are complex.
However, it has been my discussions with toxicologists that have been most alarming. They highlight the high risk of acute pulmonary oedema. This is backed by research showing that 84% of cases using pentobarbital on death row have flash pulmonary oedema. The drug disintegrates the membranes in the lung tissue, filling them with fluid, causing shortness of breath and a sense of drowning. As a clinician, I have supported many people on intensive therapy units with such a diagnosis. High concentrations of the drug cause an acute assault to the cardiopulmonary function. If paralysed and conscious, a patient may look peaceful but is anything but.
Such physiological distress needs research. It is unclear how the Government will identify data, process and safety. The risk to those handling toxic substances also needs to be examined, and in the light of the Government identifying that a pregnant woman could opt for an assisted death, that clearly needs examination.
There is no formulation for safe titration or dosage. If pentobarbital is to be used, as it is in Australia, the Government’s impact assessment did not examine it, so it needs revision. Also, the drug is not an approved substance for humans in the UK, licensed or unlicensed. The MHRA and NICE have a role to play. We are increasingly hearing that professional bodies are withdrawing their support from the Bill, because they know that the regimes that have been set out are just not safe, so it is our duty to examine the evidence.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
May I start by offering the condolences of His Majesty’s Opposition to all those affected by the Air India plane crash, including the families of the very many British citizens who, very sadly, lost their lives. Our thoughts are with all of them.
As is well understood now, the Opposition remain neutral on the principle of whether assisted dying should be introduced. That will depend on the Bill’s progress through its remaining stages in this and the other place. However, I wish to raise two important matters. First, on the matter of time, all of us understand the considerable challenges that Mr Speaker faces in having to balance the desire of colleagues to speak on this matter with the limited time available for private Members’ Bills—I know that he is doing his best to strike that balance. A number of Members have pointed out that the time being given to this Bill is significant and more than that normally allocated to even quite substantial Government Bills. None the less, it is right to acknowledge that this is far from an ordinary Bill.
It is hard to think of a more deeply consequential and highly contentious piece of legislation for our society. The reality is that, both today and in previous sittings, a number of Members have been unable to speak. There has been an informal time limit on speeches, and interventions have necessarily been limited as a result. Debate in this House is important not just because it decides how we vote, but because it is used by the courts to help interpret legislation. A more limited debate limits the scope for that.
Ordinarily, a Minister would have significant time at the end of Report to deal with amendments, provide clarification and explain intention, in a way that the promoter of the Bill will not. Again, a majority of Members may be satisfied with that, but very many are not. Although what we decide on the business of the House is ultimately determined by majority vote, how we reach a decision and how we allow alternative views to be explored matters. We should all consider whether we want a debate of such importance to be curtailed in the manner that it has been.
I ask the Government to consider assisting Mr Speaker by making more time available for us to ensure that, on Third Reading, we have the fullest debate possible, with every Member having a reasonable opportunity to speak and take interventions in the way that they would like.
Secondly, Members will be aware that the Bill, although extensive, is not the full picture. As others have highlighted, significant elements of how assisted dying will operate are due to be determined by future delegated legislation. The Government’s delegated powers memo notes that the Bill contains 38 delegated powers, including Henry VIII powers, and more powers are contained in the promoter’s amendments that are scheduled for decision today. They include matters such as the content, form and thoroughness of doctors’ reports, regulations for replacing a co-ordinating doctor who is unable or unwilling to continue, and decisions on who will be notified of the panel’s decision, which has been raised as an important potential safeguard. Those are not trivial matters. These pieces of legislation cannot be amended and MPs can vote only yes or no. In some cases, they are unlikely to be debated, and they almost certainly will not be on the Floor of the House. It is important for Members to fully understand that. MPs often have to weigh up the consequences of rejecting such legislation when they disagree with it, because it could leave a void.
Members are well within their rights to be content to proceed regardless. Certainly, a majority of the Committee have presented a Bill to the House with the composition as described. That is, of course, a legitimate choice for Members to make. We have heard in the debate today about amendments to curtail these powers, and Members will need to decide their views on that. I urge the Government, in the interests of helping Members to have the clearest possible idea of how a scheme they are being asked to vote on will operate, to provide as much detail as possible on what these future regulations might consist of. Although we will not be able to have all the answers, I think most Members would agree that it is better that we vote with more detail, rather than less, even if they are satisfied to support assisted dying in principle. This is something that only the Government can do. I ask that the Minister reflects on that challenge in his closing remarks, alongside giving the Government’s response to those asking for more Government time to allow wider debate with more Members able to speak.
I emphasise again that the Opposition remain neutral on whether we should introduce assisted dying, but it is incumbent on us to at least draw attention to matters of procedure that can be addressed only by the Government. I look forward to the Minister addressing the concerns of Members along the lines reflected in my remarks today.
The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)
I associate the Government with the words of the Opposition spokesman regarding the tragic incident in India.
As Members will know, the Government remain neutral on the passage of the Bill and on the principle of assisted dying. We have always been clear that this is a decision for Parliament. However, the Government are responsible for ensuring that the Bill, if passed, is effective, legally robust and workable.
Let me start with a brief observation about the process and, in particular, the time made available to Parliament to scrutinise the Bill. The Bill has received over 90 hours of parliamentary time, which is more than most Bills receive. More than 500 amendments were tabled and considered in Committee. I thank Members on all sides of the debate for their contributions during the extensive consideration and scrutiny that the Bill has received.
Given the time, I will confine my remarks on the amendments to those about which the Government have significant legal or operational concerns, and those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) to address significant workability concerns. Before I get into the detail, I remind the House that a full list of amendments tabled by my hon. Friend that the Government deem essential or highly likely to contribute to the workability of the Bill can be found in the letter sent to all Members by me and the Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), on 15 May.
Let me start with amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley. New clause 13 and amendments 69, 53 and 72 would allow the Government to create or change legislation to set out the end-to-end process in relation to approved substances to be used for assisted dying. They would allow for monitoring and for a regulatory regime to be designed that will offer robust oversight of approved substances and the devices used to administer them, specifically in the context of assisted dying.
Amendment 54 and new clause 15 would replace clause 35, which is currently unworkable in the wider legal context. They would align the scrutiny and certification of assisted deaths with the existing process for deaths that are not deemed unnatural. That means that assisted deaths would be scrutinised by a medical examiner rather by a coroner unless reported to the coroner by anyone who has concerns about the death.
Amendments 92 to 94 would ensure that the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers have powers to make necessary regulations to approve assisted dying services in Wales. Amendment 95 would bring the Welsh commencement powers in line with the devolution settlement and remove the requirement in clause 54 for Welsh Ministers to lay commencement regulations before the Senedd for approval, to align with usual procedure.
I now turn to amendments tabled by other Members that the Government assess as creating potentially significant workability challenges. Amendment 97 would require the MHRA to license the approved substances to be used in assisted dying. That may present workability challenges, as licensing is not possible if the approved substances do not meet the definition of “medicinal product” under the current relevant legislation. Furthermore, licensing is reliant on the manufacturer applying to the MHRA for a marketing authorisation for that indication and providing the necessary evidence of safety and efficacy in support. Should the Bill pass, the Government would work to put in place an appropriate regulatory regime for the approval of substances. It may be helpful to note that my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has tabled new clause 13, which recognises the need for a robust regulatory framework and would provide the powers needed to introduce such a framework.
Amendments 105 to 107, amendment (a) to new clause 13 and amendment (a) to new clause 14 would restrict the scope of Henry VIII powers available to the UK and Welsh Governments to make provision about assisted dying services. They would further restrict the use of powers in relation to the regulatory framework for approved substances and the devices used to administer them, and to the prohibition on advertising. I point Members towards the delegated powers memorandum published by the Government, which sets out our consideration of the Henry VIII powers in the Bill. As with legislation more broadly, the Government recognise the need, in appropriate cases, for amendment by Henry VIII powers. Members will be aware that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee will issue its own consideration of the Bill, which will of course be made available to all parliamentarians.
Amendment 3 seeks to shorten the commencement period to three years. Should the Bill pass, an entirely new service with robust safeguards and protections will need to be carefully developed and tested, with input from a range of delivery partners. The Government’s view is that the Bill, as amended in Committee, with a four-year backstop for commencement would be more likely to provide for safe and effective implementation.
Tom Gordon
One of the key things that the Bill’s sponsor, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), has said throughout is that four years, in the Bill as it currently is, would be a backstop. Can that be the case if the Minister is talking about a requirement of four years and that it could not have been delivered sooner?
Stephen Kinnock
I can confirm that it is absolutely the policy intent of the sponsor for that to be a backstop. The Government are working on that basis to ensure that it is a backstop and not a target.
Amendment 42 seeks to remove the four-year backstop. Although that is a matter for Members to decide, we note that if both that amendment and amendment 94, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, were accepted, nobody would have the power to commence reserve provisions in Wales. That would create major workability concerns for the service in Wales.
Dr Johnson
The advocates of the Bill talk about the point of choice and autonomy in the decision about when and where a person will die. Can the Minister confirm whether we have enough doctors to provide a service for people to die at home at the time of their choosing?
Stephen Kinnock
I refer the hon. Lady to the impact assessment, which is of course not a forecast but a set of scenarios. In it, detail is given on expected numbers and the capacity of the system to deal with the service.
Amendments 13 and 82 to 85 relate to the appointment of the voluntary assisted dying commissioner and panel members. The amendments would put the process for the appointments out of kilter with standard practice for public or non-judicial appointments and could significantly limit the pool of individuals available. Amendment 86 would give the panel the same powers, privileges and authority as the High Court, which are significant in scope and are set out across different court rules and legislation. It is unclear how those would apply to panels in practice. They may be unworkable given that the panel is not designed to be a court.
New clause 4 and amendment 28 would put various responsibilities on the chief medical officers for England and Wales. Imposing duties in primary legislation on an individual civil servant may cause difficulties in the future if the role does not exist or if the title changes. It is usual practice for duties in primary legislation to be conferred on the Secretary of State, who may decide to delegate to the chief medical officer.
I would like to briefly respond to a number of questions directly asked of the Government. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) asked about medicines regulation in Northern Ireland. The amendments will not affect the application of EU law; they will instead ensure coherence between the different legislative frameworks. The sponsor will lead engagement with the devolved Governments, supported by officials.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) asked about the equality impact assessment. The EQIA considers the nine protected characteristics alongside socioeconomic background, geography and mental health. The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) asked about the Suicide Act and advertising. I can confirm that encouraging or facilitating suicide will remain a crime under the Suicide Act. On advertising, new clause 14, if passed, would oblige the Secretary of State to make regulations prohibiting certain forms of advertising that promote voluntary assisted dying services. The exemptions to that, which may be provided under subsection (2), will not cut across the criminal offences elsewhere in the Bill or in the Suicide Act.
I hope that those observations were helpful to Members in their consideration of the technical workability of the amendments that we have debated today.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 13 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 14
Prohibition on Advertising
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision prohibiting—
(a) the publication, printing, distribution or designing (anywhere) of advertisements whose purpose or effect is to promote a voluntary assisted dying service;
(b) causing the publication, printing, distribution or designing of such advertisements.
(2) The regulations may contain exceptions (for example, for the provision of certain information to users or providers of services).
(3) Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament.
(4) But regulations under this section—
(a) may not amend this Act, and
(b) must provide that any offence created by the regulations is punishable with a fine.
(5) In this section “voluntary assisted dying service” means—
(a) any service for or in connection with the provision of assistance to a person to end their own life in accordance with this Act, or
(b) any other service provided for the purposes of any of sections 5 to 27.”—(Kim Leadbeater.)
This clause imposes a duty to make regulations prohibiting advertisements to promote services relating to voluntary assisted dying under the Bill.
Brought up, and read the First and Second time.
Amendment proposed to new clause 14: (b), in subsection (2), leave out from “exceptions” to the end of subsection (3) and insert—
“( ) for the following—
communication made in reply to a particular request by an individual for information about a voluntary assisted dying service;
(b) communication which is—
(i) intended for health professionals or providers of voluntary assisted dying services, and
(ii) made in a manner and form unlikely to be seen by potential service users.
(3) Regulations under this section may make provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament, but may not amend this Act or the Suicide Act 1961.”—(Paul Waugh.)
This amendment would limit the exceptions that can be created to the advertising ban set out in NC14 and also provides that regulations cannot amend the Suicide Act 1961, which includes the offence of assisting and encouraging suicide.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Hon. Members
Object.
The Deputy Speaker interrupted the business (Standing Order No. 11(2)).
Bill to be further considered on Friday 20 June.
Christine Jardine
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not think it matters how one is going to vote on this issue; a lot of us are finding it very frustrating that some Members seem to be deliberately hanging about in the Lobbies to delay the process. In order to get the Bill through and for the public to see that we are respecting their wishes, can something be done to appeal to the better natures of those Members? It really looks petty and childish. Could they please abstain from doing it the next time?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the hon. Member for her point of order. She will have seen that I sent the Sergeant at Arms to investigate the delay.
Business without Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Objection taken. No date named for Second Reading.
exemption from value added tax (public electric vehicle charging points) bill
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Hon. Members
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Object.
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Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Mr Speaker said earlier today that a Minister would come to the House on Monday to discuss the middle east. Given the events overnight, which have continued to deteriorate during the course of the day, have you had any indication that a Minister will come to the House in the few minutes left before we rise to discuss the middle east, in particular Israel and Iran, given UK equities in the area and more generally?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order, but as Mr Speaker told the House this morning, the Foreign Secretary has indicated that he will come to the House to make a statement on Monday.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You may be aware that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and I were called for interview by the Metropolitan police following our participation in a demonstration in January calling for peace and justice for the Palestinian people and an end to the genocide in Gaza. It was alleged that we failed to follow police restrictions on the protest. That is untrue, and at all times we followed police instructions. We can now report that the police have dropped the case against us and there will be no charges.
The reason for this point of order is that in the correspondence to our solicitor Martin Howe, the Metropolitan police informed us that our case was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service because, as MPs, we were to be held to have “a greater culpability”. This is an unacceptable practice that flies in the face of the principle that we are all equal before the law. I wish to place on record my concern about that behaviour by the Metropolitan police.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. It is not a matter for the Chair, but he has put his point on the record. May I suggest that he takes the matter up with the Clerks, who will be able to advise him on how to pursue the matter further?
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to place on record my thanks to our solicitor Martin Howe and many others who worked very hard on this case. The implications are obviously very serious. If there are elements in the police and possibly in the Crown Prosecution Service who want Members of Parliament to be held to a different standard of account than the general public, that removes us from the normality of law in this country. I think that would be a very bad step indeed. I will take your advice, of course, and take this up with the Clerks, because our being held to a different standard would be a very bad thing.
We all have to have the right to take part in public protest about human rights abuse, about war, about peace and about anything else. That is what democracy is about. I saw this whole effort as a means of trying to silence the democratic rights of everybody in our society by picking on us two as Members of Parliament. I am grateful for the decision that has been made today, but like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I do not intend to let it rest there.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. As he knows, it is not a matter for the Chair, but he has put his point on the record.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It might be useful if a Member of Parliament who has not often taken part in demos in central London intervenes at this point to show that opinion in this House of Commons is absolutely united. In various Parliaments—indeed, in most Parliaments in Europe—MPs have immunity from prosecution. We have never had that system here, and we have always proclaimed what is very much the British way: that Members of Parliament are no different from any other member of the public. If they do wrong, they will be held to account, but they should not be subject to some greater test of culpability just because they are Members of Parliament. As somebody who is not in the same party as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and often has rather different views from his, I wanted to rise to show that what he has just said has universal support in this House.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the right hon. Member for his point of order. While it is not a matter for the Chair, he has put his point on the record and he has been heard by the House.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Would it be possible for you to explain why that is not a matter for the Chair? Surely if MPs are going to be deemed by the Metropolitan police to have greater culpability than other citizens, that must be a matter for the Chair and for Mr Speaker. Why should it be delegated to the Clerks?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. However, it is not a matter for the Chair. If it is a matter of privilege, he should raise the matter privately with Mr Speaker.
Flood Prevention: Sleaford and North Hykeham
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Before I start my remarks, I will make a declaration of interest: my husband is a farmer, and we have a small stipend to pay to the internal drainage board in relation to flood risk.
My constituents in Sleaford and North Hykeham enjoy some of the most beautiful countryside that the United Kingdom has to offer. Our hard-working farmers reap the benefits of some of the best agricultural land in the country for their crops. Unfortunately, living in this area brings some environmental risks.
Many Lincolnshire MPs centuries ago held the office of commissioner of sewers in the county. The job sounds unglamorous but was very important, bringing with it responsibility for managing the county’s waterways and drainage and for protecting lives and livelihoods from the risk of flood damage. I am not suggesting that I take on that role myself, but that historical flood risk has only become more acute in recent years. Land usage has intensified, our climate has become more volatile and greater pressures have started to affect our natural resources. Our county has suffered from flooding caused by overwhelmed drainage systems and excessive river levels. The effects on people have magnified too. Some people whose homes were flooded lost not just possessions, but the ability to live in their home for a long period of time; some did not return home for more than a year.
Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Heighington Millfield primary academy as it formally reopened following significant flood damage last year. The closure had major effects on the children there, who had to be bused to different schools around the county within the trust, and significant measures had to be taken to restore the school. I put on record my thanks to everybody involved in that work. The community really pulled together for those children, and the Department for Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs worked very hard together to ensure not just that the school was repaired, but that flood measures were put in place to try to prevent those things happening again.
The school now has flood doors in place so that it can prevent flooding coming in through the doors, and it is having work done over the summer in preparation for the autumn rain to protect the outside environment, which includes bunding around the playing fields and a special garden at the back of the school on higher ground, which will absorb some of the water if the rain overtops the back again. Unfortunately, at the same time that that great work has been going on, new councillors under the direction of Reform have chosen to abolish the county council committee dedicated to managing flood risk. I will have more to say about that later.
In opening this debate, I want to make a simple point. My constituents deserve to live in safety and to go about their work and education without severe disruption from climate events. We need to ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect their lives and livelihoods, and that recommendations are being followed up and maintenance work is being done on time. We also need to make the most of local expertise and experience, and not undo the good work started under the previous Government towards fostering collaboration between agencies and local people.
Many communities across my constituency have been affected by flooding in recent times, and they deserve to have their experiences shared. In North Scarle, for example, residents faced huge disruption in 2024 when heavy rainfall on to already wet ground caused flooding at Mill Dam dyke. The local authority report on the event found that poor maintenance of the local watercourses had contributed to the flooding, as did problems with the surface drainage system.
As I saw when I visited North Scarle in December that year, co-operation among different agencies is key in tackling these kinds of events. Lincolnshire county council is responsible for cleaning gullies and maintaining drainage, while the Environment Agency has responsibility for ongoing maintenance at Mill Dam dyke. Meanwhile, local groups such as Flood Action North Scarle contribute valuable local knowledge and experience.
The EA has upheld its end of the shared responsibilities set out in the flooding report, and has engaged the local community by providing maintenance updates. It spent around £71,000 on maintenance in 2023-24. However, since the spending review published this week revealed a 2.7% cut in the DEFRA budget over the review period, can the Minister assure my constituents that the EA will still have the money to continue maintaining these dykes going forward? And what will the Minister do to ensure transparency from councils? Updates from the EA are relatively easy to access, but Lincolnshire county council’s flooding project website simply lists its own actions following each flood report as “ongoing”. My residents need more clarity than that.
In Sleaford, residents faced similar problems when Field beck was overtopped in October 2023 and drainage systems again became overwhelmed. I welcome the work that the EA has done here too, with the business case for a major capital scheme approved on 2 June. I am pleased about this investment, which is projected to avoid £188 million in economic damage, deliver £74 million in people-related benefits and protect 604 properties from repeat flood damage.
In Leasingham, more work needs to be done. Residents suffered flooding twice in quick succession, including in the school, in October 2023 and January 2024, when agricultural ditches overtopped and Leasingham beck exceeded its capacity. The council’s flood report recommended that the EA and Lincolnshire county council work together to carry out channel condition assessments at Leasingham beck, with the results to be reported back to the Lincolnshire flood risk and water management partnership.
However, the inspections have not yet happened. Worse still, even as reports into historical flooding are calling for closer collaboration, the Reform council is undoing the successful partnerships already established. The Lincolnshire flood and water management scrutiny committee did vital work in bringing together key agencies involved in flood management and prevention: the EA, internal drainage boards, Anglian Water, district councils and other key experts. Three weeks ago, Reform abolished the committee, folding it into the generalist environment committee, which does not have the same specialist remit to cover the most important and complex environmental issue facing the county.
By rejecting the valuable contributions of IDBs, district councils and local experts, Reform councillors are saying that they know better than local people who have tended the land for generations. All the main parties have opposed the committee’s abolition and have seen it for what it is: politicking with people’s livelihoods. If the Government see these reckless actions being wrought on local communities in Sleaford and North Hykeham and elsewhere in Lincolnshire, what can they do to ensure that councils uphold their responsibilities to residents?
Instead of cancelling initiatives, we should be creating new ones. I was encouraged by the excellent work done under the previous Government to advance the water maintenance pilot scheme, which was designed to foster collaboration between farmers and the National Farmers Union, local drainage boards and the EA. The scheme enabled greater co-ordination and common-sense flexibility in the management of waterways—for example, by training local landowners in how to manage watercourses, and then allowing them to carry out their own minor channel clearance and maintenance work for themselves.
The scheme helped to avoid the ludicrous, heartbreaking situation in which local people can see a problem with a local watercourse, are aware it is going to flood their farm, land or their home, and have the equipment and the know-how to do something about it, but the law prevents them from doing so. It is illogical. Public sector co-operation agreements already exist to help streamline those schemes and place participants on a clear legal footing. One of the great local successes under that framework was the 2018 silt dredging of the South Forty-Foot drain, a farmland drainage channel dating from the 17th century, under a PSCA between the Black Sluice drainage board and the EA.
Why have the lessons of those schemes not been applied more widely? Since the last election, the scheme in my own constituency has ground to a halt, and with it have gone the benefits that were already accruing. Will the Minister commit to supporting those schemes and encouraging their wider roll-out? As she looks to her budgets, it is worth recognising that it is much cheaper for the IDB to clear drains and ditches than for the EA to do so, since the EA’s procurement process is so cumbersome that it becomes significantly more expensive. One of the things that frustrates many local people in my constituency is that they could do the job and get it done much quicker. They are waiting, and places are flooding while it is not getting done.
Another thing that the Minister could discuss with the Treasury is that the IDB has been prevented from using red diesel in its pumps. The IDB has told me that the problem is that the pumps are placed in isolated places, and believe it or not, people are stealing the diesel. It is white diesel—it is expensive, so it is worth something—and people are stealing it from the pump, which is putting everyone at risk. The IDB feels that if it were red diesel in those pumps, theft would be much less likely.
Brant Broughton is an area in which a number of houses flooded. We have had a less promising update from the Environment Agency in that respect; it says that it was expecting to receive a model of the river system around the summer of 2025.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
indicated assent.
Dr Johnson
The Minister is nodding—I do not know whether she has an update on what the Environment Agency means by “the summer”. We were expecting the health plan in the spring, and that has been and gone, so if she could help with that, that would be really great. There is some concern about the overall cost-benefit ratio, given the number of houses. I encourage the Minister to remember that although the people who live in rural areas may live in areas that are less densely populated, they have as much right to a safe environment as anybody who lives in a more densely populated part of the country.
There are more examples of communities in my constituency that have suffered the impacts of flooding and are crying out for a joined-up and proactive approach that will protect them from repeat occurrences in the future. In Washingborough and Timberland, a familiar story happened in recent floods: heavy rain, overwhelmed drainage and excessive water runoff led to communities being left to suffer. While the EA has carried out some channel clearance and vegetation management, flood reports make clear that responsibility falls between central agencies, the county council, landowners, and stakeholders such as Anglian Water. Once again, it is vital that open communication is at the heart of the strategy, and that politically motivated meddling is not allowed to get in the way.
I took the chair of the Environment Agency and the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), to visit the Delph at Washingborough when it was full. It was very clear that the EA’s priority had been to protect the small creatures living in the dyke by not clearing the vegetation out, but of course, once the floods came, those small creatures were no more anyway. It would have been much better for the creatures, the environment, and the wider countryside and the people who live there if those dykes had been cleared properly in the first place. Trees were literally growing in that dyke when we went to see it.
There are two final communities facing specific future threats that I would like to highlight. In Ruskington, residents endured flooding in 2023 and 2024 caused by the overflow of Ruskington beck. I understand that the Environment Agency has been conducting bimonthly maintenance and debris removal, and is investigating a capital programme for defences in Ruskington as part of the next five-year funding period. Any scheme will have to meet economic viability criteria and defined cost-benefit metrics, despite future house building plans that will see more land covered, more people in at-risk areas, and more demand on drainage systems.
As of December 2024, under the Government’s new targets, the central Lincolnshire partnership—of which North Kesteven forms a part—faces a house building target of 1,552 houses per year over the course of this Parliament, an 47% increase on the previous target. Can the Minister assure me that the cost-benefit analyses deciding the fate of future flood defence schemes will take account of the Government’s rampant house building plans, and will account for all the ways in which flooding impacts a community such as Ruskington, from work hours lost to home damage, insurance claims, watercourse repairs and drainage clearance?
Finally, Anwick suffered in the floods of 2023, when the River Slea and its tributaries experienced very high water levels. The EA and Anglian Water have been engaged in positive liaisons to manage risks at the River Slea, Farroway drain and Anwick catchwater, but residents in Anwick contacted me in September 2024 when a sewage processing plant flooded, causing discharge and polluting smells across the area. I met Anglian Water to discuss those constituents’ concerns, but their bigger concerns are now about a biogas digester that may be built immediately next door. In this case too, it is vital that lessons are learned and that we avoid repeating mistakes that will lead to more disruption for local people in the future.
Addressing the risks requires the careful allocation of money. A glance at the most recent funding allocations under the flood and coastal erosion risk management grant in aid scheme shows that many dozens of projects appear in the bidding process but receive no funding. The allocation data for the Upper Witham internal drainage board in my constituency shows 15 intended projects listed for completion between 2023 and 2040, but none has any grant funding at all allocated this year. Lincolnshire county council, meanwhile, is due to receive £103,500 in grant funding over 2025-26 for year one of the property flood resilience project. Two smaller projects will receive a total of £52,500 from non-grant public contributions, but 19 other projects will receive no funding at all.
The Government have made much of the £2.65 billion in funding for flood defences that was announced in February, but as I have said before, governing effectively is about making choices. Can the Government clarify for my constituents how the EA is expected to prioritise its funding among the many equally important projects that need support, especially in light of cuts to the DEFRA budget? How much money is spent on developing schemes that subsequently do not come to fruition? What is the estimated cost—in household damage, lost output and broader economic terms—of deciding not to act?
As I mentioned earlier, the hard-working farmers in my constituency do so much for our local and national economy and for this country’s food security, and it is vital that we remember them. What will become of agricultural productivity in areas left with inadequate flood defences? What will happen to food security when some of our best-quality agricultural land is lost to frequent inundation, and how are farmers meant to prepare for this uncertainty–—in economic and practical terms—when they already face such a heady mix of threats to their livelihoods? Just as farmers have been left to face the family farm tax instituted by the Labour party and have suffered the sudden loss of the sustainable farming incentive, they will also face the threat of flooding, without the help and support they need, if this Government fail to act in the long-term interests of rural communities.
We have reached the time for action on flood prevention and resilience. As I noted earlier, the way to manage the risks is with local knowledge, collaborative and long-term management strategies, and proper funding—essentially, with basic common sense. First, we must keep the valuable expertise of local people within the decision-making system. IDBs, local farmers and expert local committees know their land best, and we must give them the tools and authority to manage their own environments.
Secondly, we must build on projects such as the water maintenance pilot to foster long-term planning and inter-agency working. We can do more: the creation of a Lincolnshire rivers authority, for example, would provide a structured platform for long-term flood planning that could be tailored to the needs of local people, rather than to the nationwide EA or DEFRA frameworks.
Finally, we must ensure that vital projects receive the necessary funding, without being held up by central agencies’ cost-benefit frameworks. Local authorities should hold budgetary power as well as decision-making power to make sure that interventions are made where they are needed most, and in a timely and efficient way. With these measures, we can make sure that local people have control over their own local environment and give them the tools they need to prevent the devastating impacts of flooding, which have blighted some areas of Lincolnshire for too long.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate and on raising these very important issues, which I will endeavour to address in the time remaining.
Protecting communities, homes, businesses and farmland from flooding is a priority for this Government, and I am delighted to hear that Heighington Millfield academy students are now safely back at school. I am sure that there has been a lot of disruption, particularly for those taking public exams. I am grateful to the hon. Member for her generous comments about the Department for Education, DEFRA and EA officials who have been working at pace to minimise the impact, and I pay tribute to all the people involved in that—not least the parents and the students themselves. I am very pleased to hear that there are flood-resilient repairs, and I am interested in ways in which nature-based planting around the school can potentially help with flood mitigation in the future.
May I say how incredibly disappointed I am to hear that the Reform-led county council in Lincolnshire has taken the very short-sighted and unwelcome decision to abolish the flood risk and flood protection committee? This shows the danger of pandering to reactionary rhetoric and then leaving local homes and local communities unprotected. I shall be watching the council very closely to ensure that it is fulfilling its duties under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.
I am aware that the hon. Member’s constituency has been badly affected by flooding from Storms Babet and Henk during the winter of 2023-24. Sadly, more were flooded this January after heavy rainfall, and my thoughts are with those affected. As the former MP for Wakefield, I had 1,000 properties flooded in 2007, and I can tell her that the psychological impact on residents is very long lasting. I totally understand her desire to raise these matters on behalf of her constituents and the local communities she serves.
Engagement and collaboration are a key component of managing and mitigating flood risk, and I am pleased to hear that the hon. Member is in contact with the Environment Agency on these matters. I can confirm that her constituency is receiving £9.3 million from the Government’s flood investment programme this financial year, which is funding the repair and maintenance, as she said, of a number of crucial flood defences. As she mentioned Lincolnshire’s section 19 reports, I can say that officials tell me that they have been completed and that any decisions arising from them will take place in future funding years.
Work has started this month on phase 1 of the Lower Witham flood resilience project, which will support embankment assets. Phase 2 of the project, which is planned, will bring further investment in sustaining legacy assets while implementing adaptation measures to improve the resilience of the area to flooding.
The Environment Agency is working with partners to build an up-to-date model of the Lower Witham, to be completed this financial year, and it will be used to test future adaptive approaches and accurately assess flood risk. I will ask the Minister for Water and Flooding, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), to write to the hon. Member if there are any things that we cannot get through in the time available.
The River Slea flood resilience project is exploring a new, more sustainable solution to flood risk management in Sleaford. Public engagement has been undertaken with organisations and other stakeholders on this project. Ruskington is also being considered for a flood resilience project.
As set out by the Chancellor this week, in order to support the Government’s growth mission and plan for change, we are investing a record £4.2 billion over the next three years, from April 2026, to build new flood defences and to maintain and repair existing ones across the country. That is £1.4 billion each year. This is a 5% increase in our annual average investment compared with our existing spend of £2.65 billion over the past two years—2024-25 and 2025-26.
Our current investment programme is supporting 1,000 projects, which will help to protect 52,000 homes and businesses by March 2026. And through essential maintenance, a further 14,500 properties will have their expected level of protection maintained or restored. That is a total of 66,500 properties that will benefit, helping to secure jobs, deliver growth and protect against economic damage.
We have also unlocked £140 million from this investment to get 29 stalled projects moving. This is targeted at schemes that were ready to go, so that protection can be delivered faster for those who need it the most, and we have published the full list of funded schemes for this financial year.
The Government inherited flood assets in their poorest condition on record following years of under-investment, leaving 3,000 of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 key flood defence assets below the condition required. This Government are taking decisive action to fix the foundations, giving communities confidence that flood defences will protect them.
We are prioritising, over the current two spending years from 2024-25 and 2025-26, £108 million in repairing and restoring those critical assets. Last year, £36 million focused on damage from recent storms and flooding, with a further £72 million this year to ensure that defences are resilient, reliable and ready. In addition, environmental land management schemes present a valuable opportunity for supporting flooding and coastal erosion risk management, through direct funding of actions and providing a revenue stream to support landowners working with EA capital schemes, and through indirect actions that will lead to reduced watercourse maintenance requirements, increasing the lifespan of our assets.
The hon. Lady mentioned red diesel and I just wanted to make a quick point on that. The previous Government removed most red diesel entitlements from April 2022, but there are some exceptions. Risk management authorities, which include internal drainage boards, may use red diesel for drainage ditch clearance, including work relating to agriculture, horticulture and forestry. I hope that is a useful clarification.
Watercourse management responsibilities fall to different bodies. Riparian landowners whose land adjoins a watercourse, such as a drainage ditch, are required to keep those watercourses clear of anything that could be an obstruction. The EA has permissive powers to work on the main rivers, and lead local flood authorities or internal drainage boards have permissive powers for ordinary watercourses. The EA focuses on those activities that will achieve the greatest benefit in terms of protecting people and property from flooding. That, of course, can include dredging and clearing channels. In Lincolnshire, that often involves using the local IDBs.
The EA spends an average of £40 million a year on these activities to improve water flow in around 3,000 km of main rivers. The need for dredging is assessed on a location-by-location basis. The EA will work with local communities, IDBs and through public sector co-operation agreements to assess whether dredging is technically achievable and cost-effective, ensuring that it does not significantly increase flood risk downstream and that it is environmentally acceptable.
The hon. Lady asked about future funding reforms. The current approach to floods funding, introduced by a previous Government in 2011, neglects more innovative approaches. To address that, we have reviewed our approach and last week launched a consultation on proposals to reform the way we allocate funding to flood schemes. Our proposals will make it simpler for all risk management authorities to calculate their funding, benefiting all councils, including those that have less resource to commit to the application process. This should speed up the delivery of vital schemes and ensure that money is distributed more effectively across the country, including for rural and coastal communities, and poorer communities that have previously struggled to secure funding.
We will make it easier to invest in natural flood management schemes that also give benefits for nature, water resources and the fight against climate change. We are considering how communities can make better use of property flood resilience measures. Changes to the current approach to floods funding will be launched in time for the new floods investment programme, which will start in April 2026. The consultation is open to all and we encourage everyone with an interest to respond and help shape our future approach to flood funding.
This issue is at the very top of the Secretary of State’s priorities, which is why we set up a flood resilience taskforce to provide oversight of national and local flood resilience and preparedness. That taskforce represents a new approach that brings together representatives from national, regional and local government, the devolved Administrations, the emergency services, charities and environmental interest groups. We need to know what works and we are learning where we need to make changes. We have established action groups led by members to deliver progress on areas, including flood warnings, awareness of recovery and insurance schemes.
The Government fully support the vital role that internal drainage boards play in managing water and flood risk and in protecting the environment.
Dr Johnson
When I went around looking at the different areas of flooding in my constituency, I got a consistent message: that the EA had not performed as well as the IDBs and that it was costing more money per activity. In her final few minutes, can the Minister touch on how the IDBs can do more of the work and engage more local people in doing it for themselves?
Mary Creagh
The previous Government had allocated £75 million to the IDB fund; I am happy to say that in March we announced an additional £16 million boost to the fund. That creates a total of £91 million, which should enable IDBs to modernise and upgrade their assets and waterways so that they are fit for the future, improving water management for more than 400,000 hectares of agricultural land and about 91,000 homes and businesses. That includes three IDBs in the hon. Lady’s constituency: Black Sluice, Upper Witham and Witham First, which have received Government funding of about £10.4 million in grants from the IDB fund since 2024-25, to help with pumping station repairs and watercourse embankment repairs.
I am in my final minute. I encourage the hon. Lady’s constituents to sign up for flood warnings on gov.uk. It is vital that communities are in the communications chain so that they are aware of flood events, especially given that intense rainfall is expected this evening. I will endeavour to write to the hon. Lady about any other issues she may have.
Question put and agreed to.
Armed Forces Commissioner
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)
I am today announcing the launch of the recruitment campaign for the UK’s first ever Armed Forces Commissioner—an important step in this Government’s commitment to renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve.
As we set out in the strategic defence review, people are fundamental to UK defence and to delivering the transformation to which this Government are committed.
The creation of the AFC is a move of unprecedented support for our armed forces personnel and their families. The role will be subject to a full public appointment process, regulated and overseen by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
The AFC will be an independent champion for service personnel and their families, with authority and discretion to investigate a wide variety of welfare issues that impact service life. This could include issues related to kit and equipment, unacceptable behaviours, or service accommodation.
The commissioner will have new powers extending beyond anything seen before, including unprecedented access to UK defence sites to observe activity, access information and speak to personnel of all ranks and grades. The responsibilities of the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces will also transfer across to the AFC, who will continue to drive improvements and strengthen the fairness, effectiveness, and efficiency of the service complaints system. It is critically important to ensure the highest confidence for the armed forces community in the handling of the service complaints process, in particular the independence and transparency of the system.
The preferred candidate to become the AFC will also be subject to a pre-appointment hearing by the House of Commons Defence Committee. This will allow the Committee to scrutinise the position of the preferred candidate and publish a report setting out its views on their suitability.
In addition to being independent from the Ministry of Defence, the commissioner will strengthen Parliament’s oversight, knowledge and scrutiny of issues facing our armed forces personnel and their families by producing annual and thematic reports into the welfare issues they face. This will enable Parliament to hold the Ministry of Defence to account to ensure changes to policy and process can be brought about to improve lives.
Applications for the AFC will close on 11 July 2025, with the option to extend by two weeks depending on the diversity and quality of the candidate field. Sifting, shortlisting, and interviews will follow. The preferred candidate is expected to be identified by October 2025, with the HCDC pre-appointment hearing expected in November 2025. The successful candidate would then receive a confirmed offer of appointment subject to appropriate security clearance. We expect to have the new commissioner appointed by early 2026.
[HCWS700]
Patrick Finucane Inquiry
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)
I wish to provide an update to the House on the Government decision to establish an independent statutory inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane in February 1989.
Today, the Government have appointed the right hon. Sir Gary Hickinbottom as chair of the Patrick Finucane inquiry. The inquiry is being established under section 1 of the Inquiries Act 2005, with full powers, including the power to compel the production of documents, and to summon witnesses to give evidence on oath. The Government have also today appointed the Baroness O’Loan and Francesca Del Mese as assessors to the inquiry under section 11 of the Inquiries Act.
The appointment of Sir Gary follows my announcement, on 11 September 2024, that the Government will establish an independent statutory inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane. This decision was in response to the 2019 judgment of the Supreme Court, which found that all the previous investigations into the murder had been insufficient to enable the state to discharge its obligations under article 2 of the European convention on human rights.
The murder of Mr Finucane in front of his wife, Geraldine, who was also wounded, and his three children, was a barbarous and heinous crime and one which continues to highlight the legacy of the troubles in Northern Ireland. I commend and support the tireless campaign of Mrs Finucane and her family in seeking answers to the brutal murder of their loved one and I am confident that this inquiry will provide answers to the family who have suffered so terribly.
In determining who should chair the inquiry, I considered that in view of the nature of the evidence and questions to be tested by the Patrick Finucane inquiry, a judicial chairperson, sitting alone without a panel and with two assessors, would be most appropriate for the role.
Sir Gary has had a distinguished judicial career in England and Wales. He is currently President of Welsh Tribunals and member of the judicial openness and transparency board. He was made a full-time judge in 2000 and was appointed to a succession of judicial appointments in both the court and tribunal systems. In 2021, Sir Gary retired from the Court of Appeal to conduct a commission of inquiry into governance and corruption in the British Virgin Islands, on which he reported in April 2022.
Baroness O’Loan is a life peer appointed to the House of Lords in 2009. She became a member of the Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee in January 2025. Prior to that, she was a member of various House of Lords Select Committees from 2010 to 2024. Baroness O’Loan was the first Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland.
Francesca Del Mese is an international criminal and human rights lawyer with over 25 years of experience in rule of law and security sector reform, specialising in conflict-affected and fragile states and countries experiencing political transition. She serves as a member of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and is also a judge (recorder) of the Crown Court of England and Wales.
I am delighted that Sir Gary Hickinbottom has accepted this important role as chair of the Patrick Finucane inquiry and that Baroness O’Loan and Francesca Del Mese have accepted the important roles of assessors to the inquiry. I am confident that, together, their valuable knowledge, experience and professionalism will be of great benefit to the work of the Patrick Finucane inquiry.
The chair will now meet with the family and consult them on the terms of reference.
[HCWS699]
Statutory Instruments (Amendment) Bill [HL]
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to this Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I will not detain your Lordships with a lengthy restatement of our concerns about the Bill, because we made them clear in Committee. I simply say that we have issues with the way it seeks to grant powers to the House of Lords that are arguably greater than the powers afforded to the elected House. Having put those concerns on the record, we did not seek to amend the Bill on Report and will not seek to delay its progress, but we cannot support it.
I close by thanking the Minister for her work on this Bill and, especially, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for his engagement with me throughout its passage. He graciously and generously took time to meet to discuss the details before Committee, which was greatly appreciated.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for bringing forward this Bill. It has been an excellent opportunity to highlight the importance of secondary legislation. This Government place great importance on Parliament having the information it needs to scrutinise. From the introduction of the delegated powers toolkit to an enhanced training offer for civil servants at all levels, the Government are taking steps to demonstrate how seriously they take secondary legislation.
I also thank the clerks and advisers of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, as well as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, for their diligent work in scrutinising the secondary legislation the Government lay before Parliament. I remind the House that my husband is a member of the JCSI.
I take this opportunity to thank the National Archives for maintaining legislation.gov.uk, which is a valuable resource for all Members of your Lordships’ House, as well as the general public, and for its work in administering the correction slip process, which the Bill would place on a statutory footing. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, the Government disagree that this is a necessary service for the correction of insubstantial errors. We remain of the view that there has always been a need to strike the balance between providing the Government with the flexibility they need to deliver for the country and ensuring that the information they provide is clear and explains why legislation is necessary.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Will the noble Baroness take this opportunity to reassert the principle that secondary legislation should never seek to move away from the intention of primary legislation?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an excellent point. As the Attorney-General has made clear in several speeches, that is absolutely the intention and objective of this Government’s legislative programme.
I do not wish to repeat the reasons why the Government cannot support the Bill. We will continue our efforts to improve the secondary legislation that is laid before Parliament, including the documents that accompany it, but we do not agree that further legislation is the way. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated at all stages of this Private Member’s Bill and for the opportunity to discuss the importance of secondary legislation. As ever, your Lordships’ House’s ability to scrutinise is second to none.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
I am most grateful to the Minister and those who have spoken for the kind words that have been said.
AI and Creative Technologies (Communications and Digital Committee Report)
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That this House takes note of the Report from the Communications and Digital Committee AI and creative technology scaleups: less talk, more action (2nd Report, HL Paper 71).
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, this is the Communications and Digital Committee’s final report from my time as chair, so I not only thank the committee staff and my fellow committee members for all their work and contributions to this inquiry but extend my sincere thanks to all colleagues with whom I worked over the past three years for everything they have done so that, collectively, we have been able to produce some high-quality work that has had impact. Likewise, I am hugely grateful to the witnesses who appeared before us and submitted written evidence to all our inquiries. That is particularly relevant to this report on scaling up AI and creative tech, because we drew so much on the work we did in preceding inquiries, especially those on large language models, the creative industries and digital markets.
This debate comes at the end of London Tech Week, where so many of the UK’s fantastic tech founders have spoken or been in attendance. We have so much tech and entrepreneurial talent to celebrate in this country. From the off, I emphasise how proud I am of the innovators and risk-takers who set up on their own to establish a business and go on to thrive and achieve great success, even if they have had to experience more than one failure along the way, because if there is one message that landed powerfully with me during this inquiry it is that we do not say or do enough as political leaders to celebrate and support our risk-takers and wealth generators. They do not just generate wealth for themselves; they help our economy grow, create jobs and provide products and services that are valued by consumers and other businesses alike.
I cannot speak for Oxford Ionics, which was just this week acquired by a US rival—I offer my sincere congratulations to its founders on their success and all they have achieved—but I am genuinely sorry about its loss to the UK as a British business, even if, under new ownership, it continues to operate here. As I shall come on to explain, what we have seen this week is another example of a worrying trend. Our report described the UK as an “incubator economy”: a great place to begin, but too often it is other countries that get to cash in. If we are serious about growth and retaining our position as a global leader in the tech sector, this situation has to change.
Our inquiry on scaling up looked at the causes of this problem and what steps the Government must take to support innovative technology companies to grow into thriving British businesses that want to stay here in the UK. We focused on AI and creative tech because these are two areas in which the UK has strong foundations and significant potential, but many of our findings apply to innovative tech scale-ups more broadly.
This failure to scale is not a static problem. It is a dynamic and damaging cycle. When our most promising firms exit early or scale overseas, we do not simply lose their immediate economic value; we also hamper the formation of the kind of ecosystem that drives sustainable innovation. In the United States, successful founders reinvest their capital and experience into the next generation of start-ups. This creates a powerful flywheel of talent, mentorship and capital. In the UK, existing gaps in funding, expertise and confidence will only widen if we do not retain and champion our top entrepreneurial talent.
This is playing out already. London, I am sad to report, is no longer Europe’s leading technology hub, according to Dealroom’s latest Global Tech Ecosystem Index. A recent survey of founders by Tech Nation found that 43% were actively considering leaving Britain. We are also struggling to hold on to the few British tech companies that have scaled domestically. This week’s unicorn is not the only one galloping overseas. Alphawave, Wise and Deliveroo have departed to the US by way of acquisition or relisting this year. Unless we act decisively, we will continue to erode the foundations required for long-term global competitiveness. As much as the Minister will not welcome me saying so, the day-one rights and other measures in the Employment Rights Bill will only deter further UK tech firms from scaling and staying here.
We received the Government’s response to our report in April. While it was supportive of our findings, it was thin, pointing to a series of policy announcements due in the spring. It is now summer, and while the Government have shed light on some issues through their announcements this week, we are still in the dark on several others. I will address each of these in turn, and I have several questions for the Minister.
I start with funding. The UK’s lack of scale-up capital is the most important barrier that needs to be tackled. The Council for Science and Technology has highlighted improvements in early-stage investment, such as seed funding and start-up investment, but it has stressed that UK companies have been “starved” by a lack of scale-up funding. The Capital Markets Industry Taskforce identified a $30 billion gap between the UK and Silicon Valley for funding rounds of more than $100 million.
A lack of domestic institutional investment is part of the problem. Just 10% of Britain’s venture capital pool comes from pension funds. In the US it is more than 70%, and Canadian pension funds invest 15 times what UK pension funds invest in private equity and VC. The Government acknowledged this funding gap for scale-ups and pointed to ongoing pension reforms, such as the new Mansion House accord. That is welcome in principle. However, the push-back from pension funds against a mandate to invest in UK-based assets suggests that these reforms may not be a silver bullet. Personally, I am very nervous about mandating, but I also know that we cannot afford to wait years for pension reforms to trickle through. We must actively crowd in capital now. When will the Government’s initiatives result in tangible improvements in capital access for our most innovative firms? How are the Government making sure that voluntary commitments translate into real action from institutional investors?
The committee heard that another source of confusion for businesses looking to scale is the plethora of disconnected programmes and government grants available to them. This has arisen over many years and is not a new problem, but I have described it in the past as a kind of bowl of spaghetti drowned in alphabet soup. In our report, we recommended that the Government evaluate the impact and join-up of initiatives administered by UKRI and the British Business Bank in particular. I was therefore pleased to hear Tom Adeyoola, Innovate UK’s new chair, acknowledge that the current system is a hindrance rather than an enabler, and I welcome his ambition to bring greater focus to the agency because it is really needed. I was also relieved to discover, since our report, that the British Business Bank has retired its various sub-brands. This is a step in the right direction towards simplifying the schemes that were previously on offer, but the Chancellor’s welcome decision this week to increase the BBB’s financing capacity makes the need for a clearer strategy and a more coherent offer for scale-ups even more important. Can the Minister provide an update on UKRI’s review of its portfolio of funding and support to SMEs, which was due this spring? Can she offer examples of how the memorandum of understanding between UKRI and the BBB is creating a clearer pathway of support for scale-ups?
The Government promised us that their new business growth service will
“ensure a joined-up, coherent approach to the government’s suite of business support programmes”.
That would indeed be welcome, but I have concerns that this will instead become yet another thread in an already tangled web, and that is before we take account of the new sovereign AI unit announced this week. Can the Minister clarify how the business growth service will streamline the journey for innovative firms? Can she reassure me that the partnership between the BBB and the sovereign AI unit will truly put boosters on our emerging AI champions?
Our evidence was clear about the strategic importance of AI in driving innovation and growth across multiple sectors. The AI Opportunities Action Plan, which the Government published in January, was a good start. It set out ambitious proposals that match the scale of AI’s transformative potential, which have now been backed up by funding for delivery in this week’s spending review.
However, a plan is only the start. The Government must be laser-focused on removing obstacles to growth for home-grown AI companies. For example, access to compute was consistently raised in our evidence as a critical enabler for AI scale-ups. We heard that the Government’s decision last August to cancel investment in the Edinburgh exascale supercomputer left the entrepreneurial community deeply unimpressed. It was therefore good to hear this week that it will now receive £750 million of government funding, but the Government’s hokey-cokey on this issue has been damaging and means that we have lost valuable time. The Government promised in their action plan to expand public compute infrastructure 20-fold by 2030, with a long-term strategy published by the spring, but that strategy has yet to materialise. Can the Minister confirm whether it will be published before the Summer Recess?
Our report also emphasised that effective and agile regulation is crucial if we are to support innovation. However, we heard widespread concerns about confusion in the current regulatory landscape, particularly in relation to AI. We need proportionate oversight that gives confidence without stifling innovation or creating new barriers to entry. It is home-grown AI companies, not big tech incumbents, that will drive the innovation needed to realise the UK’s AI potential.
Open markets and open competition are essential to ensure that they have a fighting chance, which is why successful implementation of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act is vital. We welcomed the creation of the Regulatory Innovation Office, which has been nicknamed RIO, but we emphasised the importance of clarifying its remit and its interrelationship with other regulatory bodies. Unfortunately, those concerns have not yet been addressed, and the extent of its powers over other regulators remains unclear. I am pleased that the Government were wise enough to appoint my noble friend Lord Willetts as the chair of RIO, and I am delighted that he is speaking in today’s debate. None the less, as the person accountable to Parliament, can the Minister provide detail on how she expects RIO to drive behavioural change to boost innovation across sectors?
I turn to the createch sector, where two UK strengths—creativity and technological innovation—meet. For those not familiar with createch, it covers gaming but also visual effects and that sort of thing. The think-tank Erskine Analysis estimates that createch companies could generate up to £18 billion in additional gross value added over the next decade, with the right support. We found that the wider issues of funding and co-ordination are particularly acute for createch firms. The creative sector has suffered from poor investor understanding and a lack of specialised investment vehicles. In addition, various schemes administered across DCMS and UKRI have paused and restarted, leading to confusion and duplication. As I said before, that is not a new problem; it has been the case over a period of time. It is worth noting that, while the Government tout the creative industries as one of their eight key sectors, it was not mentioned once in the Chancellor’s spending review speech on Wednesday.
Let me add that I would never criticise Ministers, or indeed the Prime Minister, for meeting tech founders. That is good; it is when Ministers do not pay regard to other important sectors that trouble is caused.
In their response to us, the Government promised that all would be revealed in an industrial strategy sector plan for the creative industries and told us that UKRI would develop a new strategy for the creative sector. So when will either of those be published?
I cannot not mention the issue of AI and copyright. Unfortunately, despite admirable efforts by many noble Lords—I am pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, will be speaking shortly—progress remains elusive. Now that Parliament has dispatched the Data (Use and Access) Bill, focus turns to the Government’s commitment to host industry roundtables. Clearly, these must be successful, but, for me, when they were announced, they elicited a horrible sense of déjà vu. I worry that the Government’s mishandling will have made the prospect of negotiations even harder. I hope I am wrong, because our inquiry made it clear, as did every inquiry through which the committee examined the issue of copyright in an AI world over the last three years, that innovation and creativity must go hand in hand, not toe to toe. The one thing all parties can agree on is that resolution of this issue is urgent.
In conclusion, the Government’s tone on many of the issues covered in our report is encouraging, but warm words do not scale companies and time is not on our side. While the Government consult and reorganise, the global market races ahead. Other countries are acting boldly, and we must do the same. We are doing a disservice to our strong start-up ecosystem and our brightest AI and createch companies if we do not support them to achieve their full potential and become world leaders on a global stage. And, my God, do we have the talent: GBx, a group that brings together Brits in Silicon Valley, is calling the British talent that dominates so much of the big tech based over there “power Brits”. We need those power Brits to want to be here in the UK.
The committee’s message was clear: we have many of the ingredients needed to make the UK a home for scale-up success stories. What we lack is action, and if we do not act soon we will be left only to dream of unicorns, never mind bemoan the ones that gallop away. I look forward to the contributions of all noble Lords during this debate. Some illustrious speakers are going to follow me, and I wish both maiden speakers all the very best.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Before my noble friend sits down, the problem with AI is that it uses astronomical amounts of electricity, and we have some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world. Does she think electricity prices are going to inhibit the growth of AI in this country?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My noble friend is right that the cost of energy in the UK is very much a deterrent to a lot of inward investment. It is not deterring them completely, but I was talking only yesterday to a very senior figure at Amazon and, as you would expect, he was drawing comparisons between us and France. I said earlier that London is no longer the leading tech hub, and according to one of these analysts the country that is really champing at our heels is France.
I beg to move.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I hope we will see the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, here for the wind-up, because there is a wicked old habit in the House of Commons of intervening very early in a debate to which you have not put your name, so you are in Hansard but you can then be on the train home.
My thanks go to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, not only for her introduction today but for her chairmanship of this committee, of which I have been proud to be a member. It is the third such report that the committee has brought about under her stewardship, and it is a good example of how Select Committees can carry out programmes of work that are essential in working through legislation.
I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in her place, and I look forward to her speech. This last week, which is coming to an end, has been a bit bruising. I have never been a fan of ping-pong; I do not think it is the best way of getting a resolution. We thought some 20 or 30 years ago—but you must not rush things in the Lords—that we should adopt the approach of the American Congress: when they get stuck on a piece of legislation, they appoint a joint committee with the task of bringing forward a solution.
I also share the wish of good luck given by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, to the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Massey. My only caveat is that I see that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has chosen a Yorkshire designation for his title, when he was born in Lancashire. Such apostasy is noted.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, has given us a good start by looking forward and not brooding over the past. I am afraid that I have now reached the stage in my career where I do brood over the past. It is about 60 years since I first came to be interviewed for a job in the Fabian Society by the late Arthur Skeffington. I have worked in and around this place ever since. What struck me in preparing for this debate was that I was much inspired in my late teens and early 20s by two speeches. The first was John F Kennedy’s inaugural speech. He announced that
“we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”.
The second was Harold Wilson’s on 1 October 1963, when he called for a new Britain “forged in the white heat” of a technology revolution. I call attention to them today to draw a comparison between the upbeat optimism of a period when a US President could call on the best instincts of an outward-looking and generous-spirited country and the narrow self-interest of today’s incumbent. In the 1960s, we were still living in a post-war settlement made by that “never again” generation, but the very title of the report we are debating today, Less Talk, More Action, suggests a judgment on the Government’s strategy very far from the vision and sense of urgency contained in Wilson’s white heat of technology speech. The whole thrust of the report, and the dissection of it today by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, is to urge on the Government clear objectives and urgent decisions.
The challenge is clear. The changes now in train brought about by AI are as great and fundamental as those brought about by the first industrial revolution 400 years ago. Yet there is a worrying one-sidedness about the Government’s AI strategy, as they navigate a path between the tech firms’ freedom to exploit their technology regardless of any harm inflicted on the creative sector and creatives who fear for their livelihoods if the fruit of their hard labour is freely available for commercial exploitation.
Those fears are well founded, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, reminded us. In the case of the creative industries, AI presents a real dilemma which needs a considered and rational response from the Government to a difficult question: how do we protect the intellectual property rights of creators while encouraging responsible innovation and investment in the development of AI? In this House during the passage of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, we tried very hard to offer constructive and workable solutions, but the Government have repeatedly demurred, and ping-pong, as I have said, is not the most efficient way of making progress on complex legislation. It does not help that the Government have during these debates increasingly given the impression that their main objective with that Bill is to convince not the House of Commons or the House of Lords but another house altogether—the White House.
In fact, the Government’s approach during ping-pong brought to mind the great Tommy Cooper in pulling various rabbits out of the legislative hat—none of which remotely resembled a rabbit that could reassure the creative sector. Nevertheless, one of these rabbits may yet have some life in it if, and only if, the Government demonstrate a genuine determination to arrive at a solution that is in in the interests of the creative industries as well as of the tech companies. I refer to the proposed parliamentary working group. One of the most constructive periods in a long parliamentary career was my time on the Puttnam committee leading up to the Communications Act 2003 and the creation of Ofcom. That too was also under a Labour Government with a large majority, but that Government showed their willingness to listen to a knowledgeable, cross-party committee making constructive recommendations, with an independent chair trusted by all sides. The committee must not be a fig leaf which the Government exploit to force through their own proposals in the face of opposition from the creative industries.
As I suspect we will hear later, this is not just about the creative industries. My full title is Lord McNally of Blackpool, and this morning I received a very persuasive brief from the mayor’s office in Blackpool on Blackpool and the Fylde coast’s bid for an AI growth zone. As well as the specifics of AI in terms of culture and creative industries, there is a real possibility of AI being used as an engine for growth. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, warned us, it is an opportunity that if we do not take we will pay for it at our peril.
We need an imaginative regulatory intervention which satisfies both rights holders and big tech companies. I believe the Select Committee has played important part in informing this debate and this report sits well with its predecessors. It has been right in reminding us that AI is not a sector but a technology and that it must find its place in a coherent, cross-government vision that can drive innovation across all eight of the Government’s key growth sectors.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, we are here to discuss a really important issue. I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, was able to secure the debate. As a member of the committee that worked on the report, I am indebted to her for her tireless efforts as chair of that committee—not just for all the behind-the-scenes work but for pulling together such a disparate group of people, often with disparate views, and bringing together something that I hope will be seen as really worth while. I also thank the staff who served us so well and made a positive contribution to our efforts.
If the country is to stand a chance of securing the growth it seeks, then the sector we are discussing today will be a crucial engine to get us there. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was absolutely right to say
“we want nothing less than to make the UK the technology centre of Europe. This is the path we need to take to create new jobs, new growth and new prosperity in every corner of our country”.
No one would argue with that. However, it was not Rachel Reeves who said this; those were the words of George Osborne, quoted in a 2014 report of what became the ScaleUp Institute. Ten years later, the ambition remains intact, but so do many of the problems that UK companies spotted then which prevented them fulfilling their potential and scaling up. Many of those obstacles apply to all sectors. There are some, however, that particularly afflict AI and the creative tech industries.
Writing 10 years after George Osborne, the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Gatley, referred to the “valley of death” that continued to lie in wait for too many of the companies which successfully start in the UK. We are still a wonderful country in which to start a business and our rate of entrepreneurship is second to none, but those companies come to an early end far too often. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, was penning the foreword to the latest report from the ScaleUp Institute. Although that report is positive about the achievements of the past 10 years, it acknowledges that many of the issues addressed in 2014 remain problematic now. The UK is an innovative developer in AI as well as the creative tech sectors—indeed, we are a leader in creative tech in many ways—but, as our report stressed, unless we can provide, quickly, the environment necessary to enable those companies to scale up, and with them many other businesses, they will leave.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, wrote and says now, we are in danger of becoming an “incubator” country for other economies that will happily take our talent and help them scale up. We took evidence from a wide base, including some really exciting and enthusiastic entrepreneurs. They were by no means unanimously critical of the environment they found themselves in, and their asks were not greedy. The loudest call, echoing that of a decade earlier, was the one that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, referred to: the spaghetti of different grants and apparent help that would be on offer if they could access it. Some of them told us that in fact they had to pay consultants to help them find a way through the morass of stuff that was on offer and, by the time that they had done the sums, it was just easier and more cost effective to manage without.
That does not sound like much progress on 10 years earlier. We are assured that the British Business Bank is on the case. I am not a cynic; I like to believe it is. But—I think like most of us—I would like to see the evidence. So I will withhold my judgment until I can see the road map that will enable an ambitious AI company or a creative tech company to know just where it should go to access, at one step, the help that it needs to become a growing business. The unicorns, as we have heard, are escaping the country, and we cannot afford to lose them.
To help along that journey, I think that specialist hubs are the answer. We have heard about this in the past. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us a little more about how these hubs are taking shape. At their best, they should be the answer, providing not just information, mentorships and the sort of mutually supportive ecology that we need but the compute that is required. It may not be on the scale that we have heard in the past, because some of the AI companies are capable of being very efficient in their use of AI. If we look at what is going on in China now, we see that the compute required is a fraction of what we used to think was essential. Nevertheless, putting things together in specialist hubs around the country will not only spread the gains but spread the pain.
I hope we will be able to hear more about that. We are waiting for the latest incarnation of the Government's industrial strategy. As ever, more detail would be much appreciated—as much as the Minister can give us today. Specifically, AI needs to be assured that the Government will not go backwards and forwards, as it did on the Edinburgh scheme. Without wishing to venture too much into territory that has caused such pain, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to in some detail, the issue of copyright hangs over the AI sector. If our specialist AI companies are to thrive, they need to know exactly what environment they are working in and what they are going to be using.
Any uncertainty is a deterrent to investment, and so it is with uncertainty over the future for fundraising and the exact proposals on pension funds. Personally, I share the qualms of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, about dictating where pension funds should invest my money, but the idea of putting funds together to give them more clout and therefore spread the risk means that they should be capable of investing a little more in UK companies and more risk-taking ventures.
Creative tech has different issues, however. There needs to be a broader understanding of what a large industry this is and how highly the UK is regarded in it internationally. A deeper appreciation of the value of special effects in theatre and movies, for instance, would have a very special effect on investment in that sector, where we are still a leader. The difficulty in keeping talent is a common refrain among tech companies. Higher salaries are part of the draw, but not everything. An appreciation of the value of wealth creation needs to be filtered through from an early age in this country. This is Money Education Week, and I would like to think that one of the spin-offs will be an understanding that wealth creation spreads among the population; it does not just create people who are going to spend an awful lot on handbags and so on.
Another reason why enabling companies to scale up in the UK is so crucial is to spread the wealth. Making employee share schemes generous and deep is another way that can help to do that. I would like to hear more from the Government about how they propose to make everyone a shareholder, or at least an investor, in the company in which they work. It has long been a discussed ambition in this country, but it does change attitudes. So I hope that we will hear something positive from the Minister today. I am not downhearted. We have the talent; we just need to channel it a little more effectively.
Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to be making my maiden speech in this House on this important issue affecting our country and, indeed, the growth agenda of the Government. I begin by extending my thanks to Black Rod, the Clerk of the Parliaments and the doorkeepers, who have eased my entry into this House with a combination of helpfulness, friendliness and great professionalism. I also thank my two supporters, my noble friend Lord Harrington, who was at university with me and has been a great friend ever since, and my noble friend Lord Polak, with whom I have enjoyed two decades of happy collaboration at CFI.
As a Hampstead-born lad, I have always remembered that my grandparents fled Odesa and found refuge in this great country. I met my Venetian wife, Fiorella, at 15 years of age at school here in London. We have been happily married for over 40 years and have three wonderful children, Lucie, Edward and Eloise. I arrive in this House as a lifelong Conservative, having started my political journey in the summer of 1978 as a research assistant to Peter Walker, later Lord Walker of Worcester, who many in this House I am sure will remember. Some 44 years later, I had the privilege of serving as the chief executive of the Conservative Party under the leadership of Rishi Sunak and Kemi Badenoch. I am honoured now to become a parliamentarian amongst you and look forward to making my contribution and serving the vital work of this House.
In parallel to my political interests, I have been involved in the financial services sector for over four decades, working in fund management and capital markets. I worked at a large global financial institution for 20 years, but subsequently founded a smaller financial firm, so—unusually perhaps—I have led businesses at both ends of the scale in terms of the size of the companies. My experience as a business owner and entrepreneur has taught me to recognise the importance of smaller companies, and I am keenly aware of the challenges that they face. I declare my interest as a director and shareholder in financial services companies, as stated in the register.
The current debate on how to scale AI and other creative British technology firms is indeed critical to the future of this country, as other noble Lords have said. As the study says, if we do not play to win, we risk becoming also-rans, which could damage our long-term growth prospects. The committee, under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Stowell, has done an excellent job in collating all the evidence and articulating a clear set of recommendations. Given my current roles as chairman of a small capitalisation asset manager—an asset manager of small companies—and chairman of a capital markets firm specialising in AIM, the junior market of the London Stock Exchange, I want to focus on two of the recommendations: accelerating financial reforms and championing entrepreneurial success, as my noble friend mentioned.
Tech firms in the UK are experiencing real difficulties in accessing capital from our public markets. The first issue, I am afraid to say, is one of increasing regulation that has beset our industry since the crisis of 2008. The FCA, like the rest of the Civil Service, has grown extensively since then, and its rulebook now extends to over 10,000 pages. Since 2022, the number of employees has expanded by over 30%, from 3,800 to 5,000, a growth rate which greatly exceeds the growth of the industry it regulates. Leaving aside the huge costs of regulation, the role of the regulator, while well intentioned, has had a suffocating effect on the industry, particularly on smaller companies, which constitute the engine room for AI and creative tech.
An example of this suffocation is the story of the decline of equity research over the last decade. One of the many legitimate complaints of the tech sector is that there are now few analysts covering small cap companies on AIM. They are right, as the evidence shows that for companies of under £500 million, there are four analysts covering a single company in the US but only one in the UK. This lack of research has a direct bearing on private and institutional demand for these equities and is the result of an EU rule brought in in 2014, as some noble Lords may recall, called MiFID II. This was designed to protect retail clients and provide transparency for institutions, but it has instead rendered much equity research uneconomic. This leaves the private sector less informed on public companies and reliant on the internet or non-independent research. The irony here is that the intention was to protect private investors from research that they might not understand, but in practice the result is a dearth of research and consequently less investment in the sector.
This needs a total rethink. The chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, Dame Julia Hoggett, put the situation very well:
“We also need to rebuild our risk culture in the UK. Since the financial crisis, UK markets have become known for their focus on managing downside risks—often for good reason. But taking an appropriate amount of informed and rewarded risk is an inherent part of well-functioning and liquid capital markets”.
Somehow, we need to reintroduce this culture into our country.
One of the side-effects of this risk-averse culture is, of course, that as a country we fail to eat our own cooking. While US pension funds invest 40% of their assets in domestic equities, the comparable figure for the UK is only 4%. The argument that the UK constitutes only 3% of the world’s index simply does not wash. Australia, for example, invests 24% of its pension assets in its domestic markets, yet it represents only 1.5% of the world index. In order to restore the vibrancy of our markets, another vital step must be to actually invest in our own companies, both listed and unlisted, and the Government have been across this. They have followed up the Mansion House compact introduced by Jeremy Hunt with the Mansion House accord, and I welcome the announcement this week of the British Business Bank investing a further £2.5 billion a year in start-ups and scale-ups. This is indeed welcome news and will potentially get the ball rolling again, although clearly a huge gap still remains.
Another way of stimulating domestic demand for UK equities is to use the tax system to create incentives for investors and founders to deploy capital and stay the course in the medium to long run. The Government raise funds from private investors very successfully in the gilt market. One reason for this is that gilts and other sterling corporate bonds are exempt from capital gains tax. This has been highly effective and leads UK investors to prefer sterling bonds over other countries and other currencies. Why do we not do the same with AIM stocks?
My suggestion would be to introduce this after a holding period of, say, five years. This would incentivise entrepreneurs and investors to take a medium view and look to scale up in the UK. If the cost of this is too great, then tapering should be considered where the rate of CGT falls in line with extended holding periods. This measure would echo the capital gains tax regime introduced in 1998 by the Labour Government, where, after a holding period of only two years, capital gains fell to 10%. Indeed, this was the incentive that, in part, led me to leave my well-paid corporate job to found my boutique in 2004.
The other measure that has been mentioned is stamp duty at 0.5% charged on buying UK shares. It costs 0.5% to buy British Telecom, but not for Deutsche Telekom. Does this make sense when we want to promote UK equity ownership? It is time to act decisively and boldly if we are to arrest our relative decline. The opportunity is substantial and we are indeed getting on the front foot, but I urge the Government to focus on countering risk aversion among regulators and pension funds and to create incentives for entrepreneurs to start businesses that can be scaled and become significant in the UK.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Massey on an excellent maiden speech. The maiden speech in this House is an opportunity to introduce oneself to many Peers, though I have to say that, looking around, several of us have known my noble friend for almost 50 years. I remember that he was involved in university politics, as I was. He, of course, was much better at it than I was: the stars were my noble friend Lord Massey and, if I may say so, my noble friend Lord Moylan. After that, we worked together as parliamentary researchers. He was researching with great skill for Peter Walker, and I was researching for Nigel Lawson—a reminder of the wide range of political opinions that the Conservative Party embraces at its best. After that, he made his career in the City, joining as a trainee and becoming the CEO of a major City company. All of us in this House look forward to the benefit of his expertise and understanding of financial services, as we have heard already this morning.
I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on an excellent introduction to a very important report, and I should declare my interest as chair of GenIP, a company applying AI, and as chair of the Regulatory Innovation Office. This report that we are considering is in many ways one report in a trilogy. It follows on from an excellent report by the Science and Technology Committee on engineering biology and it will be followed by a further report from the Science and Technology Committee specifically on the scale-up challenge. I think those three reports together are likely to contain a single very important shared message about the scale-up challenge facing the UK. It is absolutely right that we are very good at those early-stage start-ups but not so good at funding companies as they grow. That is the challenge.
The analysis in the report is striking, and I will draw attention to some features. Sometimes, we have a soft spot for SMEs and small businesses as a group. What the report focuses on is not the SMEs which—for perfectly legitimate reasons—are stable and operating at a certain scale with no great plans to grow; it is the gazelles, the rapidly growing companies, that really matter, and they can be counted in the low tens of thousands. In other words, this is a manageable challenge. We are not talking about 5 million SMEs; we are talking about 10,000—perhaps 20,000—high-performing, high-growth companies. It should not be beyond us to construct policies that support that crucial sector of the British economy.
There are also very trenchant observations about the City and financial services. We have already heard some observations on that from my noble friend Lord Massey. Having worked on trying to get investment into technology start-ups in different ways, I think it was best summarised for me by someone who said, “If you are trying to raise money for your technology start-up in London, take your chief finance officer; if you are trying to raise the money in New York, take your chief technology officer”. The Americans wanted to understand the technology, and that is what excited them. For the Brits, it was all too often a matter of wanting to know about the cash flow forecasts three years out—which are invented figures when you are at the cutting edge of new technologies.
That is where the culture change is needed. It is a very significant challenge because early specialisation in our education system is one reason this happens. There are lots of people taking powerful, commercial investment decisions in the City of London who stopped studying sciences at the age of 16. They are less comfortable with these sorts of decisions than American investors, who have often, in the course of a far longer American higher education—we have the western world’s youngest graduates—studied sciences alongside an MBA or finance. That equips them for these decisions far better than us.
The fundamental challenge is how we can grow the start-ups to scale up and beyond. Here, of course, the VC community functions very differently in the US and the UK. The VC community in the US is a mechanism for putting more money into these companies so they grow to be very substantial. All too often, the VC community in the UK is putting in sufficient money to get a good sale price when they are sold to a far larger US company. As one American investor said to me, “The great advantage of the British system is that you grow the world’s best corporate veal”. They will turn it into beef, but we grow the veal. What can we do about that?
For me, the worst two missed opportunities were Solexa and DeepMind. Solexa was the world’s leading genetic sequencing technology company, which was sold to Illumina. DeepMind was a world leader in machine learning and was sold to Google. It is easy to stand back and criticise the investor. If you ask Demis Hassabis why he sold DeepMind to Google, however, he would say that to carry out the functions of DeepMind, he needed about $1 billion a year worth of compute capacity. There was no way that the UK—either in the public or in the private sector—was going to have the resources to deliver that amount of compute power. The report is absolutely right on the importance of investing in more powerful computing, and from the public spending Statement earlier this week, it sounds as though that is finally happening.
I have concluded from stories like Solexa and DeepMind that the minimal, most modest and reasonable objective for public policy should be to support these companies effectively for a sufficiently long time. That way, even if they are eventually sold to the Americans, their roots in the UK would be deep enough that it would be a rational decision from an American corporate owner not to shift all the activities to the west coast but to keep them functioning in the UK. It is at least good news that we still have a world-class centre of genetic sequencing in Cambridge and that DeepMind is key to the Knowledge Quarter in King’s Cross. That is the minimum we should aim for, and that itself requires public support for these companies going on for far longer than we have often been able to maintain.
We sometimes think that America has a better risk culture than us, but often, if you look behind the Jeffersonian rhetoric, you find a Hamiltonian state which, through federal agencies and state support, funds their technology start-ups for far longer and far closer to commercialisation than we purists in the UK who stop the public support too soon.
As chair of RIO, I should briefly comment on the report’s section on RIO. I have been chairing the Regulatory Innovation Office for three months and I report to Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament for our work. The aim of RIO is quite simply to tackle the obstacles that stand in the way of the successful development of new technologies and innovation. We have been set some priority areas which are not permanently fixed, and we can move on and add new priorities. At the moment, our four priority areas we are working on are: drones and other autonomous systems; space, particularly but not solely space launch; synthetic biology, or engineering biology as it is sometimes called; and, most revenant to this debate, AI. We are not trying to cover all of AI; we are particularly focusing on AI in medicine and healthcare.
We are trying to make progress, but often you find that, because these are general-purpose technologies, there is no single regulator involved. When you are dealing with a general-purpose technology, it is quite a sensible approach to say that a regulator will focus on a particular use, rather than having a single regulator for all the different ways in which a technology might be applied. Then, however, it is important that we try to bring the different regulators together; provide help for innovators and start-ups with a road map for how to find a way through; speed things up by regulatory clearance being simultaneous, not sequential, whenever possible; providing information about who does what; and perhaps have a lead regulator. There are lots of practical things we can do to help start-ups through this complicated regulatory environment.
While we are talking about complexity, perhaps I can finally, very briefly, comment on the concern about the complexity of the system, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, has already referred. I fully realise there are so many different instruments and programmes involved. Behind it, there is a kind of logic, and I pay tribute to the Science Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, who is trying to bring this out and make a more coherent system out of it. There are research councils for upstream funding and small amounts of money for a whole range of research, including curiosity-driven research. Innovate UK is the next stage—I am sorry I am describing this sequentially, but it is a useful framework—providing grants for practical applied innovation closer to market. Then, you would hope that the British Business Bank can step in, and we need closer relationships between Innovate UK and the British Business Bank. After that, the National Wealth Fund comes into play. Those should be in a seamless route of support, from the earliest stage in the lab, right through to full-scale companies. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, is actively trying to achieve that; I am sure his work will be informed by the excellent report from the committee.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I add my welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Massey. I also look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Evans. I thank the committee for its very valuable report, and for the determination of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and her colleagues, not to split the interests of the creative, creative tech and AI communities but to try and see them as a unified whole. I really appreciated that.
It is hugely important, and the committee was right, to highlight the serious risk of the UK becoming an incubator only for foreign economies. Most importantly, the committee’s assertion that AI is not a sector but a technology is profound and so often overlooked. It is a technology whose impact on specific domains is hugely different. By failing to consider it domain by domain, we are failing to create opportunity for homegrown AI companies to dominate in specialist areas. We are also perhaps failing to consider its impact overall over the whole of society. I really did appreciate that.
My remarks are going to be about data. The report recognises that data will be central to the AI revolution. It usefully highlights both the lack of data for training and the view that more is not always more. Given that my views on the data owned by the creative industries are so liberally distributed across Hansard, I want to talk about two other datasets and make the case that it is not only cash and compute but valuing data that will support the committee’s objective of ensuring that the tech revolution is a success in the UK.
This week I received a message from someone privy to discussions about the plans for the national data library—a project that enjoys a great deal of support from Members of your Lordships’ House and that the Minister, in Committee on the Data (Use and Access) Bill, suggested made redundant the idea of designating certain valuable or sensitive datasets as sovereign data assets. I want to be clear: I believe the Minister at the time was hopeful that the issues of privacy, value to the public purse and democratic values that were integral to our concept of a sovereign data asset would be covered by the national data library scheme—same idea, different name. But my correspondent, who himself works in tech and is a serial entrepreneur, explained that currently the tech companies are heavily lobbying government to share NHS patient data in that context, on the promise of streamlining NHS bureaucracy. Sharing the entire UK population’s NHS data is an enormous decision and has privacy and cost implications, but possibly the key point for today’s debate is that it has profound implications for who, how and on what basis—and, importantly, in which jurisdiction—the benefits accrue from innovations, commercial products and services that may never have been created without the help of that dataset. This is a serious issue if patient records are shared with a UK company, but even more so if they are to be shared with a company headquartered overseas.
This bears similarities to an argument we have had for so many weeks: a concern that the Government are being primed to share something of deep personal importance to their citizens, which in this case is paid for by the public purse and in the other case belongs to other private owners, with the corresponding economic concern that British people may see little gain or, indeed, may have to meet the cost of accessing the fruits of their own data. My correspondent worried out loud that the Government were going to be hoodwinked out of a true national resource.
A similar debate is going on around the UK’s CCTV footage, which is also of enormous interest to AI companies. This trove—among the largest in the world—has many applications, one of which is the ability to model simulations on the management of large groups of people. It is undoubtedly of interest to the UK police, but once created as a product owned by a private offshore company, what is to stop it being sold to regimes across the globe? How would conflicts play out—whether in Los Angeles, Ballymena, Gaza or Congo—if those in charge had infinite scenarios from which to kettle protesters, arrest them or worse? Is that what we want to do with our precious data? If so, are there terms of engagement or is it, like the copyright debate, going to have no regulation, no powers and no upholding of UK values and laws?
More broadly, CCTV footage is some of the most valuable in the world because it shows people’s movement at vast scale. That is what is needed to train the model. If we think about it as what YouTube data is for Google, it is almost incalculably valuable. I was fascinated by the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and I wonder whether our data, as well as our funding, might be used to keep companies in the UK for longer.
Last week the Prime Minister confirmed that the Government have accepted all 50 of Matt Clifford’s recommendations in the AI Opportunities Action Plan. From copyright law to the data library and security issues, and even sovereign AI, discussions—in private—appear to be dominated by overseas interests. I hear constant cries from UK AI companies that they struggle to be heard, and I recall that long before the consultation on copyright was published, when I asked for a meeting with the Minister responsible for data, the Lords Minister said that he had nothing to tell me yet.
My second point is that rather than the excruciating process of missteps and ping-pong—which has not served people, Parliament or government well—if the Government had heard from a broader group of voices, or if parliamentarians had seen the draft consultation, they could have raised questions at a time that might have been more useful to all. How we share data has profound implications for our economy, our security, our national identity and even our political independence. During the passage of the data Bill, many of these issues were raised by noble Lords across the House, but the Government refused to consider them—so now we have a data Bill that looks over its shoulder rather than to the future, and the oft-promised AI Bill has been pushed away by another year. I ask the Minister in true earnestness: does she understand why parliamentarians are frustrated? We want to discuss AI in health, AI in education, AI in security and so on. Can she find a way for those in government to be more open to accepting the expertise across both Houses?
We need our data policy to benefit UK people and businesses. We need transparency from government about the deals it is making, because they all shape our economy, democracy and national identity. All the Government’s moves to improve skills, infrastructure and energy prices so that the UK AI community can thrive are extremely welcome, but on the issue of data we must have a bigger vision than offshoring the value of our data to overseas.
Lord Evans of Guisborough (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to deliver my maiden speech this morning, and it is a particular pleasure and privilege to follow immediately the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I have sat here in recent weeks and watched her make her points repeatedly, and they lose none of their strength for repetition. I hope that the Government are listening and that we will see some movement from them.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Massey on delivering his maiden speech. There was a great deal of knowledge and detail there, and I am sure that he will make a good contribution to the House in future, as indeed I hope I will.
As it is my maiden speech, I would like to thank Black Rod, the Clerk of the Parliaments, the Garter King of Arms and the House staff who helped me through my introduction ceremony back in February. It is an experience I will remember for the rest of my life. My guests loved it and I can tell your Lordships that when you wear ermine, nobody can see you tremble.
I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston on bringing this report before the House today. We have known each other for over a decade, and the report is presented with all the care and attention to detail that I would have expected from her.
I continue to be grateful to the doorkeepers and the security staff here. I do not think a day passes without me consulting them on some questions, and they deal with them courteously and knowledgeably all the time. They always go out of their way to provide help. I have made it my business to wander the Palace, opening doors to find out what is behind them. On one occasion a couple of months ago, I encountered a security guard in the Committee Corridor upstairs. Instead of admonishing me for what I was doing, he offered me a quiz about the House and the location of various things here. I am disappointed to say that I scored one out of five, but it was one more than I would have scored back in January, and I hope that if I had that quiz now I would do considerably better.
Two Peers—two of my noble friends—gave up their time to introduce me and, although they are not here, I thank them now. My noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington has made a remarkable contribution to improving the representation of women in Parliament. I met her in 2005, when she founded the organisation Women2Win, which is dedicated to bringing more Conservative women into Parliament. I have given her some help with it over the years and I am very proud to have played a modest part in its great success.
I first met my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough even earlier: back in 1990, when we were both contesting the London elections for different London councils. That was a tough year, but I am pleased to say that we both won our seats, and we have been exchanging notes and advice ever since, so it was a pleasure to be introduced by him in February.
That was not my campaigning debut, I have to admit. Back in 1981, I contested an election for the council of my sixth-form college. It was a relatively easy introduction, as there were six places on the council and only seven of us standing for election. However, I contrived to come seventh and was the only person to leave the count with nothing at the end of the process. The guy who won, in addition to having 100 votes more than any of us, also had a campaign slogan: “Vote for Rips and He’ll Kiss Your Lips”. He obviously understood the old saw that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. He also understood that, sometimes, you make election promises without having any intention of keeping them at all.
I also thank my noble friend Lord Younger, my mentor. Any errors I make are my fault and not his; he has been very helpful for the last three months. I thank my Whip, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, who has been hugely helpful; I think I have missed only one vote so far, so I hope I have been helpful back.
I also thank the Lib Dem Peer, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for outing my origins in his speech earlier. I was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, in a suburb called Balderstone. It had been suggested by helpful people that I take the title Lord Balderstone, which, I suppose, would at least make me memorable. However, I have chosen to take Guisborough because that is the town where I grew up, went to school—and did not get to be a member of the sixth-form council. If it helps the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to feel better about it, Guisborough is not necessarily in Yorkshire. It has been, over the years, in Teesside and in county Cleveland, but I could see the boundary of Yorkshire from my window—a bit like Sarah Palin—and I hope that that is enough to qualify me.
My mother was a teacher. She inspired so many people when in that job and made a great difference. My father worked hard for local government; he worked in the environment department and in housing. For a while, he was the abattoir inspector. Fortunately, we did not have “Take Your Children to Work Day” at that time, although it might have been a character-building experience.
In 1987, I arrived in London to work. I worked for Royal Mail for 10 years, but it did not feel like enough for me. In fact, when I was in my car one day, I heard a politician on the radio speaking to a conference and people were applauding him; I believe it was my noble friend Lord Heseltine. I thought, “I could do that”, which was possibly a bit precocious at the age of 24. I volunteered for political service and served three terms at Waltham Forest Council, where I had the pleasure of working with the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, who I see here today. We were on opposite sides, and, occasionally, we had differences of opinion, but I had differences of opinion with quite a lot of people at that time.
One of the people I argued with was the council’s solicitor. He said to me one day, “I think you’d make a very good lawyer”. On the basis of this entirely unsupported statement with no evidence, I left my job and went back to full-time education. I was called to the Bar as a member of the Middle Temple in November 1997.
Something else happened in 1997 that was ground-breaking: the Blair Government arrived and created the Greater London Authority. Some of your Lordships may remember that the Government of London Act was the largest piece of legislation to go through here since the Government of India Act, and Members of this House all worked very hard on it. I spent four terms at the Greater London Authority, and over the years it has been a cornucopia of talent for Westminster to draw upon. I always see former members of the assembly here. I note the presence today of former members of our administration at City Hall: my noble friends Lord Ranger and Lord Moylan. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, made some contributions to our deliberations as well.
I am supposed to say something about the report before us today, so I point out that the growth of new technology is a key driver for the success of London and the wider UK. That is why it is vital that we respond to the challenges and opportunities in ways that maximise the benefits we can reap. Artificial intelligence, as the report correctly says, is a technology, not a sector. It has the capacity to affect every aspect of our lives. It has real potential to revolutionise the delivery of public services.
However, regulation needs to recognise the risks and the opportunities too. We love, as lawmakers, to design detail into regulation, but, after speaking to people such as the App Association and smaller providers of IT services, I argue that we should try to avoid regulating for products and regulate for outcomes instead. I recall from my time at City Hall a debate after Uber arrived in London. We found ourselves in the High Court trying to argue that a taxi meter and a mobile phone were the same thing, because that was the way the legislation was phrased. We should try not to do that, because the way things are moving now, we can get outflanked very quickly by the movement of technology. That is a problem we face throughout government in so many different ways.
It has been a wonderful journey to get off the train at King’s Cross in 1987 and, 40 years later, find myself standing here delivering this speech. Yet there is nothing unusual in that journey. I promise the House that every day—today, yesterday, tomorrow—people will be getting off the trains at London’s stations and off the planes at Heathrow, coming to our city with small suitcases and big ideas, and we want to continue to encourage that. They come here because London is a city of opportunities; it is a city of dreams. Technology is going to be at the core of the city’s success in future. We have a responsibility to promote technology and to build the economy for London, because a prosperous London will support a prosperous Britain. I commend the committee’s report to the House.
Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Massey of Hampstead, on his maiden speech: it was very well researched. I am sure he will make a huge contribution to this House with his knowledge and detail.
I also welcome and congratulate my noble friend Lord Evans of Guisborough. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, outed him in terms of his place of birth and where he has chosen, but, obviously, after his speech, I would say that London should have been a designation, if not Havering and Redbridge. I have known my noble friend Lord Evans for the best part of the last 20 years. As he mentioned, a number of us—maybe a golden generation of politicians and administrators across parties—have taken that well-worn path from City Hall to this place. He is very welcome to have taken that path.
I do remember my time there, because it was intense. I had a transport brief, an environmental brief and then the digital brief: there were plenty of briefs from my former boss. When it came to looking for good guidance, a bit of political compassion and camaraderie, you did look to assembly members on your side for support.
There were various kinds on the assembly. We would sit around the mayor’s table and say, “Who can we talk to? Who can we get some sage guidance from? Who will give us that calm, measured warmth, and a sense of direction?” We were quite inexperienced and new to the role. The name of my noble friend Lord Evans would invariably be at or near the top of that list. He provided me with much guidance, time and patience. I look forward to him being in this House and providing that to us and many more through his measured, emotional and intelligent approach, as he has done throughout his career. I welcome him.
I acknowledge yet again the excellent work of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, which was chaired with great dedication by my noble friend Lady Stowell. My only regret is that I was not part of this committee through her tenure in producing this report on AI and creative technology scale-ups.
I acknowledge my registered interests, especially my roles in the technology sector, specifically with UK AI businesses. I have spent the best part of the last 25 years working in the technology industry and consider myself to be still in the industry. I am vice-chair of the APPG for AI, and an angel investor in tech businesses.
We cannot help but be aware of the pace of both development and investment in the world that is awakening to the endless possibilities of AI. I will speak today through the lens of not just the creative technology sector, because, as the report recognises, the challenge of evolving our numerous innovative and successful scale-ups to full-blown global businesses is consistent across many industries.
As most of us recognise, the report states that we in the UK have many of the essential ingredients for scale-up success. I am acutely aware of this because it was the emergence of the start-up scene in London in the late 2000s that led me to persuade the then mayor to establish the first digital office for London. Working with the then Government, we set out to support the emerging creativity and innovation in east London with policies and interventions to attract talent and investment by ensuring that risk takers—the entrepreneurs and investors—felt the city was on their side, wanting them to succeed and wanting them to stay in London and the UK to drive both opportunities and economic growth.
The result was Tech City, as the ecosystem became known, which significantly transformed London’s economy and global tech standing. By 2013, Tech City had grown from 85 start-ups in 2010 to approximately 200 firms. Around 5,000 companies were located in the wider area, contributing to economic growth and high-value jobs by four years after that.
Since 2010, London-based tech companies have raised $5.2 billion in VC funding. By 2021, London’s tech ecosystem was valued at $142.7 billion, with 76,660 digital technology firms employing 590,000 people, representing 14% of the UK’s total tech firms. Tech City helped position London as the digital capital of Europe, with more than a third of Europe’s tech giants based in the city, contributing over £56 billion to the economy.
Tech City also fostered a vibrant start-up scene, producing 23 unicorns—tech companies valued at over $1 billion or more—by 2019, and with a combined value of $132 billion. Community initiatives such as Digital Shoreditch, Independent Shoreditch and Silicon Roundabout meet-ups, along with events such as, as we have seen this week, the still-growing London Tech Week, created a collaborative ecosystem for networking and innovation. The UK Government’s £15.5 million funding package from the Technology Strategy Board and the UK digital services index, launched in 2013, supported innovative businesses and benchmarked digital sector performance.
But these policies were then, and this is now. The successful foundations from the last decade need to be built on as we enter the AI age, because now we are in a global economic race, not just to utilise AI technology in all its forms but to own the innovations and host the businesses and associated support ecosystems of businesses and jobs that will reshape the economy and the jobs environment. As the report states, the risk we take by being uncompetitive in this race is that the UK will become an incubator economy for other nations, as foreign companies and investors acquire and hoover up our emerging talents.
Where would this siphoning off of business talent leave us? Apart from being an incubator, we would become an AI-receiver economy. Yes, we would utilise more innovative services. We will still embed long-term solutions and costly platforms across our industries and public sector, which will enable transformative change and efficiencies. But we will be getting only a small fraction of the value from the AI economic cake, for it will be those owners and nations where the businesses reside that will take the lion’s share of the jobs, investment and vast revenues and tax receipts. In effect, we will receive the services; they will get the revenue. That is not all bad, noble Lords may say. We may be able to live with that. But it is like saying we would be happy for nearly all our future energy supplies to come from other nations. Let us just mull over the geopolitical risks we have seen materialise in recent years and the impact on our energy prices.
In the age of AI, the large-language models, the datasets that feed those models, and the AI services that are developed using the datasets will have huge influence and power over nations, their people and even our culture and traditions. If cultural artefacts—the UK’s museums, history and libraries—are not available online to non-UK companies and LLMs, will that history, literature and culture still exist in a future digital world where the answer to your prompt is provided by an American-based model that does not know, does not have access or just does not prioritise its response based on sovereign accuracy?
This debate is about how we can encourage more scale-ups to succeed, but it is also about the future of our economy and much more. It is about the future sovereignty of businesses, LLMs, datasets and the online world that will influence and fundamentally create our future society. This is an issue of our sovereignty.
In case noble Lords feel I may be somewhat overdramatising the scale of the issue, let me share some of the numbers that demonstrate the state of play in the global AI market. According to research by Silicon Valley Bank, the UK remains a dominant AI hub in Europe, securing nearly $6 billion in AI funding last year, more than France and Germany combined. However, France is rapidly catching up, with Mistral AI emerging as the region’s leading LLM provider, having raised over $1 billion within one year of its founding. Meanwhile, Germany’s AI sector remains deeply tied to its industrial roots, where advanced automation is transforming its automotive and manufacturing industries. Further good news for us is that, since September last year, the UK AI landscape has experienced robust expansion. There has been broader enterprise adoption, the daily influx of approximately £200 million in private investment and a rise of 17% in the number, 34% in the economic output and 29% in the jobs among AI firms. That might sound impressive, and I am supportive of the Government’s approach and initiatives taken to push and support the sector, but let us gaze across the pond.
In early 2025, the US unveiled the Stargate project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative in partnership with Oracle, OpenAI, SoftBank, Microsoft and NVIDIA, to name a few, aiming to create thousands of jobs and reinforce the US’s determination to maintain its leadership in the AI race. To date, according to PitchBook, US-based AI companies have attracted nearly $100 billion in funding, more than the rest of the world combined. The US has first-mover advantage in AI, driven by a combination of world-beating private sector companies, chip makers, hyper-scalers, cloud providers and dataset providers. Combined, all these companies provide the infrastructure that enables AI training and deployment at scale.
The race to lead in AI has become a defining part of global business competition. So, are we really in this race? Are we doing enough with our action plan, investment in compute and our growth zones to really compete? Will we be able to keep the scale-ups that will give us a chance to have a real stake in the global AI field economy? We can, but we must be bolder and more ambitious in how we attract and lock in the critical element that drives growth—private sector investment. Yes, the Government must do their bit, as the report suggests, to remove barriers to necessary infrastructure and resources, and must maintain their proportionate approach to AI regulation. But none of this will work without the investors, the risk-takers, the VCs, the capital markets, and the time is now. I appreciate that the Government responded to the report by stating that for some technology and creative companies, accessing the
“capital required to scale a business can be a challenge”.
This is the challenge.
I welcome the report and what the Government have done so far. But I strongly suggest that it is now time for the Government to get creative with a laser-like focus and do all they can to unlock domestic growth capital and increase the incentives for investment in the UK. They need to make our investment landscape and policies more competitive so that strategies such as the Delaware flip, whereby UK businesses restructure and relocate to meet the requirements of an attractive investment proposition put forward by a funding partner in the US, are not the best options for British entrepreneurs.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I would be ever so grateful if the noble Lord could bring his contribution to a conclusion.
Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
We need to build a competitive, sovereign-based, British-made, British-owned AI economy for the future.
Lord Tarassenko (CB)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests as the founder director of Oxehealth, a University of Oxford spin-out which uses AI for healthcare applications and which will be looking for scale-up capital in the near future. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her excellent report, which identifies the key issues with clinical precision and puts forward some possible solutions. I also congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Massey and Lord Evans, on their excellent yet contrasting maiden speeches.
I entirely agree with a sentence in the very first page of the report:
“It is homegrown AI companies, not big tech incumbents, that will drive the innovation needed to realise the UK’s AI potential”.
So I want to focus on the following question: do we now have the right conditions for the UK to develop its own sovereign AI capability, which I will define as having at least two homegrown AI companies, each worth £100 billion?
DeepMind has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts. If DeepMind—generally reckoned to be worth $100 billion today—had not been sold to Google for somewhere between $400 million and $650 million in 2014, and if ARM, which is currently valued at around $150 billion, had not been sold to SoftBank in 2016, that sovereign AI capability would exist today. So the question can be reframed as follows: how can we, today, help successful UK AI companies scale up rather than be acquired by internationally owned companies such as Google and SoftBank?
All the evidence in the report points to the fact that there is no problem with the early stages of the pipeline. Nearly two-thirds of Europe’s unicorns are headquartered in the UK. As the report informs us, the UK has produced 20 AI unicorns to date, including four in 2023-24 alone. Just this week, however, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, mentioned, three new deep-tech unicorns have been sold to US investors or companies, including Oxford University’s quantum computing spin-out, Oxford Ionics: three more to add to the list of those companies which will not scale up as UK companies.
As the report highlights, without significant scale-up capital from domestic sources, the UK risks being just an “incubator economy” for other nations. At the start of the scale-up journey—series B and C—the British Business Bank should be able to invest, and we heard from the Chancellor this week that its funding capacity is to rise by two-thirds to £2.5 billion per year. This is welcome news, but, as others have noted, the report highlighted that companies found it difficult to keep track of the bank’s 21 different programmes, and the restructuring of its offering cannot come soon enough.
At the other end of the scale-up journey—series D and beyond—raising rounds of £100 million or more cannot be done without institutional capital. UK pension funds manage more than £3 trillion yet invest barely 1% of this in growing domestic companies. US endowments typically allocate 5% to 15% to venture and growth equity and Canadian models between 10% and 20%. Given this evidence, I cannot see why the Government’s proposed reserve power to enable them to force pension funds to increase their investments in British companies and infrastructure should be seen as controversial.
Finance is not the only issue which impacts the ability of UK AI companies to grow; talent, regulation, data and compute also matter. I shall speak only very briefly about talent and focus on data and compute. I am all for expanding the global talent visa to attract highly skilled AI researchers to our shores, but I worry about the decreasing pool of home postgraduate talent. Further evidence emerged this week: UK students accounted for just 43% of the 25,000 enrolments for full-time postgraduate research degrees at British universities this academic year, compared to 51% in 2017-18.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan also called on the Government to
“identify at least 5 high-impact public datasets”
to be made available to AI researchers and innovators. However, the Government committed only to explore how to take forward this recommendation as part of DSIT’s work to develop the national data library. We have heard nothing about the national data library—apart from in the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, earlier—from the Government for the past few months, although the announcement of £600 million funding for the health data research service in April was very welcome. Delivering on the aims of that investment—a single, secure entry point to access aggregated, anonymised patient data—will not be a trivial matter.
The stakeholder map drawn up by Health Data Research UK shows 40—I stress 40—stakeholders on the map, and it says that it is a non-exclusive attempt to draw this map. Nevertheless, building on the existing guidelines for sharing patient data in secondary and primary care, a minimum viable product should be deliverable within a matter of months, not years. Does the Minister intend to discuss with her DHSC colleagues giving preferential access to this sovereign data asset to UK companies, with higher rates charged to any international competitors?
Turning to sovereign compute now, recent news is positive: investment into data centres and into exascale compute in Edinburgh, and the twentyfold expansion of the UK’s high-performance compute capacity by 2030. The report of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, recommended that UK AI scale-ups should be granted access to these facilities to catalyse commercial opportunities. Will the Minister confirm that it is indeed the Government’s intention to do so?
However, there is also a key lesson from DeepSeek: it has demonstrated the power of distillation. Training high-performance distilled large language models is now possible with just one or two GPUs. The ingenuity of DeepSeek has paradoxically led to several data-centre buildings in China lying empty. We do not have to copy the data-centre and hardware compute frenzy generated by US big tech companies. They are only part of the compute solution.
I chose my definition of sovereign AI capability arbitrarily, based on where we would be today if both DeepMind and Arm were still UK companies. Today, the UK AI ecosystem is thriving, even at the unicorn level. For example, we are world-leaders in the use of machine learning to navigate the complexities of British streets: not the straight and perpendicular roads of US cities navigated by Waymo and others. We are also world-leaders in low-cost hardware for machine learning, and in AI-generated video for enterprise use. If we implement the right measures on scale-up finance, enable privileged access to sovereign data and deliver the promised sovereign compute on time and on budget, I believe that at least two UK AI companies will reach £100 billion valuation within the next five years.
In our relationship with the big tech companies from the US, we will only ever be AI-takers. If we want to be AI-makers, the development of a sovereign AI capability should be the UK’s top priority.
Baroness Fall (Con)
My Lords, I echo others in welcoming the noble Lords, Lord Massey and Lord Evans, to the House and congratulate them both on their excellent maiden speeches this morning. I declare my interest as a senior adviser at Brunswick Group.
We meet today at the end of a week which, although it was BuildTech week, was really all about the spending review, but at least we get to revert to a discussion of tech scale-ups at the end. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and all the members of her committee on this very good report. Against a tough fiscal outlook at home and uncertainty abroad, I know that this group does not need to be persuaded that the question of how we scale up is not a niche issue, but core to the economic prospects of our country: for jobs, prosperity and the very growth which seems to elude us.
We are not alone in facing tricky economic headwinds. The geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which business operates is highly challenging and changeable. The only certainty is uncertainty: the worst possible investment environment. Just take President Trump’s tariff policy as one example. From its inception to so-called Liberation Day, we have seen a range of global tariffs first imposed, then partially suspended; a virtual boycott on China followed by a reprieve; and sectoral tariffs bobbing up and down. We in the UK cling on to our 10% as if it is a life raft. The US strategy remains unclear even to those in the White House. Is it a sort of global trade punishment or a vehicle to drive domestic policy? Is it to pay for tax reductions or to project a new industrial policy? Whatever the aim, the result is chaos; the only resistance, for now, is the bond markets; and business has to seek alternative supply chains and form new global relationships and alliances.
The fundamental dynamic for us is that we seek growth against an uncertain global outlook in an age of growing economic nationalism. The question for us, as nations turn inward, is that we need to focus on what our competitive advantage is. We are not a nation rich in raw materials; we are a nation of entrepreneurs and innovators. In other words, we live by our wits, not by our wealth. Just look at our record on start-ups, which others have mentioned this morning. London ranks as the second-best place for start-up companies, tied with New York city. As the committee’s report points out, the UK has emerged as one of the top three places in the world to invest in innovation. So it is to our wits that we must concentrate our attention, nurturing our unique talents, not allowing them to falter or, worse, get picked off by foreign investors. Many noble Lords have mentioned this this morning.
Yet, more often than not, that is exactly what happens. As the committee says so powerfully in its report, we are in danger of being an incubator nation or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, says, of bolting unicorns. From this week alone, the acquisition of Oxford Ionics by US quantum computing group IonQ and Qualcomm’s deal for chip designer Alphawave are examples of missed opportunities for the UK. Another example is that of Reaction Engines. This brilliant start-up, which emerged from some of the best tech engineers in the country, focused on revolutionary aerospace engines and was a thriving business for three decades, until it was forced to fold last year through a simple liquidity problem. We seem unable to leverage our home-grown creations into formidable businesses. Put simply, we find it hard to scale up. Just 1% of UK companies have reached scale-up status since 2012.
This point comes through loud and clear in the very good paper published this week by the Tony Blair Institute. From Startup to Scaleup examines in forensic detail the weaknesses across the cycle of a start-up journey and seeks solutions. I recommend it to noble Lords.
What can we do about it? First: talent. Attracting and growing talent is key. Trump’s America is pushing away foreign talent, and we should make the most of this opportunity to attract talent to the UK, looking at immigration policies and the global talent visa. At the same time, we must work hard to continue fostering talent at home. Secondly, universities really matter. Just look at the start-ups coming out of our great universities, such as Oxford Science Enterprises. We should focus on making sure that this excellent research can be commercialised, and we should take a closer look at our spin-out system, including IP rights. Thirdly: risk. We need to change our attitude towards risk—others have mentioned this—both as a society, in the way we view entrepreneurs and their inevitable early failures. and on a national level. We should be unashamedly focused on backing national winners, taking on more risk with our investments and giving higher rewards.
Fourthly, in the case of Reaction Engines we see how public money was needed at a critical moment, which could have paid dividends. The good news for our present Chancellor is that this is less about how much money and more about when we spend it—more wisely and at what time in the cycle. Fifthly, the Government have already made significant progress in modernising UK public markets, with reforms outlined in the listing review of the noble Lord, Lord Hill, but there is more to do and more to implement in that review. Sixthly, driving change across silos in Whitehall is notoriously difficult, as many in this House know, and requires political will and a powerful engine such as the Cabinet Office, the Treasury or even the No. 10 team to drive it.
Finally, do not be afraid to think big, a point that comes through loud and clear in the report. In response to the times in which we live, we must consider the importance of generating a global winning tech company. Just one of these tech companies would be a game-changer, not just in encouraging investment in other start-ups, but for our national prosperity, jobs and, ultimately, the projection of our nation’s power.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
My Lords, I, too, start by welcoming the noble Lords, Lord Massey and Lord Evans, to this Chamber and congratulating them on their maiden speeches, and by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her masterful chairmanship of the committee and raising the profile of these vital issues at a vital time.
In the noble Baroness’s incredibly comprehensive introduction, she mentioned that it has been London Tech Week, as did others, and I feel as though this debate has chased me around the panels and interviews I have done over the course of the week. In fact, this issue has chased me over the last 30 years of working in the technology sector and building my own businesses. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute now to what is such an important topic, on the back of such an important piece of work by the committee.
I agree that we risk falling into becoming an incubator economy, but the risk is worse than that, because it is broader and deeper. By not scaling our AI and tech businesses, we are not only not building the sector of the future; we also risk those businesses failing to impact on the other sectors of our economy and the wider economy in which they operate. I would like to dwell on that issue for just a moment.
We have had two decades of becoming a nation of start-ups. I think back to the late 1990s, when we would go to an entrepreneurial meet-up and be the only entrepreneurs in the room. People would move away from me at parties when I said that I was going to start my own business, thinking that I was truly bonkers for wanting to do so. Now, the culture has fundamentally shifted. As we know, many young people have one or two businesses alongside their own jobs, perhaps both as a necessity of these economic times and because of a sense of entrepreneurship’s excitement and vibrancy.
We know that many companies hit a ceiling. It is a problem for not just them but the wider economy. It is vital to recognise that these challenges are not confined to the tech sector. The struggle to scale is a persistent thread that runs through the entire economy. I see this as president of the British Chambers of Commerce, as well as from the multiple boards that I am lucky enough to sit on. I was also a founding trustee of the ScaleUp Institute a decade ago.
Despite record numbers of entrepreneurs, only 2% of UK firms reach more than £1 million in turnover over three years—just 2%. The scale-up rate among businesses has slowed dramatically over the past decade, with the proportion of firms expanding their workforce falling by 40% between 2012 and 2022. Obviously, this has profound implications for employment and the wider economy. It does not just reflect the barriers faced by individual companies; it also reflects that the wider business environment is not adopting innovation and technology at the pace required.
At the British Chambers of Commerce, we did a report on the digital revolution. Although the pace of change is accelerating, especially in high-growth sectors—as everyone in this Chamber knows—many firms outside those high-growth sectors are struggling to keep up with the pace of change. Poor digital infrastructure, patchy broadband and a lack of digital skills mean that too many businesses are missing out on productivity gains and a competitive edge. When tech and AI scale-ups fail to thrive, it is a warning not only about them but about our whole economy falling behind, not just in tech but in manufacturing services and beyond.
The committee’s recommendations are impressively comprehensive: consolidate government support; unlock capital; and foster a culture that champions ambition and risk-taking. I agree wholeheartedly. I would like, to use terrible tech speak, to double-click on three levers that I think demand even more attention: government procurement; international expansion; and business culture.
First, on government procurement, public procurement is a £400-billion lever—one-tenth of our economy. The new Procurement Act is a real opportunity to open up contracts to scale-ups and SMEs by cutting red tape, mandating prompt payment and letting local authorities reserve contracts for local suppliers. I have seen this at first hand from businesses I have been involved in, most recently as a board member of Multiverse. Government contracts are a hell of bureaucracy and difficulty; they just cannot be given priority while you are also trying to scale your business across multiple other planes. So, I deeply welcome this new legislation, but I would appreciate an update from the Minister on how the implementation is going and what the redress will be for companies if they feel as though the Act is not working in their favour.
We must make sure that we set ambitious targets to include UK scale-ups in procurement participation so that we are really driving UK innovation and British jobs. Just yesterday, at a London Tech Week event, as I was thinking about what remarks I was going to make, as if by magic, a UK entrepreneur with a medical technology business appeared in front of me to berate me for 10 minutes—quite rightly—about how a recent procurement process in the NHS had led to a US company being procured. I do not know the details of this—I am not naming the company—but it is, I think, indicative. A US company had been procured at a vastly increased cost because it was already a supplier within the system. Despite our British company being a star success, it was unable to compete; this really was a missed opportunity and unacceptable from so many angles.
Secondly, on international expansion, scale-ups are more likely than any other SMEs to export and to innovate—and to grow quickly when they do—but, as the British Chambers of Commerce has taught me, only 10% of British businesses export, and they are over 60% of our members. That is an interesting fact in itself. We need to encourage more businesses full stop to scale through innovation in trade, through trade itself and through expansion into other markets. We cannot ignore the elephant in the room: Brexit. Although businesses recognise the improvement in relations with the EU, we have taken ourselves out of the capacity to work in a digital single market, which has had a fundamental impact on our technologies’ ability to scale.
I remember, as a young whippersnapper, going into the French company that we were building at lastminute.com and being met with derision, pretty much. The French entrepreneurs thought—quite rightly, probably—“How can it possibly be that these two whippersnappers are coming in to take over our country?” However, it is so important that we encourage companies to scale through Europe and do not scare them with the complexity of bureaucracy that we are creating in front of them. We can expand in our own market, of course, but, to become truly global, we need to expand way beyond our own shores and to make that as easy and attractive as possible.
Finally, culture is one area that I really do feel I have lived over the past two decades. It is not mentioned in this report, but I hope that members of the committee will find it interesting to know that the Bank of England did research showing that 77% of British businesses would rather not grow than take on new financing to expand. What a missed opportunity. Although this report rightly goes hard on the capital sources and unlocking more from the Mansion House accord, as well as on many other issues that we have heard about in the contributions made today, we still have in our culture the issue of how we grow and expand.
This comes from multiple reasons. I do not have time to unpick them all now, but it is vital that we celebrate the successes we have and do not denigrate them. Success does not have to mean just creating more money for the individual; it can mean creating more prosperity for communities, for us all and for the wider society in which businesses operate. When I am travelling around for the British Chambers of Commerce, I meet all the time businesses that are pushing back into their community, building relationships with charities and, often, delivering things where services cannot. This is fundamental if we want to make sure that we have not just a prosperous economy but a prosperous society; we must celebrate this and not denigrate it or view it with scepticism.
I end by saying that, as noble Lords may know, I find myself in hospital frequently. I have the most extraordinary hip surgeon, who could not resist badgering me when I was recently in hospital again by telling me that he was trying to raise money for his incredible robotics innovation. He really is a world leader in this area—I will be quiet in one second—and he had to go to Florida to raise the £100 million that he needed. He did so in two meetings; here, 20 meetings had led to a commitment of just £100,000.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I declare my technology interests as set out in the register. It is also a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who has done as much as anybody in this country over the past two decades for all the technology industries in her work both as an entrepreneur and as a visionary for what technologies can do—not least, public good.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Stowell—and, indeed, all members of the committee—on this excellent report. I can also comment positively on the approach that she took when doing this report in having it not just as an isolated moment in time but as a series of reports, one building on another, during her time chairing the Communications and Digital Select Committee.
In my final initial thank you, let me say that I am grateful to our two maiden speakers. Both of them, not least my noble friend Lord Massey, gave us excellent perspectives and a number of excellent ideas for not just this current Minister but all HMT Ministers to consider; all were excellent suggestions that would really make a difference.
My comments on the Select Committee’s report could be quite short. I agree with pretty much everything in it and all the recommendations. It goes to the heart of the issue, which we have discussed certainly in my time here, over the past 12 years, and previous to that. We have a stunning start-up scene in the UK, with fabulous universities, great spin-outs and a very good seed funding model, but it all gets tricky when you get to the scale-ups. This report highlights the issues, puts the recommendations and, I hope, gives the Minister much to think on.
As my noble friend Lord Willetts put it, when it comes to Silicon Valley, nobody should be beguiled to believe that this is a great success of the free market. It is birthed very much from state intervention—intervention in the right way, to enable and to empower the crowding-in of private capital. I cannot improve on his perfect construction—Hamiltonian, not Jeffersonian.
This debate, like so many that we have had on artificial intelligence and other technologies, goes to the heart of an issue. Government and wider society often struggle, because it can be seen as “a part of” or as “sector specific”. As has been noted in this debate, AI is a technology. I go beyond that. It is a series, a set, a constellation of technologies, some yet to be brought into being. I gently suggest that part of the problem with the current narrative and with the Government’s approach is that AI is not seen as this constellation of technologies but, reductively, as just gen AI. Although important, that is but one part of this constellation. Time will tell, but I do not believe that gen AI will be either the most interesting element of AI or the one most likely to deliver anything that we would recognise as a return on investment.
How much does it cost to do an AI model—£500 billion, £5 million, or somewhere in between? The answer is complex. However, getting to grips with smart funding in the UK AI ecosystem and context gives us the best chance of solving this scale-up challenge. I suggest there are three elements we may want to consider in the overarching approach to solving this issue. The first is to consider principles rather than prescription. We give ourselves the best opportunity if we take a principles-based, outcomes-focused, input-understood approach to everything that we do in this space, with trust and transparency—the technologies are nothing without those—inclusion and innovation, interoperability of both the technologies and the regulatory frameworks around the world, accountability, accessibility and assurance. These are good principles for all approaches, certainly regarding AI. Perhaps the Government will consider putting such principles on a statutory basis. They are largely set out in the 2023 White Paper. Giving them statutory effect would only be positive in this mission, which we all need to focus so clearly on.
Secondly, we need a right-sized, agile, adaptive and flexible AI authority. Do not think “big, behemothic, do-it-all AI regulator”. It could be just a development of the role of RIO, so ably chaired by my noble friend Lord Willetts. It could be a coming together of RIO and the DRCF. Maybe it could be a new entity in toto. Although it is right to take a domain-specific approach—that is where the domain expertise lies—we need to assure those three core elements that any of us need when we come across AI, or indeed anything: clarity, certainty and consistency. Without a guiding mind or an agile regulator, how can we have that clarity, certainty and consistency of application? Whether we come across AI in health, education or defence, how can we be assured that we will be having a similar experience? The AI authority could be that champion of the principles, the custodian and a centre of experts, giving an efficient and effective solution to the current situation of various regulators competing for a scarce talent pool. How does the nation benefit if Ofgem, for example, gains a particular data scientist and Ofcom does not? We do not benefit as a nation, and nor does our AI ecosystem.
Thirdly, we need to thoroughly and finally smash the myth, the false dichotomy that recurs with tedious inevitability, that you can have either innovation or regulation but never the twain shall meet. All history—not least, recent history—tells me that right-sized regulation is enabling and empowering of innovation. Take the regulatory sandbox in fintech. A measure of its success is that it has been replicated in just under 100 nations around the world—a UK creation by a UK regulator. It was great to see the announcement earlier this week from that regulator, the FCA, in combination bringing forth the supercharged AI sandbox.
We know how to do this, yet we are not doing enough of it. We all know bad regulation. In no sense does that mean that regulation is, of itself, bad. Right-sized regulation is good for investor, for innovator, for citizen, for creative, for consumer and for our country. Right-sized regulation, structured in an agile way, can be our path to the future and those future technologies, however they may be and in whatever form they come into being. The Government rightly talk of growth. These sectors, deploying these technologies, are most likely to bring this growth to bear.
How are we to move from being an incubator economy, an incubator country, when it comes to these technologies, to putting the right support in place, having the right skills, putting the right funding and expertise in place, at start-up and certainly at scale-up, and at the right level to shoot at nothing short of the “unicornification” of the UK economy? That is because of not only the economic benefit that will flow from having unicorns but the role-modelling that having those companies in our country can do, and how that brings forward all levels of the developmental pyramid. We know how to do this. We can do it at pace and we must. We are talking of our data, our decisions and, if we get this right, together, our human-led, AI-enabled, AI-empowered futures.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
My Lords, paragraph 154 made me think about what on earth I could usefully add to this comprehensive and very pertinent report. We were consistently reminded that the creative industries sector is made up almost entirely of SMEs, of which a high proportion are micro-businesses. I have spent most of my life working in SMEs and building them up. On the technology side, I used to write software and things like that. I was always involved in computing IT, trying to produce solutions for business, looking at practical applications of things and trying to develop solutions quite quickly. It is this application of technology that most interests me.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that the most useful applications of AI will not be for writing nice shareholder reports, business presentations or applications for jobs. It will be for managing real-world, complex situations and applying huge amounts of data and information to get out what needs to be done and what reactions. You could use this for managing difficult things. It can also be used for analysing huge volumes of research if you do not have time to read it all and trying to make the links between the different bits of it. Here, the LLM stuff will help considerably.
I did a lot of work looking at IoT—the internet of things—a few years back. In fact, we produced a British Standard on data interchange for it, because the use from it came from when you combined information from different sources and sensors around the place to produce something useful for people. That has grown into an interest in digital twins, where you can mirror a real-world thing out there in a computer system and then use it to analyse what would happen if this happened, or what is happening right now and how you might respond to it.
I am about to have an involvement with the Connected Places Catapult, which is mentioned in the report. I think it is very important that we continue to support these places, because these are sources of innovation where lots of other people are putting in lots of ideas and things, and out of those have come some very useful things. The great thing about them is they have been consistent—they are still there.
One of the big problems that I have noticed—I will jump to it—is that there is always a plethora of grants, but they are there for a year or two and then disappear. There is no consistency, so you cannot plan for it, and things collapse as a result. The creative industries clusters programme is a typical example of that: just when it is working, I think the report said that it is being knocked on the head. What is the point of that? At government level, we always seem to ditch things just when they are showing success, and that needs to be changed. Sometimes, people have unrealistic expectations of what will come and how quickly. That is one of the big problems, because Governments, Civil Service priorities and departments change.
I have also got very interested in causal AI, because I realised we have large language models just chasing down word chains and putting them together, with no idea what they are looking at. There is no actual innate intelligence in artificial intelligence: it is just a very large neural network of transistors, and it does not work the way our brains do. It does not have any sense of empathy or history. It has no background, unless you have trained it, but there comes a limit to how much we are going to train it and whose learning we are going to train it on. I know that most of us think we are always right, and that is always the trouble, because we do not agree with how someone else thinks. That is part of being human. I am going slightly off on a tangent, but there are some limitations in AI there, and people need to be aware of them.
The point about causal AI is that a lot of this information coming from the big ones—Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT and all that—may be drawn from anywhere. You just do not know what they have looked at. There are lots of things that are false, and that self-reinforce, out there on the internet, so it might come up with things in reports—particularly if you are relying on it for something—that would completely mislead. You need to be able to distinguish that. I have been involved with a company, Kaimai, as well as FIDO, which have been used on curated databases to try to extract data. We need to grow that using causal AI, because things change as well. You may have a good database, but stuff that went into it 10 or 15 years ago may be inaccurate by now—the world has changed. There are a lot of issues in there that people are not thinking of when it comes to these things.
On encouraging people to stay here and grow their businesses, why do we drive all our very successful people offshore with very high tax rates? At the moment, Dubai is doing very good business, and apparently quite a lot have gone to Italy since the great non-dom thing was re-echoed. People want to spend their money when they make it, and that keeps the economy going, because it keeps all sorts of other things going, such as expensive restaurants, people who make expensive goods and people who cater for all sorts of things like that. It also makes the place more interesting to live in: people want to be in the UK, or around London, because it is full of entertainment. There are all sorts of side benefits to keeping your people who are successful and not driving them away. This is quite apart from the fact that I get furious when I see our great successes swallowed up by large American corporations and watching them go offshore.
Sorry about this, but, typically, my device has gone to sleep—like me.
Another thing I think about is suggesting that we can get the pension funds to invest a certain amount of money and push them into doing it. Yes, that is a source of funds, but are the pension funds the best people to decide what is a good or bad investment? Their job is to try to make sure that—if pensions are not overtaxed yet again—you have some money to retire on, and to make sure that the money is there for you when you retire. I am not sure they are the right people to judge what to put money into. I am sure that someone will think of a good way around this, but we have to be very careful about horses for courses.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, made a very good point about regulation stifling investment and research. That can happen a lot. Funnily enough, another thing that can stifle some of this co-operative approach, which we hit a bit back, is that some academics in universities really do not feel that commercial applications of their knowledge and learning is the right thing for academics to be involved in, and they would not co-operate because there might be a commercial outcome from it. I think that attitude is changing—I have not had anything to with universities—but I bet it is still alive and well in some places. Those sorts of attitudes need to be overcome.
Here is another thing we hit: although we were being funded by the Welsh Government for an innovative programme, we needed a good native foreign language speaker. It was in the early days, before these were called AI and LLMs. It was to do with formatted reporting and stuff. Could we get the work permit for them? Well, we eventually got permission to employ one person from abroad—they were an ex-student from the university, but we needed to get the ongoing work permit—but were not given the permission to apply for a visa. That was going to be another application, and more money. These sorts of bureaucratic things kill SMEs. We just do not have the time, energy or knowledge to get around them. We need to start thinking about that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, made a comment that data sharing is essential to get the best use out of it all, but there are huge dangers, as I have just been saying, about where that data has come from and what happens to it. If it is being used by some abroad to do all sorts of things, it can be hugely dangerous, even to our national security and other things like that. You never know—even the best people have something to hide and, if that comes up, you are opening people up to maybe a bit of blackmail or pressure. That is why I have been very cautious about government data sharing in the past. It is difficult: it is impossible to pseudonymise properly.
Anyway, with that, I think it is a brilliant report.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to be able to make a short contribution in the gap. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and the members and staff of her committee on producing such an excellent report. I thought her opening remarks well encapsulated the issue we face. I also congratulate the two maiden speakers. They were of contrasting kinds, but they will make great contributions to the House in future, and I am sure that they both feel much better for having made them.
In some ways, this is a well-timed debate, with the comprehensive spending review on Wednesday; it would have been more helpful to have had it in the context of the industrial strategy that we are expecting, but that will come soon. I thought the report’s main thrust and conclusions have targeted something absolutely fundamental to the UK economy. There have been so many excellent speeches in today’s debate that I will recommend today’s copy of Hansard, because I think we should keep it to hand.
I came to make one point in this debate, and that is to connect it with others that are going on in the same way elsewhere in the House. I find that the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who is not in his place at the moment, made exactly the point that I came here to make—that is part of the trouble of speaking at the end. I should add that we work together on the Foundation for Science and Technology, and in the declaration of interests I declare mine as president of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.
The point I want to make is that other debates are going on that directly bear on today’s. Take the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology’s report earlier this year on engineering biology. That is an amazingly exciting area, which might in the future, for example, enable us to grow sustainable aircraft fuel and so on. We were world leaders in what was called synthetic biology a decade ago, and we are now losing our lead. When our Science and Technology Committee produced a report earlier this year, our title was Don’t Fail to Scale, which is very much in line with one of the themes of today’s debate.
My second example is about space. We now have a space committee looking at aspects of the space economy, which will be extremely important to the UK in future. There are many different ways in which space is vital to the operation of the UK economy. Some of the things already being talked about for the future include, for example, growing antibodies in space, which, because of microgravity, are of such pure quality that they could be immensely more effective when brought back to earth and used in medical applications. Companies of the future may develop along those lines and we will be making a terrible mistake if we do not support them and scale them up.
The opportunities that emerge are now being looked at by the Science and Technology Committee, which is my final example. We are looking at what prevents this country being able to take a stage further forward the wonderful start-ups, incubators and other things we have heard about today. That will be the subject of a debate when we publish our report. We have taken fascinating evidence from venture capitalists and, only on Wednesday, a high-ranking scientist from DARPA.
We need to understand what leads companies such as Oxford Ionics to take the decision it has and be a loss to some extent a loss to this country. The Government’s Mansion House reforms will be very important, and I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Massey, said about rebuilding our risk culture.
In conclusion, I hope that when we come to discuss the current report of the Science and Technology Committee, Members here today will come to that as well, because no matter what subtitle you pick—Less Talk, More Action or Don’t Fail to Scale—this is the central issue to the future of the UK economy.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, not only because of his enthusiasm but because of his concision. To pack all that into four minutes is quite a quite an achievement.
I declare my interests as an adviser to DLA Piper on AI policy and regulation, and as founder and co-chair of the All-Party Group on Artificial Intelligence. I congratulate not only the Communications and Digital Committee on the report but the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her excellent introduction today and all the service she has given as chair of the Select Committee. She hit all the points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, mentioned the holistic nature of the report—the fact that it was both AI and creative tech. That is really powerful and has enabled us to have an excellent debate today. I agree that this debate should be required reading. We have covered a huge amount of ground.
I thank our two maiden speakers. I am pleased that they chose to add their expertise to today’s proceedings. Sometimes there are maiden speeches in debates and you wonder why on earth they have been chosen as the vehicle for a maiden speech; I do not think that any of us are in any doubt that the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Massey, made very interesting contributions to today’s proceedings.
It was also a great privilege to speak on the same Benches as my noble friend Lord McNally. To hear his wisdom on these occasions is a great pleasure for me personally.
The phrase “incubator economy” really has stuck. It has helped to guide us through today’s debate and made the contributions that much sharper and more relevant. We are great at hatching ideas but also at watching them fly away to mature elsewhere. We can illustrate this with a number of examples, as noble Lords have done. When Arm chose to list in New York rather than London, we lost what would now be Britain’s fifth-biggest company. When companies such as Wise follow the same path, which it recently has done, the pattern becomes clear. This was epitomised by a City AM headline on Tuesday:
“Ouch: Three tech firms bail out of the UK in a single day”.
Many noble Lords have of course mentioned Alphawave, Spectris and Oxford Ionics—at the beginning of London Tech Week too; what an appalling time to have that news. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, reminded us that this is of long standing, in terms of DeepMind and Selector as well. The consequences of this failure are significant: decreased global competitiveness, weaker economic prospects and a potential brain drain of talent, as the noble Baroness reminded us at the very beginning of the debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, emphasised too.
The Government are putting great faith into AI adoption with the AI opportunities action plan and an industrial strategy with plans for eight growth-driving sectors, but, at the same time, we must break down a number of barriers that are holding us back. First, as we have heard from across the House, we have a significant funding gap for later-stage rounds compared to the US, which was called, very graphically, the “valley of death” by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. As we have heard, UK pension funds manage over £3 trillion of assets yet invest barely a fraction of that in growing domestic companies.
We do have initiatives, such as the Long-term Investment for Technology and Science programme, and the British Business Bank has supported many UK unicorns. UKI2S, a public/private seed fund, has a proven track record, but the size of the funding gap remains immense. There is also, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, rightly mentioned, a recognised lack of technology expertise among institutional investors and, probably, as was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, among pension funds as well.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, said, we are in a global technology race. Some 62% of UK AI firms identify skills shortages as a growth barrier. We are in fierce global competition for AI talent and our visa system is slow, laborious and costly. SMEs often cannot match big tech salaries and, although the scale-up visa exists, industry leaders say that it is not yet fast or cheap enough to meet the needs of rapidly growing businesses, especially in highly competitive fields like AI.
We have infrastructure issues too. As we heard from the committee, the withdrawal by this Government at the outset of £1.3 billion for AI infrastructure, including the Edinburgh supercomputer, sent exactly the wrong signal. As one witness to the committee put it, we have
“some really big gaps in infrastructure, compute and power”.
We also have the issue of regulation and procurement. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, mentioned the government procurement rules that prevent smaller companies competing for government contracts despite government procurement being a potential driver of innovation. The committee heard that the Competition and Markets Authority is alleged to be harsh on internal roll-ups, where one British company proposes acquiring another British company.
What needs to happen now? Again, I thought the phrase “a manageable challenge” from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, was very useful. Like the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, I also rather liked the Hamiltonian versus Jeffersonian approach. On capital, the National Wealth Fund’s £7.3 billion commitment is a start, but we need those resources deployed quickly and strategically. The Government are, it seems, taking action to unlock £75 billion through the Mansion House accord and have introduced pension fund reforms, but these will take several years to have meaningful impact.
I know that the Government listen to the Tony Blair Institute, which was also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Fall. Its recent report recommends giving the British Business Bank and the National Wealth Fund
“clear, complementary mandates to deliver on the … government’s industrial strategy”.
Specifically, it says that the British Business Bank should focus on crowding in capital for the scale-up phase—series B to C—with its maximum investment cap raised to £25 million. Meanwhile, the NWF should act as a more capital-intensive direct investor, with a minimum investment of £25 million for late-stage—series D+—strategic assets. Can the Minister comment on the progress being made in defining the roles of those two institutions? The discussion from the noble Lord, Lord Massey, about capital gains tax in terms of AIM stocks was a very interesting suggestion.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan also stresses investment in talent. It explicitly recommends that the Government explore how best to address wider barriers, such as the cost and complexity of visas, which create obstacles for start-ups and deter overseas talent from relocating to the UK. We need a fast-track visa system for scale-ups now, not after another consultation. However, I accept the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, that there is a falling number of UK entrants to courses.
On infrastructure, I welcome the £2 billion commitment in the spending review, and the Government’s promise to immediately double AI research capacity and launch AI growth zones for data centres. The compute strategy, promised for spring 2025, is already overdue and must deliver accessible resources to our universities, start-ups and scale-ups as soon as possible. However, I also accept the reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko: we do not want to find ourselves investing in infrastructure when we can deliver what we need without the extent of that infrastructure, as DeepSeek demonstrated.
AI growth zones are being launched to accelerate data centre construction and infrastructure, with formal selection processes opening this spring, we understand. However, we need to tackle the environmental issues around them too. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton—who is in his place, I notice—was absolutely right to raise that issue.
In order to scale up, start-ups need to overcome the diffusion problem, which refers to the challenge of achieving widespread adoption and market penetration for their innovations. This is impacted by a lack of access to digital platforms, which have quasi-monopoly positions. I am glad to say that Google and Apple are now under investigation by the CMA, and the outcome will be the acid test for whether the new digital markets regime results in access remedies that allow our start-ups to scale more easily.
On regulation, the Regulatory Innovation Office, under its very welcome new chair, the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, is promising, as part of its mission, to reduce red tape and help companies bring new products to market faster, but it must have teeth. Given that the AI Opportunities Action Plan aims to accelerate the adoption of safe and trustworthy AI across the economy, clarity, certainty and consistency of AI regulation for business is crucial. The Government have kicked a future AI Bill into longer, if not wholly long, grass. They talk of a sector-led, outcomes-based approach to AI regulation, but many of us have seen no detail of any proposals and believe that the minimalist approach being adopted is simply inadequate in the face of AI risks and the need for public trust. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that good, outcome-based regulation is not the enemy of innovation. In fact, it can be the creator of interoperability and the driver of innovation.
We have discussed constantly, for what seems like several months, a significant issue for creatives: the use of copyright content for training AI models. I do not intend to say too much about this, but the Minister is only too well aware of the arguments being made. Given the Government’s recent failure to deliver clarity to the creative industries, the consultation on AI and copyright, the associated economic impact assessment and the technology report must provide clarity quickly, as must the working party. Our creative industries must have the transparency they need to ensure that they can thrive alongside the tech industries without being their victim. Where is the creative industries sector plan? Everything seems to be promised for late spring—I think we have a traffic jam somewhere in Whitehall. It will identify growth barriers, we understand, and outline commitments from the Government and industry to overcome them.
I have little time left. I share the reservations about the National Data Library, but also the promise associated with it, expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. It could be a good sovereign asset vehicle, if it takes the right shape.
The committee’s report is entitled AI and Creative Technology Scaleups: Less Talk, More Action. It is not just a good title; it is an urgent instruction. Are the Government ready to match ambition with action? I very much look forward to the Minister’s reply but, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, she has been given much to think about.
Viscount Camrose (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests in early-stage technology ventures as set out in the register. I thank my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for securing and leading this important and timely debate. I felt genuinely sad to be reminded that she will no longer be chairing this important and effective committee. I also congratulate warmly my newer noble friends Lord Evans and Lord Massey on their maiden speeches. I thought they were interesting, well argued and wholly well constructed for this debate that has been uniformly outstanding.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, rightly quoted the “white heat of progress”, but I feel that AI is putting even that white heat into the shade. Whatever we are going to do, be it as organisations, as parliamentarians or as government, we are going to have to do it considerably faster than we are doing now. That raises important questions about how we can accelerate our pace and agility for coping with fast-moving new technologies. Needless to say, I agree with my noble friend Lady Stowell that the UK has the potential to be the powerhouse for growth for AI and tech companies. That is why it is essential for the Government to consider the recommendations made by this report.
There is no doubt that the UK has a deservedly strong reputation for start-ups. I am proud that the UK continues to lead in Europe on having the greatest number of unicorns. I share other noble Lords’ concerns about our competitors, particularly France, catching up with us, and we must be on our mettle. We must be acutely aware of the well-argued, well-founded concerns expressed by the committee that the UK is at risk of becoming an incubator economy. UK fintech unicorn Monzo is a prime example of this. Monzo was born and raised in London, but recent announcements indicate that it may choose to list in the US rather than on the UK stock market. It is a sad reflection that it does not feel confident that our markets are fit to support these scale-ups, and we must recognise that the UK is at grave risk of losing out to other nations.
Across the sector, we continue to see this issue highlighted. Oxford Science Enterprises—I echo the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko—has argued that without urgent action the US will benefit from the unicorns that we are building in the UK. The CEO of the video games industry body Ukie, Nick Poole, describes the UK as
“one of the worst places in the G7 to scale a games business”.
The CEO of Cleo AI, Barney Hussey-Yeo, has reported that the UK is
“a terrible place to scale and list a business”.
It is vital that we restore the appeal of London’s capital markets and remove the unnecessary barriers to growth. The recommendations put forward by the committee address some of the key challenges raised by industry. First, streamline innovation funds to provide a more clear, more comprehensive pathway of support for companies along their growth journey and remove some of the complexity that was referred to earlier. Secondly, accelerate financial reforms to ensure that they keep up with the whiter-than-white-heat rate of technological development. Thirdly, champion entrepreneurial success to celebrate and recognise the national contribution and achievement of successful British entrepreneurs; the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, really resonated in that respect. Fourthly, the industrial strategy itself must provide a coherent, cross-sector vision for how tech scale-ups will be supported to drive economic growth. Fifthly, the Government must commit to AI delivery by removing obstacles to growth and supporting AI’s potential in government strategies. The AI Opportunities Action Plan is clearly a very important step—but a first step—on that journey. Finally, the Government should review their R&D tax credit schemes to include more support for the creative industries, which receive limited investment compared with other key growth sectors.
As noble Lords across the House are aware, when my party was in government we took steps to examine and try to grapple with the problem of addressing barriers to scaling up, through the 2014 Coutu report, the 2017 patient capital review and the 2021 Kalifa review of the UK’s fintech sector. Scaling up start-ups and creating an environment in which enterprises can flourish was a priority for the previous Government, as no doubt it is for this one. That was demonstrated through a range of business support programmes and government-backed financial support to encourage and boost start-ups through Help to Grow. I list these things not because I am claiming they were successful—obviously, if they had been as successful as we wanted, we would not need to be having this debate today—but there is an important step here: we must constantly learn from these programmes what went well, what we need to build on and how we can adapt as we go forward in future.
In government we took the view that AI regulation should be principles and outcome based due to the fast-moving nature of technology, and I was pleased to hear my noble friend Lord Holmes echo that point. I am also pleased that the Government have retained this view, and I am supportive of the approach that they have taken and adopted in this respect towards AI. I welcome the fact that the Government are keen to continue fostering innovation, scaling businesses and supporting emerging technologies. I welcome the Government’s expressed view, building on the foundation of the previous Government, that pensions reforms can channel investment into innovation-driven industries. The Government have committed to ensuring that the British Business Bank will effectively support companies to scale up in the industrial strategy, and I thank my noble friend Lord Willetts for his helpful account of how the various elements of that ending up in the British Business Bank might fit together.
We have heard a great deal recently in this Chamber about AI and copyright, but I will make one point here: we need to move faster towards a trusted marketplace for copyright licensing by AI. The perception—whatever one’s views of it—that AI labs can steal private property with impunity poisons people’s willingness to trust our tech sector and therefore limits growth. The Government’s planned timeline to address that, as I have said many times in these debates, is far too slow and needs to become more agile; it needs to move more quickly.
I close with a few questions for the Minister. As has been pointed out, there have been plenty of different points raised, so if the Minister prefers to respond to some of these in writing, she is very welcome to do so. First, the Government have rightly recognised the pivotal role of the creative technology sector and the challenges it faces. However, there has been no commitment thus far to reform the current definition of R&D tax reliefs to include more of the creative sector. What plans do the Government have to change that?
Secondly, before the election the Labour Party manifesto pledged to create an AI regulation Bill, a commitment that was repeated in the King’s Speech. However, I read in the Guardian that this Bill will not be introduced until the next Session of Parliament. Can the Minister confirm that the Bill has indeed been delayed and, if so, what were the factors behind that decision? Has the Bill’s scope broadened or otherwise changed? Does she share my concerns about the continued uncertainty that this creates, not just for the tech sector but for everyone who is a stakeholder of this tech sector—which, in practice, means everyone?
Thirdly and finally, does the Minister, agree that crypto—or, as I feel they should be called, digital—assets and tokenisation have very serious potential to remove market frictions and cut transaction costs? If so, how can we encourage their use, particularly to help scale-ups? In recent days we have seen the United States make very significant moves in this area. What do the Government make of those moves, and how do we plan to respond?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Communications and Digital Committee for its very thoughtful and timely report. I pay particular thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her long and very effective contribution as chair of the committee, as well as for being instrumental in delivering this valuable inquiry. I also thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion with such insight and urgency. As noble Lords’ interventions have shown, we are grappling with some very complex issues.
Before I begin, I take a moment to thank the noble Lords, Lord Evans of Guisborough and Lord Massey of Hampstead, for their engaging maiden speeches. It is a pleasure to welcome them both to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, brings with him a wealth of insight from his time as a barrister and deputy mayor of London and his many years in public service. The noble Lord, Lord Massey, with his experience in political leadership and financial services, adds a valuable voice to our discussions. We are fortunate to have them both contributing to our work.
The title of this report, “less talk, more action”, is a challenge that we take seriously. The Government share the committee’s ambition to unlock the full potential of the UK’s AI and creative technology scale-ups. We understand that there are challenges in scaling these businesses and we are determined to ensure that they scale and stay in the UK. Before I respond to the many questions and interventions, I want to recognise the strength and importance of the UK technology and creative sectors at the current time.
The UK tech sector is an incredible UK success story, and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, that we do not do enough to celebrate the innovators and the risk-takers in the tech sector. Despite her quote, the UK continues to boast the largest tech ecosystem in Europe and ranks among the top five globally, driven by world-class talent, strong R&D and innovative, friendly regulation. It remains Europe’s top destination for tech investment, with a tech sector valued at £1.2 trillion in 2024. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, rightly point out, we have a wonderful university research sector, with four of the top 10 universities in the global index. This is a fantastic basis on which we can grow.
But we know that starting strong is not good enough. Too many of our promising companies struggle to scale. Too often, as we have heard, they grow elsewhere. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and others that urgent action is needed to avoid the “valley of death”. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, that we need ways to make the scale-ups’ route in the UK so compelling that it makes no sense for them to leave. We want them to stay, and we have to find ways to do that. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, that we need to address the cultural issues that are holding back some of that ambition and expansion. I agree as well with the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, that we need to find better ways of championing the entrepreneurs and holding them up as role models. We are indeed focused on building an environment where high-growth firms can start, scale and stay in the UK.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Vallance, who has a huge project ongoing to streamline funding throughout the start-up and scale-up funding stream in order to tackle, as we have heard, the plethora of government grants, many of which are not long term. We absolutely understand the need for long-term certainty for British businesses.
This work is already beginning to pay off. As of January 2025, 185 companies across the tech sector have reached unicorn status that were either founded or headquartered in the UK. That is more than France, Germany and Sweden put together. We want to see more tech businesses join UK success stories like Wave and Quantexa and scale in this manner.
As both the Prime Minister and the DSIT Secretary of State have made clear, the Government are going to have to keep this momentum going. We are already taking steps. This week we have announced a new £86 billion R&D settlement to fund everything from new drug treatments and longer lasting batteries to new AI breakthroughs to generate billions for the UK economy and drive our plan for change.
We have also announced TechFirst, a comprehensive talent initiative which will give young people across the UK unprecedented access to tech skills and careers, boosting our domestic supply of top tech talent. Our local innovation partnership fund will be investing up to £500 million to help our economic growth spread throughout every region and nation of the country. Yesterday I chaired a round table of regional cluster representatives who are driving forward that local enterprise. They very much welcomed our new funding announcements.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for her contribution on the value of data. I can assure her that the points she made throughout the Data (Use and Access) Bill about data being a sovereign asset have been taken on board, and they were very well made. I assure her and the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, that the principle of it being sovereign data will underpin the national data library. I can also assure noble Lords that the NHS allows access to health data only when it benefits health and care, and we never sell data.
Our creative industries are a national treasure, contributing £124 billion in GVA and supporting 2.4 million jobs. More than that, they are the windows through which the UK presents itself and our values to the world. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and other noble Lords that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have hosted a number of events for the creative sector at No. 10 and No. 11 Downing Street to celebrate their success.
In 2025, DCMS-funded research found that 13,800 creative businesses are using emerging technologies, supporting 350,000 jobs. They are also a source of innovation, and where these sectors come together, they produce great things. Createch—the fusion of creativity and technology—is a major growth opportunity. With the right support, createch scale-ups could generate £18 billion in additional GVA and 160,000 jobs over the next decade. We are committed to removing the barriers these businesses face, from access to finance to regulatory complexity. Our upcoming creative industry sector plan, which is indeed due shortly, will set out how we will do just that.
At this week’s spending review, the creative industries received a transformational boost. The settlement announced for DCMS included increased funding, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to fuelling the creative industries. It will help drive regional growth and innovation and develop creative places, ensuring that the UK’s creative industries remain renowned throughout the world.
The opportunity was particularly clear to me this week as I attended London Tech Week. I saw the University of the Arts London bring Future Play from its Creative Computing Institute to the heart of London Tech Week, demonstrating just how engaging creative technology can be for users, as well as many fantastic speakers representing createch companies appearing on panels throughout the week, such as Anna Burke of Animated Technologies and Daniel Verten of Synthesia. We want to ensure that the creative and technology sectors continue to thrive. We want to leverage the strength of the UK in both sectors to ensure that, as both grow, they continue to strengthen one another.
I also want to recognise the strength of our AI sector. It generated £14.2 billion in revenue last year, employs over 64,000 people and is home to more than 3,700 companies, up 17% on the year before. The Prime Minister launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan in January, setting out 50 far-reaching actions needed to drive the development and deployment of AI. The Government will take all these recommendations forward.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, I am pleased to say that just this week we announced an extra £1 billion of funding to scale up our computer power by a factor of 20. This will include making Scotland home to the UK’s most powerful supercomputer, with up to £750 million for that project. We will also train 7.5 million workers in AI by 2030 through partnering with 11 major companies.
The Government are not unaware of the complexities that arise out of AI. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that the challenge is to ensure that our AI deployment is human-led and human-focused. In particular, we recognise the importance of getting the regulatory framework right, especially around copyright and intellectual property. As noble Lords know, we held a detailed consultation on future copyright reform, receiving over 11,000 responses, and no decision has yet been taken on the final policy. We recognise that this is a complex and rapidly developing area and will continue to welcome all views and evidence to help shape our thinking. We will act in the round and on the basis of a careful analysis.
Transparency and other issues raised during debates are of course crucial, but they must be developed as part of a balanced package, to avoid making the UK uncompetitive in AI development. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, that it is unfortunate that the arguments have become a divisive thing between the creative and tech sectors, when in fact they should go hand in hand. We want to ensure that these exciting createch companies are able to continue to innovate and scale, while also supporting our world-leading creative industries—a sector the Government have committed to support as one of the eight priority strands of our industrial strategy.
To show the Government’s ambition for balance in this space, we are convening working groups which will include representatives of all relevant sectors, including the creative and AI sectors. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that we will of course also be working with parliamentary colleagues to help shape that report. I hope that that reiterates our commitment to developing policy that is effective, meaningful, proportional and practical in all sectors. Our commitment to supporting our tech sectors is evident in our industrial strategy. Invest 2035, a 10-year plan to support high-growth sectors and create a pro-business environment, will be published this month. The industrial strategy will deliver the certainty and stability that businesses need to invest, create a pro-business environment and support high-potential clusters across the country.
The industrial strategy will channel support to the eight growth-driving sectors, those in which the UK excels today and that will propel us forward tomorrow. Two of these sectors, the digital and technology and the life sciences sectors, are led by DSIT, and another, the creative industries, is led by DCMS. The digital and technology sector plan will build on the UK’s strengths in the six technologies with the greatest potential for growth, including AI, as well as advanced connectivity, cybersecurity, engineering biology, semiconductors and quantum. The plan will give every part of the country a stake in the technologies that are fundamentally reshaping our world, and which are critical to our national security and to growing our economy and improving the lives of citizens across the UK. We will also consider overlap and interdependencies across the growth-driving sectors.
Similarly for the creative industries, our sector plan will set out policies and interventions that will boost creative industries’ growth throughout the country, recognising that they are an economic and cultural success story. The sector plan will set out how the Government will work in partnership with industry to support access to finance, skills and education, innovation and exports. The Government have engaged with various stakeholders throughout the production of the industrial strategy—including through industrial strategy mission groups—to develop those solutions.
As we have heard, ensuring access to finance is absolutely central to our ambitions. The UK had the world’s third-largest venture capital market between 2021 and 2023, raising £72 billion, but we know there is more to do—particularly in unlocking domestic institutional capital. That is why we launched the Mansion House reforms, with the potential to unlock £50 billion for high-growth businesses. The Mansion House compact and the investment compact, now with more than 100 signatories and £100 billion in assets under management, are already shifting the dial.
We have also launched a landmark pension investment review and introduced the Pension Schemes Bill, aiming to increase investment in productive assets. This confirms our intention to change the pensions landscape, with a government-reserved power to ensure that providers sufficiently diversify investments. Today, just 0.5% of UK defined contribution pensions are invested in unlisted UK equities. In Australia that figure is closer to 5% or 6%. We must close that gap, and we have plans to do so.
We are reforming the British Business Bank, marking a major step change in financing companies to start and scale in the UK, and increasing its total financial capacity to £25.6 billion. This expansion will take British Business Bank investments to around £2.5 billion each year. We are also launching the British growth fund and the British growth partnership and remodelled the UK Infrastructure Bank into the National Wealth Fund, with £7.3 billion in new funding to crowd in private investment.
For the creative industries, to date the Government have offered substantial support, with the DCMS Secretary of State announcing £40 million of funding for the creative industries in January, supporting British start-up video game studios, music and film exports and creative businesses outside London. We also announced that the British Business Bank would increase its support for the creative industries to help creative businesses realise their full potential growth. Our soon-to-be-published creative industries sector plan will set out our approach to improving access to finance for creative businesses, developing business investment readiness and crowding in private finance.
We are proud of the work of Innovate UK, which now supports more than 450,000 innovators. Every £1 invested in business innovation returns over £3.60 in direct benefit and over £6 in total economic return. Through programmes such as Innovate UK Business Growth, we supported more than 10,000 innovation-focused SMEs last year, helping them raise £483 million in investment and create more than 2,600 jobs. Under the new executive chair of Innovate UK and the new UKRI CEO, we will refocus Innovate UK’s objectives to maximise its impact to the UK economy.
In addition, our investor partnerships programme has supported 360 SMEs with £144 million in grants and £393 million in aligned investment, unlocking over £1.2 billion in total. More than 3,000 creative businesses have applied for Innovate UK’s Creative Catalyst programme since 2021. We are also supporting late-stage R&D through innovation loans, with £229 million committed to 251 companies.
I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Ranger and Lord Clement-Jones, that skills pose a particular challenge. We currently have around 100,000 vacancies that cannot be filled in the digital sector in the UK. We are acutely aware of this, and we will address it through a reformed programme from Skills England.
To support innovation, we must also modernise regulation. That is why we established the Regulatory Innovation Office in October 2024. I am very grateful for all the work that the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, is doing in chairing the committee and tackling barriers to growth. RIO is already delivering results, from enabling beyond visual line of sight drone operations to launching the second year of the AI Airlock for healthcare and accelerating regulatory sandboxes for engineering, biology and space. RIO will help position Britain as the best place to innovate by ensuring safety, speeding up regulatory decisions and providing clear direction.
We have also commenced the digital markets regime, giving new powers to the Competition and Markets Authority to tackle the dominance of a few large firms. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, pointed out, the CMA is investigating Google and Apple’s positions in search and mobile ecosystems. These steps are vital to ensure fair competition and open markets.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, rightly mentioned the challenge and opportunities of procurement. As she says, we are taking action on this. She asked for a progress report and I will write to her, giving an update on that information.
This Government are not just talking; we are acting. We are unlocking capital, reforming regulation, supporting innovation and backing our creative and digital industries. But as we close another fantastic London Tech Week, we recognise that there is more to do. We welcome the committee’s scrutiny and share its sense of urgency.
If I have not answered all the points that have been raised, I will of course write to noble Lords. We are committed to working with Parliament, industry and academia to ensure that the UK is not just a great place to start a business but the best place in the world to scale one. That is our ambition and we look forward to working with noble Lords to deliver it.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I know this debate comes at the end of yet another busy week for her—handling the data Bill and the Employment Rights Bill, and she has just referred to being at London Tech Week too. She talked about a lot of activity coming from the Government, and I hope she can carve out enough time in her schedule over the next few months to make sure the activity leads to the outcomes and results that are much needed in this area. Speaking as a former Minister, I know what it is like to think that it is all happening because we have said it is happening, but it needs a lot of concentrated supervision.
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. It has been fascinating and heartening to hear noble Lords cover topics that I did not and that are so important to this debate. My noble friend Lord Hamilton raised energy right at the start, but we have also heard about skills, the importance of data and government procurement. Government procurement is particularly important to emphasise, because not only does procurement—rather than grants—more often help the success of these companies but it is an important aspect to the deployment and adoption of the new technology. It is an area where even more focus is needed from the Government, to make sure that companies can get the access to contracts that they deserve.
I congratulate my noble friends Lord Massey and Lord Evans on their maiden speeches. Both have played significant roles in the Conservative Party and have demonstrated today their strong credentials as contributors to this House. My noble friend Lord Evans was modest in his mention of the work he does to support Women2Win. He plays a big part in helping women who are novice politicians in their preparation for the daunting task of facing selection meetings.
My noble friend Lord Massey gave an impressive set of recommendations to unlock more investment capital, and his analysis of the barriers that deter risk-taking was very powerful. He referenced the FCA and financial regulation as problems in this area. Although he is not in his place, it is worth me giving a plug to the report published today by the Financial Services Regulation Committee, which my noble friend Lord Forsyth chairs; it is very much about regulation in the financial sector and what it needs to do.
My noble friend Lord Willetts, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to the trio of Select Committee reports on the challenge of scale-ups. My noble friend Lady Fall referred to a report this week from the Tony Blair Institute on the topic of scale-ups. All of this shows that the challenge of scaling up in AI and creative tech—and, indeed, the tech sector more broadly—is not going away. We have enough understanding now of the obstacles and how to deal with them. As my noble friend Lord Willetts said, if we focus on the companies that have the potential to scale rapidly, the challenge should be manageable. Even if we have grappled with it now for more than 10 years, there is just too much at stake for us not to succeed.
To finish, I know it is a bit of a cliché but it is true that it has been a privilege to chair the Communications and Digital Select Committee. I thank noble Lords for their very kind words about me today. I also thank again the colleagues I have worked with, and particularly the committee staff, both the current team and their predecessors—they really are superb. I wish my esteemed successor, the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, great success; I am sure that the committee will thrive under her chairmanship.
Finally, I thank all the people I have met from the tech, media, creative and telecom sectors over the last three years. I am full of admiration for them and all they do to advance their businesses and contribute to the economy and our society, and I wish them continued success.
Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill [HL]
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for pointing out that I am actually here. I intervened on my noble friend Lady Stowell to make the point that we all support the introduction of AI, but AI is going to be tremendously consumptive of electricity. Electricity prices are actually very high in this country, and I attribute that to the targets we have set for reaching net zero, which I think we should be ignoring. We should not ignore net zero, but we should ignore the targets, which are too short and are damaging the British economy. That is the reason for my amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, suggested my intervention was motivated by some tradition in the other House of intervening very early on in the debate and then catching the next train to the country. So I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for pointing out that I am still here.
Things have changed tremendously since I first tabled this amendment. Initially, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was rather hoping that I might withdraw my amendment. I think he hoped the Bill would go through without any debate and on the nod. That should not happen. The whole world of energy is now changing quite substantially, and we have got to be very wary of setting extremely arbitrary targets for reaching net zero, which have been damaging our economy and have led to extraordinarily high energy prices.
Since I tabled the amendment, we have had the report from the Tony Blair Institute, which is interesting because one the main things it pointed is that there is absolutely no way we are going to reach these global targets, for the simple reason that a very large number of developing countries are producing their own energy and want to produce it as cheaply as they possibly can. They are going to go on using fossil fuels for the indefinite future. Therefore, is it sensible for us, producing less than 1% of the world’s emissions, to set ourselves a net-zero target, when China, for instance, is producing 60% of its electricity from coal-fired power stations? Not only are the Chinese using probably the most efficient fossil fuel for producing electricity, they are also massively polluting the atmosphere in which their people have to live.
At the same time, we have stopped producing any form of electricity through coal. We have no more coal-burning power stations. When this started, the great theory was that somehow we were going to be leaders in the world; we would set an example and others would follow. Quite clearly, the Chinese are not following our example: they are merely taking massive advantage of the fact they can produce manufactures much more cheaply than we can here. The drain of manufacturing industry continues from this country, and that is driven, among other things, by the fact that our electricity prices are so much higher than those in the rest of the world. I admire the Government for having the ambition to reindustrialise this country, but it is not going to happen if our electricity prices are so much higher than everybody else’s in the world. This is one of the problems we are living with today: we are not competitive, and many other countries are taking advantage of us in this way.
I know the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has had association with the Drax power station. I have the most enormous reservations about a so-called green power station, which is supposed to be fulfilling all the requirements of net zero but is polluting the atmosphere through every conceivable stage of its process of feeding fuel into that power station.
It is supposed to be dealing with wooden pellets that come from North America. There is a suggestion that quite a lot of trees have been cut down in North America as well to produce these wooden pellets. When the wooden pellets are eventually burned, they must be almost as contaminating as a coal-fired power station, if not quite. At the end of the day, we should not be contributing to CO2 emissions through generating power, even if it is under the auspices that somehow this is a renewable source, because I do not think that it makes any sense at all.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, first, I apologise that I was unable to be present for the Second Reading of this valuable Bill.
I am a bit confused by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, because it seems that he leaves intact in the Bill the very targets that he is against. In fact, the amendment appears to focus on something equally important, however, which is that it would remove the requirement for the listed public bodies to contribute to the
“delivery of the programme for adaptation to climate change under section 58 of the Climate Change Act 2008”.
The Government have a statutory responsibility to deliver the adaptation programme, and the Adaptation Committee of the Climate Change Committee in its successive assessments has reviewed whether we as a nation are doing what is required to make sure that nationally, including with regard to infrastructure, we are more resilient to climate-related floods, droughts, intense weather events, heatwaves and increased storminess, and all the things that we are increasingly seeing.
We are seeing households go through horrors of floods and rocketing insurance costs. We are seeing the Government having to pay out £60 million in recovery payments to farmers for the excessive rainfall in summer 2024 having a huge impact on their livelihoods. Farmers, of course, also suffer from not having enough water on occasion, and that again hits their bottom line in irrigation costs or loss of crops.
There are more frequent and extreme heatwaves which cause excess deaths, particularly in elderly people. According to the Office for National Statistics, in the 2022 heatwave excess deaths associated with five heat episodes alone were up by 6.2%. Climate change-related insurance claims are steadily rising, and all the impacts that we have just heard about are serious for people and for the economy.
If the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, feels we are moving too fast because our electricity prices are high, I say that we are rapidly approaching a point when the real downstream costs of not doing enough to combat climate change are going to start hitting the economy, if they have not already done so. The Adaptation Committee has been clear that we are not making enough progress. Its progress report on the third national adaptation programme was very blunt:
“The UK’s preparations for climate change are inadequate ... The Government has yet to change the UK’s inadequate approach to tackling climate risks … The Government must”—
among other actions—
“Improve coordination across government … Integrate adaptation into all relevant policies … strategies and plans. Implement monitoring, evaluation and learning across all sectors”.
Clause 1(1)(c) is fundamental to that to ensure that public assets and critical public services are resilient to climate impacts now, avoiding the costs of coping with emergency events and costly retrofitting. We must not lose this adaptation clause from the Bill. I cannot recall off the top of my head the exact figure calculated for the cost of taking action on the climate targets, but if my memory serves me well, it was less than 1% of GDP lost and certainly less than the impact of the term in office of Liz Truss.
I shall briefly take this opportunity to stress the importance of this Bill as whole. The Government have statutory climate change and environmental targets that they urgently need to meet. A range of public bodies needs to act in support of the Government if the Government are to have any hope of meeting the targets.
We have experience in this House of laying such requirements on public bodies. During the debates on the Great British Energy Bill and the Crown Estate Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, attempted to get a similar obligation about environmental and climate change targets laid on those bodies to help achieve that government strategy commitment. That took up considerable time of the House, and of Ministers outside the Chamber, and although we did not get agreement at that point to amend the Bills, we got valuable assurances from the Dispatch Box that those bodies would be expected to meet sustainable development objectives and, by analogy, climate and environment objectives as outlined in the two pieces of legislation that laid those requirements on government.
We could theoretically carry on trying to insert those obligations into public bodies one by one as suitable legislation comes past that would provide opportunities. Indeed, during 2000s, I proposed a sustainable development duty for every relevant public body as an opportune Bill came through your Lordships’ House, and I won the day on several public bodies that still have their sustainable development duties, but I can tell the Committee one thing: Ministers came to hate me. It would be much more efficient to get the Government to recognise that they will need all the help they can get to deliver the targets and to adopt the approach suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, of a single Bill doing all relevant public bodies in a job lot. Can the Minister delight us by telling us that he is seriously considering this or, at the very least, could he tell us how much progress has been made since commitment made at Second Reading by the Minister, the other noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that the imminent revision of the environment improvement plan provides the best vehicle to consider the principles that this Bill is promoting and their practical implementation?
We are due to get the environment improvement plan revision before the summer—late spring is the technical term, I think. Can the Minister confirm that it will include specific measures to align public bodies’ action with delivery of the statutory climate change and environment targets, including the adaptation programme, despite the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, to remove it?
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I express my concern about this amendment. I completely understand where my noble friend Lord Hamilton is coming from with his wider concerns about some of these policies. I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, about adaptation for climate change in particular. Although it was criticised by the sub-committee of the Climate Change Committee—I was actually responsible for publishing it—and there may be disagreement about how far it would go and the connectivity, it was still important to make sure that we got it in place so that government departments knew what they should be doing. We had made that commitment to do so.
In particular, Clause 1(2) is a concern, as it says:
“The environmental recovery objective is a principal objective for the public bodies”.
I say to my noble friend that these bodies, which are by and large but not solely Defra bodies, are either Ministers or bodies that are accountable to Parliament, to Ministers or, indeed, to the electorate more widely when we get into local government. I realise I should have tabled an amendment here to consider mayoral authorities and mayors. It is vital that we recognise that there is already in law an enhanced biodiversity duty on all the public authorities.
I am also conscious that the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, pointed out to me, I think in a different meeting, that when the Environment Bill went through this House the Government at the time resisted directly linking the local nature recovery strategies into this. I was not a Minister in Defra at that time so I must admit I was not aware of that detail, but I genuinely believe that the local nature recovery strategies are critical to making sure we achieve these targets, which is why I broadly support this Bill.
I have tabled a fresh Question for Written Answer, bearing in mind what the Minister, Mary Creagh, said, I think last November in response to somebody in the House of Commons, that she expected all the local nature recovery strategies to be published by the end of the first half of June. Clearly, that has not happened, but incentives are supposed to be given towards that, so I have tabled a Question for Written Answer to see what the progress has been on that.
I know that my noble friend adores our countryside, but our country will be very different if we do not protect our natural environment. On the targets referred to in Clauses 1(1)(a) and (b), for too long nature has been the Cinderella in thinking about climate change. The climate adaptation element is also key when it starts to come together in real action and not just saying, “We’re pleading with you to look after nature”. It can be difficult to explain why it matters to keep alive a species of bat in Colombia, but it starts to come together when we think about adaptation.
I am conscious that it is important that we continue to do whatever we can to honour our obligations. It was a Conservative Government who did the negotiations for the global biodiversity framework. I believe that it is vital that every sinew of government is working towards achieving that. It matters not just because we led the way in the negotiations and it took a lot of courage—I paid a lot of tribute at the time to our brilliant civil servants who were leading the day-to-day negotiations and working with Ministers to make them happen—but because we matter and nature matters. That is why I encourage my noble friend to consider whether he wants to press this again on Report, because, if he did, I am afraid that I would find myself in a different Lobby from him.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I agree with what the noble Baronesses said about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. This Bill is incredibly important and it needs to stand in its entirety.
I will make two points. First, local authorities are critical if we are to get to net zero. Sectors that are either directly influenced or shaped by decisions from local authorities account for one-third of our emissions. We cannot get to net zero without them. This Bill rightly says that it is fine to have national targets to achieve net zero, but unless we actually will the means, it will not happen. Therefore, we need local authorities to use their planning, transport and housing functions to deliver net-zero policy on the ground.
Equally, following up from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, the natural environment is incredibly dependent on local authorities. As she rightly mentioned, local nature recovery strategies are a critical tool that local authorities can use to shape and support nature going forward, with their development processes and amenity space. We cannot get to nature recovery, for which we now have government targets, without them. Local authorities are critical. That is why the Bill needs to go ahead in its entirety.
I will pick up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. At every opportunity in this Chamber and in the other place, Members are finding legislative vehicles to give these duties to public bodies to take forward the responsibility for climate and nature. She mentioned some of them, but there are others, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which has just finished in the Commons. My honourable friend Gideon Amos MP attempted to insert into that Bill a new clause setting out that local authorities, in taking forward their planning and development functions, should take account of the climate and nature targets. As the noble Baroness rightly said, because this House and the other House know that local authorities and public bodies are the vehicles to deliver the nature and climate goals that we want, we will just end up with every Bill being bogged down with attempts to amend it accordingly, unless the Government take forward this incredibly well-measured and timely Bill—and I salute the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for introducing it.
I hope the Minister will support the Bill, but like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I will ask him one question. She mentioned that the Minister said at Second Reading that the EIP was the proper vehicle for taking this forward. However, that deals with the nature aspect; instead, I want to address the issue of the climate goals. Even if this Government do not take forward this timely Bill, they committed in December to introduce a public participation strategy this year. That would set out how businesses, civic groups and individuals would work on this; the Government would bring them together and show them how we can all, as a nation, move towards a just and fair transition to net zero. Critical to that is the role of local authorities—with their respective functions between housing, development and transport—in helping those businesses and individuals get there. Can the Minister assure the House today that, when the public participation strategy comes out—before the end of this year, I hope—it will make crystal clear the role of local authorities and public bodies in helping businesses and citizens help us get to net zero.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I was not planning to speak in this debate, but I have heard so much comment about local authorities that I felt I had to. I declare my interests as a councillor, an ex-leader of a council and chairman of the LGA. I find in those roles that local authorities are constantly emasculated by regulation, red tape, targets and being asked to do more than they could ever possibly achieve. We end up, therefore, always trying to compromise between various targets on which we could not deliver. We were being asked to do too much.
I do not know of a council that does not want better biodiversity and to address the issues of climate change, and that does not care about net zero. The problem is that the more targets, red tape and emasculation there is, the harder you make it for councils to do their jobs, whether that is caring for vulnerable children and adults, or hitting net-zero and climate change targets.
I ask noble Lords to consider whether this actually makes the job of councils and local authorities easier in delivering the things we all want, or whether it just adds another layer of bureaucracy. I cannot answer that for noble Lords, but I do know, having operated underneath all that red tape, that regulations, red tape and targets made my life more difficult in achieving stuff that every council I know wants to achieve anyway.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this Bill, as I did at Second Reading. I too will oppose the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, because it removes crucial provisions relating to climate adaptation and environmental recovery objectives.
The truth is that, despite having really good environmental legislation, the Government are largely off track to meet their legal obligations, particularly on nature recovery, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. The Office for Environmental Protection has concluded that the Government are largely off track to meet their nature goals; the Climate Change Committee has stated that the UK is not on track to meet its 2030 emissions targets; and in the recent report of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee, not a single delivery plan for adaptation was rated as good. This is an alarming situation, and this Bill will help to resolve some of those problems.
The trouble is that nothing is joined up. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, put it really well at Second Reading when he said that the Government have all the levers, but they are not actually attached to anything. The Government are like a general in a military campaign who fails to tell the troops what the strategy is. Government needs to be interconnected, and these targets and ambitions need to go to the bodies, local authorities and people on the ground who are taking these decisions daily, to help make sure that government policy is joined up from top to bottom and united in its purpose and aims. That is what this Bill seeks to do.
As others have said, we sought to amend the Crown Estate Act, and we succeeded; we also succeeded in amending the Water (Special Measures) Act, but it wastes a lot of parliamentary time having to do this. I will be tabling an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to put such a duty on the Forestry Commission as well. The Government need to do these things.
On Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I too was a little bit confused by it; there was a disconnect between the wording of the amendment and the speech he gave. It would remove the requirement for public bodies to deliver the adaptation programme. Just yesterday evening, we had a debate in Grand Committee on the impact of wildfires, and the threat is ever-growing. If we do not adapt, people will suffer and we will face increased costs and damages. We need to prepare: the reality of climate change is here, and it is going to be disastrous for people and our economy. We need to do something about it.
Amendment 1 would also remove the nature recovery duty. However, we have to do this. Climate change and biodiversity losses are interconnected and interdependent. Government public bodies own 6% of the land in the UK, so why would we not seek to improve our biodiversity by making use of those bodies and the land under their control?
Councils, as we have heard, also have an important role. I will challenge some of the remarks made because, in Scotland, councils do have a duty to make climate-related improvements. In fact, where they do so, they are making real improvements. Lots of councils want a greater ability to do these things. I therefore reject the amendment because, if passed, it would rip the heart out of the Bill. I will however address some of the points the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has made.
I do not think it appropriate to talk about our climate targets as being arbitrary. They are set by scientists and are reviewed by the Climate Change Committee; they are real targets with real purpose. I agree with the noble Lord about the cost of energy bills. More must absolutely be done to bring down the cost of energy, but we need to remember that it is the cost of gas that sets the electricity price in the UK 98% of the time. I know that the Government are looking at energy market reform, but more needs to be done on that. The green economy grew by 10.3% last year, according to the CBI. In fact, it is one of the very few parts of the UK economy that is showing real growth.
I therefore have to say that I do not think the amendment is useful. I am not able to support it, but we do support the Bill.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for his commitment to environmental issues and, as a result, bringing forward this Private Member’s Bill. The noble Lord’s expertise and dedication have long contributed to the strength of debate in your Lordship’s House, and we thank him for his continued leadership on this front.
I turn to Amendment 1 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom, and acknowledge the concerns that he has raised in putting forward this amendment. While we recognise the intention behind this Bill—to ensure that public bodies play their part in meeting our ambitious environmental targets—we need to offer some words of caution, particularly on the issue of overreach. I am sure that all noble Lords agree that our most cherished landscapes—our national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, now called national landscapes—must do everything they can to aid in the recovery of wildlife and biodiversity. That ambition is shared across your Lordships’ House and, indeed, the country as a whole.
Recognising that, Defra has already put in place the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme. This grant scheme allows farmers to receive support where they actively contribute to climate resilience, nature recovery and the protection of the character and cultural heritage of our landscapes. This is a targeted and thoughtful policy, which encourages both practical and local delivery. We therefore caution against laying on additional statutory duties that might potentially cut across these already established aims. The public bodies listed in the Bill are not environmental regulators, nor are they designed to be. Asking them, for example, to assist in meeting targets for particulate matter or broader air quality may stretch them beyond both their remit and their expertise.
Turning to local authorities, I remind your Lordships’ House of the substantial steps already taken through the Environment Act 2021, which amended the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 to create a duty not just to conserve but to enhance biodiversity. Public authorities must now actively consider what action they can properly take, consistent with the proper exercise of their functions, to further that aim. This is a significant evolution in environmental governance. The key question, we believe, is whether we should be adding yet more duties on these authorities. We must consider not just what is desirable but what is feasible. Many public bodies, particularly the smaller local authorities, lack the resources and technical know-how to contribute meaningfully to the targets set out in the Bill. There is a risk that we distract those authorities from their essential services and dilute the impact of the environmental work already under way, as was so eloquently illustrated by my noble friend Lord Jamieson.
To take one example, Great British Nuclear, which I will speak to further in group 2, was established to help deliver nuclear energy projects in support of government policy. Its objectives are clear and technical. Of course, it goes without saying that it must adhere to the rules and regulations already set for environmental safety, but expecting it or other bodies to contribute to these environmental targets risks undermining their principal duties and weakening delivery across the board.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his Private Member’s Bill, and thank him and all noble Lords who took part in the debate on Amendment 1. I look forward to hearing the noble Lord’s remarks shortly. He rightly highlights through his Bill, and his contributions so far during its passage through your Lordships’ House, the intertwined issues of environmental decline and climate change, on which this House must continue to engage.
As my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock has noted, the intention of the Bill to drive and strengthen public authority action towards meeting national, environmental and climate targets and objectives is important. Of this the Government are in no doubt. Encouraging nature’s recovery is a key priority, fundamental to the Government’s approach to economic growth. However, at the risk of repeating my noble friend’s comments at Second Reading, there are already measures in place seeking to realise this Bill’s ambition.
For example, we expect that the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act’s biodiversity duty, strengthened through the Environment Act, will ensure public authorities make conservation and enhancement of biodiversity a core part of the delivery of their functions. Local nature recovery strategies will set the strategic priorities for nature recovery in an area and identify the best locations for land management actions to deliver those priorities. These are progressing well, and we expect most or all to be published this year or shortly after, covering the length and breadth of England.
On climate adaptations, England’s third national adaptation programme, NAP3, summarises the collective actions the Government are taking to address risks and opportunities from climate change and to ensure that adaptation is incorporated into government programmes. Recently, through the Water (Special Measures) Act, this Government introduced a requirement on Ofwat to have regard to the need to contribute to achieving targets in the Environment Act 2021 and the Climate Change Act 2008 when carrying out its functions. We intend to strengthen the statutory purposes of protected landscapes, our most iconic and inspiring places, to give them a clear mandate to recover nature and to widen the public’s access to it.
This Government are firmly committed to working collaboratively to improve the natural environment. As we have already heard in noble Lords’ contributions this afternoon, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wasted no time in announcing a rapid review of the statutory environmental improvement plan, and we will publish a revised EIP this year. This revised plan will focus on cleaning up our waterways, reducing waste across the economy, planting millions more trees, improving air quality and halting the decline in species by 2030. To answer the question posed by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone on wider alignment, there are already measures in place to realise the Bill’s ambitions through this collection of actions.
Further, on net zero, the Government will deliver an updated plan that sets out the policy package to the end of carbon budget 6 in 2037 for all sectors by October 2025. This will outline the policies and proposals needed to deliver carbon budgets 4 to 6 and our nationally determined contribution commitments on a pathway to net zero.
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, effectively proposes the removal of climate adaptation from the remit of this Bill. I agree with my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the noble Lord’s speech seemed more focused on net-zero targets than climate adaptation, which is the focus of his amendment.
Climate adaptation is essential for supporting our natural environment and biodiversity, as the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, recognises, as well as protecting our communities and economy. Climate change is now an inevitable part of our present and future, posing many challenges with severe impacts on our lives, health and prosperity. It is therefore essential that we continue to adapt to climate change, not only for the environment’s sake but to reduce its significant economic and growth impacts. As my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock made clear at Second Reading, this Government are fully committed to addressing net zero and the role that climate change plays, as summarised in NAP3.
I will briefly address the points the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, made about net zero. The British people deserve lower-cost, clean and secure power—we are all in agreement on that—and the good jobs that will come along with that. Certainly, it is the role of all Governments to protect us from the long-term threats we face in energy security. The economic case, the national security case and the environmental case all point in the same direction, which is our clean green energy mission that will protect the country from exposure to unstable international markets and give greater security and stability to both family and national finances in terms of energy costs. We will achieve this through delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero. Our mission will bring energy security, protect bill payers, create good jobs and help protect future generations from the costs of climate breakdown.
The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, spoke with passion and knowledge about the importance of engaging every level of society—local authorities, businesses, individuals and other stakeholder groups—in our mission to tackle climate adaptation and pursue net zero. Defra and DESNZ are working on a public participation strategy. The noble Baroness made some well-observed comments about the importance of engagement at all levels of society and I will take that back to colleagues in both departments.
In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for bringing this Bill to the House and enabling this debate, and I look forward to hearing his comments.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register—in particular, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, has already mentioned, that I chair the independent advisory group on sustainability for the Drax Group.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for meeting me to discuss the Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for discussing it with me just a couple of days ago. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. It was heartening to hear support for the Bill from all sides of the House, although there were some voices of scepticism. It is important to recognise that the environment and climate are not partisan issues; they are things that affect future generations. We are concerned about it for the future of our children, grandchildren and future generations in general. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for his kind words about me personally.
When I read Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, its purpose was not clear to me. As others have said, including the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Coffey, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the Minister, it removes the adaptation element of the environmental recovery objective by deleting lines seven and eight of Clause 1. It also removes the environmental recovery objective itself by deleting lines nine to 11. As others have pointed out, without this objective, the rest of the Bill would make no sense, as it is all about how the listed public authorities deliver the environmental recovery objective. I was therefore tempted to conclude that the noble Lord intended it as a wrecking amendment. However, I now understand that the amendment is based on scepticism about achieving the targets in the Environment Act and, particularly, the net-zero target of the Climate Change Act.
In other words, the amendment is not directed at my Bill, but at these two Acts of Parliament. I could rebut in detail the arguments made about net zero by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, but because I believe the amendment is out of scope, I prefer not to engage in the detail. I suggest that if the noble Lord objects to the net-zero target passed by the previous Conservative Government, it would be more appropriate to try to change that Act rather than this Bill.
It is therefore perhaps worth restating what this Bill is about, and some of these points have already been made. It introduces an objective for the many public authorities, regulators, land managers, infrastructure providers, planning authorities and so on to contribute to the specific targets in the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, these public authorities are the bodies that make the daily decisions that affect the state of our environment, our resilience to climate change and our greenhouse gas footprint. In fact, the truth is that, without the contributions of these public authorities, there is no hope of meeting the targets—a point made by a number of noble Lords.
I will briefly allude to local authorities, since they were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, among others. It is worth noting that, in spite of what has been said, on Wednesday this week the LGA published its position on my Bill, in which it said it is in principle in favour of a statutory climate duty. There you have it: the LGA, which represents local authorities, supports the intention of this Bill.
The Minister has said that the Government are not going accept the Bill, although they agree with the principles in it. However, I point out that the Government have recently said that they will
“clarify how the environmental improvement plan will be delivered, including the role of government departments and bodies, environmental NGOs, businesses, farmers, landowners/managers, local government and the public”.
This Bill should be a godsend. It provides the clarity that the Government is seeking on how to deliver the environmental improvement plan.
Furthermore, two recent reports, commissioned by Defra, also point in the same direction as my Bill. The interim Cunliffe report, on the water sector, concludes that
“the sector needs a clearer and more consistent long-term direction—one that aligns environmental ambition, the provision of water supply and wastewater removal, and the expectations of customers … We believe the legislative framework that underpins the sector must be revisited”,
which is what this Bill is in part doing. The report goes on to mention resilience and adaptation.
The Corry review of the regulatory system in Defra states that the system is now
“inefficient and difficult for customers to navigate. It needs to work in a fundamentally different way, to become a system focused on delivering positive outcomes for nature and the environment and to be an aid not an impediment to sustainable growth”.
So there you have it. The Government’s own plans for the environmental improvement plan and the two reviews that Defra, commissioned by Cunliffe and Corry, all point in the same direction as my Bill: make the regulatory regime simpler, clearer and more effective. At the same time, ensure that public authorities are helping to deliver the specific legally binding targets for nature and climate.
During the debate, the Minister and other noble Lords referred to a number of existing initiatives: for example, the biodiversity duty that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, mentioned; the local nature recovery strategies that a number of noble Lords referred to; the devolution framework, which has been implicit, although not specifically referred to; and the protected landscapes targets and outcomes framework, referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, among others. These initiatives are, without doubt, important, but they could be enhanced by specific guidance on timelines for meeting the targets in the two Acts. The biodiversity duty, for instance, has the rather weak guidance:
“Consider what you can do to conserve and enhance biodiversity. Agree policies and specific objectives based on your consideration. Act to deliver your policies and achieve your objectives”.
There is no link to the Environment Act or the Climate Change Act, so we could strengthen the guidance for those duties.
To summarise, my three asks of the Government in the future, would be—
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I understand what the noble Lord says on that, recognising that this was covering every single bit of government. The guidance that was attached to the production of local nature recovery strategies was actually very much stronger and more specific.
Lord Krebs (CB)
I thank the noble Baroness for pointing that out, and I accept her comment.
To summarise, my three asks of the Government are: first, to tighten the guidance where appropriate, following the interjection of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, on the existing initiatives aimed at protecting nature and tackling climate change; secondly, to ensure that the environmental improvement plan includes the role of public authorities in meeting the specific time-bound targets in the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone; and, thirdly, in line with Corry and Cunliffe, to modernise and simplify the legislation, as proposed by my Bill. In the meantime, I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, having had a good debate about his amendment, will agree to withdraw it.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I started this debate by saying that my real concern about all these green initiatives is that they are adding to costs and are one of the reasons why our electricity prices are some of the highest in the G7 and make this country very uncompetitive, particularly when it comes to manufacturing industry, which continues to leach from this country to other countries in the world. The chances of restoring our manufacturing sector seem to me to be pretty faint as long as we have these astronomically high prices. I noticed during the debate that a lot of people have gone on about the duties of all the authorities listed here to adapt to green initiatives, but on the other hand, nobody talks about the cost of doing that. That is really my concern, right across the board.
The green initiatives that we have under net-zero legislation are actually leading to customers paying more for services. I am surprised that the Local Government Association says that it approves of the Bill, because it will mean that community charge payers will be paying more money to enact all of this stuff. But I think we have had an interesting debate and I am more than happy to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, it might be helpful if I inform your Lordships’ House that we will be finishing all the business on today’s Order Paper, so Members may want to consider the length of their contributions.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
Perhaps I might clarify that that has not been agreed by the usual channels and the convention is that we finish at 3 pm. We have already had two very late sittings this week, if not three.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I did just put it in the Teams chat. I did try to talk to the noble Lord about it this afternoon. I am happy to continue such conversations, but having this conversation is also eating into our time. It may be helpful, given that noble Lords are here waiting for their business to commence, that we commence with the business.
Clause 2: Duty on public bodies to take steps to achieve environmental targets
Amendment 2
Viscount Trenchard
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the advisory board of Penultimate Power UK Ltd and as a consultant to Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on obtaining a Committee stage debate for his Bill. I recognise his consistent efforts in raising environmental and climate issues in this House, although I may not always wholly agree with him and sometimes question whether his approach is proportionate. I regret that the obsessive determination of both the last Government and this one to eliminate fossil fuels too quickly, particularly gas, has ensured that the cost of providing electricity to industrial users is now the highest in the world. For example, household electricity in the UK is 42% more expensive than in France and 169% more expensive than in the United States. As for industrial electricity, UK prices are two and a half times as much as the equivalents in both France and the US.
The comparisons with France are important because French electricity is generated 70% or more from nuclear and the UK grid depends for around 15% of its supply on imports, much of that from France. I did not speak at Second Reading on 18 October but the contribution to that debate by my noble friend Lord Blencathra is relevant to my amendment. My noble friend said:
“Take Great British Nuclear, which was created in 2023, not 100 years ago. It has as its objects ‘to facilitate the design, construction, commissioning and operation of nuclear energy generation projects for the purpose of furthering any policies published by His Majesty’s government’. I do not think you can make a better contribution to net zero than that”.—”.—[Official Report, 18/10/24; col. 397.]
My Amendment 2 seeks to exempt Great British Nuclear—weirdly and misleadingly renamed on Tuesday as Great British Energy-Nuclear, or GBE-N—from the duty to adhere to the environmental targets laid out in the Bill. I have argued before that to establish GBE as a separate publicly owned company from what is now GBE-N was a mistake and that it would have been much more sensible to have integrated GBE-N into GBE at the time of GBE’s establishment. I say that the renaming is misleading because it gives the impression that GBE-N is being brought under GBE’s umbrella. Perhaps the Minister can tell your Lordships what corporate or structural changes have taken place in either company as a result of the renaming.
Noble Lords will remember that when we debated the GBE Bill many of us lamented the fact that GBE has been given £8 billion to invest in energy projects, principally wind and solar, whereas GBE-N does not have any committed funding to invest in nuclear projects. I move this amendment not out of disregard for the environment but from a desire to see our environmental goals achieved through pragmatic, economically responsible policy. The Bill sets ambitious and admirable goals but, in its current form, it risks entangling Great British Energy-Nuclear, a vital strategic body, in layers of environmental regulation that could unintentionally undermine our path to both net zero and energy independence.
Nuclear energy is not merely an option; it is an economic and environmental necessity for this country. However, as many noble Lords will appreciate, the economics of nuclear are finely balanced. The upfront capital costs are at present extraordinarily high. Each new gigawatt-scale power station costs billions of pounds. We acknowledge that investors, both domestic and international, will certainly scrutinise every risk and additional burden before making a decision to invest.
I welcome the Government’s decision to invest in Sizewell C, as such huge projects are always going to need public sector support. To subject Great British Energy-Nuclear to further regulatory obligations under the Bill beyond what it already faces from the Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Environment Agency and planning authorities would be to risk unnecessary cost inflation. It would create bureaucratic drag and, worse, it would signal to markets that the UK remains a difficult environment for major infrastructure investment.
Let us be clear: nuclear energy is not on a level playing field with other low-carbon technologies. Wind and solar have enjoyed significant subsidy support over the past decade through contracts for difference, feed-in tariffs and other mechanisms. Nuclear, by contrast, is expected to finance itself under far more stringent conditions and is simultaneously capable of delivering baseload power that intermittent renewables cannot. Why is the consumer required to subsidise only intermittent energy sources but not nuclear projects?
The result of that is that UK-developed new nuclear schemes suffer a massive disadvantage compared with UK renewable schemes but also compared with nuclear schemes developed overseas, which, fortified with massive subsidies from foreign Governments, particularly the US, are coming over here and driving out UK-originated nuclear schemes which cannot compete financially.
Furthermore, nuclear is already held to the highest environmental and safety standards. From construction to decommissioning, the nuclear industry is subject to extensive regulation, scrutinised by multiple agencies and underpinned by rigorous science. It is misleading to suggest that this sector operates without accountability; to the contrary, it is perhaps the most tightly governed of all.
I say this not out of a lack of concern for the environment but because we must think strategically. Nuclear energy is, after all, one of the cleanest forms of energy over the long term. Its carbon footprint is negligible and it plays a critical role in achieving a stable low-carbon grid. The Government have rightly committed to ramping up nuclear capacity, both through small modular reactors and new gigawatt-scale stations. But these ambitions must be matched by policy consistency. If Great British Nuclear is to fulfil its remit, it must not be hobbled by duplicative environmental targets that add cost without adding value.
Furthermore, I remind the House that GBN is not a typical public body. It is a strategic delivery vehicle. Its success is measured not in reports or audits but in gigawatts connected to the grid. I propose, therefore, that we either exempt Great British nuclear entirely or create a more tailored framework, recognising the unique challenges and contributions of nuclear infrastructure.
Our duty is to make Britain cleaner, safer and more secure. We must avoid binding the hands of the very institutions we have created to do precisely that. I urge the House to support this measured, targeted amendment and to ensure that economic realism and environmental ambition go hand in hand. I beg to move.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, very briefly, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for bringing his amendment, which seeks to remove Great British Nuclear from the Bill. I just remind noble Lords that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, seeks to install an environmental recovery obligation and adaptation for public bodies to help meet our targets under the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act.
The purpose of this amendment is to remove Great British Nuclear and make an exception for that particular body which does not apply to any of the other 29 listed public bodies that are named in the Bill. For the noble Viscount’s argument to be successful, an argument needs to be put forward that Great British Nuclear is in a particular situation that is separate to all the other bodies named in the Bill, such that it has a specific, cast-iron case to be removed from the provisions in the Private Member’s Bill before us today.
I have not heard that argument, so, in short, I do not support this amendment—rather the opposite. I remind noble Lords that only the other week the Public Accounts Committee published a report on Sellafield talking about the intolerable risks there. There is a £136 billion cost and a projected timeframe of 100 years for dealing with the nuclear waste legacy in this country. This Government have no long-term geological store for nuclear waste and are unlikely to have one before the 2050s at the earliest. That is in sharp contrast with the announcement of a nuclear renaissance.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 2, tabled by my noble friend Lord Trenchard, seeks to remove Great British Nuclear, now re-named Great British Energy-Nuclear, from the scope of this Bill. In adding this amendment, my noble friend recognises the unique role of nuclear energy in our national energy strategy. He cautions against implementing duplicative regulatory burdens that could hinder the progress of a key part of the nation’s energy infrastructure.
Nuclear power is already one of the most tightly regulated industries in the UK, subject to the most stringent environmental and safety standards. The existing framework ensures that nuclear development aligns with our broader environmental goals without the need for additional oversight. Imposing further targets through this Bill may simply add another layer of unnecessary obligations, delaying projects that are critical to our energy security and His Majesty’s Government’s net-zero ambitions.
We must confront the reality that nuclear energy is different from other forms of power generation. The upfront costs are substantial, the lead times are long, investors and operators need stability and clarity, not shifting regulatory sands that might deter investment. If we are serious about expanding nuclear capacity, as His Majesty’s Government say they are, we must avoid measures that might make those projects even more challenging to deliver.
We do not believe that this amendment weakens our commitment to the environment. On the contrary, it recognises that nuclear energy is already a low-carbon, reliable baseload power source that will be indispensable as we transition from fossil fuels. By exempting Great British Nuclear from the Bill, we are not rolling back environmental safeguards but ensuring that nuclear can fulfil its vital role to society without the risk of being impacted by well-intentioned but ultimately unnecessary additional regulation.
We urge your Lordships’ House to carefully consider the amendment. A laser focus on delivering clean, secure and affordable energy, which is already highly regulated by experts, will pay dividends for future generations of this country.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for his amendment. He made some points about the new formation of Great British Energy-Nuclear. I am afraid that some of the detail that he asked for regarding the corporate structure of that body is a little beyond my bailiwick, so I undertake to write to him with more detail.
However, let me reassure the noble Viscount that Great British Energy-Nuclear, as it is now called, will continue to drive forward the UK small modular reactor programme as part of this Government’s commitment to net zero and mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower. I agree with the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in relation to the amendment and its contribution to the Bill, and I have already spoken at some length in my comments on the previous amendment about the Government’s commitment to making the UK a clean energy superpower.
After the spending review this week and the commitments that we have made not just to the SMR programme but to Sizewell C, we can be in no doubt that this is the biggest nuclear rollout for a generation, and we see nuclear as very much a part of creating that clean energy superpower. For the sake of brevity, I will leave my comments at that.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for bringing forward this amendment and all noble Lords who have taken part in this very short debate. I will not speak at length, because I can make my point very briefly.
At Second Reading, I pointed out that there are two classic objections to the proposals in my Bill: on the one hand, they are unnecessary; on the other, they are too burdensome. Both cannot be true at the same time. Yet it seemed to me that in the debate we have just had, the point was made that the nuclear industry, of which I am in full support, is very tightly regulated, therefore, this additional layer of regulation is unnecessary. On the other hand, we heard that this additional layer of regulation would be too burdensome and impose duties on the nuclear industry that would discourage investment. Both simply cannot be true. If it is doing it anyway, it cannot be burdensome; if it is not doing it anyway, maybe it needs a bit of extra burden.
In truth, when we look at what the Government’s website says about GBE-N, we see that it says that it will deliver the Government’s long-term nuclear energy programme and support the UK’s energy security and contribute to our net-zero targets—so tick the box, job done. It is already contributing to net zero.
One of the other tasks that GBE-N will have, alongside the competition to build up to three SMRs, is, along with Rolls-Royce, to choose the sites where the SMRs are to be built. Those choices will have environmental implications. It seems to me perfectly reasonable, when those choices are made, that they should reflect the targets in the Environment Act. If they were clearly going to be detrimental to the target of reversing the decline in species diversity by 2030, it would be reasonable for GBE-N and Rolls-Royce to be asked to think again.
So, although I have heard an argument for removing GBE-N from the list of public authorities, I am not convinced by it—although I will take it away and think about it further. In the meantime, I very much hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, will withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate, and I thank the House for the thoughtful and considered attention that it has given to my amendment.
Let me conclude by returning to the core principle that underpins this amendment. We simply cannot deliver a cheap, reliable and secure energy future without nuclear power generation. It is therefore essential that we increase Britain’s nuclear capacity. Unlike the intermittent technologies so generously backed by the Secretary of State, nuclear provides what no other low-carbon technology currently can: reliable baseload power. It offers inertia to stabilise our grid and consistency to underpin our economy and long-term energy security that does not depend on the weather or foreign imports. It does all this while requiring substantially less new grid infrastructure than widely dispersed solar and wind installations. The more new nuclear we have, the less we need to erect ugly pylons in our beautiful countryside.
Yet we are not on track. As things stand, Britain will not have small modular reactors connected to the grid until the 2030s. That is not a criticism of the technology but a reflection of government hesitation—hesitation that stands in stark contrast to the headlong rush to achieve clean power by 2030, relying almost entirely on intermittent renewables and simultaneously dismantling our domestic oil and gas capacity in the North Sea.
We also need to explore the urgent need to accelerate the commercial development of so-called AMR technologies, some of which—such as the Japanese high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, whose prototype was developed at Winfrith in Dorset in 1965 as the Dragon reactor—are proven to be inherently safe. Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I regret the reduction in the funds committed to GBE; it makes it all the more unlikely that Great British Energy will have any funding available for nuclear projects. I thank my noble friend Lord Effingham for his strong support and the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for agreeing to write to me about changes to the corporate structures of both GBE and GBE-N.
It is true that nuclear projects are strictly regulated from a safety point of view. I say that in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who said that it could not be true both that nuclear was overregulated, so it should be easy to comply with these additional regulations, and that it was underregulated, meaning that increasing the regulation would make the UK seem a less attractive destination for investment. I think that both are true. It is true that, from a safety point of view, nuclear projects and nuclear power stations are regulated extremely strictly, but the environmental regulations are a different type of regulation. The environmental and planning-related regulations are an additional burden with which GBE-N is not, at present, expecting to have to comply; they would represent an additional burden to investment in nuclear projects.
With my gratitude to the Minister and other noble Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Evans of Rainow
“(z5) The Canal and River Trust.”
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, this amendment seeks to add the Canal & River Trust to the list of public authorities that are subject to the provisions of the Bill, which would in turn make it subject to the provisions of the Environment Act 2021—a landmark Conservative legislative achievement. Our canal tow-paths, once the proud arteries of industrialised Britain, are now too often strewn with litter, fly-tipped waste and the detritus of neglect. My amendment would place additional duties on the Canal & River Trust, sending a message to the trust that those who use canals regularly demand cleaner canals.
When Britain largely deindustrialised and other modes of freight transportation became preferable, we were left with a question mark over the future of canals. If noble Lords who travel on the west coast main line look at the railway line, they will see that it follows the link of the Trent and Mersey Canal—as it weaves its way from the north-west down to London, you can see those former industrial and logistic communities of the past—but, today, millions of people want to use our canals as pleasant urban green spaces. They are a space for leisure and exercise. Many people live on our canals, and they have become an important space for wildlife in city centres.
Sadly, the state of many of these routes, particularly in urban areas, has deteriorated to an intolerable point because of increasing quantities of litter on our tow-paths. This is a creeping pattern of degradation, whose harms are civic as much as they are environmental. It was reported in the Islington Tribune on 23 May this year that local campaigners had founded the cleaner canals campaign, bringing renewed attention to this issue and underscoring the impact of litter on residents and wildlife alike. The campaign speaks for many who feel that the trust’s decision to remove garbage bins from the urban tow-paths two years ago was fundamentally wrong. One of the campaign’s leading voices, Oliver Mosley, expressed this plainly. Commenting in the article, he said:
“Despite receiving £50 million of taxpayers’ money annually, the Canal and River Trust have decided to remove bins from our canals in Islington, resulting in appalling levels of waste which are an eyesore and a threat to the wildlife”.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow’s amendment, which is not inconsistent with my previous amendment seeking to exempt a particular public body from the list affected by the Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I also support my noble friend’s desire to include another public body. But the conditions of the two public bodies are inherently different. Great British Energy-Nuclear is in a hugely different and uniquely difficult position, whereas I agree entirely with my noble friend that it is regrettable that the Canal & River Trust has removed bins.
Our towpaths, river communities and waterways are an essential part of our community. Think of a family who are out for a walk along a canal with three or four children eating bags of crisps and ice creams. Where can they put all the litter? It is not realistic to expect all of them to carry it all home in huge bags. The removal of the litterbins by the Canal & River Trust is hugely regrettable. For that reason and the others put forward by my noble friend, I support his amendment.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I hesitate to speak because I am very conscious that the next debate is waiting to begin. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his amendment, and mainly for the degree of clarity it gave me on the status of the Canal & River Trust. According to the ONS, it is a public non-financial corporation as well as a charity, an interesting status that I have never come across before.
There is huge scope for debate about what goes on and comes off the list, although I would prefer it to be mostly about what goes on it. I will give another example to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, who rightly pointed out that mayoral authorities should be on the list. I will make the case for one particularly important body, for which I should have tabled an amendment. If the Bill proceeds further, I will table an amendment to bring the newly created National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority—NISTA—on to the list. It has been set up to implement the 10-year national infrastructure strategy. It will have a key influence on land use and development, and their impact on climate and environment targets.
Under its memorandum of understanding, I believe that it has inherited—although it is very difficult to track this down—the climate change duties from one of its predecessor bodies, but it is not clear whether it has any duties towards the environmental and biodiversity targets. It is very important that this hugely impactful infrastructure role be brought on to the list. I do not believe that the Government can achieve both the climate change and the biodiversity and other environmental targets if bodies such as NISTA are not tasked with pulling their weight on this when exercising their powers and delivering their primary objectives. I believe that bodies can walk, talk and chew gum and that the future of this planet, this nation and this economy depends on all public bodies learning to do that. It is possible.
Viscount Eccles (Con)
My Lords, I apologise; I am very conscious of the time. I support my noble friend’s amendment.
In making another suggestion for the list, I declare my interests: I was the chairman of Kew Gardens and I am involved in the Millennium Seed Bank and all it does. The most important sentence in the Bill says,
“take all reasonable steps to meet the environmental recovery objective”.
Kew is right in the middle of doing things to recover the environmental objective, and I very strongly believe that it should be added to the list. Indeed, I am quite surprised that it has not been included already.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for his amendment proposing to add the Canal & River Trust to the list of public bodies in Clause 2 of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.
While I have every sympathy for his case, the truth is that the Canal & River Trust is a charity that was set up in 2012. My understanding is that, as a charity, it is not a public body, and it is therefore simply not possible to add it to the list of bodies covered by provisions in the Bill.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, on the inclusion of the Canal & River Trust in the list of public bodies subject to duties under the Bill.
I thank the noble Lord for his scrutiny and diligence in drawing attention to what is undeniably an important point of principle and practice, as was referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. The Canal & River Trust, as the noble Lord rightly noted, is responsible for an extensive and significant network of inland waterways. These assets contribute not only to heritage and recreation but to the health of our natural environment.
There is no question but that the trust plays a role in environmental outcomes. Its custodianship of over 2,000 miles of canals and rivers and the biodiversity that supports is of considerable public interest. It is worth emphasising, as the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has, the persistent and ever-increasing problem of littering in our canals. Litter not only blights these beautiful and historic waterways, diminishing the enjoyment of walkers, boaters and anglers: crucially, it also harms wildlife and contributes to the broader degradation of aquatic ecosystems.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his amendment to include the Canal & River Trust in the list of authorities in Clause 2(2). I also pay some tribute to his creative way of raising concerns about the stewardship of the Canal & River Trust, such as the removal of litter bins and other associated issues relating to its environmental responsibilities. I will certainly bring his comments to the attention of my colleague, Minister Hardy, who has responsibility for the Canal & River Trust in the department.
The Canal & River Trust is an invaluable organisation with which Defra and other government departments work closely. The Government will continue to collaborate with the trust to ensure that its efforts are best directed and realised, to improve and protect the natural environment for the public. For the sake of brevity and the progress of business, I will leave it at that.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for raising this question and all those who took part in this short debate. I have the good fortune to live in central Oxford, very close to the Oxford Canal. Indeed, when I set off this morning, I did my usual 10-minute walk down the canal towpath from my house to Oxford station. The canal in Oxford, together with its canal banks, forms a wonderful corridor for wildlife, leading right into the city centre. I often see a heron fishing on one of the weirs and occasionally glimpse the iridescent blue of a kingfisher flying past. In the winter, I see groups of goosander that have migrated south for the winter from Scotland or Scandinavia.
I am lucky. Unlike in the examples cited by the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, in my neighbourhood the canal towpath is well maintained and litter free. I very much wish that were true of the rest of the canal network. In fact, my only complaint about the canal in Oxford is a rather different one: a number of residential canal boats—already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Evans—are allowed to burn dirty solid fuel, which would not be allowed in other residences. I wish the Government would do something about this. After all, one of the six key targets in the Environment Act is to cut exposure to the most harmful air pollutant to human health, PM2.5. The canal boats could be a good starting point for reducing that pollution exposure.
In principle, I think it would be very good to add the Canal & River Trust to the list. However, this is now above my pay grade because I do not fully understand the position of the CRT. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, and I looked it up myself, it is a registered charity and therefore governed by the Charity Commission and not subject to the same regulations as public authorities. I assume it would have to change its charitable objects in order to comply with the intention of this Bill, so I would like to take it away and understand it. In the meantime, I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, will see fit to withdraw his amendment, recognising that it has had a very sympathetic hearing from all around the House.
Before I sit down, I once again thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate this afternoon. I have not mentioned the Wildlife and Countryside Link and Green Alliance, which were very helpful in preparing the material for this Bill. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for agreeing to continue the discussion of how the ideas in the Bill can be taken forward.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Parminter, have already mentioned that there are two routes ahead of us. We all agree with the intention of the Bill, plus or minus some points. I take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and we all agree in general with the principle of improving our environment. The two routes that the Government have are either to accept that there will be piecemeal chipping away as Bills come forward and people try to achieve amendments, which is inefficient and time-consuming, or they could do it at one fell swoop very simply by accepting the Bill that I have proposed.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I am quite unfamiliar with being treated sympathetically, but I do accept that in this case, the noble Lord has certainly done so. I thank my noble friends Lord Eccles, Lord Trenchard and Lord Effingham for their support. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, raised a very important point about the ambiguity of this trust because, as the Front-Bench spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said, it is a charity. Well, it is a charity, but it is in receipt of £50 million of hard-working taxpayers’ money. Any organisation that is in receipt of taxpayers’ money from central government is aware that the Government might need to have a wee word with it if it is felt that it is not providing the public service that it should be doing. I am disappointed that, over 13 years, the trust did not work out the business model so that it did not need the £50 million of taxpayers’ money. The whole point was that, over time, it would remove that subsidy. It failed to do that and also failed to supply simple things such as rubbish bins on canals in urban areas. It does a good job in the countryside, but it is urban areas in particular that I am thinking of. I am most grateful to noble Lords and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Asylum Support (Prescribed Period) Bill [HL]
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I rise to quote from the Companion:
“It is a firm convention that the House normally rises by about 10pm on Mondays to Wednesdays, by about 7pm on Thursdays, and by about 3pm on Fridays”,
unless agreed otherwise through the normal channels. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Katz, who reminded the House on Tuesday evening of this convention. Yet this week we finished at 11.15 pm on Monday, 11.57 pm on Tuesday and 1.17 am on Wednesday. Now His Majesty’s Government, as I understand it, are seeking that we extend yet again, on a Friday, beyond 3 pm without agreement and, in fact, without even a request, flouting convention, and, if I may say so, showing a lack of consideration for the House authorities.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. It is the normal convention that we rise at the hours that he set out, but we also have a problem in this House at the moment: we are struggling to work to these conventions. I have struggled to get agreement with the Opposition on a number of Bills. He mentioned the late sittings this week. Sadly, we have had degroupings and Second Reading speeches on amendments and, frankly, the time has been wasted—and it is not this side of the House doing that. I want to get back to the days when we respected our conventions and could have dinner breaks, QSDs and stuff.
We timetabled today’s business to finish at around 3 pm, but, sadly, we have not got there. I also know that my noble friend Lady Lister has prepared for this Bill today and that the right reverend Prelate has come in especially to speak on this, and I am not prepared to have them come in and be wasted. I want us to carry on. If the noble Lord wants to divide the House, then may he please do so? There is no problem with that at all—but I think we need to carry on, and quickly. If we all work together, we will be able to go home very soon and deal with these important Bills.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I pick up on one comment on wasted time. I hope that the noble Lord is not suggesting that spending just over an hour and a half on a very important Bill with many issues in it was wasting time. I thought it was important, needed examination and has significant impact, as I said in the debate on local authorities.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, before the noble Lord goes to the Dispatch Box, he knows that I was not aware of what has gone on in the background with the usual channels, and I agree with him about brevity, but, as my noble friend has just pointed out, the debates that have just gone on have been within the rules, the speeches have not gone over time and have been done with good humour. Talking personally, I stayed late into this House until 1.15 am to support the Government Front Bench—the noble Lord’s noble friends—on a very important issue. I have spent a lot of time into the early hours this week, and my understanding was that business would end at 3 pm. I understand and agree with the noble Lord, but this noble Lord has supported the Government this week until the very early hours of the morning.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am not suggesting that about today at all. No one should think that about today. I heard only part of the debate and thought it was very good. I have huge respect for the noble Lord, as he knows, and I say it again. I know he is doing it very sincerely, but my point was about this week. We all need to respect the conventions and courtesies. As I said, my noble friend has prepared for this Bill and come in, and the right reverend Prelate has turned up here today; I am not prepared to say that we should ignore that and go home. If the noble Lord wants to divide the House, will he please do so? Then, we will decide. If not, let us get on with the Bill, and we will go home very soon.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I add just a couple of sentences to what the Chief Whip has just said. Some of us have a five-hour journey ahead of us this evening, into more rural parts of the United Kingdom. Perhaps he would like to bear that in mind.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
I do bear that in mind, absolutely. I fully understand that. To that, I say that we either divide the House now or get on with the Bill.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I oppose the clauses in this group standing part, and have tabled the amendment in this group, to challenge the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the substance of her Bill, which it flies in the face of the work we did in Government to disincentivise illegal migrants from coming to this country. The Bill seeks to blur the principles of an effective immigration system. It takes an already generous and carefully balanced settlement, which provides support during the asylum process and a 28-day window for transition, and seeks to stretch it beyond what is reasonable, affordable or justifiable. It does so at a time when public services are straining, our housing system is under pressure and public confidence in immigration is fragile.
We have been told that this is about compassion. However, I respectfully suggest that true compassion is not measured in the number of weeks that we allow people to remain on support—I hasten to add, after their claim has failed—but lies in a rules-based system that commands public trust and operates fairly and firmly for all. Only with a system like that can we ensure that taxpayer money is responsibly spent and ensure that those with a legitimate asylum claim are not disadvantaged—punished for doing the right thing.
Extending support from 28 days to 56 is not a neutral act. It has real costs, financial, systemic and social. Logically, it doubles the burden on the taxpayer, it undermines deterrence, it creates further incentives for people to make dangerous illegal crossings, and it risks encouraging delay and non-compliance at a time when clarity and enforcement are needed more than ever.
The new clause proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, would link the end of the asylum support to the issuance of biometric residence documentation. Let us be clear: that would tie public spending not to legal decisions but to administrative processes, it would shift the burden of bureaucracy onto the taxpayer and it would create a perverse incentive to delay, further muddying the boundaries of legal status and responsibility.
The message that we send with the Bill and its accompanying amendments is not one of fairness or order; it is a message that, even after your claim has been rejected, you may continue to receive taxpayer support indefinitely so long as the paperwork is pending. That is not sustainable, enforceable or fair.
Beyond the principle, we need to be clear in our deliberations today about what this proposal would do in practice. The Bill would increase the costs of a system already stretched to its limits, reward failed claims and give new arguments to those who seek to undermine our efforts to deter illegal and unsafe migration—the very journeys that have already claimed far too many lives. We support a compassionate, efficient and credible asylum system, but credibility requires that decisions mean something. When a claim is rejected, particularly after legal challenge and appeal, support must begin to taper off. It should not increase or be deferred; it should conclude as part of an orderly, lawful process. This is not a question of rejecting compassion; it is a matter of applying responsibility to the taxpayer, to the rule of law and to those who play by the rules.
For all those reasons, I urge the House to oppose the Bill and, in doing so, affirm our shared commitment to a fair but firm immigration system where the rights of refugees are respected but so, too, are the rights and responsibilities of the British public.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry it proved impossible to deal with all the amendments in a single group because that would have saved us time. I have to say that I do not recognise my Bill in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. We are not talking about illegal migration; we are talking about people who have been given refugee status. They are not illegal migrants. Please can we get that clear at the outset?
I will try to avoid repetition when I speak to my own amendments. At this point I voice my thanks to the assistance I received from the Refugee Council and from Heather Staff at RAMP, of which I am an associate, and to colleagues who have given up their time to support the Bill on this lovely afternoon.
I shall start with a couple of drafting points. First, I am bemused by the attempt to strike out Clause 3, which has nothing to do with the extension of the move-on period to 56 days, as suggested in the explanatory statement. The clause simply seeks to ensure that the notice to quit asylum accommodation is aligned with the move-on period, be it 28 days or 56 days. At present the requirement is simply a minimum of seven days, and we saw the chaos and destitution that that can cause when refugees were evicted with only seven days’ notice in late 2023.
Secondly, I am not sure that the amendment to Clause 4 does what it purports to, which is to prevent the Bill’s measures coming into force. Erskine May says that the date of Royal Assent is the date of commencement when no other date is enacted. Likewise, Section 4 of the Interpretation Act 1978 says that an Act commences
“where no provision is made for its coming into force, at the beginning of the day on which the Act receives the Royal Assent”.
I do not think that is what the noble Lords opposite intended, whereas, as I will point out in the next grouping, my amendment puts the commencement date in the hands of the Secretary of State and makes it dependent on the outcome of the pilot. I am puzzled as to why noble Lords would not want to know the outcome of the pilot before trying to stop the Bill. Surely, they believe in evidence-based policy-making—though I must admit, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, I suspect not.
Before I turn to the evidence that I have gathered, I shall deal with the question of costs raised by the noble Lord. As I said at Second Reading, research conducted at the LSE indicates that a longer move-on period could in fact produce a modest saving. The enthusiastic response of local authorities and voluntary organisations, which argue that the 56-day pilot is allowing more preventative work, supports that, because in the long run prevention is more cost-effective than firefighting. But we must ask: who should bear the burden of any cost—the Government, local authorities, the voluntary sector or individual refugees in exceptionally vulnerable circumstances?
It is worth noting that the Local Government Association—of which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, is a former chair—conducted a survey of its members prior to the announcement of the pilot. The extension to 56 days, in line with the Homelessness Reduction Act, was seen as the single most effective change that could be made to the move on process. Did the noble Lord seek the views of the LGA before tabling these amendments?
I do not propose to repeat the arguments I made at Second Reading, which were based on the years of evidence we have of the immense problems caused by the 28-day move-on period. At that point, I could only surmise what doubling it to 56 days might achieve. Now, in the absence of an official interim report on the pilot—and I will talk more about that in the second group—I would like to share with colleagues some findings from a Refugee Council survey and my own unscientific gathering of information from a local authority and from refugee and homelessness organisations which supported the original Bill. I am indebted to all of them for the trouble they took in providing this information, and I am only sorry I cannot do justice to the wealth of responses they sent us. I apologise that this will make my speech on the long side, especially given the time, but the upside for colleagues is that my speech on the second group will be much shorter.
Overall, there has been a uniformly positive response, which is not to say that there have not been teething problems—partly due, according to local authorities in my home region of the East Midlands, to the short implementation time and partly due to delays in receiving necessary documentation. There have, inevitably, been variations in how well local authorities have responded to the longer move on period. Nevertheless, in the words of NACCOM—the UK-wide No Accommodation Network which works to prevent destitution among refugees, among others—the extension
“has proven overwhelmingly beneficial for new refugees and the organisations that support them”.
One of the organisations in the north-east noted:
“I think the main lesson is the 56-day period is a much more humane and smoother transition process for everyone”.
Similarly, London Councils has called it “a vital support”, and it suggests that the impact is likely to increase because the 56-day period came into effect later in some boroughs. Feedback from the East Midlands is that it has made a huge difference, and Crisis has also referred to “the overwhelming response” from its services that it should be retained.
The pilot has helped to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping, particularly among single people. Although some refugees have still ended up rough sleeping, it has tended to be for shorter periods, and Crisis staff felt that the 56 days at least “make it possible” to find accommodation. The Glass Door Homeless Charity recorded a significant drop in the number of winter night shelter guests who have Home Office accommodation departure as the reason for their homelessness.
Moreover, the pilot has enabled local authorities and other services to take a more preventative approach to the housing needs of refugees, rather than having to pick up the pieces once they are homeless—this responds directly to some of the points made by the noble Lord. What NACCOM called a
“realistic timeframe to plan and take meaningful steps towards independence”
has been important for the mental health and well-being of refugees because they are less stressed.
London Councils reports feedback from SMPs outside London showing that it has enabled more time for people with mental health difficulties or disabilities to get letters of confirmation from GPs to prove a housing need. It has also helped refugees be more of aware of their housing options and given them more time to plan, thereby enhancing their autonomy, and it enhances their chances of long-term integration.
In turn, this has reduced the pressure on services. According to NACCOM, it has increased service capacity and reduced burnout among staff and volunteers. Local authority staff are better able to do their jobs and respond to the needs of refugees. However, it is already noted that there is still wide variation in how the policy is implemented, particularly regarding what documentation triggers the homelessness application.
One point made by a number of respondents was that it has meant that more people are now in receipt of universal credit in their bank accounts when they are evicted, which helps the individual, the local authority and homelessness services. London Councils has spelled out the positive implications of this. The need for emergency financial support is reduced. Individuals are less vulnerable and stressed when they are evicted, and they are in a better place to look for work upon moving into independent accommodation. To quote Islington Council:
“previously the mismatch between move on and universal credit timescales was almost insurmountable. It’s really important that we keep this move-on period so that we don’t go back to a situation of bureaucratically enforced destitution”.
Nevertheless, there are some problems, which I do not have time to go into, other than to note that some of them stem from e-visas, which my Amendment 1, together with Clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill, would help to address. Unsurprisingly, a longer move-on period is not a silver bullet that can address more systemic problems, such as lack of affordability, aggravated by not being allowed to do paid work.
I hope this has given colleagues a flavour of the informal responses to the pilot in the absence of any formal evaluation so far. I hope these responses will be helpful to the Home Office. It is fair to say that every organisation that responded to me called for the pilot to be made permanent. I believe they would be horrified if they read the proposals in this group. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord does not press them and will be willing to wait for the outcome of the formal pilot before reaching any conclusion as to the future of the 56 days move-on period.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I spoke at the Second Reading of this Bill, and I am happy to support the noble Baroness again today.
The Second Reading was not opposed. One Member of the Conservative Benches—the only member of the Conservative Benches who spoke—raised a lot of questions. I think he opposed the principle of the Bill—though without saying so in terms, but by raising points about cost. Today, we have what are, frankly, wrecking amendments, and the noble Lord who spoke first to oppose the question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill said so. He is urging noble Lords to oppose the Bill. I hope I have quoted him correctly; I did write it down.
The objections in December were about cost and things being pretty much okay. We know that things are not okay. The noble Baroness has made that very clear, both then and now. I do not want to repeat my Second Reading speech, but her reminder that we are talking about people who have been accepted as refugees is absolutely to the point.
I am baffled that, administratively, so many problems seem to have been thrown up by the arrangements that are in place, subject to the pilot, because to the world, the Home Office is the Home Office, as an entity. Frankly, it should be able to co-ordinate with itself, local authorities, the DWP and so on. There are many reasons why one would want to see the whole process working smoothly. It is hard to imagine that moving to 56 days would not lead to savings, as the noble Baroness said, including planning for future accommodation rather than homelessness, concurrence of universal credit and so on.
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford
My Lords, I am pleased to support the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on asylum support and her Amendments 1 and 2, which would enable the Government to extend the move-on period according to their plans and timetable. The Bill is extraordinarily well timed, with the move-on period pilot coming to a close and the Government having recently published their White Paper entitled Restoring Control over the Immigration System. As the Government reduce the backlog of asylum applications and speed up the process times of applications, I suggest that this Bill does not impede but rather supports the Government as they seek to build a well-managed asylum system with integration back at its heart.
At Second Reading, I spoke of why 28 days was simply not enough time for an individual with newly granted refugee status to locate new accommodation, try to find employment and navigate a welfare system. This should now be regarded as indisputable, given that an individual cannot even access universal credit before five weeks have passed, that the majority of landlords will not even let a property before a first payment has come in and that setting up a bank account is proving difficult with an e-visa alone. On this latter point, I hope that the Government will consider issuing guidance to banking services.
I do not want to anticipate the findings of the Government’s NatCen evaluation, but local authorities and other groups supporting refugees who have kindly been in touch with me have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback, as we have heard, about the extension of the move-on period. We have to take that seriously. They tell me that it gives council officers a much more realistic timeframe in which to do their jobs well—namely, to find a suitable housing solution for refugees, decreasing the likelihood of homelessness and the need for temporary accommodation. London Councils reported that one region experienced a 24% increase in homelessness prevention outcomes. The Helen Bamber Foundation said that, of the individuals it has supported since the move-on period was extended, all had received their first universal credit payment before the date of their eviction. This not only prevents refugees falling into destitution just as they are taking their first steps to build a life outside Home Office-provided accommodation, but avoids the need for local authorities to provide emergency financial support. This will lead to savings at a time when we all know that budgets are under pressure.
I was also struck by comments that the longer period has enabled local services to build trust with families, as housing teams have been able to start moving away from an emergency response towards a more preventive and strategic approach. There has been time to assess individuals’ physical and mental health needs, as well as to consider their existing support networks so that they can work together towards housing solutions. I hope that the Minister can confirm that the final evaluation will be published. Will it include detail on the impact that the longer move-on extension has had on family stability and child poverty? Incidentally, I am sure that this will support their work ahead of the child poverty strategy.
We will hear more, I am sure, in the next grouping about the sensible provisions in Amendment 1 regarding documentation. However, making the move-on period extension a permanent feature of our asylum system will enable steps such as this to take place, which will streamline the timely delivery of key information so that the entire 56-day period can be fully utilised to support a family’s next steps.
I believe that Ministers have recognised the benefits of a longer move-on period for refugees, as well as for local authorities and the wider community, through the commencement of the pilot. I thank them for that and congratulate them on it. I now urge them to make it permanent as soon as is practical after the conclusion and full assessment of the pilot, to capitalise on the positive developments that are already taking place. Let us not forget that asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status here are unable to build a life back in their home country—however much they might want to—because it is too unsafe. The gift of more time will support refugees who have a legally established right to live here to start living well in the country that has granted them sanctuary.
I may not have agreed with the words the Prime Minister used recently to frame the Government’s White Paper, but I trust the intention is there to see neighbours from all backgrounds build a stronger and more cohesive society together. Extending the move-on period permanently would be a step towards that goal.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I came into the House today to support this Bill, and I am glad we have found the time for it. The context is that this country has a long and honourable history of welcoming refugees. That is something that we can feel proud of and from which we have benefited over many centuries. That is the background to this.
Whatever you think of the individuals who apply to live in this country and their motives, they are all entitled to due process in that application. We must not as a state put ourselves in the position of pre-empting that proper inquiry. That is why dealing with the applications swiftly is so important. I am glad the Government are pressing that issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, called what is proposed here “generous”. I think that is a difficult word to apply in any circumstances, but I would use “humane” and “practical” to describe the proposal. What people need to do after the decision has been made takes time. The issue is not one of being generous; it is of giving them enough time to sort out their affairs. That is true whether the application has been agreed or not. I do not think it makes any difference to the period of time that is required to sort out your affairs.
It is quite clear from the work undertaken in the pilot study that 56 days works so much better than 28. That is as much a benefit to society as a whole as it is to the individuals. That is the point: giving 56 days works for society. That is why London Councils is so much in favour of this and wants to see the pilot extended.
The situation would be much easier if applicants were able to undertake paid work, perhaps after an initial short waiting period, and I hope my noble friends on the Front Bench will take this as a further representation on the issue. Action on this would just make the situation as a whole better, as permitting them to adjust to life in their new country or make arrangements to go elsewhere is so important.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I very much agree with the closing words of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, and everything he said. Unlike him, I had not come today with the intention of taking part in the proceedings on the Bill, and I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for that. Actually, after three Tory Bills in three years, I vowed that I would never again take part in an asylum and immigration Bill, but one somehow gets into things, and I will be taking part in the debates on the border security Bill.
I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, that I remember on one occasion sitting until 4.15 in the morning—
Baroness Ludford (LD)
It was 4.16 —I cannot remember which Bill it was; it is all a bit of a haze. Was it the Rwanda one? Being turfed out and then trying to find your way home at 4.16 in the morning, particularly as a woman, is not great. But that was that Administration.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has confirmed in her opening words that we are talking about people who have had a positive asylum decision; they have refugee status or a decision on humanitarian protection. I very much agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, who I think used the term “realistic”. Other noble colleagues have talked about it being pragmatic and practical. I think that is the point.
I apologise that I did not take part in Second Reading, but I understand that there is this trial going on, and I can imagine that, far from costing money, it could end up saving money, because it is an investment in the slightly longer term for people to get on their own two feet and find a job and other accommodation. They are expected to do that in 28 days and if they do not, someone has to pick up the pieces if they are destitute, under various other provisions. It really cannot be a good thing for them or for wider society if, understandably, after 28 days they have not managed to sort everything out. So I completely understand why local authorities and other bodies would be keen supporters of the noble Baroness’s Private Member’s Bill. I very much hope to hear from the Minister that the Government are also keen supporters of the Bill, as well as, it has to be said, of the right of asylum seekers to work, as here we are talking about those who have been granted asylum.
This is all in the interests of having an asylum system that is much more efficient and costs as little as possible, which was not, I am afraid, the purpose of the last Government, who created chaos and a legacy of administrative confusion in the asylum system. This Bill goes a small way on a limited issue to try to help make things more realistic and practical, and to give people a start in integrating into and contributing to our society, which is surely what we all want.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Jamieson for this group. These clause stand part notices and the amendment seek fundamentally to oppose the purpose of this Bill. The Bill seeks to provide an extension to the period in which those who have failed to secure an asylum claim can continue to receive support for housing and subsistence at the expense of the taxpayer.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. This Bill is about people who have succeeded in their claim for refugee status, so can the noble Lord’s remarks please be put on a premise that is true to the facts?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I shall continue and maybe it will become clear to the noble Baroness.
Once a claim for asylum has been determined and found to be without merit, the presumption must shift. At that point, the focus should be on compliance with our immigration system, not on prolonging support mechanisms that are intended for those still within the asylum process. This Bill would do precisely the opposite. By this stage, the decision has been reached. The current system balances support for the person in question while recognising that the person has, according to the determination reached, no reason to remain in the United Kingdom.
We have a duty to the person in question, but we also have a fundamental duty to the taxpayer who, at the end of the day, foots the bill. By extending the support period from 28 to 56 days, all we do is risk creating a further incentive for delay and non-compliance. It sends entirely the wrong message, not just to those currently in the system, but to those considering making unfounded claims in the future.
The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford
I am sorry, but I am really confused, because what the noble Lord has said conflates two issues: those who have not been given leave to remain and those who have and for whom therefore the extension period is in order to give them a little bit longer to sort themselves out. They have been given their permission. Perhaps the noble Lord could either explain what I am failing to understand or clarify whether his point is about those who have been given leave to remain or who have not.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
As it is Committee, I am allowed to speak more than once. This Bill is not about people who have not been given leave to remain; it is about people who have received refugee status. The reason why I brought forward the Bill originally—I have been campaigning on this for years—is the heartache felt by refugees who finally reach the promised land, in a sense, by being recognised as having refugee status and then find themselves destitute. This is who we are talking about. We are not talking about people who have no right to be here; we are talking about those whose right is recognised. That is the whole point.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I hear what the noble Baroness says, but I am not quite sure whether the Bill is therefore clear enough in what it states. I will continue, and perhaps the noble Baroness will bear with me.
When British citizens are suffering from a stagnated economy, sky-high taxes, spiralling unemployment and failing public services, to ask them to pay more for those who have had their asylum claims rejected is unacceptable. Recent analysis has shown that the entire annual tax bills of 582,000 people—equal to the population of Manchester—go on housing migrants. In our submission, the tax bills of British citizens should go on supporting the services that British citizens use. We should not be diverting such a volume of taxpayer resources to housing those who do not contribute to the system themselves. I certainly would not want to see any additional cost to local authorities.
This comes on top of the £54.2 million that last year went to legal teams seeking to thwart deportations or argue that asylum seekers should remain. The asylum seekers we are talking about already benefit from millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. As I said earlier, the crisis is worsening and the costs are spiralling—and this is all before the proposals put forth by the noble Baroness are considered. Extending the period of support from 28 to 56 days would have an immediate effect on the current cost that we are footing.
We must also take into account the incentive effect that this would have on those seeking to come to the UK. The numbers are already up 30% on last year and if people-smuggling gangs were able to tell their clients that the period for which they could subsist at the expense of the UK taxpayer had doubled, this would surely make the surge of people coming here illegally and dangerously even more extreme. It is absolutely vital that we do not create further incentives for people to make illegal and dangerous crossings into the country.
This is the compassionate position to take. Small boat crossings have spiralled in the last year and, very sadly, so have the numbers of those who have died trying to cross the channel illegally. Being in favour of changes that sustain and risk augmenting such scenarios is to support a system that is dangerous, exploitive and deeply unfair on those who do use safe and legal routes.
We need to deter people from making this perilous journey, not encourage them with the promise of extended financial support at the taxpayer’s expense—which would be the direct consequence of this. Moreover, this extended support is not cost neutral; it comes at a time when the pressures on our public services, local authorities and housing system are already acute. The taxpayer should not be expected to fund an extra month of housing and financial assistance for individuals who have no legal right to remain in this country. Every additional day of support after a failed claim represents not just a cost but a delay in the fair and orderly functioning of our immigration system.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, this has been an interesting and, at two points in particular, a confusing debate from my perspective. Before I go into some of the detail of my noble friend Lady Lister’s Asylum Support (Prescribed Period) Bill, I want to respond to the intention to oppose Clause 1 and the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, from the Front Bench opposite. It was—if I would not say reckless—an irresponsible approach to a debate that needs more light and far less heat regarding how we, as responsible politicians, talk about immigration and asylum seeking.
To my mind, it is very clear. We are talking about what happens when, through a process that we are doing our damnedest as a Government to speed up, an individual’s asylum claim is granted and how they are then moved on and integrated into the community, as we all wish to be. This is not about deterring small boats per se; it is not about smashing the boats and the fact that too many migrants are taking away resources and undercutting British workers, or any of the rhetoric that we might have heard from the Benches opposite.
Let me clear: the Government are committed to reforming the asylum and immigration system so that we deter dangerous crossings and provide safe and legal routes where applicable and that, when people make an asylum claim, that claim is adjudicated and determined as quickly as possible. If that claim is found to be wanting and is rejected, that person should be deported. If it is not, they should be moved on—a phrase that I am not keen on—and integrated into the community. This is what the Bill is about. I am sorry that the Benches opposite, particularly the Opposition Front Bench, did not recognise that and address their remarks accordingly.
I want to reiterate the comments made by the Minister, my noble friend Lord Hanson, at Second Reading, though noble Lords will be glad that I will not speak at as much length. The Government fully recognise the need for a smooth transition between asylum accommodation and other accommodation for those who are recognised as refugees and granted leave to remain. I reiterate what has previously been acknowledged. We have huge pressures in the asylum system. The Government are working to ensure that individuals have the support that they need following an asylum decision.
There has, understandably, been some focus today on the 56-day pilot scheme that is in place, which I will spend a little time talking to. In December, the Home Office operationalised—again, a word that I am not keen on—a pilot to extend the move-on period so that individuals have 56 days to make move-on arrangements from the point at which they are notified of their leave to remain. The pilot is due to conclude shortly. The Government have put this pilot in place to support local authorities during a period where we expect an increased volume of asylum decisions to be made because we are speeding up the system, as well as it coinciding with the recent transition to e-visas for newly recognised refugees. I suspect that we will go on to that subject in the next group of amendments.
The Government firmly believe that this is a sensible and pragmatic approach to take while we bring the system back into balance. It is important that we take our time to evaluate the impact of these interim measures because, although there may be clear benefits to the proposal, careful analysis needs to be done to consider the full impacts, including those on the taxpayer, before any permanent changes are made. A wide range of stakeholders have been invited to take part in the evaluation, including local authorities—the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, will be pleased to hear that—voluntary and community sector organisations and individuals with lived experience. The final evaluations are due later this year and a report will be published, subject to peer review and ministerial clearance.
To answer the first of the questions posed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, our intention is that the final evaluation findings will be available to Parliament by the end of the year. To answer her second question, the target outcomes are being explored. They might touch on, and raise responses related to, stability and child poverty, the improved service user experience as part of the move-on journey and how successful the improved early integration outcomes for newly recognised refugees have been in terms of access to universal credit, employment, housing, et cetera.
On that note, I mention briefly the move-on support, including the introduction of move-on liaison officers, which is being evaluated alongside the pilot. It is worth saying that support is available to all individuals through Migrant Help. This includes providing advice on accessing the labour market and applying for universal credit, as well as signposting to local authorities for assistance with housing. We have also improved our communications, including making our letters to individuals clearer and providing information earlier in the process.
As I said, we have recruited 72 asylum move-on liaison officers, who offer face-to-face support to individuals newly granted refugee status so that they understand the steps they need to take once their asylum decision is issued. This assistance includes, as I mentioned, removing e-visa barriers and supporting with universal credit, housing applications and refugee integration loans. These officers work alongside Migrant Help and local authorities to identify and resolve issues. They are spread across the country in eight regions, covering more than 40 local authority areas, and are deployed where there is the most pressure and need in the system.
I will say more about the e-visa system in our debate on the next group of amendments, as I said. For the sake of brevity, I will conclude my remarks there, but I hope that our debate on the next group of amendments can be conducted on the basis of what the Bill and the amendments actually talk to, rather than what we might like them to talk to.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for speaking on this matter. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for clarifying—it is an important clarification—that the aim is that the clause should apply only to people where there has been a determination that they have leave to remain, not to those where the determination is that they have been rejected. That is my understanding of what the noble Baroness said. Our concern on this side is that, with the way in which the Bill is written, this measure could potentially apply both to those who have leave to remain and those who have been rejected. Obviously, I do not want to withdraw this, because that is not the process. However, we wish to leave open the fact that we want clarity—and want there to be no confusion—that this measure would not apply to those who have had their case determined and rejected.
This is a critical point on which we would like some assurance and to which we will come back in terms of the drafting of the Bill. The points that we have made about those who have had their application rejected are perfectly valid. I have not heard anyone here say that, for those who have been rejected, they have an objection to our comments. This measure is for those cases where people have had their application accepted, so to speak. I completely understand the comments that have been made in this Chamber—if I am entirely honest, when I was the chairman of the LGA, I pushed for something not entirely dissimilar—but I would definitely say that this is not what we should be doing for those who have been rejected.
We are looking at the drafting to make sure that this is absolutely clear and cannot be misinterpreted by some eagle-eyed lawyer. Obviously, I am not going to withdraw my clause stand part notice, because that is not the process here; I just wanted to be very clear about where our concern is, which is in the drafting. We want to make absolutely certain that this measure does not apply to those who have been rejected.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
The noble Lord is making some helpful remarks. I am not an expert on the Bill’s drafting but, to extend his remarks and in particular with his local government experience, if he gets the clarification he seeks, would that mean that he and even the Opposition Front Bench would feel able to support the purpose of the Bill, even if they slightly disagree with its drafting?
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I am trying to remember a great quote from the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson: the noble Baroness is tempting me to go to places I would rather not go.
“Issuing of biometric residence document(1) Section 94 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (Interpretation of Part VI) is amended as follows.(2) At the end of subsection (3), insert “, subject to subsection (3A)”.(3) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) Where—(a) the Secretary of State notifies the claimant that his decision is to accept the asylum claim,(b) the Secretary of State notifies the claimant that his decision is to reject the asylum claim but at the same time notifies the claimant that he is giving the claimant limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, or (c) an appeal by the claimant against the Secretary of State’s decision has been disposed of by being allowed,then the period prescribed under subsection (3) may not begin until the claimant has access to a relevant biometric immigration document.(3B) for the purposes of subsection (3A), a relevant biometric immigration document is a document that—(a) records biometric information (as defined in section 15(1A) of the UK Borders Act 2007); and(b) is evidence of leave to remain in the United Kingdom.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require a newly recognised refugee to have access to a biometric residence document that can be used as proof of immigration status and identity before the start of the prescribed period between a refugee being granted refugee status and the ending of their eligibility for accommodation and financial support provided by the Home Office.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendment 3. Amendment 4 is simply consequential.
To go back slightly, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for that clarification. I do not know whether he has looked at the legislation that would be amended by this Bill. That would probably make it clear who we are talking about, but I will of course talk to the person who drafted it—who I have to admit is not me—to make sure that there is no possible loophole there. I am pretty confident that there is not. It is rather unfortunate that the Front Bench spoke as if it were purely about illegal migrants. I do not think that they would be covered. Anyway, we will look at it and I thank the noble Lord for that helpful clarification.
Colleagues might be surprised that I am trying to amend my own Bill. I can assure them that it is not a cunning plot to keep them, including my noble friend the Minister and now my noble friend the Chief Whip, here on a sunny Friday afternoon, but there is a reason for it. As we have already heard, just a few days before Second Reading, the Home Office made the very welcome announcement of a pilot extension to 56 days, which is due to conclude in June. It seems sensible that the Bill should take account of that, hence Amendment 3 would give the Secretary of State the power to determine when Clause 1, which extends the move-on period, should come into force. This would follow the completion of any trial period, such as the one that is currently under way. Thus, the Bill puts the introduction of its main clause in the hands of the Secretary of State. I hope that my noble friend the Minister might look kindly on that.
Amending the Bill in this way would also provide an opportunity to take account of the rollout of biometric residence documents, or eVisas, which can be used as proof of immigration status and identity. Thus, Amendment 1, in conjunction with Clauses 2 and 3, would ensure that a refugee received this document, along with other documents required to access services, before the move-on period started. At present, different documents are sent at different times from different parts of the Home Office, some once a move-on period has already started. The aim is to simplify the process by ensuring that refugees have all the necessary documentation before the move-on period starts ticking. If they have not been given refugee status, they will not get these documents, so the Bill will not apply to the people the noble Lords opposite are afraid it might apply to.
At Second Reading, the Minister, my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint, raised an objection to Clauses 2 and 3, which, as I have said, would ensure that refugees receive all the necessary documents and information prior to the start of the move-on period. He said:
“The only way to implement that approach would be to delay the service of the asylum decision; we do not really want to do that”.—[Official Report, 13/12/24; col. 2012.]
But I am advised by the Refugee Council that this would make little difference, given the period that asylum seekers have had to wait already, and better that the delay occurs before the move-on period than during it, given that failure to receive all the correct documentation at the outset could, in effect, eat into the move-on period. Of course, the answer is to speed up sending all the documentation.
As it stands, the Refugee Council survey I mentioned earlier and the experience of HIAS+JCORE, the UK Jewish voice on refugees and racial justice, indicate that, in London at least, delays in receiving documentation mean that the 56-day move-on period is, in practice, quite a bit shorter in some cases.
My noble friend the Minister has answered some of the questions I was going to ask about the pilot, which is great. He said it would be ending “shortly”, but that is one of those Civil Service words that means different things to different people, so it would be helpful if he could be a bit more precise. Can he also tell us what allowance is being made in the pilot for the fact that e-visas are being rolled out during this period, which could complicate things, and that a high number of asylum decisions are being taken?
I finish by citing the response of two organisations from the housing and refugee sectors. First, the Chartered Institute of Housing warmly welcomes the Bill—after it has been amended by these amendments, as I hope it will be eventually—and urges the Home Secretary either to facilitate its passage or to otherwise legislate to make the 56-day move-on period permanent. Clearly, the facilitation of the Bill’s passage would be much simpler than new legislation. As I have said, the implementation of the move-on period would be in the hands of the Home Secretary following the pilot. Without legislation, it would be too easy for a future Government to revert to 28 days without parliamentary scrutiny, and the first group of amendments we debated testifies to that. Given the enthusiastic response of all sectors to the pilot, including of course local authorities, I really think there is no going back.
Secondly, I give the last word to NACCOM, which says that
“the extension has already proved cost-effective, humane and legally coherent. Making it permanent is a pragmatic step towards stability for those granted safety in the UK”.
I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, we were told, I think, that the pilot will be until June, which gives a few more days. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that, in parliamentary terms, “shortly” is a rather expansive term.
I will ask the Minister about the evaluation. He will obviously not be able to tell me about any of its outcomes, but I hope that it will be a relatively speedy process. In preparing for today, I saw a request somewhere that organisations working in the sector to support refugees should be included in any consultation—and there should be consultation on what the evaluation shows, how the proposal can be taken forward and whether any tweaks should be made. I do not expect the Minister to respond to that today—he will not be in a position to do so—but I add my voice to that request, which seems to be, to quote, “entirely humane and practical”.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to the amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, has tabled to her Bill.
I will address my remarks primarily to her Amendment 1. While the intention behind the amendment may be to ensure a smoother transition for asylum seekers, it introduces significant practical, legal and policy problems that risk undermining the efficient functioning of the asylum system. First, from my understanding of it, the amendment, in effect, makes the issuance of a biometric residence document a precondition for starting the clock on the post-decision support period: that is, it ties the end of taxpayer-funded asylum support not to the legal decision on status, as is currently the case, but to the administrative completion of documentation.
The Government’s decision on an asylum claim is, rightly, a legal milestone. At that point, the person is no longer an asylum seeker; they have either secured leave to remain or not. The prescribed support period is meant to bridge the gap between that decision and the individual transitioning either into mainstream services or departing the country.
This amendment proposes an administrative burden and legal uncertainty and would require the Home Office to verify the delivery of a specific document to each individual before initiating the countdown to the end of support. This tracking and compliance exercise would be bureaucratic, costly and ripe for legal challenge.
Let us not forget the wider context: it is about taxpayer-funded support being an already generous and necessary safety net during the asylum process. Once the claim is accepted or otherwise determined, the individual is expected to move into mainstream provision or make arrangements for return. Delinking that transition from the legal decision itself and instead tying it to the issuance of paperwork is not only unworkable but unfair to the taxpayer and is an unwise policy.
Lord Katz (Lab)
I thank noble Lords for this short but interesting debate on this group of amendments. I will try to be brief, given the time.
My noble friend Lady Lister’s amendment effectively requires that the grace period not begin until an individual has received their e-visa. A newly granted refugee has digital status at the point when a positive decision is made. Therefore, they are able to commence the move-on process and access some key services prior to their e-visa account being created. For example, some government departments have systems and services that allow them to access information about the person directly, avoiding the need for the person to prove disuse of their e-visa. We have revised our communications to individuals prior to decision and within the grant letter to make this clear.
However, we recognise the importance of individuals having access to their e-visa before their asylum support is discontinued. That is why we currently have a safeguard in our process whereby support will not be discontinued for at least 28 days after an individual has been given access to their e-visa. Where there is an error on the e-visa which is reported to the Home Office and confirmed as an error that needs correcting, we will generally extend support until that error is corrected. Support in accessing an e-visa is available via our assisted digital service for those with limited digital skills, and charities and voluntary organisations across the UK are being funded to provide free help and information to vulnerable people who need support.
There was also some discussion of the notification process following a decision and interaction with the move-on period. While individuals are notified in the grant letter that support will end in 56 days, operational and safeguarding checks prevent us outlining an exact date at this point. Despite this, every effort is made to ensure that these notices are provided as early as possible. The only way to implement such an approach would be to delay serving the asylum decision, as my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint said at the Second Reading. I am sure that all Members would agree that every effort should be made to serve an asylum decision as soon as we possibly can.
On the timing of the pilot, I am afraid I will not be able to provide much greater comfort to my noble friend Lady Lister and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. We are considering the exact date when the pilot will end. We will write up a suitable notice to confirm this date, and all individuals will continue to receive 56 days’ notice until this point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about involving refugee organisations. I use this opportunity, given that my noble friend Lady Lister mentioned it, to commend the work of HIAS+JCORE, an organisation I have some familiarity with, particularly under the leadership of my friend Rabbi David Mason. I am not in a position to give the detail at this point, but it is something we can reflect on.
I conclude by thanking my noble friend Lady Lister and all who have participated in today’s Committee. It is important not to see the extension of the move-on period of 56 days as a simple and straightforward solution to a complex problem. That is why an array of wider support measures and initiatives are in place. We remain committed to working with partners so that we can continue improving the processes, communications and services that support a smooth transition from Home Office support for newly granted refugees.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken, both now and earlier—at least those who have spoken in support of the amendments and the Bill. I will need to look at the details of what both the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and my noble friend the Minister said. I addressed the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, made at Second Reading about delay, because actually better delay before rather than after the move-on period starts, and that may be something that the department could reflect on.
One thought struck me as the noble Lord was speaking: when the pilot ends, we do not want to go from the 56 days back to 28 days, then the evaluation may shows that actually it was very successful and the Home Office thinks “Yes, actually we should stick with 56 days”. I am not asking for an answer now, but I suggest that the Home Office consider that the 56 days should last. It could stop being evaluated at a certain point, but, until a decision is made about the future, it should carry on at 56 days, because it will confuse everybody if we go back to 28 days and then forward to 56 days. I will leave it at that.
I thank people very much for engaging. Again, I apologise that people have been kept so late, but that is largely beyond my control. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I beg to move the House do now adjourn, and, in doing so, I wish everyone a good weekend, although not as long as normal. I particularly thank all the members of the staff of the House for their, as always, excellent service this week.